It was quite dark as he entered the park and made his way along the main path. A few couples were walking arm in arm, and there was a smattering of beggars of the West End variety, well brushed in the manner of gentlemen fallen on hard times. They murmured discreetly their need for a bit of assistance, and William gave each of them something; he was in a magnanimous mood.
When he approached the center of the park, he veered off onto one of the side paths that would lead him to the avenue nearest to his brother’s flat. The gas lamps that lit the main path did not extend to this one, so the area grew darker as he moved farther along. The sounds of the street began to recede, and the trees seemed to grow thicker and more luxuriant. It was nice to have such lush greenery in the center of the city. New York had Central Park, and Boston had its Commons, but Hyde Park was different in the degree to which it could suddenly seem remote from the urban hubbub that surrounded it. Only the English could feel confident enough to allow the wild to encroach so far within a civilized space. It was the first time that he had acknowledged that this country might surpass his native land in some respect. Perhaps he would take a flat in London after all; so much coming and going to conferences and meetings was wearing. And it would be convenient to be near Henry and especially Alice, given her condition.
He paused to be sure that he still had the card for Ella Abrams’s shop in his pocket. It pleased him to finger it and remember its gold border and simple black script: “Abrams & Son.” Despite the appellation, the card put him in mind of Ella; gold and black were colors one would associate with her. He recalled the painting Sargent had done in which her arms were encased in gold bracelets, and her hair, emerging from a colorful scarf, was jet-black with flecks of white. It was Sargent’s hallmark to do hair that way so as to suggest thickness and glossiness and thus flatter his sitters, though in this case, there was no need to flatter; if anything, the representation fell short of the original.
He was thinking of how much nicer Ella’s hair was in reality than it was in Sargent’s painting, when he heard it, and the lurch of fear it precipitated was greater, in coming in the midst of such pleasurable calm. What he heard was breathing, soft and regular, faint yet distinct. There was no body attached to it, no evidence of anyone in the vicinity, no footsteps. If someone was near, it was someone who had matched William’s tread so as to follow unnoticed. Only now, pausing, he could hear the soft intake and outlet of breath.
Where was this person? William’s mind raced. He must be very near, in the trees a few feet away. He might be only a thief, he tried to assure himself, yet he knew it was unlikely. His mind had gone immediately to the letter Abberline had passed on to him. Until now, he had pushed that threat to the back of his mind. It was the familiar reflex of denial, a defense against the kind of morbid thinking that had engulfed him at the time of his breakdown, yet he ought to have understood that to push the possibility of danger out of consciousness was as foolhardy as to see danger everywhere.
He began to walk faster, panic beginning to mount in his body. No one was about. The prospect of calling out would be of no use. His hands reflexively burrowed in his pockets, but all he found there was the card for Ella’s shop. He felt a welling of sadness as the thought occurred to him that he might never see her again—not her, not his wife and children, not his brother and sister. He felt his shirt grow hot with perspiration against his chest, and for a moment wished only to be able to remove his coat and jacket. What a relief it would be to strip off these clothes, to stop planning and desiring and thinking, to be done with it all at last.
He realized that the predator was holding off attack until the edge of the path, where, at the turn, he would be enclosed entirely by trees. In the shrubbery, the violence could take place with no possibility that a passerby would see. He could picture his own death in his mind’s eye, the pale throat beneath the thicket of whiskers suddenly spurting bright red. His hand automatically went to his neck, touching the solid flesh that might, in a few seconds, be ripped open. The image brought a wave of pity for his own frailty. He felt his skin turn cold under the wetness of his perspiration; his teeth began to chatter, and his head grew light as the pressure in his body dropped.
He slowed his pace. He could make out over the din of his pulse that the person behind him was light-footed and agile. He could hear the other’s breathing, loudly now; he even imagined he could feel the breath on the back of his neck.
The turn was less than twenty feet away. He had perhaps three seconds before he reached the spot where he would be set upon. In the nightmare ordeal of his youth, when he had suffered from a lack of will, the crisis had been long and difficult, a slow and fitful return from numbness and inertia to active life. But there was no time for such a recovery now. He must either fight against what threatened him or succumb to it. It was the simplicity of the choice that galvanized him.
It happened with remarkable speed. He spied a large branch on the side of the path and made a quick lunge to reach it; then, with it firm in his grasp, he swung. It was the same movement he had once used in his youth to swing a baseball bat. The movement had been embedded deep in the memory of his muscles.
As he pivoted on his soles, turning his body almost completely around, he saw the figure who had stalked him, enveloped from head to toe in a thick cloak. From the folds of the cloak an object flashed, sweeping in countermovement to his own. There was a tremendous crack as he completed his swing. The figure staggered back.
William dropped the branch and ran, not stopping until he had reached the other side of the park. When he glanced down, he saw there was a tear of about four inches across the breast pocket of his coat. The copy of Marx’s Capital, the gift from Benjamin Cohen, had been sliced neatly in half.
