This was No. 1. The glass in this event was at once justified, as I found I was looking at a pastel painting, a simple sketch of a solitary young woman on her points, as I believe the ballet enthusiasts say. Surely...a Degas?
My heart began to move a little more quickly. I had never imagined that I might find myself holding a Degas. There was nothing resembling a signature, and no sign of a date. It seemed to have been done on cardboard.
‘The folder,’ whispered Amelia, barely able to contain her excitement.
There it was, a simple octavo folder wallet. Inside there were fifteen separate packets, or large envelopes, as they could have been. In each one — and they were sequential — there was a letter, folded and with no envelope of its own, and a separate slim envelope. I drew out the packet marked No. 1.
It was the letter I read first. I opened this cautiously. Letters are personal to the recipient, but I saw at once that this recipient would be long dead. It was dated: Paris, May 14th, 1872.
The ink had been black, but was now a faded brown. The script indicated an educated hand. It was headed: ‘My darling Emily.’ It read:
How I wish you were here with me! If I had realised that my business could have become protracted, I would certainly have insisted that you should accompany me. The French, though, are so delightfully casual about business. It seems to consist here of keeping one eye on the weather, as to discuss business with the sun outside in May in Paris appears to be unthinkable to them.
This therefore means that I shall not be home as soon as I had expected, and also (infuriatingly) that you might conveniently have travelled with me without having to sit around in hotel rooms alone, and becoming bored.
To alleviate your disappointment, I enclose a little sketch I picked up on the west bank of the Seine yesterday (Sunday). I think this to be quite professional, and he did it for me as I watched. Chalks, he seemed to be using, so you have to be careful you do not smudge it. This is the reason for the quite complicated packing I have had to do in order to protect the surface.
I do hope you like it. As soon as I can I will search for further little treasures.
With my deepest love, my darling,
Stephen.
P.S. The man claimed he had exhibited his works several times. One cannot accept these claims, of course, but it is possible. It is not signed (How could he have signed with a stick of chalk?) but he said his name is Edgar Degas.
Amelia gave a tiny squeak of excitement. She clutched the painting to her, held it away, clutched it again. ‘I swear I could steal it away,’ she said. ‘She’s floating. Like a feather.’
‘There are more,’ I reminded her.
In the separate, smaller envelope there was a statement or certificate dated July 27th, 1923, and signed: Prof. Aloysius Pelly, FBA, PhD, MA. It was an affirmation that ‘Girl on Points’ had been examined, and that he was satisfied the work was that of Edgar Degas, 1834—1917.
No. 10 (I had impatiently jumped forward in sequence). My hands shook a little as I unhooked it. A quick polish with the duster revealed a framed glassed picture, eight inches by ten, this time certainly in oils. But I am not sufficiently expert to offer opinions on styles. We found the letter in package No. 10. The result was:
Paris, Feb 23rd 1873
My darling Emily,
I know, I know. This is becoming stupid beyond belief. That I should have to return to Paris to finalise the matter was expected. That it should once again become protracted is stretching my patience too far.
You will not believe it, but Paris in February is in no way like Shropshire in February. They stroll the banks, and in sunshine, though the temperature demands furs. And yet, they are still there, my artists. I now consider them to be friends. They make no attempt to cheat me, I feel. You must by now have nine or ten of their little offerings.
I am becoming more and more fond of these small ones, almost miniatures, you might say. There are larger ones available, but so many of these painters, they themselves claim, are becoming known for their strange movement called Impressionism, that they now charge the most outrageous prices for anything larger than a cigar box. And this one, I believe, is actually painted on the lid of a cigar box. I find this quite amusing. At least, it is easy to post to you, when a larger one I would surely find much more difficult to despatch safely. And no, my sweet, it is not that I am mean. I paid all of ten francs for the enclosed.
Yes, I enjoyed the opera, and no, I was not accompanied by M. Courbet’s daughter. Most certainly not.
I was forgetting to tell you. This artist’s name is Claude Monet. He claims that he, like all the others, has exhibited several times. I doubt this, as his style appears to me to be hurried and offhand. But I do hope you like it.
Your adoring husband, Stephen.
P.S. I think it represents a railway station. S.
Again there was a confident identification of the artist, but by a different professor.
It no longer seemed necessary to investigate all fifteen of the paintings, but we couldn’t leave without dusting each off, lifting it from the wall, and looking at it beneath the light. Looking at it — just looking. It was a strange and somewhat moving experience to handle these sketches by painters now famous, and to realise that they had been a link between a bygone baronet Stephen Searle and his wife, Emily. Perhaps these paintings had saved a marriage which, if not breaking up, at least had shown tiny cracks here and there.
There was a small notebook in the folder. It listed the paintings, one to fifteen. There were two by Degas, both pastels, but the rest were all oils. Two by Sisley, a Boudin, an early Van Gogh, two Manets, the Monet we had seen, two by Berthe Morisot, a Renoir, two Seurats, and a Redon.
I put the folders away. The obvious next move was to find Jeremy and show him. It might at least assure us a quiet night. But when I knocked on the gallery door it brought no response this time. I shrugged. To hell with him. He was either sulking in there, I thought, or sulking in his own room. As it was now quite late, and I didn’t know which was Jeremy’s room, I decided to leave it all until the following morning.
