Follow My Lead (7 page)

“Yes, but—”

“That’s all those first drafts are. You were always a very intrepid assistant to your father in his work, but who can dispute that Alexander Crane possessed the mind necessary for such endeavors as C. W. Marks?”

“And as his daughter, might not I have been granted a similar capacity for deep thought?” Miss Crane countered, sarcasm and impatience seeping into her voice.

“Then why hasn’t there been a new article by C. W. Marks since your father’s death?” George responded, to Miss Crane’s silent outrage.

“You . . . you would have me try to write and publish an article while mourning my father and being removed from the only home I’ve ever known?” she squeaked, her eyes shooting to Lord Forrester. “Lord Forrester, you must understand . . . with my father’s passing, I had no funds to keep renting our house and had to spend the past year not in study but in . . .” But as she explained, she must have seen what Jason saw—that her desperation did more to hinder her argument, and doubt was creeping into the edges of Forrester’s expression. A change of tactic was called for.

“And . . . and why would my father publish under a pseudonym?” Miss Crane asked shrewdly, hitting upon a chink in George’s argument. “He published widely as Alexander Crane; he wouldn’t need—”

“He would if he were to publish articles that ran contrary to several of his other works. Which is half of what C. W. Marks works are.”

“My father and I always disagreed about the satirical intent of
A Rake’s Progress
.” Miss Crane stood up straighter, her spine coming back to her now. “And as for the Tudor era, I am the one who had long arguments with him over dinner about Thomas More’s influence on typography. Sir,” she said, turning to Lord Forrester, her voice pleading, “if my father wrote to you as I grew up—as you have said he did—then he must have described me as his best pupil.”

“He did.” Lord Forrester’s eyebrow went up. “More than once.”

“And I was. I had the benefit of an Oxford education not merely for four years, but for almost thirty. I learned not only at my father’s knee but also at the dinner tables of the best and brightest educators in the country. And I promise you, I am the author of the articles by C. W. Marks. I merely wish acknowledgement for it.”

“Acknowledgement you cannot have, as you have no proof,” George surmised. “And the only person who could provide it has been dead for a year. God rest his soul.”

“I have proof!” Miss Crane cried and then, looking at the long neglected wet paper in her had, whispered, “Or I did.”

“What is that?” Lord Forrester finally asked. “May I see?”

She laid the page in front of him, its dampness weighing down the edges so it lay flat and lifeless. “It was a letter from my father. He wrote it when he realized he couldn’t come to London and introduce me as C. W. Marks himself.”

“That’s highly convenient,” George sneered. A remark that had everyone, even Lord Forrester, looking at him coldly.

“What happened to the letter?” Lord Forrester continued, lifting the edge of the completely illegible paper with the odd end of a quill, and pulling out his spectacles for a closer inspection.

“It blew into the fountain in the plaza outside,” Miss Crane barely more than whispered.

“I can corroborate that, at least,” Jason piped up. “I fished it out myself.”

“And caused it to be knocked in, in the first place,” Miss Crane said under her breath.

Jason could not help but be startled. “I beg your pardon, but I’m on your side,” he whispered back to her. Miss Crane had the grace to blush and look away.

“I’m sorry, my dear.” Lord Forrester sighed, looking up from the page. “But the paper is entirely illegible.”

If George Bambridge had not heaved such an audible sigh of relief, Jason was certain he would have been able to hear Miss Winnifred Crane’s heart break. She was so utterly stoic, he thought, taking in her countenance. Looking straight ahead at Lord Forrester, her gaze never wavering but her face becoming increasingly pale with every tick of the clock. As if she had suddenly come to understand that her dreams would never be realized.

As if she had just learned she was stuck where she was, and there was no escape. Just the inevitable.

Jason knew that feeling all too well.

They stood there for some moments, the room shattering down about her ears, and yet, still, Miss Crane did not move. Jason began to become concerned—had she fainted . . . standing up?—until he realized she was no longer looking at Lord Forrester. She was looking at the wall behind him.

