Chapter 4: A Glimmer Of Hope

Karen complimented Jay on his art skills once she was in the car- a spacious Bentley.

“I did take a couple of classes in college.”

“You must have had the eyes for it long before then, though.”

“I must have.”

Karen knew that Jay Madison owned two art galleries. She had heard of him long before he’d handed over his business card. Her dismay then had been considerably dulled by the drugs she’d received. She wasn’t sure if he knew she knew of him. Who in New England hadn’t heard of Madison Gallery?

He drove efficiently, she noted, observing road signs, moving not too slow or too fast. There were no jerking motions between gear shifts either. Karen hated those. She also supposed the kind of car had something to do with the comfort of the ride… Bentleys were very comfortable cars.

“If I’d known you’d be judging my driving skills, I might not have offered to pick you up,” she heard him say mildly.

She blushed and looked out her window briefly. “Am I that obvious?”

“You’re practically holding your breath right now in case I run someone else over.”

“I’m so sorry. I guess it’s because we met under strange circumstances and I hardly know you, I’m sort of on edge... but you drive very well.”

He chuckled. “Thank you.” Pause. “I understand that we met in less than normal conditions, Karen. You can treat me like a landlord if you like.”

It was her turn to laugh. “It wouldn’t work. Now that I know who you are, I am dying to see your legendary art collection!” Pause. “And my agent will probably insist on you seeing my artwork and then I’ll be trying to become one of your contributing artists.”

“I wouldn’t show any old tenant my art,” he chuckled, “I didn’t know art teachers had agents.”

“Haha. Mine isn’t the conventional agent either.” She paused. “Teaching is just a pastime.”

When she didn’t elaborate, he asked whether her work was being displayed anywhere at the moment. At the same time, he turned into the cul-de-sac where his house was.

“Yes, I’ve a few pieces at Basil Carter Gallery.”

The two owners were rumoured to be rivals, so Karen actually gave up the information reluctantly.

All he said in response was, “Ah.”

But maybe that was because they’d pulled up in front of his house.

“Be ve nu. Welcome to my humble home,” he said as he opened the passenger door for her.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at his house.

His ‘humble’ abode was a three storey Georgian mansion. Large windows dominated the pretty face of the house and Karen could only imagine what the daylight did to the rooms.

It was, however, already dark so after opening her car door for her, Jay walked up to the front door and unlocked it and Karen followed him promptly.

The lobby was attractive. The walls were wallpapered gold and burnt orange. There was a pier table with a notepad and pen on it, its half circle shape pushed against the wall underneath an ornamental mirror.

Over the rich oak floor was an ivory rug with orange lines running through it. There was a tall lamp at the base of the staircase- its bronze shade was the faces of Tragedy and Comedy.

The first door to her left was a study, he told her, the next doorway opened into a spacious living room. The breakfast nook and vast kitchen came next. Round the other end of the house was the dining room adjacent to the music room cum drawing room. Once out of the drawing room, one found oneself at the base of the broad staircase, under which there was a guest loo, as Jay called it.

After the ground floor tour, Jay led the way up to the first floor.

“My quarters,” he called it. “There’s a bedroom, small library- from which you’re free to borrow- a little sitting room... another bedroom en suite.”

They carried on to the floor where she would reside. Boxes of her belongings lined the hallway.

“Ah, it looks like Mrs. Brown chose your room for you.”

“Mrs. Brown?”

“My housekeeper. It’s her evening off, though, so you will meet her tomorrow.”

The room was lovely, with purple and silver striped walls, darker purple drapes on the three windows. Her bed was against the far right wall, her bureau was near the closet and a small settee which she didn’t recognise was surrounded by her suitcases.

“Those aren’t my covers,” she said.

Jay smiled. “No. I imagine Mrs. Brown wanted to relieve you of the stress of having to make a bed with a broken hand.”

“How nice of her.”

The bed spread was plum with silver trees embroidered on the bottom.

“It really is beautiful,” she said of the room. “I’m actually afraid to bring my dogs here.”

There was an en suite bathroom- all black and white. The next room, she thought to herself, could be another bedroom, a study or small studio. On the other side of the hall there was another bathroom in pale yellow and white and another larger room.

“I was thinking you could use the little room as your kitchen if you wanted to avoid trekking all the way down to the main one,” Jay said heading to an adjacent room off the one he suggested be her sitting room. “And this could be your studio,” he said throwing open double doors at the end of the hall.

It occurred to her that the man had actually taken time to think of how she was going to exist within in his space and was alarmed at how much of his space she was getting, but when she passed through the large doors Karen gasped in utter delight.

“It’s so big!”

Indeed her potential studio ran the breadth of the house, east to west, with windows on the three sides. The room was totally empty, with wood floors, white gossamer curtains on the five windows facing her where she stood near the doors.

She laughed ruefully. “I wish I could do a cartwheel.”

Jay Madison leaned against the doorjamb and watched while Karen went to the windows to look over the grounds behind the house. After a moment she left the window to stand in the middle of the room with a small hopeful smile on her face.

Jay found there was a ghost of a similar smile on his own face.

“I’m glad you like it. Now I feel better about your hand.”

She turned to him and her smile widened, catching him a little off-guard with how pretty she looked even in the dim moonlit room.

“Why, Mr. Madison, you needn’t have worried!”

“I realise that now...” his gaze lingered on her lovely face for a while before he quickly stood upright, trying to shake off the fuzzy feeling she was giving him. “You must be hungry, shall we see if we can rustle up something in the kitchen?”

Karen nodded, incredibly pleased at the idea of living in Jay’s house.

To her further enchantment, he led her through the studio to a back staircase, which went straight to the kitchen.

Mrs. Brown had left a lasagne and Jay- true to his word- was adept at making Caesar salad.

Over the tasty meal, Jay got Karen to agree to be his house guest until her wrist healed and then they could become tenant and landlord.

“But what about food costs?” she had protested at one point.

“I hardly think you’re going to eat me out of house and home,” came the dry response. “But you can buy the odd thing like bread when you notice it’s running out,” he conceded after he noticed the hint of proud fire in her hazel eyes. “And you can still buy yourself or Prado and Uffizi little treats.”

Inexplicably, he began laughing after that.

Karen put her fork down. “What’s so funny?”

Jay shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just that those are the first dogs I know of named after art galleries.”

She smiled involuntarily, liking how his deep blue eyes twinkled when he was amused. “That was my nephew’s doing. He was studying for some school project and came across the names of the famous Italian galleries in his research. He loved the sound of them, so he would ask me on the phone about my dogs Prado and Uffizi- who were still with the trainer then- and much to his joy the names stuck.”

“They surely are unique,” he chuckled one last time.

It took Karen a while to finish eating because of her injury. Using her left hand seemed as foreign as painting with her teeth.

Jay practically clucked his tongue when he heard what she’d been eating recently. He even cut up all her food for her to make it easier.

After the meal, she complimented him on his beautiful house and his salad making skills. The pills she was taking for the pain often made her sleepy and they parted ways on the landing to ‘his quarters’.

Her bed felt even more comfortable with the luxurious, foreign sheets and she fell asleep quite quickly.