The Little Teashop of Lost and Found

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘The Misses Spencer’s café would be quite some time ago?’ I ventured.

  ‘Years. Then it became more of a coffee bar and they called it The Butty Box. Mrs Muswell gave it a posher name when she bought it and took me on as well as Nell, but it still wasn’t much better than a sandwich bar.’

  ‘I read the menu, such as it was. There didn’t seem to be a lot of cooking involved.’

  ‘There wasn’t, it was all microwaved. And she insisted on doing everything on the cheap, even buying tubs of ready-made fillings for the sandwiches. I told her it was a false economy, because I could have made much nicer ones myself for very little more money, but she wouldn’t listen. She bulk-bought economy burgers, too. I reckon they make them from the bits of meat they scrape off the factory floor.’

  She gloomed into her tea, which was the colour of overdone fake suntan.

  ‘You can’t have got a lot of passing trade, tucked away down here?’

  ‘No, and it wasn’t like anyone who found us would tell other people about our great food, was it? Though, of course, Haworth’s standing room only with tourists in season and people have to eat somewhere.’

  ‘How would they even find the Branwell Café – did you advertise?’ I asked.

  ‘There used to be a sign fixed on the side of the shop by the entrance to the main street, but it dropped off at the end of last season and hasn’t been put back. She probably stopped paying them to let her have it there, thinking on it. The antiques shop opposite puts a board out when he’s open, but he doesn’t keep regular hours. He’s away a lot.’

  ‘It’s a funny way to make a living … if he does?’

  ‘I asked him once and he said he finds things for special clients, so he doesn’t rely on selling to the public.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ I wasn’t that much interested, to be honest, I was more concerned with what I was going to do with the Branwell Café. And now, especially after talking to Tilda, all the vague ideas that had been swirling through my head since last night suddenly coalesced into a cloud of enlightenment – or maybe unfounded optimism.

  ‘So, what are you going to do with the place?’ she asked, as if she’d read my mind.

  ‘I have a plan to breathe new life into it – but I’ll need you and Nell as permanent staff to do it.’

  I didn’t know how I’d pay their wages at first, but they were both vital.

  ‘Seasonal?’

  ‘No, I’ll open all the year round, except perhaps for a couple of weeks after Christmas.’

  A smile tweaked the ends of those straight, grim lips. ‘That’ll be champion,’ she said, then qualified cautiously, ‘or it will be, provided you’re not as daft as you look.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I assured her, and then, clearly feeling that some kind of celebration was in order, she fetched a packet of gingernut biscuits from her basket and piled six up beside my mug like oversized gaming counters.

  I certainly had a lot at stake.

  In the unlikely event of the bundle up on the moors being discovered, I wondered whether the person I’d passed in the lane on the way back had been able to recognize the distinctive shape of a Mini and might put two and two together.

  With this in mind, I decided to stop at the petrol pump in the heart of the village to fill up the car so that, if asked, people would recall that I’d behaved perfectly normally that day. Or normally for me, at any rate, since I don’t see any point in making observations about the weather to someone who can see it perfectly well for themselves.

  11

  Small and Perfect

  ‘So,’ Tilda said, removing the lid of the teapot and giving the remaining contents a good stir with her teaspoon, before refilling our mugs with treacly liquid, ‘what’s this plan for the café, then?’

  ‘I’m going upmarket and we’ll reopen as a premier afternoon tearoom.’

  Her hand, which had been in the process of dunking a gingernut into her tea, stilled as she stared doubtfully at me. ‘You mean, like Betty’s of Harrogate, where I used to work?’

  Then she noticed that the soggy bottom of her biscuit had fallen off. ‘Oh, bugger! I hate it when there’s a gritty silt on the bottom of the cup.’

  ‘Not really like Betty’s, I’m thinking more Framling’s Famous Tearoom,’ I explained.

  ‘What, that posh place in London? No one here will pay those prices!’

  ‘I know, but it has the kind of ambience I’m aiming for – and the concept, too: we’d only serve full afternoon teas. We wouldn’t be a regular café, which are two a penny round here.’

