What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

Chapter 31

Leaving Wilde’s house, the brothers crossed to 13 Tite Street, where Sargent had both his home and his studio. His was probably the most auspicious house in the neighborhood. It had originally been built by Edward Godwin, the architect, for himself and his wife, Beatrice. James Whistler had bought it from him. It was an irony not lost on his friends that Whistler had taken over Godwin’s house and, then, with Godwin’s death, had taken over Godwin’s wife, a kind of double usurpation very much in the Whistler style. A few years back, however, he had decided to decamp from Tite Street, and the house had eventually been purchased by Sargent, who had transformed the space entirely to his own use. There seemed to be no prospect that he would ever leave.

It was a large house, commodious in its design, that had been made even more inviting through its current owner’s tasteful furnishings. It was Sargent’s great talent, as Henry often noted, to do everything beautifully without appearing to try. Every item associated with him, from the cut of his waistcoat to the position of the pillows on his bed, seemed to be just what it should be, no more, no less. This was the case with the drawing room that they entered. It was a well-proportioned space, paneled in cherrywood, beautifully accessorized with raw silk curtains of a champagne color. There was a sofa of salmon velvet, a carpet in pink and green, a set of delicate tea tables in an indeterminate French style, and a collection of worn but elegant easy chairs scattered carelessly about.

The men were let in by Sargent’s butler, Niccola, a former gondolier whom Sargent had taken into service during his last trip to Venice. Niccola was also enormously decorative and, though not the best servant, apparently good enough for Sargent.

In the corner of the drawing room, Sargent was having tea with his sister. Emily did not live with him, but she dropped by all the time, so that no sooner did she leave than she seemed to come back. William and Henry made chitchat with her for a while until she said she had to go, and after a good deal of fussing about when she would return, she finally left. It had been agreed between the brothers that Sargent should be apprised of their suspicion of Sickert. He was a clearheaded observer of life, an invaluable resource as a testing ground for ideas.

“I can’t see Sickert as a murderer,” Sargent responded after William presented the idea.

“But that’s the point,” said Henry. “If you could, he would be locked up by now.”

“I don’t see that as an argument for his guilt,” countered Sargent.

“We’re just saying that a man’s nature is not necessarily transparent,” explained William. “And this Sickert is a good actor. It’s one of the elements that makes him suspicious, though there are quite a few more.” He proceeded to tick off the various items that had been gathered, to which Sargent listened with close attention. He was not impressed by the “ha ha” episode or the studios in the East End or the age of Sickert’s wife. There was only one thing that seemed to interest him: the P/W crossed out in the margin of the De Quincey volume.

“Could you draw what the notation looks like for me?” Sargent asked, handing a pencil to William, who drew, as best he could, the letters as they had appeared in the margin of the book. “There is a line between the letters, though not a straight line. We can’t make much out of the thing,” William explained after he finished the drawing.

Sargent had hardly glanced at the tracery before he rung for Niccola. “Could you get me the sketches in the bottom drawer of the cabinet,” he instructed the servant, who gave a lazy nod and went off.

“Whistler had this house before me,” explained Sargent, “and things were left here that I’ve been meaning to send back to him. I think they might shed light on your theory.” His voice was uncharacteristically excited.

Henry and William waited expectedly for Niccola to return. When he finally did, he was carrying a sheaf of drawings. Sargent immediately spread them out on the table in front of them. There were half a dozen sketches, mostly crude and incomplete. One, however, was finished—a pastel drawing that both brothers could see was an accomplished work, though not the sort of thing one would necessarily want in one’s home. It showed a woman leaning against a wall, her hair wild, her dress falling limply off her shoulders. The face was painted—the lips and cheeks in bright red chalk—and there was a sign behind her, a poster for some sort of performance. The piece was executed in the style of one of Degas’s homey ballet scenes, except the setting was more tawdry. This was an English music hall performer shown in a moment of weary dishabille between shows, or perhaps having lost her position on the stage.

“Not an appealing subject,” noted Henry, “but it seems to be well done. Is it Whistler’s?”

