Monica Ferris_Needlecraft Mysteries_03 (5 page)

Betsy said, “Well, yes, of course! I remember learning about that in Sunday school. Saint Lucy was a pair of eyes on a plate, ugh! And the four evangelists were an angel, an eagle, a lion, and—what?”

“An ox. And the Trinity was a triangle or three interlocking circles. We use both here at Trinity, one overlaying the other. Not all of the attributes are for saints. Some symbolize various aspects of God or of Christian virtues. The horse means war, unless he's ridden, in which case horse and rider stand for our Lord Christ.”

“So what was the idea of using attributes in this tapestry?”

“Perhaps to give it an all-saints theme as well as Good Shepherd? Hmm, this looks like a rowboat. I wonder who that symbolizes. Mrs. Abrams seems to have been something of an expert on Christian symbology—unless, unless!”

“Unless what?”

“There's an old book up in my office on Christian symbols. Can you watch over this for just two minutes?”

“Of course.”

Father John hustled out of the room. Betsy traced another of the attributes with a finger. A boar? Maybe Lucy was saying something about husbands. Betsy normally referred to her ex-husband Hal as the Pig.

Hey, here was a cat, and over here was another, one sitting and the other crouching. Was that significant? Perhaps more than one person worked on this, and they forgot who was doing the cat. Here were three crowns in a tight pattern; she remembered that three crowns meant Saint Elizabeth of Hungary. Her Sunday school teacher's name was Elizabeth, and so made a point about this Saint Elizabeth's attribute. And Betsy remembered because that was her name, too. But the other emblems were hieroglyphics to her. She hoped Father John could find the book about these symbols. She rummaged in her purse for a notebook and couldn't find one, so she pulled her checkbook out of its folder and started to copy the symbols onto the cardboard back.

“Hello, Betsy,” said a woman's voice.

“Hm?” Betsy said, straightening and turning. “Oh, hello, Patricia! Look what we've found! Little pictures, saints' attributes, in the halo. I'm so glad we don't have to redo this part. That would take special skills.”

Patricia took a breath, held it, then leaned forward to look very briefly at the halo. She straightened and said, “Why, yes, I hadn't noticed that before. What did you call them?”

“Attributes. Father John has gone to get a book on them. I want to see who they represent. I know the three crowns are Elizabeth, and the shamrock is Saint Patrick, but here, who has a horseshoe? Isn't this interesting? Like a puzzle. And look, there are two cats. I wonder why.”

But Patricia was taking two steps backward, fishing for a handkerchief in her purse. “That's very interesting and clever. I wonder what metallic she used for those, er, attributes that maintained its shine all these years? Real silver would tarnish, and anyway I don't think you could get real silver thread until fairly recently. Maybe aluminum ... Such very fine stitching, too, looks as if it was done with a single thread.”

Reminded, Betsy said, “Patricia, there may be another problem.” She showed Patricia the moth-eaten section of mantle and was just starting to say something about twelve-year-old dye lots when Godwin appeared, breathless from hurry, with a dozen strands of wool in one gloved hand.

“This is what we have in stock,” he said. “Hello, Mrs. Fairland,” and added, “Customer waiting,” over his shoulder as he turned and rushed out again.

Betsy tried each strand over the mantle. None of them matched. “See, this is what I was worried about.”

“Oh, dear,” said Patricia.

“Yes,” said Betsy, her eyes estimating the size of the mantle. She wished she'd done what Jill had suggested, memorized the length and width of her hand, so she'd have a way to gauge size when she didn't have a measuring tape in reach.

“Now look, Betsy, if we have to redo this whole area, that will take a lot of wool, which I'm sure will be a real hardship for you. Why don't you just forget that offer of a donation? As I told you, I'm starting a drive to name the renovated library after Father Keane. He was so popular that I'm sure we'll succeed. We could even raise the money to pay for a professional restoration of the tapestry, I'm sure.”

