by Betsy Tobin
“I know not,” she says with a sniff. “Only that the painter is there with him. Perhaps my master desires your good opinion of his likeness,” she says in a teasing voice.
As I make my way toward the library, I can think of only the money and the vial, the two things that tie me to him. When I arrive I find them taking wine, apparently awaiting me. The painter sits to one side, his satchel at his feet, his easel standing to one side, a blank piece of paper pinned to it. My master jumps up nervously as I enter, and ushers me inside with unusual politeness, adding to my growing sense of unease. He thanks me for coming so promptly and offers me a drink, which I decline. Then he gives a little cough and glances over at the painter.
“I have asked the painter to carry out a private commission,” he begins self-consciously. “It is a portrait of sorts . . . though not my own,” he adds hastily. “It is my great desire that he undertake a portrait of her, and he has kindly agreed to oblige me.” He stops then and regards me hopefully, almost as if he is awaiting my approval. I say nothing, dumb with surprise, and in a moment he turns away, crossing over to the window.
“I thought that using my description, I could assist . . . or enable him to render her likeness, but I find that I have not the facility, nor the heart, for such a task,” he says, looking out upon the grounds.
“Had the body not been taken, it might have been possible . . . if only for a few moments, for him to catch a glimpse . . .” His voice drifts off to almost nothing, then he coughs and clears his throat. “But such a course is not available to us, so we must seek other avenues. You have proven that both your loyalty and your discretion are beyond question. You knew her well, I believe, and you are capable of fine expression. I would be extremely grateful if you could assist us in our endeavor.”
He pauses, awaiting my answer. I look from him to the painter and back again, speechless.
My silence he interprets as acquiescence, and with a sigh of relief, he clasps his hands together. “I cannot thank you enough,” he says fervently, his relief almost palpable. “And I shall remain forever in your debt.” He looks from me to the painter, and a taut triangle of silence stretches out between us. Then he limps slowly to the door, where he pauses, his hand upon the door. “You will have no need of me,” he says. “My presence here will only serve as a distraction. If you’ll excuse me, I shall leave you to your task.” He nods to the painter, then turns back to me. “I shall go directly to my mother, to make your excuses, so that time will not constrain you,” he says, and then he lurches from the room, and we listen in silence to his labored gait upon the stair.
I am almost numb with surprise and disbelief. The painter clears his throat, awaiting my response.
“He wishes you to paint her?” I ask finally.
“Yes,” says the painter.
“And I am to . . . describe her?” I cannot keep the incredulity from my voice.
“Yes,” he says, almost matter-of-factly.
“Is such a thing possible?” I ask.
“That depends on you,” he says. “Your master was not . . . equal to the task.” I stare at him. There is a glimmer of amusement in his eye, as if he secretly relishes my master’s incompetence, as if he is taunting me to display my own.
“And you are?” I reply.
“I believe so, yes.”
“But your success depends on mine.”
“In a manner of speaking,” he says with a shrug.
I smile: he cannot say it. “Then you are in my hands,” I say.
His affirms this with a slight nod. “I suppose I am.”
I rise and cross to the window, just as my master has done before me. The day is cold and gray and lifeless: the death that is winter. The grass in the orchard is dotted here and there with patches of icy snow, and in the distance, a farmer leads an ox along the road, his body doubled over to avoid the icy wind. I try in vain to conjure up her face, and like a willful child, it eludes me. After a moment I turn back to him.
“The other day, your questions . . . you knew of this before?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
“And my mistress?”
“She knows nothing,” he says.
“And if I refuse?” I say.
He shrugs. “Then he must learn to live without her,” he says, seemingly indifferent. I presume he is not indifferent to his commission.
“Just as the rest of us must do,” I say. We regard each other silently for a moment, and then I turn back to the window, search the fields once again for her face. This time she comes to me in fragments: I see her eyes, and in the next instant, her hands, their long slender fingers stretched in front of me. But try as I might, I cannot see the whole. I shake my head from the effort, turn and cross the room to pour myself a glass of wine, which I stand sipping quietly for a moment. I do not for a moment believe that such a thing is possible, that through my memory and my words I can bring her to his canvas. But something in me wants to try.
“How do we proceed?” I say finally. He regards me for a moment, then reaches down to his case and retrieves a lump of charcoal, the sort I have seen him with at night, when he sketches in the tavern. He reaches for the easel, repositions it closer to him, turning the blank sheet away from me.
“Tell me everything,” he says. “Everything that you remember. Start at the beginning.”
And so I do.
As I speak, he begins to draw, his hands moving rapidly, fluently across the page. From time to time he reaches for a clean sheet, pinning it atop the others, and begins to sketch anew. I tell him of my earliest memory: the feel of her drum-tight belly against my brow, the color of her speckled eyes. I tell him of her stories, and of the light in her face when she told them. I tell him of the others: the ones that came to see her, the look of them as they entered, and the step of their gait when they took their leave. I tell him of the boy, her son, and of his appetite, and of his endless, gaping loyalty to her. I speak for what seems like hours, but contrary to his request, I do not tell him everything. That is my prerogative: I pick and choose from my memory as one might from a banquet table. I do not speak of the money hidden beneath her floorboards, nor of the tears of blood upon her death-dress, nor of the reach of the tiny arm from deep within her. These things I keep to myself, though they come to me frequently, hovering about my mind like moths worrying a flame.
