Painting the Light

by Sally Cabot Gunning

  “Ida Russell,” she said. “I thought there must be a reason you changed your name in the middle of our last meeting, so I did some asking, and lo and behold, my investigation reveals you to be a real artist.” She held a finger to her lips and looked over her shoulder. “Don’t you dare tell them I said that. But I would dearly love you to speak to them. I have little talent at portraits. Surely you’ll join us?”

  “Perhaps another day.”

  Matson looked what appeared to be genuinely disappointed, but she kept on. “Then tell me how you came along with your schooners.”

  The schooners sat where they’d been left, foremasts too long, water too lifeless. “Another day,” Ida said again.

  But looking at the water as she walked home, Ida saw something she’d failed to notice earlier. The dark line at the horizon she knew about now, but the closer the water came to shore the livelier it grew, exactly the opposite of Ida’s limited seaborne experience. It was the distance that calmed it, the inability to see the detail from shore that took away all that roughness. If only the same could be said about Ezra. And why, why, why must she continually pull every thought back to Ezra?

  Because she didn’t know what to do about Ezra. Ida wished above all things she could talk to Henry about it; she wished above all things she could never talk to Henry again. But who else might she talk to about Ezra? When Ida crested the hill to spy Lem’s wagon parked in front of the barn it felt like the touch of a warm hand. Lem had called himself the best friend she had; Lem enjoyed advising Ida; why not let him advise her about this, then?

  Ida stepped into the barn and waited for her eyes to cut through the dusty light, for shapes to define themselves. She spied Lem bent over a hay rake.

  “First clear stretch of drying weather we need to get that hay in,” he said.

  We. In Lem’s mind they were a we, at least when it came to the farm, and Ida discovered she didn’t mind the thought as much as she once had. Perhaps she’d been going about the thing wrong. Yes, she’d proved she could manage on her own, but wasn’t there more to life than just managing? What if she simply stopped trying to decide things for herself and gave herself over to this we concept? After all, Lem wasn’t that old. Ida let herself drop into a fantasy of waking in the morning to find the ox stall already mucked out, the sheep already checked, the hay already in the hayrack. And thinking of Lem not that old, thinking of things Ida shouldn’t be thinking of at all, thinking of waking in the morning, Ida found she could, without a huge stretch of the imagination, back up the fantasy an hour or two earlier until she felt the warm weight of Lem beside her in the bed, felt the loss as he slipped out of it to tend to the farm. She could feel it as if it were real, the heat, the weight, the loss, and overriding it all, the lifting of her worries, the comfort in realizing she needed to decide nothing, that if she let him, Lem would handle it all. Yes, they would fight over the bicycle, the trousers, but how important was that compared to the greater freedom gained by the abdication of her responsibilities? And after all, their biggest argument, Henry Barstow, was gone.

  “I need advice,” Ida said.

  Lem cast her a sideways look. “If it’s Barstow, I think you know—”

  “I sent Mr. Barstow on his way.”

  Lem’s face changed, lit by a new—or reclaimed—respect, or perhaps . . . perhaps Ida had been reading Lem all wrong. Perhaps Lem’s antipathy to Henry had been born out of something more personal than an all-purpose moral code. Perhaps Lem had harbored fantasies of his own. There in the dim light of the barn it all seemed so simple to Ida—women were raised to marry and marry well, and if they couldn’t marry well they were expected to marry anyway. Love helped, but it had never been required; one matched up one’s practical concerns as best one could and made the most of the result, whatever it might be.

  Ida rolled a small barrel nearer where Lem was working and sat down. She pointed to the rake. “Thank you for doing this. Thank you for thinking of it. It would never have occurred to me that such work needed to be done.”

  Lem straightened, looked at Ida more closely. “That so.”

  “That so.”

  “So what advice?”

  “I wonder what you thought when Ezra first brought me home.”

  “That’s not advice, that’s opinion.”

  “Opinion, then.”

  “I thought he did well for himself. I also thought he did wrong.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t see you settling in. I didn’t see you happy. I didn’t see an unhappy wife making a happy home.”

