I expect he wasn’t used to women not drooling over him and lapping up his every word, but it would do him good.
When we got out, he said curtly that he’d see me later, but I knew where to find him if anything came up.
Then he strode off, a stiff breeze blasting back the blue-black curls from his forehead, like a heavenly hair dryer.
I’d kept my brief romance the previous summer a secret from Father, since I knew he would disapprove of anything that deflected my attention from studying, so there was nothing to cause the least suspicion to enter his head.
He’d been quite right, too, for I’d realized long before that catastrophic night that ‘falling in love’ was merely a midsummer night’s dream of illusion and fantasy, in my case caused by a rush of teenage hormones. I had no intention of ever succumbing to anything of the kind again.
Having dealt with the consequences of my stupidity, I worked hard for my exams and duly went on to take up my place at Oxford to read medicine. Father was extremely pleased and made me a generous allowance.
16
Lost Lambs
I spent the morning washing and putting away the rest of the willow-pattern china and adding yet more things to the lists for both the café and flat, which were now longer than the novel I was currently supposed to be writing …
Though actually, I was feeling increasingly interested in Beauty and what was going to happen to her. Eventually, I knew I’d have to settle down and fuse all the little scenes I’d written together and hope it turned into a book.
The moment she was free, Beauty leaped for the door and, slamming it, turned the key, though not before catching a brief glimpse of the monstrous shape within. Clearly, the spider had grown even more enormous during its long sleep.
Beauty was glad that she hadn’t, since she’d already been a plump girl when she fell under the enchantment. On the other hand, she wouldn’t have minded losing a few pounds … Still, her nursemaid had always said that princes liked girls with curvy figures – and as soon as she escaped this pesky enchantment, she’d go and find one to test that theory.
Unless, of course, he found her first, for she could now dimly hear the sound of hacking.
The new internet router arrived in the mail, though of course it was entirely useless until the landline was reconnected. But I’d have to manage without it until then, because I’d learned my lesson about using Nile’s without permission.
Along with the router came a bundle of ominous-looking envelopes for Mrs Muswell. At a guess, I’d say they contained a full set of final demands, so I readdressed them to her solicitor. I only hoped Nile hadn’t been right when he forecast a steady stream of debtors turning up in person at the door … though just after the post, a man turned up and said he’d come to collect the old kitchen table and chairs, which he’d bought from Mrs Muswell. He hadn’t been able to pick them up earlier because his van had been in an accident, and he was more than a trifle angry and belligerent when he realized he wasn’t going to get them at all. I wasn’t going to back down, though, and sent him off to Mrs M’s solicitor, too.
When Bel arrived, I gave her a tour of the café and flat and then we went out to look at beds, the top item on my list.
First, though, we bonded further over a burger and fries during a drive-through lunch (glad that Nile wasn’t around to criticize our food choices). The odd thing about Bel was that the moment I’d met her, I’d felt as if she was an old friend I hadn’t seen for ages, and she said it had been just the same for her.
‘Perhaps we knew each other in a previous existence?’ she suggested, but I was having enough trouble coming to terms with the present one to want to explore that idea.
I told her a bit more about my past in Cornwall and how I’d moved to Scotland and thought I’d finally found the man I could settle down with – until he was killed in an accident.
In return, she explained that she was divorced – not amicably, since he’d had an affair with her best friend – and now just wanted to stay at Oldstone and throw herself into her career.
‘I hated teaching and I don’t think I was very good at it,’ she confessed. ‘I spent all my spare time in my studio shed in the garden and Chris – my ex – got very jealous of the time it took up.’
‘Dan – my late fiancé – was the only man I ever lived with,’ I said. ‘He was away a lot, though, so I had time to myself to write in.’
‘You write? What kind of thing?’ she asked with interest.
‘Sort of updated fairy stories with a horror twist. When I was a little girl, Dad told me a fairy-tale version of how I was abandoned as a baby, and as I grew up we added more and more over-the-top detail to it, so I’ve just carried on from there, really, only darker.’
‘Fun!’ she said. ‘Mum’s been a successful artist all her life, while Dad built up the swimming pond business. I suppose I take after her, but our work is very different. The whole family love Oldstone – we’d spent so many happy holidays here before we moved in permanently – so we’re pulling together to renovate it in our spare time.’
‘I can understand that, because the setting’s beautiful in its way, even when it’s so bleak.’
‘I just love to watch the changing skies over the moors and the way the dark clouds close in suddenly, like curtains,’ she agreed. ‘But in summer, with the bees buzzing and the birds singing, it’s a different place entirely.’
‘And the tourists buzzing, too?’
‘Well, we’re certainly on the tourist trail, because they pass us on their way to landmarks like the Oldstone and the Hikers’ Café and the restaurant over near the Standing Stones Motel. I just need to lure them down the track to our pottery.’
‘Don’t you already get lots of visitors interested in swimming ponds? I assume that’s a demonstration model below the house?’