Betsy, surprised and grateful, opened her mouth to accept the offer, but to her even greater surprise what came out was, “But Martha has told the Monday Bunch, and they're all excited about the project. I'd hate to disappoint them. I'll check around for more samples—and so what if I have to supply enough for all the mantle? I hardly think even that much wool will send my shop into bankruptcy.”

Patricia frowned doubtfully. “Well, if you're really sure ...”

Betsy said, “I'm sure. Now, I'd better get back to the shop. Godwin needs his lunch break.”

On her way up the stairs, she met Father John. He was carrying a thick book. “It took me awhile to find it on my shelves,” he apologized. He opened it at random to display a page divided into six squares, each with a simple line drawing in it: a book pierced by a sword, a ship's wheel, a harp, a lantern, a Celtic cross, a pair of pincers. The facing page was part of a dictionary of saints' names with their dates and attributes.

“Oh, lovely!” exclaimed Betsy. “May I borrow it? I'll be working on the tapestry, and I've already written down some attributes I want to look up.”

“Of course,” said Father John, kindly neglecting to point out that he'd gone for the book because there were some attributes he wanted to look up himself. He handed the book over and went back to guarding the tapestry against those who might store it away so securely it was never found again.

“
W
hy didn't you take her up on that offer?” asked Godwin.

“I don't know,” said Betsy. “Especially since I got some really bad news from George Hollytree.”

Godwin looked up from his knitting—another in his endless series of white cotton socks. “Um, how bad?”

Betsy took a deep breath but kept her eyes on her cross stitching. “He says I have to cut back employee hours and at the same time stay open longer. That means I have to work more.”

“How can I work more hours? I'm already full time.”

Betsy looked sideways at him. “No, you need to work
fewer
hours.
I
need to work more hours.”

Godwin laughed. He laughed so hard he had to put down his knitting. When the laughter slowed, he would look at Betsy and start in again.

Betsy tried to wait him out, but Godwin's endurance was apparently bottomless. At last she said, “That's enough, Godwin,” and he stopped as if she had clipped him one on the nose. “Now, why is that so funny?”

“Because, my dearest, most wonderful, and favorite living employer, you are learning both needlework and the art of owning a small business with breathtaking skill and speed, but you are a long way from accomplished at either. You may do well here in the shop all by yourself—or you may not. For example, Mrs. Hagedorn came in while you were mucking about with that tapestry to ask me if I could get her some
one hundred twelve count
silk gauze. I looked in our catalog, and sure enough it comes that high. But she also wanted to buy some needles to use in this project. An ordinary needle won't fit through the silk gauzes, so if you were here alone, what would you have told her?”

Betsy looked uncomfortable. “Well... I guess I would've got you on the phone.”

“And if I'm not at home but in Cancun basking in the sun?”

“Okay, I'd look in that catalog that has every kind of needle you can think of.”

“And it wouldn't help, unless you already knew where to look. You use the short beading needles; if you look them up, it says they are also for extremely high-count fabrics. Fortunately for you, Mrs. Hagedorn already knew that. I have ordered the silk gauze for her, but we already have beading needles in stock.” Beading needles were thin as hair.

Betsy said, “Well, if she already knew—”

“But what if she hadn't known? Would you have known who to call? I would, because I know
almost
everything, including who to ask.”

“Whom. All right, I know, too. I would dash upstairs and put the question on the Internet, to my favorite newsgroup, RCTN. I'd have an answer in about sixty seconds. Collectively, those people know everything.”

Godwin nodded. “You're right, they do. But it's not good business practice to leave a customer alone in the shop. Admit it, boss, you need me here as much as possible. I only cost a dollar an hour more than the part-time help. Theirs are the hours you'll have to cut down on. If you can't do that, you'll have to cut some other expense.”

“Which brings us back to my original question, doesn't it? Why didn't you
enthusiastically
jump on Patricia's suggestion that you back out on your offer to supply the material for the tapestry?”