  “You believe I could have made a happy home with Ezra if only I’d tried harder?”

  “Ida, what’s all this in aid of?”

  “I could have,” Ida said. “I could have made a happy home for Ezra. That’s what you mean, isn’t it, a happy home for Ezra? Because that was my job.”

  “It’s every woman’s job. And the man’s job is to secure that home and the means to support his family. It’s how it’s worked for a long time.”

  “No matter how unhappy I am.”

  “I want you happy, Ida. Truth is, it worries me how much I want you happy. But let me just say I don’t see you so happy now.”

  “It’s Ezra,” Ida said. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Ezra.”

  Lem bent over the rake, his face now screened from Ida, much as Henry’s had been when she’d tried to tell him about Ezra.

  Much as Henry’s had been. Wait. Did Lem already know? Why hadn’t this possibility occurred to Ida before? Someone had been reporting to Ezra about the investigator; the obvious choice for the job was Lem. And if Lem knew, if she had to listen to another man she’d trusted stutter on about why he’d said nothing to Ida, she would lose the last bit of control she’d been clinging to.

  Ida stood up. “But the man is dead. What’s to talk about now?”

  Ida left the barn. She half-expected Lem to come after her, to tell her that he knew the man wasn’t dead, that he would have told her if he’d thought it would have made her happier, that he would like to make her happier now . . . And then what? Lem would either tell Ida to leave Ezra be or he would tell Ida to get the constable. And then he would tell her how he’d had his eye on her since she’d first arrived and that was why he so disliked her riding around with Henry Barstow. In the fantasy, Ida would then do whatever Lem told her to do about Ezra, full of nothing but relief at unshouldering the burden, and then she’d say I could make you happy now . . .

  Ida saw the irony—that inside the wild fantasy was a forgiveness of Lem that Ida had not granted Henry. But Ida had never lain with Lem. Ida had never told Lem I didn’t like my own husband much. And Ida didn’t actually know Lem knew about Ezra. Or perhaps it came down to something as simple as the fact that at least for one or two brief moments in time Ida had trusted Henry . . . Ida was too tired to sort it out. And she was still without someone to talk to about Ezra.

  Exhaustion does do certain things, good and bad; it may have temporarily derailed her brain but it eventually plunged Ida into a deep sleep that caused her to wake the next morning with a clear plan. Before she talked to anyone about Ezra, she needed to talk to a lawyer, and not an island lawyer but one who had never heard the name Ezra Pease. She needed to go to Boston, and thanks to Ezra she had the money to get there without appealing to Henry. And while she was in Boston she would sell Greave the gold; thanks to Henry she had a better idea of its value, and thanks to Ezra again, she felt justified in laying her claim—at least one ring and one ear bob’s worth of nuggets were hers. And maybe once she’d escaped the island, she would be able to see her life from the right end of the telescope again.

  First Ida paid a visit to her island lawyer, Malcolm Littlefield, and asked him to put a hold on any more estate work until she contacted him again, to which he responded by handing her a bill that would wipe out her newly acquired funds. Ida next called on Mr. Howes, the new owner of the newspaper store in Vineyard Haven, who had just
arrived from Boston, and received from him the name of Dunne & Crane, a well-reputed law firm in town. Mr. Howes then grilled Ida on Vineyard Haven life: Which establishment would she recommend for a simple supper? When does the first hard frost drop down? Did she know anyone who repaired watches? To Ida’s surprise she could answer all three questions. She would recommend the Bayside; up to a point in her single dinner there with Ezra, she’d thought it fine. The first hard frost seldom came before November, but to be safe she’d plan on mid-October. She’d noticed a new card on Luce’s bulletin board offering clock repair, and if clock and watch could be said to share a similar mechanism . . . Mr. Howes thanked her with a warm smile and a free newspaper.

  Ida called Lem and asked him to mind the farm. He sounded different, or maybe he didn’t; maybe Ida sounded different and that was the noise that echoed down the wire. Lem agreed to mind the farm, but added, “Don’t think I like you traveling alone now any more than I did the last time.”

