Sleep, Pale Sister (13 page)
I spent my entire
day at the studio working on
The Card Players.
I was very satisfied with the canvas; it was a powerful piece, with Harper sitting slouched against the wall with his elbows on the table and his face half tilted into the light, watching his hand with that expression of clever nonchalance which so typified him. A greenish oil-lamp guttered uncleanly above him, highlighting the greasy walls and the unvarnished table and throwing into sharp relief the thick glasses filled with milky absinthe.
I had sketched in the figure of the woman in charcoal, using a town model for the posture only: I wanted her to be in half-profile, one hand on the table in front of her, the other holding the Queen of Spades playfully to her lips…Soon I would need finer material, some dark-haired unknown. Not Effie, I decided; definitely not Effie. First, I hated to see her sitting so intimately with Harper, even in my own painting, and secondly…It was a vague, nebulous refusal, a sensation of unease as I envisaged her in my studio. Why should I be uneasy? I asked myself. She had sat there for me a thousand times. Why not this time? I could not answer. Instead my memory threw me a brief image, cold and intense as a brush with a ghost…a thin face staring at me in the dark, a voice like lace and frost whispering together, a scent of chocolate…
From where had that rogue memory surfaced? And that face, unformed and yet familiar, the white blur of little Persephone’s face in the gloom of the underworld? I clenched my fists in frustration: I had seen her before, my Queen of Spades. Who was she?
Who?
When I arrived home, Effie was working at her embroidery, demure as a good child. The silks were spread about on the ottoman, on the footstool, on the grey flannel of her dress, and the threads and the long panel of tapestry were the only colour about her. She might have been a nun with her hair loose like a coif around her shoulders and, for a moment, her seeming purity was spectral, terrifying, like a vision of the Holy Virgin. Then she looked up, and in that instant I saw her face like that of a vengeful crone, grimacing in hate and fury, a white-haired Norn older than time with my life held by a thread in her knotted fingers. I almost screamed.
Then the light shifted again and she was Effie, her expression as meek and innocent as that of the Sleeping Beauty in her tapestry. I wondered what spiteful thoughts had been playing in her head and, seeing her smile, I determined to take care. There was something
knowing
about her smile, something which belied her timid voice when she greeted me. Had she been out? Had she been reading the forbidden books? Had she searched my room?
I forced a smile in return. ‘Are you feeling better now, Effie?’ I asked.
‘Yes, thank you, much better. My headache is quite gone now, and I have been working at my embroidery all afternoon.’ As if to underline that, she put the tapestry aside and began to wind the silks into a tidy plait.
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘However, bearing in mind your condition this morning I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to go out for a few days at least.’ I expected her to protest at this, knowing from Tabby how she liked to go for walks, but Effie did not flinch.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘I think it best to stay in the house while I am unwell: I should not like to catch a chill in the cemetery.’
‘And no reading,’ I added, thinking that if anything was going to shake her composure it would be a reference to her precious books. ‘I’m certain that for a girl of your fanciful temperament, novels and poetry can only do incalculable harm. I have several improving books, as well as a store of tracts for you to read if you wish, but I have taken the rest of your books from the library and would ask you not to purchase any more.’ I fully expected an outburst at that, but she merely nodded—and was that the tiniest smile on her pale lips?—and began to lay away her embroidery in her work-basket.
‘I want to try and finish this tapestry this year, if I can,’ she said. ‘I think it might be pretty as a fire-screen, or maybe the centrepiece for a bedspread. What do you think?’
‘As you wish,’ I said coolly. ‘I’m no judge of such things.’
I was surprised and rather disturbed. She had been helpless and hysterical that morning, wailing and crying like a spoilt child; now she was cool and self-possessed, her politeness almost a form of contempt. What secret was she keeping from me?
I watched her carefully over supper. As usual she ate little, but consented to take some bread and butter when I commented upon her loss of appetite. She was docile, sweet, and charming—why then did my stomach clench at the thought of her docility, her sweetness? My unease and dissatisfaction grew and eventually I retired to the smoking-room and left her alone.
