‘This is interesting!’ Carey squatted down to examine the stonework. ‘I’ve seen this sort of thing before in old farmhouses and it must have been a luxury not having to go out for water in the middle of winter. I’m sure this is what’s feeding the fountains and fish ponds on the terraces below the house, too.’
He looked around, shining his torch into the darker corners. ‘The shape of the arches and the construction of the roof gives the place a slightly ecclesiastical air, doesn’t it? I wonder if there might originally have been an early church, or hermitage or something like that on this site.’
I shone my torch down on the huge slabs under my feet, looking for carved lettering or crosses, or whatever. ‘I sincerely hope this isn’t a crypt, with burials!’
‘No, of course it isn’t,’ he assured me, though sounding quite disappointed about it. ‘There’s a lot of space down here, but I can’t imagine what I’ll do with it, other than set up a workbench and tool rack in one of the first rooms … though maybe we could have parties down here later?’
‘Not the sort of parties I go to,’ I said firmly, remembering the odd stone slab table, which had looked a bit sacrificial. ‘Mine tend to involve nibbles and drinks above ground.’
‘Is that the kind of social life you’ve been leading up here, Shrimp? It sounds like a round of total dissipation.’
‘Well, it was until Julian had the stroke. Before that, we were invited to lots of little drinks parties by the solicitor, our doctor, the vicar and a few other professional people. They were all nice.’
They’d all been about Julian’s age, too, but, unlike him, rather boring. I expect they thought much the same about me …
‘Right, time to explore the attics,’ Carey said, his energy and enthusiasm undiminished. ‘We’ll go up the backstairs and start in the servants’ wing. The nursery suite occupies half the first floor, so I presume the upper staff had the remaining bedrooms there and the unfortunate lesser orders were housed in the attics.’
He was right, too, for up there were several bleak, chilly chambers with cast-iron beds and washstands that were much more utilitarian than Arts and Crafts. Ralph Revell’s beautiful vision did not seem to have extended beyond the baize doors.
There was no connection to the rest of the house on that level, so we had to go down and back up again, but once there we saw the attic ran the full width of the house and had been crammed with unwanted possessions like an illustrated guide to Junk through the Centuries.
‘Every time they modernized, or knocked down and rebuilt a bit of Mossby, the unwanted stuff must have been stored away somewhere – and eventually they brought it all up here,’ I suggested.
‘I think you’re right, but goodness knows why they would want to hang on to most of it,’ Carey said, regarding the ranks of monstrous dark furniture with dislike. ‘Unfortunately, the pre-Arts and Crafts Revells appear to have gone in for the worst excesses of mid-Victorian mahogany in a big way.’
He picked his way through the stacked piles and flashed his torch about. ‘I think there are some nice earlier pieces hidden behind all this stuff. Perhaps some of it would look interesting in the house.’
‘You’re not sticking to the pure Arts and Crafts ethos, then?’
‘You know how I feel about restorations: every generation should leave their stamp on their homes and no one seems to have done that to Mossby. Even in the Elizabethan wing, everything later than the eighteenth century has been removed. I’ll just put a few pieces back here and there, where they seem to fit.’
It was what he was good at and it had always worked in the past, though that, of course, had been on a smaller and more domestic scale.
‘At least the roof looks fine,’ he said, looking up. ‘What little my uncle spent on Mossby appears to have gone on vital repairs to the fabric of the building, which makes sense.’
‘Let’s hope that extended to the outbuildings, including my workshop, then,’ I said, opening an old leather-bound trunk and removing an empty top tray so I could shine my torch inside.
‘I’m sure I can sell all the dark, ugly furniture to a dealer I know,’ Carey mused. ‘He’s stockpiling it under the misguided belief it’ll come back into fashion eventually. Once it’s all gone, we’ll be able to see the wood from the trees.’
‘And the Sheraton from the Chippendale?’
‘You never know,’ he said, but by then I was rooting in the trunk.
