"I shall turn this into a tea-house, with lunches if requested, and
shall serve pleasant meals in the orchard," announced David, "and with
my penchant for cooking I ought to make a fortune."
"Oh dear!" said Germayne.
David Tompkins thinks it is a splendid idea to open a tea garden at his
Kentish cottage. His wife, Germayne, is not so sure. The local villagers
are divided on the matter, and not necessarily supportive, particularly
Mr. Perch at the Dolphin, who sees it as direct competition to Mrs.
Perch's own tea garden. It doesn't bode well when the official opening
coincides with a break in the beautiful weather. Things are further
complicated by the arrival of the "cake cook" Mimi, a Viennese girl with
a mysterious past, Germayne's daughter Ducks, and finally her "rather
stolid" ex-husband Digby. With rumor rife that the couple is - whisper
it - not actually married, the lady of the manor, who has failed to
realize that nowadays that title carries no real weight, makes it her
mission to shut the enterprise down.
British Library Women Writers 1950's.
Part of a curated collection of forgotten works by early to mid-century
women writers, the British Library Women Writers series highlights the
best middlebrow fiction from the 1910s to the 1960s, offering escapism,
popular appeal, and plenty of period detail to amuse, surprise, and
inform.
