by Beth Good
Gideon stopped speaking for a moment, and picked up his tall glass of iced water, knocking most of it back at once. It was a warm evening, and he was sitting round under the main bank of lights, near the entrance doors. The doors were open to keep the place from becoming too much of an oven. But it was clear as he stood to shrug out of his jacket that he was over-heating under the lights.
Charlie glanced his way, then abruptly wished she hadn’t, her own mouth dry as she took in the short-sleeved T-shirt he was wearing, those strong arms tanned and muscular, the thin white T-shirt clinging to his well-developed chest and abs.
And she did not want to go near those powerful thighs.
Not even with her eyes.
But of course she did, because his body was like a magnet to her.
Blimey, he was hot.
And so was she, Charlie thought, wafting a hand in front of her face as her cheeks flushed unnaturally.
They had barely spoken since their argument the other night. A very uncomfortable situation when they were still living cheek-by-jowl in her tiny flat. Though he had muttered something this morning about moving out after the weekend. Charlie had said nothing in return, pretending not to have heard, but her heart felt broken.
It was best that he left, of course. Things couldn’t continue as they were, the two of them walking past each other like strangers in the morning, sharing the same shower, the same breakfast table, and yet never looking at each other.
But oh, what a mess.
Then her head turned. Someone was calling her in a piercing whisper.
‘Charlie?’
It was Mrs Petals, waving a friendly hand in her direction. She was sitting towards the back of the tea rooms with some friends, about six of them crowded on stools around a tiny round table meant to seat two. But everyone was having to share, and nobody seemed to mind the squeeze if it meant being able to listen to Gideon’s story.
Charlie veered that way, then had to stop, waiting politely behind a potted plant as Gideon began to speak again.
Mrs Petals grinned, and made a gesture meaning, ‘We’ll talk when he’s done.’
The friend sitting next to her turned to glance at Charlie, and smiled too. She was much younger than Mrs Petals, despite being almost as silver-haired, though her hair was far tidier, cut in a short, neat bob. She had freckles and a tan and blue eyes that crinkled at the edges. Besides her sat three young people, probably her children from their similar looks, heads bent as they whispered to each other, not entirely listening to the storyteller. But Charlie expected the kids had been dragged out with their mum tonight and weren’t all that interested.
Most of the other villagers were fascinated though.
There were the members of the book club, crammed into an alcove together. And the two vast men who ran the local gym, Bob and Frank, tanned and muscle-bound, sipping elderflower wine with every evidence of enjoyment. She could even see Irene and her husband in the crowd, arms folded as they listened with narrow-eyed attention, their daughter Sally there too, also intent on their host. It seemed Irene must have forgiven Gideon’s rudeness in claiming she was the source of the ‘curse’ on the tea rooms – though of course he had only said that to protect Charlie.
Gideon was nearing the end of his story now. ‘So now you know that Pansy did not die that night, you may well be wondering why, when she heard that her mother had died, she didn’t come back to bury her.’ He paused. ‘Well, Pansy had a difficult choice. Return to Tremevissey for the funeral, unsure of the reception she might face from the villagers here. Or stay where she was, and remember her mother in a traditional Australian way – ’
‘What, by drinking a ton of lager?’ somebody quipped.
Raising his eyebrows at the interruption, Gideon did not respond to the joke but continued gently, ‘By going into the Outback for a few days of dance and meditation, followed by a party to celebrate her life.’ He shrugged, and the room waited impatiently as he took another drink of water. ‘In the end, Pansy decided she would rather not face the wrath of Tremevissey at a time when she was also mourning the loss of her mother. So she stayed in Australia, but sent flowers anonymously to deck her mother’s grave. Perhaps she ought to have come earlier, of course. While her mother was still alive and able to make the acquaintance of her grandchildren.’
A ripple of interest ran through the crowd at the mention of grandchildren.
‘But the original argument between the two women had been so acute, so traumatic,’ he carried on, his voice falling clearly into the silence, ‘that Pansy had not believed her mother would welcome any reconciliation. And she also had someone else’s feelings to consider. You see, there was a reason why Pansy left Tremevissey so abruptly and without leaving so much as a note behind. Local rumour tells us she had her heart broken, and rumour is correct.’
