The Angry Woman Suite (38 page)

“Might I remind you,” she fumed, “of how tough those years were after Francis was born and how little of Jamie’s money you doled out, and how many times I begged for more, and all along you had—and how in the world
did
you get the Angry Women?”

“Sahar had bought them back—but keep in mind they weren’t liquid. Besides they wouldn’t have brought a fraction, then, of what they’ll bring now. As it was, I had to sell two at a ridiculously low price just to get
everyone
through the Depression. And don’t forget I had Jamie’s medical expenses to pay, not to mention the sanitarium for Stella’s commitment when she took the fall for Francis,
plus
I paid Lothian off …”

That stopped her. She sighed and sank onto a stool. “Lothian—the happiest day of my life was when she couldn’t face Stella home from the sanitarium and left Grayson House.” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “I sometimes wonder, though, about Lothian. Where she is. Do you ever wonder, Aidan?”

The question was rhetorical, requiring nothing from me. But I lied anyway. “No, I never think of Lothian,” I answered. “Never.”

I brought some things up from the basement of Washington’s Headquarters, and then I called on the big guns, the largest auction house in New York City, one I’d done business with before. The appraiser I’d previously worked with was no longer part of the firm. Mention of my name, however, and I was immediately referred to his successor. The new man was Jess Jefferson. I described my personal inventory to Jefferson and invited him down to Washington’s Headquarters to take a look, requesting he bring another specialist with him, in 20
^th
century American art.

Magdalene, watching and listening, asked no further questions—but I didn’t delude myself. She would in time.

“Have you any idea what you’ve got here?” Jess Jefferson asked when he arrived. He’d put on cotton gloves, so as not to leave a residue on my swords. He handled them reverently. His eyes swept the collection inside the museum, plus what I’d moved out-of-doors, which was everything I’d ever had on display at Washington’s Headquarters, in addition to what I’d had archived: powder horns and muskets from the Revolutionary War era; clothing and uniforms, documents and coins, drums and bugles, glassware, pottery and silver, and all the furniture: chairs, tables, and paintings—everything.

“I do,” I said staunchly, keeping my eyes averted. Those things were my
old
life. That life was over.

“Amazing. Absolutely miraculous. I’ve never seen the likes … why, at auction we could get—” Jefferson mentioned a figure that made even my hair stand on end. I turned to the man beside him: Gordon LaFitte, the art specialist, middle-aged, paunchy, far too smooth—and possibly perfect for what I had in mind.

“I requested your presence, Mr. LaFitte, because I’ve something in your realm of expertise. This way, please.” The men followed me back inside Washington’s Headquarters, upstairs and down a hall to a ladder positioned under the attic door. “Watch your step,” I cautioned. “They’re lined up pretty much the same as when I first saw them. Except for three.” I went up last. I was not disappointed. LaFitte’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

“I don’t believe it. This is—?”

“Yes. The Angry Woman Suite.”

“My god! Matthew Waterston’s Angry Woman paintings—seven, anyway …”

“As I’m sure you know, there’s an Angry Woman at the Metropolitan, sold years ago. A sale handled by your firm, Mr. LaFitte, and very discreetly. And another Angry Woman is at the National Gallery—that one sold to the gallery just a few years back. Again handled by your firm, Mr. LaFitte.”

“But I’d no idea there were still others—”

“No matter,” I said crisply. “My wife is in possession of a third Angry Woman. A gift from Waterston himself. That painting is
not
available for auction. But these seven are.”

LaFitte examined each in turn, Jess Jefferson over his shoulder, both shaking their heads.

“Incredible! But these haven’t been seen in eons … a fire …” Lafitte faced me, brow furrowed. “If I recall correctly, Matthew Waterston sold all but one of the original ten Angry Women.”

“That’s right. As I said, he gave an Angry Woman to my wife.”

“Leaving nine then, and of nine, two since sold again. As I understand it, Waterston regretted—”

“You recall correctly. Waterston
liked
these paintings and would’ve kept them all had he not committed to selling them on completion. He thought the suite his finest work. He particularly liked the subject: his marriage to Sahar Witherspoon.”

