The Shadow Conspiracy II

by Phyllis Irene Radford

  This time, she attached the arm to the left side of the easel, so she could use it with her dominant hand. The mechanism turned smoothly, allowing her to reverse the joint on the elbow and flip the wrist, changing the angle of the knuckles. I should make one that is truly left-handed, she thought absently, although her father had put suede finger loops on both the palm and back of the hand, allowing himself to use the arm on either side. The silk felt cool against her skin, then warmed from the touch of her flesh. Settling herself in the chair, Aidan sharpened the pencil in the mechanical hand, and then tilted it until the angle was how she preferred to hold her wrist. Focus....

  “Look! Tell me what you see!”

  Aidan left her hand soft, as if handling a writing nib, the tip floating over the canvas. The brilliance of the light pouring through the windows, the cherished red glass pitcher positioned between the bowl of apples and the plate of grapes — as she started sketching, Aidan realized that she had not started in her usual place — she had started to the far left of the canvas, as a right-handed person would do. For a moment, it was like watching herself in a mirror. She remembered her very first drawings, where her father might seize her hand and draw a line or two before returning control to her.

  Then the strange feeling eased, and she allowed the arm to guide her, watching what it focused upon, what it ignored for the time being. There was some sort of a connection between the camera lucida lens and the arm — when she glanced away from the crystal to watch what the arm was doing, it slowed and one time even stopped. The trace of...impatience?...in its movements kept Aidan from looking again at the pencil.

  The arm slowed and then stopped moving after simple, overall markers of depth and size had been placed. To her surprise, the arm began to move sideways...toward the table which held her paint tray. The arm tilted, using the dull end of the pencil to lift the damp canvas Aidan always lay over her oil paints.

  Aidan straightened. The arm wanted to paint! Taking hold of the fabric corner, she lifted the cover, exposing the blobs of oil paint. Only one colour needed a few more drops of linseed oil — Aidan then quickly switched out the pencil for the paintbrush she liked to use for laying down the basic image.

  What came next was beyond all her hopes and dreams.

  The arm began to work swiftly, as fast as she had ever watched it paint, attacking the portions of the still life with the most vivid colour. The pitcher, the apples, beads of moisture still on several grapes — the arm turned its attention to everything that gleamed like a jewel in sunlight. Aidan did not try to direct the device — she merely observed, noting what the arm thought was important, what it thought could wait.

  Colour. It was like the bowerbirds of Australia one of her parents’ friends had spoken of, seeking out bright colour and decorating with it. He’d forgotten how colourful things could be, she realized, and felt herself tearing up. The arm slowed, and Aidan realized that her tears were changing what the lucida revealed. Wiping them away with her other sleeve, she tried to relax, and watched as the arm kept painting until the sunlight was too low to reveal the complexity of the color range.

  Only when the still life was completely in shadow did the arm finally slow, as if no longer interested in the painting. Aidan stared for a long time at the three-dimensional objects littered across the canvas, as if apples and grapes were springing out of the material. How many of his choices were dictated by color, and how many by tradition — the spots a right-handed person usually started?

  More than the pattern cards, she thought but did not say. But how much of it was him, and how much an...impression?...of the things he loved to draw. Would they believe her, that some part of their father remained in this artifact? Would this evidence of survival beyond the end of life reassure her brothers or disturb them? Dare she tell Sean, so certain of his theology?

  She needed to talk with Samuel. Her favorite brother would at least listen when she talked. But what he would say she could not begin to predict.

  “A drawing automaton, you say?” Samuel repeated, standing over the easel and chair, hands in pockets. His red head was bent over the freshest stretched canvas.

  “A teaching automaton, rather. Not something to endlessly produce pictures, but something to teach how to begin pictures,” Aidan responded. “It can both draw and paint — it selected the colors I saw through the crystal, Samuel! Not just father’s crystal, but my crystal!”

  Her brother eyed the painting. “You did all this with the arm?”

