The Cottingley Secret

by Hazel Gaynor

  “Are they real, Mammy?” she’d whispered as her mother made to leave the room. “The fairies?”

  The light caught the silver in her mother’s earrings, making them shimmer as she turned in the doorway. “Anything can be real if you believe it is.” A smile played at her lips as she blew a kiss. “Sleep tight, love. Nana and Pappy are in the sitting room. Be good for them. No messing, now. I’ll see you in the morning and I’ll tell you all about the photograph then. Fairies don’t like to be rushed. We’ll have more time tomorrow.”

  As her mother pulled the bedroom door softly closed behind her, something nagged at Olivia, a sense of foreboding she was too young to understand. Her stomach churned in knots of worry. Her skin prickled with a silent dread. She desperately—irrationally—didn’t want her mammy to leave. She sat up in bed to call after her, but didn’t want to make her cross and spoil her special evening, so she lay back down under the covers, clutching the photograph in her hands, first wondering and then dreaming about the little girl and the fairies.

  AS THE FINAL chords of a Beethoven symphony danced around the bookshop, Olivia put down the article. She thought of Pappy’s letter and the document in the package: “. . . It is a memoir of sorts—a fascinating story. . . . You know my views on stories choosing the right readers at the right time. . . . Consider it a project in distraction. . . .”

  Taking the thick bundle of paper from her backpack, she untied the violet ribbon, settled back in the chair, and continued reading . . .

  NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE

  Cottingley, Yorkshire. April 1917.

  I woke up to my mother gently shaking my shoulder.

  “Wake up, Frances, love. We’re here.”

  I opened a sleepy eye, forgetting for a moment where here was. There had been so many heres recently, new ports and towns to wake up in.

  I sat up, stretched, rescued Rosebud from the floor, and clambered out of the car. The cold air nipped at my cheeks and crept into my bones so that I was sure I would never be warm again. A bitter smell of chimney smoke and damp wool settled on my skin and made me cough.

  Mummy rubbed my back—for reassurance or to help the cough, I wasn’t sure. “There it is, Frances,” she whispered. “Number 31, Main Street. Just as I remember it.” She fussed at the creases in her skirts before moistening the corner of a handkerchief and rubbing at a sooty mark on my cheek. I squirmed and batted her hand away. “Well,” she prompted, “what do you think of your new home?”

  The house stood at the top of a steep hill, at the end of a row of seven or so terraced houses bunched together like books on a shelf, with Number 31 the bookend propping them up. They were all the same simple shape: a narrow doorway in the middle, two lace-curtained sash windows at the bottom, two at the top, and a black gate and railing separating the small front garden from the street. I didn’t think much of my new home, but I knew better than to say so.

  “It looks nice, Mummy. Which is my bedroom?”

  “You mean Elsie’s bedroom. You’re not to think of it as yours, Frances. We’re to remember that this isn’t our house. That we’re guests.” She glanced at the house. “I think Elsie’s bedroom’s at the back. It looks out over the garden.”

  But I wasn’t listening. My attention had strayed toward the dark space that lay beyond the row of houses and continued on beyond the crest of the hill.

  “What’s up there?” I asked.

  Mummy’s gaze followed mine. “Nothing much. Cottingley Woods and the glen that cuts through them. There’s a small stream down there. A beck, the locals call it. Nothing for little girls to be troubling themselves with, anyway.”

  “I’m not little. I’m nine and a half.”

  I sensed Mummy stiffen beside me. “That’s as may be, Frances. Still, you’re not to be going there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s dangerous beside the water. And you’ll muddy your new boots. That’s why. Now, stop mithering.”

  There was something Mummy wasn’t telling me. I wanted to know more about the woods and the glen and the beck, but my thoughts were interrupted by squeals of delight as Aunt Polly appeared at the front door.

  Mummy grabbed my hand. “Eee! There’s our Polly now! Come on, Frances.”

  I followed my mother up the short garden path, turning, just once, to look back at the dark space beyond the house. Mummy’s words of caution only made it more appealing, but as I reached the front door, my curiosity was smothered by lavender-scented folds of soft green fabric as Aunt Polly scooped me up in a great big hug.

