‘How do you know all this?’ Edward asked.
‘Saw an interview with her in a magazine. My wife was going on about her. She wanted to give our bedroom the Abigail Carey touch, she said.’
‘And did she?’
‘Yes, she did! There’s a sunflower wherever I look!’
Edward laughed. ‘I think I’ll stick to my nice grey walls.’
‘Very wise,’ Stephen said. ‘There was a rumour going round that she was interested in Winfield Hall.’
‘Yes, but she wasn’t quite as interested as I was,’ Edward said, allowing himself a little moment of pride.
‘You did well,’ his friend told him. ‘Congratulations.’
‘Now, I think I’ve got some business to settle,’ Edward said. ‘Then fancy some lunch to celebrate?’
‘Absolutely!’ Stephen said. ‘You can tell me your plans for that great monster of a house.’
Edward smiled. It had been a stressful morning and he was glad that the whole business of it was over. Still, at the same time, he couldn’t help thinking that now was when the real work began.
* * *
After leaving the auction house, Abigail hadn’t dared drive through the village again. She couldn’t bear to look at the house that wasn’t to be hers. As she hit the motorway back to her place in London, she tried desperately to be positive, but it was hard. She’d always been able to see the good side of things, but today seemed totally devoid of good sides. She thought of the neat, crisp man in the suit who had placed the winning bid and she sincerely hoped he’d be happy at Winfield Hall and that he’d bought it because he loved it and not because he was some property developer who was simply passing through. The house deserved more than that. It needed somebody in it who would not only nurture it, but cherish it too. That’s what had been missing for so many years now – an owner who saw its true beauty and who would love it for years to come.
When she got back to London, her small home seemed even smaller than ever. She loved it, she truly did. With its sweet balcony overlooking the Thames and a tiny yard that received more than its share of sunshine for a London property, she had a lot to be grateful for. But Abi couldn’t unsee Winfield Hall and she couldn’t set aside the dreams she’d had for the place – a vision of a new life for herself with large, lofty rooms where she could host artist retreats, a garden where she could really indulge her passion for growing cut flowers, and having walks from the doorstep taking in the magnificence of the South Downs. London had its own beauty, it was true, but Abi had tired of it. It had been very handy to live in the capital for the past few years. She’d needed to for her business. But she wanted to stretch and reach out to something more now. She felt she needed open space and an abundance of greenery and fresh air. She wanted to feel earth under her feet rather than pavement and to leave behind the acrid smell of the city and the human crush of it all. She needed a space to call her own.
She sighed. Where was that space if it wasn’t Winfield? She’d pinned so many of her hopes on it and she wasn’t sure she had the heart to start all over again. She’d been so sure about the place.
As she walked into her study, she opened her handbag and pulled out her sketchbook, flipping through the pages of drawings she’d made of Winfield, seeing the autumn colours once again even though she’d drawn in pencil, and feeling the cool breeze that had lifted her hair away from her face.
Slowly, she closed the sketchbook and, opening a desk drawer, placed it carefully inside. She had to try and forget about it. But, deep in her heart, she knew it would be difficult.
You couldn’t just switch off a dream, could you?
Chapter Three
If Edward had had his way, he would have moved into Winfield Hall the afternoon of the auction. Unfortunately, the world didn’t move as fast as he wished it would and there were endless contracts to sort out and sign.
It was mid-October by the time Edward picked up the keys. The colour of autumn had deepened in the woods, painting the trees in rich ochres and deep ambers, and the first frost had rimed the valley, making the grass verges sparkle. It felt good to be out of the city, he thought, as he drove through the winding lanes. He always missed the country when he wasn’t there. Well, the truth was, he didn’t really have time to miss it when he was working in London. His head might not have time, but his heart still missed this place. It was like a daily ache he carried around inside him. He often visualised it, feeling sure it was eating him up, molecule by molecule until, one day, there would be nothing left of him at all. Just a hollow husk riding the tube to work, an empty vessel devoid of dreams.
He felt like he’d got out just in time. At thirty-five, he was still young, he told himself, he still felt passionate about his job and still had the energy to pour himself into a project of the magnitude of Winfield Hall. Of course, he’d still be living in his London flat for most of the time, but the fact that he now had somewhere to escape to at the weekends – even if it was a building site for the foreseeable future – was a great comfort to him.
There was just so much to do. Edward had thought he’d prepared himself for it by reading a few books about house renovations and watching YouTube videos, but nothing had prepared him for the enormity of the project. The full structural survey he’d had done on the property ahead of making his winning bid had shown a few key areas that needed work and, on top of that, were the plans for turning the house into leasable flats. That’s what Edward had envisaged as soon as he’d seen the place. He’d known it was too big for him to live in alone and that it would be way too ambitious even on his city salary. But he could take a generous slice of the house for himself and make an income from the rest. It was a sound investment, he believed.
