Painting the Light

by Sally Cabot Gunning

  Ida took the basket and looked at it. She looked at Henry. She thought of piling her paint box and paper into the basket and riding . . . where?

  Anywhere. That was the joy of it. “Thank you,” she said.

  She went after the clouds. They rolled over her as she checked the sheep, danced above the trees as she untethered the ox from the wood and led him back into the barn, followed her as she wheeled the bicycle into the yard. Her charcoal and paper fit so neatly in the basket it was as if Henry had measured, and she flushed with purpose; she was an artist, not a sheep farmer, not a scandal. Ida kept an eye on the clouds as best she could between watching out for ruts and stones, plotting the shapes and values that would best define the mood of the day.

  When Ida reached the lighthouse, she was blissfully tired and fully warmed. She sat, happy to wait for the right combination of clouds and lighthouse, shadow and light, gentle and hard, soft and stark—the redbrick column had recently been painted white and it should have taken well to her black and white charcoal on the toned paper but her fingers felt stiff. Awkward. She felt she’d gotten the lights and darks of the clouds just right, but she’d somehow missed on the shapes; for one thing they didn’t stay still, as Oliver didn’t stay still. But just as a familiar tightness gripped her brow she remembered another one of Mr. Morris’s classes. He’d stopped at her easel to study a drawing that had already turned Ida hot and impatient and out of sorts.

  “There’s nothing right about it,” she said. “It can’t be saved. It doesn’t belong in this room with the others.”

  But Mr. Morris only reached down into the pit where Ida wallowed and fished her out. “Never attack one’s own drawings. Acknowledge only and move on.”

  Ida looked and acknowledged that the problem wasn’t so much the lack of stillness in the clouds but that in her rendition they looked too solid, too stuck. She flipped over the paper and tried again, refusing to pack up until she’d created the looseness, the soft edges she was after. She rode home half pleased.

  Ida topped the hill to find Lem standing at the fence looking out over the sheep. The sight of him caused her to wobble, but she managed to leap free and land upright.

  “Pretty late to be out riding alone,” he said.

  “If that’s your way of asking if I was riding alone—”

  “It’s my way of telling you it’s near dark. If you can’t see the road—”

  “You’re right,” Ida said. “I struck a stone just there, did you notice? Come inside. I’m freezing.”

  Once inside, Ida pondered and discarded the idea of asking Lem if he’d like a whiskey, fairly sure that even if he’d like one he wouldn’t like the idea of Ida liking one. Christmas punch was one thing; straight whiskey in the middle of the week was something else. And she was damned if she was going to sit there and watch Lem drink it. “Tea?” she asked.

  Lem nodded. Ida fed wood into the range and pumped up water for the kettle. She kindled a blaze in the open fireplace and tapped the back of the chair most recently occupied by Henry. Lem sat down. The wrong kind of silence fell, as if someone were awaiting an apology. Ida could think of no reason why she owed one but could think of a reason why Lem did; such thinking did nothing to soften the silence.

  “His wife’s divorcing him,” she said finally.

  “So you go riding when she does. If she does.”

  “I don’t care what people say.”

  “Your aunt cares.”

  “She’s not my aunt.”

  “Ezra was her nephew, one of her two remaining kin. She thought the world of him. She thinks you disrespect his memory.”

  “The two of you talk about this?”

  “There’s another rumor that Barstow gave you that bicycle.”

  Ida could feel an old rage building, her mother’s voice ringing. No, you can’t drive the carriage. No, you can’t go hunting with your brothers. No, you may not ever accept a gift from a man . . . Even when the gift in question was a box of fudge. With nuts.

  Ida went to the pantry for the whiskey bottle and poured a good dollop into her teacup. She held up the bottle to Lem, ignoring the stiff neck that greeted her. “I’m chilled straight to the bone. You?” Without waiting for him to answer she poured an equal dollop into Lem’s cup. “I wanted to learn to ride a bicycle,” she said carefully. Calmly. “Henry Barstow loaned me this one. He felt—and I must say I agreed—it’s difficult to learn to ride without one.”

  Lem didn’t smile.

