Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction

by Robert J. Begiebing

  “I once told her,” Sanborn put in, “that since she has grown to womanhood—and approaching her majority in but a few years, sir—it would be a slight matter then to prepare specimens that adapt to fashion.” He of course said nothing about the riot she had caused at Blackstone. And he had said nothing to her since then about supporting herself by taking likenesses.

  “Yet I’m forbidden by my guardians now to paint, or to draw.”

  “Forbidden?” Smibert said.

  “They fear certain fancies, visions,” Sanborn put in, “which Rebecca has produced on canvas and paper. They do not think such productions conducive to health of the mind and heart.”

  “They believe such paintings agitate a hypochondriacal mind,” Rebecca said.

  The old man was speechless. He looked from them to the painting. He stood and walked over to it, bending close for a good look. His attention made Sanborn very nervous.

  “A most remarkable .. . angel,” he said. “A very clever, if unusual, painting taken all around.” He straightened up slowly and turned back to them. “Well, I’ve suffered for years from a bit of the hypp myself. One learns in spite of it to get on with the work at hand.”

  Neither Sanborn nor Rebecca spoke to explain the position they were in from Rebecca’s distraction. Sanborn wondered if he might persuade the old master to take her on as a painting assistant, but that would be irregular, and it was too soon to raise such a question. Moreover, such an arrangement might come to inconvenience greatly Mr. Smibert and his family, to say nothing of subverting Colonel Browne’s wishes. Rebecca had simply arrived at a desperate pass, and there was little anyone other than her guardians could do to alter her circumstances. And even though she was about to turn eighteen, he believed the Brownes would never allow her the relative liberty of a young woman either engaged to be married or in her majority at twenty-one. The case for non compos was too much on their side. Had he not suspected, after all, that the decision to incarcerate her at Dr. Oldmixon’s was spurred on by the realization that every day she was approaching full womanhood?

  A thought he had entertained twice before, and which even Miss Norris had once broached, teased his mind again: the only solution would be for him to take Rebecca well beyond New England himself. Such a ploy would set into ruin everything he had worked for and built up over the years. In the eyes of the world she would become nothing more than “the young woman whom that fellow debauched.” It would be a case of wrecking his life and work to save hers. And in the end, she would be destroyed as well. It would be beyond all common sense. He would simply capitulate to . . . what? To an infatuation? A delicious infatuation? Though he had never mentioned the idea to Rebecca, he believed in her desperation now she might flee with him. Yet he could not discover the courage, or foolhardiness, to rush with her into a new and disordered life.

  Rebecca excused herself, rose, and returned to the canvas. Smibert turned to watch her. The men observed her from their places at the worktable. After a half hour more watching in silence, Smibert said, “Sir, I wonder if we might retire to the parlor while Miss Wentworth continues her work.”

  Once seated in the parlor, the old master asked Sanborn about Rebecca’s treatment at the hands of her guardians. Unable to hold in his secret any longer, Sanborn unburdened himself of the whole tale of his discovery of “her gifts and her madness.”

  “Good Lord, man!” Smibert finally said. “You mean to say she really is mad? Are you quite certain?”

  “I now believe that she has become distracted, at intervals, yes. But I also believe her worst descents are temporary. And her tendency to distraction has been much aggravated of late. Her guardians have allowed no channel for her powers and no relief from their admonitions.”

  “Somehow I cannot quite believe it. She strikes me rather as a prodigy of art—as one whose soul is too large to be taken with popular prejudices.” He looked at Sanborn, then down, as if he had embarrassed himself. “Still, I don’t doubt your own judgment, Daniel.” He looked at Sanborn again. “Her circumstances are most unsettling then.”

  Sanborn did not know what to say. He had seen Rebecca’s largeness of soul, but he had feared—what?—her soul overmastering her reason? He felt a wave of shame that perhaps he had not acted vigorously or truly enough upon what he admired in her—the prospect of an art worthy of the New World. Had he been incapacitated by too great a respect for convention, for his training, and for his own advantage? He couldn’t bear to contemplate the question any longer.