‘It’s always a man,’ Mrs Trevellyan muttered nearby, who had been persuaded to enter the cursed tea rooms for this very special event. ‘I knew it.’
Gideon half-smiled. ‘But there were other factors at work which rumour knew nothing about.’ He paused, then said gently, ‘Because Pansy was pregnant, of course. And the man in question had refused to marry her.’
‘Shame!’ Mr Troughton, the local butcher, shouted out.
Gideon shook his head. ‘Maybe so,’ he said, ‘but unfortunately the man was already married to someone else, and had failed to tell Pansy about that at the start of their short-lived relationship. She made a mistake, as women in love often do,’ he said softly, and his gaze sought out Charlie’s face at the back of the room, ‘and she paid a terrible price for her naivety.’
He paused, the tea rooms so silent now that Charlie thought she could almost hear him breathing.
‘Pansy and her widowed mother lived in the flat above the tea rooms, some of you may recall. Her mother owned the business, but couldn’t help much because of her mobility problems, so Pansy ran it for her. When Pansy told her mother she was expecting, and who the father was, her mother, an old-fashioned lady with a stubborn streak a mile wide, lost her temper. She told Pansy to pack her bags and leave.’ He sighed. ‘It was a dark day for Pansy. Not until was she single and pregnant, but she had no money and nowhere to go. The tea rooms were doing poorly, and the two women were both heavily in debt. Now her mother had thrown her out of their flat, and told her she was taking back control of the business.’
Several heads were shaking at this injustice.
‘Pansy wanted to end it all. She sent a message to a friend to that effect, then walked down to the sea, intending to drown herself.’ He looked round the room, studying the faces of his audience. ‘As I said before, if that friend had not arrived and persuaded Pansy to leave Tremevissey instead, she would have died that night. And her unborn baby with her.’
Irene made a noise under her breath. ‘Dreadful,’ she muttered.
‘Instead, she lived, and so did her child.’ At last Gideon allowed himself a smile, and Charlie could almost feel the collective relief of the room as they began to sense a happy ending was in sight. ‘Like I said earlier, she settled eventually in Southern Australia. But what I didn’t tell you was that she found a good man there, and finally got married, and had two more children.’
Several people cheered, and, ‘Good for her,’ someone said.
‘So now,’ he said slowly, ‘we come to the most important part of my story. The curse everyone in Tremevissey seems to believe in, the curse that lies on these very tea rooms, causing mayhem and bad luck.’
‘The curse is real,’ Irene shouted out crossly.
Gideon shook his head. ‘No, Irene,’ he said firmly. ‘The curse is superstitious nonsense. It’s based on a lie. The lie that Pansy drowned that night, when in fact she is still very much alive, and went on to marry and raise three lovely children.’
‘Says you,’ Elsie says, winking at him from a side table. ‘It’s a good story, Gideon Petherick, I’ll grant you that. But we only have your word for it that
she didn’t drown. If Pansy is still alive, where is she?’
‘Yes,’ several people called out, ‘where is she?’
Gideon stood up from his stool, and looked towards Charlie. ‘Well?’ he asked loudly. ‘Where is she?’
Amazed, Charlie’s eyes widened. She touched her chest. ‘Are you talking to me? Because I don’t have the faintest clue where she is.’
‘No,’ a voice said beside her, and a hand touched her shoulder gently, ‘he’s talking to me, dear.’
Charlie turned in shock and looked into the wryly smiling face of Mrs Petal’s tanned, blue-eyed friend.
‘Sorry?’
‘I’m Pansy McCormick, née Cornish,’ the woman said clearly. ‘And I’ve flown back from Australia to tell you,’ she said with a distinctly antipodean twang to her accent, looking round at the shocked villagers, ‘to tell you all, in fact, that there is no curse on the tea rooms, because the whole thing was a fib.’ She threw back her head and laughed at their astonished expressions. ‘So let my poor niece get on with running this excellent establishment, and stop making her life miserable. Please …’
Charlie did not know what to say.
