Rebecca Wentworth's Distraction (24 page)

They bantered as they returned to the manse. Neither of them seemed to have the heart to dwell upon old wounds or old difficulties. Rebecca, her son, and daughter too, were, above all, safe now. They had come to anchor in the placid harbor of Wentworthian largesse.

T
HAT NIGHT,
however, his dreams were troubled. There was something of a woman in white beneath the waters of the great turbid river. He rose from his bed and went to the window. First light, duller than moon glow, swept the grounds beneath his second-story window. An edge of the river was just visible, the current a swift torrent of dark tidal flow. He turned from the window and began to pace. Why was he troubled? Why wakened? Over the past two years he had first learned to live with and overcome the pain of her absence from his immediate life, and he had felt gratified knowing of Rebecca's safety, of her elegance, poise, and beauty. She had entered life here. He had no idea what she had come to feel for her husband, but she loved her children—he was sure of that. But now, now: Was the pain he had long buried within him to be awakened all over again?

He returned to the window, to the dull light in the garden and the deep river below. Suddenly a ghostly figure stepped from the cover of a tree by the water's edge. A white cape and hood, almost the whiteness of ermine from this distance. A woman? The shade of the aunt, of the great-grandmother?

A small dog appeared suddenly beside her. The dog ran tireless circles tangential to her mistress's ankles. There was the appearance of a predawn ritual, together. The dog and the woman connected by affection, by familiarity and custom. Two creatures of the gray hour, the hour of crows, the hour of rebellion and quietude.

He ran downstairs in his bare feet, a fool who did not consider the proprieties. He ran to her out in the light fog on the grass between the walkways and ample planting beds.

“Rebecca! Rebecca! Is that you?” He did not know even what he said, or why, as he ran toward her. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Mr. Sanborn!” She looked at him in his nightshirt and flannel cap. He must have been, he thought later, an absurdly comical figure.

“The river!” He was inchoate and strangely inconsolable. He ran to her and held her, as if he were protecting her from the hungry river, as if he needed to feel the surety of her corporal existence. In her astonishment, in the entanglements of the small dog barking and growling now, in her sudden confusion, it was clear to him that she did not know what he wanted or what he was doing.

He held her. He kissed her brow and cheek. She was alive. He was sure of that now, as if that was all he needed to be sure of.

“You had been terribly close to the river.” He couldn't ask her the question in his mind.

She pulled away and gave him a curious look. “I can walk close at this hour, with Misty here. She keeps me landed.” She laughed a little. “She's my little protector. Together we can face the river, tread along its closest margins, and rejoin the rising day.”

He held her still, at arm's length. “My dear lady.”

“You were frightened for me,” she said, without surprise or question in her voice.

“The river,” he said again, as if that explained everything.

She stepped away and looked at him. “Yes. The river and I are like old friends at this hour.”

He followed her, stepping in beside her as she continued up the incline toward the great house. They remained speechless for a time and watched Misty, once again settled into her revolutions about her mistress's feet.

“Is ten o'clock all right?” she finally asked.

“Ten o'clock?” he said, his mind still foggy. “Yes. For the sitting? Yes. Ten would be fine.”

She looked at him, amused. For the first time he was painfully aware of the ridiculous figure he cut on the cold morning grass. He began to shiver; he folded his arms about him and let out a laugh.

Chapter 36

D
URING THE SECOND SITTING,
the little boy charmed him. Giles came out of the restraints of shyness from the first sitting. He began to talk in snatches, in phrases, and to get down from his mother's lap. He tottered around and gave rein to his curiosity about Sanborn's painting equipage.

