Mrs Whistler

by Matthew Plampin

  Maud started, coughing rather hard, and dropped several of her coins on the floor. She crouched at once to retrieve them, as did Mr Bacher, almost knocking heads as they pinched the thin discs from the floorboards. The American helped Maud back up and returned the lire to her hand.

  ‘What is it, Mrs Whistler? Are you well?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Bacher. It’s nothing. I am – it is only—’

  He was no fool, worse luck; he’d noticed where she’d been looking. ‘Do you know them? Are they from London?’

  There seemed no point in denying it. She nodded.

  ‘Shall we … talk to them? Do you know who they are mourning?’ Mr Bacher had an enthusiasm in him, for all his solicitousness, as if he thought he’d landed in the middle of an authentic Whistlerian drama. ‘I shall find out.’

  ‘No,’ she hissed, ‘No, Mr – no, Otto, don’t—’

  Too late. Mr Bacher would not be halted. Maud turned away, but watched his progress reflected in the glass doors of a display cabinet. He started with the clean-shaven man, a servant it appeared, yet soon gained an audience with the young woman, who, she saw now, was quite indisputably Florence Leyland. The tall American removed his hat and bowed. From the dips of his head, and Miss Leyland’s weary gratitude, Maud could tell that he was offering his condolences. Her order was ready; she paid, sliding coins across the counter. Mr Bacher was back at her side before she’d finished stowing the package in her canvas shopping bag.

  ‘I regret to report,’ he said, ‘that Miss Leyland has lost her sister.’

  Maud thought of the Royal Courts of Justice; of the two daughters berating their mother as they led her back to their pew. Of the portraits – the riding habit, the close-­fitting gown, the child in the blue dress – all of which she believed Jimmy had now destroyed.

  ‘Did she say which one?’

  ‘She did not. But her party is only stopping in Venice for a couple of hours, to change trains on their way back from the north-east. They are returning home as quickly as possible for the funeral. Letters are being sent ahead so that preparations can begin.’ Mr Bacher put on his hat – dark blue felt, rather like Jimmy’s. ‘Hence the paper.’

  Maud looked along the counter once more. Miss Leyland and the servant were leaving the shop. He was going outside, holding the door open for her; they were heading left, back towards the railway station. Maud pushed past Mr Bacher and started after them.

  ‘Who is she?’ he asked, falling in behind. ‘Was she a part of the trial? A – a patron?’

  ‘Otto,’ said Maud, ‘just be quiet for a blasted minute, will you?’

  The station was not far – over a small square and across the Grand Canal. Six trains were lined up within, beneath the iron and glass roof, the engines at alternating ends. There was a large, mobile crowd; musicians playing somewhere, a violin and a trumpet; the smell of coal-smoke and roasting chestnuts. Part of the Leyland group was assembled on a platform in the centre, an assortment of bags and packing cases piled beside them. Maud stopped a distance off. She could see Florence; her brother, red-bearded and lost-looking, a black band on his sleeve; and several others, similarly attired, who she couldn’t identify. As she was taking it in, a whisper passed through them and they all turned towards the concourse – almost to where Maud and Mr Bacher were standing. She tensed, and nearly fled; then she spotted the true object of their attention.

  A wet-nurse was approaching, Italian from the look of her, clad in black lace with an infant in her arms – a babe that couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old, its little pink face peeping from the swaddling. Another woman, also a servant, walked a few feet behind the nurse; and there, trailing to the rear, was Frederick Leyland. Maud could almost hear Jimmy’s voice, railing on about counting-­house rats, philistine businessmen, befrilled barbarians. No frill could be seen that day, though – only a long black frock coat buttoned up to the Adam’s apple and a dull black topper pulled low over the brow. Leyland passed close to Maud, within six feet, but he didn’t notice her. His eyes seemed bruised, so deep were the shadows beneath them; his beard was growing ragged.