‘No, that was just put in for us – we all prefer natural swimming, but then, that’s what we grew up with. Most of the orders for ponds are generated through the website and word of mouth, so not many customers actually turn up here. Teddy or Geeta visit the potential clients and then do site visits till it’s completed. They have a team of installers, but they’re still based in Bristol where the warehouse is, so they travel up and down quite a bit.’
‘That must be tricky, with the baby.’
‘Teddy’s been doing most of the travelling since Casper arrived, and Geeta has taken on more of the management side, so it’s worked out, and as Geeta says, children aren’t small for very long. She has a very nice local girl to help with Casper, called Jan. You’ll probably see her about the place.’
‘So, it looks like we’re both making a fresh start – and we’ll build successful businesses and stay here for ever!’ I said.
‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ she replied cheerfully, and then drove me to a nearby retail park, where she encouraged me to buy a pretty white-painted metal bed with moulded swags of roses on the headboard, rather than the plain and economical divan I’d been looking for. Then we bounced our way down a long row of mattresses until we found the right one, like Goldilocks, but without the bears.
After that we picked up armfuls of paint charts and a few tester pots (I was feeling inspired by Sheila’s Scandinavian décor), some cheap white paper globe lampshades and a few other minor bits and pieces for the flat. I didn’t want to buy too much until I could see which of my curtains fitted the windows and whether I had enough bedlinen for a spare bed, when I finally got one.
It was late afternoon by the time we’d finished, so we headed straight back to Oldstone Farm and, once I’d dumped the carrier bags in my room, Bel gave me a tour of the grounds.
They weren’t extensive, since it had long ceased to be a working farm and the land had been sold off, but it did extend to a drystone-walled vegetable garden, where the hens also lived, and a substantial U-shaped block of outbuildings.
The barn at one end was now used as a garage, but the hayloft over it had been converted
to the Pondlife offices, with an original flight of stone steps leading up to it.
Some stables in the central part had been turned into two pottery studios, a kiln room and storage. Bel showed me round those first.
‘The stable doors will be ideal, because we can open the top halves to the studios when there are visitors, so they can watch us working,’ she said. ‘Then, when that palls, they can go and stoke up on coffee and cake and buy some of my smaller pieces of work, like the jewellery.’
‘You make porcelain jewellery?’ I asked, surprised.
‘Yes, when I was at art college I used to collect Victorian china brooches, usually flowers, and that inspired me. I’m starting to get a name for it, I suppose because it’s wearable art.’
She showed me some pieces, which were lovely, though not at all Victorian or flowery.
I was allowed a glimpse of a huge heavy example of Sheila’s work, too, which was waiting to be packed up.
‘Everything she makes sells almost instantly. The galleries can’t get enough of it,’ Bel said proudly. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the carriage house, where the café is going to be.’
It proved to be a large, stone-flagged space sandwiched between the studios and the Pondlife office. I thought it would be ideal … with a lot of work. I wasn’t sure that either Bel or her mother realized quite how much would be involved before they could serve even the light refreshments they were contemplating.
‘We could have the tables in the middle and my ceramics displayed around the walls, to tempt them into impulse buys,’ Bel was saying. ‘Maybe later we might take other craftspeople’s work, too, or even convert more stable for studio space.’
I looked round at the stone walls and the lovely beams in the roof. ‘You’d need to glaze in the big entrance doorway; that would let more light in. Those high windows help – are they original?’
‘No, I think there was some Victorian remodelling,’ she said. ‘We’ve already had electricity put into the studios and the Pondlife office, of course, which will be handy.’
‘And presumably you’ve got water laid on? You’ll need a staff hand-washing sink behind the counter if you’re selling food to the public. There are all sorts of hygiene and safety rules to comply with.’
‘I suppose there must be,’ she said vaguely. ‘You can see now that Mum and I really need your help with the café idea, because we simply don’t know where to start, so it’s a huge stroke of good fortune that you’ve come to stay!’
‘Yours will be simple to plan and set up compared to my teashop,’ I said, ‘though you’ll still have to comply with all the same planning and hygiene rules.’
‘That sounds daunting.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll help. I need to update myself with the current regulations anyway.’
‘I can see you’re going to be worth your weight in cooked breakfasts,’ Bel said, smiling.
The early wintry spell had mercurially reverted to golden September sunshine with a little warmth in it, and on the way back to the house we paused to look down on the swimming pond.
‘It looks quite inviting with the blue sky reflected in it,’ I said.
‘We do sometimes swim in it in September if we have an Indian summer. Not this year, though; it’s too chilly even on a day like this.’
I shivered. ‘I still think I prefer heated indoor swimming pools.’
‘We’ll see if we can change your mind next summer, when it’s hot.’
Bel finished her tour by taking me round the house, which was a total mishmash of styles that somehow melded into a homely whole. The oldest part had lots of small, dark, panelled rooms and one large formal dining room, which she said they never used, preferring to eat in the kitchen.
‘Mending the roof took most of our money, so Mum’s doing the rest of the house up one room at a time,’ Bel explained. ‘We all join in with the wallpaper stripping, sanding, painting – all the rest of it. Then we have a couple of weeks off and start on another. I think one of the letting bedrooms in your wing is next, so she can take more paying visitors next summer.’