Even as the horror of what he had escaped coursed through him, he felt gripped by a sense of wonder. How fortuitous life was, how sublime the conjunctions of divine intervention: American baseball and a German utopian philosopher had saved his life!
Chapter 28
Although it was late, William immediately sent a message to Abberline to meet him at his office in Scotland Yard. He realized that the attack might result in clearing the suspect—or incriminating him. If Sickert had been kept under watch that evening, he could not have staged the attack. If, on the other hand, the police had lost his trail in the vicinity of Hyde Park, his guilt would seem all but certain.
Neither situation turned out to be the case. When William arrived at the precinct office, Abberline’s face was taut with anger. Anderson, he explained, had taken all his men off surveillance that night to suppress a demonstration in favor of Irish Home Rule. “It was a quiet gathering that he chose to call an unruly mob,” fumed Abberline, “which means that we have blundered on two fronts: we have falsely characterized a public event and we have lost evidence that might have identified our murderer.”
Abberline was diverted from his tirade, however, when he saw the tear in the breast pocket of William’s coat. “It’s the work of a medium-sized, sharp knife, the sort that killed the Whitechapel women,” he said with concern. “You are clearly the target of this maniac. I have put the watch back on our suspect, but that doesn’t guarantee your protection. You must take special care.”
William assured him that he would take care, but the reflex of denial was already reasserting itself, his mind recoiling from the memory and blocking off the dread that had engulfed him less than an hour earlier. In the future, he would be more alert, avoid isolated settings, and try not to walk alone at night. But he would not tell Henry or Alice what had happened, and he would not think more about it.
***
The next morning he and Henry rose early and headed for Gower Street, where they had an appointment at the Slade School of Fine Art. Henry had learned from an English art club catalog that Sickert had attended the Slade, a fact William thought was worth investigating. “One can learn a great deal about a man from his professional training,” he said.
Henry
agreed. Hadn’t many of his own choices been made in opposition to his earliest teacher, his brother?
The Slade was a relatively new building with no particular distinction, and they might have passed it by, had they not seen several young men lugging large canvases entering its portals. Inside was a series of cavernous rooms connected by narrow, chilly corridors, not at all the sort of space likely to inspire the muse. Not that this was unusual, William thought, recalling his own experience as a student; the aim of most education seemed to be to strangle the creative impulse as efficiently as possible. The current director of the Slade was the French master painter Alphonse Legros, whose concern for upholding the school’s reputation ensured that it taught nothing that deviated from aesthetic convention, and thus nothing that anyone would care much about.
Henry stopped a young man shouldering a canvas depicting the Rape of the Sabine Women and asked where they could find the director, and the young man pointed to a room at the end of the hall. “He’s in the classroom,” said the student, who was very pale and looked like he would do well to spend some time painting en plein air.
“He’s teaching a class?” asked William.
“I don’t know about that,” said the young man laconically, “but that’s where he is.”
The two men walked to the end of the hall and opened the door of the classroom. There were perhaps ten students seated at easels set up around the figure of a young African male who was standing in a javelin-throwing position and did not have on a stitch of clothing.
“Oh my,” said Henry. “Perhaps we should come back later.”
Legros motioned impatiently for them to enter. A tall, bearded man with a sour expression, he was standing behind one of the students’ easels. He indicated with a gesture that they sit in the chairs in the corner, while he peered through a monocle at the canvas before him. The student had applied large blocks of color from which he apparently intended to delineate the figure.
“What is this?” Legros barked loudly, glaring down at the work before him. “Where is the sketch preliminaire, Monsieur?”
The student explained that he had decided to begin by laying the paint down directly on the canvas.
“And you did this for what reason?” demanded Legros in an outraged tone.
“A preliminary drawing can be inhibiting,” explained the student.
“Inheebiting?” Legros repeated this word with scorn, making sure to mispronounce it. “You think that to make the painting correctement is inheebiting? Perhaps you think that the paint and the canvas are inheebiting also? Perhaps you should make your pictures on the buildings using the soot?” He cast a glance around the room, as though expecting the other students to laugh, but they only looked down at their brushes in embarrassment.
“I don’t think that’s a comparable idea,” protested the student.
“Not comparable! But it is comparable, Monsieur! You want to miss the fundamentales and make yourself the maître? You want to do as you please?”
“But many established artists use this method now,” protested the student feebly.
Legros rolled his eyes with scorn. “Established they may be, but they are wrong! If you desire to learn to paint under my auspice, then you will do as I say! Start again, Monsieur!” At this, he took the canvas off the easel, flung it to the ground, then turned and calmly crossed the room to greet his visitors.
“Pleased to see you, Messieurs James,” said Legros, making a short bow before seating himself with a flourish. “How can I be of assistance?” He did not appear in the least perturbed that they had been privy to his tirade.
