All Good Intentions

by Trudi Johnson

  “I will own it, Joe. I’ll hire someone to manage it.” Her tone clearly indicated she was not interested in taking advice from a thirty-five-year-old. “So, if you are good with this, we can meet formally and draw up a contract. Or have Quentin do it, or whatever it is that you do. I am meeting a person to draw up a business plan. Kurt recommended her.”

  “Good.” He paused for a moment. “I guess I can do it.”

  “You’re not certain?”

  “No, it’s just that working for a family member is never a good idea.”

  “I promise I’ll stay out of your way.” She paused. “As much as I can.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  “Then perhaps we could go to the house sometime next week when you’re free?” she asked.

  “Fine. I’ll call you and set up a time. In the meantime, I will need every scrap of information we can find on the Sinclair house, when it was built and how. Photos, if they are available. When I do a renovation on an old house, I provide a written history of the place at the end of it all to make available to your guests and for advertising. I need to know as much as possible.”

  “I understand. Jonathan gave me Father’s papers. That might help, although what I have only goes back as far as the 1940s.”

  “I’ll need to go back further than that.

  “Yes, it was built just before the turn of the century.”

  “Then there’s fifty years of history that we’re missing. I’ll get on it. I’ll check with Jonathan to see what else he has. In the meantime, I’ll put together a contract.”

  Jeanne stood. “And I trust I’ll get the family rate?”

  Joe raised an eyebrow and could not hide his smile. “So early in your career as an entrepreneur and already you’re looking for discounts.”

  She walked to the door and held it. “You forget who I was married to for twenty years,” she said with a toss of her hair. “See you later. Thanks.”

  Joe sat down at his desk and buried his head in his hands. What have I done?

  * * * * *

  “I want you all to appreciate that getting me out here on a weekday afternoon in August is against my better judgment,” Joe informed his golfing partners.

  “Joe, I looked at it this way,” Kurt began. “I’m on vacation. Steven’s on vacation. Quentin never takes a vacation. As for you, it’s summer, and the chances of dragging you out on a weekday are slim. Then my lovely wife informed me this morning that the weather forecast for the weekend is awful. Wind and rain. So I thought you wouldn’t mind trading a Wednesday for a Saturday. And just look,” he said with the wave of a hand, “it’s a beautiful warm, sunny day—too nice to be indoors.”

  Steven picked up his tee and stepped back to allow Quentin to follow him. “My mother used to say that St. John’s should declare a holiday on every warm, sunny day. That would give us all just about three weeks of a nice vacation.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” Quentin said, as he watched his ball bounce down the middle of the fairway.

  “Joe, Sandi told us at lunchtime that your mother intends to turn the Sinclair house into The Sinclair Inn and you’ll be doing the renovating?”

  “Yes, Steven, but I’m not sure I’ve made the right decision in agreeing to renovate it for Mother. I might end up in therapy.”

  Quentin squinted to determine the placement of his ball on the fairway. “I keep telling you, Joe. Billable hours. The money’s guaranteed. Good grief. Who taught you about business?” He glanced at Kurt with a grin. “Besides, I’ve worked for her and I’m still alive to play golf . . . albeit poorly.”

  Steven smiled at Quentin’s self-effacing assessment. “Joe, when you take on a renovation like that, where do you start?”

  “The first thing I need to do is research. I need to find out everything that’s out there on the original house and how it was built. We want to stay as close to the original architecture as possible while making it aesthetically pleasing and, of course, comfortable for guests.”

  “Do you have access to all the information you need?”

  “I will. Sandi, bless her, has agreed to help, since she’s not teaching right now and has some free time.”

  Kurt approached his golf ball on the edge of the green and noted Joe’s hand wave to indicate that the ball would likely go to the left, so he should adjust his putt for it. He tapped the ball and straightened up. “Joe, just a thought. Since the house belonged to Clarence Boland before he gave it to Charles and Virginia, there must be Boland papers around somewhere. I know it’s a long time ago, but there’s a chance that someone has them. That might help.”

  Joe stepped forward to putt. “Thanks. I’ll check that out, too.”

  As the four men walked to the next tee, Joe recapped the information about the property in Planter’s Bight, when and why it was bought by Charles and resold to Kevin Gillis in 1992 shortly after Virginia’s death. He reached for his water bottle. “There’s another interesting part about house renovations. Mother had initially requested her father’s papers from his lawyer, but she got only the papers from 1940 onward. Everything before that was missing, or Jonathan hasn’t been forthcoming. So in order to research the house, we have to go back to Jonathan and ask him to track down the remaining files.”

  Kurt slipped his golf club into the bag. He had never trusted Jonathan Hamlyn, although it was an opinion he did not share with anyone. Now he wondered once again what the man had to hide.

  * * * * *

  The Italian restaurant in Churchill Square was quite busy when Jonathan Hamlyn arrived shortly before 1:00 p.m. The delectable aroma of Parmesan cheese bread stirred his appetite and prompted him to select lasagna, the house specialty. He sipped his glass of Perrier and lemon while he waited for Jeanne. He did not have to wait long.

