Adrift (part one)

1895.

Mackerel sky, light chop on the water: a morning for painting. I spent it inside, ironing linens and making hospital corners.  Coming tonight, the telegram read.  Have Mrs. Herman prepare dinner for three.  William.  Two months to the day had passed since Mother's death.  A long enough wait, my brother must have thought, to divide Mother's cloak and dice for the pieces.

I had heard him talking to one of my sisters after the funeral at the Boston house.

"We'll sell and split the proceeds, don't you agree?" His jacket was unbuttoned over his expanding chest.  "None of us goes there any more.  If Asa wants to stay on the Spit, he could buy one of the new houses."

As if I would have set foot in one of those gimcrack cottages, tourists traipsing behind it at all hours.  Ours was the only property to extend to the shoreline.  After I went free lance, I had moved to the summer house year-round.  I slept on a cot in the studio I had built next door, but paid Father rent.  The studio was on Father's grounds, and I availed myself of the main house's kitchen and privy.  Father did not object to the cash, nor did William, who took over the family finances after Father's death.  Mother, already failing, stayed in Boston.  In the old days, she and I would sit together by the hour on the back porch before the rest arrived.

"Nothing between us and Europe," she'd say, "but a lost iceberg, or a breaching whale."

Her grandfather had been a sea captain.  The Boston house as well as this were full of ginger jars, tea caddies.  The jade ornaments that she loved best she kept at the Spit.  

Since the funeral, I had heard no more about selling the house until this telegram.  William was certainly coming to break the news.  At least I had news of my own to offer, news that might gain me six months' grace for buying them all out.  I could show him the letter, only two days old, from Riegler's gallery.

It carried no advance, but Riegler liked the pose in the watercolor sketch I sent, if not the poser.  To this I was reduced: I hadn't petitioned such approval since my days of slavery to the fashion plates and monthly magazines.

Riegler was glad, he said, that I at last felt moved to return to my old subjects.  I understood, of course.  My first oils after I struck out on my own fetched mighty prices, the signed engravings doubling the take.  There was a story to those paintings—the dinghy in the fog, the watcher on the shore, the cut-down mast.  They called me Winslow Homer's brother, as if that were compliment.  As I went on, though, I found I was most pleased when the furthering sail was hardly discernible at the horizon, the looming shark only a darkness in the wave.  The speck of roe, so I explained to Mother, has more sea-taste than the whole corpse flopping over the platter.  I still hear her low laughter.  Buyers were not so understanding.  Three years had passed without a sale.  The buying public didn't like to work so hard, quoth Riegler.  They looked to art in these days for relaxation—his very words.

So my sketch had proposed a story pushed close to the public's face: a man adrift and exhausted on an abandoned dory, sky and sea—which I could paint as no other man—shrunk to proscenium.  But I'd still erred.  Maybe it was scorn of my own project that had made me use Timothy for a model.  He'd done fine for me once as an old salt.  But with the years his face too clearly showed the skull beneath, the flag of gray at his chin had yellowed.  Who would seek relaxation from that mug?  Nightmares, more likely.  In truth, I was glad of the excuse to be rid of him.  Through that week of sketches, he had found more than one occasion to lean too close and say, complete with miasma, "I knew you'd be needing me again.  I knew you'd learn your lesson."

A woman now, said Riegler—comely, young.  He made it clear: Ophelia, only more restful, that was the ticket.  How such a creature would have gotten into this fix might be hard to explain, but her charm, presumably, would bring the wallets out.  So I went to Morse the grocer and hired his daughter, with chaperone (double fee).  The girl was to begin on Monday.

I started a stew, then went out back to shake the tablecloth.  Mrs. Herman had been gone over a year.  I husbanded tobacco and paid Timothy partly in booze Father had left in the sideboard.  Morse let me run a tab at the grocery, the money from the trust sometimes arriving late.  What could I sell?  Nothing was left but gilt medals and the old dresses Mother had given me for costumes.  As for the shotgun that might have solved it all, I'd parted with it years before.  The geese were safe from me.