  “I’m at a loss,” he said instead. The thought occurred to him that even were Rebecca allowed to paint, she would never be satisfied merely producing fashionable if excellent portraits.

  “So I see,” Smibert was saying. “Such a fall into ruin for one of such gifts. What do you propose to do, after all?”

  “In the first case, I hope to print and sell a modest book of illustrations—a new Dr. Watts—that Rebecca completed some time ago.”

  “It is beautifully done?”

  “Quite beautiful. Thomas Fleet is considering the manuscript for an estimate of its value. I don’t know whether we can negotiate a price on our account to print and a portion of the sales thereafter, or an honest purchase outright. I’d hate to let it go for under twenty pounds.”

  “I see. Well, that’s good news. The more common’s an outright purchase, of course.” He thought a moment. “Fleet’s one of our most prolific—and known for his children’s books. Has his Negroes trained up as excellent printers, and I may say one of these fellows cuts excellent woodblocks for illustrations. You may of course require an accomplished printmaker for a project such as you describe. But Fleet will advise you as to feasibility on that score.”

  “And I wondered if I might ask you for an introduction at Church’s, sir, to extend the likelihood of widespread sales. Either way Mr. Fleet cares to arrange it, we should be able to negotiate a better price with the interest of Mr. Church.”

  “I should be able to help you there.”

  “Thank you. But to return to the real matter of your question: I propose to do nothing more than her guardians’ wishes. How can it be otherwise, sir? I’m out of my depth.”

  “Well, it is a kind of wisdom to recognize as much.”

  “A futile wisdom, nonetheless.”

  “You are taken with her.”

  Sanborn looked away. “Who would not be?” he finally said.

  “Who indeed?”

  “It’s like having an enchanting creature about. Not quite of this world. Unpredictable. Yet lovely, intriguing, affecting. It’s impossible to ignore her, or to forget her. It’s impossible to hand her over to others and go about one’s business.”

  “Even unto a madhouse,” the old man said. “You will return with her to Portsmouth?”

  “That’s the understanding.”

  “You believe she will marry then?”

  “I can’t see how, given the limitations her family places upon her. And considering her state of mind now.”

  “Ah, I see.” He considered a moment. “Therefore she dooms herself.”

  “So it would seem.”

  Smibert looked at the floor again, brooding a moment. “I think otherwise, from all you have told me, Daniel. Perhaps she will marry after all. It would be but to consent to a life among the living, even under duress of an unsuitable match, from her point of view. It is a duress many endure and surmount.”

  “I pray you are right, sir. But I fear the worst. She’ll be given very little more time.”

  “You must look to the brighter possibilities, Sanborn.” The old man’s face began to beam. “Perhaps her husband will prove companionable to an artist. Recall Mrs. Beale—accomplished enough to attract the attention and hire of Sir Peter Lely. Her husband managed her household, two sons, and her career while she painted her heart out. He even primed her canvases and mixed colors!”

  “I don’t think that could conceivably be the case with the two gentlemen in question, sir,” Sa
nborn said and shook his head. “They are quite unsuitable for a painting woman. And this is the New World, after all, not some center of Old World civilization and tradition.”

  The old man was quiet, as if considering Sanborn’s simple realism. “Well,” he finally said, “you are perhaps right, Daniel. Yes, no doubt you are. Things are not ripe, not yet, not here, for the likes of Rebecca Wentworth. Now . . .” He rubbed his hands and tried to sound jolly. “Perhaps she’d benefit from a bit of frivolity.” He watched to see Sanborn’s reaction. “Jervis’s Public House, for example, at the Sign of the Greyhound—about four miles out of town. Mr. Moffat would be happy to conduct you. The inn’s a favorite stopping place for pleasure parties driving out on horseback and chaise to rendezvous. Many of the gentry, of both sexes, make an evening’s promenade. The warm spring evenings might draw some of these forth in anticipation of the season. And then there’s the weekly concerts and balls, and good dancing, sir, as elegant as any I’ve witnessed in London. The ladies are quite free and affable at these gayer events.” He winked and chuckled. “And before long, we shall have turtle feasts and frolics, picnics, fishing parties, and delicious moonlit returns.”