People started to shout out, ‘Pansy! It’s Pansy!’ and a few jumped up to shake her hand, while others muttered disapprovingly.
Charlie caught a few of the muttered comments in disbelief, and glared at them. It seemed the grumbling spirit of her grandmother still resided in a few dark pockets of Tremevissey.
It was time to act.
‘So you’re my Aunt Pansy,’ she said loudly and deliberately, making sure everyone could hear, and then leant forward to kiss the older women on the cheek. ‘Welcome home, Pansy,’ she said, with a distinct lump in her throat. ‘Welcome back to the Cornish Tea Rooms.’
‘Oh, thank you, my dear.’
‘By rights, these tea rooms should be yours,’ Charlie said, suddenly realising the truth. ‘I’m a Bell, not a Cornish. If my grandmother had known you were still alive, she would have left them to you instead.’
‘No, no,’ Pansy said at once, shaking her head. The smile died from her eyes. ‘I’m afraid my mother did know that I was alive, and she still chose to leave the tea rooms to you.’
‘She … knew?’
Charlie’s heart was thudding hard. And she was not the only one taken aback by that information. There was a shocked silence in the room, the whole crowd listening to every word they were saying.
‘Of course she knew. Did you really think I would be so horrible that I’d never tell my own mother that she was a grandma?’ Pansy sighed. ‘She read my first letter home. Then she sent the rest back unopened. After a few years, I gave up writing. It was obvious that I was dead to her.’
‘That’s awful,’ Charlie whispered.
‘Not at all,’ her aunt reassured her. ‘I just got on with enjoying my new life down under. Because what else could I do? Besides, I had my own children to think of by then. My good friend, Gideon’s uncle Treve, came out to Oz to work for my husband some years back, and he was still in touch with a few of his family in Tremevissey and thereabouts. So at least we never went short of village gossip.’ She smiled at Charlie shyly. ‘Sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and get on with life. To accept the hand you’ve been dealt, you know?’
Charlie clapped her hands to her hot cheeks, churning with emotions she couldn’t quite control. ‘Yes, I can totally understand that. Oh, I’m so sorry though. If only I’d known from the start, I could have got in touch, asked your advice, shared what was happening here …’
‘My mother should have told you, I agree. But I suppose she’d put me out of her mind by then, and you were her substitute daughter instead. Oh no, don’t look sad. Honestly, I’m glad she had someone to dote on in her final years.’ Pansy looked into her face, suddenly apologetic, and even a little tearful, her eyes misty. ‘But can you ever forgive me, dear Charlotte, for everything I’ve put you through? I honestly didn’t mean to. Tremevissey seemed so far away and long ago. I had no idea you were reopening the tea rooms, or I would have acted sooner. By the time I heard, it was too late to act, and I was told the silly old story of the ‘curse’ was already circulating in the village.’
Charlie found she was crying, quite inexplicably. ‘Of course I forgive you, dear aunt Pansy,’ she said tremulously, and the two women embraced properly. ‘I did it for you, anyway.’
Pansy pulled back, perplexed. ‘Did what, dearie?’
‘Reopened the tea rooms.’ Charlie laughed, wiping her damp eyes. ‘I wanted to make you and Grandma Cornish proud. I didn’t have a clue you were still alive. I was told you’d had your heart broken and killed yourself for love.’
‘And instead I’d just played a very silly trick on everyone, and ran away to seek my fortune overseas,’ Pansy exclaimed, and bit her lip. ‘I’m so sorry, darling.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Everything’s worked out for the best.’
Pansy searched her face. ‘Truthfully?’
‘One hundred percent.’
But Charlie was aware of a tiny sinking feeling in the back of her mind, all the same. Because not everything had turned out for the best, had it?
Gideon had finally reached them, having to wade through congratulatory villagers who wanted to shake his hand, or berate him for having told them such a ridiculous story. He too hugged Aunt Pansy, smiling and whispering something in her ear.
Pansy laughed merrily. ‘I had completely forgotten about that day. And you were such a small boy too. Barely able to see over the counter.’
