The Glass Painter's Daughter Read online

  ‘Well, yes, of course. They are the messengers of God. The Bible is full of…Miss Brownlow, you mock me.’

  ‘No, no, I am completely serious. It’s the idea of your religion being decided by the beauty of its trappings that I find mocking. Is that what your belief is to you, a matter of seduction?’

  ‘Not at all. I am stung. My soul responds to beauty, yes, how can anyone help that? The plainness of the religion of my birth might emanate from a sincere wish to concentrate on matters spiritual, but it has starved me of so much. One can worship God through beauty, I find.’

  ‘And what if there is no beauty? Where is God then?’ An image of the Cooper family in their slum flashed into Laura’s mind, another of her mother sitting with bowed head, tears falling into her lap. ‘Where is God when there is only poverty and pain and death?’

  They stood together without speaking, he studying her, his eyes full of concern. ‘I know something about suffering, Miss Brownlow,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Come.’ Taking her arm he led her out of the chapel and over to the Crucifixion window.

  He said, ‘You must ask the man who created this. There, he is telling us–there, in the midst of pain and death–that is where God is.’

  ‘I…I know. That is what Papa says. But I…I don’t always see Him,’ whispered Laura. ‘And it makes me afraid.’

  Behind them, the vestry door opened and closed again as Mr Perkins came and went.

  The church seemed to settle with a sigh. Outside, a cart clattered, metal on stone, and a woman began to laugh, a harsh maniacal laugh that went on and on, fading into the distance.

  ‘My parents give their lives to God’s work, Mr Russell. They pour out their lifeblood to the destitute, to those with no hope. Yet they have received little thanks, little reward. Instead God takes their children from them. My mother…my mother, Mr Russell…is sick with grief. She finds no healing in her work.’

  ‘But think of the people they help. Only one of the ten lepers came back to thank Our Lord for healing him, but that didn’t mean His deed was worthless.’

  ‘I sometimes think the poor and godless like being poor and godless,’ Laura said quietly. She knew that was uncharitable. Yet some showed no gratitude; indeed, they plainly resented what they saw as interference and moralising. She thought bitterly of Mr Cooper, recently sprung, unrepentant, from his cell, at her father’s pleading.

  Her attention was caught by something on a pew below the broken window. It was a pebble. She picked it up and showed him. ‘Some have hearts of stone.’

  ‘Even stone wears away over time.’

  ‘Do you know, Mr Russell, my father receives letters complaining about his ministry. Rude, hateful letters, decrying incense and statuary and decoration in the church, all of them unsigned. Whoever this ignorant person is, he does not see that these things are symbols of my father’s piety. My father does not worship the statues. He does not spend money on himself, but to glorify God.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear this. Anyone who knows your father can see that he is a man of God.’

  ‘He is the last man in the world to deserve the blows that life has dealt him. My mother, too. They have always done their duty. I cannot bear to see their sorrow. Do you and your wife have children, Mr Russell?’

  ‘Yes, indeed. We have a son, five years old, named John. He lives with his mother.’

  ‘With his mother?’

  ‘My wife and I live apart. It is a great sadness.’

  ‘I am sorry, I intrude.’

  ‘You don’t, Miss Brownlow. I wanted you to know about this. The decision was not mine. I would have it otherwise.’

  ‘And do you see your son?’

  ‘I try to see him, but do not find it easy. He is too young to understand. If his mother is not near, or his nursemaid, he cries for them. I am practically a stranger to him, it seems.’

  ‘Perhaps it will be easier when he is older.’

  ‘I have to hope so.’

  ‘Or maybe you will become reconciled with your wife.’

  ‘Miss Brownlow, I have loved unwisely and too well. I adored Marie with every fibre of my being. I still adore her. If I weren’t standing here in a house of prayer and if it weren’t a blasphemy, I would say I worship her. Yet she is possessed of a wild beauty and a passionate temperament. Other, baser men have not been able to resist what is mine. And so I have lost her.’

