Debbi laughed when she heard why Coleman was calling. “All these years Dinah and I have been trying to get you to move or at least fix up your apartment—but no! You didn’t care. If you’d listened to us, you wouldn’t be at such a loss,” she said.
“Okay, okay. Say ‘I told you so’ a few more times, and be done with it. You’re right, of course. I’m reading, studying, and learning from books, but I need to get out in the world, check out the new. But which stores should I visit? And do you know people I should be talking to? People with original ideas? And where can I find not-too-expensive, attractive houses to look at? Do you know anyone I might hire to work with me? The women running the decorating department are hopeless. I need to hire someone to take over the department as soon as possible.” She paused to take a breath, and Debbi leaped in.
“About stores: Start with ABC, Nineteenth and Broadway, a fabulous store. Full of ideas. Their goods can be expensive, but they have great sales, and you’ll be inspired by what you see. You can sometimes chase down less expensive versions of what they’re showing,” Debbi said.
“Got it,” Coleman said.
“As for people you should talk to, start in your own backyard. The harpies running your decorating department are doing their best to destroy a talented young woman who works for First Home. She’s smart and attractive and competent, and naturally they hate her. Rescue her, listen to her. You won’t regret it. Her name is Evelyn Cartright—Lyn, for short. She’s the daughter of one of my clients.”
“Why don’t I know about her?” Coleman asked. “Why haven’t I met her?”
“You weren’t interested in the kind of thing she does, remember? Lyn got the job through your gardening lady, who was embarrassed by how bad the decorating department is, and knew Lyn could spark it up. The old crones reluctantly took her on as an assistant. They were supposed to give her a chance, but she’s spending most of her time going out for coffee or food for them. They have no interest in her ideas.”
“How old is she? What’s her background?”
“You’ve heard of her mother, Sylvia Cartright. She’s in the top echelon at Nelson-Taylor, the LA clothing store. Sylvia has a great eye for fashion, and her daughter has her taste, but Lyn is interested in interior design. She’s twenty-five, been out of college a few years, and was a very successful decorator in Texas. She wanted to get out of her mother’s shadow, so she came to the Big Apple. She could take over your interior design department today. She’s more than qualified.
“Lyn will have lots of ideas, but here’s a lead she might not know about: A friend recently told me about a cluster of villages in Connecticut where the houses sound perfect for First Home—charming cottages with pretty little gardens and original decoration. The biggest and most attractive village in the area is called Merriweather. There’s an art colony on nearby Eelgrass Island, so a lot of artists and writers have settled in the area. That’s why the houses are so colorful and original.”
“Whom do I contact?” Coleman asked.
“A woman named Frances Forester owns what’s said to be a charming inn in Merriweather. She also owns several rental cottages. You should call her, go see her, look at the cottages. But be careful not to annoy her—they call her the Cranky Yankee, easily offended. Before you do anything else, promote Lyn! She can take over inside while you’re out scouting for ideas.”
As soon as she hung up, Coleman headed for the decorating department, Dolly at her heels. She could hardly wait to promote Evelyn Cartright. But when she reached the office the Drabs shared, she walked into a tirade. One of the Drabs was screaming at an attractive young brunette in a stunning red dress. She had to be Evelyn Cartright.
The shouting didn’t stop when Coleman entered the office. She clapped her hands to attract their attention, and said in a loud voice, “Quiet, please. We can’t have this kind of scene. What’s the problem?”
The taller Drab—Coleman could never remember their names, thought of them as D1 (tall) and D2 (short)—was more animated than Coleman had ever seen her. She snarled, “This impertinent young woman had the gall to say that one of our wallpapers is tasteless and inappropriate!”
Coleman turned to the girl in the red dress. “You must be Evelyn Cartright?”
“Yes, Ms. Greene,” she said.
“May I see the wallpaper?” Coleman said.
“Is that necessary?” D2 said. “Why do you need to see it? This is our department, and we know what the customers like.”
“Show me the wallpaper right away, please,” Coleman said.
