The Shadow Portrait (11 page)

“I’m sorry I’ve angered you,” Phil said quietly. “I didn’t mean to. I think you have great talent, maybe greater than you realize. I believe you’re capable of painting more than a daisy.”

“I don’t want to hear any more of this!” Cara said, raising her voice.

“Very well. Once again, I’m sorry we disagree. I didn’t mean to be offensive.” He paused for one moment, then looked into her eyes and said, “Don’t be afraid of life, Cara.”

A silence fell over the room. Cara could hear only the ticking of the mantel clock. His words seemed to find a lodging somewhere deep inside her. They had a prophetic sound, and very rarely in her life had anything struck her so hard and so sharply.
Don’t be afraid of life.
The words seemed to echo, like a tolling bell deep within her. Suddenly unable to listen any longer, she said abruptly, “Good-bye, Mr. Winslow.”

“It’s Phil . . . and good night, Cara.” He turned and left the room, unaware of the devastating effect his visit and his words had made upon her.

As the door closed, Cara realized that her hands were trembling. She held them together and turned quickly and looked at the pictures of the flowers that she had labored on for so long. She had been so proud of them, and now with
one visit, with one phrase, this man she hardly even knew had managed to destroy the foundations of her happiness.

Don’t be afraid of life.

The words came to her again and again, and even after she went to bed she could not sleep, mulling over in her mind what he had said.
There’s more to life than flowers.
A wave of resentment flooded her. “What does
he
know?” she said aloud. “He’s strong and healthy, and I’m confined to this room and can do nothing! What is there for me in life besides my painting? Now he’s taken the pleasure of even that away from me.”

Cara lay there thinking of the evening and knew she would not be able to put it out of her mind. She had been impressed by Phil Winslow in a powerful way. True enough, she did not meet many men such as he appeared to be. Her father, she knew, despised him as a worthless trifler in art. It mattered not that Clinton warmly admired him, and she herself had been so grateful to him for the assistance he had offered to Clinton. Now, however, as she lay there, her hands clenched into fists, she whispered, “What do I care what he thinks? He’s just a penniless artist! Father’s right about him!”

Her sudden agreement with her father did not help the swirl of troubling emotions she felt inside. To her shock and amazement, she found tears running down the sides of her face. She wiped them away quickly and said, “I won’t let him make me cry! He’s wrong. He has to be wrong . . . !”

CHAPTER FIVE

A Time to Live

Life at the art institute was entertaining but at the same time rather depressing for Phil Winslow. Day after day he would go early, after a sparse breakfast, then paint for hours. One day, however, he had stopped painting. He was sitting and staring out the window when Crumpler, the instructor, came by. “Why aren’t you painting, Winslow?” he demanded.

“No more canvases.”

“Buy some.”

“No money.”

Crumpler stared at Phil, then shrugged. “Come along.” He took him to a storeroom where hundreds of old canvases, abandoned by former students, were stacked up to the ceiling. “Grab some of those,” he said. “You can use them again.” A look of contempt curled his thick lips. “The world won’t be losing much. Most of it’s junk anyway.”

Phil grinned. “How do you know I won’t put more junk on it?”

Crumpler was as sparing with his compliments as Ebenezer Scrooge had been of his money, but now he finally said grudgingly, “You’ve got something in you, Winslow. I’d like to see it come out.”

As bleak as the words were, they spurred Phil to do more. He now had an unlimited supply of canvases and only had to buy paints and a brush from time to time. He threw himself into the work in a zealous frenzy, irritating the other students, who looked down upon him.

One of the things about Winslow’s paintings that puzzled Crumpler and annoyed the other students was his choice of subjects. Most of them were painting still lifes, landscapes, or portraits, for that was where the money was. Phil had become almost obsessed in depicting various settings from the streets of New York. He roamed the poor immigrant district near his boardinghouse, and once painted a picture of a German family who had agreed to pose for him. He had managed to make friends with this family by bringing them sweets. He chose their front room as his setting, allowing the dilapidated furniture and a stove with stacked bricks replacing a missing leg to bring out the hard poverty the Schultzes lived in day to day. He depicted honestly the ugly, ill-fitting clothes the children wore, and the way they stared at him with large eyes. He spent a great deal of time on the faces of the father and mother, both lined by poverty, hard work, and disease.

