The Cardinal’s Legacy
Michael Reidy
If you enjoyed the other books in Michael Reidy’s Unvarnished Truths Quartet, you will certainly enjoy this one. And I assume you did, or you will not have bought, or be contemplating buying The Cardinal’s Legacy. You will have before you the comfortable pleasure of reacquainting yourself with Sir Nigel Thomas and Ligeia Gordon (aka Sophie Gregg) and their ambivalent relationship, at once close and symbiotic, in a finely balanced gravitational harmony, and yet subject to an unspoken silence of the spheres, owing to a dark secret in Sophie’s past (see On the Edge of Dreams and Nightmares). As Sir Nigel puts it: ‘Sophie never sought help, and I never said a word, and that is why we are as we are today.’
At the end of Bickering, the previous novel, Sophie had suggested almost flippantly that Sir Nigel consider taking a break in Rome in order to transform himself into a religious painter. There are, he feels, certain obstacles, even absurdities in the idea. For one, it seems to him that there is no modern religious art of the profundity and spiritual significance of that of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Moreover, there is no current market for the genre. On the other hand, the grey northern skies of London in September have begun to seem oppressive, and Sophie has little difficulty in bullying him into action. One might imagine too, that as Sir Nigel is a catholic, the spirit moves within him.
And so the actress and the painter make for Rome, via Paris, of course.
One of the delights of the book is the way in which Reidy evokes the characteristic atmosphere of Paris and of Rome through their topography: the wide boulevards of Huysman’s Paris, ideal for flânerie, the busy cafés with their crowded pavement terraces and, of course, the art galleries; and then the wide Vespa-buzzing avenues of Rome with their crazy traffic, the ruined splendours of Empire and the secretive glories of the Vatican. Most of all, the two cities are vividly realised through descriptions of food and drink.
Though the initial notion was for them to enjoy a dépaysement (a pleasurable immersion in a different culture) and to put a distance between themselves and other personal relationships back home, it seems certain that two people with such professional reputations as Sophie and Nigel are bound to bump into figures from their past. And so it happens.
Sophie is spotted while resting during a visit to the Forum and consequently followed. Her ‘stalker’ turns out to be one of Italy’s premier directors who has recognised her. He tracks her back to her hotel and offers her a cameo role in a film he is making. Sophie is flattered and the idea of a shoot at Cinecittà is irresistible. She accepts.
Sir Nigel meanwhile has been trawling churches and galleries in search of works by Caravaggio, hoping to gain inspiration for his own projected religious painting. He is accosted by an ‘ordinary-looking business woman of about forty’ who turns out to be one Francine Baker whom Sir Nigel had painted when she was much younger. He remembers the sittings without much pleasure as her attendance had been capricious and unreliable. She tells him that she is now Francesca, Countess Polidori, though her husband passed away soon after their marriage. She invites Sir Nigel to ‘meet the family’.
The novel’s mid-section is concerned with Sophie and Nigel’s interaction with the somewhat chaotic Polidori family. Francesca wishes Sir Nigel to paint her daughter Carrie’s portrait. After initial misgivings, he agrees, and Carrie turns out to be the sanest of the lot of them. He meets Stephano, Francesca’s stepson and the current count; his wife, Laura; and their stroppy teenage daughter, Alegra, whose drug addiction is a plot-mover. I won’t slip into spoiler territory here. I will just point out that Sir Nigel is intrigued by Stephano’s easy urbanity and perceived inner strength and conceives the idea of paining him as St. Thomas More in his cell. Stephano agrees to sit in exchange for Nigel’s coaching Alegra in mathematics. Fireworks ensue.
‘You seem to have become part of the family,’ Laura says. For better or for worse, one might think.
The novel’s third part involves another encounter in a church. Sir Nigel is approached by Father Reynolds, a Jesuit who recognises him through catholic circles in London and his reputation as a solver of ‘art intrigues’. He says that Nigel might be able to help the Holy See with a problem. Sir Nigel recognises this as a command rather than a commission.
It seems that a certain Cardinal Mauro, who died in 2020, left a legacy which might, or might not, do reputational damage to the Vatican. It had not been possible to analyse his effects hitherto because of the pandemic lockdowns. Now, Sir Nigel is invited to apply his skills to the problem. It is understood that the task will take time: he will be accorded use of an apartment in the same building as the late cardinal’s rooms, an amanuensis and gopher (Richard) and a housekeeper (Pasqualina).
Paintings in the cardinal’s apartment have Old Testament themes, such as Miriam’s setting the infant Moses afloat in the bulrushes. An escritoire contains papers and artefacts which clearly have Jewish significance. Has Mauro appropriated them, or is he protecting them? On his own initiative? Or the instructions of a higher power? Given much historical disapprobation of the Vatican’s accommodations to Nazism during WW2, the issue is highly sensitive and secrecy is enjoined on Sir Nigel. He will be under the surveillance of two other Jesuits, Fathers Muldrew and Mézard. There is something slightly comical about the way in which these priests try to establish a prudent distance from the affair whilst being involved in its increasingly meticulous detail.
Obviously I’m not going to reveal the outcome of Sir Nigel’s detective work. I will just say that the benign and ebullient Pasqualina becomes the inspiration for Sir Nigel’s painting of the English mystic: Julian of Norwich. Her bewilderment at Sir Nigel’s request that she sit for this is credible and amusing.
For my money, this is the best of the novels in the tetralogy. Can we expect to hear more from the inhabitants of the Albany? Will Reidy go for the quintet? Vedremo. We shall see.
The plot of The Cardinal’s Legacy is complex, but the work reads easily, and the narrative elements fold into each other skilfully. As ever, Reidy’s research is impeccable, though his touch is light. Readers will be delighted by all manner of charming detail, like the Vatican Cafe, open only to those dedicated to spiritual pursuits. I don’t know if Reidy invented it, or if it really exists, but the idea had the same effect on me as an occasion when when thirty or so laughing nuns came aboard the same carriage on the Roman Metro where I was sitting. Only in Rome.