  “Oh, I won’t think that.”

  “And, Ida.”

  “What?”

  A pause filled the line. “You know you can ask me for advice anytime?”

  “I do.” It was just a matter of whether she wanted to hear it.

  The trip was simpler without Henry but longer, or rather, it seemed longer this time, without someone to chat with on the train. It grew longer still when she found herself dissecting that whole first conversation in an attempt to figure out just how long Henry had been trying to deceive her. All right, he’d never actually outright lied to her, but neither had he shared what he ought with her. He hadn’t shared his speculations. Yes, he would argue—or she could imagine him arguing—that speculations were only more untruths, more uncertainties, and besides, they were his speculations. But Ezra was Ida’s husband, not Henry’s. So Ida went, backward and forward, until the city came into view.

  It seemed dirtier than Ida had remembered it, a fact that Ida could blame on Henry also; she’d been flustered by his closeness in the car and distracted by the shifts of light in those curious brown eyes as the seamier side of the city outside floated by unseen. But even Mrs. Clarke’s boardinghouse seemed seedier than it had when she used to stroll by, Mrs. Clarke less welcoming, as if she’d be happy to take Ida’s money but would much prefer it if she—and all single women—slept outside.

  Ida dropped her bag and stepped out into the city, avoiding the dark side streets, Lem’s words bouncing between her ears. But as she walked, Ida began to feel that the Boston she once knew might be reclaimed after all; she passed a poster for another suffrage meeting at Horticultural Hall and took note of the time. But when she cut across the avenue in search of Mr. Greave she found the sign in his window removed, the office closed. She inquired in a jewelry shop for someone who might appraise gold and was sent eight blocks to a goldsmith only to be told he didn’t trade in “ore.”

  At the law firm of Dunne & Crane Ida was led into a gentleman’s office, but which gentleman it was no one bothered to explain. Either Dunne or Crane left her to sit long enough for her to inventory him from the rigid part in his hair to the cuff links made of tiny padlocks before he troubled to lift his eyes.

  “How may I advise you?” he asked in a tone that suggested he was accustomed to his advice being taken.

  Ida made an on-the-spot decision not to speak of Ezra’s exact crimes, unwilling to risk losing her right to decide for herself what to do about the man. Instead she inquired about the rules for divorcing a husband on the grounds of abandonment. The list of obstacles was long, which even Ida knew meant delay and expense; she tried again.

  “And if one’s husband were jailed?”

  That also seemed to involve an excess of complication and too many unanswerable questions. What was the crime? How long the sentence? Did the crime involve person or property? What was the chance of the verdict being overturned or the sentence commuted? Ida tried one last time. “And if lost at sea?”

  Ida watched the lawyer’s patience drain away, his suspicions flood in. “Which is it, madam? Are you abandoned, robbed, or widowed? Or is it whichever provides the greater windfall for you? You might save us both time if you go away and make up your mind before asking me to exercise mine.”

  Ida stood up. “My intention is to determine my recourse as the victim of fraud. And I have a bit of advice for you: when you meet a new client, introduce yourself, so he or she won’t make the mistake of calling you again.”

  “You may go now.”

  “And you, sir, may stay.”

  Outside the late-June air had already grown sticky in a way it never seemed to do on the island. Discovering herself to be only a few blocks from the Boston Art Club, Ida decided to stop in and see what had changed in the art world since she’d been gone. The answer: very little. The paintings that lined the walls appeared different only in Ida’s perception of them, as she now puzzled over an artist’s need to record every seam in a woman’s gown and never allow the slightest deviation in expression to show through. She walked from face to face and marveled at the thing she’d never once before troubled to note: Henry was right; nowhere could she find either a laugh or a tear.

