The Little Teashop of Lost and Found by Ashley, Trisha (33)

33

Dogged Footsteps

Outside, two identical wall-eyed sheepdogs had appeared and began to herd me out of the courtyard with sharp nips at my ankles, while George reversed the tractor.

I jumped into the safety of my car with relief and the dogs gave me a look of disgust and then ran off after their master, who was already on his way back into the farmhouse. The door slammed and he was gone, much as the cleaner, Val, had taken her leave: it must be a particularly Yorkshire form of farewell.

I did a clumsy three-point turn and then headed back up the farm track, more than happy to reach the road again. As I paused to check for traffic, the sign for Mr Rochester’s Restaurant and the Hikers’ Café flapped in the stiff breeze to my right and, without conscious decision, I turned towards it like a homing pigeon.

Hot tea was what I urgently needed, and luckily the café was open, the windows steamed up from the warmth within. Inside I found two hardy-looking hikers and Val. She must have walked there, though perhaps there was a short cut?

She gave me a look of deep suspicion when I greeted her and encircled her tea and buttered teacake with both arms, as if I might snatch them away.

‘Is he taking you on, to replace me?’ she demanded belligerently.

‘What?’ I said, nonplussed.

‘That George. Just because I’m knocking on a bit, it doesn’t mean I can’t clean like I always did.’

‘Oh!’ I said, suddenly enlightened. ‘No, I didn’t come about that at all. It was something totally different. In fact, I was looking for his father, but I didn’t know he’d died.’ Seeing she still looked unconvinced, I added, ‘And I’ve just bought my own business in Haworth, so I’m not looking for work at all.’

She relaxed slightly. ‘I thought he was going to replace me; he’s threatened enough.’

‘I keep telling you he won’t, you daft bat,’ said the woman behind the counter, whom I recognized by her long grey plait of hair as one of the helpers at Eleri’s book launch. ‘Who else would work for a miserable little snirp like that, so penny-pinching he only turns the heating on if there’s ice on the inside of the windows?’

Val demolished the last bite of her teacake and got up. ‘Well, it’s what I’m used to, Martha. Now I’d best get on to my next job.’

She looked at me. ‘And if you see George again, don’t you go telling him you saw me here.’

‘OK … though I don’t see why you shouldn’t be here.’

‘He and his cousin Henry don’t get on too well.’

‘He must know you leave your car here, by now,’ the woman behind the counter said. ‘And you clean for Eleri one afternoon a week, too.’

‘Yes, Martha, but if we don’t mention it, then it doesn’t matter, does it?’ Val said with an air of logic and left, dragging on her plaid coat as she went.

‘You were at the book launch, weren’t you?’ Martha said, taking my order, but seeming to lose interest in me once I’d agreed that yes, I had been there.

The tea was excellent and I studied the photos on the walls, which seemed to be of the first book launch. I knew it had been held in the café, since the restaurant hadn’t been opened then.

There was a replica of the precious diary with the reference to Charlotte Brontë in it, too, with postcards and souvenirs next to it for sale, along with signed copies of some of Eleri’s books, and I wandered across for a look until Martha brought my order out.

I was just eating an excellent warm cheese scone, so light it almost floated off the plate – but then, so did mine – when Eleri came in with Henry. His harsh-featured but attractive face looked just as gloomily intense as always, and although he saw me he didn’t say anything, just nodded and headed straight for the kitchen.

‘The lass has just et the last cheese scone,’ Martha called after him. ‘Henry?’

There was the clashing of pots and pans and some muttering.

‘Eh, our very own Mr Rochester,’ Martha said to Eleri drily.

‘I heard that,’ said Henry’s voice through the serving hatch.

Martha nodded in my direction: ‘She was at the book launch.’

‘Not only at the book launch, but she’s a novelist and she’s been taken on by my agent, Senga,’ Eleri told her. ‘Hi, Alice – this is a nice surprise. Can I join you?’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘What brings you all the way out here?’ she asked, sitting opposite and smiling at me. Smiling up at me, in fact, since she is very petite. I felt a bit like a giraffe. ‘Unless you’re sizing up Henry’s baking? We know you’re going to open a tearoom in Haworth.’

‘The scone was delicious, but actually I came here on impulse, after visiting George Godet,’ I said, and then when Martha had, quite unbidden, put foaming mugs of hot chocolate and slices of sticky ginger cake in front of us, somehow I found myself confiding to her the whole story of my abandonment on the moors and subsequent discovery by Joe Godet.

