Page 27 - Unlikely Stories 2
P. 27

VERONICA

                     From Fantastic Transactions, volume 2 (1997)

          Sensitive to the peer’s rank and ego, Jean d’Istaille, director of the
        National  Art  Museum  in  London,  arranged  to  meet  Sir  Payne
        Delamort in the latter’s club rather than obliging him to traverse any
        of the public areas of the  museum  en  route  to the  director’s posh
        inner sanctum. For his part, Sir Payne’s insensitivity to the feelings of
        anyone  of  lesser  rank  prevented  him  from  recognizing  the
        arrangement as anything other than his granting a sort of audience to
        a well-manicured supplicant. He was, after all, related on his mother’s
        side to the royal Paynes.
          “Good  to  see  you  again,  Sir  Payne.”  They  shook  hands,  and
        d’Istaille  allowed  himself  to  be  steered  toward  a  sitting  area  away
        from the other members; certain  types of business,  he knew,  were
        best  conducted  in  a  congenial  but  private  setting.  They  ordered
        drinks, mumbled a few pleasantries, and got down to it.
          “Your  grandfather’s  taste  in  paintings  was  quite  eclectic,  was  it
        not?”  The  Delamort  collection  had,  in  fact,  been  amassed  by  the
        depredations of one of the last of the Edwardian era’s great robber
        barons. Gems of astonishing luster were mounted next to appallingly
        obvious pieces of paste in the Delamort mansion, a country estate of
        no particular interest to the National Trust but whose contents were
        selectively coveted by curators on three continents.
          “Indeed, he left us quite a legacy. One we are no longer willing to
        maintain in the condition it deserves. As you are no doubt aware, it is
        the family’s wish to place as many as possible of our, how may I put
        it, superfluous works of art in British collections.”
          D’Istaille nodded sympathetically. The old bugger needs cash, he
        thought, and he hasn’t been able to get the price he wants from the
        Met or any private Japanese collector. “The National Museum of Art
        will do all in its power to assist you in achieving that highly patriotic
        goal, Sir Payne.”
          “Harrumph!  Least  I  could  do.”  Delamort  was  determined  not
        to  show  any  more  of  his  hand  than  necessary  to  this  jumped-up
        barrow-boy posing as a connoisseur. He was certain he remembered

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