  “Well, look at you, Frances Griffiths! All grown-up!” She placed her hands on my frozen cheeks. Her palms were as rough as old calico but toasty warm. “And a real bonny lass too. Just like our Annie was at your age. Just the same.”

  Aunt Polly’s voice was all singsong and merry. It reminded me of the birds I would hear in the evening through my bedroom window. I couldn’t take my eyes off her—my aunt, my mother’s sister—admiring her lovely smile and her thick auburn hair piled up in fashionable puffs around her face. I forgot all about forbidden woods and rivers and gray Yorkshire snow and stepped inside.

  The narrow hallway was filled with tears of joy and eehs and ahhs while Uncle Arthur carried in the luggage, declared himself jiggered, and closed the door behind him with a thud. I flinched at the sound. Everything I’d known was on the other side of that door, and wherever he was, I knew my poor Daddy wouldn’t have a front door to close behind him, however jiggered he might be.

  Aunt Polly bundled coats and hats under and over her arms until she resembled a farmer’s scarecrow. “Our Elsie’s ever so keen to meet you, Frances,” she chirped, taking hold of my hand and leading me into a pleasant little room to the left of the hallway. “Come on through, love. There’s no need to be shy.”

  There was no time to be shy. I was deposited on a rug in the middle of the room, like a museum exhibit declared open for inspection. In front of me, beside a crackling fire, stood a pretty girl whose eyes reflected the tawny glow of the flames and sparkled with mischief.

  “Now, Frances,” Aunt Polly announced. “This is your cousin, Elsie. Elsie, this is Frances. Your cousin, all the way from South Africa.”

  Elsie was tall for sixteen, almost as tall as the ferns precariously balanced on high plant stands on either side of the chimney breast. I admired her pretty lace blouse with a cameo brooch at the collar, and her fashionable bottle-green skirt that skimmed her ankles. I hadn’t expected her to look quite so grown-up. She had the same rich auburn hair as her mother, and the same beguiling smile. Even if she didn’t look anything like Alice in Wonderland, she looked ever so friendly.

  “Hello, Frances. I like your ribbons.”

  I’d chosen the violet ribbons for my hair especially that morning, keen to make a good impression on my Yorkshire relations. The color reminded me of summer evenings in Cape Town. I blushed at Elsie’s compliment and muttered a thank-you.

  “D’you want to see our bedroom?” she asked.

  I turned to Mummy, who was hovering in the doorway with Aunt Polly, their arms linked together as they looked on in silent maternal delight. She nodded in encouragement and mouthed, Yes, please.

  “Yes. Please.”

  Aunt Polly beamed. “Go along, then. Off you go. Tea in ten minutes, mind, so don’t be getting settled into any of those daft games of yours, Elsie Wright.”

  Elsie said she wouldn’t, and as we walked out of the room she whispered to me, “Don’t mind her. We’ll have plenty of daft games.”

  “What games?” I asked.

  “Pretend expeditions. Like Shackleton at the South Pole. Do you know about him?” I nodded. Daddy had told me all about the polar explorers. “Sometimes I’m so far away I don’t make it back in time for tea. Then Mummy gets vexed.”

  I giggled as I followed Elsie’s black boots.

  “And don’t slouch, Elsie,” Aunt Polly called after us. “Walk tall.”

  Elsie tutted, and hel
d her head up and her shoulders back, making herself even taller. Daddy said good posture was the sign of someone who knew their own mind. I copied as I followed Elsie up the creaky stairs to the bedroom we were to share at the top of the house.

  “It’ll be a bit poky, what with there being two of us in it,” she said, stooping to avoid a beam as we entered a small bedroom. “But I suppose we’ll make do.”

  As she walked over to a narrow window that looked out onto the garden below, it struck me that Elsie wasn’t the sturdy Yorkshire lass I’d imagined. Being so tall and slim, she was a rather dainty girl. She gave the impression that there was too much life inside her, fighting to find a way out through the long teenage limbs she couldn’t quite control. She wasn’t entirely unlike Alice, after all.

  As Elsie chattered on about it probably being too cold to play out tomorrow and perhaps we could play rummy instead, I looked around the room. The narrow bed took up most of the space. A wardrobe stood under the eaves on one side. An oak chest sat at the foot of the bed and a ewer and basin stood on a washstand behind the door.