‘I was so disappointed to find he’d died years ago, though George told me everything he’d said about finding me. I’ve still got the other eyewitness, Emily Rhymer, though, if I can find her.’

‘I’m not local, so I’d never heard the story,’ Eleri said, a glint that I recognized as that of a novelist scenting an interesting plot idea in her eyes. ‘No one’s even mentioned it.’

Martha, who’d been hovering nearby on the pretext of wiping down a table, said, ‘It were a long time ago, that’s why.’

Then some hikers demanded more hot water for their teapot and a second round of cheese toasties and she had to tear herself away.

‘I’m absolutely amazed,’ Eleri said. ‘But I do feel for you and understand why you need to try to find your birth mother.’

Then she leaned forward and added, ‘But I’ll tell you what: I know where Emily Rhymer lives, because her sister married a well-known actor and playwright and they often come to Henry’s restaurant for dinner – sometimes they even bring the whole clan!’

By the time I left the Hikers’ Café a good hour had whizzed by and since I’d already skived off work for so long, I thought I might as well compound the offence by calling in to see if any of the Giddingses were at home on the way back. I was dying to tell someone all about my visit to George.

Bel was out but Sheila, in her usual clay-spattered corduroy trousers, was in the kitchen stirring soup.

I poured the whole tale out to her, George’s curmudgeonliness seeming quite funny in retrospect.

‘And then I had tea afterwards with Eleri Groves at the Hikers’ Café,’ I continued. ‘And guess what – she gave me the address of Emily Rhymer in Upvale.’

‘So you’re going to see her, too?’

‘Yes – in fact, I think I’ll go tomorrow morning because I’d sort of like to get it over with. She’s now the only eyewitness left to what happened, you see.’

‘I think it might be more upsetting than you realize to hear a first-hand account, so perhaps you should take Bel or Nile with you,’ Sheila suggested.

‘Oh, I’m OK on my own,’ I said. ‘I mean, I managed fine with George Godet, and he wasn’t the friendliest man to talk to. I expect Emily Rhymer’s much nicer and she won’t mind describing what happened in the least.’

She looked doubtful. ‘Well, you’ll come back here right after you’ve seen her to tell us about it, won’t you? And then do stay over on Saturday night. Bel said you were working till late on your book every day, but I’m sure a rest over the weekend would do you good.’

‘That would be lovely,’ I agreed, though I wasn’t sure Senga would feel the same way …

‘Nile was here earlier,’ she said, with a change of subject. ‘He visited that friend of his with the antiques barn and ended up staying the night. I expect you wondered where he’d got to?’

‘Not really,’ I said, which was a downright lie. ‘He comes and goes and there’s no reason at all why he would tell me.’

Sheila beamed at me and handed me a steaming mug. ‘Chicken soup for the soul,’ she said. ‘Bread?’

I hadn’t sworn Sheila to secrecy, but even so, I was amazed to discover when I got back to my flat that she’d already rung Nile and told him all about George Godet and my intention to track down Emily Rhymer next morning. He appeared barely five minutes after I got in and said he’d drive me over to Upvale himself on Saturday.

‘No – there’s no need,’ I said firmly. ‘I mean, it’ll just be another version of what George told me, but from a different angle, as it were, and not second-hand.’

‘Sheila thought you might be upset afterwards. I needn’t come in with you, I can drop you there and then visit Angel Delights.’

‘Angel Delights?’

‘It’s a shop in Upvale,’ he explained. ‘A weird mix of antiques, junk and New Age tat, but I’ve found the occasional interesting piece there.’

I hoped the interesting piece wasn’t serving behind the counter … and I really didn’t know why I kept having these jealous thoughts about Nile, when his discarded girlfriends littered the countryside as an awful warning of what might happen if I weakened.

Once he’d gone, I had the urge to kill something in my novel – so cathartic.

Next morning, it being Friday, Tilda came to clean and brought Nell with her. She liked to pop in occasionally, to check how things were going, offer sometimes forthright advice to the workmen, and ply them with cups of treacly tea.

That day there was just Jack, fitting new paper towel holders in the kitchen, utility room and cloakrooms, so she plied me instead while Tilda cleaned my flat.

‘Our Tilda only just told me about that Jim Voss having the cheek to come round and demand you give him that old tea set, on Molly Muswell’s say-so,’ she said, stirring the teapot before pouring the brew. By now, I think I’d built up an immunity to tannin.

