Page 50 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
It was the only other habitation I could spot, at any rate, and my all-too-fertile imagination offered me the image of a young woman in clogs and shawl trudging through the snow clutching her baby. Of course, that scenario was at least a century out of the right timescale – but which directionwouldmy mother have come from? Was it along a path from some hidden, isolated cottage, along the road from Haworth, or from Upvale, the village in the valley below the motel? Or even, losing the clogs and shawl and transposing the image to the right century, from much further afield, if she’d driven, or been driven, here?
That last must surely have been how it was? It couldn’t have been ideal weather for a night walk under any circumstances, let alone for someone who’d given birth within the last few hours …
Then I suddenly remembered that the newspaper had said that Emily Rhymer had actually walked to the Oldstone from Upvale in the dark pre-dawn morning, so perhaps they just bred a hardier race up here and it was quite possible my mother had walked here too.
I’d been numbing my bottom on a fallen monolith while turning all this over in my mind, recalling then that I hadn’t been found at the top near the stones, but in one of the crevices beneath. I got up and made my way down sheep tracks to the tumbled rocks at the base of the stone outcrop. I had no idea into which hole I’d been pushed, but there were several likely candidates and I realized even more strongly how much of a miracle it was that I’d been found – and alive. Left there for long, I’d have been easy meat for any passing scavenger.
I shivered. Now I was on the spot, it really didn’t help to speculate that my mother had been acting in a blind state of shock and panic. Imean, even thirty-six years ago having a baby out of wedlock wasn’t such a cataclysmic event.
I suppose Dad could have been right about her being very young and perhaps in denial about the symptoms of pregnancy until the shock of my arrival – but then, if she wasthatyoung, mustn’t she have had someone to drive her here? Or, if old enough to drive, not have been in a fit state to do so, for I can’t have been more than a few hours old when they found me.
It was a puzzle and my thoughts were going round in unhelpful circles, so I began picking my way over fallen rocks towards the car.
I hadn’t seen a living thing other than the crow, so when a sheep suddenly jumped up from under my feet and bounded away, bleating indignantly, I almost had a heart attack – and this was broad daylight!
So what must Joe Godet have felt when he spotted that white fleece and reached into the rocky crevice expecting to find a lamb, pulling out a barely alive baby, instead?
I hoped it hadn’t been disappointment.
While I was still leisurely winding up my affairs in Scotland, convinced that Father would be well looked after until I could move back to the family home in Yorkshire, I received an anonymous letter. It informed me that Father’s live-in carer was a designing hussy, who had him twisted round her little finger, and if I didn’t watch out she’d marry him, or get him to leave her all his money, or both.
The anonymity of the sender was somewhat compromised by the address sticker on the back: it was Kim, our weekly cleaner.
21
Waffling
I hadn’t got very far along the maze of narrow lanes that would eventually lead me back to the main road, when I met a small hatchback coming the other way. It was driven by a grey-haired woman of perhaps fifty, who simply stared coldly and impassively at me through the windscreen for what seemed like an hour, until I gave in and backed up to the nearest passing place, though I was certain she was a lot closer to one than I was.
A dog sat on the seat next to her, visible only as a small white head and a pair of bright dark eyes, so I thought she might be an early dog walker, though it seemed an oddly remote place to head for.
Unless, of course, she lived nearby? When I’d checked a map it had surprised me just how many buildings there were, dotted about the seemingly barren and empty countryside.
She swept by me without even a nod of thanks and I carried on my way. This time I didn’t stop by the sign for the Hikers’ Café and I wouldn’t have been tempted to call for coffee and cake even if it had been open, in case Eleri Groves should just happen to be about. I mean, if she remembered me, it might seem a bit stalkerish, turning up on her doorstep. Or, if she knew about Senga taking me on,pushy, because I was just starting to make my way, while she was an established bestseller.
Instead, I headed like a homing pigeon to Oldstone Farm, where I thawed out over hot chocolate in the kitchen with Bel. It was quiet – Sheila was working in her pottery, while Geeta, Teddy and the baby had gone out.
‘They do open the office at weekends if people book an appointment, but autumn is a slow time for ordering pools,’ she explained. ‘Anyway, it’s Geeta’s mother’s birthday and there’s a big family party, so they’ve gone to Bradford. Geeta was wearing her best sari and some of her gold wedding jewellery and she lookedstunning.’ She sighed. ‘I wish that sort of thing suited me.’
‘How did she and Teddy meet?’ I asked.
‘Teddy’s best friend at university is her brother, and when Ted went to the house it was love at first sight. Her parents took a bit of winning round, but they adore Teddy now – and the baby.’
‘I think I’m way too tall to carry off a sari,’ I said, ‘though I could probably get away with salwar kameez.’
‘I’m only about an inch shorter than you,’ Bel said. ‘I take after Dad’s side, the Giddingses were all tall.’
‘You know, one of the nicest things about moving to Haworth is how many tall women there are – even Tilda, one of the Branwell Café staff, is almost my height.’
I’d told Bel yesterday that I meant to go and visit the Oldstone on my way here and now she said, ‘So – what did you think of the Oldstone?’
I shivered, despite the warm kitchen and the mug of hot chocolate. ‘It’s bleak and deserted up there,’ I said. ‘And the question of where my birth mother came from is wide open, because I can see that while she might have been from a nearby cottage or farm, she could just as well have driven – or been driven – from almost anywhere else.’
‘The police will have checked out all the houses within walking distance, so I think you can rule that one out,’ Bel said. ‘I mean, this Emily Rhymer may have walked up there from Upvale in the dark, but it’s not something most women would contemplate.’
‘No, and I’m looking forward to talking to her, in an odd kind of way, because she sounds eccentric, to say the least.’
Sheila came in just then, her moss-green corduroy trousers liberally besmirched with clay, followed by her shadow, Honey, and asked us what we were going to do today.
