The House of Hopes and Dreams

by Trisha Ashley

  Carey had already spotted a few treasures that he was sure would find their place in the house when it had been renovated, and Louis and Ivan stayed up there helping him to pull things out, while I went down to cut a plate of sandwiches and heat soup.

  Then, just as I was about to summon them down to eat, footsteps thundered down the stairs and Louis burst into the kitchen, saying excitedly: ‘We’ve found something in the attic and Carey says you need to come and see it!’

  Ralph showed me the first two rooms beyond the baize door on the upper floor of the servants’ wing, which he said he had designed with a nursery in mind. We discussed furnishing it in the modern style and it was just like old times, before Mr Browne came back, when we would talk about all manner of things with interest and enthusiasm. It was decided I would design three Aesop’s fables-themed top window panels to replace the plain glazing, and would commission Lily to make a matching embroidered hanging for the wall.

  A whole morning had slipped by pleasantly in this manner and we went down to lunch still debating the finer niceties in the way of curtains and carpets, only to find Mr Browne had arrived for lunch, though I am very sure he was not invited. But then, he does not seem to wait for invitations but turns up whenever he pleases.

  He ignored me in the rudest fashion, engaging Ralph in conversation on the subject of the latest house he had been commissioned to design, in the Lake District. Now that Mossby was almost finished, apart from some grandiose schemes for the gardens, including a hothouse in the small walled fruit and vegetable garden beyond the stables, there did not seem to be much to hold his attention here.

  I began to hope he might move to the Lake District permanently and, when I expressed this thought to Honoria, she earnestly agreed with me.

  27

  Positively Wired

  I found them at the furthest end of the attic, gathered round a long, painted metal box. The lid was thrown back and they were all directing their torch beams into it like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie.

  ‘Come and look at this, Angelique!’ Carey said excitedly.

  I bashed my leg on the corner of something and stopped to rub it. ‘I will if I can get through all this stuff – I haven’t got a torch.’

  One of them lit the way and I hobbled on more carefully. Carey’s idea of what was exciting was not always the same as mine anyway, so when I got nearer I said brightly, ‘I know what it is – you’ve found a body, haven’t you? How lovely for the documentary!’

  Carey grinned. ‘No, it’s a treasure trove– just wait till you see this!’

  ‘Is it the Jewel of Mossby?’ I said more eagerly.

  ‘No, it’s not any kind of jewel, though you’ll think it’s as good as one,’ Ivan assured me.

  They made way and I stared down into the box at long rolls of paper.

  ‘We seem to have found a cache of drawings and cartoons belonging to Jessie Kaye – but when we unrolled a bit of the first one, it looks like she’s made a full-colour cartoon of the Lady Anne window.’

  ‘Oh, happy day!’ I cried ecstatically and fell to my knees, carefully unrolling the corner and seeing the familiar basketwork edging and diamond panes, each with its odd circular central motif.

  ‘I can’t see properly up here,’ I said, frustrated. ‘Could we carry the whole box downstairs? And thank God it’s tin,’ I added devoutly, ‘so no mice or damp have got in.’

  ‘They seem in pristine condition to me,’ Carey said. ‘It’s all dry as a bone up here anyway. Come on, Louis, you and I can carry it down between us – it’s not heavy.’

  I tested the weight of one end and I couldn’t have carried it myself, so I made no objection as they picked it up and bore it through the attics like a small coffin, with myself and Ivan following, though as celebrants rather than mourners. It was a bit awkward to manoeuvre down the stairs, but finally they got it to the studio. I darted ahead and spread newspaper on the floor and fetched a duster, so I could clean if off before we opened it again.

  At some time, the box had been painted a celestial blue, both inside and out, and had probably been specially made to hold rolls of cartoons. Maybe they had a mouse problem down at the workshop even then?

  We carefully unrolled everything, spreading each sheet out on the desk, table and floor, weighting the corners down with whatever came to hand.

