Page 5

Newlyn

I picked my way along the garden path to the red door.

The front of the house was covered in an ancient wisteria, which would be divine in a few weeks.

Daffodils bloomed where they chose, appearing like random pockets of happiness.

They were under the oak tree, in a rose bed, in the middle of the lawn and in tubs.

I couldn’t help but smile, loving the chaos of it.

It would drive Paul to distraction. But nature was like that in gardens, my mother had taught me years ago.

She would plant something in one bed to find it preferred another.

Rather than fight it, she would enjoy the fact that the plant was happier.

A shiver ran across my skin as I reached the door.

Too many memories of having appraised the contents of houses with Dad over the years settled on my shoulders.

We’d had such fun poking into other people’s lives.

Always respectful, of course, but in a way, by naming me as the executor of his estate, Dad had asked me to do the same with his things, his life.

I wasn’t up to the task for so many reasons.

The first one being that I was out of practice.

Possibly my uncle had handed me this to remind me what to do, but that could be giving him too much credit.

A magpie cried and landed on a ground-floor windowsill. He was alone.

‘Morning, Mr Magpie.’ I bowed my head in greeting. He tossed a look over his shoulder and flew away. Sorrow. Must not dwell on the past and must focus on the task at hand – the estate of two distinguished ladies.

I found the key for the front door and pushed it open with more force than necessary.

It swung wide with a thunk. The house had the musty smell of unused, unopened places.

I left the door ajar to clear some of the stagnant air.

Dampness wasn’t good for houses or their contents, and especially not for paintings.

‘Who’s here?’ a gruff voice called.

I swung around. ‘Ren Barton, from S. W. Barton Auctioneers.’ I squinted at the person who was silhouetted in the doorway.

‘That’s all right then.’ The voice softened on the last word. After cleaning her feet on the mat, the woman walked in and towered over me. ‘I’m Tilly, the gardener.’ She held out a hand.

As I shook it, I felt the calluses and noted the stained skin. She had the look of someone who enjoyed her work.

‘I’ve been keeping an eye out as people know there’s no one living here.’

‘Sensible.’

‘The place shouldn’t be empty. They would hate that.’

I tilted my head in an unspoken question.

‘They were both private people, but the best people, and it wasn’t their plan that the place should be picked apart and sold off.’

‘Oh.’ I thought of the notes in the file. They were clear. Catalogue, value and sell everything.

‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She slipped back out the door before I could ask anything else. It wasn’t their plan. What had their plan been?

I put my queries aside and placed the folder down on a mahogany table in the vestibule. It looked to be George III. Furniture wasn’t my strength, but my uncle was wrong about this piece at least.

After years of declining values for brown furniture, as it was called these days, it was seeing something of a revival thanks to environmental concerns coming to the fore.

Reuse and recycle. Running my hand over the dusty surface, I knew that this table had a value of more than a hundred pounds, so what was my uncle’s game? Was this a test?

I opened the notes app on my phone and began an inventory.

George III tripod table – single-piece tip-up top supported by a turned column and three carved legs with spade feet

I used the measurement app on my phone to fix its rough dimensions.

1 metre diameter

Then I added the next item.

Arts and Crafts coat rack stand – oak, eight turned knob hangers, carved wheel design on back and drawer, 195 cm

Waxed jackets still hung on it like the occupants of the house would arrive at any moment and slip them on before venturing into the garden.

1 gilt mirror – Victorian, with scarred glass

1 oil on board 50 cm by 100 cm – landscape in greens signed Sheba

Sheba? Bathsheba. The work looked like what I’d seen online last night.

I noted the Turkish carpet under my feet before I left the entrance and went into the hallway, where a sweeping staircase dominated the space. I looked up its curved lines and there my gaze stopped.

The wall was owned by a large portrait of a woman dressed in black.

She was beautiful, with big luminous eyes and pale, slightly flushed skin.

Her gaze met mine and I shivered. Longing and sadness plus intelligence.

