by Rosie Harris
‘I’m afraid it’s a bit primitive. Looks as if it hasn’t had anything done to it for a good many years,’ Nick warned. ‘Even the decorations are in a poor state. It does have potential, though. And when I’ve had time to work on it, it will be transformed.’
Rebecca nodded, although she felt doubtful that such a miraculous transformation could ever be achieved. She liked the living room; it had windows on both sides, one looking out on to the front garden, the other on to the back garden and the fields and trees in the distance. The main bedroom had a similar aspect.
Yet for all that, it was very primitive and she couldn’t see how Nick thought he could convert it into anything like the modern comforts she enjoyed at Woodside.
It was theirs, though, and she found that exciting. Their very own place. And if he could make it habitable, they could furnish it and decorate it to their own taste. They could shut the front door and be alone if they wanted to, or invite friends to visit without having to consult anyone to check if it was convenient to do so.
Although it was a cold day they walked all round the garden, noting how much space there was and how many fruit bushes and fruit trees were packed into it. Many of them still bore traces of fruit, half eaten by the birds or lying in heaps on the ground where it had fallen.
‘I think my first task will be to clear this lot up,’ Nick said as he kicked some rotten apples along the ground.
‘I’m sure you can find someone in the village who would be happy to do that as a spare-time job.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right. I’ll see if I can find a chap who knows more about gardening than I do. That will leave me all my free time to work on the house. I don’t want anyone else doing that.’
‘You might find you have to call in professional help. There’s an awful lot to be done.’
‘It will get done, don’t worry. Wait until next time you come to see it. You won’t recognize the place, it will have been transformed,’ Nick promised as he locked the door and they set off back to Woodside.
As they enjoyed their Christmas dinner, Nick repeated his determination to transform the cottage.
‘Sounds promising,’ Bill Peterson agreed. ‘I think I know the place. An old couple lived there for years and years. He died about five years ago. Then she stayed on and managed all on her own. She died about three months ago. I can’t recall their names.’
‘It was Woodley,’ Nick told him.
‘Yes, that’s right. Well, I hope you will both be very happy there.’
‘We will, when it’s modernized,’ Rebecca smiled.
‘You won’t be living there, though, not until you are married,’ Sandra said quickly.
Rebecca looked rather taken aback.
‘In that case, we’d better fix a date,’ Nick said quickly before she could speak.
‘Easter would be rather nice,’ Sandra suggested.
‘I’m not sure I can get everything done by then,’ Nick frowned.
‘I certainly don’t want to get married in the middle of a school year,’ Rebecca told them. ‘No, August or September would be much better.’
‘Well, you don’t have to decide this minute, you’ve only just got engaged,’ Bill said quietly. ‘Think it over and decide which is the best for both of you.’
Forty-Seven
When she came home at half-term, Rebecca was eager to visit the cottage at Millham, but Nick didn’t want her to.
‘Is this because you haven’t done any work on it?’ she asked, frowning anxiously.
‘No, it’s because I don’t want you to see it until the work is more or less complete. The state it’s in at the moment would only depress you.’
‘If I had my own transport, I’d go anyway,’ she retorted when he refused point-blank to take her. ‘Will you take me, Dad?’
Bill Peterson shook his head. ‘I’m not getting involved, it’s nothing to do with me.’
‘I’ll ask Mum then.’
‘Be patient,’ Nick told her. ‘Wait until Easter.’
‘If we’re getting married at the end of August, I need to see the place as soon as possible. So I can decide what we will require in the way of curtains and so on—’
‘So you’ve decided to make it August, have you?’ Bill interrupted. ‘Any particular date?’
‘We can’t decide that until we know if the cottage is going to be ready for us to move in,’ Rebecca told him.
‘It will be,’ Nick said confidently.
‘I’d still like to see it and make sure,’ she persisted. ‘Dad, is my bike still up in the rafters of the garage? If so, could you get it down for me? Six miles isn’t all that far to ride.’
‘Your bicycle? That old thing! I gave it away years ago,’ her father laughed.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘You hadn’t ridden it since before you went to university, and it was rusting away. I gave it to one of my customers for her little girl a couple of years ago. Her dad had to spend hours cleaning it up and oiling it, and he had to buy new tyres before she could use it because the ones that were on it had perished.’
‘There are too many big lorries on that stretch of road to cycle along it, anyway,’ Nick told her. ‘What you need is a car.’
‘Very funny, seeing that I can’t drive,’ Rebecca said waspishly.
‘You could learn. I’ll get some L-plates for my car, and take you out and see how you get on.’
‘That sounds like a very good idea to me,’ her father agreed, nodding approvingly.
‘Once you’ve got the hang of it, you can book some lessons and by Easter you should be driving,’ Nick added.
‘As soon as that? I doubt it very much. I don’t have that much spare time and it would have to be early evenings.’
‘Well, maybe you won’t have passed your driving test by Easter, but you would be able to drive and that’s a start.’
Rebecca said no more on the matter, although she was peeved by Nick’s refusal to take her to the cottage.
