The House of Hopes and Dreams

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘I’d usually be working away and forget the time – and so would you. But maybe we could get into the habit of having a proper afternoon tea on Sundays?’ I suggested. ‘That would be fun!’

  ‘It’s a date,’ he agreed, and when the inner man had been slightly satiated with sandwiches and fairy cakes, he described to our visitor how the Parrys had taken the news of the changes to their employment, not to mention the way Ella had cut us dead ever since, while still haunting the old wing at increasingly random times.

  ‘How difficult!’ he said. ‘As you know, she lived here only briefly as a child and her mother was sickly, so the girl spent much of her time with the old nanny. I’m told she was so gaga by then that she filled the child’s head with all the stories about ghosts, hidden treasure, lost jewels and priest-holes, so perhaps that was when Ella’s interest in the Elizabethan wing was first awoken?’

  ‘You could be right,’ Carey said. ‘Though you’d think it would have given her nightmares and put her off that part of the house instead!’

  ‘Some of it probably sounded romantic, like that Cavalier ancestor who was killed fighting for the King, while his young widow waited for news that never came,’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes, sad indeed. As was the untimely death of Ralph Revell, the husband of the Jessie Kaye you are so interested in, my dear,’ he said to me.

  ‘That was an accident, wasn’t it?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, a fall from the terrace outside these very windows.’

  ‘I didn’t realize it happened here!’

  ‘It did indeed, and it was a double tragedy, for his friend tried to stop him falling when he lost his balance and was pulled over with him.’

  ‘How horrible – it’s quite a drop to the next terrace from the first.’ I shuddered. ‘Did you know about this, Carey?’

  ‘No, no idea,’ he said. ‘Another fascinating snippet of history to tell Nick!’

  ‘His wife, who was expecting their first child, witnessed the fatal fall.’

  ‘Poor thing! It’s no wonder she based herself back in London after that,’ I said.

  ‘I believe the boy’s aunt, Honoria, had most of the care of him and, of course, he went to boarding school and then university. He was sickly and bookish, and though he outlived his mother, married and had children, he didn’t make old bones.’

  ‘I suppose he’d be my grandfather,’ Carey said. ‘Dad was so much older than my mother, it feels as if there should be another generation in between, somehow!’

  ‘It’s all a bit sad,’ I commented. ‘Aren’t there any happy stories about Mossby?’

  ‘Well, the estate nearly passed out of the family after Ralph Revell’s death, because he’d spent almost his entire fortune on the rebuilding. But by a stroke of wonderful luck, his widow unexpectedly came into a large inheritance and put the estate back on a solid footing again.’

  ‘She must have had some feeling for the place, then?’ Carey said.

  ‘Or for her son’s legacy and out of affection for her husband?’ Mr Wilmslow suggested. ‘She did not marry again.’

  Having studied her body of work and what little information there was available about her private life, I had a strong suspicion that she had been solidly wedded to her craft after the accident, but the solicitor seemed to have a surprisingly romantic streak, so I didn’t disillusion him.

  Later, some friends of Carey’s just turned up, like the first swallows of summer heralding the arrival of the rest, and spent two days happily removing the ghastly dark brown paintwork on the upstairs landing, appearing only at mealtimes and for snacks. Carey did some of it, too, but having found a large wall clock in the attic, he became occupied in taking it to pieces on the kitchen table, cleaning it and then began putting it back together again. I don’t know why it had to be the kitchen table.

  I spent most of my time in the workshop, though it was still full of men shouting, hammering, whistling and generally pulling things about. Ivan appeared to have shed ten years and was energetically scrubbing the grime of ages from worktops and tables, when he wasn’t nailing sheets of tin inside cupboards.

  It was a far remove from the normal working atmosphere that I loved, with only the dull thud as a horseshoe nail was driven in to hold the pieces of the panel together as it was leaded up, or the fine scrunch of the cutting wheel incising the surface of a sheet of glass, followed by the sharp tap underneath and the crisp snap as the piece of glass divided.

