Alice’s Secret: A gripping story of love, loss and a historical mystery finally revealed. Lynne Francis
to open the door and deal with the alarm but, as Moira had promised, it was perfectly straightforward and, with the beeping of the keypad stilled and the door closed behind her, she could examine the interior at leisure. The whole room was half panelled in duck-egg blue tongue-and-groove, and the upper part of the walls was painted to match. Framed prints of cherubs and line drawings of angels were intermingled with small watercolour sketches that looked as though they might be of the local area: waterfalls, woodland paths and views of grey-stone cottages. Mismatched wooden chairs painted in a soft palette of colours – blues, greys, greens and stone – had been provided with seat cushions in an Indian paisley fabric that added a bright splash of hot pink, turquoise and orange. There was a window seat under the angel’s wings, piled with cushions in the same soft shades as the chair colours, and a wooden serving counter looked as though it had been created from recycled hefty wooden planks, marked here and there with black strips and holes where iron fixings or nails had been removed.
The café interior was L-shaped and the back section held tiny tables and a wood-burning stove. It was now cold but Alys could imagine how the room with its stone-flagged floor would benefit from the heat in the colder months. She peeped out of the narrow window in the sturdy back door to catch a glimpse of a small courtyard, lined with tubs filled with spring bulbs in full flower: scarlet and orange tulips, creamy yellow narcissi and bright-blue grape hyacinths. Scrubbed tables folded against the wall told her that this would be an extra seating space in the warmer months. All in all, Moira had done a wonderful job, Alys thought as she looked around. And the place was spotless, not a crumb or sticky smear to be seen. She tried to imagine what the café must be like when it was busy with the buzz of conversation, the smell of coffee in the air, the serving counter piled high with cakes and biscuits ready for the customers.
One or two people had passed by the café and Alys noticed their curious glances through the window. She decided that it was time to head back to Moira’s before it became necessary to turn customers away so, with the alarm reset and the door locked behind her, she turned her steps back up the hill. She felt a surge of impatience. She wished that she was coming straight back, cake tins and boxes already full, ready to open up the café and get to work. As it was, there was much to be done and her head whirled as she mentally listed all the things she would need to ask Moira about. First things first, though. There were cakes to be made.
The larder in her aunt’s kitchen was a thing of delight to Alys. A relic of days gone by, its neatly ordered shelves held all manner of ingredients that Moira used for cake making. Apart from paper sacks of flour from a local mill there were eggs supplied by a nearby farm, slabs of chocolate, packs of sugar in shades from purest white through caramel to dark brown, packets of coconut, and oats, and pats of butter wrapped in paper.
Her introduction to this Aladdin’s cave of baker’s delights had come on her return from the café when Moira, resting on a chair at the kitchen table, had told her to go and open the door in the corner of the kitchen. Half expecting to find a storage cupboard or a hidden staircase, Alys had stood transfixed on the threshold. Within, all was cool, ordered calm. One section was reserved for Moira’s own household needs but the rest was given over to baking. Alys didn’t need to ask why the butter and eggs were stored there, rather than in the fridge. She knew that it made it much quicker to bring them up to ideal room temperature for cake-making; the larder, which was tiled, was cool in both winter and summer.
Alys could almost feel her fingers twitching as she surveyed the ingredients. She wanted to make a start right there and then, to fill the kitchen with the wonderful aroma of baking. But something told her to proceed with caution. Moira was in pain and although she’d asked for help to run the café, now that Alys was here she could see that her aunt needed help around the house too.
‘Let’s move you through to the other room,’ Alys said, helping Moira up from the hard kitchen chair. ‘I’m going to make you a cup of tea, then you can tell me a bit more about the café. And we can make a plan.’
With Moira settled by the wood burner, and tea on the table beside her, Alys sat down on the sofa. ‘So, tell me the story of the café. How did you come up with the name? Where did the lovely cushion fabric come from? And the angel’s wings?’
Moira eased herself back against the cushions that Alys had stacked behind her, and over the next hour she described how the transformation of the business had come about. She had taken possession of the café a couple of years previously, when the style of the interior had still reflected the previous owner’s taste. It had floral wallpaper, rather faded curtains at the windows and the general feel of being stuck in a 1950s time warp.
‘I just ripped off the wallpaper and gave it all a lick of paint. The wings came first, though,’ Moira said. ‘They inspired me to give the café its new identity. I spotted them in an antique shop in Nortonstall shortly after I took over the lease. I just had to have them – they were so unusual. I thought they would be made of wood or plaster and really heavy but they’re not. Otherwise, I would have hung them on the wall rather than in the window. Wouldn’t like to think of them falling and squashing the customers.’ She chuckled, and then winced – her back muscles were very sore. ‘I think they must have been carved out of a block of polystyrene and then given a paint job. Maybe they were a prop from a theatre or something?’ She paused to sip her tea. ‘So, the name of the café came from the wings, really. I liked the way it sounded, too. Alliterative.’
Alys grasped at some half-remembered fact from her schooldays. ‘All the C’s at the beginning?’ she asked. ‘Celestial Cake Café?’
Moira nodded. ‘Then it was a case of trying to do the place up as cheaply as possible,’ she continued. ‘The chairs came from a junk shop and I painted them to use up the tester pots I’d bought when I was trying to get the colours right for the walls and the front door.’
‘And the cushions?’ Alys asked. ‘They’re such glorious fabrics.’
‘Lovely, aren’t they?’ Moira was smiling. ‘I’d had the fabric stashed away for years, wondering what to do with it, and it seemed to work perfectly. Otherwise, I think the place would have looked a bit too tasteful. I wanted it to look smart but also feel relaxed and homely.’
Moira went on to describe how she had built up the business. Apart from the Post Office and a general store, the café was the only other shop in the tiny village. Locals dropped in for bread, for cakes to take home for tea, for a takeaway sandwich as a change from what was to be found in the fridge at home. Wet mornings found them drawn in for coffee and the chance for a chat and a gossip with the other villagers. Her other customers were tourists, who found their way off the beaten track to visit the imposing church with its beautiful stained glass, or hikers striding out on the trails that took them down into the valley and up again, to the open moorland and the Pennine Way.
‘I’ve mainly concentrated on building up the clientele, finding out which cakes people like best,’ Moira said, but Alice could tell that despite her modest assertion she was really pleased with what she had achieved. The picture that Moira painted, of a thriving, bustling business with many loyal customers, made Alys all the more determined to have the café open again as soon as possible. Moira was clearly thinking along much the same lines.
‘I made a phone call this morning,’ she said. ‘To Flo, who helps me out when it’s busy in the summer. She’d be happy to come in and work alongside you for a while, to show you the ropes, help you with the coffee machine and the cash register until you get the hang of it. And until I feel more able to be there.’
‘That sounds great!’ Alys was enthusiastic. ‘But who’s going to look after you? You can’t stay here alone all day. You can barely move as yet.’
‘It’s not quite that bad,’ Moira protested. ‘I’ve got a couple of friends in the village who will pop in and help me out – make me some lunch, get me a cup of tea, that sort of thing. And I need to keep moving otherwise I will stiffen up. I can’t be just sitting around all