Osmond’s Ire

Chapter XXIII

Gilbert Osmond entered the Caffe Greco at eleven on a rainy Tuesday morning in an aggravated disposition having just come from his art dealer, Roberto Durelli, where to his utter amazement he learned that a picture had been sold for a substantial sum to none other than his very own wife, Isabel, and she had not requested the discount usually reserved for the better customers, of which, as his wife and he a frequent buyer, she was entitled to, though this is not first and foremost what had him in a furor.

No, what had him in such a fury was that she was buying a work of the so-called Impressionists, a laughable style of no redeeming value perpetrated by dealers in Paris to make fools of naive Americans and significantly line their own pockets while encouraging artists of lesser merit in their hostile campaign against all that was deemed intelligently sublime in the art and craft of painting as it had been practiced for many centuries. That his foolish wife of little taste should be among such gullibility was an outrage to Osmond, more so, as he had been negotiating for a superb Gian Lorenzo Bernini architectural drawing that was to be offered for a considerable sum, and Osmond hoping to extract this sum from his wife’s bank was incensed that she should part with one half the needed cash for this daub by the irascible James McNeill Whistler, a poseur, a hack, possibly the worst of the assemblage calling themselves Impressionists.

Now he was to learn by an indirect route that his duplicitous wife had purchased a mere chalk and pastel drawing of a of the Campanile Santa Margherita in Venice, a more weak, unfulfilled representation one was likely to find of a motif that had been rendered by greater artists in the past but leave it to Isabel to be willfully obtuse - her central ideas having been born in ignorance, encouraged by a society gone mad.

She also had to know he would not hang this piece of humbug in the Palazzo Roccanera - she was therefore planning to hang it in Gardencourt, her house in England - a fact Osmond found as disagreeable as the artist she chose to sponsor and where Whistler made his home although he did not place the two facts within the same frame.

Osmond ordered a Campari and soda and took a corner table when he chanced to see a personage he vaguely recognized, that of Edward Rosier, a collector of objects de art, old lace and enamels, and once a suitor of his daughter Pansy to no avail, a face he did not immediately distinguish - the gentleman had grown stout and now sported a full beard - and before Osmond could place him, wishing thoroughly to ignore him on principle, could not but take the offered hand as Mr. Rosier approached his table - though inviting him to a seat would have been beyond Osmond’s sociable endurance.

“Ah, Mr. Osmond, don’t tell me you are now looking to establish in your drawing rooms a sampling of the Impressionists? I would never have taken you for one who falls for such shenanigans but it is all the rage these days so you may have made a good investment.”
Mr. Osmond glared at the man, his eyes ablaze with rancor and deigned not to answer this mocking accusation but instead return the jab: “I don’t in the least know what you mean, Mr. Rosier, is it? Ah, yes, now I remember you and your little collection, you sold it, did you not? And got a good price too if I recall.”
Mr. Rosier colored a little at the obvious reminder of their shared past and decided to continue his, he thought, subtle attack on a man he considered possibly mad. “I’ve just come from Durelli’s and I couldn’t help but notice that you and Mrs. Osmond now possess a Whistler pastel drawing, might I congratulate you?” he said with a factious grin.
“You may congratulate my wife if that is what it is, I myself know nothing of Whistler nor care about his amateurish daubs.”
“So you do know some small thing? I understand your wife is a great friend of the artist? He’s quite sought after. Quite the darling of the public. I hear he is to paint Mrs. Osmond’s portrait. You are tolerant: sitting for Mr. Whistler can take considerable time. Many ladies have been quite worn out posing for hours on end…he takes great pains with his portrayals.” With that he gave a robust laugh, tipped his hat and left Osmond to his stewing.

Osmond’s mood was blackening to a deadly rage as he contemplated what the insufferable man Rosier told him. If it were true, he would surely have to rein in his obdurate wife again. She would become a blot on his reputation as a collector of fine art and antiquities. There would be no Impressionist doodling in his habitation and the sooner she learned this, the better. He would begin by demanding Durelli refund the money for the Whistler drawing and put it toward the Bernini. As for the alleged portrait, tolerance had never been Osmond’s forte and it would not now be practiced in any way regarding the Impressionists, a trend soon to be consigned to a brief bout of madness.

He returned home, eager to seek out his wife, still on edge, wet, vaguely feverish, uncertain how to approach her and the contentious topic of the Impressionists. She could be purposely oblique when it suited her, but today he had no intention of letting her off on that sort of scheming with large sums of money at stake. He had his limits as well as his own refinement that must be defended.

