The Night Angel (16 page)
“The hours bear heavy upon my father,” Serafina said.
“I can understand that. A man of affairs, a merchant who has traveled the globe.” He nodded. “The confinement would be a double burden. He feels imprisoned, and he is kept from putting his hand to the wheel.”
Her parents’ bedroom and her mother’s dressing room ran the entire length of the house. A plush chair had been drawn up by the front window, for it was from here that all communications with the outside world transpired. Only the doctor was permitted to enter and leave their home, and only once every three days. All the rules had been set into place during the previous summer’s cholera outbreak. Serafina settled into the chair and replied, “He completes all his correspondence by noon. Afterwards he paces. Or he did.”
“And now?”
“Now I am painting a portrait of him and Mama. That is, I am trying.”
He caught her tone. “You are not satisfied?”
“It is functional.” She rested her chin upon an ink-stained hand, seeing anew the two latest drawings in her mind’s eye. “The lines are there. But not . . .”
“The emotion,” he finished for her.
Her head turned quickly toward him. “What did you say? Pardon me, but what do you mean?”
“It seems natural enough,” Nathan reasoned. “You are confined. Your emotions are penned up inside you, a reflection of your external state. There must be an enormous wealth of sentiments you harbor toward your parents and all you have experienced together.”
Serafina nodded and said slowly, “Mr. Baring, you have no idea.”
The silence took hold then. The gray mist was a perfect companion, a soft wash that stripped away all color from the world beyond her window. The square was an ethereal backdrop. Other pedestrians stepped to the far side of the street, avoiding proximity to the quarantined house. Even with the cholera outbreak six months gone, a conversation between someone standing in the lane and another nestled in an upstairs window, with a yellow-rimmed paper barring the distance between them, drew little notice. An occasional carriage clip-clopped into view and then swiftly disappeared into the mist. The only thing Serafina could see with any clarity was Nathan Baring.
“I would ask a favor of you,” she said.
“Anything, Miss Gavi.”
“Do you know the printers’ shops on Connecticut Avenue?”
“Certainly.”
“They stock art supplies. Would you purchase for me a full set of watercolors, six brushes, two of each size. . . .” She thought aloud. “A broad quill for drawing. A box of charcoals. A dozen of their best sketching pencils. A pack of Arches finest drawing paper. This is most important. Can you remember all this?”
“I am a diplomat, Miss Gavi. I am trained to keep long conversation clearly to mind, as very often I am unable to write for hours at a time.”
At some other point she would have found that fascinating. Now, however, her mind was already continuing to form further needs. “The paper should be their largest size. Ask them for cold press linen and silk weave. A half dozen backing boards for watercolor paintings. They will know what I require. And three of the largest easels they have. Are you sure this is not too much trouble?”
“It would be an honor to help you in this way.” He opened his coat and pulled the watch from his vest pocket. “I must hurry, Miss Gavi. The store closes in less than an hour.”
“Oh my, where has the day gone?”
“The clock struck five as I was arriving here.”
“Let me ask Papa for payment—”
“No need for that. Actually, I prefer to ask a favor of my own instead of payment.”
She was instantly on guard. “Yes?”
“Two things. First, that you paint a portrait of my mother. I have long wanted to have this done.”
“I must warn you, sir. It has been far too long since I have last held a brush. I shall be painting my parents using watercolors.”
He waved that aside. “Whatever medium you choose, Miss Gavi, I am certain it will be beautiful.”
She felt warmed by his kind words. “You said there were two things?”
“Indeed. A group of friends meet one evening each week. We study Scripture. We talk. I would ask you to join us.”
“I should be honored,” she replied, and to her surprise she found she meant it. “Soon as this official confinement is behind us.”
“Then I shall keep you no longer.” He bowed toward her. “Good evening, Miss Gavi.”
Serafina watched him walk quickly down the lane. Long after the swirling gray mist had hidden away his figure, she stared out at the deepening twilight.
She returned thoughtfully to the dining room to find her parents standing over her most recent sketches. Her father inspected her a long moment, then said, “Daughter, these are magnificent.”
“I had no idea,” Bettina quietly agreed.
