The Property of a Gentleman: One House. Many secrets.

by Catherine Gaskin

  He was at the door, and Ted, moving before him switched on the light in the hall.

  ‘You’re very tired, Miss Roswell. So am I. Those are harsh words you have used. I think we had better both forgot them. Perhaps we won’t meet again. It would be better if we didn’t. I’ll do everything I can not to involve your mother. If I can help it, no one will ever hear her name. But ... if you should find anything ...’ He shrugged, and half turned away. ‘Well, if you should find anything that might be of help, you could communicate with me through Ted. Goodbye.’

  He had moved out into the hall, and was almost gone before I called him back. It was something that all my training, all my years at Hardy’s had given to me, and it could not be stopped.

  ‘Mr Tolson!’

  He returned, betraying just a shade of eagerness. ‘Yes, Miss Roswell?’

  ‘Those pictures – the ones that are left. And the ones my mother took away. Would you remember ... would you possibly remember anything about El Greco?’

  His disappointment was plain. ‘El Greco? Spanish, wasn’t he?’ He was shaking his head. ‘No, everything I know about those pictures is that they’re all Dutch, of one period or another. El Greco ... no.’

  ‘I see. I just thought I’d ask.’

  ‘Strange, though ... your mother once had some such notion. She searched the whole of Thirlbeck – but she never found anything ...’

  He waited a while longer, perhaps with hope, which wasn’t fulfilled. I stared at him, my anger giving me a hardness I had never possessed before. I had said hideous things to him, accused him, almost, of unthinkable things, which in my bewilderment and fear, had suddenly become thinkable. I did not recognise the self which had leaped out and hurled abuse at him. In the roughness of my words a different person spoke. I felt as if something had been rending inside of me, and had finally burst. The remnants of the old person lay about me. I had no screen from the knowledge of myself any more. I did not much like what I saw of myself, and yet I could not, then, recall the words I had spoken, take them back; I could not bring myself at this moment to offer help to this man whom, I believed, had destroyed Vanessa.

  He had waited, and perhaps saw the struggle reflected on my face. He must have recognised its outcome. He sighed and turned away. I heard them slip out quietly into the mews. Later I heard a car start. If I measured Tolson rightly, they would drive all night up the motorway, and he would be there at Thirlbeck by the morning to tell his tale to Robert Birkett.

  Vanessa’s little Louis XIV clock on the mantel chimed the three-quarter hour. A quarter to one. I thought of the smashed and burned wreckage on the mountain slope, the baggage lying broken in the dirty snow which was becoming clean again in a fresh fall. Spring snow. Perhaps by now the spring grasses were already covering the raw scars in the earth. All the wreckage would have been taken away. There had been no suitcase I had been able to identify as Vanessa’s among those assembled for inspection in the village school, no single object or article of clothing other than her handbag. And her handbag had contained nothing that would have helped Tolson. I thought bitterly that there would be no reason for Robert Birkett not to think that Vanessa, in this last mission she had undertaken for George Tolson, might not have deliberately concealed the location and number of the account she had opened with the sale of the Rembrandt. Why should he agree with Tolson’s idea of a woman he had known for only one summer so long ago? Why would he not press and press Tolson until the man divulged the name of the person who had helped him? What would happen to Vanessa now that she was dead and not able to defend herself – if the story came out there were enough people to say she had been capable of what she had done, and much more. Vanessa had had only friends or enemies – hardly anyone in between. Anything that anyone wanted to say now, or infer, could be believed because she was not here to speak for herself.

  I sat in the chair and the tears of anger and pain and fatigue rolled down my cheeks unchecked. They brought, in time, their own sort of relief, a temporary thing, but welcome; I felt myself slip towards sleep. When I woke the clock was striking two.

