The Master (45 page)

Henry learned in the days that followed that William’s heart was damaged, that his reason for going to Nauheim was not to avoid his brother’s hospitality. William was ill. Alice had
been watching him in case he had a sudden heart attack, having been told that such an attack could be fatal. William was not yet sixty.

The next day on the train to London to see the best heart specialist in England, William insisted on reading and taking notes, refused to have a blanket placed over his knees and promised them
both that if they should look at him one more time with pity or worry or the slightest interest beyond the normal, then he would expire on them immediately and leave his money to a dogs’ and
cats’ home.

‘And I should warn you both that the hauntings will not be normal. No medium will be required. I will pounce directly.’

Alice did not smile, but stared out the window, stony-faced. Henry wondered if the story of his sister and the lock of her hair might lighten their journey, but realized that it might have
precisely the opposite effect. While William could joke about such matters, he did so from a serious perspective. The aura his brother and his sister-in-law created, in which such a story could not
be told, seemed to have strengthened with William’s illness.

Dr Bezly Thorne, the most recommended among Harley Street doctors who dealt with delicate hearts, was, William thought, far too young to know of such matters, but he was soon persuaded by Henry
and Alice that this new doctor was uncontaminated by out-of-date remedies and was fully conversant with the new ones.

‘I dislike young people, all of them,’ William retorted, ‘medical or non-medical, conversant or non-conversant, from the bottom of my heart.’

‘Your heart indeed,’ Alice said drily.

‘Yes, I know, my dear, the part that is fully intact.’

Dr Thorne asked to see the patient alone, and when he emerged after a few minutes from the bedroom in which William lay resting in Henry’s flat in Kensington, he remarked that Alice and
Henry would now find Professor James much chastened, ready to rest, ready to maintain a strict diet with no starch, and ready, since the doctor had advised it, to be really ill, to be gravely and
precariously ill, so that he should become better.

‘My instructions are clear,’ Dr Thorne said, ‘he is to live. I have told him so. And in order to do that he must act precisely as he is told, and he must stay in London until I
say he can move. He can read if he pleases, but he cannot write.’

They agreed to remain in Henry’s flat in Kensington and in the days that followed, as William began his diet, and Alice awaited the arrival of their daughter Peggy, Henry and Alice had
much time to converse.

William’s ill health had not softened Henry’s resolve that his own circumstances were closed to criticism. His sister-in-law, whose scent for what was suitable for discussion was, he
thought, refined in the extreme, thus kept matters general, rarely even mentioning the attributes of her own children unless Henry specifically asked. One evening, however, when Peggy, who had
arrived from France, had gone to bed and William was sleeping, Alice raised the matter of her own sister-in-law, now dead seven years. She did so carefully, her tone serious and considered. She
spoke of Alice’s dislike for her and reminded Henry that, at the time of her wedding, Alice had taken to her bed.

Henry became uncomfortable. His sister’s memory was, as the years went by, increasingly tender for him; her suffering was something he was prepared to talk about only with sorrow and much
sympathy. If there had been a battle between the two Alices, the one who was speaking now had plainly been the victor and he realized, as she spoke, that the spoils of victory included a right to
discuss the vanquished one freely. His sister-in-law, he saw, mistook his relationship with his sister, thought that Alice James, on her arrival in England, had posed the same problem for Henry and
that her peculiar nature could be spoken of between them as though Henry and his sister-in-law would take the same measure of it. Alice’s tone was matter of fact.

‘Alice James,’ she said, ‘might have found something more useful to do with her wit than direct it inwards at herself.’

Henry was tempted to stand up and excuse himself. He had presumed that his silence might have been enough to hush his sister-in-law on the subject.

‘And,’ Alice went on, ‘she always managed to find some lucky person to take care of her and listen to her. Your poor Aunt Kate was not receptive enough, and that is why she
came to England.’

