Читать книгу Charlotte Moore - Judith Bowen - Страница 10

Dear Lydia,

P.E.I. greetings from us both! Yes, Maggie is still with me and I’m writing this from the Bluefish Inn at Souris, up in the northeast corner of the Island. It’s raining here and I’m sick of traveling. And, yes, I’ve already met the man I used to dream about in grade five and have put that particular little fantasy to rest. He’s not at all the way I remembered him—so cold, so standoffish. Scary, almost. Still handsome, though, if you like rough and rugged.

There’s worse news. Wait until I see that sister of mine! Laurel set me up. Turns out there was no arrangement to have Maggie bred at Liam Connery’s kennel, after all, so now I’m faced with having to talk that terrible man into taking her on as a boarder, at least until Laurel and Frank get back. I can’t ship her home yet and I can’t keep her with me while I’m working. Speaking of which, guess what? I’m going to the Rathbone mansion tomorrow afternoon to get started. Really looking forward to it….

Love, Charlotte

P.S. Has Zoey gone west to British Columbia yet?

P.P.S. Will send an address when I rent a room somewhere. B&Bs are mostly closed already for the winter.

THAT’S RIGHT, Charlotte thought as she rounded the corner at Poplar Point on the return trip. I’m going to have to convince that unfriendly, annoying, unpleasant man to keep Maggie for a few weeks. Simple, really. He ran a kennel. He had boarders. Five of them; Jamie had said so. Well, here was another one. She was happy to pay whatever he charged. And she’d make damn sure Laurel paid her back.

The sky was clearing—an omen?—as she drove into Cardigan River, which was a tiny knot of buildings at the narrowest part of the small bay that opened to the east, to Northumberland Strait. As Ada Connery had said, there wasn’t much to it.

Bristol’s Store, with a faded Firestone banner draped in the window and one gas pump outside on the graveled lot, looked as promising as anything. The interior was dark and cluttered and smelled of cigarette smoke and hot dogs. A four-stool lunch bar ran along one side of the L-shaped counter. A large, dull-looking man, his tongue squashed pinkly between fleshy lips, occupied a wooden chair by the cash register. He wore a name badge that read Abner. A woman with her hair tied up in a kerchief and an apron around her thin waist scrubbed the counter with a rag.

She raised her head. “Help ya?”

Charlotte took off her sunglasses. “I’m looking for a room to rent. Do you know of anything around here?”

The woman left her cloth on the counter and stood straight, staring at Charlotte. “Room to rent? What for?”

“I’ll be working at the Rathbone estate for a few weeks. I need a place to stay.”

The cloth got picked up, slopped into a sink full of soapy water, pulled out, wrung and vigorously applied again to the cracked Formica. “Uh-huh. Round here, eh? Petty Cove? Nothing much there. Cardigan River?”

“Yes.” Charlotte waited through the long silence that followed, looking around a little desperately. The boy-man hadn’t changed expression and was twirling the dials on a transistor radio near the cash register. Electronic squawks filled the air.

“You could try Clara Jenkins. She takes tourists in the summer. Don’t know if she’s got any rooms free now. Quit fiddlin’ and put down that radio, Abe, y’hear!” She turned back to Charlotte. “You want me to call?”

“That would be very kind.”

“Oh, don’t mention it. Anything else for ya?”

“Bottled water?”

“Over by the pop cooler. Bottom shelf. Should be a few left from the summer folk. We don’t get much call for bought water from the reg’lars.”

As she spoke, the woman dialed an old-fashioned rotary wall phone. “Clara? Listen here, I got somebody in the store says she wants a room—what’s that? Okay, I’ll send her up. How’s John? Uh-huh. Oh, that’s a shame. Hope he’s feelin’ better soon. ’Bye, dear.” She hung up and turned to Charlotte without missing a breath. “You find your water all right?”

“Yes, thanks.” Charlotte opened her wallet. The bell over the door jangled and two men entered—young, handsome fisherman types, with longish hair and creased ball caps pushed back from their tanned foreheads. They both paused when they saw her, and Charlotte recognized the familiar, lightning-swift male appraisal. All men did it—almost all men, she corrected, remembering Liam Connery’s indifference. Then they swung themselves up onto stools at the lunch counter.