“Yes—many believed Sahar bought back the nine paintings from the original buyer and had them shipped home, where they were destroyed in the fire that killed her and Waterston.” Everything showed on LaFitte’s face. “Sahar Witherspoon was an artist in her own right. Folk, mostly. Tragic so few of her pieces survive.”

LaFitte went on, “But there were just as many who believed the suite had
not
been repurchased and thus
couldn’t
have been lost in the fire. And then when that first Angry Woman resurfaced at the Metropolitan … well, to think my firm was behind that acquisition! Extraordinary!” LaFitte turned to his colleague. “Did you know of it, Jefferson, that our firm was involved with the Angry Women?”

“I’d heard rumbles.”

I said, “The Waterston mill house once stood across the road from this house—as you know, this is the Washington’s Headquarters house.”

“Yes, of course,” Lafitte said. He peered at me. “You were a part of the colony? But what am I saying? Aidan Madsen!
The
Aidan Madsen!”

“Hardly a cog in the wheel, I’m afraid.”

“I’m new to these parts, never been to Festival.”

I told LaFitte I was no longer a very large part.

“Big corporate-run thing now, I hear.”

I returned to the suite. “The paintings were in the Waterston studio at the time of the fire,
not
the mill house. They’d been placed in the studio, a separate structure, for security reasons.”

“You say that like there’d been an actual threat—”

“There’s always a threat where there are things of value.”

“The studio—it still stands? I didn’t notice on our way in.”

“Demolished after the fire.”

“I see. May I ask, then, how you came to acquire these seven paintings?”

“I manage the Waterston estate. I moved the paintings to Washington’s Headquarters after the fire.”

“Secretly?”

The man was a dolt. “Secretly from the public, yes. And here is where they’ve been since, in safekeeping for the Waterston heirs. Except for the three previously mentioned.”

“Kept on instructions left by the Waterstons themselves, then?” LaFitte probed.

“Waterston’s son appointed me custodian of the estate.”

Gordon LaFitte remembered Matthew’s famous son. A musician. James Witherspoon had been his name, wasn’t that correct? By the way, what had happened to him, did I know? His disappearance remained one of the great mysteries of the entertainment world. And about Sahar Witherspoon—again, a pity so many of her works had been lost, presumably in the same mill house fire. Great Americana. They
had
been lost, hadn’t they? LaFitte said this last as if half expecting me to pull a few of Sahar’s watercolors out of my coat pocket.

I sidestepped all other questions, assuring LaFitte I was obliged to dispose of and/or bequeath all Waterston assets for reasons and at such time or times as I saw fit. Now was one of those times,
if
LaFitte’s appraisal met my approval—and if my wife concurred.

Magdalene stepped up into the attic.

LaFitte’s eyes darted to an Angry Woman, then back to Magdalene. “The
real
angry woman!” he exclaimed.

I said drolly, “My wife, Mr. LaFitte.”

“And I’m not particularly angry,” Magdalene said. “But, yes, I
did
sit for Waterston’s view of a marriage, Mr. LaFitte.”

Lafitte looked back at the paintings, then over at Magdalene again. They shook hands. “Curious,” he said. “The suite’s intended representation, marriage—yet there’s nothing the least
loving
in these paintings. Don’t you think it curious?”

“Yes, curious,” Magdalene agreed, “that one can fear or despise what is also so deeply loved.”

LaFitte mentioned an enormous sum of money, and it was decided that auction would be held posthaste. Anonymity was guaranteed.

Regarding my personal collection of Revolutionary War memorabilia, Jess Jefferson was instructed to put everything on the block, save for one letter. It was a John Adams letter, written three days before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. In it, John Adams had predicted “a great expense of blood” to secure freedom. Lear Grayson had given it to me in 1917 as he’d boarded the train to go to war: a gift for my museum. I’d put it away in 1929, the year after Lear Grayson died, the dumb shit—dumb shit because he
could’ve
fixed things. He could’ve left Stella out of it. He could’ve made it right. Or more right. But, you see, here’s what else I’ve since discovered about life: there are no neat answers for much of it. And I do know about Lear’s torture. I know, because the mill house fire distorted so much that
I
remained tortured as well—so it worked for me that Magdalene understood our silence on the subject of who set the fire was less a lie than a tool to avoid the awful truth about her father and me.