Nobody can go through life without making mistakes.
9
A few lights had been left on, and I had to assume that the last to retire was supposed to turn them off. We were clearly the last, so we did that.
Our room seemed cold. They had central heating, though with ugly old radiators. When I put my hand on ours I could barely detect any warmth.
‘Bed?’ asked Amelia. She had brought up a book to read.
At that time, at home, we would have been drinking hot cocoa and nibbling a biscuit or two. Some part of our life seemed to be missing.
‘What about the dogs?’ I asked, suddenly realising.
‘Heavens, I was forgetting.’
‘I’d better go and see, and I’ll bring a hot drink back. That do, will it? D’you think?’
‘Yes, Richard. You do that.’
Outside, the moon had risen. There was a soft silvery light spread across the landscape. It was a decent evening for taking out the dogs, I thought. I went down once again, being as quiet as I could, putting on lights as I went.
The kitchen was in darkness. There had been no scramble of the animals as I walked in. I snapped the lights on. They were well settled into their respective boxes. They opened a weary eye each; they flicked a bored ear. Clearly, they’d had enough of the outside for one day. Perhaps Mary had taken them for a last outing, more likely Gladys Torrance. She knew dogs. Unless I was very much mistaken, she knew a lot of other things, too, probably more than any other single one of the occupants.
I made a pot of tea, found a tray, put out cups and saucers, sugar and milk, perched half a dozen thin arrowroots on a saucer, and returned upstairs quietly, lights going off again behind me.
Amelia was well settled in with a pillow behind her against the bed-head, and reading the book she’d found downstairs. It was one of three, I saw, the other two lying on the b
edside table.
‘Found something, then?’ I asked.
‘Pride and Prejudice. I can read it over and over.’
‘Then why the other two?’
‘They all go together. Volumes one, two and three. I doubt I’ll even get through volume one, though. I just thought they ought to be kept together.’ She clearly envisaged our staying yet another night.
Idly, I picked up one of the other two. The binding was of soft calf, but when I opened it the stitching seemed a bit rough. But of course, this was probably how it had been done in those days, stabbing through, way back in...when was it? I opened it to check. The title page read:
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
A novel in three volumes
by the author of “Sense and Sensibility”
Vol. II
London: PRINTED BY T. EGERTON, Military Library, Whitehall.
1813.
This I recognised, because there was a similar facsimile printed in Amelia’s copy at home, which was in one volume, and in that the facsimile was numbered: Vol. I.
What I had here, therefore, was not a facsimile at all, but the second volume of an original. This — the three volumes — was a first edition of Pride and Prejudice.
I offered it to Amelia, not priming her, giving no hints as to why I wanted her to consider it. She got it at once, and her eyes, wild and excited, turned up to me.
‘I wonder,’ she whispered, ‘if there are any more...any more first editions.’
We stared at each other for all of thirty seconds.
‘I’ll have to go and check,’ I decided at last, clearing my throat.
‘It’s long after eleven, Richard.’ But it wasn’t a protest.
‘Will either of us be able to rest unless I’ve made sure?’ I tried to tack a smile on the end of that, but I was exhausted through and through and it probably looked like a grimace.
She returned the smile, but hers was almost sad. ‘Then hurry, love.’
‘Just a quick look round...’ I promised this vaguely. I meant a look round until I did find something more.
So it was a trek along that corridor once again, the carpet silencing my feet, putting lights on as I went, down the staircase with my hand to the banister because the corridor light left the treads shaded. Even so, I would have had difficulty in tripping myself up, I thought, my mind refusing an outright rejection of Paul’s claim.
Dimly, the direction not easy to locate, I heard a sound, not a slam, not a thump. A sound. I stopped, half-way down the stairs. The sound need not have signified anything unusual; perhaps someone visiting one of the bathrooms. It was not repeated.
I continued, and slipped silently into the library, closing the door gently behind me, and putting on the light.
There was absolutely no order to the books on the shelves — no author’s name sequence, no segregation of fiction from non-fiction, no discrimination as to age and importance, trash elbowing treasures.
But the treasures were there, scattered around. In the minute or two I allowed myself, my fingers lifted out a first edition of Wuthering Heights (Ellis Bell — 1847), a battered but nevertheless genuine first edition of Tobias Smollett’s Roderick Random, printed in 1748. And Ouida! Would she be a collector’s author? If so, I was holding a first edition of Under Two Flags.
I spared myself no more time. If, in two minutes, I had located these, how many more first editions of great value might there not be?
I put off the lights and gently closed the door behind me. From somewhere in the house, like an echo (though there could have been no echo of the minimal sound I’d made) I thought I heard another door close. My nerves, I told myself, were becoming stretched.
‘Well?’ asked Amelia, the moment I had our door firmly but silently closed behind me. ‘What did you find?’
I told her quickly, emphasising that I’d had only a very quick look around. She was fascinated, watching my mouth saying it. By that time, I was sitting on the edge of the bed, so that our voices wouldn’t disturb anybody, drinking warm tea.