  As Carey had guessed, the outer one was a large and exact full-colour copy of the Lady Anne window.

  ‘That’s going to be vital when I do the repairs, because I can see exactly how it looked before it got broken,’ I said, gloating over it. ‘The bit that got knocked out entirely looks like a spiky star, but it’s yellow, so I expect it’s supposed to be the sun.’

  ‘It’s a strange window for the time,’ Ivan said, studying it.

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Louis.

  ‘You look up seventeenth-century windows on your internet thing, and you’ll see,’ he told him. ‘They don’t look like patchwork quilts, as a rule.’

  ‘That’s interesting. It reminded me of a sampler, Ivan,’ I said. ‘Pretty, isn’t it, even if some of the motifs are a bit bizarre, like that open eye?’

  ‘I think it’s all about Mossby – the sun shining down on the house and everyone going about their usual business,’ Carey suggested. ‘The various symbols that look random to us presumably meant something at the time.’

  There was a full-size cartoon and the cutline of Jessie Kaye’s landing window, too, with a sheet of her original design ideas and notes written on the edge in a bold hand, though the ink was a little faded.

  The final roll was for the inner hall windows, the design of which had been repeated in each panel.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘no more. Perhaps the rest of her cartoons and cutlines were stored in that big cupboard in the workshop and the mice ate them.’

  ‘I could line that cupboard with sheets of tin, if you like,’ offered Ivan. ‘I did that to the inside of my shed years ago to keep out the vermin and there’s still a few sheets laid by.’

  ‘That would be a great idea, just in case,’ I enthused, because I didn’t want my cartoons turning into rodent confetti.

  Later, after Ivan and Louis had gone home, I went straight back to the studio, where Carey helped me to flatten out the cartoons and put them up round the walls, with the one for the Lady Anne window directly opposite my worktable.

  Carey’s voice jogged me out of the trance I’d fallen into.

  ‘Right: that’s enough for tonight. We’re both tired and a bit filthy. A shower and something to eat is called for: tomorrow is another day, Scarlett!’

  ‘Don’t tell me Gone with the Wind was on the hospital library trolley, too?’

  ‘No, I’ve seen the old film,’ he said. ‘I thought it was a load of rubbish at the time, but it sort of stuck with me. That Scarlett seemed to love Tara to the point of obsession.’

  ‘I think you’re heading the same way with Mossby,’ I told him. Then, with a last glance back at my treasures, I reluctantly headed off to shower and change. He was quite right, because I was stiff and tired as well as filthy, but it had been a long and fruitful weekend.

  When I went down into the kitchen on Monday morning, Carey reminded me that it was the day the sale of his flat was completed and the money would go into the bank.

  ‘Just as well, since the electrician’s starting on your workshop today. I think he sees updating all the electrics at Mossby as his life’s work and perpetual income,’ he added gloomily.

  ‘But it urgently needs updating and extending, because it’s a fire hazard as it is, so you may as well bite the bullet and get everything done while you’ve got the money.’

  ‘You’re right, and I’ll ask him to extend the lighting into the attics and all the cellars and outbuildings, while he’s at it … And come to think of it, I’ve no idea what state the wiring at the Lodge is in.’

  ‘That’s a point. You’re probably responsible for repairs to the Lodge, so y
ou ought to see over it.’

  ‘I think I’ll leave it for now, unless they actually complain about anything. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.’

  I ate my slab of bread and honey standing in front of the Lady Anne cartoon, but had to tear myself away eventually so I could let the electrician into the workshop and discuss what needed doing.

  He was a small, wiry, energetic man who nodded briskly at everything I said, though his eyes were roving around, taking in the archaic ceiling lights, the old fuse box with the door hanging off and a few anonymous cables pinned along the walls in loops.

  He poked and rummaged about and came back just as Ivan arrived in his old car. ‘Accident waiting to happen, all that old wiring,’ he said, shaking hands with Ivan, man to man.

