The Fraud (33 page)

The most beautiful woman in London had all but been forgot as she wasted away in the room without mirrors. All the fashion and the gossip and the
soirees
and the
convesatziones
and the promenades and the balls, all the beautiful gowns and the gorgeous potions: all these blossomed elsewhere now, and new young adventurers were now named the most beautiful women in London as the black corsage with its elegant horses made its way to St James’s Church at Piccadilly.

But Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mr Thomas Gainsborough and many other Academicians had attended the funeral of the beautiful woman: a sign of respect for a fellow Academician. They had all, all of them, gone out of their way to be cordial to Signore di Vecellio since his house had been daubed with the word PAPIST: they stood by their colleague in shame at their countrymen. Now they were all at St James’s Church with solemn visage. Mr John Palmer came to the funeral in his shabby clothes and Miss Ann Ffoulks was there of course in a black bonnet with flowing ribbons, and Mr Hartley Pond (who carried a black snuff-box) and James Burke.

After the sad goodbye some of the Academicians and some of the close friends came once more to the house in Pall Mall that many of them knew so well and had such happy memories of; they drank tea with Filipo di Vecellio (and then whisky when Miss Ffoulks had departed, Mr Burke escorting her) and when the condolences had been repeated the artists all spoke of the forthcoming Summer Exhibition, the second one to be held at the Royal Academy’s new premises at Somerset House. They hoped for the same public excitement, and the same financial success.

‘You will exhibit again of course, Filipo,’ said the Academicians kindly (for all knew the Italian’s portraits were not now given the respect they once had). Then, as they repaired upstairs to the comfort of the drawing-room, Sir Joshua Reynolds saw the old painting of Angelica, where it hung on the stairs: the extraordinary portrait when, through love, the painter had transcended his skill. The President of the Royal Academy stared at the painting for a long, long time, pausing there on the bend in the staircase, his face expressionless.

And then he turned to Filipo di Vecellio. ‘I remember seeing this many years ago. But you have never exhibited it.’

‘No,’ said Filipo di Vecellio, and they saw he could not look at the painting, just then.

‘This one, Filipo,’ said Sir Joshua Reynolds. ‘No matter its age. It would be a fitting Memorial, and a Tribute to your Skills. It must hang on the line in the Great Room.’ It was a gracious gesture, that night of the funeral, and Filipo di Vecellio bowed graciously in return, his great pain still not letting him look at his masterpiece.

The artists drank more whisky, became more expansive, all shouting into Sir Joshua’s ear trumpet as the host’s sister lit the lamps and shadows fell across the polished wooden floors. John Palmer, not an Academician, stared into his whisky and was silent. Filipo di Vecellio spoke of taking his son, Claudio, to the now-advertised auction of Old Masters in Amsterdam that James Burke had alerted him to.

‘For the moment we will begin with Amsterdam,’ he explained, ‘and then one day when he is a little older he and I shall make the Grand Tour and he shall see our Italian Heritage.’ And John Palmer nodded expressionlessly into his whisky, and for a moment the assembled artists nodded and sighed and remembered their own Grand Tours, and Time - so present that sad day - gently brushed the air.

‘Absolutely essential Training for every young Artist,’ said Sir Joshua. ‘To see the frescoes of Michelangelo is to have seen the greatest Art the World has ever known.’

‘I would like my Studies to be over,’ said Claudio importantly, ‘so that I can commence my work as a Painter in earnest.’ (He did not see how the older men smiled into their glasses at his ignorance and his pomposity.)

‘Young man,’ said Sir Joshua dryly, ‘our Studies will be for ever, in a very great degree, under the direction of Chance: like travellers we must take what we can get, and when we can get it, whether it is, or is not, administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it.’ And the Signorina Francesca di Vecellio smiled to herself slightly, and Claudio bowed his head, gently rebuked. (All in black, all of them in black, Sir Joshua with his ear trumpet, the daughter Isabella’s dark head, the stricken face of the bereaved husband, as the evening fell dark outside and the sister of the artist drew the curtains and the shutters, and the yellow flame of the candlelight flickered and the famous artists of the day became shadows in the sad room.)

