The Fraud (31 page)

In short: a wild success. More and more people attended, the newspapers thundered disapprovingly: ARE THE STANDARDS OF ART FINALLY TO BE SET BY THE MAN IN THE STREET? But the Exhibition was adjudged the most successful showing of British Art ever held: comparisons were made with the
Salon Carré
in the Louvre Palace in Paris, over six hundred thousand people entered the new porticos on the Strand.

 

And a letter was delivered next day to Signorina Francesca di Vecellio in the house in Pall Mall. She glanced at the handwriting, placed it in her pocket and went on about her business. Late that night, finally, in her sewing-room, she slowly undid the seal.

The art dealer James Burke visited the house in Pall Mall some time after the opening at Somerset House. He enquired after the Signora Angelica: she was not able to see anybody. He asked to see Signore Filipo di Vecellio. They spoke in the artist’s studio where James Burke had once been the most frequent visitor, there where the small Rembrandt portrait hung and the other old paintings that the
signore
had acquired.

There was a great coldness between the portraitist and the art dealer: who would have thought they had once been such friends? Filipo di Vecellio held hard feelings: the fat Mr Minnow was in no way as energetic, or powerful, as James Burke. But business was, after all, business: Filipo di Vecellio was known to be a collector. On his long tour of Europe the Art Dealer had seen many collections of old art, many Old Masters, a few for sale, and had quickly understood that the prices were rising every month: there was now very much money to be made buying and selling, and James Burke had news for the Italian. James Burke had heard that an old and well-known Dutch collector was very ill in Amsterdam; it was said only King George had a better collection of Old Masters in the whole of Europe. The family were flocking round like vultures: there would be a sale, an auction to be sure, when the Dutchman died. The two heads did not bend close together as once they had, the friendship could not re-ignite, but they had shared so much of the past that there were things to speak of as is the way with broken friendships; finally Filipo confided that his wife was ill, that he longed for, hoped for, her to be well again.

Then rather stiffly Filipo di Vecellio invited James Burke, as he once had so often, to stay for dinner. John Palmer and Miss Ffoulks were greatly delighted to see the banished old friend but the presence of the beautiful Angelica was much missed, like a bright light gone. There were other visitors: Dr Charles Burney was there, whose daughter Fanny had published a daring
novel
, almost unheard of in a woman; and Mr Thomas Towers, a writer of biographies of famous men, a rotund gentleman wearing, oddly, more than one waistcoat. The painter’s sister was there as always: her dark gown and her quiet presence, her hair almost hidden under her neat white cap, and the
chatelaine
dangling at her waist; as always she supervised the servants, made sure the food and drink was plentiful; did not seem to particularly engage, or not engage, in the various conversations with any of the guests, including Mr James Burke, art dealer.

Later front doors banged: the gentlemen were gone no doubt for a stroll through St James’s Park in the last of the evening sun, and a visit to a club or one of the coffee houses.

Or not.

There was a tap on the door of the sewing-room of the sister. James Burke, art dealer, stood in the dark hallway at the top of the house.

‘You had paint on your right hand all through dinner,’ he said, and for a split second he smiled oddly at her, and then the smile was gone and the grey eyes stared in the piercing manner.

She did not speak.

‘May I see what you have been doing?’

He believed implicitly that she would allow him, no matter what had happened between them, for he was the only person who knew her secret. Secrets.

But.

There was too much now that was not shared also: there were other secrets. He had been to Europe with his wife and she had been to Bedlam: the heaviness of the past stood between them like an impenetrable forest.

At last, almost reluctantly, she stood aside and he went into the sewing-room.

On the easel was a finished painting of a woman standing by a window. There was a mirror behind her on the wall. The woman was reading a letter; you could not see her whole face, but by the fall of her neck and shoulders and something else - the atmosphere evoked by the light and dark painting - it was clear that the letter had broken her heart. Never for a moment did Grace take her eyes off his face: something like real shock, something like pain, or regret, then he was in control. He saw the way the light was caught in the mirror, fell past it then on to the woman’s gown, shadowy yet rich with reds and yellows and browns. He stared at the shadows and the bright, dark figure.

