Alice's Secret

by Lynne Francis

  By the time Alys and Julie were back downstairs, the sun had vanished behind dark clouds and the garden was no longer so appealing, so they headed for the sitting room, where coffee was already waiting on a tray with pink, green and lilac macaroons piled on a china plate. Julie caught Alys looking at the cups.

  ‘They’re lovely, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘I know what a fan you are of old china. These belonged to my mum and, I suspect, to her mum before her. There’s a full set – I think they always kept them for best and hardly ever used them. When Rob told me what you’d done at the café, I decided it was time they came out from the back of the cupboard and saw the light of day on a regular basis.’

  Julie and Alys settled themselves on the thick rug that covered the flagstone floor and opened the box files. Derek and Rob took it in turns to peer round the door and offer more coffee or wine but, seeing the two heads bent over a sea of documents, they tactfully withdrew and settled themselves in front of the TV in the other room.

  Alys pored over the map that Rob had been so scornful of, marvelling over how little had changed in the village of Northwaite, but struck by how Nortonstall, by no means large today, had expanded since the map had been drawn up.

  ‘It was all because of the mills,’ said Julie. ‘And the railway. Once that arrived, Nortonstall became a transport hub for cloth from Hobbs Mill, but also for all the mills the length of the valley – about fifteen of them in all. And I suppose these mills needed supplies, and as more workers came to the area, they needed services too, so a whole town grew up.’

  Julie flicked through a stack of papers from the box in front of her. There were copies of certificates, of pages of newspapers of the era, lists of businesses and their premises, copies of house deeds and census printouts. ‘I got really drawn in,’ she said. ‘Trying to build a picture of what it must have been like to live here all those years ago.’ She paused. ‘Actually, in terms of the buildings and countryside, not a lot has changed in Northwaite. Transport, obviously, but the village layout and all the paths to the mill and the next villages are really much as they were well over a century ago. Now, I’m looking for something –’ She hunted through a few more documents. ‘Ah, here we are.’ She extracted a slim book from the pile and handed it to Alys.

  ‘Is it a diary?’ Alys asked, fearful of opening it as the cloth binding had split around the spine, exposing the brittle glue and stitching that held the pages together.

  ‘Sort of,’ said Julie. ‘More a kind of journal, I’d say. It belonged to Albert. We found it in a box of his papers, along with a war medal and some photographs of him in uniform. But I think it dates back further than the war. I had a go at reading it, but I couldn’t decipher that much. The ink’s faded and his handwriting is hard to read. Maybe you’ll have better luck? Since he worked at the mill too, you might find something useful in there?’

  Alys turned the pages gingerly, trying hard to quell a growing sense of excitement. ‘Don’t worry,’ said Julie, struggling to her feet and massaging her legs where pins and needles had set in. ‘I don’t expect you to read it now. You need time and a better light than we have in here.’

  With a start, Alys realised it was coming up to half past five. She scrambled to her feet too. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ve kept you too long!’ she exclaimed. ‘I had no idea it was so late.’

  ‘You see how addictive it is?’ said Julie, and laughed. ‘Let’s go and see what’s happening next door. Odds on, they’re both fast asleep.’

  Julie knew her family only too well. Both Rob and Derek were, indeed, asleep side by side on the sofa, TV still on. Julie switched it off.

  ‘Good match?’ she said loudly. Both men snapped their eyes open, momentarily confused, then obviously wondering whether they could deny having been asleep. Seeing that they’d been rumbled, they yawned and stretched, looking rather sheepish.

  ‘Cup of tea, anyone?’ asked Julie, heading for the kitchen. Alys’s protestations that she really must be going were overridden and, fortified by tea and the macaroons that had proved to be too much to have after lunch, but now looked rather more inviting, she found herself heading out of the village with Rob, Lola bounding on ahead, delighted that the promised walk had finally materialised.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Rob. ‘Find anything useful?’