  ‘I know it all needs replacing and I’ll want lots of wall sockets, too. I’ll show you where,’ I said briskly. ‘And much better lighting over the tables.’

  ‘There’s going to be two little electric water heaters to be wired in, as well,’ Ivan reminded me.

  ‘Yes, the plumber’s getting those and a small hand basin for the cloakroom, which he’s going to fit later today.’

  ‘That’s no problem,’ the electrician said, scribbling in a ratty-edged notebook.

  I explained about the air filtration system and big kiln that would be arriving later, and that I’d be using electric storage heaters to keep the place warm. I could see pound signs shining in his eyes like stars.

  ‘I’ll get going then,’ he said, finally. ‘I’ll be off to get a few things, and then I’ll be back to make a start this afternoon.’

  I hoped he meant it and wasn’t going to disappear for a month, like many workmen I’d employed in the past … until I remembered what Carey had said about Mossby being his bread and butter till he retired.

  I showed him and Ivan where I’d hidden a key to the side door, so they could let themselves in when I wasn’t there, until I got more spares cut.

  Actually, it was practically standing-room only at the workshop that afternoon, what with the electrician, the plumber and his hulking and almost silent assistant. As I painted walls and Ivan made endless cups of tea for everyone, the plumber held rambling conversations with anyone who’d listen about his racing pigeons.

  Carey popped down with some cheese and pickle sandwiches and stayed on for ages, fascinated by the arcane intricacies of plumbing and wiring.

  ‘Did you ask the pub if they could get us a regular crate of Old Spoggit Brown, for Ivan?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, and I can pick up the first tomorrow. And my agent rang to say the studio had asked for my new forwarding address last week, so they could finally send on my fan mail. I assumed everyone had forgotten me, once the initial interest in my accident had worn off.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘I bet the Post Office will need to lay on a special van for it all.’

  Clem was passing later when I was outside undercoating the side door, and said Vicky had gone back to London for a catalogue shoot, but he expected she’d be back again before long, unless her agent came up with something better.

  ‘Her mother misses her,’ he said. Just then Ella rounded the bend and passed us on her way up the drive towards the house, ignoring us as if we weren’t there.

  Clem looked embarrassed. ‘Ella’s still upset about losing her job. She’ll get over it, but she’s always spent a lot of time in the old wing of the house and I don’t think she can break the habit.’

  ‘Evidently not,’ I agreed.

  ‘She’s at a bit of a loose end, without anything else to do.’

  ‘Carey really doesn’t mind if she wants to go up there and … potter about,’ I assured him. ‘But the specialist cleaners will keep the place in order now.’

  ‘She’s looked after it perfectly well single-handedly all these years,’ he said stubbornly.

  ‘Of course, and I’m sure she’s done her best, but I think a building of that age and size needs a bit more attention than one person can give it.’

  I was quite proud of that bit of tact.

  ‘I did see Ella letting herself into the old wing earlier,’ said Carey, when I relayed this conversation and her snub. ‘It looks like she’ll carry on haunting the place with the other ghosts, whether we like it or not.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s a harmless obsession, and the door from the muniment room is usually locked from this side, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, and the door from the tower on the upper floor, too. So, since she doesn’t have those keys, she can’t haunt us!’

  After dinner, which I whipped up from Molly’s delicious selection of healthy ready meals, we both went into the studio to do some work, only I got distracted again by the cartoons. This time, though, it was the ones for Jessie Kaye’s own windows. There was such a contrast in style between the earlier, more stylized roses of the hall panels and the much freer form of the later window.

  The latter carried on the same rose theme, but with the unusual juxtaposition of deep gold-pinks and amber and the flowing lines that made her later work so instantly recognizable.

  The notes she’d scribbled were about the meaning of flowers, especially the different colours of roses. I had a little book about it somewhere – the Victorians were very keen on that kind of thing.