The autumnal river fog had lifted and the morning was bright. Sunlight poured into the conservatory. Rebecca resumed the dress she had worn yesterday and her dress and hair seemed to glow in the light. Little Giles, however, was dressed less formally now. He seemed to act appropriately, as if considering his liberty of clothes. Rebecca indulged him rather more than most mothers indulged their children, but the boy was always well enough behaved, or at least in Sanborn's eyes. He had seen children who were raised under a strict regime, yet who were nonetheless downright feral in habit and demeanor. Somehow her milder presence restrained the boy. He would point at some piece of equipment or bladder of color and blurt out a sort of question: “That?” or “This?” Or some less recognizable interrogative. But he never grabbed or flung himself at physical objects that gathered his energetic interest. His wondering hazel eyes looked up directly at Sanborn for answers and assurances. His hands and fingers would reach out but refrain from touching, unless Sanborn handed him some harmless trinket. Then the child would take it, perhaps taste it, assess its solidity and reality and possible functions. Rebecca found these interchanges amusing. Sanborn's heart lightened in turn.

But the progress of the painting slowed over these domestic pleasures. He knew his ultimate patron, Squire Paine Wentworth, would want to see and approve the portrait before full payment, and out of the courtesy of a viewing, so Sanborn forced himself back to work.

“If you wish, Rebecca,” he said, “you can have the boy out from under. I've got enough of him for now, probably for the finish as well. He may prefer other amusements anyway, a little less painterly tedium.”

She called the governess, and the child was removed after a kiss from his mother. Sanborn could not tell whether Rebecca felt a strange, even awkward intimacy, as he suddenly did, being left alone in the room together. He had yet to see her husband, who had been away on some errand or another of commerce. They had barely spoken of him, or of Rebecca's life with the squire. There was only the abundant material evidence of polish, comfort, and gentility. And Wentworth had indulged her eccentric wish for an impractical room such as this. They must, he assumed, be on good terms, despite her original misgivings over his extraordinary unsuitability. To Sanborn's mind there was a mystery here. Had she seemed unhappy or disgruntled or under distasteful restraint, he would have understood better her reluctant accommodations to grinding necessity.

His only doubt was what appeared to him as both her fear and love of the river. For a brief moment he saw the Piscataqua River looming in her life like a great stream of ambivalence in the deeper currents of herself, an ambivalence she must have managed to suppress or ignore. Or, and here was that more comforting thought again, she had simply changed, “grown up,” as people say, and found her proper place in life. What need one with visions when one had all this?

Such thoughts, as he worked on the painting with Rebecca looking at him, were not coherent. They were mere random flashes of intuition and musing, like fish spooked in their garden pool.

“He's a good little boy,” Sanborn finally said, to stop the rattling voice in his own head. “You've done a wonderful job with him.” He chuckled.

She said nothing at first, but only continued to observe him, as if merely watching him work entertained her. He was busy with a point of difficulty in the coloring of flesh tones, so he was able to avoid returning her gaze.

“Yes” she said. “He's a comfort to me, as I am to him.” She laughed a little herself. “Mr. Wentworth loves him, also, of course. But the lad seems to ingratiate himself with his elders readily. He never demands much of us, and he has that easy and hesitant way about him, as you've seen for yourself.”

“I see that, yes. He's a child easy to have about.”

“And he loves to draw. Just silly things. Or just splashes of watercolor. I purchased a set for him.”

“Is that so? Well, he comes by that honestly.”

She hesitated again. “I've not discouraged him, though as he grows older I doubt his father shall want him pottering about with colors and canvases. Mr. Wentworth has already contracted a tutor for Greek and Latin, and mathematics, when the boy turns four or five. He's very ambitious for his son. I don't look forward to the days when, as a young man, he will be apart from me—in Boston and Cambridge, in London no doubt, even in Portsmouth still too busy to see his aging mother. So I make the most of it now while he is still mine.” She smiled. “And my little girl will be with me somewhat longer. That comforts me.”

“He will certainly have every advantage. It's a better life than, well, than some other. He shall never want.” He looked at her. No, he thought, Giles will enjoy power and prestige, live an interesting life, and raise privileged children of his own. (Unless the boy foolishly were to cross his patrimony to pursue a life in painting.) What could he, Sanborn, have offered him in comparison? The greatest turn he could do the little boy—that he could do both of them—would be to keep his distance and let Giles's life run its admirable course. He lifted his brush, continuing to look at her. “And you are his true benefactress.”

She gave him a curious look.

“Because,” he added, “you chose all this.”