“No,” said Sargent. “Not Whistler’s, Sickert’s. I recognize the hand. An excellent draftsman, with a wonderful, if morbid, sense of composition.”

“And what is it doing here?” asked William.

“That’s precisely the point. When this was Whistler’s studio, Sickert worked here as an apprentice. He has since graduated to a more elevated position as assistant and leading apostle. He gets to sign his own name.”

“Is this piece unsigned?” asked Henry. He could see that there was a scrawl in the right-hand corner.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Sargent, the excitement mounting in his voice. “It’s signed in the way Whistler’s apprentices conventionally sign their work.” William and Henry bent their heads over the sketch. Written in graphite were the words “pupil of Whistler.”

“P of W,” whispered Henry. “The line between the letters could convincingly be ‘of.’ And the crossing out?”

“Pupil no longer.”

“Perhaps an expression of frustration at having occupied that role and still being attached to the man?” suggested William.

“You’d think, if he had murderous instincts toward Whistler, that he’d direct them there,” mused Henry.

“Not necessarily,” said William. “Often the impetus for pathological anger is too daunting to confront directly. The deranged mind strikes out against someone who is available, weak, and perhaps fills some other need for release.”

Sargent had assumed a pensive expression. “The initials you drew resemble Whistler’s butterfly imprint, which he often uses as a signature. They’re a parody of it, in a manner of speaking—much like the ha ha in the letters, as you suggested, was a parody of his laugh…” He paused to consider his own observation and then leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “There may be something to your theory after all.”

Sargent suggested that the brothers stay and talk to Ellen Terry, who was expected to come for a sitting within the hour. He had been commissioned to paint Terry, the reigning diva of the English stage, by Henry Irving, director of the Lyceum Theater and her latest official companion. Irving was so pleased with the arrangement, which allowed him to rehearse any time during the day or night, that he had commissioned the portrait to hang in the lobby of his theater.

“Ellen knows Sickert,” explained Sargent. “He had some bit parts in her company a few years back. It’s possible she can shed light on his character.”

They had passed from Sargent’s living space to his studio, which was, in its way, as delightful as his drawing room—more so insofar as its decoration was more unrestrained. Colorful rugs in bright colors scattered the floor, and tapestries and drapes in velvet and satin swung from the long windows. There were armchairs and divans, as well as screens and large sequined pillows for lounging by models in an Oriental pose, or by visitors who wanted to take a nap. There were also large trunks containing costumes with a wide range of garb, from ropes of pearls and ruffled blouses to gypsy shawls, plumed hats, and tambourines.

The riot of colors and textures was supplemented by the numerous paintings, with their lush brushstrokes, propped up against the walls, some of them in an unfinished state, some completed but waiting to be framed and picked up by a buyer. Most of the paintings displayed face forward were genre scenes and landscapes, while the ones, by far more numerous, facing toward the wall were portraits, with the exception of the notorious portrait of Madame Goutreau—renamed Madame X to protect the lady’s dubious reputation—which was prominently placed, facing forward, directly behind the easel. Although Sargent had initially been upset by the controversy surrounding this painting, berated in some quarters for its purple skin and plunging neckline, he had eventually adopted it as his greatest promotional asset. People came to him now asking him to paint them in the style of Madame X. “Wait long enough, and all judgments will turn into their opposite,” Sargent liked to say, pointing to the portrait by way of example.

“It helps if you can afford to wait,” Henry would grumble. He supposed his books would eventually sell very well—but he would be dead by then.

As Sargent set out his brushes in preparation for Ellen Terry’s sitting, William began looking around the studio, furtively examining the paintings facing the wall.

“Are you looking for something?” asked Sargent.

“No,” said William quickly. He was in fact looking for a portrait of Ella Abrams. The trunks full of costumes were enticing his imagination; he could imagine her in a fringed shawl leaning against the cushions. He had hoped that she might be posing for Sargent that day; thus the feeling of being disappointed, given that he had dwelled for some time on this fantasy, was all the greater. He wanted urgently to ask his friend about her but dared not mention her name for fear that he would betray something—what, he could hardly say.

