Where Treasure Hides

by Johnnie Alexander Donley

  During the service, she joined Ian in quietly singing the familiar hymns in English, an intimate time of worship, as all around them Dutch voices sang praises to their Heavenly Father.

  Alison had spent countless Sundays in the medieval Grote of Sint-Laurenskerk. But with Ian beside her, near enough for her sleeve to brush his, to smell the clean aroma of his soap, the sanctuary seemed strangely unfamiliar and new. Perhaps God was giving her His blessing. Maybe a life with Ian, worshiping each Sunday in this church, was what God planned for her future.

  But how could it be? Not when Ian had an estate to inherit. And no doubt a church of his own near Kenniston Hall. Perhaps one even older than this fifteenth-century Gothic tower. The Van Schuyler fate didn’t need to separate them. Their long family legacies already did.

  As the minister preached, Alison prayed for answers, lifting her heart to God when the right words were impossible to find. A prayer for freedom from the family fate. A plea for Ian’s safety whatever the future held for him.

  Returning home, they found Etienne Duret waiting for them in the parlor, hands clasped behind his back.

  “Good, you’re home,” he said. “The British prime minister is about to speak.”

  Brant fiddled with the knob on the radio console as his wife hovered nearby. Alison crossed her arms, bracing herself against bad news. Stepping close, Ian put his arm around her waist, his body tense against hers. The radio crackled, then cleared as Brant adjusted the volume. A BBC announcer introduced Neville Chamberlain.

  “I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing Street,” said the prime minister. “This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that, unless we hear from them by eleven o’clock that they are prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. . . .”

  The dreaded words sliced into Alison’s heart. She blindly reached for Ian’s hand and gripped it until her knuckles turned white. The prime minister’s next words were lost to her as her thoughts turned inward. What she feared most was happening. Ian was going to war, and she might never see him again. The barrier she had broken through only the night before began to rise again, building a shield wall around her fragile heart.

  She looked up and met her aunt’s tender gaze, silently telling her to be strong for Ian. While the radio droned on, Alison fought her own inner battle. By protecting her heart, she also protected Ian. It wasn’t too late to save him from the family fate. But bruising his heart on the eve of battle to protect her own was selfishly cruel.

  Ian shifted beside her and Chamberlain’s voice intruded on her thoughts: “There is no chance of expecting that this man will ever give up his practice of using force to gain his will. He can only be stopped by force. We and France are today, in fulfillment of our obligations, going to the aid of Poland, who is so bravely resisting this wicked and unprovoked attack upon her people. . . .”

  “Our countrymen once again join together,” said Duret, looking pointedly at Ian, “to defeat evil.”

  Ian straightened, as if accepting a call to a tremendous task. “This time, may we put an end to it. Once and for all.”

  “That is my prayer also.”

  Alison peered at Ian beneath her lashes, memorizing his resolute jaw, the intensity in his eyes, as the broadcast continued: “Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution—and against them I am certain that right will prevail.”

  Brant turned down the volume, but no one seemed willing to break the somber mood.

  A long minute passed; then Ian leaned forward. “I need to return to the embassy. This announcement may have changed my flight time.”

  “Not before dinner?” protested Meg.

  Hendrik reached out a hand toward his sister. “No, Meg. He’s right to go.”

  “I’ll drive you if you’d like,” said Brant.

  “Just to the station if you don’t mind.” Ian glanced at his watch. “The express line to The Hague runs in about twenty minutes, doesn’t it?”

  It seemed to Alison that each man in the room checked the time and nodded agreement while she sat still as a statue.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll pack up my gear.”

  Mrs. Brant offered to prepare a lunch for Ian and headed for the kitchen. Her husband followed her on his way to the garage. Hendrik excused himself and Duret went with him.

  Meg joined Alison on the couch. “Your lieutenant is a good man.”

  Alison nodded. “The best.”

  “Will you go with him to the station?”

  “Yes.” Alison bit her lip. “I may never see him again.”

  “That’s true,” Meg said thoughtfully. “But your love may protect him. Keep him from reckless deeds.”

  Alison laid her head on her aunt’s thin shoulder. It seemed Meg had read her conflicted thoughts. “I do care about him,” she whispered.

  “Be brave, my darling,” said Meg. “You’ll have the rest of the day to cry your tears.”

  Alison pasted on a smile and stood as Ian entered the parlor, followed by Hendrik and Monsieur Duret.

  “Take it and practice,” Hendrik said. “And next time we play, maybe you will be the victor.”

  “Thank you, sir. This means a great deal to me.” Ian faced Alison and held up a rectangular leather case with brass hinges. “Look what your grandfather gave me.”

  “His traveling backgammon set?” Alison’s eyes widened. Opa frequently took the portable case with him when he traveled. She remembered how he had taught her to play on the long train ride from Brussels when they first met.

  For the next few minutes, Alison was in the midst of a whirlwind as gratitude was expressed and farewells were said. Mrs. Brant scurried in from the kitchen with sandwiches and a slice of apple pie for Ian to take with him.

  “Godspeed, my boy,” Hendrik said, clasping Ian’s hand and gripping his shoulder. “Be safe.”

