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Interlude

Three Sisters

Florence is reading, sitting in the swing beneath the maple tree, her dress blowing gently in the breeze as she thumbs through the pages of Wuthering Heights . She sighs dramatically, studying her younger sisters. Claire watches Marguerite sketch, her fingers clenched around a nub of pencil.

“What are you drawing?” Florence asks.

“You,” Marguerite says. She turns over her tablet, shows Florence the sketch.

“You’ve made my nose too big.”

“No, I haven’t,” Marguerite says. “That’s how it looks.”

“I have an idea,” Florence says, standing. The swing knocks against the back of her thighs. “I want you to draw me a picture. One to go with the story I’m writing. I want you to draw the Baron de Havilland.”

“Baron de Havilland. What a name.” Marguerite sighs, rolling her eyes. “What does he look like?”

Florence smiles. “He’s wickedly handsome, of course. Tall, with dark hair, the edges touched with auburn. Storm-colored eyes. An insouciant smile. He’s a rake. Secretly.”

“I’ve read her story,” Claire says. “It’s tawdry and shameless. You’d better hope Papa never sees it, Flor.”

“And you’d better not tell him, either one of you, or I’ll have your hides.”

“I don’t know how to draw someone who isn’t real,” Marguerite says. “Why don’t you draw him?”

“Because I can’t. You’re the artist. I’m the writer.” Florence glances at Claire. “And Claire is just Claire .”

Claire pouts and turns her head, the hurt skating across her pretty-plain face, so much like Sadie’s at the same age.

“You’d better let me read this story of yours, then, if I’m to draw him well,” Marguerite says. “He might look any sort of way, otherwise.”

“I can’t show you.”

Marguerite sighs. “Claire’s seen it.”

“She’s not as judgmental as you are.”

Marguerite laughs. “She is, she just doesn’t say things out loud like I do.”

“Use your imagination, Marg. I’ll give you all my penny candy if you do this for me.”

“Fine, but you’d better give me the candy first.”

The scene shifts, morphs. Marguerite sits before an easel, painting, covering the original pencil lines of a sketch with careful brushstrokes. Sadie recognizes the subject instantly. It’s Weston, his dark features unmistakable on the canvas. There’s a knock at the door, and Florence enters.

“Oh, Marg,” she exclaims, “he’s just as I imagined. You have such a gift.”

Marguerite smiles. “Do you really think so?”

“Yes. If you finish it for my birthday, it will make me so happy.”

“That’s just five days away ...”

“You can do it. I know you can. It’ll make the perfect gift.” Florence comes nearer, her lips softly parted. “Goodness, he looks like a real person—like you’ve captured him from life.”

Marguerite frowns. “I’m not sure I like him. He looks dangerous. Like a scoundrel.”

“And dashing and remarkable. Just as I wrote him.” Florence’s eyes close, her hand trailing over her collarbone, the color flowering on her cheeks.

“James would be jealous, if he could see you right now, all moony over an imaginary man.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“What happens, in your story, Florence?”

“Oh, it’s a tragic romance. Just like Wuthering Heights .”

“And he’s your hero?”

“Yes,” Florence says. “And the villain, all at once. I’ll give you one of my Meissen figurines, as payment, once you’re finished. Consider it your first commission.”

“Oh!” Marguerite’s eyes light up. “The pink dancer, with the fan?”

“Yes. If that’s the one you want.”

Marguerite cleans her brush on her smock, then dips it in lampblack. “All right, then. I’ll do my best to finish it before your party. Now, leave me alone. Let me work.”

Sadie watches young Marguerite paint as the scene slowly fades from view, and an uncomfortable understanding breaks over her. She remembers the scene she witnessed at Florence’s coming-out party. The same night Florence and Weston met, in that other time and place. Had it all begun because of this painting?

Was Weston ever a real person? Or did Marguerite’s painting and Florence’s words bring a figment of imagination to life?