What Alice Knew (17 page)

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.

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.

“Get them some tea, my dear,” he ordered his wife. Constance went off to get them tea.

“You see before you the domesticated Wilde,” said Wilde, blowing his nose in a large handkerchief. “It is very nice to have a wife when one is sick.”

Henry could not disagree; the problem, he thought, was having a wife when well.

“To what do I owe the honor of this visit from America’s most gifted brothers?” continued Wilde through his stuffed nose.

William explained that he had wanted to relay the best wishes of his countrymen, who had been so taken by Wilde during his American tour. (He and Henry had agreed on this excuse for the visit, knowing that it would appeal to their host’s vanity.)

“So they still remember me there?” said Wilde wistfully. “Tell me more.”

“Oh, they talk about you continuously,” said William, hoping that he would not be expected to name names. “They say you are the epitome of sophisticated wit.”

“It’s true, I am,” agreed Wilde, “though I’m not as acclaimed for it here, which I suppose is to be expected. I’ve considered moving to your country, you know, but then I’d have to perform myself brilliantly every minute of the day. It would be tiring.” He sniffled into his handkerchief, as he considered that prospect. “Here, at least, I can relax from time to time in the domestic enclave.” He looked around him and then sneezed, as though he were allergic to what he saw.

There was a pause, as Constance came back with the tea and then, at a gesture from her husband, ushered the children out of the room.

Henry saw an opportunity to move toward the desired subject, even though it meant referring to someone he would have preferred not to discuss. “If you came to America, you would soon surpass Clemens in popularity,” he noted.

Wilde looked even more pleased. “It’s nice of you to say, but I hardly think so.” He then took the bait Henry had planted, his rheumy eyes sparkling maliciously. “Clemens was in rare form the other night, don’t you think? I feared that he would pummel you.”

“Yes,” said Henry, wincing. “I am grateful for the intervention of that young man, what was his name?”

“Sickert. Walter Sickert.”

“That’s it. Walter Sickert. Are you intimate with this Sickert?”

“Not intimate,” said Wilde, winking.

“I mean…are you good friends?”

“Oh yes, great friends. We perform together, as you saw.”

“Do you know his family?”

“I’m a great friend of his mother and sister. They dote on me almost as much as they dote on him.”

“And his father?”

“His father is a minor painter. A Prussian.”

“Severe? Autocratic?”

“Not really,” said Wilde. “Can’t say I know the man well, but he seems benign enough.”

“And Sickert’s wife?”

“He doesn’t spend much time with her. Goes off to do his painting…Cornwall, Dieppe, and the East End. He has a number of studios there.”

“That’s odd.”

“No. Whistler did the same.”

“It must be hard for him, dealing with Whistler.”

“Not really. They seem to get along. Jimmy says he has talent, which constitutes high praise from that quarter.”

Henry felt frustrated. Aside from the fact of East End studios, which were not uncommon among artists these days, he was not getting the sort of information he would have liked.

“But you should ask him these questions yourself”—Wilde sniffled insinuatingly—“since you appear to be so interested in each other.”

Henry looked surprised. “In each other?”

Wilde paused to blow his nose and then continued, “After the party, Walter asked me about you. Wanted to know all about William and Alice too.”

“Really?” Henry and William exchanged glances. “Do you have any idea why?”

“None at all, dear boy. You know I don’t pay attention to other people; I’m too interested in hearing what I will say next.”

William cleared his throat. He, for one, had no interest in hearing what Wilde would say next.

“I’m afraid we must be off,” said Henry, taking William’s cue.

“So thoughtful of you to stop by.” Wilde sniffled. He seemed to want to say more but sneezed instead. There was something to be said for Wilde with a cold.