“Coffee, boys?” The store lady already had her hand on the coffeepot.

The cashier, Abe, took Charlotte’s money and made change slowly and accurately, counting under his breath. He wasn’t as young as she’d thought at first, with deep lines around his eyes and a little gray in his brown hair. She smiled encouragement and he smiled back, which seemed to amuse the newcomers.

“Coffee, Bonnie. And you can fill up my thermos jug, too. Say, got yourself a gal there, Abe?”

Abe shook his head. “Nope. She’s new. I don’t know her.”

“And of course you wouldn’t take a date with anybody you didn’t know, right, Abe?” The two men laughed again, but Charlotte could see it was all in good fun.

“Now, you go on up the hill and bear right at the first corner,” the woman called Bonnie said to her. “Second house on the left after you make the turn. Buff-colored, ya can’t miss it. Big lilac bush out front. Clara says she’ll be watchin’ out for you.”

“Oh!” Charlotte rapidly rearranged her plans. “I was going to go over to the kennel and then—oh, never mind, I’ll go up and see about the room.”

The two men exchanged glances. “Got a dog, have you? What kind?”

Charlotte nodded. It amazed her how perfect strangers here thought nothing of taking part in a conversation, but she was beginning to get used to it. There were no strangers on Prince Edward Island, she realized. There were only Islanders and People From Away, the “summer folk.”

“A Labrador retriever. It’s my sister’s, actually. I want to make arrangements to board her at the kennel.”

“That’d be Liam Connery’s place?” one drawled, his blue eyes interested.

“Yes.”

“Uh-huh.” He took a sip of his coffee, eyes narrowed.

The other shook his head. “Good luck to you, miss. Liam can be right tough to get along with. Especially when it comes to them fancy huntin’ dogs of his.” He smiled pleasantly.

“Thank you.” Charlotte headed back out into the sunshine.

So. Liam Connery definitely had a reputation, everywhere she mentioned his name. Ornery. Particular. Right tough.

Well, she could handle him. Begin as you mean to go on, she mused. She meant to board Maggie at Petty Cove Retrievers, which was, after all, a commercial kennel business—wasn’t it?—then get straight to work checking out the Rathbone estate. She was flexible, she was reasonable, she was sweet-tempered…and she was stubborn.

In the end, one way or another, she usually got what she wanted.

IT WAS A BIT DISAPPOINTING after all that, to discover Liam Connery wasn’t even home. Dogs barked from the direction of the kennels as she drove up, and Maggie started to whine in response.

Charlotte didn’t dare let her out of the truck.

“Yes?” Ada came to the door, her sightless eyes focusing somewhere over Charlotte’s head. “Can I help you?”

“Good morning, Ada. It’s Charlotte—remember me from last week? Charlotte Moore?”

“Surely I do! Come in, dear.” The older woman held the door open wide. “I’ll put on the kettle.”

“Thanks, but I can’t stay. I wanted to speak to Liam, if I could.”

“He’s not here. He’s, uh…” His mother had a confused look on her face, as though trying to remember just where her son was. “Let’s see, it’s Monday, isn’t it? He’s away this morning, miss.”

“I see.” Charlotte frowned. That was disappointing. “I wanted to talk to him about boarding my sister’s dog for a few weeks.”

“Oh, heavens yes, of course you can leave your puppy here. I haven’t even met her, have I? Why don’t you bring the little sweetheart in for a few minutes?”

Maggie obliged, leaping gracefully out of the Suburban and following Charlotte back to the door of the house, where she gently nosed Ada’s knee. “Oh, my. Isn’t she a dear little thing?” Liam’s mother bent to pat Maggie’s glossy black coat. At nearly seventy-five pounds and fully grown, Maggie wasn’t exactly a “little thing.”

“You bring her on into the kitchen, why don’t you. I’ll get Jamie to see to her when he comes home from school, if Liam’s delayed.”

“Are you sure?” This was a break! She couldn’t do an end run around the absent son to get what she wanted—an agreement to board Maggie—from the mother, but it was a start. Charlotte had no doubt that Ada would fall in love with Maggie once she was on the premises, and so would Liam if he gave the dog half a chance. Charlotte would come back later and discuss the details.

