Sleep, Pale Sister (5 page)
Easy to say: I knew that a Puritan like Henry would hardly be likely to exchange words with a man like Swinburne to verify the fact, and he knew as well as I did the relationship between Swinburne and the Rossettis. Conceit puffed him up like a teacake. He scanned my face carefully.
‘Fine features, if I may say so,’ he said ponderously. ‘I should not be ashamed to transfer them to canvas. Full-front, would you say? Or three-quarter profile?’
I began to grin, and quickly transformed the vulgar leer into a smile.
‘I’m in your hands,’ I said.
As the door opened
and I saw him for the first time, I was certain that he had seen me. Not this body, but the essential
me
, in my most naked, helpless form. The thought was terrifying and, at the same time, powerfully exciting. For an instant I wanted to strut and dance before this stranger in a display of shamelessness which transcended the pale envelope of flesh I could discard at will, as my husband stood by unseeing.
I cannot explain the strange wantonness which possessed me. Perhaps it was the heightened perception lent to me by my recent illness, perhaps the laudanum I had taken earlier for my headache, but the first time I saw Moses Harper, I knew that this was a truly
physical
being, governed by his own desires and pleasures. Watching him and speaking to him under the heedless eye of my husband I understood that he was everything I was not; he radiated energy, arrogance, independence and self-satisfaction like the sun. Best of all, there was no shame in him, no shame at all, and his lack of shame drew me irresistibly. As he touched my arm, his voice low and caressing, charged with the promise of sensuality, I felt my cheeks flush, but not with shame.
I watched him covertly throughout his conversation with Henry. I cannot recall a word he spoke, but the tone of his voice made me shiver with pleasure. He was maybe ten years younger than Henry, with an angular figure, sharp features and a satirical expression. He wore his hair long and tied in the nape of the neck in an eccentric, old-fashioned style. His dress, too, was deliberately informal, even for a morning visit, and he was hatless. I liked his eyes, which were blue and rather narrow, as if he were laughing all the time, and his easy, mocking smile. I am certain he noticed me watching him, but he only smiled and continued his conversation.
I was astonished that he should have commissioned a painting from my husband; from the little I had previously heard of him, Mose Harper was an impudent good-for-nothing, fit only for painting filth, with no sense and less taste. Now, Henry was telling me, in an indulgent voice, that Mose was ‘a young rogue’ whose travels around the world had ‘much improved him,’ and he would no doubt one day make a ‘fine painter,’ as he showed ‘excellent draughtsmanship and a certain originality of style.’
For some time Henry propounded his ideas on the portrait, suggesting, then rejecting, various subjects such as
Young Solomon
and
The Jacobite
. Mose had written a list of his own ideas, including
Prometheus, Adam in the Garden
(rejected by Henry because of what he called ‘the degree of modesty which must be accorded to such a subject’) and
The Card Players
.
This last title intrigued Henry, and he met Mose later at his studio to discuss it. Mose told him that the idea had come to him while reading a poem by the French poet Baudelaire (I have never read any of his work, but I am told he is very shocking, and it does not strike me at all odd that he should be a favourite of Mose’s), in which:
Le beau valet de coeur et la dame de pique
Causent sinistrement de leurs amours défunts.
Mose thought the phrase most evocative, and visualized a canvas ‘set in a greasy Parisian café, with sawdust on the floor and bottles of absinthe on the table. Sitting at the table is a young man holding the Knave of Hearts; next to him a beautiful lady has played the Queen of Spades.’
Henry was not immediately enthusiastic about this subject, which he found rather sordid. He himself had a notion to paint Mose in mediaeval dress, perhaps as
The Minstrel’s Lament
, ‘sitting beneath a rustic sundial and holding a viol, whilst behind him the sun sets and a procession of veiled ladies, carrying various musical instruments, passes by on horseback.’
Mose was politely unenthusiastic on the subject. He did not see himself as a mediaeval minstrel. Besides, there was the background to be thought of. To paint the mediaeval landscape with the ladies on horseback might take months. Surely it would be simpler to choose the dark interior and concentrate upon the portrait itself?
There was some sense in that argument, and Henry’s reluctance lessened. There would be no harm in the subject, he decided, as long as it was tastefully executed. He did draw the line at having the French poem engraved on the picture-frame, but Mose assured him that that would not be necessary. Henry began to make plans for the new canvas, abandoning
A Damsel with a Dulcimer
for the time being, to my immense relief.
