The Sister

by Lynne Alexander

  ‘‘Art or no art, he took an unconscionable advantage,’’ tutted Katharine. Henry would neither agree, nor disagree. ‘‘The mother,’’ he told us, ‘‘apparently stormed into Sargy’s studio declaring her daughter ruined and ordering him to remove the painting.’’

  ‘‘And did he?’’ we chorused.

  ‘‘Certainly not. He did however agree to correct the errant strap.’’ Henry’s expression softened, ‘‘Of course the girl’s reputation will never recover. People trace the implication of things … guess the ‘unseen’ from the ‘seen’.’’ He paused, adding: ‘‘alas.’’

  Katharine muttered something unrepeatable.

  I suggested he write a tale called, ‘The Errant Strap’. But even as I said it, I perceived there was something horrible about the poor girl’s flesh as it had been rendered, a bluish tinge corrupting the ruddy glow of youthful sensuality turning it to a deathly pallor, as if she were already a corpse, her head lolling in death.

  ‘‘Henry?’’ There was no reply. I saw only his retreating back, as Katharine hustled him out of the room.

  Sixty-one

  Dissatisfied with Sir Andrew’s uncertain diagnosis – and at the prodding of Constance Woolson – Henry had arranged for his own preferred physician and friend, William Wilberforce Baldwin, to ‘have a look at me’. Henry himself was away in Ireland working on another play and recuperating from jaw-bashing dental work, but had written to inform us of the arrangement: ‘As Baldwin is passing through London, it is to be hoped he might provide some suggestion of more than British ingenuity as to the alleviation of pain’. Which amused Katharine, to think that at the last trump it could only be an American doctor Henry would insist on for his sister.

  I waited for the usual interrogation but it did not come; nor the usual examination. Had he, literally, only come to have a look? If so, I thought, he would be mighty disappointed. But what he did next was this: He fixed me with his penetrating gaze before touching me, astonishingly, front and back with various parts of his own body: an ear to my chest, a brush of knuckles to my cheek, a trail of fingertips ‘mapping’ my shoulder blades. Nor was there anything unnatural in these actions: no repugnance or judgment; no dissociation between us, no yawning divide between the well and the unwell. Stethoscoping? All it did, in his non-majestic opinion, was to place another icy barrier between doctor and patient:

  ‘‘We are losing connection the more instruments we invent.’’

  I offered an instance of eating ice-cream with a spoon instead of one’s tongue. My nurse, as I explained, had recently seen a girl child buying ‘a ha’porth of ice cream’ which was dabbed on a bit of newspaper. ‘‘For an extra half penny you get a spoon, apparently; but the girl went without and used her tongue.’’

  Baldwin was delighted with the analogy. ‘‘I see you are touched with your brother’s narrative gift.’’

  ‘‘If I am, it is only with the lightest of feathers.’’

  ‘‘And modest with it.’’ But speaking of Henry, had I read his recent article on Guy de Maupassant in the Fortnightly Review? Yes, I had. And what was my view? ‘‘Well,’’ I told him, ‘‘I do not like to blow the fraternal trumpet – but I think it brilliant.’’ ‘‘Indeed,’’ Baldwin agreed, ‘‘I wish he did more of that kind of thing.’’ ‘‘Oh,’’ I told him, ‘‘but he thinks it unworthy, you see.’’

  We sat in companionable silence after that, as if we’d known one another for years – which I suppose in a sense we had through Henry – until I felt myself drifting off. At which he began telling me about his own ailments – which of course woke me up: Graves Disease, gout, heart arrythmia, pneumonia, influenza and – the cruelest of all – a black depression.

  Who the doctor and who the patient?

  For a moment he allowed his large hands to dangle paw-like between his legs, weighted with hopelessness; while I found myself at once desirous of ‘improving’ him.

  ‘‘But you, my dear Alice’’ – he finally managed to rouse himself – ‘‘I may, may I, call you Alice?’’ (At last, a medical man asking if he may call me Alice.)

  ‘‘Of course,’’ I replied. At which he broke into an irresistible smile.

