The Little Teashop of Lost and Found

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘It’s all delicious,’ she assured me.

  ‘That’s right, flower, and you need to keep your strength up, when you’re expecting,’ chimed in Tilda, neatly decanting lemon and orange curd tartlets on to the depleted top tier of the cake stand. ‘Don’t let yon great streak of nowt snaffle all the tarts, this time.’

  Henry seemed pleased with this rudeness and grinned at her. ‘Couldn’t I entice you into coming to work for me, instead? Seeing such a vision of loveliness and hearing your dulcet voice every day would be worth paying good money for.’

  ‘Give over, you daft bugger,’ she said amiably, and I left them to their verbal sparring and moved on to greet Emily Rhymer and her husband. I was sure she’d said he was a vicar, but if so, he wasn’t in the traditional style, since he had long grey hair tied back in a ponytail and wore gold crosses in his ears. They’d both arrived in black motorbike leathers, though after a while they’d hung their jackets over the backs of their chairs, probably because it had got hot in the teashop.

  I promised to give Em my fat rascal recipe and was about to stop by George’s table when I heard Nell tell him roundly, ‘If you ask me for any more of them cheese scones, greedy guts, you’ll be the fat rascal and we’ll be able to hire you for a mascot!’

  ‘If I’d wanted to be insulted by a skinny old bat, I could have stayed at home,’ he rejoined dourly.

  ‘Think thisen lucky any decent body talks to thee, tha miserable little snirp,’ she told him. Going by his dropped jaw and mottling red face, I think he must have missed the advertising about the rudest waitresses in Yorkshire, so I beat a strategic retreat to the kitchen.

  I have to admit that I’d wondered if perhaps my natural mother might have booked a table today, so that she could see me without making herself known, but none of the women present struck me as an obvious candidate.

  But then, maybe we humans don’t possess an innate ability to tell our parents from the rest of the herd?

  I had to bake more cheese scones for the second sitting, mainly due to George taking such a liking to them, and while I was mixing the dough Sheila came in with Nile to say goodbye.

  ‘Congratulations, darling. It’s a huge success!’ she said, kissing me.

  ‘Yes, and I apologize for ever doubting it would be,’ Nile agreed.

  ‘It will be a success if business carries on being so brisk – but will it last?’ I said anxiously. ‘How many of them only came today out of curiosity?’

  ‘Some of them may have come out of curiosity, but they’ll return for the food,’ Sheila assured me.

  After she’d gone, Nile stayed for a while longer, plying me with coffee and stacking the dishwasher whenever Nell or Tilda cleared a table. Then he had a call and had to go over to his shop.

  ‘One of my clients is coming to collect a Clarice Cliff milk jug – an unusual design and the last piece she needs to complete a whole tea service,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’

  He wasn’t, either, for he returned just as the scones were cooling on the rack.

  ‘What perfect timing,’ he said, taking one and looking for butter. ‘You bake like an angel.’

  ‘Do angels bake?’ I asked.

  ‘Pre-Raphaelite angels do.’

  ‘Put that scone down, tha’ great lummock, and fill some of them little pots with jam,’ ordered Nell, who had reversed through the swinging door carrying a full tray of dirty dishes with the ease of long practice. She looked amazingly perky, considering she was no spring chicken and had been trotting to and fro ever since we opened.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘Cream, too?’

  ‘Yes, a dozen of both, before the next lot come in – I’m putting the reserved signs back on t’ tables as fast as this lot go, though some of them are hanging about so long you’d think their bottoms had been glued to t’ chairs.’

  She went out again.

  ‘Was it my imagination, or was Nell jingling?’ I asked.

  ‘Her pockets are weighed down with tips. I noticed the same with Tilda,’ he said. ‘The ruder they are, the more money people seem to give them. That was a promotional brainwave!’

  The second sitting mainly consisted of strangers, though I did recognize one or two, like the receptionist from my doctor’s surgery, who was one of Geeta’s friends, and Geeta and Teddy’s nanny, Jan, but it seemed to go with as much of a swing as the first sitting.

