The Cottingley Secret
Hazel Gaynor
Dedication
For Frances and Christine, and everyone who believes.
And in memory of Nana Aelish Gaynor, who
left us on January 13th, 2017.
Epigraph
If the confidence of children can be gained, and they are led to speak freely, it is surprising how many claim to have seen fairies.
—SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.
—ROALD DAHL
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: The Bottom of the Garden One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Part Two: The Beginning of Fairies Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Part Three: Fairies Revealed Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Acknowledgments
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .* About the Author
About the Book
Read On
Praise
Also by Hazel Gaynor
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Cottingley, Yorkshire. August 1921.
Fairies will not be rushed. I know this now; know I must be patient.
Stiff and still in my favorite seat, formed from the natural bend in the bough of a willow tree, I am wildly alert, detecting every shifting shape and shadow; every snap and crack of twig. I dangle my bare feet in the beck, enjoying the cool rush of the water as it finds a natural course between my toes. I imagine that if I sat here for a hundred years, the water would smooth and round them, like the pebbles I collect from the riverbed and keep in my pockets.
In the distance I can see Mr. Gardner, the man they sent from London, with his round spectacles and bow tie and endless questions. He peers around the trunk of an oak tree, watches for a moment, and scribbles his observations in his notebook. I know what he writes: remarks about the weather, our precise location, the peculiar sense of something different in the air.
Elsie stands on the riverbank beside me, her camera ready. “Can’t you ’tice them?” she urges. “Say some secret words?”
I shrug. “They’re here, Elsie. I can feel them.” But like the soft breath of wind that brushes against my skin, the things we feel cannot always be seen.
I know that the best time to see them is in that perfect hour before sunset when the sun sinks low on the horizon like a ripe peach and sends shafts of gold bursting through the trees. The “in between,” I call it. No longer day, not yet night; some other place and time when magic hangs in the air and the light plays tricks on the eye. You might easily miss the flash of violet and emerald, but I—according to my teacher, Mrs. Hogan—am “a curiously observant child.” I see their misty forms among the flowers and leaves. I know my patience will be rewarded if I watch and listen, if I believe.
Tired of waiting, Elsie takes her camera and returns to the house, where Aunt Polly is waiting to hear if we managed any new photographs. The others soon follow: Mr. Gardner, the newspaper reporters, the “fairy hunters” who come to snoop and trample all over the wildflowers and spoil things. My little friends won’t appear just to please these onlookers. They move according to the patterns and rhythms of nature, not the whims of so-called experts from London. Fairies, I understand. These men, I do not.
Glad to be alone again, I watch the pond skaters and dragonflies, listen to the steady giggle of the water, sense the prickle of anticipation all around me. The sun dazzles on the water and I squint to shield my eyes as the heat at the back of my neck makes me drowsy and tugs at my eyelids, heavy with the desire to sleep.
I press my palms against the bark, smoothed from decades of weather and countless children who have sat here. How many of them have seen, I wonder? How many of them have known? I wait and I wait, whispering the words from my picture book: “‘There shall be no veil between them, / Though her head be old and wise. / You shall know that she has seen them, / By the glory in her eyes.’”
And then . . .
The lightest ringing at my ears. The slightest movement of fern and leaf.
My heart flutters. My eyes widen with excitement.
A flash of vibrant emerald. Another of softest lavender-blue.
I lean forward. Draw in my breath. Don’t make a sound.
They are here.
Part One
The Bottom of the Garden
It all started with the very best of intentions . . .
—FRANCES GRIFFITHS
One
Ireland. Present day.
Olivia Kavanagh didn’t believe in happy endings. Life hadn’t worked out that way for her so far. At thirty-five, she had almost stopped believing it ever would. Almost, but not entirely, because there were moments—flashes—when she remembered who she used to be: someone who thought anything was possible; someone who believed in everything.
Often it was her dreams that transported her back to happier times, flickering sepia visions played out like a silent movie reel. Sometimes it was a remembered fragment of a favorite bedtime story—the púca and the sídhe, the Good People of Irish folklore who’d crept from the torch-lit pages of her books to inhabit the wildest places of her imagination. And on special days, her memories were stirred by the familiar refrain of a song her mammy used to sing to her, madly operatic and wonderfully silly. She would hear the voice on the wind, a faint whisper at first and then louder: “There are fairies at the bottom of our garden! / It’s not so very, very far away; / You pass the gardener’s shed and you just keep straight ahead— / I do so hope they’ve really come to stay.” It was always a welcome burst of light among the shadows that clouded Olivia’s heart.