Betsy said, “Because Mr. Hollytree also told me I should advertise, to let people know Crewel World didn't die with my sister. Which I am going to do. A salesman should be here on Tuesday. But if I get involved with this project, then the name of my shop will get in the paper as the supplier of materials. Before I knew we might have to replace a huge area of the thing, that seemed an easy, cheap way to get some publicity.”

Godwin widened his blue eyes at her. “Then it was a
good
idea!” he said.

“Of course it was! I may be ignorant, but I'm not stupid!”

Godwin winked at her. “Honey,
no one
thinks you march with the stupid platoon, not after you beat our local police to the solution in two murder cases.”

Betsy grimaced, looked for her place on the fabric, then consulted the pattern. She thought herself lucky, not bright, when it came to solving murders. But no one paid any attention when she said that. She stuck her needle in, pulled the floss through. “I was thinking of calling Picket Fence and Stitchville USA to see if they have any dark orange wool in a shade I don't have,” she said, and put down her stitching again to reach for the cordless on the table.

Godwin nodded. “Another good idea.”

But they didn't have anything different. Betsy was looking up more shops' numbers when a customer came in with a large cardboard box, its top folded shut.

“I'm hoping you can help me, Betsy,” she said, dropping the box onto the library table. “My grandmother died a month ago, and when she got sick last spring, she said I should get her stash. But I already have a stash, and I may never get around to using this stuff.”

“Are you saying you want to give it away?” asked Betsy.

“Some of it.” She pulled the flaps of the box apart and began lifting out clear plastic bags filled with needlework projects, rolls of linen and Aida cloth in several colors, packets of needles, silk and perle floss, and balls of yarn. She gestured at one pile. “Look at all these needlepoint canvases! This one's stamped, but look, this one and this one are hand painted, so they're valuable. Thing is, I don't do needlepoint. And see this big bag of wool? Lots of colors but there's not more than a yard of any one color.”

Betsy eyed the bag speculatively, but didn't see any dark orange.

“At least now I know where I get my squirrel nature. My mother throws leftover yarn away unless she's got another project that can use it, but I'll end up in one of those houses with paths winding among the stacks of newspapers, except my stacks will be patterns and projects waiting for me to find time to finish them, and leftover yarn and floss from projects I've completed.”

Betsy said, “I hope you don't think your mother is the normal one. Almost all my customers save leftover cloth and floss.” She picked up a needlepoint kit depicting a tropical sunset. The sky and sea were mauve and blue and lavender and pink, with palm trees making graceful black arcs in the foreground. She'd been to that beach, back in San Diego. But first things first: “Is there any dark orange wool? I need some for a project.”

“Not in this box. If I find some, I'll bring it in. This is only a quarter of what we found. About the stash I'm keeping: Can I store everything as I found it?”

“No, you can't,” said Betsy. “You need to get it out of these plastic bags and into acid-free paper or cloth bags. Fibers need to breathe.”

Godwin had come over for a look. “You know,” he said to Betsy, “Margot would do consignment selling once in awhile. Some of this is very nice. Like this kit, which was never even opened.” Then he picked up a completed needlepoint of a white horse rearing in storm-tossed surf. “This is beautiful,” he said. “Do you know Diane Bolles, down at Nightingale's? She's looking for needlework to sell.” Godwin reached for something else. “And look at this, too, Betsy.” He was holding an un-worked canvas covered with hearts and cherubs. “It's a Patti Mann canvas. ”We could sell this in a New York minute.”

Betsy said, “All right. Are you willing to part with some of this on consignment, Katie?”

In half an hour, Katie left for Nightingale's with a gleam in her eye. Betsy spent another half hour putting the new items out, making sure they were artistically displayed, then properly marked and listed in the notebook Godwin showed her, in which Margot had kept track of consignment items.

“Do you have a stash, Godwin?” she asked, stepping back from the Patti Mann to see if it was hung straight.

“Honey, I'm at the point where I'm throwing out
clothes
to make room.
Everyone
has stash, but we're all too enamored of SEX to quit looking for more.”