“Not at all. Should we decide to accept it, the auction would receive our utmost attention. No detail would be overlooked.”
Stephen bit the inside of his cheek. As if there was any question they would accept the piece.
Finch shot Cranston a hard look, unfazed by his disclaimer of caution. “I’m sure that will set his mind at ease.”
The heavy curtains hanging from an archway leading to the back rooms parted. Stephen saw first the hand that held the drape aside—the long fingers, the speckled skin against the deep red fabric of the drapes. Then the rest of Thomas Bayber entered the room. He was as tall as Stephen, only slightly bowed with age, and he moved deliberately, not as if the act of walking required specific effort, but as though strategy was associated with each step. His eyes darted among the company gathered as he navigated his way toward a chair next to Finch. He settled into it without a word and held out a hand, into which Finch promptly placed a glass. For the first time, Stephen pitied the professor. He performed the role of lackey seamlessly, and Stephen understood that he and Cranston were witnessing behaviors finely honed from years of repetition.
The air in the room was stifling. Unable to control the tickle at the back of his throat, Stephen coughed emphatically, his face flushing as he tried to find the glass he’d set down earlier.
“Perhaps, Mr. Jameson, it would be prudent to switch to water at this point,” Cranston admonished after thumping him hard on the back.
“Yes,” Stephen said, running his thumb between his shirt collar and his neck. “That would be prudent. My apologies.”
Finch and Bayber looked at each other and to Stephen’s profound humiliation, began laughing. He felt the flush in his face deepen as whatever confidence and enthusiasm had shored him up earlier ebbed away.
“I apologize, Mr. Jameson, but it’s as true now as it ever was. Another’s misfortune is always the easiest way to break the ice. Regardless, I am delighted to finally meet you.”
Bayber’s voice carried the resonance of a well, and in spite of Stephen’s resolution to remain indifferent he was entranced by the man staring at him intently. He knew Bayber was in his early seventies and had assumed, perhaps because he’d been out of the public eye for such a long period, that the artist’s physical stature would have diminished. But aside from his complexion, which was deathly pale, and a degree of hesitation in his movements, he was much as he was in the pictures Stephen had seen: tall and lean, his head erect, his hair now a thick crest of white. His manner was imperious but at the same time charming.
“I knew your mother through the gallery, Mr. Jameson, though not your father. He was a rare man, I believe, someone worth admiring. The world would be a kinder place for artists, indeed, for people in general, were there more like him. Allow me to express my sympathies.”
It was unexpected to hear his father mentioned at the precise moment Stephen was thinking of him, his fingers rubbing the cuff links he kept in his jacket pocket. His father would have been thrilled to be in such company: his friend Finch, the pompous Cranston, and Bayber, a man whose talent he had lauded in spite of the artist’s renowned moral lapses. If only he’d allowed me that much latitude, Stephen thought, quickly ashamed of himself. Bayber was studying him. To think the man had been in his father’s gallery and Stephen had never known.
Bayber cleared his throat. “Pleasantries aside, let’s get down to business, shall we, gentlemen? I have a painting I want to sell. I’m assuming it’s a painting you will be happy to sell for me, yes?”
“Once we have an opportunity to examine the piece and verify its authenticity, we would be delighted,” Cranston said.
Bayber held his hands together as if in prayer, the tips of his fingers resting against his lips. Stephen realized he was attempting, poorly, to hide a smile.
“Of course, Mr. Cranston. I would expect nothing less. And here we have with us, in this very room, two men who should be able to provide you with a definitive answer as to the authenticity of the piece, do we not? Mr. Jameson, would you mind?”
Bayber gestured to the corner of the room, where a pile of tarps covered the floor. Stephen walked over and gingerly lifted a corner of the top tarp, only to find another beneath it. He rolled back five in total before the faint gleam of a gilt edge made him catch his breath.
The room was silent. Stephen shook his head and fixed himself firmly in the moment, shutting out all but the work in front of him. Fighting the desire to pull the entire tarp away from the painting, he focused initially only on the frame, and gently nudged the tarp to the side until the entire vertical edge of it was exposed.
“Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet,” he recited half under his breath. He began every examination with some rhyming nonsense to quiet his mind and aid his concentration. Finch had been right, it was a large piece. The frame itself was a thing of beauty: a cassetta frame in the Arts and Crafts style of Prendergast, featuring a hand-carved cap with a gently coved panel and reeded ogee lip, furnished in water-gilt, twenty-two-karat, genuine gold leaf.
“Eating her curds and whey. Along came a spider . . .” The gold had been agate burnished over dark brown bole on the cap and lip and left matte over green bole on the panel. The corners of the frame were punched and incised with an acanthus leaf motif, and the gilding had been given a light rub to expose the bole. The joinery appeared solid, and the overall condition of the frame was good. With its size, the frame might be worth ten to fifteen thousand or more.
He glanced over his shoulder. The other three watched him intently. He pushed the tarp away from the painting and pulled a pair of cotton gloves from his jacket pocket. After removing his watch, he waved a second pair toward Cranston, saying, “Your watch will need to come off, and your cuff links, as well.” He looked up at Bayber.
“Where?”
“Here, I think. Against the wall.”
Cranston nodded at Stephen, and the two of them lifted the painting cautiously and carried it to the far wall, where a small bit of sun spilled into the room. They gingerly rested the painting there, then stepped back and stood alongside Finch, and Bayber, who had risen and was clutching the back of the chair. Stephen wondered if he felt any anxiety, or if insecurity had long ago left him. But the man looked more pained than anxious, as if his memories of the piece were not happy ones. The three of them looked at the painting and with raised brows, looked at Bayber, studying him quickly before turning to look at the painting again.
A tarnished plate on the bottom edge of the frame read, “Kessler Sisters.” The scene was of a living room in what appeared to be a large cabin—rough-paneled walls, wood floors, a high ceiling with a sleeping loft. A late summer afternoon. Open windows ran across the back of the room, and the curtains had been painted to suggest a breeze. Stephen could almost feel the breath of it on his neck. A fringe of ivy softened the window’s perimeter; a sliver of water was visible in the far distance. Diffuse light dully illuminated various surfaces: a slice of the faded Oriental carpet covering part of the floor, the face of a grandfather clock, the open pages of a book on a coffee table. The room was crowded with objects, each limned with an eerie glow, no doubt from the underpainting, as if everything carried an equal importance.
Three people anchored the center of the painting: a young man, perhaps in his late twenties, and two younger girls. Stephen’s skin prickled. The young man was clearly Bayber. Whether it was the expression on his face or the way the girls were positioned next to him he couldn’t decide, but Stephen felt a flare of discomfort as he studied the canvas.
The artist had captured his own youthful arrogance, rendering himself in an honest if unflattering light. In the painting, Bayber lounged on a love seat, one pale ankle balanced on the opposite knee; there were scuff marks visible on his boat shoes. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and the neck unbuttoned, and well-lived-in khakis, the wrinkles and shadows of wrinkles so expertly wrought that Stephen had to fight the urge to reach ou
t and touch the fabric. Bayber’s hair was long, with dark curls framing his face. A throw covered the top of the love seat; one of Bayber’s arms stretched out across it, the other arm rested on his thigh. His expression was certain—that was a kind word for it; smug, a less kind word. He looked straight ahead, as if fascinated by the man capturing all of this.
The girls, on the other hand, were both looking at Bayber. The older of the two had a sly smile of the sort that breaks a father’s heart. Stephen thought she might have been sixteen or seventeen, but her expression made her look older, a hard, knowing glint in her eyes. She was standing behind the love seat to the right of Bayber. Her blond hair was pulled back off her face into a sleek tail that cascaded over her shoulder and turned into curls. Small gold hoops in her ears caught the light but were too dressy for her costume—a pale green, sleeveless blouse and jeans. Her skin was the color of warm caramel, and he could tell at a glance she was the sort of girl things came to without her having to ask for them. Like Chloe, Stephen thought, remembering the pale flesh in the crook of her arm when he turned it over. One of this girl’s hands rested on Bayber’s shoulder, but as Stephen took a step closer to examine the painting, he realized she was firmly gripping him there. The joints of her fingers were slightly bent, the fingernails pale, the fabric of Bayber’s shirt puckering just beneath them. Her other arm hung casually at her side, disappearing behind the fabric of the throw.