The D shrugged and handed Coleman a sheet of wallpaper.
Coleman looked at it and felt her face go hot.
“You’ve been sending samples of this wallpaper out to readers? Recommending it?”
“Yes, for years,” a D said, sounding smug and proud of herself.
“It’s offensive,” Coleman said.
The paper featured little black boys, clad in tiny grass skirts, each clinging to a palm tree against a cream-colored background. The pattern was repeated every few inches.
“Don’t you recognize this?” Coleman asked. “It’s right out of Little Black Sambo, the children’s story.”
“So what?” snapped one of the Ds, bristling with hostility.
Coleman tried to hold her temper. “It’s racist, it’s tacky, and it’s ugly. Get rid of it immediately. I don’t ever want to see it again,” she said.
“Who are you to tell us what we can and can’t do?” One of the women said.
Coleman lost it. “As you should know, if you paid any attention to what goes on here, I am Coleman Greene, the owner of First Home, and both of you are fired. Collect your belongings, and go to Human Resources. I’ll call them and let them know you are coming. They’ll handle the paperwork, and will arrange to see you out of the building.”
“You’ll be sorry,” a D threatened.
“Yes, we’ll tell the world how you have abused us, and you’ll hear from our lawyer,” the other one chimed in.
“Goodbye,” Coleman said. Turning her back on the furious women, she looked at Evelyn, who’d stood silent during the storm. “Miss Cartright, please come with me to my office. We have a lot to talk about.”
When they were seated in Coleman’s office, Coleman said, “I’m sorry we had to meet like this. I’d meant to keep those women on a little longer, while I figured out what to do and brought in new people, but I just couldn’t let this pass. May I call you Lyn?”
“Yes, ma’am. Uh—am I fired, too?”
Coleman laughed. “No, I want you to manage the department, help me do whatever needs to be done. Do you have any ideas about how to handle this mess?”
Lyn smiled. “Yes, I’ve been thinking about what should be done ever since I came to work here. Do you have an assistant who can help me with practical issues?”
Coleman nodded and pressed a button she rarely used, summoning her assistant. At Heyward’s urging, she’d hired Mrs. Anderson, a middle-aged woman with considerable office experience, to be gatekeeper and to take care of the library. She sat in the big foyer outside her office and Heyward’s. Mrs. Anderson also answered Coleman’s phone and acted as Coleman’s secretary on the rare occasion when she needed one. She was efficient, unobtrusive, and competent. But there was so little for her to do when Heyward wasn’t around, Coleman had worried that she’d leave for a more stimulating job.
Maybe the decorating department was the challenge that would keep her interested. She would be terrific helping Lyn to handle all the details of closing the obsolete department and starting up a new one.
Half an hour later, Coleman excused herself. Mrs. Anderson and Lyn were having a wonderful time, preparing memos for distribution internally, explaining that the interior design department was temporarily closed for alterations. The head of the human resources department met with them, as did one of the company lawyers, to discuss settlements with the departed Ds. A technician appeared to deal with telephones a
nd computers. They were getting along famously—they didn’t need her. She’d leave them to it and head for home. She wanted to plan a getaway, and didn’t want interruptions until the details were settled.
•••
After being confined to the office while she dealt with the problems of the decorating department, Coleman had cabin fever. She looked forward to escaping and spending a spring day in Connecticut, on her maiden field trip for First Home. She had invited Bethany—tired of being stuck indoors at the Greene Gallery—to join her, and hired a car and driver to take them to Merriweather. Debbi’s description of the area had galvanized her.
With Dolly in her lap, and Bethany beside her, Coleman was as excited as a child playing hooky to go to the circus. She felt free after what seemed like a very long period of captivity. Running First Home was much more of an indoor job than ArtSmart had been. She missed all the outside activity ArtSmart required: openings, exhibitions, lunches and dinners with artists and collectors. She enjoyed the intellectual part of being in charge of First Home—learning about furniture and the like—but she needed to get out more often.
