Page 109 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
Left to myself, I finished unleading and cleaning up the bits of angel, before I laid the pieces on a sheet of white cartridge paper and set about incorporating them into a roundel. Then I spent a happy hour choosing and cutting glass for it, before being summoned for a soup-and-sandwich lunch with Carey, Louis and Liz.
I decided I’d finish cutting the glass that afternoon and then leave it for Ivan to lead up on Monday while I was putting the finishing touches to the Brisbane cartoon.
After dinner that evening, while I was sitting at my worktable in the studio absently staring at the colour cartoon of the Lady Anne window, instead of getting on with the design for a half-finished fishy roundel, Carey came in.
‘Interesting …’ he said looking over my shoulder. ‘I don’t know how you’re going to translate the translucent rainbow effect of the jellyfish into glass, though.’
‘Easily. I found a random sheet of clear Antique glass streaked with several colours in one of those tea chests. It must be an old bit of Hartley Wood glass; they made the occasional curious sheet.’
‘So the glass inspired the jellyfish, not the other way round?’ he said, then asked me what I had planned for next day. ‘Only Louis and his girlfriend are doing something else, so I wouldn’t mind a hand sandpapering the panelling in the hall, ready to paint.’
‘No chance,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m going to the workshop in the morning, then spending the rest of the day getting those designs for the two possible commissions ready to go. In fact, I meant to do that this evening, but I got sidetracked by my jellyfish idea.’
‘Oh, well, the Benbow twins said they might come down – it’s quiet at the Summit Alpine Nursery at this time of year,’ he said resignedly.
On Monday, when Carey appeared with a booted Fang under his arm, I was halfway up the ladder in front of the corkboard, contemplating theBig Wavecartoon. Ivan, who had just leaded up the Burne-Jones angel, was about to carry it through to be cemented.
Carey admired what we’d done with the angel and then said, ‘I’ve just been in the old wing, looking at those suits of armour. My ancestors must have been midgets!’
‘I think people have just grown taller over the centuries,’ I suggested.
‘I haven’t,’ Ivan said.
‘Youdon’t seem to have, either, Shrimp,’ agreed Carey. ‘Perhaps you’re both throwbacks to some ancient hobbit-like race.’
‘Why were you looking at the armour, particularly?’ I asked.
‘Because I’ve been searching online to see how you should look after it properly. I’ve been resisting the urge to spray the moveable parts with general-purpose oil. I thought they might need something a little more specialized.’
‘You’re not going to takethoseapart on the kitchen table, are you?’ I asked in some alarm.
‘No, I need more space and it’ll take quite some time, so I’ll do them on the big bench in my workshop next door,’ he assured me. ‘It was while I was examining the visor on the suit of armour at the bottom of the stairs, that I felt someone was watching me.’
‘A ghost?’ asked Ivan eagerly.
‘No, it was Ella. She was sitting in one of the carved chairs in the dark corner by the fireplace and I’ve no idea how long she’d been there.’
‘Did she say anything when you spotted her?’ I said.
‘Yes, quite a lot for Ella: she gave me to understand that removing the window from the house was a bad idea and we were all doomed – or something like that.’
‘Cheerful as always! What did you say?’
‘That it would be back before long … and also that I’d rather she confined her cleaning activities in the old wing to set days and times. But she didn’t reply, just got up and went. I’m going to have to talk to Clem yet again, though that hasn’t had much effect so far,’ he saidgloomily. ‘By the way, when can we put the Lady Anne window back? It looks odd without it.’
‘The glazing cement needs to totally harden and then the first weekend that Grant and Ivan are free, they’ll replace it. Long before the wing is opened to the public at Easter, at any rate,’ I added. ‘And nothing dreadfulhashappened since we took it out, so if that’s a curse, then mending it in the workshop didn’t count.’
‘I thought we’d decided that wasn’t a curse anyway, it was only that she wanted it to stay at Mossby for ever?’
‘I know, but I was talking to Grant on Saturday about the odd way some of the motifs in the quarries are repeated, and it got me thinking again. Perhaps itdoesmean something, and if I could find the same sequences in the old wing …’
‘Then you might also discover hidden treasure behind the panelling?’ he finished, looking amused.
‘Well, it’s worth a try,’ I said defensively. ‘And I don’t think thatisa sun at the top of the window now, after all, but a representation of the Jewel of Mossby.’
‘Yeah, right,’ he said disbelievingly. ‘The Mossby Jewel being this huge baroque pearl and enamel thing on a ruby necklace and the picture in the window showing a spiky sort of star shape?’
‘I said itrepresentedit. She wouldn’t want to have given the secret away that easily.’
