Paula Cohen - What Alice Knew - A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper

The woman, who had been staring at them blankly at the beginning of this speech, suddenly broke into a smile. “You live in Milarky?” she exclaimed.

“Yes, we do, though we’re often asked to perform special errands outside our fair city.”

“My daughter lives in Milarky!” said the woman excitedly. “Tessie Wells is her name. Might it be possible that you know her?”

William shot Henry a look, but he appeared not to notice.

“Tessie Wells; let’s see.” He surveyed the mother’s appearance quickly. “Medium height, light brown hair, snub nose, rather pretty?”

“That’s her!” exclaimed the woman. “You know her?”

“I think I know her slightly.” Henry nodded vaguely. “I believe I saw her with some friends of mine at a very nice restaurant not long ago. I’ll make sure to send my regards when we return.”

“Oh my word, to think that you live in Milarky and know my Tessie. Please come in. So Milarky is a lovely city, is it? Tessie writes me that she’s happy there. She even found a man who goes to work every day.”

“Yes, it’s quite common in the city for the men to work,” noted Henry.

“We wonder if we can ask you some questions regarding the death of Polly Nichols,” interrupted William, feeling that Henry had perhaps gone too far in the direction of extolling a city he had never visited and of expressing knowledge of someone whom he had never met. “We’re told that you knew the girl and might share information with us that you were unwilling to give the police.”

“The police be damned!” asserted the woman. “They took away my Tommy. He’s no angel, but they could at least charge him with something he actually done.”

“Quite true,” said Henry. “One would want to be accused correctly.”

“They said he stole a china plate, can you imagine?” continued the woman in an incensed tone. “Tommy has no use for a china plate! A horse, maybe, a barrel of ale, I could understand. But a china plate? It’s as false an accusation as you could ever lay on a man.”

“We’ll do our best to look into it,” said Henry, as William gave him another warning glance.

“If you would, I’d be indebted to you,” said the woman, casting her eyes up at Henry with a look of adoration that William found particularly annoying.

“Polly Nichols,” repeated William, “we’re told you have some thoughts about her activities that might have bearing on her death.”

“Well,” said the woman doubtfully, “I can’t say if it means anything.”

“Let us be the judge of that, ma’am,” said Henry in his most ingratiating tone.

“Well…it’s just that I know Polly went somewhere a few evenings a week, and wherever it was, she got paid for going there.”

“Is that surprising?” asked William.

“It wasn’t what you think.” The woman shook her head. “Not that Polly didn’t have business in that way too. But this wasn’t favors; it was something else, only she wouldn’t say what.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“No,” sighed Mary. “But I know it weren’t far. I know ’cause she walked, and once I saw her come back after only an hour or so. She had her cardigan buttoned wrong.”

“That would suggest—”

“Yes, I know, but she said express it wasn’t that. It was more of a highbrow sort of thing, she said. But she’d promised not to say more. I don’t know if it got to do with her death, and it probably don’t. You find all kinds that prowl around here and have odd tastes. Polly wasn’t one to judge.”

“But she said it was something highbrow?”

“Yes. Can’t say what she meant by that.”

“Well, if anything more occurs to you, please let us know,” said William, scribbling his name and Henry’s address, 34 De Vere Gardens, Kensington, on a sheet of paper and handing it to her.

She looked at it doubtfully.

“It’s his lodging,” said William, a bit miffed. “He’s here for a longer duration, and I’m staying with him.”

The woman’s concern appeared to be assuaged, and she addressed Henry again in a supplicating tone. “You’ll say hello to my Tessie when you see her, won’t you? And as I think on it, wait here.” She hurried from the room and returned in a moment with a package wrapped in brown paper. “It’s just a cardigan I made and a jar of one of her favorite jellies. I’d be more than obliged if you could get them to her. Here’s her address.” She extracted a postcard from the pocket of her apron and handed it to Henry, along with the package that she had obviously prepared in advance in the hope she could find someone to mail it for her.

“It would be my pleasure,” said Henry. “Your daughter is fortunate to have such a devoted mother.” He took the package and bowed his head gallantly.

After they left, William looked at his brother with exasperation. “Now what are you going to do with that?” He motioned to the package.

“I’m going to send it to Howells, who will make sure the girl gets it. Howells knows people, you know.”

“Your capacity to lie with aplomb disturbs me.”

Henry bristled. “I don’t lie,” he protested, “I make things up. There’s a great difference between the two. I may not have literally been to Milwaukee, but I have visited the city in my imagination; I may even have created a character who lived there. I shall write the girl a note to be delivered with the package, in which I extol the virtues of her mother. I will get a complete report from Howells’s emissary as to how she is doing. I am not as socially indifferent as you think. I daresay I see people more clearly in their human context than you, who are continually seeking to insert them into a theoretical one.”

“You were helpful,” admitted William grudgingly. “Thank you for accompanying me.”

“You’re welcome,” said Henry, trying not to show that the acknowledgment touched him. He had achieved a modicum of success with his novels, and he had a profile of sorts in society. But William had always treated him dismissively, had viewed his life as frivolous, and had denigrated his writing, if only by failing to read it. These things pained Henry deeply, though he pretended not to care. For more even than social acclaim and fortune, more even than literary immortality, he desired the good opinion of his older brother.

Not long after Henry and William left Alice’s flat, Sally entered her employer’s bedroom to announce that Mr. and Miss Sargent were downstairs. “They say to tell you as you don’t have to see ’em if you don’t want, as they don’t want to disturb you if you’re resting.”

It was a typical sort of message from the Sargents, who were always extravagantly polite and unassuming. They had a long-standing friendship with the James family and treated Alice with particular reverence because of their instinctive belief that she was a uniquely gifted person. As a result, even today, when Alice had planned to review newspaper clippings of the murders, she was willing to put aside her work and welcome their visit.

“Show them in,” she instructed Sally, “and bring us some tea.”

A tall man and a small woman with a slight limp entered the room. Emily Sargent ran to kiss Alice and Katherine and then immediately began helping arrange the furniture. She had been the victim of a debilitating spinal disease in childhood and had suffered years of pain, but it did not appear to have embittered her or slowed her down in the least. On the contrary, she was the most loving and congenial sort of person, energetically devoted to her friends, but most devoted of all to her brother, whose talent she worshipped. Everyone agreed that John Singer Sargent’s ability to paint as freely as he did and to shrug off any criticism that came his way was because he had his sister to take care of everything and sing his praises all day long.