When he saw Pat, Cyril wagged his tail with pleasure and winked.
“Passing by,” said Angus Lordie. “I was taking Cyril for a stroll and I thought I might pop in and see what you have on the walls. Interesting stuff. That over there is a worth a quid or two, you know. You didn’t? Well, I think it’s a James Paterson.”
Matthew stood up and joined Angus Lordie in front of a large painting of a girl in a field. “Are you sure?” he said.
Angus Lordie smiled. “Absolutely. If I had the wall space I’d buy it myself.”
Matthew turned and glanced at Pat. “I thought it might be,”
he said.
“Well, it is,” said Angus Lordie. “He lived in Moniaive, I think. Or somewhere down . . .” He paused. He had seen the non-Peploe, which was stacked casually against the side of Matthew’s desk. “Well! Well! Look at that. Very intriguing!”
“Not a Peploe,” said Matthew, smiling. He was warming to Angus Lordie now, having disliked him when he first met him in the Cumberland Bar with Pat. The identification of the Paterson had cheered Matthew. He had no idea who James Paterson was, but he would soon find out. And Matthew was not sure where Moniaive was either, but he could look that up too.
“Oh, I can tell it’s not a Peploe,” said Angus Lordie, walking across the room to pick up the painting. “What interests me is the shape I can make out – very vaguely – underneath.”
“An umbrella,” Matthew said quickly. “Rather like the umbrellas that the French impressionists painted. You’ll know that one in Chicago, of course. The Art Institute. Wonderful place.”
Pat said nothing. It was good to see Matthew’s confidence growing. She looked at Cyril who was sitting near the door, his 318
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mouth half-open, the sun glinting off his gold tooth. Cyril was perfectly confident – quite at ease in the space he occupied, as every animal is, except us.
Angus Lordie held the painting at an angle to the light.
“Fascinating,” he said. “The painting on the top is rubbish, of course, but a deft application of paint-stripper might show something rather interesting. Would you like me to do it for you? We could do it in my studio.”
Matthew hesitated. “Well . . .”
“What a good idea!” exclaimed Pat. “Don’t you agree, Matthew?”
Matthew turned and looked at Pat, reproach in his eyes.
He did not like people making decisions for him, but this is what they inevitably did. One day I’m going to say no, he thought. I’m going to become myself. But then he said: “I suppose so. Yes, I suppose it would be good to see what’s underneath.”
“What about this evening?” said Angus Lordie. “You two come round to the studio. And bring Domenica. We’ll make a party of it.”
The time was agreed, and Angus Lordie, with Cyril at his side, set off up the road. As he walked, he thought of the painting. It was really very exciting. He had his ideas, of course, as to what lay underneath, and if he were proved right, then that would have major implications for Matthew. And it would be nice, too, to be credited with the discovery, just as Sir Timothy Clifford had got a lot of credit when he discovered a da Vinci drawing under a sofa in the New Club. (That had made the papers!) There would be mention of his own discovery in the newspapers and perhaps a photograph of himself and Cyril. He would be modest, of course, and would downplay the significance of what he had done. Anybody could have seen it, he might say. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
“But it required your expert hand to reveal the secret!” the reporter would say. And he would smile, and say, self-effacingly:
“Yes, perhaps it did. Perhaps it did.”
109. A Most Remarkable and Important Discovery
“Angus is an extremely good host,” Domenica had said, and she was right. He welcomed his guests with a tray of devils on horseback and small oat-cakes on which thick-cut slices of smoked salmon had been balanced. Then there were crackers with boiled egg, ersatz caviar, and small circles of mayonnaise.
All of this was provided in generous quantities.
His flat, which occupied the top two floors of a Drummond Place stair, was built with a generosity which escapes modern builders; the ceilings soared up to fifteen feet, the dark pine wainscoting reached waist-level, and the floor boards were a good twelve inches wide. And everywhere on the walls there were paintings and hangings – portraits, landscapes, figurative studies. A Cadell picture of a man in a top hat, raffish as the proprietor, smiled down above the fireplace in the drawing room. A large Philipson, crowded with cathedrals and ladies, occupied the expanse of wall to its side, and a magnificent Cowie, schoolgirls in a painter’s loft, hung beside that.
And then there were the bookshelves, which filled the hall and the dining room; towering constructions with books stacked two and three deep. Domenica, drink in hand, stopped beside one of these and exclaimed with delight as she drew out a volume.
“Ruthven Todd!” she said. “Nobody reads him these days, and they should. Look at this. Acreage of the Heart, published by William McLellan. The Poetry Scotland series.”
Angus Lordie came to her side, licking mayonnaise off his fingers.
“That contains a very fine poem, Domenica,” he said. “Personal History. Do you know it?”
Domenica turned a page. “I was born in this city,” Domenica began to read aloud. “Where dry minds . . . ”
“Grow crusts of hate/ Like rocks grow lichen”, Angus Lordie took it up. “Such powerful, powerful lines.”
Pat looked puzzled. “Why did he write that?”
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“Because it’s true,” said Angus Lordie. “Or, at least it used to be true. Todd was born into haut-bourgeois Edinburgh, which used to be just like that. Brittle. Exclusive. Turned in on itself.
And immensely snobbish.”
“And still is a bit like that,” said Domenica quietly. “In its worst moments.”
“But much better than it used to be,” Angus Lordie countered.
“You very rarely see those real, cold Edinburgh attitudes these days. The arrogance of those people is broken. They just can’t get away with it. That horrid disapproval of anything that moves
– that’s gone.”
Domenica did not appear to be completely convinced. “I’m not sure,” she said. “What makes Edinburgh different from other cities in these islands? It is different, you know. I think that there is still a certain hauteur, a certain intellectual crustiness. It’s not nearly as marked as it was in Todd’s day, but . . .”
Angus Lordie smiled. “But Domenica rather likes all that,”
he suggested mischievously. “She’s a bit of a Jean Brodie, you see.”
Pat looked at Domenica, wondering whether she would take offence. Hadn’t Jean Brodie been a fascist? Wasn’t that the whole point about Spain and the betrayal and all the rest? Matthew simply looked confused. What was this man talking about? And where was that peculiar dog of his?
They were all standing in the drawing room overlooking the Drummond Place Gardens. It was about nine o’clock, and the sky was still light. The branches of the trees moved gently against the sky and the stone of the buildings opposite, for there was a slight breeze. Pat sipped at the drink that Angus Lordie had given her – a gin and tonic flavoured with lime; she was happy to be here, with these people, with Matthew, whom she liked more and more for his gentleness; with Angus Lordie, who amused her and seemed so grateful for her company, and who was not a threat to anyone; and with Domenica, whom she admired. What a difference, she thought, between this company, interesting and sympathetic, and the company of Bruce and his friends in the Cumberland Bar. What a profound mistake to fall in love with A Most Remarkable and Important Discovery 321