  “She has little patience for frivolity, sir.”

  “More’s the pity, if I may say so. That is precisely what I would prescribe.”

  “You are no doubt right, sir. But I’m certain she’ll not hear of it.”

  WHEN THE MEN returned to the painting room, Rebecca turned to face them.

  “It would take another hour or two to polish this painting,” she told them, “but it’s sufficiently completed to depict my understanding of it.”

  The two men stepped over to the easel and examined the painting carefully.

  “Very unusual,” Smibert said. “You have taken my old memory and transformed it to a vision.”

  “I meant no disrespect, sir, but only to show my own ways, as requested.”

  “You have demonstrated your gifts, Miss Wentworth,” he went on. “It won’t meet with the general taste, of course, but I might offer it for sale in my shop. A few people of higher discrimination happen in from time to time.” He looked at her.

  Sanborn looked at her, too. “Why not?” he said.

  She was removing her apron. “Agreed, then,” she said. She folded the apron neatly and placed it on Smibert’s chair.

  Smibert consulted his watch, so they began to make their goodbyes. Feeling sluggish, Sanborn suggested they walk. The old painter reminded Sanborn of the clangor and danger of Boston’s streets—the heedless careening chariots and horsemen, carts, trucks, and tumbrels. He suggested they try the Mall on the Common, where ladies and gentlemen walked after their afternoon tea. In twenty minutes more Sanborn and Rebecca were back out in the fresh air, blinking and looking about them in the late afternoon sun.

  Chapter 31

  THE COMMON HAD BEEN ENCLOSED on two sides by a fence in order to protect herbage from the wear of carts and horses, and the Mall consisted of a fine green and a walkway between two rows of trees planted opposite each other. It reminded Sanborn of St. James Park in London, which served a similar pedestrian purpose. The walk ran its course along the northwest side of the Common with a beautiful view of the canal and bay.

  After a turn on the Common, he directed their steps toward the Exchange at the head of King Street. He knew it was surrounded by booksellers’ shops.

  “My goodness!” Rebecca said as they approached the Townhouse, an elegant brick building of some 125 feet in length and 40 in breadth.

  “I understand from my period of residence in Boston,” Sanborn told her, “that it replaces the wooden structure burned in the great fire.”

  When they stepped into the lower chamber of the building, Rebecca looked up at the spacious high ceiling supported by a row of wooden pillars twenty-five feet in height. She was properly awed but soon tired, she said, of looking about indoors. “I like the air better,” she suggested.

  Outside again, they entered the walk lined by shops where the merchants met every day at one o’clock, as Sanborn explained, “in imitation of the Exchange at London.”

  Rebecca couldn’t resist one of the several booksellers’ shops they passed, so they went in.

  “There is nothing like Boston for books,” he said to her as they entered. “Nothing in all the colonies. A half-dozen printing presses as well.”

  He insisted on buying a book for her. She lingered over Shaftsbury, Pope, Samuel Richardson, and others. Finally she chose Jonathan Richardson’s An Essay on the Theory of Painting. They left the store, Rebecca smiling, to attend a late book auction, the notice of which they had seen posted, by one Mr. Carlile, book vendor, on the Exchange: “A valuable and curious collection of books on most subjects, just brought from Great Britain.”

  The young merchant was already deep in his auctioneer’s patter by the time they entered. “Here must be a valuable book, ge’men,” he was saying, “for it reveals everything concerning popes, cardinals, Antichrist, and the devil.” There was a murmur of knowing laughter and a bottle of spirits made its way among the crowd. No one bidding immediately, he held aloft another: “And here, ge’men, we have come upon Tacitus, who gives such elegant account of good and pious Nero, who loved his kindred so well he sucked their blood.” Another murmur of laughter. Hands went up; bidding took place. “I am to sell every book by an inch of this candle,” Mr. Carlile called out; he smiled and motioned for the bottle to continue briskly on its rounds. These were men of heterodox tastes—snapping up Ovid’s Art of Love with The Marrow of Modern Divinity, Pamela with Anti-Pamela. Sanborn bid on Joseph Andrews, which had been highly recommended by several associates in Portsmouth but had been sold out when he had looked for it.

