Page 91 of The Little Teashop of Lost and Found
‘Well, it weren’t like he had a choice! What was he to do, stick you back down the burrow and leave you to die?’ He ruminated for a moment and I really wasn’t sure which way it would have gone, hadhebeen in his father’s place. ‘He told them social worker types to call you Alice, after Ma.’
‘Oh, how lovely!’ I said. ‘And I’m still Alice, because my adoptive parents kept my first name, though of course I’m not Oldstone any more, I’m Rose.’
‘And you’re just visiting the area, like?’
‘No, actually, I’ve bought a café in Haworth, which I’m renovating and hope to reopen soon as an afternoon tearoom.’
He seemed to brighten at this evidence that I really wasn’t after his money. If hehadany, that is, because he wasn’t precisely living in the lap of luxury.
‘This is allso Cold Comfort Farm,’ I murmured, thinking aloud.
‘Never heard of the place,’ he said shortly. ‘There’s a Cold Cross Farm t’ other side of Upvale, if you mean that?’
‘No … sorry,’ I said, ‘my mind was wandering. What I’dreallylike to know is what your father said about finding me. Did he talk about it much?’
‘Oh, aye, bent anyone’s ear that would listen, till we were all sick of the tale.’
‘Could you bear to tell me what he said?’ I coaxed, and he sighed resignedly.
‘He’d gone out before dawn searching for a ewe, an early lamber that liked to hide out near the base of the Oldstone, where the rocks gave a bit of shelter. There was a clear sky and a big full moon, so when he spotteda bit of white fleece, he thought he’d found her. Then when he got closer he could see it was sticking out of a hole in the rocks, so he thought it must be a dead lamb and maybe a fox had dragged it there.’
‘And then?’ I prompted as he stopped and looked into space.
‘He pulled it out and it was a sheepskin all right, but one of those dressed ones they sell as a rug – and a baby were wrapped in it. He said he was so surprised, he thought he was dreaming – or maybe having a nightmare, because you looked a bit of a mess and he didn’t think you were alive.’
‘I had a harelip,’ I said. ‘I expect it added to the shock of the moment.’
‘They’ve made a good job of patching you up,’ he said, looking at my face with a curious gaze that was somehow not offensive.
I touched the thin silvery thread of scar. ‘I think I must have had a very good surgeon, though my dad – my adoptive dad – said they’d told him that as harelips went, they’d seen a lot worse.’
‘Yes, Dad said one of his cousins was born with a cleft lip and a palate the same, but even back then they mended it well enough so you didn’t much notice it.’
‘What did your dad do after he picked me up?’ I prompted, keen to get George back on track.
‘Once he’d got over the first shock and had a closer look, he realized you weren’t dead because you made a little cry. The sheepskin must have kept you warm enough to survive, but you couldn’t have been there long.’
‘How amazingly lucky I was that he came along just at that moment,’ I said.
‘Dad said it was meant to be, and someone up there was determined you’d be found, because if he hadn’t come across you, that Upvale woman probably would.’
‘Oh, yes, I’ve read the newspaper accounts and they said this Emily Rhymer was on the scene right after he found me.’
‘Gave him another shock, she did,’ he said. ‘He hadn’t spotted anyone about, though he thought he’d seen car lights earlier on the road towards Upvale. But then his dog barked and another answered from up top – and there was one of the Upvale witches staring down at him.’
‘Emily Rhymer, aged twenty-two, according to the newspaper reports,’ I said. ‘What made your dad think she was a witch?’
‘What else would a young woman be doing up by the Oldstone on her lonesome in the dark?’ he asked. ‘Wouldn’t she be fearful, if she hadn’t got the Dark Powers to protect her?’
‘I wondered about that, because it seemed very strange. And suspicious, too, though the police must have investigated and ruled her out?’
‘If she wasn’t a witch then, she’s known for one now. It’s rife down there in Upvale. But it wasn’t her who’d had the baby,’ he grudgingly agreed. ‘She’d only just got there, wanting to see the sun rise over the Oldstone, or some daft idea like that. Her friend – an older woman that my dad said was another of the coven – drove up only a few minutes later and parked below, on the grass.’
‘I know the place, but it sounds a surprisingly popular spot considering it was just before dawn on a cold early March night,’ I said. ‘What happened next?’
‘They all got in this woman’s car and came here to call the police and an ambulance. Dad had you stuffed down inside his vest, shirt and jumper by then, like he would a weakly lamb, to keep you warm with his body heat. It works a treat, that does.’
‘He was very kind.’
