A Stranger in Wynnedower (23 page)

“What about the realtor
you were speaking with the day after I arrived? Are you still considering
selling?”

“Yes.” One more time,
he’d try to make her grasp the reality of the situation. “I can’t afford not to
consider every option, including selling the house and the estate to a developer.”

A small noise. A gasp.
He looked up and saw May standing in the doorway.

It was unfortunate that
she’d overheard, but the facts were the facts. In the end, maybe it was just as
well. May, perhaps more than anyone, needed to understand and accept the likely
future of Wynnedower.

Nearly mid-morning,
Jack’s voice echoed up the stairway and resounded down the hall and into her
room. “Rachel! Rachel!”

She raced to the
stairs. “Jack? What’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“I need your help.”

“On my way.”

“No, wait.” He came up
the first few steps. “I need you to pose. Can you put the dress on and come
down? Quickly, because the light is passing.”

“You want me to pose?
To
pose?
You scared me. I thought it was an emergency.”

“It is. The light is
passing. It’s perfect now, and I need you in the garden. Now. Hurry.”

Annoyed, she was
tempted to ignore him or to delay, but as he said, the light was passing. No
time for argument. She tossed her shirt and shorts onto the bed and pulled the
dress over her head. It floated down around her hips and legs. She grabbed the
shoes she couldn’t wear, and ran down the stairs to rescue Jack because he
needed her.

May was in the central
hall. Madame May. She gave Rachel a look that should’ve squelched any enthusiasm,
but Rachel didn’t care what May thought and passed her without a word.

“Here, Rachel. On the
bench.”

He posed her again,
arranging her arms, her legs, the tilt of her head. Then he disappeared behind
the canvas. Within minutes her body parts objected to the awkward, enforced
posture.

She preferred posing
indoors—or rather, she disliked posing indoors less than posing out of doors.
It was hard to sit immobile when a gnat was trying to inspect one’s eye or a
fly was buzzing in your ear.

The cement bench bit
into her hip. That poor hip bore most of her weight thanks to Jack’s
arrangement of her limbs which made her envision a floral arrangements of arms
and legs—which made her lips twitch as she fought a giggle.

“Don’t move.”

No more of that
attitude. She looked him in the eyes while trying not to disarrange her body.
“I’m doing you a favor here. Did you forget that?”

“I apologize.” He laid
his brush on the palette and came over. He dropped to his knee and gently
touched her chin. In a soft voice, he said, “Turn that way, please.”

“I’m re-thinking this
whole gig.”

“Please. I know I’ve
been curt. I’m focused on painting. Single-minded, I know. That’s why I
appreciate you so much.”

Ego stroked, she asked
for more, “Why do you appreciate me?”

“Because you work so
well without supervision.” He grinned. “And you do it so beautifully.”

He whisked away, back
to his feet, back at the easel, retrieved his brush, and it was as if they’d
never had A Moment. Did they have a moment? She stared straight ahead at the leaves.

“Do you wonder what
your great-grandfather would think of this? Of you painting? And out here in
the garden.
En plein air
. That’s what it’s called, right?”

She waited. No
response. “Did I step on some toes? Or are you concentrating?”

“Neither. I was
remembering.”

“What?”

“Stop moving.”

“Then talk to me. Or
can you not paint and talk at the same time?”

“I never knew Griffin,
but my grandfather idolized him. He talked about him like he was a celebrity,
about how he liked the fast life and hanging out with that set.”

“What set?”

“Other artists.
Bohemian. Rich dilettantes. Some of them visited here. Old Griffin Wynne never
worried about money, so that ended up being what his son and grandson, my
father, had to worry about all the time.”

“Other artists? Famous
ones? That must have been such an exciting time.”

“He was involved in an
exhibition in New York City in the early 1900s. I have photos of him with his
artist friends somewhere around here. You might enjoy them. In fact, it feels
kind of full circle with me about to have my own showing, doesn’t it?” There
was a long pause. “Might be useful for marketing. I’ll mention them to Amanda.
See what she thinks.”

Amanda. Her annoyance
flared, but only briefly. It was reasonable that Jack would talk about such things
with his agent. In fact, Jack was full of chit-chat today, but it took a detour
she wasn’t expecting.

“That dress fits you
like it was made for you.”

She resisted preening
and held the pose. “You think so? It’s a beautiful gown. I’ve always had a weakness
for old clothing. Rather, vintage clothing.”

“Playing dress up.
Helene enjoyed that when she was a kid.”

“Same here. It’s
probably a universal pastime. Aunt Eunice had a trunk in her attic, too.”

“The aunt who raised
you, right? I’ll bet you couldn’t stay out of it.” He grinned.

She returned his smile,
while trying not to move. “There wasn’t this kind of expensive finery, but some
women’s dresses and other odds and ends. Shoes and hats and such. I don’t know
who they belonged to. Probably Eunice. I liked to pretend they were my mother’s
and grandmother’s.”

“You strike me as
someone who hangs onto stuff. I’ll bet you still have those dresses.”

“Oh. Well, no. Aunt
Eunice worried about me going up to the attic. Climbing the pull-down ladder.
Maybe falling through the part of the attic that wasn’t floored. She worried,
too, that Jeremy might try to follow me and get hurt.” After one particularly
difficult day in middle school, she’d gone up to the attic and discovered the
trunk and its contents were gone. “They’re long gone. She donated them.”

Somehow her hands had
moved from her lap to the bench and her body had shifted.

“I lost the pose. Jack,
why didn’t you say something?”