She looked out the car window. They were on I-95, a highway Coleman hated—so many big trucks roaring by, threatening to blow smaller cars away. There wasn’t much to look at to take her mind off those trucks—signs advertising McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, Wendy’s, no trees, no flowers. Ugly and boring.
She was grateful when they turned onto a wooded road with little traffic, leaving the trucks behind. Through the trees she caught glimpses of charming villages, church steeples, flower gardens, and, beyond them, the glitter of the sea. Oh, joy!—exactly what she’d hoped for.
Half an hour later they left the road, and turned into a tiny village called Silverdale, only a few miles from Merriweather. Coleman spotted the handsome stone railroad station for which Silverdale was famous. Early pink roses in boxes and pots surrounded the building, adding to its attractiveness.
“Look at that station, Bethany! Isn’t it fabulous? I can see why people like to come up here by train. I read about the train ride in an article about the Swan Inn,” Coleman said.
“It’s the best lookin’ train station I’ve ever seen,” Bethany said. “But do they have good train service?”
“They must. There’s an art colony near here, and the artists arrive at this station, too. Lots of people depend on it.”
A few miles further on they turned again, this time onto a paved road that bordered an exquisite green. Its perfection reminded Coleman of a film set. She asked the driver to pull over so that they could look at everything. A sign on the roadside read, “You have entered Merriweather, Connecticut. Welcome!”
“How friendly! Did you ever see a prettier square? Look, that church is just like the one in Stowe, Vermont. I love New England churches,” Coleman said. “The house nearest it must be the parsonage—it’s the same style and, like the church, white with dark green trim. I think the building on the other side of the church has a library sign on it, and that bigger one must be a school . . . ”
“Yes, the square is beautiful—picture perfect. Is the inn you want to visit near here? I don’t see any cottages,” Bethany said.
“According to the map, we should drive through the village and we’ll eventually come to a little park. The bay should be on our right, and the inn is in front of the bay, right beside the road. I think the cottages are scattered around,” Coleman said.
There was almost no traffic, and the driver was able to drive slowly through the village, which was as pretty as the square, and amazingly neat. Most of the houses and commercial buildings were shingled, grayed with age. Some had brightly colored painted doors or shutters—green, yellow, red, blue, orange. Many had low fences and hedges bordering the road, and most had small front gardens celebrating spring with daffodils, tulips, forsythia, and other flowers she couldn’t identify.
The little town seemed to have everything one could need. They passed the post office, a dry cleaner, a supermarket, a delicatessen, a movie theater, a gift shop, and several restaurants, including one specializing in seafood, with a big swordfish painted over the doors. A colorful fruit and vegetable stand, backed by a shop with other kinds of food, stood next to a coffee shop. A bookstore caught Coleman’s eyes, and Bethany spotted a window full of smart-looking clothes.
“I’d like to take a look in there,” she said.
“We’ll come back to town later, have a late lunch, and visit that shop,” Coleman said.
The houses ended at the park, where more forsythia, daffodils, and a few early azaleas and dogwoods bloomed. Graveled paths and small benches invited visitors to come for a stroll, or sit down and enjoy the flowers.
Coleman could hear the pounding of the sea in the distance, and she could glimpse blue water through the trees. She was sure she’d be able to smell salt water, and she let down the window to take a big breath of the cold, clean air. Delicious, better than any air she’d breathed in a long time. It reminded her of the beach near her childhood home in North Carolina.
Just beyond the park, they arrived at a sizeable white-painted building, identified by a large black-and-gold sign as the Swan Inn. Rhododendrons not yet in bloom softened the rather stark outline of the building, and, in the background, waves crashed against a stone seawall.
Frances Forester, a tall, slender woman with straight snowy white hair cut in a style Coleman’s grandmother called a “bowl” cut—about the same length all the way around, as if someone had put a bowl over her head and trimmed around it—greeted them at the door of the inn, and invited them in. She was nicely dressed in a gray wool skirt and a blue cashmere sweater set. She wore a pearl necklace and matching pearl earrings. Coleman was glad she and Bethany had decided to dress up for the trip. They might have arrived in jeans, which, seeing Mrs. Forester, would have been a faux pas.
