14. The Offer
In which Fenella Burnish knows what she wants…
Gosie, @Hedgehogforshort, Griffin, Gimbal and Graphic followed Fenella Burnish through to the main workshop, past benches stacked with offcuts of glass sorted by colour rather than size, and racks of finished panels leaning against the far wall waiting for collection. Coils of pre-manufactured H-shaped lead came were looped over hooks on the walls. Light flooded through skylights set at three different heights, and somewhere behind a partition a kiln ticked as it cooled.
Graphic had stopped just inside the doorway and hadn’t moved since.
Fenella walked the length of the room without slowing for any of them, naming nothing, pointing at nothing, letting it announce itself the way the coat had. Only once she’d reached the far bench, where a half-finished pane sat propped in a jig, the lead not yet closed over one corner, did she turn back to face them properly.
“You’ll start in a week,” said Fenella. “Not casual. Proper work, paid at the going rate, materials provided. I’ve more commissions waiting than I have time for, and I don’t often find three people in one room worth building a place around.”
“You,” Fenella said to Graphic, “for the glasswork itself. I’ve watched you standing there for the better part of a minute and you haven’t once looked at the door, only at the glass.” She turned to Griffin before Graphic could answer.
“You, for records. Every workshop this size needs someone who draws what’s actually there rather than what’s supposed to be there, and I’ve never had that, so you’ll also start soon.”
Then to Gimbal. “And you, for whatever it is you do that makes people notice things they’d otherwise walk straight past. I haven’t worked out what to call the job yet. That’s the only part of this that isn’t already settled.”
“All three of us,” said Gimbal, faintly.
“All three. You’ll have the paperwork tomorrow.”
“We’ve already got jobs,” said Griffin, to the back of Fenella’s head, “at the Bluestocking.”
“I’m aware. I’m offering you other ones from Monday,” said Fenella, a fait accompli accomplished.
“We wouldn’t leave the Bluestocking,” said Griffin, before anyone else could answer for themselves or for each other.
“You don’t have to leave the Bluestocking,” said Fenella. “Just live there and work here.”
Gimbal had gone very still in the way that meant she was doing arithmetic. "That’s three job offers,” she said, one paw moving as she counted, “except Gosie hasn’t had one, and neither has Hedgehog, so is it three, or is it three out of five, because those aren’t the same thing at all.” She stopped counting. “Nobody’s had an offer like that before,” she said, faintly, unable to help herself.
“Starting in a week,” said Hedgehog, mostly to herself, “isn’t very much notice.”
“It’s plenty of notice,” said Griffin, rather sharply, apparently on principle rather than conviction.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t plenty.”
“You implied it.”
“I stated a fact.”
Gimbal was still counting, now on both paws. “If it’s three jobs starting the same week, someone has to tell Girdle. Girdle will want it in writing. Then Gasket will want to know if the rota changes, and if the rota changes, someone has to tell Maud, and Maud will already know, because Maud always already knows, so that part, at least, won’t take any time at all.”
“Nobody’s said yes,” said Griffin, loudly, to the room in general, since Fenella had already picked up a pair of pliers and did not appear to be waiting for one.
“And nobody’s going to,” said Hedgehog. “No. Not up for discussion.”
Fenella looked up from the pane for the first time since she’d started on it. “I didn’t realise I’d asked you.”
Into the awkward silence, Gosie said, “I wanted to ask you about your window restoration at Ripon Cathedral.”
Fenella set the pliers down. “Yes, Ripon was ours. Rosalind sent you, I expect. What do you want to know?”
“The restoration of the Chapter House window at Durham Cathedral was the same kind of work, near enough to your restoration at Ripon. The sort you’d never notice unless you knew to look. I wondered if you also worked on the Durham project.”
“That was us too,” said Fenella. “Not many people would have caught that. How did you know? Are you also in conservation?”
“Old glass has variation in it,” said Gosie. “Streaks, bubbles, places where the colour isn’t quite consistent. The Ripon restoration had that. So did Durham. So did Norwich, as it happens. It’s incredible that you were able to get glass to read that old if it wasn’t.”
Fenella actually smiled at that, the first time she had. “I hand roll it myself. Old glass wasn’t made flat in the way modern sheet glass is, so if you want it to look older, you have to make it the same way, faults and all.” She crossed to the bench and lifted a fragment of blue glass, holding it up to the light so the streaks in it showed. “You can’t fake that afterwards. It has to be there from the start.”
“So you were also responsible for the restoration at Norwich Cathedral?” asked Gosie.
“Norwich, too,” said Fenella, “and Winchester.” Fenella turned the fragment over once more before setting it down on the bench, the light catching the blue as it moved.
“That’s a lovely blue,” said Hedgehog, under her breath.
https://myrtlelion.substack.com/p/14-the-offer