The Pariah
Page 4
‘Well , it’s impossible to say,’ she told me. ‘But Mr Brasenose once bought a picture here that was supposed to be French ships off Salem Sound, but when he took the trouble to identify the ships by name, he found that what he had on his hands was the one and only contemporary painting of the Great Turk; and he sold it to the Peabody for $55,000.’
I took another close look at the strange dark vessel in the background of the painting I had just acquired. It didn’t look particularly noteworthy, and the anonymous artist had painted no name on the prow. It was probably a figment of the imagination, quickly sketched in to improve the painting’s shaky composition. Still, I would have a shot at identifying it, particularly if Mrs Donohue said so. It was she who had told me to look for the gryphon’s-head maker’s-mark on Rhode Island lanterns.
‘If I make a million out of it,’ I told her, as she expertly wrapped it up, ‘I’ll cut you in for five percent.’
‘Fifty percent or nothing, you rascal,’ she laughed.
I left the auction-rooms with the painting under my arm. The remaining pictures I had bought - etchings and aquatints and a small collection of steel engravings -would be delivered to me later in the week. I only wished I had been able to afford the Shaw.
Outside, as I crossed the steps in front of Endicott’s, the sun was already eating away at the rooftops of the elegant old Federal mansions on Chestnut Street, and a low cold wind had got up. Oddly, the same pale-faced secretary I had seen in Red’s Sandwich Shop walked past, in a long black coat and a gray scarf. She turned and looked at me but she didn’t smile.
Down by the curb, I caught sight of Ian Herbert, the proprietor of one of Salem’s most distinctive antique shops, talking to one of the directors of Endicott’s. lan Herbert’s shop was al soft carpeting and hushed discussion and artistically-positioned spot-lights. He didn’t even call it a shop: it was a ‘resource’. But he wasn’t snobbish when it came to talking trade, and he gave me a casual wave as I approached.
‘John,’ he said, slapping me on the shoulder. ‘You must know Dan Yokes, sales director of Endicott’s.’
‘How do you do,’ said Dan Yokes. ‘Seems like you’ve been making me marginally richer.’ He nodded towards the package under my arm.
‘It’s nothing special,’ I told him. ‘Just an old watercolour of the shoreline where I live. I got it for fifty dollars flat.’
‘As long as you’re satisfied with it,’ smiled Dan Yokes.
‘By the way,’ said Ian, ‘you might be interested to know that they’re selling off some of the old maritime collection up at Newburyport museum. Interesting artifacts; magical, some of them. For instance, did you know that most of the old Salem ships used to carry a little brass cage on board, with a dish of oats inside, to trap goblins and demons?’
‘I could use a couple of those in my accounts department,’ said Dan Yokes.
‘I’m going to have to get back to Granitehead,’ I told them, and I was about to walk away when my arm was snatched violently from behind, so hard that I was spun around, and almost lost my balance. I found myself face-to-face with a young bearded man in a gray tweed jacket, panting and agitated and wild-haired from running.
‘What the hell goes on?’ I snapped at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he gasped. ‘Really, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you Mr Trenton - Mr John Trenton of Granitehead?’
That’s me. Who the hell are you?’
‘Please,’ the young man said, ‘I really didn’t mean to upset you. But I didn’t want you to get away.’
‘Listen, friend, take a walk,’ said Dan Yokes, stepping closer. ‘You’re lucky I don’t call a cop.’
‘Mr Trenton, I have to talk to you privately,’ the young man urged me. ‘It’s very important.’
‘Are you leaving or do I call a cop?’ said Dan Yokes. ‘This gentleman is a personal friend of mine and I’m telling you to get out of here.’
‘It’s all right, Mr Yokes,’ I told him. ‘I’ll talk to him. I’ll let out a falsetto scream if he tries anything funny.’
Ian Herbert laughed, and said, ‘I’ll see you around, John. Drop into the store one day.’
‘You mean the “resource”,’ I ribbed him.
The young man in the tweed jacket waited for me impatiently while I said my goodbyes.