‘You will buy to sell?’ asked Sir Joshua, himself a collector.

‘I will buy,’ said Filipo di Vecellio, his drawn face lightening a little at the thought. ‘And sell,’ - knowing it would keep the others interested: those who made money from painting portraits elevated themselves by investing in Old Art. He knew very well Sir Joshua had recently spent a great deal of money in Europe. The conversation turned to assuring themselves
they
would not be cheated by fakes that abounded in foreigners’ markets. They remarked on the sale of Rembrandt’s
Adoration of the Kings
for the extraordinary sum of three hundred and ninety guineas - and that was at least three years ago! To what heights might these Old Masters go? John Palmer who painted poor people in Spitalfields drank more whisky, did not speak.

‘And then one day my son shall have a Grand Tour,’ said Filipo di Vecellio again, ‘before he becomes a Painter, like his Father.’

 

—and quite suddenly there in the room as I collected the teacups I saw Philip’s ship pulling away from the Bristol quay, and me on the shore aged ten, as the morning lightened and Philip gone from me on his Artistic Education, and I left to mine.

Later that bleak night of the Funeral I sat in my room with my last painting of Angelica.—Her workroom with all its bright fragrance and colour had long been empty and tonight Roberto sat with me, mourning, his head down; sometimes in his unhappiness he pecked at his own feathers, pulled them. They fell about the room like white drifting tears.

Angelica.

She had given me Freedom, by putting me in charge of the household money, and she had imprisoned me by giving me the children.—From my window I could see down over the King’s Garden into St James’s Park; there were no shining stars at all that night, how dark London could be when the day had gone, just the odd faint moving light as someone was guided, by one of the link-boys perhaps, along the dark paths. I had stayed with Isabella till she fell asleep that night, tears still on her cheeks, she was not so much older than I was when I first came to London.

I stroked her arm, for comfort, over and over as she wept. ‘You and I shall travel to Amsterdam also,’ I said to Isabella. ‘I have a plan.’

The second Exhibition at the Royal Academy in Somerset House opened with almost as much excitement as the first: fig leaves, however, had been judiciously applied upon any appurtenances or protuberances deemed offensive.

The spiral staircase was again full of pushing, perspiring people as entrance to the Grand Room (via the naked sculptures on the first floor) was attained for, and it was well-known now that a view of a nicely turned ankle (and perhaps more) could be obtained while loitering by the plaster copy of the famous Apollo Belvedere in the vestibule and looking, directly, upwards.

People gossiped loudly. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President of the Academy, again had the most portraits exhibited in the Grand Gallery - fifteen. But of as much interest were the two large History paintings, also in the Grand Gallery,
both
entitled
The Death of Dido
,
both
! One was by Sir Joshua Reynolds himself and the other by a
foreigner
, a new younger artist named Henry Fuseli who (it was whispered) had begged to see Sir Joshua’s work in progress - and then had had the impertinence to go home and paint the same subject. Some said the foreigner’s painting was better, and malicious laughter drifted. It was also noted that this year the royal portraits were by Mr Thomas Gainsborough whom (the whispers continued) their Majesties preferred.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, President, moved in state through the crowds, and if he did not always hold his trumpet to his ear who could blame him?

Signore Filipo di Vecellio attended the Exhibition with his two children and his sister; they were all dressed in mourning black and made a fetching picture as they stood in the Grand Room for some moments beneath the painting of the beautiful, deceased Signora Angelica di Vecellio, which was hung, most exquisitely, ‘on the line’. It was titled, simply,
Portrait of a Lady
. Angelica smiled gently down, like an angel.

Later Isabella di Vecellio was seen in animated conversation with the exquisitely coiffeured young gentleman she had paid so much attention to at last year’s Exhibition and she blushed prettily as they spoke together.

There was another
scandale
in the pushing crowds of this exhibition, only this year it was of a sodomitic nature (duels and the law and hurried flights to France), and the newspapers thundered about the unsuitable Proximity of Bodies in the Royal Academy.

In short: another grand success.

Soon after, the di Vecellio family left for Amsterdam.

