Garden of Thorns

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  “Nothing personal,” said Mark. “Just a business deal.”

  Nathan cleared his throat. “I agree with you, Jenny—there’s more to art than just the physical component. I wish I’d been an art intelligence officer for the Allied Art Commission after World War Two, like Arthur was. Tracking down the works of art the Nazis looted and returning them to their owners must’ve been like a James Bond thriller, but with a metaphysical aspect much more satisfying than any of Bond’s gadgets or microfilm or fast cars.”

  “Arthur thought he was James Bond,” said Jenny, “getting the artifacts out of Regensfeld just ahead of the Russians but not turning them over to the Commission.”

  “The Commission couldn’t have returned them to East Germany,” Nathan pointed out. “Better the artifacts stayed with someone who cared for them.”

  Jenny set her empty glass on the closest table. “Hilary, Mark—would you like to see Arthur’s other collections?”

  “Sure.” Mark’s expression indicated that the social air of the atrium was getting a little rarefied.

  “I’ll get those photos for you.” Nathan bustled away toward the entry hall and the doors Hilary had already noted were marked “Offices—Private.”

  Away from the perfumed air of the reception, the atmosphere was museum-sterile. “Metaphysics, huh?” Mark asked Hilary under his breath.

  “Like sex,” whispered Hilary. “There has to be more than just a pelvic thrust, or there’s no point to it.”

  Mark looked at her questioningly. She smiled, bland and innocent. He glanced at his watch. His fingernails were pristine; from her own experience in archaeology, Hilary knew the effort that had cost him. He had strong, well-proportioned hands, unencumbered by any jewelry except the battered wristwatch. His personality, she thought, was strong and well proportioned, masculine dignity kept from arrogance by self-knowledge. His admission of fear last night outside Osborne had been incredibly appealing.

  As for the final scene last night…. Well, she’d been tired after her trip and churlish after her visit with her family. She preferred to remember their last evening together last summer. Surrounded by friends celebrating a wedding, she’d had no trouble surrendering to an intoxicating blend of sentiment, music, and champagne. She and Mark had danced close together until the wee hours, thinking they’d never see each other again. The bittersweet goodbyes in her hotel room had been the most emotionally and physically exciting moments of her life.

  The regret for what hadn’t happened that night had come later. Dolores’s and Jenny’s comments about no second chances didn’t apply to romance…. Hilary blushed furiously, earning another inquisitive and somewhat hopeful look from Mark.

  Despite all the ego boosts she’d received there, Hilary was grateful to spin from the social merry-go-round in the atrium into the temporary exhibits gallery. At its entrance a sign reading “The Arthur Coburg Collection” stood beside a studio portrait of Arthur himself. The height of his brow caught his intelligence, the angle of his chin his ambition, and the set of his mouth his sardonic humor. His crisp dark hair was touched by gray at the temples. His heavy-lidded eyes suffered fools very poorly indeed.

  “The ghost at the banquet,” commented Jenny.

  In the oblique lighting of the gallery, the array of display cases beckoned with mysterious gleams. This is why I’m here, Hilary told herself, for the art, not for the society posturing. She bent over a beautifully mounted display of Moche Indian jewelry.

  “Brilliant,” said Jenny, inspecting a grouping of Sung porcelain.

  Mark considered several ebony West African masks. Together they moved past Persian miniatures, jeweled Russian icons, Tibetan fabric paintings, and a huge Aztec calendar stone resting beside a totem pole. “No one can accuse Arthur of not having catholic tastes,” Mark said at last.

  “Quixotic tastes,” said Hilary. “Look at that—it’s a fake Vermeer by van Meegeren. Amazing how the man got away with so many fakes and was only caught when the Allied Art Commission accused him of being a collaborator.”

  “Arthur would be the first to trumpet the virtues of audacity,” said Jenny.

  “You know a lot about him,” Mark told her. “Did you ever meet him?”

  “Oh no, no. I just believe in using my references.”

  They paused appreciatively before a Constable landscape, Jenny emitting a nostalgic sigh at the green English meadows. Nathan Sikora caught up with them among the Greek terra cotta sculpture and small Roman bronzes. He handed Hilary a manila envelope. “Here you are, just to whet your appetite.”