  III

  I started for Chelsea once again in the Mini, and once again I ended by going somewhere else. It was only a couple of minutes’ drive in the almost totally deserted streets; it wasn’t raining any more, but the roads still had their slick greasy sheen under the lights. The streets around St James’s were vacant and silent – a single taxi dropping someone at the New Cavendish, a police car on a slow patrol which made me slow down also. I followed it along King Street and into St James’s Square. The two constables in it were watching me, and stopped their car, so that I had to pass them. Strange how guilty just being watched made me feel. If either of them had asked me what I was doing there, I wouldn’t have had an answer. Over the other side of the square I stopped also. The top floor of one of the modern blocks was still brightly lighted. At the kerb were two large dark cars with uniformed chauffeurs fighting off sleep and boredom. And between them, preposterously rakish beside their solemnity, was Harry’s Jensen. And Harry was still up there on that lighted top floor. I sat and looked up at the lights for a few minutes – there was a sense of restless power there, a driving energy which expressed itself in these glittering symbols of success, and of talk which went on until the small hours of the morning. From that lighted top floor seemed to come a kind of urgency which disturbed the quietness of the great square. I started the Mini and drove down into Pall Mall.

  When I turned up St James’s Street it was totally deserted.

  The few restaurants had closed, the clubs offered discreetly lighted porters’ desks behind the closed glass doors. I turned into St James’s Place, and then made the turn into the tiny yard where Duke’s Hotel was. There was the house Harry had bought – tall, narrow, elegant, its paint glistening, bay trees in tubs each side of the door. The SOLD sign was bright and fresh across the agent’s board. Hard to think what Harry must have paid for it. And he was right; even with traffic at its thickest, it was barely a three-minute walk from Hardy’s, and only a few minutes’ walk beyond that to St James’s Square, and the lighted top floor. Harry had made his plans swiftly, and with great precision.

  As I sat there staring up at the house, another car, a large one, turned quietly into the yard, and stopped before the house with the SOLD notice. A chauffeur came around and opened the back door; in the light from the car’s interior I saw him assist a woman to the pavement, a slender, elegant woman wearing a long evening coat, a woman as carefully groomed as the façade of the house which she was entering. She was alone, and I watched as the chauffeur took a door key from her hand, opened the door for her, handed back the key, and stood with his hat under his arm until she had closed the door behind her. In the quiet of the little yard I could even hear the other locks being secured, and the chain being dropped into place. The crystal chandelier which I could see through the beautiful Georgian fanlight remained alight.

  As the chauffeur gently turned the car and edged through the narrow entry to the yard I felt his careful scrutiny of me, in much the way I had felt the watchful eyes of the police in St James’s Square. Suddenly this man, his face shadowed beneath his peaked cap, could have been either one of the other chauffeurs waiting in the Square. He was all chauffeurs, and the woman could have been myself some few years from now, entering that house alone, and waiting, always waiting, for a telephone call from Harry.

  As I headed once more for Chelsea, I remembered that the last time I had been conscious of lights burning in the early hours of the morning had been as we had followed the ambulance to Kesmere, and the lights had shone on Nat Birkett’s hill. He and a vet had worked through the night, and a calf had been born.

  I was at Hardy’s early the next morning, but I didn’t go directly down to the ceramics department. I really didn’t know if I should be there at all. Probably Gerald was expecting me to return to Thirlbeck, and probably I should go, but I didn’t want to. I was conscious of the need to br
eak with that world, to return to what was familiar and understood. And yet hadn’t what Tolson had told me the night before shaken the foundations of this familiar world? If it became known that Vanessa had assisted in smuggling works of art out of this country, would it be possible for me to remain here? Perhaps the name of Roswell might become notorious in the art world, instead of mildly famous, as my father had made it. I stood for a moment at the bottom of the stairs gazing through the inner double glass doors to the street, watching St James’s take up its daily rhythm, watching a few taxis and cars arrive and people hurry up the steps from the street with a salute from the commissioner. Many carried catalogues of what was on view that day, and they moved past me purposefully; others would arrive later for the sales scheduled for that day, catalogues already marked with items they intended to bid for. The little hum of noise was growing; Jackie Flemming came out of the press office and went to the notice board where she pinned up the clippings from papers all over the world that had reported recent sales at Hardy’s. These days it was usually the report of a record price for some item or other – prices never went down, and all over the world people would start looking at objects they owned, and wondering what they were worth.