  Ida hastened back to the boardinghouse and a meal that she downed without pausing to taste it. She retreated to her room, changed into her fresh skirt, dusted off her boots, combed and re-pinned her hair, and set off for the lecture at Horticultural Hall. A block away from the building she could see a crowd of women outside, and at first she assumed the lecture had been sold out, that women were crowding the doors to hear the inspirational words within. But as Ida drew nearer she realized the women outside were carrying signs: you don’t need a ballot to clean out your sink, don’t waste useful time on a useless vote, or your man votes for you. One sign depicted a cartoon of a man holding two squalling babies while a woman wearing a votes for women sash skipped out the door. As Ida watched, a chant welled up: “Men vote, women don’t!”

  A couple of women stood at a safe distance, observing, not participating. Ida joined them. “Who are they?” Ida asked.

  “The Antis,” one woman answered. “Otherwise known as the Massachusetts Association Opposed to the Further Extension of Suffrage for Women.”

  “But . . . why?”

  The other woman shrugged. “Why spend all that effort for a few silly votes? What good will it do?”

  “And what man would ever give it to them?” the first woman added.

  “Us,” Ida said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Give it to us, not them.”

  “Next it will be free love. Divorce. Birth control. Look there! That’s Congressman Dodge’s wife holding that sign.”

  “Well, that explains her position.”

  Both women looked at her blankly.

  Ida walked away.

  When the steamer drew close to the island and Ida could make out the jury-rigged Union Wharf, she was jolted by a feeling that came absurdly close to affection. She disembarked and went straight to the Seamen’s Bethel in hunt of Rose; she needed to tell Rose about the Antis.

  Rose stood over a table of men’s clothes, dropping items into various piles; she looked surprised to see Ida and perhaps cool, but why not? Ida had never returned to help at the Bethel as she’d promised.

  But when Ida explained about the Antis, Rose grew warm enough. “Women? These were all women?”

  “Every one.”

  Rose slumped onto a stool behind the table. “If we can’t even count on our own, we’re doomed. How many were there?”

  Ida did a mental head count. “Twenty? Twenty-five? One was a congressman’s wife. Most looked well dressed.”

  “I guess they know who buys the dresses.”

  “There’s that, I’m sure. But I can’t cast stones—I haven’t yet been successful with the one person I said I’d speak to.”

  “I’m not getting the response I’d hoped for either. ‘I’m too busy for meetings,’ ‘I’m not interested,’ ‘If my husband ever f
ound out,’ and so on. But Antis. It’s one thing if they just don’t care. But Antis—”

  Ida looked at Rose with new affection. “I’m sorry I haven’t come by.”

  Rose waved Ida’s words away. “You have your own troubles.”

  Without intending to, Ida let loose a great sigh. “More than you know.”

  Rose touched her ears, a signal clearer than words that she was available for listening, but Ida shook her head. She pointed to Rose’s pile of clothes. “I need to do my own sorting first.”

  31

  But soon Ida found it hard to sort anything but hay. As was the case with so much to do with farming, when it was time to harvest, it was time to harvest, and everything else must be left by the way. The first good reading on the barometer and the first hot bright sun in a windless sky brought Lem with Bart Robinson and his sickle bar mower. Bart nodded to Ida from his seat atop the sickle bar, but that was all he wasted in terms of a greeting; he flicked the reins and the horses moved down the field, the sickle bar flattening every blade of grass in its path.

  The next day the hay that lay in the field was dry on the top but damp on the bottom. Bart returned with a tedder hitched behind the horses this time, scooping and tossing the hay to fluff and dry it. On the third day he came with the dump rake and again scooped up the hay, but this time with the pull of a lever, he left it in evenly spaced windrows across the field.

  Now it was up to the men with the pitchforks—the only trouble was there weren’t as many men with pitchforks as there had been in previous years. Ida suspected she knew why—they were afraid they wouldn’t get paid—and Ida didn’t blame them; she was afraid they wouldn’t get paid. But the barometer had gone down a notch that morning and the formerly gentle breeze had grown argumentative; only two loads safe in the barn and Ida spied a line of black, runny clouds advancing from the horizon. She shouted for Lem, who was driving the wagon, and pointed.