Wormwood. Chapter Six
Wormwood. Chapter Six.
Author: ghislainem70
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1185
Warnings: reference to suicide; graphic depictions of violence (entire work); explicit sex (entire work)
Summary: Sherlock, John and Lestrade become entangled in a mystery of the London art and theatre worlds.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Moffat, Gatiss, BBC et al.
Wormwood. Chapter Six.
Irene's dressing room was at the back of a dark warren of labyrinthine passages. Here one could clearly see the age of the theater, which had been built by its namesake in 1892.
Actors were hastily filing back toward the stage. Lestrade left Sherlock to assist Lt. Donovan, who would be questioning the actors regarding Irene/Beatrice’s disappearance.
Sherlock perused Irene's cramped dressing room. Here was her makeup; a tiny flagon of exotic perfume, privately mixed at Penhaligon’s and almost empty; a bottle of paracetamol, containing nothing but what it purported to be, as Sherlock confirmed by smell and taste. There were drooping bouquets from her short week of successes. Also cards from admirers. After hastily scanning each, Sherlock concluded that none seemed in any way unduly personal or intrusive, let alone threatening.
There was a small corkboard here upon which Irene had pinned a few of her own things, apparently to inspire her performance. There was a photograph of a long ago Ophelia, very acclaimed in her day. Notes of her lines in Irene’s own handwriting, with perceptive remarks about timing and emphasis.
And a museum postcard of a Pre-Raphaelite painting depicting Ophelia, lying drowning in the river, laden with flowers, her abundant coppery hair floating about her. The painting was a very famous one, Sherlock knew that much. But Sherlock knew little about art per se excepting as it pertained to means of counterfeiting it.
He plucked the colorful card from the board and turned it over. It bore a handwritten note:
"My dearest Irene,
This shall be your finest performance.
With respectful admiration,
JM"
Sherlock dashed from the theater.
* * *
The card had printing along its back stating that it was from the Tate Britain gallery shop, and that the painting depicted was "Ophelia," by Sir John Everett Millais, completed between1851 and1852.
Sherlock texted Lestrade that he was going to the Tate Gallery. Sherlock reflexively scanned his mobile for any message from John, then immediately put the thought from his mind. If he permitted himself the luxury of devoting mental resources to John now, he would be unable to function as required. He had never been more grateful for the mental challenge of a case.
Sherlock expertly ignored the painful emptiness in his chest. He once was completely comfortable with that emptiness, it had been his accustomed state, even his refuge.
Only since knowing John had that feeling ever resembled pain.
* * *
The Tate Britain was besieged by long lines waiting for the first opening of a new exhibition, "Death and the Maiden: the Cult of Death and the Pre-Raphaelites."
Sherlock passed himself off with fey charm as an art critic for the Guardian with one of a supply of false credentials that he kept on his person, and was permitted access to the gallery in advance of the crowd.
"Forty-five minutes," he was admonished, and he took his programme. The programme noted that the new exhibition, while containing several important paintings from the Tate's permanent collection, had been made possible by the generous donation of a collector who wished to remain anonymous. A collector who had lent many paintings from his own private collection, some of which had not been seen in public since first being exhibited in Victorian times.
Here there were gold-and- jewel-toned, and, oddly, explicitly erotic paintings in a quasi- religious, medieval style. Each depicted its subject in death, or in some instances at the very instant between life and death. There was several Ophelias here, but he focused his attention upon the Millais painting from Irene's card. Sir John Everett Millais, "Ophelia"
"Millais' 'Ophelia' depicts the very specific moment in time between life and death, her expression calm, all madness and despair released. The viewer feels, though, that Ophelia will imminently sink below the water to her ultimate doom," was the critical comment in the programme.
Sherlock nodded. It was true. Irene was still alive, and Moriarty wanted him to know it. But not for very much longer.
He studied the programme intently, searching at lightning speed for clues, references, points of connection.
Millais had spent six months in 1851 painting the riverbank wilderness scene by the banks of the Hogsmill River, eleven hours a day, six days a week. And Millais had painted the artist's model in the dead of winter while she reclined in a bathtub filled with water, heated by lamps beneath to keep her warm. One day, though, the lamps went out and the model became very ill as a result.
Sherlock wondered whether the bath water Irene lay in was being kept warm.
There were some other Ophelias here, somehow vulgar compared to Millais' work.
