Alice's Secret

by Lynne Francis

  The food arrived with a flourish, tearing Alys away from her thoughts. Her fears about the feel of the place proved justified: the plates were fussily garnished, and although the food was nice enough, it had an old-fashioned feel. Italian, it may have been, but modern Mediterranean cuisine it certainly wasn’t. By the time Alys was halfway through her plateful of Pollo alla parmigiana she was full up and, moreover, suspected that garlic was oozing from every pore. She tried to avoid catching Rob’s eye. She knew she’d have an overwhelming urge to giggle at his expression – he was getting the full focus of Kate on a charm offensive. Alys noted that Moira’s plate and her own were half empty; Rob’s and Kate’s were virtually untouched. Every time Rob lifted his fork to his mouth, Kate interposed a question which he answered politely, and down went his fork again to his plate. Kate’s fork, meanwhile, hovered halfway to her lips while she listened intently to his answer, then down it went, untouched, to her plate while she followed up with her next question.

  Alys felt action was called for. ‘Now, Mum,’ she said, ‘less of the Spanish Inquisition for Rob. Look at the two of you – your food’s getting cold. Moira told me she had some exciting news to share this evening.’ She looked at her aunt, who had settled back in her chair, happy to take a back seat, but now visibly pulled herself together. ‘Are you ready to tell all?’ Alys was impatient to know whether this news had something to do with Moira’s absences from the café and the mysterious phone calls she had taken.

  ‘Well, things have been going so well in Northwaite, thanks in no small part to Alys, that I thought the time had come to expand the business,’ Moira said. Alys, heart rate suddenly accelerating, noted that Kate looked politely interested, Rob more genuinely so. ‘I’m negotiating on some premises just around the corner from here and, if I get them, I’ll have the second café in my empire.’ She paused. ‘And I’m going to ask Alys whether she will run it for me.’

  Kate’s fork, which had made two or three journeys to her mouth while Moira was speaking, was back down on her plate again. Rob had managed several hearty mouthfuls; now he turned towards Alys and positively beamed.

  Kate turned to Alys. ‘Well, darling, it looks like you’ve finally found your niche.’

  Alys, startled and not a little overwhelmed by her aunt’s trust in her, was too happy to worry whether there was a barbed edge to her words. ‘I’m very happy for you. Moira’s been telling me what a wonderful help you’ve been to her and I can see how well you look after your weeks here. The country air obviously suits you. Or perhaps it’s something else?’ Kate turned towards Rob and smiled, eyebrows raised. Alys blushed furiously, but Rob simply smiled back and said, ‘Alys is quite the country girl – she seems really at home here.’

  Alys was the centre of attention for a while but she couldn’t answer any of Kate and Rob’s questions.

  ‘It’s a complete surprise to me,’ she protested. ‘I’ll need to talk to Moira about it. But I’m thrilled that you’ve asked me,’ she said, turning to Moira. ‘And very excited,’ she added, already feeling a thrill as she thought about the challenges that lay ahead. They talked a little more about the premises and how soon Moira might be able to take possession of them then, as the conversation looked set to flag, Alys decided to change the topic before her mother could start quizzing Rob again.

  ‘I found this in the box you gave me,’ she said to Moira, fishing the locket out of her pocket and laying it on the table. ‘I wondered whether you knew anything about it?’

  ‘Oh, heavens. That’s one of the few family heirlooms we have.’ Moira looked flustered. ‘I thought I’d lost it, and to be honest, I’d forgotten about it.’

  ‘Box?’ Kate looked enquiringly from Alys to Moira.

  ‘Just one or two things from the past,’ Moira answered hastily. ‘An old book. And this. Mum said she never wore it because it was damaged, and it’s rose gold, so it was hard to get a chain to match it.’

  Alys wasn’t sure whether Moira was looking so anxious because of the locket, or because Kate might be angry that she was in possession of a few family things that had once been their mother’s.

  ‘Do you know who it might have belonged to?’ she asked, hoping her aunt or her mother might be able to shed some light on it.

  Kate picked up the locket and turned it through her fingers. ‘I remember Mum giving this to you,’ she said to Moira. ‘I think it must have belonged to our grandma Beth.’

