The Cottingley Secret

by Hazel Gaynor

Do pass on my regards to Cormac and Kitty. It would be lovely to see you again, although I don’t travel too far these days. Old age makes snails of us all. If only we had wings!

  Yours sincerely,

  Frances Way (née Griffiths)

  Olivia read the letter a second time before folding it carefully, slipping it back inside the book, and walking through to the kitchen where Mrs. Joyce was scrubbing the sink with an ancient-looking bottle of Vim and wire wool.

  Olivia sat at the table and took another brownie. “Can I ask you something, Mrs. Joyce?”

  “Of course, dear.”

  “Did Nana ever talk to you about her life before she met Pappy?”

  Mrs. Joyce stopped scrubbing, took off her rubber gloves, and sat down beside Olivia at the table. “Is everything all right, love?”

  “It’s just with Pappy gone and Nana not able to remember things, I regret not talking to them about the past. I hardly know anything about their life before Mammy was born. I know that Nana was brought up in Yorkshire, and that Pappy’s parents both died during the Second World War. That’s about it.”

  Mrs. Joyce sighed. “Martha wasn’t one for dwelling in the past. After her parents died, she only went back to Yorkshire once—legal business or something, not long after Kitty was born. Martha was an only child, and any aunts or uncles had passed away. I think there were a few cousins, but she lost touch with them, as far as I know.”

  “Did she ever talk to you about someone called Frances Griffiths, or about photographs of fairies taken during the First World War? It seems that Frances and Nana were friends.”

  Mrs. Joyce played with the wedding band on her finger. “Well, there’s a question. I do remember Martha showing me an old photograph once. A young girl watching some fairies. There was something on the television about it, except the girl was an old woman by then. I remember your mam being especially interested in the photograph.”

  “She was. She kept it in her jewelry box, in a silver frame. I’d love to know how Nana knew Frances, and why she never spoke about her life in Yorkshire.”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “I tried yesterday, but she gets so confused. I hate to think I’m upsetting her by stirring up the past.”

  “Don’t give up on her, dear. Keep asking. Keep encouraging her to remember. There are some things we can’t forget. Even if we want to.” Mrs. Joyce stood up and tied her headscarf under her chin. “I’d best be getting back. Joe’ll be looking for his dinner and God love him but he’s a grumpy auld bugger when he’s hungry.”

  She kissed Olivia good-bye and shuffled off down the garden path.

  The grandmother clock ticked away the minutes in the hall. Olivia closed the door and turned the radio up.

  She spent the rest of the morning clearing out drawers and wardrobes and bookshelves, always hoping to find the photo in the silver frame, but it was nowhere to be found. Apparently, it was as lost as Nana’s memories.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, when Olivia arrived at the bookshop, she was surprised to find an envelope pushed through the letterbox, her name written on the front in child’s handwriting. Beside it, on the doormat, was a single white flower. Inside the envelope was a sheet of pink writing paper. “Dear Olivia, Thank you for looking after me. I hope you like this picture. Did you find out about the fairies? From Iris Bailey.” At the bottom of the note, Iris had drawn a picture of Alice and the fairies.

  Tearing a blank page from a notebook, Olivia wrote a quick reply. “Dear Iris, Thank you for your letter. Your drawing is lovely. I’ve put it in the window so people can see it. I hope you found your wand. Olivia.” She placed Iris’s letter and picture, and her own reply, in the window, where she hoped Iris would see them. The white flower she placed in the coffee cup with fresh water. She smiled again at the inscription in black marker. Live.

  Switching on the radio for company, she settled herself at the desk, took a deep breath, and read the solicitor’s letter again, Nora Plunkett’s sniping words nagging at her as she did. “Should have given it up when Martha went doolally. Bit off more than he could chew if you ask me.” Olivia’s skin bristled. More than ever, she was determined to prove Nora bloody Plunkett wrong.

  A phone call confirmed Olivia’s worst fears. The letter she’d opened was the last in a long line of correspondence that, for some reason, Pappy had ignored. She arranged a meeting for the following afternoon, even though she would rather have stuck her head in a bucket of bees.

