Alice’s Secret: A gripping story of love, loss and a historical mystery finally revealed

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First published in Great Britain in ebook format by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Lynne Francis 2017

Cover design © Alison Groom 2017

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

Lynne Francis asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © March 2018 ISBN: 9780008244286

Version: 2018-01-09

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Part One

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Part Two

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Part Three

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Part Four

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part Five

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Part Six

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Part Seven

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Part Eight

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Part Nine

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

Recipes

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Keep Reading…

About the Publisher

To my children, for growing up and giving me the time to write.

Prologue

Summer 1893

A lice felt the hem of her skirt getting wetter and heavier as she brushed through the bracken. This summer had been damp and it had rained hard last night. The fern fronds continued to grow and unfurl across the path, no matter how many of them passed to and from the mill each day. She hated the feel of the sodden wool against her legs. It would bother her all morning until it dried: the smell of the wet cloth, the chafing. She sighed. She’d be working in the weaving shed this morning. It would feel cold at first with the door open, and no easy way to dry off.

Alice clutched her shawl tighter around her shoulders and hooked the basket into the crook of her arm. She lifted it clear of the foliage, which was still heavy with rain. Her work clogs bounced in the bottom of the basket, along with her lantern, and a crust of bread loosely wrapped in rough cloth. Her mother had pressed the bread into Alice’s hand with a brusque, ‘On your way. You’ll not get through the day without it. We’ll manage.’ Then she’d limped her way painfully to the grate to set the kettle on the hob. Alice’s brothers and sisters would have to make do with tea and porridge until tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Alice shuddered. It was the day that they lined up in front of Williams, the overlooker, as he counted the florins, shillings and pennies into their hands. She thought about how Williams used to look meaningfully at her as he dispensed the coins. He’d close her palm around them, letting his fingers linger just that moment too long. She’d been aware of his eyes following her as she moved around the mill or bent to her machine in the weaver’s shed. He’d made a point of singling her out for praise for her work, so that the other girls had noticed and teased her, making her anxious. Betty Ackroyd had drawn Alice to one side. ‘Alice, you need to watch yourself with Williams,’ she’d warned. ‘He’s got an eye for the young girls here. He don’t take no for an answer.’

Despite Betty’s warning, Alice had been unperturbed when, as she collected her lantern one evening to start the long journey home, Williams had summonsed her.

‘Alice, in here a moment,’ he’d said, holding open the door to the office. She’d stepped into the warm glow of the room, startled when the door snapped shut behind her and she found herself pinned against it. She’d tried to shut out what came next – rough bristles against her cheek and neck, panting, heat, hands fumbling at her buttons, tugging at her skirt.

She’d no idea how she had broken free. She dimly remembered Albert coming into the room by the other door – a muffled shout. She remembered fleeing up the path, no time to light her lantern, and having to pick her way home in the dark. She was stumbling, weeping, horrified –frightened of slipping off the path but more fearful of what lay behind.

After that, Williams had started to lie in wait for Alice: pouncing on her in dark storerooms where she’d been sent on pointless errands, trying to corner her on her way home. For weeks, she’d had to submit to his pestering, sickened by his actions, furious with herself. Then she’d found the strength to fight against him, to threaten to report him, to stand up to him. Williams didn’t take kindly to having his advances spurned. He made a point of picking on Alice: for faults in her spinning, for talking too loudly, for smiling. She’d shrunk in on herself, making sure that she didn’t set a foot wrong, that she left each evening along with Ivy and Betty, parting ways a little further up the path. Williams still found fault. He dropped the coins in her hand on pay day now, glaring at her. He watched her like a hawk, checking to see what time she arrived each morning.

