The Cottingley Secret

by Hazel Gaynor

  Over their final week together, Olivia read Frances’s story to Iris as she’d promised she would, doing her very best voices, even though Iris giggled at her attempt to mimic the Yorkshire accents. As Olivia read, Ross worked on illustrations for The Fairy’s Tale, which had sold to his publisher for a nice advance. He used the illustrations from Princess Mary’s Gift Book as inspiration for his fairies.

  They were pleasant, happy hours spent together, but hours in which Olivia’s emotions often tripped her up, lurching from resignation to regret, acceptance to denial. Her rational mind knew it was for the best that Ross was leaving. She was, after all, still clawing her way out of one relationship. The last thing she needed was another. And yet her impetuous heart disagreed with such unromantic common sense, and as the day of Ross’s departure crept closer, Olivia’s heart grew closer to his.

  THEY LEFT ON a peaceful sunlit morning.

  Olivia promised to write as Iris sobbed onto her shoulder. “Here. This is for you.” She gave Iris a package. “I made it especially for you.”

  Iris unwrapped the paper, beaming when she saw what it was. “You stuck Frances’s book together!”

  Olivia laughed. “I did. I made a copy of all the pages and bound it, just for you. It’s a very rare and special book. I hope you’ll take extra special care of it.”

  Iris was delighted, and promised she would.

  As she settled into the car with her book, Ross and Olivia stood side by side outside Something Old, gulls crying above them, clouds scudding by.

  Olivia wrapped her arms around herself. “Well, here we are, then.”

  “Here we are, then.”

  Ross looked at Olivia. It was one of those looks. A look that made her heart turn somersaults.

  “Ah, for crying out loud, Kavanagh. Come here, would you.” He opened his arms, and she gave up all her grand plans to stay emotionally detached as she let herself sink into the crumples of his favorite ridiculous T-shirt. “Thank you for everything,” he whispered, hugging her tightly. “You’ll be okay, you know. You’re back on your feet now.”

  She pressed her face to his chest. Yes, she was, and it was funny, because where Jack had once swept her off her feet, when she was with Ross she always felt she had them planted firmly on the ground. Far more stable. Much more secure.

  Ross pulled back and brushed a tear from her cheek. “Promise you’ll visit?”

  “Promise.”

  “Often?”

  “As often as I can.” She almost forgot the gift she had for him. “Here. I got this for you.” She pressed a book-shaped packet into his hands.

  “Ulysses?”

  She laughed. “How did you know?”

  “Because you knew I would never get around to buying it myself. Thank you. I promise I’ll read it.” He jumped into the car and wound down the window. “I’ll call you Friday. Maybe we can still have our end-of-the-week chats over a glass of wine.”

  “I’ve already put a bottle in the fridge.”

  Olivia waved as Ross’s Mini trundled off over the cobbles, tooting a good-bye as he turned the corner and disappeared, Iris waving madly from the backseat. It was far from the fairy-tale ending Olivia might have briefly allowed herself to imagine, but as the wind swirled around her feet, blowing an unknown future away over the sea, she felt alert and alive and purposeful. She understood that whatever lay ahead for her and Ross, theirs was a quiet relationship, slowly unfurling like petals on a rose. She had to let nature take its time. Nana had always said the most beautiful blooms on her rosebushes were the last of the season. The most fragrant. The most colorful. “Those late blooms always flourish the most. They’ll be around long after the others have been blown away. You wait and see.”

  A FEW HOURS after Ross and Iris had left, a package arrived from the photography studio in Dublin. With so much happening lately, Olivia had forgotten all about the Instamatic camera she’d found in the drawer at Bluebell Cottage. She sat down to open the package with hesitant hands.

  Dear Miss Kavanagh,

  I hope you are satisfied with the enclosed prints. I brought them out as clearly as possible. I think they are rather lovely.

  She removed the wallet from inside the envelope and took out a dozen prints.

