The Sister

by Lynne Alexander

‘‘Alice is not with you?’’ I asked.

  ‘‘Alas, she doesn’t travel well.’’

  Like a cheese.

  ‘‘And the children?’’

  ‘‘Thriving.’’

  ‘‘And your work?’’

  ‘‘Ah, that.’’ He was much taken up with what he called ‘stream of thought’ or ‘the more elusive elements of meaning’ overlooked by other psychologists. ‘‘Like a bird’s life,’’ he continued more animatedly, ‘‘with its flights and perchings.’’

  I smiled at the image. ‘‘And the specific project?’’

  ‘‘Well, I mean – hope – to show how language expresses this in its sentences as they flow … in its full stops and periods and pauses … with their sensorial imaginings … places of flight filled with thoughts of relations and … rest and … uncertainties.’’

  ‘‘Ah,’’ I observed with a nod from one brother to the other: ‘‘first comes the practice, then the theory.’’ I heard my mistake at once, of course, only it was too late to take it back. Silence. Another round of invalid mints. This time William took one, sucking furiously. At last I said:

  ‘‘I guess we should thank our Aunt for your being here, Willy.’’

  ‘‘She has made it financially possibly, certainly.’’

  ‘‘How was it, I mean with Aunt Kate?’’

  She’d been living in New York, he explained – West 44th Street – in the thick of it, but with each visit she was becoming more forgetful. Then a sharp decline.

  ‘‘She was once,’’ I recalled, ‘‘Father’s intellectual equal. He depended on her,’’ I added, struck with the realization. And the fact of her life – looking back on it with the new distinctness which the completion of it gave – now seemed sadly wasted. Had she not been meant for independence, for a position? Yet she’d given herself instead to us. ‘‘And what did we give her?’’ I asked.

  Henry turned marmoreal; William did not flinch – but then he had nothing to be ashamed of. The fact of abandonment rested with Henry and me alone.

  ‘‘You,’’ said Henry to William, ‘‘were ‘with’ her to the end.’’

  William, misperceiving it as a slight, scowled. I saw us lining up – William and Aunt Kate on one side of the Atlantic (dutiful, self-sacrificing), Henry and I on the other (cowardly, shame-facedly); both images absurdly simplistic (impossible; inaccurate; inevitable).

  ‘‘I’m so glad,’’ I told him, ‘‘she had you.’’

  Even as I said it, I knew it to be an illusion. The idea of ‘having’ anyone was silly. But then I was in a position to begin to know it, and my brothers, however clever, were not.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ he smiled, ‘‘and you,’’ – he fixed me with one of his cross-eyed looks – ‘‘have Katharine.’’

  The thought of ‘having’ Katharine set me coughing. When I’d recovered I added: ‘‘And Henry of course has been with me all along.’’

  William reached for the Bible beside my bed. ‘‘You have been reading …?’’

  ‘‘The Old Testament …’’

  ‘‘And its effect?’’

  ‘‘Oh, shocking,’’ I told him. ‘‘A work more calculated to destroy all religious belief never was writ, I fancy. As for that all-seeing-dancing-singing Being, He is really quite … repulsive.’’

  ‘‘And our father’s rather more benign divinity?’’ asked Henry.

  ‘‘Especially not.’’

  ‘‘You do not believe at all, then?’’ William asked.

  ‘‘Only Henry’s use of the semi-colon,’’ I replied, ‘‘is enough to make me see God.’’

  Poor Willy, shaking himself like a sack of potatoes, began explaining about other forms of religious and spiritual experience. But Katharine cut him off – could he not see that I was in pain?

  ‘‘Time for another dose of morphine,’’ she said, having consulted Wardy.

  ‘‘An inestimable blessing,’’ muttered Henry.

  ‘‘Indeed,’’ agreed Katharine, ‘‘but it’s also a treacherous fiend that keeps her from sleeping and opens the door to hideous nervous distresses.’’

  ‘‘Ah,’’ intoned William, ‘‘the return of the demons. I recommend hypnotism – have I mentioned that I saw the great Charcot use it at Salpetriere?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Willy,’’ I managed. ‘‘Come again, please, after you’ve been to the opening night … tell me all about it.’’

  ‘‘Opening?’’ He looked for a brief moment nonplussed; then: ‘‘Oh, yes, The American.’’

  Was that a wink from Henry?

