Alice's Secret

by Lynne Francis

  Alice escorted him back to the kitchen door. The front door was reserved for very special company – none of whom had ever shown themselves at the house so far.

  Sarah, busily stirring the big pot, looked over her shoulder. ‘Come again, Albert. Next time, stay and share our supper.’

  Alice opened the door for him and they both drew in their breath as the wind instantly curled around them, wrapping them in a bitter embrace. ‘We’ve not seen the last of winter yet,’ Alice said, clutching her shawl around her shoulders and shivering. Then, under her breath so Sarah couldn’t hear, ‘Remember, watch out for Ella for me. And don’t forget my note.’

  Albert found himself both nodding and shaking his head as Sarah called, ‘Come away inside. You’re letting the warmth out and the cold in.’ Albert, hearing the door being bolted behind him as he headed off down the path, felt a pang at leaving them all behind. His evening would be a very different affair: his father morose by the feeble fire that he insisted was all they could afford, his mother cowed by a day spent in bitter company. They looked forward to Albert’s homecoming to provide relief from the disappointment of their day, and his late return would not be welcomed. A normal evening saw the topic of Albert’s day quickly exhausted, to be followed by a silence punctuated only by the ticking of the clock and his father’s occasional sighs. Albert was glad that his early starts gave him the excuse to go early to bed, but then he was always troubled with guilt the next morning at not being a better son. The noise and bustle of the mill, although very far from what he wanted to do with his life, allowed him to forget the dreariness of home.

  He unlatched the gate, took a deep breath and opened the door, determined to bring some of the jollity of Alice’s house into his own. The sight of both parents, grim-faced at the table, plates empty, waiting, did not bode well for a happy evening.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘I’ll just take Lucy as far as the mill-top path.’ Richard knew he’d sounded plausible. His mother had barely looked up from her seat at the fireside, nor had Caroline or his sister paid him any attention. They were too busy chatting and laughing on the couch, fanning themselves as they teased Mrs Weatherall about her love of a fire in the evening, even when it was well-nigh mid-summer. He felt sure that they hadn’t sensed the strain in his voice, his desperate need to flee from the suffocating impossibility of this happy family scene. He took deep breaths of the evening air as he stood on the terrace, taking in the sweep of the valley below, the sound of rushing water, the dampness creeping in after the warmth of the day. Lucy whimpered and pawed impatiently at his legs, eager to be away. As he unlatched the gate at the side of the house, Lucy bounded ahead of him onto the track, sniffing the air joyfully. The gathering dusk soothed Richard. There was no one around to see his face, the contortions as he frowned and sighed, pursing his lips as he reconsidered what felt like the indignities of the day. He relived the discussion over the breakfast table, his father full of plans for the new house, his mother trying to interrupt with decisions to be made with regard to the wedding arrangements. Richard’s reticence went unnoticed, overshadowed by Caroline’s enthusiasm.

  Then came the promenade round the garden, Caroline’s arm in his as she exclaimed yet again over the view, and the perfect weather. Richard felt sure that he’d made the right responses, gently disengaging himself with expressions of regret about his presence being required at the mill. Caroline had delighted in her day, the chance to have time to get to know his mother and sister properly, his sensitivity in allowing her to do so. Richard should have felt charmed and pleased that all was going so well, that his bride-to-be fitted in so perfectly with his family. Instead, he felt overwhelmed by the effort of keeping up the pretence.

  At the mill, Williams had offered congratulations on his forthcoming marriage, having heard that the future Mrs Richard Weatherall was visiting the big house. He’d enquired as to whether ‘we might have the pleasure of a visit from your young lady here?’ Richard read insolence in the way that he said it, saw arrogance in the raised, enquiring eyebrows, and had to choke back his anger, flushing instead so that Williams laughed as he turned away and headed back to the mill floor.

