Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 22

It  was  the  curtains  Fanny  couldn’t  help  staring  at.  Sitting  on  a  chaise  in  front  of  the drawing room window, she pretended to look out on Brunswick Row, but her gaze went only  as  far  as  the  lush  brown  velvet  that  framed  the  view.  The  curtains  were  pure simplicity; Fanny could have sewn them herself. But the fabric made her want to bury her face in it. The velvet would feel soft as a baby’s thigh, she was certain; it was that ?ne. Subtly layered re?nement—that was the atmosphere Fanny Sitwell had achieved with the pieces in her drawing room, from the leather chairs worn to a mellow shine to the pale blue damask wallpaper. That summed up the lady of the house, too.

“How is the pain today, Fanny?” Mrs. Sitwell asked. She moved over to the divan, where she adjusted the pillows under Fanny’s foot cast.

“Gone,” Fanny said. “Thankfully gone. I would have had the operation a month ago if I’d known I would feel so relieved.”

“Dr. Hedgebrook is a miracle worker.”

“That he is,” Sidney Colvin concurred. He sat by the ?replace in a chair that was clearly designated as his, since no one else ever approached it. He was a pinched, sober fellow, an intellectual type who buried himself in journals and books when it was just the three of them, tossing a remark now and then into the conversation. It was when Louis showed up that the fellow blossomed. He was a real Cambridge professor of some sort. Everything about him was neatly trimmed, from the hairline below his bald pate to his close-cut beard to the tailoring of his coat.

“He  may  come  across  as  a  cold  ?sh,”  Louis  had  warned  her,  “but  he  is  the  soul  of decency. They both are. Oh, they’re proper types. You must never smoke in front of them, for example. But they have been extraordinarily kind to me.”

Fanny and Louis had shown up in London like a pair of injured birds; he nearly blind and she limping and queasy with worry. Louis’s old friends had gone into action, arranging visits from the ?nest doctor in town. They brought in food to their hotel room during the fortnight Louis was laid up, with Fanny at his bedside. It was during one of the doctor’s visits to the hotel that the venerable physician had spied Fanny’s limp, examined her foot, and pronounced her an ideal candidate for surgery.

Now she was the patient. Returning from the hospital, Fanny had come to recuperate in

the home of Mrs. Sitwell. The pair insisted she stay there and showered her with concern. They set her up on the sofa by the window, where she served as a splash of color in the subdued decor. They had thrown a tiger skin over the upholstery before settling her there, tied a yellow silk scarf around her head, swathed her in bright shawls, then sat down and gaped at her across the tea table as if she were Pocahantas.

“Mrs. Sitwell,” she said now, glancing at the piano “might I persuade you to play?” “If you can bear my little errors,” the woman said.  “I have been working on a Mozart
Sonata.”

“If there are errors, I won’t know it. I would love to hear it.” “I second that,” Colvin piped up.

“Do you play, Fanny?” Mrs. Sitwell asked. “I don’t have a musical bone in my body.”

The  woman  laughed.  “Louis  doesn’t  have  much  of  one,  either.  No  sense  of  pitch whatsoever. But he does adore music, doesn’t he? He puts his heart into that little ?ageolet of his.”

“Oh,” Fanny said. She realized she did not know he played anything. Fanny  Sitwell  had  an  appeal  of  the  pre-Raphaelite  sort,  with  sculpted  cheekbones,
straight brown  hair parted down  the middle and knotted at the back of her neck, and limpid blue eyes framed by brows ?xed in pretty concern. Apparently, she had retired her bustle, for there was none to arrange when she sat down on the piano bench. Instead, she wore cream-colored tea gowns in her home. She was all patrician loveliness: her carriage, taste, ?awless manners. In fact, she used the word “lovely” all the time, whether speaking of the sky or a friend or a rib roast.

Thank God for the piano. There were three more days to be gotten through on the sofa in this overheated ?at before Fanny and Louis could return to Paris. These people had been ever so kind, petting her and waiting on  her every desire, but she was no good as an invalid. Never had been. And the whole situation was strange, staying in the home of a woman whom Louis seemed to have desired rather heatedly at one point.  “I worshipped her,” he’d told Fanny in explaining their close friendship. “But it was merely a boy’s crush; I was so young.” “So young,” as Fanny calculated it, was only three years ago. It hadn’t been such a long a time since Louis was coming to this house, pouring out his soul to his nurturing angel, and resting his head in his Madonna’s lap.

With his eyes healed, Louis was spending time with Henley, working on the magazine. In the late afternoons, the two men would show up, brimming with excitement and ideas for London. That was when Sidney Colvin would look up from his book with a spark in his eyes and plunge into some literary debate with them.

“Do you think the Purist Movement has lost its momentum in Britain?” Henley had said over tea yesterday, in a tone that the others apparently took as provocative. Colvin’s color seemed to heighten, and he pursed the rim of his cup in his lips for a good long moment before he replied ?atly, “No, not at all.” Fanny didn’t dare ask what the movement was, for fear of appearing ignorant, but it dawned on her as the conversation proceeded that she was sitting among the vanguard of the Purists.

