Alice's Secret

by Lynne Francis

  Alys turned the top deeds face down and looked at the document that Julie had pointed out. It had a large, red circular stamp across the top, then a great deal of writing in a spidery, flowing script. The heading read: ‘Title Deed for Lane End Cottage, Northwaite, dated this day 1 June 1904, being an agreement by Albert Spencer Esq. to purchase said property from Timothy Smallwood Esq. as witnessed by Sutcliffe & Sons Solicitors, Nortonstall.’ Alys skimmed over it. Deciphering some of the legal jargon, she managed to work out that Albert had bought the cottage for the sum of 115 pounds.

  ‘That’s not all,’ said Julie, and she leant over and lifted the deed to show Alys another one, very similar but rather more dog-eared, tucked in further down the pile: ‘Being the agreement between Timothy Smallwood and Sarah and Joe Bancroft for the rental of Lane End Cottage, dated 3 June 1875.’

  Alys let out a gasp. ‘That’s Alice’s mother, Sarah.’ She looked at the date again. ‘She must have moved here before Alice was born. And Joe must be her husband.’

  ‘It turns out Sarah was quite famous in the area,’ Julie went on. ‘I’ve found quite a few mentions of her in various documents, local trades-guild journals and the like. She was well known as a herbalist and, by all accounts, she was earning enough at one point to keep the family here after her husband died. She practised from this very cottage, and had a famous herb garden here too.’

  ‘Oh!’ exclaimed Alys, sitting back from the table and looking at Julie wide-eyed. ‘I’ve got what might very well be Sarah’s herbal back at Moira’s. And it’s got a plan of her garden in it. It must be this one!’ And she gazed out of the kitchen window as if half expecting to see Derek and Julie’s garden transform into herb beds before her very eyes.

  She looked back at Julie in some excitement. ‘I should go and fetch it now so you can see,’ she said, and she started to push her chair back.

  ‘No, not now,’ protested Julie. ‘It sounds fascinating and I’d love to see it another time. But I’ve got something else to show you.’

  She turned back through the documents to the one on top of Albert’s deed. It had a very similar format to his, the same large, red circular official stamp, the same flowing script: ‘Being the Agreement between Albert Spencer Esq. and Sarah Bancroft for the rental of Lane End Cottage, dated this day 8 June 1904.’

  Alys stared, trying hard to comprehend. ‘Wait, so Albert bought the cottage and then –’ she paused and flipped back through the papers. ‘A few days later he rented it to Sarah?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Julie. ‘And at a peppercorn rent – look.’ By now the documents were spread out across the table and Alys followed Julie’s pointing finger to see that the rent that Sarah had paid in 1875 was almost triple the amount she was paying to Albert, over twenty-five years later.

  ‘This ties in with something I discovered.’ Alys carefully extracted Albert’s journal from her bag. She told Julie what she had been able to learn from Albert’s journal, explaining that Albert seemed to feel somehow responsible for Alice’s death and showed her the passages in his journal where he vowed to take care of Sarah and her granddaughter Beth. ‘And look.’ Alys turned the page to show Julie the design for the carving. ‘He designed this for Sarah and he carved it over the door here. I guess it was in honour of her profession as a herbalist. Almost like a shop front?’

  Julie’s cheeks were quite flushed. She loved nothing better than when pieces of research began to slot together and a picture started to emerge. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t so much in honour of Sarah as in honour of Alice?’ she suggested. ‘From the sound of it, he couldn’t do anything for Alice any more, so he raised a memorial to her in this way, by doing things to help the family.’

  A thought struck Alys. ‘When Albert bought the house, was Sarah still living there?’

  ‘No, look.’ Julie fished out another document. ‘Sarah must have left here at the end of 1895. It was rented out to someone else in December 1895 – here’s the agreement,’ she said, pushing it under Alys’s nose.

  Alys put her head in her hands. ‘Oh, I need to map all this out. I’m getting confused.’

  Julie laughed. ‘We should draw up a timeline.’ She fetched a bit of paper and some coloured pens, and after a bit of intensive plotting it was all making more sense to Alys. ‘But what next?’ she asked Julie. ‘We’ve built up quite a picture here.’

