James Miranda Barry

by Patricia Duncker

  Then he wrote down his last thoughts and shot himself. Poor, unfortunate man. He did not have enough money to buy a sufficiently fatal weapon and the bullet bounced off his skull, inflicting, nevertheless, a terrible wound. The malheureux then staggered to his painting table, snatched up a razor and slashed his own throat, covering the Alfred with his life’s blood. Thus he died. He was found by his daughter, who came into his studio at midday.

  Naturally I was one of the first subscribers to the benefit fund for the widow and the orphaned infants. His wife, Mary, was a foolish, simple woman. He took better care of her in death than he had ever done in life. She gave me the last volume of his diary, by which to remember him. She could not bring herself to read it, for he always tried to be cheerful with her. And, indeed, it makes sorry reading. He was just sixty years old. Only two months before he so untidily dispatched himself, he wrote, ‘My situation is now of more extreme peril than even when I began Solomon 33 years ago.’ I was a pretty young woman, James, when I posed for his Solomon.

  Poor dear Haydon. His fate grieves me still. The last entry in this doleful volume ends thus:

  ‘God forgive – me – Amen.

  Finis of

  B. R. Haydon.

  “Stretch me no longer on this tough World” – Lear End.’

  He’d set it all out like a tombstone! I copied that from the original. And even the quotation is incorrect. When I am playing Cordelia I am always laid out, hanged, at this point, my wig pathetically arranged in long tresses about my face. But I’m right there on stage and the line is spoken by Kent. It should be delivered as follows:

  Vex not his ghost: O! let him pass; he hates him

  That would upon the rack of this tough world

  Stretch him out longer.

  Haydon could get nothing right. Not even his suicide message. He was pathetic, James, and his death affected me deeply. Mary lived until 1854. She died peacefully, in comfortable circumstances, on a civil list pension. But it is a terribly sad tale.

  I would not have you die like that, my love, despairing, alone, among strangers. You have been gone for thirty years, James. Thirty years is a long time to sulk. For you have not forgiven me, have you, for refusing to marry you. But I kept my word, did I not? I never married anybody else, even if I did make my own arrangements with my generous protector. Well, I am an independent woman now, sir. And quite rich.

  Come home, James. Thirty years is quite long enough to wander the world. Look how many pages I have taken up before I come to the point. This is my simple request. I have always loved you. I have never forgotten you. We are old people now. We have our lives behind us. Come home to me. My waist is not as neat as it used to be and my step is not as quick, but with a little assistance my hair is as black as ever it was and you will find that I am not so very much changed. Write directly, James. And tell me that you are coming home.

  I remain, your loving friend,

  Alice Jones

  * * *

  I set about rebuilding the house. The roof was sound, but the tenants had done little to modernise the kitchen. It was still as vile a pit as it had been when my uncle died. The walls were white-washed, but huge patches were blackened and peeling as if there had been frequent fires in the domestic underworld. The pantry and the scullery were rat-infested and stank. I ordered them to be destroyed. An army of workers moved in with me. I stood over them, day after day, making decisions and impeding the steady trickle of petty theft, which is characteristic of building sites in London. My neighbours all came to greet me, delighted at the restoration of the master. Psyche growled at each one of them in turn. In so many years the street had improved beyond all recognition. The tenements and children’s gangs were gone. There were lime trees planted at intervals down my side of the pavement, so that Barry’s old drawing room, the room that had once harboured his notorious Pandora, looked out into a mass of fresh green.

  I had the garden’s brambles razed to the ground and the roots dug out and burned. The great elms, which now dominated the long walk leading down to the mews, were sawn briskly into shape. One of them was rotten and had to be felled at great expense. Nothing extraordinary could be achieved in the first year and without advice I was never an effective gardener. But once the internal alterations had reached the question of wall-paper, and the brick-layers’ tools had vanished from the vegetable patch, I planted a quantity of bulbs and shrubs. This was my gesture of faith in the following spring.

