Page 92 of The Sisters at the Last House Before the Sea

‘When’s he leaving for London?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’ Isla dropped the biscuit into her lap and went back to staring out of the window.

‘I’ve found out some more about Edith’s family – our family,’ said Caitlin, trying to pique her sister’s interest. ‘While you were out, I found some census records online and trawled through them. There was a census in 1911 and 1921, with nothing in between, unfortunately. But Edith is living here at Rose Cottage in both.’

Isla turned from the window. ‘Who else is listed?’

‘In 1911, when Edith was thirteen, she was living here with her mum and dad. Ten years later, her mum, Emily, is gone and her dad, Archibald, is listed as a widower.’

‘That’s sad.’

‘The saddest thing is that Emily also left behind two younger children, a boy and a girl who were twelve and thirteen in 1921.’

‘Were Archibald, Edith and her younger siblings all living together in 1921 at Rose Cottage?’

‘They were, so I looked up to see when Emily died and guess when it was.’

Isla sighed, her expression unreadable. ‘I don’t know, Caitlin. Just tell me.’

‘She died on the fourteenth of April 1919, of influenza.’

That got Isla’s full attention. ‘April the fourteenth? That was a few days before William arrived.’

‘Exactly, and poor Edith had just lost her mum. How could she leave for America when her younger brother and sister were grieving and motherless?’

‘So do you think she stayed put to look after them? Like you looked after me when Mum died?’

‘Probably, and from what Ben and Nell have told us, William was responsible for his grandmother so he couldn’t have stayed here. He would have had to go back to the States without Edith.’

‘I bet she was hoping to join him later, once her brother and sister were a little older or other arrangements had been made to help support them.’

Edith must have been torn between the responsibility she felt towards her siblings, thought Caitlin, and her desire to build a new life. She shivered because that push and pull, that tug between being selfish and selfless, was very familiar. ‘Whatever they were planning to do, William died in New York not long afterwards, swiftly followed by his gran.’

‘That’s incredibly sad. Would Edith have known what happened? Who would have told her?’

‘Of course!’ Caitlin ran a hand across her face, bringing to mind what Connie had remembered. ‘Connie’s mother said Edith was too sad for this world, waiting for a letter that never came – a letter from William. She must have thought he’d given up on her but in fact—’

‘He was dead,’ said Isla dully. ‘That’s awful. No wonder poor Edith was broken-hearted. She must have believed she’d been abandoned by the man she loved, and then, not that long afterwards, she died a lonely death on Dartmoor. I wonder why she was out there on her own, in such a windswept and deserted landscape. It doesn’t make sense.’

All at once, the pieces of the puzzle slotted into place for Caitlin.

‘You said yourself that Edith’s grave was hard to find because she was buried by the wall in the graveyard, away from her relatives. What if she was so broken-hearted, she couldn’t bear to go on? So she took herself off to Dartmoor, on a freezing cold St Valentine’s Day.’

Isla’s mouth fell open. ‘Are you saying that her death was suicide?’

Caitlin ran a hand through her hair. ‘We’ll never know, but that would fit. People who died by suicide were treated appallingly in the past so perhaps she was consigned to a corner of the graveyard.’

‘That’s even more sad,’ said Isla, wiping away a tear that was trickling down her cheek.

‘Poor Edith, who never got away from Heaven’s Cove.’

Caitlin traced her finger through a film of dust and thought about their great-great-aunt and her fiancé, whose lives had been so tragically cut short.

‘Do you think Gran wanted us to know all of this?’ asked Isla. She picked up her biscuit, to take a bite, before changing her mind and placing it back in her lap.

‘Maybe, but I don’t see how knowing what happened helps us to solve Gran’s riddle.’

‘Me neither.’ Isla sighed. ‘All I do know is that Gran really wanted us to work this one out together, but it’s beaten us.’ She fidgeted on her chair and rolled her shoulders as if her neck was hurting. Her gaze turned again to the cliff that was visible through the window, and Driftwood House perched on top.

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