William found himself unable to respond. The scene had upset him, recalling instances in his early career as an aspiring painter that he did not like to remember.
“We are here to gather some information about a former student.” Henry took the lead, seeing his brother’s unwillingness to respond. He too, however, was distracted, finding it difficult to keep his eyes off the model in the center of the room, who, given where they were seated, presented himself squarely in their line of vision.
“I am afraid that I must respect my students’ right to privacy,” said Legros with pompous formality.
William could not help wondering how such respect conformed with having just berated a student in front of the entire class. His also noted that Legros’s French accent had become distinctly less pronounced now that he was no longer acting in his pedagogical capacity. “We are here on special assignment from Scotland Yard,” William declared coldly. He produced a letter from Abberline giving them official authority to ask questions.
It was only a few sentences, but it took Legros several minutes to peruse. Finally he handed the letter back. “I am at your disposition,” he said, bowing his head.
“Might we retire to your office?” requested Henry, whose discomfort was increasing, as the model appeared to be eyeing him directly.
Legros gave a nod and led them through a side door to a wood-paneled office. Over the desk was a large painting by Poussin, the neoclassical master who epitomized the school ideal of appropriate subject matter, craft, and decorum.
“It’s about a student who was enrolled here two or three years ago,” explained William without further preliminary. “His name was Walter Sickert. I wonder if you could tell us your impressions, if you remember him.”
“Sickert,” said Legros sneeringly. “Of course I remember. An insufferable young man. No respect for tradition or convention. No patience or discipline. An egoist of the first order.”
“You threw him out?” asked William.
“I would have done,” said Legros, obviously irritated that he had not had the chance. “He saved me the trouble by leaving. Whistler took him up.”
“Whistler saw something in him?”
“Whistler sees things in unlikely places,” said Legros dismissively. “But then he is eccentrique and blind to degeneracy.
“Degeneracy?”
“Any falling away from the truth is degenerate. It is not the first time Whistler takes our leavings. I warned him, but he says, never mind, he can manage this Sickert.”
“Manage him?”
“Keep him from making trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Sickert is ambitious.”
“And that is bad?”
“It is bad for the tradition and the profession. Such types destroy anything they think is established and correct. Their aim is to kill the art of the past. They are dangerous because they inspire others to do the same.”
William saw what he was dealing with here. Legros perceived any deviation from tradition to be a form of degeneracy. His ideas about art were so rigid and prescribed that he was close to mad himself.
It was disheartening to realize that the head of a prestigious school was a lunatic, and yet William was not altogether surprised. It took an exacting sort of personality to head up an institution, and if the institution was devoted to the dissemination of rules and precepts, then the person leading it was likely to veer toward the extreme in his support of them. If Legros were mad, his madness was organically connected with his role as the director of the Slade School of Fine Art.
Perhaps, thought William, allowing his perspective to widen in characteristic fashion, all deliberate choice of vocation was a lure to madness, at least to the extent that such devotion to craft was also a kind of crippling. It placed the self into a mold that was not natural to it. The results could be glorious or disastrous, based on factors too numerous and complicated to fathom. There was no telling, really, what the consequences might be.
Chapter 29
When the brothers left the Slade, Henry announced that they should take a hansom cab to Chelsea and make two visits that would be helpful in their investigation. Oscar Wilde and John Sargent, both acquainted with Walter Sickert, lived on Tite Street, practically across from each other, which meant they could interrogate both in the space of a few hours. Henry was pleased to be able to
propose it. As boys, it was always William who took the lead, and he was obliged to follow along or remain behind. But here, he knew the terrain and could have the ideas.
As they descended the hansom cab on Tite Street, Henry warned that Wilde might not be home. That he had a home at all, and with the appurtenances of a wife and children, was in itself surprising, so it was little wonder that he was rarely there. Today, however, he was, because he was suffering from a cold. The brothers entered the drawing room to find him reclining on the sofa, two children in blue pinafores playing quietly in the corner, his wife knitting by the fire. It might have been a stage set in which Wilde had been plopped or a scene out of Dickens of the precise sort that Wilde liked to make fun of.
But he was in no mood to make fun. He was wearing a rumpled dressing gown, and his hair, usually glossy and neatly parted in the middle, had a dull, unbrushed look.
“You catch me en famille,” he said, waving a limp hand in the direction of his children and wife. One might have thought that they had caught him in a compromising situation, which, given his reputation for the unconventional, they had. “You know my lovely wife, Constance.” He motioned toward the woman knitting nearby, who smiled weakly. She was a pale woman with a coronet of flyaway hair and a long, arched nose that strikingly resembled her husband’s (it was sometimes given out that Constance was really Oscar in petticoats, since they were so rarely seen together). To Henry, however, the resemblance was not surprising. If someone like Wilde was going to marry, he would try as far as possible to marry himself.
What Alice Knew Page 18