“Poor Alice,” said the countess. “I do hope it’s nothing serious.”
Edward Knight did not return for the main course—it was rack of lamb served with a gorgeous Pomerol—or for the remarks by Sir Avery Ramsay, the National Gallery’s director. The event, he announced, had raised nearly ten million pounds, more than sufficient to fund the most important Botticelli exhibition in a generation. Niles Dunham delivered a mercifully brief lecture about the artist and his work before introducing Gabriel and Sarah. For forty-five minutes they held the audience in their thrall. Sarah never once strayed from her prepared questions, but Gabriel went much further than he had intended. Chiara watched his performance as though wondering which carefully hidden secret he would reveal next. Three tables away, Amelia March scribbled in her notebook without cease.
The interview concluded with a time-lapse video of Gabriel’s restoration ofPortrait of a Young Womanby Leonardo da Vinci, made from the still photographs he had taken at the conclusion of each day’s work. The first image showed the painting in a fully stripped state, the last in its current condition. The audience rose to its feet and roared its approval. Gabriel, as he stepped from the stage, felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders. It was, he thought, long overdue.
Amelia March accosted him first. “You were brilliant,” she declared.
“How accurate are your notes?”
“Verbatim in places.”
“In that case, print whatever you like,” said Gabriel, and started across the crowded room toward Chiara. Reaching her proved a challenge, for at every turn there was another hand to shake, another compliment to accept. She waited until they were back in the Range Rover and bound for Cornwall to deliver her review.
“It was definitely a night to remember.”
“The real Gabriel Allon?”
“And then some.”
“A shame about Alice, though.”
“Yes,” said Chiara. “She really did throw a lovely party.”
4
Gwennap Head
To call the Allon residence at Gwennap Head a cottage was a misnomer. In truth it was a substantial nineteenth-century farmhouse set upon fifteen of the most picturesque acres in the southwest of England. Adjacent to the main dwelling, reached by a flagstone walk, was a refurbished outbuilding that Gabriel had converted into his studio. Its floor-to-ceiling windows gazed across a meadow of purple thrift and red fescue. The towering lighthouse atop Wolf Rock, so named for the howling sound of its deadly gales, shone nine miles out to sea.
On the morning after the Wickham House fundraiser, he set off along Cornwall’s famed Coast Path toward Penzance, a rucksack over one shoulder, Irene and Raphael at his side. For twenty minutes, as they made their way along the sea cliffs, he was subjected to a litany of complaints regarding one Cecily Newton, the delightful, mild-mannered Cornish girl from Sennen Cove who had looked after the children the previous evening.
“She was mean to us,” insisted Irene.
“Was she really?”
“Cruel, even.”
“I rather doubt that. In fact, it sounds to me as though you’re upset that you weren’t invited to the fundraiser.”
“It wasn’t nice to leave us at home alone.”
“You weren’t alone, you were with Cecily. But please speak English while we’re in Cornwall.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s quite possible that you will attend university here in England, and you have to learn to speak English without such a pronounced Italian accent.”
“We’ll speak English only if you promise never to leave us with Cecily again.”
“I shall make no such commitment.”
“Then Raphael and I shall continue to speak in Italian,” huffed Irene. “With our pronounced Venetian accents.”
The children marched along the footpath at a stoic clip, trying gamely to keep pace with their father, but they began to tire as they approached the Tater Du Lighthouse. Chiara met them at Lamorna Cove, and they had a bite to eat at the little beach café. Gabriel checked theARTnewswebsite and saw that Amelia March had posted her story about the fundraiser. It took nearly two minutes for the article to download. They were in the middle of a cellular dead zone, one of several along the Cornish coast, including one at Gwennap Head.
“Well?” asked Chiara.
“The real Gabriel Allon,” he replied. “In his own words.”
