Fair Unknowns: Virgo Persica

[tamaranth]

Unknown Woman, by M Gheeraerts
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

A while back, medusa suggested the Fair Unknowns project, in which she invited us "to be assigned a portrait and then write a short story for it, giving some of the incognitas of the art world a story at last. "
Here's mine.

"I must be whiter," says Jessamine to Gerards. "A bride that any man would covet."

"My lady --"

"Jessamine. It was my mother's name."

"A lovely name for a lovely maiden." The name seemed strange, unEnglish, but how should he know? He was a stranger here himself. "Lady Jessamine, you are beautiful beyond --"

"I don't wish to be beautiful. I wish to be fair."

Her mouth is set in a becoming pout: five years at Court have taught her pretty manners, if nothing else.

"My lady Jessamine, I must paint what I see. And what I see is a lovely maiden of the Orient, clad in robes of finest --"

"This?" Jessamine crumples a handful of gauze, lets it fall. "This is my lady the Duchess's jest, sir, from a book of costumes. Virgo Persica, she calls it, and she thinks it suits me well to play the role my mother played."

"Your mother?" Gerards says, his hand quick with the charcoal stick, sketching in the drape of her gown, the lines of her body, the arc of her brow.

"My mother was a fine lady," says Jessamine, through her teeth. "My father brought her back with him from Araby, like treasure. Like my lady's marmoset. And like the marmoset, she took a chill and died."

He will not paint the way her mouth twists now. His commission is to make her beautiful, to show her true worth. For what he's being paid, she too is treasure.

"I am sorry for it, my lady," he says. "Your father lives?"

"Another voyage," says Lady Jessamine. "He's promised me pearls when he comes home."

Outside the leaded window, the first gale of autumn howls: Marcus Gerards flinches, and smudges the shape of the lady's breast.

*

"It stinks of mould," says Lady Jessamine, wrinkling her nose at the stuffed hound -- no fawn could be located -- on which her hand must rest.

"I shall have perfumes burnt," says Gerards shortly, nodding at the brazier that warms their draughty corner of the light-filled room. Jessamine's hair is heavy with oil and lank with flat-ironing: it curls more delicately than before on her neck, which is the exact shade of his Italian mistress's forearm in August.

"Whiter," says Lady Jessamine, eyeing the blended pigments on his palette. "I wish you to paint me whiter."

"My lady ..." Her face is already masked with white lead, her eyes as black as any at the Court, though she seldom blinks: perhaps it is not belladonna, as the other ladies use. "My lady," says Marcus Gerards, "I must paint what I see."

"Then see me as I wish to be," Jessamine commands. "See me as the child who grew amid a field of pale English lilies. See me as the maiden who speaks but English and a little French, and not her mother's tongue. See me as the daughter of a noble merchant-captain, a loyal subject of our Queen -- they say my father's ship has been sighted in the Channel -- whose dearest wish is that I marry well. Whose wealth," she adds, sharply, "lines your pockets, sir. And you will paint me fair, as fair a bride as any man might wish!"

I must paint what I see, says Gerards again, but this time only to himself.

*

"My back aches," says Lady Jessamine testily. Today's sitting is, thinks Marcus Gerards with some relief, the last of their appointments. All that remains is drudge-work, a backcloth of leaves and trunks (an English wood) and the filigree of silver that adorns her Persian robes. The portrait is almost finished -- though payment of the final sum seems doubtful now, as Captain Taylor's ship is still not safe in port.

Lady Jessamine does not wear mourning: she hopes, yet, for her father's safe return. Or so it is said. Lady Jessamine shuffles her feet, and sets her hand low on her back, and smiles with her mouth alone. White lead cannot disguise the violet shadows beneath her eyes. Embroidered silk does not hide the difference in her stance, or the curves burgeoning where, before, they did not. Gerards is accustomed to observing what he sees; he does not simply look. What he sees, now, is that the lady has found a bidder; she is some man's treasure-trove, found and claimed.

"My lord the Duke wishes to see the portrait," says Lady Jessamine. Her brows are freshly plucked; she arches them at him. "When may he call on you?"

"When my work is done, my lady," says Gerards. "Perhaps another week."

He does not ask which Duke he is to expect: it scarcely matters, and the lady is proud. Marcus Gerards' hand moves over the canvas, quick and clever. A new billow of gauze here. That fine new ring on her finger. The strung pearls that are not, after all, her father's gift to his maiden daughter. The daughter who is, now, no maid.

For a kindness, and because there is one gift the Duke will surely never bestow on Jessamine, Marcus Gerards sketches in a wedding-ring, hung like a trophy on a ribbon at her whitened throat.

-end-

Comments

[lj_stowaway]

I love this. It's going to stay with me, I can tell.

And oh, I knew. The moment she said, "My back aches," I knew.

[ladymoonray.livejournal.com]

Oh, you did it! That's a lovely story. And such an intriguing project.

[woolymonkey.livejournal.com]

An intriguing take on a curious portrait. I like it a lot, especially the way her grumpiness comes out at once, then the reasons for it come out more slowly.

[wilhelmina-d.livejournal.com]

I found this through reading on my friends of friends list. I just wanted to tell you how much I loved it! The voice was wonderful and clear, the characters vivid even in so short a story. I really enjoyed this. Thank you!