A Palace of Art

by J. I. M. Stewart

  ‘Of course not,’ she said shortly. ‘It’s not as if he’d painted them.’

  If Harry found this odd reply interesting, the fact was perhaps attested by his appearing to indulge a certain absence of mind. He stared lazily out of the carriage window and into a gathering dusk. But presently he continued his inquisition.

  ‘If you’re not going to live at Nudd,’ he asked, ‘who is?’

  ‘Americans.’

  ‘Americans? Millionaires?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Gloria hesitated. ‘In fact, decidedly not.’

  ‘But it will take a packet to buy Nudd lock, stock and barrel, won’t it?’

  ‘They’re not going to buy it. They can’t afford to. They’ve done their sums and they know they can’t. It’s a university. And it’s a gift – with just a few conditions.’ Gloria braced herself. After all, she was as of this present (as the Americans themselves would have said) Miss Montacute of Nudd still. ‘I’ve given my solicitor his instructions.’

  Harry appeared to admire this. He nodded with almost Mr Thurkle’s gravity. (Not that Mr Thurkle had admired.) Then he stretched himself luxuriously in a way Gloria knew.

  ‘Gloria, my dear, they’ll make you a Doctor of Philosophy.’

  ‘No. They’ll make Guise that.’

  ‘Guise?’ Harry was at least pleasingly staggered.

  ‘Yes, Guise. He’s a very learned man.’

  ‘He’s a servant!’ This came from Harry as from the heart of an outraged yeomanry. But he recovered himself. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said – and his interest in the conversation appeared about to lapse. He even picked up an evening newspaper he had brought with him into the compartment, as if prompted to discover what had been happening on the rugger-fields of England. But he had another question. ‘Does Jake know?’

  ‘Not yet.’ Gloria had repressed an impulse to say something like ‘A third impertinence, Harry Carter, and you’re through’. This was because she had great faith in honesty. ‘It’s in line with his thought,’ she added – and wondered that so odd an expression had come to her.

  ‘But it’s a kind of test, all the same, of the disinterestedness of his passion?’ Simply because he was a conceited and confident young man, quick to over-estimate his chances, a glint had come into Harry’s eye.

  ‘I suppose it is in a way. But—’

  ‘And you’ll tell him he’s passed with flying colours?’ It was as if Harry believed that, at an eleventh hour, a small but still very attractive possibility had been tumbled into his lap. ‘But of course you will. A lover – at least if he’s a real watertight fiancé – can triumphantly be told things.’

  ‘Naturally I’ll tell him I saw it a bit like that.’

  ‘Then that will be fine.’ Harry Carter sat back contentedly. But then a very strange thing happened. Conceivably he recalled Jake Counterpayne and himself as sitting side by side on a bench, conscious of hostility, but conscious too of the mysterious satisfaction of simply being two young males together. ‘Gloria Montacute,’ he said, ‘you’re a damned decent kid. So don’t be a silly little bitch as well.’

  ‘Harry!’

  ‘Who are you to go proposing tests to a chap like that Jake – who has the good sense to want to marry you? Pull yourself together, girl.’

  Gloria stared at this transformed Harry in stupefaction – and stared, as with an inward eye and equal stupefaction, at her own muddled mind.

  ‘Harry, just what am I to do?’

  ‘Keep mum about it.’

  ‘It?’

  ‘Your bloody silly test, for Christ’s sake. He just wouldn’t take it. There would be hell to pay. He’s a man, isn’t he? Do you think he cares a damn about all those pictures – Don Thingummybob and whoever? He can paint his own, can’t he? Pipe down. Tell him you’re shut of the bloody collection, and that that’s that. Can’t you see?’

  ‘Yes. And thank you very much. For your advice, I mean. It’s right.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, my dear, it rates another kiss. But I let you off.’ Harry’s face was radiant – not unlike Jake’s, at an important moment, on the South Bank. ‘Gloria, I like you very much.’