  She stepped in the door and indicated to the waitress that she could see her lunch partner.

  “Jeanne, so glad we could meet for lunch. Thank you for inviting me.”

  “Not at all. My pleasure, Jonathan,” she said as she sat on the cushioned chair.

  He was relieved that her tone seemed more amenable than the last time they spoke. “Will we order first? You mentioned some important business.”

  She refused the menu. “I’ll have a warm chicken salad with the dressing on the side. And iced tea.”

  Jonathan was glad he had already decided. She was clearly on a mission.

  When the waitress left, Jeanne began. “I hope you don’t mind if I get to the purpose of our meeting.”

  “Not at all.”

  Her conversations with Kurt and Joe earlier left her much more confident about her decision. She met his gaze directly and displayed her best smile. “Jonathan, I have decided to keep the house, have it renovated into an inn, and own the inn myself.”

  Colour drained from his face. “Okay,” he said very slowly. “What brought this on?”

  “Let’s just say, a great deal of thought. I wanted to let you know that there will be legal work involved, and I’d be pleased if you could handle it.”

  “Of course. I’ll be happy to.”

  “And I’ve hired an architect,” she said, obviously pleased with herself.

  “Already?”

  “Yes. Joe.”

  “You’ve been busy. Are you sure it’s a good idea to hire your own son? It’s never good to work with family.”

  “So I’ve heard. But I want the best. The fact that he’s my son doesn’t matter to me. I’ve set up an appointment with a financial advisor tomorrow. Someone Kurt suggested, and she seemed quite capable when I talked to her over the phone.”

  “Yes, well, you seem to have all your ducks in a row.” He stared down at the place setting in front of him and resisted the urge to ask her why she couldn’t do anything without Kurt’s sanc
tion. The thought infuriated him, and he struggled to keep his frustration inside.

  Jeanne sipped her iced tea. “I have something else more important to talk about.” Uncharacteristically, she rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, only to ensure that they were not overheard.

  “Yes?” he asked, wondering, after that bombshell, what could possibly be coming next.

  “I have found out more about Edgar Gillis, and there are some questions that I’d like to have answered.” She related the details, ending with the fact that someone had spread false rumours about the man that permanently damaged his reputation in the city.

  “That’s absurd,” Jonathan said in disgust. “Why would someone in St. John’s be vindictive against a carpenter?”

  “A very good question. I was hoping you could answer it for me.”

  “Why would you think I could?”

  “Because I know that you have been privy to everything that’s happened in my family for a long time. Your father, Andrew, was the doctor who delivered me and willingly signed, or, I should have said, falsified, the birth certificate indicating that I was a child of Charles Sinclair and Virginia Boland Sinclair. He was protecting the family, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And was paid very well for doing so. Much like you. From the beginning you’ve been discouraging me, to put it nicely, from having anything to do with Kevin Gillis. Although I tried, I could never get a reasonable explanation why. I have been able to piece together more details in the past few days. I have good reason to believe that my father wasn’t behind the rumours. It was Clarence Boland. So tell me why you didn’t tell me any of this at the beginning.”

  “Simple. Because I thought he would do what he said. I assumed that since he had it in for Charles, once he got the house, he would likely tear it down and that would be devastating for you. A man who is out for revenge would hardly maintain the place as it was. He’d destroy it. That, Jeanne, is the last thing in this world that I wanted to happen.”

  “If you really care, Jonathan, tell me the whole story. When those vicious stories circulated about Edgar Gillis in the early ’50s, the family had no choice but to pack up and move to Halifax, a move that was very heart-rending for his wife, as her whole family was here in Planter’s Bight. They lived most of their lives in Halifax as a result.”

  “Does Kevin know why?”

  “No, and his father passed away not knowing.”

  “Jeanne, I wish I knew the details, but I don’t,” he said helplessly. “All I know is that a few years ago, Charles came to my office and told me he wanted to get rid of the land he owned in Planter’s Bight. He said he didn’t want you and Emily to have to deal with it.”

  “When was that, exactly? Be more specific,” Jeanne demanded, appalled that a lawyer could be so vague.

  “Let me think,” Jonathan responded in frustration. “It was shortly after your mother . . . I mean . . . shortly after Virginia’s passing.”

  “I thought so,” Jeanne said quietly.

  Jonathan ignored her comment. “I explained to him that there really wasn’t anything to deal with and that the land would likely become more valuable in the future. But he was adamant. So I arranged to sell the land, and there was a ready buyer. Kevin Gillis at Winterberry Development. I had dealt with the company a few years before when they bought other pieces of land from Charles. A man who described himself as a colleague and friend of Kevin Gillis at Winterberry called me and asked me about it. As soon as I heard the name Kevin Gillis, I wondered if he was any relation to the man who had built the Sinclair staircase. I contacted Charles and asked him. After confirming it, he told me to sell it to him for whatever he offered. I said that he could likely make a considerable profit on it, but he said to sell it for whatever he offered. So clearly, Kevin got a bargain. He never questioned it. I guess he thought land wasn’t valuable anywhere on the island, even now.”

