What Alice Knew

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  Indeed, John Sargent, a towering figure who stooped slightly when he walked, as though not wanting to assert his height too aggressively, had a quality of such gentle goodwill about him that even those of his peers who, for reasons of jealousy or aesthetic prejudice, were scornful of his work, found themselves disarmed when they met him. The Jameses spoke of these friends as one would of family members who had been raised in a different part of the world and spoke a different language. The Sargents were not cerebral people and would as soon listen to music or, in John’s case, paint or play the piano, as talk. Not that he was simple—he spoke half a dozen languages without an accent and knew his way around every city in Europe. But his very cosmopolitanism made him a kind of innocent. Alice’s father had traveled far and wide in search of the proper place to educate his children, finally settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as the best he could do, but Sargent’s parents had merely traveled, with no destination in mind, and had never settled anywhere. John Sargent had thus been spared the pressure of expectation that the Jameses had suffered. He had started drawing when he was a boy and simply kept on doing it.

  While Emily was occupied with pulling the armchair nearer to the bed and arranging the curtains, John sauntered over, embraced Alice, and kissed Katherine’s hand.

  “How is your mother?” asked Alice. She knew that their father had died in April, a loss that both Emily and John had handled with equanimity, as had their mother, though she had maintained the convenient social prerogative of a long mourning. Alice sometimes envied her friends for having a father who had effaced himself so completely during his life that his death was a gentle slipping away. Her own father had been a towering presence, and his death three years earlier had been a crushing, incapacitating blow, not just for her, but also for her brothers, who dwelled on it continually and were constantly trying to get over it—without succeeding.

  “She’s getting along,” said John mildly.

  “She always asks about you and can’t wait to be in a condition to visit,” added Emily.

  It was hard for Alice to imagine that Mary Sargent was not in a condition to visit, and assumed that she was simply not in the mood to visit, which was, upon consideration, the same thing.

  “Please sit,” said Alice, motioning to the chairs beside her bed.

  Sargent lowered himself into the armchair, stretching his long legs out in front of him, while Emily, in her usual compulsion to be helpful, ignored her hostess’s command and began preparing the tea that Sally had brought in.

  “I’m afraid you just missed Henry and William,” explained Alice, once the tea had been served. She added casually, “William’s here to help investigate the Ripper murders for Scotland Yard.”

  Emily clapped her hands in delight, and even Sargent, constitutionally phlegmatic, opened his eyes in surprise.

  “You must keep this entirely confidential,” warned Alice. She knew she could depend on Sargent to say nothing, but Emily, rather like Henry, was an excitable person, likely to blurt things out inadvertently.

  “We’ll be quiet as a tomb,” Emily assured her.

  The door opened a crack, and Archie peeked in. The boy had reported to the house that morning and seemed to have taken to his new responsibilities with alacrity. He entered the room boldly; he was holding two blankets in his hands. “Sally says as how Madame James might be needin’ a blanket as it’s a bit chill in here today,” said the boy, looking at the group with the unselfconscious gaze possible only in a total innocent. “She tol’ me to bring this wool’un here, but I says as it’s too rough for her ladyship, and the mohair’s the one I’d like.”

  “Quite right,” said Alice, casting an amused glance at the Sargents. “Her ladyship prefers the mohair.”

  “I knows it!” exclaimed Archie triumphantly, bringing the blanket to Alice and, though Emily seemed eager to take it, insisting on draping it over the bed himself.

  “Archie is a new addition to the household,” explained Alice to her guests. “William engaged him to help Sally out.”

  “Really?” said Emily. She knew that Sally did not need help.

  “These are two friends of mine.” Alice addressed the boy: “Miss Sargent and Mr. John Singer Sargent. Mr. Sargent is a painter.”

  “A painter?” said the boy. “I likes pictures!”

  “Very good.” Sargent nodded. “Liking pictures is good.”

  “What pictures is it the gentleman paints?” asked Archie. “I likes them pictures they paste on the walls to tell o’ what’s playin’ at the music halls. But I don’t know as gentlemen does those.”

  “You’d be surprised what gentlemen do,” said Sargent. “Posters are the least of it. But I’m in a different line myself. I paint pictures of real people.”

  “Real people?” queried the boy. “Like me?”

  “Most certainly like you. You would make an excellent subject.”

  “People pay Mr. Sargent a great deal of money to paint their portraits,” clarified Alice.

  “I coulden do that,” said the boy.

  “Nor would I expect it,” said Sargent. “I don’t paint only for money; I also paint for pleasure—subjects that interest me.”

  “Like that,” said Emily helpfully, pointing to a small painting over the table that Sargent had given Alice for her birthday. It was of a young woman in a red cloak standing in the portal of a building.

  “Tha’s beautiful!” breathed the boy, gazing at the painting intently. The woman had a dark, delicately pretty face. He moved closer and studied the figure a moment. “She looks like me mum,” he finally said.

