Flora's Lot by Katie Fforde (best books under 200 pages TXT) 📗

‘Silly Charles for putting up with it!’

Virginia shook her head knowingly. 'She had her eyeon him since she was nine yearsold. The poor man didn't have a chance.'

‘He must have done,' said Florabriskly. 'He's free, white and over twenty-one!’

Virginia shrugged.

Flora forgot Charles and his marriage plans when shespotted a small leather case.'Ooh! Can I play with this jewellery?It looks like a treasure chest, with it all spilling out.'

‘You can just put a sticker on it.Annabelle's been through it already.It's all junk - or "costume" as we say in the trade.'

‘Oh, let me play, just for a second,' pleaded Flora. 'I justwant to look at that brooch of a cat. My cat had kittens at the weekend.’

Virginia allowed herself to be distracted by thisnews. Whiledescribing the little bundles, with their flat ears and slits instead of eyes, Flora tipped out the boxof jewellery on to a table and sorted through it.

‘Of course you can come and see themwhen they're a bit bigger,' she said.'Geoffrey's Edie is having one, and I mightwant to keep one myself, but there's still two more.'

‘And they were born on topof your shoes?'

‘Yes! And we'd made her such a nicebed. She's on it now, of course, andseems perfectly happy. I've used all thetowels, though, and have to keep washing them by hand. Just as well theweather's fine. My shoes needed a bit of cleaning, too.'

‘You should get a washing machine.Pick one up here for a song.'

‘I'll speak to Charles about it. Ohlook, these pearls are real.'

‘They can't be. Annabelle would havespotted them.'

‘Theyare.' Flora pulled out the long string of small, uneven pearls. 'They're gritty when you bite them.That's the only thing I know aboutanything.'

‘Tell Annabelle when she comes round.She'll be cross that she missed it.’

Annabelle took some convincing. 'They can't possiblybe real. They're far too long a string.'

‘I really do think they are,' Florasaid, agonised by the thought that she might not be believed.

‘It's terribly unlikely. If anyonehad a string that long they'd keepthem separate and they were just jumbled together in all that diamantéand glass.'

‘Well, you test them, then,' saidFlora, beginning to doubt herself.

Annabelle shook her head. 'I can't do that thingwith the teeth. So unhygienic.'

‘Let's ask Charles,' suggestedVirginia, as he appeared on thestage. She waved at him to come over. 'Are these pearls real or not?'she asked.

Charles raised them to his mouth. 'Yup. Freshwaterpearls. Well spotted, Annie-bee. They should definitely go on their own.’

Virginia opened her mouth to say it wasn't 'Annie-bee' who spotted them, but Flora. Flora frowned and shook her head. Annabelle had enough problems with her without being shown up by the downsizing bimbo.

‘You should have said something,'said Virginia when Charles and Annabelle had gone.

‘There's no point in antagonising herany more. She already hates me.'

‘She hates everyone she thinks standsin the way of her grand plan.'

‘Oh? What's her grand plan?' Floracarefully put a label on each ofthree broken pieces that had once been a Toby jug.

Virginia regarded the pieces and frowned. 'She wantsto close the place down.'

‘But why would she do that? It's agood business, isn't it?'

‘Could be better, and this buildingalone is fantastically valuable.There's a nursery school round the back, the rent from that is quite high, and it's used by the locals - drama groups, WI, Cubs and Brownies,Guides- between sales. It would be areal loss to the community if it was sold.'

‘So what does Annabelle want to dowith it?’

‘Divideit up into executive flats and sell them individually for a fortune.'

‘Oh my goodness.'

‘And then there's the house next door.At the moment there's a flat there that Charles uses sometimes, and theoffices. But it would raise a lot of money if it were divided and soldoff.'

‘I can see it is quite extravagantkeeping it, if it's not all beingused. But this place is different. It's like a public space.'

‘Exactly!' Virginia frowned suddenlyand said, 'Who are you again? Apartfrom being Charles's cousin?’

Flora wondered if she should keep her exactidentity secret, butdecided that secrets were a luxury no one had round here. 'I've inherited a bit of thecompany. Annabelle wantsto buy some shares from me.' It wasn't the entire truth, but it should be enough to satisfy Virginia. It wasn't fair to Charles that the wholetown should know all his privatefinancial affairs, even if they did know most of them already.

‘Well, don't you let her, if you canavoid it. So you're learning a bit about the business?'

‘That's the idea. Annabelle andCharles think I'll be a liability, but I'd like to prove them wrong.'

‘They're not so good at itthemselves. Oh, Charles is a goodman, knows everything about anything that's likely to come through the doors and beyond, but he's too old-fashioned in many ways. Marketing is nothis bag.' Virginia spotted Geoffreycoming up the stairs with a box.'Over here, Geoffrey. Is that all the same vendor?’

While they discussed who owned what and what list it should be on, Flora resisted the temptation togo through the other boxes ofcostume jewellery, and hoped, veryhard, that Virginia wouldn't have forgotten what she was telling her by thetime she and Geoffrey had reached a conclusion.

‘No,' Virginia said when they werealone again. 'My daughter offered todo them a website, for nothing, for practice,and Annabelle wouldn't hear of it. Said it was quite unnecessary. They put the better items on the Internet, which does get people down here, butthey haven't got a website as such.'

‘So how do they advertise?'

‘The Yellow Pages, and of course the sales are listed in the local papers, but that's not going to get themmuch new business.All auction houses have websites these days. It's essential. My daughter could do them onevery reasonably.'

‘Hmm. I'll have to look into that,'said Flora. 'Do you want to do that box or shall I?'

‘There's some jewellery and I can see you're keen. You go ahead.’

ChapterFive

 While Flora was more than competent to drive theLand-Rover, she wasa little less sure of the way. However, after finding herself in a village that wasdefinitely not the one with the village shop and the pub which were currently her nearest civilisation, she managed tofind