Deeply Personal

Chapter 31

Jessica

A few days later, Jessica returned to Mrs. Worthmore’s to oversee the installations. While supervising and inspecting the progress—those pooled curtains and the artwork on the walls of the dining room were simply lovely!—she came upon an out-of-the-way closet just beyond the den. Jessica drew a breath. She hadn’t noticed it before, and when she looked at her design drawings to figure out why, she realized it wasn’t part of the expansion—it was actually part of a different room.

Thinking she might find a way to incorporate the closet into the remodel, she opened the door, turned on the light, and peered inside. It was a deep space, larger than she’d expected. Coats hung on hangers and a few nondescript boxes were stationed on the floor.

Looking further, Jessica came across three unframed paintings on canvas stacked against a back wall. She dragged one of them out into the hallway to see it properly. For a moment, she was spellbound. The painting was gorgeous. It looked like an original and reminded her of Diego Velázquez, with its rich, dark, velvety background. Five people with rugged-looking bodies and long thin fingers, their faces pale, climbed a steep white-capped mountain, striving toward a point of white light at the top, their eyes filled with desperation.

She pulled out another. This one was an oil of a young girl with rosy cheeks, sitting under an umbrella in a park with pink and red azaleas surrounding her. It danced with light and the girl, whose dark eyes stared out with a melancholy expression that seemed deeply touching, as if she was expressing the sadness of humanity itself. A different style, but beautiful as well.

The third one was the most miraculous, however: a broad, sweeping landscape, alive with giant strokes of color and movement—the sun, the sky, and a vast valley that led to a mountain range in the distance. Beyond that, heavenly beings portrayed in light, wispy strokes. Impressionism combined with a quality of hyper-realism, so strong and powerful and precise it took Jessica’s breath away.

She knew great art when she saw it. But who was the artist? She looked for a signature but found only a large “M” in the right corner. How much were these paintings worth? And why were they hidden in a closet?

Just then, she heard footsteps behind her and turned. She jumped back. Mrs. Worthmore was standing there fidgeting with a necklace. “Mrs. Worthmore! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to snoop.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ve a curious mind. Just like Lydia.”

“I just ran across these paintings, and . . .” Jessica could hardly contain herself. “Where’d you get them? They’re incredible. Do you know who the artist is? Are they originals?”

“These paintings are one of the reasons why Mason and I divorced,” Mrs. Worthmore said, with a quiver in her voice.

“Really? How so?” Jessica asked, perplexed.

The woman’s wrinkled face contorted in a look of anguish. “Oh, my dear. Do you really want to know?”

“Of course.”

“Actually, believe it or not, I know the artist quite well,” she said with a sardonic smile on her face.

“Who is it, then?” Jessica’s breathing picked up. She was anxious to find out, but she was starting to get an idea of who it might be.

Mrs. Worthmore gave her a whimsical smile and said, “The artist, my dear Jessica, is, well, none other than . . . me.”

Jessica gasped. She looked at the paintings, at the old woman, then back at the paintings. “ You did these?”

She nodded. “I did, dear.”

“But that’s—that’s incredible, Mrs. Worthmore. These paintings are outstanding.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t really know. When I was younger, in my forties and fifties, my grandmother was a well-known artist in her own right. Eleanor Harding. Have you ever heard of her?”

“No, I’m sorry, I haven’t,” Jessica said. She had studied female artists in college, but hadn’t run across the name.

“Well, she was famous for painting women from all walks of life: the rich, the poor, women just living their daily lives—the beauty of the female moment, so to speak. Two or three pieces of hers are hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and several others in museums around the world. She was known for her vivid details. Art critics were very kind to her.”

“So, she’s in the Pauline Gale, Mary Cassatt category?” Jessica asked.

“Yes. Precisely,” Mrs. Worthmore said. “Honestly, I never even thought I had inherited any abilities at all from her.”

Jessica promised herself that she would look her up. Having been an art history minor who’d studied artists from the Greek era and on, she found this fascinating.

“When I reached my late forties,” Mrs. Worthmore continued, “I had time on my hands—lots of time. Beau and Helen, his wife, had fertility problems, so, no grandchildren for me, and Lydia was so involved with her business, I hardly ever saw her. With Mason gone so much, I started to draw.”

“You never took any classes?”