  ‘Would you like it?’ Moira turned to Alys. ‘It’s yours if you would. It seems a shame that it’s just been ignored for all these years. It should stay in the family, and be worn.’

  ‘I looked at the date,’ Alys said. ‘Could it have belonged to Alice?’

  Moira, who had relaxed once it was clear that there wasn’t going to be a family row over mis-appropriated heirlooms, shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She turned to Kate.

  ‘Alys spotted her great-great-grandma Alice’s gravestone in the churchyard. She’s curious about her, why she died so young, and about why we moved to Nortonstall from Northwaite. I don’t think I’ve been much help …’ Moira tailed off.

  ‘Ah, you’ve discovered our black sheep!’ Kate laughed. ‘I don’t suppose I can be much more help than Moira. I seem to remember Mum saying something about a problem at the mill – a fire – meaning that there were no jobs to be had, and so people left the area. Our Grandma Beth came here to Nortonstall when she was young, with her mum – or wait, was it with her grandma, Sarah? I don’t remember. Anyway, Sarah was a herbalist and I think business must have dried up in the village, so she came here. She was quite successful, I think, although the family ended up back in Northwaite again.’

  Rob chipped in. ‘My great-great-granddad worked at the mill, but when it burnt down he left home and went to train as a stonemason in York. I think a lot of people left – some drifted back later, some didn’t.’

  Alys, until then focused on her namesake and the fact that both Moira and Kate had neatly side-stepped giving her any more information about her, was distracted by the sudden realisation that other people might have ties to the area as well. ‘Wait – so your family have lived around here for years too?’ she asked.

  ‘Centuries, more like. We’re one of the oldest families in Northwaite. My mum has traced us right back to twelve hundred and something.’

  Alys was taken aback. ‘Wow, you can actually do that?’ Her mind was whirring – she had thought that it was going to be hard to find out more about what had happened just over a century ago, and now that was starting to feel like recent history!

  Rob laughed at her reaction. ‘You need to talk to my mum. She got the family research bug a while back and now we’ve got this whole family tree drawn up, framed and hung on the wall at home. She can probably tell you about half the families in the area – we all seem to be related one way or another. You can do a lot of the recent stuff online, but she knows how to dig further back into the past. Have a chat with her if you’re interested. She loves telling people all about it.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Alys, leaning back as her plate was whisked away and replaced by a dessert menu. ‘But I don’t know where to find her.’

  ‘Oh, you can’t miss the house,’ said Rob. ‘It’s the last one as you leave the village on the moor road. The one with a bit of carved stonework over the door.’ He paused. ‘I usually go over for Sunday lunch. If Moira can spare you from the café one Sunday, why don’t you come along?’

  Kate cut in, answering on Alys’s behalf, ‘Why, how kind, I’m sure she’d love to. And I’m sure Moira can manage without her for a few hours.’

  Before Alys could speak, Moira had joined in, keen to keep her sister happy. ‘No problem. It’s a bit quieter now, with fewer walkers when it’s hot, plus the school holidays take local people away too. Business picks up again in September. So, pick any Sunday you like. Flo will always be happy to lend a hand, too, if I need her.’

  ‘That’s settled, then. I’ll talk to Mum and
we’ll fix a date. Maybe this Sunday?’ said Rob who, totally oblivious to Alys’s sensation of being railroaded by both her mother and her aunt, was busy scanning the dessert menu. He’d had a long and full day on the farm and didn’t see any problem in adding pudding to the two courses that he’d already polished off.

  Kate, Moira and Alys settled for coffee, Alys resolving to have words with Moira about her colluding with Kate when they got back to the cottage later. But the conversation turned to lighter matters, and by the time they left half an hour later, thankful for the waiting cab, she’d forgotten all about her resolution.

  Chapter Eight

  Alys arrived a little early at the gate of Rob’s parents’ house. She felt a sense of nervous excitement, or was it apprehension? Could it be to do with meeting Rob’s parents? Rob clearly saw her as nothing more than a friend, didn’t he? So, she didn’t need to feel as anxious as she would have felt on meeting a new boyfriend’s parents, surely? Whatever it was, she had butterflies in her stomach and wasn’t quite sure why.

