Page 60 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
‘You know, I think you’re right. I must tell Carey, in case he hasn’t thought of it.’
‘If you do become part of the Halfhidden ghost trail, when would you open to visitors?’
‘Lulu Tamblyn, the girl I was telling you about who thought the trail up, said they were adding the farm behind Mossby as a new attraction from Easter, so we’d want to do the same. That’s early April this year.’
‘That would give you only a couple of months to get organized – it’s not long.’
‘Carey can get on with that. He’s roped me in to help him do a big inventory over the weekend of what needs doing, but after that I’m going to be busy setting up the workshop and drumming up commissions.’
‘Well, let me know when Grant and Ivan can come over and see the workshop, because they’re champing at the bit to have a look and give you lots of advice you don’t need.’
‘I’ll do that. I do miss them already and I loved working as part of a team, so it’s going to be odd being on my own.’
‘I’m sure you’ll soon be able to employ someone to help, so I wouldn’t worry about that,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you enter designs for a couple of competitions before you went to Antigua? When were the closing dates?’
‘Some time soon, I think. One was for an installation in a mall in Australia and the winner gets an all-expenses-paid trip out to Brisbane to see the finished work.’
‘That would be fun!’
‘Yes … though, of course, I much prefer designing windows when I know I’m actually going to be making them myself, even if they do have the cartoons to work from.’
‘But Julian let you take those as private commissions, didn’t he? While if they were to be made in his workshop, if you won then they would be part of the business. And if those had been, then I suppose the prizes would belong to Nat!’
‘That’s true. Thank goodness both of them were just for the design. Not that I’m likely to win either of them,’ I added. ‘Any news on the Nat and Willow front?’
‘Nat’s following up a couple of enquiries and trying to give Willow a crash course in stained-glass window design.’
‘Let’s hope she’s a quick learner, then,’ I said.
We’d been too busy at our task to notice any sound of departure, but when finally the freezer was clean, dried and switched back on and we returned to the warmth of the kitchen, we found Carey slumped in a chair by the table, looking as if he’d gone three rounds with a grizzly bear.
‘The Parrys have left the building?’ I asked brightly.
‘Brilliant deduction, my dear Watson,’ he said. ‘Hi, Molly.’
‘So, how did it all go?’ I asked, putting the kettle on and removing the almost empty box of coconut pyramids from his reach.
‘Sticky and sometimes explosive. Clem was pleased I was putting his salary up and I’ve promised we’ll get people in to see to the trees and cut back the undergrowth and shrubbery. I’ll look into buying a sit-on-and-ride mower too, to keep the grass around the lake neat.’
‘Sounds like a good idea to me,’ I said. ‘There were lots of fallen treesround the lake, so you could build up quite a log store to season for next winter.’
‘Yes, that’s what I thought: we’ll have a log-burning stove or two, neat small ones that will fit in. I’d better make sure the wood axe is kept well out of Ella’s reach, though.’
‘That bad?’
He nodded.
Unsurprisingly, she’d not been at all happy about losing her job and became angry when Carey told her that he was going to ask Dolly Mops to carry out a big spring clean, including the Elizabethan wing.
‘In fact, she flew into such a rage that I never really got round to telling her about opening it to tourists and that there might be a seasonal job there for her when it does. She said she’d worked her fingers to the bone single-handedly running Mossby for the last fifteen years,’ he added gloomily.
‘There isn’t a lot of sign of it,’ I said.
‘No, but they don’t seem to have noticed that. Vicky said her mum loved the Elizabethan wing so much that she cleaned it herself once a week and Clem told me I didn’t appreciate all the hard work that involved.’ He sighed and ran his hands through his thick, red-gold hair. ‘I really don’t think she or Clem have the least idea that Ella’s cleaning amounted to a manic desire to polish every inch of the panelling till you could see your face in it and neglect of everything else. Vicky did a nice line in gentle reproach – you can tell she’s an actress.’
He paused and a faint smile touched his lips.
‘So, how long is Vicky staying for?’ I asked tartly, before I could stop myself.
