The House of Hopes and Dreams

by Trisha Ashley

  I cast a questioning gaze on Carey.

  ‘That’s Fang, the dog Daisy pestered the life out of me to get her last year. She’s dumped him back on me because she can’t cope with him. The breeder must have lied about him being a pure Chihuahua, too, because he outgrew his chichi designer dog-carrier in about a month. That seemed to be the decider for Daisy.’

  ‘She can’t possibly have called him Fang!’ I’d met Daisy a few times and she hadn’t struck me as having a mind capable of being even remotely original. Or a sense of humour.

  ‘No, she called him Tiny, but Fang suits him better. He’s a vampire.’

  ‘He does look a bit like one.’

  ‘He bites like one, too – mostly men and on the lower leg, because that’s as far as he can reach,’ he explained. ‘Not me, though, because we came to an early understanding that it wasn’t a good idea to bite the hand that usually remembered to feed you and fill your water bowl.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, turning to look at the little dog again. I’d always wanted a dog, but in addition to Julian having an allergy to them, I couldn’t have taken one to work with me. No matter how well you cleaned up a stained-glass workshop, there were always sharp bits about to cut unwary paws.

  ‘I think I chose the wrong puppy from the litter,’ Carey said. ‘The bitch’s owner assured me he was the best, but she probably just wanted to get rid of him. Daisy dumped him in the flat for Nick to find, after she’d arranged to meet him there to pick up a couple of things and give him her set of keys.’

  I already thought Daisy was totally callous: first she’d dumped Carey at the very moment he needed her most, and then her dog! Mind you, I’d never really taken to her: she might be stunningly pretty, but she had a brittle veneer and I wasn’t quite sure what would be underneath if it cracked. Nuts, possibly.

  ‘Poor little thing! Did Nick look after him till you got out?’

  ‘No, he’d already bitten Nick, so he wasn’t very keen. I had to put him in kennels, but even they asked me to take him away again a few days later, which is why I’ve had to bring him with me. I’d like to re-home him, but I’ll need to get a dog psychiatrist on to him first. Dog rescue centres don’t want pets that bite.’

  ‘You should keep him for company,’ I suggested, and peered into the cage again. ‘Hello, Fang. Who’s a cute little boy, then?’ I cooed.

  Fang stopped growling and fixed me with an incredulous stare from his slightly protuberant eyes, as did Carey (though happily his eyes aren’t protuberant).

  ‘Has this nasty man misunderstood your deep, dark and troubled soul?’ I continued, and Carey snorted with laughter as he drove out of the village and set off down the network of small lanes as if he knew the way back to Mossby by instinct. Some people just have the ability to glance at a map once and they know where they are – not a knack I possess myself.

  We finally emerged on to a larger road I recognized, which connected the village of Middlemoss with Great Mumming. We passed a large hotel and a petrol station by the turn to Halfhidden, a hamlet that had been in the local news quite a bit lately. I was going to tell Carey about it when, round the next bend, Mossby itself suddenly appeared like a mirage: a white, strangely modern stucco façade perched high above us, a square stone tower forming the left corner. A steep series of terraces dropped down to a lake below, where there was an old boathouse. Even though I’d been there once before, it was still dramatic enough to make me catch my breath.

  Carey pulled in, so I could get a good look at it.

  ‘Picturesque, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Mind you, the natural stone would have fitted into the landscape better, but there are a lot of white Arts and Crafts houses in the Lake District, so it’s not that unusual for the time. You can’t see the Elizabethan wing and the servants’ quarters – they’re behind it.’

  We set off again and passed through a pair of open wrought-iron gates. In fact, they didn’t look as if they were capable of closing, for weeds grew up around them and one was leaning at a distinct angle.

  ‘Does the Lodge belong to you, as well? It looks quite big, as they go.’

  ‘It is part of the estate and it’s surprisingly large. Apparently Ralph Revell had it built for his friend, the architect of Mossby, Rosslyn Browne. It was completed before the house itself.’

  ‘You know a lot about the place already,’ I said as he stopped so I could get a good look at it. It was a sort of no-frills mini-Mossby, the two small bay windows linked by a porch rather than a veranda.