  “Why did Father buy the land that belonged to a man he treated so badly?”

  Jonathan weighed his words. The waitress laid his lasagna in front of him, but his appetite had waned.

  Jeanne picked at her salad while she waited. “Well?”

  “I asked Charles about it, once, only once, a month or so before he passed away. He wasn’t well at the time, and he didn’t want to talk about it. But he did say, ‘Because I did something I should not have done.’ I asked him what he meant by that, and he swore me to secrecy, and I agreed.”

  Jeanne put down her fork and listened carefully, anxious to remember every detail. She waited.

  “As your father told it to me, Jeanne, Edgar Gillis was finishing up the staircase when Clarence arrived one Saturday morning. Apparently, Clarence made a comment about the price of the staircase to Edgar, quite a nasty comment. Edgar responded by saying something to the effect that ‘the Sinclair house will have an attractive staircase, that’s for sure.’ Clarence became angry because Edgar called it the Sinclair house. He told him that it was the Boland house and always will be.”

  Jeanne showed no emotion as she took in every word.

  “Things got worse. Clarence went on to say that Charles was lucky to have a roof over his head given his betrayal of his daughter, Virginia. No doubt he realized later what he had said and regretted it. Or perhaps not. Your father said that Clarence had been drinking that day, quite a bit. In any event, he assumed that Edgar would figure out what he meant and the family secret would be out.”

  “My father’s relationship with Hannah,” Jeanne said quietly.

  “Well, at least that he cheated on Virginia. So to prevent Edgar from being in the position to spread such gossip, he made sure that he wouldn’t be able to find work in the city from that point on. Clarence clearly did not want that family secret to be exposed.”

  Jeanne took it all in and ran it over in her mind. She thought about her conversations with her father, the Sunday afternoons they spent together as he regaled her with his stories. But this was one story he never told, except to the one man who could not or would not share it.

  “That’s quite the story.”

  “It’s true,” he retorted.

  She was silent, thinking about what it all meant. Jonathan did not look at her. Instead, he leaned on the table, rubbed his hands together, and looked away.

  “My father was obligated to go along with him,” she said meekly. “So it’s true.”

  Jonathan nodded. “Yes. He had to make a choice.”

  “I see.”

  There was a prolonged silence. Jonathan eyed the basket of cheese bread in the centre of the table. He reached for a slice and cut it into four pieces on a side plate. He left it there and wiped his fingers.

  “I’m trying to figure out why Father waited until Virginia was gone before he sold the property. Do you know?”

  Jonathan simply shook his head.

  “Would it be because he was trying to protect her, to prevent her from finding out that her marriage to him was bought and paid for by her father?”

  “No idea. I doubt it, though.”

  Jeanne attempted a deep breath. “Okay, in any event, Jonathan, please get the rest of the papers out of storage as soon as possible and drop them off at Joe’s office. He will need to go through them carefully. We plan to get started on the house as soon as possible.”

  “As you wish.” He reached across the table and wrapped his right hand around hers and squeezed it gently. “I’m sorry I kept this to myself. But I promised your father no one would ever know. He didn’t want it to get back to the Gillis family or anyone else. It was embarrassing for him that he didn’t act sooner, that he allowed it to happen in the first place. Embarrassment for a man of his stature, Jeanne, was not easy to deal with.”

  Jeanne ignored his rationale and his plea for forgiveness. “On another matter, I wasn’
t sure if I would bring this up, but now that we’re here . . . Joe has just bought a house on Waterford Bridge Road.”

  “Yes, so I heard. Near Kurt’s home.”

  She studied him carefully. “Yes. There was another offer put on the house late last week. Dan Maddox, the man who owned it, said that it was someone who was looking for an investment opportunity.”

  “There’s money to be made in housing these days,” Jonathan observed, now enjoying his lasagna since he had told everything he wanted to.

  “It was you.”

  Jonathan laid down his fork. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because I know you, and I see it as something you would do.”

  He laughed and nodded, strangely pleased that she knew him so well. “Okay, okay, I’m guilty,” he said, throwing up his hands as if to surrender. “As you say, I saw it as a good investment.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “Well, you mentioned that you weren’t happy about Joe moving near his father. So . . .”

  “You hoped you were doing me a favour.” And favours tether people to each other.

  “Something like that. It was no big deal. It worked out. They got their house. I assume that Joe must have topped up his offer to meet mine.”

  She looked at him as he dug into his pasta. Something like that.

  * * * * *

  Knowing that Joe was on the golf course, Jeanne spent the afternoon finishing other messages before she dropped by his downtown condo that evening.

  “I won’t stay long,” she said, slipping off her jacket. She looked around. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes, Sandi’s gone shopping with her mother. You said on the phone you had information about the house. Which one?”

  “Well, both, actually. I’ll start with the Maddox house. Your house.”

  “There were two other offers that were actually better than ours. Dan accepted the third offer.”

  “From Catherine, whom, I assume, has subsequently gifted it to you.”