The Drowning Tree (26 page)

As birds. Or trees. Or pure water. Who knew Neil would take the
Metamorphoses
of Ovid so literally?

“When Neil finally understood that
and
he started taking the Pieridine, he was able to work out his pain at what had happened between you by painting it. I believe that many cyclothymic artists work through their cycles of depression and hypomania by creating—by painting or composing or writing. The Pieridine doesn’t totally cure Neil of his disorder but it lessens it to a manageable level while leaving him capable of using his art to work through milder cycles of depression and mania. Most of the paintings you see in here were done while we were regulating the dosage of the Pieridine. The storm, you see, represents his mania—a force always hovering on the horizon threatening to overtake him. The symbolism may be a little trite …”

“But the paintings aren’t,” I finish for him. I find I can’t bear to listen to Dr. Horace apologize for Neil’s paintings. They don’t need any apology. Looking from one to another I’m struck by their beauty, by how the simple elements of landscape—a river, two mountains, a few trees and some weather—can evoke such a spectrum of emotions.

“Does he always paint this stretch of the river?” I ask. “It’s not what you would see from here.”

“No, it’s not. He wanted to paint the area around Storm King precisely because it was where your accident took place—”

“Actually, the
incident
took place south of the area in the paintings—World’s End is just around this outcropping—” I point at one of the paintings. “—which is called Martyr’s Rock.”

“I suppose he wanted to paint the
approach
to the actual location.” Dr. Horace sounds impatient with my geographical nit-picking. “At first he did it from memory and then, as he got better, I offered to take him on boat trips down the river. Frankly, I had to field quite a bit of opposition from the board, but our outings were not without precedent. Our other great artist-inmate was taken on frequent sketching outings, as I’m sure your poor friend Christine must have mentioned to you before she died.”

I’m startled by his mention of Christine. I’ve been so engrossed in his tale of Neil’s recovery that I’d nearly forgotten that half my purpose in coming here today was to find out more about Christine’s visit here last month.

“So you know about Christine’s death?”

“Of course. I would have gone to the funeral but one of my patients committed suicide last night and I had to notify her parents this morning.” Dr. Horace shakes his head. “A very sad business,” he says, and then, drawing himself back to Christine’s case, continues, “I recognized, of course, that Christine’s heightened interest in Clare Barovier had many of the signposts of a hypomanic episode, but I understood that she was under a psychiatrist’s care and was taking an antidepressant. I wouldn’t have predicted that she’d commit suicide, but then there is the family history.”

“So you told her about her father?”

Dr. Horace sighs, the energy that’s buoyed him up throughout our talk suddenly seeping out of him. “Yes. I thought she knew. It came up when we were discussing Clare’s work.”

“But how?”

“That’s difficult to explain. Perhaps we should sit down.” He motions to the two club chairs positioned on either side of the window. Sinking into the well-upholstered chair I realize how tired I am. It’s been a long day; I can hardly believe it’s still the day of Christine’s funeral.

“As I imagine her aunt Amy already told you, Christine came
here … oh, sometime in May. I remember it was soon after the Phystech conference in Bermuda—that’s the drug company that manufactures Pieridine. She said she was researching the Lady window at the Penrose library and that she believed the window depicted not Eugenie Penrose, but her sister, Clare Barovier. I told her I thought she was right.”

“You do?”

“Absolutely, I’ve thought so for some time. Of course, I never met Clare Barovier because she died in the sixties, a decade before I took over here, but I’ve seen pictures of her in our archives and she bears a striking resemblance to the woman in that window.”

“But so does Eugenie Penrose. After all, they were sisters.”

“True, and painting on glass is not as effective in creating a likeness as a sketch—or oil portraiture. I imagine that’s why Augustus Penrose thought he could get away with doing a portrait of his wife’s sister right in front of his wife. She couldn’t say for sure that the portrait wasn’t of herself, but I bet she had her suspicions.”

“ ‘Here with her face doth memory sit,’ ” I say.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s from a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Eugenie wrote it in her notebook under her preliminary sketches of the window. Christine quoted it in her lecture as evidence that the portrait called to mind her sister.”

“I can’t imagine that it would have been a pleasant reminder to Eugenie. She never visited her sister once in all the years that Clare was here.”

“Not once? How can you be sure?”

“My predecessor, Dr. Peabody, kept excellent records.”

“Poor Clare. Her own sister,” I say, wondering if it’s what people said when I stopped visiting Neil.
Poor Neil. His own wife
.

“Well, she didn’t lack for visitors. Augustus Penrose visited her once a week until the last months of his life.”

“And you told Christine that?”

“Well, that’s the thing; she not only knew that Augustus visited Clare, she also had the idea that he took her out on weekend excursions to Astolat which, I told her, was very unlikely.”

“Where’d she get that idea?”

“From her family. Remember, the Webbs have worked here for generations. Someone told Christine that when her father was little he was invited on board Penrose’s yacht and that he told everyone he’d been taken to a ‘marvelous palace’ on the river with a beautiful woman.”

“Amy said something about a family story in which Clare Barovier took children along with her on her boating trips to sketch their portraits.”

“That’s probably how the story got started. I think she did sketch pictures of children of the staff members, but I doubt she and Augustus took them on trips down the river. I guess it was one of those stories that get passed around and become part of family lore. One of Christine’s aunts—I’m not sure which one, but I don’t think it was Amy—said that Edward bragged about that boat trip all his life until it became several boat trips as the years went on. Christine thought it was proof that Augustus was taking Clare to Astolat. I told her that under the circumstances she shouldn’t put too much stock in a secondhand story from her father.”

“And then she asked what circumstances.”

