The Stroke of Winter(10)

“That painting above the fireplace,” Jane said, squinting and taking a few steps nearer to it. “That’s one of your grandfather’s, isn’t it? I’d know a Sebastian Bell anywhere. Is that your father, as a boy?”

“It is,” Tess said. “My uncle and grandmother, too.”

Jane was right; Tess’s grandfather’s style was distinctive. He painted scenes of life in Wharton—the lake, the cliffs, the ferries, the beaches, the wildlife, the people—his watercolors and oils blurring the lines of familiar images into his own personal dreamscape. Northern Impressionism, an art critic had once dubbed Sebastian’s style, and it had stuck.

This painting, Picnic at Mermaid Cove, depicted the family relaxing on a beach, not a care in the world, the vastness of the lake shimmering like diamonds before them. Her father, Indigo, and her uncle, Grey, were small, playing in the sand with pails and shovels, the beginnings of a sandcastle rising up between them. Their mother, Serena, sat on a beach blanket next to a picnic basket. She was wearing a white cotton dress, her feet bare, her wavy brown hair cascading down her back and blowing slightly in an unseen breeze.

But there was something sinister underlying the idyllic scene, as there was in many of her grandfather’s paintings. In this one, the water seemed almost alive. Faces gazed out of the waves—malevolent faces—watery tentacles curling up onto rocks on the shore in a way that almost surrounded the unsuspecting family, as though, in an instant, the lake could send a massive wave to engulf them all on a whim.

That was how all his paintings were—an otherwise utterly normal moment, with otherworldly danger lurking just out of view. Tess had never known her grandfather, but she couldn’t help but wonder what kind of man he was if that was how he saw the world.

The art gallery in town, WhartonScapes, featured prints and framed fine-art reproductions of his works, but the originals hung in museums all over the country, and indeed the world. The previous year, one of his more famous paintings, Angry Inland Sea, which captured the lake in all its fury on an especially stormy night, had fetched more than $7 million at auction.

Only part of that money came to the family. Tess’s grandmother had established the Sebastian Bell Foundation for the Arts, which provided arts scholarships to aspiring young (or any age) painters, some years after Sebastian had passed away. For the past year or so, Eli had been working with Tess’s father in administering the foundation and would take over one day soon after Indigo finally relinquished the reins and retired. He had taught his grandson well. Eli was up to the job and enthusiastic about it.

Indigo, who had inherited his parents’ fortune after his brother, Grey, disappeared after Wharton’s annual Fourth of July celebration decades earlier, had put part of the proceeds of that massive sale, and others over the years, into the foundation, and the rest into a trust for Tess and, when her son was born, for Eli, accessible only if they worked for a living. Some of it went into a retirement account that Tess couldn’t access until she was sixty-five.

Tess looked upon it as a cushion that she would dip into only when necessary. It allowed her and Eli, as it had allowed Indigo, to pursue careers they really enjoyed, rather than having to work at a job they didn’t like in order to simply live. Tess knew how fortunate she was, and she made sure Eli knew it, too.

That was what was paying for Tess’s renovations to La Belle Vie, which, she reasoned, would’ve pleased Sebastian Bell a great deal. She liked to think so, anyway.

“It’s amazing to see this up close,” Jane mused, studying the painting. “The brushstrokes. Do you have others?”

Tess shook her head. “This one came with the house. It’s always been here. Apparently, my grandfather loved it a great deal and never wanted to sell it. My parents have another one in their home in Florida, but that’s it. We don’t keep many of his works lying around.”

“No, they’re lying around in MoMA,” Jim piped up, gazing at the painting. “He really was remarkable, wasn’t he?”

“I wish I had inherited some of his talent,” Tess said. “But, alas.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Jim said. “The dinner you just served us was a work of art in itself.”

This warmed Tess from the inside out. How nice of him to say that. And, she had to admit, he was right, in a way. Cooking was creative. Finding just the right dish to serve at the right time, taking care to select foods that she knew her guests would love, preparing them in her own way. Making sure everyone was happy. Hospitality was an art. Her canvas was a table. She guessed it wasn’t so different, after all.

Jane turned to her, pulling her out of her own thoughts. “Do you have some sort of security system? I mean, for when you open the house up to guests. You don’t want one of them walking away with this masterpiece.”

Tess nodded. “Since nobody was living here full time when my parents moved to Florida a couple of years back, my dad put in the same kind of security system that museums use. The frame is bolted to the wall, so it’s not going anywhere easily. But if anyone touches it, or even gets too close, an alarm goes off, and the police are called immediately.”

That painting had hung above the fireplace at La Belle Vie for as long as Tess could remember. But, security or no security, she’d talk to her father about moving it before the first guest arrived.