  As Alys raised her hand to lift the door knocker, she took a closer look at the carved stonework arching around the front door. She registered how grand it seemed for a cottage. Garlands of leaves twined around fat seed pods and thistle-like flowers, each detail of the leaf veins and spiky flower heads lovingly carved. Seen in close up, it was even more apparent that the same hand that had carved Alice’s gravestone had been at work here.

  She lifted the knocker and let it fall, trying to calm her jitters. Rob opened the door with a broad smile, and within moments her nervousness had evaporated, vanquished by the warmth of her welcome. Alys was ushered in, introduced to his mother, relieved of her jacket and box of The Celestial Cake Café macaroons, led into the garden and seated under the shade of a big cream umbrella, with a glass of chilled white wine pressed into her hand. Within moments, she found a dog at her feet, muzzle resting on her shoes and eyes fixed beseechingly on her.

  ‘Just ignore her,’ said Rob’s mum, who had introduced herself as Julie. She was petite with dark curly hair and had the sort of slim build that made Alys think that she was probably very energetic. A fell-runner, or a regular at the gym, maybe? Alys felt big-boned and clumsy beside her but Julie had welcomed her with such a lovely all-encompassing smile that she felt instantly at ease. ‘Derek was supposed to take her for a walk before lunch but he got waylaid by the cricket on TV. She’s hoping you’re a soft touch.’

  ‘Oh, she’s lovely.’ Alys bent forward to fondle the dog’s soft ears, and to chuck her under her chin. ‘Maybe Rob and I could take her out after lunch. What’s her name?’

  ‘Lola,’ said Rob, rolling his eyes. ‘Something to do with a song from way back when.’

  Lola thumped her tail enthusiastically on the floor.

  ‘I see Lola’s found a friend, then.’ Derek had come out into the garden, having been dragged away from the cricket by Julie. Alys smiled. He was just an older version of his son: similar jeans and checked shirt, same build, same curly hair but greying a bit around the temples, same brown eyes.

  Julie came back out from the kitchen and settled on a chair, glass in hand.

  ‘Right, five minutes while I wait for the vegetables to cook,’ she said, glancing at her watch.

  ‘Watch out,’ said Rob in a stage whisper to Alys. ‘Your turn now for the Spanish Inquisition.’

  ‘Now, now,’ scolded Julie. ‘Alys must have got used to Yorkshire folk by now. They’ll have your life story out of you within ten minutes of knowing you. They’re not being nosey, though,’ she said, turning to Alys. ‘Just friendly.’

  ‘Insatiably curious, more like,’ muttered Rob.

  His mother shook her head. ‘Well, it beats the way they go on down in London. You get on a Tube packed with people and nobody says a word to anyone. If you try to chat to your neighbour, they look at you like you’re from another planet.’

  Alys laughed. ‘I know what you mean.’ Although, privately, she felt that maybe city folk had enough interactions to get through in a day without chatting to their fellow passengers – she’d always found the Tube her chance to have some downtime. Time to think, catch up with a book, zone out from the invasion of her personal space by her packed-in fellow commuters.

  ‘So,’ Julie said, glancing at her watch again. ‘Rob tells me you’ve been doing a bit of family research while you’ve been here?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alys took a sip of her wine. ‘It looks as though my family go back quite a long way in the area. Well, at least, I’ve got as far back as my great-great-grandmother. Her name was Alice, too, and she worked at the mill down in the valley.’

  ‘Oh, that’ll be Hobbs Mill,’ said Derek. ‘In those days, just about everyone in the village worked there. Albert, my dad’s granddad, was there awhile.’

  ‘I told Alys about all the research you’d done,’ said Rob, turning to his mum. ‘Maybe there’s something in all those papers you have that might help Alys find out some more about her relatives?’

  A beeping noise from the kitchen brought Julie to her feet. ‘Time for lunch now. But after we’ve eaten you can make some coffee to go with those wonderful macaroons that Alys brought, and I’ll get the boxes down from the spare room. Alys can have a rummage through and see if there’s anything there of any use.’

  Rob chuckled. ‘You’ve no idea how happy that’ll make Mum,’ he said, turning to Alys. ‘Really, she should have been a historian instead of a school administrator. She’s never so happy as when she’s going through the Spencer family archives.’