Like most of the walls in the Historical Society’s rooms, the space behind Lord Forrester was crammed with a multitude of paintings, from every conceivable era of history. Jason tried to make out which one she had focused on so intently, but couldn’t decipher her gaze. The Poole? The Dürer? The Rembrandt sketches?

“I’m so sorry to have disturbed your afternoon, my lord,” George Bambridge said, putting a controlling hand on his cousin’s arm. “This is a complicated business. We will endeavor not to disturb you further.” He tugged Miss Crane kindly but firmly toward the door, which he opened—and nearly caused the Earl of Salisbury to stumble into the room. To no one’s surprise, the audience they had left behind in the great rooms had gathered by Lord Forrester’s doors, all hoping to overhear an ounce of the interior conversation.

Say what one will about British stoicism, Jason thought wryly, but he didn’t know a single Brit hesitant about eavesdropping. And now that they had a view of the scene, their gazes did not waver.

All the while, Winnifred Crane’s eyes remained fixed on the wall behind Lord Forrester’s massive desk. Unable to leave well enough alone, George looked to Jason as he tugged. “I know you have some influence over these things, Your Grace, and I do hope this confusion will not affect your decision regarding my application for membership,” he said beseechingly.

“Lord Forrester!” Miss Crane spoke up, resisting her cousin’s tugging and standing her ground. “I . . . I would make you a proposition.”

“Winnifred, please,” George whined, “we must be going.”

“If I cannot prove to you that I am C. W. Marks,” she continued, heedless of George, “can I at least attempt to prove that I have the education, the talent, the creativity . . . the
imagination
necessary to be C. W. Marks? Would you take my suit seriously then?”

Lord Forrester regarded her suspiciously for a moment, his eyes flicking to the black-clad gentlemen crowding the door behind her, looking like a crowd of vultures, waiting to feast upon the remnants of Miss Crane’s career.

“I suppose if it was put past doubt, I would have to,” he said finally, drawing no amount of angry and scandalized titters from the gathered crowd. “But doubt is a difficult thing to surmount. And I’m not at all certain it can be done away with entirely.”

She nodded, swallowing, allowing herself one nervous look down to her hands. But when her eyes came up, they had that sparkle of newfound fire. Of determination.

“That painting behind you”—she pointed—“of Adam and Eve.”

“The Dürer?” Lord Forrester replied, following her finger to the appropriate piece. “A particularly splendid representation of the German Renaissance.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “But what if I told you it was not painted by Albrecht Dürer?”

A jolt of shock rolled through the assembly. Monocles were dropped. Even an utterance of “I say!” drifted over the mutterings and cries.

Meanwhile, Winnifred Crane simply took a deep breath.

“And what if I could prove it?”

“T
HIS really is the limit, Winnifred, even for you!”

George stomped through Totty’s small foyer like a giant fee-fi-fo-fumming his anger out at the world, making small crystal and china knickknacks shake on their various surfaces. Winn followed George through the door quietly, calmly closing it behind her. Now that the interview with Lord Forrester was over—the moment that she had been preparing for, working toward, and building up in her mind for more than a year—Winnifred could feel nothing but a peaceful calm. Let George rant and rave. Let him argue and wheedle—she had done what she set out to do, and now . . .

She was on her way. She had taken the first step down the path to the life she wanted. Now all she had to do was take the others.

“A painting? A bloody painting! That’s how you decide to compromise our entire future?” George turned on her, running his hands through his dark hair. “One that
is
a Dürer, no matter how much you pretend otherwise.”

She had been caught by that painting, almost from the moment she had entered Lord Forrester’s office. She had known that her father had given it to the Society in his will, of course, but the luck of it appearing on Lord Forrester’s wall . . .

At first it had amused her. It was as if her father were watching over her even now. But then, as everything began to fall apart around her ears, her hopes of recognition as C. W. Marks fading away, she quickly realized it was the lone, last chance she had to succeed.

“Lord Forrester,” she had said, once the murmurs and cries in the Historical Society’s rooms subsided at her last announcement, “you must know that my father spent the last few years of his life attempting to compile a comprehensive life history, thesis, and list of works of Albrecht Dürer.”

