By The Howling Read online

  “There you are, Susan. Getting a start, I see,” Charlotte said as the three women entered the large room to the left of the old school entrance hall, which had been turned into a large, airy, white-walled gallery space. Art works were already hung around on three of the four walls and on a network of partitions slicing up the center of the room. Charlotte strode out beyond the other two, who had stopped short near the entrance to take in what had already been hung. “Those aren’t entered in the competition, are they?”

  “No, most certainly not,” Susan said with a bit of a snort. “These are real art—several McCurdles and that group of Thompsons over there—and the smaller, more delicately painted Vormeers still in the cases over here.”

  Susan had a way about her that seemed to set people off. She was younger than most in the village and dressed in an avant-garde style that screamed individualism. And she was bossy in a manner that insinuated she was the only one in the room with any brains. This was linked up with a whiny voice that could quickly get to you and a sharp tongue to match. She gave Charlotte the sensation of fingernails being run across a blackboard.

  “And you’re going to hang them all down at this end, not mingle them with the canvases entered in the show?” Charlotte asked as she moved in to help, taking up one of the smaller of the cases and examining it for clues on how she could get into it and retrieve whatever treasure was inside.

  “Yes, all over here,” Susan answered. “So these will be what people first see when they come into the room and won’t retreat in despair from the trash at the other end.” She tossed her head to flip her bushy mane of raven curls back over her shoulder and closed her claws around one of Charlotte’s hand. “Do mind that case, please. It’s something that should be opened by experts only. These are on loan from Barnes, you know. They must be handled with extreme care.”

  Charlotte was about to say something, when Rachel and Jane approached. Jane looked to be in such distress that Charlotte turned her attention in that direction.

  “Susan.” It almost exploded from her lips. “You have my landscapes in the shadows over there, in the far corner. I thought we agreed that they would be the transition pieces to the works on loan. I—”

  “Upon reflection, with everything in situ, I thought that Todd Vales abstracts would better suit,” Susan answered, with just a touch of snottiness to her voice.

  “Better suit? But the committee—”

  “Committees are only good for pointing out the obviously unsuitable,” Susan retorted. “That’s why I was brought here as curator. In the available light here, which is shockingly inadequate, I agree, the Vale pieces—those by both of the Vales shine as much less insipid.”

  “Insipid?” Jane was almost screaming, and Rachel had to take her by the shoulders and guide her back to the other side of the room. But before she could be pulled away, Jane gave Susan a venomous look that seemed quite unlike Jane’s mousy persona. Unfortunately, it was lost on Susan, who wasn’t even looking. But it wasn’t lost on either Charlotte or Rachel.

  As Rachel dragged Jane and her clinched fists away, Susan was deftly opening the art case and pulled out a small, gilt-on-wood framed painting of an English garden that had been rendered in heavily loaded broad strokes in oils that nonetheless had captured the sense of delicate plantings of flowers backed by fully leafed trees with luminescent color that leaped off the canvas.

  “A Vormeer,” Susan said almost reverently. “Not as well known as the other masters of his period, but worshipped by those with the proper art education.”

  “Yes, it’s lovely, dear,” Charlotte said. “But don’t you think that Jane—”

  “Jane’s a cow,” Susan said. And that seemed to be the end of that discussion.

  “Well, it will be a little hard to have our meeting now,” Charlotte said. “And there doesn’t really seem to be a need for a meeting if all of the decisions are made and no help is needed in organizing . . . so . . .” She was slowing down and leaving an opening for Susan to realize how pushy and dismissive she was being. But, of course, Susan didn’t catch the ball on that.

  “That suits me,” she said. “I think I can get this in order in half the time it would take a committee. And I’m not unaccustomed to having to hold up everyone else’s end.”

