Page 100 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
I had no idea what Carey meant by that ‘heavenly host’ bit, but I carried the package over to my table, cleared a space at one end and laid it down flat. From the sheer weight and feel of it, I had a good idea of what it was, though not what form it might take, so I ripped off the paper eagerly.
Inside was a fragment of a stained-glass window, the empty flanges of surrounding broken-off lead calme splayed out around it. It was bound with clingfilm to a piece of square board, which I removed, my eyes fixed on the painted face beneath. It was as if my earlier thoughts had conjured up the haloed head of an angel, Pre-Raphaelite in style and brilliantly painted and stained. There was a hint of celestial blue robe in one of the remaining pieces and the feathered top arch of a wing behind the head.
That was all that remained intact – the head and three other pieces – then the torn protruding bits of empty calme where the window had been knocked out. I’d seen it happen many times before, but never with glass of this quality. It was a miracle that someone had at least thought this fragment worth preserving, perhaps worth a few bob.
I grieved for the window that had been lost, even while I rejoiced in the part that had been saved.
The door opened and Carey entered, carrying the painting and card, which he set down on his desk before picking me up and giving me a bear hug and a smacking kiss.
‘Thank you, Shrimp, you couldn’t have given me anything I’d like more!’
‘Ditto, though I wish I had the rest of the window,’ I said breathlessly when he put me down. ‘It’s so beautiful, they must have been mad to smash it.’
‘I know, but I expect it was just workmen doing what they were told. I found that piece mixed in with a box of loose squares of that pink and blue machine-made glass you hate, in the architectural antiques place. They couldn’t remember where the box came from and they’d had it for years. I had to buy the whole lot, so the rest of it is in one of the stables.’
‘It’ll come in handy for Grant, if he sets himself up doing repair work,’ I said, then looked down at my angel’s head again. ‘I think this is – or was – an important window.’
‘That’s what I thought, too. You can’t mistake the full, sulky-looking mouth on that angel, beautiful as she is in her way,’ he agreed. ‘Pre-Raphaelite – maybe even Burne-Jones?’
I nodded.
‘What will you do with it?’
‘Take it apart and then re-lead the remaining pieces into a roundel, I expect. I meant to make some more angel ones anyway – just for me, not to sell.’
‘You could hang some in the windows in here,’ he suggested. ‘And I’ll have my painting in here, too, so I can contemplate it when I need inspiration.’
‘I think right now you’d better get inspired about cooking breakfast, because I can hear the thunder of hoofs on the trail.’
‘So there is,’ he said, but instead of heading out to the kitchen, he stood looking down quizzically at me, his large, warm hands gripping my shoulders. ‘I’m sorry about Daisy turning up, Angel. I just couldn’t shove her out into the cold and dark last night, but I’ll send her on her way this morning, even if I have to drive her to the station myself!’
‘I don’t know why you’re apologizing to me –Idon’t care whether she’s here or not,’ I said untruthfully. ‘But now she’s got wind of the party, I doubt you’ll dislodge her before tomorrow.’
‘Limpet’ was probably her middle name.
‘Just watch me,’ he said, then added, still looking down at me and raising one quizzical eyebrow, ‘You know, I could have sworn I heard her and Nick arguing on the landing in the middle of the night. It sounded as if she’d walked into his room and woken him up.’
‘Did she? Perhaps she was looking for the bathroom,’ I suggested, with limpid innocence.
After breakfast, I drove over to Molly’s to collect the cake and the rest of the party food. Daisy still hadn’t put in an appearance, which was probably just as well, because there was much ribald joking about the bedroom farce in the middle of the night. Nick was pretending that she’d fallen suddenly and passionately in love with him and he’d had to fight her off to preserve his honour.
As usual, the crew were none the worse for the rum, though slightly sleepy. Carey, Nelson and Jorge were to go up to the Halfhidden shop while Nick and Sukes took some shots of the alpacas in the field behind the back gates for, as he put it, a bit of quirky local colour.
I left them discussing it, hoping that dumping Daisy at the station with her huge suitcase would be part of Carey’s plan. Fang had wanted to come with me, but since I might have to put some of the food on the back seat of the car, that wouldn’t have been a good idea. He’s such a glutton.
Molly had iced a big rectangular cake like a stained-glass window and lettered ‘Angel Arrowsmith Art Glass’ on to a scroll in the middle. You could have leaded up that design quite easily, so Grant must have had a hand in it.
There were biscuits with stained-glass middles made of melted brightly coloured sweets, as well as some more mundane offerings like mini sausage rolls, cheese straws, quiches and savoury tartlets.
‘I’ve marked anything thatisn’tvegetarian,’ she said. ‘If you’ve invited any vegans, then they’re on their own.’
‘I don’t think I have – but they could eat the crisps and nuts, I suppose.’
We had coffee and a slice of carrot cake before it was time for her to load her deliveries into her little van. I told her about Daisy and the bitch that barked in the night.
‘You’re a terrible woman!’ she said, laughing. ‘Do you think she’ll have gone by the time you get back?’
‘I don’t know. Nor do I know how Carey really feels about her now. You haven’t seen her, but she’s almost unbelievably pretty,’ I said gloomily. ‘He says he’s totally over her but …’