  ‘You mean…’

  ‘That she left me for a lover, yes. Though she presently lodges with her parents for the fellow is penniless. He too left a wife, so there are two families brought to ruin. If I had not my work I do not know what I would do with myself. Go mad, I suppose. I have been driven to hell, Miss Brownlow. Perhaps I shock you. If so, I am sorry. But we talk of suffering.’ He spoke gently and his face was expressionless.

  ‘No, I am not shocked. Just sorry, very sorry for all your pain.’ Laura could only whisper for fear her voice would break. She felt such a sudden tenderness for him.

  ‘Thank you. Your sympathy means something to me. There are some too ready to cast blame. My parents are ashamed. They objected to my marriage in the first place, blamed me for aspiring to a life beyond their narrow horizons. The fault is therefore all mine, they say. Their friends will not receive me, not that this is of great moment. I grieve more for John, passing beyond my reach.’

  ‘Is there nothing more to be done?’

  ‘Nothing that will not hurt him more. I will not try to wrest him from his mother, though the law might take my side on this, seeing as I am the wronged party.’

  There were footsteps in the porch and the door opened. They turned to see Mr Bond enter, followed by a policeman.

  ‘You are still here then,’ said Mr Bond, a little abruptly, glaring at Mr Russell, who merely inclined his head.

  ‘See, I have found one of the missiles,’ Laura said quickly. Mr Bond held out his hand and Laura tipped the pebble into his palm. Their eyes met but their fingers did not touch.

  A line from the story she was writing ran through her mind. I asked for your heart and you gave me a stone. It was as though she had spoken the words aloud, for sudden despair flared in his face.

  She would have to tell him her decision, soon.

  Chapter 15

  Every visible thing in this world is put in the charge of an angel.

  St Augustine, The City of God

  On Tuesday Jeremy rang.

  ‘I’m putting together an agenda for next Sunday’s PCC meeting,’ he said, ‘and I want to raise the matter of our angel window. Have you made any progress?’

  ‘I had another quick look at Dad’s papers on Sunday, Jeremy,’ I said. ‘I need more time–I’m sorry. I’ll let you know the minute I find anything new.’

  ‘Thank you, Fran.’ He cleared his throat and went on hesitantly, ‘I could see that you were upset on Friday, and I feel bad about it. It must be hard for you at the moment. I wanted you to know that you are in my thoughts.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, slightly stiffly. I was still very upset that Dad had confided in him and not me, though I kept telling myself it was wrong to blame Jeremy.

  ‘Sarah and I are here for you, you know,’ he went on. ‘If you need us in any way.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said again, but this time more warmly. They were doing their best to help.

  Later that morning, the redelivery from the wholesaler arrived. Amber and I spent a couple of hours checking the order was correct, unpacking the boxes, stacking new glass and hanging the lampshades, whilst Zac settled down in the workshop, surrounded by books and papers, to draw a church window design he’d been invited to submit.

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ I remarked, as I studied his drawing, the rainbow halo-ing Noah’s Ark from which animals were streaming.

  ‘They want something fairly simple in antique glass,’ he told me. ‘It’s to complement a medieval Adam and Eve in the same wall. I’ll have to use David’s studio to do the finer cutting and sandblasting, if my des
ign’s chosen.’ He gazed around the workshop as he said this and I suddenly saw what he meant. We couldn’t offer any of the technical sophistication many modern pieces demanded. I realised then how loyal Zac had been to my father, staying here, using the old methods. I wondered if David had ever offered him a job. I felt a surge of gratitude.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Zac,’ I said.

  He must have felt my sincerity for he replied, ‘He’s been so good to me, your dad.’

  ‘Yes, you said.’ I waited for him to go on.

  After a moment, he told me, ‘There was a time I was rock bottom–no money, no place to go–and he took me on, gave me a chance. I wouldn’t ever want to let him down.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked him, puzzled. Zac had never made reference to this period before, but then the phone rang and we listened to Amber answer it in the shop. After a moment she came in and said, ‘It’s a Mrs Armitage, wants to know how long her designs will be.’

  ‘Mrs Armitage.’ Zac and I looked at one another. I got there first.

  ‘Oh goodness–the children’s panels. We haven’t done anything about them. OK, I’ll speak to her, Amber.’

