Page 31 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘Once it’s up and running, we could get someone in to help anyway,’ Bel suggested. ‘There’s a local girl, Jan, who takes care of the baby while Teddy and Geeta are working in the office and I know her elder sister’s looking for a part-time job.’
‘I saw the sign for Pondlife on the way here,’ I said to Teddy and Geeta. ‘Nile told me you sell garden pools.’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ agreed Teddy. ‘Geeta and I run the family business, creating swimming ponds.’
‘Swimming ponds?’ I echoed blankly.
‘Ponds big enough to swim in,’ Geeta explained. ‘They’re expensive to put in, but ecologically sound, because they keep clean naturally and are easy to maintain.’
‘Dad started the firm up originally, when we lived near Bristol,’ Teddy said. ‘He dropped out of university after his first year and went to work for some family friends in Germany, who had a swimming pond business – it was popular there much earlier than it caught on here. Our business has slowly built up over the years.’
‘I’ve never heard of the idea, but it seems a good one,’ I said.
‘It was – and you have to admit, Nile, that taking the plunge with what might seem an expensive and airy-fairy idea sometimes works out,’ Sheila said to him pointedly.
‘Touché,’ he said with a grin that transformed his face to something much more human – and dangerously more attractive – than a Greek god. ‘I’m sure there’ll be a huge market in Yorkshire for potteries serving Bergen buns and expensive posh teashops.’
‘There will,’ Bel said firmly. ‘And we can help each other too, can’t we, Alice? Pool our resources. Sink or swim together.’
‘Splash out and go for it?’ I suggested.
Teddy groaned.
‘You have the catering experience we lack, while I’m ace at painting and decorating,’ Bel said.
‘Sounds good to me,’ I agreed.
‘Perhaps you should have a Plan B, in case your teashop doesn’t take off?’ Nile suggested to me pessimistically.
‘Oh, I’d cut my losses, sell the place, buy a small cottage and scrapea living,’ I said, though I didn’t say that it would probably come from writing horror fairy tales.
‘Or just move in here permanently and help me renovate the house, because it’s going to be an ongoing project for ever, like painting the Forth Bridge,’ Sheila offered. ‘But ignore Nile – his glass is permanently half empty. I’m sure your tea emporium will be a huge success.’
I was starting to feel as if I’d known the Giddings family for a long time and I took this opportunity to put the question I’d been dying to ask for hours.
‘How did Oldstone Farm get its name?’
‘Oh, from the natural stone outcrop on a hill nearby – didn’t you see it as you arrived?’ asked Teddy.
‘No, it was starting to go dark and you couldn’t see much because of the wet mist.’
‘The Oldstone isn’t actually that close, but it’s a landmark. At some point a circle of stones was erected round it, but they’ve all fallen down now,’ Nile said.
‘It’s a nice place for a picnic in summer,’ Geeta commented. ‘If you know the way through the small back roads you can park quite near it, though there’s a hiking trail that goes right past it, too.’
‘And there’s a bit of a Brontë connection,’ Bel added. ‘It’s said that it was a favourite spot of Emily’s, though I don’t think there’s any proof, and it would have been a long hike from Haworth.’
‘It’s an odd sort of spot. The wind seems to whistle round the stones even on a summer’s evening,’ Sheila said.
‘There are all kinds of stories about it. Apparently, a baby was once found abandoned there, though I don’t know how any mother could do that to her child,’ Geeta said, tenderly stroking Casper’s downy head.
The room swirled around me.
‘Is that an old legend?’ I heard Bel ask, as if from a long distance away.
‘Actually, I think it was fairly recent, now you come to mention it,’ Sheila said. ‘In fact, not many years before Paul brought me here after we got engaged, to meet his father and grandparents for the firsttime – Oldstone is the family home, you know, so Paul had always spent a lot of time here.’
Then, catching sight of my expression, she looked at me with concern and asked, ‘Are you all right, Alice? Only you’ve gone very pale.’