Alice picked up her pace, trying to lift her skirt clear of the bracken. She’d been late twice already this week, her mother too sick to get the children up in the morning. Williams had warned her that one more day’s lateness would mean the loss of her job. This morning, she was late again. It was too dangerous to run, the grey stones slippery after the rain, the surface uneven. She’d reached the Druid Stone, only a short distance to go now. She knew every twist and turn of the path, had names for the landmarks along the way. Just the Packhorse Steps to negotiate now. Maybe Williams would be distracted this morning? Maybe she could slip in, unnoticed?

At that moment, her feet flew from beneath her. It was a hard fall. Alice’s basket bounced down the steps, her lantern smashed, bread flung into the bracken. The rushing tumble of the river over the falls sounded loudly in her ears. Sharp stones pressed into her cheek; cold, damp moss pillowed her neck. Alice lay still.

Chapter One

‘Oh, my goodness.’ Kate, Alys’s mother, had stopped, cup halfway to her lips, peering at the screen over the top of her glasses. She’d got a new pair of those ready-readers, Alys noticed. Bright-green frames this time: they worked rather well with her silver hair. Kate said that she kept losing them, so that was why she needed to buy more pairs, but Alys suspected that they were a fashion accessory rather than a necessity. Alys had once picked up a pair belonging to her mother and looked through them. The lenses could just as well have been plain glass for all the difference they seemed to make.

‘What’s up, Mum?’ Alys was only half interested. She was used to her mother’s exclamations. Kate had a tendency to be alarmed by the warnings of fraud scams or deadly computer viruses emailed to her by her friends.

‘It’s your Aunt Moira,’ said Kate, glancing up at her youngest daughter over the top of her laptop screen. She paused a moment, arrested – as usual – by Alys’s appearance. Wild hair, scraped back into an elastic band, from which crinkly blonde curls escaped at random. Forget-me-not blue cardigan, rather shrunken, buttoned over one of her signature crêpe-de-Chine dresses, orange flowered this time. 1940s vintage, surely. Where did she get them from? Kate wondered. And not a scrap of make-up, at a guess. Kate favoured the woven- or knitted-linen look once spring had arrived, in the sort of tasteful shades that also graced her walls. She couldn’t understand her daughter’s taste and style – or rather, her lack of it. She must have inherited it from her father’s side of the family, Kate decided.

‘She’s had a bad fall. Hurt her hip and shoulder and put her back out. The doctor said she’ll need to rest for a couple of weeks at least, but she’s got the café to run. Looks as though she might have to close it, just as the holiday season is about to arrive. It’s her busiest time – she sounds pretty upset.’

Kate chewed her lip and frowned. She really ought to offer to go up and help her sister out. She mentally ran through her diary for the next few weeks. Since she’d retired, it seemed as though she was busier than ever. Voluntary work at the hospital, her book group and walking group. The garden-committee trip to Sissinghurst, planning and preparations for the village carnival. Kate smiled wryly to herself. When had she become so middle class? ‘Must have been when I married David,’ she thought, then was dragged back to the present by Alys, saying ‘Mum? What should we do?’

‘Well, I really should go up and help her,’ said Kate, picking up her cup and absently sipping the cooling tea. ‘But I’ve got so much on over the next few weeks. And you know how I feel about Yorkshire …’ She tailed off, expecting Alys to laugh, but instead her daughter was gazing into space, clearly caught up in her own thoughts.

‘I’ll go,’ she said, unexpectedly.

Kate stared at her. ‘But darling, do you have any holiday owing to you? You’ve only just come back from your trip with Tim? I’m sure Moira would be grateful, but by the sound of it a week, or even two, won’t be enough. Although I suppose I could take over after you leave?’ Kate mentally prepared herself to go into martyr mode.

‘The thing is, Mum –’ Alys suddenly looked apprehensive. ‘I came here today to tell you something.’ She paused. Kate looked at her expectantly, her mind racing ahead. Could Alys and Tim have decided to settle down together at last, start a family? Alys was in her mid-thirties now – she really couldn’t afford to leave it much longer. Of course, she’d have to sell that tiny house of hers, lovely garden or not. Heaven knows Tim must earn enough, with that job of his in the city. Maybe Alys was already pregnant? Kate tried to see if there was a bump in evidence, but that shapeless dress made it impossible to tell. She calculated rapidly. It would be an autumn baby, so that would work perfectly. She’d have time to rearrange a few things and she’d still be able to help out at the Christmas Fair, the carol concert, make the mulled wine and mince pies. The run-up to Christmas was always such a busy time.

