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It was half an hour before she got through to the farmer. He was just as truculent with her on this occasion as he had been the last time she saw him, but eventually Charlotte managed to make arrangements to go out and see him.
‘He must have changed his mind and realised that the only way he’ll get a good price is by selling the semis together. Oh, and while I remember, I’ve promised to do an inventory for a catalogue for auctioning some of Mrs Birtles’ furniture. I’m going to take Sophy with me…give her an idea of how to do an inventory.’
‘Was the house lovely?’Sheila asked wistfully.
‘Beautiful,’ Charlotte told her. ‘The kind of place everyone dreams of owning. I only hope we can find a buyer for it who will appreciate it.’
A frown furrowed her forehead. Oliver had been right when he’d said their first duty was to their client. Perhaps it was idealistic of her to hope that they could find a sole buyer for the house able to meet its price…someone who wanted to live in the house and not destroy or develop it.
‘Something wrong?’ Sheila asked sympathetically.
Charlotte shook her head. She knew that, had her father been alive, he would have agreed with every word Oliver had said. Her father had often accused her of being too sentimental.
‘No, not really. I was just wondering if I ought to leave a bit early. Oliver is moving in tonight, and the kitchen people started today.’
Sheila laughed. ‘Yes, I think you should. What about your car, though?’
‘I’ve rung the garage to order the two new ones, and they’ve promised me a loan car until they can provide them. I’m still not sure about that bright red,’ she teased Sheila. ‘Isn’t that supposed to be a dangerous colour?’
‘So what?’ Sheila retaliated. ‘At my age, I think I’m entitled to live a little dangerously.’
Was that what was happening to her? Charlotte wondered an hour later as she drove home in her loaned Volvo. Was this stupid infatuation she seemed to have developed for Oliver Tennant nature’s way of rebelling against the cautious, defensive way she lived her life? She hoped so…just as she hoped that these dangerous and unwelcome feelings of hers would fade quickly and quietly once they were confronted with the reality of sharing her home with him. There was nothing like a touch of realism for destroying idealistic daydreams, she told herself firmly as she turned into her drive.
The sun had gone in; the overgrown rhododendrons cast dark shadows over the drive, turning it into a secret, almost brooding place, so that she shivered momentarily, and then derided herself. She was letting Sheila’s mother-henning get to her. She had driven up and down this drive a thousand times without even giving it a second thought…
The workmen were on the point of leaving as she arrived, the chaos in the kitchen making her gulp and bravely swallow the dismayed words springing to her lips. Was it really possible for the pretty, warm kitchen she had visualised from the drawings Mr Burns had done for her to actually materialise from this mess of plaster, wood, exposed wires and heaven alone knew what else?
‘We’ve managed to turn the electricity back on for you,’ Mr Burns told her. ‘And your cooker’s fixed up in the pantry, like you asked. Seems like we’re going to have a problem with the plumbing, though. Lead pipes,’ he added succinctly, as though that explained everything.
Charlotte blinked and waited for enlightenment.
‘Not safe…not these days,’ he told her warningly. ‘They’ll have to be replaced.’
In her mind’s eye, Charlotte saw another nought being added to his original estimate and suppressed a faint sigh. ‘How long do you think it will be before you’re finished?’ she asked him fatalistically.
‘Well, provided we don’t come up with any more set-backs…should be all done middle of next week or so.’
Smiling weakly, Charlotte stepped over what she guessed were her old kitchen units and what now looked like a pile of firewood, and headed for the door into the hallway.
Mrs Higham should have been today. To Charlotte’s surprise she had been quite approving when Charlotte informed her about Oliver. Mrs Higham sometimes had a rather unconventional attitude towards her work, preferring to choose for herself which tasks she would and would not do, rather than be directed, and because Charlotte knew how difficult it would be to replace her she had put up with her eccentricities. She had already asked her to clean through the rooms which were going to be Oliver’s and make up the bed, but it might be as well to check that she had.
Charlotte heard the workmen driving away as she opened the room into the bedroom which her father had used as his study. The window was open, allowing the newly rehung curtains to move gently in the breeze. Her father’s old desk stood under the window to catch the best of the light. The house still retained its original bedroom fireplaces, thanks to her father’s refusal to entertain any modernisation, and Charlotte saw with a small start of surprise that Mrs Higham had left a fire laid in the grate, and filled a basket of logs.
Oliver was certainly getting star treatment, she acknowledged wryly as she saw the trouble the cleaner had gone to. She had certainly never left a fire laid in her bedroom, Charlotte reflected as she opened the door into the bedroom.
The bedroom still contained the heavy dark furniture that had originally belonged to her grandparents. Her father had never seen the necessity of replacing the cumbersome wardrobes with something more modern, even fitted. The darkness of the furniture, combined with the dark green carpet, gave the room an austere male aura, Charlotte thought, a frown furrowing her forehead as she moved towards the bed and saw that it wasn’t made up.
That meant that she would have to do it. Her father had not been a mean man precisely, but he had always hated waste, which was why Charlotte was still using the heavy linen sheets which again had come from her grandparents’ home. Since it was impossible to launder these at home in the way her father insisted upon, a weekly laundry service collected and delivered these items, and Charlotte prayed that she would find sufficient clean and aired linen in the airing cupboard to make up the bed.
It was her own fault, of course; she should have checked on these things instead of leaving it to Mrs Higham.
To her relief she found what she wanted in the airing cupboard. Carrying the sheets and bedding through into the bedroom, she put them down on the bed. Before she did anything else, she would make herself something to eat and have a cup of coffee. That was, if she could find the coffee.
It was impossible for her to eat in the kitchen, of course, and so she took her omelette and coffee through into the small sitting-room on the side of the house. From here she could look out into the back garden with its tangle of overgrown lawns and flowerbeds.
It had rained just after she had come in, a short, heavy shower, and now the late spring flowers drooped sadly under the weight of the raindrops. On impulse, after she had finished her meal, she opened the french windows and stepped outside. Half an hour later, her arms full of flowers she had had no intention of picking, she went into the pantry and deftly arranged them in two large jugs. She left one jug in the sitting-room, and took the other upstairs with her.
Until she had actually set it down on the polished desk, she had had no idea why she had picked the flowers, and now, standing back from the bright warmth of them, she felt her skin burn with self-knowledge. She was just about to snatch the jug back and remove it when she heard Oliver’s car.