  ‘You know, I think I just might have done,’ said Alys, patting her jacket pocket where Albert’s journal was safely lodged. She was looking forward to reading it, planning to hide it away in her bedroom at Moira’s and take her time deciphering the fragile pages with their faded script. She savoured the sense of anticipation, but for now the sun had returned and it was a glorious evening. It was the perfect time for a walk, the sky a soft blue, the sun still warm, and the whole of the countryside looking as though it was bathed in a warm glow. Or perhaps that was just a reflection of Alys’s mood? She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt quite so relaxed and happy. She turned to Rob.

  ‘Race you to Tinker’s Wood,’ she said, pointing to the band of trees some distance away down the lane. Rob groaned. He hadn’t fully recovered from his large lunch and afternoon nap. He would have protested, but he wasn’t going to let Alys get the better of him. She was already well on her way, flying down the lane. It wasn’t the most elegant of running styles, he noted: her arms were flailing and there seemed to be more upward than forward motion. Her hair was already starting to fly free from the clips that had held it relatively secure all afternoon. He grinned and set off, gathering speed with the incline of the lane. Alys shrieked as she heard his heavy-footed approach. Lola, made giddy by Rob’s behaviour, which was quite unlike his normal self, leapt and bounded around the two of them, deliriously happy to be out of the house, the scent of rabbits in the air.

  Chapter Nine

  It was several days before Alys found time to settle down and look through Albert’s journal. Moira was going out – a very rare occurrence, prompting much teasing about her having a date. She was heading to Nortonstall for an evening of jazz with friends at The Royde Inn.

  ‘I’ll get a cab back later,’ she said. ‘Have a good evening and don’t wait up.’

  Alys could barely contain herself until Moira was out of the door before heading up the stairs to retrieve Albert’s journal from her bookshelf. She had looked at it sitting there every day since bringing it back from Derek and Julie’s house. She was half afraid of what she might find within the pages, and half hopeful it would provide some answers to her questions.

  With the book clutched close to her chest, she made her way back downstairs and settled into a chair under Moira’s reading lamp. Alys had teased Moira about her need for such a strong light when reading, but tonight she was glad to make use of it. The journal’s paper had darkened with age, while the ink had faded to a curious brown colour.

  The book fell open at the back, where it seemed as though the pages had been pressed firmly open. The date at the top of the page was 5th September, 1914. Alys skimmed over the page, then started again at the top. A chill struck through her as she read. It seemed that Albert was writing a kind of farewell, his own closing chapter. He clearly had no intention of returning from this war that he had signed himself up for. He wrote of how sad he felt ‘never to see my boy Walter grow to be a man. Yet if I don’t make this effort now, then who knows what the future will hold for him. I can’t pretend too much sadness about Violet. I know she will be a good mother to Walter, far better than I have been as a father.’ Here the ink was smudged and Alys struggled to read what came next. There was something indecipherable, then the name ‘Alice’ which caused her heart to beat painfully in her chest. Had she found a clue already? Could this refer to her great-great grandmother? Or was it a different Alice? She tilted the book this way and that under the light, but the words that came before and after were indistinct. She read to the bottom of the page – there were no further clues but a clear understanding on Albert’s part that he would not be returning from what he ref
erred to as his ‘last adventure’. There was some reference to making atonement, which was also smudged and perhaps referred to Violet. As far as Alys could make out, rumours of something amiss in his relationship with his wife could well have been true.

  She turned back slowly through the pages towards the front of the book. The entries were by no means daily. There was a cluster of them in 1914, in which Albert described his growing conviction that he should enlist in the Yorkshire Regiment, his doubts about his age and fitness, his joy at being accepted, and the plans and preparations he had to make. Alys did a quick calculation – Albert must have been in his mid-to-late thirties. Pretty old to be heading off to war, as Julie had said.

