What Alice Knew (29 page)

“But we must have dinner and reminisce,” said Sickert, changing the subject brightly. “Mustn’t we, Ella?” He motioned to the woman beside him. “What a shame that your brother and sister can’t join us. But then…they are in a better place. I don’t believe in the immortality of the soul, as I once explained to your sister, but that doesn’t prevent me from thinking that where she is, is better.” He paused, musing. “She was an exceptional woman. I am sorry that we did not keep up our acquaintance. But I blame myself. I am not reliable.”

Sickert smiled at the thought and touched his brow with his handkerchief. A group of young artists had beckoned to him from across the room. He took the arm of Mrs. Cassel, made a theatrical bow, and moved off, a faint odor of lavender trailing in his wake.

Henry remained standing in front of Sickert’s macabre painting for a moment.
If only Alice and William were here
, he thought wistfully,
they would turn it all over, the three of them. Who knows where it would lead?
But his brother and sister were gone, irretrievably beyond call, and he himself was, quite frankly, tired. Tired and old. It was best, at such a date, to let things go. He looked at his watch. It was late. Time for him to find John Sargent, who had, Henry hoped, not been too violently abused by the younger set, and head home.

But first, he would have another glass of wine.

Paula Marantz Cohen is Distinguished Professor of English at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is the author of
Jane Austen in Boca
,
Jane Austen in Scarsdale
, and
Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan
and five works of nonfiction, including
Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth, Alfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of Victorianism,
and
The Daughter’s Dilemma: Family Process and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel.