It takes . . . real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.
—Clive Barker
AT MY RETURN to Buy the Book, I faced a barrage of questions from Aunt Sadie and Bonnie about the public fight in front of our store.
I had no answers, of course. But I intended to get some.
I headed back to the event space, pondering how to breach the subject of Tracy Mahoney with Clifford Conway. Instead of barging in, I paused at the doorway to watch the man in action.
Already, Conway had cleared the public out of our event space and back into the bookstore. He was now in the process of setting up a pair of fan lights, along with a complex tripod topped by a large camera with a special wide-angle lens. While he explained to Seymour how the device was used, Conway seemed composed, calm, and professional, as if the ugly confrontation on the sidewalk had never happened. Nor did it appear to matter to him whether or not anyone had seen the incident.
In short, Clifford Conway was shameless.
Beware the cold fish, Jack warned. They’re usually sharks.
Even sharks are warm-blooded. As for Cliff here, I’m wondering who he’s going to bite—or may have already bitten.
Got anyone in mind?
Tracy, of course. She’s not the type of person to pick a fight on the street with a stranger.
Sounds like Mr. Silver Tongue and the blue-haired babysitter have a history.
That’s a safe bet. And I’m going to find out what it is.
I crossed the room. “Excuse me, Mr. Conway. I couldn’t help noticing the altercation outside.”
“Oh.” Conway frowned. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“Yes, please explain. What did I see, exactly?”
“Well, Mrs. McClure. I’m a public figure. I sponsor seminars all over the country. I encourage artists and writers to submit their work for publication. It’s very rewarding to find new voices, new artistic visions. But sometimes even a person’s best work is not good enough.”
“You’re talking about the young woman outside?”
Conway shrugged. “Her fantasy art was . . . substandard. Amateurish. My staff decided against offering her creation to the public. I’m afraid she took our professional rejection personally. You saw the result.”
Conway’s answers sounded reasonable, and I didn’t know enough to question his assertions. Until I talked to Tracy, I’d have to take his words at face value. Still, I would have pressed Conway for more, but Seymour grew impatient—
“So, are you going to start snapping away, or what? My Harriet’s waiting.”
“Excuse me, Mrs. McClure, I have work to do.”
Conway fiddled with his lights and then with his tripod, while stopping to peer through the camera after every tiny adjustment. Finally he frowned.
“Unfortunately we have a problem, Mr. Tarnish. Light is reflecting off the glass no matter how I angle the camera. The glass itself is old and slightly filmed from age. The more light I throw on it, the fuzzier the image becomes.”
“So what do we do?” Seymour asked.
“I’m afraid we are going to have to remove the painting from its frame for maximum effect.”
Just then, I heard my name being called from the bookstore. Brainert had arrived with his academic colleague.
“Ah, Pen, there you are! This is Violet Brooks, a visiting adjunct professor and valued contributor to the Contemporary Arts Journal. Ms. Brooks was last year’s first prize winner at the International Awards for Art Criticism.”
“I didn’t even know they gave out awards for outstanding art criticism, and here I am meeting a winner.” I smiled a welcome and she nodded in return.
Tall enough to be a model, even wearing flats, Violet Brooks nevertheless slouched a little, as if self-conscious of her height. Her short, form-fitting dress was slippery black, like wet sealskin, with slashes of purple that resembled a painter’s brushstrokes.
High cheekbones hinted at Ms. Brooks’ refined features, though she did her level best to hide herself behind a large mop of unruly dark hair and bangs long enough to cover the top half of her large, purple-framed glasses, which perfectly matched the mock brushstrokes on her dress.
Of course, Jack popped into my head and offered his two cents.
Seems to me the young Miss Brooks should have a vat of hooch strapped around her neck.
Excuse me?
With hair like that, she has a lot in common with a St. Bernard.
If you’re going to be rude, then I’m going to ignore you, I warned the ghost.
“Ms. Brooks is a guest lecturer at the university,” Brainert explained. “We were chatting in the faculty lounge, and I happened to mention the McClure painting that my friend recently acquired. She was only too eager to see it.”
“I hope you don’t mind, Mrs. McClure,” Violet Brooks said. “I have a particular interest in feminist art and women painters who’ve been overlooked by art historians.”