Two letting bedrooms had been finished, including mine, but three more were dingy and in need of attention.
‘There are former servants’ bedrooms in the attic, too,’ Bel said. ‘But some are full of junk and they can all wait until we’ve done the rest of the house. Mum goes up there occasionally to take a lucky dip into the furniture and usually comes back with something interesting.’
I saw a little of Geeta and Teddy’s rooms through the open door off the living room and glanced into the bedrooms occupied by the family, which had all been redone. Nile’s had a vast four-poster bed and a large wardrobe eminently suitable for hanging vampire cloaks in.
The house had been quiet and deserted until we opened the kitchen door and found baby Casper in his highchair, banging a spoon on a tray quite happily while Sheila cooked.
‘There you are!’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Stewed chicken and dumplings – and it’s just us tonight, because Nile is having dinner with that client and Geeta and Teddy have gone to see friends for the evening.’
The chicken smelled lovely. I was so glad it wasn’t a sheep’s head. Perhaps Nile had only been joking about that.
Over dinner I told Sheila that the Scandinavian décor in my bedroom, all chalky grey-blues, warm cream and soft white, had inspired my entire colour scheme for the flat and café.
‘It’s very tranquil and soothing, but not cold, so I think it will be perfect, and also fit in with the blue and white patterned china.’
Sheila wrote down the contact details of her handyman, who was very good, for those jobs I couldn’t do myself. ‘And if you need plumbers and electricians, he can organize that for you, too,’ she added. ‘You can trust Jack.’
‘That will be really useful – thank you,’ I said gratefully. ‘The bed we ordered should be delivered on Friday – if they can find me,’ I added, ‘but I’d like to paint the flat before I move in, if you don’t mind my staying here till then?’
‘Of course not – stay as long as you like,’ she said hospitably. ‘In fact, I was banking on you still being here over next weekend, at the very least.’
Honey the Labrador, who as usual had been lying under the highchair waiting for any descending gobbets of food, thumped his tail approvingly.
After dinner Sheila went off to put Casper to bed and then watch TV in the apartment until Teddy and Geeta got home, while Bel and I stacked the dishwasher and cleared up.
Then Bel suggested we take our coffee into the library and do an online search for newspaper articles about my being found up on the moors.
‘The connection’s really slow, but we could give it a go, if you like?’
‘I’m dying to,’ I confessed. ‘I should have tried to find out more long ago – I don’t know why I didn’t. I suppose part of it was this silly idea that the first time I walked down the main street of Haworth I’d come face to face with my mother, who I’d recognize because she looked just like me, but that kind of thing only happens in fairy stories.’
‘And children don’t always look like their parents, do they?’ she pointed out. ‘Teddy and I are tall like Dad, but he had wavy brown hair, while we’re both fair and blue-eyed like Mum.’
I was longing to ask where the dark and mysterious Nile fitted in, but didn’t want to appear nosy … or over-interested. It seemed increasingly likely he was Sheila’s son by an earlier partner.
‘Were there any clues found with you?’ Bel asked.
‘Clues?’
‘Things that might help to trace your mother, like the clothes you were wearing? I read once that penniless mothers in Victorian times used to leave their babies at foundling hospitals with a token, so they could claim the baby back if their circumstances improved. They were so poor, it was often something like an acorn, or a button. Heartbreaking, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, and I imagine practically none of them ever did reclaim their childr
en,’ I agreed. ‘Dad never mentioned anything like that being left with me, so I’ve no idea. Come on, let’s have a look and see what we can find.’
‘We’ll start with the national newspapers,’ she suggested. ‘Some of the local papers might have more details, but we can get the overview first using the year you were born and your birthday.’
‘Official birthday, the day I was found,’ I said. ‘I was only a few hours old at most, so it had to be that day or the one before.’
It took a bit of searching, using various combinations of wording, but finally we struck gold. It appeared I hadn’t made the major news, since there was a lot going on at the time including a big murder trial, but all the dailies initially covered the story, though it petered out when it became clear the mother was neither coming forward, nor likely to be discovered.
‘I was out before dawn looking for a lost sheep up near the standing stone on the hill – we call it the Oldstone, but it’s down on the maps as the Devil’s Finger – and I heard something,’ said local farmer Joe Godet. ‘I thought it might be an early lamb, but it was a baby crying. It was wrapped up in a white sheepskin rug, the kind you get in all the tourist shops round here, and pushed down into a hole in the rocks. I don’t know how it survived the cold, except maybe it hadn’t been there long and the sheepskin protected it.’
The reporter went on to say that the farmer seemed overcome by emotion as he added, ‘It was a lass, a poor little thing with a harelip and scrawny as a featherless chicken.’
‘How weird – a sheepskin rug,’ I exclaimed.
‘That farmer sounds a sweetie,’ Bel commented. ‘I didn’t realize you’d had a harelip, Alice? You wouldn’t know at all now!’
‘I was lucky, because it wasn’t a serious one and Dad said I had a really good surgeon. I do have a thin scar but it’s gone silvery now and with a little makeup you can’t see it at all.’
The Little Teashop of Lost and Found Page 12