“What did you hope to find?” I ask.
“She left me with so many questions. I thought perhaps there’d be some explanation . . . but it was foolish of me.”
I open the book: examine its brittle yellowed pages and the sloping scrawl of a woman now long dead. We were both foolish to think that Dora’s secrets could be so easily laid bare. And yet she’d kept the diary with her all this time.
“She must have loved her mother very much,” I say.
“They could not have been more different,” the painter murmurs. “The woman who wrote this was consumed by fear.”
I think of my mother’s words: Dora, too, had met with fear and in the end it killed her. Perhaps they weren’t so different after all.
“What did she fear?” I ask.
“Her husband. According to the diary she’d inherited a small fortune that by rights was owed to him. But she’d contrived a
means of withholding it, so that on her death it would go instead to Dora. He hated her for it and disputed Dora’s birthright: he claimed she was the product of an earlier affair. But Dora greatly resembled him, especially in her size, so it was plain enough to see that she was his, a fact which infuriated him even more. Toward the end he threated to kill them both.”
“What happened?”
“Her mother eventually fell ill from the strain. She writes that she would rather surrender herself to the arms of God than remain within her husband’s house. Dora pleaded with her to flee the country, but she refused, saying she had not the strength nor the courage to defy him.”
“But Dora did,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Did she kill him?”
“I do not know. She told me once that her parents never should have come together on this earth, and that the proof of this was lodged somewhere deep inside her.”
“What did she mean?”
He shakes his head. “She refused to explain.”
I think of Dora and her peculiar blend of brawn and grace: almost as if her parents fought to preserve themselves through her very flesh and blood.
“I felt . . . almost a sense of shame when I read it,” says the painter quietly. “All these years I have struggled to find the truth in people’s faces . . . but here, in these words, there is so much despair. I almost could not bear to read.” He glances up at me self-consciously. “That does not say much for me, I suppose. For my compassion.”
I open the miniature and stare at the portrait of her mother. For the first time I see the shadow of despair behind her eyes. “He has found it,” I say. “The painter of this miniature.”
The painter nods. “He was not afraid to paint what he saw. But he loved her in spite of it.”
“Your teacher.”
He nods. “She mentions briefly their affair some years before. Her husband learned of it and she was forced to break it off.”
“Dora must have known,” I say, thinking aloud. “For otherwise she’d not have sought his help when she fled the country. Or yours.”
The painter looks at me. “She never asked for my help,” he says slowly. “It was I who sought to help her.” His tone is confessional, as if he feels compelled to say this, and the past spreads out between us like a vast ocean.
I nod toward the diary. “How does it end?”
“Abruptly. She fell ill from consumption and ceases to write. She must have died soon after. Though whether it was the illness or her husband that finally killed her, it is impossible to know.”
“Perhaps both were to blame,” I say. I think of Dora, and the money stashed beneath her floorboards: money that she took but would not use. And too, I think of the rumors that followed her across the sea. Perhaps she’d killed him then: her mother’s tormentor. Or perhaps she’d only wanted to.
The painter takes a step forward in the half-light and I am suddenly aware that we are but two bodies close together in a room. It is as if someone struck a flint within me, and the slow burn that follows banishes all thoughts of that other time. I search his face for those things which still remain hidden, for I am determined to unearth the truth. I think of his words that night on the road—his swift and chilling purposefulness.
“You lied that night on the road,” I say. “The commission was not your only interest.”
His expression softens, but he does not offer any defense.
“I found the sketches in your room,” I continue.
“I left them there for you to see,” he answers.
“Why?”
“So you would know,” he says. “It was not
her
I wanted.”
Slowly the breath escapes me. I look down at my hands. It is this he wants: my flesh, my body, my bones. He takes a step forward and I slowly raise my eyes to look at him. And then I feel her presence all around us, for we are in
her
house, and she is compelling me to finish what we started.
The painter stops in front of me, looks at me intently. “What is it?” he asks. I stare at him, and her unseen presence envelops me like a mist.
“She is here with us,” I say.
He shakes his head no. “She is dead.”
My eyes travel around the room searching for some confirmation of this fact, but my uneasiness persists. “I am afraid.”
He meets my gaze. “It is not her you fear, but yourself.” Then he extends his hand toward mine, and I place my fingers in his own. It is a simple gesture, but it feels as if we hold the heat of the earth within our hands. He draws me gently toward him, and the fear falls away, leaving only a deep current of desire. I find his lips then: search for their taste and warmth and softness. I feel his hands encircle my waist, glide beneath the fabric of my dress, caress my skin. The muscles deep within me tighten. Our bodies press together and I pull him back onto her bed, burn to feel his weight on mine.
The painter’s hands move quickly, tearing at the laces and the whalebones and the stays, endeavoring to find an entrance to the bone house that is me. I push myself against him, rub my flesh into his, cannot merge our bodies as tightly as I wish. And despite his words, I feel her there within me, urging me on. For in her bed my transformation is complete: in that moment he possesses both of us, myself and Dora, buried somewhere deep inside me.
Perhaps in spirit I am not my mother’s child after all, but the daughter of the great-bellied woman, she who follows only rules of her own making.
* * *
Afterward, we lay together.
“What will you do now?” I ask.
“I do not know.”
“Will you finish her portrait?”
“No,” he says. “Your mother was right.” I smile at this: the two of them in unlikely accord. “I have no other commission,” he continues, his voice trailing off. There is an awkward silence, as we both contemplate the meaning of this.
“I had thought to make a journey when my work here was complete,” he says tentatively.