  Prior to 1914, there were perhaps two or three entries per year. There was a lengthy description of time spent in York, drawing up plans for restoration work to be carried out at York Minster. In 1905, she found an entry relating to Walter’s birth. ‘A beautiful boy. We will call him Walter, after Violet’s father. Violet is exhausted and must have bed rest for a week. I am not sure how we will afford the care, but at least she is quiet.’ Alys wasn’t quite sure what to make of his words. She turned the pages forward again, carefully, but there was no other mention of Violet again, not until the very last entry. It was odd. She turned back again, not quite sure why she was tackling Albert’s life in reverse, but unravelling it in this way seemed like the right thing to do.

  The early entries were short and matter-of-fact, generally related to business affairs or descriptions of journeys that Albert had undertaken to see potential jobs. A carving for a town-hall door, a fireplace for a wealthy mill owner, restoration work on churches around the county. In 1905 a brief entry read ‘Violet and I are to be married tomorrow. I try to rejoice and feel sure it is the right thing. Yet my heart feels as though turned to stone.’

  Alys hoped that Violet had never had cause to pick up this book and read its contents. Surely, she would have been mortified to read these words? As she turned back further through the pages, she stopped, arrested by a sudden thought. Perhaps Violet had done just that? Perhaps she had read Albert’s journal, hoping for an insight into his mind, and instead found a cold description of his feelings before his wedding night? Perhaps that was why the rest of the book seemed devoid of anything other than the everyday, the mundane, apart from the very last page, where he was clearly making some kind of farewell? And if that were the case, maybe some of his earlier entries would hold better clues to his thoughts and his state of mind?

  With renewed purpose, Alys continued to turn back through the book, stopping almost immediately at two pages of drawings. The designs were familiar – garlands of leaves and flowers in a vertical design, close-ups of bursting seed heads, sketches of flower heads from different angles. These were surely sketches for the carved design around Derek and Julie’s front door and on Alice’s gravestone? Notes on the page appeared to be technical, relating to tools to be used. The design was undated. Alys turned back further, and was halted again, startled by the writing she found. It was sprawling, virtually illegible, looping across the page. She could almost feel the anguish, or perhaps anger, coming off it, before she even read the words.

  The entry was a long one, the date 23rd December 1903. Sentences were started, then crossed out, and try as she might, Alys couldn’t decipher everything there, but she could read enough to get an inkling of what he was trying to express.

  ‘So, what has been my great chance in life has also been my undoing. How could I not see that a man such as Williams would never have my best interests at heart? My toil, my tribulations, so far away from home in York, are as naught. Alice is dead and it is all my fault, as surely as if she had died at my hand.’

  Alys stopped, startled, and reread the lines. Whatever could he mean? She pressed on, sure she must be on the verge of a great discovery.

  ‘In all those months, all those years, I looked forward to coming back, to telling Alice what I had achieved. How I had learnt to write, like her. How I had made something of myself, in the hope that she would be proud of me. Yet all this time she was dead, within three months of my going, from what Ella says. And I the only one who could have saved her.’

  The names ‘Alice’ and ‘Ella’ jumped out at Alys. She remembered that Alice had a sister called Ella on the family tree. It must be ‘her’ Alice – surely the coincidence was too great otherwise? The smudges on the page here convinced Alys that they were tears. Tantalisingly, there were no further clues as to how Albert was involved in Alice’s death. Instead, she read in a further entry how he had resolved to do all he could to assist the family and to help Sarah to bring up Beth to whom he was determined to be the best-ever uncle. This was further proof, if she needed it, that he was referring to her ancestors. Sarah was Alice’s mother and Beth must be Elisabeth, Alice’s daughter. He vowed to raise a stone ‘such as no other in the churchyard’ on Alice’s grave, which he was distressed to see marked only by ‘a poor wooden cross’, and to bring justice to all who had failed her.