  As the wet-nurse reached the party, another of the Leyland girls emerged from a railway car. It was Elinor, the youngest, as drawn and dreadfully despondent as the rest of them – meaning that it must be Fanny, the elder sister, the new bride, who was dead. The father carried on to his son; a couple of words were exchanged, then Leyland senior climbed aboard the train. He reappeared in the window a few seconds later, directly above his surviving children and his grandchild, removing his hat, sitting in darkness.

  It was like a painting, Maud thought – one of those huge modern scenes by Mr Frith or Mr Fildes, so prominent in the Academy and despised so fervently by Jimmy and his friends. A Death Abroad, it might be called. The Unscheduled Return. The millionaire’s party, with its retinue of servants, dazed by their loss. The listless confusion of the surviving children. The widower, that older man from the Royal Courts, standing a few yards apart to smoke a cigar – given charge of the infant whose birth, it would seem, had killed his young wife. The raw misery of the father, up there in the carriage, a hand now pressed across his brow. The aching absence of the mother. It was too awful. Dear God, too awful.

  Mr Bacher, hurrying to keep abreast, managed to offer Maud a handkerchief. She snatched it from him, mopping at her eyes as they left the station, then blowing her nose noisily as they crossed back over the canal. She’d lain on that same bed. Sheets soaked through with her blood. Death stretched out beside her, silently waiting. Fanny Leyland’s fate was so very nearly hers as well. She found a wall, a rounded stone ledge, and clung to it; a sob shuddered through her, buckling her knees.

  ‘My dear Mrs Whistler,’ Mr Bacher was saying, ‘I – I honestly did not realise that there was a personal attachment here. I should have listened to you earlier, in the shop. I am an idiot. This is a self-evident fact. I apologise, truly I do.’ He paused. ‘These things are tragic, terribly so. I had an aunt who died in such circumstances. My uncle, afterwards – he couldn’t forgive his son. Not ever. It – it shaped them both.’

  He fell quiet, thank the stars, for a minute or two, sunk in his recollections. Maud stood upright and wiped her burning eyes on the last dry corner of Mr Bacher’s handkerchief. She was wondering if she’d have to offer some kind of explanation when he spoke again.

  ‘Was that older fellow the one from Whistler’s photograph, over at the Rio di San Barnaba? The patron who refused to pay for his dining room?’ He lowered his voice a little. ‘The peacock fellow?’

  Maud stepped back from the ledge. More than anything else, she felt enormously tired. It would be best, she knew, for Jimmy to learn about Fanny Leyland’s death in the fullness of time, through his usual channels. There was no possible benefit to them telling him now. She sniffed hard; she shook her head.

  ‘You’ve got to be careful, Otto. With Jimmy, I mean. You must’ve noticed how he can be. Finding out about this won’t help him. He’ll become angry. Or morose. It could halt his work completely. The prints, the pastels. The lot of it.’ She looked into Mr Bacher’s open, eager face. ‘Do say that you’ll keep this between us. Please.’

  The American was nodding. Maud saw that she’d played this just right. The fellow revered Jimmy, as so many young men seemed to do. He wanted to be trusted. Her appeal, the mystery of the whole incident, had left him intrigued and deeply gratified.

  ‘I will, Mrs Whistler,’ he said. ‘I will.’

  *

  ‘Mes élèves,’ cried Jimmy, as they arrived back at the Rio di San Barnaba, ‘au moment parfait! Ici, Bacher, ici!’

  He was over at the dresser, its top cleared to make a narrow etching desk. The eyeglass was inserted; the acid feather poised between thumb and forefinger. Various bottles and bowls were arranged around the dresser’s edge, and in the middle was a copperplate, one of the first, which he’d brought home the previous day. It bore a view across the lagoon to San Giorgio Maggio
re, in which the great church was nearly lost behind a mesh of masts and rigging. He waved Bacher over, ready to demonstrate the Whistler method of biting the plate. Jimmy had always been generous with both time and advice, and supremely unconcerned about professional secrecy; and besides, Otto Bacher had his own press and considerable knowledge of the art shops of Venice. He was a good friend to have.

