The House in the Clouds - Victoria Connelly Page 0,19
one wanted within a few minutes, she acknowledged that. There was the theatre and the wonderful shows, the restaurants and the cafes, the colourful street life and the ever-changing window displays of the shops. Was she crazy to leave it all behind for the solitude of a house in the middle of nowhere? There was only one small shop and post office in the village of Winfield. Could that satisfy someone who’d lived in London all her life? Growing up in the suburbs, she and her sister, Ellen, had been aware of the great metropolis just a short tube ride away, but they’d rarely had the money to enjoy it until they were working themselves.
Abi thought for a moment about their slightly unusual childhood. They’d never known their father. He’d left when Abi was a baby and Ellen was just four. Ellen said she had no memory of him, only what her mother had told her and that hadn’t exactly been happy recollections. The trouble was, Abi didn’t really remember her mother either for she’d died when Abi was only six. It was something that wasn’t really talked about, even to this day. Abi had just accepted it because she’d been so young, but she often wondered what had happened. She’d asked Ellen a few times, but she’d always been vague and quickly changed the subject. She’d been ten when it had happened and Abi guessed that Ellen remembered more about it all than she was letting on. Maybe it was painful for her. Abi wasn’t sure. But Abi had never pushed her to say more.
After their mother had died, they’d gone to live with her sister. Aunt Claire was a no-nonsense sort of woman who did her job in raising her two nieces, but gave nothing more than she needed to. They were clothed, fed and schooled and then told to get jobs and a place of their own as soon as they were able to. Abi was kind of grateful for that sort of upbringing because it had made her independent. She’d never been afraid to be reliant only on herself and she felt lucky that she’d always had her art as an escape because that had provided a safe haven during those tricky early years.
Perhaps that was what was driving her now, she thought, with the purchase of her dream home and all the plans she had for it. Perhaps she knew that nobody but her was going to help her make her dreams come true. Nobody had knocked on her door and said, we believe there’s a talented artist here who can run a brilliant new company. And nobody was going to take her by the hand and guide her to her perfect home. Although she supposed that Edward Townsend had sort of done that, hadn’t he? She smiled at the thought. Anyway, Abi had learned that you made your own luck in life. She had discovered Winfield Hall and had made sure she was in the auction room that day. If she hadn’t been, Edward Townsend would never have been able to reach out to her.
As she filled a paper bag with some peppers, she wondered how long it would be until she could move into Winfield. A whole month had passed since her visit. She’d swapped a few messages with Edward since then, but hadn’t been down to Winfield since. What took so long with a bit of paperwork? Abi was always baffled by it. She was a cash buyer and she wanted to buy as much as Edward needed to sell. It was all agreed. So why did it take so long? It really was very frustrating. In her heart, she had already moved so it was exasperating that the world didn’t move at the same pace.
Edward had warned her that work would continue on Winfield for the rest of the year if not longer. Abi was aware of that and of the noise and mess that would mean, but she couldn’t wait to make it her home anyway and leave London behind. As much as she’d loved living there and growing her business, it was time for a change – a different pace of life. What was it she’d thought on the day she’d viewed Winfield? She needed a place to breathe. That was it. She could no longer breathe in London.
Her sister had managed to escape the city when she got married, moving first to a pretty village in Hampshire and