  When the bell had finally jangled behind the very last departing happy customers, clutching card carriers filled with leftover cake and little pots of Lola’s preserves, the tearoom suddenly looked strangely empty.

  Tilda was in the little office, cashing up, while I was stashing left-over cheese straws into a tin.

  ‘Only one person wanted a totally savoury afternoon tea, so I overestimated the number of savouries I’d need,’ I said to Nile.

  ‘I’ll eat anything that won’t keep,’ he offered helpfully.

  ‘I seem to remember promising you a takeaway of savouries for ever, in return for Lola’s paperweight,’ I reminded him. ‘And you’ve been so brilliant today, helping out whenever we needed it, that you deserve it!’

  ‘Just feed me the leftovers and I’ll be happy,’ he said.

  ‘Here’s our Daisy, come to help clear the last tables and then give Tilda a hand with the cleaning up,’ Nell said, sticking her head through the hatch, like a puppet in a Punch and Judy show.

  At last the teashop was clean, tidy and quiet, except for the chugging of the dishwasher, and Nile and I were alone.

  I felt tired but also still somewhat wired from the adrenalin rush, so when he suggested we go over to his place so he could cook me his supper speciality, I agreed.

  His signature dish turned out to be Welsh Rarebit, and delicious it was, too. But right after that I suddenly went so spaced-out with sleepiness that even a cup of his very good coffee couldn’t keep my eyes from closing, so he walked me back over to my door, kissed me quickly and then pushed me through it. Maybe he thought if he kissed me fast enough, I wouldn’t notice. It’s a theory, anyway …

  I noted on the way through the teashop that there were twelve messages on the answer phone, but the only one I answered that night was a brief text on my mobile from Edie.

  Count your cutlery, it said.

  But of course Tilda, who was even less trusting than Edie, already had.

  I assumed that when Alice Rose heard nothing from her appeal, she would think her birth mother dead, or moved away from the district – or even that she had seen the article in the paper but did not wish to reveal herself. Perhaps then she would finally cease to rake the whole thing up.

  I half-hoped her teashop venture would be a flop, which might have been an extra incentive to move her unwelcome presence elsewhere, but it seemed quite likely the opposite would happen: everyone, it seemed, was talking about it.

  The great draw (apart from the quality of the teas, which apparently is high) is that the waitresses are plain-speaking Yorkshirewomen. I can’t see what there is amusing in that, but there is, as they say around here, no accounting for folk.

  44

  Tried and Tested

  I was up again at dawn, baking dozens more miniature fat rascals and a large marmalade cake, which I meant to finish off with a tangy orange icing later, when it had cooled. I suspected I’d soon be able to make fat rascals in my sleep …

  The laundry collected yesterday’s table linen and then the artisan bread maker dropped off my order, which had to be checked and put away … and suddenly the morning had slipped away and it was time for Tilda to come in and start cutting the finger sandwiches.

  Then we were off again with a repeat performance of the previous day, though with a whole new set of customers and no Nile to help, since he was out all day and wasn’t due back until late. I missed him …

  That evening, when I’d closed the teashop door after Tilda and Daisy, and switched off the lights, I went up to the flat and rang Lola to tell her how popular her preserves ha
d been.

  ‘You’ll have to bring a lot more. I made small open tarts with the lemon and orange curds and people were buying jars of it to take home.’

  Then I told her all the amusing bits about the opening day, like George eating so many cheese scones he should be in The Guinness Book of Records and what Nell had said to him.

  She couldn’t chat for long, because she was going to a firework display with the girls – what with everything going on, I’d entirely forgotten it was Bonfire Night! – but I made an omelette and then went to bed, since I was so tired I was seeing Catherine wheels anyway.

  It’s surprising how quickly you slip into a new routine, though of course Nell and Tilda were already an experienced double act and I expect they could have managed without me. But then, the teas wouldn’t have been so good. I mean, call me immodest, but nobody’s scones and fairy cakes float off the plate quite like mine do, even though I suspect Henry Godet might beg to differ with me on that one.

