‘Of course.’
Jennifer crossed over to one side of the room and pulled a blue covered album out of one of the cupboards in a solid, oak sideboard. ‘These were from a stack of family photos she had accumulated. When she died, I went through them and picked out the best ones.’ She handed the album to Emily who eagerly turned to the first page.
‘Gosh, she looks so young!’ she gasped. ‘And so like you, Molly!’ Emily looked across at the silent wraith sitting beside her.
‘And you.’ Jennifer nodded in reply. ‘Seeing these pictures again … I suppose it’s obvious. I just wasn’t looking.’
‘Isn’t that often the way? Life has a knack of throwing up things which you don’t know are missing whilst the things you really want to find remain elusive.’ Her voice was laced with irony.
‘Oh Emily, you will find what you’re looking for, I just know it.’ Jennifer squeezed her hand. ‘I feel bad that I’m the one who has found a forgotten family, not you.’
‘It was meant to be.’ Emily gave her a reassuring smile. ‘That’s why I’m here, isn’t that right, Molly?’ she said firmly. ‘And it’s why you decided to buy this cottage. It’s all part of Molly’s plan to bring us together.’
‘That sounds a bit far-fetched,’ Jennifer frowned. ‘Surely it’s just a coincidence?’
Emily shook her head. ‘You can believe what you like but I know what I believe. The ghost of Norah wanted us to find each other. I know it; I can feel it; I can feel it now.’
She turned her attention back to the photographs. The first pages were all black and white family portraits. There were several of a young Elizabeth holding her baby and some of the complete family group, Jennifer’s father standing tall and stern in the background. One showed a close up of Elizabeth’s face, smiling shyly as she looked down at her daughter. With her long hair hanging loose around her shoulders, her smooth skin and delicate features, she looked like the subject of a pre-Raphaelite painting. In later colour pictures, her hair was pinned back and her face had a tired, jaded quality, even when she was smiling at the camera. By the end of the album, she would still have been in her thirties, Emily realised, but she looked at least ten years older, her skin lined and sallow, her brown eyes hooded with pain.
‘She was diagnosed with cancer when she was thirty-seven and lasted just two more years. My poor mum, I know she suffered terribly and she knew she was dying. She worried about me and told me that she did not think accountancy was the career for me. Turns out she was right but I didn’t know it at the time.’
Emily turned back to the beginning and studied the photographs again, exclaiming over pictures of a young Jennifer, pudgy and round with short, thick, corn-coloured hair, her face screwed up in her attempts at a smile. Later pictures showed a slimmer, taller girl with long hair, a heavy fringe and serious grey eyes. ‘You look very studious,’ she mused.
‘I was. Both my parents wanted me to excel at school and I didn’t want to disappoint them.’
‘I was the same. We may not look very similar but we definitely have a lot in common.’ She placed the album on the table and smiled at Jennifer who was looking again at Iris’ letter.
‘I still can’t quite believe it,’ Jennifer murmured. ‘Iris was my birth grandmother which makes Norah and Arthur Fletcher my great grandparents. I can’t help wishing my mum had looked for Iris. She always knew she was adopted but I suppose she never really had the opportunity. Still … I can’t help wishing I had met Iris. If she died sometime in 1991, I would have been thirty-one. I was teaching at a school near Cambridge then, not very far away.’
‘I know. It’s heart-breaking, isn’t it? But you do have an aunt, Susan. We have to find her!’
Jennifer swallowed back a lump in her throat. ‘It’s hard to take in. When I was little, as an only child, I longed for brothers and sisters. Then, when they failed to arrive, I would have loved a cousin, aunts, uncles, any extended family but it was always just the grandparents, mum, dad and me. Since they died, I’ve got used to being a family of one, I suppose … except I’m not. I have an aunt, Susan. I wonder what she’s like.’
‘We’ve got to find her,’ Emily said again.
Jennifer nodded. ‘For you too. If you are descended from Iris, and you must be, then she must be the link. I know my mum only had the one child … at least, that’s what I always thought. Maybe she too had a child out of wedlock. Maybe that’s why Gramps gave her such a hard time.’ She thought for a moment and frowned. ‘She would have been very young though. She was only sixteen when I was born.’
‘It’s possible though.’ Emily sat back and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘But I agree Susan is our best bet. How are we going to find her?’
Jennifer thought for a moment. ‘Hannah Brewer might know something. After all, she saw Iris in 1991. They must have talked about Susan then.’
‘Good idea. We need to speak to David, ask him if his mother is up to another visit.’
‘I’ll give him a call.’
◆◆◆
At just after one o’clock when Jennifer, Emily and Alex were sitting down to lunch at the