  Sixty-six

  ‘‘I guess you’d have to call it a social success,’’ William grudged, referring to the ‘intimate’ supper Henry had given afterwards at a ‘cozy’ restaurant in the Strand. He began ticking off the other guests: the Comptons and Miss Robins (the show’s stars), William Heinemann the publisher, and Henry’s theatrical agent Wolcott Balestier. ‘‘A select group,’’ he supposed, oozing indifference.

  ‘‘But not really your ‘cup of tea’, eh Willy?’’

  ‘‘Well, I fear my provincialism may have embarrassed Henry, though I was able to mention a performance I’d been to in Boston with Miss Robins as Hedda Gabler.’’

  ‘‘Well done, Willy,’’ said I, in a reversal of the usual fraternal condescension. ‘‘But the play itself – how did you find it?’’

  My ‘psychological’ brother, normally unrestrained when it came to speaking his mind about almost anything, was at a loss for words. He spoke of it as ‘an occasion’. ‘‘The theater,’’ he recalled, ‘‘was packed to the top’’ – he began sprinkling names like confetti – ‘‘with the American minister, Robert Lincoln, in a box to his left … another American millionaire to the right … a famous tycoon …,’’ and so on and so forth.

  ‘‘And with whom did you sit, Willy?’’

  ‘‘Oh, Grace Norton and I,’’ he was pleased to say, ‘‘made up the Cambridge, Mass, contingent.’’ Henry’s Southern ‘friend’ Constance Woolson, he added, had sat nearby, thus expanding their little group into a thoroughly inclusive American one.

  ‘‘But the production, Willy?’’ I pursued. I was determined to have some idea of the opening through his eyes.

  ‘‘Oh,’’ he managed, ‘‘it was obviously a success judging by the applause, really quite a roar.’’

  ‘‘But the play, Willy’’ – here I had him – ‘‘do you rate it?’’

  ‘‘Whe-ell,’’ he drawled, ‘‘I guess the heroine – meant for a French noble-woman, I guess’’ – he was doing an awful lot of guessing – ‘‘fidgeted about too much, as if still stuck on playing a neurotically morbid Norwegian. As for Newman – the American – well, I guess he was American alright.’’

  ‘‘You mean he had the accent.’’

  ‘‘Oh, the accent was there and then some.’’

  ‘‘I take it you thought him … caricatured?’’

  ‘‘Oh,’’ he burst out, ‘‘a stage American with the local color laid on with a trowel. And,’’ he added, ‘‘a great deal of ugly overcoat.’’ This latter item he went on to describe as having ‘‘sky-blue velvet lapels and buttons big as cheese-plates.’’

  I held out my arms. ‘‘Oh Willy, how could you?’’ I cried. And although I laughed more than I had in ages, it did nothing to calm my fears for Henry and his entanglement in the world of theatricals. But – he consulted his fob-watch – he was all out of kilter – it was time for him to go.

  ‘‘Calm yourself, Willy or I will accuse you of hysteria.’’

  ‘‘Alice’’ – abruptly he assumed the ‘role’ of doctor – the pain, how is it?’’

  ‘‘Oh, the pain is very well, thank you.’’

  He entreated me to be serious for once in my life.

  Ah, my life. ‘‘Well, Willy, I guess there are times it feels as if an animal were gnawing away at my breast. Once,’’ I confessed, ‘‘I managed to faint away. But not to worry, dear, so long as Wardy pours en
ough of the right ‘cocktail’ of stuff down my gullet – that kills it off – the animal, I mean.’’ My best smile, I gave him.

  ‘‘And you do not feel … hemmed in?’’ His hand, I noted, had begun creeping towards mine, as if it had nothing to do with Henry himself. Soon it began tapping and stroking, tapping and stroking. Was he trying to send an SOS? If so, I could not read his message, only that his touch was comforting.

  But did I feel hemmed in? I replied: ‘‘I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a queen of infinite space.’’

  ‘‘Do I detect a quote?’’ he growled (tap tap, stroke).

  ‘‘Hamlet, only slightly adjusted. Of course,’’ I admitted, ‘‘there are sometimes unfortunate … side effects.’’ I did not elaborate, preferring to spare him the horrors that had begun visiting me – vivid, photographic, hideous – printed as it were on my eyelids – making sleep – the nights – an all too familiar – nightmare. Beasts – the return of the wolves – howling – the chattering birds …

  ‘‘Alice?’’

