That was how the week passed. Miserable weather. Miserable girls. Long, boring hours spent at the beck, waiting for something to happen, and all the time Mr. Hodson whispering in his strange voice, muttering about “auras” and “heavenly bodies” and his experiences in the world of the occult. It was like watching an act on stage at the Arcadia. We couldn’t take him seriously at all.
Mr. Gardner stayed at the Midland hotel in Bradford for the duration of the Hodsons’ stay. He came to Cottingley a few times to ask us how we were getting on with our “field trips,” as he called them. I often saw him spying on us from behind a tree, scribbling notes in his book. Elsie laughed whenever I pointed him out to her, especially if he ducked down, suspecting he’d been caught out.
Elsie often grew bored and made her way back to the house early. I had more patience and sat by the stream for hours, always aware of Mr. Gardner observing me from a distance. When I made my way home he would ask if anything had occurred at the beck that day. I always said no, there was nothing doing, or that it was too wet for fairies. As I’d decided months earlier in my bedroom in Scarborough, I wouldn’t tell, even if I had seen something.
As the days passed, our boredom spilled over into something like a hysteria and Elsie and I began to have a little fun with Mr. Hodson and his auras.
Elsie started it. “Over there! Look!” She winked at me and pointed to an oak tree, saying that she could clearly see a figure like a fairy godmother.
Mr. Hodson hopped to his feet, instantly declaring that yes, he could see it too. “Do you see it, girls? Look. It is materializing as we watch.”
I giggled into my hair as Elsie added more and more detail and Mr. Hodson became more and more animated, agreeing that he could see exactly what Elsie described. I had always suspected he was as fake as our photographs. Now I knew for certain.
From that moment, our daily vigils with Mr. Hodson became far more enjoyable as we claimed to see fairies six feet tall and fairies flying around our heads. I said I saw water nymphs and wood elves, and Elsie saw a golden fairy and little men trooping along the path in front of us, giving us a soldier’s salute. Mr. Hodson scribbled frantically in his notebook, embellishing our descriptions with his low-voiced mutterings about the spirit world and auric fields and elementals. I was still surprised at the lack of proper scientific investigation into why the fairies appeared when we said they did, or what we believed their purpose was, or how they appeared to us and to nobody else. The most interesting questions were never asked, and therefore never answered.
When the week was over, Mummy, Elsie, and I waved the Hodsons off and breathed a sigh of relief.
“That’s that, then,” Mummy remarked as she flopped into a chair, exhausted by the endless cooking and cleaning she’d been doing.
Elsie said, “There’s nowt so queer as folk, eh? Nowt so queer as them folk, anyway!”
We all laughed, and although I was relieved it was over, part of me felt a tinge of regret that I hadn’t seen the beck fairies once more.
As Mummy packed our cases for the trip back to Scarborough, I took one last walk around the village. Privately I knew I was saying good-bye. Even if the men from London asked Elsie and me to try again, we had already decided—in agreement with our parents—that enough was enough. We had done everything that had been asked of us. It was time to draw a line under it. I spent a while in quiet reflection at the beck before making my way to Mrs. Hogan’s cottage.
As always, she was delighted to see me when she opened the door, baby Martha in her arms, a delightful chubby bundle of smiles and gurgles.
We sat at a bench in the garden, Mrs. Hogan beaming with maternal pride as she dandled Martha on her lap and blew raspberries on her tummy. I talked about Scarborough and school and how Daddy was getting on with his new job, but we couldn’t avoid the issue of the fairy photographs entirely.
“You and Elsie have caused quite the sensation in Cottingley,” Mrs. Hogan said. “Reporters swarming about like bees and folk rushing about with nets. I’ve never seen the like of it.”
I said it was all a lot of fuss over a few photographs and explained how we’d only taken them to show the family, but they had fallen into other hands.
Mrs. Hogan said she understood. “Sure, don’t I know what it is to be the cause of local gossip. It isn’t a pleasant experience, but it doesn’t last forever. They’ll be talking about something else come Christmas.”
As we stepped inside the cottage to take Martha out of the sun, I noticed a posy of wildflowers in a jug on the dresser—harebell, bindweed, campion, and bladderwort.
Mrs. Hogan noticed me staring at them. “Pretty, aren’t they? The most curious thing. I found them on the doorstep this morning beside the stone boots. And it isn’t the first time. I often find a single white flower or a posy of wildflowers there.” I felt my skin prickle as she spoke. “I know it sounds silly, but I still see her, you know. Aisling. I see her everywhere. Hear her laugh. Hear her cry in the middle of the night.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak, and then it all came out in a rush as my dreams flooded my mind, clamoring for my attention, like a persistent knock on the door that I couldn’t ignore any longer.
“I see her too.”
Mrs. Hogan’s face furrowed into a frown. “You see who, Frances?”
“Your daughter.”
“Martha?”
I swallowed hard, my breaths coming quickly, my cheeks flushing red as I spoke. “Aisling.”
Mrs. Hogan’s face paled as she gripped the edge of the table and nodded, encouraging me to go on.
“Ever since I came to Cottingley, I’ve dreamed of a little girl with red hair. She always gives me a flower. ‘For Mammy,’ she says. She looks just like the girl in your paintings.” My hands trembled as I spoke. “It’s her, Mrs. Hogan. I think she wants to let you know she’s all right.”
Mrs. Hogan’s eyes filled with tears. She clutched the locket that hung from a chain around her neck, her voice small and fragile as she spoke. “Is she alone when you see her?”
“No, Miss. She’s never alone.” I took a deep breath and said it. “She’s always with the fairies.”
A peacefulness fell over the room, like a cloud lifting.
Mrs. Hogan reached forward and took my hands in hers as tears slipped down her cheeks. “Thank you, Frances. Thank you for telling me. It means more than you can ever know.”
We spoke then as we had never spoken before. With the door open to let in a breeze, there were no more secrets to hide. I told her all about the fairies I’d seen at the beck that first summer, about how beautiful and charming they were, and how natural it had become for me to see them. She told me she’d seen them, too, when she was a young girl, and that Aisling had often talked about the special lights she saw at the beck. We talked for a long time, of things I had never been able to talk about with anyone else. Not even with Elsie. Mrs. Hogan didn’t question or doubt. She listened and understood.