“Oh, yes!” Ada waved her hand in a throwaway gesture that was becoming familiar. “Don’t give it a thought. My son’s growl is worse than his bite, you know. This is a lovely dog, Charlotte. A lovely, lovely girl!” She smoothed Maggie’s broad head, and Maggie responded with that happy confident Labrador look Charlotte knew so well. “She can stay right here by the fire with me and Chip!”

Chip must be the cat. Luckily, Maggie tolerated cats well. Laurel’s horse barn was always full of them.

“If your son objects, I’ll have to make some other arrangement.” Charlotte closed her eyes in silent prayer. Please, let that not happen!

“Nonsense! This is the perfect place, next door to where you’ll be working. Why didn’t I think of it the other day? You can visit her anytime you want. Have you been over to the estate yet, dear?”

“I’m planning to do that this afternoon or maybe tomorrow,” Charlotte said, taking a step backward toward the path that led to the house. “I’ve been busy. I just found somewhere to live and—”

“Where’s that?”

“A place they mentioned at the store—”

“Not Clara Jenkins’s!”

“Yes, as a matter-of-fact.”

“Oh, that won’t be suitable, not at all. She just has bachelors staying there, folks who aren’t a bit fussy. She’s certainly no cook. Why, I hear all she puts out for breakfast is a pot of porridge and a spoon.”

Charlotte had noticed that the room she’d taken for the week was very sparsely and boringly furnished, with a worn lino floor, sagging single bed and a monstrous television in the corner, which she had no intention of using. Lucky she’d only be in Petty Cove a month, because she didn’t think she could stand the color of the walls for too long, either. They weren’t periwinkle or aqua or even last year’s seafoam but a plain all-out fifties-or-bust turquoise. She hadn’t enquired about the meals, which were included.

“I’ve taken the room for a week,” she said. “I’ll give it a try.” If worse came to worst, she could always find something in Charlottetown, although a commute of an hour everyday, both ways, didn’t appeal.

“If only I’d known,” Ada said fretfully, looking rather lost again.

Perhaps it was the empty stare of her sightless eyes, but Ada’s expression often took on a vague, bewildered look.

“I just hope you’re comfortable there, dear. And you put your foot down about the breakfast. You can always come to us if you’re not happy.”

“You mean—” Come to us?

“We’ve got all kinds of rooms upstairs,” the older woman said, brightening. “Nice rooms, too, all with their own plumbin’ and lovely sea views. It’d be like old times!”

It was rather sad, really, Charlotte thought as she drove back down the lane. Ada had obviously loved playing hostess in her own little guest house. With her sight gone and her husband dead, those days were past. And with a son who didn’t seem to care about anything but his dogs, they would most likely never return.

“I WON’T HAVE that damn dog here.” Liam poured milk over the cornflakes in his bowl, his regular evening snack, and carried it to the table. Ladling sugar onto the crisp cereal, he looked up. “You hear me, Ma?”

There was no answer from the corner, where his mother sat knitting, her needles clicking noisily. The Labrador at her feet gazed at him, sighed and put her big head down on her paws again.

“Look, will you, Liam? Even Maggie thinks you’re rude. Of course I hear you!” She leaned down and patted the Labrador’s shoulder. “There’s a sweet girl.”

Liam began eating. The sound of the spoon hitting the bowl added to the click-click of knitting needles, the tick-tick of the kitchen clock on the wall and the occasional crisp snap-snap of the wood fire in the parlor stove.

“I don’t have a good feeling about it, that’s all. Plus, that bitch is bound to come into heat while she’s here, according to Laurel Moore’s reckoning, and I’m not prepared to deal with that. It’s nothing but trouble. Her sister should’ve left her home.”

“But she’s no trouble at all. She’s beautifully trained—look at her! She hasn’t moved a muscle all afternoon, just stayed by my chair, good as gold. Liam, I want to do that poor girl a favor,” his mother said stubbornly. “Travelin’ all that way, arriving here plumb tired out, and then nowhere to leave her puppy while she works? Even Chip gets along with our visitor, don’t you, Chippy?” The cat, sleeping in a basket by the stove, didn’t move.

Liam stood and took the bowl to the sink, where he rinsed and dried it and put it back in the cupboard. He was in jeans and a plaid work shirt and stocking feet. The pendulum clock on the wall struck eight chimes.

“Damn sneaky, if you ask me, coming around this morning when I was away.”