She heard the song now as she stood on the headland, face tipped skyward to savor the warmth of the sun on her cheeks and the tangerine glow it cast against her eyelids. Rowdy gulls circled above as the wind sang to her, whistling through the stubby branches of the gorse that released its sweet coconut scent and stirred other memories from their drowsy slumber: picnics between rain showers, leaning into the wind and pretending to fly, laughter, love. She wrapped her arms around herself, embracing all these simple joys she’d once known. Like other children collected pebbles and shells from the beach, Olivia collected memories of her childhood, filling an imaginary bucket with the best of times. Yet she would gladly have emptied it for one more of her mammy’s special hugs, one more encouraging smile, one more whispered “I love you, Livvy.” Those particular memories were her greatest treasures.
Opening her eyes, she absorbed the familiar view: the chameleon sea, green then gray then blue; the distant peaks of the Wicklow Mountains; the rhododendrons below, painting the headland in a parade of purple and pink. She made a frame with her thumbs and forefingers, squinting through it to find the best light and angle and composition. Something else she’d stopped doing and couldn’t remember why. Her camera, like so many passions she’d once held, lay idle in a box beneath the bed. Where had she gone—that creative, independent woman? Where was she?
Determined not to let her mind stray to thoughts of Jack and the wedding plans she was drowning in, nor to the painful secret that pricked at her conscience like a splinter, she focused, kept her thoughts only of now, of this moment. The breeze tugged at her sleeve, encouraging her to do what she’d come here for. She inhaled—a deep, moment-defining breath�
�exhaled, unzipped her backpack, and removed the heavy package.
FOR OLIVIA KAVANAGH. TO BE OPENED ONLY AT THE TOP OF HOWTH HEAD.
So deliberate and precise. Just like him.
Opening the package, she removed a folded sheet of writing paper. It flapped frantically in the breeze, a fledgling eager to test its wings. Her fingers grasped it tightly as she turned her back to the wind, sat on a slab of granite rock, and began to read.
23rd June 2014
My dearest Olivia Mae,
They tell me I should put my affairs in order now that your dear Nana has gone into the nursing home, and as a result, I am writing the saddest of good-byes to you although I will actually see you on Sunday. Such are the curiosities that accompany the later years of one’s life.
I cannot bear the thought of you reading this letter alone in the stuffy solicitor’s office I have the misfortune to find myself in now, so I hope—when the time comes—you follow the instructions, choose a nice bright day, and enjoy your walk. You always loved it up here with the wind blowing and the secret tunnels through the rhododendron bushes that open up into such breathtaking views. You loved the romance of the place where Joyce set Molly Bloom’s proposal scene: “. . . the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me. . . .” You once said you felt closer to your Mammy when you were up high, which is why I brought you here, so you could read the letter together.
I know this will come as a surprise, but I have left you the bookshop in my will. Something Old (and Hemingway the cat, if he’ll have you) is now yours, my dear girl. You always said it was a special place, that there was something magical about all those old books on my dusty shelves. Well, now the magic is all yours and I leave it gladly in your care. Don’t be too alarmed. I know this will pose something of a logistical problem with you living in London, but a dear friend of mine—Henry Blake—and a clever nephew of his have agreed to be on hand, should you run into any difficulties (such as interfering old crows like Nora Plunkett. She is best ignored, by the way, but if you have the misfortune to run into her, please be sure to pass on my disregards).
I have also left you something I hope will be of interest. It is a memoir of sorts—a fascinating story. It was given to your Nana many years ago. She passed it on to your mother. I would have mentioned it to you sooner, only I’d forgotten all about it until I rediscovered it recently. You know my views on stories choosing the right readers at the right time, and now is not the right time. When you read this letter, it will be. Consider it a project in distraction, if you like. Your Nana had some other things connected to the events related in the memoir, but I can’t remember what, or where, they are. Have a good rummage around and you’ll hopefully find them.
So now, my dear, I must say good-bye—and look forward to seeing you on Sunday!
I suppose I should leave you with some words of wisdom, but find myself lacking when the moment demands. All I will ask of you is to remember that you can do anything if you believe in yourself. You don’t need anybody’s permission to live the life you desire, Olivia. You need only the permission of your heart.
All my love to you,
Pappy
x
PS The shop key is enclosed.
Olivia had always found good-byes and endings difficult, but this was the hardest of all. Harder than the wake, or the removal, or the funeral mass she’d endured in the past week. She read the letter again, then once more, her heart aching with grief for the dear grandfather she’d lost, and glowing with pride to know he had entrusted her with his beloved bookshop.
With salt tears stinging her wind-reddened cheeks, she took a heavy document from the package: hundreds of typed pages, bound together by a violet ribbon. The title page read, “Notes on a Fairy Tale, by Frances Griffiths,” the thin pages crackling satisfyingly as Olivia flicked through them, the fanned paper blowing against her face like a long sigh released. Her bookbinder’s instincts sensed a forgotten story in need of care and attention, her thoughts turning to sheet leather and awls, paper drills, seam stitching, and gold embossing—the familiar tools of her trade.
Untying the ribbon, she turned the page and read the opening lines.
