He shook his head. “I’ve met the director, but I’ve never had the pleasure.”
“Maybe we could start with lunch there-it has a wonderful view of the river.”
“Isn’t that largely a collection of Wyeths?” I could almost see a faint curl to his lip. Snob.
“Yes, Andrew Wyeth lived nearby. It’s a lovely place, and I enjoy the paintings.” So there.
“Well, then, go perform your ablutions, and I will amuse myself until you’re ready.” He prowled around the room, picking up a book here and there, then settled himself in front of the window in a wing chair that had been my grandmother’s. I took one last despairing glance around the mess that I called home and fled for the bathroom.
Half an hour later, scrubbed free of paint, powdered and primped, clad in my best country-casual outfit (which looked suspiciously like all my usual workweek outfits), we set off in Charles’s borrowed Jaguar. I was navigator, and since I knew he was itching to get off the Lancaster Pike, which was filled with slow SUVs running Saturday errands, I pointed him toward the back roads and scenic byways. The car was a joy, purring along the rolling lanes, and I sat back in the leather upholstery and reveled in the engine’s effortless power. The weather was perfect-the trees were already losing their leaves, but the cool autumn sun bathed the monochrome landscape with clean white light. It was, in fact, very much like being inside an Andrew Wyeth painting, and I stuck to my guns and insisted that we stop at the Brandywine Museum, which was one of my favorite small museums anywhere. After a sandwich there, watching the river roll by, we wandered for miles, stopping at antique stores when we felt like it. Charles picked up a few bits and pieces that caught his fancy, but mostly we enjoyed the process of looking, making snide comments about overpriced dreck, and occasionally haggling with a proprietor.
We finished up with an early supper at the Dilworthtown Inn, which lived up to its reputation. It managed to combine the best of colonial and modern: the small dining rooms, many with working fireplaces, were warm and intimate, and the wine cellar was impressive, even by Charles’s estimation. I let him order, and sat and watched him play alpha male. He looked distinguished, even dashing, in the flickering light of the candles and the fire, and I managed to rise to the occasion, bantering with unaccustomed wit and charm.
The food was lovely, the wine rich and velvety, gleaming like old garnets in the glass. But even the best of nights must end. We departed the restaurant as the first wave of regular Saturday night diners began to appear and drove back to Bryn Mawr in companionable silence.
Charles pulled up to my carriage house with a flourish. I looked over at him. “Do you want to come in?” I said, shoving aside thoughts of my unmade bed and the mess I’d left in the bathroom and the half-painted room.
“I think not. I should get back to the city and put this lady to bed.” He patted the steering wheel affectionately. I sighed inwardly with a poignant mixture of regret and relief.
“Well, then, I’ll see you Monday. And Charles? Thank you so much for today. You were right: I needed it, and it was lovely.”
He leaned over to kiss me, a warm and lingering kiss. Then he sat back in the driver’s seat as I opened the door. When I reached the path to my door, he pulled away with a brief backward wave of his hand, the motor nearly silent. I watched him go, then reluctantly turned back to my house with its unfinished paint and the usual mess. I felt a bit like Cinderella after the ball. Back to the real world, Nell.
CHAPTER 15
Monday I was still thinking back wistfully on Charles’s unheralded appearance at my door. It seemed to me as though some undefined boundary had been crossed. Before now, our relationship had taken place exclusively on his home turf in the city. I could understand his need for room to let the lovely Jaguar prowl, but I wondered which had come first: borrowing the Jaguar or wanting to comfort me? I had no intention of reading too much into it, though. Besides, I had plenty to keep me busy.
After a week’s worth of waffling, agonizing, and tweaking, we were finally ready to send a discreet and mournful letter to the entire membership regarding the unfortunate demise of a treasured employee, Registrar Alfred Findley. Of course, they’d likely have read about it in the newspapers already, but we needed to make a public statement of our own. Our spin was that there was no spin: Alfred had died. Period. No mention of the fact that he had bled all over the floor of our own stacks. We would just say that he had been a longtime employee and he would be missed. But that still meant printing out a couple of thousand letters and matching envelopes, and stuffing and sealing and stamping and mailing. And that would require the efforts of myself, underlings, and anyone else we could snag. As I said, I was busy.
In addition, there was the upcoming board meeting to worry about. The Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society’s board of directors met four times a year, to manage the affairs of the institution. I doubt that it’s a coincidence that board sounds like bored, which is what the participants usually are. But in case you’ve never been privy to this style of management, let me tell you that getting ready for a board meeting throws the entire staff into a tizzy. Board members are supposed to receive packets filled with useful and relevant information-attendance figures, acquisitions, state of the budget, and so on-a week or two before the event. That rarely happens-usually they get delivered a day or two before the actual meeting. Board members are supposed to have read and digested the two or three inches of information they receive in advance of the meeting-and that happens even more rarely. Of course there are some conscientious souls who do plow through the documents, making notes, and then come to the meeting and ask serious probing questions-while their peers all look blank, shuffle through the pages, and check their watches frequently.
Don’t get me wrong. The board members are good people in most cases. The majority of them know history and collecting, as well as the ins and outs of the Society. A few others are chosen because of their public stature (political figures, academic leaders), and a few more are picked because they have money. No surprise there. Many of them have been on the board in some capacity for years, or in some cases decades. When their allotted term in one position (per the bylaws) is over, they shift to another one. As you might guess, a lot of these people know each other, both within and outside the Society. It’s pretty typical of small nonprofits, and we seem to muddle along well enough, just as we have for over a century. Nominally there are twenty-seven members, with an average age north of sixty, although we do try to bring in some younger folk; more men than women; and very few minorities, although we’d been recruiting hard in that area. So when you sit down in a board meeting, you generally see a sea of grey flannel and grey hair.
The meetings usually followed a stately progression, more or less set in stone. There were munchies and even alcoholic beverages to grease the slides a bit, and then a welcome, a summary, and individual departmental reports. Faithful Doris took notes, with a tape recorder as backup for her impeccable shorthand, not that she’d ever needed it. The meetings went on for a couple of hours, and then the members scattered to the winds for the next three months. The only major exception was the annual meeting, open to all of our members (although very few ever come, even with the lure of free food), as required by our bylaws.
This time I was a bit on edge, even though I’d made sure that the notices and the information packets went out in a timely fashion for Thursday’s board meeting. But there was no mention of Alfred’s death in the meeting agenda, and I knew there would have to be some talk about that. And then there was the whole collections issue. It was a touchy subject, so I hadn’t committed anything to writing, apart from Charles’s suggestion to include Security on the agenda. At least I knew I had good news to report from the gala: our fundraising was marching along at an encouraging rate, and our membership was inching steadily up. Or at least it had been, before Alfred’s death.