The Shadow Portrait (13 page)

“Oh, just on an amateur basis,” Camrose shrugged. “I gave it up, of course, when I entered the ministry. Pugilism is a disreputable world.”

“You’re going to have to visit the church and hear George preach,” Mary Ann said. Her eyes were bright and she made an attractive picture as she stood there looking with pride
at the young man. “George is going to be a missionary in Africa someday.”

“Really? That’s most commendable. I would certainly enjoy visiting your church. What time do your services start?”

“Ten o’clock. We’d be most happy to have you. It’s just a small church, of course. As a matter of fact, it’s meeting in a storefront right now. We hope for better things.”

“They will be better. You’ll see,” Mary Ann said.

“I suppose you go there, Miss Mary Ann?” Phil asked.

“Why, no. Our family goes to a downtown church.” Her eyes went again to the young minister. “I’d like to go hear George, but Father won’t hear of it.”

“We could use your voice and any musical ability you might have.” Camrose grinned faintly. “We don’t have a piano player, and I’m the world’s worst.” He looked hopefully at Winslow. “I don’t suppose you can sing and play a piano?”

“No, sorry. I’m a follower as far as hymns are concerned, but I’ll be there Sunday morning to do what I can.”

“Fine! I’ll look forward to seeing you.”

The three stood there speaking of the church, and Mary Ann said, “Well, Cara’s anxious to see you. I’ll take you to her room.”

“Oh, I think I can find it. I was there once before. You stay here and entertain the preacher.” He put his hand out, saying, “See you Sunday morning.”

He left the room, very much aware of Mary Ann’s obvious interest in the young minister. “Going to Africa as a missionary,” he mused out loud. “
That
won’t sit too well with her father.” When he reached the door of Cara’s room, he knocked gently and at once heard her say, “Come in.” Opening the door, he stepped inside and found her sitting in a chair by the window.

She rose, saying, “I saw you come. Did you get detained downstairs?”

Phil moved over and bowed slightly. “I stopped to meet Mary Ann’s friend, Reverend Camrose.”

“Oh yes, George! What a fine fellow he is!”

“Going to be a missionary in Africa, she tells me. That’s quite a dangerous undertaking. I have some relatives who are over there, both Winslows, Barney and his brother, Andrew. I wonder if Reverend Camrose will be in their area.”

“Oh, that’s so interesting! Did you mention it to him?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You should. He’s fascinated to hear anything about Africa.”

“Well, I’ll be visiting the church Sunday morning. If we have time, I’d be glad to tell him and give him their addresses, too.” He grinned broadly. “They’re always trying to recruit new help for their mission work over there.” He thought for a moment, then turned his head to one side as he asked, “Would your father approve of a thing like that?”

Cara remained silent for a moment. “No, I’m afraid not. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t even approve of George.”

“Not enough money and position?”

Cara’s pale face grew slightly pink. “I’m afraid that’s part of it. He and Father really aren’t the same kind of man.”

“No, I don’t think they are. Still, some men marry their daughters off to fellows who are different from themselves. You don’t think your father would ever give in, or has the young man made an offer?”

“Yes, he proposed, but when Mary Ann mentioned it, Father went into—” She started to say something, then changed her mind. “He became quite displeased.”

Phil could imagine what “quite displeased” meant—probably a towering rage. He could picture the bull-like Oliver Lanier striding the floor and pounding his massive fists into his meaty palms, shouting, “My daughter marry a penniless preacher? Never in a thousand years.” Phil shook the image out of his head and steered the conversation away from the Lanier family. “I brought you a present,” he said and took the flat, rectangular package wrapped in brown paper from
under his arm. He handed it to her with a slight smile. “I don’t think you’ll like it.”

“What a thing to say,” Cara said. “It’s one of your paintings. I can tell.”

“Yes it is. Take a look and see what you think.”

As she unwrapped the package, Phil thought suddenly that it was a rash thing to give her such a painting. It was, he knew, not the kind of picture Cara Lanier would appreciate—or possibly even understand. Still, he had thought long about it and considered that it might be helpful in some way to break through her veneer of undisturbed gentility.

The painting was of a young girl Phil had seen. She was no more than ten or eleven and was standing outside the tenement building in which she lived. She had on oversized men’s shoes and black stockings. The huge shoes gave her a grotesque appearance, which was not helped by the faded brown dress, also a hand-me-down from some woman. It was patched and bulky, gathered around her waist by a string. She was looking down. Her hair would have been blond had it been clean. As it was, the smoky air and the grime of her environment had dulled it to a murky, dirty brown. It was unkempt, unwashed, and had not had a comb or brush pulled through it for some time.

Her face, however, was angelic. Though dirt marred it, beneath the grime and the filth was a pretty girl. Had she been born in high society, Phil thought, she could have been anything. She was holding a torn and battered doll in her hands, and he was close enough to see that her hands were red and swollen. He had studied her carefully, and the image seemed to have transplanted itself into his mind. When he got back to his room, he immediately sketched the child and found he could call up the scene with complete clarity without any difficulty. He had entitled it
A Twelve-Year-Old Worker,
for he assumed she worked in one of the sweatshops or factories where children of no more than eight or nine put in twelve-hour days, sometimes working seven days a week.
He had been proud of this painting because it had captured something of the poignancy he had seen in her face and in her eyes, but he did not have the faintest idea how Cara would feel about it.

Laying the paper aside, Cara held the picture up to the light and immediately stood stock-still. She was so still that only the breeze coming through the open window stirred her rich brown hair. It added a touch of red, which Phil had not noticed before, giving it a most attractive tint. Her eyes grew wide and her lips parted, but she said nothing for a long time. Finally she moved over, put the picture on an easel, then stepped back and kept her eyes fixed on it.