  Mrs Armitage was naturally anxious that she hadn’t heard from us, the children’s birthday being only weeks away. Could they see the designs as soon as possible? I made the right soothing noises, assuring her there was plenty of time.

  ‘I’ll do them when I’ve finished this,’ promised Zac, but he was still working up his Ark and there wasn’t much enthusiasm in his voice.

  ‘What do the people want?’ Amber asked tentatively. I showed her the Armitages’ photographs of the boy with the fishing rod and the girl with the butterfly.

  ‘They’re lovely,’ she breathed. ‘Could I try and draw a design?’

  I was so surprised that I said, ‘OK. They understand they can’t have exactly the same thing–I’ve explained to them about copyright. Fortunately, they say they want to be different from their American friends.’ I showed her a pile of pattern books where she might look for further ideas and she laid them out on the counter and worked on them for most of the afternoon.

  I was pleased that she did a very creditable job. The little girl she drew was feeding a bird and surrounded by greenery. The boy was wearing Chelsea strip and dribbling a ball.

  ‘I’m not sure they’ll go for that one,’ I said. ‘I got the impression they wanted something a little more…’ the word ‘twee’ came into my mind but I chose ‘unworldly’.

  Amber didn’t seem to mind me rejecting her design. She immediately started thumbing through some of the books again and, after a while, she showed me a drawing of a boy sailing a boat on a pond.

  ‘That’s great!’ I cried. ‘Look, Zac, they’ll go for this, won’t they?’

  Zac studied the drawings and nodded. ‘They’re very good, Amber. After I’ve finished this I’ll teach you to work up your designs into a proper pattern. Then we can look at some glass samples and try to cost the project.’

  Amber looked so happy I thought she’d burst with pride.

  After she’d gone, Zac called through from the workshop, ‘Fran, have you touched the angel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I expect Amber’s been messing with it then.’

  ‘Why, what’s the matter?’

  ‘Come and look.’

  Zac was straightening the lining paper on the table, and I saw with a little shock that the carefully arranged pieces of glass and lead were skewed.

  ‘I expect someone’s knocked it,’ I said, wondering if I could have done it while moving that screen the other day. I didn’t think so. I’d tried to be so careful.

  Zac grunted and started rearranging all the bits with quick fingers.

  ‘OK,’ he said, stopping suddenly. ‘Where’s the rest of the face?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There are some bits missing. The eyes. The eyes have gone.’

  ‘Are you sure? Are they on the floor?’

  We looked. Nothing.

  ‘In the box then.’

  Zac took the box down from the shelf. Together we picked out the remaining glass fragments. No luck.

  ‘That’s weird. I might have jogged the paper by accident, Zac, but I haven’t done anything else, I promise.’

  ‘Well someone has, that’s for certain.’

  ‘Does it matter very much? The face was so battered anyway, it would have been difficult to reconstruct it.’

  ‘We would have tried. Damn it, Fran, we should have taken more care.’

  ‘Amber swept the workshop yesterday,’ I remembered suddenly. ‘Oh, don’t say we’ve got to go through the dustbin! That’s horrible.’

  Zac gave me his dourest look of grim determination.

  ‘Zac, no!’

  ‘Aye, it’s got to be done.’

  There were three black bin bags to go through. One by one, Zac shook their contents onto newspaper in the back yard. There were dozens of glass chippings to go through. We turned them all over, every one. Zac made sure of that. But none of them were the missing pieces. Eventually even Zac gave up.

  ‘We’ll just have to manage, Zac. I’m sorry. I’m sure we can’t use those pieces properly again anyway. Who’d want an angel with a bashed-up face?’

  ‘That’s not the point, Fran. We’d be expected to try. Fill in the gaps with resin.’

  ‘Well, it’s not as though we’re getting anywhere with the thing anyway,’ I said. We were both despondent now.

  Apart from a couple of hours on Sunday I’d had no opportunity to go through more files upstairs. I wouldn’t say I’d given up, just that I’d had other things to distract me. Zac had done his bit, visiting one or two libraries in the hope of finding a picture. But he, too, had drawn a blank.