Then, as I tucked my painting more securely under my arm, and started to walk towards the Riley Plaza parking-lot, where I had left my car, he fell into step beside me, occasionally skipping to keep up.
This is very embarrassing,’ he said.
‘What’s very embarrassing?’ I asked him. ‘I’m not embarrassed.’
‘I’d better introduce myself,’ he told me. ‘My name’s Edward Wardwell. I work for the Peabody Museum, in the archives department.’
‘Well , how do you do.’
Edward Wardwell scratched anxiously at his beard. He was one of those young American men who look like throwbacks to the 1860s; preachers or pioneers or harmonium-players. He wore crumpled corduroy pants and his hair looked as if it hadn’t entertained a comb in months. You could see young men like him in the background of almost every frontier photograph ever taken, from Muncie to Black River Falls to Junction City.
He suddenly took my arm again, arresting us both, and leaned forward so that I could smell the aniseed candy on his breath. The embarrassing thing is, Mr Trenton, I was specifically instructed to acquire that painting you just bought for the Peabody archives.’
‘This painting? You mean the view of Granitehead shoreline?’
He nodded. ‘I lost track of the time. I meant to get to the auction-rooms by three. They told me the painting wouldn’t be put up till three. Well, I thought that would give me plenty of time. But I guess I lost track. There’s a girl I know who’s just opened a new fashion store on East India Square, and I went down to help her out a little, and that’s what happened. I lost track.’
I started walking again. ‘So,’ I said, ‘you were supposed to acquire the painting for the Peabody archives.’
‘That’s right. It’s very unusual.’
‘Well , I’m glad about that,’ I told him. ‘I only bought it because it shows a view of my home. Fifty dollars.’
‘You bought it tot fifty dollars?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Don’t you know that it’s worth a whole lot more? I mean, $50 is a complete steal.’
‘In that case, I’m even gladder. I’m a dealer, did you know that? I’m in business to make a profit. If I can buy it for $50 and sell it for $250, that’s fine by me.’
‘Mr Trenton,’ said Edward Wardwell, as we turned from Holyoke Square into Gedney Street, ‘that painting has rarity value. It really is a very rare painting.’
‘Good,’ I told him.
‘Mr Trenton, I’ll offer you $275 for that painting. Right here and now. Cash.’
I stopped where I was, and stared at him. ‘Two hundred seventy-five, cash? For this?’
‘I’ll make it a round $300.’
‘What’s so damned important about this painting?’ I asked him. ‘It’s nothing more than a pretty inept water-colour of the Granitehead coast. They don’t even know who the artist is.’
Edward Wardwell propped his hands on his hips and blew out his cheeks like an exasperated parent trying to explain himself to a particularly obtuse child. ‘Mr Trenton,’ he said, ‘the painting happens to be rare because it shows a view of Salem Harbour that no other painter recorded at the time. It fills in a topographical picture that has been incomplete for centuries; it enables us to pinpoint where certain buildings actually stood; and where certain roads ran, and where specific trees grew. I know it’s inept, as a work of art, but from what I’ve seen of it, it’s unusually accurate as far as landmarks are concerned. And that’s exactly what the Peabody is interested in.’
I thought about it for a moment, and then said, ‘I’m not selling. Not yet. Not until I find out what this is all about.’
‘Mr Trenton, wait! I don’t think you understand!’
‘I don’t think I want to understand,’ I told him.
He caught up with me again, and walked along beside me, short of wind, glancing from time to time at the package under my arm as if he were actually thinking of snatching it away from me.
‘Mr Trenton, if I don’t go back to the Peabody with that painting, I may very well get the sack.’
‘So, you may very well get the sack. I’m sorry for you. But the answer to your problem was to turn up at the auction on time, and put in your bid. If you’d have bid, you would have got it. But you didn’t, so you haven’t. Now the painting’s mine and for the time being I don’t want to sell it. Especially not on the corner of Gedney and Margin, on a cold and windy afternoon, if you don’t mind.’
