CHAPTER FIVE
When I drove over there, Ellie was just coming out of the café and she gave me an excited smile.
I put down the passenger-side window. ‘Are we driving there?’
She nodded. ‘I’ll take us in my car.’
‘Okay.’ I grinned. ‘So you’re not even going to give me a little clue?’
‘Nope!’ She smiled mysteriously and hurried over to her car, indicating that I should park up beside her so we could get on the move.
We drove out of the village in the direction of Brambleberry Manor, Fen’s family home which was open to the public during the summer months.
‘We’re going to see Fen’s parents?’ I asked, racking my brains as to our destination.
She laughed. ‘Try again.’
‘I know! You’re thinking of buying the Brambleberry Manor Café to add to your growing business portfolio.’
‘Hm. Not a bad idea. If I was a millionaire.’ She grinned. ‘Will you be at the lighting-up ceremony later?’
The lights on the village green Christmas tree were being switched on that evening and Ellie was keeping the café open later than usual for the event.
I nodded. ‘Definitely. Wouldn’t miss that.’ It would be another welcome distraction from the worrying thoughts keeping me a prisoner in my own head.
We drove a little further on.
‘Okay, I give up. Just tell me where we’re going.’
‘Patience! It’s not far.’
So I sat back with a bemused smile and watched the rural scenery go by. We passed Brambleberry Manor and a few minutes later, Ellie took a left turn, past fields of sheep and along a meandering country road with wintry, clipped-back hedges on either side. At a T-junction, she took another left and seconds later, turned off onto a narrow tree-lined country lane.
As we bumped along, trying to avoid the many potholes, I sat up with interest, seeing a ‘For Sale’ board up ahead on the grass verge.
‘And here we are,’ announced Ellie, as she parked the car beside an old wooden gate, which belonged to the rather handsome detached property we were clearly here to see.
‘Wow. It’s . . . lovely,’ I said truthfully, as we got out and stood by the hedge, gazing at the house. The stone-built Georgian-style building had once been painted white but that must have been years ago because it was looking distinctly mossy around the edges now, although the red-tiled roof looked to be in reasonable order.
It was the sort of well-proportioned house you see in children’s drawings, with five large windows, one either side of the grimy, once-white front door and three windows above. Ivy grew in abundance over the door and hung over the downstairs windows, partly obscuring the view, and it occurred to me that it would probably be quite gloomy in those front-facing rooms. But there was no denying, it was a stunning house. Well, apart from the jobs that would need to be done to spruce up the outside and the front garden, which had clearly been left to grow wild and hadn’t seen any form of garden implement for a very long time. I dreaded to think what awaited potential buyers inside the house, which had clearly been neglected for some time.
‘It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ Ellie’s eyes shone as she turned to me. ‘It’s the sort of house I’ve always dreamed of living in. Zak laughs at me because we’ve passed it a few times on our walks, and I’ve always said that I’d live there one day. We’ve been talking recently about buying a house instead of renting. And now . . . well, it’s just come onto the market.’ She shrugged. ‘I think this house is meant for us. Do you think I’m mad?’
‘Er . . . no?’ Actually, yes! ‘I mean, it needs an awful lot of work.’
She nodded. ‘It’s been empty for years so it’ll need modernising, for sure.’
‘Probably means someone died there and there was no one to inherit. Do you really want to live in a house that might be haunted?’
‘I don’t mind ghosts as long as they’re friendly.’
‘I’ve always preferred newer houses. There’s less chance that something bad happened in them before you moved in.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. A murder? Or even someone just dying alone and the body lying there, perhaps for days on end.’
Ellie laughed. ‘Maddy, dying’s a fairly common thing, apparently. We’d run out of houses pretty soon if we eliminated them for that reason. And anyway, maybe the owners just moved away and couldn’t get a buyer for this.’
I nodded. ‘Or maybe there’s some nasty thing lurking in the cellar, frightening people away.’
‘Oh, yes. Because monsters are fairly common in Sunnybrook.’
‘No, I mean . . . I don’t know . . . damp or dry rot, or something like that?’
‘Well, we’d have to get it checked out, obviously. I mean, a bank won’t give you a mortgage unless it’s surveyed.’
I stared at her. ‘You’re serious?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re actually thinking of applying for a mortgage on the place? Buying it?’ I pointed. ‘The window surrounds are rotting away.’
‘I know. I mean, obviously we’d have to see inside first.’ She shrugged doubtfully. ‘But it is a bit of a bargain considering what’s on offer. Four large well-proportioned bedrooms, family bathroom, plus a kitchen and a dining room, giving the potential for a spacious and contemporary kitchen-diner living space. The property also benefits from a lawn to the rear and there is scope for a pretty cottage garden at the front of the property.’
I snorted with laughter. ‘You’ve read the estate agent’s blurb a few times, then.’
‘Just a few.’ She grinned sheepishly, then she pushed open the rather rickety gate and beckoned to me to follow.
Curious, I tried to peer in through one of the windows but I couldn’t see much. There was a plaque by the door, half-hidden by the overgrown ivy, so I pushed the foliage aside to see the name of Ellie’s dream house.
I choked back a snort of laughter.
Ellie hadn’t mentioned that particular detail.
I wandered over to where she was currently examining one of the window frames, and from what I could see, it was flaking away under her fingers.
‘You’re seriously considering this, aren’t you? But why bring me to see it? What about Zak?’
‘Zak’s got this urgent book deadline and he’s gone down to the coast for a few days because he says being by the sea makes him more creative. He’s staying with Sylvia’s sister, Agatha.’
‘His gran?’
‘Yup. And anyway, I can never have a proper conversation with Zak when he’s “in the zone”
with his writing. So I thought, which of my friends would give me an honest opinion and not sugar-coat it for my benefit?’
‘So you thought of me.’ I grinned. ‘Ah, well, it’s nice to know that accidentally putting my foot in my gob so frequently actually has its benefits sometimes.’
She chuckled. ‘No, but really, Maddy, what do you think? It would make the perfect family home, don’t you think?’
‘It wouldn’t be for me, but it’s a handsome house with lots of space.’
She nodded dreamily. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird that deep down, I’ve always had this feeling that one day, I’d live in this very house?’
This I wasn’t quite so sure about, but I shrugged in a neutral way.
‘You haven’t even seen inside it, though,’ I pointed out. ‘There might be a reason it’s a bargain and hasn’t sold.’
‘True. But we’re about to find out.’
‘What do you mean?’
As if on cue, I heard the sound of an engine in the distance and when I turned, a small blue car was bumping its way along the lane towards us.
‘It’s the estate agent,’ said Ellie happily. ‘She’s called Rose, which I’m taking as another sign the house is meant for me.’
She laughed at my look of disbelief to show she wasn’t being entirely serious.
‘Ellie, just because the estate agent happens to have the same name as your mum doesn’t mean this was all meant to be,’ I said sternly. ‘They might have sent a man called Stan which would have mucked up your theory no end.’
‘Ah, yes, but that’s the whole point. They didn’t send Stan. They sent Rose.’ She grinned at me. ‘Do you want to see inside?’