There were three of these, a grassy bank separating them from each other.
I wondered whether Friday had fallen into one of these and been drowned. Impossible. They could not be very deep and he would swim to the bank. Nevertheless I called him whenever I came to the Abbey, which I knew was foolish even as I did it; but I could not bear to face the fact that he was gone for ever. I must continue to hope.
I remembered the day when I had first seen Dr. Smith at this spot and he had said that Friday ought to have been brought here on a lead. As soon as I had recovered sufficiently from the shock of Gabriel’s death, I had gone to the old well to look for Friday, but there was no sign of him there.
One day returning from my walk I took a new route and consequently arrived at the back of the house instead of the front, so I entered through a door I had not hitherto used I was in the east wing of the house a part with which I was not yet familiar. All the wings, I discovered, were almost identical with each other, except that the main staircase which led down to the hall past the minstrels’ gallery was in the south wing.
I mounted a flight of stairs to the third floor, knowing that there were communicating corridors between the wings, and I thought I should easily find my way to my own apartments But this was not so, for I found myself in a maze of corridors and I was not sure which was the door which communicated with the south wing.
I hesitated because I was afraid I might walk into someone’s private room.
I knocked at several doors, opened them and found a bed room or’a sitting-room, a sewing-room, but not the corridor I was looking for.
I could either retrace my steps, leave the house and enter by the front door, or continue my search. I decided on the latter realising that it was the only thing to do, for how could I be sure that I would find my way out of such a maze?
In desperation I tried more doors, only to be disappointed. At length when I knocked on one a voice said: ” Come in.” I entered and Aunt Sarah was standing so close to the door back;! that she startled me and I jumped back.
She laughed and put out a thin hand with which she clutched my sleeve.
” Come in,” she said. ” I’ve been expecting you, my dear.”
She ran round me as I entered she seemed more nimble than she was when with the rest of the family and quickly shut the door as though she was afraid I would try to escape ” I know,” she said, ” you’ve come to see my tapestries That’s it, isn’t it?”
” I should greatly enjoy seeing your tapestries,” I told her. “
Actually I lost myself. I came in by the east door. I have never done that before.”
She shook a finger at me as though I were a naughty child ” Ah, it’s easy to lose your way … when you don’t know. You must sit down.”
I was not sorry to do so because I was quite tired from my walk.
She said: ” It was sad about the little dog. He and Gabriel went together. Two of them … lost. That is sad.”
I was surprised that she remembered Friday, and felt at a loss with her, because it was perfectly obvious that at times her mind wandered, that she flitted from past to present in a manner which was disconcerting; but there were occasions when she was capable of unexpected clarity.
I noticed that the walls of this large room were hung with tapestry, all exquisitely worked in bright colours ; I was looking at it in fascination when she noticed this and chuckled with pleasure.
“That’s all my own tapestry,” she said.
“You see what a large space it covers … but there is so much more to be done. Perhaps I shall fill every bit of the walls … unless I die.
I am very old. It would be sad if I died before I had finished all I had to do.” The melancholy expression was replaced by a dazzling smile. ” But that is in the hands of God, is it not? Perhaps if I ask Him in my prayers to let me have a little longer. He will. Do you still say your prayers, Claire? Come and look at my tapestry … come closer. And I will tell you all about it.”
She had taken my hand; her fingers were restless and moved continually; they felt like claws.
” It’s exquisite work,” I said.
“You like it? Claire, you didn’t work hard enough at yours. I have told you many times that it is easy … easy … if you persevere.
I know you had a great deal to do. You used to say that Ruth was such a wilful little thing. Mark was good though … and then there was a new one coming …”
I said gently: “You have forgotten, Aunt Sarah. I am not Claire. I am Catherine, Gabriel’s widow.”
“So you have come to see my tapestry, Catherine. It is time you did. I know you will like it … you more than any.” She came close to me and peered into my face. ” You will figure in my tapestry. I shall know when the time has come.”
” I?”
I asked, bewildered.
” Here. Come close. Look. Do you recognise this?”
“It’s the house …”
She laughed gleefully and pulled me away from the tapestry I was studying, drawing me towards a cupboard which she pulled open. Stacks of canvases fell out. She picked them up laughing. She no longer seemed like an old woman, her movements were so agile. I saw that there was a cupboard within the cupboard, and this she opened to disclose skein upon skein of silks of all colours.
She stroked them lovingly. ” I sit here and I stitch and stitch. I stitch what I see. First I draw it. I will show you my drawings. Once I thought I should be an artist and then I did my tapestry instead. It is so much better, do you not think so?”
” The tapestry is lovely,” I told her. ” I want to look at it more closely.”
” Yes, yes.”
” I want to see that one of the house. It is so real. That is the exact colour of the stones.”
” Sometimes it is not easy to find the right colours,” she said, her face puckering.
” And the people … why, I recognise them.”
” Yes,” she said. ” There is my brother … and my sister Hagar, and there is my niece Ruth and my nephew Mark he died when he was fourteen and Gabriel and Simon, and myself …”
” They are all looking at the house,” I said. She nodded excitedly. “
Yes,” she said, ” we are all looking at the house. Perhaps there should be more looking at the house…. You should be there now…. But I do not think you are looking at the house. Claire didn’t look either. Neither Claire nor Catherine.”
I was not sure what she meant and she did not explain, but went on:
“I see a great deal. I watch. I saw you come. You didn’t see me.”
” You were in the minstrels’ gallery.”
“You saw me?”
” I saw someone.”
She nodded. ” From there you see so much … and are not always seen.
Here is the wedding of Matthew and Claire.”
I was looking at a picture of a church which I recognised as that of Kirkland Moorside; there were the bride and groom, the latter recognisable as Sir Matthew. It was astonishing how she had managed to convey a likeness with those tiny stitches. She was undoubtedly an artist.
” And Ruth’s marriage. He was killed in a hunting accident when Luke was ten. Here it is.”
Then I realised that here on the walls of this room was Rockwell history as seen through the eyes of this strange woman.
She must have spent years of her life recapturing these events and stitching them on to canvas.
I said: ” You are a looker-on at life. Aunt Sarah.”
Her face puckered again and she said almost tearfully:
” You mean I haven’t lived myself … only through others. Is that what you mean, Claire?”