‘Oh, look, these must have come out of the old nursery!’ I said. I pulled out a doll with a waxen and ghastly face, and a small toy crib. ‘There’s a wooden top and some of those roly-poly figures that bounce up again if you knock them over, and I think there’s a Noah’s Ark, too.’ I looked up. ‘They’d add a bit of interest to the nursery in the Elizabethan wing, wouldn’t they?’
‘They certainly would, though I think I’ve seen a doll just like that one in a horror film … And that’s a thought: maybe we could rent out the old wing as a set for horror films.’
I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not: I wouldn’t put it past him and Nick to know people who made horror films. I suddenly remembered the sinister stone table in the cellars … and so did Carey.
‘The cellars would be good for that, too. Just think of that stone table!’
‘Oddly enough, I just did.’
‘Two hearts that beat as one, Shrimp.’
A horrible image flashed into my mind and I gave a shudder. It was all going a bit Frankenstein.
When we’d removed the cobwebs and washed the grime of centuries off our hands, Carey rang the Parrys and invited them up next morning to discuss their future employment.
Since he had cold feet about how they would take his decisions, especially Ella, he wanted me to be there too, but I thought they’d resent an outsider sitting in on a private interview.
So we decided that when they arrived he’d take them straight through into the big drawing room, where the chairs and sofas were arranged around the hearth and a log fire could be lit to make it cosy. I’d take tea and biscuits through, then retreat to the kitchen and make sure Fang didn’t get out. His biting Clem, Ella, or both would only make a difficult situation worse.
In any case, Molly was coming over first thing, because we were going to empty the contents of the freezer so she could take the frozen mush.
Molly arrived first and we’d just finished ferrying in her stack of cold boxes when someone hammered on the back door.
‘That must be the Parrys, though I’d expected Ella to just waltz in,’ I said, surprised.
Carey pulled a comically terrified face and said, ‘Here we go – lights, camera, action!’
He shut the kitchen door behind him, and Fang, Molly and I all listened to a murmur of voices and then the tramp of feet past the door.
I had the tea tray ready and quickly poured boiling water into the pot before following them.
They were just settling around the fire when I took it into the drawing room and to my surprise, there was a stranger there with them: a tall woman in her late twenties or early thirties, slender, with curling fair hair and round, wide-set, baby-blue eyes that made her look a bit kittenish. Her figure was set off by a white off-the-shoulder jumper and an extremely short skirt that revealed legs about ten feet long, ending in nude stilettos.
Since she looked like a miscast actress, I wasn’t surprised when Carey introduced her as the Parrys’ daughter, Vicky, up for a visit.
‘Oh, yes, you’re an actress, aren’t you?’ I said.
She nodded and arranged her long legs for Carey to look at, crossing one over the other with a silky slither. It was just as well she was wearing tights, because she was the type Granny would have referred to as all fur coat and no knickers.
‘I’ll just fetch another cup for you, Vicky, and then leave you all to have your talk,’ I said, before dashing to the kitchen, pulling a face at Molly and zipping off again.
As I approached the door from the hall into the drawing
room, which I’d left open, I heard Ella announcing loudly that she’d had enough pussyfooting around and wanted to know exactly where they stood.
She broke off the moment she saw me and I put the cup and saucer down on the coffee table, smiled and exited stage left.
Back in the kitchen I told Molly what was happening, and that the Parrys’ daughter had unexpectedly turned up with them.
‘I knew she was an actress. I was surprised when I saw her because I assumed she’d be dark like her mother, but she must take after Clem’s side of the family.’
‘What’s she like, then?’
‘Tall, slim, fair curly hair, big blue eyes, a cute face and legs that go on for ever – just Carey’s type, in fact,’ I added gloomily. ‘She couldn’t take her eyes off him, either, but he really doesn’t need another Daisy in his life right now. Daisy was his last girlfriend, who dumped him after the accident and shacked up with that actor who took over his TV series. Daisy works on the show,’ I explained.