  The house had no furniture and no curtains, and so I bivouacked in the topmost rooms below the attics on a low camp bed with the barest minimum of comforts, despite the disconcerting summer heat and the dust storms rising from the works below. I was very happy. I saw no one. My acquaintances were all in the country and many of the theatres were closed. London had poured its contents out into the countryside for the duration of the summer, and I took advantage of the fact to install myself in all tranquillity.

  During the first week of September I had one or two rooms nearing completion, although the odd sofa and oak table that had caught my fancy looked like little vessels lost on a sea of polished boards.

  I was out walking in the park when she called.

  The maid was waiting for me, hysterical with excitement. When I entered the house she pounced upon me in the hallway. She wasn’t sure, she couldn’t be sure, but the lady had left a card. And she had peeped. And yes, it was. It was her. The famous, the beautiful, the legendary Mrs Jones.

  ‘Oh, a lady, sir, a real lady. And so gracious. And so handsome.’

  You’ve done it, Alice. You’ve pulled it off. You have become respectable.

  ‘And she didn’t stand on ceremony, sir. She was very emphatic. She says that as soon as you’ve received her card you’re to go to her instantly. She doesn’t care what time of day it is, sir. And I hope I did right. I said you weren’t in. Well, you weren’t. But she insisted on looking all over the house. Not your rooms, sir, as you keep them locked. But she did try the door and she looked everywhere else. And she really admired the new kitchen. A real lady, she is, but she knows what’s what. Did I do right, sir?’

  I pat Jesse’s hand.

  ‘Yes, my dear. Of course you did right. Mrs Jones is not to be resisted when she sets her mind on anything. And she is very welcome to view the premises.’

  Ah, Alice. You were at the mercy of your own memories. This house has meanings for you too. I am glad to hear that it is so. Well, despite my weariness, I must call for a cab and go to you at once, like a young man in love. You are an old lady now. But I can see you, your step still vigorous, your ankles slender as ever, your stage face perfectly painted, conquering the streets through which you pass. Ah, Alice.

  I peer at the card: her name in flourishing swirls and a very good address. But I already know the house. I drive past at least twice a day, watching for lights. But the blinds are firmly in place and the shutters up at nights. Even the servants, who are clearly used to being bribed for information, say that they do not know when she intends to return, but certainly not before the end of the month. She is three weeks early. At least three weeks.

  I sway around the corners, leaning against the padded door of the cab, clutching at Psyche for comfort, hoping that it is no coincidence, that she has heard rumours of my return and set forth directly to town, by train, without maids or baggage.

  But she must have sent news of her arrival. The dust sheets are off, the lamps are blazing, there are fresh flowers fragrant in the hallway, a frenzy of rushing on the staircases, a fire full of pine cones roaring in the grate against a windy, damp night. She is at home. She is alone. She has been waiting for me and I am to step upstairs at once. Psyche scuttles at my heels. I hover on the threshold, with all my life behind me.

  I had not expected quite such vulgar luxury. She sits like an eastern queen in an orgy of glass and gold. Every surface is marbled, inlaid, polished, precious, opulent. And the lady herself glitters with an excess of silk and jewels. She is rich.
Every heavy bracelet, necklace, earring proves her wealth. Her satin slippers hit the floor with an astounding thump. Psyche slithers on the parquet, reaches the safety of Aladdin’s carpet and gazes desperately around at her reflections. I see myself, echoed to eternity in two opposing Empire mirrors. An arrangement of flowers and peacock’s feathers brushes my cheeks. A row of silhouettes, set in silver and pearl, descend the wall beside the pale marble column of the fireplace, and I see myself again, prominent amongst them, my black profile captured, like a shrunken head. There is too much dramatic vanity on every surface. I cannot concentrate. I cannot understand the distances. Alice has buried herself under a mountain of expensive things. This is exactly what she has always desired. And here she is. In the midst of her possessions.

  She has both her hands in mine.

  She is kissing me.

  She is dragging me down onto the sofa beside her.

  Psyche is barking at our feet.

  We are looking into one another’s eyes.

  She is exactly the same.