  Everything stilled. Even the cry of the gulls receded into the background as she worked her way slowly through the prints, laying them out on the desk in front of her. In each image, her mammy smiled back at her: happy, playful, laughing. She was standing at the top of Howth Head, her belly swollen, her hands resting on her bump, the wind blowing her hair around her face. The gorse blazed vibrant yellow behind her in one photograph, the blush of red and pink rhododendrons lit up the background in another. Olivia wept tears of grief and joy, remembering her mother as clearly as if she were standing beside her. She remembered the bright peal of her laughter, the powder-soft scent of her perfume, the smooth touch of her hand against her cheek. She closed her eyes and let her mind burst with memories she had thought lost to her forever.

  She wasn’t alone. She never had been. All she had to do was close her eyes and remember, and her mammy would be with her.

  Only briefly did Olivia wonder who had taken the photographs, recalling her great-grandmother Ellen’s words from Frances’s story: “You have to look behind the picture to discover the truth. That’s where you find the real story.” Whoever had taken them, they had captured her mother at her most beautiful, and for that she would always be grateful.

  HENRY WAS A rock of support after Nana’s passing, and Olivia grew terribly fond of him. She looked forward to their Sunday “putterings,” as he called them, when she would close the shop and they took a thermos of peppermint tea to enjoy by the harbor.

  Olivia was a little surprised at how much Nana’s death had affected Henry. As they strolled along the harbor, she asked him to tell her what Nana had been like when she was younger.

  “Oh, she was great fun. I was a good few years younger than her and Cormac, but they often invited me to join them for a drink, or a bite to eat. They were a very happy couple, and always willing to make space for one more. I was eternally single, you see. Martha used to tease me about being too choosy with the ladies. She said I would end up bitter and alone if I didn’t get on with finding myself a wife. Said she didn’t know what I was waiting for.”

  Olivia laughed. “That sounds like Nana, all right. Never one to mince her words!”

  “She was a very confident woman, and very beautiful. I often thought of her like a bird, flitting about from one party to the next.” He smiled to himself at the memory. “The three of us became good friends over the years.” He coughed and cleared his throat as he stopped walking. “I’m afraid I fell in love with her.”

  “With Nana?”

  He nodded. A sure, steady nod. “I was young and my heart was easily broken. It was the greatest agony of my life, to meet the woman I felt with all my heart I was meant to be with, but couldn’t be.”

  Olivia’s heart raced. “Did Pappy know?”

  “Not at first. It was my secret. But it gradually became obvious, as these things tend to do. I couldn’t bear to be in the same room as her and not tell her how I felt.”

  Olivia could hardly bear to ask the question, but she knew she had to. “Did Nana feel the same way?”

  Henry hesitated before shaking his head. “She was very confused when I first told her. A little too much sherry at a Christmas party and . . . well . . . you know how it is. It was just a kiss. Nothing more. A misunderstanding.”

  Olivia thought about Ross and the kiss they’d admitted was a mistake, but which had felt so right.

  “I felt absolutely terrible,” Henry continued as they walked. “Cormac was such a devoted husband and a dear friend. It was all terribly upsetting for a while, but Martha’s heart belonged to Cormac first and foremost. He was a very lucky man.”

  It was almost too much to take in. Another part of Olivia’s family she’d known nothing about.
/>   “What happened then?” she asked.

  “I tried to forget about her,” Henry said. “Tried to get on with my life, but I couldn’t. That was when I knew I had to leave. I suppose you could say I ran away.”

  Olivia held Henry’s hand. It trembled beneath her touch. Suddenly it all made sense. His easy friendship with Nana. His heartbreak over her death.

  “She wrote to me,” he added. “Just once. She sent a photograph of herself with her baby.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I’ve kept it with me ever since.”

  Olivia took the photograph from him. Nana as a young woman, a tiny baby in her arms. “That’s my mam.”

  “Yes. Katherine. Kitty, as she was affectionately known. I always thought it the most beautiful picture. Martha never looked happier. As soon as I saw that photograph, I knew I’d done the right thing by leaving, no matter how I felt.” He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. “I never met anyone else who came close to how I felt about Martha. Perhaps we would have been together if we’d met in different circumstances, a different time or place. You never forget a feeling like that, though. Not over a year. Or a decade. Or a lifetime. It will always be there.”

