"Sleep, Pale Sister" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Joanne)

12

I stopped at my club, the Cocoa Tree, for a late breakfast-I couldn’t bear to eat with Effie staring at me with those dark, wounded eyes; as if I was somehow guilty of something! She had no idea of the sacrifices I made for her, the torments I endured for her sake. Nor did she care. All she cared for were her wretched books. I narrowed my eyes at The Times and tried to concentrate, but I could not read the closely spaced paragraphs; her face intruded, the image of her lips, her eyes, the grimace of horror which had come over her features when I kissed her…

Damn her games! It was too late for her to pretend that she was chaste; I knew her to the cheating core. It was for her sake that I visited that house in Crook Street-for her. To safeguard her tainted purity. A man could visit such places and need feel no compunction; after all, it was only the same as visiting a club, an exclusive gentleman’s club. I had instincts, damn her, like any man: better that I should slake them on some Haymarket whore than on my little girl. But last night there had been something about her, something different; she had been rosy-cheeked and sensual, elated and warm, the scent of grass and cedar on her skin and in her hair…She had wanted to seduce me. I knew it.

Ridiculous, that I should be the one to be made to feel unclean. Ridiculous that she should try to accuse me. I sipped my coffee, liking the smell of leather and cigar-smoke in the warm air, the muted sounds of voices-men’s voices-in the background. This morning, the very thought of women sickened me. I was glad I had burned her stupid book. Later I would go through the bookshelves and find the rest.

‘Mr Chester?’

I started, spilling coffee into the saucer in my hand. The man who had addressed me was slim and fair, with round spectacles over sharp grey eyes.

‘I’m so sorry to have disturbed you,’ he said, smiling, ‘but I was at your exhibition the other day and I was most impressed.’ He had a clipped, precise delivery and very white teeth. ‘Dr Russell,’ he prompted. ‘Francis Russell, author of The Theory and Practice of Hypnotism and Ten Case Histories of Hysteria.’

The name did seem familiar. Now I came to think of it, so did the face. I assumed I must have seen him at the exhibition.

‘Perhaps you’d care to join me in a drink of something stronger?’ suggested Russell.

I pushed aside the half-empty coffee-cup. ‘I don’t usually touch spirits,’ I said, ‘but a fresh cup of coffee would be welcome. I’m…a little tired.’

Russell nodded. ‘The pressure of the artistic temperament,’ he said. ‘Insomnia, headaches, impaired digestion…many of my patients exhibit these very symptoms.’

‘I see.’ Indeed I did; the man was simply offering his services. The thought was somehow reassuring; for a moment I had wondered whether his apparently friendly approach might conceal something more sinister. Angry with myself at the very thought, I smiled warmly at the man.

‘And what would you usually recommend in these cases?’ I asked.

For some time we spoke together. Russell was an interesting conversationalist, well versed in art and literature. We touched upon the subject of drugs; their use in symbolist art, their necessity in cases of highly strung temperaments. I mentioned Effie and was reassured that the use of laudanum-especially for a sensitive young female-was the best method of combating depression. A very sound young man, Francis Russell. After an hour of his company I found that I could begin to touch delicately upon the subject of Effie’s strange moods. I was not explicit, of course, merely hinting that my wife had odd fancies and unexplained illnesses. I was gratified to find that the doctor’s diagnosis was much like my own. My feeling of unfocused guilt-as if I had somehow been responsible for Effie’s actions of last night-receded as I learned that such feelings were not uncommon; the correct term, he informed me, was empathy and I must not allow myself to be depressed by my natural reactions.

We left the Cocoa Tree on the best of terms; we exchanged cards and promised to meet again, and it was in a far more optimistic mood that I finally made my way to the studio to meet Moses Harper, secure in my knowledge that in Russell I had an ally, a weapon against the spectres of my guilty fantasy. I had science on my side.