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  PLAIN ENGLISH

  Harry had a smart new sports-car parked at Kingham Junction – which showed how happily he was on the up-and-up. But he hung fire over offering Gloria a lift, so that she guessed he had an immediate date with Beryl Mercer. She was relieved by this. It wasn’t that she was anxious to be rid of him. They could now get along very well. But some instinct suggested to her that it would be a good idea to arrive home alone. So she took her usual taxi, and sank down in it in bliss once more. She didn’t count her blessings, since she was conscious of only one. Had she done so, she might have reflected that two young men, not henceforward to be very important in her life, had behaved by her rather well in the end. Equally she didn’t reflect that one of these young men (whom she was always going to think of as poor Octavius) had been responsible for an experience which had almost been very traumatic indeed. But for the grace of God – and perhaps that stiff ticking-off by Harry – the hunted-heiress syndrome might really have mucked things up badly.

  Her instinct had been right. As her taxi drew to a halt before the door of Nudd it confronted the parking lights of a small van. And out of this Jake tumbled at once. She could just see that he was grinning all over his face.

  ‘Beaten you to it!’ he shouted. ‘I was afraid you’d polish off that solicitor too soon.’

  ‘Well – I have polished him off.’ She watched Jake – and it was an absolutely thrilling experience – advance and confidently pay off her driver. As the man ran an account with Nudd, he was mildly astonished. Fortunately he was too tactful to obtrude the fact. It was probably, she thought, Jake’s last pound note. ‘And all this, too,’ she added.

  ‘Do you mind my coming?’ Jake asked. He had paid no attention to her last remark. ‘I just couldn’t not.’

  ‘It was very nice of you.’ Gloria was coming to understand the inadequacy of words. ‘Come on in. Why didn’t you go in?’

  ‘Couldn’t face Guise – not except under your wing. Into the ancestral hall.’

  ‘It’s nothing of the sort. Can you stay the night?’

  ‘Yes, of course – if you’ll have me. Although – by the way – I’m not going to sleep with you till we’re married.’ Jake said this as if it was the most extraordinary announcement in the world.

  ‘I don’t know that that’s complimentary.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ He took her in his arms. ‘You damned well do.’

  ‘Jake, I love you very much.’ She freed herself. ‘Drinks,’ she said. ‘And Mrs Bantry alerted to everything she can put on.’

  ‘Didn’t you have a decent lunch?’

  ‘The best I’ve ever had, or shall ever have again.’

  ‘I love you very much. And don’t be pessimistic.’

  ‘Jake, you’ll be faithful to me – within all the real bounds?’

  ‘Darling, I’m your true-telling friend.’ Jake was very amused. ‘As for Mrs Bantry, she’s all very well. But can you cook yourself?’

  ‘Of course I can.’

  ‘Joy entire. I say—may I carry you in?’

  They sat in front of the library fire. Dr Guise (if the small prolepsis be allowed) brought them sherry.

  ‘I’ve parted with the collection,’ Gloria said. ‘And pretty well for free.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  ‘To an American university. It’s going to be a centre for studying art and things.’

  ‘Absolutely rotten. I told you to scatter it among the local hinds. You wait. When I’ve a girl I’ll keep her in line.’

  ‘I’ll give you a good fight.’ Gloria, unaware that Jake had merely made one of his random incursions into literary quotation, was a little startled. ‘It’s going to be very, very nice.’

  ‘And very, very good. I’ll be the nice and you’ll be the good. Will Guise be produci
ng wine?’

  ‘Champagne – because I’ve told him about us.’ As Gloria mentioned this festal beverage some memory made her blush. But there was only the firelight, and it passed unremarked.

  ‘Then no more sherry. A temperate start.’

  ‘Jake, I have been quite sensible. I don’t see anything wrong with a bit of private income. Not if it’s not enormous; not if it’s just what used to be called a competence. So I’ve arranged it that way.’

  ‘Well, I’m buggered!’ Jake stared at Gloria in genuine astonishment. ‘How much?’

  ‘Five hundred a year.’

  ‘Marvellous! It’s an heiress I’ve had my eye on all along.’ Jake said this with what Gloria could now only think of as his headiest grin. He was, in fact, relieved: largely relieved that the sum thus seriously named was so small, and a little relieved that it wasn’t smaller still. The hazards involved in marrying millions, which had been so clear to his sister, may well have not been beyond Jake’s own intellectual grasp. ‘Your remaining fortune’s enough to run the van – and for fish and chips at the end of the week, with any luck. It’s a happiness I just don’t deserve.’

