Judgement By Fire (3 page)

“It was hardly
that dramatic—Terry couldn’t wait to get away, and you know it,” Lauren
replied, pleased that she felt no pain at the mention of her less-than-ideal
ex-husband.

“Well, I
always thought you could do a bit better than that. Can’t understand why it’s
taking you so long, though,” Lucy offered mischievously.

“Gee, Lucy,
look around—aside from your devoted spouse, just where would I find this
paragon of manhood you’re describing?” Lauren parried, and Lucy rolled her eyes
and shrugged dramatically.

“So, how was
the date with the handsome blond with impeccable taste, the other night?” she
asked teasingly.

“That husband
of yours just can’t keep his mouth shut, can he?” Lauren pretended to be
severe, and then grinned herself. “You wouldn’t believe how often that man has
called since our dinner date. Looks like the old Stephens’ charm is still
working.”

“Keen, is he?”
Lucy grinned back, unable to conceal the delight that her friend might at last
find an appreciative male companion.

“Very. But you
know, actually, Steve’s nice enough, but there’s something about him…I don’t
know...”

“No spark,
eh?” Lucy said, grimacing with disappointment.

“No,
no spark.”

Lauren
squeezed her friend’s too thin arm and swallowed the lump that always came into
her throat when faced with Lucy’s contrasting mental strength and physical
frailty. She half-thought of telling Lucy about the other phone calls she’d
been receiving, frequent rings with no message left on the answering machine,
but thought better of it. She didn’t want to worry her friend. If the calls
didn’t stop soon, she’d have the telephone company put a trace on them.
Probably just some fault on the line, anyway, especially after the severe storms
they’d had that winter.

Paul came over
from the other side of the hall, where he’d been handing out copies of the
Globe
and Mail
article to new arrivals, and sat down next to Lucy. On Lauren’s
left were Roger and Alycia Wellman, who had been enlisted for the seemingly
endless round of phone calls that had brought this mixed bag of friends and
neighbors together.

Lauren managed
to stifle a yawn and flashed a guilty look at the others. In truth, she was
exhausted from the long rounds of phone calls and brainstorming sessions that
had been the prologue to the meeting, and with work for her upcoming show
squeezed in between calls.

But the
others, including Lucy, seemed to radiate a crackling energy despite the late,
late hours they’d kept in the last two days. With a shiver, she also realized
that the precious little sleep she had been able to grab had been disturbed too
frequently by the ringing of the telephone at odd hours of the night. She
shrugged and forced herself to focus.

Just before
Paul called the meeting to order, she scanned the faces of people seated before
her. Most of them she knew well. A few were just acquaintances, and one or two
she couldn’t remember seeing before.

Her eyes were
drawn to a tall, blond man dressed in casual jeans and thick Aran sweater who’d
just slipped in through the main door—
if someone of his height and
strikingly authoritative good looks could ever ‘just slip’ into a room,
she
thought.

A pleasant
tremor ran through her as she responded to the powerful masculine aura around
this stranger. It wasn’t just his height—he must be at least six-three—or the
thick blond hair, touched with silver at the temples, which made him so striking.
There was something more, an air of authority and experience, which made him
the focus of attention as he settled his broad frame on a seat in the back row.

Maybe
Lucy’s right—it has been too long since there was an interesting guy in my life
,
Lauren thought wryly, and flushed to realize that Lucy was looking at her with
a knowing grin.

“Scenery’s
definitely improving around here, eh?” Lucy leaned over to whisper in Lauren’s
ear.

“Whatever are
you talking about?” Lauren replied innocently, and Lucy stifled her croak of
laughter in a throat-clearing cough as Paul stood to open the meeting.

*
* *

“Friends and
neighbors, we’ve come here tonight because we all love and enjoy this area, and
value its unique resources. Some of you, like Roger here, can trace your
families back five generations. You have homes and farms and businesses handed
down from your fathers that you’ll pass on to your children.

