Christmas at Candleshoe

by Michael Innes

  ‘Aha – the salon carré of Benison!’ Dr Rosenwald struck his whimsical note, and at the same time gracefully accepted a cigar. Lord Scattergood, as a consequence of some odd upsurge of knowledge from the large school near Windsor, found himself wondering how carré could well described an eight-sided chamber. He perceived however that some compliment was intended – this sort of foreigner was always dishing out compliments – and he responded with the courteous hope that Dr Rosenwald wouldn’t think the proposal an awful bore.

  ‘But, milord, I am enchanté! This is a pleasure of which I not thought.’

  Lord Scattergood saw Arthur gulping the last of his port and at the same time giving him a decidedly grim look. It was evident that Dr Rosenwald liked to play out his charade with an elaboration and completeness attributable – no doubt – to his large possession of the artistic temperament. Looking firmly at his son, Lord Scattergood inquired whether his guest might not, after all, prefer a game of billiards? Dr Rosenwald replied that the notion of taking a look at the pictures was a delightful idea of his host’s, and one that he was altogether unwilling to forgo. He remembered them tolerably well, having seen many of them when they were on exhibition in London before the war. He assured Lord Scattergood that his collection was one, if not of the first importance, yet of very considerable interest and charm.

  At this the entire party was presently reconstituted; a footman dispatched to switch on about a quarter of a mile of lights in corridors which it would be necessary to traverse; the ladies donned wraps – for even in summer the immensities of Benison could be chilly after nightfall; and the cavalcade made its sortie from the habitable corner of the house.

  Dr Rosenwald paused to admire the Swedish Countess’ sledge. Unlike the mortician from Buffalo, he did not apply a scratching finger, but sketched instead a graceful arabesque in air, presumably implying that thereby here was a formal assemblage of lines and volumes conformable with the nicest artistic taste. Lord Scattergood wondered if he was marking the outlandish old contraption down for offer to some hyperborean magnate in Greenland or Alaska.

  Because Lord Scattergood had forgotten an appropriate key, the party had to pass down the long corridor that ran behind the main line of state apartments. It was crammed – as indeed were the leagues of similar corridors throughout the building – with the junk of three centuries of random collecting. On one side, in glass-fronted cabinets between the twenty regularly spaced windows, stood, hermetically sealed, sufficient china – much of it exquisite and most of it inconceivably hideous – to banquet the entire peerage; on the other were paintings, prints, statues, fossils, idols, flags, miniatures, enormous vases, fans, cannon, snuff-boxes, coins, medals, suits of armour, dugout canoes, travelling-libraries, geological specimens, and almost everything else that it is possible to amass. As Dr Rosenwald was delighted with all this, and remorselessly evinced the liveliest and most informed interest in the most outlandish of the exhibits, the progress of the party was on the slow side. Lord Scattergood wished that he had thought to put the cigar-box under his arm. His wife conversed alternately with Colonel Fernall and with Brown, neither of whom appeared to be in a communicative vein. Arthur listened to Mrs Fernall describing, in a powerful and resonant voice, her own wretched ill health. The other gentlemen had fallen into a grave discourse of fowl pest, hard-pad, and foot-and-mouth disease. Except for the exotic note struck by Dr Rosenwald, any stranger dropped miraculously into these domestic sanctities would have been gratified by an exhibition of English territorial life at its best.

  At length they passed into Queen Caroline’s Drawing-Room, and from thence to the Great Gallery. Dr Rosenwald stopped and pleasantly announced a modest desire to be shown the Cima da Conegliano.

  Lord Scattergood glanced at the endless vista of paintings that ran in a double or treble line down the north wall and felt a moment of dismay. His librarian, Mr Archdeacon, knew something about these things – but Mr Archdeacon he had carelessly not thought to detain, and he would long ago have departed to Great Benison on his bicycle. The five-shilling tourists were uninterested in Cima da Conegliano, and Lord Scattergood was himself in consequence not as clear about this particular possession as he might have been. All the pictures here, he knew, were worth anything from five hundred to five thousand pounds apiece. It might he a good idea to sell the lot, and decorate this room with a nice line of mirrors. He seemed to remember that there was something of the sort at Versailles, a place at which the turnstiles clicked in a very satisfactory manner all day.