“I cannot quite believe what I happened upon in Durelli’s today,” said an agitated Gilbert Osmond to his wife, finding her in a small parlor on the second floor having tea alone, engrossed in an English-language journal he had never before seen.

Isabel Osmond about to be confronted by her husband about the purchase of a Whistler drawing, knew this moment would eventually arrive, steadied her resolve, an American trait that her husband found willful but in her own country might be seen as steely, admirable even - but even her own countrymen saw it as a liability for a woman, her brother-in-law thought she spoke in a higher key than what was generally sought in the softer sex.

Isabel had been in Europe and even further abroad for seven years and although she had taken a good look around and settled in the city she thought had the most benevolence, would treat her with a kind regard, a supple inclusion, she failed to take into account that a rich, attractive woman is given a certain latitude in almost any city in Europe as well as in America but that Rome retained the right to confound all. That she found Rome to her liking had more to do with the preferences of her husband, in whose opinion, in the beginning, she enthusiastically sought and adhered to.

But that was only in the beginning. After almost five years of marriage she no longer concerned herself with the likes or dislikes of her husband, she followed her own dictates for the most part though she still went through the motions of marital accord when it suited her. She was more on her own than she had ever been and she found this to her liking as time passed.

Isabel, after setting her teacup gently into its accompanying saucer, swallowing its last comforting sip, wiping her mouth delicately with a small, though beatifically embroidered napkin, said, “And what was that?” knowing by the tone of his voice, he was about to confront her with sighting her name on a sheet of paper in the foyer of Durell’s Gallery next to a red dot that announced to anyone who cared to look, that she was the owner of a drawing currently on exhibition, a delicately rendered scene in Venice by James McNeill Whistler. It could also have been learned she purchased a small oil by Berthe Morisot that had as of yet been notated on the list of sold items.
“That my wife, who has access to a very fine collection in her own home, some of the finest artists ever to apply paint, chalk or pencil to panel, paper or wall, should find it necessary to purchase an inconsequential daub by an American shyster for a ludicrous sum, without mind you, consulting her husband who not inconsequently is something of a connoisseur of art, should, with only her own sense of discernment, hardly developed, take it upon herself to add to their formidable collection a mere scribble by a man unworthy to call himself an artist, as Raphael, as DaVinci, as Michaelangelo could, with no shame do so. Is there an accounting for this blasphemy?”
“There are many, Gilbert, who regard Mr. Whistler a very fine artist and I happen to be one of them. I also happen to be an acquaintance of Mr. Whistler, a brief acquaintance only I admit, and I admire his sensibility. In fact, this is the second work of Mr. Whistler’s I have purchased. The other is at Gardencourt. An oil, quite evocative, and if you’d ever care to visit Gardencourt, you would learn that I have been collecting paintings to restore my cousin’s gallery and I am, in fact, only just beginning. So you see, Gilbert, if you took a closer look, made a more thorough examination of your wife’s mind and activities instead of plotting how best to marginalize her, you would have learned that like you, I too have been bitten by the collecting bug. It’s quite exhilarating, I must say. Captivating. I see how it could occupy many hours of the day. I now have a better understanding of you: the quest, the taking possession, the display of a recent acquisition, your taste on view, your judgment ready for approbation or approval. Oh, I don’t pretend to have your acumen, your extensive knowledge but in my own meandering way, am also proud of my findings. Money does offer one more than just a secure living…you can actually purchase respect, if you will.”
“If that your motive, I’d advise you to look a little further. There are many who look upon the so-called Impressionists as charlatans, it is not only myself. You might find that these knowledgeable minds would not treat your collection as anything but a joke and you as a gullible woman easily taken in and for my part, I do not care to have my wife associated with a joke.”
“I’m grateful for your concern but you needn’t bother about it unduly. The collection is for Gardencourt. It is something for me and for Ralph’s memory.”
“Ah, that’s it. Always you - you and your pervasive will. I should have known. Well, if you are not concerned with your reputation, or mine, perhaps you will consider the sums spent. They will not appreciate as my Giotto panels or my Caravaggio. No, you will be the proud possessor of a collection that will one day be considered a brief madness. You will hide them in the attic as you do outdated fashions. Perhaps burn them for firewood.”
“The prices of the Impressionists are rising rather quickly. I’m surprised Mr. Durelli hasn’t told you.”
“He knows my views on these sketches. He only reluctantly told me of your purchase as I did not care to glance at the ledger for these absurd works if that is what they can be called.”
“I’m sorry you don’t approve. I find I am quite taken with them myself. If you are right and they are a madness, I will no doubt have to burn them from the shame but if I am right, I will feel quite proud of my vision, of my instincts. I’m willing to take that chance.”
“Well, I do know Mrs. Osmond, that it is useless to talk to you…you are obstinate to a perilous degree when you wish to prevail. I know it only too well. I don’t suppose you care that I have in my sights Correggio’s lost Madonna of Albinea, worth more than an entire gallery of Impressionists?”
“You will do your pursuing, and I will stick to Mr. Whistler and Monsieur Monet. Oh and, by the way, Mr. Whistler may be coming to dine when he arrives in Rome. He will be invited everywhere so I wanted to secure his company immediately. I hope you will put your disdain aside, Gilbert.”
“I shall be prepared to meeting this charlatan in the flesh. My disdain however, goes where it will.”
“I have no fear for Mr. Whistler. He is quite capable of handling anything that might come his way from either friend or foe. I put you on your guard; you will not offend him easily nor get him to back down.”
“You’ve taken quite an interest in the man, I see. I want you to know I find that indefensible as my wife.”
“You need not worry about my personal regard for the artist, he is just one of many I plan to sponsor. But I look forward to his presence again. He had the most entertaining luncheons in London. I suppose that also doesn’t interest you but I should like very much to show him a great hospitality while in Rome.”
“As you wish. I consider it my duty, after all, you so much as told me; we each play our part. Now if you will excuse me, I have an appointment with the Marchesa Viticonti regarding my collection. I might wish to be informed on the purchase of artworks in future so I am not taken unawares by my dealer but I know how you like secrets.”
“Ah, Gilbert. Never speak to me of secrets. You are the master and I will never rise above you in that department.”
“Always the sarcasm. I do believe you may one day outdo my sister in that regard.”
“I’ve learned that from you, Gilbert, you see, you’ve given me so much. But my love of art is the only lasting value I place on our mutual exchange at this point. For that I am grateful. And speaking of secrets, is your Madonna in the hands of the Viticontis?”
“If you were grateful or learning anything, you would not be spending on your collection of hacks but I leave you with your own proclivities. You’ve been forewarned in any case.”
“You have not answered me on your lost Correggio. Is there something I should know? I assume it will require a fount of financial support, should I be forewarned on this acquisition? To whom will I be writing a check?”

