It had been Louise who had persuaded her that the cottage was almost heaven sent and that six months or so spent living in the country was just what she needed right now.
‘But I don’t know anything about living in the country,’ she had protested, and Louise had laughed at her, pointing out that Cheshire was hardly the deepest South American jungle.
‘If you like, Simon and I will drive you out there this weekend and you can take a look at the place.’
Since Simon, Louise’s husband, was a qualified surveyor and would be able to tell her just how dilapidated the property actually was, Melanie had gratefully accepted this suggestion.
Which was how she now came to be perched so precariously on top of this ladder, trying desperately to follow Louise’s and Simon’s advice that, since the cottage was basically sound, it would pay her to spend some time and money on redecorating it before putting it up for sale.
‘Although if you do decide to sell you must hold on to the land,’ Simon had warned her. ‘There’s some talk of a new motorway extension in the area, which could send the price of any local land soaring.’
The phone had thankfully now stopped ringing, and very gingerly she climbed back down the ladder to survey the results of her handiwork.
When she had explained to the man in the wallpaper shop the condition of the cottage walls, explaining that she wanted to do something to brighten up the dull dinginess, she had been thrilled when he had suggested this pretty floral paper with its soft pinks and blues on a gentle cream background. Since there was no formal pattern to the paper it would not matter so much that the walls were not completely straight, he had explained to her; and the fact that the paper was ready-pasted and needed only to be moistened in the specially provided water-tray would greatly assist her in this her first venture as a wallpaper-hanger.
And then if all else failed he did just happen to have the name and address of an excellent local decorator, he had added with a kind smile, correctly interpreting her uncertain look at what seemed to be a vast amount of rolls of paper.
The trouble was that she had lived so long in rented accommodation in the confines of one tiny cluttered room that she was completely inexperienced in this sort of thing.
Before that her home had been the shabby institutionalised atmosphere of the children’s home where she had grown up.
When Melanie was orphaned when just three years old, there had been no one to take her into their charge. As she had grown up and realised how alone in the world she was, she had learned to cover the loneliness and aching sense of loss this brought her with a bright smile and an insouciant air of cheerfulness, while inwardly giving in to the compulsion to daydream on what her life might have been if her parents had not been killed in that car crash.
Perhaps it had been that inner loneliness, that need she had always tried to keep so firmly under control which had made her so susceptible to Paul’s false declaration of love.
Louise had been right about one thing. Living here in this cottage was giving her a new perspective on life.
Always fiercely independent, fiercely determined not to rely on anyone for anything, she was beginning to discover that needing the companionship, the friendship of others was not perhaps a weakness after all, but simply an acceptable fact of being human.
She had been surprised to discover how curious people were about her, and how ready they were to express that curiosity. The cottage was situated almost two miles outside the village, but already Melanie had had several callers, no doubt curious to see the young woman to whom old Mr Burrows had left his property.
Melanie still had no idea why on earth John Burrows had left his estate to her, and the solicitors had been as baffled as she was herself.
She frowned, worried as she studied her wallpaper, wondering if it was straight enough.
She wasn’t a very tall girl, barely five feet three with fine delicate bones that made her look far more fragile than she actually was. Her debilitating attack of flu had left her looking more finely drawn than ever, leaving shadows beneath her dark blue eyes and a listlessness to her normally energetic way of moving.
Today her long dark hair was tied back off her face and plaited, making her look much younger than her twenty-four years.
Twenty-four. Paul had laughed at her when she had turned down his suggestion that they spend the weekend together. She couldn’t possibly still be a virgin, he had mocked her. Not at her age and with her background.
That had hurt her; as though somehow the fact that she had no family to support and protect her meant that she must somehow be promiscuous. She had immediately denied such a suggestion, ignoring the unkind way he was laughing at her.
As a child she had loved reading; had found in her books an escape from the loneliness of her life, and perhaps it was because she had absorbed so many fairy-tales that she had clung so tenaciously during her late teens to the fantasy that one day she would meet someone; that they would fall in love and that not until that happened would she have any desire for the kind of sexual intimacy that seemed so casually taken for granted by others.
Perhaps Paul was right and she was being naı¨ve and idiotic; perhaps it was true that the majority of men would deplore and mock her inexperience; perhaps it was also true that at her age she ought to finally be abandoning her ridiculous notions of falling in love and living happily ever after.
Certainly, now that her eyes had been opened to Paul’s true character, she would not want to change places with Sarah.
Very carefully she cut the next strip of wallpaper, equally carefully rolling it up and placing it in the water-filled tray.
It had been Louise who had suggested that she tried her hand at doing some of her own decorating, taking Melanie home with her to show her what she and Simon had achieved in their own elegant detached house.
Some ten years her senior, Louise was proving to be a good friend, the first real friend she had ever had. She and Simon had been very kind to her and they were the only people she had ever admitted into her life and her trust.
Quite why, when she was eighteen years old, she had decided to take a course of driving lessons and ultimately her driving test she had never really known, but now she was thoroughly glad she had done so. Although Melanie was reluctant at first to touch any of her savings, Louise and Simon had firmly told her that when living in such an isolated area a car was an absolute necessity, and then when she had seen the fire-engine red VW Beetle she had fallen so immediately in love with it that Louise had chided her teasingly about being a salesman’s dream.
She did not intend to touch a penny of her inheritance—she had other plans for that!
Wealth, luxuries, life in what was popularly termed ‘the fast lane’—these had no appeal whatsoever for Melanie, but what she had always secretly hankered for was a home of her own, preferably in a country setting.
Of course in her daydreams this home was peopled with the family she had never had, but perhaps that was why she had given in so easily to Louise’s urgings that she move into the cottage if only for a little while.
Perhaps there had also been another reason; perhaps she had hoped that in living in the cottage she might somehow discover more about her unknown benefactor.
Melanie didn’t know very much about men, as the lamentable way in which she had almost fallen for Paul’s deceit had shown. She had no idea why a man, a total stranger, should choose to make her the beneficiary of his will. The solicitors