in Gloucestershire—could have guessed that the Holland Park and Notting Hill Gate area of London would suddenly become so extraordinarily fashionable.
Harriet had no way of knowing whether it was the many ‘private’ gardens which had proved to be the main attraction—particularly when contrasted with the hot dusty streets and high-rise buildings of central London—or if it was just some inexplicable movement of people from one area to another. However, it seemed that as soon as some wealthy pop stars and highly paid executives in the advertising and entertainment business ‘discovered’ Holland Park and Notting Hill Gate, everyone else suddenly appeared to want to live there, too.
All of which went some way to explaining why, on her approach to a local estate agent, he was visibly pleased at the thought of selling her aunt’s house. When he explained that she could expect to gain close to a million pounds for the property, Harriet’s legs suddenly felt as though they’d turned to jelly. Collapsing down into the chair before his desk, she gazed at the man in utter disbelief.
‘I had no idea…I mean…you must be kidding?’ she gasped, feeling quite faint and dizzy for a moment.
‘Oh, no,’ Mr Evans told her confidently, impatiently clicking his fingers at his assistant as he called for a glass of water, since the girl looked as though she was about to pass out any minute.
‘After you gave me the keys, I had a good look around the property,’ he continued. ‘It’s an absolute shambles, of course, but there’s no reason why—when you’ve cleared out all the mess—you shouldn’t get something very close to that sum.’
‘I…I just can’t believe it!’ Harriet mumbled helplessly, shaking her head in bemusement. ‘Are you absolutely sure…? I mean…I don’t want to be rude—but that really is such a huge amount of money!’
‘That’s nothing!’ He waved his hand dismissively in the air. ‘Why, only the other day I was approached by a young couple—looking for a house just like yours—who were quite happy to pay two or three million for a property in good condition. You would be able to get a much higher price if your aunt’s home had been looked after,’ he confided. ‘But, all the same, I think we ought to be able to get you at least a million—no problem.’
A million pounds! Such a sum was absolutely ridiculous, Harriet told herself as she drove slowly back to her small rented apartment in Islington, which she’d chosen originally because of its proximity and ease of access to the law courts in The Strand.
Having studied law at university, she was now working as a very junior member of a large firm of solicitors. Unfortunately, it hadn’t proved to be the job of her dreams. In fact, she’d come to see that the dry, dusty world of lawyers was definitely not for her. It was only the problem of trying to decide exactly what she did want to do with her life—plus the need to earn a decent living, of course—which had, so far, prevented her from resigning her job and looking for work elsewhere.
However, despite repeating the words ‘a million pounds’ to herself over the following weeks, she still couldn’t somehow make it seem any more real.
Although, in a moment of total euphoria, she thought about giving up work and living on the proceeds of the sale of her aunt’s house, it didn’t take Harriet very long to see that wasn’t the answer to her problems. Lying around doing nothing all day might seem an attractive idea. But she was fairly certain that she’d soon get bored with such an idle, lazy existence.
Her parents were, of course, delighted at her sudden change of fortune. And as for her boyfriend, George—for once in his life he actually looked visibly excited.
‘I say, Harriet, that sounds a pretty useful sum!’ he exclaimed, giving her a much warmer smile than usual. ‘And there’ll be no need to worry your pretty little head about investing the money. Because I know several clever men in the City who’d definitely be interested in dealing with a nice little nest egg like that.’
In fact, Harriet told herself, it was amazing how everyone was busy spending the money she had yet to get. Her mother seemed determined that she should buy a small, bijou house in a highly fashionable area: ‘So handy, darling, when I want to do some shopping.’ Several of her friends thought she ought to blow the lot on travelling around the world until the money ran out, while someone else suggested that she open a trendy restaurant.
Even an old friend, Trish Palmer, had come up with the idea of Harriet buying the empty property next to her own antiques shop in Ledbury Road.
‘Hang on, Trish!’ she muttered sleepily, at six-thirty one morning, as she helped to lay out small pieces of antique jewellery on the stall her friend operated on Saturdays in the nearby Portobello Road Market.
‘While I enjoy lending you a hand with the stall every now and then,’ Harriet continued, warming her cold hands on a mug of steaming hot coffee. ‘I know absolutely nothing about old furniture and objets d’art. Quite honestly, the idea of me buying a shop and suddenly becoming a successful antiques dealer is absolutely daft!’
‘It doesn’t have to be that sort of shop,’ Trish pointed out. ‘You could sell anything you liked—clothes, flowers, or jewellery. I mean, just look at the terrific success of that girl who has an amazing shop at the other end of the road, selling nothing but gorgeous purses and handbags.’
‘She’s so talented,’ Harriet agreed with an envious sigh. ‘Unfortunately, I have a horrid feeling that I don’t have a creative bone in my body!’
However, it was Trish who eventually provided the answer to all Harriet’s problems.
Offering to lend their friend a hand one weekend, cleaning the house ready for viewing by prospective buyers, Trish and Sophie were both amazed at the sheer size of the place.
‘It’s looking great, now that all that broken-down, dusty old furniture has been carted away,’ Sophie said, leaning on a broom and gazing up at the ornate cornice of the large, high-ceilinged first-floor sitting room.
‘You wouldn’t know the place,’ Trish agreed, lifting a grimy hand to brush the damp hair from her brow. ‘It’s a pity you have to sell the house after all this effort. If it had been left to me, I’d try and find a way to hang on to it.’
‘Even if I did—I could never afford to live here,’ Harriet pointed out, before throwing down her mop and declaring that they’d all earned a tea-break.
Making her way down to the antiquated old kitchen on the lower ground floor, Trish continued to lament the fact that her friend was having to sell such a lovely old house.
‘Come off it!’ Sophie laughed, waving a chocolate biscuit around the high-ceilinged kitchen, which surprisingly seemed full of light, ‘What on earth would Harriet do with herself, living all alone in a place like this?’
‘Who says she has to live on her own?’ Trish retorted. ‘She could easily split a house of this size into flats—one to each floor. Or she could always let out rooms to her friends, or…’
‘What? Run a boarding house?’ the other girl scoffed. ‘Do me a favour! Can you honestly see Harriet cooking breakfast for everyone in the house before rushing off to work? Get real!’
‘I’ve definitely got better things to do with my time!’ Harriet agreed with a laugh, before reminding her friends that there was still a lot of work to do, and not much time left in which to do it.
However, as she walked slowly