Being a listed property, though, meant that you couldn’t just start knocking down walls as soon as you took ownership. No matter how keen you were to save the old building and make improvements, things had to be done officially, with the right permissions and that, of course, meant delays. It was very frustrating and Edward had no choice but to hire a manager to oversee the whole project, liaising with builders and workmen and being around to sign for deliveries. He’d given it a go trying to coordinate everything himself, but it was impossible when he was working in London.
But he lived for the time when he could be at Winfield, pacing the rooms and envisaging what it would be like when the work was done. This was what he’d been dreaming of for the last few years and he couldn’t help but allow himself a proud little moment as he stood in one of the grand first floor rooms and looked out of the great sash window across the valley beyond. He deserved this, he told himself. He’d worked and saved hard for it, and he was here now, making his dreams a reality.
For a moment, an image entered his mind of the woman who’d been bidding against him at the auction. He hadn’t seen her face clearly, just a glimpse of blonde hair tied back. But he remembered the way she’d carried herself as she’d left the auction room. Was it his imagination or was there something defeated about her gait and posture? And was Edward having a glimmer of guilt now because his victory had been at the cost of somebody else’s happiness? But that was the way of the auction room, wasn’t it? There could only be one winner and he couldn’t truly have any regrets because he was that winner.
Still, as he turned away from the window to venture back downstairs, he couldn’t get the rather forlorn image of that woman out of his mind.
* * *
Abi smiled sweetly at the estate agent, but she wasn’t really listening to her patter. The woman was saying something about local amenities in the nearby Oxfordshire town. Apparently, they were second to none. Very popular. Very handy. But Abi wasn’t really interested.
She walked around the garden and glanced back at the house. It was pretty enough in that golden Cotswold stone, but Abi didn’t feel the need to get out her sketch book. She didn’t even want to look around the rooms for a second time when the estate agent offered. She’d seen enough. She was don
e.
The next week, she viewed a property in Hampshire. It looked like a dolls’ house from the front with fine sash windows and perfect Georgian symmetry. The rooms were just as light and lofty as those at Winfield, but they didn’t look out onto the downs.
Then there was a house in Kent, close to the coast: a weather-boarded property with lots of character and a small walled garden which was very pretty indeed.
All of these properties were lovely and each would have made a perfect home and, perhaps, Abi might have been happy in any one of them. But they all had one fatal flaw. They weren’t Winfield.
Once back in her London home after yet another trip to see a house, she kicked off her shoes and rubbed her eyes. She was tired and not just from the travelling to see all the recent properties. It was more than that. She felt heart weary. It was as if she knew that the home for her was off the market and she wasn’t going to find another. She’d have to make do with second best. Which was silly really because there couldn’t just be one perfect home for somebody, could there? There were bound to be dozens if not hundreds of places where a person could be happy. That’s what she tried to tell herself.
She even thought that perhaps she should stay in London. Maybe the universe was steering her in a direction she couldn’t quite make out yet. And then she’d close her eyes and think of those green lanes and chalky footpaths of the downs. There was something about that countryside that had resonated so strongly with her and she simply couldn’t fall in love with anywhere else. Not for the time being, anyway.
‘You’re acting like a spoilt child,’ she said to herself. There were any number of beautiful places she could afford. So she couldn’t get her first choice – so what? Luck or fate or whatever it was hadn’t meant it to be so she needed to pull herself together, that was all.
But, as often as she told herself that, she couldn’t help harbouring just a little self-pity over the beautiful home that wasn’t to be hers. And so she switched off from property hunting for a while and focussed on her work.
It was a strange, transitory time for Abi because she’d recently sold her company – the company she’d started from a few illustrations of sunflowers she’d idly sketched at her kitchen table. When she thought about it now, she’d had no idea of the crazy times that lay ahead of her. If she had, perhaps she would have torn the illustrations up into a million tiny pieces because, for Abi, it was all about the art. She had never planned on being an entrepreneur, but fate seemed to have plans for her and, within a few short years, she found herself at the head of a company that was making more money than she’d ever dreamed of.
Abi still couldn’t believe there was so much money to be made from tea towels, wallpaper and tablecloths, but there had been something special in her designs – something unique and fresh that the world was ready for and Abi had been flattered and had gone along for the ride. She would have been crazy not to. And how wonderful it had been to see her designs in shops. At first, she opened a small concession in a department store, but it had done so well that it soon became apparent that she would need her own shop. So she slowly built a team around her and they had managed very well to begin with, designing a website and handling each and every order themselves. They felt that they knew their customers individually and there was a real sense of family about the business.
Then the crazy times began with more shops opening and more staff being hired, staff that other staff were hiring. Branches began opening all over the country and then abroad, with their first shop in Paris. It had been such an exciting time and Abi had genuinely loved seeing the international appetite for her designs. But things had moved so far away from what she wanted now and, for the past couple of years, she hadn’t felt in control anymore. She’d slowly morphed from creator to business woman and it was a role she didn’t feel cut out for. On top of that was the fact that she was surrounded by so many people who were there to make decisions for the company – decisions that Abi couldn’t make on her own. It all felt so big. That might have seemed like a feeble complaint to most people and some might have thought her foolish for walking away from her little empire when it was doing so well, but Abi knew that she had to get out. It didn’t feel like her anymore. Somewhere along the way, Abigail Carey had gone missing. The young artist who had sat at her kitchen table, lost in her work, had been swallowed up in a company that had grown so fast, that not only had it made her head spin but she was in fear of losing her very mind.