Bethany was wearing a beige wool pantsuit, with a brown pullover, brown suede boots, and a gorgeous topaz brooch on her jacket lapel. Coleman had chosen a yellow wool dress, and its matching jacket with big black shiny buttons and black patent leather boots. Her black leather cap mostly covered her blonde curls. Dinah had sent it to her from London, with a note that it was the rage. Coleman was trying it out. If she liked it, she might buy more caps and hats. She was looking in all directions for change.
The inn was handsomely furnished, with polished wooden antique pieces among soft-looking sofas in blue and gray and white. Scattered on the sofas were pillows covered with needlepoint, featuring swans—flying, swimming, nesting, in couples, with cygnets, alone, against colored backgrounds. Paintings and prints of swans decorated the walls.
Coleman and Bethany exchanged smiles. They recognized some of the works. Dinah and Bethany had put together a swan print exhibition at the Greene Gallery last year.
Mrs. Forester didn’t invite them to sit down. They were still standing in the foyer when she asked, “How can I help you? I know you want to see the inn—and here it is. Do you want to make reservations? Or entertain here? I believe you are also interested in the cottages?”
Her words were pleasant, but her voice and manner were decidedly chilly. Coleman remembered that Debbi had called her the Cranky Yankee. They’d have to tread carefully.
Coleman explained that she owned the magazine First Home and wanted to write an article or a series of articles about the inn and cottages. “We want to point out the wonderful ideas you have here—like the swan art in the inn. This is Bethany Byrd. She works with my cousin Dinah Greene Hathaway at the Greene Gallery. They exhibited some of the prints you have here in a swan show.”
Mrs. Forester smiled. “So you’re that Greene! Yes, I bought two swans by Margaret Patterson from Dinah, and the Botke. I loved that show, and Dinah is lovely. How is she? Why didn’t she come with you?” she said. “Would you like a tour of the inn?”
Coleman explained that Dinah was in England, and that they’d very much like a tour.
The chill vanished.
The connection with Dinah and the Greene Gallery had broken the ice: Mrs. Forester was welcoming, warm, and friendly as she showed them the house. Swans decorated all the rooms—on painted furniture, quilts, wallpaper, shower curtains, rugs, everywhere.
Back downstairs, Mrs. Forester led them to a small sitting room where only one work of art, featuring one large swan, hung. Coleman recognized it as a color lithograph by Louis Rhead. She suspected Dinah was the source. A little clutter—a newspaper, opened mail on the desk—suggested this was Mrs. Forester’s private space.
“Tell me about the cottages,” Coleman asked. “How many do you own?”
“Four: Flag Cottage, Flower Cottage, Shell Cottage, and Butterfly Cottage. From the outside they are all pretty much alike—gray-shingled like the houses in the village. Each has a little sign over the door with its name on it, and an emblem—a flag or a butterfly, whatever.”
“Can we see them?” Coleman asked.
Mrs. Forester shook her head. “I rent them from Memorial Day through Labor Day, and close them the rest of the year. They are still sealed for winter, but I can show you pictures. You’ll see some more Greene Gallery art in them—I always turn to Dinah when I’m doing up a cottage—but Butterfly is the last one I decorated. I could rent more, but I haven’t been able to buy more cottages,” Mrs. Forester said.
Coleman longed to see the interiors of a couple of the cottages, but she could tell Mrs. Forester wasn’t about to open one. Fortunately, the photographs she showed them were of high quality.
Flag Cottage was decorated with American flag images in many different media, and the interior walls were shades of blue. The walls of Flower Cottage were painted pale green, and several rooms were papered in green and white stripes. Flower paintings and prints adorned all the walls. They recognized some of Dinah’s favorites.
Bloody Royal Prints Page 4
