Christmas at Candleshoe (13 page)

Meanwhile, perhaps his wife knew about this fellow Cima. He was about to inquire, when Dr Rosenwald fortunately noticed the Alessio Baldovinetti. On this master he had, it appeared, a difference of opinion with Dr Borenius, and he now proceeded to lay the case in some detail before Mrs L’Estrange. Mrs L’Estrange, gratified at this admission to the status of connoisseurship, offered intelligent murmurs. Her husband, who disliked what he called Kate’s damned nonsense, made occasional growling noises indicative of impatience and distaste. Fortunately it was not easy to distinguish that these did not emanate from Brown. The party thus eventually reached the octagon room in tolerable harmony.

The stuff was all on one wall – the two Titians flanked by the two Velasquez portraits. For the two Italian pictures their owner had never greatly cared. As a boy he had judged them indecent indeed but unsatisfactory, since he had been unable to imagine himself in any amatory engagement with females of this species turning the scale at anything like the figure to be posited of these sprawling monsters. Later he had come to distinguish that they were what he called deuced colourful, but he had never kindled to them, all the same. He liked the reclining nude – she was said to be no more than a high-class tart, poor girl – better than the more elaborately engaged goddess hanging beside her. For one thing, he could never remember what that particular mythological proceeding was. And who had ever seen a swan of that size, anyway?

The two Velasquez portraits were a different matter. Here again he was bad at keeping names in his head – but he could accept each simply as a superb evocation of the aristocratic idea. This was even more true of the little girl than of the elderly grandee – although he was (Lord Scattergood suddenly remembered) King Philip the Fourth of Spain. Lord Scattergood had a great regard for ancient lineage, and admitted no illusion that a Candleshoe turned Spendlove in the later seventeenth century constituted anything of the sort. Now, therefore, he met alike the candid gaze of the little Infanta and the haughty stare of King Philip with a decidedly guilty glance. He was much struck, moreover, by the circumstance that Brown had retreated to a far angle of the octagon room and sat down with his back to the proceedings. He suddenly decided that he would let Titian go, but hang on to Velasquez to the end.

Dr Rosenwald, with Mrs L’Estrange still beside him, was examining the Titians. At least he was standing in front of them, but it was not at all clear that they were very seriously engaging his interest. Dr Rosenwald’s glance was idle, almost absent; and he was edifying his companion with remarks on some of the major private collections in Italy. Did she know the Bagatti Valsecchi Collection in Milan? Or the treasures of the Crespi Palace? Or the remarkable group of pictures assembled by the late Prince Trivulzio? When she was next in Rome – and, indeed, her so charming and cultivated husband too – would she permit him the pleasure of securing her an introduction to the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli, who in addition to possessing a magnificent Quirico da Murano was also a lineal descendant (as Sir Max Beerbohm had pointed out) of the Emperor Hadrian?

The entire party – Brown still excepted – had now gathered round in silence. There was something undeniably impressive – even hypnotic – in Dr Rosenwald’s manner of thus reviewing these major repositories of the plastic arts. Lord Scattergood however was impatient; he was, indeed, indignant. The well-cadenced discourse, the resonant names of noble families across the Alps, the eye so casually exploring the canvasses immediately before it: all these things had the effect of making Benison Court and its treasures seem very small beer. With mounting irritation Lord Scattergood remembered the price of a return ticket by air from Rome. And presently he could contain himself no longer. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘–what do you think of those Titians of ours? Are they worth anything?’

Dr Rosenwald looked at his host in surprise – as well he might, since the mortician from Buffalo himself could scarcely have asked a question more baldly. Then his distinguished features transformed themselves into a smile – a smile at first brilliant, and then almost wholly reverent. He looked at each of the pictures in turn, and again his fingers traced – but this time with infinitely greater delicacy – their arabesque in air. ‘Milord,’ he said, ‘they are a revelation.’

‘Eh?’ Lord Scattergood was startled, His guests were all staring.

‘I had forgotten. Indeed, in seeing them amid the bustle of that London exhibition, I had perhaps not fully realized.’ Dr Rosenwald was softly solemn. ‘These may be – well, the greatest Titians in the world.’

‘God bless my soul!’ Lord Scattergood was almost alarmed.

‘But
are
they merely Titians? I have to ask myself that. Yes, most seriously do I have to put that question to myself. It is the crucial point, milord, in the expertise.’ Dr Rosenwald paused. ‘And the answer I finally give myself is – Yes!’