  Maud left them to it, going through to the back room. She took off her hat, gloves and jacket and sat on the bed. Jimmy’s pastels were on a low table beside it, in a folder now quite full, each study preserved carefully between two sheets of tissue paper. A new one, that morning’s work, lay on top, left there for her to admire. It was lovely, as lovely as all the others – a curved canal lined on one side with empty gondolas, a white wall reflected perfectly in the water – yet she did not call out to him, as she might usually have done. She felt a flat fatigue with it, with everything here; with giving Jimmy what he needed; with her own work, to which she might now choose to apply herself. This lay on the floor beneath the table – a rather smaller pile of drawings in chalk and pastel, and a couple of watercolours. They were of flowers, as always, whatever she could find in the markets. Jimmy had been kind about them, offering praise and a fair bit of guidance. Right then, however, she couldn’t even look their way. Instead, she filled one of the new pens and began a letter to her sister.

  Dearest Edie –

  Forgive me – it has been only four days I know since last I wrote and I have not given you the chance my dear, with all you have to do, to write back – but the question of their well-being weighs on me – it weighs on me most dreadfully. I know I should not ask you – that I have no right to ask you – but might you think for my sake that you could pay a visit to

  There was a crash from the other room, something glass being knocked over; an exclamation from Mr Bacher and a curse from Jimmy; her name shouted loudly. She set aside the letter and went through. Mr Bacher was in the middle of the room. He’d taken off his jacket and was examining it – holding it up to the light, and also away from his person. Jimmy was still by the dresser, upright and quite motionless. The wet feather was in his hand; the eyeglass swinging on its ribbon. Maud saw that the acid solution had gone over, the bowl tipped somehow, its contents running fast across the surface of the dresser and dripping down into a wooden box used to store his shirts.

  ‘Maud!’ he yelled again. ‘Maud!’

  ‘Yes. Christ. Yes, Jimmy. I’m here.’

  The top shirt had been heavily splashed and was beyond salvation. Maud plucked it out, folding it over to guard her hand before using it to wipe the dresser’s acid-streaked flank; then she started on the top, pushing back bottles, jars and instrument cases to mop up the spill. Bacher laid his jacket on a chair and came to help her. He removed the empty bowl and gingerly lifted out the plate – it seemed to be unharmed, luckily – holding it level to protect against any accidental biting. Soon it was done. Maud made a quick check for damage – the dresser’s varnish was starting to bubble in several places. She realised that Mr Bacher was staring at the wall behind, where the room’s only decoration was to be found.

  Two large photographs were pinned to the plaster: two lurid illustrations of Jimmy Whistler’s most ferocious side. There was a portrait of himself, one of that odd pair he’d had done at the start of the year – the harsh one, standing aloof with a cold snarl – as if ordering someone thrown in a dungeon, it always seemed to her. Its kindly counterpart had been presented to dear Mr Lucas back in Paris.

  Beside this was an image taken in the very last days of the White House. It showed that cartoon, The Gold Scab: Frederick Leyland, half peacock, hunched at the piano, being stung by the Whistler butterfly. It was from this hideous likeness that Mr Bacher had recognised Leyland at the railway station. He kept his word, though, meeting Maud’s eye for only a second before turning to Jimmy – who remained fixed in place, the acid feather raised – to ask a question about retouching.

  The shirt was discolouring, its fabric breaking apart. Maud slid between the two men, opened the doors to the balcony and stepped outside. The sunlight was unexpected. For a few seconds she could see almost nothing; she blinked, glancing about her, as the world reformed from blinding whiteness. An empty terracotta plant pot stood just to the left of the doors. She dropped the shirt in it and doused it with rainwater from a small watering can.

  Honeysuckle covered one end of the balcony rail, wrapped tightly around the patterned metal. The plant was beginning to bloom, its thick scent mingling with the chemical odour that seeped from the shirt. Maud cupped one of the larger flowers in her hand, collecting together the long, curling petals; it was so loaded with colour – a deep, luscious orange, those spots of vivid crimson – that it seemed to hum against her skin. She released it, letting it bob back among the leaves, and leant on the rusty rail, feeling the light on her hair, on her shoulders, through the thin cotton of her gown. Here at last was a real, suffusing warmth. She squinted along the greenish canal below, at the boats and mooring posts; then she closed her eyes and lifted her face up to the sun.