‘You didn’t bring them to show me,’ she said, disappointed.
‘Sorry, love, but they were rather dirty. I expect you had to dust the Jane Austens you brought along.’ She nodded. ‘But I left them together so that I could put my hands on them again.’
‘I’ll see them in the morning, then.’
‘Yes. It’s fascinating, though, isn’t it. I bet that nobody’s really looked at that library for heaven knows how many years. But...bring in an expert, and I reckon he’d find dozens of them, and all first editions. D’you know what I think?’
‘Not unless you tell me, Richard.’
I went on, not pausing. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the writer of those letters, probably a baronet himself — Paul’s grandfather or great grandfather — Sir Stephen Searle...I wouldn’t be surprised if the collecting bug got hold of him after those paintings, and he switched to books. First editions. Amelia, my sweet, there could well be two fortunes in that library, the books and the paintings.’
She seemed to have gone pale at the thought. ‘And Paul...’ she whispered. The corners of her mouth twitched.
‘Yes. It’s very amusing, really. I can’t wait to tell him in the morning. There he was, calling his brother an ignorant moron for seeing only the books and not the paintings, and he himself had seen only the paintings and not the books. Oh...isn’t it lovely!’
She eyed me with her head on one side, smiling gently. ‘Come to bed, Richard. You’re tired. But you’d better go and wash your hands first. Those dusty books...’
‘True. But d’you see how that—’
She interrupted. ‘Get undressed and come to bed, Richard.’
I recognised the light in her eyes, and did exactly as I was told.
But not to sleep. I lay awake long after Amelia had turned over and buried her head in the pillow. As far as I could see, this would sort things out very neatly. It needed only Tessa’s agreement that in her late husband’s mind the words ‘art collection’ had included the library. Then the two brothers would be able to split the contents, paintings to Jeremy (the thirteen that were oils), the first editions to Paul, and the financial balance would be restored. Reasonably well, anyway. Then peace would enfold us.
On this thought, I slept.
It was Amelia who woke me. The dawn always jerks her into life. Our bedroom window faced south-east, so that the rising sun warmed the room with light, we not having drawn the curtains. She had been standing at the window, running her fingers through her hair, lifting it from her neck. But now she was very still.
‘Richard...’ she said, in a tense whisper.
I was at her side in a second. She pointed.
Jeremy was walking with heavy, ponderous and determined strides away from the house. He was heading for the wooden bridge, then pounding across it, and without hesitation he swung to his right. It was obvious where he was heading: for the path up through the trees to the gamekeeper’s lodge. For a second he stopped, his arms fully extended by the weight of the two large suitcases he had been carrying. He put them down and straightened his back, turning to look up to the windows of the house, and clearly checking whether he’d been observed. He must have seen us, or somebody else at another window, because he put up his arm and made an obscene gesture with two fingers, I thought to me. Then he bent to the two cases, hefted them once more, and plodded on, taking the path towards the sunken garden. Twenty or so yards short of the four steps he disappeared behind the hedgerow.
‘The damned fool!’ I said in disgust.
It was particularly annoying that he should have made this move when I was in a position to clear Jeremy’s worried mind of his financial problems. Paul, I guessed, would not do so until the last moment before the thunder-clouds burst over Jeremy’s head. Otherwise, he’d have done so before now.
Cursing him, cursing both of them, I grabbed for my trousers. There was no time to make myself respectable, and I dragged
them on over my pyjamas. My jacket on quickly...a check that I had the car keys...
‘What’re you doing, Richard?’
‘He’ll ruin everything. Don’t you see? He’s taking those blasted stone masks up to Jennie’s cottage. Just to defy Paul. And just think what’ll happen—’
‘You don’t need to get involved,’ she protested.
I paused. There was really no desperate rush, I realised. It would take him all of twenty minutes to slog up that hill, carrying (I made a quick, vague calculation) about 120 pounds of stone masks. And I could do it in two minutes in the car.
‘Does it really matter?’ she asked worriedly.
‘I think so. Can’t you imagine the row there’ll be...And I could just about be waiting for him in the car — and bring him back. Oh...I don’t know. I can try to do something, anything.’
But when I got out into the corridor I realised I wasn’t going to be able to avert anything, because Paul was ahead of me, and running down the stairs.
‘Wait!’ I called out.
He took no notice. I caught him on the drive outside, caught him by the arm and swung him round to face me. His face was white with fury. I could feel that he was shaking.
‘Take your hands off me,’ he said, his voice distorted.
‘My car’s easiest to get out,’ I told him. ‘There’s really no rush. How long d’you think it’ll take him? He’ll have to stop to get his breath, get a rest. If he doesn’t give himself a heart attack, that is. We can be there waiting for him — talk a bit of sense into him.’
‘Talk! Y’ don’t think I’m going to talk about it? He’ll just have to bring the bloody things back, that’s what he’s going to do. I’ll see to that, and to hell with his bloody obsessions.’
‘It’s not all that terribly important, after all.’
He poked a finger at my chest, and stared at me as though I was mad. ‘I am not...not having him dump those masks in the cottage. Do you understand that? And all for his damned stupid principles!’
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