Chapter 48 Geraldine
Geraldine
She made sure that Marjorie found her way safely back to her room before setting out for her makeshift studio.
Aided by the light of the moon overhead, she picked her way across the dew-covered grass, hardly aware of the dampness seeping in through her satin shoes.
She had to get the image down on paper before it was lost forever.
She pushed open the door to the building and flipped the light switch.
The glare overheard was at odds with her task, but it couldn’t be helped.
She was so eager to re-create the image in her mind’s eye that she didn’t bother to pull on her painting smock.
A gessoed canvas stood at the ready on the easel in front of her, and she rushed towards it, impatient to begin.
Using a bit of vine charcoal, she sketched with light, feathery strokes directly onto the canvas.
Once the blocking was done, she turned to her tackle box for tubes of paint and squirted them out one by one onto her battered wooden palette.
Phthalo blue, alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow, and titanium white blobs of pigment gleamed up at her like the smiles of lifelong friends.
She grasped a palette knife from a vase filled with tools, sliced off wedges of color, and began mixing them into the perfect shades.
Her heart raced as she reached for a blunt-tipped brush and swiped a broad sweep of color across the canvas.
Stroke after stroke followed, and in front of her eyes, the image she had imagined, inspired by the one she had seen, steadily came into being.
A path like a ribbon snaked through the painting, leading between a dense copse of trees and an expanse of lake beyond.
A shaft of moonlight penetrated a cloud-covered sky and illuminated the figure of a young woman, racing after a stag, her bow raised.
Shafts of sunlight filtered through the eastern-facing windows as she finally stepped back to evaluate what she had created.
It was only the beginning, but she could see that the work was good—perhaps better than good.
There was much more work to be done, of course.
The figure was still faceless, and that would never do.
It was the look on Cynthia’s face as she burst out onto the road, the moon lighting her expression, that had inspired the image in the first place.
Geraldine closed her eyes and imagined her once more: furious, determined, victorious.
She dropped into the wooden chair and stretched out her legs.
Her hands and shoulders ached from the frenzy of work.
A smear of yellow ochre had marred the front of her gown, but no matter.
It felt so good to be back at work that she laughed out loud.
Perhaps she would cut the stain out of her dress and frame it alongside the painting.
It was just the outrageous sort of thing she had always been known for.
The sun reached farther into the makeshift studio, and the warmth of it left her drowsy.
It had been years since she had spent a sleepless night painting an image she could not forget.
She closed her eyes, imagining the other paintings that would accompany the one before her.
Maybe one of Calvin striding across a lush field, a girl in his arms and a look of rage—or perhaps tenderness—stamped on his handsome face.
After all, it would take more than one of these to make a show.