The Shell Seekers (49 page)

"I've told you all this, and I still haven't got to the point, have I? I still haven't told you about finding the sketches."

"They were in your father's studio?"

"Yes, hidden away behind an artist's accumulation of years."

"When did it happen? When did you find them?"

"Noel was about four. And, to accommodate our growing family, we had taken in another couple of rooms. But the tenants filled the rest of the house. Then, one day, a young man appeared at the door. He was an art student, very tall and thin and poor-looking and quite charming. Someone had told him that I might be able to help him, because he had won a place at the Slade, but could find nowhere to live. I hadn't a corner to put him, but I liked the look of him, and I asked him in and gave him a meal and a glass of lager, and we talked. By the time he was ready to go, I was so taken with him, I couldn't bear the fact that I was unable to help him. And then I thought of the studio. A wooden shed in the garden, but stoutly built and watertight. He could sleep there, and work there; I could give him his breakfast, and he could come into the house to use the bathroom and do his washing. I suggested this, and he jumped at it. So then and there, I found the key, and we went out and inspected the studio. It was dirty and dusty and stacked with old divan beds and chests of drawers, as well as my father's easels and palettes and canvases, but it was sound and rainproof and it had a northern skylight, which made it all the more desirable to the young man.

"We agreed on a rent and a day of entry. He went, and I started work. It took days, and I had to get my friend the rag-and-bone man to help me, and bit by bit, he loaded all the old rubbish into his little cart and drove it away. It took a number of journeys, but at last we were down to the final load. And it was then, at the very back of the studio, lost behind an old chest, that I found the folder of sketches. I recognized them immediately for what they were, but had no idea of their worth. At that time Lawrence Stern was unfashionable, and if a painting of his came up, it went, maybe, for five or six hundred pounds. But finding those sketches was like being given a present from the past. I had so little of his work. And I thought that if Ambrose knew about them, he was immediately going to demand that they be sold. So I took them indoors, and up to my bedroom. I taped them to the back of my wardrobe, and then I found a roll of wallpaper and papered them in. And that's where they've been ever since. Until last Sunday evening. Then, I knew, all at once, that it was time to let them see again the light of day, and to show them to you.

"So now you know." She glanced at her watch. "What hours it's taken to tell you. I'm sorry. Would you like a cup of tea? Have you time for a cup of tea?"

"Yes, I have time. But I'm still greedy for more." She raised her brows in question. "Please don't think me curious or imperti-nent, but what became of your marriage? What became of Ambrose?"

"My husband? Oh, he left me. . . ."

"Left you?"

"Yes." To his astonishment he saw her face light up with amusement. "For his secretary."

"Soon after I found the sketches and had hidden them, Am-brose's old secretary, Miss Wilson, who'd been with Keeling and Philips for ever, retired, and a new girl came to take her place. She was young, and I suppose she must have been quite pretty. She was called Delphine Hardacre. Miss Wilson had always been called Miss Wilson, but Delphine was never referred to as anything but Delphine. One day Ambrose told me he was going up to Glasgow on business; the printing side of the firm was based there, and he stayed away for a week. Afterwards, I found out that he hadn't been to Glasgow at all, but up to Huddersfield with Delphine, to be presented to her parents. The father was immensely rich, something to do with heavy engineering, and if he thought Ambrose was a bit old for his daughter, this was obviously balanced out by the fact that she'd found a nice class of man for herself, and was besotted by him. Soon after this, Ambrose came home from the office and told me that he was leaving. We were in our bedroom. I'd washed my hair and was brushing it dry, sitting at my dressing-table, and Ambrose sat on the bed behind me, and the entire conversation took place through the medium of my mirror. He said he was in love with her. That she gave him everything I never had. That he wanted a divorce. Once divorced, he would marry her, and meantime, he was leaving Keeling and Philips, as was Delphine, and they were moving north to make a home for themselves in Yorkshire, where her father had offered him a position in his company.

