The Lies of Fair Ladies (32 page)

"Are you sure?" I asked weakly. I don't know anybody who
doesn't do this elementary trick. I should have asked Luna if she was real,
never mind sure.

"And I saw that . . . that lady. She
propositioned
a Brighton gentleman." Her face was flaming.
"Her husband made the arrangements! Exchanging sexual favors for a small
oaken Canterbury."

"Rhea Cousins?" Payment in kind's routine in the
antiques trade. Like in every other, I might add, except not quite so obvious.
Rhea's husband, Willis, keeps records on a home computer. Rhea's pretty, but
worn out in the service of antiques. Luna must mean Lot 146, mid-Victorian but
nice. Good old Rhea. "I told you." "Yes, Lovejoy. Arranged out
loud! I mean." She was stunned, thrilled. Sweet Mary among trolls.
"Listen, love. It's normal. It's life. It's antiques." "But the
first auction wasn't like that, Lovejoy." "It's just that you were
new. Now, you're learning." "But ..." She flapped her hand, sat
on the divan beside me. "But even Mrs. Dainty, who's so . . . well,
proper. I saw her move a battered old painted chair from one job lot to
another. She was most put out when I explained her mistake."

Margaret Dainty would be. I suppressed a grin. The trade calls it
"waltzing." You examine some item, forgetfully put it back in the
wrong lot. That way, you steal the item from whoever buys the first job lot,
and give it free to whoever buys the second job lot (and that'll be you, of
course). Waltzes are so prevalent that auctioneers started taking photographs,
but gave up. The law says sale happens on the fall of the hammer—is it your
fault if whifflers have misplaced the stuff, for heaven's sake . . . ?

Luna was staggered. "Surely Mr. Wittwoode supplies
lists—" "Come on, love. No chatter in work time." There's no
telling the Lunas of this world. I pulled her up and we went to haul the
furniture. "Mrs. Dainty pays the whifflers to turn Nelson's eye."
Like the rest of us, I could have added, but didn't. "She actually paid!"
Etc., etc.

Luna had got twenty-one pieces. I got my trolley—pram wheels and a
plank—to lug them round to the workshop. She had done very, very well. I told
her so because women like approval. I don't know why. They're strange. I
couldn't care less whether people approve or not.

"One. This dumbwaiter." Small pieces first. "It's a
small single-pillar table, right? It should have three circular mahogany trays
with raised margins—dishtops, we call them. It's only got two, right?"

"Yes." She was looking about, downcast.

"Pay heed. That tips you off that the tripod feet and the top
tray have been taken away, married up, and sold as a tripod table. Remember the
one I was working on?"

"Is it no good? I shall take it straight back— "

''No, love.” Luna was serious effort, for all that she looked
lovely in her smart suit and high heels. Dressy. I like that. "We'll make
it look antique and original, see? All we'll need is some flat matched mahogany
to replace its third tray. The previous faker couldn't be bothered. Well, we
can."

"Is that honest, Lovejoy?"

Untruth called. I looked her straight in the eye. "Of course.
We'll describe it accurately." I did my injured expression. I wasn't going
to stomach her woebegone dolor every blinking time I faked a veneer. Best fight
the battle now, and have done. "Lune," I said quietly. "If you
doubt my moral standards—"

"No, Lovejoy! Of course I don't!"

"Please let me finish, Lune." I closed my eyes, opened
them, clearly seeking strength to go on. "You harbor suspicions. It's too
. . . too distressing to even think of."

"I
know
, Lovejoy.
I'm sorry I even
spoke
—"

God, the emotional turmoil. "I won't conceal the truth, Lune.
I've developed an ... an attachment for you that's deeper than, well, I . .
."I'd almost reached the shaky lip. "I want you to feel sure."

"I do, Lovejoy! I was wrong to even
think
—"

I looked into her eyes. "We stay within the law. Every
item."

Her eyes were brimming. "I'm for you every inch of the
way."

"Very well," I said quietly, smiling nobly through
anguish. "Then I forgive you. Load that dumbwaiter. Shove it round to the
workshop."

She was looking down at her lovely stylish clothes. "I can't.
I mean, are we actually going to . . . well,
work?
"

"Of course, you silly bitch," I yelled. "Get
frigging started!"

"My suit will be ruined."

She was worried about her high heels. Can you believe women?

