Edward Wardwell ran his hand through his tousled hair, making one side of it stick up like a Red Indian feather. ‘I’m sorry,' he said. 'I didn't mean to come on like that. It's just that it's really important for the Peabody to have the picture. It's a really important picture, you know, from the archive point of view.'
I almost felt sorry for him. But Jane had told me over and over that there is one immutable rule in the antiques business; a rule which must never be broken under any circumstances for whatever reason. Never sell anything out of pity. Otherwise, the only person you'll end up pitying is yourself.
'Listen,' I said, 'it may be possible for the Peabody to borrow the picture sometime. Perhaps I can make some arrangement with the Director.'
'Well, I don't know about that at all,' said Edward Wardwell. 'They really did want to own it, outright. Do you think I could take a look at it?'
'What?'
'Do you think I could take a look at it?'
I shrugged. 'If you want to. Come to my car; it's right over there on Riley Plaza.'
We crossed Margin Street, and then made our way through the parking-lot to my eight-year-old fawn-coloured Toronado. We climbed inside, and I switched on the dome light, so that we could see better. Wardwell closed the door and settled himself down as if he were about to join me on a twenty-mile trip. I almost expected him to fasten his seat-belt. As I opened up the painting's wrapper, he leaned close to me again, and again I could smell that cough-candy. His hands must have been damp with anticipation, because he wiped them on the legs of his corduroy pants.
At last I unwrapped the painting and propped it up on the steering-wheel. Edward Wardwell pressed so close to me as he stared at it that he hurt my shoulder. I could see right inside his left ear, convoluted and hairy.
'Well?' I asked him, at last. 'What do you say?'
'Fascinating,' he said. 'You can just see Wyman Wharf there, on the Granitehead side, and you see how small it is? Nothing but a higgledy-piggledy structure of wooden joists. Nothing as grand as Derby Wharf, on the Salem side. That was all warehouses and counting-houses and moorings for East Indiamen.'
'I see,' I told him, trying to sound disinterested and dismissive. But he leaned against me even harder as he stared at every minute detail.
That's Quaker Lane, coming up from the Village there; and that's where the Waterside Cemetery stands today, although in those days they called it The Walking Place, although nobody knows why. Did you know that Granitehead was called Resurrection, up until 1703? Presumably because the settlers felt that they had been resurrected from their lives in the Old World.'
'A couple of people have told me that,' I said, uncomfortably. 'Now, if you don't mind…'
Edward Wardwell leaned back. 'You're really sure you won't accept 300? That's what the Peabody gave me to spend on it. Three hundred, cash on the barrel, no questions asked. It's the best price you'll ever get.'
'You think so? I think I'll get a better one.'
'From whom? Who else is going to pay you $300 for a nondescript painting of Granitehead beach?'
'Nobody. But then I reckon that if Peabody is prepared to spend $300 on it, they might be prepared to up their offer and spend $400 on it; or even $500. It depends.'
'It depends? It depends on what?'
'I don't know,' I told him, wrapping the painting up again. 'The weather, the price of goose fat.'
Edward Wardwell twisted one strand of his beard around his finger. Then he said, 'Umh-humh. I get it. I see just where you're coming from. Well, that's okay. Let's say that it's okay. Nothing to get upset about. But I'll tell you what. I'll call you in a day or two, okay? Do you mind that? And maybe we can talk again. You know, think about the 300. Mull it over. Maybe you'll change your mind.'
I laid the painting on the back seat, and then reached and clasped Edward Wardwell's hand. 'Mr Orwell,' I told him, ‘I’ll make you a promise. I won't sell the picture to anyone else until I've taken my time with it, done some research. And when I do sell it, I'll give the Peabody the opportunity to match any price that I'm offered. Now, is that fair?'
'You'll take care of it?'
'Sure I'll take care of it. What makes you think I won't take care of it?'
He shrugged, and shook his head, and said, 'No reason. It's just that I wouldn't like to see it lost, or damaged. You know where it comes from, don't you? Who sold it?'
'I haven't the faintest idea.'
'Well, I think, although I can't be sure, that it came out of the Evelith collection. You know the Eveliths? Very old family, most of them live up near Tewksbury now, in Dracut County. But there's been Eveliths in Salem ever since the 16th century, of one kind or another. Very inbred, very secretive, the kind of family that H.P. Love-craft used to write about, you know H.P. Lovecraft? From what I hear, old man Duglass Evelith has a library of Salem history books that makes the Peabody look like a shelfful of paperbacks in somebody's outhouse. And prints, too, and paintings; of which that painting is more than likely one. He puts them on the market now and again, who knows why, but always anonymously, and it's always hard to authenticate them because he won't discuss them or even admit that they were his.'
I glanced back at the painting. 'Sounds interesting,' I admitted. 'I suppose it's nice to know that America still has some original eccentrics left.'
Edward Wardwell thought for a moment, his hand pressed against his bearded mouth. Then he said, 'You really won't change your mind?'
'No,' I told him. 'I'm not selling this painting until I know a whole lot more about it; like for instance why the Peabody wants it so badly.'
'I've told you. Very rare topographical interest. That's the only reason.'
'I almost believe you. But you don't mind if I do some checking up of my own? Perhaps I could talk to your Director.'
Edward Wardwell stared at me tight-lipped, and then said, resignedly, 'All right. That's your privilege. I just hope I don't lose my job for missing the auction.'
He opened the car door and stepped out. 'It's been interesting to meet you,' he said, and waited, as if he half expected me to relent, and hand over the painting. Then he said, 'I knew your wife quite well, before she… well you know, before the accident.'
'You knew Jane?'
'Sure,' he said, and before I could ask him anything else, walked off towards Margin Street again, his shoulders hunched up against the cold.
I sat in my car for quite a long time, wondering what the hell I ought to do. I took the painting out of its wrapper again and stared at it. Maybe Edward Wardwell was telling me the truth, and this was the only view of Salem Harbour from the north-west that anybody had ever done. Yet, I was sure I had seen an engraving or a woodcut of a similar view before. It seemed hard to believe that one of the most sketched and painted inlets on the Massachusetts shoreline should only once have been painted from this particular direction.
It had been a strange, unsettling day. I didn't feel at all like going home. A man was watching me from across the street, his face shadowed by an unusually large hat. I started up the engine, and switched on the car radio. It was playing Love Is The Sweetest Thing.
Five
As I turned off Lafayette Road and drove northwards up the Granitehead peninsula towards Quaker Lane, black Atlantic storm clouds began to rise from the north-east horizon, like a horde of dark and shaggy beasts. By the time I reached the cottage, they were almost overhead, and the first drops of rain were beginning to spatter the hood of the car, and measle the garden path.