There was a black-veiled woman, "Death the Bride." Thomas Cooper Gotch, "Death the Bride"
Also several depictions of dead ladies and knights of Arthurian legend: Frank Cadogan Cowpers’ "Le Belle Dame Sans Merci," a satisfied looking maiden braiding her own hair as she bent over the dead knight fallen in the grass at her feet. Frank Cowper, "Le Belle Dame Sans Merci"
Waterhouse’s "Sleep and his half-brother, Death," two homoerotic youths reclining in a curtained bower, one asleep and one dead, and artist leaving some ambiguity as to which was which. One clutches poppies in his hands. John William Waterhouse, "Sleep and his Half-Brother Death"
Sherlock rejected these paintings, which did not appear to be of interest; indeed the entire exhibit’s atmosphere of overwrought decadence was somewhat repellent to him.
But here was a copper-haired woman seated, eyes closed, surrounded by an almost halo-like glow, again intended to show the moment before death. The woman appeared to be in ecstasy. This painting was by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a leader of the Pre-Raphaelites.
This work was called "Beata Beatrix," and depicted the beautiful and chaste Beatrice, the worshiped and unconsummated ideal love of the poet Dante. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "Beata Beatrix"
In the background is the City which Dante described as mourning her death; in the street, Dante himself passes by while gazing upon the figure of Love opposite. On the sundial near Beatrix, the hour is shown to be nine.
Beatrice. Irene.
"Beata Beatrix" was modeled by the artist's wife, who had committed suicide by an overdose of laudanum before its completion. The painting showed a bird dropping a poppy into her slack, open palm.
The programme noted that many of the exhibited paintings by the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti had originally been collected by one L.S. Lowry, an artist in his own right who painted stylized, brooding, urban landscapes. Lowry said of the women depicted in them:
"I don't like his women at all, but they fascinate me, like a snake."
Sherlock felt a twinge of fellow-feeling. Image of the hypodermic dangling from Irene's thin arm, all those years ago.
* * *
Sherlock rushed back out of the gallery, passing with the merest glance by the largest painting of all, a grandiose work standing alone, dramatically lit in an enormous carved gilt frame, called "The Funeral of Hephaestion."
This great oil painting depicted the dead comrade at arms and lover of Alexander the Great, wearing the armor of Alexander himself. The dead Hephaestion was lying upon a rich funeral pyre composed of many layers of exotic offerings from the lands conquered by Alexander and his army, Hephaestion always at his side.
There was a helpful map next to "The Funeral of Hephaestion" showing the elements of the incredibly rich details of the funeral pyre as they related to various parts of Alexander's vast empire.
The farthest-reaching outpost of which was modern Afghanistan.
To be continued...
Back to Chapter Five: ( Read more at my LJ ) Next Chapter (Seven): ( Read more at my LJ )
Author: ghislainem70
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 1185
Warnings: reference to suicide; graphic depictions of violence (entire work); explicit sex (entire work)
Summary: Sherlock, John and Lestrade become entangled in a mystery of the London art and theatre worlds.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Moffat, Gatiss, BBC et al.
Wormwood. Chapter Six.
Irene's dressing room was at the back of a dark warren of labyrinthine passages. Here one could clearly see the age of the theater, which had been built by its namesake in 1892.
Actors were hastily filing back toward the stage. Lestrade left Sherlock to assist Lt. Donovan, who would be questioning the actors regarding Irene/Beatrice’s disappearance.
Sherlock perused Irene's cramped dressing room. Here was her makeup; a tiny flagon of exotic perfume, privately mixed at Penhaligon’s and almost empty; a bottle of paracetamol, containing nothing but what it purported to be, as Sherlock confirmed by smell and taste. There were drooping bouquets from her short week of successes. Also cards from admirers. After hastily scanning each, Sherlock concluded that none seemed in any way unduly personal or intrusive, let alone threatening.
There was a small corkboard here upon which Irene had pinned a few of her own things, apparently to inspire her performance. There was a photograph of a long ago Ophelia, very acclaimed in her day. Notes of her lines in Irene’s own handwriting, with perceptive remarks about timing and emphasis.
And a museum postcard of a Pre-Raphaelite painting depicting Ophelia, lying drowning in the river, laden with flowers, her abundant coppery hair floating about her. The painting was a very famous one, Sherlock knew that much. But Sherlock knew little about art per se excepting as it pertained to means of counterfeiting it.
He plucked the colorful card from the board and turned it over. It bore a handwritten note:
"My dearest Irene,
This shall be your finest performance.
With respectful admiration,
JM"
Sherlock dashed from the theater.
* * *
The card had printing along its back stating that it was from the Tate Britain gallery shop, and that the painting depicted was "Ophelia," by Sir John Everett Millais, completed between1851 and1852.
Sherlock texted Lestrade that he was going to the Tate Gallery. Sherlock reflexively scanned his mobile for any message from John, then immediately put the thought from his mind. If he permitted himself the luxury of devoting mental resources to John now, he would be unable to function as required. He had never been more grateful for the mental challenge of a case.
Sherlock expertly ignored the painful emptiness in his chest. He once was completely comfortable with that emptiness, it had been his accustomed state, even his refuge.