“Your field of study sounds quite worthwhile, and I’m delighted you stopped by. Unfortunately, the painting is the subject of a photo shoot at the moment.” When Brainert and Violet appeared disappointed, I suggested we go into the event space anyway. “I’m sure the photographer won’t mind if we take a look.”
After introductions all around, Violet approached the picture. With both hands, she pushed aside her bangs and studied the work.
“Before Professor Parker mentioned Harriet McClure to me, I’d never heard of her. The name didn’t come up in any of the academic sources I searched on the way over.” She waved her tablet computer. “And I don’t see a signature on this work.”
“It’s partially hidden by the frame,” Brainert replied.
Ms. Brooks nodded. “Can anyone tell me more about this artist?”
To Conway’s impatient dismay, Seymour paused from removing the painting from the wall to give the art critic an abbreviated version of Harriet McClure’s biography.
Violet’s eyes grew wider as Seymour spoke. When he finished, she couldn’t wait to share her thoughts.
“This appears to be a remarkable discovery, Mr. Tarnish! From this portrait alone, I can see this woman was a pioneer. I believe she should be celebrated. Just look at her use of those dazzling hues—colors unimaginable in her time, but which would be described as psychedelic a half century later.”
Violet leaned close to the painting. “The artist’s use of surreal imagery is ahead of its time, too. Salvador Dalí was just a teenager when Harriet McClure painted this, yet he’s considered the father of surrealism—”
“Really?” Brainert scratched his head. “I thought her use of these outrageous shades meant she was undisciplined, as if she didn’t know how to mix her colors—”
“I’m sorry, Professor, but this isn’t your field, and you’re quite mistaken. Harriet McClure was in total control of the medium. And this artist’s background, how she was treated by her family and society, and her artistic reaction to that treatment, reminds me of another female painter from this region. Though their styles are different, Harriet McClure’s story is not unlike that of Newport painter Beatrice Turner.”
“You don’t say.” Seymour was hardly listening. He and Conway were too busy taking the portrait off the wall hooks and laying it facedown on a hastily set up folding table.
Violet launched into the story of Turner’s life—a lecture I didn’t need to hear. As the widow of a Newport native steeped in that town’s lore, I already knew about Turner’s life and legacy.
The only child of a wealthy family, Beatrice Turner had her dreams crushed when her stern Victorian father pulled her out of art school because of the scandalous behavior of the faculty (the artist models posed nude, apparently).
Beatrice’s response to this act of tyrannical control was to never marry, to never move out of her childhood home, to never change in the least as she aged—even wearing Victorian-era fashion until her death in the mid-twentieth century. Like Harriet, Beatrice painted hundreds of self-portraits before passing from this earth.
“Of course, Turner painted other subjects besides herself,” Violet explained. “There are portraits of Beatrice and her mother together, always in profile, and always facing opposite directions—Beatrice’s way of showing the world she was at odds with her family.”
After a pause, her tone became thoughtful. “Obviously pain, longing, and loss inspired Beatrice Turner’s art. Her life was both a rejection of the values that destroyed her dreams and a weird sort of acceptance that she was, in her family’s eyes, only a child. So a dependent child she remained until the day she died.”
Violet watched as Seymour and Conway began working on the ancient screws in the back of the frame.
“It makes you wonder what pain or disappointment or even tragedy Harriet McClure must have endured. I mean, something drove her obsession to paint her own image over and over again. What was it? Will we ever know?”
Violet’s eyes met mine, her gaze intense behind the dangling bangs. “You’re related to Harriet, aren’t you, Mrs. McClure?”
“By marriage. Her surviving family members live in Newport.”
“Do you know them?”
“They’re my in-laws.”
Violet leaned close, until she was looming over me.
“Would it be possible for you to provide an introduction? I’m very interested in writing a piece about Harriet McClure, and it would be wise for me to interview her living descendants.”
I understood her drift, though Violet either misunderstood the artist’s history or misspoke. Harriet died childless, so there were no “living descendants,” only relatives.
That said, the very last thing I wanted to do was deal with my in-laws. The farther away from the McClure family I stayed, the happier I was. But before I could politely but adamantly refuse Ms. Brooks’ request, Seymour whooped and waved his screwdriver in triumph.
“I’ve got the last one loose!” he cried. “We’ll have Harriet out of her prison in no time.”