Now the music allowed them all a brief respite from polite conversation. What an odd relationship  her  two  hosts  had.  They  seemed  to  share  pleasure  in  being “literary discoverers.” They acted like an old married couple, yet they were careful to a fault not to show overt a?ection. Fanny doubted that any real intimacy existed. Just the promise of intimacy, probably, if only the Reverend Sitwell would kick the bucket. To be perceived as having a lover, given Mrs. Sitwell’s marital state, was out of the question. Much better to be viewed as the nourishing goddess in her salon, with her friend ever at her side. Colvin, for his part, appeared content as a favorite cat with the arrangement.

Fanny wondered if her feeling was simply raw envy. Louis had said she and Mrs. Sitwell would ?nd they had much in common: both of them separated from wretched husbands; both grieving the recent death of a child. But Fanny suspected they shared very little. Mrs. Sitwell was from a different world entirely—a world of soirees peopled by the literary lights of London. Judging from the adoration of the men around her, she was the pinnacle of British womanhood: a person of delicate sensibilities whom they trusted to be discreet, a woman whose presence was calming. She appeared to have no artistic ambitions of her own. Instead, she was the Great Appreciator, stoking the egoism of each one. If she must work now, as Louis said she did—secretary to the College for Working Women—there was no sense that the wolf had ever been at her door, as it had been for Fanny.
She didn’t long for Fanny Sitwell’s life; she just wanted a little more comfort and security in her own. She had been making do for so long, scraping together what she could. An unpretentious life but genteel in its way, literary and artful—how nice that would be. She was tired of troubles. She had a pretty little falling-down house in Oakland and a sweet

garden, but nothing like this place. Imagine what I could do with a touch of money. She let herself sink back into the cushions and picture what life as the wife of a successful writer might be. Louis would work in his study during the day. She could run the household and do her own writing. She would be his con?dante, his editor, his counsel. She was nothing like Fanny Sitwell, but she knew well enough her own attractions. Louis loved her because she wasn’t overtamed.

When Mrs. Sitwell stopped playing, Fanny applauded. Colvin had been sitting with his eyes closed, once in a while letting his toe ?y up in time to the music. “Soul-stirring,” he murmured.

The doorbell rang, and a servant ushered in Louis and Henley. They paused at the door as Henley, wearing a high-crowned hat with a ?oppy brim, leaned his crutch against the wall,  placed  his  hat  on  it,  and  used  his  cane  to  get  to  a  chair.  Louis,  to  Fanny’s astonishment, was wearing new clothes. “You’ve been shopping,” she said.
“Am I no a  bonny writer chap?” he asked in  an  exaggerated brogue. He stood back, pointed a dandyish toe, and modeled for everyone the double-breasted dark blue suit and stiff bowler.

“Lou, you look handsome in that hat,” Fanny Sitwell said. Her voice turned kittenish. “Do you remember the hat you were wearing when I first met you?”

“A straw hat, as I recall,” Louis said, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed. “A wide-awake hat, it was. You were coming up the lane to your cousin’s house with a
knapsack on your back and reading a book, oblivious to the world.”
Louis smoothed the jacket.  “Well, I can’t be going around London to see editors in ma auld tatters,” he said. “And I’m celebrating a bit.” He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it.  “This is a contract with none other than Leslie Stephen at Cornhill. He’s going to publish my essay “‘On Falling in Love.’”

Fanny’s eyes welled with tears. I miss you, she mouthed to him across the room. He shot her a tender smile, and put his hand to his chest.

“Fabulous,” Colvin was saying. “An editor of Stephen’s standing can make a career for a young writer.”

“Now, come,” Mrs. Sitwell said, “sit down and tell us everything.”

They pulled chairs around the sofa where Fanny lay, and Louis recounted the details of his meeting and the taciturn Stephen’s remark that he was a fine stylist.

“That must have cost him quite a bit, to let loose with a compliment,” Colvin remarked. “Quite a stellar day for you, my friend.”

“And Henley here is going to publish  “‘The Suicide Club,’” Louis said.  “It’s possible we could see a few pounds from it all.”

Henley’s big face puckered with delight. “It’s not out of the question. If all goes well, I intend to have the best of the new crop of writers. Louis, of course. And Henry James, and some of the others. I shall give Leslie Stephen a run for his money!”

“I don’t know if James will last,” Louis said. “His Roderick Hudson was a fair start—” “Fair start? I thought the characters were brilliantly drawn,” Fanny protested. Mrs. Sitwell turned to her, her face barely masking her astonishment that Fanny had
uttered a literary opinion. Colvin and Henley ignored the remark.

While everyone chatted, Fanny settled into the pillows at her back. She was so happy to see Louis excited and well. She saw relief on his friends’ faces, too. Clearly, Louis’s charm loosened them from their sti?ness. He was their Great Exhilarator. And Lord above, they needed one.

“Lou,” Mrs. Sitwell said warmly, squeezing Louis’s hand, “your time is coming. I always knew it would.”

Fanny put her hand into her skirt pocket, found a cigarette, pulled matches from her waist pouch, and in the spread of thirty seconds, was savoring a mouthful of smoke. Louis stopped midsentence and stared at her, his face gone slack. Fanny Sitwell appeared to bite her inner cheek, then said, “I didn’t know you smoke, Fanny.”