‘How mean of her! But I’m sure Carey must be used to women chasing him, because of being on the telly, and he won’t take any notice.’
I didn’t feel quite as sanguine about it, but since there was work to be done, we finished our coffee and some of the excellent coconut pyramids Molly had brought with her as a housewarming present, and started emptying the huge freezer.
Once all the food was packed into the insulated boxes, Molly produced a couple of those fast-defrosting sprays and we blasted the positively Siberian ice layer with them before beginning to chip it away. It was so thickly encrusted, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find a baby mammoth at the bottom, permafrosted in.
While we were working, I outlined the ideas we’d come up with for making Mossby pay its way.
‘If you open the Elizabethan wing regularly, you’ll need special insurance. Public liability, I think it’s called,’ she suggested. ‘I mean, not only to insure against theft and breakage, but in case any of the visitors sue you because they’ve tumbled down the stairs, tripped on a step, or gone for a stroll down a path marked “Private” and fallen into the lake.’
‘You know, I think you’re right. I must tell Carey, in case he hasn’t thought of it.’
‘If you do become part of the Halfhidden ghost trail, when would you open to visitors?’
‘Lulu Tamblyn, the girl I was telling you about who thought the trail up, said they were adding the farm behind Mossby as a new attraction from Easter, so we’d want to do the same. That’s early April this year.’
‘That would give you only a couple of months to get organized – it’s not long.’
‘Carey can get on with that. He’s roped me in to help him do a big inventory over the weekend of what needs doing, but after that I’m going to be busy setting up the workshop and drumming up commissions.’
‘Well, let me know when Grant and Ivan can come over and see the workshop, because they’re champing at the bit to have a look and give you lots of advice you don’t need.’
‘I’ll do that. I do miss them already and I loved working as part of a team, so it’s going to be odd being on my own.’
‘I’m sure you’ll soon be able to employ someone to help, so I wouldn’t worry about that,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you enter designs for a couple of competitions before you went to Antigua? When were the closing dates?’
‘Some time soon, I think. One was for an installation in a mall in Australia and the winner gets an all-expenses-paid trip out to Brisbane to see the finished work.’
‘That would be fun!’
‘Yes … though, of course, I much prefer designing windows when I know I’m actually going to be making them myself, even if they do have the cartoons to work from.’
‘But Julian let you take those as private commissions, didn’t he? While if they were to be made in his workshop, if you won then they would be part of the business. And if those had been, then I suppose the prizes would belong to Nat!’
‘That’s true. Thank goodness both of them were just for the design. Not that I’m likely to win either of them,’ I added. ‘Any news on the Nat and Willow front?’
‘Nat’s following up a couple of enquiries and trying to give Willow a crash course in stained-glass window design.’
‘Let’s hope she’s a quick learner, then,’ I said.
We’d been too busy at our task to notice any sound of departure, but when finally the freezer was clean, dried and switched back on and we returned to the warmth of the kitchen, we found Carey slumped in a chair by the table, looking as if he’d gone three rounds with a grizzly bear.
‘The Parrys have left the building?’ I asked brightly.
‘Brilliant deduction, my dear Watson,’ he said. ‘Hi, Molly.’
‘So, how did it all go?’ I asked, putting the kettle on and removing the almost empty box of coconut pyramids from his reach.
‘Sticky and sometimes explosive. Clem was pleased I was putting his salary up and I’ve promised we’ll get people in to see to the trees and cut back the undergrowth and shrubbery. I’ll look into buying a sit-on-and-ride mower too, to keep the grass around the lake neat.’
‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ I said. ‘There were lots of fallen trees round the lake, so you could build up quite a log store to season for next winter.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought: we’ll have a log-burning stove or two, neat small ones that will fit in. I’d better make sure the wood axe is kept well out of Ella’s reach, though.’
‘That bad?’
He nodded.