  Olivia thought of that breezy morning when Ross had rushed into the bookshop looking for Iris. She thought about how empty the shop had felt after he’d left at the end of each day. She thought about the kiss they had found at the bottom of the empty bottle of gooseberry-flavored wine and how full her heart was whenever she thought about him.

  “I heard about your mother’s accident,” Henry continued. “I didn’t know Kitty, not in the true sense of the word, but in another sense I did. She was Martha’s daughter. Martha was part of her, the same way Kitty is part of you. I looked at the photograph every day and wished, with all my heart, I could help ease Martha’s pain. That was why I came back in the end. I couldn’t bear to be so far away, and although I knew I could never be with her, just to see her occasionally was enough. It was more than enough.”

  Olivia passed the photograph back to him. “It’s all such a shock, Henry. I had no idea.”

  “I know this must be difficult to hear, but I want to be honest with you, Olivia. When Cormac told me he planned to leave you the shop and asked me to look out for you, he gave me a very special gift.” His hands trembled in hers. “I could never have been the devoted husband and loving grandfather that Cormac was, and I owe him a great debt of gratitude for his friendship over the years. Whatever I can do to help you, I will. He especially asked me to be there for you on the anniversary of your mother’s death.”

  Olivia thought about the book she’d found in the shop on her mother’s anniversary. “Was it you who left the copy of Peter Pan?”

  He nodded. “I hope I did it properly, the way Cormac would have done.”

  “You did, Henry. Thank you. It meant everything to me.”

  They sat together as the clouds raced each other overhead, and Olivia linked her arm through Henry’s and knew it would be okay.

  “We have each other now, Henry. You’ll always have my support.”

  He patted Olivia’s arm. “Thank you, dear. And I hope that if you ever find that special person, you manage to hold on to them.”

  THE LETTER ARRIVED from St. Bridget’s the next day.

  Dear Ms. Kavanagh,

  Please find enclosed a piece of writing that I believe belongs to you. It was found in the room occupied by your Nana, Martha Kavanagh. It had fallen beneath the bed.

  If it isn’t yours, please return it.

  Olivia removed several folded sheets of paper. She recognized the typeface. The thin paper. The crackle of anticipation.

  There was one final chapter to Frances’s story . . .

  NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE

  Epilogue

  Like fairies, stories will not be rushed. Mine would take longer than most, unraveling slowly over the years like a winding stream, trickling ever onward, carrying us all along without end or pause.

  I’d arrived in Cottingley as an uncertain young girl and left as a confident young lady, changed forever by the experience of the newspaper reporters and the extraordinary interest in our photographs.

  Shortly after returning from the disastrous last trip to Cottingley with Mr. Hodson and his auras, my family left Scarborough. I was sorry to leave. I’d grown fond of the salty sea breezes and the crashing winter waves and the castle, standing like a sentry above us all on the cliff tops. But once again, my father’s work took us elsewhere. We were on the move, blown to the market town of Shrewsbury, where life, finally, began to settle into something like normality for a teenage girl.

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his book The Coming of the Fairies in the spring of 1922. It created a bit of a stir for a while, but didn’t sell as well as he might have hoped, or as well as I had dreaded. He sent me two copies, presuming, I suppose, that I would be keen to pass one to a friend as a gift. I put them both in a drawer in my bedroom, reluctant to read it, but curiosity eventually got the better of me, and I read the book over the course of several nights. It was peculiar to read about Elsie and me in ACD’s words, but, as with the Strand articles, I was again interested in his thoughts on the subject of fairy life. When I reached the end I was surprised to have quite enjoyed the book, despite trying very hard not to.

  Had I been a little older when it all happened, I’m sure I would have found ACD very interesting. It would have been nice to meet him in person. I’ve often wondered over the years if he might have asked me why I thought the fairies were there, and what they did—the questions everyone else ignored, and which I’d always found the most fascinating.

