The Sense of Reckoning (25 page)

Scott opened the book carefully. “
An Essay Towards a Theory of Apparitions
,” he read.

“It contains an interesting chapter on ‘A lawyer’s argument for the existence of witchcraft,’” said Garrick. “It presents a similar position to the first book, but with some diverting cases studies. You may skip over the sections written in Latin.”

“What about me?” said Ann.

“What about you?” asked Garrick.

“Are you going to loan me a book?”

“Are you interested in borrowing a book?”

“Well, not really, but it would be nice to be asked,” Ann grumbled.

“Feel free to alert me when you develop an interest,” said Garrick pointedly, and showed them to the door.

Ann and Scott walked to the car, Scott glancing back to admire the house. He followed her to the passenger side and opened the door for her.

“My, how chivalrous of you,” she said.

“He’s looking out the window at us, and I
am
supposed to be your chauffeur,” said Scott with a little bow.

“I think he likes you,” said Ann when Scott got in the car.

“Who wouldn’t?”

“No, I mean I think he
likes
you. Scott, is Garrick gay?”

“Not unless my gaydar is on the fritz,” said Scott blithely.

“Boy, if Mike thinks he doesn’t like Garrick now, just think how he’ll be when he hears Garrick has designs on his boyfriend.”

Chapter 36

When they got to the inn, Ann went up to her room. The nausea that used to accompany sensings now struck her only occasionally, but the experience did tire her. She intended to lie down for only a few minutes, but when she opened her eyes to a tapping on the door, full darkness had fallen.

“Annie?” she heard Scott call softly.

She scrubbed her face with her hand and glanced at the clock on the bedside table: 9:00. “Come in.”

Scott opened the door, silhouetted in the light from the hallway. “Are you feeling okay, sweetie?”

“Yes, I was just tired.”

Scott came in and sat on the bed beside her. “I didn’t want to wake you up for dinner so I got you a lobster roll. It’s in the fridge. Mace says there’s somebody she knows who’s playing at that jazz club in Bar Harbor—want to go after you have something to eat?”

“Gee, tempting as that sounds...” said Ann with a smile. Scott knew she found jazz annoying.

“Is it okay if I go?”

“Of course.” Ann nudged Scott with her knee and he stood to let her swing her legs off the bed. “I’ll just hang out here and do some reading. Thanks for getting me dinner.”

“Sure thing. You’re going to have the place to yourself—Nan is away but Mace thought since you and I are the only guests it would be okay for her to go out as long as we left you with provisions. There’s Chardonnay in the fridge.”

“Lobster and wine—what more could I possibly need?”

“If it weren’t for the jazz, I’d stay in myself—it’s getting really cold out.” He examined her appraisingly. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yup. Have a good time.”

He bent over and gave her a kiss on top of the head. “You don’t know what you’re missing!”

“Uh, I think I do know what I’m missing,” she said pointedly.

*****

In an effort to snap herself out of her post-nap grogginess, Ann took a hot shower. She pulled on fresh jeans, a long-sleeved white t-shirt, and a dark red sweater. Going down to the inn’s kitchen, she took the lobster roll and a glass of wine to the dining room and settled down with her iPad. Based on the style of the painting and the clothes worn by its subject, she did some searches on “renaissance portrait,” then refined that to “italian renaissance portrait” and further to “italian renaissance portrait lady.” She was rewarded with dozens of images similar to the one she had seen in the secret compartment—formal portrayals of richly clad women against pastoral backgrounds, sometimes cradling a small dog or a lamb or, in one case, a unicorn, which was much smaller than she would have expected.

She scanned idly through the images, enlarging the ones that looked in style most like the painting she had seen. But most of them lacked the finesse of the portrait of “The Lady”—the fine brushwork, the subtle shading of the background, the detail of the material of the dress. She had at first assumed that it was a well-done reproduction, but perhaps it wasn’t impossible for a family with enough money to own a hotel to have enough money to purchase an original. She had dipped her toe into the commercial art world with her own paintings, but she had no experience with fine art dealing. On the one hand, what Garrick had said about the Lynam family’s bad financial luck made it seem unlikely that they would own an old master. On the other hand, the sale of the painting would evidently provide the funds needed to save the hotel, so its value must be significant.

Well, she would try to get more information from Garrick once he had seen the painting—she didn’t doubt that in his well-stocked library in Somesville were some books on Renaissance portraiture.

She flipped the cover of her iPad closed and, having finished her lobster roll, took the plate to the kitchen and refilled her glass. She went to the sitting room and scanned the shelves, locating, to her surprise, a dog-eared copy of a Nero Wolfe mystery—Rex Stout had been a favorite of her mother’s. She saw that a fire had been laid and she lit the kindling and was rewarded with the pleasing crackle and pop as the wood caught. She settled herself into one of the overstuffed chairs. Much nicer than the unpredictable warblings of small-town Maine jazz, she thought.

But the painting in the secret compartment kept intruding on her thoughts, and eventually she flipped the book closed on the adventures of Nero and Archie and returned to her iPad in the dining room
.

She experimented for some time with various searches, for a while getting drawn into pages describing the loss and retrieval of artworks stolen by the Nazis before and during World War II. Could Ellen’s father, or possibly grandfather, have fought in the war and smuggled a masterwork home with them? She tried entering “italian renaissance portrait lynam” but none of the entries contained “lynam.” She tried “italian renaissance portrait maine” and one of the results caught her eye.

It was an article about the Golden Age of Bar Harbor and the summer “cottages” that the fabulously rich—the Vanderbilts, the Pulitzers, the McCormicks—built there. She scrolled through images of summer homes the size and opulence of extravagant city halls. In one, two women in Victorian garb sat down to an al fresco tea at an enormous mahogany table that must have been transported with backbreaking effort from the dining room. In the background were gardens that would have required an army of caretakers to maintain.