  “We’re to share the bed,” Elsie said as she noticed me taking in my surroundings, unaware that I’d been thinking of little else for the past few weeks. “So if you’ve cold toes, keep them to yourself, and I promise I’ll try not to snore. You can keep the chamber pot on your side if you like.” She glanced at Rosebud, who I was still holding in my hands. “Who’s this, then?”

  My cheeks flushed. “Rosebud.”

  “Suppose she’ll want to share the bed an’ all?”

  I stared hard at my feet, certain that Elsie was too old for dolls and must think me a silly little girl. “She’s a favorite.”

  Elsie placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m only teasing. You’d best get used to being teased if you’re to live here. Daddy’s always teasing me.” She took one of Rosebud’s floppy hands in her fingertips and shook it. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Rosebud.”

  I giggled at Elsie’s put-on accent. “You sound like I imagine Queen Mary to sound.”

  “Well, I am terribly posh. I hope you have a very pleasant stay, Miss Rosebud.” She placed Rosebud on the pillow, tucking her in beneath the counterpane. “See? She likes it here. She’s asleep already.”

  Elsie’s kindness was a balm to my troubled mind. She was a bright splash of color in Yorkshire’s palette of gray. Perhaps with Elsie, it wouldn’t be so bad living here, after all.

  “What else did you bring?” she asked.

  “Just Rosebud. And two books. The Water Babies and a picture book. We didn’t have room for anything else. Only our clothes.”

  “The Water Babies makes me sad.”

  “Me too. I’ll show you the picture book if you like. It’s ever so nice. Princess Mary’s Gift Book. It was sold as a fund-raiser for the war effort. It has lovely pictures and . . .”

  Elsie laughed and grabbed my hands. “Stop blethering on, will you! I can’t understand half of what you’re saying, anyway. You talk funny.”

  “So do you. What’s blethering?”

  “Talking too much! You can show me the book later, and I’ll show you my watercolors.”

  I’d always been a dreadful artist and admired anyone who could paint or draw with any skill. “What do you paint?”

  “Scenery around Cottingley, mostly. And fairies.” She saw the reaction on my face and grinned all the way up to her eyes. Something about her smile made my skin burst out into goose bumps.

  “Why fairies?” I asked.

  “Why not? Everyone loves fairies.” She stood up and walked over to the doorway. “Come on. I’ll show you the lavvy. You must be bursting.”

  I followed Elsie back downstairs, through a small scullery, down narrow steps that led to the cellar, and out through the cellar door to the outhouse. I didn’t like being in there in the dark and told Elsie I was too nithered to go and would use the pot instead.

  Over tea, I tried to follow the conversation, but kept losing it among the unfamiliar accents and funny words. Everything was new and peculiar—the taste of the water, the smell of the smoke from the fire, the prayer Aunt Polly said before we ate—but I felt warm and comfortable and there was a lot to be said for that after weeks at sea. I spoke only when spoken to and did my best to remember my manners, needing to be prompted only once by Mummy to say thank you. There was plenty of laughter around the table that evening, and although I wished Daddy could be with us and that I could have second helpings of Aunt Polly’s delicious stew and dumplings, I remembered what Mummy had told me about war rations and tried to be grateful for what I’d had.

  At bedtime, Elsie and I sat up for a while in our nightdresses and nightcaps while I showed her the photograph of Daddy, and she told me about her job as a “spotter” at Gunston’s photographers in Bradford, where she filled in the holes in the gelatin on the photographic plates. “Otherwise you get black spots on the finished print,” she explained. I thought her clever to know so much about it, but she said it was boring work, and she wished she’d been clever like me and had stayed on at school. She took out her paintings, which she kept in an old biscuit tin beneath the bed. They were very good: scenes of the village and landscapes of the hills around. I especially liked her paintings of fairies dancing beside a woodland stream.

  “How do you make them look so lifelike?” I asked.

  “It’s to do with shading, mostly, adding shadow and light so they look less flat on the page. The rest is imagination.”

  After I’d admired them, I showed her Princess Mary’s Gift Book. “You’ll think the stories a bit babyish, I expect,” I said. “But the pictures are nice.”