  Dr Baldwin (polite, urbane) was a striking-looking man with fine features, intelligent eyes, and a wildly sensuous mouth. Highly articulate of course; knowledgeable yet modest about all sorts of things, and possessed of very winning manners. But all that alone would have made him merely superior. There is something else, I thought, taking one of his hands in both of mine, wanting more than anything else to comfort him. This was no hearty, yawping Sir Clark, you see, no caricature with a professional beside manner. I was tempted to call him ‘divine Baldwin’, but no, this was a man – entirely human – open, exquisitively sensitive – vulnerable himself – I knew it of course from Henry but this was palpable. Because he had experienced unwellness in himself, he could divine it in others. How did he know? Oh, not because he had to ask or do elaborate researches and testings; but by absorbing through his own pores, literally, the true essence of the matter. And by grasping one as a whole, instead of merely as a stomach or a dislocated elbow.

  ‘‘It is all here,’’ he explained gently, ‘‘the body tells its own story, Alice.’’ He lay me back against the bank of pillows as you would a wounded bird on a bed of leaf litter. His gaze was direct, his eyes fiercely clear yet gentle. I nodded, too moved to speak. If only there had been a man such as he in my life. But I could not afford the extra pain of such a thought.

  I am being found out, I thought.

  ‘‘Do you mind very much?’’ he asked.

  ‘‘Mind?’’ I closed my eyes smiling like a cat. Not only did I not dislike this ‘being found out’, it was what I’d been waiting for for much of my life. To be given something firm to stand on; to put an end to my fatal imaginings.

  ‘‘Will you know then?’’ he asked.

  I would I said. In that case, it was his opinion that the cancer of the breast had metastasized from an original malignancy in my liver.

  ‘‘Breast cancer?’’

  Yes, he concluded from the pain in my shoulder blade.

  ‘‘And the liver …?’’

  That he detected from the ‘earthy’ hue of my complexion – bilious, I guess he meant; or what Henry might describe as ‘gamboge and luteous’.

  ‘‘I see.’’ He took my hand. I held on.

  ‘‘There is a surgeon,’’ he began, ‘‘William Halsted, Johns Hopkins. I have observed his work – ground-breaking – mastectomy as a treatment for breast cancer. But in this instance …’’

  The thought of the ocean crossing, the surgical ordeal, was not to be borne.

  ‘‘I mean, in your particular case,’’ he continued, ‘‘it would not be indicated as an option; that is – the truth – there would be no point, Alice, in surgically removing your breast, given the state of your liver.’’

  ‘‘Then there is nothing to be done.’’

  ‘‘Not done, no.’’

  ‘‘You mean I will die?’’

  ‘‘That is all,’’ he said. ‘‘How long it will take I cannot predict: months, a year or two at the very most.’’

  He fixed me with a beam of the Florentine sun he seemed to carry within him.

  ‘‘That’s too good,’’ I told him, almost dissolving with relief. ‘‘But shall I suffer?’’

  ‘‘Oh, no, not a bit.’’

  ‘‘Then shall I live?’’

  ‘‘My dear Alice,’’ said he, ‘‘ ‘to live’ is exactly what you must take the trouble to do.’’ And with that he prescribed various ‘palliatives’ such as a higher pillow (he’d also recommended it to William for his sleeplessness; it worked); as many glasses of Chateau Lafitte Rothschild ‘70 as we could afford; daily massages; and managed doses of strychnine as a stimulant should I become depressed.

  Aha, so that is where Constance gets her taste for strychnine.

  Morphine as needed of course, tho’ prefer
ably not taken with the strychnine.

  I raised my arms – or they raised themselves – it could not be helped – and encircled his neck.

  ‘‘Thank you, doctor: thank you very much.’’

  April 26: I am absurdly happy.

  *

  Katharine, who had been present all along, bent moistly over me hanging there like some bony, clattering thing shot from the sky.

  ‘‘Get off, you great albatross: you’re hurting me.’’

  ‘‘And you …’’ She laughed, dashing at her eyes.

  ‘‘Never mind me,’’ I said; and then – it was time – long overdue – my own illnesses having always obscured hers; my own self-preoccupation stopping me from noticing; my need for her to be invulnerable so she could look after me (selfish selfish Alice). But now I would, must know:

  ‘‘Katharine, dear, will you be blind?’’