“Others, like
Lucy and myself, moved here in the last few years, drawn by the opportunities
afforded us by the facilities for artists at Haverford Castle. But we do have
one important thing in common—an appreciation that the place we call home is
very special indeed.” Paul paused as several people clapped and called muted
agreement, and Lauren had a glimpse of the courtroom presence that had made her
friend a top civil lawyer before his retirement.

“Sadly, Mrs.
Lloyd, the Castle’s chatelaine, passed away in November. While we will all miss
her, we’ve also been wondering, not without a touch of anxiety, about what
would happen to the Castle. But I think we all believed, with that wonderful
lady’s lifelong devotion to developing Canadian art, that some provision would
be made to maintain her life’s work. So it came as something of a shock to read
the
Globe and Mail
this week.” Paul held up the now, somewhat battered
copy of the newspaper he’d shown Lauren.

“I don’t know
if you’ve read the photocopied article we handed around when you came in. If
not, I urge you to read it. I can tell you that the Avalon Hospitality Inc.
proposal involves either renovating or demolishing the existing Castle and
surrounding cottages and outbuildings, which are currently all in use as
artists’ residences, studios, exhibition and display areas, and visitor
centers, and turning the whole caboodle into a very exclusive health farm for
the very, very rich.”

Paul paused. A
tense silence had settled over the room. “As you all know, the arts center
founded by Mrs. Lloyd has allowed some very important Canadian artists to
develop their work and become internationally known. In addition, the existence
of the artists’ colony, along with the exhibition centers, has brought a very
lucrative tourist market into this area. The two arts festivals alone brought
more than half a million into the local economy last year.”

“Now, some of
you may ask, is art important? Does it matter? Well, maybe some contemporary
art is perceived by some as a bit off the wall. However, I think everyone in
this community will admit that West River would be a much poorer place, both
economically and socially, without the Haverford Castle Center for the Arts.”

Paul paused
again, and the room was silent.

“You see,
ladies and gentlemen, it’s not just a matter of taking over a local facility.
It’s also part of the way of life for this community, part of the way we
identify ourselves. Admit it, even those of you who have serious doubts about
some of the art—and about some of the artists—that have passed this way over
the years, still take a bit of pride in the way Haverford Castle’s put West
River on the map. And even the most cynical of you can’t argue with the cold,
hard cash that’s landed in your pockets from Mrs. Lloyd’s dream project!

“Now, what
about Avalon Hospitality Inc.? Well, it is a very exclusive hotel chain,
obviously planning to branch out into the health club market. But that’s all we
know. No, they don’t give a damn about this local community—as proven by the
fact that the details appear in the Toronto paper, yet they didn’t even have
the courtesy to let us know here about their plans for Haverford Castle.

“It is, after
all, home to quite a few of us—nor did they contact the local council who will
have to deal with the impact at local level. No one at Avalon Hospitality has
been available to answer queries on the phone. This company, of course, is a
subsidiary of the giant conglomerate, Rush Co. International, so I suppose it
would be too much to expect they would care about us little people.”

Lauren, who’d
spent many frustrating hours with Paul trying to get information from Rush Co.
about their plans, listened to this recital of their attempts to get some facts
with only half an ear. She scanned the faces of the crowd in the hall, seeing a
few strangers but mostly familiar faces.
You can’t live in a small rural
community without being on at least nodding terms with most of the other
residents,
she thought to herself.

Then her eyes
were drawn back to the tall blond stranger who’d been the last to enter the
hall as the meeting began. Under more careful scrutiny, he was even more
attractive than her first impression had suggested, and the air of experience
and authority that surrounded him intrigued her. It was a lived-in face, too,
the face of a man in his thirties who’d experienced enough to know what he
wanted—and with the determination to go after it!

What color
were his eyes under that untamed sweep of blond hair? Surely blue would be the
only color Mother Nature would have allowed to complement that silky looking
thatch?
As if sensing her thoughts, the stranger suddenly looked directly
at Lauren and ran his fingers restlessly through his hair. Their eyes met and
held for a moment—yes, deepest blue!—before Lauren broke the blue-green grip in
confusion.