‘Ah – I’m uncommonly glad to hear it.’ Lord Scattergood was now altogether at sea.

‘But
are
they merely Titians? I have to ask myself assuredly, in the period – the tragically brief period, milord – of his supreme achievement. These are the work of the young Titian as he steps back – still dazzled and still divinely gifted – from the untimely grave of his exact contemporary and sole inspirer –
il miglior fabbro
, Giorgione!’

Mrs L’Estrange gasped. She could be trusted, Arthur Spendlove saw, to spread the tale of this impressive encounter with the higher connoisseurship broadcast among her artistic friends. And presently some young ass would be down from town, eager to do a talk on Titian’s supreme creations for the Third Programme of the BBC. Rosenwald was undoubtedly worth his money. Nevertheless Arthur still preferred the company of Brown. Brown, indeed, had a great deal of wool over his own eyes. But it was not his profession to pull it over the eyes of others.

Slightly dazed, the company presently drifted from the room. The women went to bed, and the men, accompanied by Brown, repaired to the smoking-room. Lord Scattergood took a stiffer whisky than was at all customary with him. It looked as if he might make out of Titian what he had calculated to make out of Titian and Velasquez together. The trollops from the Venetian
bagno
would depart across the Atlantic and the Spanish royalty would remain at Benison. There was in this – Lord Scattergood opined – a high propriety that put him in excellent humour; and he gave Arthur a wink – it was a bad family habit – over the heads of the other gentlemen. For a time Fernall, Crespigny, and L’Estrange lingered over their glasses. They had a notion that Dr Rosenwald, as their senior and a stranger, should take himself off first. But, the eminent connoisseur making no move, they eventually got up and went away, amid customary civilities and involuntary yawns. It had been a devilishly dull evening.

The moment was one for which Lord Scattergood – although with faultless dissimulation – had been eagerly waiting. He turned to Dr Rosenwald. ‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what are we likely to get?’

‘For the Velasquez portraits and the Titians?’

‘Just the Titians. Will they really fetch a notable price?’

‘Undoubtedly.’ Dr Rosenwald favoured the Marquess of Scattergood and Lord Arthur Spendlove with his most brilliant smile. ‘Provided, of course, that you can find them.’

‘What’s that?’ Lord Scattergood supposed that he had not heard correctly.

‘It was a circumstance not very convenient to mention in the presence of your other guests. But the paintings now in your octagon room, milord, are not the Benison Titians. They are only copies.’

The first to respond to this strange intelligence was Brown. He got to his feet and moved his mop-like head slowly up and down in the air. He had all the appearance of giving himself to an exhibition of well-bred mirth.

‘Copies!’ Lord Scattergood too had got to his feet. ‘You mean we haven’t any Titians after all?’

‘Apparently not.’ Dr Rosenwald was studying his host with interest. It might have been hazarded, indeed, that he was making an expertise. ‘And I think, milord, you underestimate our difficulties. Still, something may conceivably be done.’

‘Something may be
done
?’

‘But no longer for what you call, I think, big money. So I hope you got a good figure – is not that the expression? – in the first place.’

Lord Scattergood’s florid complexion had deepened to a colour which might have attracted Titian when looking for a nice curtain to hang behind a courtesan. ‘Arthur,’ he gasped, ‘am I right in thinking that Dr Rosenwald thinks–’

‘Probably you are.’ Arthur Spendlove grabbed the whisky decanter and bustled about. ‘But we needn’t make anything of that. A damned odd thing like this may give rise to a misconception or two – eh? And no doubt Dr Rosenwald does meet some queer fish.’ And Arthur turned briskly to his father’s guest. ‘Have another dash of this. All of us can do with it. Bit of a shock, you know.
Really
a shock. Just keep that in your head.’ A man of more worldly guile than his father, Arthur thus steered deftly past an awkward moment. ‘But I don’t know that it’s all that extraordinary. The war meant queer times for Benison, and a little large-scale hanky-panky may have crept in. Better send for Archdeacon.’

‘Certainly we had better send for Archdeacon.’ Lord Scattergood rang a bell. ‘What about the Velasquez portraits – are they still the genuine thing?’

‘Without question.’ Dr Rosenwald had accepted with charming grace the invitation to apply himself anew to the whisky.

