But as I looked around more and more, I realized just how fond I was of my little nest and how sorry I’d be to leave it. Small and insular as my life was, it was the life I’d chosen and fashioned for myself. I felt an allegiance to it. It gave me a sense of dignity. I thought of my trompe l’oeil business and the good reputation I’d built up over the years . . . Over the years . . . I began to think about time and feel its passing as I’d never quite felt it before.
The flames in the fireplace died down while the clock on the mantel counted off seconds in barely audible ticks. I followed Brush’s soft, rhythmic breathing, watching his little stomach gently rise and fall over and over again. I looked at the backs of my hands. The veins were more pronounced, the skin more wrinkled. There were strands of gray in my hair. The slackness around my eyes and mouth was more obvious. My face had lost the careless strength of youth. I found myself tiring more easily. A good night’s sleep didn’t resuscitate me like it used to. I needed glasses for reading, and my digestion had started rebelling against the occasional overindulgence.
The fruit was just about to turn overripe—but not quite yet. I was in the middle of my life, where time is the most valuable capital. Who knows? I might still meet the love of my life . . . Or develop into a great artist. There were so many possibilities. In that moment, I realized I couldn’t afford to squander even a minute by putting my life on hold to bind myself to Frances Griffin as a supporting player in her sad drama.
The following morning, I drove out to The Haven. Mrs. Griffin received me in the conservatory, a large glass-enclosed room filled with potted plants and Indian and Victorian porch furniture. She was wearing a red silk dress and a colorful chiffon scarf. She looked pretty, rejuvenated in fact, as young and vital as the first day I’d met her. The moment I entered the room, she danced up to me like a young girl and threw her arms around me.
“Oh Faith, Faith!” she cried. “I’m so happy to see you! Now that you’ve had your little think, have you come to your senses?”
“Yes, I think I have.”
“Good.”
She looked quizzically into my eyes, sensing perhaps what I was about to tell her.
“Why so serious?” she asked. “I hope you’ve thought about all the fun we’re going to have. I’ve been making plans all night. I can’t wait to show you my world and all the things I loved when I was young. I’m going to indulge you, you know.”
“Mrs. Griffin,” I began hesitantly, trying to choose my words carefully, “I’ve given the matter a great deal of thought, and, well, even though I’m very flattered by your offer, I don’t feel I can accept it.”
She appeared uncomprehending.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline.”
She released me and backed away.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m afraid not.”
There was a slight pause, then she cried: “Don’t be absurd!”
“I’m sorry.”
“But you can’t be serious. If you like, I’ll give you more time to think about it.”
“That won’t change anything, Mrs. Griffin. My answer’s still going to be the same. I’m sorry. I really am. Believe me. And I’m very grateful to you for the offer.”
“Give me another chance. Do you understand that I’ll give you anything you want?” I heard the panic in her voice.
“That’s very, very kind of you. But I don’t want anything.”
“You must want something!” she pleaded.
She stood staring at me as if I’d just slapped her. I felt terrible having let her down so.
“Look,” I began in an effort to say something to ease her evident pain, “you were right about me. I am too independent. I’m sorry. Maybe you can still get this other girl, whoever she is.”
“I don’t want her,” she replied petulantly. “I want you.”
“Look, Mrs. Griffin, this doesn’t mean we’ll stop being friends. I’ll come out and visit you. Often. Really I will.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
She sank down onto one of the antique rattan chairs whose back was shaped like a huge fan.
“Why?” She glared at me defiantly. “Why don’t you want to be my daughter?”
“I really can’t explain it to you. I’m not sure I can explain it to myself.”
“You disapprove of me?”
“No.”
“Of my methods? You feel I put you through too much, is that it?” she said.
“No, not at all.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she warned.
I could feel her becoming angry.
“I’m not lying. It’s nothing you did. I promise.”
“My God—I’m offering you a kingdom! Are you mad?”
I shook my head. “Maybe.”
“I’m not giving you another chance, you know,” she said in a threatening tone. “If you say no today, that’s it. Do you understand?”
“Yes. All right,” I answered uncomfortably.
She bowed her head and was silent for a long moment. Then she looked up at me, her pale eyes glinting with rage.
“You stupid little bitch!” she hissed.
I was so taken aback by the remark that I burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your reaction,” I said.
“How the hell do you expect me to react?!” she shrieked.
Her tone of voice, her face—everything about her was suddenly hard-edged and bitter, full of fury and scorn.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I suppose I didn’t really think about it.”
“That’s because you’re all alike. You never think about anyone but yourselves.”
“Who’s all alike?”
“All of you! Never mind!”
I wondered whom she meant.
She sat, head bowed, fidgeting with her scarf. Neither of us spoke for a while.