I told myself that I was simply nervous: I had hardly slept the previous night, I had worked all day in the studio and I was tired. That was all. But somehow that was
not
all. While I was away something had happened to Effie, something secret, perhaps even something dangerous. In a strange, undisclosed way, I felt that Effie was no longer alone, no longer mine. I stayed awake late into that night, smoking and drinking, racking my brain to discover what had finally awoken my pale little sister.
Five days.
For five days I waited. I could hardly eat; I was afraid to sleep in case I screamed my thoughts aloud in the night, and laudanum was the only rest I dared allow my disordered brain. I could see Henry was suspicious: sometimes I caught him staring at me and sometimes his eyes met mine with an air of calculation. Even a month ago I could not have borne the pressure of his questioning gaze; but there was a new strength in me, a sensation of
change
, a new darkness in my heart which filled me with terror and rejoicing. I felt protected by it as the formless butterfly gropes in the darkness of its hard chrysalis, as the wasp shifts in its silk cocoon and dreams uneasy vengeful dreams of flight.
And I? Would I fly? Or would I sting?
In my dreams I flew, floating among endless, shifting skies with my hair dragging behind me like a comet’s tail. And in my dreams I saw Henry Chester in a child’s room filled with balloons and the uneasy half-memories which had assailed me as I slept in Fanny’s house came back to me with a startling clarity. Voices spoke to me from the dark and I saw faces, heard names and welcomed them like old friends; there was Yolande, hair cropped short and figure straight as a boy’s, smoking her endless black cigars; there was Lily, the sleeves of her man’s shirt pushed up to reveal her thick red forearms; there was Izzy and Violet and Gabriel Chau…and, clearer than all the rest, I remembered Marta, floating through the dim air with balloons in her hands, floating closer and closer as Fanny stroked my hair and sang…I
had
been there that night as Henry came to me with black and guilty lust in his eyes…I knew I had been there and I welcomed the subtle change which was coming over me with a fierce joy.
There were times I was afraid of losing my mind. But I always held firm: when laudanum was not enough to combat the onset of hysteria and when I ached with loneliness for Mose and Fanny and when my fingers trembled to shred the almost-finished Sleeping Beauty tapestry to bloody rags, then I crept to my room where, at the bottom of one of my drawers, I had hidden the letter from Mose and the note from Fanny. Reading them again and again I knew that I was safe, that I was sane: that soon I would be free of Henry’s influence and his threats…I would be with friends who loved me.
On Thursday, I pleaded
a headache in order to go to bed early and, at half past ten, I crept out of the house. At a reasonable distance from the house I hailed a cab to Crook Street, arriving there at about eleven as instructed. As soon as I passed the threshold I began to feel that spiralling, floating sensation again, the elated terror of my laudanum-dreams, the naked formlessness of my nocturnal flights. A girl opened the door, gaping, her face oddly distorted in the greenish gaslight; another girl’s face appeared behind hers, and behind hers another, until there were a multitude of disconnected features fanning out down the passage…I stumbled against the step, keeping my balance by leaning on the door-jamb; a dozen hands reached for me and, as they drew me into the passage, I caught sight of my face in the mirrors bracketed to the wall on either side of the doorway: a line of images receding into infinity; white face, white hair, cronelike among the pretty faces, painted lips and bright ribbons of the other girls. A door opened abruptly to my left and Fanny was at my side.
‘Hello, my dear,’ she said, taking my arm to lead me into the parlour. ‘And how are you?’
I grasped the stiff green satin sleeve of her gown to steady myself. ‘Oh, Fanny,’ I whispered. ‘Just hold me for a moment. I’m so frightened. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.’
