Page 92 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘But then,’ he added ruefully, ‘I’ve started to think that Clem is just as obsessive, in his own way. He spends almost all his time keeping the terraces immaculate, while the grounds go to pot.’
‘He keeps the courtyard and the topiary trees in perfect order, too,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, though I’m not sure I really want my trees trimming in the shape of slightly lewd lollipops.’
‘I don’t know, I’ve seen lots of topiary gardens and I think Lewd Lollipop has been a favourite shape for centuries. He’s just following tradition. And he probably thinks keeping the terraces in order is the most important part of his job. It certainly must be hard work and time consuming, going up and down all those steps.’
‘I suppose you’re right. The terraces and the Arts and Crafts façade of the house are the first things you see as you approach Mossby, but in any case, he puts in such long hours that I can’t really complain,’ Carey decided, and we left it at that for the moment.
Perhaps Ella was just working off a fit of high dudgeon at losing her job and would come round, eventually?
By the time the fourth of the newComplete Country Cottageprogrammes had aired, viewing figures had slumped to such a low level that Carey said he’d started to feel sorry for Seamus Banyan, though that didn’t stop him continuing to be infuriated by his actions.
But meanwhile, he was totally engrossed with his own project at Mossby, and Nick and the crew swooped in and out to film all the important moments – or, if they missed them, the re-enactments.
They were there when Carey’s wood sculptor friend came over to turn a huge piece of log into a weirdly carved bench inspired by the legend of the Sweetwell Worm, which looked as if it would writhe its serpentine coils around anyone brave enough to sit on it.
Carey roared up and down to the barn on his new quad bike, the trailer laden with the offcuts for the wood store and, it being the weekend, Louis was roped in to help.
At first, it had puzzled me how Vicky almost always seemed to be visiting her parents at the Lodge when the film crew was about. Then I sussed it: Louis was her mole. He constantly got texts from her, which we knew because he’d innocently impart exciting bits of information to us, like that she’d had two days’ work as an extra on some big film.
‘That Vicky seems mighty friendly with Louis: I don’t know what a woman of her age wants with our lad,’ Ivan said one day, having caught sight of the two of them together outside the workshop. ‘If she’s not sending him messages, then they’re meeting up and she’s all over him like a rash.’
‘I think that’s just her natural routine with any man, and he’s a handsome boy, after all.’
But Ivan didn’t look convinced and when Louis came in he said directly, ‘I don’t know what you and that Vicky find to talk about.’
Louis flushed slightly. ‘Films, mostly. And being an actress she’s interested in Nick and the crew and how they’re shooting the documentary.’
He must have felt some criticism in the air, because he added quickly, ‘She doesn’t ask me anything about the workshop.’
‘Just as well, because Angel doesn’t want you discussing her business with anyone else,’ Ivan told him severely.
‘I haven’t reallygotany business so far, Ivan,’ I said.
‘You soon will,’ he assured me.
I hoped he was right.
There were lots of big projects that would keep Carey occupied – and the film rolling – for years and years.
There were the buildings round the courtyard, for a start, which could one day be developed, not to mention the old walled garden beyond it, a tangled Sleeping Beauty’s bower. Carey did remove the padlock from the gate one day, aided and abetted by Nick and Jorge, and ventured in, but after a couple of feet you’d have had to slash your way through with a machete so they had to give up.
I suspected that would be the next year’s big project and would involve sunburn, backache, nettle rash, blisters and a lot of thorns.
On evenings when we hadn’t got anyone staying with us, Carey and I often worked together in our shared studio at the house. He inputted all the information about his day’s work into his computer, a sort of diary with photographs, which eventually would form the basis of his books.
I’d begun to go through all the material I’d amassed on the subject of Victorian female glass artists, most of which didn’t make it into my college dissertation. I certainly had enough for a book, and Jessie Kaye and her work would form the heart of it. I’d be able to include new material on the Mossby windows, and if living here and working in her studio didn’t inspire me to write it, then nothing would!
The cartoon of the Lady Anne window still hung opposite where I sat, so that I often found myself idly gazing at it … and slowly I began to wonder if Carey and I had misread the meaning of it and itwasn’tcommemorating a short but happy married life at all.
By now I’d found a sampler of a similar age to the window in the darkest corner of the muniment room, which bore some striking similarities to the window, including featuring the old house in the middle. But there was no clue to who had made it, or whether it predated the window and might have inspired it, or vice versa.
‘It might even have been sewn by Lady Anne herself,’ I suggested when I showed it to Carey.
He looked from the sampler to the cartoon. ‘They both have the house and the three women, with the figure of the man in the cornfield below …’
‘But he’s dressed as a Cavalier – he can’t possibly be cutting corn in that outfit!’ I objected. ‘And anyway, if he’s supposed to be Phillip Revell, then he wouldn’t be doing manual work himself at all, would he?’