  ‘James, tell that wretched dog to shut up.’

  This is the first thing she says, rearranging her armada of green and gold silk skirts around her.

  ‘Shhhh, Psyche. Come here.’ Psyche bounds onto the sofa and sits jealously between us.

  ‘Not on my dress,’ growls Alice. We all change places.

  ‘You faithless beast. I’ve a good mind to sack you as my lover. You’ve been here since mid-August and you never sent a word to me. You knew perfectly well where I was. You had the address in Lincolnshire. I heard quite by chance that you were back. Some stupid youth told me that you were in London, and asked, was all that old gossip true? That we had once had a romantic attachment? I nearly pushed him down the staircase. I don’t know what made me crosser – his insolent insinuations or the fact that you hadn’t written to me. Explain yourself.’

  ‘I’m here now, Alice.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, at least.’

  She is suddenly smiling, a huge merry glow of satisfaction. Her face is rounder. She is altogether heavier. But her smile is exactly the same. We sit looking at one another. She squeezes my hand. Then she reads my horror at her décor off my eyeballs and looks round the room complacently.

  ‘What on earth did you expect, James? To find me starving on a straw pallet and repenting of my sins? Or did you expect me, at my age, to have become another rich man’s mistress? Or to be still dressed up as a soldier and showing my legs on stage? You’ve been gone for thirty years, James. Things change in thirty years.’

  Indeed, they do. I look at her carpets, her porcelain vases with Chinese dragons coiled around them and her opulent Venetian chandeliers. I look at her raw silk sofas, her inlaid rosewood tables, the thick gold braid which borders the velvet of her drapes, her endless rows of china shepherds warbling along the side-boards, her life-size Moorish boys bearing fruit and flower baskets, her seventeenth-century Flemish tapestries. What do they represent? Dido and Aeneas embracing in the cave, Dido ascending the pyre, Aeneas on board ship in the distance, his back turned, gazing towards Rome. The Greek sequence on the other wall depicts various classical rapes with Zeus transformed into bulls, swans, thunderbolts and showers of gold. The thunderbolt is particularly interesting. Here lies Semele, heaving on top of a sarcophagus, at the very moment of ecstasy and conception. And here is Zeus, his pointing finger luminous in gold stitching, indicating the exact spot. The image is reminiscent of the more dubious Italian Annunciations I had the misfortune to view in Rome. It is decidedly obscene.

  ‘Don’t you find these tapestries disturbing?’

  ‘No. Why? They belonged to Adolphus. I don’t think I’ve ever looked at them properly.’

  ‘They all represent women being raped or abandoned. And in this one’ – I try to decipher a myth I don’t know – ‘being violently sodomised by a group of satyrs.’

  ‘Really? How shocking. I didn’t know they were so unsuitable. Although Adolphus did keep them in his private rooms . . .’

  Alice peers at the shadowy walls. I realise that she is now very near-sighted and too vain to carry spectacles on her breast. After a moment she settles back into her rustling skirts.

  ‘Never mind. They may not be moral, but they’re worth a fortune.’

  I shrug ruefully. Alice has not changed at all.

  ‘Don’t sneer,’ she snaps. ‘You always had all the worldly goods you ever wanted without even asking.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  Like an old-fashioned moralist I want her to tell me that money doesn’t matter, that what really count are loyalty and passion, but Alice is on Satan’s side and loves The Kingdom of This World. She has satisfied all her desires and she has no regrets. She is a little relieved that her sins are all forgiven her. What were those sins? Charming lecherous old rogues whose skin hung flabby round their necks like turkey roosters?

  ‘James! Don’t exaggerate. Adolphus was really quite good-looking. Even in his fifties.’

  . . . Hoodwinking the gullible bereaved into believing that Paradise exists, with an astonishing mixture of pots, pumps and wind machines . . .

  ‘Why is that any more immoral than what the Church does? You tell me. I give people comfort and hope. Are they better off for believing in me, or aren’t they?’

  . . . And being excessively grasping with her theatrical managers over the terms of her contracts . . .