  Her second phone call was to the V&A to explain that she needed to stay in Ireland a little longer than expected to sort things out. Her manager was very understanding and since Olivia was on a rolling weekly contract, agreed that they would talk again when she was ready to return to London. The temporary nature of her job was, for once, a blessing, even if the financial nature of it wasn’t.

  Her final call wasn’t so easy.

  Her final call was to Jack.

  Before ringing him, she walked to the harbor, drawing strength from the breeze and the view and the certainty she’d felt at the top of Howth Head the previous day. She walked for hours, searching for clarity of thought as she watched the waves lap at the harbor wall. She ran her married name over and over in her mind—Olivia Oliver, Olivia Oliver, Olivia Oliver—the words tripping her up, like a tongue twister. No matter how often she said it, or practiced her signature, it didn’t sound, or look, right. But Jack was a traditionalist. He wanted her to take his name. Less complicated for the children, he said.

  And there it was again. The unavoidable facts of the letter hidden in the drawer of her nightstand.

  Olivia could still remember the smell of the paper it was typed on: expensive perfume and antibacterial hand wash—the smell of the endocrinologist’s office. It had turned her stomach at every appointment.

  She’d first heard the words in the consultant’s soft Derry accent. “Premature ovarian failure.” She’d made it sound almost glamorous; something all the cool kids would want. Then Olivia had read it in stark Times New Roman font, confirming, in confusing medical terminology, that her biological clock had stopped. What had started out as a routine trip to the local GP about anxiety and unusual fatigue had led her to this.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to tell Jack, or that she worried about his reaction. She knew exactly how he would react: he would treat it like a business transaction, throw money at it and call in the experts. He would do what Jack always did. He would make her feel inadequate, as if it was her fault that she was lacking in the most fundamental part of being a woman. And that was why, when she should have needed him the most, her future husband was the last person she wanted to confide in. Her “future” husband, she’d realized, was not the husband she wanted in her future.

  As the sun began to set, Olivia pressed the speed dial on her phone and took a deep breath. Her heart raced as the phone rang at the other end. Her cheeks flushed with adrenaline as the dial tone clicked into voice mail. His sure, steady voice. The same Jack. The same message she’d heard so often. Nothing had changed as far as he was concerned. And yet everything was different as she explained, as calmly and casually as she could, that she needed to stay in Ireland another week to sort things out with Nana and the bookshop. She could hear the crack in her voice: the pretense, the fake, breezy nonchalance.

  After she hung up, she flicked through her e-mails and listened to her voice mails. Could she come back with a decision on the buttonholes? Would she mind if a friend brought a plus one? Was there another option on the bridesmaids’ dresses because the ink blue might not suit everyone? The tightness in her chest intensified. Her breathing came fast and shallow. She took deep breaths and closed her eyes, telling herself to relax, to calm down. The last e-mail was from the wedding planner, sending on the information she’d promised about preserving the wedding flowers. There was no information about how Olivia might preserve herself.

  She looked once at the engagement photo she’d set as her phone’s wallpaper
, and without planning to or thinking about it for more than a second, threw the phone into the harbor. It hardly made a splash. A feeble half protest at best before it was swallowed by the amber sea.

  Olivia felt as if she’d thrown herself one of the orange life rings positioned along the harbor wall. For the first time in months, she could breathe properly, long deep breaths, in and out in time with the waves.

  She stood for five minutes, maybe ten, watching the sunset and the seabirds and the planes coming in to land. Life carrying on, as life did. As she made her way back to the bookshop, she felt as light as the gull feather that swirled along the path in front of her.

  Too full of adrenaline to eat or sleep, she poured a glass of wine and curled up in Pappy’s favorite chair with a blanket and Frances’s story. If Nana couldn’t tell Olivia about her family’s connection to Cottingley and the fairy photographs, maybe Frances could tell her herself . . .

  NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE

  Cottingley, Yorkshire. June 1917.

  The weeks passed quickly, blown away by the stiff spring breezes that whistled down the chimney breast and blew the blossoms from the trees and tugged at my hat as I walked up the hill from Cottingley Bar tram. The only thing the wind couldn’t blow away was the dark shadow of war that hung over us all like a thundercloud. But I was happy at Bingley Grammar, and as the days lengthened and the last of the snow thawed on the distant hilltops, so too did my indifference to Yorkshire. Best of all, the warmer weather meant more time to play at the beck at the bottom of the garden, where Elsie often joined me.

