and we can arrange to see one another …
Kate smiled as she read the descriptions of her grandfather Joseph’s first day of elementary school, his refusal to wear his socks pulled up and his constant sullied shirts and torn collars from the playground and the precious dimpled cheeks and lopsided smile that so reminds me of our Freddie …
She flipped through the letters before starting on the diaries and sketches. The archives contained page after page of sketches: chickens; twin girls holding hands and laughing; a trail of flowers down a drainpipe; a corner view of the dome of St Paul’s. Every page was crammed with drawings and every image was vivid. Each one told a tale. As she turned the pages, she noticed where some had been torn out and held her own ledger pages up one by one, ragged edge to ragged edge. Each was a match, as true as the line of freckles and dark curls trying to escape from the plaits of Flora and Maggie.
The last picture was a sketch of the twins asleep, eyes closed, candles by their heads. There was a stillness to them that filled Kate’s eyes with tears.
Bella reached for her hand and squeezed it. ‘Well,’ she whispered. ‘I think we’ve solved the mystery of who drew the pictures.’
‘I think so,’ said Kate as she started flipping through the ledger again, looking for a glimpse of a button—or any other jewel. There was none.
She sighed.
As Kate turned the final page, the light overhead caught the slightest impression on the page. The previous page had been torn out, but a ghost of script remained. Using her eyepiece, she recognised the handwriting that had graced so many of her birthday and Christmas cards for years.
Mrs Edward Hepplestone
Mr Edward and Mrs Esther Rose Hepplestone
That was curious. Who was Edward Hepplestone? Essie quickly jotted the name into her notebook. There was no mobile reception in this room, so she’d have to wait until she was elsewhere to google it.
‘Does the name Edward Hepplestone ring any bells with you?’ she asked her cousin.
‘None,’ replied Bella.
‘I’ve been asking the wrong questions and looking in the wrong places. I wanted to link Essie with the Cheapside collection based on a few fairytales … but really it’s Essie’s story I need to uncover. There’s so much about her early life I know nothing about. Gertrude and Essie wrote frequently, judging by this stack of letters.’
‘Yes. It’s lovely. Standard letters and clippings, news of the family, christenings, occasional rages against Thatcher, a picture of Gertie in her academic gown flanked by two elderly people in their Sunday best.’
Kate flipped the picture over and saw written in Gertrude’s hand: Graduation, St Hilda’s. Mr and Mrs Yarwood. Mr and Mrs Yarwood … Who were they? she wondered.
She looked from Bella to the stack of letters and the inky shadows of the sleeping twins in the ledger book.
‘For the life of me I can’t work out why Essie never returned to London,’ she said. ‘She could afford it. She met her sister in Hawaii every year, and Gertie came to Boston a dozen times. But why did Essie never come here? I mean, it’s London. And it’s family. Why stay away forever?’
‘Well …’ Bella tapped her chin thoughtfully, ‘from my experience in the family court, people leave their families behind for any number of reasons. I’ve seen mothers leave their children because they felt it was for the best; they felt that the child would be better provided for by the father or another family member. Or they knew that they simply did not have the capacity to care for the child. They were severely traumatised, suffered crippling post-natal depression—or they were drug-addicted.’
A tear ran down Kate’s cheek. ‘I just can’t imagine leaving behind someone so precious. A baby—or a beloved little sister.’ She traced one of the twin’s sunken cheeks with her gloved finger.
‘I can’t begin to imagine your pain, Kate,’ Bella said softly. ‘Losing your baby … Jonathan.’
Kate nodded, wishing she could dive into the blue expanse of one of Gertrude’s paintings and ease the pain and grief laced around her heart. ‘Do you think Essie left London because she thought her family was better off without her?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know. But I met Essie that summer when we visited the US on our family tree tour. Remember? She was really something … She offered me my first sip of champagne out in your back courtyard, you know. She lived every