Alice's Secret

by Lynne Francis

  ‘Alys. Alys, wake up.’

  She couldn’t work out where she was for a moment, thinking herself in her bed back in Moira’s cottage.

  ‘You must have dropped off. Flo’s ready to leave. Come and say goodbye.’

  Alys blinked and stretched, almost knocking over her glass. It took her a few moments to gather herself, then she stood up and went back into the café. Flo gave her a big hug and Alys made her promise to keep an eye on Moira and to stop her from overdoing things, then she was on her way with a flurry of good wishes for Alys’s travels. Alys turned the sign on the door to read ‘Closed’ and sighed.

  ‘I’m glad that’s over. I don’t think I can say any more goodbyes.’

  Moira, who was busy bringing in the flower jugs from the courtyard, handed Alys her glass. ‘Here, finish this. One more goodbye to go, I’m afraid. We’re meeting Rob at the pub.’

  Alys, gulping down the last of her prosecco, now rather warm, almost choked on the bubbles. ‘Rob?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, he couldn’t get away from the farm to come in today so he said he’d drop into the pub later to see you.’ Moira wiped the counter, scrutinised the room for crumbs and, satisfied, said ‘Take one last look around. Then let’s go.’

  Alys felt quite certain that she didn’t want to say goodbye to the café but, to please her aunt, she revolved slowly in the centre of the room, taking in all the features that had so struck her the first time she saw it. The angel’s wings hanging in the window, the stone flags, the prints on the wall – and now the shelves of china, washed and ready for a new day ahead.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got it here,’ she tapped the side of her forehead. ‘And if all else fails, I’ve got a lot of it here, too.’ She waved her phone at Moira, thinking of all the photos she had taken recently of the café and the cakes.

  ‘Come on then.’ Moira propelled her through the door then set the alarm and swiftly locked up. She took Alys’s arm. ‘I think I need another drink.’ And with that, she steered her in the direction of The Old Bell.

  Chapter Seven

  Rob had joined them in The Old Bell when Alys and her aunt were halfway through their first drink and discussing whether they should just go ahead and order without him. He’d despatched half of his first pint very swiftly, muttering something about it being a dusty afternoon on the farm, then had gone back to the bar to put in an order for fish and chips all round. Alys was so hungry that she had to stop herself bolting her food when it arrived but she noticed that Moira just toyed with hers and Rob ended up eating most of her chips as well as his own.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want them?’ he asked, each time he took a few more on his fork.

  ‘No, honestly, they’re yours,’ Moira said finally, pushing her plate in his direction. ‘I think I ate too much cake earlier.’

  Alys was pretty sure that Moira had eaten as little as she had in the café today but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned to Rob and described the cake that she had made as her farewell to the café.

  ‘Where’s my piece, then?’ he asked, sitting back after he’d cleared Moira’s chips. He patted his stomach. ‘I’m pretty full right now but I’m sure I could squeeze in a tiny piece of cake.’

  ‘Oh!’ Alys clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have saved you a piece. I didn’t think.’

  Rob raised his eyebrows and sighed heavily. ‘I see,’ he said meaningfully.

  Alys was flustered. Why hadn’t she thought to save him some? ‘I’ve got a photo of it,’ she said, fishing out her phone and thrusting it under his nose. ‘See?’

  ‘Well, that’s just made it worse,’ Rob said. ‘Tempting a man with tales of some special cake that you’ve made for all your friends, then all you can offer him is a photo of it. A photo, not even the tiniest slice.’

  ‘I could do with another drink,’ Moira said. ‘Rob, would you mind?’ She fished in her wallet and waved a note at him. ‘And get one for yourself and Alys while you’re there.’ She brushed away their protests and stacked the plates as Rob stood up. ‘Here, could you take these back too?’

  She noticed Alys’s quizzical look. ‘Sorry, I can’t abide plates being left in front of you once you’ve eaten. They could do with some more help in here.’ She looked around. ‘And I thought it would give you a break from Rob’s teasing.’

