Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary

‘Yes, yes…please come in. We saw you walking down the drive and Mr Tennant told me who you were. I’d no idea you intended to walk,’ she added vaguely. ‘I’m May Birtles, by the way,’ she added, leaving Charlotte to follow her across the stone-flagged dimly lit hall.

Instinctively, Charlotte cast a professional glance over her surroundings. The house had a Queen Anne façade, but here in the panelling adorning the walls, and the stone-flagged floor, was evidence of an older building.

An intricately carved staircase led up to the upper storeys of the house, and, although Charlotte would have loved to have stopped and studied it in more detail, she followed Mrs Birtles, who opened a pair of beautiful panelled double doors into another room.

At first the sunshine streaming in through the windows blinded Charlotte to her surroundings. She had a confused impression of rich brocades in soft faded colours, of a highly polished marquetry floor covered with delicate silky rugs, of immense gilt-framed portraits of sober-clothed individuals, of a scent of some kind of sharp, fresh pot-pourri, and huge bowls of freshly cut flowers, and last of all of Oliver Tennant, standing in front of one of the windows.

He was frowning, Charlotte recognised, when her eyes had become accustomed to the brilliance of the sunshine.

Initially his terse, ‘Are you all right?’ confused her a little until Mrs Birtles explained.

‘Mr Tennant was concerned about you. He told me that something must have happened to you to make you late for our appointment. I did offer to take him round the house without waiting for you, but he insisted on waiting.’

While Charlotte absorbed this, she was staring at Oliver, unable to comprehend that the grim look of concern tightening his mouth was actually on her account. ‘My car broke down,’ she told them both. ‘Luckily I was only half a mile or so away, so, after someone helped me to push it out of the way, I walked here.’

She heard the sound Oliver made under his breath. ‘You could have asked me for a lift,’ he told her sharply.

Charlotte stared at him. Ask him for a lift…?

She could tell from the way Mrs Birtles was smiling so approvingly at him that the older woman was completely bowled over by him. No prizes for guessing whom she would appoint as her agent, Charlotte reflected sourly, refusing to allow the warmth which had developed inside her when she had recognised his concern to grow.

‘Well, now that you are both here,’ Mrs Birtles was saying placidly, apparently unaware of Charlotte’s antipathy towards her fellow agent, ‘shall we make a start?’

* * *

The house was large and rambling and, in addition to selling it with the several acres of land that went with it, Mrs Birtles also wanted to dispose of a large number of pieces of antique furniture.

‘I’m going to live abroad,’ she told them both. ‘I have no one to leave the house to. It’s a family home really. My husband inherited it from a distant cousin and we lived here for almost twenty years. When he died…well, I have a sister living in Florida who’s invited me to join her.’

Oliver, who had been inspecting a piece of furniture, turned round and asked her, ‘Is the house listed?’

Mrs Birtles frowned. ‘No…no, it isn’t. Why do you ask?’

Charlotte thought she knew. A listed building was protected and could not be altered in any way without proper consent. A listing protected a property, but sometimes put off prospective purchasers, especially of a house this size. A developer who might be interested in purchasing the house for the value of its land, with the intention of destroying the house and using the land to build a new estate, wouldn’t be interested if he knew the house was protected by a listing.

Charlotte had stopped listening to Mrs Birtles and Oliver; heaven alone knew why Mrs Birtles had asked her here. It was painfully obvious that she was going to commission Oliver. Fair-mindedly, Charlotte acknowledged to herself that Oliver with his contacts in London would probably be able to effect a sale much more easily than she would herself. This property was way outside the normal type of house she dealt with. It would need specialised handling, ads in such publications as Country Life, special brochures. It should perhaps be sold by auction—certainly an auction of the furniture Mrs Birtles wanted to dispose of would bring in more money than private sales.

She heard Mrs Birtles saying something about terms, and switched her attention back to their conversation.

‘I think you’ll find that both Miss Spencer and I operate a similar scale of charges.’

Charlotte stared at him. This wasn’t what she had expected. She had been waiting for Oliver to go all out to sell himself and his services to Mrs Birtles. Instead he was saying something about Charlotte’s having the advantage over him in local knowledge, and then he paused, as though giving her the opportunity to take advantage of her cue.