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 photograph 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.