  ‘They are, that’s true enough,’ she said, ruminating. Then she looked up and said, ‘The Harry Ramsden’s fish and chip restaurant had got chandeliers and posh tablecloths when I went over there once with our Daisy, and folks do seem keen to part with their brass when it comes to fancy eating.’

  ‘Yes, they’ll pay for something special and that’s what we’d have to provide – starched white tablecloths and napkins, tiered cake stands and fine china. And the cakes and sandwiches would have to be excellent too, of course, with some proper Yorkshire treats.’

  The ideas were simply pouring out of me now I’d opened the sluice gate. ‘We’d have two sittings every afternoon – say at two and four – so that customers could take their time. Everything would be made or baked on the premises and we’d even provide little boxes for those who wanted to take home any leftover cakes and sandwiches.’

  ‘Who’d be doing all the baking, then?’

  ‘Mostly me – I’m great at cakes and pastries,’ I said immodestly but truthfully. ‘I’d buy the bread in for the sandwiches, though, so I’d need a good supplier.’

  ‘The Copper Kettle was a genteel kind of place and pricier than the other cafés at the time,’ Tilda said, ‘and that did all right, according to our Nell. So your tearoom might just work … but would you get enough customers through the door to make it pay, that’s the question?’

  ‘I’m hoping people would soon start booking tables in advance for special occasions, but if there are tables free, anyone passing by could come in and have afternoon tea.’

  A thought struck her. ‘But if it’s going to be that posh and upmarket, would you still want me and Nell to work here?’

  ‘I certainly would!’ I assured her. ‘You’d still be manageress, too, because once it’s up and running I’ll want to spend more time on my other interests.’

  She didn’t ask me what those were, which was probably just as well, seeing they currently involved writing weird novels and trying to trace my birth mother.

  ‘I suppose we’d have to mind our p’s and q’s?’ she said doubtfully. ‘Mrs Muswell said we were notorious for being the rudest waitresses in Yorkshire, though we were only speaking our minds, like.’

  ‘No, I want you to carry on being your natural selves – plain-speaking Yorkshirewomen. In fact, I’ll be positively promoting the idea that we have the rudest waitresses in Yorkshire and I think it will be such a draw that it’ll provide the icing on the proverbial cake.’

  She seemed pleased but puzzled by this idea. ‘Really? Well, there’s nowt so queer as folk.’

  She stirred the silt at the bottom of her mug with a look of disgust.

  ‘We’ll need better nicer china than this thick white pottery stuff,’ I said, adding it to one of the ever-extending lists, which I was going to put on the laptop as soon as I had time.

  Tilda laid down the spoon and looked up. ‘I wonder if all the good blue and white willow-pattern china from the Copper Kettle’s still at the back of the cupboard under the stairs to the conveniences?’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it. I expect Mrs Muswell remembered it was there and sold it off with everything else she could lay her hands on,’ I said, without much hope.

  ‘I wish she’d sold those mobcaps and long striped dresses she made us wear to wait on,’ she said darkly. ‘A right pair of gawks we felt in those.’

  I’d already noticed the limp garments
hung behind the kitchen door and recognized them from the YouTube video. They hadn’t exactly been becoming.

  ‘You won’t have to wear them, just tie big white aprons over your ordinary clothes, instead.’ I added aprons to the list, the all-enveloping Victorian sort.

  ‘That’d be better. And happen Mrs M might have missed the china, seeing as it’s right at the back, behind the old vacuum cleaner I use in the basement, and she’d never think of using that,’ she said, getting up.

  I followed her down the short flight of steps to the basement and she opened a large panelled cupboard underneath them. It had been painted the same dark mushroom colour as all the walls and skirting boards, so it didn’t stand out.

  She pulled out an antique Hoover and then bent down, reaching far back into the depths, before dragging forth a large and tattered wicker hamper. ‘Still here – thought as much.’

  There were a couple more boxes behind it and we brushed the dust off, before carrying them up into the kitchen to unpack on the large pine table.