"In the cottage you'll find trousers, Wellingtons. There's an
old shirt." I bawled after her, "And wear your own knickers. Them
underpants are my even-dates pair, d'you hear?"

She trotted in. I started on the furniture. My spirits rose.

Three Victorian worktables she'd bought were pedestal supported. I
upended them. Easiest and commonest job in the world, to remove the pedestal
(carefully keeping it to make another fake) and plug the four (sometimes six)
screwholes underneath. Add four lovely tapered legs. That would add a good
seventy to eighty years to each table.

"Beg pardon, Lovejoy?" from Luna. I'd been muttering.

"Remind me to order three sets of legs from Channie in Long
Melford. I’ve got some veneer to cover the traces of the screw-holes.” I
straightened, beamed. "We'll have created three new fake antiques—er,
restorations, I mean—by six this evening. Channie fakes . . . that is," I
corrected carefully, "he's a master woodworker specializing in supplies to
the antiques restoration trade . . . Hellfire, Lune!"

Luna was blushing, shifting from foot to foot. Where was the
elegant, edible woman? She was shapeless. She rattled about in enormous
Wellington boots that seemed to reach into her. My old trousers hung on her
like twin sacks. A T-shirt—surely mine could never be that gross? I’m dead
average—was draped over her. A marquee after a storm.

"Am I all right?" she asked anxiously. "For
helping?"

"Yes, love," I said gravely. "You look really, er .
. . Wheel the tables in. We've a lot to do."

We found a table with four round legs. Only a crude Victorian wash
table, and battered almost to dereliction.

"We'll make this eighteenth century," I explained.
"You simply take off each leg and lathe it down to about three fifths of
its diameter. I’ll show you how. Thick veneer from Herman the Gerbil at Eccles,
and taper each leg on its inner face. Hey presto! It'll look eighteenth-century
London!" And be as phony as St. Peter's bones in the Vatican.

"Me? The lathe?" Luna was really into it.
"Properly?"

"Of course, Lune. I trust you."

"Oh, you." But she was pleased, and set to willingly.

"The problem is that the legs will finish different, as they
say. From a distance they'll seem a strange color. So we'll dress the top to
match. Then distress it a little, knock it about a bit." I smiled at her
sudden consternation. "Customers expect it."

"If you're sure, Lovejoy." Her brow swept itself free of
doubt, as always when a bird has a man in her pocket. Women are a great
invention. No wonder sex caught on.

We set to.

It was bliss. Don't knock what we were doing, incidentally. I
mean, if you knew how to change your old (or even new) chair into something
antique and highly valuable, wouldn't you give it a go? And emulating the great
masters of Georgian London, unexcelled for artistry before or since, gives a
thrill of utter delight.

We had a tallboy—a stack of drawers, the bottom three wider than
the top set. Hepplewhite was the tallboy king; though this was a feeble
Edwardian copy, nicely aged. You separate the two sets. The top set consists of
three single drawers plus the top level of two matching smaller drawers. We had
a table top spare—the Wittwoode vannies had used it to off-load the smaller
items Luna had bought. We would cut it, then use it as a top for the lower
stack of drawers, making a luscious early Victorian chest of drawers. The
surface finish would be a problem, but that's always so with the faker. We'd
get round that somehow.

Showing her how to use the spindle lathe, I was astonished at her
proficiency. In half an hour she'd learned to keep the foot treadle going while
balancing herself to keep the pressure even on the chuck.

"Do you know prices have gone up two hundred percent this
year?" I groused, measuring a derelict piece to see if it could be turned
into a bachelor chest. It was nice walnut, the right wood, but the bachelor is
usually shallow—not more than ten inches, back to front, and only two feet nine
inches wide. So a crumbling old bureau has to be savagely reduced. There's a
giveaway: When you pull out a bachelor chest drawer, it's
"tit-heavy," meaning tending to fall forwards—

"Luna!" The voice made me jump. "What on
earth?"

Oliver, marching in and nearly falling over the peg bath I'd set
up yonks ago.

"Hello, Oliver." Luna was being thrilled on the lathe.
Not bad, either, turning her wood slowly, tongue out (Luna, not the spindle).
Tousled but accurate. I liked her. "Lovejoy's taught me! I'm thinning it,
so—"

"Look at you!" Mayoress, he almost said.

"I hadn't time to come home. Lovejoy said I'm doing
superbly."

