The Collected Connoisseur

by Valentine, Mark

  ‘So of course,’ continued The Connoisseur, ‘I visited Lawrence at the old evergreen-guarded manor in the ancient Forest, on the slopes of a domed hill: and he took me to the west wing, with its quaint turret, which had been his brother’s retreat and temple; and I delighted to find it so much akin to my recollections of its original state. Intricately wrought Persian rugs seemed like shape-shifting reflections of equally intricate hangings and tapestries: polished lamps in discreet corners sent out a restful lustre upon the rooms: graceful occasional tables on serpentine stands held fruit or flowers; a little spinet, charmingly Italianate, reminded me of the archaic melodies Flavian had once haltingly coaxed from it; a great stately bookcase held those volumes bound in ochre and scarlet, indigo and sable and yew-green, whose titles were so dear to him; and at the window, his altar to Apollo, half affectation, half earnest—with its silver incense holders, its vials of honey and wine, and its vase of wild hyacinth.

  ‘And in the evening we strolled the grounds, now a little neglected, but in some ways the more charming for their decay, and as we walked in silence, I found myself again craning for some elusive remembrance, some missing mosaic piece. And try as I might it would not yield itself. Then there came out of the grey gloaming a piteous shriek, a brittle sliver of anguish, and Lawrence halted and gripped my arm. “It came from the glade …” he whispered.

  ‘The glade was a circular clearing of sweet meadow, a little sunken below the level of the wood which embowered it, and reached by three, or sometimes four, stone steps; a favourite retreat for Flavian, sufficiently remote from the house to evade his father’s attention. As the twilight deepened, we made our way to the edges of the spinney, and paused, uncertain whether it were folly or bravery to venture further. And then again came, nearer and sharper, a single cry, a scimitar of sound, seeming almost to be calling us: so we pushed into the wood, striding briskly now along the narrow paths. Yet even within this tense expectancy, I sensed still that I had known something of this before, if I could only form it again in my memory. As we saw ahead a hollow of smoky light framed by trees, there was once more that wild, lonely keening, louder still; and there blazed in my mind an image of Flavian, wryly smiling and quizzical. We quickened our pace, and, bursting into the opening, were all but blinded by a vast burning arc of blue, formed of fibres like dark cobwebs, and scintillating with smouldering gems of vivid green, palest yellow and pure black. We held up our arms to protect our gaze, and Lawrence shouted “The eyes … those are the eyes!”

  ‘Then I knew what had lived here before, remembered at last with a sudden inner lunge, and I understood what we were witnessing now: and I laughed in sheer glee, and it seemed to me I heard Flavian’s ringing laughter too. And the vision hovered but a moment longer, fluttering like some rare Byzantine fan, then folded in on itself—and was gone.’

  The Connoisseur fell silent, and I waited for him to continue. Then his expression lightened, and he rose from his old wing-backed armchair and stretched, yawning.

  ‘Peacocks, Valentine! Peacocks. Amongst Flavian’s most precious possessions. There were five, or six, I think, and they used to stalk the gardens and the grounds as a sort of living incarnation of his love for the exotic. His father loathed them, of course, and is said to have caught one and strangled it, and thrown the mangled body before his boy: so thereafter, he tended to keep them to the glade, hidden away. And he mourned very much for his lost pet, and had it interred close by the stalking ground of its fellows, in a rich casket, and attended by elaborate rites of his own devising.

  ‘Lawrence told me there had been none left whatever when he came into his inheritance. No doubt they were the victims of the father’s hatred for all things belonging to his older son. And one wondered a little at the end he made, and whether in some way he paid for his cruelty …

  ‘Young Paravine lost no time in procuring five more peacocks for the estate in pursuance of his vow to restore all things to how they had been when Flavian lived: and since we thought it would please him, we enacted too, in the hushed glade, that valediction he had composed for the first of his birds to die.

  ‘There are still strange cries to be heard at night in the home of the Paravines—but these are from the sleekly-plumaged throats of living peacocks, as they proudly promenade their domain. Yet is it still difficult to know if there are five of them, or six… .’

