Chapter 18

GIRL IN THE SHADOWS

“But I don’t understand, ma’am,” Hannah protested. “I mean the portrait was being painted in Boston in the drawing room and every thing is so different here.” Mrs. Hawley looked at Stannish Wheeler, who took a few steps closer to Hannah. Please don’t come any closer, Hannah prayed silently. Whatever are you trying to do?

“Yes, Hannah, I understand your concern.” He made it somehow sound personal, but she cared not a whit one way or the other. She just didn’t understand how it could be done. “You see,” he continued, “the general background of the painting has been completed. And so has, for that matter, the foreground with Clarice and Ettie. Lila is in the background where there are more shadows and her figure is not . . .” He hesitated. “So distinct.”

“But still, I look nothing like Lila.” The whole notion of this was angering her deeply.

“It’s all right,” Mrs. Hawley said. “You see, Lila was sulking so much that I said I thought it might be good if we had her more in the shadowy part of the painting. I mean a girl with a sulky face is not especially attractive, even if she is a beauty like Lila.”

“So you see, Hannah,” the painter continued as his eyes traveled over Hannah from head to toe. “You are about the same height and size. And Lila was posed leaning against the vase.”

“But my hair is a completely different color,” Hannah protested weakly.

“No one has hair quite like yours, Hannah. It is a fascinating color, and it changes in the light.” A slightly enigmatic smile played quickly across the painter’s face. “But don’t worry. The figure is in profile. I plan to have very dense shadows in the region of her head and face. The hair of the figure will not really be visible. But I can suggest hair. A painter must be able to inspire a viewer’s imagination, evoke what might be there even if it is not.” He paused and turned to Mrs. Hawley. Then he continued, “I really just need you to stand in, Hannah, so I can get the form.”

“And I’m sure that Lila’s dress will fit,” Mrs. Hawley added.

The figure, Hannah thought. Lila had become “the figure.” Mr. Wheeler was now “the painter” and Mrs. Hawley was “the client.” But what am I? The form? Oh, yes, the form! The girl in the shadows, I suppose.

They were speaking of her as if she didn’t exist, wasn’t even present. How could they do this? It wasn’t right. Hannah had been standing to the side during this conversation. She now placed herself squarely in front of the painter. Her eyes were bold. Look at me! she silently commanded. “I am not sure whether the dress will fit, sir.” She then turned around and faced Mrs. Hawley. “And, ma’am, I think if Lila ever detected even a trace of me in the painting . . . it could . . .” She hesitated. “Well, it could cause much agitation.”

“Oh, but, my dear, there won’t be a trace of you really. Mr. Wheeler assures me of that.”

Hannah turned toward the painter. “He does?” She raised one of her eyebrows. He would not look at her now.

“Oh, yes, he does. You know he is so skillful. It will be our little secret. You can keep a secret, can’t you?” She did not wait for a reply but cocked her head almost flirtatiously at the painter. “And I am sure Mr. Wheeler can as well.”

“I’m sure Mr. Wheeler is very good at keeping secrets,” Hannah said softly, looking directly at the painter.

“It won’t take long. Just a couple of sessions, really,” the painter mumbled, still not looking at her.

But she found nothing assuring about the situation at all. The very thought of putting on Lila’s dress was completely horrid. However, what could she do? She went into the house feeling a mixture of anger and confusion. Anger that she could be ordered to do something like this and confusion that the painter could so easily substitute her for such a loathsome person. When she was mounting the stairs to polish the wall sconces on the second floor, she caught a glimpse of the painter making his way down the driveway. She flung down her polishing cloths and raced out of the house and, taking a back way, circled through the woods so she could cut him off at the bend in the driveway. No one would see them there.

From behind the giant spruce tree where she waited, she heard his approaching footfalls on the gravel. She stepped out but not far from the tree.

“Truth! You paint the truth, sir? Is this what you call the truth, substituting me for Lila Hawley? Or perhaps you’re flattering me? Is that it?”

“Hannah, no. Stop it. You know that’s not how it is.”

“Well, how is it? Am I supposed to feel pleased that a lowly servant, a scullery girl, is let in on a secret? I don’t care about this family’s secrets. Oh, yes, and I get to wear a gown instead of this uniform. It’s my downstairs uniform, by the way. I’m amazed that Mrs. Hawley let me come and speak with a guest while wearing it. You know the rules, Mr. Wheeler. Not supposed to be seen in my mobcap and dusting apron. Oh, but I forgot. I’m really just a form. Lila and I are just interchangeable, so no matter — right?”

