Page 71 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
Lulu came round the corner of it with a mug of tea, which she handed to the elderly man. ‘There you are, Jonah.’
‘Cam’s running one of his painting classes at the moment,’ she explained to us quietly. ‘I’d forgotten.’
‘That’s OK. We only wanted to have a quick look this time,’ Carey said, his eyes drawn to the paintings on the wall, which were very good, and lingering, I noticed, on one that looked like shattered sunlight falling across water.
I’dhave liked to have lingered over the small rack of Izzy’s brightly coloured clothes, especially the padded jackets: I loved my coat of many colours, but it was getting extremely shabby.
‘Another time,’ Carey said, firmly dragging me away. ‘This is just supposed to be a reconnaissance trip, remember?’
Outside, he unfolded the leaflet and we followed the trail up the road past the clock shop and a large Victorian house with a tea garden and a glazed veranda. The sign proclaimed itself to be open out of season at weekends, for afternoon tea.
‘I wish it was the weekend now,’ I said. ‘I’m starving.’
‘I can’t imagine where you put all the food you eat, when you’re the size of a sparrow.’
‘You eat twice as much!’
‘I’m twice as big, and anyway, I burn it off in hard work.’ He consulted the map again. ‘There’s the Summit Alpine Nursery at the top of the valley and near it is the spot that the spectre of a Saxon warrior haunts, where a treasure trove was found. We can drive up there another time.’
But before we went home, he insisted we investigated the garden antiques centre. I drove up to a parking area and we walked through an arched opening into a courtyard much like the one at Mossby, where atall, well-built red-haired woman was briskly wire-brushing the rust off some ancient and obscure piece of agricultural machinery.
Izzy was standing talking to her husband and she waved at us. ‘You remember Rufus from the pub, don’t you? He was dying to talk to you about your gates, Carey, but it was so noisy that night, it was hopeless.’
‘We were all so blotto on the local brew, it would probably have been hopeless anyway,’ I confessed.
‘It tastes innocuous, but it should have a warning on the bottle!’ she said.
‘I’d love to buy your wrought-iron front gates,’ Rufus told Carey. ‘I mean, they’re rusted to hell and in poor shape, but—’
‘No dice,’ Carey interrupted. ‘They’re pure Arts and Crafts and brilliant workmanship, and they belong at Mossby.’
‘I thought you’d say that,’ he said ruefully.
‘There’s a similar but smaller pair of gates at the back of the estate too,’ Carey said. His eye fell on the tall redhead so engrossed in her work. ‘I won’t sell either pair, but I’d pay you to bring them up here and restore them for me. And I’ve found several pieces of Victorian garden statuary in one of my outbuildings that you might like, so maybe there’s even a deal to be done?’
‘Maybe,’ agreed Rufus, his eyes lighting up, and they moved away and were soon deep in conversation.
‘Just as well Foxy loves tackling rust and enjoys a challenge,’ Izzy said drily, ‘because it looks as if she’s going to get one! Foxy Lane is my husband’s right-hand woman and her sister is Debo’s kennel maid.’
She took me up a nearby flight of stone steps to a large room above what had probably once been a barn, to her workshop, and explained that she sold her lovely clothes mostly by mail order, with a new collection twice a year.
‘They’re all made in India and I was inspired by the cotton dresses and padded jackets of the hippie era,’ she said, then admired my jacket.
‘This is a vintage one I bought from a charity shop. Or what’s left of it, because I’ve just about worn it to death.’
‘I could make you a new version, if you like?’ she offered. ‘I do sometimes create one-offs for special clients.’
‘I’d love that. It’s not dissimilar in shape to your padded jackets, is it? Only mine’s velvet patchwork and in random colours.’
I’d never had anything made just for me. It was quite exciting … and possibly going to be quite expensive, too.
After a while, I managed to peel Carey away from his new best friend – everyone loves Carey, because he’s so genuinely interested and enthusiastic abouteverything– and Rufus said he’d be coming up soon to Mossby.
‘When you delve into it, there’s an amazing amount of enterprise going on round here, not just the ghost trail,’ I said, driving carefully back down the bendy steep bit of the road.
‘It sounds like a lot of businesses have taken off because of the increased number of visitors it’s brought in, so if they’ve been creative in adding extra ghostly happenings, you can’t really blame them!’
‘Well, at least you can’t say Howling Hetty is made up!’ I said.