  “Archie’s mother passed away recently,” explained Alice.

  “Poor child!” murmured Emily.

  John had risen from his chair and stood beside the boy, looking at the picture. It was one of his gifts to be able to relay sympathy and understanding without saying a word. In the present instance, he focused his attention on the painting, but in such a way as to include Archie in the act of assessment. They might have been two casual connoisseurs touring a gallery together. “The lady was a very interesting subject,” he noted, then squinted a bit. “Don’t you think it looks dull?”

  “I woulden know,” said the boy. “It looks beautiful to me.”

  “And to me,” seconded Emily.

  “I’ll brighten it up with a coat of varnish,” said Sargent, ignoring these opinions, as he would more expert ones, and taking the painting off the wall. He turned to the boy. “A little dressing up always helps.”

  “I sees as that’s so,” said Archie, looking down at his own new clothes, which had been bought with Sally at a haberdasher that morning.

  “It doesn’t really change what’s there,” continued Sargent sagely, “but most people don’t know that. I’ve made many a mediocre work appear better with a coat of varnish.”

  “Nothing you do is mediocre, John,” insisted Emily, turning to Alice proudly. “He just had his portrait of Mrs. Marquand sent over for submission to the Royal Academy show. It’s said to be a masterpiece.”

  John waved his hand dismissively. “It’s a flattering likeness, which, to the subject at least, qualifies it as a masterpiece.”

  “Oh no,” protested Emily. “You paint your subjects exactly as they are.”

  “Yes.” Sargent nodded. “Only six inches taller and with good teeth.”

  Alice laughed. “You have, in my opinion, come up with the perfect formula for success as a portraitist. If your subjects are impossibly old and ugly, you make them look like dowager empresses, and if they’re young and vacuous, like blushing roses. How, I wonder, would you paint me? Would you make me wise or beautiful?”

  “I would not need to make you either.” Sargent laughed. “You are already both!” He had returned to his chair, although not before producing a farthing and a piece of candy, which he slipped to Archie before he left the room.

  “I won’t argue with your flattering assessment of me,” said Alice, “especially since you mi
ght have leverage with my brothers. They tend to be skeptical of my wisdom, if not my beauty.”

  “Oh, they’ll come around,” said Sargent, stretching out his legs and closing his eyes. “You’ll see to that. Now if you’ll excuse me, ladies, being in the presence of so much wisdom and beauty has tired me out. And since I’m sure you have a great deal you want to gossip about, I think I’ll take a nap.”

  Chapter 14

  When Henry and William returned to Alice’s apartments that evening, Archie was on hand to take their coats. “If you’ll step this way, I’ll show you to the apartment of Madame James,” said the boy with an exaggerated bow.

  William seemed nonplussed by this childish formality, but Henry, with a greater understanding of how custom and ritual served to uphold the social structure, responded with a grave nod. “We’re much obliged to you, young man.”

  “Archie, get back here and stir the pot!” shouted Sally from the kitchen.

  “If you’ll excuse me, sirs, I’m called to duty elsewhere,” explained the boy. “Milady’s chambers is through that door, if you’d be so good as to find your own way.” Having apparently suffered the ire of Sally already and not wanting to repeat the experience, he ducked out of sight.

  Henry laughed after the boy left. “It’s a great thing to lift the lower classes.”

  “I suppose,” said William doubtfully, “though I suspect it only teaches a more elaborate form of servitude. The whole system offends my ideal of democracy.”

  “Your ideal of democracy would not work in this country. Your cutlery would be stolen and your daughter carried off before you had a chance to launch one of your progressive schools.”

  “A rather cynical way of looking at things.”

  “Not cynical; realistic. You speak continually about the importance of context. Well, context works in social settings as well. One doesn’t apply democratic ideals without an understanding of the history and customs of a people. Here, change happens incrementally, and giving the boy a uniform and a chance to stir the pot in Mayfair is a great leap forward from pilfering and worse in the East End.”

  William did not argue.

  When they entered Alice’s bedroom, their sister was sitting in her bed, munching on a piece of celery. “It’s supposed to be good for the digestion, only I hate it,” she grumbled, at which she threw the celery across the room, where Katherine, who had been sitting reading a newspaper, calmly picked it up.

  “I hope your visit to the East End was productive,” continued Alice, as though throwing celery were a perfectly normal part of her everyday activity.

  “I’m afraid we didn’t learn much,” said William, “though we had one intriguing interview with a woman who knew the second victim, Polly Nichols. She said that Polly used to visit a gentleman a few times a week in the area.”

  “But isn’t that what such women do?”

  William cleared his throat; his sister’s directness still embarrassed him. “Not insofar as Polly told our witness that she was being paid to do something else.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Unfortunately, we don’t know.”

  Alice looked annoyed. “Then you ought to find out, hadn’t you?”