"I must say for Ambrose, once he got around to organizing himself, he made a good job of it. It was all so neat, so cut and dried, such a perfect
fait accompli
that there really wasn't anything for me to say. There wasn't anything I wanted to say. I knew that I didn't mind his going. I would be better on my own. I would keep my children, and I would have my house. I agreed to everything, and he got off the bed and went downstairs, and I went on brushing my hair, and felt very peaceful.

"A few days later his mother came to see me; not to commiserate, nor, to give her her due, to blame, but simply to make quite certain that because of Ambrose's defection, I would not keep the children, either from him or from her. And I told her that my children were not my possessions, to give or withhold, but people in their own right. They must do what they wanted, see who they wanted to see, and I would never stop them. Dolly was much relieved, because although she'd never had much time for Olivia and Noel, she worshipped Nancy, and Nancy loved her. They were of like mind, those two, with everything in common. When Nancy married, it was Dolly who arranged her big London wedding, and, because of this, Ambrose made the journey from Hud-dersfield to give her away. That was the only occasion we ever saw each other after the divorce. He had changed, become very prosperous-looking. He'd put on a lot of weight, his hair had gone grey, and his complexion was very red. I remember, that day, that he wore, for some reason, a gold watch-chain, and he looked the very picture of a man who had lived in the North for the whole of his life and done nothing but make money.

"After the wedding, he went back to Huddersfield, and I never saw him again. He died about five years later. He was still a comparatively young man, and it was a dreadful shock. Poor Dolly Keeling, she outlived him by years, but she never got over losing her son. And I was sorry, too. I think with Delphine he at last found the life he was looking for. I wrote to her, but she never answered my letter. Perhaps she thought that I was presumptuous to write. Or perhaps she simply didn't know what to say in reply.

"And now I really am going to make some tea." She rose to her feet, her hand raised to secure the tortoiseshell hairpin that pierced her knot of hair. "Will you be all right on your own for a moment or two? Are you warm enough? Would you like me to light the fire?"

He assured her that he would be, he was, he did not need a fire, so she left him, absorbed once more in the sketches, and went out to the kitchen and filled the kettle and put it on to boil. She felt very peaceful, just as she had felt that summer evening, brushing her hair and listening to Ambrose telling her that he was leaving her for good. This, she told herself, was how Catho-lics must feel when they have been to confession—cleansed, freed, and finally exonerated. And she was grateful to Roy Brookner for having listened; and grateful as well, that Boothby's had sent her a man not simply professional, but human and un-derstanding as well. 

Over tea and gingerbread, they became, once more, businesslike. The panels would be sold. The sketches catalogued and taken to London for appraisal. And
The Shell Seekers
? That, for the moment, would stay where it was, over the fireplace of the sitting room at Podmore's Thatch.

"The only hitch about selling the panels," Roy Brookner told her, "is the time factor. As you know, Boothby's have just mounted a big sale of Victorian paintings, and there won't be another for at least six months. Not in London. Maybe our New York sale-room would be able to handle them, but I'd have to find out when they are scheduling their next sale."

"Six months. I don't want to wait six months. I want to sell them now."

He smiled at her impatience. "Would you consider a private buyer? Without the competition of an auction, you mightn't get such a good price, but perhaps you'd be prepared to take the risk."

"Could you find me a private buyer?"

"There is an American collector, from Philadelphia. He came over to London with the express intention of bidding for
The Water Carriers
, but he lost the sale to the representative of the Denver Museum of Fine Arts. He was very disappointed. He has no Lawrence Sterns, and they come on the market so seldom."

"Is he still in London?"

"I'm not sure. I could find out. He was staying at The Con-naught."

"You think he might want the panels?"

"I'm certain he would. But of course the sale would depend on how much he was prepared to offer."

"Will you get in touch with him?"

"Of course.'

"And the sketches?"

"It's up to you. It would be worth waiting a few months before we sold them . . . give us time to advertise and arouse interest."