“A few, but I’m fairly self-taught. I began with simple things—studies of a child’s face or a series of hands. But the more I worked, the more I started to feel and see my grandmother’s inspiration emerge. My sister and I had been to art galleries all over the world and we both marveled at how artists approached line and dimension. I also bought a few books on how to draw and, yes, took some classes. But basically, it all boiled down to me, alone in a room with my sketching and my imagination. I started with watercolors and then tried my hand at oils.”

“Did you show them in galleries?” Jessica asked.

The old woman shook her head. “I haven’t shown them to anyone, really. Mason wouldn’t let me. He hated to see me do anything but donate my time to charities and visit with friends and arrange parties. Things like that. He kept telling me over and over that he thought my art was silly and pretentious and downright foolish, and that I’d be laughed at if I tried to show them.” Her face grew red. “He belittled me so much for so long he made me feel like he was most likely right, that my work wasn’t any good.” She sighed. “I basically gave up. Honestly, I haven’t looked at these paintings in years. The others I’ve kept around as well, stored in the basement.” Mrs. Worthmore frowned.

He’d gaslighted her, plain and simple.

Mrs. Worthmore looked over the canvases, scrutinizing them. Jessica followed her as she walked into the closet, bent down and sorted through a few more, a painting of two children sitting on a swing with large oak trees in the background, a kind of unearthly light flowing around them, their soft complexions, their big blue eyes that seemed saturated with an otherworldly knowing. The hues and color, the lines and depth were as advanced as anything Jessica had ever seen.

“But they aren’t something to be embarrassed about at all,” Jessica said. “They’re . . . they’re wonderful, Mrs. Worthmore! They should be hung in galleries, shown to the world. Your husband may have been a great businessman, but he obviously knew nothing about art.”

“I think it was more that he didn’t want to see his wife—or any woman—take the spotlight from him. That was the crux of it.”

“That’s not right at all.”

Jessica was silent for a moment as she took this information in. Why were some men like that? A certain kind of man, for some reason, deep inside, feared women and feared their success.

“What about Lydia?” Jessica asked. “Did he try to stifle her too?”

“Lydia was the apple of his eye,” she said with a winsome smile. “Whatever Lydia wanted was fine with him. He encouraged her to do anything and everything. Lydia had her father wrapped around her finger.”

“But that’s not fair to you at all."

“I know and for the longest time, I was depressed about it,” Mrs. Worthmore went on. “When he belittled my art, he belittled me as well. I wouldn’t come out of my bedroom for days. I only ever showed the pieces to one other person: my sister. She’s passed now. But she loved my paintings and was always telling me to show them, but I never had the gumption, and honestly, I still don’t. They’ve sat here all these years, taking up space and collecting dust.”

Jessica perused them again, admiring the beauty of the lines, the shapes and forms. “We have got to get these out into the public. That’s all there is to it. We can’t let your deceased husband trample on your dreams. You have to stand up for yourself.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Mrs. Worthmore tapped her chin. “I just don’t think I have the wherewithal for it. I really don’t like to think about it, because when I do, it gets me riled.”

Jessica touched her shoulder. “Let me do some research, all right? We need to find an expert to look at them, and appraise them. What do you think?”

Mrs. Worthmore went back into the closet and picked up a painting, a smaller one that depicted the gentle curves of a red rose with amazing realism. Truly beautiful. “You really think they’re that good?”

“They’re not good, they’re excellent ! I studied art history in college, Mrs. Worthmore, and I know what I’m talking about.”

The older woman pressed her lips together. “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s fine. I just thought . . . I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being a nosy interior designer, that’s all.”

“No, it’s me. Don’t apologize,” Mrs. Worthmore said. “I’ve always kept my artistic talent in the closet, refusing to let it come out, as it were.” Mrs. Worthmore chuckled.

“But do you mind if I take a few photos just in case?”

“Go right ahead, dear.”

After Jessica had snapped some pictures with her phone, she turned and said, “Mrs. Worthmore, you are amazing and so talented and . . . I just don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before. You’re so full of surprises. It’s kind of incredible.”

Mrs. Worthmore gave Jessica a broad smile, her eyes shining. “And you are amazing as well, dear.”

In that moment of excitement, Jessica reached out and gave Mrs. Worthmore a warm hug, feeling the old woman’s body against her for just a moment. What a woman she was—and what a woman Lydia must have been as well. Jessica was so glad that Mrs. Worthmore had shared her story.