“And that Times piece is the best that was said about Francis?” said Maria.
“Do you notice they say he went to school in Canada but was educated at Oxford?” said Arthur. “God, the English!”
“The Times was generous in its own terms,” said Darcourt. “They printed the piece I sent to them as soon as I saw their obit. Listen to this: published in their issue of September 26:
Professor the Rev. Simon Darcourt writes:
Your obituary of my friend Francis Cornish (Sept. 13) is correct in all its facts, but gives a dour impression of a man who was sometimes crusty and difficult, but also generous and kind in countless personal relationships. I have met no one who knew him who thought for an instant that his death might have been from other than natural causes.
Many leading figures in the art world regarded him as a knowledgeable and co-operative colleague. His work with Saraceni may have gained him the mistrust of some who had felt the scorn of that ambiguous figure, but his authority, based on unquestioned scholarship, was all his own, and it is known that on several occasions his opinion was sought by the late Lord Clark. In a quarrel it was rarely Cornish who struck the first blow, although he was not quick to resolve a dispute or forget an injury.
His fame as an authority on painting overshadowed his substantial achievements in the study and scientific examination of illumination and calligraphy, an area not much favoured by critics of painting and sculpture, but which seemed to him to be significant, as providing clues to work on a larger scale. He was also a discriminating collector of music MSS.
During his years in Canada after 1957 he did much to encourage Canadian painters, though his scorn for what he regarded as psychological fakery in certain modern movements generated a good deal of heat. His own aesthetic approach was carefully considered and philosophically founded.
An eccentric, undoubtedly, but a man of remarkable gifts who shunned publicity. When his collections have been examined it may emerge that he was a more significant figure in the art world of his time than is at present understood.
“That’s a lot better, Simon,” said Maria, “but it’s still a long way from being a rave.”
“It’s not my business to write raves, but to speak the truth, as a friend who is also a scholar and a man with his eyes open.”
“Well, can’t you do that in the biography?”
“Not if it means exposing Uncle Frank as a picture-faker,” said Arthur.
“Listen, Arthur, you’re going too far. The most you can say is that my book won’t have any Cornish money behind it unless it presents a whitewashed portrait of Francis. You forget that I could find a commercial publisher. I don’t write bad books, and a book you would think scandalous might appeal to them as a good commercial proposition.”
“Simon—you wouldn’t!”
“If you bully me, I might.”
“I don’t mean to bully you.”
“But that’s what you’re doing. You rich people think you have unlimited power. If I decided to write this book entirely on my own responsibility you couldn’t do a thing to stop me.”
“We could withhold information.”
“You could if you had any, but you haven’t and you know it.”
“We could sue you for defamation.”
“I’d take care not to defame the living Cornishes, and surely you know the law doesn’t care about defamation of the dead.”
“Please, will you men stop being silly and threatening one another,” said Maria. “If I understand Simon rightly, it’s this very lack of information and creeping suspicion that’s holding him up. But you must have some stuff, Simon. Anybody’s life can be dug up to some extent.”
“Yes, and used by cheap writers with lots of spicy innuendo to make a trumpery book. But I’m not that kind of writer. I have my pride; I even have my tiny reputation. If I can’t do a first-rate job on old Frank I won’t do anything.”
“But all this stuff about Saraceni, and what The Times doesn’t say about this other fellow—the one who died or was killed or whatever happened—surely can be tracked down, and fleshed out. Though if it means a book that suggests Francis Cornish was a crook, I hope you’ll do what you can about that.” Arthur seemed to be climbing down.
“Oh, that—I can get that right enough. But what I want is what lies behind it. How did Francis get into such company? What was it in his character that disposed him to that part of the art world, instead of keeping his skirts clear like Berenson, or Clark? How did a rich amateur—which is what he was, to begin with—get mixed up with such shabby types?”
“Just luck, probably,” said Arthur. “What happens to people is so often nothing but the luck of the game.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Darcourt. “What we call luck is the inner man externalized. We make things happen to us. I know that sounds horrible and cruel, considering what happens to a lot of people, and it can’t be the whole explanation. But it’s a considerable part of it.”
“How can you say that?” said Arthur. “We are all dealt a hand of cards at birth; if somebody gets a rotten hand, full of twos and threes and nothing above a five, what chance has he against the fellow with a full flush? And don’t tell me it’s how he plays the game. You’re not a poker-player or a bridge-player, Simon, and you just don’t know.”
“Not a card-player, I admit, but I am a theologian, and rather a good one. Consequently I have a different idea of the stakes that are being played for than you have, you banker. Of course everybody is dealt a hand, but now and then he has a chance to draw another card, and it’s the card he draws when the chance cards that can make all the difference. And what decides the card he draws? Francis was given a good, safe hand at birth, but two or three times he had a chance to draw, and every time he seems to have drawn the joker. Do you know why?”
“No, and neither do you.”
“I think I do. Among your uncle’s papers I found a little sheaf of horoscopes he had prepared for him at various points in his life. He was superstitious, you know, if you call astrology superstition.”
“Don’t you?”
“I reserve judgement. What is important is that he obviously believed in it to some extent. Now—your uncle’s birthday fell at a moment when Mercury was the ruling sign of his chart, and Mercury at the uttermost of his power.”
“So?”
“Well? Maria understands. Isn’t her mother a gifted card-reader? Mercury: patron of crooks, the joker, the highest of whatever is trumps, the mischief-maker, who upsets all calculations.”
“Not just that, Simon,” said Maria; “he is also Hermes, the reconciler of opposites—something out of the scope of conventional morality.”
“Just so. And if ever there was a true son of Hermes, it was Francis Cornish.”
“When you begin to talk like that, I must leave you,” said Arthur. “Not in disgust, but in bafflement. Life with Maria has given me a hint of what you are talking about, but just at this moment I can’t continue with you. I have to catch a plane at seven tomorrow, and that means getting up at five and being at the airport not much after six—such is the amenity and charm of modern travel. So I’ll give you another drink, Simon, and bid you good-night.”
Which Arthur did, kissing his wife affectionately and telling her not to dare to wake early to see him off.
“Arthur pours a very heavy drink,” said Darcourt.
“Only because he thinks you need it,” said Maria. “He’s wonderfully kind and observant, even if he does make noises like a banker about this book. You know why, don’t you? Anything that challenges the perfect respectability of the Cornishes stirs him up, because he has secret doubts of his own. Oh, they’re unimpeachable so far as money-dealers go, but banking is like religion: you have to accept certain rather dicey things simply on faith, and then everything else follows in marvellous logic. If Francis was a bit of a crook, he was the shadow of a great banking family, and they aren’t supposed to cast shadows. But was Francis a crook? Come on, Simon, what’s really troubling you?”