  ‘Jake, do be serious. We must really think, you know.’

  ‘Time enough when we’re married, darling. And that won’t be for six weeks. I’ve got to go and make all that ice-cream first.’

  ‘Months, not weeks. I must stick to my new job, Jake, for at least that long. And not ice-cream. It’s a useless thing, making ice-cream. I’ll fix you up in the hospital for six months.’

  ‘To move wild laughter in the throat of death?’

  ‘Very much that.’ Although unacquainted with Love’s Labour’s Lost, Gloria got the idea. ‘Among the corpses, mostly. The pay’s best at that.’

  ‘Gloria, you’re a practical woman. We’ll do.’

  The library door opened, and the Montacute Curator stood framed in it.

  ‘Dinner is served,’ Guise said.

  Works of J.I.M. Stewart

  ‘Staircase in Surrey’ Quintet

  These titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

  The Gaudy (1974)

  Young Pattullo (1975)

  Memorial Service (1976)

  The Madonna of the Astrolabe (1977)

  Full Term (1978)

  Other Works

  Published or to be published by House of Stratus

  A. Novels

  Mark Lambert’s Supper (1954)

  The Guardians (1955)

  A Use of Riches (1957)

  The Man Who Won the Pools (1961)

  The Last Tresilians (1963)

  An Acre of Grass (1965)

  The Aylwins (1966)

  Vanderlyn’s Kingdom (1967)

  Avery’s Mission (1971)

  A Palace of Art (1972)

  Mungo’s Dream (1973)

  Andrew and Tobias (1980)

  A Villa in France (1982)

  An Open Prison (1984)

  The Naylors (1985)

  B. Short Story Collections

  The Man Who Wrote Detective Stories (1959)

  Cucumber Sandwiches (1969)

  Our England Is a Garden (1979)

  The Bridge at Arta (1981)

  My Aunt Christina (1983)

  Parlour Four (1984)

  C. Non-fiction

  Educating the Emotions (1944)

  Character and Motive in Shakespeare (1949)

  James Joyce (1957)

  Eight Modern Writers (1963)

  Thomas Love Peacock (1963)

  Rudyard Kipling (1966)

  Joseph Conrad (1968)

  Shakespeare’s Lofty Scene (1971)

  Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography (1971)

  Plus a further 48 Titles published under the pseudonym ‘Michael Innes’

  Select Synopses

  Staircase in Surrey

  The Gaudy

  The first volume in J.I.M. Stewart’s acclaimed ‘A Staircase in Surrey’ quintet, (but the second in time), ‘The Gaudy’ opens in Oxford at the eponymous annual dinner laid on by the Fellows for past members. Distinguished guests, including the Chancellor (a former Prime Minister) are present and Duncan Pattullo, now also qualified to attend, gets to meet some of his friends and enemies from undergraduate days. As the evening wears on, Duncan finds himself embroiled in many of the difficulties and problems faced by some of them, including Lord Marchpayne, now a Cabinet Minister; another Don, Ranald McKenechnie; and Gavin Mogridge who is famous for an account he wrote of his adventures in a South American jungle. But it doesn’t stop there, as Pattullo acquires a few problems of his own and throughout the evening and the next day various odd developments just add to his difficulties, leading him to take stock of both his past and future.

  Young Pattullo

  This is the second of the ‘A Staircase in Surrey’ quintet, and the first in chronological order. Duncan Pattullo arrives in Oxford, destined to be housed off the quadrangle his father has chosen simply for its architectural and visual appeal. On the staircase in Surrey, Duncan meets those who are to become his new friends and companions, and there occurs all of the usual student antics and digressions, described by Stewart with his characteristic wit, to amuse and enthral the reader. After a punting accident, however, the girl who is in love with Duncan suffers as a result of his self-sacrificing actions. His cousin, Anna, is also involved in an affair, but she withholds the name of her lover, despite being pregnant. This particular twist reaches an ironical conclusion towards the end of the novel, in another of Stewart’s favourite locations; Italy. Indeed, Young Pattullo covers all of the writer’s favourite subjects and places; the arts, learning, mystery and intrigue, whilst ranging from his much loved Oxford, through Scotland and the inevitable Italian venue. This second volume of the acclaimed series can be read in order, or as a standalone novel.