It became apparent to Henry that his sister-in-law might be conscious of his discomfort, and that this was the thing that was encouraging her to go on. The idea was so unlikely that he watched
her with interest, scarcely believing his own impression. Now, as if to confirm to his satisfaction the truth of his idea, instead of wishing to end the conversation or change the subject or leave
the room, he wanted Alice to continue for as long as she pleased while he remained as coldly unreceptive as he could manage.

‘I think Alice and Miss Loring were made for each other,’ his sister-in-law went on. ‘Miss Loring was a strong woman in search of a weak friend to care for. You know, any time
I saw them together I thought that they were the happiest pair on God’s earth.’

Alice’s face had brightened and her eyes began to sparkle as she spoke. She was no longer the wise and sensible wife of William James, but someone with her own mind indulging her need to
speak it. It appeared that if her views of the world should cause offence or verge on the scandalous, then so much the better. Henry had never before seen any sign of this in her. He wondered if
she were like this when she was alone with William. He also wondered why he himself was so interested in it, why watching her speak gave him a strange pleasure.

‘I’ve always said to William that Alice and Miss Loring might have had very good reasons for coming to England away from all their relatives and friends.’

Henry looked at her in disbelief.

‘You know, Harry, the maid at home would talk, and, indeed, Aunt Kate might not always knock on the bedroom door before entering, and I think that in England Miss Loring and Alice could
have found the sort of happiness together that is not mentioned in the Bible.’

As his sister-in-law glowed with satisfaction, Henry realized why he was listening so attentively. He calculated quickly that Alice could not have known Minny Temple, but she could have known
about her. Her way of saying the unsayable in the company of a gentleman, without losing her poise and her wonderful and original curiosity at how the world was and how it might be, was what had
distinguished Minny from her sisters and her friends. Minny’s mind had the same capacity to run forward, and then hit home with a question or a remark which would make certain members of the
company wish to leave the room, but, be prevented from doing so because of the charm of her delivery. Alice, thirty years after Minny’s death, was performing with the same verve and
courage.

‘Women, you know, are not above suspicion in these matters, or in any others,’ she concluded.

Henry now asked himself if she discussed his own private affairs in the same way. He thought back to the pointed questions she had asked about the visit of Hendrik Andersen, which she had heard
about in Boston, and the presence of Burgess Noakes in Lamb House, which she had remarked upon. Indeed, he had noticed her observing Burgess, and now wondered if she were seeking material for
further speculation about the personal lives of members of her husband’s family and their servants. He found himself having to resist the temptation to smile at the image of his Aunt Kate
opening a door on Miss Loring and Alice. Then his sister-in-law stood up and said that she would return the teapot to the kitchen and then see if William were still asleep. Henry announced that he
would retire to bed. Calmly, they wished each other goodnight.

H
ENRY RETURNED
to Lamb House while William, Alice and Peggy remained in London until Dr Thorne sent his patient to Malvern for treatment which quickly,
according to William, made him worse. As London was cold and inhospitable and the Atlantic Ocean too tumultuous to cross for a man in his frail state of health, William and his wife and daughter
came back to Rye as their surrogate home and seemed so happy and grateful when Henry met them at the station that he looked forward to having them at Lamb House for the festive season.

Despite his doctor’s orders, William worked in the morning; then he rested in the afternoon and spent the evening making light of his ailments. He also made many jokes about his doctor and
members of his family and remarks both pithy and interesting on the nature of the human dilemma. His daughter, Henry could see, adored him and, at times, to his delight, vied with him in his
efforts to mock himself and his predicament.

When Lady Wolseley sent a note to say that she was in the vicinity, Henry thought a lunch for her at Lamb House with his family might interest William without overtiring him and allow Alice and
Peggy to view an amusing and rare specimen of modern English womanhood. He was careful not to say too much about her in advance in case he intimidated Alice and Peggy, but once they realized that
Lady Wolseley was married to the Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty’s forces and that she was a lady who had, as it were, earned her title, then Alice insisted on taking over the kitchen,
doing so with efficiency and sweetness. Both she and her daughter tried on many dresses and costumes in preparation for the arrival of the Duchess, as Peggy constantly called Lady Wolseley in the
days before her visit. Alice accompanied Burgess Noakes to the local tailor to have both a suit and a uniform made for him in double quick time so that he too would be suitably attired for the
visit of her majesty, as William encouraged his daughter to call Lady Wolseley, but not, he warned, to her face.