  But Rob wasn’t done. ‘It’s no good, you know,’ he complained once he’d returned with their drinks. He looked at Alys. ‘You’re about to reduce the number of thirty-somethings in the village by fifty per cent.’

  Alys laughed. ‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration! And if you’re including yourself in the total, why, you don’t even live in the village anyway.’

  ‘Well, I’m only a few miles away. And anyway, I grew up here, Mum and Dad still live here, so I’m an honorary resident.’ He took a sip of his beer. ‘So, where do you think you’ll head first on your travels?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’ Alys was caught off guard. ‘I haven’t thought that much about it. I’ll probably make a spur-of-the-moment decision when I’ve checked out the flights. Australia, maybe?’

  ‘Australia! So far! I had no idea …’ Moira looked startled, then collected herself. ‘Well, at least you won’t have any problems with the language,’ she said lamely, grasping for something to say.

  ‘Which part are you thinking of going to?’ said Rob, ‘I’ve still got a couple of mates out there from when I was working. I could hook you up with them, so at least you’d have somewhere to stay.’ He paused and his expression changed. ‘Actually, thinking about it, they might not be quite your cup of tea.’

  Alys made a big effort to divert the conversation away from her forthcoming travels or, indeed, anything to do with the café or the village by asking Rob about the farm. He loved to talk about the rare breeds and how passionate he was about preserving them for the future, and her strategy paid off. He was still talking about them as they finished their drinks and he looked at his watch.

  ‘Sorry I can’t give you a lift to the station tomorrow, Alys.’ Rob got to his feet and prepared to settle his bill at the bar. ‘I’ve got an early start. We’re moving the sheep from the high pasture and then I’ve got to stick around while the bloke comes to service the big combine.’

  ‘No worries, Moira already booked a cab,’ said Alys, looking up at him. She felt a terrible pang as she realised that this might be the last time she ever saw Rob.

  ‘Hey, no need to look so sad,’ said Rob, bending down to give Alys a hug, just as she rose to her feet, leading to a clumsy embrace that caused a chorus of whoops and catcalls from the regulars at the bar. He dismissed them with an easy shrug, while Alys blushed furiously.

  ‘You’ll be back.’ Rob’s tone was firm. ‘You won’t be able to stay away. And Moira will be delighted to see you any time, won’t you?’ He turned to Moira.

  ‘I’ve already told Alys what a godsend she’s been these last few weeks,’ said Moira. ‘I don’t know how I would have managed without her. She didn’t just step into my shoes, she did so much more. She brought all the lovely vintage china into the café and as for her cake recipes – well, the place has never been so popular. I hope she knows she’s got a home here whenever she wants it?’ She turned to Alys with a slightly wobbly smile.

  ‘I can’t begin to tell you what a good time I’ve had.’ Alys paused and bit her lip as she thought over the last few weeks and how much seemed to have happened in that time. She thought about trying to summarise all the things that meant so much: the joy the countryside had given her, how much she had loved searching for the vintage china, her delight in trying new recipes for the café, the fun of meeting new people and how welcoming everyone had been. Words failed her so she put an arm around Moira to disguise the fact that she was close to tears herself. ‘Come on, time to go,’ Alys said, trying to sound brisk and matter-of-fact. ‘I’ve got to finish packing my bag this evening.’

  ‘Ah, your bag. I remember it we
ll.’ Rob grimaced. ‘Hope you asked the cab company for their strongest driver,’ he said, turning to Moira. ‘Alys needs a weightlifter to deal with her luggage. She’s going to have to master the art of travelling light if she’s heading for Australia.’ And with a grin and a wave he was out of the door.

  Early the following morning, Alys, standing in her room at Moira’s and looking out of the window, found herself smiling at the memory of Rob’s teasing before she gave herself a little shake. It was time to get on, otherwise the cab would be here and she’d still be in her dressing gown. There was nothing to be done now – the next phase of her life was about to begin.

