Lightning Man_ The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse - Kenneth Silverman [25]
As their separation continued and the wedding approached, Lucrece sent more professions of ardor and longing. They made Finley uncomfortable, perhaps representing to him a sexual challenge, certainly raising the danger of Idolatry. He instructed Lucrece that God caused their affections to flow out toward each other, but commanded their supreme affection to Himself: “let us not then idolise the gift instead of the Giver; let us be more earnest in our prayers that God would so direct our love as not to interfere with our Love to him.” Lucrece tried to show that she understood. “I view you, love, as the gift of God,” she replied, “and pray that in infinite mercy I may be preserved from setting my heart too much upon you or any other earthly blessing.”
Marriage also raised the more mundane but no less disturbing question of Lucrece’s dowry. Here Finley’s hope of becoming financially independent clashed with his fear of becoming worldly, the result being a draw. “I consider my Lucrece a fortune in herself,” he told her; “still,” he added, “for her sake I hope there will be something handsome for her.” Lucrece shrank from questioning her father, mindful that he had other children to support. From speaking to her mother she learned only that he would furnish the newlyweds’ house—should they get one. And when she did at last confront her father, he gave her nothing more encouraging to tell Finley than a promise to “fix me out.” Finley’s often proclaimed scorn of material things allowed no protest: “I can cheerfully leave all to the direction of our Heavenly Father who careth for us.”
The approaching wedding date made them both anxious. Their self-condemnations multiplied—attachment to vanities, want of confidence in God. Lucrece also suffered physical distress—exhaustion, colds, headache. She asked to postpone the marriage a week. The delay or loss of a letter brought on tiffs, as when Finley became unable to complete a certain portrait because he had not heard from her: “I cannot but feel, strongly too, this inattention,” he huffed, “you will not think that I am grieved without cause.” Jittery and impatient, they both literally counted the days.
Finley and Lucrece married in Concord on September 29, and settled before the end of the year in Charleston, for his second season. They lodged at a $10-a-week boarding house, a short walk from his painting room. Downcast at first to be living among strangers, Lucrece soon came to enjoy the hospitality and attention she received. The agreeable climate put color in her pale cheeks and she gained some needed weight: “she is esteemed quite a belle,” Finley noted. He learned that some local gossip criticized her clothing as ostentatious, but he dismissed it, knowing that her dresses had been made under his mother’s supervision. Perhaps, although in the portrait of Lucrece that he painted near this time, she wears a flouncy pink and yellow gown with a fur-lined satin cape, surely no couture of Elizabeth Morse.
The new social season brought Finley even richer returns than his first. In scarcely more than two months he booked over $4000 in commissions. “I am in the fashion,” he whooped. Already as prosperous as he could wish, he sent another few hundred dollars to his parents and raised his price for a portrait from $60 to $80. He earned the money, working long hours and trying hard to improve. He experimented with achieving delicate lighting effects by dropping a scrim of black gauze between himself and the background while he painted. He explored colors, mixing yellow ochre with chrome yellow to produce a flesh yellow that was effective for painting shadows of white drapery. He gathered