  Pale Roses

  My face felt as though sliced by a dagger of ice as I hurried out of the cruel January day and into the firelit grotto of The Connoisseur’s study. A salver of silver filigree on a damask-veiled occasional table held two thick goblets of mulled wine, from which spiced fumes rose dreamily, tinted a delicate purple. We took one each and the ichor of scarlet coursed down my throat like a libation of living blood. I held my hands before the dancing flames while my friend moved a golden cord to close the gilded brocade curtains at his twin-arched casement.

  ‘It was a day like this,’ reflected The Connoisseur, ‘when I received the summons to go to my cousin Rebecca, who was unwell and worsening. My family, you know, has always been fragmentary, scarcely sustaining our lineage from one generation to the next, and I knew she had few others to care for her. For all that, we had scarcely seen each other, and I confess to a certain curiosity to see how the silent maiden I had briefly met had flourished since left to her own pursuits by the passing of my aunt four years ago.’

  He moved to his deep armchair and sipped at his wine.

  ‘The exterior of the house where she had taken rooms did not encourage me to trust her taste, though I reflected that she may have been only moderately provided for. It was a solid square edifice of orange brick, built, I suppose, by some dull Victorian merchant. The only relieving feature was a black wrought balcony on the upper storey, though even this was altogether too sturdy to achieve the slightly Latinate effect which I think was intended.

  ‘Rebecca’s four rooms were on the first floor of the west wing, and as I hurried to her bedchamber, guided by a prune-complexioned concierge, my thoughts were all upon how I might help her to regain her health. I dimly recalled how much she had loved, as a child, the quiet, graceful services said at a small chapel not far away, and I wondered whether she might like to be taken there again for the ceremony of Candlemas, four days hence.

  ‘As I was ushered into her room, she rose from her bed to greet me, slender and somewhat spectral in a long white nightgown. We held hands briefly, and I saw that neither the obsidian black of the swaying hair which framed her oval face, nor her amethystine eyes, could quite distract one from the exceeding pallor of her flesh. I bade her return to her bed, while I seated myself in a cottage rocking chair beside her: and we talked for a while of the things one must—had she all she needed, was her doctor a sound man, and what of others of our diffused clan. My gaze, I admit, wandered around the room during this dutiful discourse, and I found myself pleased with several little elegancies and indulgences I noted.’

  He rose and replenished my glass, drawing more of the dark seasoned wine from a quaint samovar like a sombre urn which hissed softly in one corner. He added more to his own glass and took a deep draught.

  ‘By her bedside was a bowl of roses of burning crimson, brought to her, she said, by a Mrs de Vere, who had known her mother well: a kindly soul, if slightly vague, who seemed to be sure these were Rebecca’s favourite flowers, and so had gone to some trouble to secure some: their warm scent pervaded her pillow as I bent forward to exchange with her a gentle goodnight kiss. I made her promise to call me in case anything should be amiss during the night, then retired to prepare myself a simple supper, and settle into the guest room, reflecting all the while that I should have sustained an interest in my cousin, since she was one of my few kin.

  ‘I awoke suddenly at the slow chill opening of dawn, my mind still racing after some remembrance of a dream, a macabre sarabande in which a tall youth clad in black kissed a cadaver lying in bloodied cerements on a vast, sable-veiled catafalque: and
as he turned away, his face became the same as the corpse’s, a throng of people gave out a great sigh, and snow began to fall, falteringly at first, then with a fine force, so that it seemed the whole scene would soon be covered: and the hollow coldness of my room as I woke gave me to feel as if I had not quite gone from the dream.’

  The Connoisseur gathered about him the folds of an old frockcoat he often wore indoors, sank back in his chair a little, and stretched his legs onto a footstool of cerulean velvet, with a carven stalk fashioned to resemble the limbs and claws of some fabulous Mandevillean beast.