"Need a hand, Captain?"  The voice was at my ear, the breath nearly visible.  It was Timothy, rearing back in the odd posture that made him look about to topple over.  He was close enough that I could see the white spot on his jaw where no beard grew.

"No, thank you," I said.  He had a habit of showing up, my most frequent visitor.  Perhaps the others were kept out by my sign at the walk's end: Closed for the season.  Dog bites.

"I thought you might be ready," he said, "to do that big picture you talked about when you were drawing me."

"Not yet," I answered, gathering up the cloth.  "I told you I needed to think about it before going on."

"Thinking!  To judge by you, painters must be the laziest men alive!"  His arm rose in a gesture that seemed independent of the rest of him.  He did not take his eyes off me.

"That's true," I said.  He opened his maw and held it there in a silent laugh.

"Pot's on the stove," I said.  "Got to get in."

He squinted as if I were at a distance.  "All right, Asa," he said.  He was the only man, or woman, on the Spit to use that name to my face. "But let me know."  He turned and went off on his rounds.  I never knew who else he pestered, but he rarely showed up two days in a row.  William would be spared.

I fixed up Mother's room for them.  I didn't know if the telegram's three meant William, his wife Pauline, and me, or if they were bringing one of their children—the college boy, the banjo-playing girl.  The question was answered when the two stepped from the hansom at the end of the walk, William and a woman who was neither Pauline nor the musician.  Pauline was squat and stout and favored colors that proclaimed it.  This woman, thin as a straw, was all in black.  Beneath her hat her hair was pulled back tight enough it made your ears hurt to look at her.  I wondered if she might be Pauline's sister.

He introduced her as Mrs. Sproule.  I conducted her upstairs.  One of the old lace curtains was tattered from my battle with the cobwebs.  When I got back down to William, there was no time for explanations.  Still, the longer William did not speak of her, the plainer the explanation grew.

He said he was surprised not to see Mrs. Herman.

"We had a disagreement," I said. "I've made the dinner."

Mrs. Sproule just then returned, buttoned up in vest and narrow skirt, a fine brocade.

"I was telling my brother," I said, "that you'll have to eat bachelor cooking this evening."

She nodded somberly.  An undertaker's widow, perhaps, or wife.

At dinner she ate small, chewed thoroughly, did not look up.  William blurted out, "Susan's an artist, too.  She belongs to an art club.  Studied in Paris, like you."  She shook her head.

"I'm glad I brought in fruit," I said, nodding to the bowl on the sideboard.  "It might inspire you."

I did not mention Pauline.  I'll admit to the dishonorable thought that I might not even have to plead for time, now that my brother had put his secret in my hands.  You wouldn't want Pauline to know how you spent that September night.

William himself spoke of his wife, as soon as Mrs. Sproule had gone upstairs.

"Pauline has gone to see her mother," he said.  Then he added, "I don't know that she'll be back."

At least, I thought, he waited until Mother died.  Even so, he evidently lacked the face to take the woman into his house.

"Mrs. Sproule has nowhere to go," he said. "Her husband brutalizes her."

So she had been brought for more than one night's rutting.

"Has she no family?" I asked.

"He's been generous to them," William said with a frown.

"I'm not used to housing females," I said.

"Perhaps I could speak to Mrs. Herman," he offered, "and make it up between you."

"I'd prefer that you not," I answered.

William picked up his glass of port.  "Marjorie tells me her husband is in low water just now.  She's eager to see the value of the house—realized.  I've wondered, however, if such a wrench might be perhaps difficult for you."

He paused, took a sip, then said, "Of course, I'd leave funds for Susan's keep."

There it was.  What was the difference in selling off the place, to be torn down and replaced with some cheap hotel—-or letting it be turned into a house of ill repute, Asa the whoremaster?  The difference was this, I told myself: once I had the cash to buy their shares, I'd throw them all out.

In the morning, I was grateful William did not come down in dressing gown, as he used to do in summers.  Both were respectably attired.  A hansom came by pre-arrangement.  William said he would be back next Friday and handed me an envelope, containing the equal of two months of the rent I paid.  Mrs. Sproule returned from seeing him off, in her hand a posy of bills.  She laid them on the tea table, squaring the edges.  I said nothing but went to clear away the breakfast dishes.  When I entered the kitchen, she had the basin full, her pretty sleeves rolled back.