“I have always known you held talent. These, however . . .” Alessandro returned his attention to the drawings. “You have matured in more than one way, I must say.”
She walked around the table to stand beside her parents. She viewed the sketches with a clearer sense of distance now. They were indeed fine in terms of quality and refinement and accuracy. She whispered, “Emotion.”
“What was that, daughter?”
Strange that a man with whom she had exchanged words only twice before could see the need so accurately. She knew exactly what was required now. Nathan’s observation sparked an image she knew she could follow and achieve her aim.
She looked at her parents and declared, “I shall paint you tomorrow.”
Morning on the sixth day of their confinement brought a clear blue sky. Sunlight bathed the bedroom as Serafina got dressed.
“Now, you both must get ready for your final sitting,” Serafina told her parents a half hour later as they finished their breakfast. Her father groaned good-naturedly and wondered if he couldn’t just wear his dressing gown. The three shared a laugh, and Serafina said, “No, Papa, you must dress to look as good as Mama.”
“That is an impossibility, my dear,” he said, rising from his chair and leaning over to give his wife a kiss.
Serafina hurried to the dining room to set up for the painting session. When her father entered the room, tugging on his vest, he asked, “You are certain this is the proper garb?”
“You look fine, Papa.” The dining room was transformed. Sheets covered the floor beneath her easel. Clay jars of water stood upon a covered side table. The wall to her right was adorned with the seven sketches. The dining table was covered with several layers of cloth and held a sharp knife for quill trimming, a block of India ink, inkwell, more water pots, two palettes, charcoal, and her new watercolors. “Where is Mama?”
“Changing gowns for the third time.” He stepped behind a chair and assumed a dignified pose. “I had thought I would rest one hand upon the chair, like so.”
Serafina walked around the table and pulled two chairs close together. “Papa, I want you to sit down.”
“But yesterday you wanted me to stand.”
“I know I did, and that has been part of the problem. We are not after dignity here.”
“Are we not?”
“No, Papa. We want to picture what makes you and Mama so special. We want your love for each other.”
“Can we not have both affection and dignity together?”
She resisted the urge to explain that she already had in her mind a precise vision of how the image would take shape. Because she had never attempted something like this, she wanted to make sure she could accomplish the transformation from mental impression to canvas. “Papa, whatever you do, however you stand, your natural dignity will show through.”
He clearly liked that comment very much. “So then. I shall stand, yes?”
“No, Papa. Sit.”
“But—”
“I want you to trust me.” She looked up as Bettina entered the room. “Mama, would you please sit here?”
“Do you think this gown catches a proper light?”
Serafina gazed lovingly at her mother’s face, then at the emerald-green gown of silk taffeta. “Yes, Mama, it is
almost
as beautiful as you are.”
Bettina allowed herself to be guided into the chair. “Can you make me appear younger?”
“You are truly lovely, Mama. That is what I will show.” She stepped around to the table’s other side. The two faces stared directly at her, both looking a bit nervous and tense. “Look at each other, please. No, Papa, don’t tilt your head so. You are looking down your nose at Mama.”
“Isn’t this the pose you told me to take yesterday?”
“I will hold the angle of your chin from the drawing. Now I want to affect a proper balance.”
She worked on their angles and posture for almost an hour. Gradually they stopped arguing and accepted their role as models. It proved harder for her mother, which was a surprise. Her father was a diplomat, she realized, accustomed to rearranging himself to fit the vagaries of court.
Finally Serafina said, “Mama, do you trust me?”
“What a question. How can you ask me, your mother, such a thing?”
“Then I want you to please stop quarreling with me.”
“I am not—”
“Mama. Please. Trust, remember? Be silent and do what I say. Lean forward just a bit. No, straighten your shoulders. Good. Now angle your face a bit to the right. No, not like that.” Serafina moved around the table so that she stood midway between the easel and her father “Turn your face so that you are looking straight at me. Good! Now look at Papa. No, Mama. Don’t move your face. Just your eyes. Turn back to me again. Now look at Papa. Fine, yes, excellent.”
She moved back to the easel. Finally the positions from her nighttime imaginings were realized.