‘Yes, it was a bit much considering how she cheated me out of all the things I’d paid for. I expect Jim Voss told her about our finding the willow-pattern china in that cupboard and it jarred her memory, but of course, there isn’t any tea set, so she must have sold it and forgotten or something, though she said it had been her mother’s.’

‘Oh, there is a tea set, but it’s nothing to do with Mrs M,’ Nell announced, to my surprise. ‘I remember it well. It was a legacy to the Misses Spencer from their aunt Queenie, but it was so hideous they packed it up and put it away. They did get it out and use it once a year, though, in remembrance of her. I’ve got a couple of snaps of them having tea from it in my album at home.’

‘Then where did it go? I mean, there’s nothing except the vacuum cleaner in there now.’

‘Miss Clara pushed it round the corner out of sight,’ Nell said. ‘Come on, we’ll see if it’s there.’

Old houses have strange quirks and the cupboard proved to run round to the right into a little alcove, with an exceedingly dusty box in it.

‘Tilda can’t know there’s a space there, because the rest of the cupboard’s clean as a whistle,’ I said.

I opened the top and unwrapped a piece of the most hideously dark, gilded and overblown china I’d ever seen. ‘It’s vile!’ I said.

‘The Misses Spencer kept it for sentimental value, but even they didn’t like it,’ Nell said.

‘Well, it certainly doesn’t belong to Mrs Muswell, so let’s just put it back where it was for now,’ I said.

‘It might be worth a few bob,’ suggested Nell. ‘Mrs M must think it is, if she sent that Voss round for it.’

‘I’ll ask Nile to take a look some time,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think Mrs M really had much in the way of good taste, so it’s probably not valuable.’

‘Common as muck, she were,’ agreed Nell, leading the way back upstairs.

When Tilda came down with the vacuum cleaner and I could get back to my flat again without being under her feet, I made the mistake of checking my emails before settling down to write, and there was the next lot of edits from my publisher!

Senga had warned me that there would be more, but they’d only be minor changes, and to my relief she was quite right.

I’d entirely forgotten the thread of my new book by the time I’d sorted those out, so when Bel rang and said she was in Haworth and was I too busy for a visitor, I told her to come straight round.

She was even more welcome when I discovered she’d brought fresh cream cakes and good news: she’d been out delivering some of her ceramic pieces to a small craft gallery in Oxenhope and stumbled across the workshop of an upcycler.

‘Upcycler?’ I had a mental image of someone riding a unicycle across a high wire.

‘Yes, you know – they take bits of old bric-a-brac and furniture and make them into something else, so they have a new lease of life.’

‘Oh, right, I know what you mean now.’

‘I only went in out of curiosity, because I’m not that keen on coffee tables made out of old wooden pallets and bits of car engine, but his stuff was a lot nicer than that – and the great thing is that he makes tiered cake stands out of old plates, too.’

‘Are they nice?’ I asked, interested.

‘Lovely. I bought one for Mum, but I left it in the car because I have shopping to get. I’ve got lots of pics on my phone, though,’ she added, showing me.

‘I had a long chat with Thom – that’s his name, Thom Carey – and he can make the stands to order, in any quantity, if you supply the plates.’

‘They’d be perfect in willow-pattern china and, goodness knows, I’m drowning in the stuff now Nile’s put the word out that I want it.’

‘How many stands do you think you’d need?’ Bel asked, practically.

‘At least twenty – I’ll have to sit down and work it out. Ideally I’d like four-tier stands for the Classic Yorkshire and the Fat Rascal High Teas and three-tiered ones for the Light Afternoon.’

‘I think I’m feeling hungry again,’ she said, gazing regretfully at the empty cream cake box. We seemed to have scoffed two cakes each.

‘I’ve got a large egg custard tart, if you’d like a slice?’ I offered. ‘Nell gave me the recipe, so I tried it out.’

‘Oh, yes, I haven’t had custard tart for ages!’ she said, and while we were expanding our figures even more, I gave her all the details of my interview with George Godet. I’d entirely given up trying to keep any secrets from the Giddingses.

I called Bel’s upcycler to discuss what I needed and the upshot was that I would take lots of plates to his workshop on Sunday morning, so he could start on the order.

I sorted them out and then packed them into my boot, for Nile had decreed (in a series of texts – he hadn’t graced me with his physical presence all day) that I should leave my Beetle at Oldstone Farm on Saturday morning and then he would pick me up and drive me to Upvale in his car.

I was now feeling rather nervous about meeting Emily Rhymer – if she was there; I hadn’t tried ringing first to check. I’d just wing it, and see.