  The stacks of willow-pattern china entirely covered it, there was so much, and I was surprised and delighted to see the words ‘dishwasher safe’ stamped underneath each piece. I expect that was still a new and trendy concept at the time the Copper Kettle was opened.

  There were cups and saucers, small and large plates, sugar bowls, soup bowls and serving dishes. Some things we wouldn’t need, but those could help fill the empty display shelves in the café, once I’d repainted them.

  ‘This is brilliant!’ I told Tilda gratefully. ‘I can probably find extra bits and pieces on eBay, too, because any inexpensive blue willow-pattern china would blend in.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s a start, and one less expense,’ she said.

  ‘It is, and I’ll start to put batches of it through the dishwasher today … that is, if it works? If it does, I’m surprised Mrs Muswell left it behind!’

  ‘I expect it was too old to be worth selling, but it works OK,’ Tilda said. Then she offered to go up and clean the flat, instead of the café, which was only in need of a light dust.

  ‘But it’s filthy,’ I protested.

  ‘That’s all right, I like a challenge,’ she said, her eyes gleaming keenly. ‘Though for extra pay, naturally.’

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed, and she vanished up the stairs with the vacuum cleaner and a bucket of cleaning materials as eagerly as if I’d offered her a rare treat.

  While the first lot of crockery was chugging its way through a dishwasher cycle, I counted up the tables and chairs in the café. I didn’t think anyone would buy them, but if I listed them on one of the free recycling websites they might appeal to someone. Then I remembered the plates hanging in the dark corner by the stairs and went to see what they were like and, while I was doing that, spotted a big spider’s web up there that Tilda had managed to miss. Or maybe it was a fast worker, like the one in my new novel?

  Stopping only to shove my hair into one of the despised mobcaps in case the occupant fell on my head, I climbed up on one of the tubular chairs and had at it with a long-handled feather duster.

  With all the surprise of finding a total stranger in the café, Tilda mustn’t have locked the café door behind her, for the brass bell suddenly jangled on its spring and then the light was blocked by a tall, slender, but unmistakably masculine figure.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I said, climbing down from my perch. ‘I’m afraid the café’s shut.’

  ‘I’m not a customer. I just saw the light was on and I wanted a word with Molly Muswell,’ he explained. His voice held no trace of the local accent or, indeed, any other. It was slightly posh and smooth as dark, expensive chocolate.

  ‘Wouldn’t we all,’ I rejoined tartly, wondering if he was a delivery man she hadn’t paid, despite the upmarket accent. ‘But she’s not here, I’m afraid, so you might as well go away again.’

  Instead of taking this strong hint, he shut the door behind him and came down the step into the light.

  Two thoughts skipped across my mind faster than flat pebbles across still water. The first was that, with his curling blue-black hair, pale olive skin, aquiline nose and a full mouth that turned up enigmatically at the corners, he looked so much like a Greek god that if he’d handed me a bunch of grapes and an invitation to an orgy, I’d probably have gone.

  In fact, he was the most handsome man I’d ever exchanged words with outside my imagination.

  My second thought was that he wasn’t any kind of delivery man, because he was wearing a silky, beautifully cut suit, worn over a soft, snow-white shirt with the neck open. I suddenly felt quite cheap and grubby in my jeans, sweatshirt and trainers.

  My answer had clearly not been the one he wanted to hear, because he was scowling. ‘When will she be back? I’ve just returned from a trip to America and I saw the sign on the door saying the café was closed for renovations, so I thought when I saw the lights on that she’d be here.’

  He glanced around. ‘Not that I can see any sign of renovations – unless that’s why you’re here?’

  ‘Well, I’m certainly going to make some changes, because I’ve bought the place,’ I told him. Seeing he looked as blank as Tilda had, I added helpfully, ‘She’s gone – I’m the new owner of the Branwell Café.’

  ‘She’s … gone? Permanently?’ His dark eyebrows twitched together in an alarming frown. ‘But she owes me money!’

  That didn’t surprise me. ‘What for?’ I asked curiously.