  “It was like being in a dream,” she said, watching his face for clues to his thoughts.

  Samuel put out one finger and gently nudged the arm, feeling the fine adjustment on the joints. “Very interesting. This is a good start here, Aidan — obviously your work, but like Da was looking over your shoulder, saying ‘Look! Look at this over here!’”

  “That’s exactly what it felt like!” Aidan gave him her broadest smile — he had begun to see what she had seen.

  “I wonder if it will work for anyone except you?” Samuel was the only other one in the family whose dominant hand was sinister — he sat down and strapped on the automaton. “Have you wound it today?”

  “Not yet.” She turned the key gently, gauging its tension, and wound up the arm.

  “Would you come teach the apprentices about winding mechanisms, love? Blasted boys usually strip at least one gearbox a week.” Samuel uncovered the paint tray and positioned a clean brush for the hand. He watched the hand until Aidan gently took hold of his head and turned his face back toward the camera lucida.

  “It needs something to see,” she told him kindly.

  He laughed at himself, as he often did — and then gave a bark of laughter as the arm began carefully laying down the bottom coat for the table beneath the pottery and pitcher. “It’s following my eye!” he crowed as the brush took up a blue to mark the fullness of the apple bowl.

  That’s what it felt like to me,” Aidan admitted. “Samuel, could you and I build arms and teach them to do this?”

  He looked over at her, and the arm stilled, waiting on him. “Aidan, that’s a splendid idea!”

  “Would there be a big enough demand for it? We could do something like create patterns for a landscape series, a portrait series, a still life series —”

  Samuel’s face grew remote, and she knew it was his creative face. “I’d need to study the patterns in this arm.”

  “You can put it back together again the same way, can’t you?” She knew she sounded anxious, but there was no time to worry about that. “Would that take long?”

  “Not too long. Why?”

  She kept her eyes focused on the arm.

  Aidan knew he was looking over at her, because there was a long pause before he said: “Come on, now — ’fess up. What’s on your mind?”

  “Sam...” Aidan sat down on the edge of the chair next to him. “I think that sometimes...the arm works by itself. Not with my crystal,” she added quickly. “At least not that I’ve caught it. But with Da’s crystal...I think it finished that preliminary drawing on its own, over there.”

  Her brother’s expression was peculiar — there was no other word for it. He studied her for a moment, and then glanced over at the easel, where the lucida waited for the man who would never return. His expression grew surprised. “Is that...”

  “...the picture he had just started? Yes. I came in after the open house and found the arm scratching away, the pencil worn to the wood.”

  Slowly, her brother unfastened the arm from his wrist and fingers, gently setting the lower limb and hand on the wide edge of the chair. Then he stood and moved over to the drawing. Sitting down, Samuel looked through the lucida, seeing the image as a man of his height would have seen it. After a long moment, he sat back in the chair, his hand to his mouth, his expression thoughtful. “Tell me what you saw, Aidan — what did you see?”

  She told him, from entering the dark studio and hearing the scratching, through the slight corrections th
e arm had suggested to the curve on the bowl she had hurriedly sketched in.

  “And you set up the new still life when? Why?”

  “To catch the afternoon light,” she said quickly, and went on to describe her experience with Owen and the canvas.

  “Hummm...so it didn’t work for Owen. I wonder if the arm is fussy — if you won’t listen to its suggestions, it will stop pointing things out? Not for trained artists, but for beginners?” Samuel looked over at her when he said that.

  “Well — I let it suggest for me, and that start on that still life is the result. And I’m not a rank beginner,” she replied.

  “Oh, never meant to suggest it! Lord, girl, you’re the best of us, never doubt it. And from just that beginning, I think that as you find your own style, you should do very well for yourself. But the teaching idea...you could teach a lot more people with that arm. It would be a rich family’s toy, at first, until we perfected the product and could use cheaper materials. But if we can get crystal lenses to record what you see, you could create modules as often as you pleased. A good income supplement for us both.”