  ‘That’s because the solicitor, Mr Wilmslow, started to drip-feed me the family history the moment I stepped through the door last Thursday. Wilmslow & Parbold have been the Revells’ solicitors for generations, so I expect he knows all our secrets. Ella and Clem Parry live in the Lodge,’ he added. ‘She’s my uncle’s stepdaughter by his second marriage. He employed her as housekeeper and Clem as gardener and let them live there rent free.’

  ‘What are they like?’

  ‘He’s very pleasant and an excellent gardener, but she’s a bit grim and unwelcoming. Mr Wilmslow said she persuaded my uncle into making a will last year, assuming she’d inherit Mossby, so when I came out of the woodwork it must have been a nasty surprise.’

  ‘Didn’t your uncle leave her anything?’

  ‘No, apparently he’d never liked Ella and felt he’d been more than generous in offering the Parrys employment and a roof over their heads. Clem lost his previous job due to an alcohol problem about fifteen years ago but he hasn’t fallen off the wagon since. And my uncle needed someone to run the house, because his health was deteriorating even then. He must have been a creaking gate, though, because he was ninety-one when he died.’

  ‘She being his stepdaughter, I can see why Ella would be upset that he hadn’t acknowledged that in his will,’ I suggested.

  ‘That’s just what I thought at first, but it’s not quite so cut and dried: he’d never adopted Ella and she was seven when her mother died and she was sent to live with an aunt. He continued to support her financially through school and college, too, so Mr Wilmslow said she didn’t have any grounds to claim against the estate.’

  ‘Julian’s solicitor said I might have a claim on his estate as a dependant, but I wasn’t one; I’ve always earned my salary,’ I said. ‘Are the Parrys going to stay on?’

  ‘I don’t know – I’ll need to have a discussion with them about that when I’ve found my feet. Clem’s more than worth his generous salary as a gardener, but I don’t need a housekeeper and she doesn’t seem to do much. She does act as tour guide on the rare occasions when the Elizabethan wing is opened up for a coach party.’

  That rang a bell. ‘Oh, I’m sure she was the one who showed us round when I came on that WI trip! Tall, dark hair and eyes, long beaky nose – reminded me of Mrs Danvers, the evil housekeeper in Rebecca!’

  ‘Yes, that sounds like her – she made me think of Mrs Danvers, too.’

  I looked at him curiously. ‘I thought you only read non-fiction and Terry Pratchett?’

  ‘I ran out of anything to read in the hospital and it was that or a lot of ditsy novels about cupcakes and fairy-wing repair shops by the beach.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve come across the fairy-wing repair shop one,’ I mused.

  ‘Probably not: I made it up.’

  ‘Maybe you should write it?’ I suggested, then reverted back to the subject in hand. ‘So, you have a gardener and a housekeeper. How about a butler and two footmen?’

  ‘Ho, ho,’ he said.

  A movement caught the corner of my eye. ‘The curtain in one of the front rooms just twitched. I think someone’s watching us,’ I said uneasily. ‘I suppose it is rather nosy of us to park opposite the Lodge and stare.’

  ‘I can park anywhere I like on my own estate,’ Carey declared grandly, but started the car again and drove up the hill, between banks of overgrown rhododendrons. Paths seemed to dive off down small dark tunnels of undergrowth towards the lake on the left,
but we carried on until the drive started to level out a bit.

  ‘Here’s the stained-glass workshop coming up on the right,’ he announced, slowing. ‘I’ve got the keys with me, because when I found out about the Jessie Kaye connection I thought you wouldn’t be able to resist coming back with me for a quick look. Do you want to see it now?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ I said. ‘I can’t wait!’

  The day was drawing in as we passed through a pair of wonderfully ornate and gilded wrought-iron gates, guarded by a substantial lodge.

  The drive curved uphill and passed some outbuildings, including what looked incongruously like a small mill, or something of that kind. Father told me the present Mr Revell’s father had built it in order to employ some of the local people in the making of hosiery, or some such thing, though it was not now in use.