  All too soon, Alison and Ian were on their way to the train station. As Brant maneuvered out of the drive into the narrow street, Ian clasped Alison’s hand. His gentle grip made her feel cared about and cherished. She tucked the sensation into her heart and refused to dwell on whether he’d ever hold her hand again.

  Dread twisted her stomach when Brant parked at the station. After they all got out of the car, Brant and Ian shook hands. “Take care of yourself, Lieutenant.”

  “I will. Thank you.”

  “I’ll wait here for you, Miss Alison.” She nodded, and Brant climbed back into the driver’s seat.

  “We should say good-bye here,” Ian said.

  “No. I’ll wait in the station with you till the train comes.”

  “Alison—” he laid his palm against her cheek—“you need to go home. To get better.”

  “I feel fine.”

  He leaned forward till his face was barely inches from hers. “Liar,” he whispered.

  Before she could deny it, he pulled her close and kissed her. The gentle warmth of his lips sparked a yearning that left her breathless.

  “Pray for me.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek against his. “Every minute.”

  He drew back and the intensity in his eyes seemed to penetrate into the depths of her spirit. His smile seared into her heart. “I love you, Alison Schuyler.”

  She tried to tell him that she loved him too, but the three little words caught in her throat. Disappointment flickered in his eyes at her silence and tears moistened her lashes.

  “Ian, we can’t—”

  He put his finger to her lips. “I do, with all my heart. You need to know that.” Picking up his bag, he turned to walk away.

  She grabbed his arm and stood on tiptoe, kissing the corner of his
mouth, pressing her lips against his, desperate to memorize this moment. Only the last boarding call for his train pulled him from her.

  “Be safe, Ian. Please be safe.”

  “As safe as I can be.” His grin flipped her heart, and she blinked away tears as she watched him go, his purposeful stride taking him into a frightening future. He turned once, giving her a playful salute, and she waved, smiling bravely until he disappeared from sight.

  “Good-bye, Ian,” she whispered, certain that the Van Schuyler fate had claimed another victim.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  APRIL 1940

  Alison tapped the bottom edge of the frame, moving it slightly to the left. She steadied the corner and peered over her shoulder at her grandfather. “How’s that?”

  Hendrik scrutinized the placement of the painting, a geometric assortment of warm colors, while Alison and Monsieur Duret waited for his verdict. “Perfect,” he said, without enthusiasm.

  Duret climbed down from the short stepladder. “I never thought to see the day when such ‘art’ graced these walls.”

  “It’s a sacrilege,” Hendrik agreed, shaking his white head.

  Alison smothered a smile. The painting wasn’t to her taste either, but she could appreciate its vibrant energy, the competing hues caught within heavily defined borders. It was what she wished she could find within herself in these days of cold uncertainty.

  More than seven months had passed since Ian’s visit. In that time, Brant had scrounged the needed materials to retrofit an abandoned air raid shelter with equipment designed to control air quality. The first shipment of twelve Old Masters was securely packed and crated, waiting for night to fall upon the city so they could be hidden from covetous hands.

  One at a time, so as not to cause suspicion in their more perceptive clients, each highly valued painting had been replaced by a more contemporary work. The newer pieces exuded a gaiety in their corner of the gallery, but Alison missed the somber portraits and dark landscapes.

  She had always felt a twinge of sadness when a sold painting was taken away. It left a vacancy on the wall and in her spirit until another antiquated piece took its place. With so many of the gallery’s paintings destined for the shelter, she expected that vacant feeling to persist until each one was returned to its rightful place. Including the damaged Girl in the Garden who, all these months later, still rested on the easel in the parlor. Alison steadfastly refused to allow anyone to touch the painting, trusting that only her father could heal his injured masterpiece.

  If only Papa would come home. A Christmas package had arrived in January, postmarked from Dosel Azul, Bolivia. Alison searched Hendrik’s giant atlas for the town, but apparently it was too small to merit a dot on the Bolivian map. Pieter’s letter had asked Alison to join him before more troubles befell Europe. Her reply, that she couldn’t leave her opa and tante, came back long weeks later marked Recipient Unknown. Hendrik sent out inquiries to various Bolivian officials, but to no avail. Apparently, Papa had once again given in to wanderlust.

  Hendrik pulled his pocket watch from his vest and checked the time. “Dine with us this evening, Etienne. Afterward, Brant will drive the truck to the shelter.”

  “You should stay home, Hendrik.” Duret folded the ladder and hefted it onto his shoulder. “Brant and I will secure the paintings.”

  “I must see to them myself.” Hendrik patted his friend’s shoulder. “You understand?”

  “Oui. We are entrusted with a great task.”

  “May we be worthy of it.”

  A forlorn look appeared in Duret’s brown eyes before he headed toward the utility room. His back seemed burdened by a weight heavier than that of the ladder he carried. The harder he worked to protect the Van Schuyler paintings, the more the long-ago memories of his family’s lost gallery seemed to haunt him. Both he and Alison’s grandfather had visibly aged during the frozen winter, the coldest in more than a century, as they worked to find a safe haven for the treasured artwork.