It had all come to an end in 1947, when fire swept across the eastern side of the island, burning many of those estates to the ground. She happened upon a series of before-and-after photos—mansions reduced to nothing but their chimneys and the pillars that had flanked their entrances.

One article included a photograph of a man and woman standing in an elegantly decorated mid-century room. The caption read:

Jardin d’Eden, the summer home of Mr. and Mrs. James Furness, was one of the casualties of the fire. The cottage, first thought to be out of danger until a shift of the wind drove the flames toward Bar Harbor, burned to the ground along with Mr. Furness’s priceless art collection, including this recent acquisition ...

Ann zoomed in on the painting. The reproduction of the photograph was poor and the original had likely been grainy to start with, but she felt the thud of recognition—this was the painting in the secret compartment. Garrick wasn’t on his way to resolve a sibling dispute over a father’s inheritance. He was going to reveal the location of a priceless masterwork to a desperate woman who might do anything to save her family’s legacy.

Chapter 37

1947

Even with the fire roaring at the crest of Great Hill and the evacuation sirens wailing from Bar Harbor—even with the glass of the window gone where he had crashed into the room, the drapes puddled at his feet—a stillness presided in the library of Jardin d’Eden. Chip kicked the drapes away.

He crossed the room to The Lady and her eyes followed him. Those eyes were quiet and sad—her life had been difficult and people cruel, he could tell. But he wasn’t a child anymore, and he could protect her.

What would be the best way to get her away? The painting was a little more than three feet tall and a little less than three feet wide, surrounded by a carved, gilded wooden frame. He though briefly of trying to remove the painting from the frame, but he was afraid that he might damage it in the process. Furthermore, although the frame would make the painting more awkward to carry, it would provide some protection. He wished he knew what had become of the crate he was sure the painting had been shipped in, but he didn’t have time to go looking for it. He needed to wrap it in something—he needed a large cloth.

He crossed to the door to the hallway. Despite the fact that he remembered carrying the boxes of Mrs. Furness’s china and paperweights out to the truck without Pritchard relocking the library door, he still heaved a sigh of relief when it opened. But his relief was cut short when he looked across the hall through the open doors of the dining room and the large arched windows beyond. Flames were creeping down the hillside like soldiers crossing no man’s land on elbows and knees. The air was thickening with the advance guard of the smoke.

Chip crossed the hallway to the dining room. He expected to have to search through the stack of linen tablecloths in the breakfront, but there was a tablecloth on the table. He snatched the corner and gave it a yank, sending a large brass candelabra and a pair of Oriental-looking porcelain dog statues crashing to the floor. Returning to the library, he lay the tablecloth on the floor, then lifted The Lady carefully off the wall.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmured, trying to convince himself as much as his helpless charge.
 

He lowered The Lady onto the cloth and folded it around her. His hands shook, but he tried not to rush—it would be no good to come this far to rescue her and then have himself rather than the fire be the one to damage her. Once she was bundled into her cocoon of cloth, he would have liked to have found twine to tie up the package, but the stillness of the library was now being overtaken by the sounds of alarms and destruction coming from beyond the broken window. He tucked the corners of the tablecloth into the bundle to hold it in place.

He gathered up the awkward package and headed down the hallway to the front door.

When he opened the door, the heat hit him like a physical blow—he could feel his exposed skin shrinking from the onslaught. The creeping vanguard of flames he had seen from the dining room had turned into an all-out assault, fire rolling from tree to tree like a crashing wave. Now the howling wind was carrying not just ash but burning cinders that pricked his skin.

He ran down the drive, The Lady turned away from the flames, keeping his body between her and the scorching heat. He managed to scramble over the downed tree without putting her down. When he got to the truck, he eased her into the passenger side, then skittered around to the driver’s side. His heart was hammering and his lungs ached to take deep gulps of air, but he forced himself to breathe shallowly, every breath singeing his throat. The truck started on the first try, as if it were as anxious to escape Jardin as Chip was. He got the truck turned around in a frenzied series of back-and-forths. He hit the gas, but then almost immediately slammed on the brakes.

The fire had progressed down the hill more quickly here than directly above the house. Partway down the drive, fire burned on both sides, flames licking up the trunks, the tops of the trees torching. He saw movement and realized that small animals—a rabbit and several squirrels—were making their escape from the flames down the drive.

The fire-born wind was shrieking. Chip heard a crack and saw a tree fall, its top brushing the border of the drive. He hit the gas and shot past the burning tree just as he heard another crack and crash, accompanied by the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard screech of a branch on the truck’s back window.

At the bottom of the drive he turned to look back at Jardin. Flames were licking at the eaves and smoke boiled off the roof. Red-hot cinders spun out of the woods and a carefully manicured bush next to the front door burst into flame. He turned back to the road and accelerated, and narrowly missed a deer that shot out of the woods just yards ahead of the flames and bounded down Great Hill.

When Chip reached the bottom of the drive, the smoke and flames forced him back to Eden Street and into Bar Harbor. He made his way back into Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Street and then turned right onto Main Street. At the fork south of the village, most traffic turned left to follow Schooner Head Road along the shore, but Chip took the right fork onto Otter Creek Road, hoping the faster progress enabled by fewer cars would compensate for the fact that its more westerly route would take him nearer to the fire.

Abetted by the smoke that his headlights barely cut through, late afternoon turned to a livid dusk as the slow caravan made its way through Otter Creek and Seal Harbor, past Asticou and up Sound Drive. When they reached the top of Somes Sound, most of the cars turned right to make the dash across Mount Desert Narrows via the only bridge to the mainland, but Chip turned left, passing through Somesville and then cutting across the western “claw” on Pretty Marsh Road.