  ‘Get on with you.’ Julie rolled her eyes.

  ‘It’s true. She even ordered up a map that shows this part of the country well over a hundred years ago. Fascinating, I’m sure.’ Rob affected a yawn.

  Julie smiled. ‘All that research has kept me busy and off your case,’ she said. ‘But now that it’s come to an end, well – better watch out.’ And she linked arms with her son as they all drifted through into the kitchen, where a table was set overlooking the garden.

  Alys liked the easy way that Rob and his parents related to each other. She felt a pang of envy: it simply wasn’t like this in her own family. Kate was permanently over-anxious, David impatient of his wife and overbearing with guests, and Alys would be torn between embarrassment and irritation. Her brothers seemed to just let it wash over them, but she had noticed that they were infrequent visitors, even more so now that they were married. It seemed to her that they used the excuse of their wives’ families’ commitments increasingly often to avoid Christmas, Easter and birthday gatherings.

  The relaxed feeling in the Spencer household persisted throughout lunch. It was a relatively simple meal: roast chicken flavoured with herbs from the garden, new potatoes with garden mint, home-grown vegetables, blackberry crumble. Or rather, bramble crumble, as Rob said she had to call it, now that she was ‘up North’. Rob and his father expected a proper Sunday lunch, Julie pointed out, whereas she would have been happy with salad in the summer.

  ‘Salad!’ Rob and Derek both looked horrified. ‘Nothing there but air!’ added Derek.

  Julie laughed. It was clearly the response she was expecting. ‘Right, time for the archives,’ she said. ‘Derek, Rob. You’re on washing-up and coffee duties.’

  Alys’s offers of help were brushed aside. ‘No, guests come here to relax,’ said Julie. ‘Anyway, it’s a family tradition that the men wash up. That’s why I’ve never bothered to get a dishwasher. Got to give them something to do.’ And she led Alys along the hallway to the foot of the stairs. ‘You can come and help with the boxes, though. More than one, I’m afraid.’

  Alys paused at the foot of the stairs, her attention caught by the large, framed family tree that she’d failed to notice as she arrived. ‘Oh, Rob told me about this,’ she said, peering, fascinated, trying hard to take it all in. Rob, an only child, and his parents were there right at the bottom of a beautifully executed plan, each box filled with italic script detailing the names and dates
of birth and death of family members stretching back, as Rob had said, all the way to the thirteenth century. Alys’s eyes were drawn to the name she’d heard at lunch.

  ‘Here’s Albert,’ she said, pointing through the glass. She paused, taking in the dates. ‘He died quite young. And he only had one child? That was quite unusual in those days, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Julie paused, hand on banister, poised to climb the stairs. ‘Bit of a tragic story. He died in the First World War. He was in his late thirties, almost too old to enlist, but it seems he insisted on going. There are rumours that he had an unhappy marriage he was trying to escape. He was a great craftsman – a stonemason at York Minster. If he’d lived, I think he might have made a name for himself. He did the beautiful stone carving around the door here.’

  Julie headed up the stairs, Alys following. ‘We’ll just take a couple of the boxes that relate to the time you’re looking at,’ she said over her shoulder, pushing open the door to the spare room. Alys gasped. One long row of shelves was filled with box files, all neatly labelled in date order.

  Julie looked a bit sheepish. ‘Rob was right. It did become a bit of an obsession. There’s nothing more that I can do really – it’s all fully researched. I so enjoyed doing it. Maybe I should have been a detective? It’s a bit like fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. It’s so exciting when you find a piece that’s been missing.’ She looked pensive, then brightened. ‘You know, maybe I could help you? I learnt such a lot when I was doing this. And there’s so much you can access these days via the Internet.’

  Alys felt herself starting to blush. ‘That’s really kind of you. But I couldn’t take up your time. And really, there’s only one person I’m interested in. There seems to be a bit of a mystery surrounding her and she died really young, leaving a small baby. I don’t know why I’m drawn to finding out more – maybe it’s just because we share a name?’

  ‘Oh, now you’re making me very curious. Don’t worry, it’s no trouble to give you a few tips to help you get started. Here, give me a hand with the files and we can see if there’s anything there.’