  Carey was still working away on his laptop when I emerged from my reverie, updating his notes and photographs – and his thoughts, because they would all go to make up the first of The Mossby Sagas, an upstairs/downstairs epic in which we played all the main roles ourselves, with a fluctuating cast of extras.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t forgotten that the second of The Complete Country Cottage programmes was on that night, and insisted we both go into the sitting room to watch it, though I knew it would only infuriate him – and it certainly did that, all right.

  In that evening’s instalment, they exposed a section of ancient wall that had faint traces of painting on it– and Seamus announced his plans to remove it, so that two small rooms could be turned into one, with the central fireplaces left back to back as a feature.

  ‘And,’ he added complacently to the camera, ‘a fragment of the painted wall will be framed and hung in the new room.’

  ‘Noooo!’ groaned Carey, running his fingers through his burnished hair so that it stood up wildly. ‘It’s probably medieval! It’s sacrilege! It should be left where it is!’

  But the cottage wasn’t listed and no one seemed interested in stopping Seamus from doing anything he liked to it.

  Carey was so furious that he tried to ring the director, though he hadn’t been answering his calls since the accident. When that didn’t work, he rang Daisy, who did answer, though after listening to Carey’s rant on the atrocities Seamus was committing, she probably wished she hadn’t.

  I could only hear his side of the conversation, but I could fill in the gaps for myself.

  ‘You can’t let him go on doing these things! It’s criminal!’

  She must have reminded him that the whole of this series was already in the can, so she couldn’t stop him even if she wanted to, because he said, ‘Then stop him destroying any other wonderful old buildings in the next series.’ And then he abruptly ended the call and sat there breathing heavily through his nose, like a dragon about to emit fire.

  ‘I think we’ll go to the pub now,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ll drive, so you can anaesthetize yourself with Old Spoggit Brown.’

  Mr Browne and Ralph decided between themselves, without consulting me, that the workshop exterior and the square of barns and stables behind it should be stuccoed white to match the Lodge.

  I thought this a needless expense, since they could not be seen from the house or terraces, the shrubbery hiding them – and also, I was starting to become increasingly alarmed by Honoria’s hints that Ralph was running through his fortune at an astonishing pace.

  I knew that his father had been a wealthy man when he married the last of the Revells and took her name, but surely he
must have left Ralph a great fortune, to enable him to have carried out the rebuilding of Mossby?

  But I could see Honoria was becoming ever more worried with every lavish extra expense … and I began to worry, too. There was also the coming child to think of now …

  28

  Joy in the Morning

  Soon after I’d arrived at the workshop the following morning, Carey rang my mobile and said the postman had just delivered two sacks of fan mail and a huge parcel containing seventeen more jumpers, hand-knitted by fans.

  This is what happens when you mention in a programme that the unusual jumper you’re wearing had been an unexpected gift from a viewer …

  ‘And there’s one woollen legging,’ he added. ‘Muriel of Leicester, aged eighty-six, knitted it for me to wear under my jeans to keep my bad leg warm.’

  ‘That was really sweet and thoughtful. I think I should send her a picture of you wearing it, without the jeans.’

  ‘No chance!’ he said, then added that Mr Wilmslow had rung up too and was coming to Mossby that afternoon, about four.

  I said he’d probably be expecting a proper tea at that time of day, not just a cup of, with a biscuit, so in the early afternoon I left Ivan and the workmen to get on with it and baked a batch of sultana fairy cakes, which are something I enjoy making … and eating … Then I cut a plate of triangular sandwiches spread with Gentleman’s Relish. Carey had developed a taste for it after a grateful client sent him a Fortnum & Mason hamper some years previously, and now seemed unable to live without it.

  When the solicitor arrived Carey took him into the studio to see the cartoons we’d found, while I made the tea and carried the tray through to the sitting room.

  They soon followed me and when Mr Wilmslow was seated in front of a blazing log fire with his cup and plate on a small pedestal table next to him, he said, ‘This is remarkably nice of you!’

  ‘We should have tea like this every afternoon, Shrimp: it’s very civilized,’ Carey said.