  Meanwhile, perhaps his wife knew about this fellow Cima. He was about to inquire, when Dr Rosenwald fortunately noticed the Alessio Baldovinetti. On this master he had, it appeared, a difference of opinion with Dr Borenius, and he now proceeded to lay the case in some detail before Mrs L’Estrange. Mrs L’Estrange, gratified at this admission to the status of connoisseurship, offered intelligent murmurs. Her husband, who disliked what he called Kate’s damned nonsense, made occasional growling noises indicative of impatience and distaste. Fortunately it was not easy to distinguish that these did not emanate from Brown. The party thus eventually reached the octagon room in tolerable harmony.

  The stuff was all on one wall – the two Titians flanked by the two Velasquez portraits. For the two Italian pictures their owner had never greatly cared. As a boy he had judged them indecent indeed but unsatisfactory, since he had been unable to imagine himself in any amatory engagement with females of this species turning the scale at anything like the figure to be posited of these sprawling monsters. Later he had come to distinguish that they were what he called deuced colourful, but he had never kindled to them, all the same. He liked the reclining nude – she was said to be no more than a high-class tart, poor girl – better than the more elaborately engaged goddess hanging beside her. For one thing, he could never remember what that particular mythological proceeding was. And who had ever seen a swan of that size, anyway?

  The two Velasquez portraits were a different matter. Here again he was bad at keeping names in his head – but he could accept each simply as a superb evocation of the aristocratic idea. This was even more true of the little girl than of the elderly grandee – although he was (Lord Scattergood suddenly remembered) King Philip the Fourth of Spain. Lord Scattergood had a great regard for ancient lineage, and admitted no illusion that a Candleshoe turned Spendlove in the later seventeenth century constituted anything of the sort. Now, therefore, he met alike the candid gaze of the little Infanta and the haughty stare of King Philip with a decidedly guilty glance. He was much struck, moreover, by the circumstance that Brown had retreated to a far angle of the octagon room and sat down with his back to the proceedings. He suddenly decided that he would let Titian go, but hang on to Velasquez to the end.

  Dr Rosenwald, with Mrs L’Estrange still beside him, was examining the Titians. At least he was standing in front of them, but it was not at all clear that they were very seriously engaging his interest. Dr Rosenwald’s glance was idle, almost absent; and he was edifying his companion with remarks on some of the major private collections in Italy. Did she know the Bagatti Valsecchi Collection in Milan? Or the treasures of the Crespi Palace? Or the remarkable group of pictures assembled by the late Prince Trivulzio? When she was next in Rome – and, indeed, her so charming and cultivated husband too – would she permit him the pleasure of securing her an introduction to the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli, who in addition to possessing a magnificent Quirico da Murano was also a lineal descendant (as Sir Max Beerbohm had pointed out) of the Emperor Hadrian?

  The entire party – Brown still excepted – had now gathered round in silence. There was something undeniably impressive – even hypnotic – in Dr Rosenwald’s manner of thus reviewing these major repositories of the plastic arts. Lord Scattergood however was impatient; he was, indeed, indignant. The well-cadenced discourse, the resonant names of noble families across the Alps, the eye so casually exploring the canvasses immediately before it: all these things had the eff
ect of making Benison Court and its treasures seem very small beer. With mounting irritation Lord Scattergood remembered the price of a return ticket by air from Rome. And presently he could contain himself no longer. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘–what do you think of those Titians of ours? Are they worth anything?’