  ‘There’s a key fact missing, though,’ Julie pointed out. ‘Where did Sarah and her family go between 1895 and 1904? Plus, we don’t know what happened with regard to the mill fire. Everyone seems to mention it and the impact it had on the area but it’s not clear how it relates to Alice and her family. And we don’t know why Albert blamed himself for Alice’s death.’

  They both sat in silent contemplation of the documents for a few moments, then Julie said, ‘There is a way of finding out about the fire.’

  Alys raised her eyebrows quizzically.

  ‘The local newspaper archive at the library,’ Julie went on. ‘You can access it all on screen these days. We know what year the fire happened – we can probably pin down the month as well with a bit more research. Then we just need to look at the relevant issue of the paper – the fire’s bound to get a mention. I’ll explain how to do it, but first I think we need a drink to celebrate. We’ve uncovered quite a lot this evening!’

  Julie poured two glasses of wine from a bottle already open in the fridge. ‘Cheers!’ she said, raising her glass. ‘To Alice.’

  ‘And Albert,’ added Alys, savouring the first mouthful of wine and the longed-for feeling of relaxation it brought with it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Julie had been unable to contain her excitement over the way that Alice’s story was starting to take shape, and the role that Albert appeared to have played in it. As her work regularly took her over to Leeds, she’d taken it upon herself to go to the library and locate the newspaper that referred to the mill fire. She’d ordered up a printed copy and given it to Rob to pass on to Alys, without divulging any of the details.

  ‘I think she was a bit embarrassed. Thought she’d overstepped the mark, doing this without asking you,’ said Rob as he handed it over.

  ‘That’s silly!’ protested Alys. ‘I’m delighted. I’d never have found time to get over to Leeds myself. Here, why don’t we both look through it?’

  Absorbed as she was by the newspaper, Alys wasn’t aware of the picture they presented to anyone walking into the café. Two heads, one reddish-blonde with wild curls and the other light-brown, separated by barely a hair’s breadth as they pored over the pages spread out on the table, searching for the report of the mill fire.

  ‘Hello, Alys.’ It took Alys a moment to place what had once been a familiar voice. She looked up, bemused, then wide-eyed, at Tim, standing silhouetted in the open doorway. He stepped further into the room as Alys started up, narrowly avoiding knocking coffee over the pages, and, for no reason she could comprehend, blushing furiously.

  ‘Tim,’ she all but stammered. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

  Tim surveyed the scene. ‘Well, I thought I’d come up to Yorkshire and see what you found so appealing here. Won’t you introduce us?’ he asked Alys, looking pointedly at Rob.

  ‘Er, Tim, Rob. Rob, Tim,’ said Alys, gesturing awkwardly between them.

  ‘Well, I’d like to say I’ve heard all about you,’ said Tim, taking charge of the situation in the way he always did. ‘But I’m afraid that wouldn’t be true.’

  Rob grinned in a friendly way. ‘Can’t say Alys has ever mentioned you, either,’ he said, turning to Alys and raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Aah, Tim’s from London,’ said Alys, as if his attire (loafers, chinos, jumper slung around the shoulders of a perfectly pressed shirt) didn’t already mark him out as a non-local.

  ‘So, how do you two know each other?’ asked Rob, as Tim pulled up a chair and joined them.

  Alys blinked rapidly and gazed distractedly around. It was a quiet morning in the café and Moira
had seized the opportunity to pop into Nortonstall to stock up on a few things. There were no other customers at present, so Alys couldn’t even pretend she had urgent duties to attend to.

  She took a deep breath, ignored Rob and addressed herself to Tim. ‘How did you find me?’ she demanded.

  Tim laughed. ‘It was hardly a challenge. I just asked your mother.’

  Alys groaned inwardly. Had Kate thought it was worth telling Tim where to find Alys, in the hope that he might have one last attempt at persuading her wayward daughter it was time to become a model wife? But really, she’d been through all this with Tim. She glared at him, discouragingly. Why had he even bothered to come?

  Rob, receiving no answer to his question, pushed back his chair. ‘Looks like you two have some catching up to do. I must be getting on. I promised I’d check up on the sheep over near Barden reservoir.’ And without a backward glance, he had gone. Alys felt crushed – he’d offered to take her on a drive later that day, over to the chain of three reservoirs about ten miles away, part of the surrounding area she hadn’t yet seen, and she’d been looking forward to it. All of a sudden, the day had taken on quite a different tone.

