Page 41 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘I hope you don’t mind, but I couldn’t resist it.’
‘No, it will save time,’ I assured her. ‘Did you find anything interesting?’
‘Yes, and there was a lot more detail in theUpvale and District Gazettethan any newspapers on the Haworth side.’
‘What kind of detail?’ I asked.
‘Well, for a start, there was a second person on the scene when you were found. I’ll show you.’ She spread the printouts on the table.
‘Here we are – read this one,’ she said, pointing.
It started with the now-familiar story of how the farmer found me, right up to the moment when Joe Godet picked me up and discovered I was a baby and not a lamb. But then he said sensationally, ‘I looked up and saw one of the Upvale witches standing right next to the Oldstone, staring down at me,’ and went on to add that at first he’d thought she’d put the child there, but it seemed she’d appeared at the same moment he did by pure coincidence.
‘Witches?’ I said, looking up. ‘There arewitchesin Upvale?’
‘He certainly seems to think so. But read this one – it’s an interview with the “witch” from the same paper.’
‘I don’t know why Mr Godet has a bee in his bonnet about witches,’ said Emily Rhymer, of Upvale. ‘I simply decided to walk up there to watch the sun rise over the hills, something I’d done several times before.’
When asked if she wasn’t nervous about walking the moors alone in the dark, Miss Rhymer replied, ‘No, there was a full moon so it was quite bright, once I was out of the lane. And not only can I take care of myself, but I had my dog with me. A friend had said she might drive up to the Oldstone at dawn, too, but there was no sign of her. Then I heard noises and my dog started barking and when I looked down over the edge, I saw a farmer holding what I took to be a lamb …’
‘The plot thickens,’ I said, looking up.
‘I know, it’s quite a drama, but it seems as if the police cleared thisEmily Rhymer from suspicion: it says so in the next bit.’ She frowned. ‘The name Rhymer sounds very familiar, somehow …’
I read on, but there was only a little more.
‘He’d found a baby and accused me of having put it there. But my friend turned up just then and she told him I’d been at her house till late the previous evening and she’d have noticed if I was heavily pregnant or had given birth: the idea was ridiculous. Then, since the priority was to get the baby somewhere warm, we all got into her car and went back to Mr Godet’s farm, where we rang for the police and an ambulance, because the poor little thing was only just alive.’
The article concluded by saying that Miss Rhymer had been cleared of any involvement and it was still a complete mystery as to who the mother was and how she’d got the baby up to that remote spot.
‘That’s all very difficult to take in,’ I said, sitting back at last. ‘It’s really weird thattwopeople should have just happened to be there at that particular moment. It’s hard to believe it was a coincidence.’
‘But the police evidently decided it was, so your fairy godmother must have been looking out for you and sent not one, but two rescuers,’ Bel said.
‘Yes, and even though Emily Rhymer can’t be my mother, I’d still like to talk to her,’ I said, then added, ‘Let’s keep what we’ve found out to ourselves for a bit, OK?’
‘Yes, fine,’ Bel said. ‘And you’ve got lots to think about before you try to find out any more.’
‘When I’m ready, I’ll want to visit the Oldstone and talk to the eyewitnesses, though I’m not really expecting them to add anything that might help me trace my birth mother. I think it will be a dead end, and that’s probably going to be as far as I get.’
‘Unless you go public at some point with a newspaper appeal, asking her to get in touch?’ Bel suggested.
‘I might consider that one as a last resort. Nile told me I should letsleeping dogs lie, because my birth mother might very well not want to be found.’
‘Then she needn’t come forward! And anyway, it’s your life, Alice, so you do what you want,’ she advised me. ‘Nile’s always come the bossy older brother with all my friends; just take no notice.’
I thought that might be easier said than done, given I was living two steps away from him in Doorknocker’s Row and he tended to turn up as unexpectedly as a pantomime Demon Prince through a trapdoor.
I didn’t remain entirely celibate, but had a couple of short-lived affairs – conducted on my own terms, of course. If you believed everything you’d read you’d assume most men were looking for sex without commitment, but in my experience this was not so. All too soon they demanded more from me than our original bargain and perceived my emotional disengagement as both an insult and a challenge.
This was tedious in the extreme, so eventually I decided the game was not worth the candle and purchased a small dog to fulfil any need for companionship, without the complications.
Bichon Frises have the advantage of not shedding hair all over the furnishings.
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