“Exactly. That’s when I realized she’d never been told that he killed himself. I tried to evade her questions, but you know Christine. Once she saw I was keeping something from her she was like a pit bull on a poodle.” Dr. Horace grins. I’ve heard Christine compared to a pit bull recently—by Gavin Penrose—but I still don’t think it’s an apt analogy. She was much more like one of my greyhounds, both in looks and how she’d lean into a thing until it yielded to her gentle but persistent pressure. Dr. Horace, however, with his pink cheeks, wispy silvery hair, and pink bow tie, does look a little like a poodle. I almost feel sorry for him, but then I remind myself that his careless slip might well have led Christine to take her own life. It strikes me that Dr. Horace is altogether too cavalier about his responsibilities. Maybe running an antiquated private hospital like Briarwood isn’t such a plum position in the psychiatric field. Maybe it’s the kind of job where socializing with the Briarwood trustees and the rich families of his patients—families anxious to keep their addlebrained relatives safely out of sight—is a more highly valued skill than psychiatric finesse.

“So you told her that her father was a suicide,” I conclude. “She must have been shocked.”

“She became very quiet, but then she said that actually it explained a lot of things.”

“Did she say what she meant?”

“No. She was suddenly very anxious to go. I thought she wanted to be by herself to process what she had just learned. I suggested she stay and discuss the impact of her father’s suicide on her, but she declined my offer. She said she had a lecture to prepare—oh, and that’s when she asked if I could put her in touch with Neil.”

“She did? But why?”

“She said she wanted to discuss Clare Barovier’s paintings with him. After all, he’d lived with them for years. She talked quite a bit to poor Daria Cohen, as well, because she was living in the suite then …”

“Daria Cohen? Who’s she?”

“The woman who had this suite … I mentioned her earlier …”

Dr. Horace looks flustered. It takes me a moment to put together the “suicide” he mentioned earlier and “poor Daria” and realize that we’re sitting in the room of the woman who killed herself just last night. It’s worse, in a way, than the wild-haired specter I’d been imagining.

“…  but Christine was more interested in Neil,” Dr. Horace goes on, anxious to be off the subject of
poor Daria
, “because it was obvious that his own paintings were influenced by Clare’s.”

“They were?”

“Yes, do you want to see them?” Dr. Horace is out of his chair before I can answer, glad, I think, to switch the conversation to yet another art tour. I’m not quite ready, though, to let him off the hook. I stop him at the door to the adjoining room by laying a hand on his seersucker sleeve.

“Don’t you think it was a little irresponsible to give her Neil’s number? I mean, she’d just learned that her father killed himself and then you hook her up with someone as unstable as Neil—”

“Oh, I’d never give out Neil’s phone number. It’s my responsibility to protect the privacy of my patients—even former patients. I offered to give her number to Neil.”

Dr. Horace swings open the door and gestures for me to go in ahead
of him, apparently unaware that his answer seems worse to me than my original accusation, but I’m not ready to go into the other room yet. “And you did? You gave Christine’s number to Neil?”

“Yes. He seemed pleased that she was willing to speak with him. The poor boy feels like a pariah to all his former friends.”

“Maybe that’s because he could be a threat to those friends,” I say, thinking more of Bea than of myself.

Dr. Horace looks at me with an expression of deep disappointment. “Do you honestly think that I would have signed Neil’s release papers if I thought that were true? That’s just the kind of attitude, though, from which I wish to protect Neil.”

“Protect Neil!” I say a bit more vehemently than I’d intended, but I can hardly believe that Dr. Horace’s priority is protecting Neil from me and Christine and not vice versa. Although I hadn’t decided on asking for Neil’s number the idea that he might not give it to me is infuriating. “Do you mean to say that if I asked for his number—or for that gallery show notice—you’d refuse? Even though it was Neil who almost killed me and my daughter?”

“Well, with that attitude I certainly would, but—” Dr. Horace furrows his brow as if he might be relenting. Perhaps he’s thinking of possible lawsuits in case something does happen to me or Bea. Perhaps it’s occurred to him—as it has to me—that the last person whose phone number he gave to Neil has ended up dead. “—the gallery show
is
a public event. I’m sure you could find out about it if you wanted to.” His fingers dip into the pocket of his suit jacket, where they flutter against the fabric for a moment like a trapped moth. “I’d have to let Neil know that you might come—and I’d hope that you’d act maturely.”

I sigh, half in exasperation, half because I’m tired of fighting. “The last thing I want to do is confront Neil in a public place. I just want to see for myself that he’s really better—so I can tell Bea.”

Dr. Horace gives me a long clinical look—that pupil-measuring look again—and then nods. He pulls from his pocket a postcard and hands it to me. I look down at the picture and have the impression that the scene depicted on it is a place I’ve been to before. A stream flows through mountains and then pours itself into a still, green pool, darkened under the
shade of a weeping beech, white water lilies glowing like stars on the velvety water.

“I’ve seen this before—” I start to tell Dr. Horace, but he’s walked into the suite’s living room ahead of me so I follow him. For a moment I think that I’ve stepped back into Christine’s bedroom with its walls plastered with Augustus Penrose’s prints only all the figures, the nymphs and water gods—have disappeared, leaving only the lily pond and the weeping beech, the stream and the mountains. It’s the same landscape painted over and over again—the same as Neil’s painting on the postcard—and the same scene that’s laid out in pieces of glass back at my studio.

I
T WAS TO THOSE PIECES OF GLASS THAT
I
TURNED MY ATTENTION IN THE DAYS
following Christine’s funeral and my visit to Briarwood. We’d dedicated the light table to the landscape section of the window because it was the part of the restoration that was giving us the most trouble. The rest of the window was relatively simple to reassemble because Penrose had, for the most part, used only a single layer of glass in the figure of the lady and the furniture of her room. The landscape in the window, however, was composed of many layers of glass.