  Before more could be said, Sally entered the room with a large casserole dish containing the oysters with mushrooms, and some time was spent ladling out portions.

  As they were being served, Alice turned to Henry. “Did you write anything interesting this afternoon?” she asked politely.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Henry, pleased to expound, “I have begun a new project, the dramatization of one of my works.”

  William made a slight choking sound, and Alice shot him a look. “A play, how nice.” She nodded. They ate without speaking for a few moments, until finally, Alice broke the silence, speaking to William of what clearly interested her most. “I assume you spent your afternoon at Scotland Yard examining the letters. Did you bring them for me to look at?”

  William put down his fork and took a sip of wine. As he did so, he touched his jacket pocket in a reflexive gesture.

  “You have them!” exclaimed Alice. “They’ve let you borrow them!”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” said William, bringing his napkin to his lips and opening his eyes in mock innocence.

  “You see how he gives himself away?” Alice directed herself to Henry. “He can’t lie. He’s afraid he’ll go to hell if he does.”

  Henry shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it. He tries to lie, except he’s bad at it. It’s why he could never write fiction—and doesn’t appreciate mine.”

  “Enough!” interrupted William. “I admit I have the letters, or at least a few of them. Abberline’s men went through the lot and identified those they felt to be authentic. I’ve been given permission to examine them at my leisure. Obviously they’re confidential.”

  “Phooey,” said Alice, waving her hand. “Let me see them!”

  “I really can’t do that. The letters were released to me as a special consultant to the police commissioner.”

  “And I am a special consultant to you,” declared Alice, “and a highly sensitive one. If you don’t show me the letters, I’m sure to get a headache and have a fainting spell.”

  William gave his sister a withering look. “That’s…beneath you!”

  “No, it’s not!”

  He paused and, still glaring at her, took an envelope out of his pocket and handed it over. There was silence for a few minutes as Alice perused the letters while Henry peered over her shoulder. There were a dozen or so assorted sheets, some on full pieces of vellum, some on scraps of paper or postcards.

  “Why do you assume these are authentic?” Alice finally asked.

  “It’s not a definitive assumption. There are a hundred or so letters received at Scotland Yard and the Central News Agency alleged to be from Jack the Ripper, and more come in each day. Abberline has confided that at times he wonders if any are genuine. But the experts he has employed believe that these, at least, have a claim to validity by virtue of their content and style.” He leaned forward, extracting a sheet from the group. “This one, for example, dated September 25 and postmarked September 27, was addressed to the Central News Agency, forwarded to Abberline, and not published until October 3.”

  Alice took the letter from him. It read as follows:

  Dear Boss

  I keep on hearing the police

  have caught me but they wont fix

  me just yet. I have laughed when

  they look so clever and talk about

  being on the right track. That joke

  about Leather Apron gave me real

  fits. I am down on whores and

  I shant quit ripping them till I

  do get buckled. Grand work the last

  job was. I gave the lady no time to

  squeal. How can they catch me now.

  I love my work and want to start

  again. You will soon hear of me

  with my funny little games. I

  saved some of the proper red stuff in

  a ginger beer bottle over the last job

  to write with but it went thick

  like glue and I cant use it. Red

  ink is fit enough I hope ha. ha.

  The next job I do I shall clip

  the lady’s ears off and send to the

  police officers just for jolly wouldn’t

  you. Keep this letter back till I

  do a bit more work then give

  it out straight. My knife’s so nice

  and sharp I want to get to work

  right away if I get a chance.

  Good luck.

  Yours truly

  Jack the Ripper

  Don’t mind me giving the trade name.

  And at a right angle to the note was written at the bottom:

  wasn’t good enough

  to post this before

  I got all the red

/>   ink off my hands

  curse it.

  No luck yet. They

  say I’m a doctor

  now ha ha.

  “The reference to Leather Apron is to a criminal with that nickname who was associated with the murders but has since been cleared,” explained William. “It’s a reference that warrants additional looking into,” he noted, more to himself than to the others.

  Alice glanced through the remaining sheets. “Here’s the postcard that they printed in the papers,” she said, holding it up so William could see what she was referring to, and then peering at it more closely. It read:

  I wasn’t codding

  dear old Boss when

  I gave you the tip.

  Youll hear about

  saucy Jackys work

  tomorrow double

  event this time

  number one squealed

  a bit couldn’t

  finish straight

  off. had not time

  to get ears for

  police thanks for

  keeping last letter

  back till I got

  to work again.

  Jack the Ripper.

  William again provided the commentary. “That was also sent to Central News and was postmarked October 1. The reference is to the double murder of September 30. Elizabeth Stride, throat cut, but no further violence done her, followed a few hours later by the extensive stabbings to Catherine Eddowes. It is true that one of the latter’s ears was partially severed, suggesting that the murderer was attempting to follow his intention in the former letter.”