Mary Lyons: Reform Of The Playboy

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 around the clean and empty building a week later, while waiting for the estate agent to call with a client who wished to view the house, Harriet had to agree that Trish had been quite right.

In fact, if there was some way in which she could manage to retain ownership of the house—and also to live here herself—she’d willingly do so. If only for the sheer pleasure of opening the tall, curved glass French windows in the large ground-floor room and being able to stroll out into the extremely peaceful and beautiful garden.

A moment later her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the doorbell, and she hurried through into the hall. Opening the door, she found the estate agent on the doorstep, introducing the tall man standing beside him as a Mr Maclean, who was very keen to see over the house before it was formally put up for sale.

She stood back to allow the men to enter the house, gaining only a brief impression in the dimly lit hall of a tall and slim dark-haired man.

However, as she led the two men through the large empty rooms, Harriet found herself beginning to think that ‘Mr Maclean’ didn’t seem at all keen on the house—or anything else, for that matter.

There was no doubt that he was tall, dark and handsome. In fact, as Harriet led the two men into the brightly lit, large main room on the ground floor, she found herself temporarily stunned into silence as she realised that the stranger wasn’t just a good-looking guy—but clearly quite extraordinarily handsome.

Viewing the man dressed in casual, but immaculate weekend attire, as he appeared to be gazing with complete disinterest around the room, Harriet was suddenly conscious of the fact that she, herself, must appear boringly conventional.

Never having done this sort of thing before, she’d spent some time earlier in the day trying to work out the right sort of ‘uniform’ for showing people around the house. Not that it was desperately important, of course. However, the estate agent had stressed the fact that first impressions were very important—which was why he’d also warned her to make sure the rooms were as clean as possible.

‘Ideally, of course, you should have bowls of flowers in every room,’ he’d told her. ‘In fact, I always tell my ladies that it doesn’t hurt to have the smell of fresh roasting coffee, or newly baked bread, issuing from the kitchen,’ he’d added with a conspiratorial wink, as he’d revealed some of the tricks of his trade.

However, since she obviously had no way of providing any of those items, Harriet had been forced to concentrate on making sure that all the rooms were sparkling clean—arranging for a window cleaner to call had worked wonders—and trying to dress as if she was the sort of person who normally lived in a house this size.