  She noticed a pair of sunglasses on the table. Not Tim’s, as they were planted firmly on his head.

  ‘Excuse me a moment,’ she said, snatching them up and running outside. Rob had just executed a ponderous three-point turn in the old Land Rover, managing to avoid a sleek, if ostentatious, grey BMW parked outside. Alys leapt into the road in front of him, brandishing the sunglasses. Reluctantly, Rob wound down his window.

  ‘What’s going on, Alys?’ he asked. ‘I take it Tim’s your boyfriend?’

  ‘Yes … No! Ex-boyfriend.’ Alys screwed her face up into a grimace. She felt a rising sense of panic. She thought she’d made it clear to Tim that it was all over. So, what was he doing here?

  ‘Well, you can’t just leave him sitting alone in the café,’ Rob pointed out, reasonably. ‘You’re in charge while Moira is in Nortonstall. Come on Alys, whatever it is I’m sure you can sort it out.’

  He put the Land Rover in gear before she had a chance to reply. Alys stepped back, watching him out of sight, then she took a deep breath and went back inside.

  ‘Right,’ she said to Tim. ‘Now, what’s all this about?’

  Chapter Twelve

  Moira had returned from town to find Alys, looking unusually flustered, trying to deal with a rush of orders from customers on their way to and from walks. Scanning the room for clues to her discomfort, she’d spotted a customer glowering over a cup of coffee and casting furious sideways glances at Alys. He looked rather too well-dressed to be out on a country walk – in fact, he looked as though he would have been much more at home in the Harvey Nicks café in Leeds. Moira guessed that the BMW she’d noticed parked outside belonged to him, and it looked as though he was waiting to talk to Alys. After Alys had managed to serve sandwiches to customers who had ordered cake, coffee to those who had wanted tea, and put the jar of tea bags in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard, Moira decided it was time to act.

  She suggested to Alys that she might like to take a walk with her friend, which made Alys feel both relieved and alarmed. After Rob’s departure, she’d been resolute in her determination to explain to Tim that, flattered though she was that he had come all this way to visit her, she really had no interest in pursuing their relationship. Events, in the form of a sudden influx of customers, had conspired against her and she’d been forced to break off halfway through her explanations in order to deal with them. Tim, unused to being denied anything, had not taken kindly to being kept waiting.

  He was hardly in the best of moods when she had finally escaped from behind the counter. They walked through the village to sit on a bench overlooking the churchyard, the peaceful setting at odds with Alys’s feeling of nervous agitation. As she tried to explain her reasons for not wanting to continue their relationship, she nervously twisted her locket between her fingers. She hadn’t wanted to damage it by trying to prise it open but she’d found a chain for it in the antique shop in Nortonstall and now she wore it all the time. It hadn’t escaped Tim’s notice.

  ‘Who gave you that?’ He was suspicious. ‘Is it new?’

  Alys sighed. ‘Actually, it’s very old. I think it belonged to my great-great grandma, Alice. Moira gave it to me.’

  He’d lost interest as soon as he’d worked out that it wasn’t the gift of a rival. She suspected it would have been easier for him to accept what she was trying to tell him if someone else had come between them. He seemed to be struggling to understand that her feelings had simply changed. She began to feel sorry for Tim. He simply couldn’t comprehend the fact that she no longer wanted him, nor the life he represented.

  ‘Tim, I’m really sorry if I wasn’t clear before. Things have changed. I’ve changed. I love this place …’ Alys gestured around her, encompassing the distant hills as well as the village. ‘And I love what I’m doing here. I see my future here, but I’m sad to say that I don’t see you as a part of it any more. I’m really sorry that you had to come all this way to hear me say it.’ Alys stood up, feeling a bit shaky and hoping that Tim would accept this without a fuss.

  ‘Has it got anything to do with that bloke I saw you with?’ Tim demanded.

  ‘No!’ Alys said but, annoyingly, she could feel her colour begin to rise. ‘No, Tim. I tried to tell you in the letter I wrote before I even arrived here. And I tried to tell you again in the pub when I was back in London.’

