The Book of Illumination (39 page)

It took several moments for me to believe that I really could trust my eyes.

It was Jim Wescott.

We learned the story in bits and pieces. We didn’t know everything for close to a year, when a long article on the tawdry little scandal in the art world appeared in the
New York Times Magazine
.

Amanda was serving time by then, at a regional women’s correctional facility in Chicopee. She’d made a deal with federal authorities: in exchange for helping them to recover all the plates she had stolen and sold in the course of her career, she received a reduced sentence: three to five years, with the possibility of parole for good behavior.

It made a certain amount of sense, once a couple of important facts came to light.

From the time that James Wescott received Finny and Sylvia’s letter, he had set his sights on acquiring the Book of Kildare for the British Library. From the details in their description, from his knowledge of comparably dated manuscripts, and from extensive research he had swiftly undertaken in European archives and scholarly journals, Wescott had arrived at a firm conviction that the manuscript in Finny and Sylvia’s possession was, indeed, the inspired treasure of the Irish scriptorium.

He wanted it. He was consumed with frustration that such a valuable and important work of art should be in the hands of a rich American dabbler. Where it belonged, he believed, was with him, in England, at the British Library. Trinity College had the Book of Kells, and come hell or high water, he decided,
he
, Jim Wescott, was going to get the Book of Kildare into the British Library. He was coming up on retirement. The Harrison Collection had slipped right through his fingers, and the Henry Moore pieces and the Banville papers. The “discovery” of this precious
lost volume and its acquisition for the British Library would get his train back on the tracks.

First, he composed a dismissive letter, designed to convince Finny and Sylvia that a “Book of Kildare” had never actually existed. Many scholars shared that opinion, so it wasn’t too hard to add two more naysayers to his chorus: Julian Rowan and Susan McCasson. Wescott hoped that Finny would decide, in his disappointment, simply to sell the manuscript at auction. Wescott could then snap it up for the British Library, legitimately and easily, with honest cash changing hands.

That didn’t work, because Finny passed away. Informed by Tad that the collection had been donated to the Athenaeum, Wescott went next to Amanda. It was Wescott’s inquiry that tipped Amanda off to the possibility of a valuable, not-yet-catalogued manuscript on the Athenaeum’s shelves. She went searching through the bindery when no one was there. She couldn’t actually take the book, of course—Sylvia would have been certain to notice—but she could take pieces from it when no one was watching. No one, it turned out, but the ghosts.

Informed by Amanda that there was no book matching his description in the Athenaeum’s collection, Wescott began to wonder if Finny had willed it, or given it as a gift before his death, to Sylvia. She had signed her full name to that initial letter, so it wasn’t that hard to find out where she lived. She was listed in the Boston phone book, with her street address. One had only to scan the eight names on the polished brass mailboxes in the foyer of her building to know precisely where she resided.

Wescott’s attendance at the Harvard symposium was a cover; that was why he had stayed in Cambridge for only a day before heading up to “Vermont” to see the foliage. He had never gone to Vermont. He had come to stay in a house in Madaket, owned
by a contact of the man he had enlisted to help him, the infamous Jannus Van Vleck.

There was a third player in the game, a man named Sanford Suffield. Born in New York, he was the son of a British teacher and a modestly successful merchant in the garment trade—his father manufactured overcoats for the armed services. Suffield, bright and keenly ambitious, had risen quickly through the ranks of his father’s company and become enormously wealthy through partnerships with Chinese and Hong Kong—based clothing manufacturers. He had also fallen in love with and eventually married a British magazine writer. They’d decided to live in London.

Suffield struggled to adapt to his new surroundings; he took to dressing in custom-made suits and bought a country place in Scotland. Branching out from the garment business, he began to make a name for himself locally by buying buildings in fashionable areas of London, and eventually, a few restaurants. He bought horses. He invited his wife’s colleagues for weekends in the country and he and Sophie began to pop up in the “Party Scene” pages of
Tatler
.

What Suffield couldn’t manage to engineer, though, was full inclusion of a social sort. He could own every restaurant in London, he finally realized, and lots of posh apartment buildings, and he would still be seen as a rich American throwing around his money. Socially, his nose might forever be pressed to the glass.

Wescott was acquainted with Suffield and, of course, understood all this. He invited Suffield to dinner and broached the prospect of a unique and, just for the moment, clandestine collaboration. Would Suffield consider providing the capital to “acquire” a priceless, long-lost manuscript, the ownership of which was presently “in flux”? Wescott described his research and whetted Suffield’s desire to help make “art-world headlines.” If all went as planned, Wescott promised, he,
Sanford Suffield
, would receive much
of the credit for one of the most important gifts the British Library had ever received, a priceless treasure long believed to be lost.