He didn’t answer. She
looked up. He was hiding behind the canvas, back at work. Had probably lost
interest. Typical. She re-assumed the pose as best she could and decided to
give him fifteen more minutes. After that, he was on his own.

****

Brendan was due
mid-day. Jack had volunteered him to help her move some items around up in the
attic, but definitely not down from the attic.

“Show me what you have
in mind.”

She unlocked the attic
door, and he preceded her up the stairs. He gave a low whistle when they
reached the top.

“You haven’t been up
here before?”

“No. Jack keeps the
attic locked up tight.”

“There are some boxes
behind that furniture, and a cabinet is blocked.”

“Anything good in ‘em?”

“That’s what I’m going
to find out.” She pointed to the far side. “Over there.”

They each took an end
of a table and shifted it over a couple of feet to clear floor space.

“Could you move those
boxes away from the wall? I don’t want to bang my head on the low eaves.
Actually, I’m glad I found this stuff. It’ll be fun going through the boxes.”

Brendan half-lifted and
half-pulled the boxes into the floor area. “These are heavy.” He yanked some
flaps open.

“Still looking for
treasure?”

“Very funny. I bet I’d
remember some of this stuff from when I was kid. If you want, I’ll help you
empty the boxes.”

“No need. You do a lot
for Wynnedower already—repairs and caretaking and all. You probably know as
much about the house as anyone.”

“Hard not to. It’s the
local ‘elephant in the room.’ Is that the expression? My father’s an
electrician and my grandfather was a carpenter. When he was a kid, he did some
work here for Mr. Wynne. Or rather, gramps was a kid and sort of an apprentice
or helper to his dad.”

“Which Mr. Wynne?”

“Old man Griffin. I
heard stories about him. Some people are bigger than life. You know what I
mean? Plus, the house is well-known around here, and we lived just down the
road.”

“Like David Kilmer.”

Brendan gave her a
funny look. “Why’d you mention him?”

She brushed a cobweb
away from her face, thinking. She hadn’t intended to mention Kilmer. His name
had just popped out. “No reason. I met him one day when I was outside. He said
he lived nearby.”

“He knows better than
to come around here. Did you tell Jack?”

“No.” She shook her
head. She waited for him to ask ‘why?’ but he didn’t.

“Good thing. I wouldn’t
mention it. You’ll get him worked up over nothing.”

His approval didn’t
comfort her. Instead, it made her feel silly and immature. She changed the
subject. “Did your grandfather help build the house?”

“No. It was built
before he came along. He did carpentry work. Kind of hush-hush. He’d never say
much about it.”

“Bigger than life tales
and a famous house. Maybe that’s what gave you a taste for treasure hunting.”

“That was just being a
kid.” He shook his head. “But if you run into any secret rooms or passages, let
me know.”

Rachel knelt and peeked
into one of the boxes Brendan had opened. “Ah, here we go. Now this is
treasure.”

Brendan was immediately
on the floor beside her. “What?”

She held up a vase.
“See this green glass? I need to look this up. I know it has a special name.”

“Yeah. Dust magnet.”

“I guess treasure is in
the eye of the beholder.”

****

Early the next morning,
Rachel unlocked the attic door and ascended the stairs. Business as usual. When
she switched on the light, she saw a visitor.

Helene had pulled back
some of the sheeting. Seated on a striped settee, looking a lot like a shopper
resting in a furniture store living room, she waited. Helene’s dress, hair and
skin were fair and picked up the nearby light, seeming to absorb it and glow
with a faint luminescence.

Helene had sought her
out—had accepted her invitation? 

Speaking almost in a
whisper, Rachel asked, “May I sit with you?”

Helene nodded, but kept
her eyes down.

How old was she? Jack
was in his late thirties. Helene had to be close to that. Probably only a
couple of years older than she was.

Rachel joined her on
the settee. “I’m glad you came to visit me.”

Again, that soft nod,
but almost no eye contact. Her dress had a delicately smocked bodice, and tiny
buttons glinted with reflected light. The skirt was longish, reaching halfway
down her shins. Her feet were bare.

While Rachel was
considering what to do next, Helene smiled at the floor, stood and walked down
a furniture aisle to the attic door, the one that led to her side.

The light patter of her
going-away footsteps, not much more than the wispy sound of flesh against wood,
made Rachel think of fairies and elves.

She got up and drew the
sheeting back over the furniture. At first, it was hard to shake the surreal
feel of Helene’s visit. It felt significant despite the lack of conversation.

Soon Rachel was back at
work, tweaking the inventory and adding more detail. In a dim area between the
back wall and a massive dining room sidebar, she found a large black piece of
cardboard. No, not cardboard. A portfolio. About three by four feet.

She slid it out and
carried it to where the overhead light shone more strongly, untied the ribbon
that held it closed and opened it wide, balancing it across the sheeted
furniture.

Tissue papers, cracked
and brittle, were front and back of a poster. The condition was pristine but
fragile, and she didn’t touch it. It might be a collector’s item. No doubt it
was connected to old Griffin Wynne’s activities, but it was also ironic to find
it at this time, given Jack’s present activities.

Rachel appreciated a
well-balanced, tidy fate.

The lettering read,
“International Exhibition of Modern Art.” The date was 1913, and the exhibition
had been held in New York in an Armory. News clippings peeked out from under a
flap. Rachel closed the portfolio carefully and re-tied the ribbon.

She could hardly wait
to tell Jack what she’d found. Should she mention his sister’s visit, too?
About that, she felt reluctant. The visit felt private between the two of them,
something for her and Helene, at least, for the time being.

That night, awake in
bed and ready to drift off, she heard raindrops hitting the roof. The light,
dancing patter made her think of Helene.