  Tim was looking down at his feet and Alys couldn’t read his expression.

  ‘Look, it’s not you, it’s me.’ As soon as the words were out of her mouth she realised she was straying into cliché. She needed to be firm and just repeat the message until he understood. ‘I’m sorry, Tim. It really is over.’ As she said it, she realised with great clarity that for her it had been over a long time ago.

  Tim still hadn’t looked up. ‘I can see I’m wasting my time. Just go away, Alys.’

  She felt like stalking off at his words but she knew this meant that Tim was hurting. She just wished that a tiny part of her didn’t suspect that he was hurting mainly because he hadn’t got his own way. Taking a deep breath, she fought down those feelings, gave his shoulder a brief squeeze, contemplated wishing him the best for his future then thought better of it, and walked slowly back to the café without looking back.

  Moira took one look at Alys when she walked in, then took both her hands in hers. ‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘You’re shaking like a leaf.’ Alys’s hands were, indeed, trembling uncontrollably and she felt close to tears.

  ‘Here.’ Moira poured Alys a glass of water. ‘Now go and sit quietly in the kitchen. I’ll tell you when the coast is clear.’

  It wasn’t long before the BMW could be heard revving up, then it set off down the road over the cobblestones at a pace that was unlikely to do its suspension any favours.

  ‘Right,’ Moira said, coming into the kitchen where Alys was washing plates without any apparent sign of knowing what she was doing. ‘I think you should take the rest of the day off. Go home and sit in the garden, or go for a walk. The main rush is over here for the day. I can manage by myself.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  So it was that as Tim headed back towards London, Alys found herself sitting in the garden at Moira’s cottage, too wound up to know quite what to do with herself. A walk would have dissipated some of her nervous energy but Tim’s surprise visit had left her mind in a spin and she couldn’t seem to settle to anything. She was sure she’d done the right thing but she didn’t like the way it had made her feel.

  ‘If only I’d been clearer with Tim in the first place,’ she thought ruefully. She couldn’t pass it off, even to herself, as trying to protect Tim’s feelings: she knew that she had been guilty of avoidance tactics. She longed to talk things over with her friend Hannah but she was far away in another time zone; even if she managed to get hold of her she couldn’t s
ee them being able to have a proper conversation. In desperate need of distraction from her thoughts, she picked up a book and read several pages without taking in a word, then tried a magazine with the same result.

  A knock at the door made her start. The thought flashed through her mind that somehow Tim had tracked her down and come back for one final attempt to make her see reason. She opened the door a crack, peering round it cautiously, and was relieved to find that it was Rob on the doorstep, carrying a bottle of wine.

  ‘Moira said I’d find you here. She also said you might need a drink.’ Rob brandished the bottle. Alys, thankful of the company, silently blessed Moira’s thoughtfulness yet again and threw open the door to let him in.

  ‘How was your trip to the reservoir?’ she asked as she took wineglasses from the cupboard, suddenly remembering the path her day was supposed to have followed.

  ‘It was great – the weather was perfect. You could see for miles.’ Rob paused, seeing Alys’s crestfallen expression. ‘Did you manage to get … things sorted out?’

  Alys made a face. ‘I did. Though I’d prefer not to talk about it. I’d rather have had a day out but it’s my own fault for not dealing with everything properly before.’

  She sighed, led the way out into the garden and poured the wine, passing a glass to Rob before taking a large gulp from her own glass. She sighed again, then settled back into her chair and, for a few minutes, they sat in silence, each immersed in their own thoughts.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot.’ Rob pulled a newspaper from his backpack. ‘You left it behind in the café. I thought it might help to take your mind off things.’

  Alys smiled gratefully. It would be good to slip away from the present and distract herself with thoughts of the past. ‘Excellent idea,’ she said. ‘Now, where were we?’

  Rob spread out the copy of The Yorkshire Post on the garden table. The pages, crammed with dense columns of small type, felt unwieldy in comparison with contemporary newspapers. Rob and Alys worked their way slowly down each column and found what they were searching for on page five, halfway down a long column of text, below a report relating to a meeting at Leeds Town Hall. Rob spotted it first.