Yesterday’s Sun. Amanda Brooke
to show her client, but there was only one that she felt able to put her heart into and fortunately for her it was the one Mrs Bronson opted for. It was a spiralling form, depicting not just a mother cradling a baby in her arms, but a whole series of figures below them, symbolizing past generations swirling up through the black stone base towards the two white figures. She would still need to complete a scaled-down version first of all for Mrs Bronson to sign off, but for Holly the hardest part was now over with. She had managed to create the concept and she was as happy with it as she could be under the circumstances and given the struggles she had put herself through.
The bell above the door of the gallery settled into silence and both Holly and Sam breathed a sigh of relief as Mrs Bronson disappeared into the distance.
‘Well, that went well,’ Holly said cautiously.
‘Don’t sound so surprised, the design is beautiful. Well done, you. I know it can’t have been easy.’ Sam knew Holly better than most and he knew all about her troubled childhood. ‘I did wonder if it was the right thing for you to take on, but you pulled it off. I don’t think I could have bluffed my way through it. Remind me never to play poker with you.’
‘What do you mean, bluff?’ Holly demanded, although she knew exactly what he meant.
‘Holly, I love you dearly, but, well, you’re not exactly mother-making material, are you? To pull off an art piece of this scale it takes some insight into all that mother-and-child nonsense and I’m afraid you’re just as bad as me: clueless on the subject.’
‘New home, new life. Who says I’m not mother-making material?’ Holly argued. She could feel the colour rising in her face. A week ago she would have agreed wholeheartedly with Sam, they’d had similar conversations before. But now, with Libby’s face appearing like a watermark over everything she saw, Holly didn’t want to hear it.
Sam laughed and hugged her to him. ‘Maybe you’re right, and I hope you are. Just promise me one thing . . .’
‘What’s that?’ Holly asked suspiciously as she unravelled herself from his embrace.
‘For goodness’ sake, don’t bring it with you when you come visit. What’s made in the country, stays in the country.’
‘I promise!’ laughed Holly. ‘Now enough of this, let’s get down to business. How am I going to replenish your stock?’
Although she loved the idea that her work was becoming sought after, she wasn’t prepared to simply churn out sculptures on a conveyor belt to meet demand. Taking on Mrs Bronson’s commission had been bad enough. Sam was persuasive however so she went through some ideas with him and promised to get to work on them if time allowed, once her studio was up and running in the next week or so. In truth, a heavy workload was going to be a welcome distraction during Tom’s absence.
Sam did his best to persuade Holly to stay longer but she was on a mission. She had one more job to do before she left for home. Holly said her goodbyes and then weaved her way back across London, heading for the British Library, where she hoped to get some inspiration for the type of stone she would use in Mrs Bronson’s sculpture. At least, that was the reason she kept giving herself.
The library was vast and Holly would have felt lost if she hadn’t already spent countless hours if not days searching through its obsessively stacked and indexed treasures. She wasted no time in tracking down the reference books she needed to decide upon the stone and even less time on deciding which type of stone to use. Holly closed the last book she had been leafing through and stacked it up with the rest on the reading desk she was occupying. She tapped her fingers distractedly on the stack of books. She hadn’t fooled herself. She had already known she would choose black marble for the base of her sculpture, it was the obvious choice, and the upper section would be formed from clay.
A man at the next table cleared his throat and stared meaningfully at Holly. Holly’s hand froze mid tap. She hadn’t realized she had been tapping so loudly. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.
Holly returned her books and asked a library assistant for help looking up any records of Hardmonton Hall. It wasn’t the Hall that interested her as much as it was the origins of the moondial. Her desire to find out more about the dial had nothing to do with her hallucination, she told herself, she was simply doing research on what was a very interesting, if not mysterious, centrepiece in her garden. It took Holly quite a while, with the occasional direction from one very patient and helpful assistant, to gather all of two books on the subject. Sitting back at her reading desk, Holly opened the first book. It was a collected history of English architecture, specializing in Tudor manor houses, and Hardmonton Hall was listed in its index. Holly flicked through until she came to the relevant section. There were only a handful of pages devoted to the Hall, most of which were illustrations and plans of the buildings and grounds. It was in a plan of the ornate gardens that flowed from the back of the Hall that Holly eventually found evidence of the moondial. It was, or had been, located in what appeared to be a large stone circle. The circle was divided into four segments with an inner circle where the moondial would have been sited. From this centrepiece, four wide stone paths led outwards, separated by flower beds of some sort.
The second book was a wild card and Holly held out little hope that it would uncover any more of the dial’s history. It was a book on great archaeological expeditions in the nineteenth century and although there was no reference to the Hall itself, there was a reference to one of the previous Lord Hardmontons. Leafing through the book, Holly found the chapter she was looking for. She frowned as she skimmed through page after page of text. Charles Hardmonton had been a renowned explorer involved in expeditions all over the world and, as interesting as this local history was to Holly, she could feel a growing frustration building inside her.
Her impatience grew as she tracked Lord Hardmonton’s adventures from one side of the globe to the other and she prepared herself for disappointment as she turned each page. In a fit of pique, she skipped through to the last paragraph. Lord Hardmonton’s career as an explorer had come to an abrupt end when he fell out of favour with his sponsors during his last recorded expedition to central Mexico in search the Temple of Coyolxauhqui, the Aztec moon goddess.
Holly’s eyes narrowed in concentration as she read the name again. Could this be the connection to the moondial? Retracing her steps, Holly leafed backwards through the book, checking through the text again to see if there were any other references, but her efforts went unrewarded.
Never one to accept defeat easily, Holly knew she had reached a dead end. She closed the book with such force that the contents of the entire table rattled and then she stood up quickly and her chair scraped against the tiled floor.
‘Shush!’ hissed the man at the next reading table. It was the same man who had coughed at her earlier. Holly glowered at him.
‘Shush yourself,’ hissed Holly as she stomped past his desk. ‘I’d have been better off at home searching on Google, at least the company would have been better.’
Holly stopped in her tracks as her words echoed across the room and then she did an about turn. Ignoring the snooty glare from her fellow reader, she returned to her desk and reopened the book, found the reference to the name of the Aztec goddess and scribbled it down. Googling for information wasn’t such a bad idea.
It was only in the bright May sunshine that Holly started to relax again and her thoughts returned to the day’s successes. She had plenty of work to keep her out of trouble and she was keen to return to the village. As Holly entered the train station, she spotted a gift-shop window crammed with teddy bears and she was reminded of Sam’s cutting remarks about her lack of maternal feelings. Sam had inadvertently given her the push she needed and, without a moment’s hesitation, she strode into the shop and bought her unborn daughter the brightest, pinkest teddy bear she could find.
Holly hadn’t eaten since breakfast and her stomach was rumbling by the time she returned to Fincross late that afternoon. It made the decision to take a detour and pay a visit to Jocelyn’s teashop an easy one. She would be fulfilling her promise to the old lady and, besides, she wanted to celebrate her day’s achievements and she couldn’t do that