  “But the basket might be considered a gift, although since I’ll have no use for it once I return the bicycle, I’ll probably give that back too. I love that gift—I can carry my art supplies now. I rode to the lighthouse and worked on clouds. Come to think of it, I might keep the basket. When I get to Boston I plan to buy a bicycle of my own.”

  Lem stood up. “I’d best go.”

  “Go, then.”

  After he left, Ida sat where she was, drinking her tea, alternately flushing and paling as the conversation with Lem ran through her mind. She didn’t know what she’d expected; Lem had been one of the few people on the island who’d seemed to accept her, welcome her, but maybe he was just like the rest, closing themselves up like daylilies whenever a stranger appeared. Ida finished her tea, reached for Lem’s, and drank it down. If only she had money. She needed to leave the place before it was too late, before she turned into a whiskey-drinking recluse who could paint nothing but clouds. If only she had money. Ida peered into the teacup, but nothing was left beyond a pale gold wash. A pale gold wash.

  Ida got to her feet and took to the stairs. She fumbled the trunk away from the wall, pulled out the newspaper, and dropped the golden nuggets onto the bed. A case could be made that perhaps Ezra had come by this gold honestly, using some means Ida couldn’t fathom just yet, that he had hidden it in the closet for nothing but safekeeping, and if that were the case Ida did have money. But how much money? Not knowing for certain how Ezra had come by it, Ida was reluctant to flash it around the island.

  Ida returned to the parlor, yanked open the desk, and hauled out the business cards she’d stuffed into one of the cubbyholes. She flipped through the sheep shearer and the dentist and the wheelwright and any number of illegible dirtied cards until she came to it: Samuel A. Greave, Assayer of Fine Metals, 271 Bowdoin Street, Boston. Boston. The homesickness hit her like a northeast blow. And no matter the provenance of the gold, the first step—certainly the first step—was to find out its value. And Ida had memorized four dates on her almanac, the four dates Julia Ward Howe would be speaking at the Horticultural Hall in Boston; the first was March the second, which was Thursday next. The lambs shouldn’t have started yet. Could it be that it would all work?

  14

  Ida called Lem. “I’m going to Boston on business Thursday next,” she said. “Will you check the farm while I’m gone?”

  “Business.”

  “Personal business. I’ll be back the Friday.”

  Ida didn’t trouble to read the silence.

  “All right,” Lem said, and they were done.

  She called Henry next. Ida was no wheedler; she hated games; she began hard and clean, right where she needed to end.

  “I’m going to Boston on Thursday next and I need to pay for the boat and train and room and meals. I know an inexpensive boardinghouse on Tremont.”

  “Boston?”

  “On business. Personal business.” It had worked well enough the first time.

  This silence Ida did try to read but failed. “Very well,” he said in time. “I’ll bring the funds by.”

  Ida waited till Wednesday to call Ruth and was relieved when Hattie answered. “I’m going to Boston on business, so I’m sorry, I can’t keep Oliver tomorrow.”

  “What business?”

  “Personal.”

  “Personal!”

  “I’ll talk to you about it another time.”

  “Ida, are you all right? Is anything wrong?”

  “I’m fine.�
�

  “Is it your health?”

  “No. I’m fine.”

  “What personal—”

  “Financial, Hattie. I’m pursuing all avenues. But I’d rather not have it spread all over town.” Ida paused. “Or all over the house.”

  Silence.

  “You understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” Ida said. “We’ll chat when I return.” She was fairly sure she meant it.

  Ida pulled her town clothes off the pegs where they’d hung since she’d unpacked them to make room for Ezra’s clothes in the trunk, which still sat in the middle of the room. At first she’d forgotten all about the plan to ask Lem to take the trunk to the Bethel, and then she’d been so annoyed with him she was disinclined to ask him for a favor. Now she pulled her carpet bag off the shelf, folded in extra drawers and stockings, adding her nightdress and one extra skirt to avoid going down to dine in a mud-spattered travel outfit. The boardinghouse she had in mind was run by a Mrs. Clarke, the widowed mother of one of Mr. Morris’s art students, which would allow her to find out if he was still teaching and perhaps arrange a brief visit.

