The Man In the Forest Part 3

She didn’t do many dowry chests anymore. She didn’t like dealing with the fussy brides, and anyway, it was too difficult transporting them from town and back again. Sometimes, when a family that could not be said ‘no’ to requested one, or if the bride or groom was a friend of the Cartwright’s, she would agree. In any case, she was lucky to have been able to set so much money aside, and could now live comfortably, if not exactly luxuriously. She had tried, when she was still young, to give the money to Mother as a way to contribute to the family. But her mother had insisted that she save it in case she wished to go to a proper art school when she got older.

Because she was known for her dowry chests, Ryan’s paintings also sold well. When she went into town, she always had a bundle of them wrapped carefully in cloth which she took to Mr. Hawthorne, the owner of Hawthorne’s Books. Despite its name, Hawthorne’s Books was much more than a simple book shop. It was a positive mishmash of all sorts of treasures, including the art supplies Father had bought for her when she was first learning to draw. Mr. Hawthorne had been known to slip her free a canvas or two which arrived with some defect as well as sheets of parchment (an expensive commodity for a small town) after her father died and she could no longer afford to buy them. He was also the one who casually suggested that she might try making her own paints, and encouraged her experiments by remarking when particular plants were in bloom which might be used for such an endeavor. In return, she sold him her paintings for very little, and he made a fair profit from them.

She had little time for painting these days, what with trying to run Laknir by herself. First, there were the repairs. Things seemed always on the verge of breaking or collapsing in those first few weeks. She listened well to Mr. Cartwright on how to fix the warped door frame, refinish the floors, as well as repair the paddock fence. He also helped her build the chicken coop, and introduced her to a friend of his who explained how to fix the thatching on the roof.

Mostly, she learned by trial and error. After a few months things were finally holding together, and it was time to paint the interior. She wanted to do something special, maybe even a mural, but, for the first time, she found herself hesitating. She just couldn’t seem to fix on a subject. She felt she ought to do a forest scene, but there were so many beautiful things in the forest, and, anyway, if she wanted to see the forest she could simply step out her front door. But then what should she paint? Frustrated, she painted the whole place white as a primer, hoping the fresh blankness of it would inspire her. It didn’t look bad in white, but it didn’t look complete either, and still she didn’t paint it.

With the repairs complete, except for the occasional patching up, and the garden thriving, Ryan suddenly found herself with free time. At first, she felt relieved. After all, hadn’t this been what she was working toward? But it wasn’t long before she became restless. She tried to paint, but this only reminded her that she had left one task unfinished, which made her cross. She began to be short with people she met in town, and they would shake their heads and murmur that they’d been right to say she shouldn’t be living out there all alone, which only made her more cross.

This all came to a head when she ran across Mr. Cartwright one day. She generally tried to avoid the carpentry shop if she could help it, but he happened to be delivering an armchair at Hawthorne’s when she went in.

“Oh, Ryan,” he said when he saw her, “I was hoping I would catch you one of these days. A friend’s daughter, Merilee, is getting married in two months. Her father is Tom’s godfather, and I was wondering if you would do a dowry chest for her, as a favor to me.”

“I’ve told you I don’t want to do them anymore, I don’t care if your friend is the bloody king’s godfather!” she shouted before she could stop herself. Mr. Cartwright was bewildered by this outburst. She could see that she had hurt him deeply, and regretted her words immediately.

“I…Mr. Cartwright, I…I’m,” she tried to stutter out an apology.

“Never mind, Ryan,” he said, trying to smile as though nothing was wrong. “I’ll just do it myself, don’t worry about it.” And with that, he disappeared from the shop.

She was so ashamed. Mr. Cartwright had always been kind to her, almost like a second father. The look of hurt and disappointment on his face made her feel sick to her stomach. Why had she reacted like that? She knew why. He’d said Tom’s name, and that was enough. It had shot through her like a bolt of lightning, and all the frustration and unhappiness she’d been feeling rose to the surface and burst. For a moment, she wondered how much Mr. Cartwright knew about what had happened between his son and her.

The next day she went into town again, and made a beeline for the carpentry shop. Mr. Cartwright was bent over a bed post doing some fine carving detail, but he looked up immediately when she entered. He seemed surprised to see her, no doubt because she never made the trip to town two days in a row, but also because he had never seen her look so uncertain. Even as a child, she’d always had a confident air. It exuded from her straight, sure stature, and the hard line of her jaw. He remembered thinking she was such a serious child, and wondered if it was only because she’d lost her father so young. But now, she seemed lost somehow. She was carrying a scroll of parchment in one hand, which she thrust at him awkwardly. He took it from her curiously, trying to read her expression.

“If you don’t like it, I can do something else,” she said with short clipped words. He continued to stare at her, forgetting the scroll for the moment, as he tried to interpret her strange tone. “That is,” she said, looking down at her feet, “if you still want me to do it.”

For a moment, he didn’t know what she meant. Then, at last, he unfurled the parchment to see an elaborate design drawn roughly in charcoal. It was a forest scene, but in every tree and bush and flower was a bird. The whole thing was absolutely covered in birds of every shape and size: birds with little, round bodies perched on the branch of a tree, birds with long, thin beaks sipping dew from a flower, and, everywhere, birds with sleek, powerful wings stretched gloriously in flight.

He looked up at her in amazement. She was watching his reaction cautiously, as though afraid he might say some harsh words to her.

“Ryan, this is…beautiful,” he managed to say finally, though ‘beautiful’ hardly seemed a fit word. She looked pleased, but still hesitant.

“There are lots of birds in the forest. I am glad of the chance to study them, and put down their likeness in paint. That is, if…” she trailed off, looking pleadingly at him, and finally he understood.

“Ryan, I would be honored for you to paint Merilee’s dowry chest, but this is too much work. You really don’t have to-”

“No, I want to,” she cut him off. “Really, I do. I’ve run out of things to fix, and I have been going mad with nothing to do. This will get me out into the forest to study the birds, something I have wanted to do for some time. You can see I’ve taken a great many liberties with this drawing, and I promise the real work will be better than this rough sketch, I didn’t have much time-”

“This is divine,” he said, now cutting her off. “And I have no doubt that it will be the most beautiful chest ever created, and every bride forever after will be jealous of it.” He smiled warmly at her, and, at last, she smiled back.