  Part Four

  Chapter One

  Alice’s heart was pounding as she drew closer to her destination. Every beat seemed to shake her chest, her whole frame. It was a cloudy night with no moon to cast its light along the pathway, and the lantern proved a feeble substitute. But Alice was used to being abroad at night. There were heart-stopping moments when her passage would startle a bird from its sleep, sending it blundering from its roost, or cause a nervous deer to break free from the woods and bound along ahead of her, veering from side to side with a flash of its white tail, an instinctive response to the fear of a hunter’s gun.

  Indeed, poachers were the only people encountered by Alice on her night forays into the woods. They strode past her, caps pulled far down over their eyes in an effort at disguise, rabbits slung from a belt, the gun cocked over a shoulder, where yet more prized specimens hung. Or they would melt away into the woods as Alice approached, blending in with the trees, as unwilling to be seen as Alice was. She was never in any doubt as to their identity, recognising the height, breadth, gait and demeanour of these local men, who were trying to add to their family’s larder or to earn themselves a few pence from the local butcher. Alice didn’t dwell too long on the rights and wrongs of it. It seemed to her that the valley held an abundance of rabbits and wildfowl, and it puzzled her as to how some landowner could claim ownership of such wild creatures.

  For their part, the men grew used to seeing Alice out at night with her lantern and basket, often around the time of the full moon which added extra potency to the herbs gathered then. The poachers gave her little heed as she posed no threat to them. They didn’t think to question why a cloudy, moonless night that suited them best for their secret endeavours should also find Alice abroad with her lantern.

  Alice had waited until the house was in darkness and all were sound asleep before cautiously rising and slipping out, lantern as yet not lit, shawl wrapped tightly around her, her basket clutched to her. Steady breathing from Sarah’s room reassured her that she wouldn’t be missed. The moonless night suited her purpose well, although treading the familiar path by lantern light, in haste, was less easy than she expected.

  Her pounding heart as she approached her destination was caused by a mixture of exertion, agitation and fear. The deer pool lay far back from the path and was so well hidden that she was convinced that only she, and the deer who drank there, could know about it. It was the perfect spot. She stepped through the almost invisible gap in the trees. It was even darker in here, and she’d extinguished the lantern, keen not to draw attention to her deviation from the path should anyone be watching. Alice stood still for a moment, trying to accustom her eyes to the all-encompassing blanket of darkness. There was just the faintest lifting of the gloom ahead of her, where the absence of trees around the pool allowed some light to penetrate. She took a cautious step or two, breathing deeply whilst trying to remain as quiet as possible.

  An awareness of the passage of time increased her anxiety. With her arms stretched out in front of her, she felt her way forwards. Her fingertips brushed the damp ridged softness of leaves, the rasping roughness of bark, felt the electric emptiness of air. Then there was a scent that wasn’t damp moss and crushed bracken, but warmer, muskier. Her questing fingertips found a different texture: rough tweed, linen.

  She exhaled, releasing some of her pent-up tension.

  ‘Alice’, he breathed, reaching out to her through the gloom, drawing her in to him, safe now and all wrapped up in the dark. ‘Alice.’ Again, breathed into her hair.

  Chapter Two

  As Alice headed down the mill path one late September morning, the sound of someone behind her, slipping every now and then on the loose stones, caused her to look nervously behind and draw back into the bracken, half concealing herself behind a tree, heart beating fast. When she saw Albert, cap pulled firmly over his ears, shoulders hunched into his too-small jacket, and hands jammed into his pockets for warmth, she slipped out from her hiding place directly into his path. He started, having been lost in his thoughts, and then beamed at her.

  Alice couldn’t remember how long she had known Albert. He’d always been there, finding conkers for her at the edge of Tinker’s Wood, in the only spot where the chestnut trees grew; the remnants of the garden of a grand house long gone, perhaps. He’d yelled encouragement when, aged eight, she’d taken on the village boys, becoming Northwaite conker champion for one entire heady autumn. He’d spent hours with her down by the packhorse bridge, racing sticks underneath it in the high, brown waters of a wet spring. Although a couple of years younger than Alice, he’d become bored with the game first, turning his attention to fashioning the stick boats into grand galleons, with twigs for masts and leaves for sails. Once he’d mastered how to keep the boats afloat with their additional load, by dint of judicious carving and whittling, Alice had added precious cargo. Berries became jewels bound for Leeds, the most exotic and far-flung place that either of them could envisage. Petals were bales of fine cloth, while gravel from the bed of the river became gold.