  ‘Except as a workshop by those employed in building and furnishing Mossby. But now all is nearly completed, I believe Mr Revell intends to demolish it. The stables and a walled garden lie behind.’

  Little did I know then that it would one day become my place of refuge and solace, or I might have paid more attention to it. But we had passed on towards the house and I felt an eager sense of anticipation.

  13

  Love at First Sight

  The building was not too dissimilar to Julian’s workshop – low, brick built and with long windows to let in as much light as possible. It was partly concealed behind a beech hedge that still bore a few tattered bronze leaves.

  ‘If we followed that branch of the drive behind the workshop, there’s an extensive range of old stables and outbuildings round a courtyard, but we’ll stop here.’

  Once he’d pulled in, I insisted Carey get poor Fang out of his carrier and he must have been desperate for a pee, because he shot off and watered a nearby bush for about five minutes. After that, though, he trotted back to Carey.

  ‘Won’t he run off if you don’t put him on a lead?’

  ‘No, he prefers hanging around my feet, trying to trip me up,’ he said, which seemed to be true because Fang followed him as closely as a tiny shadow.

  I thought the poor little creature was probably clinging to Carey as the only familiar thing in an uncertain, ever-changing and threatening world, but I didn’t say anything.

  I waited impatiently while Carey unlocked the workshop door and led the way into a big, light room full of dust motes and cobwebs.

  ‘It’s got electricity,’ he said, demonstrating by flicking on and off the series of dim bulbs that hung down the centre of the room in metal cages, ‘and running water. It backs on to a stable they turned into a garage with a flat over it for the chauffeur, in the days when they had such things.’

  ‘Those lights look a bit more recent than the thirties,’ I said, gazing round.

  ‘My uncle had thoughts of renting it out again at one time, but in the end I think he decided it would cost more to renovate it than he would get back.’

  ‘It was obviously lit once by gas,’ I said, surprised. ‘See, there are the old brackets on the wall.’

  ‘Mossby actually had its own private gas-making plant – one of the earliest in the country,’ he told me. ‘My ancestors seem to have been very innovative.’

  ‘I prefer a gas soldering iron to an electric one,’ I said. ‘But I can always run it off a cylinder.’

  ‘Or we could have a storage tank outside and pipe it in,’ he suggested, but by then I was exploring.

  In addition to the main area, there was a collection of smaller rooms with plenty of space to house everything I needed. The final door I opened even revealed a freezing cold cloakroom, with a white Victorian loo and no washbasin.

  ‘All mod cons,’ said Carey enticingly, like an overeager estate agent. ‘Just needs a little updating.’

  I gave him a look, then returned to examine the main workshop area more carefully. It was all very familiar, for nothing much has changed in the way leaded windows have been made over the centuries. And Jessie Kaye would actually have stood and worked at one of these long, wooden, dust-laden tables! I brushed the furring of ages from the top of the nearest one and revealed the indentations where the horseshoe nails had held the glass pieces together during the leading-up process. One of the tables would be smooth-surfaced, though, for drawing cutlines and cartoons. In the days before light-boxes, glass would always be cut on the table, laid over the cutline, the drawing that marked the position of the leads.

  There were deep stone sinks and wooden work surfaces with tall, leather-topped stools. In fact, now I’d had a chance to take it all in, I thought it resembled a time capsule, for there were still crusted jars of pigment, a large pestle and heavy glass grinding tile, a pair of rusted grozing pliers tossed down on a bench and a tall and deep wooden rack that would once have held the store of coloured sheet glass. There was even an old hand mill for producing lead calme from cast blocks. I couldn’t imagine why the last leaded light maker to rent the place hadn’t sold those off when he retired, though there was no actual lead or glass, so presumably everything of real value had been removed by the last tenant.

  ‘So, what do you think?’ Carey asked finally, sounding amused. ‘Will it do?’

  ‘It’s wonderful!’ I sighed. ‘And it’s in a much more workable state than I expected, too.’

  ‘Great, I knew you’d love it!’