  Mr. Gardner visited us once more. He was in Shrewsbury giving his Cottingley Fairies lecture to the Theosophist Society. Like Aunt Polly, my mother had developed quite an interest in the Theosophists’ ideas, although my father, like Uncle Arthur, didn’t particularly agree with any of it. Mummy and I went along to the lecture to hear Mr. Gardner speak, eager, I suppose, to hear his conclusions on the matter. I’d naively hoped to sit in obscurity at the back of the room and slip away unnoticed when it was over, but at the end, Mr. Gardner rushed to me, insisting on introducing me to a group of people he’d assembled in the foyer. They all fussed over me and wanted to shake my hand and said what an honor it was to meet me. I had never been so embarrassed. As we traveled home, I cried hot tears of frustration and swore that I would never have anything to do with the Theosophists or Mr. Gardner’s lectures ever again.

  Elsie emigrated to America, as she’d always said she would. Aunt Polly joined her there after Uncle Arthur’s sudden death in 1924. It was a difficult time, but Mummy told me Aunt Polly took comfort from her Theosophical beliefs. She believed Uncle Arthur was with men he’d known all his life and that they were enjoying themselves together again, which made it easier for her to accept his death. I imagined him wringing his flat cap in those enormous hands of his, and accusing Elsie and me of being “up to summat.” His funny Yorkshire ways and sayings always made me smile.

  I visited Cottingley once more in the summer of 1929 while passing through on a holiday. It was midsummer and the wildflowers were in full bloom. I walked up the hill along Main Street and stopped for a moment outside Number 31. It looked exactly the same from the outside, although I could imagine Aunt Polly tutting and saying the windows needed a good clean. I followed the path around the back of the village and picked my way carefully along the riverbank, as I had done many times before. I stopped for a while at the willow bough seat—reflecting, remembering—before walking to the cottage in the woods, concealed, as always, behind the trees.

  I’d kept in touch with Ellen over the years, as I’d promised I would.

  Her daughter, Martha, had turned nine that spring. She was a bonny, lively girl. “Full of mischief,” her father said, winking at her affectionately. We sang songs from Ireland, songs I remembered from my days in Mrs. Hogan’s schoolroom. I gave Ellen a print of the first photo
graph Elsie had taken of me by the waterfall, and one of the curious fifth photograph, which had become known as “The Fairy Bower” and which had caused the most interest and consternation among the so-called experts. I also gave her the photograph I’d taken of the fairies at the waterfall—blurred misty images to the untrained eye, but something far more interesting to those who looked beyond the obvious. I signed a copy of The Coming of the Fairies for her, and gave Martha my copy of Princess Mary’s Gift Book. It held difficult memories for me. Every time I saw those illustrations of the fairies, I thought of Elsie’s cutouts, wondering if they ever did get washed out to sea. Martha was delighted with the book, and I was glad to know it had found a good home.

  That was the last time I saw Ellen and Martha. We exchanged Christmas cards and occasional letters, but over the years the letters became fewer and eventually stopped altogether. The inevitable silence that descends when old friends pass away.

  Interest in the Cottingley photographs also faded as the years went by and England became preoccupied with a new war. I never spoke about the events of those summers, not even to my own children, but in these, my latter years, I find quiet moments to look back through wistful eyes and think about the fairies in Cottingley beck. Occasionally, as I’m doing the washing up or weeding the garden, I catch a flash of something out of the corner of my eye, and I smile and whisper a silent thank-you.

  I suppose a part of me always knew that there would be another chapter to our story, that the secret Elsie and I had kept for so many years would eventually be heard, so I wasn’t entirely surprised when, forty years after that last summer at Cottingley, Elsie sent me a cutting from a newspaper interview she’d done with a reporter from the Daily Express, sparking interest in our photographs for a whole new generation. Neither was I surprised when, six years after that, I was contacted by a TV producer who was making a documentary about the Cottingley photographs for Nationwide, nor five years after that, when another TV producer contacted me about a documentary for Yorkshire Television.