Edward Wardwell ran his hand through his tousled hair, making one side of it stick up like a Red Indian feather. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to come on like that. It’s just that it’s really important for the Peabody to have the picture. It’s a really important picture, you know, from the archive point of view.’
I almost felt sorry for him. But Jane had told me over and over that there is one immutable rule in the antiques business; a rule which must never be broken under any circumstances for whatever reason. Never sell anything out of pity. Otherwise, the only person you’ll end up pitying is yourself.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘it may be possible for the Peabody to borrow the picture sometime.
Perhaps I can make some arrangement with the Director.’
‘Well , I don’t know about that at all,’ said Edward Wardwell. ‘They really did want to own it, outright. Do you think I could take a look at it?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think I could take a look at it?’
I shrugged. ‘If you want to. Come to my car; it’s right over there on Riley Plaza.’
We crossed Margin Street, and then made our way through the parking-lot to my eight-year-old fawn-coloured Toronado. We climbed inside, and I switched on the dome light, so that we could see better. Wardwell closed the door and settled himself down as if he were about to join me on a twenty-mile trip. I almost expected him to fasten his seat-belt. As I opened up the painting’s wrapper, he leaned close to me again, and again I could smell that cough-candy. His hands must have been damp with anticipation, because he wiped them on the legs of his corduroy pants.
At last I unwrapped the painting and propped it up on the steering-wheel. Edward Wardwell pressed so close to me as he stared at it that he hurt my shoulder. I could see right inside his left ear, convoluted and hairy.
‘Well ?’ I asked him, at last. ‘What do you say?’
‘Fascinating,’ he said. ‘You can just see Wyman Wharf there, on the Granitehead side, and you see how small it is? Nothing but a higgledy-piggledy structure of wooden joists.
Nothing as grand as Derby Wharf, on the Salem side. That was al warehouses and counting-houses and moorings for East Indiamen.’
‘I see,’ I told him, trying to sound disinterested and dismissive. But he leaned against me even harder as he stared at every minute detail.
‘That’s Quaker Lane, coming up from the Village there; and that’s where the Waterside Cemetery stands today, although in those days they called it The Walking Place, although nobody knows why. Did you know that Granitehead was called Resurrection, up until 1703? Presumably because the settlers felt that they had been resurrected from their lives in the Old World.’
‘A couple of people have told me that,’ I said, uncomfortably. ‘Now, if you don’t mind …’
Edward Wardwell leaned back. ‘You’re really sure you won’t accept 300? That’s what the Peabody gave me to spend on it. Three hundred, cash on the barrel, no questions asked. It’s the best price you’ll ever get.’
‘You think so? I think I’ll get a better one.’
‘From whom? Who else is going to pay you $300 for a nondescript painting of Granitehead beach?’
‘Nobody. But then I reckon that if Peabody is prepared to spend $300 on it, they might be prepared to up their offer and spend $400 on it; or even $500. It depends.’
‘It depends? It depends on what?’
‘I don’t know,’ I told him, wrapping the painting up again. ‘The weather, the price of goose fat.’
Edward Wardwell twisted one strand of his beard around his finger. Then he said, ‘Umh-humh. I get it. I see just where you’re coming from. Well, that’s okay. Let’s say that it’s okay. Nothing to get upset about. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll call you in a day or two, okay?
Do you mind that? And maybe we can talk again. You know, think about the 300. Mull it over. Maybe you’ll change your mind.’
I laid the painting on the back seat, and then reached and clasped Edward Wardwell’s hand. ‘Mr Orwell,’ I told him, ‘I’ll make you a promise. I won’t sell the picture to anyone else until I’ve taken my time with it, done some research. And when I do sell it, I’ll give the Peabody the opportunity to match any price that I’m offered. Now, is that fair?’
‘You’ll take care of it?’
‘Sure I’ll take care of it. What makes you think I won’t take care of it?’