At length I pause, regarding him, and eventually he lifts his eyes from the page.
“What do you draw?” I ask.
“Your words,” he says. “Your stories. It helps me to concentrate. And to remember.”
“May I see them?” I ask.
“If you wish,” he replies, his eyes meeting mine in a sort of challenge.
But something in me does not wish to see it.
“Perhaps later,” I reply.
If he is disappointed, he does not show it.
“Is there more you wish to tell me?” he asks. It is an innocent enough question, but it unsettles me, for I realize suddenly that what I have told him is not the story of her life, but the story of my life with her. And in that instant I am aware that my portion of her life was like a tiny crumb out of the whole—and the idea that I was not privy to it all leaves me with a deep feeling of resentment.
I cannot tell him that I do not mourn her death, but the lack of her in my life—a thought which strikes me as unbearably selfish. The painter peers at me.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
I look around and see that darkness has fallen outside. I feel as if I have been drained of her—and am tired from the effort of remembering. My head has begun to ache, and my throat is parched and sore.
He lays aside his charcoal with a sigh, and I sense that he too is tired.
“We will stop now,” he says. “Tomorrow we will begin in earnest.”
I watch him remove the pages from the easel, wondering what excuse my master has given to his mother. He carefully rolls them up, securing them with a string. Then he remo
ves a blackened cloth from his satchel and wipes the charcoal from his hands.
“I suppose you find us rather curious,” I say.
He lifts his eyebrows and shrugs. “All people are curious,” he says. He does not even grant us the distinction of oddity.
“These past few days . . . my master has been greatly affected,” I say. “He is not himself.”
“I envy him,” he says with sudden intensity. “I envy his devotion.” His eyes have deepened somehow and his cheeks have filled with color. And then he coughs and looks away, his embarrassment evident. Though I have talked for hours, my words nearly filling up the room, he has said almost nothing, except this last, lone utterance. It has escaped him, like a loose page fallen from a book, and as I watch him cross the room, I can already read his regret.
When he reaches the door it dawns on me that I have forgotten about the portrait in her cottage. “Meet me at the tavern this evening,” I say. “There is something I must show you.”
He turns to me and nods, and then he is gone, leaving me to face the falling darkness.
* * *
That night I return to Long Boy’s house to collect the miniature. As always, my mother is there when I arrive, but she is bone-tired and needs little coercion from me to return home. Long Boy’s fever has abated but there is a glassiness in his eyes that I find disconcerting, as if the illness has left a residue behind. He does not speak, merely lies in bed and stares at the wall. I offer him food but for once he declines, though after a time he accepts a cup of warm broth.
I wait until he falls asleep, then remove the miniature from its wooden box and hide it under my kirtle. I hurry along to the alehouse, thinking I will only stay a short while, long enough to meet the painter and show him the portrait. But when I arrive he is not yet there, so I go to the kitchen to await him.
Samuell is on his knees tending the fire when I enter, his face reddened from the heat and his hands covered in ash.
“What news of Chepton?” I ask him straightaway.
“I saw no ghosts, if that is your meaning,” he says, standing up and brushing soot from his legs. “Nor corpses either,” he adds with a smile. I think of his face the other night when he burst into the room: the whiteness of his pallor and the look of fear within his eyes.
“You saw nothing?”
He shakes his head no.
“Did you ask about?”
“Aye, and they thought I was well mad,” he says, lifting a heavy iron cauldron onto a hook over the fire. Just then Mary enters carrying a pail of water.
“Samuell, they need you in the yard,” she says. Samuell nods and slips out the back.
“You were right,” she says to me. “ ’Twas but a tale.”
“And you’ve heard nothing since?” I ask. She shakes her head no.
“Perhaps it was no more than a practical joke,” I say.
“A poor excuse for poking fun, if you ask me, at the expense of the dead,” she says, pouring water from the pail into the cauldron over the fire.
“Who knows where rumors come from?” I reply. The great-bellied woman claimed that there were fairies in the forest: that they came to us in the dead of night and whispered half-truths in our ears. Perhaps she was right.
I rise and cross to the door, peering out to see if the painter has arrived. Mary gives me a piercing look. “He is later than usual,” she says knowingly. I tell her of the miniature, and of my master’s commission. She looks at me askance.
“Why, ’tis morbid beyond belief. And you agreed?” she says, raising her eyebrows in a skeptical arch.
“I had no choice,” I say, not entirely truthfully. “It was my master’s wish.”
“And if he asked you to lie upon his bed, I suppose you’d grant him that as well?”
“I could not see the harm. He is lonely, and misses her terribly.”
“Like half the village,” she says, with a nod to the other room. “ ’Tis his own fault. He need not be alone. There are many who’d have him, with his wealth and good looks.” She turns and throws me an irreverent grin. “Let’s have a look at it then,” she adds. I remove the frame from beneath my skirts and open it. For once Mary is serious, her eyes poring over the tiny painting.