It was like that all day.  Upstairs, I found that she had made the bed, emptied the chamberpot.  When I went to peel potatoes for dinner, she followed, took up a knife, and made her own efforts, virgin at least in this.  She was a mouse, as silent, as underfoot, and, even when still, as hard to take my eyes from.  I always spent a Sunday afternoon in the main house's parlor, with Mother's prayer book.  But I did not see a word: whether she sat across, crocheting a doily, or rose to inspect the jades, or—worst of all—stood minutes at a time before each of the watercolors hung about the room, I could not look away.  Her carriage showed breeding, but her shoulder blades were like bird bones, her wrists were knives.  The husband's brutality might have been feeding her on bread and water.  The devil alone could have said what set my brother dogging after her.  When she went early up to bed, my breath came heavy as if I'd run a race.

Next morning was cool, but I couldn't wear my nightcap in to breakfast.  Tea was laid out, beside it a sheaf of letters she must have been busy at up in her room.

"I'll post these for you," I said.

She may have nodded: I didn't look.  I had asked my model and her duenna to come to me, but now I had to go to them.  I was in no hurry to have Mrs. Sproule's presence announced.

The chaperone turned out to be Mr. Morse's unmarried sister.  I had brought one of Mother's dresses for the girl to wear.  As she changed into it, the spinster reeled out hooks of the sort Mother called setting her cap for me.  I asked Morse about the prospects for pheasant.  Once we got underway, the spinster worked off her disappointment scolding the girl for letting the hem drag in the dust.  At the beach, both lifted their skirts to pick their way over the sand.

The boat was still where Timothy and I had positioned it among the rocks, out of reach of any tide.  Sand was packed beneath, to make the bow rise as if shouldered by a wave.

"It's a shame to lie down in that dress," the spinster said.

"I hope there aren't splinters," said the girl.  But she climbed in and let me arrange the skirt's pale yellow folds around her.  I had her cant her head to the right.

"The sun will be in my eyes," she complained.

When Timothy was in the boat, the precariously leaning oar was meant to seem just dropped from his unconscious hands after days of rowing in pursuit of his fog-lost ship.  The new story, I supposed, was an elopement gone awry, caught by a storm, the suitor belike having judged a watery grave preferable.

"Remember, Amanda," the spinster said, "your eyes will be closed."  She shot me a ghastly smile, as if Amanda were a wayward child, hers and mine.

Meanwhile, as I marked light and shadow, I wondered if Mrs. Sproule were setting the house afire.

When I got home, the possibilities seemed worse.  I heard no sound, nor could I find her in any room.  My studio, I knew, was safely locked.  Had she gone to sell her wares in the main road?

From the back porch, I caught a glimpse of movement on the boulders.  I went out and found her coming in.  She quickly hid something behind her.  It was easy to tell it was the paint box I had noticed on Mother's dressing table: a neat, expensive thing, brass-fitted.

"Those rocks can be slippery," I observed.

My words drew no confession.  Once inside, she switched hands, thinking to keep the box concealed.

"Painting the sea is not so easy," I said.

That afternoon she kept at her tatting or whatever it was, looking up at the window when the tide brought in a louder wave than usual.  After a while I recognized the long lace fabric that she worked at as the broken curtain from Mother's room.  Again post-supper she withdrew early.

The next morning she brought another heap of envelopes to the table.  I put them wordlessly into my bag, my mind on the lowering sky.  I wasn't worried so much about a day of rain, but rather the chance of days of it.  Finishing work could be done in the studio, but I was weeks if not months from that.  Amanda showed up ready dressed, the spinster again turned out in Sunday best.  The girl made fewer complaints this time, but twitched so that the dress seemed afflicted with St. Vitus's dance.

"And what do you have for supper, Mr. Thacher?" the spinster asked when I gave up for the day.

"Small animals mostly," I replied.