‘Mum!’

Kate snapped back to attention again. Alys had been talking. ‘Mum, did you hear me?’

‘Yes, no – sorry, darling. So, where will you and Tim live?’

Alys looked at her blankly. ‘Mum, you really weren’t listening, were you? I told you. I’ve given up my job. I need a break from Tim, from London. I hadn’t planned what I was going to do. A bit of travelling, perhaps. I can delay that, though, and go and help Aunt Moira for a couple of months. I’d be glad to. You know I’ve always loved it up there. And, of course, I wouldn’t expect any payment.’

Alys felt a small burst of excitement at the thought. She’d given up her job as a graphic designer almost on a whim, although the plan had been taking shape in the back of her mind for some time. Days spent staring at a computer screen held no joy for her, and that tricky work issue had finally helped to make her mind up. She’d been putting money aside for a while now, supposedly so she could move from her little house – the closest thing to a cottage that she’d been able to find in London – but really with half a mind to doing something completely different. Travel, voluntary service overseas, who knows? Alys was restless. She knew Kate would say that it was her biological clock ticking and that it was time she settled down and started a family. But she wasn’t entirely sure that Tim was the right person for her.

Nice, well-brought-up Tim, with his warehouse flat and a good job in the city that took him abroad a lot. Great salary. Good prospects. She’d purposely set out to look for someone other than the sensitive, creative types that she normally fell for. She’d succeeded. Tim was stable and solvent but he was also boring.

It was Alys’s turn to come back to earth with a bump.

‘Alys, whatever were you thinking of?’ demanded Kate. ‘Here we are, with good jobs hard to come by, and you throw yours away! Have you gone mad? I don’t know what your father will say!’

Alys allowed herself a wry smile. Her father would be too busy on the golf course or at the Rotary Club meetings to pay much attention to what she was up to. As far as he was concerned, his three children were off his hands now they were grown up. He’d step in if he had to, but really, he felt that he’d done his duty by them. Of course, it went without saying that Kate and all of them would be well provided for should anything happen to him.

Alys pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘Well, I’d say it’s rather good timing myself, considering Aunt Moira’s situation. Look, you email her back and say I’ll be there by Tuesday. I’ll head back to London, sort out a few things at the house, book my ticket and I’ll be on my way.’

And with that, Alys left the kitchen, leaving Kate stunned, staring blankly at her computer screen. The kitchen door opened again. It was Alys, the rucksack that served as her handbag in hand.

‘I’ll be off, then. There’s a train back to London in twenty minutes. If I leave now I’ll just make it. Love to Dad. I’ll be in touch when I’m in Yorkshire, to let you know how Auntie Moira’s doing.’ And then Alys was gone.

Kate, still reeling after the swift turn of events, noted that the hem was coming down at the back of Alys’s dress. And those army boots looked like they’d not seen any polish in a long, long while.

Chapter Two

The interior of King’s Cross station seemed to have been rebuilt when Alys arrived there, which was baffling. Surely the last time that she’d been up to Yorkshire it was as reassuringly familiar as it had been for the last twenty or thirty years? She struggled to get her bearings, disconcerted. She queued in WHSmith for a book of stamps, needing to post a letter before she left, only to discover that the new station seemed to lack a postbox. After dragging her suitcase around outside in the pouring rain, in the hope of spotting a familiar red pillar box, Alys gave up, wet through and anxious about time passing.

