Page 34 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
The white façade of the Arts and Crafts house might front boldly on to the drop down to the lake and woods, but the main entrance was to the rear, as I knew from my coach trip.
Carey turned left into a gravelled courtyard, circled a small knot garden with a lichen-stained stone fountain at its centre, consisting of a bizarre sea creature disporting itself above a large scallop shell, and finally scrunched to a halt before an imposing entrance porch flanked by lollipop-shaped topiary. The Elizabethan and servants’ wings on either side formed a squared-off U shape behind the new building and the tower, but the white stucco blended well with the black and white intricacy of the older building.
It was several years since I’d made that brief visit with the WI, but I remembered the coach had parked in a level area on the other side of the drive, just above the workshop, and we’d been ushered along a small pathway to a side door, where the rather grim-faced guide I now knew to be Ella Parry had awaited us. At the time, I’d been more interested in seeing the windows than the rest of it, which was probably why my memory of anything else was a bit patchy.
‘Here we are, welcome to the House of Revells.’
‘My little place in the country,’ I said sarcastically, and Carey grinned.
‘The central part reallyisjust an overgrown cottage, you know, Angel.Unless you count the servants’ quarters and the Elizabethan wing, there are only six bedrooms.’
‘Only six? How on earth will you manage? Won’t Fang want a lordly chamber of his own?’
Fang was sitting on my knee, looking at the sea creature looped about the fountain with narrowed eyes. He was either an outraged art historian or suspected it might leap off and attack him.
‘I expect I’ll survive with a mere six bedrooms, because if I have a houseful of visitors they can overflow into the servants’ wing. Arts and Crafts houses were generally built for the well-to-do middle classes, so they were usually fairly modest,’ he added.
‘Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ I told him rudely. ‘Don’t forget that I know all about the Arts and Crafts movement from writing that dissertation on the rise of the female stained-glass craftworkers in the late Victorian era.’
‘So you do, my little in-house expert.’
‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I assumed the Revells were gentry, not middle class? There were lots of family coats of arms in the windows I saw on my visit.’
‘Originally they were minor gentry – there’s a portrait of one who is supposed to have briefly made a hit with Elizabeth I – but the last of the line was female and married a plebeian, but extremely wealthy, factory owner in the middle of the nineteenth century, so I’m afraid my blood probably isn’t even a watered-down blue.’
‘I suppose he was the Revell who built the workshop?’
‘That’s the one, giving employment to the locals,’ he agreed, then reached over for his skull-studded stick. ‘Come on, I’m dying for a cup of tea.’
I put Fang down and we followed Carey as he limped away from the porch to a small side door into the service wing. Inside was a stone-paved passage with several intriguingly closed doors off it, which led to a large kitchen.
It was a strange hybrid: you could see the remains of what must have been the last word in modern kitchen furnishings and appliances at theend of the nineteenth century, overlaid with the changes and additions of ensuing generations. There was a large, ancient and well-used table and two shiny benches up the middle of the room, while one long wall was fitted with modern units, an electric oven and hob and a very large fridge.
Actually, when I came to think of it, it already resembled the eclectic effect of one of Carey’s finished cottage makeovers!
Fang made a beeline for a cushioned basket next to the huge range set in an inglenook, which was radiating warmth.
‘This is nice,’ I said appreciatively. ‘It wouldn’t need much to make it quite cosy and home-like.’
‘True, though all the electric wiring in the house could do with an overhaul to make sure it’s safe, because it’s been put in and extended piecemeal. This servants’ wing has a lot of old wiring, especially in the bedrooms and some of the rooms off the passage.’
‘I was dying to open all those doors when we came in,’ I confessed.
‘There’s nothing terribly exciting behind them if you do: a utility room, scullery, boot room, a little parlour for the housekeeper …’
He looked at me, the familiar enthusiastic glow lighting up his eyes. ‘I haven’t really checked them out properly yet. There’s still lots to explore. Maybe we can have a good look round together tomorrow, when you move in.’
He seemed to be taking that very much for granted.
‘IfI move in,’ I corrected him.
‘Of course you’re moving in, Shrimp,’ he said. ‘I need you and you need the workshop. Anyway, how could you resist being here on Wednesday, when Mr Wilmslow comes back to reveal the hidden chamber containing the family secrets? You don’t want to miss that!’
‘But what if there’s a skeleton in the family cupboard, one so terrible that no one but a Revell must ever know anything about it!’
‘I sincerely hope there is, because then you can help me decide how best to exploit it for filthy lucre, starting with giving it a starring role in theMansion Makeover,’ he said flippantly.
I sat down at the dark wooden table that had been worn and marked by centuries of use, while he made a pot of tea and got out mugs and a wooden biscuit barrel with tarnished silver fittings.
