Page 108 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
The finished panels, clean and shiny, went into a rack, to harden: one small window, so much work, but enjoyable and worthwhile. We felt we’d done a good job and we raised a toast in Old Spoggit Brown before Ivan went home for a well-deserved weekend off.
Even on a sunny day it was gloomy enough to need a lantern in some of the rooms of the old wing, to which Ralph’s gas lighting had not reached.
Nonetheless, I continued my search until one day, when I was in the room called Lady Anne’s bedchamber, examining the linenfold panelling, the folded top point of which was a frequently used motif in the window, I noticed that the bosses running just above it were carved with roses, another frequent symbol!
But if the room concealed a hiding place, which of these to press, turn, or pull when the panelling went right round the room, was the question!
In turning to survey the rest of the walls, my light happened to fall directly on to the massively carved bedhead, which I now saw depicted Adam and Eve in the Garden. What’s more, Eve seemed to be carrying a woven rush basket, presumably to hold the apples she had just gathered, one of which she was offering to her spouse.
This was not a biblical story I was generally much in favour of, since it neatly unloaded the blame for the ensuing evils created by generations of men on to the shoulders of the innocent daughters of Eve.
But now I peered closer, running my hands over the design. A circle containing just that very basketwork pattern had always appeared in the window quarries next to an apple. I set down the lantern next to the bed, kneeled on it and tried pressing and prodding and turning both … until finally, with a faint creak as of something long unused, the central panel slid aside revealing a dark and musty cavity.
37
Treasure Fever
The next day being a Saturday, Louis turned up at the workshop to admire the windows on his way up to the house. He was going to help Carey with his various projects most weekends, until I had more work coming in and needed him.
He’d brought with him Liz, the dog whisperer’s daughter, having picked her up in the car that Ivan had bought him when he passed his test – some quite ordinary little hatchback, which he’d tarted up with bold stripes up the side and an oddly large and protruding exhaust.
It was a day for brief visitations, for soon after they’d gone, Molly dropped Grant off sohecould admire the finished Lady Anne windows too, while she was stocking up Carey’s freezer after the film crew’s latest depredations.
Grant slid each panel cautiously out of the rack, holding them to the light. ‘You’ve made a good job of this, Angel – but the design is even odder when you look at it closely, isn’t it? I wonder what the significance of all those little pictures and bits of pattern in the centres of the quarries is … if there is any.’
‘I know. The more I worked on it, the odder it seemed. Most of the motifs seem entirely random, but in places they’re repeated in sequence. See here, where there’s what looks like the top point of a linenfold panel three times in a row, followed by one of those flat Tudor roses.’
‘It’s hard to see any meaning in that, so perhaps your sampler idea was right and she just drew whatever came into her head to make a pretty pattern.’
‘It’s a mystery,’ I said, then showed him the fragment of the Pre-Raphaelite angel that Carey had given me, which I’d begun taking apart.
‘That’s really fine painting,’ he said appreciatively. ‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘Oh, lead it up into another roundel, I think. I won’t attempt to replicate any of the missing original pieces, other than letting the lead calme outline where the wings and robe would have continued.’
Then I asked him how he was getting on with Nat, now that the dust had settled slightly.
‘I think he’s realized he’s shot himself in the foot, getting rid of you and Ivan, because I’m not busting a gut to do all the work, even if he is paying me more. And he’s very much the boss and I’m the employee. It’s not the same as when we all worked together as a team: you, me, Julian and Ivan.’
‘I know what you mean. I miss that, too, though at least now I’ve got Ivan during the week. And of course, Carey’s often in his workshop next door and comes through for a chat, or a cup of tea, so I’m not isolated.’
‘Willow’s come up with a couple of weird-ass designs for windows, but she won’t try her hand at cutting, or leading-up. She says she’s not getting her hands cut and filthy on glass and lead, so she’s not really got a feel for what is and isn’t possible.’
I looked down at my hands, which are small, long fingered and not at all smooth and ladylike. ‘You have to suffer for your art. But someone might like her designs, Grant, you never know.’
‘Nat’s still got a grudge against you for taking those cartoons, but at least he seems to have accepted he’s not going to get them back.’
‘Yes, Julian’s solicitor said it had all been dropped now and I could forget about it.’
Molly beeped her horn and I went out to talk to her through the car window while Grant got in.
‘Everything fine?’ she asked, with a searching look.
‘Great,’ I said brightly. ‘Now I’ve mended the window, I’ll finish the Brisbane cartoon off and get that away. Then I’ve had a couple of enquiries about possible commissions that I’m working on.’
‘Well, that’s not quite what I meant,’ she said, ‘but I’ve just seen Carey scraping down the paint in the inner hall as if it was somethinghe’d been looking forward to for ages, so you’re obviously both happy in your own way.’
Then she passed me a large chocolate chip muffin in a cellophane bag, saying it would sweeten me up a bit, and drove off.