So she had walked away. The newspapers were full of the story and, quite predictably, some had thought her crazy. But was it really important what strangers thought? Abi believed not. In fact, she believed that if she examined her critics’ lives that she would think them crazy. For we can’t live one another’s lives. Each of us, Abi reasoned, had their own vision of what their life should be and Abi’s had moved so far away from her vision that she had to do something drastic.
Now, sitting in the home she no longer wanted to live in and with no other home on the horizon, she wondered if she’d made a terrible mistake.
* * *
Autumn turned to winter and the Sussex landscape was shrouded in mist and rain. Edward stood shivering in one of the first floor rooms, gazing out over the countryside that was almost unrecognisable from that golden autumn day when he’d moved in. He’d taken a walk earlier in the day while the workmen had been making more noise than he could cope with. He’d followed the path from the hall which wound its way up the grassy slope of the down, the mist wet on his face and the scent of smoke spiralling up from the cottages in the village. Winter was definitely here, he’d mused, thinking of how very aware he was now of the passing seasons. Living in London, it was easy to be sheltered from the changes in the weather. Concrete didn’t blossom, and you could go whole weeks without seeing anything green if you were a workaholic as he was. But he was making changes now, wasn’t he? He was making time to see things, to hear them and smell them, to absorb them into his very being.
However, tuning into the senses wasn’t always such a good idea when you were surrounded by noisy workmen and their power tools. Edward had known that Winfield Hall needed a lot of work and he’d been prepared with a team of surveyors, architects and builders on standby for when all the paperwork was completed but the reality of the work was something else. One could never really prepare oneself for the intense noise and the constant dust in the air.
He made a little home for himself on the ground floor near the kitchen and set up his laptop so he could work and he’d bought an airbed for when he stayed overnight. It was kind of fun. A bit like camping only under ornate plaster ceilings. And it surprised him how very little he needed in order to function. Other than food and toiletries, a laptop, a bed, a kettle and a mug were pretty much it.
October mists turned into November sleet and that revealed the true state of the roof. An army of buckets were deployed as repairs were begun before the worst of the winter weather hit.
‘It could be worse,’ one of the builders told him. ‘But it will mean a delay.’
Of course, Edward thought sagely.
December showed the true horror of the rotting timbers behind some of the walls in the north wing, and there was woodworm, death watch beetle, rising damp and dry rot as well as crumbling plasterwork and blocked chimneys. All had to be fixed before the conversion into apartments began. It was a massive undertaking that came to a complete standstill with the onset of the Christmas holidays and New Year.
And then January came. Edward had been prepared for the extent of the work needed, but he hadn’t quite expected the nightmare that was exposed once walls were knocked down. Hundreds of years of horrors which had been patched up and covered over now needed attention. Builders from the past had chosen the wrong materials or taken shortcuts and everything was now being exposed and left for Edward to finance. Of course, he’d set aside a sum of money which he’d thought would be adequate for the restoration of the hall. He’d even topped it up after his
second viewing, guessing that there’d be a few of those little unforeseen jobs that older properties had a habit of hiding from prospective buyers even after a full structural survey. Now, he shook his head at his optimism. There were no little jobs at Winfield Hall; they were all massive jobs.
A whole city of scaffolding had been set up and Edward had lost count of the number of workers who were now coming and going. He was heartily glad that he’d hired a project manager to take care of it all, and he was kind of glad of his commitment in London because he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to cope with the stress of all the noise and seeing whole ceilings and walls being pulled down.
It was the end of January when they hit another problem. Max, the project manager, called Edward to give him the news.
‘Do you need me on site?’ Edward had asked from his office in London.
‘Trust me – you’re going to want to see this,’ Max had told him.
So Edward drove down.
Max was outside, pacing up and down.
‘What is it?’ Edward asked, almost dreading the answer but needing to hear it quickly.
‘Subsidence,’ Max said. The word to strike terror in any new property owner.
Edward sighed and Max proceeded to show him the damage. It had come up in a survey as a possibility but Edward had somehow managed to put that to the back of his mind. The whole of the east wing was affected. It could be fixed, Max assured him, but it would delay all the other work on that part of the house and, of course, would mean an extra bill. A very sizeable bill.
‘Do what’s needed,’ Edward told him.
Max nodded. ‘Sure thing.’
It was the only option, Edward told himself. You couldn’t do half a job on a place like Winfield or start gilding on rotten foundations especially if he wanted to rent apartments to other people. He couldn’t let out rooms in a house that was slowly sinking, could he?
The House in the Clouds Page 2