  But that would come – and soon, the way things were going – so I felt positive and happy.

  The only slight fly in the ointment came when Grant rang me to say that Nat had finally gone to look for something in the locked cupboard in the loft and discovered that several of my cartoons and cutlines had been removed.

  ‘He said they were there when he locked it up, so you must have somehow broken in and stolen them. I told him not to be daft: the spare keys to all the padlocks were hung in the office.’

  ‘I left all the designs, cartoons and cutlines for commissions that belonged to the workshop behind. The rest were my personal property.’

  ‘Yes, it was understood that you could take personal commissions for anything that wasn’t going to be made in Julian’s workshop, and I’ve already told him so. Ivan would bear me out.’

  ‘Why was he looking for my cartoons, anyway?’

  ‘I think he wants Willow to try and copy your style, though from what I’ve seen, she hasn’t got the faintest idea. Nat’s following up some of the enquiries Julian got at the end of last year, so he means to carry on producing windows in his dad’s style, which he’s quite capable of.’

  ‘Yes, and he’s a good craftsman. They’ll just lack that spark of originality.’

  I was glad I wouldn’t be there to see that happen.

  Chris brought Fang back on Wednesday evening and I’m sure Carey had missed him as much as I had. I only hoped it had been worthwhile …

  Fang, wearing a quiet and thoughtful air, followed Chris into the house but he seemed delighted to see us, wagging his ratty tail and exposing his long sharp teeth in a vulpine grin.

  ‘I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble with him now,’ Chris said, accepting both a cup of coffee and a sizeable cheque. ‘He may still growl to warn you when someone’s about, especially if he doesn’t like that person, but he won’t bite. Well, not unless they’re attacking you.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ve got any homicidal neighbours,’ Carey said. ‘They all seem very nice.’

  ‘Most of them,’ I amended, because I thought Ella was looking increasingly homicidal. And I did still occasionally wonder about that stone ball, even though I told myself I was being over-imaginative.

  Maybe Chris should take her away and see if he could do anything to sweeten her temper a bit?

  While we were chatting, I explained that I’d never had a dog, because of the glass in the workshop cutting their feet and he said trained search-and-rescue dogs often wore heatproof boots for searching buildings and perhaps they were made in Fang’s size.

  ‘Some of the search dogs are spaniels, and Fang does have surprisingly large feet for his size.’

  ‘That would be a good solution if I needed to have him down there with me a lot, because Carey was away or something. I’ll have a look on the internet and see what I can find … if you think he would let me put them on and not immediately chew them off again.’

  ‘He’s a changed dog,’ Chris said. ‘Anyway, he can always come back to me for a couple of days and I’ll whisper him into his boots.’

  Oh, joy in the morning! At last we finally had working broadband.

  The first thing I did was redirect my mail from both my old home and Julian’s workshop to Mossby, while Carey was checking what the viewing figures were like for the new Complete Country Cottage series. They seemed to have slumped radically for the second episode.

  ‘That’s not a surprise, seeing he’s just vandalizing the cottage. They should have experts to
stop him ruining it and wiping off great chunks of history.’

  ‘He is supposed to be the expert,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Only because he presented one series about historic buildings in Scotland!’

  ‘If the viewing figures don’t pick up, then they won’t ask him to do another series – but they might try and get you back,’ I suggested. ‘They were a bit hasty ditching you and now you’re almost as good as new, they probably regret it. The slight limp and the black cane are all a bit alluringly Mr Rochester – the maimed but romantic hero.’

  ‘Ho, ho,’ Carey said. ‘And there’s no way I’d go back now … though I suppose they might want my Mossby series when they find out about it. But there’s an email here from Nick saying the opposition are seriously interested and negotiating for it. I must let my agent know.’

  ‘It’s wonderful to have broadband again, but we’ve both got so much to catch up on,’ I said. ‘I’m going right down my list of tools and equipment later and ordering everything, even if it is going to bust whatever’s left of the budget after the kiln and filtration systems. I’ve just got to get back to work as soon as possible and have some commissions coming in.’