It would change everything for him in London, Wescott whispered. To put it bluntly, Suffield would soon find himself being invited to a whole different class of party.

After a day or two of thought, Suffield got back to Wescott. He’d be more than happy to finance the venture, he said. He’d like nothing better than to present a substantial gift to the national library of his adopted home.

Wescott took it from there.

Suffield’s case is still making its way through the British courts. His defense maintains that he was deliberately defrauded. As for Wescott, his quest ended in professional disgrace and prison. Van Vleck’s serving eight to ten in MCI—Concord.

T
HE WEDDING OF
Q
and
U
went off without a hitch, not counting the fact that I’d run out of confectionary sugar at two a.m. and had to dash out to Store
24.
All in all, I baked six dozen cupcakes, finally hitting the hay at close to three thirty. But the look on Henry’s face that morning made it all worthwhile.

“Mama!” he said, running his sleepy gaze over platter after platter of cupcakes, all lined up on the counter. “When did you make these?”

“After you went to sleep.” I said.

“They look great! Can I have one?”

“Sure,” I said.

The cafeteria was already bustling when we got there. I glanced around a little nervously for Kelly and Dec, but they weren’t there yet. This was the only part of the morning I was dreading. I hoped that having so many people in our little group would normalize what was bound to be a kind of weird meeting between Declan and Dad, who had arrived by train on Monday night. I knew they’d shake hands and pretend to be glad to see each other
and slip right into small talk about the Red Sox and the Reds, but I still wasn’t looking forward to the moment.

Miss O. presided with her usual aplomb as children trooped in with their parents and loved ones. Most of the kids were already in costume—Minnie Mouse, a butterfly, Superman. I had not been allowed to see Henry’s finished costume; he’d wanted it to be a surprise. I glanced around to see if my nemesis, the pristine Julia Swensen, was in attendance. Sure enough, there she was in the back, wearing a killer pair of brown suede pumps and tapping away on her BlackBerry.

Henry, who was coming with Ellie and Max—my backseat having been full of cupcakes—arrived not a moment too soon. Dad and Dec had greeted each other heartily, spoken for all of ninety seconds, and were now seated as far away from each other as possible, on the two opposite ends of the row of folding chairs we had reserved for the Henry contingent. Nat didn’t show. I should have called her to remind her; Henry had probably left out a crucial detail or two, like the date, time, or location of the great event. Ellie slid in beside me just as a trumpet processional began to blare out of a set of speakers.

And in came the costumed letters, two by two: an Apple, with the aforementioned Butterfly; a Crayon, barely able to walk, beside a very short child doing the Queen Elizabeth wave, all decked out in what looked like a very expensive Dog costume. There was a fairy … no, an elf! With a fireman. And a little girl wearing a box decorated with wrapping paper; her head was sticking out of the top and in her hair was a large red bow. I guess she was a Gift.

And there was Henry. A huge grin spread over my face. I glanced at Dad, who didn’t seem to know what to make of all this.

“There’s Henry!” I said.

“Where?” he asked.

I pointed to the hammer and Dad laughed out loud. I reached over and took Ellie by the hand. She was beaming. She had done a fabulous job. The handle of the hammer looked loose and pliable, and the fabric resembled wood grain. And in the silver cloth-covered hammerhead were … eyeholes!

The hammer strutted proudly to the end of our aisle. Completely ignoring the rest of us, he leaned right over Declan and Nell and yelled, “Hi, Pop!”

My father waved and pointed to the front of the room. “Pay attention!” he said.

The letters made their way to preassigned seats. Then they turned, stood, and sang a song about spelling, to the accompaniment—and I am not kidding—of a Broadway-style sound track blaring out of the speakers. This was wild! It was a musical revue! There were songs, and skits, and finally a strange and oddly sweet little wedding ceremony in which the queen promised never to leave the side of her umbrella, who wore an honest-to-goodness umbrella top affixed to a hat. Then they all stood and sang a little love song to spelling and reading, screeching with enthusiasm as they slipped and slid toward a fevered crescendo.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

As for the cupcakes, Henry was right. We ran out.

Dad stayed with Henry while I drove into town. I would normally have taken the T, but I just couldn’t imagine riding the Red Line with the Book of Kildare in my backpack. It scared me to death even to have it in my possession, but given our plans, this was unavoidable. Tad was given temporary custody of the book last night, after the police had photographed it. Tonight, after we let the monks have one last look, Sylvia was going to go right to
work, creating calfskin folders to protect the detached plates. The manuscript could fall apart if we tried to disassemble it in order to reinsert the severed pages. It was just too old and fragile and we didn’t dare take the chance.

As though they were aware of all the events that had recently transpired, the monks were waiting for us in the bindery when we switched on the light.