  Richard paused where the path forked and whistled for Lucy. He looked back towards the house – his home – where his family talked, at ease, totally unaware of his turmoil. How could he have imagined that he could make Caroline’s visit work? Had he, in fact, imagined anything of the sort? Hadn’t he simply refused to think about it, preferred to bury his head in the sand? He’d delayed the visit as long as he could until his mother had reproached him; she’d warned him that if the engagement was allowed to drag on any longer it would cause gossip. Almost two years had passed since he had proposed and he could no longer make the excuse of needing to establish himself in business. Caroline deserved better, he chided himself – he should have broken with her long before this. By sparing himself the embarrassment of calling off the engagement he had made matters so much worse.

  Lucy reappeared at his side and Richard turned onto the path that led through the woods high up above the mill. With the trees in full leaf, the gathering gloom made it hard to see and he had to stop to allow his eyes to adjust so that he could press on safely over the uneven surface. His thoughts turned back to the place where they had been all day, throughout the time when he had gone through the motions of appearing to be involved in house decisions, wedding plans, mill matters and dinner table conversation. Alice’s face appeared before him, dear enough in itself but doubly so with her daughter – his daughter – held up towards him, chubby arms outstretched. Tiny fingers, heart-breaking in their perfection, grasped his, making him feel as though he possessed the hands of a clumsy giant.

  How many times had he seen them since Elisabeth had been born? Four? Or was it five? The weather had been against them at first and he’d missed her earliest weeks, unable to find a satisfactory excuse to make his way to Northwaite through the deepest snow that he could remember. Later on, Alice had sought to reassure him, told him that he’d missed little, that Elisabeth had mainly cried and fed, her personality only developing as the weeks passed. Still, he felt cheated, by the passage of time, out of something he would never be able to witness or recreate. Spring had come and all but gone, the days neither long enough nor warm enough for him to catch sight of Alice and Elisabeth together. It was only with the help of Albert acting as their messenger that they’d been able to engineer a meeting one Sunday. Richard had slipped away, after church and lunch, when the family took their customary rest. With Lucy as his pretext, they’d met in a sun-dappled clearing above the bathing pool, well-hidden from the path.

  Richard’s heart was quite lost at that first meeting. Elisabeth had been calm and cheerful, cooing with delight at the sight of Lucy. Her mother and father found their attention increasingly drawn away from each other, joining instead in adoration of their daughter. As Richard made his way home afterwards he felt bereft, taking no joy in the signs of summer bursting forth all round him. He felt banished, excluded, picturing Elisabeth and Alice heading home to their family, where Elisabeth would be handed around, cuddled and teased. He longed for the next meeting, but his hopes were dashed when the weather turned against them. Subsequent Sundays had brought Richard joy, tinged with sadness each time when he had to leave Alice and Elisabeth, with the knowledge that a whole week must pass before the chance to see them again would arise.

  It was amidst the frustration that the waiting caused him that he’d taken it upon himself to make sure Elisabeth’s birth was registered, facing down the scolding he received for the tardiness of the notification and for the mother’s failure to be present with the baby, which he blamed on illness. He felt a rare moment of pride as he ignored the contempt on the registrar’s face. The man clearly didn’t believe him but didn’t like to challenge him. His own face wasn’t well known in Nortonstall, and so he felt confident in describing himself as a schoolmaster to the wretched man, so that he could set abou
t his form-filling duties. It was only as he strode back to the mill from Nortonstall, following the path past the cottages and the school before it turned away into the woods, that he felt a pang, a realisation of how different his life would be if the falsehood he’d just perpetrated were, in fact, the truth. Had he been a schoolmaster he could be living with Alice in a cottage such as the one he had just passed, with his days spent in the schoolroom so close by, Elisabeth playing in the schoolyard, with her brothers and sisters. He’d had no discussion with Alice about the possibility of a future together, nor any real opportunity to do so. Their precious moments together had focused entirely on Elisabeth of late. Alice knew something of Caroline, but they’d spoken little of her while they were both at the mill, and not at all since then. So, it had hit him hard when his hopes of a meeting with Alice and their baby had been dashed last Sunday. Caroline had arrived for her much-heralded visit, and Richard had found himself unable to slip away to see Alice and Elisabeth as arranged. Caroline had said she simply wasn’t tired enough to rest, and she would love to walk with him and Lucy in the woods. He’d had to endure her obvious wish that they should spend some private time together, knowing that less than half a mile away Alice and Elisabeth waited for him in vain, and that he was to be denied sight of them for what seemed like an intolerable stretch. He’d managed to slip Albert a brief note for Alice, to explain his absence, but his heart ached with longing and he cursed the situation that he found himself in.