  Memorial Service

  This is the third novel in the Oxford quintet entitled ‘Staircase in Surrey’. Duncan Pattullo returns in middle age to his old college. The Provost is heavily engaged in trying to secure a benefaction from a charitable trust which the old and outrageous Cedric Mumford influences. One significant complication is the presence in college of Ivo Mumford, Cedric’s grandson. He is badly behaved and far from a credit to the college. His magazine, ‘Priapus’ proves to be wholly objectionable. Stewart explores the nature of the complicated relationships between the characters with his usual wit, literary style and intellectual precision and turns what might otherwise be a very common and ordinary situation into something that will grip the reader from cover to cover.

  The Madonna of the Astrolabe

  In the fourth of J.I.M. Stewart’s acclaimed ‘Staircase in Surrey’ quintet the gravity of a surveyor’s report given to the Governing Body is the initial focus. The document is alarming. The Governing Body, an assembly of which Pattullo was in awe, was equally awed by the dimensions of the crisis revealed. It would seem that the consideration was whether there would literally be a roof over their heads for much longer. The first rumblings from the college tower brings the thought well and truly home to Pattullo. ‘Professor Sanctuary,’ the Provost said evenly, ‘favours the immediate launching of an appeal . . .’ And so it begins . . . In J.I.M. Stewart’s superbly melding of wit, mystery, observation and literary prowess a gripping novel develops that will enthral the reader from cover to cover. This can be read as part of the series, or as a standalone novel.

  Full Term

  The final volume in the ‘A Staircase in Surrey’ quintet. Duncan Pattullo is coming to the end of his term as ‘narrator’ and is thinking of re-marrying, although his former wife continues to cause difficulties. His intended is also providing gossip for the college, but that is as nothing compared to the scandal caused by Watershute, an eminent nuclear physicist. His misdemeanours range from abandoning his family and conducting an affair in Venice, to being drunk at High Table. However, things get very serious when he appears to be involved in activities that might
amount to treason. An interesting and convoluted plot, which is a fitting end to this acclaimed series, is carried forward with J.I.M. Stewart’s hallmark skill and wit. Full Term can be read in order, or as a standalone novel.

  Other Fiction

  Bridge At Arta

  Lady Cameron and Charles Hornett had been married some fifty years before, but Hornett has now forgotten all about it. Embarrassment is therefore evident when they find themselves as part of a party holidaying in Greece. Meanwhile, the Balmaynes realise they nothing about Roland Redpath, who is about to marry their daughter, but he is in fact the son of their onetime dishonest butler. But that isn’t the end of it, as yet more shocks and surprises are forthcoming as the story unfolds. In other stories in the collection there is a hitherto unknown Wordsworth manuscript and sensational development with regard to Coleridge. We are also taken to Vienna and to a rural location in an effort to reveal the identity of an arsonist. Full of wit, humour and suspense, these stories bear all of the hallmarks of the expected first class Stewart penmanship.

  Mungo’s Dream

  Mungo Lockhart goes up to Oxford and find himself sharing a room with the Honourable Ian Cardower, who is heir to a rich title and estate. Unimpressed by rank or riches, Mungo is nonetheless wary in his exchanges with Cardower, and this is reciprocated. However, the two do become good friends and Cardower takes Mungo on visits to his parents’ home, to visit the head of the family, Lord Audlearn at Bamberton Court – a stately home in the grand style – and then to Mallachie, the true family seat, where the eldest son Lord Brightmony lives in splendid isolation, save for his companion; Leonard Sedley, sometime novelist. All seems well, except for Mungo noticing the interest shown by the family in a young Scots boy of uncertain parentage. The story takes on an obvious twist with the usual suspicions and uncertainties mounting, lawyers being called in, and general acrimony, but the final crisis and confrontation is of a surprising nature and an unusual explanation unfolds. On the way, Stewart of course introduces sub-plots and high comedy in his usual literary style. The novel is thought provoking, teasing, and thoroughly entertaining and fascinatingly descriptive of the various locations; Oxford, Perugia in Italy, and Scotland.