31. Revelations
On the one hand, the Jeffersonian team could not have been more gratified by the despatch shown by their counterparts at the Louvre: Henri Perrin had put his delegation together in less than twenty-four hours, and the party of three, all flight and hotel arrangements made and confirmed, were scheduled to arrive in D. C. in six days' time. On the other hand, the impending arrival entailed long days for Bonnie and late hours for Baer as Dr. Cummings, quite rightly, insisted that they should, at the very least, have a clean painting to present for inspection. If, in addition, they could make a start at removing the disfiguring varnish, that would be all to the good.
By dint of concerted effort, Baer and Bonnie had the filmy black layer removed with a whole day to spare, and had the satisfaction of seeing a perceptibly brighter, if still yellowed, image on their easel. It was also, for the first time, possible to make out greater detail: in what had seemed, before, an undifferentiated mass of background foliage, individual branches and clumps of leaves could be discerned, and, in the foreground, a smattering of fuzzy dots revealed itself to be a small flowering plant. Perhaps most importantly, what might have been misconstrued as the bottom fold of the woman's drapery could now clearly be seen as the lower extremity of her back leg. Bonnie could hardly wait to see what other surprises the painting's conservation held in store.
They could not move on to removing the varnish, however, before making a careful determination as to which solvent could most safely by applied to each of the various pigments. First to be tested were the carbon black and black-yellow compounds of the forest backdrop. Dr. Baer brushed a dab of solvent gel over the small triangle of the upper right hand corner, and then cautiously swabbed the area clean. The cotton tip came away slightly soiled, but with no trace of either color. "Looks good to me. What do you think?"
Bonnie leaned in over his shoulder, and scrutinized the paint surface. The shine supplied by the varnish was gone, but the paint layer was undisturbed. "No damage."
He nodded. "Make a note of it, and then…" He glanced up at the digital timepiece on the wall, and grimaced. "Head on out of here. You've put in more than enough hours for one day."
Bonnie reached gratefully for the top button of her lab coat, but stopped when Dr. Baer dipped the brush once again into the solvent. "Are you staying?"
"Just a bit longer. Don't worry." He slanted her a roguish smile, and Bonnie could only thank the heavens above he didn't do so with greater regularity. "I'll leave plenty for you to do in the morning."
Still she hesitated, conscious of the crisp card lying in the depths of her coat's patch pocket. As promised, she'd not had long to wait for the invitations to the private view of Madame Vincent's show, intriguingly titled "Connections." The glossy rectangles, complete with a full-color reproduction of one of the artist's vivid paintings, had appeared in Bonnie's departmental mail box several days before, but she had, so far, lacked the intestinal fortitude to carry out her commission. She slipped a hand into her pocket, and fingered the card's sharp edge. "Dr. Baer…"
"How about this?" he broke in, not so much impatient as brisk. "When it's just the two of us, we'll dispense with formality. I'll call you 'Bonnie,' and you can call me 'Baer.' It'll save time."
"Baer…" Bonnie repeated uncertainly, not immediately comfortable with the unadorned syllable; it struck her ear as borderline disrespectful. Her grandmothers, it was true, had been in the habit of calling their husbands by their family names, but that had stemmed from their having started out as colleagues on an equal professional footing, and so was not comparable. Bonnie thought she just might be able to fall in with Dr. Baer's suggestion if she altered the spelling of that one syllable in her mind. She considered him, watching her with quirked brows, and imagined herself saying 'Bear.' It suited him. "Deal."
"So…" He raised the brush, and gently swept the bristles over the painted foliage. "You had something to say?"
"Yes." She pasted a smile on her face, and tried to project a nonchalance she was far from feeling. "I have an invitation to a private view next Thursday at the Tremont. I suppose you might more properly call it a vernissage, since the artist is French. Or rather, she's not French at all, but a transplanted American, like my maternal grandmother who, I may have mentioned, lives in Paris. That's how I know her. The artist, I mean. She's one of my grandmother's dearest friends. You're probably familiar with her work, she's known the world over, and very likely anyone who's anyone in the D. C. art community will be there…"
"Please accept my congratulations on your great good fortune."
"That's not… I mean, yes, but… The thing is…" She was babbling, flustered, and, wanting nothing so much as to have the whole conversation behind her, blurted out, all in a rush. "I'd like it very much if you'd come with me. If you're free, of course, and you want to," she tacked on weakly.
Her words had, quite literally, an arresting effect on him: the hand holding the brush hovered clear of the canvas, and the up-raised arm stilled. Only his head moved, as he slowly turned to stare at her. "Are you asking me out on a date?"
"What? No! Oh, no!" she protested, perhaps too quickly. "I would never…!"
"Of course not." He gave her his profile again, but not before she caught his poorly-suppressed smile. Taking up a fresh swab, he cleaned away the dissolving varnish. "I see what it is. Your fiancé will be out of town, and you don't want to go to this fancy shindig solo."
She knew he was baiting her, and still it set her teeth on edge. "For the last time, I don't have a fiancé."
"Is Wyndham-Pryce aware of that?" When she didn't deign to answer, he shot a glance in her direction, and managed to look the tiniest bit self-conscious. "This famous artist of yours," he said, on a conciliatory note, "what's her name? Just so you know, I make it a policy never to attend private views of unknown artists. Too often it's a waste of time."
