Through the trees Gabby could see the yellow arm of the mechanical digger in the top field. It was the end of an era. No more cattle or the sweet grassy smell of them bringing the flies into the garden in summer. No sound of cows’ teeth munching the new green blades in sharp little stretch and pulling sounds. No wheezy human-sounding bovine coughs making them jump in the dark.
Charlie had occasionally ploughed a portion of the top field for cabbages or kale, and when Josh was small he and his friends had wrinkled their noses at the smell of rotting greens. But cabbages had been infinitely better than executive houses.
‘I wouldn’t have sold an acre of land if I’d had a choice,’ Charlie said miserably, watching the digger throwing up dark earth in all directions like an angry elephant. He was secretly appalled by that great arm tearing at his sacred field. Gabby and Nell could see that, despite his effort to appear businesslike, he felt as sick as they did.
‘We’ll get used to it,’ Nell said quickly. ‘We’ll make a wind-break to hide the houses. We can fill the gap with trees.’
‘Of course we’ll get used to it,’ Gabby said, wanting to cry. ‘Charlie, you had to do it, we know that, it’s just …’
‘I know,’ Charlie said abruptly, turning away and striding in his muddy boots across the farmyard. He hoisted himself up into the Land Rover and drove noisily down the lane to look at his pheasant chicks, something he always did when he wanted to be alone.
‘Oh, Nell,’ Gabby said. ‘This is far worse for you; you’ve lived here longer than either of us.’
Nell lifted her shoulders in a pragmatic little shrug.
‘I hate seeing any of the land go, Gabby, but we have to survive and it’s better than losing the farm or having the financial worries Ted and I had. Charlie is more businesslike than his father. That huge field had its limitations; it slopes, it’s exposed to the wind, and it’s stony. At least we keep the south end and the views. Those houses are going to lose the sun early and they won’t have a view. It’s just that we’re all sentimentally attached, it’s such a beautiful field. Does Josh know work has started?’
‘No, not yet, I’ve avoided mentioning it. You know how Josh likes things to stay exactly the same, he and Charlie argued about it last summer. Josh knows Charlie had no choice, but he refused to see why the paddock by the road couldn’t be sold instead. He wouldn’t accept that the paddock wouldn’t bring in enough money. Also, Nell, he feels guilty about minding so much when he’s not prepared to take on the farm himself.’
They walked slowly back towards the house, and as Nell reached her cottage she said, ‘You realize Charlie hasn’t given up on that one? He thinks Josh will come into the business later when he’s a bit older, when he’s tired of doing his own thing.’
Gabby hesitated. She was sure Josh would not change his mind. He had chosen his career and she felt, so strongly that it shocked her, that she did not want him to change it.
‘He might, Nell, but I doubt it. He loves it here, it’s his home, but farming isn’t something to do lightly or for sentimental reasons, is it? It gets harder every year. He would have to go to agricultural college, he’d have to be totally committed, and who knows what farming is going to be like for his generation? I mean, few jobs are for life any more.’
Nell laughed. ‘You sound like a little old general.’
Gabby made a face. ‘Do I? How is that huge picture of yours coming on?’
‘It’s a nightmare! Come and have a look. It feels like the Forth Bridge. All I’ve done so far is run some tests.’
They went into Nell’s chaotic cottage. Her two old cats lay curled together in the lid of a sewing basket in front of the Aga. Nell led the way, treading over old Sunday papers that littered the floor, into her pristine workroom where Mahler was playing quietly. Gabby never ceased to be amazed at how Nell managed to keep this one room like an operating theatre when the rest of the house grew more like an animal refuge every year.
Both women stood staring at the painting of a stout, bosomy lady clad in pearls and evening dress in an attractive oval frame. The painting looked as if it had been housed in a damp attic for many years, and Nell rather wished it had stayed there.
‘It’s a lovely frame,’ Gabby said. ‘The woman is …’
‘… Hideous!’ Nell snorted. ‘The canvas is in a bad way, as you can see, but it is a quality painting, although I’m unsure if it’s as valuable as the Browns believe it to be. I’ve told them to seek expert opinion; I’m out of date with valuations.’
‘I suppose they want you to clean and restore it before they have it valued?’
‘I think they hope to send it to Christies.’
Gabby peered more closely at it. It had craquelure or crocodiling almost everywhere and the paint on the dress was flaking badly. In the hands of someone less expert than Nell the picture could end up more restoration than painting.