A few days later, while Nick was busy working in the shop, she went up to the Masons’ farm to air her grievance with Cindy, who was now back from her visit to Liverpool.
‘I didn’t know you had a cottage. How lovely!’ Cindy said.
‘Nick told me about it on Christmas Day. We went to see it then, and it’s lovely but it is a bit derelict.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Millham, which is about six miles away. That’s the problem, I can’t get there and Nick won’t take me. He wants me to wait until he has renovated it.’
‘Well, there’s no hurry, is there?’
‘Yes, there is. We’re getting married in August and I need to be able to—’
‘Getting married in August?’ Cindy interrupted. Her dark eyes were saucer-wide with surprise ‘You never told me. When did you decide on that? I didn’t even know you were engaged!’
‘It all happened on Christmas Day. Nick proposed to me at midnight on Christmas Eve and gave me this.’ Rebecca held out her hand to show the diamond-and-ruby engagement ring. ‘Then on Christmas Day he gave me a Yale key – the key to the cottage in Millham.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ Cindy told her, hugging her and kissing her.
‘So we’ve fixed our wedding day, because there’s no point in having our own place and not being able to live there and my mum won’t hear of us living together until we’re married.’
‘We’re getting married in August as well,’ Cindy told her.
‘You and Danny?’
‘Who else would I be marrying?’ Cindy laughed.
‘What date?’
‘We haven’t fixed the exact date yet, but it will be at the end of August when Danny has some leave.’
They stared at each other in silence for a moment and then both of them said in unison, ‘Why don’t we make it a double wedding?’
They fell into each other’s arms, laughing and overjoyed at their decision. For the next hour they talked of nothing else. Wh
ere it was to be, the exact date, the people they would invite, who would be best man and who would be bridesmaids.
‘We’ll have to have Poppy, of course, and she’ll look so sweet,’ Rebecca enthused.
‘We’ll have to have Grace.’
‘Well, that’s great!’
‘I agree. Grace will be able to keep an eye on Poppy, and as Poppy adores her she’ll do what Grace tells her and will be no trouble at all.’
‘All we have to do now is tell our respective families and start making firm preparations.’
‘Where will we hold the reception?’ Rebecca asked.
Cindy’s face clouded. ‘That might be a bit of a problem. I think my mum is expecting to hold it here, but I don’t suppose your mum will want to do that.’
‘No, I don’t suppose she will,’ Rebecca said thoughtfully. ‘I tell you what, why don’t we say we want to hire a hall somewhere, either the village hall or at one of the pubs and hold the reception there?’
‘Great idea! Then if they want to do the catering themselves they can work out between them who does what, or they can ask the pub to do it or call in caterers.’
‘I don’t think that should be too difficult. It’s a small detail to settle once we know where it is to be. The great thing is that we have fixed a date.’
‘Have you bought your dress yet?’ Cindy asked.
‘Heavens no! Have you?’
‘No, of course I haven’t,’ Cindy laughed. ‘Don’t forget I’m going to have to shop for two dresses, as Poppy will have to have a special dress for the occasion.’
‘I take it we are both going for white with a veil and all the usual paraphernalia?’
‘Of course!’ Cindy agreed. ‘Do you want us to go shopping together?’
Rebecca considered the idea for a moment, then shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Anyway, I’m sure Mum is looking forward to helping me choose my dress and I wouldn’t like to disappoint her.’
‘Probably the same goes for my mum, too.’
‘In that case, let’s keep what we’re wearing a secret from each other until we turn up for the ceremony. I suspect half the villagers will be in attendance as well,’ Cindy added with a laugh. ‘It will give old Lizzie Smith enough to gossip about for months to come.’
‘I’d better be getting back and let my parents and Nick know the date we’ve decided on,’ Rebecca smiled.
‘Yes, I don’t think we had any intention of planning our weddings when you came up to see me!’
‘You’re right, I came to tell you that Nick was trying to persuade me to learn to drive and I wanted to know what you thought about the idea.’
‘Great idea. I’m planning to take lessons soon. I can’t afford a car of my own, but I will be able to drive the family car and Danny’s so it could be very useful.’
‘Do you want to set a date for us passing our driving test? And see if we can do that together as well?’ Rebecca asked with a smile.
‘No, I don’t think that is quite as important as our wedding day, do you?’
Forty-Eight
When Rebecca phoned to tell Nick the date the school would be closing for the Easter break, he promised to come and to pick her up.
They hadn’t seen very much of each other since Christmas because he was spending every spare moment he had working on the cottage.
She was eager to see what he had been doing there, and as they set off from Blissford she was determined to go to Millham and see the cottage before going home.
To her surprise, instead of trying to deter her, Nick gave her a mischievous smile and agreed.
As they approached the turn-off for Millham she felt tense with excitement, then her mood changed as he drove straight past it. Before she could say anything he stopped and began to back the car up, giving her an amused sideways glance as he did so.
‘You thought I’d forgotten!’ he chuckled.
‘I was about to scream at you,’ she told him with an answering grin.