“Well, yes, I suppose in a sense you are right, Daniel. But without the squire there would be nothing of all this for him.”

“Of course.” He smiled at her. “I mean to take nothing away from your husband, Rebecca. His good fortune is yours, and your son's.”

Chapter 37

H
E HAD BUT ONE MORE DAY
with them. When the painting was finished, Rebecca looked at it curiously. “Ah, I see,” she said. “I see what you were after now.” She continued to study the portrait.

“After?” he said. “And have I succeeded then?”

“Certainly, Daniel.”

“You used to chide me for painting within the proprieties. You find this one so still?”

“As you would wish, a necessary propriety.” She moved around the painting to see how the light changed it. “But there is some new strength in your work, in your use of the brush certainly, I had not noticed before.”

“Thank you. It has pleased my patrons as well.”

“Then you are blessed,” she said. He did not doubt her sincerity, but he could not keep himself from doubting that she wholly approved: she who had once told him that she believed only the truth of the inner eye, that very “truth” of an overbearing imagination that had run her afoul of the world.

The following day the squire was due home to express his own approval or disapproval. While they awaited Paine Wentworth, they took a turn in the garden before midday dinner, Misty making her revolutions about their feet. They spoke pleasantries and about the future of young Giles. Neither of them broached the issue of his provenance. It was as if no query were necessary. It was as if to speak of such things might curse them all. It was as if it would be far better to accept in silence the way everything turned out for all three of them.

T
HE HOUR
of her husband's arrival set the whole household on edge. A hubbub among the servants announced that Squire Wentworth had arrived by the front door. Sanborn stepped into a room adjoining the conservatory so that he might peer around the corner of a window. A great silver-trimmed coach, emblazoned with family arms, had pulled up before the portico. A young servant in a blue coat, yellow cape and cuffs, and yellow velvet buttons was holding the four, large, beautiful gray horses to stabilize the coach. The coach door opened and another servant in similar livery helped the occupant out and down onto the drive. Without watching long enough to really observe Paine Wentworth, Sanborn ducked back into the conservatory. Suddenly he recalled Miss Norris's long-ago words: “Not only are such men unworthy of her, they will never understand her and therefore soon tire of her. She will live abandoned in her marriage.” Still, Miss Norris, too, had finally come to her own accommodation—that Mr. Paine Wentworth was far preferable to a madhouse. And then Miss Norris herself had married the much older Abidiah Sherburne, her employer, within six months of his wife's death, much to the scandal of Sherburne's clan and circle.

Sanborn remained in the conservatory with the portrait, hoping he was not about to suffer an impertinent fop, while Rebecca and her children appeared at the door to greet the master.

Within minutes Rebecca and Paine Wentworth entered the conservatory. Sanborn stood and bowed round with the most polite and affable address he could manage. The squire made a little bow in turn, and Sanborn went up to him to invite him to view the portrait. All three moved toward the painting and then stood in silence while the squire took its measure.

“The painting is remarkable, sir,” Wentworth said. “It looks to set a new standard.”

“You're too kind, sir. I only wished, and bent every effort, to do justice to the character of Mrs. Wentworth and your son. Their beauty is their own.”

“But you have caught them precisely, Mr. Sanborn. I haven't seen a portrait in Portsmouth or Boston quite like it.” He stood back to observe the painting and slowly removed his gloves.

Sanborn knew he hadn't fully caught her extraordinary mind and spirit: That achievement was beyond him, and perhaps would have been dangerous to his trade in any case. “As long as it doesn't disappoint, sir,” he said. “Then my task is executed to satisfaction.”

“Quite, Mr. Sanborn. Quite.”

Sanborn, who had seen Wentworth about town, believed him to be perhaps twenty-three or -four years old, about seven years his junior. He recognized in Wentworth that aggressive energy mingled with the optimism of a young man who devoted every vital hour to the accumulation of wealth. Yet he paid Sanborn—hired artist and guest—every courtesy due his position.

“You no doubt know Mr. Steele's view of English portraiture, Mr. Sanborn,” he said.

“I believe I've heard it, sir. That we excel all others in the art of face painting.”

