Christmas at High Rising: A Virago Modern Classic (VMC) by Thirkell Angela

Author:Thirkell, Angela [Thirkell, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780349004310
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2013-11-21T00:00:00+00:00

First published in Harper’s Bazaar, January 1937

The Private View

It is true that old Sir Dighton Phelps of Phelps’s Galleries knew all about old paintings, and middle-aged Mr Dighton Phelps knew all about modern paintings, and young Mr Dighton Phelps, known as Mr Dighton, knew all about everything, but it was Miss Brown who kept everyone steady. After the rather disastrous season in which the Old Master purchased by Sir Dighton had not ripened into a genuine Mantegna as thoroughly as one would wish, Miss Brown had soothed Mr Phelps and Mr Dighton, and persuaded them that the ripening process was only deferred. In the same unlikely season, Mr Phelps had backed an extremely unsuccessful show by a young man who had roused his temporary and unjustified enthusiasm, and Mr Dighton had managed to offend William Hay, who could make and unmake Mantegnas with a line from his pen. But good Miss Brown had comforted everyone, and though she could not make good the loss in which Mr Phelps’s ill-advised investment had landed them, nor conciliate William Hay who was in South America, she was so understanding and so competent and so sympathetic that everyone felt things might have been worse. And now a fresh season had begun, and the Gallery was to open with a memorial loan exhibition of the drawings and paintings of Charles Wilson, an eminent Victorian whose romantic works were a complete drug in the market.

Charles Wilson had been dead for a good many years, but this year, being the centenary of his birth, had seemed to the Phelps family a good peg to hang an exhibition on, especially as they had been quietly buying up Wilsons for some time past. So for several months Sir Dighton and Mr Phelps and young Mr Dighton had been hunting up owners of pictures, and trying to follow changes of ownership through old catalogues, and in fact, short of putting advertisements in The Times, which would have roused the suspicion of other dealers, doing all that could be done to get together a representation exhibition. And whichever of them forgot to do a job, or did it badly, or offended an owner, which was easy to do because some picture owners are offended if you do ask for the loan of their pictures and some if you don’t, Miss Brown was always at hand to remind, to carry out, to placate. And it was Miss Brown who supplied Amelia Wilson.

‘I think, Mr Phelps,’ said she to the middle member of the firm, ‘it might be useful if we asked Miss Wilson to help us. Charles Wilson was her great-uncle, and she has some of his pictures and would know where others are.’

‘How do we get at her?’ asked Mr Phelps.

‘She is an old friend of mine,’ said Miss Brown, ‘and I will ask her to lunch and put in a good word.’

Mr Phelps wasn’t quite sure if Miss Brown ought to have any acknowledged existence, or any friends outside the

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