When they drew up outside the cottage, she was out of the car almost before he had put the brakes on. She ran round the car to the garden gate, then stopped and stared in utter amazement. What had been an overgrown wilderness the last time she’d been there was now a neat and lovely front garden. The borders that flanked the path leading up to the front door were a blaze of golden daffodils, and beneath them primulas, snowdrops, polyanthus and violets were bursting into bloom. The lawn on either side was mown and the edges neatly trimmed.
Rebecca couldn’t believe what she was seeing, and her eyes were sparkling with delight as she turned to Nick.
‘Like it?’ he asked. ‘Looks pretty, doesn’t it?’
‘It’s wonderful,’ she breathed. She reached up and kissed him, and his arms went round her holding her close as he kissed her back.
‘I didn’t do it, I’m no gardener and anyway I had other things I wanted to do,’ he confessed.
‘Well, you certainly found someone who knows how to make a garden beautiful,’ she told him.
‘Come on, I can’t wait to see what you’ve done inside,’ she said eagerly as she pulled away and took his hand, dragging him towards the cottage.
Then she stopped. ‘It looks different. It seems bigger than I remember.’ She stared again. ‘Yet it’s just the same.’ She turned and looked at him. ‘What’s happened?’
Nick grinned knowingly. ‘You’d better come inside, then perhaps you’ll find out.’
As they went inside, Rebecca again felt that somehow it was different. She looked into the living room first. That seemed to be the same. The two big windows facing each other, the inglenook fireplace and the exposed beams across the ceiling were all still there. She turned towards the kitchen, and as she pushed open the door she gasped. The room was three times as big as she remembered.
‘What have you done?’ she exclaimed in awe.
‘Enlarged it. We now have a kitchen-diner almost as big as the one at Woodside. And what’s more, at the end there is a small cloakroom with a toilet and washbasin.’
‘Heavens, that’s wonderful!’ Rebecca exclaimed.
‘There’s also another window, in case you haven’t noticed. It looks out on to the garden at the side, and I am proposing that we have the kitchen area with all the equipment we still have to buy at the far end and use the front part as a dining room. What do you think?’
‘That sounds marvellous.’ She wandered round, touching the walls, peering through the windows, and finally opening the door at the far end and exclaiming in delight at what she saw there.
‘Now come upstairs and see what I’ve done there,’ Nick invited.
Upstairs, what had been a small second bedroom was now large enough to take a double bed, and next to it there was a bathroom with access from the landing.
Nick then took her into the main bedroom, which now had a built-in wardrobe running almost the full length of one wall. Alongside it was another door and he pushed Rebecca towards it.
‘Open that door and see what’s inside,’ he told her.
Gingerly she pushed the door open, then gasped in amazement as she stepped into a fully fitted bathroom.
‘Happy?’
‘Happy! I feel as if I’ve stepped into a dream. It’s fantastic. You couldn’t possibly have done all this yourself, though,’ she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘I designed and planned it all,’ he told her, ‘but I admit I had to call in professional help to do the work. It needed skilled builders and plumbers to do the job properly, and the cottage is so old that it needed someone who understood what they were doing. Anyway, it’s done now and you are the first to see it in all its glory.’
‘I can’t wait to bring Mum and Dad to see it. And Cindy will be amazed. I think she thought we were mad to buy such an old place, but when she sees how you have transformed it she’ll be green with envy.’
‘I reckon we should leave showing it off until it is completely finished,’ Nick c
autioned.
‘What else is there to do?’
‘Select all the fittings for the kitchen, and the carpets, curtains and furniture for the whole house. I’m counting on us being able to buy all of these while you’re at home for Easter. By the time you come home again at half-term, they should all be installed and it will be ready for when we get married in August. Agreed?’
‘It sounds wonderful, but can we afford all this? The work you’ve already had done must have cost the earth, not to mention buying the cottage in the first place.’
‘I used the money my parents left me to buy the cottage and do the work so far. I’ve enough savings left to pay for the fittings and furniture, so we’re not running ourselves into debt,’ he assured her. ‘I can afford to pay for all the kitchen equipment we are going to need and for it to be installed. I have a list here. Cooker, washing machine, dishwasher, new sink and worktops … Anything else?’
‘I would like a microwave.’
‘Right, I’ve added that to the list. Is that the lot?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Well, smaller items like a toaster and so on we can get as we go along. I’ll leave all that and the pots and pans to you.’
‘Of course. We’ll also need an electric iron and an ironing board. And a vacuum cleaner,’ she murmured thoughtfully.
‘The other big items are the carpets and the furniture. We ought to shop for them together to make sure we choose what we both want. I’ve been thinking in terms of a hardwood floor in the kitchen and dining area. Then carpets throughout the rest of the house. I thought these should be in just one colour and texture, so it makes the place appear more spacious. If we pick a fairly neutral shade of grey or beige, then you can change the look of each room with curtains and cushions in different colours and fabrics.’
‘Whew!’ Rebecca took a long breath. ‘There’s an awful lot still to do, isn’t there?’