  Autumn 1880

  After a spell of resistance, the cork surrendered to the screw with a rich, round plop. The blood-like liquid glugged into the triangle of little glasses, the waiter then retreating, setting the black bottle at the table’s edge. Thomas Way, Way Junior and Jim Whistler each took one, chinking them together before raising them aloft.

  ‘To you, Mr Whistler,’ said Way, in his honest cockney tones: Mistah Vistlah. ‘Things have been deuced dull without you, sir. A year late!’ He looked to his son, and both laughed. ‘An entire blessed year late!’

  They drank. Jim winced at the taste: port, sickly sweet and slightly warm. England.

  ‘What did Mr Huish say when you walked through his door? Did he throw things, perhaps?’

  ‘I cannot deny, my dear Way,’ Jim answered, wiping his top lip with a forefinger, ‘that in the very first instant he was not overly pleased to set eyes upon his wayward etcher. But, as you know, we artists have a great advantage in these situations: our work. When I told him that there were three times more plates than we’d agreed, and damn near one hundred pastels also, all of which were surpassingly fine and set for exhibition at his place – well, let us simply say that his anger diminished somewhat.’

  The printers laughed again. These were staunch fellows, Jim reflected. They’d hailed him exactly as he might have hoped: as a returning hero, a lost adventurer. The shop had been closed at once, the father removing his apron and visor and instructing his son to do the same. They would celebrate, he announced, with a fine luncheon. Jim suspected that the establishment – a restaurant hotel named Hummam’s, in a corner of Covent Garden market – had been selected long before, with him very much in mind. It had a bohemian air, with gilded Arabian arches and ornate, low-hanging lanterns, and a clientele that seemed drawn mostly from the theatres – not really Thomas Way’s sort of place at all. Still, the little chap had conducted himself with confidence, asking for a table at the front, by one of the windows, knowing this to be Jim’s favoured position. He’d ordered the port as they sat – the ’47, he’d said, was an uncommonly strong year. Jim had bowed to his expertise on this matter.

  Both Ways emptied their glasses, and the father promptly poured another – filling up Jim’s as well, even though he’d drunk barely a quarter, until the wine formed a perfect plane across the top. They urged him to talk of Venice; so, stirred by their warm welcome, he told them something of the summer that had just passed. A glorious vision was evoked. There was Whistler, roaming through crooked alleys and secluded squares. Drifting about the shadowy waterways in a hired gondola, in search of his scenes. Finding friendship and respect with a vitalising circle of young Americans, in whose company he swam in the canals, diving from boats and bridges; dined beneath the bright heavens on St Mark’s Square, and in a sequence of charmingly decayed palazzos; held great rollicking debates on artistic matters, from whic
h he’d invariably emerge the victor.

  ‘We were poor, of course. Oh, quite crushingly so. It was a return to student conditions. But Venice was harvested, mes amis – its treasures gathered in. The fruits of that year, on plate and paper and canvas too, will change the game.’

  ‘There are paintings as well?’ asked the elder Way.

  ‘Nocturnes, yes, a half dozen,’ said Jim carelessly. ‘The cathedral. The lagoon. Works of the finest delicacy. Paint, you know, should be no more than breath upon a pane of glass. I told this to the boys out there a hundred times.’

  The waiter appeared, and food was ordered: a side of beef, naturally, à la maison. Jim rolled a cigarette.

  ‘But enough of new works. What, my dear Way, of the old? What of the sales, man – the Committee of Inspection?’ He lit the cigarette and inhaled, savouring the tingle of tobacco; he sat forward in his chair. ‘What the devil has been going on?’

  At this the Ways changed, becoming hesitant, a little of the pleasure draining from those spaniel faces. The elder drank down more port. There was a plain sense that his enthusiasm to hear about Venice had been induced to some degree by a desire to delay this particular point in the conversation.

  ‘I tried to stop them, Mr Whistler,’ he said eventually. ‘Mr Eldon helped me a good deal, really he did, but too much authority was arrayed against us.’