  Aunt Polly called the pair of us as thick as thieves and Mummy teased me for admiring my cousin so much, dressing the same and styling my hair the same way Elsie styled hers. Or trying to. I didn’t mind Mummy’s teasing. Elsie was the sister I’d never had, and although she was sixteen, she still liked to make up games and tell tall tales and funny stories. She made up wild adventures as we whispered to each other in the darkness of the bedroom, setting me off into great fits of the giggles for which I earned a sharp “shush” and “get to sleep” from Mummy or Aunt Polly, which only made me giggle more. It was Elsie who told me to ignore the village bully, Mavis Clarke, when she called me a “funny foreigner” and kicked at my shins with her heavy wooden clogs. It was Elsie who explained that the village kids were jealous of my shiny leather shoes and smart school hat with its blue ribbons. It was always Elsie and Frances, or Frances and Elsie. I didn’t mind which, as long as we were together. I could hardly remember a time when I hadn’t known Elsie Wright. It was as if she had always been there.

  But for all that I enjoyed Elsie’s company, what I loved most was to be alone at the beck with the quiet chatter of the stream. In my wonderment, I often forgot to look where I was stepping and slipped on the stones, returning home sheepishly with wet shoes and skirts. Mummy said I would be the ruination of her, honestly I would, and that she didn’t want me playing there if I couldn’t stay on my feet. I’d heard her and Aunt Polly talking in low voices about the Hogan girl’s disappearance and the rumors surrounding it. Mummy didn’t trust the beck, but I couldn’t resist going back, pulled there like the ball bearing Mrs. Hogan had shown us being pulled toward a magnet. I felt nothing but tranquility at the beck, tranquility and the suggestion of something else that lay beyond the flash of the dragonflies’ wings and the ever-shifting shadows on the water. I couldn’t explain the feeling I had when I was there, but as Daddy said in his letter when I asked him why so many men had to die in the battles, some things can’t be rationally explained, but you still can’t stop them happening.

  It was an especially warm day when I first took the longer route home from school, mainly to avoid Mavis Clarke with her spiteful words and painful clogs, but also to walk beside the golden barley fields. I climbed onto the gate and dangled my legs on either side, closing my eyes as I listened to the ripple and rustle of the tall ears of barley, imagining they were whispering their secrets to the wind. It was hard to believe the world was at war when everything here was so peaceful and calm. I thought of all the poor dead men in France and pressed the palms of my hands together, saying a prayer for the war to be over and for Daddy to come home safe.

  As my eyes grew heavy beneath the warm sun and the gentle lullaby of the barley, I leaned back against the gatepost and let myself drift into a gentle slumber, suspended in that magical place between sleep and waking where my thoughts were of birdsong and laughter, and a little girl, hair like flames, offering me a white flower. “For Mammy. For my Mammy.”

  “Frances?”

  I sat up, squinting through the glare of the sun. “Mrs. Hogan?” I jumped down from the gate, sending my satchel tumbling to the ground, spilling everything across the dusty lane. “Sorry, Miss. I must have fallen asleep.”

  Mrs. Hogan bent down to help me gather my things. “There’s no need to apologize. It’s a grand day. Does wonders for the soul, sure it does.”

  I liked the way Mrs. Hogan ended her sentences with “sure it does.” When I mimicked her Irish accent it made Elsie laugh.

  “Is it very late, Miss? I should be getting home.” I was annoyed with myself for falling asleep. I’d planned to go to the beck and now there wouldn’t be time.

  “It’s not that late. Your cousin won’t be back from work yet.” I was pleased to hear this. Elsie made too much noise at the beck. She wasn’t as patient as me and could only sit for a few minutes before she was up and striding about again, saying we should make dams and have races with the frogs. “Do you mind if I walk with you?” Mrs. Hogan continued. “I always think a walk is far nicer with two, don’t you?”

  I said of course Mrs. Hogan could walk with me, although I wasn’t sure what you said to your teacher when you weren’t in the classroom.