  Dr Rosenwald looked at his host in surprise – as well he might, since the mortician from Buffalo himself could scarcely have asked a question more baldly. Then his distinguished features transformed themselves into a smile – a smile at first brilliant, and then almost wholly reverent. He looked at each of the pictures in turn, and again his fingers traced – but this time with infinitely greater delicacy – their arabesque in air. ‘Milord,’ he said, ‘they are a revelation.’

  ‘Eh?’ Lord Scattergood was startled, His guests were all staring.

  ‘I had forgotten. Indeed, in seeing them amid the bustle of that London exhibition, I had perhaps not fully realized.’ Dr Rosenwald was softly solemn. ‘These may be – well, the greatest Titians in the world.’

  ‘God bless my soul!’ Lord Scattergood was almost alarmed.

  ‘But are they merely Titians? I have to ask myself that. Yes, most seriously do I have to put that question to myself. It is the crucial point, milord, in the expertise.’ Dr Rosenwald paused. ‘And the answer I finally give myself is – Yes!’

  ‘Ah – I’m uncommonly glad to hear it.’ Lord Scattergood was now altogether at sea.

  ‘But are they merely Titians? I have to ask myself assuredly, in the period – the tragically brief period, milord – of his supreme achievement. These are the work of the young Titian as he steps back – still dazzled and still divinely gifted – from the untimely grave of his exact contemporary and sole inspirer – il miglior fabbro, Giorgione!’

  Mrs L’Estrange gasped. She could be trusted, Arthur Spendlove saw, to spread the tale of this impressive encounter with the higher connoisseurship broadcast among her artistic friends. And presently some young ass would be down from town, eager to do a talk on Titian’s supreme creations for the Third Programme of the BBC. Rosenwald was undoubtedly worth his money. Nevertheless Arthur still preferred the company of Brown. Brown, indeed, had a great deal of wool over his own eyes. But it was not his profession to pull it over the eyes of others.

  Slightly dazed, the company presently drifted from the room. The women went to bed, and the men, accompanied by Brown, repaired to the smoking-room. Lord Scattergood took a stiffer whisky than was at all customary with him. It looked as if he might make out of Titian what he had calculated to make out of Titian and Velasquez together. The trollops from the Venetian bagno would depart across the Atlantic and the Spanish royalty would remain at Benison. There was in this – Lord Scattergood opined – a high propriety that put him in excellent humour; and he gave Arthur a wink – it was a bad family habit – over the heads of the other gentlemen. For a time Fernall, Crespigny, and L’Estrange lingered over their glasses. They had a notion that Dr Rosenwald, as their senior and a stranger, should take himself off first. But, the eminent connoisseur making no move, they eventually got up and went away, amid customary civilities and involuntary yawns. It had been a devilishly dull evening.

  The moment was one for which Lord Scattergood – although with faultless dissimulation – had been eagerly waiting. He turned to Dr Rosenwald. ‘Well,’ he demanded, ‘what are we likely to get?’

  ‘For the Velasquez portraits and the Titians?’

  ‘Just the Titians. Will they really fetch a notable price?’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’ Dr Rosenwald favoured the Marquess of Scattergood and Lord Arthur Spendlove with his most brilliant smile. ‘Provided, of course, that you can find them.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Lord Scattergood supposed that he had not heard correctly.

  ‘It was a circumstance not very convenient to mention in the presence of your other guests. But the paintings now in your octagon room, milord, are not the Benison Titians. They are only copies.’

  11

  The first to respond to this strange intelligence was Brown. He got to his feet and moved his mop-like head slowly up and down in the air. He had all the appearance of giving himself to an exhibition of well-bred mirth.

  ‘Copies!’ Lord Scattergood too had got to his feet. ‘You mean we haven’t any Titians after all?’

  ‘Apparently not.’ Dr Rosenwald was studying his host with interest. It might have been hazarded, indeed, that he was making an expertise. ‘And I think, milord, you underestimate our difficulties. Still, something may conceivably be done.’

  ‘Something may be done?’

  ‘But no longer for what you call, I think, big money. So I hope you got a good figure – is not that the expression? – in the first place.’

