Kathleen Creighton - Never Trust A Lady

“This little sticker right here, do you see? It has the lot number.” Connie showed her how to find the listing in the catalog, loaned her a little jeweled pen and waited patiently while she circled the number, then took her by the arm, saying firmly, “Now then. Jane, do come have a look at these oil paintings. I know you are fond of the Impressionist style-these aren’t terribly good ones, I’m afraid. But one or two are actually quite… There now-what do you think?”

Connie had halted before a temporary wall of pegboard on which an assortment of paintings, prints and mirrors had been hung for display. More paintings occupied a Victorian settee nearby. Still others sat on the bare floor, propped against armoires and table legs. Jane scanned them quickty-some contemporary limited-edition signed prints that she knew from experience would be out of her price range, a few Victorians, either gloomy and dim or hopelessly sentimental, the usual florals-before p ausing at the one Connie was purposefully tapping with the frames of her glasses. She tilted her head and regarded the painting doubtfully. “I don’t know…the colors…it’s kind of murky, don’t you think?”

And then suddenly her gaze shifted. She felt herself begin to smile. “Oh,” she murmured. “Now this I like.”

It was an oil, not large, more or less in the style of Renoir, a pair of dancers against the backdrop of a crowded ballroom floor. To Jane, it was as if the artist had looked into her mind and painted her daydream. She could almost feel the graceful movements of the dancers, hear the lilting strains of the Viennese waltz, feel the softness of the spring evening, even catch the sweet scent of lilacs drifting through the open windows. The faces of the dancers had only been suggested, but somehow Jane knew that they were not just casual partners, but lovers.

Oh, yes, she thought. This was for her. Like the magnificently carved baby grand, the little painting touched chords in her imagination-only this, perhaps, she could actually afford.

“It would be perfect above my old piano,” she announced. “How much do you think it will go for?”

Connie considered, head tilted lips pursed. “Oh, I shouldn’t think it would be too much-as art, it hasn’t any particular value at all. it’s really a matter of whether it suits one’s taste and purpose, isn’t it? Jot it down. dear. You might get it for a song.”

Jane squinted at the tiny tag affixed to one corner of the frame, found the corresponding lot number in her catalog listings and made a bold check mark beside it. She was beginning to get the hang of this. She turned to Connie, flushed with accomplishment, as though the painting were already hers. “There-that’s done. Now I think I’d better quit before L…oh, what’s that you have there? Did you find something else? Let me see.”

Connie chuckled. “It is addictive, isn’t it?” She gave the painting she was holding a disparaging glance. “Oh, no, dear, not for you. Another one of those gloomy Victorians-quite dreadful, really.” Jane could see what appeared to be a sailing ship foundering in a garishly green-tinted, storm-tossed sea. Connie was right. It was dreadful.

“The frame isn’t at all bad, though.” The dealer turned the painting, assessing it through her half glasses. “I might just pick up one or two of these for the shop. if I can get them at a nice enough price. If you’re quite sure there’s nothing else you want to have a look at, you might just go and find us some seats. I suspect they’ll be getting under way very shortly.”

Jane was glad to take the suggestion, though her excitement was somewhat dampened by worry as she made her way through the crowd that was slowly beginning to drift toward rows of folding chairs that had been set up in the center of the huge room facing a low, temporary stage. Her mind was on her checkbook, doing some depressing mental math as she tried to decide how much of her modest balance she could afford to spend on either the Roy Rogers six-shooter or the painting of the dancers. Not very much, she feared.

She found two unclaimed chairs about two-thirds of the way back, just a few seats in from the aisle, deposited her catalog and purse on one to save it for Connie and settled into the other. A group of men were gathered on the stage in a purposeful-looking cluster. One, a short, dapper man in a suit and tie, plump and glossy as a ripe plum, from the toes of his polished black shoes to his shiny black slicked-down hair, separated himself from the rest and took up his post behind a wooden podium. As he lifted the microphone from its stand, a woman seated at a card table next to the podium handed him a sheet of paper. He glanced down at it, then beamed upon the crowd like a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school.

“Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to another fantastic Rathskeller’s auction…”

Jane sat with her hands clasped in her lap like a well-behaved child on the first day of school while the auctioneer read the policies and conditions of Rathskeller’s Auction House. He was finishing up when Connie slipped into the seat beside her.

“Just in time,” Jane whispered. “I think they’re about to start. Are these seats okay?”

Connie gave a quick look around, then said, “This will do fine, dear.” She sounded a little out-of-breath. And looking quite pleased with herself, Jane thought. Her eyes had that feisty gleam that always made Jane think of a little white hen who’s just spotted a particularly juicy grasshopper.

Up on the stage, the auctioneer hitched the mike cord around with a flourish and said, “All right, now, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get the bidding under way with a few of these items you see here…” One of several young men wearing white shirts and red baseball caps with Rathskeller’s printed on them held up a small metal object so everyone in the crowd could see it. “Okay, lot number one in your catalog is a World War II infantry compass. And, here we go, ladies and ge‘men, whatumahbid for this fascinating WWII compass…okay, who’llgimmetwenny, umbid-twennytwenny…”

The words tumbled out of the auctioneer’s mouth like marbles out of a bag, while here and there among the crowd a white card flashed, then over there another. There was a certain rhythm to it. Each time a card appeared, one of the white-shirted men would instantly point it out to the auctioneer, arms waving and pointing like semaphores, until there were no more cards to be seen-save one.

And then…“Sold!” Down came the gavel onto the podium, and the crowd subsided with anticipatory rustlings and murmurings while the lady at the table noted the buyer’s number and the selling price. And then, while the white-shirted men carried the item to a holding area to await its new owner, the rhythm began all over again. Jane thought it was terribly exciting.

“I just don’t see how you do it so calmly,” she said as the gavel fell and Connie made a triumphant notation in her catalog. “Maybe you could bid for me?”

“Nonsense, dear.” Connie looked very much like a cat with a mouthful of feathers. “Nothing to it. Tell you what-why don’t you have a go at it a time or two. Bid on something you don’t particularly care for, just for the practice. You do have to keep your wits about you, of course. Jump in early, and get out when the bidding gets serious. That way you’ll get the hang of it and you won’t be so nervous when it really matters. Like this, dear-watch.”

It looked so easy when Connie did it.

The first time Jane poked her number 133 tentatively into the view of the eagle-eyed men in the white shirts, she thought she might actually faint. When one of them pointed at her, it might as well have been with a loaded pistol; she subsided hastily. shaking like a leaf.