Penelope in particular came to use the rocking chair to express her variations of temper. When she was content, she would sit moving only a little, or for minutes together, not at all. If she were in a happy mood, she rocked freely back and forth, giving herself little pushes with her small, child’s feet when they touched the floor on the forward rock. If she were angry, or merely “put out”—usually with Nell, for she focused most of her resentments on the other old woman—why then she would rock furiously back and forth holding the chair arms grimly and looking straight ahead with tight lips until someone took the trouble to humor her. She read there, she took occasional naps there, she sewed there, but most of all she sat there and made verbal her opinions of the world and its inhabitants. The chair was her forum, her pew, her haven, her only final, absolute claim to property. No one else, not even a cat, dared sit in it.

It was two days after Casey Troy’s departure that Sarah found a quiet half hour to look at her portrait seriously for the first time. She’d seen it, of course, and listened to the comments made by others in the household. Although no one came right out and said so, no one liked it: it made them uneasy and resentful. As she now studied the portrait, she began to find their reasons. Casey had painted her in the glade, although they had been there together only one time; so the outdoors and the simple dress she was wearing gave the portrait a casual look. Nell expressed it for all of them when she said it lacked the authority and dignity they knew her to have, and which should be apparent in a likeness of the mistress of Beulah Land. That, she supposed, was as near to it as they could come.

It was indeed not a portrait of the mistress of Beulah Land, but a portrait of Sarah. It showed more of her than they were accustomed to see and an aspect of her Casey had reason to know and they did not. As a child finds it impossible to entertain the idea of a parent’s sexuality, so was Sarah’s family inclined to deny hers and set the artist’s suggestion of it down to misinterpretation. There was nothing obvious, of course, but there was a shine on her lips and eyes, a tilt of the head that hinted invitation, a sensual languor in the repose of the arms.

Sarah smiled. He had painted the portrait for her and so that she would always—as if she needed a picture—remember their time together. Reminded now, she felt her first regret at Casey’s leaving and decided to go to the glade, where she might think of him as privately as she pleased, with no one to interrupt her reverie.