  ‘Dreaming a bit, Jo?’ Mr Arrowsmith was beside me, wearing his usual quizzically benign look.

  ‘I suppose I was, Mr Arrowsmith. I was really wondering if I shouldn’t just go downstairs and get to work. Except that I don’t feel like it ...’

  He asked me about Gerald, and I told him, trying to skirt around the fact that I didn’t know whether I was supposed to return to Thirlbeck or not. I ought to go and see Mr Hudson, my director. It was something we had not discussed last night. The pieces of the Sung bowl were still in my possession. It was to be my task to ask Lord Askew if he wished them mended, and offered for auction. Until this was clear, and the paper signed, Hardy’s insurance did not begin to operate. I was floundering in a state of fatigue and bewilderment, and nothing seemed to sort itself into a decision.

  Mr Arrowsmith seemed to sense some of this. ‘Well, if you don’t feel like it, don’t go down to your old hole. No one’s expecting you, are they? Tell you what, take an hour on the Front Counter. Jenny’s not coming in this morning until half past ten. It’d be a help if you could put in a while.’ I knew he had no need of help at that hour of the morning – a swift look at the Front Counter showed me that it was well-staffed, and enquiries didn’t start to flood in until later. But in the spirit in which he oversaw every part of Hardy’s operation, Mr Arrowsmith felt for its employees also. He had been very fond of Vanessa, and he had a kind of affectionate reverence for Gerald. ‘You’re looking a bit peaked, Jo. I thought you were getting plenty of fresh air up in that place you’ve been staying.’

  ‘It’s my own fault if I’m looking that way, Mr Arrowsmith. There hasn’t been much to do up there – really nothing except to go through some papers. Mr Stanton has Jeffries with him, and a lovely titled Spanish lady who seems happy to fetch and carry for him. And Lord Askew doesn’t want him to leave ... I’ve been hanging round doing nothing, really. We hope there’ll be a sale – Lord Askew has some wonderful things.’ Then I blurted out, because this man had been a kind of father confessor to every young person who appeared on the Front Counter: ‘I don’t know if I’m supposed to be up there or not. I had to come back yesterday ...’

  He seemed to think I had said enough. ‘Well, while it’s being decided, just you be a good girl and help out on the Front Counter. Sharpens you up a bit, you know. Haven’t much time for worries when you’re dealing with the public.’

  It was an exercise in tact and public relations. People came in off the street carrying things they thought might be worth putting up for auction. Some were surprisingly good, some worth almost nothing. In each case someone was called from the appropriate department, the client was assigned a private interview room with its built-in green-baize covered table; a rough valuation was made, a reserve price suggested. The client either accepted the estimate of the valuation which was made, and the appropriate sale at which it might be offered, or they left, dissatisfied, unhappy, perhaps, because some dream or hope had been shattered; or it could be that they believed the people at Hardy’s were fools, and didn’t know their business. After just an hour I was caught up once more, fascinated, feeling the throb of this inexact and, at the moment, soaring market that dealt in people’s hope and fears, the skills of craftsmen both living and long dead, the judgement of what was beauty, and what was the price of beauty in the market place. I was sorry when Jenny Struthers arrived and relieved me, and I was at a loose end again.

  Instead of going down to the ceramics department I went upstairs to the salerooms. In the central area was a display of English pictures on view. In two of the side rooms the morning sales had just begun. It was early in the season, and the really important auctions of the year were still weeks away; this morning there was silver and Chinese ceramics; the public attending were mostly dealers, and a few interested collectors. In both salerooms the real bidders sat around baize-covered horseshoe tables, so that they could examine items that came up for bid. They were both small and attentive audiences. I watched the silver sale for a while, listening to the auctioneer, one of the directors of Hardy’s, as he made his expert way through the catalogue, knowing most of the dealers by name, recording price and buyer in the Day Book, and always moving at a deliberate pace, never sounding excited, pleased, or disappointed by the prices made. Some lots were bought back into the house when they failed to make their reserve, others went for prices well beyond the reserve. Whichever way it went was never registered on the auctioneer’s face. The little hammer fell at the end of each sale, and the next lot was brought out for display. I went on to the sale of Chinese ceramics.

