Page 28 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
His eyes suddenly glowed with all of his old enthusiasm, as if the sun blazed behind them. ‘The house is wonderful and it’smine. Just wait until you see it! But I’ll have to make it pay somehow if I want to keep it, and the series would be a start, if Nick can sell it.’
‘So, am I to take it there’s lots of stained glass there that needs renovating, repairing or replacing and that’s where I come in? Because if so, you’re out of luck: I not only have nowhere to live, I’ve also lost my job and urgently need to find another – a paid one.’
He brushed these minor quibbles aside like so many cobwebs. ‘Never mind all that, just wait till you see the place! There’s some really old heraldic glass in the Elizabethan wing and an unusual seventeenth-century window that needs repairing, only it can’t leave the house because of some weird family curse. The newer part of the house is Arts and Crafts and –’ he paused, as one about to announce the clincher – ‘one window and some interior panels were made by that woman you used to rave about when you were writing your dissertation on early female stained-glass artists, Jessie Kaye.’
‘Jessie Kaye?’ I repeated, astonished. ‘You don’t mean you’ve inheritedMossby?’
‘Got it in one,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize you knew about the connection with Mossby, though. It only dawned on me when I got there and remembered you commenting on the coincidence of her having married a man called Revell.’
‘Yes, I did know. There wasn’t a lot written about her private life, but I found out that after her marriage she’d set up a stained-glass workshop in the grounds of Mossby and there was some of her work in the house. In fact, when I first moved up here, I wrote to the owner asking him to let me see the Kaye windows, but I never got any reply.’
‘That must have been my uncle Francis, but I think only the Elizabethan wing was ever opened to the public, and that only rarely and to pre-arranged parties,’ Carey said. ‘But never the Arts and Crafts house, which was always a private residence.’
‘I’ve actually seen the old part, because Grant’s wife, Molly, wangled me on to a WI trip. I heard the story about Lady Anne’s ghost and the cursed window, too, though notwhyit’s cursed.’
‘Mr Wilmslow only mentioned it in passing, along with a potted family history, but perhaps he’ll tell me more when he comes back on Wednesday. He’s going to show me the way to open a priest-hole, where there’s a chest full of family documents. There might be a hint in there somewhere about why the window’s cursed. It would make a good story for the series.’
‘It all sounds like the start of an Enid Blyton adventure book!’
‘You know, that’s exactly what I thought,’ he said.
I cast my mind back to my visit and the windows above the stairs in the Elizabethan wing. ‘I seem to remember the windows I saw were all in reasonable repair, though they’d need checking over, especially the tie bars. The Lady Anne window was fine, too. I spent a lot of time looking at it because it was so unusual in design for the mid-seventeenth century. The motifs in the quarry panes were more like a sampler than anything I’d seen before in a window of that age.’
‘There’s been some recent damage to the top of it since you saw it, I’m afraid. I’m told a large bird flew into it.’
‘Well, if so, it’s a job for a skilled conservator,’ I said firmly.
‘You’re forgetting the family curse,’ he reminded me.
‘No I’m not, but you can’t just patch up a unique historic window on the kitchen floor, you know. And even if you decided to risk the curse and persuaded me into mending it, I’ve got nowhere to work on it now.’
‘But, Angelique …’ he began, in a cajoling voice I recognized of old, and I tried to harden my heart.
‘I’m staying with Molly and Grant, but I can’t be their lodger for ever. My priority is to find a job and somewhere to live, and the chances are it will be London or the south. But … I’d love to see the Kaye windows before I leave,’ I added wistfully.
‘And so you shall, Cinderella. In fact, think of me as your Fairy Godfather, ready to grant all your wishes and solve all your problems,’ he announced.
‘Yeah, right!’
‘No, I mean it. You can come and stay at Mossby, because there’s enough room for a dozen people to rattle round in. And even better, there’s a stained-glass workshop in the grounds ready and waiting for you!’
‘What do you mean, a stained-glass workshop?’ I stared at him, and an incredible suspicion slowly formed in my mind. ‘You can’t possibly mean that—’
‘Yes, the workshop Jessie Kaye’s husband set up for her when they married is still there. I believe it was in use by a local leaded light maker until the thirties and has been shut up ever since.’
‘Really?’ My mind was whirling – it was like discovering the Secret Garden and Tutankhamun’s tomb all rolled into one.
‘I’ve simplygotto see it,’ I declared longingly.
‘And so you shall!’ he declaimed, still in Fairy Godfather mode. ‘I’ve only had the quickest of looks myself, to see if you might be able to mend the window there. It’s in the grounds, so I thought the family curse might not kick in and I know there’s electricity and water connected, because it backs on to the stables and garages. You could set up your own business there, though it might all need a little updating, of course.’
I thought that was probably the understatement of the year. ‘If it hasn’t been used since the thirties it would take a lot of money to turn it into a modern workshop and I don’t have much saved.’
‘I think you’re being a bit pessimistic – and it would be rent free,’ he said enticingly. ‘Your bed and board, too.’
‘Oh, yes, so long as I worked night and day helping you renovate the house for nothing, as well as repairing the windows?’
‘Please come, Angelique,’ he said simply. ‘I realize I can’t manage to do everything I used to on my own yet, and anyway, it’ll be more fun if we do it together!’
