Page 8 of The Sweetest Season
“I’m pleased to have helped a patient,” Beatrice said, amused at the doctor’s obvious pride in his “cure.”
She and Ivy were kept busy replenishing platters with treats—people seemed to snap them up as soon as they saw them.Eventually, Bea took a moment to find a quiet spot.She never liked crowds, and she’d been in the midst of one for hours.
As she walked down the unfamiliar hallways, curiosity got the better of her.She peeked into several rooms, noting that Mr Forrest’s style tended toward simplicity, though never plainness.She’d spent far too many nights thinking about Mr Forrest, what he liked or disliked, and his honey-gold eyes.And the way he’d kissed her hand.
She walked on.At the entrance to one door, though, she was so surprised that she walked right in before she realized her transgression.
It was a studio, set up for painting.One wall, facing north, was nearly all glass doors, which provided a flood of indirect light.There were also dozens of paintings of different sizes, but all in unfinished states, clustered against the walls and the cabinets, as if begging to be completed.
Footsteps sounded behind her, along with the tap of a cane.“What do you…” Mr Forrest stopped short in the doorway.“Oh.Miss Holliday.I don’t allow people in here,” he said.
“I don’t allow people in my kitchen,” she countered, “and that didn’t stopyou.”
He smiled.“Fair point.”He came in, resting the cane against a table.
“This is your studio?”she asked.“You painted everything in here?”
“Most of it’s old.I wasn’t painting much for a long while.”He gestured to a dark seascape.“And what I did work on I never finished.”
Beatrice considered the nighttime scene.It depicted a narrow beach with craggy hills rising up behind it.A few small figures gathered around the wreck of a ship.The only light in the painting was a moon half-hidden by clouds, and the tiny lanterns held by the figures as they looked for survivors.It wasn’t hard to sense the desperation and despair in the picture.
“Is this something you saw personally?”
He shrugged.“A composite of my memories and others’ stories.The key thing about painting is that most of it’s a lie.It’s not a literal rendition, but rather something we create to improve on the world or to show something no one really could have seen.Not that it matters.I won’t ever finish it.”
“It looks finished to me,” she said.“What remains to be done?”
“Not much.But there’s no point in completing it.No one wants such dismal work, and that’s mostly what I’ve done since the war.”
“Why not paint something more cheerful?”
“I have, in a way.”He led her to his work table, where a number of tiny pieces lay face up.Each one featured a dominant color, though no obvious subject.“These are experiments.I started them not long after I met you, actually.I forgot how intense colors could be.”
She followed him, but then stopped, seeing something out of the corner of her eye.“What’s that?”
“What?”He followed her gaze.“Oh.Damn.I meant to destroy that.”
Beatrice got to the painting before he did, and picked up the image that had attracted her.
“It’s only a study.Just a sort of sketch, really,” he said hastily as Beatrice gazed at the piece.“I’ve been experimenting, trying more colors.But it’s just for practice.It’s nothing.”
“It’s me,” Beatrice said.Itwasher, but not prim and proper.Not past her prime.It was Beatrice as she sometimes dreamed she could be—beautiful.
“How did you do this?”she asked.“You haven’t spent more than five minutes with me face-to-face.And you certainly weren’t sketching me when you were at my shop!”
“No.”He looked distinctly abashed, as if he’d been caught in mischief by a superior.“The day we met, later…I was here in my studio.I just mixed some colors and started working.I didn’t mean to paint you.It just…happened.”
“It’s remarkable.You did this without even looking at me.What would you do if I’d been sitting there?”
“As if you’d ever pose for a painting.You’re a lady.”
“Ladies get their pictures painted all the time.”
His voice dropped.“Not the way I’d want to paint you.”
Beatrice blinked in surprise, and then felt a warmth creeping up her body.Did he mean what she thought he meant?“Excuse me?”
“Forgive me.I shouldn’t have said that.”He actually blushed.His unexpected embarrassment was charming.