  “We’d need capital, wouldn’t we?” she asked, holding his words tightly to her heart.

  “Some, but not a lot. I could build a prototype — we don’t want to sell this one!” He reached over as he said it, lightly stroking the gleaming arm.

  “Never!” Aidan said quickly.

  “Mother might want to invest in such a project, make it something from Cornick Studio — and I have a fund I save for my inventions, I’d put in. You will put in the art, sister — that will be an equal partnership right there, you save your money for other things. I’ll ask Sean and Ben, too.”

  “Sam...You don’t think....” Aidan stopped, tried to compose herself, and started again. “You don’t think it is possible that Da ‘lingered’ in some way, do you? That his soul is in this thing? You know how some people say these things can trap souls —”

  Samuel made a slashing motion with his hand, even as he shook his head from side to side. “Don’t think it for a minute, dear. Now, if you’re asking me, could the thing be haunted? Well...there’s something called a ‘pattern ghost’ where people see a ghost doing the same thing over and over? Like Queen Catherine Howard’s ghost running down that corridor? Could there be an...impression of Da? Somehow going through the motions? Well, maybe.” He leaned over towards her. “But it’s given you a smashing idea, sister, and together we can make it work!”

  In the end, Samuel brought over his fine tools and wax molds. “Too many people watching in Uncle Benjamin’s shop,” he said briskly. “This is our project, no one else’s.” Carefully he opened up the automaton and took out the gears, measuring and sketching them over several evenings, sliding each one back into place before pulling another. He also copied the pattern cards, making wax impressions of them and carefully cleaning them off before settling them back into the gearbox.

  Aidan kept working on the still life, getting the last of the color from the fruit before it was too far gone to pose for her. There were several prosperous farmers in the area who grew these varieties of apples. Would they be a market for this painting? She could sign it with initials...and then she remembered how people commented on her name. Always, her mother would have to explain, and would laugh away their protests. A man’s name! What was Sean thinking? Her grandmother had said that often. He’s thinking that any man given the gift of a daughter with such hair should warn suitors that she’s a fiery one! her mother would reply, laughing.

  Owen had never allowed her to offer her paintings in his gallery, even when her Da had approved. Only her father’s request had gotten three paintings into a corner of the shop. And when they sold quickly, Owen had dismissed them as paintings fit only for children’s rooms.

  People want art for children’s rooms. And boudoirs. And morning rooms....

  Aidan stared at the painting. “Samuel,” she said suddenly. “If you were going to go look for a painting for your home, what gallery would you go to?”

  “Other than Owen’s, you mean?” He glanced over at her, pausing in the act of returning a pattern card into its slot. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because he still doesn’t want any paintings done by a woman. And I want to try to sell my work.”

  “And why would anyone need to know that you’re a woman?” She looked over at him. “Convenient that Mother and Da gave you a man’s name, isn’t it? Seven living Cornick children. You would be just one of the Cornick kids, not necessarily the girl. Don’t volunteer information, Aidan. Let your paintings do the talking.” He stretched hugely, lacing his fingers to pop the knuckles. “And if he still won’t sell them, there are many fine galleries in London. I can double-check prices to make sure no one is trying to cheat you.”

  Aidan looked through her own crystal, studying the reds and blues in the varnish of the table. She was breaking the strokes down to the actual colors she saw, but this patch would look like the table’s brown at a distance — she’d experimented when she came in that morning, looking from the doorway to the painting. I wonder if my crystal would teach things differently than Da’s crystal?

  “Of course you can’t call it Cornick Studios,” Owen said, his annoyance plain. “We can’t cheapen the name by attaching teaching to it. Call it Miss Cornick’s Drawing Machine for Fine Ladies or some such thing.” Owen set his teacup down abruptly, the clink of china loud enough that Aidan glanced toward the hallway, in case their mother was nearby. Samuel was leaning against the doorjamb; he did not react, his gaze focused out the parlor window. They would not be interrupted — Sean and Ben had taken their families home, and the “boys” were back at Oxford.