  ‘Nick will want to film the workshop being fitted out and finished, and he wants us to restage finding those cartoons in the attic.’

  ‘I am not taking them off the wall and rolling them up!’

  ‘You won’t have to, Shrimp: you can just put a couple of rolls of cartridge paper in the box, instead.’

  ‘I suppose so, though I was going to take the metal box down to the workshop. I’d better wait till Nick’s been now.’

  ‘I’m going to carry on working on the landing upstairs. I’ve got the undercoat, but I’m still trying to find the right shade of white paint,’ Carey said. ‘I found some early photos of Mossby in my uncle’s desk, showing how light the house used to look – and there was a family tree, too. Jessie Kaye’s husband seems to have died within a year of their marriage, so they didn’t have long together.’

  ‘Mossby should have a sad atmosphere, with all these tragic tales, but it doesn’t,’ I said. ‘Well, the old wing does a bit, but part of that’s probably because it’s so gloomy.’

  ‘When the panelling was first put up in there, it could well have been painted in bright colours.’

  ‘That would have livened it up a bit – and I expect you’re right about Lady Anne’s window being a celebration of her married life at Mossby, too. It’s not cursed at all, she just wanted to make sure it stayed there for ever, as a memento of her happiness.’

  ‘I think I can hear you saying that to camera – Nick’ll adore it!’ Carey teased me.

  ‘I’ll have forgotten it by then.’ I got up. ‘Better go down to the workshop and see what’s happening. What are you going to do?’

  ‘The electrician’s starting here some time today and one of the Benbow twins from the Summit Alpine Nursery rang and said he had a day off and he’d come and give me a hand. I thought he could start stripping the woodwork in one of the bedrooms, while I’m painting the landing.’

  ‘It’s amazing how many people are gluttons for punishment,’ I said, and he grinned.

  ‘But it’s all fun … and speaking of fun, I think I’m going to sell the golf buggy and get one of those quad bikes and a little trailer, like the Rigbys have up at the farm.’

  I felt he was safer pottering about on the buggy, but it has to be said that it did struggle a bit back up the hill with more than one person in it.

  Also, he was throwing off his invalidism faster than a dog shakes off water, and soon there would be no holding him at all.

  ‘I quite like driving the golf buggy,’ I said wistfully. ‘And I thought it would be nice for taking picnics down to the lake in summer.’

  ‘Then we’ll have both – the buggy wouldn’t fetch much if I sold it anyway,’ he said and gave me the sort of smile that, even after knowing him my whole life, still sagged my knees and made me putty in his hands.

  In the evening I went online, gritted my teeth and blew most of the rest of the budget, ordering everything I needed for my workshop from the long list in one massive splurge, then started building myself a website, based on a handy template similar to the one I’d used to create the Julian Seddon Architectural Glass site. I had my pages from that one copied and saved, so that speeded things up a bit. I had to update my autobiographical section, saying I’d worked for Julian Seddon for twelve years.

  I had a quick look at Julian’s website, but Nat didn’t seem to have altered it much, apart from adding his own page, bigging himself up in the process.

  After that, I made a Facebook page for Angelique Arrowsmith Art Glass, and then opened a Twitter account, both to be linked to my new website once it was up. I’d need to be out there and visible as soon as possible, to bring in the work.

  Inspired, Carey asked me to help him design a website for Mossby, too, which could be linked to the ghost trail one, when they’d added the new spectral attractions, so by the time we went to bed it was very late indeed.

  But now I’d sent off my big order for workshop materials I felt things were really moving along – and I was even back to bouncing out of bed at the crack of dawn. The old Angelique was resurfacing, boots and all.

  Ralph and Mr Browne went off together to the Lake District soon afterwards – and I overheard him suggest that he should have a house built there, too, as if Mossby was not enough! But Ralph is deeply rooted at Mossby, so I hope nothing will come of it.

  Ralph had seldom been around to notice that his wishes in the matter of my mollycoddling myself were not being attended to, for I carried on very much as usual.