“This is a fine thing indeed,” she says with awe, cradling the tiny frame in her callused palm.
“Do you see the likeness?” I ask.
“If this is all he has to work from, then he will have a job to do,” she says doubtfully.
“It isn’t all,” I say, reaching for the portrait and closing the frame.
“I forgot,” she says with a teasing smile. “He will have you as well, and all your fine words.”
She returns to the other room, and I sit upon the stool to wait. Once again I open the frame to study the face within. The woman is indeed beautiful: more so, perhaps, than Dora, but without the same allure. The mouth is very like, especially in the fullness of the lips, and the eyes are of a similar type, but they are not a match. I will be hard-pressed to explain the differences.
The door opens suddenly and he is there, standing behind Mary, who ushers him in and then returns to the other room with a wink. The painter removes his hat and smiles apologetically. “Forgive me,” he says. “I was delayed.”
His politeness takes me by surprise and I am at a loss for words. He steps forward, indicating the portrait in my hands.
“Who is this?” he asks. I rise and hand it to him.
“I found it in her cottage,” I explain. “I think it is her mother, for there is some resemblance.”
He studies it intently for a moment, turns the frame over and peers at the signature, then shakes his head in disbelief. “This painter: I was apprenticed to him for some years before he died. He is from my country and was among the first to do this sort of work,” he says. “You did not tell me your friend was Flemish.”
“I didn’t know,” I say. Dora spoke only rarely of her past, and in the most general terms.
“The woman too,” he says, indicating the miniature.
“You know her?”
He shakes his head no. “But I have seen her likeness before. My teacher had another portrait of her, a full-size one, hidden among some old canvases in his studio. When I asked him who she was, he told me only that the portrait had not pleased her husband, and that in the end his commission had been withheld. I thought it strange at the time, for the portrait was exceptionally well-rendered, and the woman herself very beautiful.” He cradles the miniature in the palm of his hand and I feel a sudden stab of envy that I am not the one he speaks of.
“Perhaps there was something between them,” I suggest.
“Perhaps,” says the painter. “He was a married man, but his real devotion was to his work. Until that time I had no reason to suspect otherwise. Some time later I looked for the portrait and it had disappeared. I never knew whether he destroyed it, or removed it to some other place.”
We both stare at the woman in the frame. “She is indeed very beautiful,” I say.
“The woman’s family must have been wealthy for such a painting to be done.”
I think of the money hidden in the cottage: perhaps Dora had not earned it as I’d thought. But something in me resists the idea of her former life, for in my mind it feels as if she did not come across the water to us, but rather sprang straight from the sea.
“I know nothing of her family,” I say. “She never spoke of them.” The strangeness of this strikes me for the first time, for she herself had somehow disavowed her former life.
“She has a son?” he asks.
I nod. “In the village.”
“May I see him?” he asks. I pause, think of Long Boy and his glassy stare. But now he sleeps. There can be little harm in seeing him now.
“Come with me,” I tell him.
We walk in silence, the frozen soil hard beneath our soles. As we approach the cottage I grow uneasy, but when we enter I am relieved to find that he is fast asleep. I should n
ot have worried; it is late and he is but a child. His giant frame seems to stretch endlessly across the bed, and I watch as the painter takes in his size, for I have given him no warning of this fact.
“How old is he?” he asks.
“Eleven,” I reply. “He is big . . . for his age.”
“For any age,” murmurs the painter, moving closer to the bed. “Still, he has the face of a child,” he says softly. After a few moments he takes out the miniature and compares the sleeping figure of the boy with the portrait.
“Which of them did she more closely resemble?” he asks in hushed tones. It is not an easy question: she was so much herself.
“The boy,” I say finally, for he is flesh and blood, and the other is no more than pigment, though I do not say this to the painter.
“What of the shape of her face?” he asks.
“Similar to his,” I say. “But broader in the cheeks.” He nods.
“And the mouth?”
“More like the portrait.” He studies it anew.
“And the eyes?” he says, after a moment. I hesitate: this is perhaps the most difficult, for our eyes define us more than any other feature.
“They are similar to both but not a match,” I say finally.
“May I keep this?” he asks, indicating the miniature. “Only until the portrait is complete,” he adds. I hesitate. It is not mine to lend, but I have already taken liberties, and Long Boy is unlikely to miss it in his current condition.
“If you wish,” I reply. He nods and stows it in his pocket. As I watch him, a thought occurs to me, and I move closer to the bedside. “There is something else,” I say. “A diary, written in her tongue.”
The painter raises an eyebrow.
“The boy keeps it hidden with him.”
The painter too steps forward and we both stand over the sleeping figure. “On his person?”
“Beneath the bedclothes.”
He watches as I kneel down and delicately slip my hands beneath the blankets. The boy stirs, and I freeze, but after a moment he is still and I continue my search. Slowly, methodically, I work my way around his body, moving from his head down to his feet, but I find nothing.
“It was here the other day,” I say, exasperated.