  Charlotte couldn’t resist. “Well, perhaps you might hold up a bit more of an end when it comes to taking care of the Wells’ husky, Sam, then, don’t you think? He’s out unleashed a bit more than he should be. I know that he’s almost as big as you are and that walking him on a leash would be a strain, but it is, after all, a consideration we have for one another here. And he seems to be spending more time begging me to do for him than—”

  “The Wellses weren’t really all that clear that the house sitting came with that sort of responsibility or that their dog was so large and demanding . . . and I wasn’t aware that my activities were quite your responsibility.”

  “Well, there is an ordinance about the keeping of dogs, and as mayor—”

  “Yes, well when I’ve finished all of the work that everyone is leaving for me here, I’ll be sure to go down to the library and study all of the ordinances of this quaint little burg. And I’ll see about using a leash to walk him more.”

  While they had been talking, Susan had been opening the art cases and taking the paintings out.

  “Can I help you get those hung?” Charlotte asked, not wanting to deepen the disagreement. The deeper it got, the less tolerable Susan was being.

  “You can help by taking these cases away somewhere, but be careful of them, as we’ll want to repack the paintings in them. And, here, I’ll show you where they are to go.” With that, Susan virtually snatched the case the Vormeer had come in out of Charlotte’s hands and started walking toward a door that led to a back corridor in the old school building.

  “I think I’m fully capable of finding the storage room myself,” Charlotte said in a somewhat hesitant and weak voice, feeling she had to say something.

  But Susan was already walking away from her, and, if she heard Charlotte’s rejoinder, she made no sign that she did.

  Feeling fully inadequate and unwanted, after she had taken all of the cases to the storage room, Charlotte just left by a rear exit. Hearing the lock close with a solid click behind her, Charlotte walked around to the front of the building, assuming she’d find Jane and Rachel there. But they were nowhere to be found.

  Turning her nose toward home, being grateful, actually, that the meeting of the art show judges committee had fizzled but wondering where she was going to fit a retake in her busy schedule—a thought that made her laugh considering that her schedule could hardly be considered busy now—she strode off in her hallmark broad and determined steps back toward the cottage. And even though it looked like she was just ambling along, her training was not rusty, and she noticed that the car with its unfamiliar woman occupant wasn’t at the curb down the street anymore—but that if she hopped to she might be in a position to save a priceless antique from oblivion.

  A small sports car was parked at the curb in front of the manse where movers hustled and bustled about with assorted Chippendale and Sheraton pieces in polished cherry and mahogany, covered with rich silks and brocades. A trim woman with strikingly lustrous gray hair was bent over the car’s open trunk. She was fighting with an etched-glass antique globe lamp with bronze fittings and was about to lose the battle. Charlotte moved swiftly to her aid and barely got there in time to prevent a glass globe from having an unfortunate meeting with the pavement.

  “Uh, thanks,” the woman said in a rich contralto. “I refused to let the movers handle this precisely because I didn’t want this to happen. You saved the Gaslight memento.”

  The woman looked up and gave Charlotte, who was close in beside her, still holding one end of the lamp, a brilliant smile. She was gorgeous and Charlotte recognized her immediately.

  “The Gaslight memento?” She asked.

  “Yes, it’s not really a
style I’d pick, but I like to keep something from the set of each of my movies, and this is from the remake of Gaslight.”

  “Yes, I remember that well,” Charlotte said. “Ingrid Bergman got an academy award for her performance in the original, but I thought you were every bit as good. So, you would be our new neighbor, Brenda—”

  “Boynton,” the woman completed Charlotte’s sentence with an emphatic interjection. And then, when Charlotte raised her eyebrow at that, the woman continued. “Sorry, it was rude of me to interrupt. But I would like to start my new life here on a completely new foot. Brenda Brandon is my stage name, but here in Hopewell, I hope to be known by my given name, which is Boynton. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Certainly not. There, I think we have your lamp back up right. Would you like me to help you carry it in?”

  “Oh, yes, please, if you have the time. That’s quite neighborly of you. But perhaps I’m presuming. Are you a neighbor?”

