‘When you said that you had gifted that tea caddy to a friend I often wondered why. And her crib? What happened to that?’
‘I gave it away. I cleared out everything that would be a reminder. It has been such a burden, Eliza, to keep all of this from you.’
She should have felt sorry for him, but he was a different man to her now.
‘I didn’t think we had any secrets between us, Isaac. Everything has changed.’
He fell to his knees.
‘Please do not say that, Eliza. You know I am nothing without you. I was so afraid that you would pass over first. That I would be left alone.’
He was right. She was the strong one. She’d had to be. She had to be now.
‘I would not have gone without you, Isaac. But where is Philly’s spirit? It is not here in this house, in the garden, dancing on the wind or weaving in and out of the tree branches. I can’t feel it anywhere.’
He sobbed and still couldn’t look at her as he spoke.
‘Gone. I had left the window open by mistake, and I saw it leave her body. I tried to hold on to it, but it was so small and wriggly.’
He looked up and reached for her hands, pleading for compassion.
‘I saw her pass over, Eliza, and it was a bright smiling light. She was no longer in distress, I promise you. We can go to her now. Together. Leave all of this and be reunited with our daughter.’
And Eliza got a tantalising glimpse of release and new possibilities.
‘That would be wonderful, Isaac.’
And suddenly he looked like a young man again, as if all the strain had fallen away from him. She looked back towards the cottage.
‘You have done more than enough here, Eliza. It is time to go. Come, all we have to do is to let go of the ties that have been binding us here.’
Maybe he was right. Maybe now was the time. But not with her husband. She would go alone and be reunited with her daughter.
NINETEEN
Guy and Carrie had arrived late.
‘There’s not much we can do tonight,’ he said as they sat in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate laced with brandy. ‘I’ll call the police first thing in the morning, but we’d better cover the remains back up and I’ll put some stones over the top to stop the foxes disturbing it.’
Jules and Beulah stood at a respectful distance the following morning as two police officers studied the little bones and took photographs.
‘They’ll send the photographs to a biological anthropologist to determine roughly how long she’s been there,’ Jules said to Carrie on the phone, ‘but they’re pretty sure it’s a long time.’
‘And what then?’
‘It has to be reported to the coroner’s office obviously, but if she’s of no interest to the police she will become the responsibility of the county archaeologist.’
‘You keep sayingshe.’
‘Because surely it’s Philly? The rattle and the bonnet in the tea caddy must have belonged to this baby.’
‘I’ve been back through the census records and there aren’t any children mentioned who were living at Hideaway Cottage.Isaac and Eliza Cooper lived there from 1841 to 1900. Then there’s a bit of a gap, after which it was sold to Rita’s great-aunt and she never married.’
‘That doesn’t mean she didn’t have a baby. It did happen even in those days.’
‘Maybe we’ll never know.’
‘Someone knows. The energy here is all stirred up.’