  ‘As I lay brooding upon the strange masque I had witnessed in my night’s vision I heard a flurry at my door, and my cousin summoned me to come quickly. I reached for the Nestorian chasuble I use as a dressing gown, put on my Ottoman slippers, and scurried along the echoing corridor. Rebecca greeted me at her door and, taking my hand, drew me inside, her face flushed carnation. She pointed to her bedside, but I did not at first discern the cause of her consternation, until she exclaimed, “Look at the roses!”

  ‘I stared. The dark crimson head at each stem, which last night had been so burningly vivid, was now perfectly pale, suffused with a lucent sheen as if sculpted of alabaster. A gentle seepage of scarlet trickled down each thorned stalk, and formed a small sangrealic pool in the base of the bowl. It was as if some infamy had been committed …

  ‘I searched, as one does at first, for some natural explanation. The room was still quite snug, so the transformation could hardly be some curious effect of the bitter frost. I dismissed as far-fetched a suspicion that the florist might have used a dye: the craft required to coat each rose so perfectly would be so considerable as to render the exercise pointless, when red roses are to be had as easily as white. And the marmoreal flowers now revealed to us were so flawless as to banish the notion that some pestilent enemy of the rose was to blame.

  ‘I touched one of the petals. It was more fragile than one would expect, and so icy that a shudder ran through me. Cautiously, I ran my finger along the little red rivulet and raised the smeared tip to my lips. I hesitated, then tried some on my tongue. The taste was bitter and brackish, as if a deep sap had been mingled with a tart salt liquid. I grimaced, turned to Rebecca, shook my head, and led her from the room.’

  My friend stirred himself, selected a brazen, gargoyle-handled poker from the hearth, and roused the fire into new energy, so that the walls briefly depicted a mummery of dancing flame-shadows.

  ‘We took a slow breakfast,’ continued The Connoisseur, ‘and discussed what we had seen. I feared that my cousin might see in the apparition of the roses a stark metaphor of her own illness: but it seemed quite the reverse. She was alive with interest at the turn events had taken, and eager to explore every possible facet of the affair. I pondered for a while whether I should tell her of my dream, which still lingered oddly in my mind: and I decided that it could do no harm, and did so. She listened with great interest, and seemed more than ever convinced that fresh wonders might yet be presented to us. For myself, I struggled to bring together in my mind scenes torn from the folio of what must be a single drama—and a tragedy at that.

  ‘Our repast was of the simplest order: coffee with some muffins to eat first with goat’s cheese, then with honey; and despite my perplexity, I was making a good account of myself at table, when my gaze was caught by the blue-and-white china ewer we had placed for laving our hands. The slightly scented water it contained suddenly seemed to ripple for no apparent reason, as if touched by a passing breeze—yet I felt nothing. I looked across at Rebecca but she seemed not to have noticed, so I told myself I was seeking mysteries where none existed, and returned my attention to the food. As I took another morsel, however, I could not help but succumb to a choking fit—for the food had turned to a foul green dust in my mouth. At the same time, my cousin gave a sharp cry, for across the remnant on her own plate there spread a livid blight as of aged decay: and the same bloom of corruption fell upon all the rest of the food on the table.’

  The Connoisseur refilled our glasses once more, and paused to savour the wine before resuming.

  ‘What could we do? We did not attempt to eat anything else, but contented ourselves with constructing a roaring fire whose yellow glow gave at least some cheer to the room. Seated on either side of this, we talked of many things, but foolishly: for it was clear we were both waiting for some other incident in the sequence which seemed to be playing before us. We went to look again at the roses in her bedchamber, to find them still as clear and pure as glacial ice. I was solicitous for Rebecca’s health, but did not wish to suggest that she return to her bed in a room so strangely affected: in any case, she seemed strongly revivified and her wan complexion had been replaced by a most becoming blush.