  Here, in the West Room, were the familiar faces from the ceramics department. It seemed much more than a few weeks since I had seen them. The bidding was brisk, the prices good – very good. But nothing half so beautiful and exciting as the Sung bowl was on offer; I ached with guilt once more at the thought of it lying in pieces in my silk scarf. Mr Hudson was taking the auction. I would have to wait until it was over before I could talk with him. Mr Arrowsmith appeared beside the rostrum; he had a bid commissioned for a certain lot, and he had an uncanny knack of gauging within minutes when the lot would come up, and he was always on time. In this case it went beyond the price he had been authorised to pay, and he made his way from the room, smiling at me as he left. I turned back to look at the rostrum.

  I suppose it was fatigue. The night had been too long, and there had been too much to try to absorb, too much to think about – Harry, Vanessa, Tolson. For a few seconds the room seemed to swim in a blur of faces and voices. A new lot was being brought out – a jade carving too small for me to see from my place at the back, passing along the baize-covered table and dealers looking once again at something they had already seen during the viewing days. The bidding went on – rising, rising as the auctioneer judged the interest of his audience, pacing the rise to meet the competition. ‘Against you on the left ... I’m offered four thousand pounds ... four thousand five hundred ... against you on the left.’ The hammer fell, the record went into the Day Book, the next lot produced. But this time, instead of the K’ang Hsi bottle which the porter was carrying on his baize-lined tray, I seemed to see the fantasy shape of a great eagle, majestic, awesome, fierce, a rich dark brown, tawny-streaked, with neck and crown of gold, perched on the ledge of the rostrum. And the auctioneer’s voice saying quietly, ‘What am I bid ...?’

  And the room was abruptly silent, because everyone knew there was no price for a golden eagle.

  I turned away quickly, and at once the low hum of sound through the room resumed. I looked back, and everything was as it should be, the K’ang Hsi bottle making the round of the table, the bids being placed, everything as it always was. And no golden eagle surveyed the scene.

  I left them, almost running down the stairs and o
ut into the street. A taxi was being paid off at the door, and the commissionaire held it for me. He was as old a friend as anyone at Hardy’s. ‘Are you all right, Miss Roswell?’ He looked doubtful, and even more so when I gave him the address to relay to the driver. I turned back to look at him as the taxi moved away. He was staring after me, and I saw him give a slight shake of his head. I wondered what he would have thought if I had stopped to explain that golden eagles were not for sale.

  A young man in a habit showed me into one of the reception rooms. It wasn’t at all like Hardy’s. There was a bare polished floor, four straight-backed chairs, a small table rigidly in the centre of the room. There was a single crucifix on the wall. The window looked on to an inner square garden, shared by the Jesuit priests who lived at the residence at Farm Street and by the houses and flats which faced out on to Mount Street. It was very quiet, the traffic noises muted and far away. A nanny sat on one of the garden seats watching a solitary child chasing pigeons: I had come here because it was the only place I could think of quickly. Sometimes I had come to the church itself to hear the singing on a Sunday morning with Gerald, or to listen to one of the more famous Jesuits preach. Gerald had an intellectual interest in such things, though he wasn’t a Catholic.

  I stood up when a young priest entered. He held out his hand. ‘I’m Father Kavanagh. Please sit down.’ I told him my name, and then I couldn’t seem to say anything else.

  ‘Is there some way I can help you?’ They must be used to all kinds, I thought, all sorts of requests, every kind of story.

  ‘I’m not a Catholic,’ I said.

  He smiled, and the too-serious face relaxed. ‘It’s still very possible you’ll get into Heaven.’

  ‘Well, I wondered if it’s possible to offer Masses for someone who’s been dead a long time?’

  ‘Of course. Is this person some relation – some friend? Would you like to talk about it?’ He thought I meant some time in the recent past – a few years, maybe.