Embarrassed at
being caught staring, with an uneasy sense that he’d read her thoughts from her
expression, she deliberately turned away and continued her intense study of the
other people present.

Looking
around, she saw in the faces of her friends and neighbors the concern, the
anxiety, the anger and all the other confused emotions that had filled her own
mind since Paul’s early morning visit just two days before. She sighed as she
considered the effects this would have on the people here.

Already there
had been heated debates in the streets, the stores, the bars and the coffee
houses between those in favor of the development and the possible economic
advantages it might bring, and those who were against the project for any
number of reasons. There had been a rumor that two brothers who farmed locally
were no longer on speaking terms because one had agreed to sell the options to
his land adjoining Haverford Castle to Rush Co. while the other had refused.

If five
generations of farming co-operatively came to an end because of this proposal,
what effects would the issue have on everyone else in the community,
she
wondered sadly.

She pulled her
thoughts back to the proceedings in hand, tuning in to the end of Paul’s
opening speech as he told the crowd, “Possibly we’re jumping the gun here—after
all, no one from Rush Co. or Avalon Hospitality has had the courtesy to contact
us directly—despite the obvious impact their reported plans would have on this
community.”

Jeers rose
from the crowd. “But to my mind, this sheer neglect and ignoring of our right
to know about something which could have such an effect on our future is a
pretty strong indicator of how we can expect Rush Co. to trample over us—that
is, if they get a chance!”

“Surely,
having a subsidiary of a company as big as Rush Co. move in here would have
some beneficial effects—maybe even bring in other industry?” Someone from the
back asked.

“What’s the
biggest economic asset of a place like West River? I don’t think we want heavy
industry—certainly I doubt anyone here wants to become another mining center
like Sudbury or Timmins. We’re too far off the beaten track for the service
industries, and transportation costs are prohibitive for most other industries.
So that leaves us with tourism, which has treated us very nicely for the last
few years.

“And the heart
of West River’s tourism industry is Haverford Castle’s artist’s colony!” Paul
declared. “Where do you think the tourists will go if all they get to see is
the razor wire on the top of fences with signs saying, ‘
Keep Out - Unless
You’re Super
Rich
’?”

“They’ll stay
away from here!” someone in the crowd bellowed, and was treated to a smattering
of applause.

Roger Wellman
stood up as Paul returned to his seat. He waited for the chatter and scraping
of chairs to die down before he began speaking. A big, unruly looking man who
gave the impression—correctly—that he could handle his big, meaty fists well in
a fight, Roger was used to people listening when he spoke, and he never needed
to raise his voice.

“I’ve lived
and farmed here all my life, and my father, and his father, well, the Wellmans
are known around here in many ways,” he said, capturing his audience with a knowing
wink that evoked catcalls and titters from around the hall.

“Five years
ago we fought to have a part of this forest recognized as environmentally
sensitive. Just about everybody in this room signed that petition and most of
you took an active part in the campaign.” Roger didn’t have to remind them that
it was a campaign he’d led. His own interest in wildlife and the environment
had blossomed into something close to fascination and each winter, in snow and
ice, he drove the thirty miles to the nearest college where he taught
environmental studies.

“We won that
recognition, and for very good reasons. Now they want to pull the rug out from
under all our good work by closing off a huge portion of the land we’ve all
enjoyed—courtesy of the good Mrs. Lloyd—and shutting down the one thing West
River has which makes us different from all the other cash-starved penny-ante
towns along the shores of Lake Ontario! I say Avalon Bloody Hospitality—and the
mighty Rush Co., too—can take their fancy health spa and shove it!”

As Roger sat
down many of the residents rose to their feet, stomping and whistling their
approval for his battle cry, the sounds bouncing deafeningly off the hall’s
high ceiling.