  ‘‘In time,’’ she stated, ‘‘yes’’. The frankness catching.

  ‘‘Is there nothing to be done?’’

  ‘‘Apparently not.’’

  ‘‘You have seen a specialist?’’

  ‘‘The best, according to Louisa.’’

  ‘‘In that case,’’ I sniped, ‘‘he can be depended upon. But what will you do?’’

  ‘‘Do, Alice?’’ It was her turn to mock. ‘‘I will read in braille; learn to knit; find my way in the dark. In short, I will live.’’ She gazed – two blue, hazy orbs – in my general direction. ‘‘After all,’’ she confessed, ‘‘it has been coming on so gradually – sneaking up on me, as it were – I daresay I will hardly notice. And you are not to think of it.’’

  Years of darkness and only the wretched Louisa to lead her by the hand, tell her what obstacles she was about to collide with … How could I not think of it?

  Later I instructed her to pen a note to William. At once she took up her writing pad. ‘‘It is time,’’ I said, ‘‘he knew about the tumor.’’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘‘Are you sure, dear?’’

  ‘‘Yes. But say nothing of a malignancy or anything of that nature. Let us go gradually so as not to alarm him.’’

  She wrote in her precise hand with the paper held close and at an angle to catch as much of the light as possible. When she had finished she offered it to me to check over. ‘‘I cannot distinguish your e’s from your o’s,’’ I pretended to complain, ‘‘but it will do.’’ Then I asked her to add a PS, as follows:

  ‘What you said about Baldwin, Willy, that he had ‘social genius and gallant personal pluck, but no more exact science than a fox-terrier’ – my eye! Oh, you may be right about the science bit – but it matters not. His is an entirely alternative – that is, original – medical approach; more of a partnership or collaboration.

  ‘He is also’’ – I could not resist – ‘quite delicious in looks and manners.’

  Katharine lay down her pen. ‘‘So,’’ she charged, removing her spectacles, ‘‘you have found a man at last who meets with your approval.’’ What could I do but agree?

  Sixty-two

  ‘‘How can you be so chirpy, Miss?’’ Wardy’s nose was red as an early Queen Anne cherry. ‘‘Anyone would think you were happy about what he told you.’’

  ‘‘So I am,’’ I replied. Previously I’d thought myself courageous for daring to be unhappy; now I understood that it might take more of that quality to be happy: ‘‘Why, it is easily the most supremely interesting moment in life.’’

  Katharine understood at once. ‘‘At last,’’ she said: ‘‘something to get hold of.’’

  Having something actually wrong with me: the relief of it left me giddy. Something with a name; something that would explain the pain; something all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s medical men in England would acknowledge actually existed: palpable, lumpen, real.

  Henry, newly returned from Ireland, cast about for an understanding:

  ‘‘It is, I take it, a certainty?’’

  ‘‘If you mean is the diagnosis definite: yes it is.’’

  ‘‘Then there is no hope,’’ he ventured.

  ‘‘Oh hope,’’ I laughed, ‘‘that’s something else entirely.’’

  ‘‘You have … faith?’’

  I laughed. ‘‘Good heavens, no. No hocus-pocus at all.’’

  ‘‘Yet you are hopeful?’’ he ventured.

  ‘‘Yes’’ – here I surprised myself – ‘‘yes I am. What I hope for is to reverse Hooper’s curse.’’ At which Wardy piped up with: ‘‘ ‘You will not die but you will suffer to the end’. I remember it very well, Miss. What a horrible man, how dare he!’’

  ‘‘Quite right, Wardy.’’

  To Henry I explained my hope was in reversing it. ‘‘I shall submit and resist at the same time.’’

  ‘‘Submit and resist … ,’’ echoed Henry.

  ‘‘I believe,’’ said Katharine, ‘‘she means she has ceded her body to the ‘feminine’ principle of frailty and submission, while cultivating with her mind a ‘masculine’ strength and indifference to pain.’’

  Henry thanked her for the explanation.

  ‘‘I shall be known henceforth,’’ I intervened, ‘‘as ‘the stoical hysteric’.’’

  Katharine however would not have it so.

  ‘‘Am I not to be stoical, then?’’