  Lord Scattergood’s florid complexion had deepened to a colour which might have attracted Titian when looking for a nice curtain to hang behind a courtesan. ‘Arthur,’ he gasped, ‘am I right in thinking that Dr Rosenwald thinks–’

  ‘Probably you are.’ Arthur Spendlove grabbed the whisky decanter and bustled about. ‘But we needn’t make anything of that. A damned odd thing like this may give rise to a misconception or two – eh? And no doubt Dr Rosenwald does meet some queer fish.’ And Arthur turned briskly to his father’s guest. ‘Have another dash of this. All of us can do with it. Bit of a shock, you know. Really a shock. Just keep that in your head.’ A man of more worldly guile than his father, Arthur thus steered deftly past an awkward moment. ‘But I don’t know that it’s all that extraordinary. The war meant queer times for Benison, and a little large-scale hanky-panky may have crept in. Better send for Archdeacon.’

  ‘Certainly we had better send for Archdeacon.’ Lord Scattergood rang a bell. ‘What about the Velasquez portraits – are they still the genuine thing?’

  ‘Without question.’ Dr Rosenwald had accepted with charming grace the invitation to apply himself anew to the whisky.

  ‘And Cima What’s-his-name, and Baldovinetti, and all that crowd?’

  ‘Dear me, yes.’

  ‘Well, now – somebody must have got in and played this trick on us. Or would it have been that girls’ school?’ Lord Scattergood was much struck with this possibility. ‘The art-mistress, you know. I distinctly remember not at all caring for her. She might have done it at night.’

  ‘Wasn’t the octagon room a dormitory?’ Arthur appeared not to think highly of his father’s suggestion. ‘And surely you didn’t keep all those things on the walls?’

  ‘Didn’t we?’ Lord Scattergood, vague on the point, paused to give an order to the servant who had entered the room. Then he resumed his speculations. ‘Or would it be professional crooks? It seems a dashed queer thing for anyone of that kidney to take to. And how would they make money out of it?’

  ‘Very readily.’ Dr Rosenwald seemed now to accept the innocence of his host, and to be urbanely amused by it. ‘I could tell you of a number of owners of works of art who have found it convenient to part with one or two of their treasures in an unobtrusive way. Do you happen lately to have inspected the Contessa Adriano-Rizzoli’s Quirico da Murano – the picture I was mentioning to your charming Mrs L’Estrange? No? A pity.’ Dr Rosenwald applied himself largely to his whisky. ‘I painted it myself.’

  ‘ You painted it?’ Lord Scattergood’s indignation was such that he had difficulty in articulation. ‘Wasn’t that a damned dishonest thing to do?’

  Dr Rosenwald, by no means offended, raised a mildly deprecatory hand. ‘Not, I think, damned dishonest. The purchaser of the original – he lives in Chicago – got very good value for his money, even although he is pledged not to exhibit the Quirico for twenty-five years. And what the dear Contessa is pleased to hang on her walls is entirely her own affair. Nobody is defrauded in the slightest degree. It is not as if she made visitors to the Palazzo Rizzoli pay at the door.’ And leaving Lord Scattergood to digest this as he might, Dr Rosenwald turned to Arthur. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I am interested. Does this w
hisky come from Scotland or from Ireland?’

  Reminding himself that Dr Rosenwald was his guest, Lord Scattergood took a turn about the room. ‘Would you mind telling me’, he said presently, ‘how long it would take to concoct these two things now passing as my Titians?’

  Dr Rosenwald considered. ‘I think it likely’, he said, ‘that I could manage one in three months.’

  ‘Bless my soul!’ It had never occurred to Lord Scattergood that any work of art, whether authentic or spurious, could take more than three or four days to execute. ‘What a deuced odd way for a fellow to spend his time! I can remember doing art at my private school. But it never went on for more than fifty minutes. And the last ten of those were commonly a bit of a rag.’