  From my first day at Bingley Grammar, I’d taken a liking to Mrs. Hogan. The pale face I’d seen at the cottage window was barely recognizable as the enthusiastic teacher at the front of the classroom. Mrs. Hogan had lively eyes and brisk footsteps and a lovely Irish lilt to her voice that made me feel as if I were listening to music. I liked the way the heels of her shoes clacked against the boards as she moved around the classroom. I liked the rustle of her skirt and the lavender-scented trail she left behind her as she swished past the rows of desks. I liked the tap tap tap of the chalk as her neat handwriting danced across the blackboard. Even when I was having trouble with my algebra or thinking about Daddy, Mrs. Hogan always had a gentle smile and the right words. I felt as though nothing bad could ever happen as long as people like Mrs. Hogan were in the world. Still, I couldn’t forget the haunted look I’d seen on her face through the window, and I couldn’t stop thinking about her poor daughter who’d disappeared.

  “I was sorry to hear about your little girl, Miss.”

  The words were out before I could stop them. I clapped my hand over my mouth, but it was too late. My thoughts had become a real living thing, striding along the laneway between us and spoiling what had been a perfectly nice walk.

  Mrs. Hogan stood for a moment, breathing in and out, her hand at her chest. I stared hard at a new scuff on my shoe, thinking how Mummy would be vexed when she saw it. I stared at that scuff for what felt like an age until I had to say something to fill the silence.

  “My cousin told me. Elsie Wright. She wasn’t gossiping, Miss. She just . . .”

  Mrs. Hogan placed a hand on my arm. “It’s all right, Frances. There’s no need to apologize. Sometimes it’s better to talk about the difficult things. Ignoring them doesn’t make them go away, sure it doesn’t?”

  I thought of the many nights I’d lain awake, worrying about Daddy, wishing he would get himself a Blighty wound so he could come home. “No, Miss. It doesn’t.”

  Mrs. Hogan must have read my thoughts as we walked on because she said I must miss my father very much. “Do you know where he’s stationed?” she asked.

  “He was somewhere called Arras the last we heard, but Mummy isn’t sure now. We haven’t had a letter
for a while.”

  “’Tis a truly terrible thing altogether, not to know where someone is. If only we knew they were safe . . . It’s the not knowing. Never knowing . . .”

  I heard the crack in Mrs. Hogan’s voice and wished I could think of something helpful to say. I scolded myself for having a loose tongue and spoiling our walk.

  We followed the rutted laneway where the mud had been baked into hard rough ridges by the sun and sent up puffs of dust as my boots crunched satisfyingly over them.

  “How’s your mammy keeping, Frances?”

  I said Mummy was keeping well, although it wasn’t really the truth. The truth was that her hair was falling out. She did her best to conceal it with hats and headscarves, but I’d seen her at her dressing table, the back of her head as smooth and pale as a tailor’s dummy. I’d found a wig on her bed, mistaking it for the cat and getting an awful fright when I went to pick it up. Elsie reckoned it was all to do with worrying about Daddy.

  “She’ll be happier when Daddy comes home,” I added. At least that was the truth. “We’ll all be happy when the war is over, won’t we, Miss?”

  Mrs. Hogan pulled her head up high and turned her eyes skyward. “Yes, Frances. We will. And until then, we have to keep praying that our loved ones are safe.” She crossed herself as she said this, in the Roman Catholic way—touching her forehead and chest and each shoulder. “Do you say your prayers every night?”

  “I do, Miss. Me and our Elsie. We pray for Daddy. And for all the brave soldiers.”

  “You’re a grand girl, Frances. ’Tis a pleasure to have you in my classroom. You’re fitting in well now you’ve made some friends. Tell me, do you play with the village children at all?”

  “Not really, Miss. I’m not sure they like me much.”

  “Oh?”

  “They call me a funny foreigner because of the way I talk. Elsie says they’re jealous of my grammar school uniform.” I couldn’t explain that I still felt like a stranger in Cottingley; that I stood out no matter how much I tried to blend in. I couldn’t explain how I felt different at the beck; that I felt accepted there, as if I was among friends. Mrs. Hogan wouldn’t understand. Nobody would.