Messages of Love

'So, you have married these two beautiful young ladies,' General Tulenkov remarks to Lionel Sickert and his friend John Burchall, 'and taken them from the shores of sparkling Leman to the dark Lancashire wastes. Love is more powerful than one commonly thinks.'

Their double wedding to sisters Victoria and Katharine, it would seem, will usher in a life of prosperity and contentment in the upper echelons of Edwardian society. To John in particular, the sense of order, privilege and security th...