Page 79 of The House of Hopes and Dreams
I bashed my leg on the corner of something and stopped to rub it. ‘I will if I can get through all this stuff – I haven’t got a torch.’
One of them lit the way and I hobbled on more carefully. Carey’s idea of what was exciting was not always the same as mine anyway, so when I got nearer I said brightly, ‘I know what it is – you’ve found a body, haven’t you? How lovely for the documentary!’
Carey grinned. ‘No, it’s a treasure trove– just wait till you seethis!’
‘Is it the Jewel of Mossby?’ I said more eagerly.
‘No, it’s not any kind of jewel, though you’ll think it’s as good as one,’ Ivan assured me.
They made way and I stared down into the box at long rolls of paper.
‘We seem to have found a cache of drawings and cartoons belonging to Jessie Kaye – but when we unrolled a bit of the first one, it looks like she’s made a full-colour cartoon of the Lady Anne window.’
‘Oh, happy day!’ I cried ecstatically and fell to my knees, carefully unrolling the corner and seeing the familiar basketwork edging and diamond panes, each with its odd circular central motif.
‘I can’t see properly up here,’ I said, frustrated. ‘Could we carry the whole box downstairs? And thank God it’s tin,’ I added devoutly, ‘so no mice or damp have got in.’
‘They seem in pristine condition to me,’ Carey said. ‘It’s all dry as a bone up here anyway. Come on, Louis, you and I can carry it down between us – it’s not heavy.’
I tested the weight of one end and I couldn’t have carried it myself, so I made no objection as they picked it up and bore it through the attics like a small coffin, with myself and Ivan following, though as celebrants rather than mourners. It was a bit awkward to manoeuvre down the stairs, but finally they got it to the studio. I darted ahead and spread newspaper on the floor and fetched a duster, so I could clean if off before we opened it again.
At some time, the box had been painted a celestial blue, both inside and out, and had probably been specially made to hold rolls of cartoons. Maybe they had a mouse problem down at the workshop even then?
We carefully unrolled everything, spreading each sheet out on the desk, table and floor, weighting the corners down with whatever came to hand.
As Carey had guessed, the outer one was a large and exact full-colour copy of the Lady Anne window.
‘That’s going to be vital when I do the repairs, because I can see exactly how it looked before it got broken,’ I said, gloating over it. ‘The bit that got knocked out entirely looks like a spiky star, but it’s yellow, so I expect it’s supposed to be the sun.’
‘It’s a strange window for the time,’ Ivan said, studying it.
‘How do you mean?’ asked Louis.
‘You look up seventeenth-century windows on your internet thing, and you’ll see,’ he told him. ‘They don’t look like patchwork quilts, as a rule.’
‘That’s interesting. It reminded me of a sampler, Ivan,’ I said. ‘Pretty, isn’t it, even if some of the motifs are a bit bizarre, like that open eye?’
‘I think it’s all about Mossby – the sun shining down on the house and everyone going about their usual business,’ Carey suggested. ‘The various symbols that look random to us presumably meant something at the time.’
There was a full-size cartoon and the cutline of Jessie Kaye’s landingwindow, too, with a sheet of her original design ideas and notes written on the edge in a bold hand, though the ink was a little faded.
The final roll was for the inner hall windows, the design of which had been repeated in each panel.
‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘no more. Perhaps the rest of her cartoons and cutlines were stored in that big cupboard in the workshop and the mice ate them.’
‘I could line that cupboard with sheets of tin, if you like,’ offered Ivan. ‘I did that to the inside of my shed years ago to keep out the vermin and there’s still a few sheets laid by.’
‘That would be a great idea, just in case,’ I enthused, because I didn’t want my cartoons turning into rodent confetti.
Later, after Ivan and Louis had gone home, I went straight back to the studio, where Carey helped me to flatten out the cartoons and put them up round the walls, with the one for the Lady Anne window directly opposite my worktable.
Carey’s voice jogged me out of the trance I’d fallen into.
‘Right: that’s enough for tonight. We’re both tired and a bit filthy. A shower and something to eat is called for: tomorrow is another day, Scarlett!’
‘Don’t tell meGone with the Windwas on the hospital library trolley, too?’
‘No, I’ve seen the old film,’ he said. ‘I thought it was a load of rubbish at the time, but it sort of stuck with me. That Scarlett seemed to love Tara to the point of obsession.’