He had brought the painting to the institute and placed it on the easel, intending to fill in some of the final details. As he started to apply some finishing touches, he noticed that the other students curled their lips up and then passed right on by.

When Crumpler stopped, he stared at the painting for a long time. Phil sat there waiting for the acid comment that was sure to come.

“Why did you want to paint this?”

“I guess because I get tired of daisies and apples and fruit bowls.”

“No one would ever buy a picture like this.”

“I didn’t think they would.”

“Why paint, then, if you can’t sell a picture?”

“I guess I’m just the artistic type. I’ll probably wind up starving in an attic somewhere.”

Crumpler was not satisfied with Phil’s flippant response. He continued to study the picture and said, “Have you ever heard of the Ashcan School?”

“Ashcan School? No, what’s that?”

Crumpler shrugged his beefy shoulders. “A group of
painters who paint stuff like this. I guess they picked the name all right. They like to paint pictures of the backyards of tenements. All pretty grim stuff.”

“Who are they? What’re their names?”

“Don’t know most of them. One of them’s named John Sloan. He was a student here for a while a long time ago. Some of his paintings are in the window of an art shop. I don’t know why. They’ll never sell.”

“I’d like to see them.”

“It’s over on Eighteenth Street. Place called Maxim’s.”

Phil left at once to find Maxim’s. There he saw paintings in the window such as he had never seen before. They were not “nice,” but instantly he realized that this man Sloan had absorbed the poor of New York into his bloodstream, and now they somehow vividly came to life on his canvas. He stood before one painting of three women out on a rooftop drying their hair. Two of them, a brunette and a blonde, sat on the ledge. All wore clumsy-looking shoes, obviously marking them as lower class, and soot-blackened tenement houses rose up into the smoky air behind them. To one side, a clothesline full of underwear and work clothes flapped in the breeze. The main figure, wearing a white chemise, was pulling her blond hair forward over her shoulder, allowing the sun—what there was of it—to dry her hair.

Another painting, obviously by a different artist, portrayed two young girls dancing in the street. It was a dark portrait, except for the light that illuminated the faces of the girls. The face of the one on the right glowed, and her hair spun as she danced around. Her expression of joy spoke loudly and contrasted vividly with the poverty shown in her heavy shoes and worn clothing.

Going inside, Phil wandered around and found himself more impressed than he had been by the paintings in the art museums of Europe.
These are real,
he thought.
They show how life really is.
He paused before a portrait of two wrestlers. They were on the mat struggling, one man with
his head braced against the mat straining to keep his shoulders from being pinned. Every muscle stood out on the two men, the terrible strain captured in paint. The pink flesh of the central wrestler about to be pinned was the most lifelike thing Phil had ever seen.

“You like that?”

Phil twirled to see a man standing beside him, a small man with a bushy red mustache and a pair of alert blue eyes.

“My name is George Maxim—but everyone just calls me Maxim. You like the painting?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“A man named George Luks did it. You can almost smell the sweat on those fellows, can’t you?”

“Yes. How much is it?”

“How much have you got?” Maxim smiled.

Phil laughed. “Not enough to buy it, I suppose. Do you sell many?”

“No, not too many,” Maxim said. He cocked his head to one side, and his lips turned up in a smile. He fingered his mustache and said, “You’re a painter, I take it?”

“Trying to be.”

“Most painters don’t like these fellows, Luk and Sloan. They call them the Ashcan School.”

“Is it a large group?”

“They’re called ‘The Eight.’ ” He named them off and said, “I take it you’d like to be number nine.”

“I like what they’re doing. Look at this one. Who did it?”

“Everett Schin.” Maxim studied Phil and said quietly, with interest, “You think that’s good?”

“Well, look at it.”

It was a portrait of the backyard of a tenement. All across the back of the painting a run-down building rose up, cluttered with junk, with clothes flapping on a drooping clothesline. At the bottom a woman was hanging out clothes, and piled against a nearby fence were broken boxes and scraps of metal. To one side was the inevitable outhouse with an
open door. It was a world he had seen often, and Phil said, “I think it’s great.”