  Thursday’s edition of the local paper carried a further article about the teashop, with the Rudest Waitresses in Yorkshire coming in for special mention, along with photographs featuring Nell, with her headband pulled low down over her forehead as she glowered at a rather startled-looking customer.

  Tilda said she was going to order copies of all the photos of her and Nell, and I asked her to order me a complete set while she was at it – they would be a nice memento of the day, framed and hanging on the walls.

  Nile had taken some photographs for my website the day we opened, too, which he helped me to put up.

  And on the Friday came the first internet reviews on the Travel-Oracle site, with the benison of a scattering of stars, and I heaved a huge sigh of relief and began to truly believe it was going to work!

  Food and insults for tea! The prices may be steep, but the new Fat Rascal teashop delivered on the quality of both the food and the backchat from the waitresses – and you could have as much of both as you wanted …

  Bel rang on Saturday morning with a message from Teddy to say my DNA results had arrived.

  ‘Or the link has – you follow it to the page with your results,’ she explained.

  ‘I’ve been so preoccupied I’d forgotten all about it,’ I exclaimed. ‘Still, it’s long odds I’ll find even a distant relative, and the rest of the results probably won’t mean anything to me. I think I’ll need Teddy to interpret them.’

  ‘Shall I ask him to do that, then?’ asked Bel.

  ‘Yes, if he has time, because then he could explain the findings when I come over tonight, couldn’t he?’

  ‘OK, I’ll do that. I think it’s quite exciting, even if you don’t!’

  ‘To be honest, I’m looking forward much more to spending a restful night at Oldstone,’ I said frankly, because I’d be heading over there the moment we closed up the teashop that afternoon.

  Still, I was sure that soon Tilda would be able to manage the day-to-day running of the teashop herself, as she had before, and I’d have time to write again, which was just as well, because Beauty and the rest of them had started clamouring to tell me what was happening to them now so I really was going to have to write that sequel.

  ‘Them birds have got very long beaks. . . and arms as well as wings,’ Shazza said, frowning at the creatures flitting about in the trees. She was short-sighted, but she’d rather die than wear glasses.

  ‘Long noses, beloved,’ corrected Prince S’Hallow. ‘Do you not have fairies in the Here-and-now?’

  Most of the family were already gathered in the big, warm farmhouse kitchen when I arrived, though Teddy was apparently still in the library, going through my DNA results.

  ‘He’s been ages, so perhaps it’s something exciting, like you’re the last of the Romanovs,’ Geeta said.

  ‘More likely a direct descendant of Lizzie Siddal,’ suggested Nile with a glint in his eye, and I gave him a look.

  ‘I’m just going to go and tidy up and dump my bag,’ I said. ‘I’ll be right down.’

  I was only about ten minutes, mostly spent untangling my hair, which the wind had blown into a demented cloud in the few short steps from the car to the house, but when I went back downstairs and opened the kitchen door on a babble of conversation, there was a sudden silence and everyone turned and stared at me, as if they’d never seen me before in their lives.

  ‘What is it?’ I stammered, totally disconcerted. ‘What’s happened? Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No, not wrong. Come and sit down, darling,’ Sheila said. ‘Teddy’s got something to say to you – some exciting news.’

  ‘Yes …’ Teddy said, running a distracted hand through his fair hair and opening his blue eyes wide. ‘It’s the DNA result, Alice. I’m still finding it hard to believe, but I’ve checked carefully and—’

  ‘We’ve got the same father!’ Bel broke in impatiently. ‘Alice, isn’t that amazing?’

  She sprang up and gave me an impulsive hug, but when she let me go the room spun so dizzyingly that I sank down on to the empty chair next to Nile. He took my hand and held it in a warm, strong clasp.

  ‘You mean … Paul Giddings was my father?’ I asked blankly.

  ‘It’s true, Alice,’ Nile assured me.

  ‘But how can that possibly be? And how do you know?’ I appealed to Teddy.

  ‘Oh, I realized as soon as I started to look through your results,’ he said. ‘Dad was right at the top of the list of your closest relatives, linked to his entry in the database with our family tree, and of course I know the user name for that.’