Blue-black hair cut into a 1920s bob highlighted the defined bone structure.

Her beauty took my breath away. She wore a bias-cut evening gown that draped and pooled around her as she reclined on a chaise longue.

The material looked lightweight and only served to highlight the feminine body beneath.

Sexual power and yet innocence radiated from the work, but mostly I felt the caress of every brush stroke on the canvas. I climbed the stairs to get closer.

Intoxicating. No one could look at this painting and not feel the passion the painter had had for the subject. There was a sense of witnessing something very private. I couldn’t look away. It was in her expression. A chill ran across my skin and the hairs on my arms lifted. Fear or desire, or both.

There was no signature on the front of the canvas.

It was far too large with its ornate frame for me to take off the wall on my own.

The style of her clothing told me it was likely painted in the late twenties or early thirties.

The background wasn’t England. The quality of the light in the distant view was very different.

I could be wrong, but the glimpse of water, the drapery behind the woman and the shape of the arms on the chaise reminded me of Venice.

In fact, it reminded me of John Singer Sargent’s painting of Lady Helen Vincent. But it was better.

I stared at the woman. What was her story? Who had painted her with a nod to Sargent and Philip de László?

The front door slammed and I jumped.

‘Hello,’ I called out, wondering if the gardener was still about, but only the sound of a branch tapping on a window answered me.

With my phone I took a picture of the woman then made my way back to the ground floor.

Opening off the hallway were five doors.

The first to my right led to a book-lined room where watery light filtered in through the grime- and salt-covered windows.

But even through filthy glass, the view of Mount’s Bay was breathtaking.

I should be taking the inventory, but instead I looked through the varying titles on the bookshelves.

Spines with worn gold lettering on leather sat next to old Penguin paperbacks.

Eclectic. I could spend days in here delving into each volume, and with my valuer hat on I sensed there were many first editions on the shelves.

The sofa under the window was Victorian and covered in faded red velvet.

Not to everyone’s taste, but striking. It looked like it should belong in a grand home in London rather than a house on the coast. Due to the bookcases lining two and a half walls, there was only one painting in the room, which hung above the fireplace.

It was unsigned but looked like a Lamorna Birch.

My father would know, but he wasn’t here and I was.

If there was some magic I could intone, I would use it to bring him back.

But I had only the modern witchcraft of my phone.

I took a quick snap so I could research the painting later.

Back in the hall, I entered the sitting room.

Like its neighbour, it was dusty, and weak light filtered through the half-closed curtains.

The threadbare carpet under my feet had once been a riot of colour but now only hinted at past glories.

The sofas were covered in throws and colourful cushions.

There was a striking bronze cat stretched out in front of the fireplace.

The walls were lined with bright canvases representing so many of the artists who had made Cornwall their home.

Bathsheba – Sheba – would have known many from her childhood and her life here in Newlyn.

Across the hall, a study faced north and smelled of mildew, which given all the paperwork and photographs lying on the desk and almost every surface was not ideal. Everything I touched was damp, including bills and other correspondence.

The bust of a woman’s head sat on the desk.

Was it Sheba? The picture I’d seen on the internet had been too low a resolution to get anything more than just a sense of the woman.

Whoever the sitter, she was handsome, with large eyes and a strong nose.

So many questions, but that was always a good starting point for any project.

I wanted to know more about the women, and not just for the sale.

The things they had chosen to have in their home, especially the portrait above the stairs, had captured my interest.

I opened a few of the desk drawers. They were stuffed full of paperwork. It would all have to be searched for receipts and the like to provide provenance for the many works in the house. This would be time-consuming but essential.

I didn’t linger in the study or even in the kitchen, but went to the outbuildings, imagining that this was where they both worked.

The larger one would be Vivian’s at a guess, but maybe Sheba worked on vast canvases.

It took a few moments to work out which of the many keys would let me in, while the wind whipped about my legs.