“Precisely. 'Tis Italy for history painting, Holland for Drolls, and France for jaunty fluttering pictures, but England for portraits!”

“Indeed, Sir, my own training was in London—”

“So I understand, Sanborn. It shows here in the mother and child before us.”

Here was a young man, Sanborn thought, who had already mastered the art of being at once aloof and at ease.

With a sweep of his arm and a hint of a bow, Wentworth led them into the dining room. The table was set in delicate china on a fine damask cloth. A glass of fine old sherry, pale gold and dry, awaited each diner—the squire, Rebecca, and Sanborn.

During the meal, the conversation turned mostly upon London, where the squire was due to return next month on business, even as he had but four months ago returned to Kittery from London.

“As the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle is finally to bear fruit,” he explained, “there are certain pressing matters of trade ...” He broke off a moment. “I have been asked to represent Governor Wentworth, the trade interests of Portsmouth, as matters develop with France. Once we are assured hostilities have indeed ceased.”

“You believe they really shall cease?” Sanborn asked.

“One cannot see the future, Mr. Sanborn. I fear the vagueness, the lack of stipulation that is, of certain boundaries in the treaty as proposed. But all Europe is exhausted with these wars, I really do think.”

“For now, perhaps,” Sanborn agreed.

“Indeed, sir. Only a fool casts his skepticism aside in matters of war.”

“But for now, trade may be advantageous abroad.”

“Neither I nor my father has ever visited London without some profit for our troubles. You yourself, Sanborn. Will you return some day?”

“I had once thought so. I'm not so sure anymore. Yet it's ever a delight to hear news of my old city.”

“Ask away then, Mr. Sanborn. I may know something of your former associates.”

“And the latest in painterly rivalries and fashion?”

“I'll do my best, sir.”

They all laughed.

When the meal was over, the table cleared away, the cloth removed, and a bottle of canary and three glasses brought in, the squire offered a toast to “my charming wife, Mrs. Wentworth.” Then he toasted Sanborn and his “most remarkable portrait.” In his turn, Sanborn offered toasts to his “patient sitters” and to his “generous patron.” He had been paid immediately and in solid guineas the agreed-upon sum, with a guinea extra in appreciation. Finally, Rebecca toasted the men. Bowing gently to her, they returned the conversation to London.

Yes, Wentworth assured Sanborn, his old acquaintance Allan Ramsay, the younger, was still fashionable and well employed. And, yes, old Hogarth, upon entering his fifth decade and about to set out on some latter-day Grand Tour, was, according to the best witnesses, still in full command of his overweening self-assurance and self-promotion.

“I was surprised to see him a man of small physical stature—I doubt he bumps five feet. I thought, seeing him at some distance, that he must rather have adopted the effrontery of his pencil and his tongue in defiance of the diminutive figure he cut in the world, than out of any more noble satiric motive.” Wentworth laughed pleasantly over his wine.

“Well, sir, it's good to hear Ramsay's still employed upon faces,” Sanborn said.

“Indeed. With, as I understand it, Hudson's Vanaken now much in assistance on the remainder of the canvas.”

“I recall,” Sanborn said, “when Mr. Ramsay suddenly became the new thing, about 'thirty-nine or 'forty. After Dr. Mead took up his cause. He had a way of laying in faces to make the flesh clear, transparent. I've never been able to replicate it. Said he learned it in Italy from Luti and Titian. His practice was to begin with a red mask and then build up the flesh with a toner of lake and vermilion—in a half-dozen layers, apparently.”

“He is still known for his flesh,” Wentworth said.

All three of them laughed.

“I would be pleased to carry any letters you wish to the city,” Wentworth offered. “And a list of colors and supplies to Emerton's for shipment to you.”

“It would not be an inconvenience to you, sir?”

“Not at all. Carrying lists for merchants is for me a commonplace.”

Perhaps he had misjudged the man, Sanborn thought. Perhaps Rebecca, too, had found him more than bearable. There was a certain charm about him, a worldliness and serenity about the justice of his place in the world that leavened the natural haughtiness of his clan. And, of course, he had won his prize, the beautiful Rebecca—the most exotic blossom in all Portsmouth.