  Aidan was fairly certain that this discussion wasn’t going anywhere. She knew that Owen was stubborn about change, but he’d watched her, their father, and Samuel build automata for nearly ten years. “You were concerned about whether father left enough investments for the household, Owen. This might be a very good income source for the household —”

  “The household can live comfortably, if not luxuriously,” was the sharp answer. “The last fees for Oxford will be paid, and you’ll have a dowry. Don’t acquire the taste for everyday silk dresses, and all will be well. You don’t even know if you can get this thing to work, Aidan. Invest your time in acquiring drawing students. It will pay better interest.”

  “And I take it you haven’t changed your mind about selling my paintings?” she decided to toss in.

  Owen sighed, and then Samuel spoke up as he moved toward the bay window. “Why not sell her work, Owen? She’s very good. Will be as good as Da if she keeps at it.”

  “Until there’s a huge gap in her work when she starts producing babies,” was Owen’s clipped response. “People are not interested in women’s work.”

  “Why mention she’s a woman?”

  Owen stopped himself from a swift answer. “Actually...that is a point. There is the problem that some collectors like to meet the artist.”

  “Aidan Cornick is a recluse,” Samuel announced. “Doesn’t go out in company. The longer you keep the secret, the more embarrassing making a fuss will become. Keep it twenty years, and by the time people figure it out, I’ll bet that it will be merely another detail. People will think she did it for her family’s privacy, and zealous husbands will approve.”

  Owen paced in the parlor for several minutes before he said: “I’ll think about it.”

  “And you have no interest in joining our venture with a drawing arm?” Samuel asked, turning back from the window to the pair of them.

  “Toys,” Owen announced. “A fad, Samuel. It will take a great deal of time to create and perfect, and then the Chinese will make cheap copies of it.”

  “Eventually,” Samuel agreed. “But not as fine as these. And the pattern for ours will be a master painter, taught by a master painter. Quality always shows itself, Owen. Always.”

  “It’s your time, brother,” he said, shaking his head a
s he walked out of the room.

  Samuel glanced over at her. “Yes, it is our time, isn’t it?” He was smiling, and Aidan gave him a tiny smile back.

  Look! Tell me what you see!

  I see Samuel believes in me...in us, Da. If I can make this work, I can paint. Perhaps...we both can paint, you and I?

  Of course it wasn’t simple — few things worth doing were simple. The golden days of autumn slowly turned silver as Samuel built the prototype. Ironically, the prototype turned out to be too sophisticated. Samuel’s ten-year-old daughter, as sharp as glass and a bluestocking to boot, could not get the arm to work for her.

  “It is everywhere at once, Aunt Aidan,” the child said, clearly unhappy. “What am I doing wrong?”

  “It’s not you, Mary,” Aidan assured the girl. “We must teach the automaton what we want it to know before it can teach others.” She embraced the child and sent her off with her mother to shop. Once they had left, Aidan opened the gearbox, examining the patterns. How complex they had become, after years of her father’s work! But for someone with no training....

  When Samuel came by that evening, he found her with the prototype open, the patterns laid out in formation on one of the studio tables.

  “What’s this? I hear that Mary could not get it to work?” he asked, coming over to her side.

  “Look at this.” She held up a heavy wax pattern card, fine paths cut inside its borders. “I tried this while starting a basic landscape sketch. These were the moves needed for the layout.”

  “You think we should break it down into smaller steps?” he asked, examining the wax.

  “Yes. And I have another suspicion... I think I may have to train every crystal.” Samuel looked over at her in surprise. “The patterns are a tool, Samuel. But they must know what to look for. If I teach each card what to look for, we could sell it as showing you how to draw, say, twenty-five landscapes for practice. We’d sell a portfolio of drawings with it! So they would have something to position the camera lucida on, and learn from. After drawing twenty-five landscapes, I am certain that almost anyone will show marked improvement!” Aidan gestured at the sketch she was creating on a fresh piece of paper.