  ‘I do – but by workable I didn’t mean I could move right in and set up shop. It needs so much doing first – the electricity updated and extended, for a start, and a heavy-duty cable for the kiln installed. And hot water as well as freezing cold would be good.’

  ‘Minor details,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Expensive minor details,’ I said firmly. ‘And I’d have to have an air filtration system in one of the other rooms.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The cementing process generates a lot of dust, because you clean the panels off afterwards by brushing powdered whitening over them. You don’t really want to be breathing that in.’

  ‘I wish I’d got round to learning more about the leaded light process when I used to visit you,’ he said. ‘I always meant to – but then, I had you to help me with the programmes when I needed it.’

  ‘It’s not exactly something you can do at one end of the garden shed, either,’ I said. ‘Or not on any kind of professional level.’

  I shoved my hands in the pockets of my padded coat for warmth, mentally doing a rough calculation of the costs and comparing them with my modest nest egg.

  ‘The air filtration system will be pricey and so will a kiln. I’d need more wooden racking for glass and lead calme storage, and, of course, lots of Antique glass and lead … big rolls of cartridge paper, light-boxes, silver stain, glass paints, brushes, glazing cement – you can buy that ready-made these days – acid for etching, horseshoe nails, soldering irons, tallow, solder, resin …’

  ‘That’s going to be one hell of a big shopping list,’ he said.

  ‘Renovating and updating the actual structure of the building will be your part of it: a washbasin in that toilet would be good, for a start. I don’t suppose you’re on mains drainage?’

  ‘We are now, though until fairly recently there was a cesspit, or a septic tank, or whatever.’

  ‘Oh, right. I suppose Mossby isn’t really cut off from civilization. Not that it matters if my workshop is out in the sticks,’ I added.

  ‘There aren’t many houses nearby, other than the Lodge and Moel Farm up above the house. There’s a gate to that, but it’s kept locked and never used, because my uncle fell out with the current tenant of the farm. Before that, you could drive over the tops and come out in the middle of Halfhidden, the village in the next valley. I’m told it has a couple of shops.’

  ‘And ghosts,’ I said.

  ‘Ghosts?’

  ‘I was going to tell you about it before, when we passed the turning on the road. Someone enterprising has created a ghost trail right round Halfhidden to attract m
ore visitors and there was already a haunted Roman spring, with healing properties. It used to be a popular local spa in Victorian times and people would come and drink the waters and stay at the Spa Hotel – which is that one we passed on the road just before we got here.’

  ‘I thought that was called the Screaming Skull? I noticed it, because they do food,’ he said. ‘But the name seemed weird. We’ll have to look into this ghost trail – it could make a good angle for the series, because we’ve got a family ghost, too.’

  ‘Do you mean the Grey Lady, thought to be Lady Anne, the seventeenth-century chatelaine who designed that window? She was mentioned on that tour of the Elizabethan wing.’

  ‘Yes. Allegedly she paces round one of the bedrooms, moaning and wringing her hands. Then sometimes a young girl runs screaming along the gallery.’

  ‘Nice,’ I said appreciatively.

  ‘I must tell Nick about Halfhidden and the ghost trail – he’ll love it. Maybe Mossby can even become part of the tourist trail eventually. I’ll have to think about that,’ he mused.

  Fang returned from an exploratory foray under the worktables and jumped up at my legs, though not in a savage kind of way. I got the message and picked him up. A small pink tongue licked my chin.

  ‘Free dog with every workshop,’ Carey enticed me, back in ingratiating estate agent mode. ‘Free dog with every free workshop.’

  ‘If you mean Fang, I’ve had more tempting offers,’ I told him. Fang looked at me in a hurt way, so I cuddled him. ‘I didn’t really mean it, poppet. You’re cute.’

  ‘I’m cute, too,’ Carey said appealingly, ‘though I draw the line at licking your chin after that dog, just to persuade you into agreeing to move in.’

  ‘I’m immune to your charms,’ I told him, though actually, when the full force of his enthusiasm and charm was turned my way, I tended to be putty in his hands. Just thinking of some of the scrapes he got us into as children made me shudder.