The Golden Calves (25 page)

"Really? I don't agree with them at all. You just mentioned Cortez. Can anyone deny the role that Spain, inquisitors as well as conquistadors, played in this continent?”

“But El Greco, they say, had nothing to do with all that. Of course, maybe he had nothing to do with the painting, either. Maybe it was done by some nineteenth-century Spanish artist.”

"You mean it's a fake? Oh, Mr. Hewlett! Your masterpiece?"

“Stranger things have happened to collectors. But however interesting this subject is, I don't suppose it's what you came to discuss with me.”

“In a way it may be. A friend of mine, I'm sorry to say, has done a very cruel thing. He thought he was justified, but there could be no justification. Any more than there was justification for
that.
" She pointed to the canvas. “I mean the burnings.”

He looked at the painting as if considering this for the first time. “And was this cruel thing done to someone at the museum?"

She took in the twinkling condescension of his kindness. He was not taking her seriously. “To several persons, Mr. Hewlett. Including yourself.”

“Me!”

“It was Carol Sweeters who told the Revenue people about the appraisals. He knew that you and Mr. Claverack would assume that Mark Addams had done it, and he wanted to get Mark into trouble. He has always hated Mark.”

But Hewlett seemed abruptly indifferent to the motive. He actually clapped his hands.

“But this is wonderful news, Miss Vogel! You are quite right that the cruelty of the act redounded upon myself. For I make no secret of the fact that Mark and my daughter have been the closest friends. Perhaps you knew that?”

“It was she who suspected Carol.”

"Indeed! Well, you can imagine how painful it was for me to think that Mark was undermining the institution of which he was director."

She turned to the door. "And now that that's been cleared up, I can go back to work.”

Hewlett at this seemed to take in that there might be repercussions in the matter even for one so lowly. "You're very kind to have come to tell me. Won't you stay and have a cup of tea or a drink? I can make it all right at the museum, if that's what you're worried about.”

"No, thank you. I think I'd better go.”

"But, my dear Miss Vogel, may this not have been distressing to you as well? You mentioned that Dr. Sweeters was a friend.”

"Yes, and of course it's distressing when a friend behaves like that. And painful to have to tell on him. But I couldn't stand by and see Mark hurt.”

"You saw that it
would
hurt him?”

“How could it not?”

“Mightn't a board of enlightened trustees take the attitude that he had simply done his duty as a citizen?"

"Would
you
think that, Mr. Hewlett?"

He sighed. “No, trustees are only human, and nobody likes a snitcher. But that gets me to my point. When I inform them, as I fear I must, of what you have just told me, will your friend Sweeters not be in just the hole that you have so generously pulled Mark out of?"

"But that will be his fault.”

“I understand he has been offered an excellent position in California. Would he not be well advised to accept it?”

“Perhaps he will. When I tell him what I've done.”

“Ah, you'll do that?”

"Do I have a choice?"

"You're a brave girl. But did I not hear that they want you, too?”

“Yes, but I wouldn't leave the museum so long as I could be of any help with the Speddon collection.”

He smiled foxily. “You mean, so long as you're needed as a watchdog? Oh, even trustees know something of what goes on, Miss Vogel. But supposing I were to give you my word, as the new chairman of the board, that you will be kept informed of any proposed change in the disposition of Miss Speddon's things?”

She suddenly recalled her feeling at a children's party in Rye, given by her mother for her half-sister, when a smiling, insinuating, hand-fluttering gypsy of a trickman had somehow emptied her pockets without her feeling a thing and held up her miserable belongings to the laughing company; Were the Hewletts going to rob her of all her prejudices?

“Why would you undertake to do that?”

"Because I think we owe it to you. And because—let me be bold—I dare to speculate that you and Carol Sweeters, away from all this, may forget all about it.”

“And live happily ever after?”

"That, my dear lady, is surely your affair and not mine.”

His tone was a bit dryer; clearly, he was accustomed to having his big heart more readily appreciated. Well, what did she really have to gain from that turbid, windy organ?

"Let me ask you one thing, sir. Will Mr. Claverack be returning to the board?"

"A good question. The answer is no. Mr. Claverack is entering into a settlement with Uncle Sam, pursuant to which some heavy fines will be paid. And that will be the end of the matter. But the stipulations contain admissions on his part that will make it impossible, in my opinion, for the board to take him back."

"Thank you, Mr. Hewlett.” There was no avoiding now what she had to say at the end. “And, really, you have been most kind.”

 

It was her turn now to stand in the doorway. Carol did not look up from the paper he was pretending to read. But he obviously knew she was there.

"Can I help you, Miss Vogel?"

"I want to talk about the L.A. job. I thought I might take it, after all.”

It was rare for Carol to let his expression admit surprise, but looking up now, he did so. “You mean you wouldn't mind working with a cat slaughterer?”

"Not if he promised never to do it again.”

He rose. "What are you trying to tell me, Anita?”

"That we're in the same boat now.”

"Going where?”

"To California. An hour ago you were in the position of having used confidential information to damage a friend of mine. Now things have changed. I'm just as guilty as you. I have told Mr.

Hewlett what you did. I have restored Mark to his good graces and sent you to Coventry.”

His face was like a field of battle before the first assault. He seemed to be waiting, prepared either for the bugle call of charge or the fluttering flag of truce.

"And you did that because Addams was such a dear friend?"

“I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“And not just for him?”

“I'd have done it for anyone. I'd have done it for you, had things been the other way round."

“And how do you feel about the man who put you in the position of having to do it?”

“I've told you. We're in the same boat now. I feel about you exactly the way I feel about myself.”

“Do you love yourself?”

“No.”

“Not much!”

“I don't, Carol.”

"Then you don't love me.”

“Does that have to follow?”

"Then you
do
love me.”