‘And Cima What’s-his-name, and Baldovinetti, and all that crowd?’

‘Dear me, yes.’

‘Well, now – somebody must have got in and played this trick on us. Or would it have been that girls’ school?’ Lord Scattergood was much struck with this possibility. ‘The art-mistress, you know. I distinctly remember not at all caring for her. She might have done it at night.’

‘Wasn’t the octagon room a dormitory?’ Arthur appeared not to think highly of his father’s suggestion. ‘And surely you didn’t keep all those things on the walls?’

‘Didn’t we?’ Lord Scattergood, vague on the point, paused to give an order to the servant who had entered the room. Then he resumed his speculations. ‘Or would it be professional crooks? It seems a dashed queer thing for anyone of that kidney to take to. And how would they make money out of it?’

‘Very readily.’ Dr Rosenwald seemed now to accept the innocence of his host, and to be urbanely amused by it. ‘I could tell you of a number of owners of works of art who have found it convenient to part with one or two of their treasures in an unobtrusive way. Do you happen lately to have inspected the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli’s Quirico da Murano – the picture I was mentioning to your charming Mrs L’Estrange? No? A pity.’ Dr Rosenwald applied himself largely to his whisky. ‘I painted it myself.’

‘
You
painted it?’ Lord Scattergood’s indignation was such that he had difficulty in articulation. ‘Wasn’t that a damned dishonest thing to do?’

Dr Rosenwald, by no means offended, raised a mildly deprecatory hand. ‘Not, I think,
damned
dishonest. The purchaser of the original – he lives in Chicago – got very good value for his money, even although he is pledged not to exhibit the Quirico for twenty-five years. And what the dear Contessa is pleased to hang on her walls is entirely her own affair. Nobody is defrauded in the slightest degree. It is not as if she made visitors to the Palazzo Rizzoli pay at the door.’ And leaving Lord Scattergood to digest this as he might, Dr Rosenwald turned to Arthur. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I am interested. Does this whisky come from Scotland or from Ireland?’

Reminding himself that Dr Rosenwald was his guest, Lord Scattergood took a turn about the room. ‘Would you mind telling me’, he said presently, ‘how long it would take to concoct these two things now passing as my Titians?’

Dr Rosenwald considered. ‘I think it likely’, he said, ‘that I could manage one in three months.’

‘Bless my soul!’ It had never occurred to Lord Scattergood that any work of art, whether authentic or spurious, could take more than three or four days to execute. ‘What a deuced odd way for a fellow to spend his time! I can remember doing art at my private school. But it never went on for more than fifty minutes. And the last ten of those were commonly a bit of a rag.’

‘Surely those Titians are insured?’ Arthur halted his father’s irrelevance by asking this question abruptly. ‘If they are, this outrage at least isn’t dead loss.’

‘A very interesting point.’ Benignly smiling, Dr Rosenwald shook a richly experienced head. ‘Let us hope, by all means, that they are insured. But, you know, the insurance people will fight.’

‘Why the dickens should they fight?’

‘My dear Lord Arthur, they will fight because of the magnitude of the sum involved. They will take you to – what do you call it? – the House of Lords. They will take you to – am I right? – the Judicial Committee of your Privy Council. If, that is to say, it is necessary to fight in more than one court.’

Arthur frowned. ‘I don’t see that they’d have a leg to stand on.’

‘On the contrary. Your father, I fear, may have great difficulty in establishing that he has ever been the owner of two authentic Titians. For an unknown length of time, two modern paintings have been hanging in Benison Court; and it has been represented – and of course believed – by the Marquess of Scattergood that these were authentic works. We cannot explain, or put an exact date to, the supposed substitution. The position, believe me, my dear Lord Arthur, is a difficult and delicate one.’ Dr Rosenwald drained his glass. ‘And now, milord, we had better return to the octagon room.’

‘Certainly – if you think it any good.’ Lord Scattergood was impressed by something businesslike that either the whisky, or the present exigency, or both, had begun to induce in the deplorable visitor from Rome. He moved to the door and looked at his watch. ‘My librarian and curator, Mr Archdeacon, should be here in half-an-hour. I sent a car. Perhaps I should tell you’ – and Lord Scattergood looked at his guest with some severity – ‘that in addition to being extremely learned, and everything of that sort, he is a very old friend of the family.’