Back home, I found the woman gone again.  An upper story window showed her hatless among the rocks, seated with a pad propped on her knees.  I was just as glad to have her out when the knock came at the door.

I opened partway.

"Timothy," I said, my hand on the door.

"Hello, Asa," he said.  "I figured you'd be done with your thinking by now."  He looked over my shoulder.  I thought of Mrs. Sproule out on the rocks and lost my patience.

"You surely know," I said, "I'm doing something with Amanda."

Despite his toppling stance, Timothy could be immovable as any stump—or move as sudden and sure as a fox.  He lurched against the door and barreled into the vestibule.

I had no choice but to precede him into the parlor.  The pile of bills William had left with Mrs. Sproule lay undisturbed on the tea table.  In the crocheting afternoons, they seemed to pulse there like a poison toad not to be touched.  I kept myself between the pile and Timothy.  When he got inside the house, he generally managed to help himself to something—a fistful of mint candies, a swatch of tobacco if not the pipe as well, once a cheap edition of Byron left by William's son.

I gestured to a chair where I might keep any eye on him.  He remained standing.

"I don't see," he said, "what use Mandy can be to you.  She don't know a thing about handling a boat.  And that Morse bitch, are you painting her map, too?"

I asked if it was true a bear had been sighted on the Spit.  His youthful feats of hunting, and his grudge that the railroad had scared the wildlife off, were usually able to engage him.

His words cut across mine.

"When were you so friendly with women?" he asked, although he used a worse word.  I saw how drunk he was.

"It looks like rain," I said, standing up again.  "Won't you take a drink before you go?"

He looked at me steadily, conveying that he was not to be bought off so easily as that.  But his eyes grew blank as he took in a dram of Father's brandy.

"Thanks for your visit," I said.  My hand rotated him toward the door.  Not until he'd gone did I realize he'd walked off with the glass.

The rain brought Mrs. Sproule inside and kept us there the next day as well.  After breakfast I went back to the studio, though I had nothing under way.  That was my habit on rainy days.  Mother would send me to work, saying, "If we stay in the one room all day, we'll be at each other's throats."  So I would try to occupy myself an hour, although nothing was possible in such dim light.  It seemed to me I went for the pleasure of her smile at my return.  "Thank God!" Mother once said.  "I thought I'd lose my mind, like the astronomer in Rasselas."

I could not stay an hour, though, thinking of Mrs. Sproule stalking through the house.  When I returned, I was appalled to find her before the mantel in the parlor, hands aloft.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

She turned.  One of her hands held a white cloth.

"I thought they could use dusting," she said.  Four carvings of jade, too tall for the shelves in the glass-front cabinet, were arrayed there.

"Those are precious items," I said.

She looked back at the mantel.

"I've never seen so fine a carving in mutton-fat," she said.  "I usually prefer the green, although I know I'm not supposed to.  But this—."  She pointed to a mountain where two sages pored over a scroll, while a third climbed up a path.

"I never had more than a cricket cage myself," Mrs. Sproule said.  "And here are the scholars who might have owned them."

At that moment, the rain came hard, walling us in like crickets.

"I'll see about dinner," I said.  It was an hour before time, but I felt I had to leave that room.  "I don't need help."

She looked at the jade again, then back at me.

"I won't touch anything," she said.

The sky cleared overnight.  I emptied out the boat to let it dry through the day.  At the post office I found a letter for her from William, and two of her own letters, returned unopened.  I did not stay out long.  After our day inside, I feared Mrs. Sproule might want to stretch her legs.  I confess to wanting her to keep to the house, losing battle though that was sure to be, and to an equally unmanly fear of telling her so.  When I got home, she was indeed attired in hat and coat.

"The roads are still sloppy," I said, "if you meant to walk."

More convincing perhaps was the mail I handed to her.  I put William's on top.  She nodded her thanks and went upstairs to read.  She stayed there an appreciable time, although two of the missives could not have occupied her long.  When she came back down, she told me William would be coming the next morning, to stay over the weekend this time.

"I'll be happy to go for any extra we'll need," she said.

"Thank you kindly," I said.  "But I'll do it."