  ‘The day drew on, and we read a little poetry to each other, or sat in companionly silence, or spoke again of the strangenesses we had seen: and as dusk began softly to capture the farthest corners and crannies of the room, and the light from the double door onto the balcony grew dim, our murmurs halted, and even our breath became brief and quiet. Then, the deep blue curtains at the balcony billowed slightly, we both stood up instinctively and moved closer together, there was a clap of sound in my ears like the shout of an excited crowd, the door tilted oddly open, and a deep black shadow passed into the room, shuddering as it fought to gain its final form. As a cloak and domino fall from a dancer at a masque to reveal the familiar face beneath, so fell the dark veils from this figure: and there stood before us the tall youth whom I had seen in my dream, in an austere black tunic from which a brief spray of lace flourished at each wrist and around the collar. His long sombre hair hung just above the shoulders, and there was a certain haughtiness about his stance, which, however, was softened by the expression in his eyes, where there lay much melancholy. The room filled with a sense of this youth’s presence, which I find hard to describe—a feeling of infinite tristesse which seemed to waken in one a fierce allegiance for the bearer of such sorrow.’

  My friend sighed and gazed thoughtfully into the fire. ‘No, I can’t put it any better than that, though it is not all of what I mean.

  ‘The youth slowly stretched forward a pale hand, and I felt my cousin slip from me and move forward, sinking to her knees below the proffered palm. I strode after her, only to succumb as she had done to the urge to express my respect. As he made a graceful movement of blessing over Rebecca, I bowed my head and found myself staring at a signet ring he wore, which bore the interlaced monogram

  ‘I looked up quickly into his eyes, my mouth I think slightly agape. He smiled, dropped his arm, and retreated a pace or two. I made as if to follow, but he inclined his head in denial, and I halted. The deepening darkness of the night gathered to engulph him once again, there was a fresh onrush of bitter cold from the swinging door, so harsh that we clenched our eyes and turned our faces from it, and when this subsided, the scene before us was full of an active, aching emptiness. Rebecca rose, and for a long time we simply stood together, saying nothing. Then I began to tell her what I could now surmise about what we had seen.

  ‘From my knowledge of the period, I knew that in the 1880s and 1890s there toured the country a claimant to the Three Thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, who said he was the last scion of a line stemming from a concealed marriage contracted by Charles Edward Stuart (called by some The Young Pretender) in the days after the ’45 when all seemed lost for the Stuart cause. This youth’s origins were otherwise obscure, but he did bear a striking resemblance to the sons of that ill-starred dynasty: and there was something, too, about his demeanour which made others treat him with deference, so that he soon gathered about him a select band of adherents—romantics, Celtic revivalists, ritualists and even radicals; and at the height of all this, he was feted by many simply because it was the fashion.

  ‘What was now clear—and subsequently I confirmed it from some contemporary journals—was that Charles Rupert Stuart, or Charles IV as he was properly st
yled, had stayed in this house for a time during his wanderings. And it seems to me that it does not greatly matter what credence we give to his claims, though there were indeed some who were convinced by them. No: what is significant is that he was given homage and adoration, and that for a season this respectable place became the scene of conspiracy and ceremonial. Something of that ardour has surely been sustained within its walls and on 30th January, the anniversary of the death of Charles I, King and Martyr, it was at its most potent.

  ‘I think it was my lord Corvo who once wrote that to give a true Englishman a red rose is an insult: for the Baron was a staunch Jacobite, and revered the White Rose as the symbol of the Stuarts. There was even—may even still be—a League of the White Rose, which numbered amongst its chevaliers many poets and artists of the day. Now you see, I think, some of the meaning beneath the wonder which was worked upon the red roses in Rebecca’s room: and I think if you consider again the day upon which it transpired, you will perceive perhaps some poignancy too.

  ‘Charles Rupert’s reign as a society darling was not long, for fashion is ever fickle, and many followers soon turned to other fascinations. His court circle, as it were, soon dwindled to a devoted handful, scattered around the country. Poverty and poor health, and the desire to avoid becoming a figure of scorn, forced him to abandon his crusade: he crossed to Ireland and was never heard of again.

  ‘Some of those who recorded their impressions of him speak of the great grace of his presence, and there is even some suggestion that he possessed the Royal Touch which heals. Certainly Rebecca made a steady recovery from that day forward, whether because she found a new belief in life I cannot say.