  I turned the pages by candlelight, showing Elsie my favorite illustrations from the Alfred Noyes poem “A Spell for a Fairy.” I’d read the words so often I knew them by heart and recited the poem all the way to the end. “‘You shall hear a sound like thunder, / And a veil shall be withdrawn, / When her eyes grow wide with wonder, / On that hill-top, in that dawn.’”

  Elsie liked the illustrations and said I read very well, which made me feel proud and grown-up.

  After she’d blown out the candle, we whispered a while in the dark, each too conscious of the other to relax into sleep. Elsie fidgeted beside me while I tried to keep my frozen toes away from hers until they’d warmed up on the stone hot water bottle at the foot of the bed. The room was coal-black, and strange creaks and cracks disturbed me.

  I tried to go to sleep, but the wind whistled in the eaves, and there was another sound: a faint rumbling that set my mind racing.

  “What’s that noise, Elsie?”

  Elsie rolled onto her back. “What noise?”

  “That. Listen.”

  Elsie sat up, straining to hear. “That’s the waterfall at the beck. It’ll be full at the moment, with the late snow and the thaw.” She lay back down again and yawned, a misty breath caught in the sliver of moonlight that slipped through the window. “Try to sleep, Frances. It’s late.”

  My thoughts returned to the forbidden space beyond the house. Cottingley Woods, Mummy had said, and the glen that cuts through them. “Nothing for little girls to be troubling themselves with. . . . It’s dangerous. . . . And you’ll muddy your new boots.” “Mummy said I wasn’t to be going there. That it’s dangerous.”

  Elsie didn’t say anything.

  “Is it?” I tensed my legs and gripped Rosebud tightly in my arms as the darkness intensified around me.

  “Well, there are stories.”

  My eyes widened. “What stories?”

  “Local folklore mostly—and then there’s the Hogan girl.”

  “Who’s the Hogan girl?”

  “She went missing last year. Wandered off in the middle of the night and never came back. Sleepwalking, they reckon, although some people have other explanations.”

  “Like what?” I was terrified and enthralled by the suggestion of a local mystery.

  “Child snatchers. Bad men. Her mother says th
e fairies took her. They never found her, either way.” I shivered and drew my knees up to my chest. I sensed that Elsie wanted to say more but thought better of it. “Anyway, it’s nowt, really. Just folk’s imaginations running away with them. I shouldn’t be gossiping about Mrs. Hogan, ’specially since she’ll be your teacher.”

  I lay still, thinking about my schoolteacher and her missing child and listening, all the while, to the distant rumble of the waterfall. “Can we go to the beck tomorrow?”

  “Suppose so. If you can think of nowt better to do.”

  “What does nowt mean?”

  “Nothing. Nowt means nothing. You’ve a lot to learn before we make a proper Yorkshire lass of you, Frances Griffiths. Now, get to sleep before my father comes up and tans your backside!”

  “He wouldn’t!”

  “He might.”

  For all that my body longed to rest after our long journey, my mind was wide awake. I tossed and turned, willing myself to sleep. The mattress was too soft and then too lumpy, the room so dark I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. I thought of Daddy and wondered if he was lying awake, thinking of me. I wondered if gunners on the front lines ever went to sleep at all.

  Eventually I forgot about my toes touching Elsie’s and snuggled up beside her for warmth, glad of the companionship. With the rumble of the waterfall in the distance, I slipped into sleep and dreamed of a red-haired girl holding a posy of white flowers. The words of Mr. Noyes’s poem crept from the pages of my picture book and tiptoed into my mind. “Then you blow your magic vial, / Shape it like a crescent moon, / Set it up and make your trial, / Singing, ‘Fairies, ah, come soon!’”

  NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE

  Cottingley, Yorkshire. April 1917.

  After a restless night filled with curious dreams of a little girl and a pretty woodland cottage, I woke to a bright peaceful morning. Elsie was already up and the sheets were cold beside me. I clambered to the end of the bedstead to peer out of the narrow window. A bitter chill still laced the air, but a generous sun gilded everything that had been so colorless and gray yesterday. The constant sound of the waterfall reminded me of Mummy’s words of caution and Elsie’s talk of the missing girl. Nevertheless, the trees beyond the little garden looked inviting and I couldn’t wait to get out there.