Virginia of co’se, came up here just like any carpetbagger, only in the other direction, to see what I could squeeze out of the North. My folks had connections here and I renewed them for all they were worth. I was a sweet-talking young sinner, back then. The time we speak of I wasn’t but twenty-three or so, clerking with another firm entirely. If my father-in-law knew he was going to be that to me, he hadn’t said so, and I sure hadn’t asked him. I was simply at an evening party there at his home. When we left the ladies for the cigars he said, ‘Come along with me later, young fellow, to an appointment I have. Show you something interesting, you might never get to see.’ So, I went.”
“That ballroom,” said the Judge. “It was like Venice, my father-in-law said, it was Venice—copied as a matter of fact from a room in the Ca’ d’Oro, walls painted to look like marble, and the floors like terrazzo, but done in wood. Unfortunately the pictures, hundreds of them, were copies. But the fountains were real.”
“That so?” said Olney.
“Didn’t you—notice?” The year he inherited his present house he’d gone next door to the Ralston houses to ask the tenant of that flat, to let him see if he could find a scrap or two of all that trompe-l’oeil, but the room had been cut up, the walls painted over, the legendary fountains sunk beneath the floor.
“No, I didn’t,” said Olney, sharply for him. “Studied what I thought I’d been brought there to. I studied Ralston, the balky seller, and how his own lawyer and the buyer helped each other, how they checkmated him from opposite sides of the table, each for his own reasons, two men who’d never met before, our respective fathers-in-law. I studied young Ralston particularly. And I studied—the law.”
“Ralston was one of the young aesthetes,” said the Judge. “My father-in-law Mendes had seen his kind back home in London. Dressed plain, he said, all black and white, but everything as if it’d been knitted on him. An aesthete, but a young blood also. Lisped by intention. Boxed at the Athletic Club. And had his hair dyed gray.”
“He was a builder’s son, Simon,” Olney said gently. “American. Lemme tell his principal characteristic as I saw it, that evening.” He leaned forward and pointed a thumb, giving each word its burden. “He didn’t…want…to—sell.”
“Ah, well.” The Judge backed away from that thumb, laughing, throwing up his hands before it. “Ah, well. The minute he saw the man, Mendes said—Mendes began to talk opera. You agree to that?”
“Opera it was,” said Olney. “And how my future father-in-law abetted him, just by knowing nothing about it! I can see the rapscallion’s head shine yet, turning from one to the other—he was one of those men with a bald head all one big freckle, nasturtium color. Puh. And I had to sit there, mum too—felt as if I was in knickerbockers. Which I was.”
“Mendes happened to have the score of Aida with him. Had just been produced the first time, in Cairo, year or so before, 1871. By this time he was already an entrepreneur. He promised to introduce Ralston in opera circles—seems Ralston had a protégé.” It had taken innumerable renditions of the story before Mendes had happened to mention the protégé had been a castrato, a boy. Mendes was no prude; he’d simply had his mind on another point which had seemed to him the final one.
Olney nodded. “Maybe so.” He smoothed his chin, staring forth. “My prospective father-in-law didn’t give a damn about the lot itself, or who his client Ralston sold it to, if persuaded to sell at all. It was Ralston’s business agent he was after—fellow’d been asking too much baksheesh on the side. My father-in-law wanted him out of estate matters. This was one of the ways to get at him—and still keep Ralston under his own thumb.”
He decided not to interrupt again. After all, was there anyone who knew all of it? “So
“That ballroom,” said the Judge. “It was like Venice, my father-in-law said, it was Venice—copied as a matter of fact from a room in the Ca’ d’Oro, walls painted to look like marble, and the floors like terrazzo, but done in wood. Unfortunately the pictures, hundreds of them, were copies. But the fountains were real.”
“That so?” said Olney.
“Didn’t you—notice?” The year he inherited his present house he’d gone next door to the Ralston houses to ask the tenant of that flat, to let him see if he could find a scrap or two of all that trompe-l’oeil, but the room had been cut up, the walls painted over, the legendary fountains sunk beneath the floor.
“No, I didn’t,” said Olney, sharply for him. “Studied what I thought I’d been brought there to. I studied Ralston, the balky seller, and how his own lawyer and the buyer helped each other, how they checkmated him from opposite sides of the table, each for his own reasons, two men who’d never met before, our respective fathers-in-law. I studied young Ralston particularly. And I studied—the law.”
“Ralston was one of the young aesthetes,” said the Judge. “My father-in-law Mendes had seen his kind back home in London. Dressed plain, he said, all black and white, but everything as if it’d been knitted on him. An aesthete, but a young blood also. Lisped by intention. Boxed at the Athletic Club. And had his hair dyed gray.”
“He was a builder’s son, Simon,” Olney said gently. “American. Lemme tell his principal characteristic as I saw it, that evening.” He leaned forward and pointed a thumb, giving each word its burden. “He didn’t…want…to—sell.”
“Ah, well.” The Judge backed away from that thumb, laughing, throwing up his hands before it. “Ah, well. The minute he saw the man, Mendes said—Mendes began to talk opera. You agree to that?”
“Opera it was,” said Olney. “And how my future father-in-law abetted him, just by knowing nothing about it! I can see the rapscallion’s head shine yet, turning from one to the other—he was one of those men with a bald head all one big freckle, nasturtium color. Puh. And I had to sit there, mum too—felt as if I was in knickerbockers. Which I was.”
“Mendes happened to have the score of Aida with him. Had just been produced the first time, in Cairo, year or so before, 1871. By this time he was already an entrepreneur. He promised to introduce Ralston in opera circles—seems Ralston had a protégé.” It had taken innumerable renditions of the story before Mendes had happened to mention the protégé had been a castrato, a boy. Mendes was no prude; he’d simply had his mind on another point which had seemed to him the final one.
Olney nodded. “Maybe so.” He smoothed his chin, staring forth. “My prospective father-in-law didn’t give a damn about the lot itself, or who his client Ralston sold it to, if persuaded to sell at all. It was Ralston’s business agent he was after—fellow’d been asking too much baksheesh on the side. My father-in-law wanted him out of estate matters. This was one of the ways to get at him—and still keep Ralston under his own thumb.”
He decided not to interrupt again. After all, was there anyone who knew all of it? “So
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