Twice Jamie mentioned he had set aside some works that seemed noteworthy. “I doubt that was necessary,” the man said, pulling a small nautical painting from the wall and turning it over.
“Mr. Fahey asked me to. So we could get your opinion.”
“Oh, yes?” He hung the painting back on its nail. “What are your qualifications exactly?”
“I’ve been cataloging the work.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Mr. Fahey came home in midafternoon, when the two of them were surveying the music room. He pumped the expert’s hand, boomed pleasantries at him, demanded to know what he thought. “Your honest opinion,” he said.
“It’s a very, very interesting collection,” the expert said. “You have many first-rate pieces, as you know. The Sargent, for example. Truly remarkable.” He took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. The house’s gloom made the heat especially stifling.
“My wife is the subject,” Mr. Fahey said with pride.
“Is it really?” said the expert, even though Jamie had already told him. “Remarkable!”
“There’s been talk of a museum,” Mr. Fahey said. “The Fahey Museum. I like the sound of that, I have to say.”
The expert swabbed his face again. “It’s an intriguing idea. Perhaps—just as a preliminary impression—this collection might not be quite enough on its own, judging only what I’ve seen thus far, but certainly you’ve laid an excellent foundation.” Delicately: “You do know they’ve begun building an art museum in Volunteer Park? To house the Fuller collection?”
Mr. Fahey’s face clouded. “Of course I know,” he said. “I can practically see it from my bedroom.”
The expert winced but pressed ahead. “Have you considered perhaps joining forces?”
Mr. Fahey eyed him suspiciously. “I have.”
The expert became conciliatory. “A first step, I think, would be to have someone come in and start sorting through everything, cataloging it. I assume you have records of purchases? Attributions? Provenances?”
“That’s what Jamie’s been doing.” Mr. Fahey fixed Jamie with a perplexed stare. “Didn’t you tell him?”
“I’m sure this young man’s been doing his best,” the expert said, “but it’s a job for someone with real expertise.”
Mr. Fahey appeared embarrassed. “The boy’s a gifted artist,” he said. “I wanted to give him a helping hand. No harm in him rummaging through the lot.”
“I sincerely hope not,” the expert said primly.
Jamie’s face flamed. The man hadn’t even looked at his notes, his meticulous lists, his assembled clues and theories about what exactly Mr. Fahey had bought for himself. Certainly Jamie hadn’t uncovered all the answers—that would be impossible—but he was confident he’d been useful. Nor had the expert deigned to look at the pieces he’d brought down from the attic and set aside; he knew those were worth at least a glance.
“Jamie,” said Mr. Fahey, “go get one of your portraits to show him.”
Now his humiliation would be compounded by being treated like a child, made to present his own work as though begging to be indulged with praise. Stiffly, he said, “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Go on now,” Mr. Fahey said as though sending away a dog hovering too close to the dinner table.
Jamie trudged through the hot, dark house to Mrs. Fahey’s parlor. The four portraits—Sarah’s, Alice’s, her own, and that of Penelope, the eldest sister, who had come over one afternoon to sit for him with her baby—were hanging, framed, in a row. He yanked down Alice’s and trudged back, offered it with his head down.
The expert scrutinized the drawing, then peered at Jamie through his spectacles as though he were another artwork to be evaluated. “Who taught you to draw?”
“His uncle,” said Mr. Fahey at the same time Jamie said, firmly, “No one.”
“You said your uncle did,” Mr. Fahey told Jamie. To the expert, he added, “His uncle is the painter Wallace Graves. I own a landscape of his, actually.”
“I taught myself,” Jamie said, digging his hands into his pockets.
“Mm-hmm,” said the expert. He looked over the portrait again, then back at Jamie. “You said you’d selected some works you especially liked?”
* * *
—
There would be a celebratory dinner, and Jamie must stay. Mr. Fahey insisted; everyone insisted. The watercolor sketches he’d found in the ribbon-tied box, the washes of color that suggested the moods of the ocean, were by J. M. W. Turner. The expert was almost certain. They were valuable, important, remarkable, and might so easily have gone overlooked. For his part, Jamie was both vindicated and disappointed, as he had decided that if the expert would not look at the works he’d picked out, he was going to take the watercolors back to the boardinghouse that very night and then, soon enough, to Missoula. He still wished, just a little, that he had taken them when he first found them, told no one.