What price Mose had promised Henry for the picture I do not know, but my husband was filled with hopes for it; Mose, with his connections, would no doubt have it hung at the Royal Academy and this might well be the making of Henry’s career. I paid little attention. Henry and I were not dependent upon Henry’s paintings for income. Any money he made was for him a matter of personal satisfaction, a proof of his talent. For myself, the only interest I had in his new painting was that the long and frequent sittings meant that I would have the opportunity to see Mose nearly every day.
I never liked Moses Harper.
A thoroughly dangerous and calculating individual, rumour had it that he had been involved in countless shady enterprises from forgery to blackmail, although none of the rumours—which inexplicably led to even greater success with the ladies—were ever proved.
For myself, I found him a very inferior type, with no morals and fewer manners, except when he chose to exert himself to please. He was an artist of sorts, though the work I had seen, both painting and poetry alike, seemed calculated only to shock. His work was neither harmonious nor true to life; he delighted in the grotesque, the absurd and the vulgar.
Despite my dislike for low company, I realized that the connections he had acquired might be of use to me: besides, my idea for his portrait was an excellent one, and might even attract the attention of the Academy. I had already submitted my
Little Beggar Girl
along with the
Sleeping Beauty
: the critical response was encouraging, although
The Times
condemned my choice of model as being ‘insipid’ and suggested that I expand my choice of subject-matter. For this reason I abandoned my current project and began on the sketches immediately although I disliked having to deal so closely with Harper—his reputation was such that I did not want Effie to come into contact with him: not that she would have encouraged the fellow, you understand, but I hated to think of his eyes on her, demeaning her, lusting after her.
However, I had little choice: Effie had been ill again, and I arranged a small studio on the top floor from which I could work. More often than not, Harper would sit in the garden or in the living-room while I sketched him from various angles, and Effie would work at her stitchery or read a book, seemingly quite content with our silent company. She showed no interest in Harper at all, but that afforded me little comfort. In fact, I might have been more patient with her if she had shown a little more animation.
Effie could think of nothing but her books. I had discovered her reading a most unsuitable novel a couple of days previously, a hellish thing by a certain Ellis Bell, called
Wuthering Heights
, or some other such nonsense. The wretched book had already driven her into one of her megrims, and when I took it away—for her own good, the ungrateful creature—she dared to fly into a violent tantrum, crying: How dare I take her books! weeping and behaving like the spoiled child she was. Only a strong dose of laudanum was sufficient to calm her, and for several days afterwards she kept to her bed, too weak and pettish to move. I told her, when she had almost recovered, that I had long suspected that she read too much; it gave her fanciful notions. I did not like the kind of morbidity, bred of idleness, that it encouraged. I told her that there could be no objection to improving, Christian works, but forbade any more novels, or anything but the lightest kind of poetry. She was unstable enough as it was.
Whatever she told you, I was not unkind: I saw her instability and tried to control it, encouraging her to take up activities appropriate to a young woman. Her needlework lay untouched for weeks and I obliged her to take it up again. Not for myself—no—but for
her
. I knew she desired to have talent such as I had: when she was a child she used to try and paint scenes from her favourite poets, but I always dealt honestly with Effie; I did not flatter her to gain her affection but told her the sober truth: women are not, as a rule, made for artistic activities; their talents are the gentle, domestic ones.
But she was wilful; she persisted in her daubs, saying that she painted what she saw in dreams. Dreams! I told her she should dream less and pay more attention to her duties as a wife.
You see, I
did
care for her. I loved her too much to allow her to delude herself with vanities and conceits. I had kept her pure for so long, had lived with her imperfection, had forgiven her for the seed of wickedness she, like all women, carried within her. And what did she give me in return? Megrims, fancies, foolishness and deception. Do not be deceived by her innocent face as I was! Like my mother she was diseased, the bud of her unfurling adolescence blackened from the core. How could I have
known
? God, in His ferocious jealousy, threw her in my path to test me. Let a single woman, just one, into the Kingdom of Heaven itself, and I swear she will throw down the blessed one by one—angels, archangels and all.
Damn her! She has made me as you see me now, a cripple, a fallen angel with the seed of the serpent in my frozen entrails. Slice an apple and you will find the Star, bearing the seeds of damnation in its core: God knew it even then, He who knows everything, sees everything. How He must have laughed, as He drew the rib from Adam’s sleeping body! Even now I seem to hear His laughter…and in my darkness spit and curse the light. Twenty grains of chloral to buy Your silence.
For two weeks I
was content to watch him and wait. Mose haunted my dreams with visions of delightful abandon; waking, I saw him every day. I existed in a warm and lovely dream-state, like some sleeping princess waiting for her kiss, and I trusted in him implicitly. I had seen him watching; I
knew
he would come for me.