In some ways, my story has many beginnings, but I suppose I should start on the April evening when I arrived in the Yorkshire village of Cottingley. That was when I first met Cousin Elsie, first heard the waterfall, and first became enchanted by the little stream at the bottom of the garden. So much has happened since, so many words and pages written about those summers and the things we saw, or didn’t, depending on whose version of events you believe. Even now, as I start to put my story into words, I’m not quite sure how it ends. Perhaps that will be for others to decide. For now, all I can do is write it down as I remember it . . .
Olivia’s interest was already captured. Cottingley was where her Nana had grown up.
With the wind tugging impatiently at the edge of the pages, she read on . . .
NOTES ON A FAIRY TALE
Cottingley, Yorkshire. April 1917.
An emerald locomotive delivered me to my new life in Yorkshire that cold April night. It had a brass plate, number 5318, and raced along the tracks, eating up the passing blur of green fields and soot-black towns, rocking me from side to side as I whispered the final words of the book I was reading. “‘But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretense; and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true.’”
I remember blinking back tears that sent the letters swimming about on the page until I was sure they would fall off the edge. I’d read The Water Babies a dozen times, and I cried every time I reached the end. But my tears that day weren’t just for the water babies and Tom, nor for the end of the story. My tears were for the end of so much more: my beautiful home in Cape Town, long walks by the ocean, seashells clacking in my pockets, rose-pink sunsets, my father’s hand in mine. That I was hurtling toward a new home in a strange country only made everything worse.
Mummy stirred in the seat beside me and opened a sleepy eye. “What are you saying, Frances? What is it now?”
“Nothing, Mummy. I’m reading. Go back to sleep.”
I watched her as she yawned, shifted in her seat, and drifted back to sleep. She looked different since we’d arrived in England, changed by the long journey across the ocean, travel-crumpled and gray-faced; colorless, almost. All the lovely color of our life had started to fade away when we’d said good-bye to Daddy in Plymouth. Even the drab khaki of his British Army uniform was reduced to shades of black and white in the portrait he’d had taken on the promenade and pressed into my hands before heading off to join his battalion and “do his bit.”
I took the photograph from my pocket as the locomotive rattled along. I didn’t like photographs, didn’t trust the darkrooms and the mystical procedures required to make them, and I especially didn’t like the photograph of Daddy. He was so much more than the serious-looking man staring back at me from the posed portrait. Daddy was loud and boisterous. His laughter boomed like cannon fire. His chin was bristly when he kissed me good-night. His arms comforted me like nothing else could. It made me anxious to look at him so stiff and still, like a corpse. I placed the photograph inside my book for safekeeping as the train slowed, creaked alongside a platform, and shuddered to a halt.
Mummy sat up with a start. “Why have we stopped? Where are we, Frances?”
I rubbed at the misted glass with my coat sleeve and read the station sign. “Bingley.” My heart lurched. After weeks of traveling, we had reached our destination. All I wanted to do was turn around and go straight back.
“Bingley! That’s our stop!” Mummy jumped up, retrieving our discarded hats and gloves and chivying me to do the same, quickly, as quickly as I could. “Have you got everything, Frances? Hold the door, please! Your hat? Rosebud? Your case?”
A round-faced woman reached up to the luggage rack to lift down my small traveling case. When I thanked her she looked at me as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Well, you’re certainly not from ’round here. Where you from then? Australia?”
“South Africa.”
“You’re a long way from home. At least you won’t be bothered by lions in Bingley, eh. Although I’d tek lions over some Yorkshire folk any day o’t week.”
The woman laughed at this and I said thank you again, hardly able to understand what she’d said at all.
Half a dozen people alighted at Bingley. One by one we stepped reluctantly out of the cozy carriage onto the cold station platform, where a ruddy-cheeked porter with saggy jowls rushed about, looking important. He spoke with the same accent as the woman on the train, and said something about being nithered as he helped sleep-dazed passengers with their luggage. I thought it clever of Daddy to have sent on our heavy portmanteau from Plymouth. I was weary enough of my small case as it was, and could tell from the violet shadows beneath Mummy’s eyes that she, too, was exhausted from our long journey, although she would never admit it and hadn’t complained once all the way from Cape Town. Mummy didn’t like to complain. “There’s always a silver lining,” she said. “If you look hard enough.” As I traipsed along behind, following her out of the smoke-filled station into dark, unfriendly streets, I doubted there was a silver lining in Bingley, no matter how hard I might look.
“Uncle Arthur’ll be here soon to collect us,” Mummy said, clapping her hands together and stamping her feet. “He’ll be driving one of Mr. Briggs’s fancy motorcars, no doubt.”
“Who is Mr. Briggs?”
“The boss. Your Uncle Arthur works for him at Cottingley Manor, looking after his motorcars. Wealthiest man in Cottingley. You’re to mind your manners when you’re introduced to him.”