The younger sister sat on the love seat next to Bayber. She looked to be about thirteen, all long arms and legs, brown as an Indian, Stephen’s mother would have said, her freckled limbs shooting out from frayed denim shorts and a madras shirt bunched around her waist. Stephen could almost see the downy gold hairs against the tan skin. Her legs were tucked up underneath her, the bottoms of her feet dusted with dirt and patches of shimmering sand. Her hair was loose, cascading in waves around her face, a cloud of summer blond. One of her hands rested on top of a filigree birdcage balanced on the arm of the love seat, its thin wire door ajar. Her other hand was tucked beneath Bayber’s own, resting on his thigh. She had the bored look of an adolescent. The gaze she favored Bayber with was one of curiosity and tolerance, not necessarily admiration.
Stephen was speechless. There was nothing close to a formal portrait in the artist’s oeuvre. He looked to Finch, who was frowning. Cranston, who was far less familiar with Bayber’s body of work, glanced at Stephen and raised his eyebrows.
“Mr. Jameson? Your impression?”
“It’s, er, it’s . . .”
“Disturbing,” Finch said. He looked at Bayber as if he’d never seen him before.
Cranston walked closer to the painting and smiled. “Disturbing isn’t necessarily bad when it comes to art. I’m more interested in what you can tell us about the piece, Mr. Bayber.”
Bayber seemed lost in thought, unable to take his eyes from the painting. “I don’t remember much about it.” His voice came from a distance, carrying the timbre of a lie.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Cranston said.
“It was painted a long time ago. I remember little of the circumstances, although I know it’s mine.” He smiled indulgently at Stephen. “I’m counting on Mr. Jameson to verify that.”
“But when you say you remember little of the circumstances . . .” Cranston continued.
“I mean just that. The sisters—Natalie was the older of the two, Alice the younger—were neighbors of mine for a month in the summer of 1963. August, I believe. Other than that, there’s not much to tell. Friends of the family, I suppose you could say.”
“They sat for this?”
“No. They did not.”
Stephen was relieved to hear it. He moved close to the painting, his fingers skimming the surface. “Little Jack Horner sat in the corner . . .” Taking a magnifying glass from his pocket, he examined the surface, the brushstrokes, the pigments. He’d reviewed Finch’s treatises on Bayber in a frenzied bout of reading last night before tackling the catalogue raisonné.
There was something unusual about the girls’ outside arms, those nearest the edges of the canvas. Paint had been added to both areas. What had Bayber changed and when? He turned back from the painting and ignoring Cranston’s probing look, queried Bayber uncertainly.
“The frame?”
“Yes, Mr. Jameson?”
“I need to remove it.”
Cranston started to object, but Bayber held up a hand. “We are all of similar motive here. Mr. Jameson, you may do what is necessary.”
Cranston turned livid. “We should remove the frame at our own facility so no damage comes to it. Jameson, you don’t want to do anything to impact the integrity of the work.”
“I don’t think I will. The painting appears in good condition; the paint layer is stable, no flaking or curling, only a degree of cleavage in a few areas and some minor cracking of the paint and ground layers, most likely due to environmental fluctuations.” He looked again to Bayber.
“May I ask where you’ve been keeping this?”
“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Jameson. The conditions may not have been ideal, but I don’t believe the painting has been unduly taxed in any appreciable way.”
Stephen nodded. Cranston, sputtering, threw up his hands, abandoning any pretense of composure. Finch moved over to where Stephen was standing.
“What can I do to help?”
“My case? The tools I need will be in there.”
