Chapter 44

Two days after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly, Sickert appeared at the door of Alice’s bedroom holding Archie’s hand. The boy had let him in, and they had come up to the room quietly, “as a surprise,” Sickert had whispered, placing his finger to his mouth.

Alice, propped up in bed writing in her journal, looked up over her spectacles as though her visitor’s presence were the most normal thing in the world.

“Our young man informed me that you were awake,” said Sickert jauntily, “so I told him that we should sneak up on you. But you do not seem surprised.”

“Do you want me to be surprised?” she asked, returning automatically to the teasing tone that she had been used to taking with him. So much had happened in the interval, and yet at the sight of him, it all seemed to melt away.

“I don’t know if I want you to be surprised,” said Sickert, “or to be so anticipating my visit that you are not. Since you’re not, I’ll assume the latter.”

“You look well,” said Alice.

“I’ve had a hard few days, but I’m recovered.”

“And how was Cornwall?”

He held her eyes for a moment. “Oh, I didn’t go as planned. Something came up. But I’ll be leaving tonight; this time it’s certain. Still, I wanted to drop this off before I left.” He held up the canvas, its back facing to her. “I promised to hang it on the wall for a proper viewing, and I try to keep my promises, when I can.”

Without further explanation, he took out a hammer from his satchel and a nail from his pocket and strode over to the wall opposite the bed. He stood back a moment to establish the position and then hammered in the nail. “Now, close your eyes,” he said.

“I recall your telling me to do that once before,” said Alice, complying. “You said it would relax my face.”

“And it did. As you’ll see. Now open.”

She opened her eyes and looked at the picture. It was dark. She had heard he had a dark palette. In this case, he had painted her as though it were twilight. Much of her figure was blurred in the impressionist manner, but the head, though not in the style of high realism, had been delineated with a greater attention to detail. The face itself was pale and stood out against the dark background. The eyes were bright and hooded, and the mouth straight, but with the faintest touch of a smile. Her head was bare; he had painted the cap where he had thrown it to the right of the bed. The effect was of her having uncovered herself for the observer, if only in a slight way, but with a certain passionate determination.

“It’s an interesting portrait,” she noted ruminatively. “I look like one of those ecstatic saints or martyrs.” It was true that the frame of the bed might have been an altarpiece, and flecks of yellow used to highlight the dark background gave a suggestion of fire.

“Do you think I have made you look spiritual?” asked Sickert.

“You have made me look otherworldly,” said Alice.

“But you are otherworldly,” he insisted. “You are a woman beyond my reach.”

She laughed.

He had been looking at her as she looked at the painting, and Alice felt herself shiver slightly under his gaze. Neither one of them had noticed that Katherine had entered the room until she crossed over to seat herself in the chair next to the bed.

“And what do you think, Miss Loring?” said Sickert, with a trace of irritation in his voice.

“It’s not my place to say,” said Katherine in her usual mild tone. “It’s Alice’s portrait.”

“You don’t like it!”

Katherine shrugged. “We see the subject differently.”

“And how, pray tell, do you see her?” He asked the question automatically, as though not really wanting to know the answer.

“I see her as an island of reason in a world of irrationality, cruelty, and turmoil,” responded Katherine.

“An island of reason who lives her life as a professional invalid?”

“It’s how she pays for her rationality,” said Katherine quietly.

“And how do you think Mr. Sickert sees me?” Alice asked, intervening and addressing her companion.

“As a feral animal, caged,” said Katherine shortly.

“I thought he made me look like an ecstatic saint.”

“Perhaps it’s the same thing,” said Sickert. He turned quickly to Alice. “I’m sorry that I have not pleased your friend, but perhaps that is inevitable. One cannot please everyone.” His voice had grown distant, and he seemed to have become restless and less at ease.

“That’s true,” murmured Alice.

Sickert was not listening. He had reached for his hat. His impatience to be gone had become almost palpable. “I’m afraid I must bid you ladies good-bye.”

Alice looked at him, but he did not look at her. His eyes grazed the room, and a look bordering on disgust seemed to cross his features. Katherine had disturbed something. Or the portrait, being finished, had brought the disturbance. Whatever it was, Alice felt the bond between them had dissolved, leaving nothing but the painting behind. Perhaps it was at the root of his art—that the past held no meaning for him once the work was through; that his relationship to life was entirely a matter of impressions and observations as they occurred in the present. He had connected profoundly with her because she had consumed his imagination in the act of painting her, but the painting was done. She had become what ostensibly she had always been: an invalid spinster taking up his time. It was as though a spell had lifted.

But not just for him. Looking at him within the circle of Katherine’s cool gaze, she saw an arrogant stranger. What could she possibly know about this man’s character and motives? She felt herself blushing at the thought of what she had once felt. It was time, indeed, that he left.

“Thank you for the portrait,” she said, taking Katherine’s hand and leaning her head back on the pillow. “You should hurry, or you’ll miss your train.”

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