Chapter 34
William
It was Friday morning, the day before the village fair and a hundred and forty-eight days before Halloween. I was in the kitchen, raiding the pantry for ginger nut biscuits, when Buckford Hall’s doorbell rang. I looked at my watch. The fellow from Wetherby’s Auction House had arrived very early.
“Bramley!” I hollered, before remembering my faithful chief operating officer was busy with the team from the internet company, getting Buckford Hall fully Wi-Fi’ed.
I was going to have to pull on my big boy pants and answer my own door.
Still, we all had to make sacrifices if we were going to save the estate.
I dashed through the house to the front door—stopping to check my hair in the mirror and brush a few biscuit crumbs off my crisp white shirt.
Thanks to Bramley, who was thrilled with my new-found sartorial professionalism, my shirt and my tan chinos were freshly pressed, my Chelsea boots were nicely polished, and the simple rust-brown tie that was trying to throttle me to death was tied in a perfect double Windsor.
I had drawn the line at the tweed blazer Bramley had suggested.
The tie was enough. I smiled at my reflection, sucked the biscuit out of my teeth, and opened the front door.
“Lord Buckford?” an amiable but scruffy chap standing at the top of my stairs said.
“’Tis I,” I said, and I have no idea why. I’d never answered my own door before. “You must be the fellow from Wetherby’s. Call me William.”
“Wetherby’s?”
“The auction house?”
I extended my hand, and he shook it.
“Yes, of course. Call me Gary,” he said, and he hooked a thumb over his shoulder to where his colleague was snapping photos of the house. “This is Astrid. She’s here to do the photographs.”
“For the catalogue? Come in, come in. Shall we start in the West Drawing Room?”
“We’ll start wherever you like, William,” Gary said, pulling a notepad from his satchel. “You’re in charge. I’ll make a few notes as we go.”
I marched them into the middle of the drawing room and pointed at the paintings on the wall.
“I thought the Stubbs, the two Reynolds could go.”
“The Stubbs and the two Reynolds, you say?”
“Yes, I thought that should raise a bit.”
Gary spun around to face me, his expression suggesting I was mad.
“I know, it’s a shame to get rid of the Stubbs. She’s a beautiful buckskin mare.” I pointed to the picture by the door we’d come through. “But we’ve still got the John Boultbee over there. He was local, so it would be more of a shame to part with that one.”
“How much are you hoping to raise?” Gary asked.
I shrugged. “Hopefully, somewhere north of twelve million. Every time I talk to the accountant, the number goes up. I’ll take your advice on what’s possible.”
Gary’s eyes bulged like he’d hit the jackpot. Well they might. Wetherby’s was earning ten per cent on anything we sold. I was going to have to sell extra paintings to pay the commission on the other paintings.
“Let me show you the Long Gallery. That’s really the motherlode.”
As we climbed the stairs, Gary explained buyers wanted to know the story behind a work.
“A good story can really sell for a premium,” he said.
“We have files and files of provenance in the library. Receipts, the lot.”
“Forgive me, William,” Gary said. “We need to create a bit of a buzz! Something to cause a stir. In the market.”
“Well, all the portraits of creepy children are dead relatives. They weren’t dead at the time, you understand, even though some of them look it. They’re very much dead now, I assure you. Half of them are in the family mausoleum, if anyone wants to check for… bone structure… or something?”
We summited the stairs, and I pushed open the doors to the Long Gallery.
Gary shook his head. “What I mean to say is, why are you selling these cherished pieces of your family history?”
“Oh, I see!” I pointed to the terrifying Holbein of Queen Elizabeth I.
“Well, she’s not my family history at all.
She’s only a distant cousin. The three Holbeins and a lot of other old tat were bought by the ninth baron in the Victorian era.
He’d massively extended the house and needed some artwork to really achieve the gothic horror aesthetic he was apparently going for. ”
“I’m sorry, William, you misunderstand me,” Gary said. “Why are you selling them?”
