Gulp.
Dealers call it the Southampton Case. Where antique dealers meet, the ghost of the Southampton Case lurks in their midst. And the commonest grumble of all? It's this:
'Whatever happened to caveat emptor, buyer beware?' Dealers sob into their muscatel, drop crocodile tears on their caviar. Cruel fate, making them behave!
Me? I think that Law, as ever, simply won't work. It never does. The innocent get taken to the cleaners, and the robber barons get the Rolls, blondes, and villas in Monte Carlo.
The bus trundled. I slept.
3
WHEN I WOKE on the bus Mortimer gave me three home-made vegetarian sandwiches and a bottle of water, I had them, mourning my ravaged portrait.
The greatest portrait ever painted is that of a beautiful lady, Portrait of the Artist's Wife by Gainsborough. Some folk think that one woman's face is just like another. After all, what is a phizzog? Couple of eyes, mouth, eyelashes, whatever.
Untrue. For years I've been painting that same portrait over and over. I'm still at it. I'm the one who knows.
Go and see her. The painting just hangs there like all the rest in London's Courtauld.
You may think, 'Hey, she's ordinary!' Disappointment! If so, you're looking wrong.
I admit she isn't young. She certainly isn't sprawled naked in a tangle of erotic satins.
Her breast is modestly covered. She has a double chin at that, quite plain, holds back a mantilla in an awkward pose. Dullsville, no big deal. (I'm being honest here.) Except you're looking at the most beautiful portrait painted since the world began.
Others are fine, sure. Tell me that Rembrandt is superb, I'll go we-e-ell, ye-e-es. And I'll give you points if you're the indignant Hon Sec of the Michelangelo Appreciation Society. But are their works the greatest? Sorry and all that, but no. Not by a mile.
Because out in front, winner by a street, is the lovely plain face of Mary Gainsborough.
Confront her. Let other viewers walk on. Imagine you are the artist himself, holding her gaze. Then wonder what sort of bloke was this Gainsborough?
Frankly, Tom G was a bad lad. If you say to local folk hereabouts, 'I'll pop over to Sudbury today,' something odd happens. They smile knowingly and reply, 'Lot of artists in Sudbury!' Sounds innocent, right? It isn't. They mean that Tom Gainsborough was wicked for the ladies. They still nickname a footpath Tom's Walk because there it was that young lusty Tom – and, in time, middle-aged lusty Tom –used to frolic with maids, matrons, wives. Anything in skirts. Plenty of unexpected little babes grew up to be astonishingly talented artists thereabouts . . .
He was the same in his London studio, when fame struck. He ordered his servants to keep gentlemen out. But if the next customer was a pretty lady, well...
Now look at Mary Gainsborough's blue eyes. She's not smiling, yet she is. For in her serene gaze there's genuine love for her randy husband, plus understanding too. But for me it's the glorious trace of humour that takes the biscuit. The entire masterpiece wouldn't cover your smallest window, yet that patch of daubed canvas defines what love really is. Her lovely smile is saying to Thomas, 'I know you, you devil. And about the ladies. And our milkmaid. And the grocer's wife . ..' And the love in her exquisite eyes dazzles so your vision blurs. She's just so beautiful. Okay, a portrait's only a blot on a rag, but even Sir Joshua Reynolds – no slouch – couldn't quite see how the brilliant Gainsborough had done it.
Is it any doubt that she had him for ever? He didn't paint any of his luscious tarts with anything like the passion that he lavished on that small portrait of his Mary.
It's genius. It was for yet more attempts on Mary's portrait that I needed the old panels. I use the same paints, same methods. And fail every time.
By the time we alighted at Saffron Fields I was well narked. Some schoolgirls on the bus kept giggling, daring each other to call come-hithers at Mortimer. The lad was only fifteen, God's sake. I tried glaring but they did that raised-eyebrows-lip-droop that means get knotted, you boring prat. Mortimer paid no attention. The schoolgirls bent heads to whisper. I could have pasted the lot of them.
Now, I'm no angel. I learned at an early age that there was more to gender than an apple in a garden. I was reaped in my early teens by a married woman who gave me a flintlock pistol (note that symbolism). It was my first real antique possession (I mean the flintlock). Her true gift, though, was excitement. Males and females, I saw in that first glorious thrill, came together, so to speak. Of course I didn't know what was going on. I only knew that life had arrived.
But Mortimer? Only fifteen, barely out of the egg. Surely he was too young to bother with the opposite sex? I'd never felt like this before. The schoolgirls alighted at Wickerham Lanes. They str-o-o-olled off the bus, then stood on the grass verge calling offers of what I can only term cohabitation. I fumed. They needed a good hiding, brazen young tarts. No discipline these days. I blame the parents – what was I saying?
I caught myself, aghast. In shock. I glanced at Mortimer.
'Don't worry, Lovejoy. They know no better.'
'I'm not worried!' I blazed, then because heads turned at my vehemence whispered,
'Makes no difference to me. Get that in your head.'
We got off at Saffron Fields. The bus left us by the huge ornate gateway.
'Here? The customer's here?' It was his mansion.
He nodded. We started up the drive.
'Why's he staying here?' Now I was really out of my depth.
'They, Lovejoy. I leased the mansion and the estate.'