  So, spring days turned into summer, and Alice found that household duties kept her at home more and more frequently. Albert stopped loitering by her gate hoping that their idyll could be resumed. Solitary now in his pursuits, he spent his hours perfecting his carving skills with the few tools that he could make or beg, and Alice learnt to look out for offerings left on the gatepost at the end of a long day. A tiny horse, crudely carved from a thin branch of ash. A proper boat, with a hollowed-out hull and a set of twiggy oars. A squat bird, chest daubed red with berry juice, head thrown back and beak wide open in song.

  Albert had started work as a millhand as soon as he was old enough, and it was these skills that saved him from the regular drudgery of the life there. His nimble fingers were set to work fixing the machinery that enslaved Alice and the other workers. She was glad for him. He was small for his age and would otherwise have had a dangerous time of it, crawling underneath the working machines to fix broken threads, or collecting the cotton detritus.

  When Alice started work at the mill, some of their previous relationship was restored, to Albert’s delight. She’d had reason to be thankful, on more than one occasion, that he knew his way around the mill and its people and that he kept an eye out for her. They were always glad to walk down to the mill together in the morning, too. Keeping company on the path made the journey pass quickly and helped Alice keep her mind from its anxious perambulations, the nature of which was causing her to arrive at work each morning besieged by fearful thoughts.

  Today, Albert was full of talk about a stone-carving apprenticeship that he harboured dreams of applying for. Alice heard him out, then gently asked, ‘But Albert, where will you find the money to bind you to your master? And if you have to travel away from home, to York, to do this, then you must pay your board and lodging too?’

  Albert looked crestfallen and walked a few steps in silence, and Alice felt sorry for having spoken so hastily and for having dashed his dreams. ‘But perhaps there are foundations you can apply to,’ she said. ‘Charities that might help fund such an enterprise?’

  Albert brightened. ‘There must be a way,’ he said. ‘I just need to make a plan. Happen I’ve got a rich uncle hidden away somewhere.’

  They both laughed, knowing that the likelihood of Albert making his planned e
scape was slim. Most of the wages from his employment at the mill went straight to his mother. His father had been left incapacitated after an accident in his job as a drayman, and whatever pay-off they had received in compensation had long since gone. Albert was the main breadwinner and, with no siblings, he was likely to be trapped at home in that role for the foreseeable future.

  The roof of the mill below them came into view as the path took its last downward bend. As they got closer, Alice became quiet, her troubled thoughts flooding back. The increasingly autumnal weather had meant that she could use extra layers of clothes to hide the fact that her once-slender figure was now filling out. Soon there would be no disguising her pregnancy, and the knowing looks, the gossip and the shame of it would be more than Alice could bear. But to leave now would mean that her one chance of seeing Richard on a daily basis was taken from her.

  Chapter Three

  Sarah’s look spoke volumes of her disappointment, of her despair that Alice was following the path that so many of the village girls before her had trodden.

  ‘Will he marry you?’ she asked.

  Alice shook her head.

  ‘Cannot or will not?’ snapped Sarah, and she seemed almost on the point of striking Alice, who shrank back and shook her head again, mutely.

  Her eyes had filled with tears, so she was startled when Sarah reached out and gave her a fierce, rough hug.

  ‘Well, I hope you’ve known kindness, not cruelty.’ Sarah sighed. ‘It’s a sorry business, but what’s done is done and we have to make the best of it. You must leave the mill and, now that I’m feeling better, we’ll get by on what my work brings in. Ella is old enough to take your place at the mill, and you must expect to go back when the baby is grown.’