According to Aunt Polly, Uncle Arthur had ears like an African elephant. “He can hear the dead turn in their grave, that man,” was her favorite turn of phrase. His ears were almost as big as his hands, so I suppose it was no surprise that it was Uncle Arthur, and nobody else gathered in the front room that Whitsuntide evening, who heard the latch on the gate. He wasn’t in the best of moods and certainly not in the mood to entertain uninvited guests.
He flicked down the top of his newspaper. “Who the ’eck’s that coming ’round at this time?”
Aunt Polly tutted. “It’ll be Edna Morris. Wanting to borrow something again, no doubt. Any excuse to stick her great snout in where it isn’t wanted.”
I burst out laughing, and both Aunt Polly and I earned ourselves a scolding from Mummy for being rude about the neighbors. Elsie winked at me and pushed her finger against the end of her nose to make it resemble a snout. I stuffed my mouth into the crook of my arm to smother my giggles.
But it wasn’t Edna Morris wanting to borrow something.
I heard the front door open and gently close with a quiet click. I heard soft footsteps.
And I knew.
I held my breath as the front room door swung open, and everything became nothing and there was only him.
“Daddy!”
One minute he was a distant fading memory, the next he was standing right there, in the front room, laughing and smiling and telling us he’d been through the delousing center and it was safe for us to hug him. As if all the months and weeks and days and hours without him had never happened, Daddy was home, tin hat in one hand, kit bag in the other, and all my heart was held in the smile that lit up his eyes.
I remember crying out his name, remember my petticoats wrapping themselves around my legs as I tried to stand up, remember his arms squeezing me tight, remember the peculiar smell of him: earth and salt, cigarettes and some other bitter tang I imagined was the smell of war.
My prayers had been answered. Daddy was home. Everything was going to be all right.
Mummy couldn’t stop sobbing. Even with her scrunched-up face and snotty red nose, she looked ten years younger and ten inches taller. She looked like Mummy again.
When Daddy finally had a chance to get a word in edgeways between all the fussing and hugging and back slapping, he explained that the war wasn’t over, but he had a week’s leave after which he would have to go back. Mummy said we would deal with that when the time came. For now, all that mattered was that he was home.
I sat on Daddy’s knee, the finest seat in all of England, as Aunt Polly went to put the kettle on and Uncle Arthur groused about the price of coal. Life at Number 31 Main Street felt wonderfully normal.
I had never been prouder than when Daddy sat beside me at church the next day, so smart and brave and important-looking in his uniform. My friends admired him and made a great fuss of me. Fathers were a rare sight in those days, and the boys wanted to ask him about the whizzbangs and the tanks and the trench rats. When one of the girls asked if the horses would be coming back, Daddy shook his head and said the horses had been very brave, which made us all cry.
I didn’t mind sharing Daddy for a few minutes, but what I loved most were the quiet, ordinary moments we spent together as a family at the house, Mummy sewing in the window seat, Daddy lying on the bed beside me as he read from The Pickwick Papers, making up terrific voices for the characters and causing me to laugh so much my sides ached.
I couldn’t wait to show him the beck, and on the first rain-free day, I insisted he come with me. We sat together on the willow bough seat, just as I’d often imagined.
“So, tell me what you and our Elsie have been up to. Your mother says you two have become the best of friends—and what about these other friends you’ve made, eh?”
I’d told Daddy about the photographs in my letters because I knew Mummy would mention them. “Did Mummy show you the photographs?” I asked. Nobody had seen them for months.
“She did. Quite something, eh? Our Frances playing with fairies. Captured forever in a photograph.”
I’d been waiting for the right moment to tell him about my fairies. More than anyone else, I knew Daddy would believe me. But when it came to it, I was terrified to say anything in case he didn’t.
“Do you believe in fairies, Daddy?”
“I’ve no reason not to I suppose, but I’ve never seen one myself.” He swung his legs beneath the bough and threw sycamore seeds into the water. “Do you know the story of the Angels of Mons, Frances?” I said I didn’t. “There was a big battle at the start of the war, in a place called Mons in Belgium. The British soldiers suffered heavy losses but said they’d seen phantom bowmen, troops of angel warriors storming the skies above them, firing flaming arrows down on the Germans to help the British forces. They became known as the Angels of Mons.”
“Were there really angel warriors in the sky, Daddy?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? The soldiers say there were, but how can we be sure if we didn’t see it for ourselves? That’s why I can’t say I don’t believe in fairies—but I can’t say I do, either, because I haven’t seen one.”
I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I had to tell him. “Daddy, if I tell you something, do you promise not to make fun of me?” Daddy was as bad for teasing as Uncle Arthur. Worse, in fact.
He promised. And he was true to his word. He didn’t comment or question as I spoke. He sat beside me as I told him about the glimmers of light and the misty visions I’d seen day after day through the summer. He listened quietly as the stream carried my secret away beneath our feet.
“Mrs. Hogan, my teacher, says there are lots of different types of fairies,” I explained, feeling clever to know so much about them. “She’s from Ireland and calls them the Little People. Some are nature fairies. Some are water fairies. They change with the seasons and the weather. Some fairies are mischievous, but most are kind. The ones I see are kind.”
“And what about the ones in your photographs? What type are they?”
I stiffened. I had never been able to tell Daddy a lie. He had a way of looking at me as if he could see straight into my mind, could hear what I was thinking. He looked at me that way now.
Should I tell the truth? Should I show him the mound of earth where the hat pins were pushed into the ground? But then he would have to tell Mummy and Aunt Polly and Uncle Arthur and they would be ever so cross, and what would Elsie think of me if I broke my promise? The photographs were mostly forgotten about, hidden away in a drawer. I thought about the Angels of Mons and Mrs. Hogan’s words—that we don’t always need an explanation. That sometimes all we need is something to believe in, something to give us hope. No, I wouldn’t tell him. Not now.
“The fairies in the photograph are different from those I see when I’m alone. The ones in the photograph only appear when me and Elsie are together.”
Without actually telling a lie, I had managed not to betray my secret.