Osmond determined to ignore the question for now. His negotiations were still a way off. He had no details to present, only a wild magical thinking. The prince had yet to speak to Pansy. Negotiations could begin soon after if she accepted his offer. Osmond would not leave it to chance but would speak to her before Sunday. He planned on taking her riding this afternoon and then taking tea with the Marchesa. He felt renewed; that his maneuvers would soon see fruition. He left his wife to her journal regretting that he had not held sway over her ridiculous purchase; he had not mentioned the Bernini drawing that was a far better investment nor had be broached the subject of an alleged portrait to be painted by Whistler. These things would have to be discussed when he felt better, regained his strength, after the prince made his proposal. This was his paramount interest, the others, merely background material that could wait.

Isabel thought she handled her husband with a mild use of her will. She didn’t care what he thought but she did hope that she would be proven right. It had never seemed more important that she be right about the Impressionists. She said she was a sponsor but that did not accurately describe her role. She was as yet, mostly unknown in the art world. But having said it to her husband, vowed she would do more for them. Going back to England would be necessary. She missed Gardencourt and her new gallery. She would return soon, as soon as she could convince Osmond to let her take Pansy. She sensed another battle and wondered if she were up for it and then remembered that she promised Pansy to fight for her and her resolve returned. She gleaned some intimation of what Osmond was up to: he wanted a painting hanging in the castle of the Marchesa. Well, she would not let him trade Pansy for all the Renaissance works in Italy if that was what he was doing, which was low even for Osmond. She didn’t press the point; she had little information to go on. Before Sunday, she would seek another audience with her husband. She had to put a few pieces of the puzzle together and then she would do battle if required. She hoped it would not be.

Later that day she received two missives: the first from Mr. Whistler accepting her invitation to dine while in Rome in two weeks time. Osmond and Whistler; no telling how that would come off, she mused. She had no fears for either. The other was from her sister-in-law in Florence that said little but implied much. That she would be in Rome was the main tenet and that was quite enough. Another touchy topic of conversation to be had with Osmond; why was the countess not writing to him? This and more was what was on Isabel’s mind as she headed to the kitchen to plan her menus for the week. Truth be told, she had Mr. Whistler and the Impressionist exhibit on her mind to the deprivation of Pansy, Osmond or his sister. Ah, the joys of connoisseurship.