“You are fortunate to have such liberty,” I reply. I feel both disappointment and envy at his words, and turn away from him to conceal my dismay. Slowly I rise and begin to pull on my servingwoman’s clothes: the clothes that bind me to the Great House and its secrets.
The painter raises himself up on one elbow. “I have no wish to drift forever,” he says earnestly. “But I’ve not yet found a place where I belong.”
I stop dressing and turn to him. His naked chest glistens in the light of the taper.
“Perhaps it is not a place you seek, but a person.”
He looks at me and I feel the heat rise in my face. I turn away and pick up his tunic, but as I do the miniature tumbles forth from the bedclothes and drops to the floor. I stoop to retrieve it and see at once that the glass has shattered: a neat web of lines now encases her. I glance up at him anxiously; feel that we have transgressed her. The painter reaches over and gingerly closes the frame, protecting her from further danger.
“It will be safe in the chest,” he says.
I cross the room and lift the chest onto the table. I feel for the secret latch along the side, and once again, as if by magic, the top springs open. And there beneath the lid, I find the answer to our questions, for the swaddling clothes have disappeared.
And all at once I know where I will find the boy.
* * *
We finish dressing quickly, the painter eyeing me curiously when I tell him we must hurry. I grab my cloak and he follows me out the door, just as dusk begins to close in upon us. Without thinking I take his hand, pull him along through the forest behind her cottage, along a path just barely visible through the trees. We do not speak and there is little noise other than the sound of our feet upon the frozen snow.
At length the path disappears but we continue through the forest. Once or twice I pause to check my bearings, for I have not been this way since I was a child, but memory and instinct guide me like an unseen beacon. The painter looks back anxiously once or twice, for night is falling, and we have brought nothing to light our safe return.
As the last rays of daylight disappear, we reach the creek where Dora died. The moon is nearly full and casts an eerie light upon us, reflecting off the snow. We move along the icy creekbed, slowly picking our way through rocks and twisted roots and frozen mud, tracing its serpentine course for some minutes. At length the walls of the bed begin to climb more steeply, until we find ourselves within a deep ravine, bounded on all sides by lichen-covered granite. I stop and hold a hand up to the painter, pointing across the stream to a series of sheer rock walls that rise steeply from the bed. Further along, a few of them form openings: giant crevasses where the force of nature has split the rockface asunder.
We stand staring up at it, our breath forming icy jets of fog that vanish almost instantly in the cold night air. The painter stoops down, cupping water from the stream in his hands, and drinks deeply of it. At length he rises, wiping his hands on his tunic.
“What is this place?” he says in a hushed voice.
I point toward the crevasse.
“This is where they found her body,” I explain. “Up there, in
the caves along the rockface. I used to come here in the summer as a child. In my day it was a secret place. But now the village children all come here to play.”
The painter looks around in wonder, for it is hauntingly beautiful.
“It is a magical place,” I say. “A place for children.”
He turns to me then, divines my meaning.
“The boy is here?” he says, his eyes wide.
I nod and raise a finger to my lips. I motion him to follow and slowly, quietly, we move along the streambed, choosing a narrow place where we can ford the icy water, picking our way across the stones. When we reach the base of the rock wall, I stop and stare up at the crevasses. Something catches my eye in the largest: a movement, and I point to it and begin to climb along the giant plates of stone. The moss has made it treacherous, and twice I slip, the painter raising a hand from behind to prevent my fall. Eventually we find a crack that is deep enough to move along, and we cross it carefully, mindful of the drop beneath us.
As we reach the largest opening, we pull ourselves inside, stooping to avoid the ceiling. It takes only a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness within, and there, crouched in the furthest reach, is the shivering figure of the boy. He holds a bundle closely to his chest, a tightly wrapped blanket, one of those from the trunk, and watches us, wild-eyed. I take a step forward, instinctively hold out a hand.
“Long Boy, you are cold,” I say. He shifts sideways like a crab in an effort to retreat. But there is nowhere for him to go. I take another step, crouch down, my fingers resting lightly on the damp stone.
“You must come home,” I say gently. “You cannot stay the night here.”
“Do not take him from me,” he says urgently. I stare at the bundle.
“He needs warmth,” I say. “He belongs with his mother. She
will warm him.” Long Boy eyes me distrustfully, shakes his head no.
“He is mine,” he says.
“We will bring him with us then,” I say coaxingly. “My mother waits for you. For both of you.” He considers my words, and as he does I ease myself forward. I pause just in front of him and hold my arms out for the bundle. He stares down at my hands. Slowly I take the bundle from him, feel its stiffness. He does not resist. I cradle the bundle in my arms, peel back the frozen blanket, and inside it is immaculate in its woolen tomb. Its features are tiny and perfectly formed, and its arms are pulled up, fists frozen tightly against its chest. He must have wiped the blood away, for its skin is flat and white like just-made pastry. I pull the blanket away to reveal the sex: a baby boy. Long Boy stares at the dead child in my arms.
“We will take the baby with us,” I say. “And return him to your mother.” Long Boy raises his head to look at me, his eyes filled with pain.
“She would not have me,” he says searchingly. “She would have the others. But not me.” Long Boy looks once more at the tiny infant and swallows. I hold my breath, glance behind me to the painter, who raises his eyebrows. I turn back to the boy.
“Long Boy, did you push her?” I ask gently.
He continues staring at the infant, his chest heaving from the memory.
“She ran from me,” he says. “She ran and ran . . . and then she fell.” He looks up at me, tears in his eyes. “She did not want me anymore.”