  Next Ida went out to return the ox to the barn, and just as she was exiting the wood with the animal she saw Ruth, Hattie, and Oliver coming down the track.

  Oliver raced up to examine the ox; Hattie came on fast behind him. “She’s come to find out what this personal business is,” she whispered. “I thought I’d come along in case you needed extra troops.” And to find out for herself what Ida’s personal business was.

  Ida led the ox into the barn, Oliver trailing them. “My father has oxes,” he said.

  “Oxen.”

  “Ten oxens.”

  “Ten oxen. That’s a lot.”

  “Oxen,” Oliver repeated. “What’s his name?”

  Ezra had called the ox Stub, short for stubborn, but now Ida had another idea. “He doesn’t have a name. Can you think of one?”

  Oliver dropped into his thoughtful look. “Ollie,” he said.

  “You don’t think I’ll confuse him with you?”

  “It’s Oll-ee,” Oliver said.

  So that was that. Ida moved on. “Oliver, I wanted to tell you that I’ll be away for a couple of days.” It was important to Ida that Oliver hear it from her, that he understood she would be back, but it turned out it wasn’t important to Oliver. Without a blink he gave Ollie a pat and ran back outside. Ida should have followed but instead she lingered in the barn, breathing in the animal steam, wondering how it was that she, a rising artist from Boston, was hiding out in a barn on Martha’s Vineyard in the company of an ox. She jumped when Ruth spoke from behind her.

  “I don’t think it unreasonable to expect my manager to inform me when she’s leaving town.”

  “It’s entirely reasonable.” Ida removed the ox’s harness and circled Ruth to hang it on its peg. “I assumed when I called your house and spoke to Hattie she’d alert you, which it appears she did, but next time I’ll be sure to speak with you in person. I’ve arranged for Lem to come by. Is there anything else?”

  “Funny time to be charging off.”

  “It’s the only time. I have to be here for the lambing.”

  “It must be pressing business.”

  “Pressing enough.”

  “I’d like to know what’s so pressing.”

  I’m sure you would, Ida thought. But next she thought, why not? “It appears all of my family’s assets aren’t yet accounted for. I’m off to sort it out.” Which was true. At least for a short time, Ezra had been her family, no matter the opinion of this woman still blocking the door.

  The envelope Henry dropped on the table was thicker than the last. “I see no reason for you to stay in . . . how did you describe it? An inexpensive boardinghouse? In fact I took the liberty of reserving you a room at Parker’s.”

  Ida looked from the envelope to Henry.

  “I’ll cancel it if you don’t want it, but I didn’t want to suggest it if it turned out they were full up. I’ve had another thought, which means it can all go down as estate expense; I could accompany you on this trip. That way we could visit the salvage office and close it up. What do you think?”

  Ruth. That was what Ida thought. And Lem. And even that look she’d collected from Chester Luce. What would they say when they heard that Ida and Henry Barstow had boarded the ferry together for Boston and not returned till the following night? But then she thought: the Parker House was next to the Horticultural Hall. Could it be that this would all work out? But she needed Henry to understand a few things first.

  “I have personal—”

  “As do I. But it would cut the tedium of travel and allow me to repay one of the two dinners I now owe you; Parker’s dining room is unsurpassed, and I never do enjoy a solitary meal out.”

  Everything he said made sense. Of course he made sense. And Ruth had already declared Ida a disgrace—what to lose from that quarter, other than her employment and the roof over her head?

  “If appearances are a concern,” Henry added, “we can board the ferry separately. No one could blame you if an acquaintance just happened to take the same boat.”

  No one except Ruth. Lem. Chester Luce. But staying at Parker’s. Dinner at Parker’s. A lightness filled Ida just thinking of it—the expanses of marble, the soft glow of the parlor furniture, the glittering dining room, the absence of sheep.

  “I’ll be boarding early in the morning. You’re a grown man—where and when you go isn’t my business.”

  Contrary to where and when Ida went, which appeared to be everyone’s business.