"Lovejoy." Oliver's whiplash command was one I'd have
instinctively disobeyed, but Luna was there so I followed him out.
"Lovejoy. I will not have my wife consorting with the district roguery!
And where did she change? Dressed as a scruff!"

"Oliver." I'm noted for my patience, but this was too
much.

"No, Lovejoy. I've had a call from Del Vervain. Urging me to
attend a rehearsal, with the council, in our Moot Hall, of his radio show. How
do you think this will make me look? I demand—"

"In, Oliver." I pushed him into the workshop. This was
an Oliver vs. Luna conflict, nowt to do with me. "Sort it out."

Which made me think. I searched for pieces of cock-beading round
drawers among the pile. This is molding, semicircular in section, that sticks
out round the edges of drawers. Classically pre-1800, mahogany or walnut. Too
much to hope for original post-1720 cock-beading, but plenty of early Victorian
lookalikes would do. The mistake fakers make nowadays is to fix them with
minute pin nails. The originals were glued. So to a criminal faker (I mean an
honest restorer, like me) an authentic length of cock-beading is worth its
weight in gold. I kid not.

"Look at you, Lovejoy.'' Oliver was out, lip curled in scorn.
"Junk. To think I sent my wife to work with you."

Oliver was a wart, but I heard him out. I’ve been slagged off by
champs. I needed Luna. I’d no other loyalty. And, I thought indignantly, I was
paying her, wasn't I? Well, nearly. I had that girl Laura's gelt, and Luna's.
And possibly still Oliver's. Maybe I should pay her? A check had come this
morning from the Employment Office. To me, not her. Transferring it seemed an
unnecessary labor. I needed to cut down my administrative costs. Also, Luna was
rich.

"I'm withdrawing my finance, Lovejoy. Completely."

"Maybe I'll withdraw from Vervain's show in the Moot
Hall."

"You can't." He was smiling. What else did he know?

"I can do anything I want, Ollie."

"Don't call me Ollie," he fumed. "Attend. Or you'll
suffer harassment every hour, on the hour."

"Threats, eh?"

"Yes." He said it simply enough for me to believe.
"See that Mrs. Carstairs is home never later than five."

"Yes, bwana."

But I'd found two small lengths of glued cock-beading, not a nail
mark on them. I went inside happily, but wondering what deal Oliver had struck
with Del Vervain.

"All right, Lovejoy?" Luna asked, worriedly watching me.

"Don't stop," I told her. “It's difficult enough to get
you women started." She tutted, smiling, returning to her task. I added
laconically, "The circus is coming to town."

Twenty-eight

Those working days made Luna realize that antiques are, if not
everything, so nearly everything as to make no difference. News spread that
Lovejoy Antiques, Inc. had money. We became a Mecca. Dealers beat a path to our
door. They came singly, of course, which is always a problem, because you don't
know who's done a deal with whom. That matters, because you can force prices up
or down with that knowledge. Without, it's free-fall.

Luna showed amazing aptitude, especially for somebody with no
experience. She learned to lathe table legs, to plane even. She could use a
routing plane almost better than me within three days. And she was neat, so
neat I had to ballock her and say for God's sake stop putting the chisels in
order of size, and to leave the solvents alone instead of arranging them with
the darkest shades near the window. Can drive you mad.

She liked seeing who would come next. Of course, she had likes and
dislikes. She hated that evil swine Acker.

That week spent itself in buying from dealers, and making stuff.
We didn't allow dealers into the workshop, of course. And every day as the
light faded Gunge arrived in borrowed vans. We stopped for tea about then, and
he'd load up while we discussed the evening plans. Luna had contrived an
arrangement with Oliver so that she went home to change afterwards, while I
made myself some grub. Then we'd meet in the White Hart and buy, buy, buy
handies from dealers in the saloon bar. Mostly jewelry, miniatures, portable
antiques like porcelain, small statues, glass, silverware, chatelaines, a few
books—though I hate booksellers too much to buy on the hoof. Some stuff was
memorable—a velocipede, early nineteenth century. And a collection of mustard
pots brought in by Bullrush, a tramp with an eye for a window catch. Don't
laugh at mustard pots, incidentally. Odd, but large mid-Victorian silver gilt
ones are even more valuable than small genuine sterling ones. Supposedly on
account of their usefulness as marmalade pots, but I doubt that. Look for one
with a monkey approaching a barrel. Chances are it's a John Bridge, 1825-ish,
and costly as a small car. Mostly they're only a week's wages.