  ‘‘Yes, Willy?’’

  ‘‘If you are having nervous trouble – it is not uncommon in such cases – I recommend mesmerism – or hypnosis, as it’s now called. As it happens, there’s a reputable fellow here in London, a Charles Tuckey – I’ve read his book actually on the therapeutic effects.’’

  I laughed – not without pain – at the suggestion, reminding him that I had already tried it with, uh, ‘mixed’ results.

  He waved it away. ‘‘That was mesmerism – quackery – this is medically creditable. Give it a try, Alice …’’

  He came closer, looming like a fog, the tremor visible, violent. ‘‘Dearest Alice …,’’ he whispered. The tremor entering my bones, percussing through all the hollows of me. ‘‘Willy, you’re crushing me,’’ I protested. Then I hissed into his ear: ‘‘You once promised to marry me.’’ ‘‘Did I?’’ he croaked, whispering in return that in twelve years of marriage he had never once talked with his wife about ‘‘the innumerable things that are of the most importance’’ as he had with me. Finally – as if torn from him – all ragged about the edges – ‘‘How Henry will miss your conversation!’’

  I was tempted to remind him I was not (yet) the dying Pegetty, and he was not David Copperfield.

  I pushed him away as roughly as I could though I had the strength of a flea. ‘‘Farewell, Willy-boy. Be well. Don’t give up on Henry. Let Rob know when you think he can take it. Oh, there’s a Will – Katharine will see it through – I’ll be there before long – place me beside the parents. Off you go, dearest.’’ And off he went.

  Sixty-seven

  ‘‘I should like to turn into a peak when I die,’’ declared Constance Woolson. Since word had got round of my ‘condition’, my old friends – Annie Richards, Fanny Morse, etc – those that remained alive – were queuing up to ‘see me off’, as if I were going on a long journey. A kind of honeymoon, albeit tinged with a certain mortuary flavor. Only Connie was prepared to give death its rightful name.

  ‘‘And you, Alice?’’ She’d been fitted with a new kind of ear-trumpet hidden in her sleeve, so that mercifully we no longer had to shout.

  ‘‘Oh,’’ I replied, ‘‘I anticipate a pile of neat, unassuming grey ash, the sooner the better.’’

  She frowned but did not look away. Her skin seemed thinner, more transparent – beneath the buxom shape you could sense a wren’s bones – as if suffering had caused a physical reduction. Henry again. That heroic docility, that acceptance of his committed indifference. Yet her own ‘inclination’ remained, the need to reach him in any way she could. Did she ‘care’ for me beyond the fact of my being Henry’s sister? I thought not; yet if the sight of me brought him to mind, caused a quickening in her already hopping heart, well, was it not a compliment, a kind of ‘caring’?

  ‘‘You were at the Opening?’’ I began.

  ‘‘Yes,’’ she smiled to herself, ‘‘and several other performances, as Henry’s guest.’’

  Henry’s guest. I waited. ‘‘And?’’

  ‘‘He was dreadfully nervous at the Opening. At about four o’clock his knees began to knock together. Having refused dinner he then went off to the theatre and walked about the stage dusting the mantel-piece and turning down the corners of the rugs.’’

  ‘‘As he does with mine.’’

  She paused. ‘‘But then,’’ she went on, ‘‘an extraordinary transformation took place. As soon as the curtain went up he became calm as a clock.’’

  ‘‘Tick tock,’’ said I.

  ‘‘Do you mock the occasion, Alice?’’

  ‘‘Never. But come,’’ I encouraged, ‘‘tell me about the play.’’

  ‘‘It has had an ‘honorable run’.’’

  ‘‘So I gather from the reviews,’’ I said. We both understood the implications of ‘honorable’.

  ‘‘You think …?’’ she began.

  ‘‘It is not for him,’’ I said straight out.

  ‘‘You are convinced of it?’’

  I nodded.

  ‘‘Of course,’’ she pointed out, ‘‘you have not actually seen it.’’

  I admitted it was so. ‘‘But I know my brother, and his … capacities.’’ I went on, ‘‘I can only hope he’ll stop at this ‘honorable run’. But I suspect he will go on until …’’

  I feared her eyes would pop.

  ‘‘Is there nothing you can do to stop him?’’ I entreated.