He shrugged, and shook his head, and said, ‘No reason. It’s just that I wouldn’t like to see it lost, or damaged. You know where it comes from, don’t you? Who sold it?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘Well , I think, although I can’t be sure, that it came out of the Evelith collection. You know the Eveliths? Very old family, most of them live up near Tewksbury now, in Dracut County. But there’s been Eveliths in Salem ever since the 16th century, of one kind or another. Very inbred, very secretive, the kind of family that H.P. Love-craft used to write about, you know H.P. Lovecraft? From what I hear, old man Duglass Evelith has a library of Salem history books that makes the Peabody look like a shelf-full of paperbacks in somebody’s outhouse. And prints, too, and paintings; of which that painting is more than likely one. He puts them on the market now and again, who knows why, but always anonymously, and it’s always hard to authenticate them because he won’t discuss them or even admit that they were his.’
I glanced back at the painting. ‘Sounds interesting,’ I admitted. ‘I suppose it’s nice to know that America still has some original eccentrics left.’
Edward Wardwell thought for a moment, his hand pressed against his bearded mouth.
Then he said, ‘You really won’t change your mind?’
‘No,’ I told him. ‘I’m not selling this painting until I know a whole lot more about it; like for instance why the Peabody wants it so badly.’
‘I’ve told you. Very rare topographical interest. That’s the only reason.’
‘I almost believe you. But you don’t mind if I do some checking up of my own? Perhaps I could talk to your Director.’
Edward Wardwell stared at me tight-lipped, and then said, resignedly, ‘All right. That’s your privilege. I just hope I don’t lose my job for missing the auction.’
He opened the car door and stepped out. ‘It’s been interesting to meet you,’ he said, and waited, as if he half expected me to relent, and hand over the painting. Then he said, ‘I knew your wife quite well, before she … well you know, before the accident.’
‘You knew Jane?’
‘Sure,’ he said, and before I could ask him anything else, walked off towards Margin Street again, his shoulders hunched up against the cold.
I sat in my car for quite a long time, wondering what the hell I ought to do. I took the painting out of its wrapper again and stared at it. Maybe Edward Wardwell was telling me the truth, and this was the only view of Salem Harbour from the north-west that anybody had ever done. Yet, I was sure I had seen an engraving or a w
oodcut of a similar view before. It seemed hard to believe that one of the most sketched and painted inlets on the Massachusetts shoreline should only once have been painted from this particular direction.
It had been a strange, unsettling day. I didn’t feel at all like going home. A man was watching me from across the street, his face shadowed by an unusually large hat. I started up the engine, and switched on the car radio. It was playing Love Is The Sweetest Thing.
FIVE
As I turned off Lafayette Road and drove northwards up the Granitehead peninsula towards Quaker Lane, black Atlantic storm clouds began to rise from the north-east horizon, like a horde of dark and shaggy beasts. By the time I reached the cottage, they were almost overhead, and the first drops of rain were beginning to spatter the hood of the car, and measle the garden path.
I hurried up the path with my coat-collar tugged up on one side, and fumbled for my keys. The rain pattered and whispered through the winter-dried creeper beside the porch, and behind me there was the first soft applause of the laurel bushes, as the wind got up.
As I slid my key into the front-door lock, I heard a woman’s voice whisper, ‘John?’ and I froze all over, and turned around, although I was almost too scared to move.
The front garden was deserted. Only the bushes, and the overgrown lawn, and the rain-circled pond.
‘Jane?’ I said, clearly.
But there was nothing, and nobody; and plain sanity told me that it couldn’t be Jane.
Nevertheless, there was something different about the house; whether it was just a feeling or whether somebody had actually been here. I stepped back into the garden, my eyes wincing against the falling rain, trying to see what it could possibly be.
I had loved Quaker Lane Cottage from the first day I had set eyes on it. I adored its slightly neglected-looking 1860s Gothic appearance, its diamond-leaded windows, its dressed stone parapets, its creeper. It had been built on the site of a much earlier cottage, and the old stone hearth in what was now the library was engraved with the numerals 1666. Tonight, however, as the rain dripped from the carved green gables, and one of the upstairs shutters creaked backwards and forwards in the unsettling wind, I began to wish that I had chosen to live somewhere more cozy, without this dark sense of disturbed spirits, and restless memories.