  Ida went to bed early, taking that last minute before sleep to do what she’d been doing most evenings of late, pulling the photograph of Henry’s father out of its folio and examining it under the light of the lamp. The man was and wasn’t Henry; the physical self, yes, but there was a blandness in that face that Henry’s lacked. She supposed that when your wife left you for another and your brother went down at sea some of the blandness would be erased, but some of what Ida kept seeing in Henry didn’t look like it belonged to either the wife or brother.

  Ida hadn’t yet begun the painting; she’d been unable to decide whether to remove Henry’s father from the orchard or not. A simple portrait was what she was used to, but the way the man leaned against the tree fascinated Ida, as if he were laying claim to it, as if he were physically part of it, and it had begun to seem like an amputation to cut that tree out. And what of the man’s coloring? Before she began she should ask Henry if his father possessed his same complexion or if he was paler or darker, if that light hair was the exact dried-beach-grass color as Henry’s, if the eyes were the same burnt sienna as Henry’s . . .

  It wasn’t the kind of rumination that was apt to lead to sleep, but when Ida’s eyes finally lost their focus and her mind began to go blank it only left space for something else. She bolted up, went to the closet, and opened the panel in the wall. How could she forget to pack that? She removed the gold from the paper, stuffed the nuggets into her reticule, pulled the drawstring tight and knotted it. She looked at the carpet bag. Parker House. She opened the bag, removed the extra skirt, and selected in its place a favorite old ensemble: a heliotrope and mauve dress with trumpet skirt, embroidered décolletage, and fitted bolero jacket.

  Next morning Ida rose before light and did her chores. She went inside to wash and dress, fussed idiotically over her hat, and still arrived early at the dock. She cast a brief look at the shore, noting that the Addie Todd had been refloated and anchored at the mouth of the harbor, the Newburgh had been towed off, but the wharf still contained its kink, and battered hulls and other debris still littered the beach. She boarded and took a seat as far back from the gangway as she could, and when Henry Barstow arrived he ignored her so effectively she believed he hadn’t seen her. Ida watched him select a forward seat and strike up a conversation with one of the Mayhew brothers, never once looking back.

  But on the train to
Boston Henry took another tack. He entered her car, began to pass her seat, and did a double take as graceful as a pirouette. “Mrs. Pease! How extraordinary to find you on this train.” He pointed at the empty seat beside her. “Would I be intruding?”

  Ida shook her head, too afraid she’d laugh if she spoke. He stowed his case, took out his handkerchief, wiped the cinders from the seat beside her, and sat.

  “Are you staying the night in Boston or making a day trip?”

  “I stay the night.”

  “And where—”

  “The Parker House.”

  “Ah! Of course. As am I. Where else? I wonder if I might invite you to dine there this evening or do you have other plans?”

  “I have no plans until eight this evening.”

  “There, we have that settled. Now we can sit back and enjoy the trip.”

  And to her surprise, Ida did. As a rule she found train travel dirty, smelly, and tedious, but this time, with each mile that chugged by, she felt something in her unwind; she knew no one on the train but Henry, so that was the first good news; the next good news was that Henry was good train company. He was in high spirits, he talked some, he listened some, he didn’t fight the occasional silence. He laughed just when Ida needed validation of her wit; he frowned when no other expression could be deemed appropriate; for example, when he asked if she had folk to visit in Boston and Ida told him they’d been lost at sea, a true if insufficient statement. But Ida had learned from Ezra that sympathy could be meaningless as well as cheap, that sometimes its purpose was to acquire something for the sympathizer. Ezra’s sympathy had demanded certain personal returns; if Ida read Henry’s eyes right they asked for something much more difficult to give: that she let him know her. Ida wasn’t ready to do that. She might have managed to describe her brothers and her father being sucked into the sea without a trace, but of her mother’s unforgivable act? She could not.

  But that too was all right. Ida saw at once that her refusal to elaborate was all right. When a man came through the cars selling magazines, newspapers, and candy, Henry bought one of everything, and it helped to move past the gap. They sat in silence reading, Ida sucking on sassafras and Henry on cinnamon, as the miles flowed under Ida like silk.