“Don’t be cruel, Hannah.” He walked to where she stood at the very edge of the forest on a patch of moss.

“ ‘Cruel’? You’re calling me cruel! Oh, Mr. Wheeler, that is pathetic. You are pathetic.”

He dropped his eyes. “Yes, I know,” he said quietly. There was something in the muted way he spoke that both touched and shocked Hannah. “I . . . I make no excuses.” He suddenly stepped toward her. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing her to his chest. It was so sudden, so disorienting, that for several seconds Hannah was not precisely sure where she was — logically her mind told her she was at the edge of the drive, but she had never felt closer to the sea. She was heady with the scent of a tangy salt wind that seem to blow through her. He was kissing her lips, crushing his face against hers. She was lost. She was adrift. She was happy.

And then he was gone. He had torn himself away at the sound of an approaching carriage. He seemed to have vanished into thin air. She looked about. She stepped back into the woods just before the carriage came into view. When it was safely out of sight, she stepped back to where the painter had embraced her.

It seemed rather like a dream now. Had it really happened? It was as if she had been transported to another place, another world. The sun broke out from behind a cloud. Something glinted fiercely. She looked down. On her apron top there were two or three glistening ovals. Hannah inhaled sharply as she picked one off. And then she froze. His tears! And they were like hers, like the very ones she had shed in the music room that day.

All around her feet the moss flashed with the scintillating ovals. She stooped down and began to collect them.

It was the second day of posing. Hannah took up the position leaning against the vase while Clarice a few feet away stood facing the painter. It seemed odd now to Hannah that she had actually, for a moment back in Boston, experienced a feeling of envy when she had watched the girls posing and saw the top of Lila’s head grazing the breaking wave with the fish tail. She had felt then that Lila was claiming the sea. Lila was not of the sea nor could she ever claim it. Hannah now knew that such a thought was ridiculous.

Instead it was the vases, now so close to the sea, that she felt were in some peculiar way a portal to that world. Hannah felt great comfort wrapped in the shadow the vase cast on this morning. Yet at the same time it suddenly struck her that the painter was a

portal as well. She slid her eyes toward him. He was mixing some more paints. She touched the pouch. She had his tears, inexplicably transformed, mingled with her own in the pouch.

Something had happened when they had kissed. All her feelings of resentment had vanished. She knew she was not a substitute. No one would ever be able to tell that the figure, the form, was not Lila. But it was Hannah he was painting. His eyes moved over her slowly, lingering. She could hear the whispered strokes of the brush; they were palpable, almost as she had felt his kisses. And that was the real secret. He would make excuses to come over and adjust the collar or the hem of her dress. Always of course careful to attend to something with Clarice’s or Ettie’s dress as well. He would suddenly be standing in front of Hannah, touching the ruffled edge of the collar. “I just need to adjust it,” he spoke softly in an almost apologetic voice. They could even joke about the gown now. “Not that different from the dress you wear for your chores, is it?”

“Very different, sir. It is all very different,” Hannah whispered. He let his finger graze the side of her neck. She flinched, shut her eyes, but trea sured the fleeting moment.

The posing was extended for more than a week. He attributed this to the fog that rolled in and out, saying that it took longer for certain areas to dry and therefore he had to work slower. Ettie suggested that she could fan the painting every morning and evening to accelerate drying. She had a lovely fan from her grandmother. But the painter was adamant. It must dry naturally.

Eight days later the painting was finished. The Hawleys planned to have a party to show it to their friends. There was already talk that this was one of the best Stannish Whitman Wheeler paintings ever and that it would most likely be transported next winter across the Atlantic to be displayed at the famous Salon de Paris, the greatest event of the art world. The party to unveil the painting would be a very grand one. A ball with an orchestra was coming from Boston. A concert pianist and harpist would also perform. A pastry chef would be imported from New York. No expense would be spared. And Ettie would be allowed to attend her first grown-up party in a special dress that was being sewn by the best seamstress in the village. Upon hearing this, Ettie had replied, “I’d rather wear my bathing costume. I hate fancy dresses in the summertime.”

Excerpted from DAUGHTERS OF THE SEA: HANNAH © Copyright 2011 by Kathryn Lasky. Reprinted with permission by Scholastic Inc.

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