Sargent had begun taking out the canvas on which he was painting Terry. He had already laid down some blocks of color (the method, William noted, for which Legros’s student had been berated), and began to prepare his palette. Niccola entered to announce that Ellen Terry had arrived and was changing into her costume in the next room.

In a few minutes, an imposing woman of about forty swept in. She was dressed in a green brocade robe and matching cape, had a thick gold belt around her waist, and a red wig, plaited into two long, heavy braids, on her head. She allowed them all to kiss her hand and assured them they were free to stay and watch the artist at work. “It’s the costume I wore for Lady Macbeth,” she explained with a grand gesture at her attire. “John suggested it, and I trust him absolutely.” (Sargent had recently confided to Henry that the trust of his clients—which was really the trust that he make them look young and beautiful—was beginning to wear on his nerves.)

“Do you like the wig?” she asked Sargent, who had been eyeing it approvingly.

“I do,” he said. “I wouldn’t have thought of it myself, but it adds something. Did you wear it in the role?”

“No,” said Terry. “It was a last-minute inspiration, lent by a friend. Where’s my crown?”

Sargent retrieved a large gold crown from one of the trunks, which she took and placed on her head.

“No,” said Sargent, “hold it above your head. We want the sense of desiring to be crowned, not being so.”

“Excellent,” said Terry, holding the crown up. “But it’s tiring to hold this way.”

“For art, my dear,” said Sargent, and Terry ceased complaining.

“How’s Henry?” asked Henry, referring to Henry Irving.

“He’s fine,” said Terry indifferently. She had had so many male companions in the course of her career that she had ceased to think much about any of them.

“I suppose he’s always on the lookout for new talent,” Henry continued. He had a fleeting thought of his own talent, since he had long wanted to write a play and had drafted a dramatization of one of his novels, as he had told Alice a few days earlier. He did not mention this, however. Instead he said, “I was telling William about a wonderfully talented young man I saw the other night performing a musical hall turn with Wilde. They say he’s a painter. I didn’t catch his name.”

“I wonder who it could be?” said Sargent.

William and Henry looked at each other. Sargent did everything so naturally that when he did something calculated, as in the present instance, the effect was ludicrous.

Terry, fortunately, was too preoccupied with holding the crown to notice. “You must mean Walter Sickert,” she said. “He and Oscar perform all the time. He’s the one who lent me the wig. He has loads of them.”

Sargent, William, and Henry looked meaningfully at each other.

“Tell me about him,” said Henry casually. His ability to be disingenuous was much more developed than Sargent’s.

Terry sighed. “Walter could be a great actor, but he refuses to be patient, so he’s turned to painting, where he says he won’t have to wait as long. Perhaps he’s right. He may be as great a painter as he could be an actor. He is also handsome and charming. And professes to be madly in love with me, which means he has excellent taste.” She had assumed a wistful expression, suggesting a dalliance in that quarter and confirming that Sickert’s appeal to the ladies was impressive; Terry had her pick of aspiring actors.

“Is there any area in which he falls short?” asked William.

She considered the question. “He’s not reliable. He disappears, and one doesn’t know where to find him.”

“How mysterious,” said Henry.

Terry shrugged. “I imagine it’s a strain for his wife. It’s one reason I’m content to have him adore me from afar.”

“You suspect…romantic trysts?” asked William, an unaccountable tremor passing through him at the mention of the idea of illicit lovemaking.

“I suppose.” Terry shrugged. “Though I don’t know why he needs to be so discreet. I once saw him in the East End with a woman, and he turned the corner to avoid meeting me. It seemed silly. Even if she were a disreputable sort, he could always pass her off as a model.”

Henry, William, and Sargent exchanged another look. Not, their eyes said, if she happened to be Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, or Catherine Eddowes.

“When did this happen?” asked Henry.

Terry had had enough of the conversation. “God knows! Gossip is such a bore; I really can’t abide it. Speaking of tiresome—how long do you want me to hold this crown, John? My arms are beginning to ache!”