Eidelweiss House

Eidelweiss House. At the library was the easiest place for the sisters to meet and talk about the news they’d just received. It was halfway between Maria’s sleek office and the tourist shop where Frieda sold local (and not so local) souvenirs. “So Great-Aunt Frieda left her house to you,” Marie said.
“Yes. Do you mind?” Frieda said anxiously. If you’d asked the sisters about their relationship, they’d have described it as mutual affection and incomprehension. In roughly equal quantities. Working out what the other one was thinking – or felt – was beyond them both, nine times out of ten. “Goodness, no! I’d only have had the hassle of selling it, and I don’t need the money. You need the money – and you were her namesake. Do you want me to see if I can find out who’s the best local agent? Someone at work will know someone who knows.” “I talked to Dad about it last night.”
Marie approved of that.
“He was full of memories of the place – you know he used to spend all his summers with his grandparents. Him and his cousins, until the grandparents got too old and Great Aunt Frieda gave up her nursing job and came home to look after them…Anyway, after they died, Great Aunt Frieda didn’t go back into nursing: instead, she made the house pay for itself by taking in lodgers. Overseas graduates, coming to work at the hospital or in the science labs.”
“Yes,” Marie said guardedly. She knew that starry look in her sister’s eyes. “So I’m going to do the same.” Frieda had heard the reservations in her sister’s voice. “For two years. I’m going to see if I can get the painting and photography that I love doing to turn into a paying proposition – I need time to work at them both. And if I decide to sell it at the end of two years, well, I’ve got that time to make it sale-ready. Dad said to take this chance because it might never come again. And seeing as Hans and I split up three months ago, and – had you heard he’s just got engaged..?” Not so starry-eyed after all. “I’ll miss you,” Marie said, surprising herself. “But, yes, this sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Go for it!”
“I’ll come back for Christmas. Although Dad was muttering about going up there and how idyllic the place was in the snow.”
“I might even go along with that! Give it a go – and if you need help with any of the financial side of things, please ask. I’d be so happy to help you do this.” And here it was. Eidelweiss House, looking a bit smarter, actually, than it had in her father’s old photographs. The house wasn’t huge – her father had told her that. “Two big rooms downstairs, though the hall was almost like another room too.” The kitchen looked a bit old-fashioned, but bright and homely. And the sitting room had much the same look and feel – a little old-fashioned, but welcoming and calm.
“Your great aunt never had any problems finding lodgers,” her dad had said. “She was pretty near the top of the recommended places list for graduates. And the office knew what suited her too – quiet studious girls who needed a safe home-from-home place. You could just say you’ll take the two who were lined up to come anyway. You won’t find yourself having to cope with rowdy lads.” The bunk beds that her dad remembered had gone, but he had definitely told her about the pirate frieze painted above the woodwork, and the stories the grandparents had made up about it. The other bedroom was slightly smaller, and again still held traces of the childhood things her father had told her about. No bunk beds here now, either. She wasn’t going to have to do anything to the house for the incoming lodgers apart from stock up the fridge. Which was just as well really, because they were arriving soon! She’d better phone her dad and warn him and Mum that she was moving out just as soon as they could bring her and her stuff up here. Frieda hung her best photographs on the wall opposite her bed, so that she’d see them as soon as she woke up in and remember to make the most of these two years. The bedroom was in keeping with the rest of the house – but at least the two bathrooms were up to date! And outside was amazing. The tree house was still there, much to her dad’s delight. There was a thriving vegetable garden that only needed a bit of work, a horseshoe court, a well-used tennis table.
“We just used to spend all day outside,” her dad remembered. "In the garden when we were younger, and then out and about everywhere on our bikes when we were a bit older. I think you’ll have a very happy time here my dear.”
The lodgers were arriving today. I hope we like each other, Frieda thought. The taxi dropped off its two passengers and their luggage and drove away. Frieda came out, slightly nervously, to meet them. They were both looking at her in an odd way.
“Excuse me,” said the one who was probably Leila Patel, “but is this Eidelweiss House? And do I have the pleasure of addressing…” she checked her phone “Miss Frieda Anserl?”
“Yes,” Frieda said, wondering why Leila sounded so unsure. “I was expecting a much older lady. That is why my parents agreed to let me come here.”
“Mine also!” Li Zhang exclaimed. “I was expecting to be staying with someone as old – and as fierce – as my grandmother. A retired Matron of a hospital: she will keep you in order, my grandmother said.”
“You have a grandmother like that too?” Leila said. “Does she always tell you that you are dressing all wrong...?”
“Oh yes! And does yours say, In my young days I would have never..?”
“I think this might be more fun than I was expecting.”
Frieda bent her head to hide her smile at their descriptions of their grandmothers, but she was inclined to agree with them. This might be fun. And this is a winter view – from the front. And from the back.