Читать книгу Alice’s Secret: A gripping story of love, loss and a historical mystery finally revealed - Lynne Francis - Страница 16

Although Alys had fallen in love with the café the moment she saw it, once Moira had been back at work for a couple of weeks she plucked up courage to ask her whether she would mind if she made one or two changes of her own. Her inspiration had come on a visit to Nortonstall to collect some baking supplies. To her relief, she’d discovered that she didn’t need to take the near-vertical route to the town via the main road. Instead, there was a path that wound its way through the woods, descending level by level on a track that was soft underfoot: here the light filtered green through the trees, and there were glimpses every now and then of the river rushing darkly, and the steep woods rising on the other side of the valley. After the peace and solitude of the path, it was a shock to find herself on the main road, busy with traffic, just outside the town. It was in the window of a Nortonstall charity shop that she’d spotted a lovely vintage cup and saucer, and bought it at once as a present for Moira. Alys could picture it displayed on the grey-painted shelves in the alcove behind the till, beneath the old dark-wood station clock that ticked so peacefully into the room. The cup and saucer had a delicate blue-and-white design of dragonflies, foliage and flowers that looked like orchids. Moira loved it and so did the customers.

So, on her visits to Nortonstall on her rare afternoons off, Alys started to look out for single cups and saucers and mismatched plates. She soon exhausted the stock in the charity shop, but she found a tiny antique shop tucked away up a steep alley off the main street. The doorbell jangled as she absorbed a waft of the smell of old books mixed with the scent of roses, and picked her way through the overflowing shelves, anticipation mounting. After her first visit, when she bore her trophies home, Moira told her that this was the very shop where she had bought the angel’s wings. So, the next time that she paid the shop a visit, Alys mentioned this to the owner, and explained why she was on the lookout for vintage china. Before long Claire, the shop’s owner, had taken to hunting out suitably lovely bits of china and setting them on one side for Alys. Gradually, vintage milk jugs and sugar bowls had been added to Alys’s treasure trove, and she found herself invited for tea with Claire in the tangled garden, draped with wisteria, that swept down from the back of the shop towards the river. Alys took to bringing along a slice or two of cake from the café, ones that she thought Claire might appreciate. She learnt that she could rely on Claire for candid comments on new recipes that she had introduced, appreciative or otherwise. The courgette cake got a thumbs-up for being surprisingly moist, but the beetroot cake had an odd texture and Claire declared a preference for not mixing vegetables with cake too frequently. She would make a pot of Earl Grey and bring out slices of lemon in a dish along with the bone-china plates, cups and saucers that had belonged to her grandmother. They were much-coveted by Alys but she wouldn’t dream of mentioning it to Claire. With the sign on the shop turned to ‘Closed’ they’d sip tea while they soaked up the sun and took in the view down the valley. Alys would try to imagine life back in London, but it was hard. It might as well have been a million miles away, rather than a couple of hundred.

Back in the Northwaite café, the china collection grew until the shelves could hold no more. Moira used the beautiful vintage jugs to decorate the scrubbed tables that the warmer weather had encouraged her to set up in the courtyard. Meadow flowers, such as cow parsley, poppies, cornflowers or whatever happened to be in season, were combined with aquilegia or old-fashioned scented roses from Moira’s garden, all spilling over the sides of the jugs in profusion. The villagers exclaimed with delight whenever a new item of china appeared and soon took to bringing in offerings of their own. ‘We’ve had this old thing sitting in the back of the cupboard for years,’ they’d say, holding out a beautiful sandwich plate with shaped and gilded edges, decorated with flower borders of yellow-and-white daisies threaded through with forget-me-nots. Or ‘This was Mum’s Sunday-best cup. She kept it to drink her tea from after church. We know she would have liked you to have it for the café,’ as they handed over a bone-china cup and saucer, so delicate you could almost see your fingers through it.

A slice or two of Moira’s best chocolate chiffon cake, or a couple of freshly baked scones and tiny pots of homemade jam and clotted cream, neatly parcelled into a brown box, would be waiting when it was time for the donor to leave the café.

Alys persuaded Moira that it was time to release some of the china from the overflowing displays, and use it to serve the customers. At first, Moira was reluctant to make the café reliant on delicate china that had to be washed by hand. But her customers’ delighted reactions to the pieces soon persuaded her otherwise and within a day or two her regulars had already earmarked their favourite cups. Matching cups and saucers to the people she was serving soon became a favourite pastime for Alys. Moira still kept a supply of the practical white china on hand though, so that they could offer their customers a choice. She’d realised that the dainty cups with their delicate handles made some of them nervous and clumsy, fearful of breakages.

Alys was disappointed when the café’s china collection had reached capacity and Moira had to beg her to stop buying. ‘There’ll be no room for our customers at this rate,’ she said, laughing. But Alys simply couldn’t bear to pass by when she saw a particularly nice piece of vintage china or porcelain for sale and the collection of cups, saucers, plates and bowls continued to grow. Her delight in vintage styling had tapped in to something she hadn’t even suspected about herself, and she was hungry for a further challenge. Her disappointment at being urged to stop collecting was relieved a little when, following up on a customer’s tip off, she took the train from Nortonstall to Saltaire, and paid a visit to the vintage clothing and fabric stall in Salts Mill. There she snapped up starched white cloths, lovingly preserved and intricately decorated with crocheted panels, lace and embroidery. They were too fine to be laundered for daily use in the café, but Alys had a plan – she was going to offer to supply vintage china and complete table dressings to the weddings for which Moira created towers of cupcakes, or tiered iced sponge cakes, garlanded with sugar-paste roses and iced tendrils and vines. Before long, crates of linen and china were packed and held at the ready in the store room, ready to dress the tables at the many summer weddings for which Moira had already taken orders that year. Alys felt her creative spirit unfurl and spread its wings, rather like the angel’s wings that she was hoping to persuade Moira to introduce to the company logo and the cake boxes. It seemed as though each day her brain was buzzing with a new idea to try out and Moira, now back at work full-time, had to suggest quite forcibly that she should take a day off that didn’t involve anything at all to do with the café or with baking, in an effort to get her to switch off and relax. So, as spring turned into summer, Alys went less frequently in search of vintage treasures and began to explore the countryside all around Northwaite, as she had started to do on her very first evening in the village.