Unsurprisingly, she’d not been at all happy about losing her job and became angry when Carey told her that he was going to ask Dolly Mops to carry out a big spring clean, including the Elizabethan wing.
‘In fact, she flew into such a rage that I never really got round to telling her about opening it to tourists and that there might be a seasonal job there for her when it does. She said she’d worked her fingers to the bone single-handedly running Mossby for the last fifteen years,’ he added gloomily.
‘There isn’t a lot of sign of it,’ I said.
‘No, but they don’t seem to have noticed that. Vicky said her mum loved the Elizabethan wing so much that she cleaned it herself once a week and Clem told me I didn’t appreciate all the hard work that involved.’ He sighed and ran his hands through his thick, red-gold hair. ‘I really don’t think she or Clem have the least idea that Ella’s cleaning amounted to a manic desire to polish every inch of the panelling till you could see your face in it and neglect of everything else. Vicky did a nice line in gentle reproach – you can tell she’s an actress.’
He paused and a faint smile touched his lips.
‘So, how long is Vicky staying for?’ I asked tartly, before I could stop myself.
He grinned at me. ‘No idea – and no interest, either, Shrimp. I told you I’d given up the Daisy types, they all turn out to be candy-coated with hard centres.’
‘Yes, you told me, but then I distinctly remember you said something along those lines during our last year at university.’
‘Well, at the time you said you weren’t going out with any more losers, you were just going to concentrate on writing your dissertation,’ he countered.
‘And that’s exactly what I did!’
‘Don’t I know it! Remember, it was me who drove you all over the country looking at obscure Victorian stained-glass windows. And then you met Julian the moment you graduated and vanished.’
‘Well, you couldn’t call Julian a loser! You know you liked him.’
We somehow seemed to be on the edge of an argument, but suddenly he relaxed and smiled at me. ‘Yes, I did. He almost deserved you.’
‘Don’t be daft!’ I told him.
Molly had been listening to our spat in a startled kind of way, having never heard us bicker like Grant had. Now she got up and said she had to go and I thanked her for helping me defrost and clean out the freezer, when I was sure she was really bus
y.
Then we helped her load the cold boxes of food into her little van and she left for home. She was going to stack it all in one of her freezers until she could deliver it to the local senior citizens, a sort of free frozen version of Meals on Wheels. And rice pudding on wheels too, since all of the tinned goods had gone with her.
I tried to remember: is tapioca the one that looks like frogspawn? And semolina the smooth paste you could fill wall cracks with?
After she’d driven off, Carey went to ring the cleaning agency, followed by a prolonged discussion with his internet provider of choice about installing it at Mossby.
After that we went out to do some food and drink shopping and have a couple of complete sets of keys to Mossby cut, as well as extra spares to the back door and Elizabethan wing, for the cleaners.
On the way back we stopped at an office supplier and bought clipboards, pads, pens, highlighters, tags … Carey meant business.
And so did I, adding a big fat notebook and a clipboard of my own, just for the workshop. I was champing at the bit to get started on it, and only Carey could have kept me away from it for even a moment.
During our engagement, I had become aware that there had been some kind of falling-out between Ralph and his friend Mr Browne, who certainly was absent from our wedding. The cause remained unclear to me and I did not like to question him or Honoria about it. Having never met Mr Browne, I did not miss his company and the Lodge remained empty.
While I threw myself into my work, Ralph was engaged in improving the design of the grounds and having a base laid in the woodland where a gazebo to Mr Browne’s design could be built. We had much to discuss every evening, companionably entering into each other’s interests.
Honoria, her position as chatelaine unassailed, and with my backing against Ralph in the matter of increasing the number of rose beds on the terraces, had unbent somewhat. In fact, she now tended to look on us both like an indulgent parent!
I felt quite settled and happy … and then one morning, about a month after our return to Mossby, Ralph came in to breakfast and informed us that Rosslyn Browne was returning next day to the Lodge.
The House of Hopes and Dreams Page 19