Phil remained silent, determined not to ask her opinion. After what seemed forever, she turned and said, “I know why you brought this picture. I mean this particular one.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Cara stood before him, her hands at her sides, and there was tension in her still features. She had very smooth skin of a satiny texture, and her gray-green eyes were steady as she studied him. When he did not speak, she said, “You wanted to shock me, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly that,” Phil said, disturbed by her intense scrutiny. “I only wanted to show you that there are other kinds of painting in the world.”

“I always knew that.”

“Certainly, but perhaps I wanted to show you the difference between us.”

“I know what you think of me. ‘Don’t be afraid of life.’ That’s what you said.”

Phil was startled at the anger he saw in her eyes and how rigid her back was. She had evidently dressed carefully for this visit in a flattering, light blue-green dress, but now she was visibly upset. “I didn’t mean for it to sound like that.”

“I think you did, Phil.” She had forgotten to call him Mr. Winslow, for the painting had brought back all of the pain and disturbance that his remark had caused her. Every day
she had thought about it, and now she said, “You think I’m afraid of life—that I’m wrapped up in cotton bunting here in this room. Well, you’re right, but what else can I do? What kind of life could I have except the one I have now?”

“You could put life into your paintings,” Phil said. He had prepared this speech very carefully, not expecting to have the opportunity to make it. “I know that you’re not in good health, but you have the talent to paint things besides still life. What does this picture mean to you?”

“It’s rough. I don’t mean the style, but that, too. Your painting is much rougher than most men’s. You use broad strokes and put the paint on so heavily that it strikes you almost like a blow. But it’s not the style. It’s the material, isn’t it? You’re hoping that people will look at this painting and see a poor, wretched girl, half-starved and mistreated, and it will make them want to do something about it.”

“You make me sound like a missionary.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she asked. She put her hands behind her and stepped forward. “Isn’t it so? You do want to change the world.”

Phil was somewhat taken aback. “I never thought of it like that, Cara,” he said. “I would like to help people. There’s nothing I’d like better than to take this young girl and give her a chance to be somebody, to buy her nice clothes, to give her an education, but I can’t do that. I don’t have the money, and even a millionaire couldn’t do it for all the poor. But somehow with this painting, people could look at it and see something that needs changing. There are a lot of people that don’t even know that this kind of poverty exists.”

“You mean my family?”

“No, I didn’t mean your family exactly, but it’s true enough, isn’t it? Most of you never come in contact with this kind of poverty.”

Cara suddenly felt vulnerable. She turned and walked to the window and looked outside, staring blindly at the flower beds that had given her so much pleasure. Now she wondered
if she would ever be able to go back and paint again as she always had.

Without turning around, she said, “Tell me about England and France. Have you ever been to Italy?”

“One time,” he said, “I took a freighter and then hitchhiked.” He came over to stand beside her and began to speak of the hills of Rome and the countryside. “I went down to the grape-growing country and did a lot of painting there. The skies seemed bluer somehow, and the people had rich olive complexions, and a lot of them sang with gusto. Of course I didn’t understand a word of it, but it was fun painting such happy people.”

“I’d give anything if I could travel and visit some of those faraway places,” Cara said.

“Well, I think you might go. Is your health really that bad, Cara? Do you ever get outside?”

“Sometimes when the weather’s very nice, Clinton or Benji will take me down to the park. They treat me as if I were going to drop dead any minute.”

The bitterness with which she said this caused Phil to lift his eyebrows. He had not heard her speak so harshly about her condition before. “I don’t understand. It seems to me that fresh air and sunshine and exercise would be exactly what you need.”

“That’s what I keep telling Dr. McKenzie, but—” She broke off suddenly and gave him a startled look. She had almost said,
My father won’t permit it,
but somehow she knew the reception such a confession would find with her outspoken friend. She shrugged, saying, “I’ve given up on ever living a normal life.”

“Cara, you shouldn’t say that!”

“Phil, I’ve been in this room now for ten years. It’s like . . . it’s like a grave to me, even with this pleasant furniture, these pictures, and all of the wealth you see here. I’d give it all up for a room with a single bed, a chair, and a table in the country, just to be close to flowers and butterflies and birds.”

Sensing how despondent she felt, Phil Winslow reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. She was not a large woman, and her face suddenly seemed childlike in spite of her thirty years. “I’d like to see that happen for you, Cara,” he said. “Isn’t there any hope?”

“I don’t think so. Father would never permit it.”

Phil wanted to rap out an answer about fathers who didn’t know what was good for their children, but he realized that such a statement would only hurt Cara and would do her no good. Determining to talk more about this later, he said, “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you start painting more rougher subjects?”

“Like what?”

Phil grinned boyishly. “Well, like me. Why don’t you dash off a painting of me? You couldn’t hurt my looks. Here I am a ratty, poor artist.” He was, indeed, wearing old clothes. It was all he had, except for one good suit he saved for special occasions. “Here, I’ll sit over in the sun, and you can paint me. Then you can paint a park bench around me.” He looked down and grinned, then picked up Charley. “You can put Charley beside me. Well, make him look sort of ugly a little bit. Put some fleas on him and paint him with his fur all matted and clogged up with dirt. You can call it a tramp artist and his dog.”

Cara laughed. “I’ll do it,” she said. “Move that chair over in the sun and sit down while I get a canvas.” She moved quickly to the wardrobe with a sprightliness in her step that surprised her. Pulling out a fresh canvas, she set it on the easel, got her paint box, selected a brush, and pulled some charcoal out to do a preliminary sketch. “Now while I paint you, tell me some more about England and France. . . .”