“Wow!” Izzy said from behind her. “It’s like …”
“Something on a ship?”
“Yeah, it’s very much like a movie set for a captain’s cabin.”
Alix was trying to take in every inch of the room. There were old things everywhere. A piece of antique china with “Kingsley” written on it. Taking up one corner was a carved wooden ship’s figurehead of a mermaid, weathered as though she had sailed through many oceans.
“Didn’t their family used to have whaling ships?” Izzy asked.
“Mostly the China trade.” Even as she said it, Alix had no idea how she knew that. “I didn’t read of any whalers in the family,” she added to cover herself. She walked around, touching things, memorizing them. If she had a home office it would look exactly like this. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Frankly, no,” Izzy said. “I want everything computerized. Deliver me from pen and ink. This place isn’t my style.” Outside, a car door slammed and they looked at each other in panic. “We better get out of here.”
Reluctantly, Alix started to follow her friend down the stairs but turned back for one last look. On the floor had fallen a freehand sketch of a little garden pavilion. It was octagonal with a roof like an upside-down tulip. Without thinking about what she was doing, she picked it up, stuck it in the waistband of her trousers, and hurried down the stairs.
Chapter Three
Alix leaned back in the chair and looked at the paper model she’d made of the chapel she’d designed. It hadn’t been easy to construct since all she’d had was card stock and tape. It was late afternoon and she was in the big room at the back of the old house, the one where she felt warmth and happiness. She knew without being told that when she was a child she’d spent a lot of time in this room. She remembered building little houses that had towers and turrets. At first she’d used old wooden blocks, and had piled up objects she found in drawers and on shelves. Then came Legos, her favorite childhood toy. There had been a great box full of them and in the bottom were little boats that she built sheds for.
While she’d played, there was music playing, soft and light, but no TV. Most important, there was a woman always nearby. Alix could almost see her smiling and approving. And sometimes there were other people. A young man who always looked worried. And a tall boy who smelled like the sea. There were smiling ladies who ate little cakes with yellow rosebuds on them. She could remember the taste of the petits fours and the itchiness of her new dress.
Over the big fireplace was a portrait of a lady. MISS ADELAIDE KINGSLEY, the label said. From her hair and clothes it looked to have been painted in the 1930s. She was pretty in a sedate, respectable-looking way, but there was a twinkle in her eye. The woman Alix was remembering more clearly by the hour was much older than in the portrait, but Alix well knew that sparkle in her eye. It seemed to say that she knew and saw things that others didn’t, but she wasn’t telling what. Except that she had shared her knowledge with Alix. She couldn’t remember exactly what Aunt Addy had told her, but Alix still felt the love that had been there—and the shared secrets.
Alix had wanted to spend the day with Izzy exploring the old house and walking around Nantucket. After all, her friend would leave soon. And Alix feared that once she was back on the mainland, Izzy would delve so deeply into planning her wedding that she and Alix wouldn’t have much contact. Toward the end of the summer, Alix would be Izzy’s maid of honor and Izzy would be married—and that would be the end of their girl friendship. Alix tried not to think how Izzy’s impending marriage would separate them.
It had been an excellent plan to spend the day together, but it didn’t happen. Alix awoke early with her mind fully on the possibility of showing her work to the Great Jared Montgomery. If he liked what he saw, maybe she could get an interview for a job at his firm. At the very least she’d show him what an eager-to-learn student she could be.
She lay in Aunt Addy’s bed in the early morning, her arms behind her head, looking up at the silk rose. Even if she didn’t get a job with him, to be his student—even if it was just for a few weeks—would be the highlight of her architectural studies. She could definitely put it on her résumé. And more important, she’d learn masses from him.
She wanted to design something to impress him. A house? How could she do that in just a couple of days? She was good at freehand sketching so maybe she could do some façades. But then she’d need to see the land. Everyone knew that Montgomery believed in buildings coming from the land, from the environment. He did not believe in mock Tudors in Dallas.
“What can I draw to impress him?” she whispered aloud.
As Alix lay there thinking and coming up with nothing, a small framed picture fell off the table against the far wall. Surprisingly, the disturbance in the still room didn’t startle her, but it did make her sit upright.
She got out of bed, her old T-shirt and threadbare sweatpants drafty in the cool morning. While she didn’t understand why, she knew the picture that had fallen was important. Picking it up, she saw a photo from the 1940s of two young women laughing. They wore pretty summer dresses and looked happy.
It had been a nice thought that the picture held some significance, but she couldn’t see what that was. She put the photo back on the table and headed for the bathroom, but then she stopped, turned back, and picked up the picture again. In the background, in the far distance, was a small
church. Maybe not even a church but a chapel, like those private family ones she’d seen when she and her father had visited England.
For a moment Alix envisioned Jared Montgomery’s home office and his designs for garden sculptures and gazebos, for arbors and a little garden shed.
“Small,” she whispered. “He’d like to see something small and exquisite.” She looked over at the big portrait of the Kingsley ancestor, Captain Caleb, and had an almost irresistible urge to say thank you.
Shaking her head at her nonsense, she went to the bathroom and tied back her hair. When she came out, she pulled her big red notebook from her new bag, and got back into bed.
Maybe it was the nearness of Izzy’s wedding, or maybe it was the search for something small that Montgomery had not designed, or perhaps the idea came from the fallen photo. Whatever the cause, Alix started sketching chapels. She rarely forgot a building, and she drew what she remembered.
Every August since her parents had split up, her mother went to Colorado, and Alix would stay with her father. If his work schedule allowed him to travel, they went where they could study the local architecture. They’d been to the southwestern U.S. to look at pueblos, to California for mission style, to Washington State to see Victorians. When Alix got older, they went to Spain to see Gaudi’s work, and of course they visited the Taj Mahal.
Alix used everything she could remember and sketched as fast as she could. When the pages filled, she tore them off and tossed them onto the bed.
When the bedroom door opened she looked up to see Izzy, fully dressed as though she meant to go out.
“Somehow, I knew you weren’t sleeping.” Izzy moved drawings to sit down on the bed and picked up some sketches. “A church?”
“A chapel. Small and private.”