Hearing Secret Harmonies - Anthony Powell [107]
‘When I was young I sometimes dined with the people to whom Boyhood of Cyrus used to belong.’
At this information Henderson regarded me with keener interest.
‘You knew Lord Aberavon?’
He was not incredulous; merely mildly surprised. One had to be grateful even for surprise.
‘Not actually. Aberavon died five or six years before I was born. My hostess was his daughter. She owned the picture. Her husband was a diplomat called Walpole-Wilson.’
Henderson was no more prepared to allow that the Walpole-Wilsons had once possessed Boyhood of Cyrus than for Mr Deacon to have been commonly addressed as Edgar.
‘The provenance of Cyrus has always been recognized as the Aberavon Collection. Several Aberavon pictures – by a variety of artists – have been coming on the market lately. They’re usually good sellers. Aberavon was an erratic collector, but not an uninstructed one. Have you looked at By the Will of Diocletian? It hasn’t found a buyer yet. Owing to being rather large for most people’s accommodation these days it is very reasonably priced, if you’re thinking of getting a Deacon yourself.’
‘The younger of the two torturers is not unlike Scorpio Murtlock.’
This time Henderson reacted more favourably to extension of a picture’s imaginative possibilities.
‘Canon Fenneau said the same, when he was in here the other day. He’s someone who knew Scorp when he was quite young. One of the few who can control him.’
‘Where did you come across Fenneau?’
‘Scorp once sent me with a message to him. Chuck and I sometimes go to his church. It was Canon Fenneau who told me that By the Will of Diocletian was painted during Bosworth Deacon’s Roman Catholic period.’
‘Do you ever hear of Murtlock now? Or Widmerpool?’
Henderson, facetiously, made the sign to keep off the Evil Eye.
‘As a matter of fact I do once in a way. Somebody I knew there comes to see me on the quiet if he’s in London. There’s a thing I’m still interested in they’ve got in the house.’
‘Would coming to see you not be allowed?’
‘Of course not.’
Henderson might perhaps have said more on that subject had not Chuck appeared from the inner room. Chuck (perhaps also of seafaring origins) had some of the same burly working-class geniality – now adapted to the uses of the art world – that had once characterized Hugo Tolland’s former partner, Sam.
‘Can you come through for a moment, Barney? Mr Duport wants a word.’
Henderson indicated that he would be along in a moment. Towards Chuck, too, his manner had changed. Himself no longer a victim requiring rescue, Henderson had become something not much short of Mr Deacon’s benign slaveowner. No doubt mutual relationship was carefully worked out in that connexion, Chuck showing no resentment at the readjustment. On the contrary, they seemed on the best of terms.
‘There are some rather interesting people in the further room. The actress, Polly Duport, and her parents. Far the best of the Victorian marine painters show come from the Duport Collection. He’s decided to sell now the going’s good. He’s quite right, I think. I expect you’ve seen Polly Duport in the Strindberg play. Super, I thought. She’s an absolute saint too, the way she looks after her father. Wheels him round all the time in that chair. He’s not at all easy. Can be very bad mannered, in fact. He was a businessman – in oil, I’m told – then had to retire on account of whatever’s wrong with him. He’d always been interested in these Victorian seascapes, picked them up at one time or another for practically nothing. Now they’re quite the thing. He comes in almost every day to see how they’re selling.’
‘I know Polly Duport – and her father.’
‘Do you? But you won’t know her mother, who’s come with them this afternoon. She’s lived most of her life in South America. She must be partly South American, I think. She looks like one of those sad Goya duchesses. She and Robert Duport, the owner of the Collection, have been separated for years, so Polly Duport told me, but have