  ‘Antiques, if it’s any of your business,’ he snapped. ‘I run the curio shop opposite.’

  ‘You mean you’re Small and Perfect?’ I exclaimed, and then felt myself glowing pinkly. With my auburn hair, that’s never a good look.

  ‘You could say that,’ he agreed drily, and one corner of his rather beautifully moulded mouth twitched, though whether with amusement or anger, I couldn’t tell. ‘I certainly sell small and perfect antiques and curios. Mrs Muswell suggested at the start of the season that I display a few things in the café and give her a small commission on any sales. I tend to source special items for collectors, rather than sell directly to the public, but there are always extra odds and ends I pick up in job lots at auctions, so it seemed like a reasonable idea.’

  He indicated the two plates that I’d just released from their coverlet of spider silk. ‘Those are mine, but I can’t see any of the rest, and Tilda – one of her staff – told me that instead of sending customers over to my shop if they’re interested in buying something, she’s been selling them herself and pocketing the cash.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. She’s stripped out everything of any value from the café and flat, even those things included in the sale.’

  ‘Kind of her to leave the plates behind, then,’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘She probably overlooked them, because they were in this dark corner, covered in spider webs.’

  ‘I’d still like to know where the rest of my stuff is.’ He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and a slim and expensive-looking pen.

  ‘This is a complete list of everything she had and their value – and there are five things missing.’ He circled them and handed me the paper.

  ‘But it’s nothing to do with me,’ I protested, looking in alarm at the prices of the missing items – a small watercolour, three Dresden plates and an eighteenth-century sampler. ‘I bought the property, but I didn’t buy her debts with it!’

  ‘Someone owes me,’ he said, his jaw jutting.

  ‘Well, it isn’t me,’ I said indignantly. ‘And I’ll have to replace all the kitchen equipment she’s taken and furnish the flat, so I’ll need every penny I’ve got left.’

  ‘Got left from what?’

  ‘Mind your own business,’ I told him.

  ‘You’re not going to make your fortune selling Brontëburgers at the Branwell Café,’ he pointed out with, I thought, unnecessary sarcasm.

  ‘Yes – thanks for that,’ I said, then added bitterly, ‘It was bad
enough that Mrs Muswell conned me over the state of the flat and café, but now I expect I’ll get a whole stream of people like you turning up and demanding to be paid.’

  I tried to run a distracted hand through my hair and only then realized I was still wearing that ridiculous mobcap. Snatching it off, I threw it with some force across the room, while my hair, released from bondage, exploded out in a cascade of tight, coppery curls.

  The man stared at me narrowly from a pair of surprisingly light grey eyes. Then a sudden and unexpected grin softened the angles of his face and he said, ‘I might have known you were a redhead.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why!’

  ‘And you remind me of someone …’ he added, thoughtfully.

  ‘Someone local?’ I asked quickly. My colouring was so distinctive, with my dark eyebrows, red hair and light green eyes, that I’d wondered if I might come face to face in the street with a woman so similar that I would know immediately she was my mother.

  ‘No, I’ve got it now. You look like that woman in all the Pre- Raphaelite paintings, Lizzie something.’

  ‘Lizzie Siddal. I get that a lot,’ I said resignedly. ‘I can’t see it myself, apart from the hair, and I can hardly help that.’

  ‘It wasn’t a criticism,’ he said mildly. ‘She was very beautiful, in a sulky sort of way.’

  ‘I am not sulky!’

  ‘Who said you were?’ he asked, with an air of innocent surprise. Then he seemed to lose interest in winding me up and said, with a sigh, ‘I suppose I can’t really expect you to pay me back for the stuff she’s stolen, so I can kiss my money goodbye.’

  ‘You could try her solicitor. You might have more luck than I had in getting contact details for her.’

  ‘I suspect that would be pointless, though I’ll report what’s happened to the police, so maybe they can nab her for theft if she should come back over here – her signature is on the list of items and Tilda was there when we came to the agreement, so I have a witness. I’ll take the plates she’s left away with me now, though.’ He suited his actions to the words, unhooking them and laying them on the nearest table.