  “Yes, I’m Charlotte Diamond. I live just up the street there, in Diamond Cottage—or at least that’s what it says on the sign in front. It’s what told me I was home when I was shopping for a riverfront home on the Eastern Shore. The name reached out and told me I was where I belonged.”

  “It’s a lovely little place,” Brenda said, lifting her gaze to Charlotte’s cottage. “And the dog in the yard is precious. A husky, is it?”

  “Yes, that’s Sam. But he’s not mine—despite what he seems to think—he belongs to the Wellses at the house beyond mine and is being taken care of, although not all that well, by a young woman who has come here to help us establish an arts center in the old school house across the street. The Wellses are retired archaeologists who can’t resist going off on expedition from time to time.”

  “Oh, my, there must be quite a collection of interesting people in Hopewell,” Brenda said. They had reached the bottom of the brick steps up to the ornate double doors of the two-story brick colonial building, dating, it would appear, back to the eighteenth century.

  “Yes, a lot of people in the arts appear to have retired here,” Charlotte answered. “That isn’t me, although I’ve only been here for about six months myself. And although I’ve thrown myself into trying out the classes and viewing the exhibits Susan Purcell is putting on offer at the new arts center, I’m afraid I’m miles behind everyone else here in artistic talent and ability. I just get roped into the activities because I was first roped into being mayor. Obviously no one else wanted the job, and I can be so gullible.”

  Charlotte only then realized that Brenda was giving her a slightly pensive expression. They were standing away from the door at the top step while two brawny movers struggled diligently at getting a Sheraton sideboard through the door without touching the wood of the obviously valuable antique against the equally obviously valuable woodwork of the door frame. Charlotte had the brief thought that she certainly would have like to have these movers when she had arrived here.

  “Did you say Susan Purcell?” Brenda asked.

  “Yes. She’s the only one who is a more recent resident of Hopewell than I am—well, I guess you are the most recently arrived—and she’s only here temporarily, it would seem.”

  “Really? That’s . . . interesting.”

  Charlotte, ever attuned to the slightly off utterance, was about to pursue Brenda’s unusual interest in Susan, but the movers had now cleared the door, and Brenda had already turned and walked inside.

  Charlotte followed her, and the vision of the entrance foyer took her breath away. The foyer was a perfect circle, a real surprise from the solid square corners and perfectly matched width and height proportions of the building from the outside. And staircases swept up both sides of the circle and met at the top in a balcony where a wide doorway led into a cross hall that, Charlotte surmised, probably led to two generously proportioned bedrooms on either side. The woodwork in the foyer was ornate, all painted a rich cream color, offsetting the maroon carpeting on the stair treads perfectly. And all was illuminated by a gigantic brass and crystal chandelier hanging from the center of a domed ceiling.

  “It’s breathtaking,” Charlotte said. “An astonishing surprise from the angular proportions of the house from the outside.”

  “Thank you,” Brenda responded, a sense of pride and appreciation for Charlotte’s comment. “Let’s bring the lamp on through to the dining room, shall we? They brought the sideboard in just now, and that might be a safe place to put the lamp for now.”

  Charlotte’s awe was magnified as she entered the large, nearly square dining room to the right of the foyer. It was an airy room, with two tall, many-paned windows looking out onto the front lawn and two on the outer wall at the side too. A large fireplace graced the interior wall. A Sheraton dining table, which looked capable of seating twelve, was already in the center of the room, hovering over a large rolled-up oriental carpet on polished, wide-planked oak flooring. The Sheraton sideboard was on the wall against the foyer on the left as they walked in. The most breathtaking aspect of the room was the chinoiserie blue and white with green and red accent wall paper, which either must have dated back centuries or was an expert reproduction.

  “This is perfect,” Charlotte said. “And the furniture fits in just right too. How did you ever find this place? This is unlike anything else in the Hopewell area.”

  “Oh, I didn’t find it,” Brenda said with a gorgeous smile. “It’s always been with me. I—and the furniture too, for that matter, are just coming home. This is my childhood home. I always knew I’d come back here someday, so I’ve kept it and paid a pretty price to keep it maintained. I guess you could say that I’ve grown weary of Hollywood. I wanted to come home.”