  Alys closed the book on her lap, unable to read any more, her head buzzing. What part had Albert played in Alice’s death? He had clearly once known her well, and he was still welcomed by the family, so they had no suspicion that he was in any way involved in her death. He had created the beautiful gravestone, as well as the door carving, and he seemed determined to help to bring up Beth, who had to be Alys’s great-grandmother. Why would he have done this? And who was Williams? Above all, why would Albert believe he was responsible for Alice’s death, especially as he had been in York at the time? None of it was making sense.

  Alys really wanted to pore over the pages once more in search of further clues. She had a piece of the past in her hands and she really hoped that it might explain whatever mystery there was surrounding her great-great-grandmother and her apparent disgrace. But it was gone eleven o’clock and she needed to be up well before six the next morning to start baking for the day ahead. She needed to save further detective work until she could devote more time to it. Stowing the book back on her shelves, she headed for bed but, despite being tired, she found it hard to settle. When sleep finally came, it was yet again filled with dreams of a darkened cell, shafts of moonlight striking through high bars down onto a stone floor, where a figure lay huddled asleep in a corner. This time, a shadowy figure was trying to get in through the bars, and someone was shrieking.

  Alys woke with a start, sweating and with a thudding heart, shrieks echoing in her ears. She listened. All was silent, and the landing light was out. Moira had clearly returned home. Then the eerie cry of an owl from its perch in the churchyard forced a wry smile to her lips. She turned on her side and willed herself back to sleep, aware that her alarm would be waking her again all too soon.

  Chapter Ten

  Just over a week later, Alys found herself back at Derek and Julie’s front door. She’d managed to spend a couple more evenings poring over Albert’s journal but had gleaned little more than she had the first time that she had looked at it. Even so, she was keen to share her discoveries with Julie. She traced the shape of the carving around the door with her finger before she raised the knocker. Albert had carved this, many years before, first drawing out the design in his journal, planning it with the utmost care. But why? For her ancestor, Alice, as some sort of memorial, but then – why here?

  Alys was just peering at the detail of a particularly beautiful seed-head when the door was pulled open and Julie caught her in the act. Embarrassed, Alys moved back, blushing, but Julie wasn’t at all put out, and stepped over the threshold to join her outside.

  ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I never fail to look at it when I come home. It’s carved with such attention to detail – you can almost feel the love and care that has been poured into it. Anyway, come on in. I’ve got something to show you.’

  Alys had been on the point of telling Julie that this carving seemed significant in Alice’s story, but decided that could wait and followe
d Julie through to the kitchen. A couple of mugs and a plate of biscuits were already set out on the table, along with a pile of documents.

  ‘Tea?’ asked Julie. ‘Or coffee?’ as she flicked the switch of the kettle. ‘Or a glass of wine, perhaps?’

  ‘Tea would be great,’ said Alys, who secretly longed for the bone-melting relaxation that a glass of wine would bring, but didn’t want to make a bad impression. ‘No Derek?’ she asked, looking around as though she half expected him to pop out from behind the door.

  ‘He’s at the pub. He usually meets Rob for a game of darts, or pool, or something. Probably involves staring at some sport. I’m always glad to see him go, and happy to see him back, too! Now, take a seat. I’d have suggested sitting in the garden but it’s too chilly this evening. The weather seems to be on the turn already. So, tell me what you’ve learnt.’

  Julie put the mugs on the table and they settled down. Alys explained what she’d found in Albert’s journal, the mystery of his belief that he was somehow to blame for her great-great-grandmother’s death, and how the stone carving appeared to be some sort of memorial to Alice.

  ‘But what I don’t understand is, why here?’ asked Alys. ‘Why this house?’

  ‘Well,’ said Julie. ‘I think I can answer that. After you’d gone the other week I got to thinking about your Alice and wondering if there was anything else in my research that might be useful to you. I looked back through the papers I have that relate to Albert, and this is what I found.’ And she pushed the pile of documents over to Alys.

  ‘What are they?’ Alys turned them over doubtfully.

  ‘They’re the title deeds over the years, telling you who lived in the house. Ignore the ones on top – they relate to the last century – but if you go back a bit, to that one there – that’s Albert’s.’