Besides, Magdalene
already
knew so much, primarily because she’d been born with that innate awareness of the dark underbelly of life, which she didn’t deny. She skirted that darkness, drawn to the perverse,
and
equally repelled, but she was never a part of it, because for Magdalene it was simple: either her father had set the fire, or her sister had. Either way was hell. So what, I asked myself, would it have helped, knowing more about how and why her father died, or if I’d played a part in that, too?

I put the Samuel Adams letter in a safe deposit box. I meant to one day give it to another who chafed at the bonds of guilt.

I meant to give it to Elyse Grayson.

Auction was held in May, and an impressive amount of money changed hands, so much so that the event was written up in papers and magazines across the country. Exactly what was required to flush Lothian out. And although I was not mentioned by name, Gordon LaFitte was, and so was Magdalene as Matthew’s model for the Angry Women—the mention of Magdalene I didn’t like as much.

I paid for two months of Jamie’s care in advance, hired a caretaker for Grayson House, bought a new Cadillac, and purchased and furnished an immense Airstream trailer. I turned the key to Washington’s Headquarters over to the Chadds Ford Historical Society and walked away from my old home and one-time museum without so much as a backward glance.

***

Jamie died the morning we were to leave.

Magdalene had just said, “When it happens it won’t be a surprise.” I was cradling her head in the crook of my arm, playing with her hair, a milky drape of silk that she let down at night. I loved holding her like this: my dream, my life, my history.

She asked, “You did it for me? Selling everything?” And then she turned away. As if she couldn’t believe she’d asked, as if she knew I’d lie, as if she couldn’t bear the lie
or
the truth. Still turned against me, she whispered, “I’ve always wanted to love you more, Aidan. Unreservedly. Do you know that? But there was so much … and I was afraid. You know why.”

“Look at me.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” I turned her to face me. “
You can
. Look, you’ve never been afraid of anything.” I kissed her tears; then fingers over her lips, kissed every part of her, burying myself in her, past and hope entwined.

“Tell me what happened,” she urged in a voice that broke. “Let me know you, Aidan. Let me
really
know you, too.”

It was a long moment before I answered.

“For us. That’s all I can say, Magdalene—and I know that’s all you’ve ever wanted me to say. Everything I’ve ever done, it’s been for us. For you and for me—and for Jamie. And now for Francis and the girls, too.”

ELYSE
1967

It was June, the end of the school year and the Santa Ana winds bore down on Pacific Gardens and sucked all the moisture from the ground, air, skin, hair, lips, everything. I felt shrunken, half dead, walking home from school—the last day. I turned onto Morningstar Street and faced a mirage: tall, in a gray suit, tie and vest, even in the searing heat.

“Aidan? I thought you’d be here last week.” The words felt wrung from me. “It’s mean here, Aidan. You don’t know …”

His arm went around me and even as he murmured comfort words, he pointed down the street. A slender silhouette stood beside a silver bullet parked outside my house. Closer, the bullet was a trailer nearly thirty feet long, hitched to a Cadillac, and the silhouette was Magdalene. Framed by sun, her pale hair radiated light onto her fine skin, and I ducked my head, self-conscious: she was breathtaking, luminous, more beautiful even than my mother. I slid from Aidan’s safe embrace into hers, this one smelling of jasmine, reminding me of those warm nights in Sacramento when Papa had opened up the whole house, in that time of music and comfort when contentment had been my birthright.

“Grandmother Magdalene.”

Her voice was soft, melodious. “Just Magdalene, dear … I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s … wordy, don’t you think? And look how you’ve grown—
and
you’ve been crying. Come in,” and I followed her, stepping up into the silver trailer. Eyes adjusting to the dim light, I saw Bean’s head at the far end of the trailer, bobbing up and down, excited. The rest of Bean was obscured by a curtain. And that was my second surprise: my tight-lipped sister was talking a mile a minute.

Bean turned, her eyes wide, alive. “Elyse, look!” She stood and tugged on something behind the curtain and her little hand produced one of the largest I’d ever seen, like a baseball glove. And then a long, humpbacked form emerged, white hair first, followed by narrow, sloping shoulders, and then, even in that faded light, a remarkably hideous face. The corners of the misshapen mouth softened, seeing me.