“Really, is this the place to discuss that? Can't you take me out to dinner tonight?”

“I suppose you've always loved me, really,” he mused. ‘I've been an ass not to have seen it. Or did I really see it all along? But yes, I'll take you out to dinner. Only tell me one thing. Don't you really think the less of me for what I did?”

“If it had been for the museum, as you said, I might have. But I think I liked your doing it out of jealousy.”

He threw up his hands. “How remorselessly trivial can a woman be?”

She smiled as he stalked past her and out of his office. He was already counting the disadvantages of his new position, wondering if even a happy marriage would be worth her irrational sentimentality or the mother-in-law she would bring him. But then they would be starting a new life in California, far from all his and her old connections. It would probably be at least a year before he decided that he had left behind a better life in a better world. She shrugged, accepting now the prospect of his eternal discontent. It was the way he was.

P
ETER
could never afterwards forget that the worst blow of his lifetime had come at the very moment he had thought his happiest. Augusta no doubt would have seen this as proof that he had never endured serious agony. But, then, Augusta had little sympathy for suffering that she deemed brought on by the sufferer.

It was at a dinner at the Oise, with Julia and Mark, to celebrate the reconciliation that had followed the revelations of Miss Vogel.

“Mark has something to tell you, Dad.”

“I rather hoped you
both
had something to tell me.

"It's not what you think. That can wait.”

"Not too long, I trust.” He leaned over to wink at her. "At your age, my love, it's time for a girl to be thinking of her posterity.”

"Really, Dad. I'm not an old woman yet.”

"Of course not. But it's still time to get cracking.”

"Mark has something to tell you about your new gallery. It's a decision that he and I have discussed and of which, I warn you, I highly approve.”

Peter beamed at his prospective son-in-law. ‘Tell me, dear boy, what's on your mind.” But he had his first premonition of disaster in the way that Mark straightened his features.

“Well, I guess you know, Peter, that I've had serious doubts from the beginning about your plan of juxtaposing European and American paintings in a museum devoted to one continent. Even as a means of demonstrating your theory of influences.”

Peter, with death in his heart, swallowed hard. "Doubts? We all have doubts. There are few certainties in this vale of tears."

“I guess they're more than doubts, then. I don't deny that you have some fascinating and provocative theories. But in my opinion they're too speculative, too fanciful, if you will, to be so solidly implemented by a history museum."

"Which means?”

"Which means that I can't see my way to having a major part of our space dedicated to a project that is, first, only semi-related to North America, and secondly, of questionable validity."

"You can't see
your
way, you say? Why is your way suddenly so important?”

"Well, I
am
the director.”

"Has the board not approved it?”

“Not officially, no. Of course, if you insist, I shall submit it to them. But at the same time I shall present my own arguments against it. That is what I had been hoping to avoid."

"Do you think for a moment, Mr. Addams—”

"Oh, Daddy, is it Mr. Addams now?”

"It certainly is. Do you think for a moment, sir, that the board would turn down the fabulous gift of my European paintings for
any
conditions that I might impose? From my knowledge of my co-fiduciaries, which is quite as good, I dare to presume, as yours, I should not deem them such killers of golden geese.”

"If they should vote to accept your proposal, I should then put it to them that we ought to incorporate a separate museum: the Peter Hewlett Gallery of European Art."

"And if the board rejects that idea? If they agree to go ahead with my gallery and collection as planned?”

"Then I have no alternative but to resign."

"My God, man, are you mad?” Peter slapped his hand on the table so that the glasses tinkled. “Would you risk my giving my treasures to other institutions? What the hell sort of a director does that make you?”

"Daddy, let me introduce a note of calm. I think we could do with one. Mark has learned a lot of things since he came to the museum, and he's learned the hard way. He may have started out as the kind of young director you like to visualize: competitive, eager, even a bit tricky. Everything for my team, and to hell with the others. Like any hard-boiled corporate type. But now he has come to see—and he has made
me
see, too—the cultured world as a whole. And he and I both agree that it would be a better thing if your pictures were spread over the country rather than cooped up in one institution. And that, not even the appropriate one. And under an artificial common denominator, to boot.”

“Which daughter of mine is speaking? Goneril or Regan?”

"Oh, Daddy. Must you be melodramatic?"

"Of course, we'd be happy to take the American pictures,” Mark put in cautiously. “And place all of them in your special gallery.”

“You'll take them my way or not at all!”

"Daddy, please don't have a temper tantrum.”

“I'm not having a temper tantrum, Julia. I'm much too concerned for that. And I'm going home right now. You are welcome to finish your meal. Please order anything you want. I'll tell Pierre to put it all on my bill, including the tip. Good night. I hope you have a charming evening discussing what an old idiot and philistine I am.”

"Daddy!”

“If you'll just hear me out, Mr. Hewlett—”

“Good night!”

He found the apartment dark, with lights on only in the hall and the corridor leading to his bedroom. Augusta had retired. He went to the gallery and switched on the bulbs over each of the pictures so that they shone brilliantly and independently in the murky void. He walked slowly down the long chamber, pausing with an aching heart before every frame. Had ever a mam been so treated by those he loved? Was the world worthy of his treasures? Stopping before the El Greco, he wondered whether it would not be a fitting end for him and his collection to expire like Sardanapalus in the conflagration of a giant funeral pyre.

"What happened tonight, Peter?”

Silhouetted in the hall light at the end of the gallery was the robed figure of Augusta.

“Addams doesn't want my things!" he cried out in a burst of agony. "He doesn't want my gallery. And Julia's put him up to it!”

"Oh, my poor darling.” She came swiftly down the room and put her arms around him, pressing her head against his chest. “I thought this was coming. Never mind. There Eire lots of other things you can do with your paintings. Better things, too.”