  She peeked inside. A glossy black and white photograph of a brooch in Celtic interlace style caught the light and winked at her. “Thank you! I’ll bring them back tomorrow. I can hardly wait to start work.”

  All the way back down the gallery Hilary was caroling to herself, What a great job! What a good boss! Everything was going so beautifully it was almost frightening…. Stop it, she told herself.

  She glanced at Mark. He glanced back. His smile was remarkably like Graymalkin’s smirk upon being rescued from the shrubbery.

  In the atrium Nathan took his leave. Dolores was holding court beneath the glittering ficus trees, less like Louis XIV than like the fairy queen Titania receiving her suitors. Vasarian stood to her right, smiling inscrutably; Kenneth stood to her left with the amiable grin of the well-marinated social drone. Sharon was still working the crowd. Travis had disappeared—Hilary looked but didn’t see his feet protruding from beneath one of the linen-draped tables.

  Dolores saw Mark, Hilary, and Jenny. She waved, the benevolent despot acknowledging her subjects. They waved back. Safe in the entrance hall, Hilary said, “God help anyone who makes an enemy of Dolores Coburg.”

  “No kidding,” Mark said.

  “Amen,” concluded Jenny.

  They left the fairy lights and the music behind and went out into the night.

  Chapter Five

  After the glitter of the reception, the night was dark. Although, Mark decided as his eyes adjusted, not as dark as it might be. While the sky was matted with clouds, they reflected the glow of the city, casting a sickly luminescence over the cars in the parking lot. The wind that fluttered Jenny’s skirt and ruffled Hilary’s hair was fresher and considerably chillier than it had been that afternoon.

  Hilary and Jenny were doing a quick post-mortem on the evening which would’ve been catty if it hadn’t been so good-humored. They commented on Sharon’s contributions to ozone depletion—her hairdo must’ve cost a full can of spray—and wondered whether Kenneth was a ladies’ man or simply fancied himself one.

  “With his money,” concluded Hilary, “he’s probably beating women off with a stick.”

  “And where did that trout find those emerald golf balls?” Jenny asked.

  Hilary laughed. “She should be reported to the taste police for wearing costume jewelry with a Montana dress.”

  Mark wondered vaguely when the San Francisco quarterback had gone into fashion design. Not that it mattered. What was important was that Hilary was happy, laughing that open, musical laugh he relished but so seldom heard.

  They parted in the middle of the parking lot. “Good night. See you tomorrow, Mark.” Jenny disappeared into the darkness.

  Mark took Hilary’s keys and unlocked the door of her car. Her glow was almost bright enough not only to illuminate the parking lot but also to warm them both. What poise she’d shown in that mob—nothing like having been to the manner born. Her put-down of Travis had been the high point of Mark’s evening; the cascade of compliments had no doubt been hers.

  Smiling, he handed her into the car, then went around to the passenger side. “You had a good time, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “I felt a little awkward in that crowd, but yeah, it was great.”

  “You, awkward?”

  She fumbled with the keys and found the ignition. “Yes, me.”

  Her face was a pale oval, her eyes lustrous. Mark leaned across the
seat and kissed her. His seat belt cut into his waist, but he hardly noticed.

  “Would you like to come over to my place for a while?” Hilary asked. “It’s barely nine.”

  “Sure, if you’ll take me by Lucia’s real quick so I can get the van. Then you won’t have to drive me back later.” He didn’t mention his sudden hope that he’d still be at her place come tomorrow morning—that the high point of the evening was yet to come. Don’t make any assumptions, he told himself.

  Hilary started the car and drove out of the parking lot, Mark thoroughly entertained by her black-stockinged leg extended toward the gas pedal and the hem of her skirt riding halfway up her thigh. She was like a fawn, all legs and eyes, graceful and yet quivering with tension.

  “Do you know why Arthur Coburg never turned the Regensfeld artifacts over to the Commission?” she asked.

  “No,” Mark replied. “Nathan’s theory that he could hardly have sent them back to Russian-controlled territory sounds good.”

  “That was still stealing. Our hero has feet of clay.”