I pointed to a portrait of a buxom and bewigged relative by Joshua Reynolds.
“Well, I haven’t been comfortable with that painting ever since my mother told me she walked in on my grandfather masturbating to it.”
Gary’s eyes lit up. “I like the sound of that story. Tell me that one.”
“There’s not much more to it. He was off his rocker by then.”
Gary’s pencil was scribbling away madly.
“Is this the sort of thing you want?” I asked.
“It’s wonderful colour. But tell me, William, why do you need to raise twelve million?”
That gave me pause. I tried to wave his enquiry away. “It’s the usual story. You know how it is.”
“Gambling debts?” he said with a slow, knowing nod.
“Well, no.”
“A dissolute lifestyle, then?”
“No. Not that either.”
“Are you being bled dry by mistresses?”
Why did an auctioneer need to know this? I shook my head.
“Blackmail?”
“What kinds of stories are you reading, man? It’s to pay a bloody tax bill.”
“Ah.” Gary smiled sympathetically. “Now that is a common story. How much did HMRC get you for, out of interest?”
“Four point three,” I said.
Gary whistled.
“No kidding.”
Over the next hour, I pointed at paintings, Gary took notes, and Astrid took photographs.
“You need to create a buzz,” Gary kept saying. His enthusiasm was infectious, and by the time we were done, I’d quite warmed to the scruffy little man—and we’d identified nineteen paintings to sell.
“Something’s just occurred to me,” Gary said, palm of his hand smacking against his forehead. We were standing in the Great Hall in front of the big Gainsborough—a painting I’d refused to sell. “Did I read in the newspapers that you recently got engaged?”
Oh, good lord. What choice did I have but to admit it?
“Many congratulations!” Gary beamed, his hand shooting out to shake mine. “Where is the lucky fellow. Is he here?”
I nodded. “He’s working.”
Gary’s hand smacked his forehead again. “You know how we could really make a buzz for your auction? If you want to make a premium.”
“I want to make a premium, Gary,” I said. “Tell me.”
“All this publicity you’ve had around getting engaged, well, we could leverage it in our marketing.” He called Astrid over. “What do you think, Astrid? Could you take a photo of the baron and his fiancé that really sells precisely what a once in a lifetime opportunity this auction will be?”
“Course.” Astrid nodded. She pointed to the fireplace. “I’d set yous up over ’ere. Looking all in love.”
This was getting out of hand. Petey and I weren’t engaged. Now we were going to pose for a publicity photo suggesting we were very much in love and getting married, all to flog a few paintings?
“I don’t think—”
“Art collectors from all over the world will hear about this auction. It really is genius.”
“Genius,” Astrid added.
I shook my head. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t ask Petey to—”
“Oh, William,” Gary said. “He does know about this little financial strife you’re in, doesn’t he? You’re not hiding it from him?”
“Of course not. He knows all about it. He’s very supportive!”
I was starting to go off the man again. Gary held his hands up in surrender.
“Forgive my impertinence, William. I thought it would be a terrible way to start married life, with a great big lie. But if Petey’s supportive, then, no harm in asking him if he’ll join us for a photo now, is there? Think of the buzz!”
As I stood there, I did think of the buzz. I didn’t like it.
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid not.”
Gary looked genuinely disappointed. I was starting to want the man out of my house.
“Let’s at least get a photo of you before we go,” Astrid said.
“For the catalogue,” Gary added.
I let them take their photograph, then escorted them back to the front door.
As I waved goodbye to them from the steps in the carriage court, I felt this enormous sense of relief for a job well done.
It was only a few minutes later, when the doorbell summoned me back to those same stone steps, that my heart started to sink.
A man in a sharp blue suit handed me his card, doffed his trilby hat, and introduced himself.
“George Wetherby, my lord. Wetherby’s Auction House,” he said. “Sorry I’m a few minutes late.”