The remainder of the day Sanborn spent in cleaning and packing his equipage and clothing. He walked out and took the early evening air. The Wentworths had doubtless connubial matters to catch up on, and he was relieved to find himself alone and at his leisure about the manse and its grounds. After a late tea, he withdrew to his chamber with a book from the library, an amusing collection of Addison's essays.

He read for a while but his mind began to wander from the page. Was she truly in danger from herself? The thought began to plague him. And could she really give up, essentially, her painting and drawing, and the visions that inspired them?

He would not allow himself to believe she had presented him merely with a mask. He had to believe everything he witnessed that indicated she was engaged in this life here, reconciled to reap the bounty of its beneficence.

But for how long? Are bounty and luxury and elegance enough? For perhaps one in ten thousand they are not. Or for one in a hundred thousand, not enough. Surely, however, for the whole general run of mankind they were enough: the only ideal worth achieving or, if necessary, cozening. But for Rebecca?

He recalled what Smibert had said. “Things are not ripe, not yet, not here, for the likes of Rebecca Wentworth!” Would there ever be a place here, as in the Old World, for a Mrs. Beale, a Clara Peeters, a Rosalba Carriera, for the others? Even the Old World had nourished few enough such women, and their lives, he seemed to recall, were the result of strange and fortuitous convergences—in addition to their prodigies and talents: as if the rarest strands of Fate had been woven to produce lives of passion and beauty and accomplishment. Yet who among the women Smibert had named would anyone call, as Miss Norris once had called Rebecca, “a dear little visionary”? A dear little prodigy perhaps, at most, had these others been called. Rebecca in her distraction had drawn and painted work that was beyond even these fortunate women.

And what had she become now? The doubts kept returning: Was she truly content, or was she merely resigned? Was she secretly afflicted still? Was she, in sum, a danger to herself? He had to believe—he must believe—in her reconciliation. Just as he had of necessity come to believe in his own narrowing reconciliation to his loss of her.

B
Y THE FOLLOWING
morning, the sun rising into cerulean heavens, he convinced himself that she was no longer in danger. At breakfast, Paine Wentworth was again absent on urgent business. Sanborn had last evening properly taken his leave of the squire.

He dawdled some moments in the dining room before Rebecca arrived. For the first time he looked closely at a watercolor on the wall. Bright flowers, an unusual canvas but perfectly executed, the kind of incidental and innocuous painting Rebecca referred to earlier as what she might do on occasion. He looked more closely. The painting was a decorative confection, as if executed by some elegant mechanism. He could hardly credit the work to Rebecca.

She arrived at the table in a pastel yellow silk gown. They found it difficult to speak now in the hour before his departure.

There had been no mention of subsequent commissions, as he had hoped for, once satisfaction was secured. But he was not discouraged. There was time enough for commissions.

“That rather sweet watercolor behind me,” he finally said. “Where did that come from?”

“Oh,” she said, and laughed. “A product of some odd moment of leisure.” She waved her hand as if to dismiss it.

“Yours?” He stood up and turned around to look at the painting again.

“Yes.”

“It's well done, and surprisingly bright. And as to the flowers . . . accurate enough—”

“But it doesn't look like mine,” she said. Her voice was composed.

“That's what I'd say.” He returned to the table.

“Mr. Wentworth is pleased with one such as this, now and again.”

“He would appreciate the elegance.” Well, he thought, isn't dull elegance better than a madhouse?

She changed the subject to the coming season, their preparations, her worries over extremes of weather. They bantered through the rest of the breakfast hour. And then it was time for him to leave.

She accompanied him to the end of the front walk after the attendant announced that his chaise and portmanteau awaited him. She offered her hand. He bowed nicely and took it. When he could no longer hold her gaze he looked down and put her hand to his lips. Then he climbed into the seat and took up the reins.

“It does my heart good, Madam Wentworth, to see you settled and happy amidst your domestic duties and amusements.”

“I'm settled, Daniel, yes,” she said and smiled, as if to eschew the formality he had taken up again.

“It is a shame to flee the world.”