About
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 by Philip Pullman
Cover art copyright © 2015 by Iacopo Bruno
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. Originally published as an audio book by Audible, Great Britain, in 2014. Previously published as an eBook by RHCP Digital, an imprint of Random House Children’s Publishers UK, a division of Penguin Random House Ltd.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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eBook ISBN 9781101940044
First American ebook 2015
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The Collectors
“But the thing is,” said Horley, “they didn’t know each other at all. Never heard of each other. It wasn’t about the makers. Only about the works.”
“And how did you hear about it?” said Grinstead.
“From the dealer who sold me the painting. Falcondale. Max Falcondale.”
“Reliable?”
“Well, within limits, you know, but he’d made the sale anyway. He just wanted to tell the story.”
It was the December of 1970, and they were sitting in the senior common room of Horley’s college after dinner. It was cold, and the dinner had been meager and dull, culminating in some sort of nut pudding that closely resembled wet cement. The small fire in the SCR had just enough energy to warm the rug directly in front of it, and left the corners of the room to fend for themselves. There was more warmth coming from the two standard lamps on either side of the hearth. The company wasn’t large: the librarian, the chaplain, a couple of young fellows no one seemed to know by name, a visiting professor of philology, and Grinstead, Horley’s guest for the evening. While the rest discussed European politics, Horley and Grinstead, occupying the shadows at the end of a sofa and the deepest armchair, respectively, spoke quietly about a painting in Horley’s possession.
Grinstead sipped his brandy and said, “Well, tell me what Falcondale said.”
“He told me the story as he’d heard it from the painter’s daughter. Leonora Skipton. Her father usually painted landscapes in a sort of secondhand Impressionist manner, nothing especially original, but agreeable enough. He very rarely did portraits. This one was quite out of his usual range. Falcondale had no idea who the sitter was, a fair-haired young woman with the most extraordinarily ambiguous expression—one moment she looks cold, disdainful, contemptuous even, and the next on fire with a sort of lost and hopeless and yet somehow very sexy yearning. A very strong picture.”
“What’s she doing?”
“She’s standing in front of a sort of dusty pink curtain, hands clasped in front, wearing a dark blue blouse thing and a cream-colored skirt. Very plain, very simple. It’s all in the face.”
“She wasn’t the daughter—Leonora, was it?” said Grinstead.
“No. The daughter couldn’t stand the picture—loathed it. She came in to Falcondale’s gallery to confirm the identification, and said she wished it had been burned the day it was painted. That was all she’d say. She’s some incredible age—must be nearly a hundred. Oh, and he showed me a remarkable letter—”
“And what about the other piece?”
“Ah. A little bronze, about a foot high. French, sort of Symbolist, I suppose you’d call it. A monkey, or an ape, I never remember the difference, sitting up with one hand reaching out toward us, or, you know, toward some fruit or something. The expression’s the thing here, too. Absolute savage greed and brutality. Horrible thing to look at—I don’t know how anyone could bear to have it around. But beautifully sculpted, you know, every hair, every little fingernail in place, perfect. And in the body a tension, an energy—any second it might spring at you and tear your eyes out….Ghastly thing, really. But brilliantly sculpted.”
“And who made that?”
“Marc-Antoine Duparc. Ever heard of him?”
“Yes, actually. Minor Symbolist, as you say. Was it a large edition, this bronze? Lot of them about?”
“I’d be surprised if there were any others. There’s just this particular one.”
“Has it got a tail?”
“Yes, I think it has. Curled around its feet.”
“Then it’s a monkey.”
“Oh, is that the difference? Well, a monkey, then.”
The visiting professor of philology labored to his feet, swaying slightly.
“Good night, gentlemen,” he said. “A highly enjoyable evening. I am most grateful. If someone could be kind enough—I forget where it is, my room—I would be so thankful for a guide, or at least an indication of the direction….”
He nearly lost his balance for a moment and put his hand to the mantelpiece to regain it. One of the young fellows sprang up and offered to help. The chaplain got up to shake the professor’s hand, the librarian followed his example, and it took at least two minutes to get the old man out of the senior common room and into his overcoat and away. The librarian looked back at the fire.
“Is it worth another log, d’you think?” he said, though he plainly thought it would be an intolerable expense.
“Those logs are juniper, I believe?” said Grinstead.
“They are, sir, the last of a large consignment from the college’s forest land in Wales. Land now sold, I’m very sorry to say.”
No one spoke. The librarian sighed almost silently, and lifted the smallest log out of the basket and placed it at the edge of the fire.
“Well, I must make sure the professor has found his rooms,” he said. “Good night, gentlemen.”
He left, and a silence fell in the room.
“I, too, should go,” said the aged chaplain after a pause. “I think I shall be on my way. Good night, Horley. Good night, sir,” he said to Grinstead. “Good night, er…hmm,” he added to the remaining fellow, who stood up to shake hands before nodding a good night to Horley and Grinstead, and following the old man out.
Horley went to place the librarian’s log more centrally on the fire, and added another from the basket before taking the armchair under the standard lamp next to the hearth.
“Come over this way,” he said. “Damned cold away from the fire. That was typical, Bolton’s reluctance to burn another log. This college is riddled with parsimony. D’you realize that the phone system is so old that if the porter’s not physically present at the actual switchboard, none of us can phone out?”
“Extraordinary,” said Grinstead.
He came to sit on the sofa opposite, and cast a glance around the dark-paneled walls at the five or six portraits of previous principals or benefactors.
“Not up to much, are they?” said Horley. “The Millais drawing of Principal Ledger isn’t bad, but the rest…” He gave a dismissive wave.
“You were telling me about the bronze monkey,” said Grinstead.
“Monkey. Yes. Well, in itself it wasn’t—isn’t—worth very much. A curiosity, really. You’d need to have peculiar tastes to want the thing sitting there glaring at you, with quite so much detestation in its face. Falcondale had a copy of the provenance—it had passed through his hands a year or two before—and it certainly seemed immaculate. Modeled by Duparc, cast by Barbedienne, bought by the Duc de Sèvres, then passed fairly rapidly through a number of hands, exhibited as part of a show of Parisian bronzes in London, acquired by the Maeterlinck Gallery, and so on. All perfectly present and correct. The odd thing was how often it was sold on, and how quickly. As if people couldn’t wait to get rid of it. No lack of buyers, though.”