When he spoke his voice was expressionless. ‘You still paint yourself, Grace.’

She flared at him. ‘I do not! That is a young woman. I am no longer young.’

He answered her calmly. ‘Perhaps other people would not see it, but I would always know that face is your face.’ He put up his hand, not allowing her to speak. ‘I will pay you eight - no, ten - guineas for this if you will allow me to purchase it now.’

She felt a blush of surprise on her face: looked at him in disbelief: it was almost as if he had struck her. This was what many real painters earned for a small portrait; it was much more than John Palmer ever earned. There was silence in the room that smelled of paint and oil and fumes from the cigars and port which had wafted up from downstairs.

James Burke looked again at the painting on the easel: the shadowy beauty and the sadness. ‘Listen, Grace.’ The only person in the world, except Poppy, who called her by her real name. ‘I want you to be guided by me.’

She looked away quickly. ‘Guided by you,’ she said woodenly but there was something dangerous in her low, low voice.

‘Let me see your other Paintings.’

She pointed to the picture of the woman in the Park where it hung on the wall.

‘That is Poppy.’ He threw a quick glance at her - he remembered very well who Poppy was - and then studied the picture but this picture was not of a girl but of an older woman:
Did she still see Poppy?
While he was looking upwards she turned the painting of the black man to the wall and left it there: that was not for him to see. Instead, she turned, one by one, the Portraits of her family to face the light. ‘That is my Father. That is my sister, Venus.’ She saw how he struggled to retain his blank face, for he knew something of these persons. ‘That is Tobias, I think of him as a Pirate.’

‘The red rose.’

‘I know. It is soft-hearted and wrong, it perhaps spoils the Portrait, but you will see that I have shadowed the rose almost to darkness, so that it does not take the attention if you do not know the story. Rembrandt himself did paint a flower, in Philip’s painting. I meant not to put it in but - I could not help it.’

In an extraordinary gesture he put his face into his hands as if he needed to contain himself. And then he turned from the paintings to face her and said quickly, ‘Grace, what difference would one hundred guineas mean to you?’

‘
One hundred guineas
?’

‘More - for a painting if, as I say, you will allow yourself to be guided by me.’

She looked at him in disbelief. Was he insane? Again a silence. Then she said, ‘Even Sir Joshua cannot earn that for a Portrait; a full-body perhaps but not for a Portrait. Philip has never earned anything like that much for a Painting, you know that.’

‘You are a far, far better Painter than your brother. You know that. But you must take your own face entirely out of your Painting.’ She could not speak.

He pointed to the small sofa where once they had sat so often.

‘Sit down,’ he said.

‘Grace,’ he said.

Listen
.

 

—and it took enormous control not to hit James Burke:
sit down
, he said to me politely in my own room, it was almost unimaginable , after what this room had seen.

But he had shocked me into frozen silence: he knew very well what a hundred guineas would mean to me.

We had not been alone together since he walked away from my room on the autumn night and thrust twenty pounds into the hands of a woman in the basement in Meard-street, off Covent Garden, beside where the street-girls plied their trade. Unspoken, immovable , that pain lay between us like a mist.

‘Grace.’ And I saw the enormous effort he was making to clear the unspoken away so that we could proceed with business. ‘Grace. We must forget the past, if we are to proceed with the future.’

Something dangerous in my face must have made him pause but only for a moment. ‘I am sorry about the past, but the past is gone, nobody can go on and on living in the past. I know you became ill, you cannot think that I did not hear of that. But it is done - neither you nor I can change what happened.’ I said nothing. Again he made a tremendous effort. ‘Grace, I want to talk to you about something completely different. Please - sit down.’ Finally, silently, I sat.