  She shook her head. ‘‘He has complained about being straight-jacketed by the stage, it is true, yet he is quite determined to see it through … to the bitter end.’’

  Tea saved us.

  ‘‘What will you do now, Alice?’’ ‘‘I will live,’’ I replied simply.

  ‘‘Will you write?’’ She’d spoken of her own new novel – stories ‘rolling’ out at an alarming rate.

  ‘‘Is that not living?’’ I shot back.

  ‘‘Indeed.’’

  But I was not convinced of it. Writing for Connie, I saw, was not life; it was a retreat, a place she went to observe others living; and it had tired her out to do so, leaving her depleted. She needed ‘filling up’.

  ‘‘For some time now,’’ she explained, ‘‘we have been planning – perhaps Henry has spoken of it? – a theatrical collaboration.’’

  This last – her true meaning neatly embedded – a ‘collaboration’ of the affections. And there beside it, in all its terrible enormity, the truth: She is living for Henry. That ‘flame’ – you felt it beneath the feathery surface – burned – had never been quenched – more intensely than ever. Her situation was as bad, if not worse, than any she or I – or Henry – could ever dream up. This, I saw, was what she would think – it was only natural:

  Now that his precious Alice is gone, should he not be more attentive to me?

  ‘‘And Florence?’’ I asked.

  ‘‘Oh, Florence.’’ She began confessing that Florence without Lizzie and her little family, and Mr Boott, would be a sad place and perhaps she could move permanently to Oxford.

  To be near Henry, I thought. What could I to say to that? I considered extending a sisterly wish. Oh, I do hope that you and Henry will – what? – marry? live happily ever after …? My other option I saw was to warn her to be sensible, to give up any unrealistic expectations.

  ‘‘There has been a letter.’’

  ‘‘From Henry?’’

  ‘‘From Henry. He has been over to Italy for a reviving break.’’ I did not say when the letter was dated.

  She waited.

  ‘‘He has seen the Pope. He describes him as ‘a flaccid old woman’.’’

  She waited. Was this how a surgeon felt preparing to cut off a limb? ‘‘He describes the men as’’ – I quoted – ‘‘ ‘bare-chested, bare-legged, magnificently tanned & muscular’.’’

  ‘‘And the women?’’ she asked.

  I waited. ‘‘He fails to mention them.’’

&nbs
p; She rose up like a dignified spectre, her near-burst of Southern temper, like one of that region’s flash floods, having quickly evaporated.

  ‘‘We shall see,’’ she said tightly, revealing – still – a remaining sliver of hope like one of those near-invisible ice needles known to fall from Boston roofs and implant themselves fatally in people’s skulls. She would risk all – bravely or foolishly? – she would give him – after I was dead and buried – a seemly interval of course – one last chance. After that – why, he would assure her of his undying friendship – even a possible play together – and then what? Why, she would return to Italy where she would give up trying to be near him.

  She left me with the manuscript of a recent story entitled, ‘Dorothy’. In it, ‘Dorothy’, decides it is better to be dead than leave her villa, so there she lives slowly wasting away. Was it a hopeful sign? wondered Katharine. Could they not take it that Connie, like her ‘Dorothy’, would live for a good long while in her Tuscan villa?

  Sixty-eight

  ‘‘So it’s you.’’

  Bowles the mesmerist – alias Dr Tuckey the hypnotist – bowed shallowly – it would not do to scrape the floor with his nose – presenting in his re-incarnated form as conservative, respectable, scientific. Yet how to take him seriously; indeed, how to ‘take him’ at all? Bowles the Jack-in-the box, a respectable physician with the edges knocked off and a moonbeam personality, was having trouble meeting my gaze.

  As for Katharine, was she not heroic to have traced him to his Park Lane ‘practice’ and brought him to me? I mean, what if I ‘succumbed’ again? Did she not risk all? ‘‘If he can be of help … ,’’ said the Selfless One in a cracked voice. What matter, was the implication, if I should succumb at this late stage?

  But would I? Would a repeat rapture come and lift me out of myself? Would I – at the mere sight of his whiskers – roll my eyes heavenward and part my bow-lips in a moan of pleasure a la Bellini’s Theresa en orgasme? It remained for me, for us both, to find out. As for whether I would ‘give him away’ professionally – that also remained, as it were, to be seen.