  “And Dolores is his rib of steel?” suggested Mark.

  “Adam’s rib? That’s good.” Hilary laughed again.

  Osborne loomed through the trees. The front part of the house was a black contour against the night. In the kitchen the lights came on, and a stately figure moved from window to window, drawing the curtains. Mark imagined Jenny alone in the—well, no, not haunted, just mysterious—house. But she wouldn’t be alone. The little gray cat would wake up, stretch, and trot to meet its benefactor.

  Just as the house disappeared behind the trees, Mark thought he saw not one but two human figures leave the lighted frame of the last window. Had Jenny, too, invited a guest? It was hardly his business if she had.

  Hilary was still musing on art puzzles. “But no one knew Arthur even had the artifacts until Vasarian showed up here last year. How he found them I don’t know—he must be a heck of a detective. Arthur was always selling off pieces of his collection, but none of the Regensfeld items.”

  “Maybe Vasarian tracked down the surviving members of the Commission and asked them what they knew. Arthur’s never kept a low profile.”

  “Hardly. Nathan and Jenny talk about him as though he fought his way out of East Germany with the artifacts clamped in his teeth. What he really did was to mail them back here to Felicia.”

  “Discretion being the better part of audacity,” Mark stated.

  Hilary pulled up in front of the Hernandezes’ rambling 1930’s house. Mark’s van was parked at the end of the long driveway, beneath the live oak that shaded the garage and his apartment above, and was boxed in by Gilbert’s car. “It’ll take me a minute to get out,” he said. “I’ll meet you there, okay?”

  “I’ll make some coffee,” Hilary returned. Smoothly she backed the Caprice out of the driveway and vanished down the street.

  Mark loped up the steps to the porch and banged on the screen door. From inside the house came not only a delectable aroma, but cheerful music and voices completely different in tone from those in the Lloyd, like the contrast between a china teacup and a pottery mug.

  A small, round woman, a dumpling with feet, appeared from the back of the house. Lucia’s salt-and-pepper hair was pulled back from her face into a bun. Her no-nonsense cotton dress was covered by an apron embroidered with bright birds and flowers. “Mark? What can I do for you?”

  “Hey, Lucia. I need Gilbert to move his car.”

  “Of course. Come in and have a sopapilla.”

  “Thanks, but Hilary’s expecting me over at her place.”

  Lucia nodded understandingly. “Well then, I’ll fix you some to take with you.” She shouted down the hall behind her, “Gil! Come move your car! Colleen, put some sopapillas in a baggie!”

  Gilbert was a head and a half taller than his mother. With profuse apologies he slipped around her and Mark and hurried toward the driveway. Gilbert’s twelve-year-old daughter appeared with a bag of fried dough pillows redolent of sugar and cinnamon. Playfully she flirted her shining dark eyes at Mark. He winked. Wreathed in giggles, she retreated. Mark grinned. “Thanks. How many rosebushes do I have to plant for these?”

  Lucia made a dismissive gesture. “I have a new Souvenir de Malmaison that needs to go in this weekend, if you get a chance. If not, I’ll get Gilbert….”

  “Be glad to,” said Mark. “If you’ll show me again which bushes you got from Felicia Coburg at Osborne. I think I might have uncovered one of her garden beds today. Although….” He frowned.

  “Although?” Lucia prodded.

  “I finally got to meet Dolores tonight,” Mark went on, and smothered a laugh as Lucia’s expressive eyes rolled toward heaven. “Madame Coburg the Second said something about Arthur playing among the rose gardens as a child.”

  “Madame Coburg the Second doesn’t have the brains God gave a chicken. Felicia planted the roses there, starting in the forties when Arthur was traveling so much. Those roses and her cats were the children she couldn’t have. I remember her sitting in the garden knitting, kittens playing with the end of her yarn.”

  “So there used to be cats at Osborne? I suppose Dolores threw them out, too, when she took over. Clean sweep and all that.”

  “Too much trouble, she said. Like the roses. Even though antique roses are so much less work than hybrids.”

  Gilbert reappeared in the circle of porch light. “How’s it going at Osborne?”