  Chapter Ten

  Alice wondered whether she would always remember the moment she found out. Would she always carry that pain with her? Would there be long years of adjusting to it, until it became a tight, hard kernel, buried deep inside, a secret to take with her to the grave?

  It was Louisa, their neighbour, who’d told her, pausing as she opened her gate to exclaim over Elisabeth and how she was growing. ‘Nearly six months old already! Why, it doesn’t seem five minutes since she was born!’ Louisa confided that she was dead on her feet. The marriage of Master Richard and that stuck-up Miss Caroline was due to take place on Saturday and it was all bustle and panic at the big house. What with guests from Leeds and Manchester, and the bride’s parents coming all the way from Cambridge, there were beds to be made up all over the house and dishes to be prepared for the wedding breakfast. Louisa couldn’t see how they would ever get everything done in time, what with Mrs Weatherall changing her mind every five minutes about menus, and who was to have the rooms with the best views. And had she heard that Mr Weatherall was to give his workers a half-day on the Saturday, so they could come and toast the newly-weds?

  Louisa registered the shock on Alice’s face. ‘I know – it’s the talk of the mill. A half-day! That means a whole day and a half at the weekend. And a glass or two of ale thrown in, to boot. Not that we’ll benefit, mind. It’s just another job for us on a day when we’ll be rushed off our feet from first light as it is.’

  Louisa turned to head up her path when a thought struck her. ‘Why don’t you come along too? When word spreads around the village, anyone who’s able to make it up that path will be there, I’ll be bound. Miss Caroline’s dress is going to cause a stir. She sent for it to London. I’ve heard it’s one of the new fashions from Paris: all silk and lace.’

  Louisa carried on up the path to her front door, bone weary and longing for her bed, with the knowledge of the start of another day but a few hours away. Alice remained rooted to the spot on her own path, Elisabeth clutched to her breast, all thought of what she was supposed to be doing – delivering a remedy to one of Sarah’s housebound patients – wiped from her mind. When she’d last seen Richard, in their usual spot above the river, he’d said nothing. Her mind raced. Was it possible that he wasn’t planning to go through with it? That he would come and claim her, claim them both, his little family? Even as the thought passed through her mind, she knew the answer, and her mind leapt ahead to what this would mean for them. Her heart felt as if it had been pierced by an arrow, its tip alternately a tongue of flame or a shard of ice. If it hadn’t been for the dim awareness of Elisabeth in her arms she would have sunk to her knees. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, motionless, but dusk was falling when suddenly she was aware of Sarah at her side, and of Elisabeth struggling and wailing, pink in the face.

  ‘What ails you? Here, let me take Elisabeth. You’ll crush all the breath out of her.’ Sarah gently unclenched Alice’s hands and released Elisabeth, then put her free arm around Alice and drew her into the house, entreating her to take her arm, to rest her weight on her. Once in the house, she bade the younger ones play with Elisabeth and distract her from her fretfulness, while she cajoled Alice up the stairs and into the bedroom.

  ‘There, there,’ she soothed, murmuring into Alice’s hair as if she were a small child again, helping her into the bed and under the covers. Alice turned her blank, pale face to the wall. Sarah found her like this when she came up the stairs a little while later, bearing a cup of steaming liquid.

  ‘Drink this. It will help you sleep, help to ease whatever it is that causes you pain.’

  In the days that followed, the little house at the end of the village was home to a very subdued family. Sarah yearned to know what ailed Alice, who kept to her bed, quiet and ashen-faced, rousing herself to ask occasionally, ‘Has there been word for me?’ before sinking back into her reverie when it was clear there was none. Sarah’s anxiety over Alice made her short-tempered with the little ones, who crept around and amused themselves as much as possible, glad of the lovely weather that allowed them to be out in the garden, away from the tense atmosphere that pervaded the house.

