see them. I’ve been looking forward to it immensely.”
“It’s only a small sample though,” Jarndyke put in. “Old stuff, I believe. All her recent work is in the barn. I haven’t seen any of it—she gave up asking for my opinion years ago. Can’t blame her.”
All that Angelica said in reply to that was: “It’s not a barn, Jayjay. It’s just an outbuilding. No livestock, no tractor, no bales of hay. Just amateurish dabbling—not worth seeing, really. I wish you wouldn’t go on about it so.”
“Sorry, Angie,” Jarndyke said, contritely.
“And it’s not a rip-off of Emanuel Vigeland either,” she said. “It’s not a collective vision of human life, pornographic or otherwise, to be seen in quiet light as if in a church.”
“Can’t blame a fellow for guessing,” Jarndyke said. “Are we going to the library, or what?”
“No,” said Angelica, suddenly stern. “We aren’t. Mr. Stamford and I are going to the library. You are going to stay here, Jason. This doesn’t concern you.”
That didn’t seem entirely fair to his employer, and Adrian felt slightly intimidated about the thought of being alone with Angelica, but he was too scared to say anything.
Jarndyke only shrugged, and said: “You can call him Adrian.”
That seemed a bit thick to Adrian, too, especially as Jason Jarndyke had never addressed him as anything but “Son,” but he raised no objection, and meekly allowed Angelica Jarndyke to escort him out of the room and along the wood-paneled corridor that presumably led to the library.
It was the kind of library that looked as if it had been put together with books bought by the yard, more to show off their old bindings than to provide reading material. Some were in Latin, others were standard sets of classic authors—but Adrian didn’t waste much time examining the bookshelves. He was infinitely more interested in the paintings.
There were seven, each set up on its own easel, the array carefully spaced, as if the intervals had been measured with a ruler.
Like the vision of Hellfire he had already seen, they would probably have looked like “splodges” to the everyday eye, Adrian thought. Like the vision of Hellfire, though, they weren’t essays in abstract impressionism. They were representative pictures— very subtle pictures, using extremely subtle gradations of color, but representative nevertheless. Some of them needed careful study, but there wasn’t one of them that left Adrian confused as to its subject.
He started with the yellow—or, to be strictly accurate, the gold. It was, as might have been guessed, a picture of the mythical Golden Fleece, with a triumphant Jason displaying it to an invisible crowd. Medea wasn’t present—unless she was invisible, although that would probably have been taking subtlety too far. The Jason in the picture wasn’t exactly a portrait, but it was obvious to Adrian that he was based on a real individual. A pity, he thought, that the image in question was invisible to the Jason in question—except, perhaps, subliminally.
The painting reassured him somewhat, after the anxieties he’d built up in consequence of the Dantean image of the inferno. It was a pleasant picture, which seemed to have been painted with a degree of affection. Angelica must have known that her husband wouldn’t be able to see the image suggestive of himself, but she hadn’t been tempted to be satirical in the depiction, let alone cruel. There was no mockery in it.
The blue was a mermaid, or perhaps a siren. It wasn’t a Hans Christian Andersen mermaid: the meek self-sacrificing innocent who had consented walk on daggers for a lifetime in exchange for the privilege of being able to keep a fisherman company; it was a temptress, willing and able to lead men to their doom with a seductive song. The limitations of Angelica’s draughtsmanship showed up more obviously in the top half of the
“It’s only a small sample though,” Jarndyke put in. “Old stuff, I believe. All her recent work is in the barn. I haven’t seen any of it—she gave up asking for my opinion years ago. Can’t blame her.”
All that Angelica said in reply to that was: “It’s not a barn, Jayjay. It’s just an outbuilding. No livestock, no tractor, no bales of hay. Just amateurish dabbling—not worth seeing, really. I wish you wouldn’t go on about it so.”
“Sorry, Angie,” Jarndyke said, contritely.
“And it’s not a rip-off of Emanuel Vigeland either,” she said. “It’s not a collective vision of human life, pornographic or otherwise, to be seen in quiet light as if in a church.”
“Can’t blame a fellow for guessing,” Jarndyke said. “Are we going to the library, or what?”
“No,” said Angelica, suddenly stern. “We aren’t. Mr. Stamford and I are going to the library. You are going to stay here, Jason. This doesn’t concern you.”
That didn’t seem entirely fair to his employer, and Adrian felt slightly intimidated about the thought of being alone with Angelica, but he was too scared to say anything.
Jarndyke only shrugged, and said: “You can call him Adrian.”
That seemed a bit thick to Adrian, too, especially as Jason Jarndyke had never addressed him as anything but “Son,” but he raised no objection, and meekly allowed Angelica Jarndyke to escort him out of the room and along the wood-paneled corridor that presumably led to the library.
It was the kind of library that looked as if it had been put together with books bought by the yard, more to show off their old bindings than to provide reading material. Some were in Latin, others were standard sets of classic authors—but Adrian didn’t waste much time examining the bookshelves. He was infinitely more interested in the paintings.
There were seven, each set up on its own easel, the array carefully spaced, as if the intervals had been measured with a ruler.
Like the vision of Hellfire he had already seen, they would probably have looked like “splodges” to the everyday eye, Adrian thought. Like the vision of Hellfire, though, they weren’t essays in abstract impressionism. They were representative pictures— very subtle pictures, using extremely subtle gradations of color, but representative nevertheless. Some of them needed careful study, but there wasn’t one of them that left Adrian confused as to its subject.
He started with the yellow—or, to be strictly accurate, the gold. It was, as might have been guessed, a picture of the mythical Golden Fleece, with a triumphant Jason displaying it to an invisible crowd. Medea wasn’t present—unless she was invisible, although that would probably have been taking subtlety too far. The Jason in the picture wasn’t exactly a portrait, but it was obvious to Adrian that he was based on a real individual. A pity, he thought, that the image in question was invisible to the Jason in question—except, perhaps, subliminally.
The painting reassured him somewhat, after the anxieties he’d built up in consequence of the Dantean image of the inferno. It was a pleasant picture, which seemed to have been painted with a degree of affection. Angelica must have known that her husband wouldn’t be able to see the image suggestive of himself, but she hadn’t been tempted to be satirical in the depiction, let alone cruel. There was no mockery in it.
The blue was a mermaid, or perhaps a siren. It wasn’t a Hans Christian Andersen mermaid: the meek self-sacrificing innocent who had consented walk on daggers for a lifetime in exchange for the privilege of being able to keep a fisherman company; it was a temptress, willing and able to lead men to their doom with a seductive song. The limitations of Angelica’s draughtsmanship showed up more obviously in the top half of the
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