Page 65 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
Perhaps something, like Fang, that might suddenly bite.
On the day Mr Browne was to return, Ralph set out to meet him and was no more seen again that day, presumably dining with his friend. And since we had separate bedchambers at Mossby (something I assumed to be the way of the gentry) I had no idea what time he came home.
Next day I spent in the workshop. Father having approved a design I had made for a customer, I was engaged in drawing up the cartoon to send down to him, along with some trays of glass ready for painting and firing.
I was quite occupied and happy, so that I entirely forgot the time until Honoria sent a servant down to remind me to return for lunch. Ralph very often called in so that we could walk back to the house together, but today he had not done so and Honoria told me he and his friend had gone off somewhere, but would both be back in time to dine that evening.
Rosslyn Browne came to dinner and somehow the whole atmosphere changed, though I couldn’t understand why. He was an elegant, slender, bearded man with eloquent dark eyes and of middle height. He and my husband seemed to share many interests and indeed engaged in similar conversations to those we had shared. But when I joined in, both looked at me as if surprised that I had interrupted them.
It quickly became clear that Mr Browne resented my presence: he wasof the jealous variety of friends and wanted to be the centre of Ralph’s attention.
I did not like his dismissive – almost sarcastic – attitude towards Honoria either and she, unsurprisingly, was very cold towards him.
I hoped Mr Browne’s work kept him frequently away from home.
23
The Vital Spark
We spent practically every waking moment of the entire weekend exhaustively going over the interior of the house, making not only a complete inventory of what was there, but a list of what needed repainting, renovating, renewing or restoring. Carey took a million photographs and made notes, too.
Only one of us really enjoyed this experience. I was limp as a wet rag by Sunday evening, but though Carey was hobbling like an actor auditioning for a bad spy film, his enthusiasm and energy were undiminished. After dinner, he downloaded all the pics he’d taken on to his big laptop and could hardly wait to input the reams of notes, and various lists, not to mention email his many useful contacts.
Even running on about seventy per cent of his normal self, Carey had twice as much vitality as most people. That black and silver stick would soon be worn down to a nub, at that rate.
Fang had shadowed us throughout the weekend, though he tended to lie down and sigh a lot, and also inadvertently get shut into rooms and have to be released after a lot of highly aggrieved barking.
On these occasions, Carey would mutter something about re-homing the daft creature, but we both knew he didn’t mean it because we’d grown fond of Fang.
Of course, his antisocial tendencies where ankles were concerned made life a bit difficult, and if the internet wasn’t taking all year to connect, I’d have already looked online for miniature dog muzzles.
Nick and the rest of the film crew were due to arrive on Monday morning. They were setting out from London before dawn, intending to shoot loads of film before leaving some time on Tuesday, but even so, we were surprised to see the big white van with ‘Raising Crane Productions’ along the side pulling into the courtyard just after ten.
They all piled out, stretching in the chilly sunlight. Nick enveloped me in a big hug, followed by tall, red-headed Sukes, who for once was not trying to ram something that looked like a muff on a stick under my nose.
Jorge, the cameraman – though Nick also could double up in this capacity – shuffled his large feet shyly and gave me a smile from somewhere between his beard and fringe, while Nelson, who had black dreadlocks all the way down to the tattered jeans that hung off his almost non-existent hips, said in a deep, plummy Oxford accent, ‘Hello, darling!’
You could make a documentary about the documentary makers! They had worked as a team for so long that they tended to act like a flock of Midwich Cuckoos: if one knew something, then they all did. Sukes, Nick and Nelson had once shared the student house with me and Carey, while Jorge had joined them soon afterwards and was now living with Sukes.
Nelson smelled of full cooked English breakfast when he kissed me on the cheek: but come to that, they all did.
‘Carey said you’d turned vegetarian, so we thought we’d better get some protein while we could,’ Nick explained. ‘If you only eat beans, it’s going to be like a re-cast ofGone with the Windby the time we leave.’
‘You’re thinking of vegans, but we’re not even totally vegetarian, because we’re still eating fish and eggs and dairy stuff,’ I said. ‘There was no need to clog your arteries up with saturated fats, because we wouldn’t have let you starve.’
I made a big pot of coffee and they sat down to discuss what they were going to do and look at some footage Nick had taken of Carey leaving the physiotherapy unit, with a flotilla of nurses in attendance.
Of course, they’d already had a flying trip up to Mossby the day after Carey moved in, so they had some preliminary shots of it.
‘The last time we were here, the weather wasn’t so bright,’ Nelson said, dunking an iced ring biscuit into his coffee, so that the topping bubbled slightly. ‘We still got some good shots of Carey stopping at the bottom of the drive to look at Mossby for the first time and then the sun suddenly coming out just as he reached the courtyard. Couldn’t have staged it better.’
‘Jorge wants to take some more footage from the bottom of the drive and try a few outside angles with Carey wandering round the place,’ said Nick. ‘Then we’ll move on to Angel seeing the workshop for the first time and talking a bit about what it’ll mean to her to be working there.’
‘Carey told you it was where one of my greatest heroines, Jessie Kaye, worked at the end of the nineteenth century? She was one of the leading female glass craftswomen of her day.’
‘Yes, he updated me, though anyone who’d lived with you while you were writing that dissertation knew all about Jessie Kaye and the Arts and Crafts movement, whether they liked it or not!’
‘I must have been a monumental bore,’ I said apologetically.
