Chapter 17 #2
“It’s, well, a reflective surface you use to look at yourself,” she attempted. “Imagine a window that replicates your likeness. Or the surface of a lake.”
“Perhaps we could use the stream outside?”
“Not in the dark, I’m afraid.” Florrie twisted the paintbrush against her palm. She was delaying, and she hoped Vern could not tell. In truth, Florrie had already thought of the perfect solution, if she could dare to articulate it.
“Never mind, then!” said Vern. “You don’t need to wear it.”
“But I want to,” Florrie replied fiercely, because – well, she did. She tightened her fist around the paintbrush. “I think I can manage it, but I will require your assistance.”
“Oh? What did you have in mind?”
“The layout of the motifs is most complex.” Florrie paused, giving herself the chance to breathe. “If you paint that part for me, I can finish the details myself.”
What she meant was, Won’t you please consent to coming within extreme proximity to me for an utterly contrived purpose?
“You want me to… paint on your dress?”
Whether he gleaned the underlying nuance or not, Vern didn’t look unhappy, at the very least.
“I’ll try anything you like,” he continued. “But it might look terrible!”
“You designed the lace, didn’t you?”
“I only sketched the shapes with a bit of coal—”
“Excellent.” Florrie held out the brush. “I have complete confidence in you.”
Florrie soon realised, however, that she was far too confident in her ability to behave reasonably during this process.
It all began innocently enough. Vern insisted upon testing the paint on a swatch of fabric, which he selected from an overflowing basket of scraps by the hearth, and only agreed to proceed once Florrie approved of his attempts.
Then Vern spread the shawl on the table, tugging and pressing it until the corners lay flat and every motif was visible.
Florrie studied him as he studied the shawl, his grey eyes racing across each line of lace.
He nodded to himself occasionally – adorably – and traced his fingertips around shapes like Heliotrope’s wings or the craggy canyon wall.
“Well, then,” he said, with a resolute sigh. “May I?”
There was, as it turned out, no way of painting lace upon someone else’s gown that did not feel exceedingly intimate.
Though the paintbrush only touched the fabric, Florrie still felt her skin grow warm as he leaned closer to consider where the next brushstroke should land.
It didn’t help that the slippery nature of the tulle required Vern to hold the fabric in place, nor that the thin lace on the sleeves released the warmth of his hand onto her skin.
At one point, while he busied himself painting a particularly intricate leaf on the top of her left shoulder, Florrie realised he was just a short distance – and a spoken invitation – away from kissing her neck.
Before she could dismiss this thought with the outrage it deserved, Vern stopped, holding the paintbrush in mid-air.
“I’m very sorry to ask, Florrie,” he said, “but do you think you might be able to, well, tremble a little less? My brush keeps slipping.”
“I am not trembling!” Technically speaking, she wasn’t trembling; it was – Florrie reasoned – her shoulders and legs moving of their own volition, and she had no choice but to join them.
“Is something the matter?” Vern tapped his brush on the jar of paint. “Shall I stop?”
“No – no, thank you.” Florrie sighed, willing herself into inflexible stillness.
Previously, she’d found the painting – and Vern’s presence within it – invariably calmed her.
Today, however, felt different in a way that rather surprised her.
It was evident to Florrie, after some reflection, that her movements did not suggest anxiety or distress, as they most often did, but excitement. “Why don’t I sit down?”
Though sitting took the strain off her shoulders, it didn’t seem to help otherwise.
“You really must sit still, Florrie.” Vern’s light voice teased her name into two lyrical syllables – and that certainly didn’t help, either.
“I am sorry,” she murmured.
“Are you still uncomfortable? Would you like to try my weaving chair? Or… I know! You could even lie on the bed, and I could hold you steady…”
His voice trailed off as though someone had interrupted him. Florrie, for her part, suddenly felt incapable of saying a single word, and had instead quite elegantly folded her head into her palms in embarrassment.
“Can you continue painting while I stay like this?” she called from behind her clasped hands.
She could hear Vern’s laugh behind her: still so close behind her.
“Is it a good sort of trembling, then?”