  ‘‘Oh stoical, by all means.’’ It was the label ‘hysteric’, medieval and damaging, that must be abjured.

  But there was Henry, getting up to go, suggesting – did I not think – after all – he understood my reluctance of course but – was it not time to tell William?

  ‘‘What shall I tell him?’’ asked Katharine, later that evening.

  ‘‘Tell poor dear William,’’ I instructed, ‘‘only that there is evidence of ‘a tumor’.’’

  ‘‘No more?’’

  ‘‘No more.’’

  His response, by return post, was no less than five pages long, and offered much chivvying and philosophizing and ‘bright notes’ and ‘look on the little good in each day’ and to being ‘relieved from the post’ and ‘the doom of nervous weakness’ &etcetcetc … . ‘Above all things’ finishes up Brother Polonius – if it should turn out to be cancerous ‘take all the morphia (or other forms of opium if that disagrees) you want and don’t be afraid of becoming an opium drunkard. What was opium created for except for such times as this?’

  Oh Willy.

  *

  June 17th. I am drunk with the infinite gradations of light and shade. I shall soon become a Yankee yelper, a spouter of Walt Whitmanish wonder, a singer-outer of rhymes, Twinkle Twinkle, an aged crabbed child under the stars … born new and in danger of becoming absurd. The gift is that I am forced to witness and not participate. Until pain invades me again and I go down again into its holding well …

  And what a deep well it is. The walls are slimy – shades of the Leamington underpass, rich in moss and liverworts and such. Frogs lurking in the cracks. The smell? What you would expect: dank, medicinal, the suspicion of urine.

  The main problem: how to rise up and out of it?

  But there is a lift. I am saved. It’s one of those contraptions made of ironwork mesh of which the French are so fond. In I step. But as we ascend I become aware of a change, a gradual unravelling. The lift is no longer made of metal at all but words. Henry’s words; his metaphors, his figures of speech like tapestry yarns spooling all around me – knotting – netting – entrapping. But another dose of something-or-other and I am free and on the rise once again. Above me not a black Whistlerish rectangle but a square of hopeful baby-ribbon blue in its frame – with the lift’s message writ large. Alice, you must not let yourself become wrapped up in Henry’s words, however seductive, but must find your own voice.

  Sixty-three

  ‘‘I’m in a muddle,’’ I confessed. ‘‘Cross that last bit out.’’

  ‘‘Which bit?’’ Katharine asked, pen poised for a slash. She’d begun, in spite of only barely tolerati
ng fiction, faithfully taking dictation. Did she think my tale the ravings of a dying mind? If so, she did not let on. Or not much.

  ‘‘Where I describe my ‘heroine’,’’ I replied. I had been picturing Connie Woolson. But this was fiction, I told myself. My character must be herself and only herself.

  ‘‘What is the problem, Alice?’’

  ‘‘Phrenology,’’ I replied.

  She pursed her lips.

  ‘‘Do not be satirical,’’ I countered. ‘‘The question is not just how to describe one’s characters in their physicality, but whether it is defensible to do so.’’

  ‘‘But surely your ‘characters’ need to be fully realized, Alice. Your readers will like to think – illusory as it may be – that they can see them ‘in the round’, as it were. It surely follows, therefore, that you must describe them?’’

  Oh my logic-bound amanuensis!

  ‘‘The question is,’’ I argued, ‘‘can ‘character’ be described in terms of facial and/or bodily features?’’

  ‘‘It is assumed to be possible,’’ she supposed. ‘‘But you doubt its desirability?’’

  ‘‘I doubt its moral assumption.’’

  ‘‘And that is …?’’

  ‘‘An analogy between the outer and the inner man.’’ I waved the pocket Lavater which William had sent me (Willy, how could you?). ‘‘Zoological Physiognomy … revolting stuff … face of a brute = heart of a criminal; receding forehead = brain of a chimp; stooped gait = cannibal; big nose = Jew … Even Henry,’’ I cried, ‘‘falls for it. I mean, there’s Newman with his ‘noble bumps and high forehead &etc’.’’ What can it mean? That the body is ‘readable’, of course, but what does it tell us, and is it at all accurate or indeed meaningful?’’