  Later, as Charlotte was walking up River Street to her own home, a much more modest cottage, but one that she felt suited her far better than Brenda’s manse ever could, Charlotte’s thoughts went back to the car, with its unfamiliar occupant, that had been parked up the street when Charlotte had gone to the arts center earlier in the afternoon. Charlotte had meant to ask Brenda if she knew anything about the woman. But it had slipped her mind. Brenda was so breathtaking in person—certainly as much as she was on camera—that all other thoughts had been thrown out of Charlotte’s mind in her presence.

  But, not to worry. Brenda was home now, as she termed it herself, so there would be plenty of opportunity for them to talk. And maybe the slight mystery of an unusual interloper on River Street would remain just that, a slight mystery. A mystery not needing to be solved. There was a time when Charlotte considered mysteries not needing to be solved to be a godsend.

  When she reached her front steps, Sam seemed so delighted to see her that she couldn’t resist sitting on the step for a few moments and petting him. She had considered getting a pet when she retired, never having had the time and patience for one while she was working. But she had never considered a dog. Cats. Cats were more independent and didn’t require as much effort and attention. But looking into Sam’s eyes, Charlotte could almost imagine another person in there—another being who would make her feel a little less lonely. In fact, Sam, she thought, as she gave a little laugh and Sam took that as an invitation to move his muzzle and tongue to her cheek, was probably the first man she had met that she could tolerate. All the years she’d been married to Sydney she had never lost the feeling of loneliness and separation.

  But a cat, that would be much more practical.

  The ringing of the telephone from inside the cottage galvanized Charlotte into motion. She hefted her bulk up onto her feet with a woof that perked Sam’s ears up in its familiarity to his language and entered the house—but not in time to beat the whirring of the message machine and her own voice announcing she wasn’t there. When Charlotte heard who it was who was calling, she just let the machine take the message. In a rather accusing voice Susan was reminding Charlotte that the judges’ committee for the art contest was supposed to have met that afternoon and now would be expected to meet at 9:00 sharp the next
morning—that Susan couldn’t be expected to do all of the work on the art show herself.

  Later, as Charlotte sat alone in her parlor, having picked up a book because nothing on television enticed her and now finding that the book didn’t particularly engage her mind tonight either, it struck Charlotte to question why she was picking up all of these activities in her retirement. The answer didn’t give her comfort. She wasn’t ready to wind down to barely breathing. She missed her job, even if she had been burned out when she retired. She missed the activity and, yes, the excitement. And she felt so unfulfilled. Only her job had given her anything close to the feeling of fulfillment. She was loading up with activities because she didn’t want to face up to the fact that she was lonely and had been lonely most of her life—and that she’d never really felt contentment.

  A cat. That’s what she needed. She wondered where Sam was this evening. If Susan had left him out—or had bothered to feed him or made sure his water dish was filled. The Wellses had always taken such good care of him—and he’d rarely been left out, certainly not on his own, unleashed, in the few months the Wellses had been here after Charlotte had moved in.

  Charlotte smiled at the memory of how happy he’d been to see her coming up the walk to the cottage this afternoon and the joy he’d exhibited when she stopped to give him some attention. But a cat. That was probably as much as Charlotte could cope with. And maybe not even that. She had planned to do some traveling in her retirement. That was hard to do with either a cat or dog. And a bird was messy and out of the question anyway. And fish were no answer to boredom.

  It was really too early to turn in, but Charlotte was bored—and lonely—and the solution to both of these had long been just to go to sleep and close the world out. On that basis, she was getting a terrific amount of sleep these last six months. At least now she didn’t have the nightmares she tended toward when she was working—when the sordidness and cruelty of the world of her profession intruded even into her sleeping moments. But at least those weren’t boring. Now, she was afraid, she was sinking into boredom.