Stephen cleared a large space on the floor and threw down several tarps. Finch returned with the tool case, then salvaged some padded blocks that were being used as doorstops to put beneath the corners of the painting. “Cranston, we’ll need you, too,” he said.
Cranston joined them, muttering. The three of them turned the painting onto its face. Stephen ran his hands across the stretcher bars, checking to see if they had warped. All four keys were in place, the corners cleanly mitered. He noted holes that must have been for supporting hooks, although those were missing and there were no remnants of wire.
“The piece has been hung,” he said to Bayber. A statement more than a question.
“Yes. But only in my studio, Mr. Jameson. I suppose I considered it a seminal piece of work at one time. But seminal is too close to sentimental, and that never serves an artist well.”
Stephen took pliers from his case and began removing the nails from the frame, holding his breath as he turned and pulled each one. “Oh, the grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men. I need a block of wood for this last one, Finch. Something to act as a fulcrum.” Beads of sweat formed at his temples. “He marched them up to the top of the hill, and . . .”
“Mr. Jameson, please!” Cranston was sweating as well, and huffing, obviously unused to spending much time on the floor on his hands and knees.
“He marched them down again. There.”
With the last nail out, Stephen used tweezers to coax a gap in the spline, then pulled it from the track securing the canvas. He removed the long staples holding the canvas to the frame, then rocked back on his heels, took a deep breath, and instructed Cranston to hold the frame steady. He and Finch gently pulled the canvas backward.
There was a collective sigh as the frame cleanly separated from the canvas. Finch and Cranston rested the frame against the wall while Stephen inspected the painting. Negligible frame abrasion, not enough to be of concern. Canvas stapled in the back, leaving the sides clean. The work was gallery-wrapped, the front image continued along the sides, but there were areas of crushed impasto along both vertical edges of the canvas. Stephen detected flecks of other pigments embedded in the raised strokes, as if the painting had been abraded along its sides, something pressing against it there, grinding pigment into pigment. He set the magnifying glass down and rubbed his face before turning to Bayber, staring at him.
“Well?” Cranston said.
Stephen didn’t take his eyes off of Bayber. “Where are they?” he asked.
“Where are what?” Cranston said, his vo
ice agitated and rising, his eyes scanning the corners of the room. “For God’s sake, Jameson, be clear. What exactly are you looking for?”
Stephen waited until Bayber gave him an almost imperceptible nod. He turned to Cranston and Finch and smiled.
“The other two pieces of the painting, of course.”
FIVE
Cranston departed in a flurry, wanting to make immediate arrangements to have the painting moved to a lab, where Stephen could use more sophisticated technology to authenticate it. “Late for a meeting across town,” he said, tapping the face of his watch with a finger. “You don’t mind if I go ahead, do you?” He disappeared into the backseat of the waiting car and shouted out the door, “I’ll leave the two of you to your plans then. Let me know what you need, and I’ll see it’s taken care of.” The car’s departing splash soaked Finch’s shoes.
He and Stephen were left standing outside Thomas’s apartment waiting for a cab in weather that had shifted from mist to drizzle. They stood uncomfortably close to each other in order to share Finch’s umbrella, Finch straining to hold his arm in an awkward position over his head to accommodate the difference in their heights.
“This will make Sylvia extremely unhappy,” Stephen said, looking pleased with himself. “She’ll be forced to be civil to me.”
“Who is Sylvia?”
“Dreadful cow. Here’s hoping you never meet her. Now, about these arrangements . . .”
* * *
Any semblance of calm had evaporated once Thomas confirmed the existence of two additional pieces. Cranston’s normal nervous mannerisms became amplified, his fingers dancing across the air, plucking at some invisible keyboard. Stephen had begun to fidget and mutter, no doubt sensing an opportunity for redemption. Finch himself had felt an unusual level of agitation.
“All three works to Murchison & Dunne then, Mr. Bayber?” Cranston could hardly contain himself.
The Gravity of Birds: A Novel Page 7