‘It meant a great deal to me, all the same,’ he said, suddenly serious, and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’
‘No,’ she said at once, and kissed him back. ‘Thank you, Gideon. For everything.’
Charlie could not contain her curiosity a moment longer. ‘What was it you did for Gideon as a boy, Aunt Pansy? He’s been so secretive about it. But I can’t bear it any longer. I absolutely have to know.’
Gideon’s face stiffened. ‘Please don’t tell her,’ he said earnestly to Pansy.
‘I must know!’
Pansy gurgled with laughter at her desperate expression, and his gloomy one. ‘The tea rooms didn’t have toilets back in those days,’ she told Charlie, lowering her tone confidentially, ‘and the public ones were out of order on the day Gideon visited with his uncle Treve. His uncle had told him to hang on, or find a bush somewhere along the headland. But Gideon couldn’t bear the shame of it.’ She grinned as Gideon clutched his head in despair, turning away. ‘So I let him use the toilet up in the flat, poor boy. He was so grateful, you can’t imagine.’
Charlie was astounded. ‘No, I really can’t.’
Biting her lip to stop herself laughing, Pansy gently shoved her after Gideon, who was heading towards the kitchen with long, impatient strides. ‘Better go and salvage his pride, I suppose. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything, but … Well, he is a dear.’
A dear?
Charlie found it hard to imagine her lean, brooding lover as a small boy clutching his shorts and desperate for the toilet. But the embarrassed way he had reacted to that story made her love him even more than she already did.
That thought almost stopped her in her tracks.
SHE LOVED HIM?
Catching up with him a moment later in the kitchen doorway, Charlie blurted out, ‘Stop, Gideon, I … I need to tell you something important.’
He turned towards her, not meeting her eyes. She got the feeling he had not heard what she said, because he muttered, ‘I can’t believe she told you that story.’ There was a hard line of red along his cheekbones. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Oh no, don’t be sorry. I thought it was sweet.’
He grimaced, heading into the brightly lit kitchen. When he bent and began to unload the dishwasher, Charlie joined in automatically, stacking the clean plates ready for putting away.
‘No, I meant I’m sorry I couldn’t share the whole truth with you ea
rlier,’ he told her gruffly, his face averted. ‘But I’d made a promise to Pansy not to reveal her secret before today. She wanted to help you with the tea rooms, to “lift” the curse with this big public reveal of her story, and she thought it would have more of an impact if you didn’t know she would be here tonight.’
She nodded, not saying anything.
Gideon straightened, holding two white china ramekins. His dark eyes searched her face. ‘I hope you aren’t too angry with me for keeping things back.’
‘Of c-course not,’ Charlie stammered.
‘Now the villagers have seen Pansy, and know she didn’t drown, hopefully this ridiculous superstition about a curse will die away. Then the tea rooms may get better business.’ He paused. ‘And you won’t need me around anymore.’
‘Oh, I’ll definitely still need you,’ she said quickly, then could have bitten her tongue out when she saw his withdrawn look.
It was burningly clear that he had no desire to stay on at the tea rooms.
Her bad temper and mistrust was driving him away.
Charlie wanted to cry. To beg him to stay. But she was not going to humiliate herself like that. There was no way. So she merely looked back at him, trying to look calm and professional, not to give in to that childish desire to blurt out how she felt.
‘Obviously you will need someone,’ Gideon said slowly, not looking at her as he put the ramekins away in the plate cupboard. His voice was strangely husky. ‘That person doesn’t have to be me, however.’
She sucked in her breath, waiting.
‘But I promise that I won’t leave Tremevissey until I’ve found you a replacement chef. I know how hard it would be for you if I simply disappeared.’ He hesitated, turning back to the dishwasher. His face was stiff, his gaze lowered to the shining glasses still in the washer racks. ‘Hard to keep the tea rooms open, I mean.’
‘Of course,’ she said vaguely.
Another promise, she was thinking.
It was because of the promise he’d made to Pansy that she’d lost her temper with him, thinking he was a liar. That he had lied about why he’d come to Tremevissey. Not to seek casual labour as she’d assumed, but to keep a covert eye on what was going on at the Cornish Tea Rooms and report back to Australia.
