Page 72 of Watch For Me By Candlelight

She was greeted at the open door with a smell of baby wipes and the sound of a squawking baby.

‘Elodie!’ she shouted. ‘Is this a good time?’

‘Come on through! We have a nappy situation but it’s contained!’

Kate followed her voice into the big, airy, comfortable lounge and found her with one of the babies already neatly buttoned into a onesie, and the other one in the process of being neatly buttoned. There were nappy bags and bottles and toys strewn everywhere.

‘Good Lord,’ Kate said. ‘This is carnage.’

‘This is motherhood. But I think we’re done. Here you are — go see Aunty Kate.’ She picked the nearest baby up — Alfie, judging by the blue and white stripes — and handed him over.

‘Oh, God. I might break him.’ Kate jiggled him a little bit. ‘Hello Alfie.’

Elodie tidied up the nappy changing gear and then picked up Freya. ‘I’m going to pop them in the pram and take them out for a walk. Everything going okay at the pool?’

Kate nodded, shifting Alfie slightly. ‘Yes, fine thanks, but there’s just one thing. I know you’re massively busy, but can you remember those ice-skates I talked to you about?’

‘Ice-skates? Oh! Yes. The broken ones, right? God, I’m sorry — I never did that digging yet, did I?’ She looked contrite and Kate felt a rush of affection for her.

‘It’s okay. I didn’t need an answer straight away, it was more of a curiosity. But I do think that one of the things relating to them is an old photograph. That should narrow the parameters for when you get a chance.’

‘Really?’ Elodie looked at Kate curiously and Kate knew she was itching to get on the case of the mysterious ice-skates. ‘How do you know that then?’ Elodie had a certain ‘gift’ where spirits were concerned but Kate didn’t want to go there right now.

She felt her cheeks grow warm and looked down. ‘Some research I did suggested that.’ She looked up defiantly. ‘Museum research. I have my own archives.’ She didn’t think it was necessary to tell her the research and those particular archives were a direct link to Cat Tredegar’s life and memories.

‘Fair enough. And what did your research hint at?’

‘A scrapbook from around 1885. It belonged to Amelia Aldrich. The girl in the miniature in the dining room, you know?’

‘Millie? Yes, I know her. What’s the book like?’

‘It’s brown and it’s got birds and flowers on the front, all painted in black. There’s a picture in there, I think of two girls on the frozen river — and there’s another photo somewhere of a girl in a Bath chair.’

‘Ah, the Bath chair one is in the main house. And a scrapbook from 1885? Okay, that’s in the box over by the . . .’ Elodie’s voice trailed off as she thought about it. ‘. . . by the travelling trunk in the third attic. Yep. I know exactly where it is.’ She grinned. ‘In fact, I can go and get it right now — if you don’t mind looking after these two for a few minutes.’

She swung Freya towards Kate, and somehow Kate ended up having one baby on each arm. ‘That would be very kind. But don’t be too long,’ she said as Elodie hurried out of the room. ‘Please?’

* * *

By the time Elodie came back clutching the scrapbook, Kate had put both children into the twin pram and was wheeling it back and forth to keep them happy.

‘Ta dah!’ she said, looking up as Elodie walked into the room. ‘All ready to go out.’

‘Hurrah!’ Elodie laughed. ‘Well done. Here you go.’ Kate took the scrapbook from her friend eagerly. It looked and felt so familiar that she almost sensed Millie next to her, waiting to see whether everything else had survived intact. She had to do it — she opened the book and flicked through it.

There was the rosebud, faded and powdery now, right next to the invitation. A lovely sense of warmth and belonging flowed through her and she couldn’t help but smile. She flicked through a few more pages, and something slipped out of the book a little further on. Kate caught it before it fell onto the floor and turned it over to see what it was. She wasn’t at all surprised to see that it was the ice-skating photograph. The dabs of paste Millie had popped onto the corners hadn’t held up as well as her other workmanship — her intentions had clearly come to fruition. The photograph wasn’t damaged and there were no bits of paper from the scrapbook adhering to the corners, so that meant the page mustn’t have ripped. It was perfect.

‘This is it!’ Kate was delighted. ‘This is the one I was looking for! She was right — it was never meant to stay stuck in there. That’s just so strange!’

‘Do you think so?’

Kate looked up quickly. ‘Well maybe not so much strange as . . .’ Her voice tailed off and she ended up just shrugging. ‘I don’t know,’ she said eventually. ‘I don’t think I’m meant to take the whole book away. This girl’s heart and soul went into this scrapbook and I suspect it has to stay at the Hall. Can I just borrow the picture until I can get a copy? And I can leave you the scrapbook.’

‘You can keep the photo if you like,’ replied Elodie, surprising her. ‘Display it in the museum with the ice-skates. They work well together — I know you’ll take care of it properly there. And yes, you can leave the book. You know you can always ask for it back if you want a proper look at some point. Oh! And that’s what I meant to tell you — the Bath chair picture is in the stairwell. We had the chair next to it for a while, but it was too fragile to keep on display — and we found some kids climbing on it and they wrecked it, so it’s packed away now.’ She frowned. ‘So annoying. No respect for other peoples’ property. Anyway, we left the photograph there. If you can hang on another couple of minutes, I’ll nip through and get it. You can have that for the museum as well.’

Without waiting for an answer, Elodie disappeared through the door Kate knew was marked ‘Private’ on the other side, and in a couple of minutes she was back, clutching the framed picture. Millie had kept her promise, then.

‘You might be able to get it out of that frame and check the back for anything she wrote on it,’ said Elodie. ‘There might be something there that’ll help.’