Chocolate Wishes by Trisha Ashley Read Free Book Online Page A

it. By the time she had swathed the windows in bright lengths of fabric in clashing colours, littered the place with lace-edged runners, splashily painted toleware jugs and hideous ornaments constructed out of seashells, it would look like an explosion inside a traditional gypsy vardo, just as our present kitchen did.
    A door from an inner hallway gave access to the museum, which was quite big, with a wooden floor and lots of ceiling lights. There were rows of empty glass display cabinets and a fixed mahogany desk near the museum entrance, with a cash drawer and a yellowing roll of admission tickets, all a bit sad and dusty. The room was certainly more than large enough to accommodate all of Grumps’ treasures, even if he divided one end off for his meetings. I hoped it would be the end furthest away from my cottage.
    And the cottage was the thing I most wanted to see – so of course I’d left it till last, like you do with the most exciting-looking present under the Christmas tree. But now I found the key for the door and entered what would be my new home with a feeling of excited anticipation.
    I went down two shallow, worn steps, straight into what had been the doll’s hospital, with a glazed shop window built out onto Angel Lane, round the corner from the museum. Presumably the Misses Frinton had had the extension done long before planning regulations became so restrictive.
    A polished wooden counter ran right across the front of the room and behind it were worktops, a sink and racks ofdrawers labelled with fascinating things like ‘Teddy Bear Noses’, ‘Doll’s Eyes – Blue’ and ‘Whiskers – Large, Black’.
    There were several electric sockets where I could plug in the Bath – the machine that tempered the couverture chocolate – and even a small double gas ring, presumably once used for melting glue, or something like that, but now perfect for a bain-marie , or for making toffee. The place was ideal!
    Behind it was a small sitting room that looked as if it had been used most recently for storage, since the one bare bulb dangling from the ceiling shone down onto flattened cardboard cartons littering the balding lino floor. The deeply recessed window facing onto the garden was murky and festooned with furry cobwebs, but had a seat built in beneath it. There was an open fireplace bordered by art nouveau purplish-pink glazed tiles, and a twisting staircase went up in one corner behind what I had thought was a cupboard door until I opened it.
    The kitchen had been added onto the back at some more recent point in time, with a very utilitarian white bathroom above it – though I was just grateful it had one at all and not just an outside toilet! But Grumps had said something about the Frintons having had tenants in the cottage in the dim and distant past, so I suppose they had updated it a bit then.
    Upstairs, as well as the bathroom, were two bedrooms and a small airing cupboard housing the water tank and an ancient immersion heater – all mod cons provided! And although the cottage smelled chilly and unused, it didn’t seem damp and the thick stone walls would keep the heat in in winter, and out in summer.
    Finally I went out through the kitchen into the garden,which was surrounded by a tall wall of mellow bricks, with matching paths in a herringbone pattern, slimy with damp and disuse. Large, half-moon beds ran around the walls and there was a big central round bed in which was a tree – plum, I suspected. It looked half dead, but plum trees love to fool you like that.
    It was all very overgrown, and at this time of year it was hard to tell what was there. It would be exciting to see what came up in the spring, and to clear and replant parts of it. There was certainly lots of room for my pots and my little greenhouse – there was even sufficient space to have a bigger one, when I could afford it.
    I absolutely loved it – it was like having my very own Secret Garden – and I decided then and there