“Of course, he wrote of it often.”

“Over many years, he acquired a number of works for Oxford and a few for his personal collection. Including that one.” She pointed to the untitled painting, which she had always referred to simply as
the Adam and Eve
. It was a graceful painting, one Winnifred had admired for years. A small canvas, no more than a foot and a half long by two feet wide. Adam to the left, leading the painting, Eve looking youthful and innocent to the right. Fig leaves protected their modesty, and the Tree of Knowledge between them, lit from behind, beckoning like the siren it was. The apple was in Eve’s hand, shining and true. But whereas most depictions of this most important moment in human history had the snake hanging from the tree and whispering in Eve’s ear, in this version, the snake wound its way around Adam’s ankle, securing his fall.

“Yes, and the Society will be eternally grateful that he entrusted us with such an important piece in his will.” Lord Forrester replied, his eyebrows rising.

Winnifred smiled kindly, hopefully putting Lord Forrester a bit more at ease—she wasn’t planning to take back the painting, and didn’t want the head of the Historical Society or any of the other gentlemen listening to think such a thing. The preeminent artisan of the German Renaissance, Albrecht Dürer was, of course, one of the most popular historical painters right now—one could almost say his renown was reaching a fever pitch—and an original work of his would command a hefty sum. She was already doing enough damage to the Adam and Eve’s value simply by questioning its provenance.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she demurred. “In assisting my father with his project, I have been corresponding with a number of Dürer enthusiasts throughout Europe.” At that, she shot a hard look to George, who could do nothing more than look dumbfounded. Not even he could dispute that she had been working in such a capacity, as her father’s aide. “And I have come to believe that this particular painting, while a very fine representation of the German Renaissance, is not a Dürer work.”

“This is preposterous!” she heard George swear under his breath. In fact, she was not the only one with keen hearing, because Lord Forrester quelled any further outburst from George’s quarter with a spare glance.

“How”—Lord Forrester cleared his throat—“did you come to this conclusion, my dear?”

Well, she had been bold enough to bring it up, no reason to be coy now. Although, with George listening so intently, she did need to be careful.

“There is a gentleman who has been archiving all the Dürer papers he can lay his hands on, and when I mentioned this painting to him, he mentioned a number of letters that he had found associated with it, written by the hand of someone who seemed to be taking credit for the work.” She took another deep breath, falling into the flow of the lecture. “And you must admit, there is something marginally . . . different about this painting than other Dürer works. Indeed, even his other depictions of Adam and Eve. The unfinished feeling of the tips of Eve’s hands—as if she herself is an unfinished work by God. Dürer was detailed in his oils; the unfinished effect was not of his style. The way Adam turns from the canvas—we see barely a third of his face . . . and here is Dürer, the most influential portraitist of his generation, not showing us a face? And there is the movement depicted in the . . . er . . . foliage.”

Winn could not help but blush. One thing about this painting that had always captivated the pubescent Winn, when boys were more a mystery than ever, was how it created the impression that if a breeze blew the wrong way, the painted fig leaves might blow away with it.

Several of the gentlemen present, including Lord Forrester, were peering at the small canvas now, examining it. Wondering.

“To be completely honest, my father debated including this work in his compendium for weeks. Months,” Winn added hopefully, and then cursed herself for doing so. Because George took her pause for breath to jump into the fray, arguing.

“Even if your father had questioned the painting’s authorship, he obviously came to a conclusion about it, as he never spoke of it to me as anything other than a Dürer.”

Winn could only set her mouth in a harsh line, as the men spilling into the room murmured agreements with George. Even one or two giving a “right-o, my good man” and other such inane male encouragements.

Even dead and gone, her father—in the eyes of the Society’s members—remained the final word on all things artistically historical. And here she was, admittedly disagreeing with that final word! “All the same,” she stated, quelling the ripple of voices, “I hold fast to believing that those letters and documents will prove this work is not a Dürer.”