 

The Signorina Isabella di Vecellio had, to everybody’s surprise, absolutely
insisted
on coming on the journey to Amsterdam with her father and her brother: she would not be dissuaded, cried and wept and sulked when told it was a journey more for gentlemen.

The older
signorina
, that is Signorina Francesca, busied herself about the house, did not offer an opinion. Finally Filipo di Vecellio sighed.

‘Well well, very well, Isabella. You will have to come also, Francesca. Isabella cannot possibly travel abroad without a Chaperone.’ And his daughter kissed him lovingly, and he went off to his studio, half-mollified; he did not see the gleam in his sister’s eye as she instructed the servants about the day’s requirements.

In fact all the reasons for this journey were perhaps more complicated than first understood. Filipo di Vecellio fervently wanted to buy Old Masters for his growing collection, certainly, but he had also discovered that his son Claudio had got himself caught up in bad company and was following the illegal cock-fighting, and gambling all over London, and was badly into debt. Claudio di Vecellio owed more money to the cock-fighting men than his father understood: thought only to get away from London. Isabella di Vecellio had been led to believe by her aunt that a short trip abroad would make her a most interesting young lady and Isabella required to be interesting to one young gentleman in particular.

Just as they were leaving the house in Pall Mall, a letter arrived for the older
signorina
but such was the activity involved in all the piling of luggage into the carriage, such was the last minute seagull-like swooping and diving into the house by Isabella as she thought of another necklet or shoe, that nobody observed Francesca di Vecellio put the letter unopened in the pocket of her cloak.

 

Perhaps the hearts - even the unconscious hearts - of those aging siblings, Philip and Grace Marshall, might have recognised something they were familiar with when they arrived at last in Amsterdam: something like the city of their youth, Bristol. Trade bustled along the canals; rich, important merchants bargained and called; the trading ships travelled perhaps to the East Indies not to the West Indies but the business was the same: spices and silks and sugar and slavery and steel. Tall narrow houses belonging to merchants rose from the canal sides. Ropes coiled and rats scurried alongside ships and barges and there was talk of black tulips and gold and the air of merchanting kicked and shuffled at their memories as they walked beside the canals and through flowers and crowds to the Dam Square. Isabella observed in dismay that the women of Amsterdam looked lumpy and respectable; Claudio looked hopefully round thin corners of cobbled alleys for young men and fights and excitement.

The sun shone brightly, the canal waters sparkled and all the bridges were full of bustling life and bright, bright flowers. They had settled into a fine
stadspaleis
on the
Herengracht
; huge windows looked out over shining water, boats sailed past, people called and hurried and there was the smell of bread, and sausage. Filipo di Vecellio was in his element: he had met some of the art merchants and rich collectors in London. He had an invitation for his family to view, in the fine Town Hall, a famous Rembrandt painting of some of the burghers of Amsterdam who in the olden days had served part-time as the city’s military guards: a painting vulgarly known as
The Night Watch
but known, by those who knew these things and understood painting, to be painted through rays of sunlight. Then they were to go at two o’clock - here Filipo di Vecellio could hardly contain himself - to the Auction of Old Masters: the sale at last of the paintings of the recently deceased merchant, which were rumoured to include a Rubens, a Titian and several by Rembrandt van Rijn.

First they were ushered up staircases and into the Town Hall of Amsterdam.

The small family stood, dutifully in some cases, before the famous painting styled
The Night Watch
. Isabella yawned politely behind her hand: a scene of soldiers. Claudio ignored the faces: nevertheless found much interest in the swords and the lances and the muskets, and a drum being played in a corner. Their aunt stared at a small girl, caught in light among the men in strange shadows, who was carrying a chicken. She observed the way the painter had used the light, how it fell across the dark painting, lighting the leader of the Militia, and the beautiful heavy shining embroidery on the clothes of some of the men. The face of Filipo di Vecellio was full of longing: perhaps to own this painting, perhaps to paint like this - who could know? Perhaps he thought suddenly of his wife Angelica. The family moved about the large painting, their footfalls were soft on rich, heavy, embroidered Eastern carpet, voices were quiet around them but shouts came in through the windows from the square below.