Christmas At Candleshoe by Michael Innes

Author:Michael Innes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christmas At Candleshoe
ISBN: 9780755120901
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2012-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

The arrival of Mr Archdeacon in the smoking-room some fifteen minutes later was distinguished by a demonstration on the part of Brown. The high regard which the Spendlove family in general felt for their librarian was clearly shared by this severer judge. He and Mr Archdeacon, in fact, embraced cordially; and as Mr Archdeacon was a venerable person with flowing white hair, abundant eyebrows, and a bushy beard the visual effect was striking. It was some moments before Lord Scattergood could provide the new arrival with whisky and introduce Dr Rosenwald. He then explained the state of the case. Listening in silence, Mr Archdeacon occupied himself with stuffing an enormous pipe.

‘So you see, my dear Archdeacon, here is a shocking thing. I can’t imagine anything more disgraceful. We have been showing these pictures to the public as being by Titian, and it turns out that they are by somebody quite different – a school-mistress perhaps, or a new sort of burglar.’

Mr Archdeacon nodded through a cloud of smoke. ‘It is very deplorable, to be sure. But beauty, after all, is in the eye of the beholder.’

‘Is that so? I hadn’t heard.’ Lord Scattergood received this mysterious intelligence respectfully. ‘And that makes a difference?’

‘Assuredly. Let us conclude that each man largely creates the beauty he experiences, and our position is morally a strong one. Let me be very clear, very simple. By “Titian” – or shall we say rather by “Titianness”? – we mean a class of experiences, preponderantly emotional but in part intellectual, varying from individual to individual within limits which I shall presently endeavour to define. “Titianness”, in fact, is a term only applicable with any philosophical strictness to phenomena of a purely subjective character. Whether that in the outer world whereby the response of “Titianness” is occasioned has or has not any objective and verifiable connexion with the man Tiziano Vecellio is a circumstance altogether immaterial.’ Mr Archdeacon emitted a further cloud of smoke, which had perhaps the effect of a little obscuring his train of thought. ‘So, you see, we need not really worry on the score of having been parties to a deception.’

‘I’m extremely glad to hear it.’ Lord Scattergood’s gratitude to the family sage for this clarification of his ethical position was unaffected. ‘I was afraid, you see, that we hadn’t been giving people their money’s worth. Forgeries, after all, are not at all a nice thing to have about.’

‘My dear Marquess, we are all forgeries.’

‘You don’t say so!’

‘Certainly – even Brown.’ From behind his now impenetrable cloud Mr Archdeacon gave a Jehovah-like chuckle. ‘Brown himself is but a counterfeit, a feeble copy of the real Brown – whom we should find, you know, only in the kennels of Heaven. And were Titian – or shall we say the late Sir Edwin Landseer? – to execute a painting of our Brown, what would this be but a copy of a copy, a shadow of a shadow? Now, suppose further that a forger gets to work on Landseer’s painting.

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