When both Alice and Peggy noticed that Henry had removed a piece of faded tapestry from the wall at the top of the stairs on the day before the visit, and replaced it with a view of Rye, they
teased him lightly about putting on his best show and taking down worn objects in readiness for the Duchess. He did not tell them that he had bought it in a London antique shop in Lady
Wolseley’s absence and against her wishes and was now afraid to face her with his wilful and perhaps foolish purchase.

L
ADY
W
OLSELEY
was wearing scarlet silk which appeared immensely dramatic when her long black cloak had been removed. Her cheeks
had been rouged, and even her hair, he felt, had received some reddening, thus making it brighter, indeed more brilliant, than he had ever seen it. Her manners too were brilliant and nothing that
William or Alice or Peggy said did not meet with responses of great effusion. It was as though a thunder and lightning storm of the happiest kind had arrived by carriage at Lamb House in plenty of
time for lunch and was playing itself out cheerfully in the drawing room.

‘We all know, my dear,’ she said directly to Peggy whose light blue dress and cardigan and light blue ribbons in her hair seemed almost colourless against the blazing fire of the
speaker, ‘that your country has the largest democracy in the known world and has bequeathed many gifts in its short history to civilization, but the most valuable gift of all, please be
assured, is your uncle. He is the most wonderful flowering of your young country, and notice that he does not even deny it, for it is so generally agreed to be the truth.’

Henry was looking at William who was smiling warmly at Lady Wolseley, offering her all the soft weight of his irony.

Over lunch, their visitor asked many questions about Harvard and Cambridge and the difference between psychology and philosophy and what the lives of young girls were like in the wonderfully
intellectual environment of the United States. She managed to listen to the answers very carefully so that her further questions displayed genuine interest in what was being said. William, Henry
noticed, was almost flirting with her while his daughter stared at Lady Wolseley with her mouth open rather too wide. Alice fixed her eyes evenly on their guest in the calm and happy knowledge,
Henry believed, that having listened to Lady Wolseley, she would now be able to write to her mother about the visit and discuss it with her husband over many days.

As the meal came to an end, William expressed much disapproval at the quantity of social life in London, insisting that, in comparison, their quiet life at Cambridge was bliss. He could hardly
bear even the thought of so much activity, he said.

‘Oh yes, it’s true. You are quite right,’ Lady Wolseley said. ‘Cambridge must be bliss.’

Henry noticed his niece and thought that she was going to have to excuse herself from the room so close was she to a fit of nervous laughter.

‘And the theatre in London is so ridiculous, so very vulgar,’ Lady Wolseley continued. ‘One cannot tolerate it. In fact, when poor Henry came to stay with us in Ireland, his
wonderful play had just been insulted by the public. My husband, as you know, runs the army. I thought it was one night when there would have been a perfect excuse for his soldiers to shoot into
the crowd. Perhaps it is fortunate that he has the command rather than I.’

Peggy excused herself from the table.

‘Yes, England is ghastly. But of course Ireland, on the other hand, has changed so much,’ Lady Wolseley went on, ‘even since we left it. It is, I am told, the most peaceful
part of the entire empire.’

‘I wonder how long it will remain so?’ William asked.

‘Oh forever, I’m told,’ Lady Wolseley replied.

William looked up quizzically as though one of his students had spoken out of turn.

‘I met Lady Gregory, Henry, your old friend, in London,’ Lady Wolseley said. ‘Her estates are in the very interior. She says that there is no social outrage of any sort in
Ireland. And more, she herself has begun to learn Celtic, and says it is full of many beautiful words and phrases. It is very old, she says, older than both Greek and Turkish.’