‘Nell, I’m not surprised you’re quailing. This is going to take a lot of work. I thought you were going to refuse larger paintings?’
‘I was. They caught me at a weak moment. They’ve dated her around 1892. She’s been restored before, twice they think, possibly in the 1930s. It looks as though it’s been consolidated with wax-resin and just surface cleaned, but I’d have said it had been cleaned at a later date, possibly in the 1950s.’
Gabby and Nell stared down at the painting. The discoloration of both the varnish and overpaints had affected the image, and excessive restoration in the background meant that no detail could be seen and all sense of the painting was impaired. Gabby was interested in the process of the restoration.
‘I could come and help you as soon as I’ve finished cleaning The Cobbler’s Cats.’
‘I thought you had this figurehead restoration in St Piran coming up?’
‘Peter’s asked me to go and look at it but I’m not sure I’ll get the job, Nell. I haven’t got any experience of figureheads. Anyway, I could help you in the evenings.’
‘See what happens before you commit yourself to helping me. When are you going to see it?’
‘It’s arriving in London from Canada and is being driven down to Cornwall next week. Oh, Nell, I’d really love to be given the chance of restoring her.’
‘There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t be offered the job, Gabby. You’ve got a growing reputation and it reflects the work you’re starting to be offered.’
Gabby smiled. ‘I’ve had an excellent teacher.’
Nell patted her arm. ‘Coffee?’
‘I’d better get to work, Nell, half the morning has gone.’ Gabby preferred her coffee without cat hairs in it. ‘Let me help you get this doughty woman out of her frame before I go.’
They eased the painting out of its frame and laid it carefully on Nell’s table, face up and uncovered to avoid any more paint loss. The portrait was large and had obviously been moved frequently as there were lines of stretcher marks where it had been folded, and the craquelure followed the lines of a stretcher and had caused the most damage.
‘I wonder if she was passed from one family member to another in desperation, constantly being removed from her frame, poor old dear,’ Gabby said.
‘Well, someone loved her enough to commission a huge six-foot painting of her. Removing the overpaint is going to take the most time.’ Nell peered at the woman’s bosoms with a magnifying glass. ‘I’ll remove that varnish with isopropanol. Can you see? There’s a thin layer of discoloured natural resin. I’m going to have to remove most of the more recent restorations. I suspect …’ Nell moved over to the foreground of the lady’s sumptuous dress ‘… that each restorer has altered the tone of the previous overpaint, rather than removing it. I’m pretty sure I’ll find layers concealing more damage …’
Gabby smiled as she watched Nell. She was already caught in the excitement of restoring. Her face had come suddenly alive as her eyes darted to and fro, assessing the damage with a keen and professional eye. It was this, Nell’s passionate interest in her work, that had fired Gabby’s imagination and curiosity all those years ago.
Gabby walked across the farmyard back to the house. Despite the distant noise of the digger a feeling of contentment filled her. She had been afraid when Josh left home that the gap he left would yawn before her, yet slowly but steadily the work had come in to distract her. She had now got to the stage of having to refuse commissions. For the first time in her life she was able to make a financial contribution to the farm, and it felt wonderful.
She walked through the kitchen to her workroom, which was the oldest part of the house with a cobbled floor that had once been Charlie’s office. The window looked out on the small, walled garden which dipped downhill to the daffodil fields.
At the start of every daffodil season Gabby would stand transfixed by the green and yellow sloping fields full of emerging buds and the startling vivid blue of the ocean behind them. The scene was reminiscent of the poster of daffodil pickers that had been stuck on the classroom wall at school. It had been that poster that had enticed her to run away and climb on a coach to Cornwall.
She moved away from the window to the small painting propped up on an easel. She wanted to finish it today. It was the last of her backlog as she had decided not to take on any more commissions until she had seen the figurehead next week.
Ever since Peter Fletcher, the curator from the museum in Truro, had rung her she had felt restless with anticipation. She thought about this lost figurehead making its way from Canada on its last voyage home. She tried not to think how disappointed she would be if she was not offered the job of restoring it.
She picked up a swab of cotton wool on a stick from the jam-jar beside her and started to work, concentrating, engrossed, as her fingers moved deftly, defining detail and discovering small hidden surprises out of layers of dirt. She smiled as she discovered under the old cobbler’s hands, not darkness, but a beautiful drawer of nails.