“Did you find anything beneath our painting?” she finally blurted out, unable to wait any longer.
“Yeah, but it was a little disappointing.” He reached for the tube to pop the plastic top from the end. “You were right. Thefancy clothes were added later, but I haven’t had much luck getting the details of what was underneath. I was able to come up with a shadowy image, but that’s all.”
Alice held her breath as Jason wiggled a large roll of paper from the tube. “This is a reproduction of the painting you gave me, but instead of the original clothes, I’ve located a different spectral band and overwrote the silk and satin clothes. This photo is as close to the original as I can get, and it’s not very good.”
Jason unrolled the photo paper and Arlo reached for wooden blocks to anchor the corners to the table.
Oh my!Instead of gaudy peach and aqua clothes, a hazy, X-ray-like image revealed a shadowy imprint of the original painting. Their clothes looked like a smudged charcoal drawing lacking all detail, but she could still see it. They were dressed like Puritans!
Their hazy, ghostly image blurred even more because tears were beginning to prick at her eyes.She had found them. William Reid Denby and his wife, Helga, were immortalized for all time in this painting.
“This image is the best my equipment can do,” Jason said. “If you want a clear image of the original painting, you’ll need to pay a restoration specialist to physically chip away the top layer of paint to get to the original, and that’s expensive. Is there a budget for it?”
“I’ll pay for it,” Alice said. “I’ll give anything if I can restore this portrait to the way they wanted the world to see them.”
Once, centuries ago, a man backed the losing side in a long and bloody civil war. William Reid Denby fled to the wilds of Virginia to save his life. Like many of the well-to-do settlers, he brought window glass, slate roof tiles, and enough hardware to build a home.
He also brought a portrait so that during his lonely years in exile he was able to gaze at his wife’s image. He arranged for someone to disguise their Puritan attire, just as he changed his name to escape his past. Reid was his middle name, and Santos? It was Spanish forsaints. Reid Santos was the identity he created for himself, and which he carried for the rest of his life.
Back in England, Reid’s family faked his death and added an engraved line to the family tombstone. When the king was restored to the throne in 1660, they presented it as proof that Reid had already died. Helga went into mourning but never forgot her husband overseas, and chose to join him in exile once Reid deemed it safe for her to come.
What did Reid and Helga think of the gaudy portrait? Did they hate having to hide beneath the bling, or did they secretly joke about it?
She’d probably never know. The answers to some questions would be forever lost to history. One thing she knew for sure was that Reid and Helga put their lives, their fortunes, and their futures on the line for a cause they believed in. Once Helga finally arrived in Virginia, they built a life for themselves at Reid’s Roost, with Reid plying his trade as the owner of a ferry. And Helga? She was surely glad to be with her man again. They were two people of immense character who lived their faith steadfastly, enduring great personal loss to remain true to their beliefs. She admired them and couldn’t wait to see what they would look like once their portrait was fully restored.
Alice spent her days out at the construction site. The reassembly of Reid’s Roost was proceeding quickly, but the additions of the kitchen and conference room would take months to complete.Soon she would oversee the furnishing of the tavern, but for today she wanted Brandon Tilney’s insight into her ideas for creating a seventeenth-century herb garden.
“Well?” she asked as they arrived at the foundation stones that outlined the Roost’s original footprint. “Will this soil support the sort of medicinal herbs they would have used in the Colonial era?”
Brandon hunkered down and felt the soil. Pinched it between his thumb and forefingers, watched how it crumbled. Sniffed it.
“There’s a lot of clay in the soil, but it could be amended to support herbs,” he said as he stood back up. As always, he was impeccably dressed, with a tweed argyle coat and a hunter green scarf casually looped around his neck.
“Would you be interested in lending your name to the project?” she asked. “Jack won’t be able to pay you anything, but serving as our consultant will be another line on your academic record.”
And colleges loved that sort of thing. Any time professors donated their expertise to the local community, it helped strengthen town and gown relations.
“Sure, I can be a consultant,” he said. “What are your plans for the future? I heard the college wants to reinstate you, now that the mess with Sebastian Bell has been cleared up.”
Although her expulsion from academia had been brutal, she now felt liberated, as if granted a new lease on life. “I won’t go back. I haven’t applied for any other academic jobs and I’m not sure what I’ll do. What I love most is working out here on the Roost.”
The place had seeped into her blood. It had so much to offer the community in addition to being a high-end tavern. It could educate people. Inspire future historians, spark a curiosity about the past. She was uniquely qualified to create ties to theacademic and social side of the local area, and this medicinal herb garden could be a part of that.
Jack owned this place lock, stock, and barrel. She’d probably overstepped even by speaking to Brandon about helping design a medicinal garden, but she couldn’t help it. As her interest in reviving her academic career faded, hope for a new one as a historic preservation educator rose.
The problem was that it all depended on Jack. He’d made it clear their summer romance was over, and he would move on to whatever golf course hired him next. He would need someone here at the Roost to manage the place for him, but he might want a clean break with her. That would be okay. If she couldn’t work at the Roost, Virginia was filled with historic sites where she might seek a job.
She found a smooth section of the foundation rocks to sit. Brandon joined her, both of them facing out toward Saint Helga’s Spring in the distance. Hanging moss draped the gnarled branches of the oak trees and clusters of ironweed with their spiky purple flowers lined the bank of the spring. It was the last burst of autumn color before the woods would sink into winter hibernation. The cool air carried the scent of moss and ancient oaks. Did it look like this when Helga lived here? She outlived her husband and might have been terribly lonely out here.
“Have you ever thought of remarrying?” she asked Brandon.
His smile was sad as he tugged at some weeds growing along the foundation stones. “No. I’ve already had a great, magnificent love. For nine years, Clara and I lived in the firmament. When she died, I came crashing back down to earth. It took a long time to emerge from the shadows. I have no desire to head back to that dark place. I’m fine on my own. More or less.”
It didn’t sound like he was particularly happy. Brandon was a mature man his wife died, yet he still seemed too shell-shockedto risk another love affair. Jack was only a child when he lost his mother. Then his father. Then came a series of foster homes—one of which he had grown to love, only to have it taken away as well. Could she blame him for his reluctance to settle down? If a man as well-adjusted as Brandon Tilney hesitated to risk his heart again, she could hardly blame Jack for the same.
“I hear the sound of a dozen hearts breaking,” she teased.
Brandon gave a good-natured chuckle, but sobered quickly. “We have to accept the good with the bad. Sometimes I think the good things in life wouldn’t be so sweet unless we had the bitter to teach us the difference.”