  After purchasing Sanborn’s book, they left the shop and headed down to Long Wharf, in a direct line with King’s Street and out into the water and where they had landed. The sea air, like their book purchases, further improved their mood. After a lengthy turn along the wharf, they decided to have a light supper of bread and milk at Wethered’s Tavern, filled with jolly merchants and shipmasters, before returning to their lodgings.

  “Thank you, again, Mr. Sanborn, for the book,” Rebecca said, as they were finishing their supper. “I’d like very much to go to my room now to begin it.”

  “I’m anxious to begin mine as well. I won’t have comfortable reading arrangements in the common room, but I may be able to find a corner to ensconce myself.”

  Later that night, long after they should have both given up their reading for the pleasures of sleep, and once his roommates had settled into their slumbers, Sanborn rose from his mattress and made his way quietly up to Rebecca’s door. He stood by listening at first, but he heard nothing. He decided to try anyway and knocked softly. He waited, hearing only the dim sounds of two or three revelers remaining below. Finally, the door opened a few inches, and she appeared in a loose white-brocade robe de chamber with silk lace around the sleeves and skirts without hoops or stays that revealed rather than enhanced her womanly shape. He was relieved to find that she was preparing for sleep; he had not awakened her.

  “Mr. Sanborn?” she said.

  “As you see, Rebecca,” he said smiling. “I couldn’t begin to fall asleep, and I wondered, if you were not asleep, whether we might have a word.”

  She thought a moment. “A word, sir? Now?” She looked at him, hesitating. “If you think it’s important, I don’t see why not.” She let him in. She did not offer him a seat in the single chair, but stood there looking at him expectantly.

  “I’ll not fiddle-faddle around, Rebecca. It’s too late for that.”

  She said nothing.

  “After much torturous thought, I’ve come to believe that you must, finally, marry. There’s no other hope for your liberty.”

  “Liberty, Mr. Sanborn?”

  “Your deliverance from the path we have been set upon, by your guardians.”

  “Dr. Oldmixon’s.”

  “Compa
red to that, you must agree, marriage—even to Mr. Wentworth—would be a deliverance.”

  “You would have me unfettered in one sense, only to be enthralled in another.”

  “You view marriage too bleakly. Your guardians only wish to ensure your security and welfare, which are delicate indeed at present, through these men of substance, who are available and willing. Comparatively, marriage, even in such circumstances, would be, rather, a disenthrallment.”

  “You cannot believe that, Mr. Sanborn, merely because my guardians do.”

  “I believe it now, Rebecca.”

  She refused to respond.

  He stepped close to her, reaching out and placing a hand on either arm just below her shoulders. Her softness nearly startled him, and he couldn’t speak at first. She looked directly at him.

  “There is, perhaps, an alternative,” he finally said.

  “An alternative.”

  “Yes. You and I could leave together, this very week. We would go somewhere beyond their reach, and you would come . . . under my protection. We could open a painting room. Somewhere. We might—”

  “Beyond their reach?” she interrupted him.

  “And why not?”

  “You underestimate their reach. They have many powerful friends and many associates in all manner of trade. I do not think there is a plantation free of their influence, the combined influence of the Wentworths and the Brownes.”

  “Surely some subterfuge is possible.” He was suddenly at a loss for words again.

  “You surprise me, Mr. Sanborn.” She laughed. “With such strange, romantic notions of the world. And it is you who accuse me of willful separation from the world.”

  She had thrown him into confusion. Her words. Her soft female redolence. Her dishabille and loose hair. Her lucidity. What had he hoped to accomplish? His own ruin?

  Then she utterly disarmed him by reaching up and placing two fingers against his cheek. “Yet I’m thankful to you. You have been a friend and protector to me, in spite of your own misgivings, which I understand. But what you suggest . . . think, Mr. Sanborn: Is it not impossible?”