Florrie could not believe how immensely conversational his tone was.
“I suppose it is,” she whispered.
“You’re not afraid of me?”
“Not in the least.”
To lend credence to this point, Florrie dared to raise her head. Vern was now standing right at her side. When he saw her, he exhaled quickly and looked away himself.
“I see,” Vern said. “I – well, I suspected, but I suppose I still wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
“You weren’t? Oh, I’m terribly sorry if I was too forward, but did you not just joke about holding me steady on your bed?”
“What? Really, I don’t even know why I—”
Vern suddenly became quite intent upon painting the acorn just above her collarbone.
“Is that,” he managed, “what you’d like me to do?”
“You’re the one trembling now,” Florrie murmured, triumphantly.
“Me? Trembling? Why would you think that?” Vern exclaimed, just as his trembling hand slipped – and the paintbrush’s ferrule snagged on the fabric of her collar.
That, on its own, was no great calamity. A few loose threads emerged, and the fabric hadn’t torn. But as Florrie watched with horror, the snag proved forceful enough to unfasten the button below her chin, revealing the rough, scar-pitted skin of her neck.
Vern reacted more quickly than she did. He caught the brush, leaped to his feet, and dabbed the paint with a nearby scrap.
“I certainly didn’t mean to do that!” he exclaimed.
“It’s simply a loose button. That’s why I wanted the needle and thread, as a matter of fact.” Florrie fixed the button as quickly as she could. Perhaps he hadn’t even noticed anything odd about her skin. “Shall we carry on? There’s only a few more flowers left.”
Vern turned to finish the flowers in question – quickly and silently, without even leaning his hand on her shoulder.
Then he placed the paintbrush on the table and stared at her.
There was an expression on his face that Florrie found herself quite incapable of deciphering.
She hoped, at the very least, that it wasn’t pity.
“I don’t mean to pry,” Vern said quietly, “but were you… hurt, Florrie?”
Florrie realised she’d raised her hand over her neck – protectively and unconsciously. She forced her hand away. Vern’s expression might have been hard to read before, but she could understand it now. His brows were raised; his eyes were gentle. He wasn’t pitying her. He was genuinely vexed.
Before she realised what she was doing, Florrie unfastened the button of her own volition.
“I struggle with something that is embarrassing to explain,” she began, thinking of every time she used bland phrases or diversions to distract from the matter at hand.
“When I feel upset or anxious or unsure about something, I experience inexplicable urges to, well, pick at my own skin. Isn’t that dreadful? ”
“So that’s why you wear—”
“My gloves, yes.” Florrie looked down at them as she spoke. “I once read a book that claimed wearing gloves was an excellent short-term treatment for this sort of behaviour. As a result, I assumed wearing them all the time would be even more effective.”
“Does it help?” Vern asked. He did not sound disgusted or horrified – not openly, at least.
“It does, a bit. But sometimes the compulsion is too great to avoid. So I try to keep myself covered and avoid looking-glasses. What makes it worse is that I haven’t a good complexion to begin with, and so every little imperfection I see makes me want to irritate it more.”
She had never told anyone the extent of her struggles.
Rosenne had declined to comment on the bumps and scars across her back, shoulders and neck, and Florrie only started wearing gloves after they’d parted ways.
Florrie had resorted to consulting a book precisely because the thought of revealing her situation to another living soul filled her with such dread.
At present, however, she felt almost relieved. “Now you know my great secret,” she intoned.
“But I don’t understand. What makes someone’s complexion good or bad?”
“Well, centuries of art and cosmetics would have you believe one’s skin should be smooth and uniform, and certainly not covered with indentations from past misfortunes.”
In response, Vern rummaged through the scrap-basket again and picked out a small piece of lavender linen. He pressed it into Florrie’s gloved palm.
“Forgive me for employing the obvious comparison, but you and I both know there’s nothing wrong with an interesting texture,” he said.
“That’s kind of you to say.” Florrie looped her fingers through the ribbons on the edges of her sleeve. “But unconvincing. At least you’ve already finished painting. I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to touch me after seeing that.”
“Florrie, please.”