“That’s too bad.”

Phil looked at the man in surprise. “Why is it too bad?”

“Because they’re all going to starve to death, and you as well! I advise you to paint flowers. That’s what people want.”

Immediately Phil thought of Cara Lanier, with her paintings of immaculate, neatly done daisies in white porcelain pots. “I’d rather do this,” he said and shrugged.

Maxim laughed. “Come back and bring some of your work. I’ll put one in my window. Maybe somebody will buy it.”

“Why, thanks. That’ll be fine. I’ll do it.”

The visit was repeated many times and, indeed, Phil did take several of his paintings to George Maxim, who took them on commission. None of them sold, but Phil and the art dealer became fast friends.

Another friend was Avis Warwick. She was evidently in one of her working moods, for she came to the studio every day during a period of a week and a half.

“You work too hard, Phil,” she said at the end of the first week. “I think I’m working too hard, too.” She laughed at herself. “No one else ever accuses me of that.” Then abruptly she said, “You can take me out tonight—or I’ll take you. Whichever way you want to look at it.”

“All right, Avis,” Phil said. He was tired, and he agreed to meet her that night in front of the institute. He had no idea where she lived. She never mentioned her life away from the world of art. It was a bit of a mystery about her, but she apparently had plenty of money.

That night when they met, she said, “Tonight’s on me, Phil. I know you’re broke.”

“I don’t care much for a woman paying my way.”

“Is your male pride hurt?” she asked, a coy smile turning her full lips upward.

“I guess it is a little bit. I’m used to paying my own way and for my dates.”

“It won’t hurt you to break a rule now and then. I break a lot of them.” She winked at him lewdly and grinned. “I’ll tell you all about my rule breaking. Maybe we can find one to break together.”

Something about Avis Warwick seemed to relax Phil. He laughed suddenly. “All right. Where are you going to take me?”

“I’ve been wanting to see that fellow Harry Houdini perform,” Avis said. “They say no locks can hold him. I’ve always been one to try to break free from any kind of chains, so I might pick up a few tips. Come on.”

They bought tickets with Avis’s money for the front row and enjoyed the show immensely. Houdini, the famous escape artist, proved to be an entertaining fellow. He was a fine-looking man with black curly hair and direct light blue eyes and had a winsome personality. He also had a body that most men could only dream about. When he threw off his robe and stood clad only in a pair of trunks, Avis reached over and grabbed Phil’s arm. “Look at those muscles! I believe he could break those chains just by flexing his arms!”

Houdini was indeed a muscular man. He was not heavy, but every muscle seemed delineated. He allowed himself to be chained hand and foot. As he carried on a clever monologue with his audience, spiced with jokes, he slipped out of the chains as easily as a man takes off his coat.

“Look at that,” Avis said. “You need to take lessons from Harry.”

“How’s that, Avis?”

“Why, you’re all bound up, Phil. Bad upbringing. I bet your parents made you go to church and keep the Golden Rule.”

“I’m afraid so. I’m a pretty respectable fellow.” Avis leaned against him, and he felt her body pressing against his arm. When he looked at her, there was a strange light in her eyes.

“I’ll help you get out of some of that if you stay around long enough.”

After the show they went to a restaurant. This time it was Delmonico’s, and Phil enjoyed the ostentatious interior, saying, “After hamburgers and corned beef, this is pretty fancy fare.”

Avis was enjoying herself. She had dressed carefully for the occasion, which was unusual for her. Her dress was made of dark rose-colored silk and had a tight bodice decorated with lace above the bosom and down the sleeves. Neck and waist were trimmed with a darker burgundy silk, and she wore gloves to match. In addition, the flared skirt sported a large embroidered design in the same color all around the bottom. Avis was a very attractive woman, and all eyes seemed to turn toward her wherever she went. She was accustomed to the attention, though, and said, “Do you ever expect to be rich, Phil?”

“No, not likely.”

“I’ve never been poor. It must be awful.”

“Well, I’ve never been poor either. My family’s got a big ranch in Montana. I could go there if I wanted to and punch cattle for a living.”