“Well, Mrs. Griffin,” I said, finally breaking the silence, “I’d better go out to the ballroom and finish up my work.”
“Do you realize just how much of my time you’ve taken? How long I’ve spent on you? Years! Years!”
“I better go.”
I started to leave the room, when she suddenly let out a terrible cry.
“Ooooh! Damn you! Damn you! I’m ill and alone!” she wailed, bursting into tears. “And there’s no one left!”
She started sobbing. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. God, what a pathetic sight—little gray streams of mascara trickling down her wrinkled cheeks, lipstick caked in the corners of her mouth. She raised her hand to her head and tore off her wig, hurling it across the room.
“God damn you!” she screeched. “God damn life!”
The air reverberated with her cries. She heaved a final sigh, then crumpled back down into the chair.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Griffin. I truly am.”
“That’s not good enough.” She waved me away with her hand.
“It’s the best I can do.”
Her moment of agony passed, and she seemed to regain control of her emotions. She drew herself up imperiously and pointed to the wig, which was lying on the floor under a small settee where she’d thrown it.
“My wig,” she said. “Get it for me.”
I knelt down and picked it up, then walked over and handed it to her. She grabbed it from me, hit it once or twice as if she were knocking off dust, and put it on. Extracting a small mirror from her pocket, she refitted it, tucking in stray wisps of hair. After she was through, she straightened her dress and composed herself.
“You haven’t finished your job here,” she said coldly.
“No.”
“What’s left?”
“Just the face of the girl.”
&
nbsp; “Finish it now.”
“Yes, all right.”
“I’ll tell you exactly how I want it done,” she said. “Come with me.”
We left the house by the conservatory door and walked to the ballroom by another, less-traveled route. Mrs. Griffin took the lead. I wondered that she wasn’t freezing wearing only a light silk dress. I offered her my coat, which she declined.
“But you’ll catch cold,” I said.
“Never you mind about me,” she replied angrily.
Inside, her wheelchair and fur blanket were waiting for her in the middle of the floor. She descended the steps and made herself comfortable in the chair, pulling the blanket up around her.
I prepared my palette and brushes, feeling her eyes on me every moment. I approached the figure of the faceless girl and stood in front of it for a long time without moving, concentrating on the blank head, imagining Cassandra’s face then my face, intermingling within the precincts of that smooth white oval. As I raised my brush to begin painting Cassandra’s face from memory, the old woman called out to me.
“Come here!”
I walked over to her wheelchair.
“You’re not to paint Cassandra’s face.”
“But she’s the centerpiece of the room,” I said. “She’s the whole point.”
“You’re not to paint her face,” she said firmly.
“Fine. Whose face do you want me to paint?”
She extracted a small rectangular object from beneath her blanket. At first I thought it was a frame. Then I realized what it was.
“Look here,” she commanded me. “This face. This is the face I want.”
She turned the object around and held it up to me. It was the mirror she had used in the conservatory to adjust her wig. My face was reflected in it.
“Me?” I said, bewildered. “You want me to paint my face?”
“Yes. If it’s the only thing I’m to have of you.”
“I-I don’t know—”
“This is a commission,” she interrupted. “You will do as I say.”
Now this was the Frances Griffin of legend—the steely, exacting woman who was accustomed to imposing her will on the artists and craftsmen in her employ.
“Of course. Whatever you like . . . May I borrow the mirror?”
She shoved it into my hand. I walked back to the easel and took up my palette once more. I looked into the mirror and then began to paint. As I sketched my own face in the oval, I felt as if I’d somehow stood outside my life all these years and was now, at this moment, about to break into it. I shaped and shaded the features, taking pains to present a fair account of the countenance I knew so well. Every once in a while I glanced back at Mrs. Griffin, who sat as still as stone, watching me paint. It was a long, arduous process, getting the expression just right.
Having applied the last stroke of paint, I put down my brush and palette and stepped back to view the work. But even before I’d had a chance to reflect on what I’d done, I heard the old woman’s voice echoing through the room.
“Not good enough,” she said.
I turned around.
“I think it’s the best I can do.”
“Then you’ll have to do better than your best if you expect to get paid.”
I bit my lip.
“May I ask what’s wrong with it?”
“It has no life or depth. It’s a picture without being a portrait. The modeling is flat and without interest. It’s a mediocre representation, nothing more.”
I turned to look at the face again. She was right. The face was flat and without interest.
“I’m afraid I just don’t know how to make it any better.”
“Rub it out. Start again. This time, concentrate on the expression first. Don’t be so worried about the features. Life comes through expression, not through representation.”
I did as I was told. I rubbed out the face and began all over again.
“Start with the eyes,” she counseled dispassionately. “Go behind them before you paint them. Make them see, but first decide what they’re looking at.”
I knew what she meant. As I’d painted them before, the eyes had been dull, blind to their surroundings.