  “Pretty good,” Mark answered. “Come tour the dig any time you want. Not that there’s much to see yet. Jenny—Dr. Galliard—is quite a character.”

  “I like a woman who knows her own mind,” Lucia pronounced, and added with an admonitory forefinger, “You’d better be getting on over to your young lady. Bring her to see me sometime. I’ll bet she likes roses.”

  “She will when you get done with her.” Mark turned to go, calling over his shoulder, “Thank you, Gil. Gracias, Mamacita.”

  The spicy smell of the sopapillas filled the interior of the van so that Mark’s mouth was watering by the time he arrived at the town house. True to her word, Hilary had put on the coffeepot. “Decaf,” she assured him as he sniffed the air like a bloodhound. “We have to work tomorrow.”

  She took the warm, moist baggie and headed toward the kitchen. Muttering excuses, Mark went upstairs and into the bathroom. He mooched a dab of toothpaste and tried smoothing his hair, to no avail. A plastic packet lay among an assortment of French cosmetics at one end of the counter. He hesitated, then flipped it open. Birth control pills—all right!

  He shut the packet and tried to position it exactly where he’d found it. No assumptions, he reminded himself, and went out to the kitchen shedding his jacket and tie and rolling up his sleeves.

  On one end of the table lay the six 8 x 10s of the Regensfeld artifacts. Hilary pored over them, leaning on her elbow. The sopapillas, mugs, napkins, sugar bowl, and cream pitcher were arranged on a platter on the table’s other end. Mark reached for the coffeepot, filled the mugs, doctored the contents, and set one in front of Hilary. He pulled up a chair.

  Absently Hilary picked up her mug and drank, never taking her eyes from the pictures. “Look at them. They cover five centuries of history, and as many European countries. And they’re only a sampling of the objects listed in the Regensfeld inventories of 1923.”

  “If the other ones are still around,” Mark said, “they’re probably in somebody’s attic in Moscow.”

  “As far as we know, only these six still exist. And Regensfeld’s most famous artifact, the Eleanor Cross, isn’t among them. What a shame. What a waste.”

  Mark considered the closest photograph, a small ivory carving of a bishop. The figure’s face had only rudimentary features, two holes for eyes, two lines for nose and mouth. Its mitre, crook, and robes were carved in much more detail, the vestments and their meaning more important than the human being. “Was that once a chess piece?” he ventured.

  Hilary gave him an app
roving glance. “I bet it was. Tenth-century Danish. Someone broke up the set and left this one as an offering at the church in Regensfeld. That was the style in the Middle Ages. Royalty progressed from place to place leaving gifts like Santa Claus.”

  “Didn’t begin to make up for what their entourages would eat.”

  “More than one nobleman or priory found itself bankrupt after the honor of a royal visit,” Hilary agreed. She gathered up the photos and put them back in the envelope. “By the way, do you know where Regensfeld is?”

  “Besides Germany, you mean? Where?”

  “Outside the Thuringer Wald, just north of the city of Coburg.”

  “Ah.” Mark nodded. “Arthur was scouting around there researching his roots. He might’ve known more about his father’s antecedents than we do. Or else he was under the impression that he really was descended from Queen Victoria. Prince Albert was something Saxe-Coburg Gotha, wasn’t he?”

  “It was Albert who gave Regensfeld the Eleanor Cross—a bow to the mother country from the Hanoverian upstarts,” Hilary said, the last two words said with a Scottish burr. She gingerly picked up a sopapilla, and her pink kitten’s tongue licked the sprinkling of cinnamon sugar. “Do you remember our last night in Scotland?”

  Mark took a bite of pastry and chewed. He remembered the odd sensation of the kilt floating around his knees as he danced—if the other men could wear kilts to the wedding, so could he. Hilary’s cheeks had been flushed, her eyes glowing with music, champagne, and sentiment. In her hotel room the buttons on her dress had opened, and his own face had flushed against skin so succulent it made the pastry he was now eating taste like cardboard. He hadn’t given her a chance to panic; he’d kissed her goodbye, aching with disappointment and noble denial. For the next hour he’d walked along the darkened beach until the chill sea wind slapped him into coherence.