“I seem to have quite forgotten myself.”

“Why, it’s all right. You can smoke here.” She fetched a chine sauceer and placed it in the tea table for ashes.

“This will be the only one.” Fanny laughed. “I’m out of tobacco.” “You make your own?”

Fanny drew on her cigarette. “I do.”

“Sidney,” Fanny Sitwell said, “might I prevail upon you to go out and get some papers and tobacco?”

“Of course.”

“I should like to learn how to roll a cigarette,” Mrs. Sitwell said. “And if you can put your hands on some champagne, I do think this crowd would appreciate it.” If she was only

being polite, Mrs. Sitwell, nevertheless, was managing, to rescue the moment, judging from the look of relief on Louis’ face.

With  Colvin  gone,  the  hostess  drew  her  chair  closer  to  Louis’s  and  they  fell  into conversation  about  “art  for  art’s  sake.”  Fanny  bristled  when  she  saw  how  easily  they talked. She felt a petulant urge to burst out in her mother tongue, “It’s too blamed hot in here,” but she held herself in check. William Henley was left to hoist his great trunk up out of the little gilded chair on which he was perched and to push it nearer to Fanny. You’re quite agile for a one-legged man, she thought, and in the next instant, Thank God I didn’t say that out loud.

“I understand you might be willing to give us a spot of help with the magazine,” he said to her. “Louis says you’ve done some writing?”

“Oh yes, I have written for any number of publications. I’m an editor, too. Of course, I could  ?nd  other  writers  for  you.  Margaret  Wright  comes  to  mind.  She’s  an  American journalist who writes a column called ‘Paris Letters’ for some newspapers. She lives in my building. There are several of us writers at that address, actually. Our building is something of a haven for artists.”

Henley seemed to lose track of the thread of conversation. He grabbed hold of either side of his chair to lift his body with his mighty arms, once again trying to get comfortable on it. He wore a barely suppressed grimace much of the time, she realized. And she was struck by how big he was. No wonder Louis called him Burly. The man filled the eye.
“Are you in pain?” she asked him.

He looked at her sadly, not responding to her question. Instead, he said, “I know you lost your son. I didn’t say anything to you in Grez because I knew you were trying to get back on your feet. But you have my sympathy, Fanny.”

Fanny  stared soberly  at him.  “How  I  wish  I  might have found a  doctor as astute as yours.”

“I had lost one leg already, and my doctor wanted to take the other. When I heard Lister was having success with scrofulous tuberculosis, I went to his Edinburgh in?rmary to get treatment. That’s where I met Louis, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know. He told me that Leslie Stephen introduced you.” “Except  for  Leslie  Stephen,  who had seen  a  couple  of  my  verses,  I  was friendless in
Edinburgh. I’ll tell you no lie. I was poor as they come and desolate with loneliness. My

only companions were a couple of little boys laid up in that place alongside me. Then one day Louis appeared, unannounced. He told me he was Leslie’s friend. He was the jolliest fellow, smart and full of mischief. It was as if Puck had just walked into my room.
“I wasn’t supposed to leave the hospital, but before I knew it, he had me out of that bed. We had to get down a long stair with me like this.” Henley waved a hand at his stump. “But he did it. He had a carriage waiting, and it was spring outside.” His eyes watered. “I had been in hospital for eighteen months. He drove me around to look at the cherry trees blossoming and the blue sky. I shall never forget his kindness as long as I live. Look at me, then look at him, and you will understand the act of will it took to cart me out of that place. And not just once did he take me out. Oh, no. He came back and back.”
Henley produced a handkerchief and blew his nose furiously. “Don’t ever take the man for granted,” he said to her.  “Understand what you have, Fanny Osbourne. There’s not another one comes near him.”

Later, after she had taught everyone to roll cigarettes, after they had merrily smoked and ?nished o? three bottles of champagne, Fanny regaled them with stories of her ancestor Daniel Boone and tales of life in a Nevada mining camp. She’d told how she served barley co?ee to the Paiutes who came to the window of her cabin  every morning; how she’d battled bothersome varmints; how she’d befriended the minister called Smilin’ Jesus. The whole group burst into ?ts of laughter as she talked, especially when she used words like “varmint.” She wondered briefly if they knew she was speaking tongue in cheek.
“I didn’t know you were related to Daniel Boone and Captain Cook,” Louis whispered when he bent over her to say good night.

“Loosely,” she said.  “Daniel is on Sam’s side, and the captain on my mother’s. But it makes a better story.”

“Fanny, Fanny,” he murmured indulgently.

She smiled up at him. “I was simply obliging the audience, darlin’.”

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, kissing the top of her head. He began to leave, then turned back. “First impression?” he asked.

On  the train  to London,  she had told him that her ?rst impression  of  a  person  was practically infallible. Louis so wanted her to embrace his world. She had wanted to be embraced by it. How to tell him now that she felt out of place among his friends—that they were strange, overly mannered, and a little frightening?

She reached out her hand and rubbed the curtain fabric between her ?ngers.  “Lovely,” she said.