The mention of a portrait and my recent Blogging From AZ April Project: Character Conflicts got me thinking about A Portrait Is Worth a Thousand Words, my tale of a ghost, a portrait, and the artists/writers obsessed/tormented by both. No, it's not a Work in Progress, since I finished a short version of it, only to have it to be rejected. I'm still looking for opportunities to publish it. Here's a freebie story from Yuri Cross's perspective, the tormented artist, which may or may not make its way into a rewrite of A Portrait is Worth a Thousand Words...
I’ll never forget the day Westerleigh found a four-leafed clover.
“Look at this!” He stooped to pluck the tiny green plant from the field, honey-coloured locks falling forward to cover his face. “Good luck is coming my way! Do you think I’ll have a chance to see Hartford Hall?”
Part of me hoped not, yet it meant so much to Westerleigh, his ancestor home. The walls in which the one he worshipped had once ruled, studied, and played with unseen forces from.
Westerleigh didn’t seem aware of my lack of enthusiasm. He had more than enough for both of us where the subject of Elizabeth Hartford was concerned.
“Maybe I’ll be able to see it.” He tucked the clover behind his ear, hazel eyes swimming with dreams, unaware of the sunshine overhead, the verdure of the field, all the things I tried to capture in my sketchbook.
Not that I would do much to appreciate the vibrancy of this scene in my own drawings. I would render it to a charcoal shadow, devoid of color.
“You know what I’m talking about, Yuri.” Perhaps Westerleigh was oblivious to my discontent or perhaps he sought to chase me out of it. “The famous portrait of Elizabeth Hartford, which hangs above the staircase?”
“As if you’d ever allow me to forget that.” Not a day passed when my obsessive companion brought it up, the famous portrait painted by my famous ancestor, Judith Cross. It was cursed to haunt me as much as it haunted Westerleigh, only I didn’t get nearly as much joy out of the process.
Enough. My own grumpiness was starting to irritate even me.
“I don’t think the luck a four-leaf clover grants you is that specific.” I attempted to soften my voice, make it something more civil. “What it grants you will probably be something more unexpected.”
“Such a pity.” Westerleight touched the tiny speck of green in his hair. “Maybe I should have given it to you, Yuri.” For the first time, those luminous green-golden orbs fixed themselves upon me, offering a little of their boundless emotion to me.
“Luck won’t get me a space in the art gallery.” I suppressed the wrenching feeling in my chest at that precious moment of attention. “Connections are more likely to win the day.”
“Not talent?” Westerleigh cocked his head, studying me, truly listening to me. Take that, Elizabeth Hartford, you overbearing ghost.
“Talent is simply a flicker of potential. Constant practice and diligence are the qualities that transform it into a steady fire of creativity.” I shrugged, trying to hide how much I was savouring my companion’s attention. I often spoke to Westerleigh, sharing my sentiments with him as I did few people.
Westerleigh could listen and respond as few people could, awakening my own awareness of what I was trying to achieve with my art. Alas, I constantly had to compete with his obsession. She might take him away at any moment, whisking Westerleigh away in a romanticised vision of the past.
“I draw every chance I get. I brought my sketchbook here, hoping to make an outline inspired by this field. “I think…I hope I’ve gotten better than when I last visited here. Improvement is my only chance against my rivals. Talent may be just a flicker, but a few of them have transformed it into a flicker no one can take their eyes from.”
“Yuri.” The smile on Westerleigh’s lips softened into something sober and serious. “You’re one of the most talented people I know. Your work is as captivating as anything I’ve seen in that gallery.”
“Just how often have you visited?” I sniffed in disdain, blowing my bangs off my face. “I didn’t think you allowed yourself too much distraction from your precious Elizabeth.”
Even in my own ears, my words sounded catty.
Westerleigh widened his eyes, staring at me for a moment in silence. As if I’d betrayed him. He’d confided in me, only me, about the full extent of his obsession. I’d thrown it in his face.
“I’m sorry.” My own apology came out gruff and inadequate. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I thought you understood.” He turned away from me, hiding his face. “What it’s like to have a connection with an ancestor, which is intimate, yet overwhelming.”
“Overwhelming is right. Oh, it’s a great connection, one guaranteed to give me a place in the gallery, but it’s too much!” I couldn’t stop the words from coming. They flowed out like blood gushing from a wound. “Anything I ever do, every achievement I’ll ever make will be compared to Judith Cross’s!”
“Exactly!” Westerleigh whirled to face me with moist, bright eyes. “Don’t you see? Don’t you appreciate it?”
“Appreciate what?” I snarled. “That I’m only the descendant?”
“The challenge!” His hands balled into fists. “To surpass Judith Cross! You’ve got a higher goal than most artists even dream of!”
“It’s too high!” I glowered in the face of such innocent eagerness, so clueless about the bitter disillusionment which lay ahead of it. “I’ll never paint anything like Elizabeth Hartford’s portrait!” I bit my lower lip. “Like you, Judith loved, truly loved the subject matter she captured in oils, transferring it to a canvas. Unlike you, she had an intimate knowledge of her subject, having held her in the darkness, explored her flesh, listened to her private whispers in the night. It enabled Judith to capture Elizabeth’s soul!”
The truth rang in the envious cry which spilled from my lips, oh, yes. How could I not admire that painting, admire it as much as Westerleigh did? Unlike him, I did not love my ancestor’s work. It was my rival as much as Judith Cross was. It mocked with its livelike vibrancy, its beauty. It taunted me as much as this field did with shining verdure patches under the sun.
“Don’t try to.”
Westerleigh’s hushed words cut through my anguish, like a knife slicing through a thick, impossibly crusty loaf of bread.
He reached out with one of his small hands, the same soft brown as the slender bark of the trees which offered their tentative shelter across the field.
I might have recoiled. I’ve never enjoyed casual touch or being touched at all, yet this was Westerleigh. Westerleigh whom I yearned to get closer to, the share my heart with as I did no one else.
“Don’t try to paint as Judith did. That’s not the path to surpassing her.” Westerleigh fixed his eloquent eyes upon me, fixing them with their plea as much as with his words. “Draw what calls to your heart, what you yearn to release.”
These words struck me, like an arrow hitting my chest, even as I held his hand, sitting in the sunlit field as I seldom ever did.
Draw what called to my heart. What I yearned to release were shadows, shadows of jealousy and fear. Yes, I was haunted by my ancestor. Haunted by the vague suspicions she confided in her journal, even as she filled their pages with images of her lover’s shining red hair and equally shining confidence, determination to stand out from everyone else.
Ambition, every story and many a painting warned about the perils of ambition. Elizabeth had been relentless in her ambition, her determination to crack the secrets of the universe, to invoke the poetry of eternity into some tangible form. Judith pursued her, trying to catch some of this passion in her own work.
Was I any different than either of them or Westerleigh? I refused to be defined by my ancestor, gender, or any of the rules which offered guidelines to finding a path to identity. I wanted to forge my own, shape my identity, invoke the shadows within my mind to come forth. What would they give me, once I started to draw them?
The potential frightened me. My vision was a much darker one than Judith’s or Westerleigh’s. Perhaps even darker than Elizabeth’s in all of her ambition. It was certainly a less optimistic one.
Not that I couldn’t cherish optimism. The sight of it shining in Westerleigh’s eyes made the ache in the chest transform into something inexpressible. Something I longed to express, nonetheless.
I could feel the smile touching my lips. I saw it reflected on Westerleigh’s when I let go of his hand.
I picked up my discarded sketchbook and flipped it open. I found where I’d dropped my charcoal and picked it up, seeing the blackness spread across my fingers.
I began to draw.
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