  ‘Now there I won’t hear one word of criticism. No one should ever perform for free. If I hadn’t hustled and higgled they’d have paid me off in old shoes. I was a big star, James. You’ve got to know your market value and then up the odds. Maybe you’ll get it and maybe you won’t. But you owe it to yourself to fight for the highest price. I owe it to myself. I always fought for myself. No one else would ever have fought for me.’

  I sit silent. I have spent my life fighting for those who were too frail even to raise their heads in protest. I suddenly realise that Alice knows what I am thinking. I do not have to speak.

  ‘I know, James, and the wretched of the earth are somewhat less wretched for your passage. But neither of us is out of step with the times. You went in for humanitarian philanthropy and I bettered myself by my own efforts. If the rich and the poor met halfway up the ladder we’d all have more comfortable lives.’

  We sit holding hands in the firelight, meditating, with a proper theological objectivity, on the morality of our methods and desires. The maid brings in a handsome platter of wine and cakes. As soon as the goggle-eyed girl has retreated Alice falls upon the cakes.

  ‘When did you last eat? Did you have supper before you came? You can’t have done. It must be after midnight. Quick, James. Grab a slice of this. I had it soaked in rum to remind you of that God-forsaken volcanic rock you have just escaped. Eat up. If you don’t, I’ll scoff the lot.’

  I had feared that we had spent too many years of our lives apart. Who am I remembering? A child’s love is a potent and enduring thing. I am Ariel, returning from Caliban’s isle, searching for my elderly Miranda, my first love. Does she see a sixty-year-old man, dwindled to the size of a gloved puppet, still perilously stiff in his elevated soles? Or does she see the child in the fields, his shirt wet with the summer damp from the grass in the early morning? I doubt, I hesitate, I take heart.

  Alice is concentrating on a large slice of cake, soaked in rum and filled with cherries. Once, when I was serving in the eastern Mediterranean, a lady of the colony celebrated her fiftieth birthday, and her husband ordered a dress for her from England ‘. . . and oh dear, Dr Barry, I hardly like to tell you, but you understand these things. It was in the very latest style, charming, but three sizes too small, at least three sizes! And so I had my dressmaker insert a few judicious darts and panels, but covered in flounces and ribbons, that a woman my age simply cannot wear. And of course, I had to tell him I was utterly delighted. We toned it down a little and hoped he wouldn’t notice. My daughter was very clever at removing some of the m
ore ostentatious frills. He didn’t notice. But, oh dear, oh dear. Well, I’m not eighteen any more, but it seems that he hasn’t noticed that either.’

  ‘Madam, you are a beloved woman and therefore very fortunate, for your husband still sees the girl he married.’

  I remember my reply and I see Alice now, more honestly, with a woman’s perspicaciousness. And I see a menacingly energetic old lady, with a calculating glint in her black eyes, a woman to be reckoned with, a woman who knows the cost of everything, a woman I still love with all my heart.

  ‘What are you looking at, James? Have I got crumbs on my chin?’

  Time to be gallant. Alice loves that.

  ‘I was looking at you and thinking how beautiful you are.’

  Alice is disarmed. She rewards me with an enormous serious smile. She has a cherry stuck to one of her teeth, most of which, I note, she still has. She always said it was vital for a radiant smile on stage and took good care of them.

  I listen to her bright talk, and note the frequent justifications for her new career in spiritualism.

  She is admitting that she is not received quite everywhere.

  ‘As an actress,’ she sighs, ‘you can’t expect to be. We aren’t respectable, no matter how well off we are. There are some people who shut their doors to me, whom I could buy out twice over. It’s not so much what you do on stage, although that’s bad enough, it’s what they think you do when you’re not working. Sometimes I imagine it’s because we earn our own livings and are beholden to no man. And Mrs Jones I may be, but who was the late Mr Jones? That’s a very complicated story.’

  ‘Indeed, who was he?’

  ‘An Irishman,’ she glitters, ‘a very small, but clever man, with adorable red curls.’