“She has a name, you know. It’s Maggie. And the girl’s name is Charlotte. And you weren’t home. How was she to know? And besides, the sign out there on the road does say boarding kennel, doesn’t it?”

“Matter-of-fact, it doesn’t, Ma. It says, Training and Boarding.”

“Well, there you go—”

“That means the only dogs I board are dogs I’m being paid to train. This dog isn’t here to be trained.” He glanced over at the Labrador, who had raised her noble head again to give him an injured look. “She probably wouldn’t know a pheasant from a stick of firewood. Labs like this have had all the starch bred out of them. They’re show dogs!”

“Old Jimbo’s a Labrador,” his mother shot back. “And a darn fine one, too. One of the best dogs you’ve ever had—you’ve said so many times yourself.”

“Jimbo’s different. He’s a working dog. There’s not a show animal in his pedigree, not one. Folks like Laurel Moore, and there’s plenty more like her, have ruined the breed, as far as I’m concerned. I’m not having that bitch of Laurel’s around, and that’s that.” He headed toward the outer door of the kitchen.

“Davy get his boat out of the water?” Ada enquired mildly.

Liam stared at his mother. “He did. And don’t you go changing the subject, either—”

“Changing the subject! The subject is closed, that’s what. Maggie is staying right here with me. I need a companion, don’t I? Home alone all day with you here and there and people coming to the door and what not—”

“You’ve got Chippy, Ma.” Liam smiled slightly.

“Oh, pooh! Chippy’s just a cat.”

“And Bear.”

“Bear’s always with you. He’s stuck to you like a piece of lint.”

Liam signed and reached for his jacket. “You haven’t convinced me, Ma, but I guess she’s here now, like it or not. If you say you want her, I’ll keep her. When did you mention the woman was coming back?”

“She said she’d come to talk to you this evening. Arrange the particulars, if you were agreeable.” Ada picked up speed with her needles. “Oh, and Liam?”

He stopped, his hand on the doorknob. “What’s that, Ma?”

“Thank you, son.”

Liam sighed again and went out, closing the door quietly behind him. He started his rounds in what he and Jamie always called the Maternity Ward, where Sammy and her five pups were housed. He had another bitch ready to whelp in a couple more weeks— Sunny, a young Labrador with her second litter on the way. He’d move her in soon.

Liam handled each puppy and checked it over carefully, as he did every evening before observing them for ten or fifteen minutes. He liked to get to know each animal’s personality, keep an eye on every stage of a pup’s development. These little guys were just four weeks old but the chase-and-fetch instincts came early, and it was important to find out which pups were go-getters and which ones liked to snooze an extra five minutes if they could.

Then he went over to the kennel where Old Jimbo was housed with his pal, a neutered male called Spindle. Spindle was a mixed-breed, a weird-looking animal, the result of a Labrador mating with a weimaraner, a visitor he’d had one fall who got mixed-up with one of his best bitches when no one was looking. Spindle and Old Jimbo—who’d been called that since he was two years old—were inseparable. If they weren’t such close friends, Liam would have retired Jimbo to the house and a life of ease by the fire. The dog was getting too arthritic to go out in the boat the way he once had, but Liam knew it’d break his heart to be sent to the house. He seemed to know that house dogs weren’t real dogs—and Old Jimbo was a real dog, through and through.

If Liam hadn’t decided not to breed Jimbo any more and if he hadn’t made up his mind long ago to draw the line at breeding any kind of show animal, he’d have used Old Jimbo on Laurel’s bitch.

He had to admit Maggie was a good-looking specimen—like the woman who brought her. It was just that she was useless. An animal bred to be trotted around the ring in front of a judge. He had no interest in breeding useless dogs. There were already enough of them in the world.

Lights approached from the lane, and Liam paused on his way to the boarding kennels. The white older-model Suburban, Laurel’s sister drove, broke through the trees.

He watched her drive slowly into the yard and then jerk to a sudden stop. He shook his head. What he’d told his mother was true: he didn’t have a good feeling about this woman.

He drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders and took a step toward the vehicle, as she opened the driver’s door. Might as well get it over with. She could thank his mother for the good news he was about to hand her. If it’d been strictly up to him, they’d both—she and the dog—be hitting the road.