“Oh yes. One of his best.” He gazed at Kim, frowned, and sucked in his breath. “That’s remarkable,” he whispered. “Is it really you?” His voice trembled.
Kim had never seen the man before and she was momentarily at a loss to understand his reaction. “Emily,” he said. Solly moved closer to her.
The model for Autumn.
Kim smiled. “No,” she said. “It’s not me.”
Gould stood back to get a better view. He pressed his lips together and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I’d thought the model had died. Before he did the painting.” He shook his head. “Nevertheless, you are a close match. Are you connected in some way?”
“I’m her sister.”
He pulled his sweater tightly around him, as if to protect from a sudden chill. “I’m sorry. It was thoughtless of me.”
“It’s quite all right, Mr. Gould. It’s been a long time.”
“Yes. Of course.” He studied her. “You’re as lovely as she.”
“Thank you. You’re very kind.”
He paused and collected himself. “As I say, I do have the Autumn. But it’s not for sale.”
Solly glanced at her. He expects to hit us pretty hard.
“It’s for display only,” the proprietor continued. “It’s really quite valuable.”
“May we see it?” asked Kim.
“Of course.” He still did not move, still gazed at Kim’s features.
She wanted to break the paralysis. “Tell me about Markis Kane,” she said.
“We have five originals by him. Other than the Autumn. One of them, Glory, also uses Emily as the model.” He led the way through a door at the rear of the building and turned on the lights. Autumn was set in an exquisite, hand-carved wooden frame, mounted on an easel. More lights blinked on, designed to show the work to maximum effect.
Kim studied it. The woman in the window. The line of frost. The leaf-covered lawn. The ringed world just touching the tops of the trees. The planet was setting. There was no conscious way to make that determination, but she knew it to be true. A couple of crescent moons that she didn’t recall from the online image drifted through the gathering night.
Autumn radiated loss. The trees writhed in a dark wind, the giant planet was painted in October colors, and even its rings suggested dissolution.
Emily looked both beautiful and melancholy.
“He’s pretty good,” Solly commented, “for a pilot.”
“He’s one of the best we’ve had,” said Gould. “The world is just beginning to recognize it.”
Glory was named for the largest of Greenway’s satellites. Emily was posed dreamily against a track of moonlit water. Shoulders bare, one hand laid along her cheek, eyes luminous and thoughtful. It was dated three years before the flight.
Tora was a portrait of Kane’s daughter at about ten. In River Voyage, a handful of rafters try to hang on in rock-strewn white water. Night Passage depicted an interstellar liner passing a cobalt-blue gas giant.
Kim asked for the dates. All four preceded the Hunter incident. “Is it my imagination,” she asked Gould, “or is there a change in tone between his earlier and later work?”
“Oh,” he said, “there very certainly is.” He touched a keyboard. A screen lit up and they were looking at Bringing the Mail, a painting of a freighter crossing a nebula. The freighter was squat and gray, bleak, its running lights casting eerie shadows across the superstructure. The nebula silhouetted the starship, emitting a twilight glow. “This is his last known work.”
“Everything after Mount Hope seems kind of downbeat,” said Solly.
“Oh yes. Beginning with this one.” He brought up a landscape. “His work entered a dark period from which it never really emerged. This is Storm Warning, from 574.” They were looking at distorted trees, ruins in the distance silhouetted against summer lightning, churning clouds. “When he becomes recognized as a major figure, people will recognize this as the first major work of his gothic phase.”
“Did you know him?” asked Kim. “Personally?”
“I knew him quite well. When he lived in the area.”
“Do you have a print of this one? Of Storm Warning!”
Gould consulted a catalog. “Yes,” he said. “I have two left. But they’re not signed.”
“It’s okay,” said Kim, grateful that the price would be diminished by that much. “How much is it?”
“Two hundred.”
“Not cheap,” said Solly.
“I’ll take it,” said Kim.
“It’s a limited edition,” Gould purred soothingly. “You can be sure it’ll hold its value.” He excused himself and disappeared up a narrow staircase.
“That costs an arm and a leg,” Solly complained.
“I know. But we want to keep him talking to us. We should buy something.”
He indicated a dancing nude.
“Right,” she said.
Gould returned with her print and held it up for her to see. “This is quite lovely,” he said. “You’ll find it’s an excellent investment. Would you like me to have it framed for you?”
“No, thank you,” she said. “I’ll take it as is.” She was wondering where she’d put it and began to wish she’d gone for something out of Kane’s early years. They made appreciative sounds over the print for a minute, and then Gould rolled it up and put it into a tube.
“Did he become depressed after the Mount Hope event?” asked Solly casually.
Gould pressed his fingertips against his temples as if the memory were painful. “Oh yes. He was never the same after that.”
“In what way?”
“It’s hard to explain. He’d always been friendly, outgoing, easy to talk to. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But he wasn’t a difficult man, in the way that talents frequently are. But all that went away. He became exceedingly withdrawn. About that time, I was going to Severin Village most nights. My wife lived there then. We weren’t married yet, you understand. And I used to make it a point to go by his place, Kane’s place, to see how he was doing. He wasn’t known then the way he is now. But I knew, I always knew, he was going to be great one day.
“He sold his work through me. He wasn’t getting much for it in those days, nothing like what it would command now. But he didn’t need the money. The paintings were just something he did. You know what I mean?”
She nodded.
“Did I tell you I was there when it happened? When the mountain blew up?
“It was terrible. The town was kind of down low and sheltered so it didn’t get hit directly or we’d’ve all been dead. But pieces of rock and whole trees fell out of the sky. We didn’t know what hit us. Then there was the dust. People choking and dying—” His eyes had gone distant. “Sasha and I did what we could, but—” He held out his hands. “But you don’t want to hear this.”
Kim and Solly stood quietly, waiting.
“By then I was trying to hold onto his work. Buying his paintings myself because I knew they were undervalued. I brought them back here and just waited for the price to go up. Now they’re worth thirty, forty times what they were. And it’s still a seller’s market.” He turned back toward the Autumn. “Look at that; you ever see anyone with that kind of range? Maybe Crabbe. Maybe Hoskin. No, not Hoskin.” He shook his head vehemently, dismissing Hoskin.