  Father and I now have an excellent system set up using the rail service for the dispatch of racks containing trays of painted glass for firing, though I hope eventually to set up a kiln of my own at Mossby.

  Work goes to and fro, as do supplies of Antique glass and other materials.

  I designed and made the windows for the nursery, based on three of Aesop’s fables: ‘The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse’, ‘The Lion and the Mouse’ and ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. I exchanged many letters with Lily about our shared theme and the progress of her embroidery.

  Later, I sent the cartoon of my window down to Father and he believes he has obtained a commission for me for something similar, so that I and my workmen will begin to be even busier.

  I often think how much easier it would be were I still in London, but I know I am lucky to be able to carry on working. Besides, I made my bed and must now lie in it.

  29

  Whitewashed

  The next morning I decided to start painting the corkboard wall in the workshop, which had been installed the previous afternoon by Carey and Rufus, who’d called to see him about something and been roped in to help.

  I sat at the top of the tall ladders, rollering on a soft white to match the rest of the workshop, though eventually, of course, it would be pocked with drawing-pin holes and scarred where strips of masking tape had been ripped off. Still, by that point everything would be starting to look familiar, well-used and workmanlike, so I wouldn’t even notice.

  Despite the frosty chill in the air, Ivan had donned his bobble hat and donkey jacket and gone out to buff up the old brass lock on the double doors. But now he hobbled back in and stood looking up at me like a disapproving gnome.

  ‘I told you the cold would get your arthritis going,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not what’s brought me back in – and you shouldn’t go right to the top of these old ladders unless I’m here to hold the bottom of them,’ he told me severely. ‘Anyways up, you’ll have to come down now because I’ve just seen Nat’s car stopped by the Lodge, and that Ella was talking to him through the window, so he’ll probably come straight here.’

  ‘It can’t be him!’ I exclaimed, dismayed. ‘There are loads of big four-wheel-drive cars around. Even Ella’s got an old Range Rover.’

  ‘Not a
s big as a truck and as black and shiny as a hearse, there aren’t. It’s him, right enough.’

  ‘Oh damn.’ I put the roller back in the paint tray and carried it down. ‘What can he want now, a pound of flesh?’

  ‘It’ll be nothing good, knowing him.’ Ivan pulled off his woolly cap, so that his thick silver hair sprung up in a crest like a cockatoo. He went to hang his coat up in the studio, leaving the door ajar and I could briefly hear the voices of the plumber, Garry, and the electrician, who seemed to converse in shouts even when they were only feet away from each other. Then Ivan came back, closing the door and took up a position just behind me, like a bodyguard. He obviously felt I needed back-up.

  An engine roared up, a door slammed heavily – then in burst Nat in full Mad Bull mode. He came to a sudden stop a couple of feet away, glowering at me belligerently from under his thick, dark eyebrows.

  ‘There you are!’ he said accusingly, as if I’d been hiding. ‘The woman at the Lodge said you’d be here.’

  ‘Yes, here I am – and there you are,’ I said lightly.

  ‘She told me you’re turning this place into a stained-glass workshop.’ He glanced round the room and, as his eyes took in the big central glazing tables, the racking for glass and lead and the wooden easels over the windows, ready to hold sheets of plate glass, he looked taken aback.

  ‘Luckily for me, it already was one, so I’m just renovating it.’

  ‘You’ve fallen on your feet!’ he sneered, recovering from his first surprise. ‘I suppose you think you can set yourself up in competition with me.’

  ‘There’s no question of competition. I’m going to be doing my own work, while you’re presumably carrying on Julian Seddon Architectural Glass along the same lines.’

  I thought I’d put that with supreme tact, because what I’d really wanted to say was ‘ripping off and recycling Julian’s ideas and creativity for the rest of your working life’.

  ‘Not that it’s any business of yours what I’m doing anyway,’ I added, ‘so I don’t know what you’re doing here, unless it’s just sheer nosiness? In which case, perhaps you’d like to push off again.’