Only since knowing John had that feeling ever resembled pain.
* * *
The Tate Britain was besieged by long lines waiting for the first opening of a new exhibition, "Death and the Maiden: the Cult of Death and the Pre-Raphaelites."
Sherlock passed himself off with fey charm as an art critic for the Guardian with one of a supply of false credentials that he kept on his person, and was permitted access to the gallery in advance of the crowd.
"Forty-five minutes," he was admonished, and he took his programme. The programme noted that the new exhibition, while containing several important paintings from the Tate's permanent collection, had been made possible by the generous donation of a collector who wished to remain anonymous. A collector who had lent many paintings from his own private collection, some of which had not been seen in public since first being exhibited in Victorian times.
Here there were gold-and- jewel-toned, and, oddly, explicitly erotic paintings in a quasi- religious, medieval style. Each depicted its subject in death, or in some instances at the very instant between life and death. There was several Ophelias here, but he focused his attention upon the Millais painting from Irene's card. Sir John Everett Millais, "Ophelia"
"Millais' 'Ophelia' depicts the very specific moment in time between life and death, her expression calm, all madness and despair released. The viewer feels, though, that Ophelia will imminently sink below the water to her ultimate doom," was the critical comment in the programme.
Sherlock nodded. It was true. Irene was still alive, and Moriarty wanted him to know it. But not for very much longer.
He studied the programme intently, searching at lightning speed for clues, references, points of connection.
Millais had spent six months in 1851 painting the riverbank wilderness scene by the banks of the Hogsmill River, eleven hours a day, six days a week. And Millais had painted the artist's model in the dead of winter while she reclined in a bathtub filled with water, heated by lamps beneath to keep her warm. One day, though, the lamps went out and the model became very ill as a result.
Sherlock wondered whether the bath water Irene lay in was being kept warm.
There were some other Ophelias here, somehow vulgar compared to Millais' work.
There was a black-veiled woman, "Death the Bride." Thomas Cooper Gotch, "Death the Bride"
Also several depictions of dead ladies and knights of Arthurian legend: Frank Cadogan Cowpers’ "Le Belle Dame Sans Merci," a satisfied looking maiden braiding her own hair as she bent over the dead knight fallen in the grass at her feet. Frank Cowper, "Le Belle Dame Sans Merci"
Waterhouse’s "Sleep and his half-brother, Death," two homoerotic youths reclining in a curtained bower, one asleep and one dead, and artist leaving some ambiguity as to which was which. One clutches poppies in his hands. John William Waterhouse, "Sleep and his Half-Brother Death"
Sherlock rejected these paintings, which did not appear to be of interest; indeed the entire exhibit’s atmosphere of overwrought decadence was somewhat repellent to him.
But here was a copper-haired woman seated, eyes closed, surrounded by an almost halo-like glow, again intended to show the moment before death. The woman appeared to be in ecstasy. This painting was by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a leader of the Pre-Raphaelites.
This work was called "Beata Beatrix," and depicted the beautiful and chaste Beatrice, the worshiped and unconsummated ideal love of the poet Dante. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, "Beata Beatrix"
In the background is the City which Dante described as mourning her death; in the street, Dante himself passes by while gazing upon the figure of Love opposite. On the sundial near Beatrix, the hour is shown to be nine.
Beatrice. Irene.
"Beata Beatrix" was modeled by the artist's wife, who had committed suicide by an overdose of laudanum before its completion. The painting showed a bird dropping a poppy into her slack, open palm.
The programme noted that many of the exhibited paintings by the artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti had originally been collected by one L.S. Lowry, an artist in his own right who painted stylized, brooding, urban landscapes. Lowry said of the women depicted in them:
"I don't like his women at all, but they fascinate me, like a snake."
Sherlock felt a twinge of fellow-feeling. Image of the hypodermic dangling from Irene's thin arm, all those years ago.
* * *
Sherlock rushed back out of the gallery, passing with the merest glance by the largest painting of all, a grandiose work standing alone, dramatically lit in an enormous carved gilt frame, called "The Funeral of Hephaestion."
This great oil painting depicted the dead comrade at arms and lover of Alexander the Great, wearing the armor of Alexander himself. The dead Hephaestion was lying upon a rich funeral pyre composed of many layers of exotic offerings from the lands conquered by Alexander and his army, Hephaestion always at his side.
There was a helpful map next to "The Funeral of Hephaestion" showing the elements of the incredibly rich details of the funeral pyre as they related to various parts of Alexander's vast empire.
The farthest-reaching outpost of which was modern Afghanistan.
To be continued...
Back to Chapter Five: ( Read more at my LJ ) Next Chapter (Seven): ( Read more at my LJ )