  “I want to go with you tonight,” Alison said, squeezing her grandfather’s arm.

  “Not this time, schatje. Stay home and keep Tante Meg company.”

  “She can come too.”

  Hendrik gave a short laugh. “This is not a Sunday afternoon drive into the countryside.”

  “But it is an adventure.”

  “One fraught with danger.”

  “From whom?” Alison made a pouty face, one her grandfather found hard to resist. “The Germans aren’t here. They may never come.”

  “Perhaps you are right.” He looked around the gallery, a wistful expression on his face that Alison found endearing, but sad. “All our precautions may prove unnecessary. I will be glad if this is so.”

  “Holland will stay neutral, won’t it? As it did in the last war?”

  “I believe so. But Etienne does not. Neither does Brant.” He sighed heavily. “I do this more for them than for myself. And I do it for you, of course. I would not risk losing your inheritance.”

  Alison rested her head on Hendrik’s arm. She had heard the discussions, the arguments, on numerous days as the northern wind swept across the frigid countryside. Here, at the gallery’s kitchen table over steaming mugs of coffee, and at home, in front of the fireplace in Hendrik’s library, the men tried to forecast the future, to plan for the probabilities. They emptied the coffee pot, watched the fiery logs burn to ash, but still they had no answers. Nothing was certain.

  Slipping her hand into her skirt pocket, she folded her fingers around her latest letter from Ian. Since mid-September, he had been stationed somewhere along the border between France and Belgium where the biggest danger, to Alison’s great relief, appeared to be boredom. With nothing much happening from a military standpoint, pundits had begun referring to the perceived standoff as the Phony War.

  His frequent letters gave Alison hope that peace would come soon. She longed for Ian’s return, even as she feared it. As long as he stayed away, she could daydream about a future with him. In her pretend world, they laughed, they danced, and the sun always shone. But she shuddered to think how easily that dream could become a nightmare. Or what Ian would feel if he knew that Theodor also wrote her letters. And that she wrote him back. Guilt knotted her stomach.

  Hendrik’s affectionate pat on her arm jolted her from her thoughts. “Our gallery has survived troubles before. We will survive this, too.”

  “How long do you think it will be? Until the Masters can be hung again?”

  “Only God knows. And He hasn’t told me.” He pinched her cheek. “Come now. We must behave as if this were any ordinary day and not the day the Van Schuylers tucked their tails.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  Hendrik gave her an enigmatic smile. “Have you ever considered the Mona Lisa question?”

  “You mean her identity? She was a noblewoman, a friend of Leonardo’s. At least, that’s the prevailing wisdom, though there are other theories.”

  “No, that isn’t it.” Hendrik chuckled, then became somber. “This is a philosophical question. The Louvre is on fire and only the Mona Lisa or the child standing beside it can be saved. Which do you choose?”

  “The other students discussed this sometimes, the year I was at the Académie des Beaux-Arte.”

  “And you did not?”

  “No. It’s a meaningless hypothetical.”

  “But what if it wasn’t? What if you, in a split second, had to choose?”

  “Naturally, I’d choose the child.”

  “And yet you stepped between a gun and a painting. A painting of much less value than the Mona Lisa.”

  “Not to me.”

  “So, the answer depends on the painting?” Hendrik’s expression turned grim as he glanced at the narrow scar that creased Alison’s temple and disappeared beneath her hair. She touched the ridge in a fluttering, self-conscious gesture.

  “Perhaps it also depends on the child,” he said gently, then sighed. “Since the days o
f Rembrandt and Vermeer, we have devoted our lives to the art of our people. Tonight we hide a few of them away. It’s in our blood, schatje, yours and mine.

  He paused, pulling his empty pipe from a pocket. “So if we were at the Louvre, without a moment to think, what would we protect?”

  Alison felt a chill as she thought of a world devoid of the Mona Lisa. Could she let it burn? The question repulsed her, and she couldn’t voice an answer.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Despite all her pleading wiles, Alison couldn’t persuade her grandfather to change his mind. She stayed home that evening, driving Tante Meg to distraction with her restless pacing. Hendrik and Brant returned near midnight, joking about their unnecessary precautions.

  “The paintings belong to us. Why can’t we drive them around in the back of a truck if we want to?” Hendrik chuckled.

  “But keeping it a secret makes it more fun, eh?” Brant winked at Alison.

  “Next time we go in daylight.” Hendrik puffed on his pipe. “I didn’t think we were ever going to find that turnoff to the shelter.”

  “Just as long as I can go too,” Alison said, crossing her arms and sticking out her lower lip in a pretend pout.

  * * *

  Two weeks later, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, Hendrik handed her a small black spiral notebook and told her to change into work clothes. “Wear boots. And bring your camera.”

  In less than thirty minutes, Alison found herself wedged between Hendrik and Brant on the bench seat of a beat-up produce truck. Brant had bought it earlier that spring and covered the bed with wooden framing and heavy canvas. Several crates, packed with paintings, sculptures, and objets d’art, were secured in the back. Three of the crates belonged to the Van Schuyler gallery. The rest were from two other galleries whose owners, longtime colleagues and sometime rivals, had contributed to the retrofitting of the air raid shelter.