"I know her as Rosalie Vincent, Marquise de Sancerre, but she began painting before her marriage, and continues to sign her work with her maiden name." Bonnie fished the invitation out of her pocket, and, accepting the cleaning swab in exchange, handed it to him. "Rose Mundy. Not a household name maybe, but, I think you'll agree, a prominent figure on the contemporary art scene."
He studied the card a long time, longer, indeed, than the perusal of the few, well-spaced lines of printed information could possibly have required in and of themselves. As the silence lengthened, and Bear continued to scowl, Bonnie, feeling out of her depth, ventured, "You have heard of her?"
"Oh, yes," he said, in a flat tone with a faintly bitter tinge. "In fact, you might say I'm better acquainted with Rose Mundy than I care to be. Be straight with me, Bonnie," he went on before she could find her voice. He held one corner of the invitation between his thumb and forefinger, and wagged it back and forth. "Did she put you up to this?"
Bonnie felt her jaw go slack. "How did you know?"
His smile was decidedly wry. "Apart from the fact that, by your own admission, it never would've occurred to you to ask me on your own?" He passed the card back to her. "It's a ploy she's used before. She knows I'd flat out refuse if she invited me directly."
Bonnie felt suddenly disoriented, as if she had crossed, all unaware, into some alternate reality. "But… that makes no sense! Madame spoke of you as if you'd never met, as if she needed an introduction."
He swiveled his seat to face her, and leaned into the back rest, all thought of cleaning momentarily forgotten. "She's not wrong, in a way. I don't know her, not personally, and I'm not interested in that changing any time soon. I made that perfectly plain when she tried to introduce herself four years ago in Paris. I was delivering a paper at the IIC Congress, and she came up to the stage after the question and answer period, and accosted me, bold as brass."
Bonnie could easily picture her dashing, forthright friend making a blatant play for a man she found attractive, and she could appreciate, too, that many men would consider advances from a much older woman distasteful, but Bear's evident disgust seemed out of all proportion to the occasion. "I don't understand. What was so awful about her approaching you?"
He shook his head mutely, unwilling, or perhaps unable, to explain his reaction. Just when she thought no other reply would be forthcoming, he said on a sigh, "Let's just say her reputation preceded her."
Madame had never made a secret of her penchant for taking much younger lovers, and was generally held to be a lusty free spirit although there were, inevitably, a puritanical few who condemned her as a wanton cougar. Bonnie would never have suspected Bear of belonging to this small, censorious camp, and, indeed, despite what he said, she couldn't believe it of him. It didn't ring true, unless… Four years before, he had still been with Val, a family man with a toddler son. He might well have taken Madame's overture as an affront on that score, as an insult to his character and a blameworthy disregard for his commitment. "She asked me, not long ago, if you were married."
He looked at her blankly. "I fail to see what that has to do with anything."
"Only that…" Bonnie was all too conscious of the awkwardness of trying to defend the Marquise's behavior, and wondered what in the world had possessed her to attempt it. "It seems obvious to me she was acting under the misapprehension that you were single."
His heavy brows drew down, and he regarded her for a time as if she had just volunteered a particularly cryptic observation. At length, however, his expression cleared, and an unholy gleam shone in his eyes. "I don't know if I'm more appalled or flattered by your take on the situation, Bonnie, but in any event, you're way off base. She doesn't have designs on me. At least, not the kind you're imagining."
Bonnie felt a flush stain her cheeks, and had some difficulty meeting his eye. "But that's how she talks about you! She calls you 'handsome Dr. Baer,' and described you once as tall and broad-shouldered."
"I don't doubt she mislead you," he said grimly. "When it comes to getting her way, I put very little past her."
The sense of unreality had grown so strong, Bonnie did not know if she was coming or going. "I can't believe we're talking about the same woman! The Marquise I know may be many things, but she's not underhand or ruthless."
"Isn't she? You say she's your grandmother's dear friend, but how much do you really know about her? About her past?" He gestured to the card she had not yet returned to her pocket. "You said 'Rose Mundy' is her maiden name, but that's not right. It's the name she assumed when she moved to Paris." He held her eye meaningfully, the unspoken challenge clear: what else had she gotten wrong?
Bonnie thought how often she had wished that Madame might be prevailed upon to write her memoirs, how fascinating, illuminating and potentially explosive such a personal glimpse into the recent continental art world would be. To date, however, Madame had practiced a remarkable discretion. Were there other, less admirable, reasons for her reticence? She turned a troubled gaze on Bear. "How do you know so much about her?"
He straightened in his chair. "I've heard stories. From people I trust. And, no, don't ask me who. I've said too much as it is. She's your friend. You want the truth, ask her. As far as I'm concerned, the subject's closed." He picked up his brush again, and moistening the tip with solvent gel, swiveled back to the painting. "You should get some rest. Big day tomorrow."
Thus dismissed, Bonnie doffed her lab coat in silence, collected her bag, and started wearily for the door. "Have a nice evening, Bear."
"Bonnie…" She turned back to him, but he was facing away from her, leaning into the painting. "You can tell her, for me, that she chose her inducement well. It was a good plan. It almost worked."
She felt heat suffuse her face again. "I'll tell her you declined."
"As you like."