Days passed, and Henry moved back to his studio to work. He already had enough studies of Mose, and was eager to transfer his initial idea on to canvas. He was vaguely considering using me as the model for the Queen of Spades, but Mose, with a hidden wink in my direction, had said abruptly that I was ‘not his type’. Henry was not sure whether to be offended or relieved; he settled for a thin-lipped smile and promised to ‘think about it’. Mose accompanied him to the studio and for some time I did not see him, though his face never left my thoughts.
My health improved daily and I began to take fewer and fewer of the doses of laudanum Henry brought me. One night he found that I had thrown away my medicine, and was very angry. How could I expect to get better, he demanded, if I wilfully disobeyed him? I must drink my medicine three times a day, like a good girl, or I would become morbid and fanciful again, my nightmares would return and I would be good for nothing but idleness. My health was frail, he said, my mind weakened by illness. I must at least
try
to make an effort not to be a burden to him, especially now that his work was at last being recognized.
Meekly, I acquiesced; I promised to take a daily walk to the church and back and to take my medicine regularly. From then on I made sure that the number of drops in the bottle diminished at a steady pace—and with it I watered the araucaria on the stairs three times a day. Henry never suspected a thing. In fact, he was almost cheerful when he returned from the studio. His painting was progressing very well, if slowly, he told me, with Mose sitting for him maybe three hours a day. Henry worked till the early evening and, as the weather grew fine, I took the habit of going for a long walk to the cemetery in the afternoons. Once or twice Tabby came with me, but she had too many things to do in the house to act as a permanent chaperone to me. Besides, I told her, I was only going as far as the church; I could come to no harm, and I was feeling much better now that the winter was over. Three or four times I took the same walk from Cromwell Square, down Swain’s Lane, down the hill, into the cemetery to St Michael’s. Since the day I had my vision in that church, the day I lost the baby, I had felt an odd link with St Michael’s, a desire to go in there alone and try to recapture the sense of purpose I had felt that day, the sense of revelation. But I had not been back, except on Sundays, with Henry on one side of me. Since William had gone to Oxford I had felt even more closely watched than ever. I dared not allow my mask to slip for an instant.
But now I felt almost as if I were on holiday. I enjoyed my trips out of the house more than I dared admit, and led Henry to believe that I walked only because he had ordered me to do so. If he had known how much those outings meant to me, he would surely have cut them short. So I nursed my secret and my joy, while inside me something wild and frenzied capered and grinned. I tried the church several times, but each time there were too many people for me to dare enter: sightseers, baptisms, weddings…and once a funeral, with row upon row of black-clad mourners, intoning the dark hymns to the howling of the organ.
I drew back from the half-open door, embarrassed and somehow afraid as the wave of sound struck me. In my confusion I almost knocked over the vase of white chrysanthemums which was standing by the entrance. One woman turned at the noise and fixed her gaze on me insistently, almost threateningly. I made a helpless little gesture of apology and continued to back away, but suddenly I felt my legs begin to buckle under my weight. I looked up and saw the vault spiralling towards me uncontrollably, the face of St Sebastian suddenly very close to mine; St Sebastian smiling, showing his teeth…
Not now!
I thought urgently, struggling to regain control. Looking wildly around me I caught sight of the woman, still watching me with that insistent look of recognition. From afar I thought I heard a voice calling a half-familiar name. Unreasoning panic seized me and I turned, abruptly released from my trance, and ran, slamming the heavy door. I stumbled, tried to retain my balance and cannoned headlong into a black-clad figure standing at the bottom of the steps. His arms locked tightly around me. By now I was thoroughly unnerved, and I was on the point of screaming aloud when I looked into the face of my assailant and saw that it was Mose.
‘Mrs Chester!’ He looked surprised to see me, and let go of my arms immediately with a show of apology which might have seemed genuine had it not been for the mischief in his eyes. ‘I’m terribly sorry to have alarmed you like that. Do forgive me.’
I struggled to regain my composure. ‘It’s quite all right,’ I said. ‘It…wasn’t you. I went into the church, and walked straight into a funeral service. It…I hope I didn’t hurt you,’ I finished lamely.
He laughed, but almost immediately narrowed his eyes in an expression of some concern.
‘You
have
had a shock, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘You look quite pale. Here, sit down for a moment.’ He eased an arm around my shoulders and began to move me towards a bench a few yards away. ‘Why, you are so cold!’ he exclaimed as his hands found mine. Before I could speak he had pulled off his own coat and thrown it over my shoulders. I protested half-heartedly, but he was cheerfully proprietary and, besides, it felt very comfortable to be sitting on the bench with his arm around me, the woolly tobacco-smell of his overcoat in my nostrils. If he had kissed me then, I would have responded with all my heart; I knew it—and felt no guilt at all.