"Yes, I see. Perhaps in their case it would be better to wait."

So it was agreed. Roy Brookner, then and there, commenced to catalogue the sketches. This took some time, but when he had finished, and presented her with a signed receipt, he returned them to their folder and neatly bound and tied the string. After that was done, she led him out of the room and back up the stairs to the landing, and he gently lifted the panels from the wall, leaving only a few cobwebs behind and two long strips of unfaded wallpaper.

Outside, all was loaded into the back of his impressive car, the sketches in the boot, and the panels, carefully wrapped in a tartan rug, laid on the back seat. With these stowed to his satis-faction, he stepped back and slammed the car door shut. He turned to Penelope.

"It's been a pleasure, Mrs. Keeling. And thank you."

They shook hands. "I've so enjoyed meeting you, Mr. Brookner. I hope I didn't bore you."

"I've never been less bored in my life. And as soon as I have any news, I'll be in touch."

"Thank you. And goodbye. Safe journey."

"Goodbye, Mrs. Keeling."

He telephoned the next day.

"Mrs. Keeling. Roy Brookner here."

"Yes, Mr. Brookner."

"The American gentleman I mentioned to you, Mr. Lowell Ardway, is no longer in London. I rang The Connaught, and they told me that he's gone to Geneva. His intention is to return direct to the United States from Switzerland. But I have his ad-dress in Geneva, and I'll write today to tell him about the panels. I'm certain when he knows they are available, he'll return to London to look at them, but we may have to wait a week or two."

"I can wait for a week or two. I just couldn't bear to wait for six months."

"I can assure you, you won't have to do that. And as for the sketches, I showed them to Mr. Boothby and he was immensely interested. Nothing so important has come on the market for years."

"Have you . . ." It seemed almost indelicate to inquire. "Have you any idea what they might be worth?"

"In my estimation, no less than five thousand pounds each."

Five thousand pounds. Each. Replacing the receiver, she stood there, in her kitchen, trying to comprehend the enormity of the figure. Five thousand pounds multiplied by fourteen was . . . impossible to do it in her head. She found a pencil and worked out the sum on her shopping list. It came to seventy thousand pounds. She reached for a chair and sat down, because her knees had, quite suddenly, gone weak.

Thinking about it, it was not so much the idea of riches that astonished her, but her own reaction to it. Her decision to summon Mr. Brookner, to show him the sketches, to sell the panels, was going to change her life. It was as simple as that, but still, took a little getting used to. Lawrence Stern's two insignificant, unfinished paintings, which she had always loved but never thought of any value, were now with Boothby's, awaiting an offer by an American millionaire. And the bundle of sketches, hidden, and out of mind for years, had all at once become worth seventy thousand pounds. A fortune. It was like winning the pools. Considering her altered status, she remembered the young woman who had done just this thing, and whom Penelope had watched, in disbelief, on television, pouring champagne over her head and shrieking, "Spend, spend, spend!"

An astonishing scene, like something from a manic fairytale. And yet now she found herself in more or less the same situation, and realized—and this was the astonishment—that it neither appalled nor overwhelmed her. Instead, she was filled with the gratitude of a person lavished with unexpected largesse. The greatest gift a parent can leave a child is that parent's own independence. That was what she had said to Noel and Nancy, and she knew that it was true and the freedom of security was priceless. Also, there were the possibilities of self-indulgent pleasures.

But what pleasures? She was inexperienced in extravagance, having saved and contrived and penny-pinched for the whole of her married life. She had felt no resentment or envy of other people's luxuries, but simply had been grateful to be able to raise and educate her children and still keep her head above water. It was not until she had sold the house in Oakley Street that she was able to lay claim to any sort of capital, and this had at once been prudently invested—to produce a modest income and be spent the way she most enjoyed spending money. On food, wine, enter-taining her friends. Then there were presents—in these she was immensely generous—and, of course, her garden.