Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction (20 page)

“I would be honored,” Smibert said. He appeared genuinely curious himself now.

She curtsied and walked over to the easel with the fresh landscape. She looked at it a few minutes, saying nothing further.

“From a long-ago memory,” Smibert said. “Memory is now my better eye.”

“Italy?” she asked.

“Outside Florence,” he said. “The ranges of hills there. You must see for yourself some day.”

“If I were allowed,” she said, still looking at the landscape.

The two men looked at one another. Rebecca removed her traveling cloak and smoothed her dress. “Have you an apron?” she asked. “Or a smock that might fit?” She held out her arms as if to demonstrate her proper size.

Smibert left the room and returned with an apron and an old shawl, to cover her arms and bodice somewhat more. While he was gone, she chose her brushes, palette knife, maulstick, and a comfortable palette. Then she turned to the colors assorted on one of his worktables. When her traveling dress was covered, she carefully set the master's landscape down off the easel and left it facing her against a chair leg, about five feet from her. Then without further conversation or delay, she placed a canvas on the easel and began, as was her habit, to paint from right to left a quick approximation of Smibert's Tuscan landscape. The two men took chairs behind her and observed the process. Their eyes seemed not to trouble her in the least, as if the men had ceased to occupy the room with her.

When the canvas was filled with her initial layering (which, in the past, would have served as well for a finish) she stepped back for a quick look. Then she renewed her palette and returned to the canvas again. Smibert looked at Sanborn. He was clearly affected. They did not speak. The painting now began to take on deeper, richer qualities. Details of the olive trees and the fields in the foreground were becoming suddenly discernable. A strange yet beautiful light began to suffuse the painting, and when she turned her brush upon the sky, an angelic being began to emanate from the hazy blue, as if some medieval papist were quickened through Rebecca to manipulate her brush.

Nearly two hours had passed when Smibert slowly stood up holding his back, as if he comprehended it all, finally—her rapid brushstrokes, her profluent fancy and vision, the quirky superiority of her painting compared to his own efforts to amuse himself idling in a remembered landscape. She ignored his pacing the floor behind her.

Sanborn looked carefully at the angelic being. There was no halo or Christian emblem. It was rather like a man-woman, but perfectly at home in the sky, smoothly integrated into its proper milieu. Occasionally he exchanged glances with Smibert.

Finally Smibert ceased his pacing and scrutinizing and sat down again beside Sanborn. He groaned as he adjusted his weary bones, leaned over to Sanborn, and said in a low voice, “Refreshment.”

Sanborn turned to look at him.

“Refreshment,” he repeated, his voice louder now. “What would you care for?” He looked toward Rebecca, too. “Cakes and cider? Or perhaps we should dine. Yes, it has passed two of the clock.” He got up and went over to another worktable where he found a little bell, which he rang vigorously. Soon Phyllis appeared. Within another thirty minutes, she returned with two trays of boiled beef dinners. Through it all, Rebecca had not stopped painting.

Smibert politely insisted she partake of the meal with them. By then her landscape was well under way. She had worked it through perhaps four layers, in that new style for her, but still always moving right to left across the canvas. While they partook of the meal on the worktable, which Smibert had cleared off quickly, they considered the painting.

“The most unusual technique I've ever beheld,” the old man said after consuming several large forkfuls of beef and cabbage.

“I knew you'd see it to be,” Sanborn said. “I can assure you, sir, she has been most amazing from childhood.” He had been anxious over whether the master would consider Rebecca's revision of his Italian landscape offensive to him. But the old man did not seem agitated.

“But how . . . ? Where did you learn, or study, my dear?” Smibert asked.

“Nowhere, sir. I had only drawing lessons of my tutor, and a bit of painting on glass, like spinet lessons. But she lent me some of her instruction booklets as to mixing and applying colors. And then Mr. Sanborn has been so kind as to offer a word now and then of advice.”

“I see,” he replied, taking another bite. “Extraordinary.” He looked at Sanborn in an honest and disarming manner, “A wonderful prodigy, sir. Never seen anything quite like it myself.” He looked at Rebecca again, still chewing. “Though the prodigious woman-child is something of a commonplace among those later known for their palette and brush. Clara Peeters, Giovanna Garzoni, Elisabetta Sirani, Louise Moillon, and Rosalba Carriera. Still, it is something to behold oneself, even in a more mature young lady like Miss Wentworth.” He thought a moment. “Have you tried limning, Miss Wentworth?”

“Seldom,” she said.

“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,” Sanborn 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.”