  Elisabeth was probably the most bewildered. She lay beside Alice in the bed, kicking her legs and waving her fists, occasionally turning her head to gaze at her mother. It distressed Sarah to see how quickly Elisabeth picked up on Alice’s mood. Getting no response from her mother, she ceased to make eye contact and lay quiet beside her, pupils big in the half-light of the room, already learning what sorrow meant. Sarah had hoped that Elisabeth’s presence would rouse Alice but, fearful for the effect on the baby, she started to keep her away, downstairs where the atmosphere was a little more cheerful. Thomas, Annie and Beattie couldn’t keep still and quiet for long, and Sarah was relieved to see Elisabeth respond to their high spirits, giggling and beaming smiles at one and all. Sarah hoped it was just over-sensitivity on her part that made her see a reservation, a dark cloud, an anxiousness in Elisabeth’s moments of repose, when she would gaze around the room as if looking for something, or someone, lost or missing.

  On the third evening, Ella burst in from the mill in her usual fashion, exhausted but delighted to be home. She swept Elisabeth up from the nest of quilts and blankets that Annie and Beattie had created for her and gave her a big kiss, prompting squeals and giggles.

  ‘We’re to have a half-day on Saturday,’ she announced. ‘And we’re to go up to the big house to celebrate. Master Richard is getting married and there’s to be a party!’

  ‘Can we come? Can we come?’ Annie and Beattie clustered around her, tugging at her skirts, trying to catch her hands.

  ‘No, no,’ Ella protested, brushing them off as she turned to go up the stairs. ‘Mill workers only. At least, I think so,’ she added, frowning. ‘Maybe the village will be invited too? You’ll have to wait and see.’

  Sarah stood in the kitchen, listening and wondering. She smoothed her apron and bit her lip, turning automatically to set a pan of water to boil on the range. Could this have anything to do with Alice’s grief? She thought for a few moments, then brushed the thought away. From the little that she’d seen of him, Master Richard didn’t seem like the sort of man to try to take advantage of the women at the mill. He was nothing like the rough brutes they chose as overlookers. He always looked as though his thoughts were many miles away from the valley, in a much better place.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ella put her head around the door of Alice’s room. ‘Are you awake
?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but pushed the door open further. ‘Alice, I have something for you.’ There was no movement from the bed. Ella ventured further into the room and sat down. She looked around at the simple furnishings: the bare floorboards with the rag rug beside the bed, the plain jug and washbowl on the stand in the corner, Elisabeth’s cot over by the window, a fire burning unseasonally in the grate in an effort to make the room more cheerful. Ella stood up and drew back the curtains. The pale light of a summer’s evening illuminated the bed where Alice lay, face still turned to the wall. The covers looked barely disturbed, as if she’d lain there for hours without moving. Ella sat down again and traced over one of the hearts in the wrought-iron bedstead with her finger.

  ‘Alice, I have something for you,’ she repeated. She waited, but again there was no response, so she pulled the folded paper from her pocket and gently prised open Alice’s clenched fingers. ‘Here,’ she said, bending and whispering, although she didn’t quite know why. ‘I think it’s important. You should read it.’

  When Sarah came up the stairs some time later to see if she could tempt Alice into taking a little soup, she was amazed to find her out of bed, some colour back in her cheeks. She straightened up from the fireplace as Sarah came into the room.

  ‘I’ll come down with you,’ she said. ‘I need to see Elisabeth. I feel like I’ve been away too long.’

  As the day of the wedding drew closer, Alice changed her mind twenty times a day about whether or not to go. The invitation had been extended to the families of mill employees, and it was the talk of the village. In Sarah’s house, they could speak of nothing else. Richard’s letter – for it was this that Ella had delivered – had lifted Alice’s spirits temporarily, but she found herself tossed this way and that on a wave of emotion. One minute she thought she would take Elisabeth and go and see the new bride and groom, standing well away at the back where she couldn’t be seen, for to hear second-hand tales of the afternoon would be more than she could bear. The next minute, she was plunged into despair at the thought of what she would witness, and how it would signal the end of all her hopes, frail and insubstantial though they had been. She had memorised every word of Richard’s letter before burning it and she went over it in her mind time and again, taking whatever sustenance she could from it.