‘Shhh…’ She pulled me towards her in a rough, one-handed embrace, and I could smell tobacco and amber and Pears’ soap on her skin, a strangely reassuring combination which somehow reminded me of Mose. ‘Trust me, my dear,’ she said softly. ‘Do as I say and you’ll be safe. Trust no-one else. You may not understand yet what we are doing but, believe me, I do. Henry Chester has done enough—I’ll not let him hurt you again. I’ll give you your vengeance.’
I was hardly listening: it was enough to feel her strong arm around my shoulder and her hand smoothing my hair. I closed my eyes and for the first time in many days I felt I might be able to sleep without fear of my dreams.
‘Where’s Mose?’ I asked sleepily. ‘He said he’d come. Where is he?’
‘Later,’ promised Fanny. ‘He’ll be there, I promise. Here. Sit down for a while.’ I opened my eyes as she pushed me gently but firmly towards a small couch in front of the fire. Gratefully, I leaned back against the cushions.
‘Thank you, Fanny,’ I said. ‘I’m so…tired.’
‘Drink this,’ she suggested, handing me a small goblet filled with a warm, sweet liquid fragrant with vanilla and blackberry, and I drank, feeling a pleasant relaxation spread through my shaking body.
‘Good girl. Now you can rest awhile.’
I smiled and allowed my gaze to wander lazily around the little parlour. It was a tiny room, furnished all in shades of red, with the same Oriental opulence as the rest of Fanny’s house. There was a fine Persian rug on the floor, fans and masks hanging on the wall and a Chinese fire-screen half shielding the glow from the chimney. The furniture was of cedar and rosewood, upholstered in damask and scarlet. Megaera and Alecto were sitting in front of the screen on a mat, and on the table stood a tinted glass vase of red roses. For a moment, as I raised my hands to my face, I saw that, miraculously, I too had become a part of the change: my skin was tinted a glorious shade of flame, my hair a scarlet sunrise in the lamplight. I was filled with warmth and well-being. Almost unconsciously I reached for another drink of Fanny’s punch, feeling new energy trail thin fire down my throat. A sense of sudden, intense clarity came over me.
‘I
do
feel much better now, Fanny,’ I said in a stronger voice. ‘Please, tell me what we are going to do.’
She nodded, sitting down on the sofa beside me in a rustle of skirts. The two cats immediately came to her, pressing their soft faces into her hands and purring. She clucked and chirrupped at them, calling them by name.
‘How is Tizzy?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Is she treating you well?’
‘Yes,’ I replied with a smile. ‘She sleeps on my bed at night and sits with me when I’m alone. Henry hates her, but I don’t care.’
‘Good.’ For a second Fanny’s generous mouth seemed to tighten, almost cruelly, and she watched the cats on her lap with a fierce, hard intensity. I felt that she had completely forgotten my existence.
‘Fanny!’
‘My dear!’ The smile was back, her expression as serene as ever. I began to doubt I had ever seen it change.
‘What am I to do when Henry comes? Will I hide, as Mose said?’
She shook her head. ‘No, my dear, you will not hide. For the moment you will trust me, knowing that I care for you and would not allow you to be hurt. But you will have to be brave and you will have to do exactly as I say. Will you?’
I nodded.
‘Good. No questions, then. Promise?’
‘I promise.’
For an instant my eyes strayed from hers and were caught by something at the back of the room, something which from the corner of my eye seemed to be a bunch of balloons. I started, glancing involuntarily at the spot, and I felt Fanny’s grip tighten, just a little, on my arm.
‘What’s that?’
There were no balloons. Simply a circular stain in the top far corner of the room, next to the door.
‘Shh, my dear,’ said Fanny coaxingly. ‘Don’t fret. You’re quite safe here.’
‘I thought I saw…’ My words were heavy, each syllable a formless shape pushing its way through the decaying fabric of my exhaustion. ‘I saw balloons. What…what do balloons…?’
‘Shh. Close your eyes. That’s right. Shh…That’s right. Sleep, my dear. Sleep. It’s your birthday, and there will be balloons. I promise.’