Thornhill had sensed this. However much his vision had been corrupted by his cupidity and his arrogance, he had built the Ledges in the spirit of working hand in hand with nature for the benefit of mankind. The environmentalists’ backward-looking notion of nature as a temple inviolate was contradictory to the progressive ideal in which he’d built his beautiful garden. The stone-paved terraces to which he had devoted thirty years of toil—each stone hewn from the native pink granite and set carefully into place—were a monument to excellence, to the values that this man who had loved mayflowers had tried and failed to uphold. She was sure that Marion would see to it that this was the spirit in which the development would be built.
She thought of Kitty and Stan. Despite the fact that they had fought the development, she expected that a scaled-down development would suit them just fine. They would still have their minute world of pure perfection, but they would no longer be marooned on it like house sparrows on a boat at sea. It would lose something of its mystery: there would no longer be that sense of Gilleys hurtling down the centuries. But what it lost in mystery, it would gain in comfort. Their island would become a suburb—no more waiting for the tide to turn to drive into town. They would have other couples to play bridge with. Stan would even have his own golf course. Fran had seen it in the coals: “Stay in your present house,” she had said. “It will bring you good luck.”
Under her arm, she carried Daria’s painting of the Ledges, the painting that Stan had showed her in his studio. Daria had given it to her as a momento. For Daria it was an unpleasant reminder of her near-fatal night on the channel, but for Charlotte it was a reminder of the values expressed by the Ledges. She could see the masons already at work on the stone monument to Thornhill on a terrace below. That he had built the Ledges was expiation enough in her mind for his sins. And now their beauty would no longer be “buried and hid from the sight of common men,” to use the words from Der Gart, but freely available to enrich and ennoble the lives of those who experienced it.
“Miss Graham?” said Tracey.
“Charlotte,” she said, correcting him for the twelfth time.
“I just wanted to thank you on behalf of the town of Bridge Harbor for your help. We never could have solved this case without you.”
Aw shucks, it was nothing, thought Charlotte, picturing herself shuffling her feet in embarrassment. That was how Tracey made her feel, only with him the humble country boy bit was for real. She settled for a polite “You’re welcome” and thanked him for requesting her assistance.
“There’s one favor I’d like to ask, Miss Graham—Charlotte,” he said.
“What’s that?”
Pulling a small notebook out of his breast pocket, he tore off a sheet of lined paper and passed it over to her, his mild blue eyes dancing under the visor of his Red Sox cap. “May I please have your autograph, ma’am?”
“Aw shucks,” said Charlotte with a wide smile, signing the paper in her large, bold scrawl.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1991 by Stefanie Matteson
Cover design by Drew Padrutt
ISBN: 978-1-5040-3712-9
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