  ‘You’re Bel and Teddy’s half-sister, darling,’ Sheila said, looking surprisingly joyful about it. ‘There, I just knew you were part of the family the moment I met you!’

  ‘Another sister for me and Nile,’ Geeta said.

  ‘Leave me out of it: I don’t feel remotely brotherly towards Alice,’ Nile said. ‘In fact, for the first time, I’m glad I’ve no blood relationship with the Giddingses at all!’

  ‘It rubs off, though: you’re a Giddings in all other ways,’ Teddy told him.

  I barely took in what they were saying, for I was still struggling to take in the whole overwhelming revelation. ‘But it’s bizarre!’ I said at last. ‘I mean, how can it be true? There must be a mistake!’

  ‘No, there isn’t,’ Bel assured me. ‘Teddy’s the expert and he says so.’

  Then Nile asked the million-dollar question. ‘What we haven’t discussed yet is: if Paul is Alice’s father, then can we trace who her mother was?’

  ‘Not through the DNA test results, because all the rest of the relations listed are ones I recognize, so not her mother’s side,’ Teddy said.

  ‘You know, in all the excitement, I hadn’t thought of that!’ Sheila said. ‘Let’s count back to how old Paul would have been at the time you were conceived. You’re thirty-six, aren’t you, Alice?’

  I nodded mutely, my hand still comfortingly held by Nile. One freshly discovered parent seemed enough to get used to at the moment. ‘And my birthday is the second of March, though they thought I was slightly premature.’

  ‘So … we’re looking at early in the summer before Paul started his first year of university – is that right, Teddy?’

  Teddy, who had been scribbling numbers on a bit of paper, nodded. ‘I think so. He told me he used to spend the long holidays visiting Oldstone, until he dropped out after the first year of his degree course and went to Germany.’

  ‘We met in Germany,’ Sheila said reminiscently. ‘Love at first sight …’

  ‘So he must have had a girlfriend up here the year before he met you,’ Geeta said rather tactlessly, though it didn’t seem to throw Sheila.

  ‘Well, when we visited Oldstone soon after we got engaged, we did run into someone he’d once dated,’ Sheila said. ‘I’m sure I’ve told you that.’

  ‘You can’t mean Dr Collins?’ Bel exclaimed incredulously. ‘I don’t think she was born with human emotions. In fact, she’s probably an androi
d.’

  ‘But she would only have been a teenager at the time and was probably an extremely pretty android,’ pointed out Sheila. ‘She still would be attractive, if her expression and manner weren’t so off-putting.’

  ‘It can’t be Dr Collins,’ I said with certainty. ‘I’ve met her and … there was nothing, no spark of recognition or anything. It must be someone else!’

  ‘I don’t know, darling. It seems improbable that he would have had another mystery local girlfriend at the same time,’ she said. ‘The other thing is that when Paul and I ran into her at the Upvale garage, she cut him dead, and that was when he told me they’d had a brief teenage fling, but they’d broken up and it was his fault.’

  She looked up, her expression troubled all at once. ‘Oh dear! I think now he must have dumped her and gone off to university, mustn’t he?’

  ‘It sounds like it, but Paul can’t have had any idea she was pregnant, if so – I mean, if she really was Alice’s mother,’ Nile said.

  ‘That’s true!’ Sheila looked relieved. ‘He wasn’t the sort of man to walk away from someone in trouble.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she tell him?’ I found myself asking.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she didn’t realize she was pregnant until long after he’d gone and she couldn’t get in touch with him, except through his grandparents. She wouldn’t want to do that.’

  ‘She might have been afraid to tell her parents, too. Or even didn’t know she was having a baby until it arrived. That’s more common than you’d think,’ Bel suggested.

  ‘I’m already having trouble accepting who my father is, even though Teddy seems sure about it, but there isn’t any proof that Dr Collins is my mother. It’s all speculation …’ I said, feeling dazed.

  ‘I know, it’s been a shock, albeit a good one. Let’s not worry about it at the moment, but celebrate your being part of the Giddings family, Alice,’ Sheila said, as if finding your late husband had fathered a child with a previous partner was something joyous and welcome.