He took a deep breath. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Much has changed in the Art World since you and I - spoke of these things. Many matters are different. There is more money in London than ever. I believe that I can, now, make your Fortune.’

‘And how would that be arranged?’ Even I could hear my dry, wry tone.

‘You must trust me.’

I did not even speak to that.

‘You are now so - so at the height of your Powers you could do anything,’ and again he looked at the Paintings: at my Family, at Poppy, at the young woman reading the letter. ‘Your paintings are dazzling, Grace, truly,’ and I understood he was not trying to flatter me, he spoke his thoughts and I felt my own hope and my own belief fluttering there, breathing in his words, there where my heart was - though I was at pains to let him know nothing of my thoughts or feelings. ‘I wished so much you could have seen what I saw in Europe,’ - he was on dangerous ground but he went on, ‘You are a much better Painter than many of the Artists I know have ever been. I do not think you know how good you have become.’

‘I do know,’ I said quietly. He looked at me then and saw that I spoke my own truth. And then I laughed slightly. ‘And so, James, I would like to be appreciated and recognised before I die of Old Age! If I am as good a Painter now as you say I am’ - I heard that I spoke even more in that dry, droll manner - ‘I wish to become a Member of the Royal Academy, like my brother.’

He was taken very much by surprise I think, but he laughed also. ‘Grace, never mind Recognition and Appreciation just at this moment. I can obtain for you money, and that can give you the Freedom you have so craved.’

‘You wish to continue to sell for me, under the name of a man?’ He did not know I would not accept that now: I had travelled too far, I wanted my paintings to be signed GRACE MARSHALL.

‘I do wish you to sell under the name of a man,’ he said - and he put up his hand before I could speak. ‘But another name, not the one we used before. That is why you must take care not to paint your own face that you know so well. I want’ - I saw he hurried on before I could interrupt him in any way whatsoever - ‘I want to sell one under the name of . . .’ He leaned towards me, candlelight caught the face I had once so loved, his grey eyes gleamed. ‘I want to sell one - just
one
- under the name of Rembrandt van Rijn.’

He took no notice of the stunned look on my face. He went on quickly. ‘I know men who could so work upon a finished modern painting that its origins become unrecognisable.’

‘
Rembrandt van Rijn
?’ I could hardly say it.

Suddenly he sat on the sofa beside me, so near that I could have put out my hand and touched that face; I moved slightly. ‘Grace, there has always been Fraudulence in Art, always. We know as a certainty that Peter Paul Rubens had a workshop where he had many pupils and assistants, and we know that in some cases it is not possible to discern between what he actually painted and what he signed that had been more or less painted by others. Our own plan is not at all outside the realm of possibility - indeed William Hogarth himself was once involved in a fraudulent Rembrandt etching - we are just more ambitious! It is thought now that Rembrandt collaborated with other Painters, that he too very likely finished and signed works begun by his pupils - not to defraud perhaps, but simply to keep up with his orders when his Fame was at its height. You yourself began by assisting your Brother, you know very well his assistants now do a large part of his work. We take it further, that is all. Should we not succeed at our highest Goal we will at least imply the Painting is from the
time
of Rembrandt, from the
school
of Rembrandt.’ I stared at James as he spoke on and on, his voice and his face were tense and heightened and audacious.

‘In France I know of a Painter who worked as if in a factory: he employed badly paid workers to do the skies, more badly-paid workers to do not only the sleeves but the cheeks, the clothes, the hair - his Art passed through an army of workers before it was signed! A Painting is often
nearly
a Fraud!’ He hardly stopped for breath and then he went on; he spoke of paints, boards, oils, colours: all these things I could have unstintingly. And I thought of Philip, and John Palmer, and the painters who painted yards of sky.

I listened to James Burke talk on and on without speaking myself; he was so near to me as he outlined his plan that I could feel his breath on my cheek; I looked down at my hands so as not to have to be so close to the grey, grey eyes.