  ‘The mysterious disappearing angel,’ I said, with a sigh.

  ‘Aye, and now even the bits are disappearing,’ he grunted, hunched up, hands in his pockets.

  He mooned about all the next day. Occasionally I caught him breaking off from some other task to stand staring down at the angel, a preoccupied look on his face. When we asked her, Amber swore blind that she hadn’t been near it, and there was no reason not to believe her.

  Wednesday slipped by. At six o’clock I remembered that I’d agreed to meet Jo but I hadn’t heard any more from her about it. I dialled her number.

  ‘Oh Fran, I’m sorry. I’ve just heard I’ve got to work this evening, after all.’

  ‘What a shame.’ I was disappointed.

  ‘Are you free on Friday?’ she asked.

  ‘No, as Ben’s asked me to go to a concert with him.’

  ‘Ben?’ Jo squealed. ‘That’s wonderful!’

  ‘Don’t get excited,’ I said. ‘It’s only because he had a spare ticket. What about the weekend. Saturday?’

  ‘I think I’m likely to be busy,’ she said hesitantly, but she didn’t say doing what. ‘Sunday’s no good either. Look, can we talk next week? I’m really sorry. Oh, I forgot to ask,’ she rushed on. ‘How do you think Amber’s doing? She really loves the work, you know.’

  ‘We’re very happy with her,’ I said. ‘She’s a fast learner.’

  I came off the phone feeling disturbed and not a little hurt. Jo had been so evasive about meeting up–or was this my imagination? She had at least offered Friday, I remembered, and her excited reaction heightened the pleasurable feeling running through me at the thought of seeing Ben.

  Chapter 16

  Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

  Thomas Carlyle

  On Friday evening I left at seven-fifteen to meet Ben in the church just as heavy drops of rain started to dash onto the dusty pavements. I wished now I hadn’t chosen open-toed sandals, but they were the only shoes that went with my favourite red skirt and denim jacket, and it was too late to change now.

  I could hear the distant notes of the organ grow louder as I turned the corner into Vincent Street, and when I opened the door of the ch
urch, they rolled over me in a swell of sound that vibrated through my whole body. It was a Bach Fugue–in F, I worked out after a moment. The soaring scales expressed ecstatic worship in a way words never could.

  From where I stood in the doorway, the organ loft rose above my head. I tiptoed down the aisle and slid into a choir stall to watch and listen, the grey evening light coming through the windows and the heavy scent of incense and lilies adding to the mystical atmosphere. Had it been just like this when Laura sat here, more than a hundred years ago?

  All I could see of Ben was his bright hair as he played so I sat back and closed my eyes, letting the music course through me. When he paused at the end of a movement, I clapped.

  ‘Hello,’ he called down, his voice echoey. ‘Sorry, got carried away. Didn’t realise you were here. Just a moment.’

  He vanished and I heard papers scuffling and footsteps on wood before he reappeared through the wooden gate below, straightening the collar of his silvery-grey sports jacket.

  ‘That was magnificent,’ I said. ‘I’m no good on the subject of church organs, but it really doesn’t sound too bad.’

  ‘It’s awful. Couldn’t you hear the wheezing? The stops badly need renewing. It’s the original Willis. Not going to be cheap to restore.’ But he was smiling, exhilarated, as I was, by the music and the atmosphere. A man in his element.

  His fingers brushed my arm lightly. ‘Come on, we ought to go.’

  We shared a red tartan umbrella, which he liberated from the vestry, and forged our way out through the lashing rain.

  ‘You women are so daft,’ he cried, as he held my arm, guiding me between puddles. ‘Why do you never dress properly?’

  ‘What–in sensible shoes? Be elegant or die has always been my motto,’ I retorted and he laughed. He was close; the heady scent of lilies and incense from the church still clung about him.

  We ran through the thickening downpour, madly dodging puddles and shrieking with laughter. When we reached Smith Square, our red tartan joined the sober-looking queue of black umbrellas edging its way inside St John’s Church. Several people shot us looks of alarm, probably fearing we were drunk, so we did our best to calm down.