If she’d been travelling with Tim, of course, he would have been at the station far enough in advance to lunch nearby, having worked out beforehand where to eat. His packing would have been well-practised perfection. He would have had exactly the right amount of clothes, with one set to spare. He wouldn’t have had to unzip his case eight times before leaving the house to stuff in more shoes and a hairbrush, then take the shoes out again and put in two jumpers, then take one of the jumpers out and put in a T-shirt instead. Indecision wasn’t Tim’s thing.

Alys’s forward planning had stretched to buying a sandwich in WHSmith along with the stamps, so now she only needed to stand and stare at the departures board along with everyone else. She tried to think back to when she’d last travelled alone. France, Greece, and that ill-fated trip to India – they’d all been with school or college friends. Paris, Venice, Florida – with Tim, or previous boyfriends. Could this really be the first time ever?

The train was up on the board, prompting a flurry of activity on the concourse, and a determined rush for the barrier. Alys trekked along the platform to Coach B. It looked as though all the pre-booked seats had been crammed into one carriage, instead of spread out through the train. She settled into her seat with her book, waterproof jacket in the rack above. The letter to Tim was still in her bag so, as soon as she arrived, she’d post it. It stated pretty clearly, she thought, how fondness was not really an option. She was looking for more, or maybe less, than that and so she was going to use this time away to think things through. She allowed herself a small smile, then sighed. It was her way of dodging the issue. In her heart, she knew things were over but she couldn’t bring herself to spell it out. She hoped that he’d get the picture, but Tim was used to things going his own way. He’d call, text, email. Of course, he’d try to change her mind. But she didn’t have to reply, did she?

Rain coursed down the window. It was such a long train that her coach was already out in the open, exposed to the elements. Every raindrop reflected the leaden sky. The weather was doing nothing to lighten her mood.

Resolutely, she opened her book. A rare chance to read: something else to be thankful for. This was going to be a journey into a better future, she told herself firmly. No dwelling on past mistakes. It was time to move on.

Chapter Three

Alys’s book had remained face down on her tray table, spine creased, pages open, for most of the journey. She had read for a while then, once they were clear of London, she’d gazed out of the window, wrapped up in her thoughts, looking back over the past few months, her newly formed resolution already forgotten.

When she was younger, she’d always preferred to do things on the spur of the moment, hated having to plan ahead, have her life mapped out for her. Her friends, and Tim for that matter, liked to sort out their calendars for several weeks ahead. Her friends’ lives followed the same routine. Drinks after work on Friday, meet up late on Saturday afternoon for shopping and a gossip about the previous evening, and a discussion about what to wear that evening, probably necessitating the purchase of something new. Recovering from Saturday night on Sunday, maybe the afternoon spent in the pub. Posting up the drunken photos on Facebook to remind themselves that they were having fun. The gym a couple of nights a week to knock themselves into some sort of shape for the holidays, which would be planned months ahead ‘so there’s something to look forward to’.

Alys’s snap decisions – first to leave work and now to go up to Yorkshire – were not as simple as they first appeared, perhaps even to herself. She’d told herself that she was bored in her job, and it was this that was making her feel restless. In addition, though, she had a strange sense of not belonging anywhere anymore.

Late one Sunday afternoon a few weeks previously, as she took the chain off the door to head out to buy some milk, she had realised that the chain had been in place since she went to bed on Friday evening. She’d not left the house, nor spoken to anyone, not even on the phone. Tim was away, and she’d sidestepped texts and emails from friends about meeting up, making vague allusions to visiting family. It was hard for her to acknowledge what lay behind this new tendency to be a hermit. It was true that she’d become increasingly reclusive after her best friend Hannah had gone travelling with Matt, her boyfriend. Their planned six-month trip had already stretched beyond a year. But since Alys had been a teenager, she’d always loved to be out and about, always had a feeling of excitement and anticipation on a Friday evening, wondering what the weekend had in store. Now she couldn’t remember when she’d last felt like that, and she was pretty sure that the reason behind the change lay not with her friends, nor with Tim or with her social life, but in a stupid incident at work.