“What are they looking at?” she asked.
“You, Mrs. Griffin,” I said without turning around.
“Good.”
Soon a pair of eyes emerged as vivid and alive and knowing as any in real life. I turned around to see if Mrs. Griffin approved.
“That’s better,” she nodded. “Now the structure. Start with the bones, the skull. You must learn to paint underneath the surface of things if you ever want to do more than cartoons and faux finishes. Facility is no substitute for depth,” she said sharply.
I began sketching in the nose, cheeks, mouth, and chin over the outlines of a skull. I tilted the head, to give it a slightly inquisitive air. Gradually, I put flesh over these bones, building it up, layer upon layer, a painstaking exercise. When I’d finished, I turned around to her again.
“Now concentrate on the mouth. That’s where you tell a great portraitist from a merely competent one.”
As my brush swept and darted here and there, deepening every feature, informing the expression with plasticity and life, I heard the old woman occasionally muttering under her breath, “That’s better . . . Much better . . . No, try again . . .”
Under her exacting tutelage, I became inspired and really began to paint. I knew for the first time what it felt like to work with my heart as well as my hand. The face I painted had weariness and wonder, sophistication and innocence, courage and fearfulness as parts of the whole. My portrait reflected both the soft light of tolerance and the harsh glare of truth. I neither spared nor condemned myself in paint.
I lost track of time. It was the middle of the afternoon when I finally put down my brushes. I looked at the woman I’d created with pride. For the first time, I knew I’d succeeded in painting beneath the surface as well as on top of it. At last I was an artist, not simply a craftsman.
Mrs. Griffin had fallen asleep in her wheelchair. I walked over to her and nudged her gently.
“Mrs. Griffin, it’s done.”
The old woman awoke fitfully.
“Oh!” she cried out, disoriented.
“It’s finished, Mrs. Griffin. Look.”
She gazed at the portrait. The figure on the wall was no longer that of a faceless girl, but of a woman on the brink of middle age. She was staring straight at Frances Griffin with a look of candor and forgiveness. She looked as if she were beckoning to the old woman, about to take her hand and guide her through the crowd to a place where they could be alone together. A daughter reaching out to the mother she loved.
Mrs. Griffin sat silently for some time, staring at the portrait. I stood by, waiting for a word of praise, a compliment, a comment. She offered none.
“Tell Deane to come and fetch me. I’m cold and tired,” she said in a monotone, closing her eyes.
She pulled the fur blanket up around her neck and seemed to doze off.
As I walked across the garden to get Deane, I paused to look up at the great house. The Haven and everything about it was like a stage set constructed for the peculiar play in which I was an unwitting main character.
I found Deane in the pantry, overseeing the polishing of the silver.
“Mrs. Griffin would like to come inside now,” I said.
He looked at me with scant acknowledgment and put on his overcoat. The nurse, who was nearby in the kitchen, followed suit. The three of us went outside. I trailed behind as the two of them made their way to the ballroom to fetch their charge.
Mrs. Griffin said nothing to any of us as we entered. She stared straight ahead without speaking as Deane and the nurse hoisted her in her wheelchair up the marble steps to the main landing. They w
heeled her out the door. I watched the sad little trio make their way across the barren winter garden until they were out of sight.
After I packed up my paints and put everything in order for Deane to clean up, I spent some time alone with my masterpiece, looking at it closely, admiring it—especially the portrait of myself. It was good, really good. The best thing I’d ever done by far. I couldn’t wait to come back and photograph it for my records. I was proud to have been the creator of this work, prouder still that it would one day be seen by the public when the house became a museum.
Outside the ballroom, I put down my paintbox and sketch pads and lit a cigarette. I thought of the chain of orchestrated events which had led me to this moment. It was Frances Griffin, not I, who was the trompe l’oeil artist here. She had created a real trick of the eye.
I had one last drag of my cigarette. I dropped the butt on the ground, crushing it out with my foot. I didn’t bother picking it up. I left it there intentionally, to disintegrate on the pristine winter lawn.
As I was loading up my car to drive back to the city, Mrs. Griffin unexpectedly emerged from the house and walked toward me, signaling me not to go.
“Mrs. Griffin,” I said, running to meet her.
“Faith, dear . . .” she said, tenderly putting her hand on my cheek. “Forgive me. I’m afraid I’ve been harsh with you.”
“No, please, don’t apologize—”
“I have, and you must excuse me. It was the disappointment, that’s all,” she said.
I felt my heart reaching out for the old woman once more.
“Mrs. Griffin, I hope we’ll be friends.”
“Yes,” she said, with a sad look in her eyes, “I want you to always remember me.”
“Of course I will! Of course, dear Mrs. Griffin . . .”
A Trick of the Eye Page 27
