Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [41]
He pauses, awaiting my answer. I look from him to the painter and back again, speechless.
My silence he interprets as acquiescence, and with a sigh of relief, he clasps his hands together. “I cannot thank you enough,” he says fervently, his relief almost palpable. “And I shall remain forever in your debt.” He looks from me to the painter, and a taut triangle of silence stretches out between us. Then he limps slowly to the door, where he pauses, his hand upon the door. “You will have no need of me,” he says. “My presence here will only serve as a distraction. If you’ll excuse me, I shall leave you to your task.” He nods to the painter, then turns back to me. “I shall go directly to my mother, to make your excuses, so that time will not constrain you,” he says, and then he lurches from the room, and we listen in silence to his labored gait upon the stair.
I am almost numb with surprise and disbelief. The painter clears his throat, awaiting my response.
“He wishes you to paint her?” I ask finally.
“Yes,” says the painter.
“And I am to . . . describe her?” I cannot keep the incredulity from my voice.
“Yes,” he says, almost matter-of-factly.
“Is such a thing possible?” I ask.
“That depends on you,” he says. “Your master was not . . . equal to the task.” I stare at him. There is a glimmer of amusement in his eye, as if he secretly relishes my master’s incompetence, as if he is taunting me to display my own.
“And you are?” I reply.
“I believe so, yes.”
“But your success depends on mine.”
“In a manner of speaking,” he says with a shrug.
I smile: he cannot say it. “Then you are in my hands,” I say.
His affirms this with a slight nod. “I suppose I am.”
I rise and cross to the window, just as my master has done before me. The day is cold and gray and lifeless: the death that is winter. The grass in the orchard is dotted here and there with patches of icy snow, and in the distance, a farmer leads an ox along the road, his body doubled over to avoid the icy wind. I try in vain to conjure up her face, and like a willful child, it eludes me. After a moment I turn back to him.
“The other day, your questions . . . you knew of this before?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says.
“And my mistress?”
“She knows nothing,” he says.
“And if I refuse?” I say.
He shrugs. “Then he must learn to live without her,” he says, seemingly indifferent. I presume he is not indifferent to his commission.
“Just as the rest of us must do,” I say. We regard each other silently for a moment, and then I turn back to the window, search the fields once again for her face. This time she comes to me in fragments: I see her eyes, and in the next instant, her hands, their long slender fingers stretched in front of me. But try as I might, I cannot see the whole. I shake my head from the effort, turn and cross the room to pour myself a glass of wine, which I stand sipping quietly for a moment. I do not for a moment believe that such a thing is possible, that through my memory and my words I can bring her to his canvas. But something in me wants to try.
“How do we proceed?” I say finally. He regards me for a moment, then reaches down to his case and retrieves a lump of charcoal, the sort I have seen him with at night, when he sketches in the tavern. He reaches for the easel, repositions it closer to him, turning the blank sheet away from me.
“Tell me everything,” he says. “Everything that you remember. Start at the beginning.”
And so I do.
As I speak, he begins to draw, his hands moving rapidly, fluently across the page. From time to time he reaches for a clean sheet, pinning it atop the others, and begins to sketch anew. I tell him of my