“Please, the both of you, take careful stock. This is precisely the position I want you to maintain. Whenever we take a break, please come back to exactly here. Look at how close your faces are. Feel the position of your bodies, how your shoulders are angled. Can you do this?”
Her father grumbled, “It feels most unnatural.”
She selected the lightest of her drawing pencils and sketched hastily. Their eyes. She would begin of course with the eyes. But as she traced the first lines, she stopped.
“Daughter?” her mother intoned.
“Of course,” she whispered. She took a step back. No longer was she seeing a blank canvas. Instead, the drawing was complete in her mind’s eye. The drawing, the pattern of shade and color, the paints. Everything.
She did not need to have them reveal their true natures. She had a lifetime’s experience to draw on.
“Did you hear me, my dear?”
“Please remain still.” Serafina drew in swift, confident strokes. What she had required was the physical balance alone. That was accomplished. She could see how the light played upon the planes and surfaces. The emotional quality she would add from the reservoir within herself.
As Serafina worked, other things began to take shape, her mental image racing a few strokes ahead of the images upon the canvas. She would not fill the entire canvas with color. Instead, it would be a layering. She had seen such images by the few Renaissance painters who had worked with pencil and watercolor. Serafina traced the lines all the way to the borders of her paper. But it would only be the pencil. The coloration would not progress that far.
She dropped the pencil and with her broadest brush began the outermost border, a pale wash, scarcely one shade from ivory.
Her parents spoke to her again. First one, then the other. She heard them, and yet the sounds came from a very far distance. She was only dimly aware of movement when one of them would leave the room, then the other. Somehow, though, they seemed to be able to return to just the right positions they had left.
The closer she moved to faces, the more brilliant became the colors. She wanted to have the chance to see each face anew and redo the coloring if she was not satisfied. Most especially she wanted to rework the eyes. The eyes were the key. Weren’t they?
“Daughter.”
“Yes, Papa, please, one moment longer.”
“Serafina, no. We must finish now.”
She winced at the sudden pain in her shoulders. Where had the hours flown?
That evening she ate because Mary set a plate in front of her and Bettina ordered her to eat. But there upon the kitchen table alongside her plate was the same uncertainty. She knew the eyes were crucial. They were the windows to the soul. What else was there? The worry that she was missing something gnawed at her worse than hunger, worse even than the stiffness in her neck and shoulders.
After she had eaten, Serafina looked wearily at her parents.
“I know I told you one day of sitting, but—”
“Yes, we know, dear,” her mother said quickly. “We’ll be ready in the morning. However, we all need to get some rest now.”
Serafina returned to her room and collapsed upon the bed. She awoke four hours later, according to the clock on her mantel, just long enough to slip into her nightdress and drink three cups of water. She tried to think further on the mystery, but her mind and her body retreated into sleep.
She awoke later than usual and heard people moving around downstairs. She entered the kitchen and accepted her parents’ greetings. She took her breakfast into the dining room and ate while staring at her canvas. The previous day’s work was acceptable. Even more than that. She could see hints of the final structure everywhere. The eyes were fine. She could see that the choices of materials and colors would work well. Her focus returned time and again to the middle section of the canvas. What else could it be?
Her parents entered unbidden and resumed their positions. Serafina corrected the hold of their shoulders. She moved them slightly closer together. And she began once again to paint.
She completed the faces and did the final work on the clothing just before the church tower rang the noon bell. She dismissed them, declining their invitation to join them for lunch. When her mother returned with a plate, Bettina did as Serafina had requested and refrained from coming around to where she could see the painting. Bettina looked closely at her daughter, started to speak, then silently left the room.
Serafina ate out of a confused sense of duty. She knew her parents would worry if she did not. But the food tasted only of watercolor paint and her eyes scarcely left the canvas. The remaining small damp spots of color offered a special grace to the lines, fading and smoothing them in unexpected places. The result was a sense of humanness and timelessness. The sharp lines of youth were no more. Yet in this imperfect touch was a singular beauty. She did not think this as much as felt it. Serafina pushed her plate aside and picked up her finest brush. She extended the lines out around the edges of the clothes, drawing them out into a soft melding with the borders. The figures flowed into the pastel border and on into the mystery of unfinished lives.
