Emily had now discovered that, by searching on EasyBMD it was possible to identify possible birth, marriage and death certificates and to order them online. She had quickly identified all three of her own and, with a frisson of delight, ordered Henry's death certificate too. A quick check confirmed that their cause of death was indeed cited as murder and that a Coroner's Inquest had been held. She ordered a copy of that report too, but would have to wait a few weeks for it to arrive. In the mean time, the mischievous child in her heart was toying with the idea of hanging Henry's death certificate in the lavatory, although she suspected Matt would not approve.

What she hadn't counted on were the two incorrect birth certificates for two other Emily Bradleys born in the same general area of Buckinghamshire in the same quarter of the year as herself. This genealogy was a bit hit and miss, but at least she had the correct information now.

Her next task was to check the census returns and parish records to identify her parents' marriage records and the birth certificates of her siblings. As general registration did not become compulsory until late 1837, William would not have a certificate. Similarly there was unlikely to be any form of marriage certificate for her parents. Luckily she knew that her parents like herself had been married from St Mary Abbotts in Kensington so she knew which parish records to scrutinise.

She had already ordered the birth certificates for James, Mary and Elizabeth. Having been born after 1837 and with her father a law-abiding pillar of the community, their births were properly registered and recorded.

Emily now began to scour the online resources for parish records. These were not as well catalogued as birth certificates so it took her some little while to track down her parents' marriage on 20th December 1832. The information appeared to be a scan of the actual page from the parish record. This was wonderful as, for the first time in many years she saw the signatures of her parents.

She felt a sudden jolt of nostalgia for the mornings she had spent as a small child quietly playing with her doll whilst her mother dutifully answered all her correspondence, her pen scratching over the paper and then, intermittently tapping on the side of the silver ink well as she refilled it every couple of lines. That was why Emily felt a compulsion to answer every email sent to her – it connected her to her mother and her memories of that gracious woman. One day she would share this memory with Matt so he could perhaps understand and not become so exasperated at her habit.

Emily carefully saved a screenshot of the record page and then moved forward in her search.

She almost decided to jump forward to the 1835 records for when William was born, but for some reason she chose not to. Perhaps she wanted to see if any of the acquaintances from her married life were listed in those now ancient pages. She slowly scanned through each page. Occasionally she would come upon a name she recognised and would laugh or purse her lips at the memory it raised.

She had arrived at the entries for October 1833 when she abruptly halted. This had to be wrong, a mistake. There had to be another family called Bradley, after all she had certificates for two other Emily Bradleys, but that was in Buckinghamshire and this was Kensington. This just had to be wrong. But she knew instinctively that it wasn't and what she read on that page broke her heart. William, who she had always accepted as her eldest brother, wasn't. John and Elizabeth Bradley had another son, born in October 1833 and christened in the November of the same year. His name was John Robert. How had she not known? How had this been kept from her? What had become of him to wipe all knowledge of his existence from her life?

She feared the worst, that he had died in infancy and that was why she knew nothing of him. Now she scrutinized every page even more closely, not just looking at christenings and marriages, but now checking for funerals too.

She checked page after page until her wrist hurt from the repetitive mouse movements and her eyes were red raw from staring at the screen. After hours of back breaking exertion she now knew her parents' terrible secrets. Not only was John born in 1833 and her beloved William in 1835, there had been two more siblings born before her brother James in 1839. Daniel Bernard was born in 1836 and was buried just two months later, and Elizabeth Honoria was born in 1837 and was buried a mere nine months later.

Emily carefully saved a screenshot of each precious page - the only way she could honour her lost brothers and sister. Then she wept for them and the anguish of her parents. As a mother to Gideon she could only imagine the trauma her own mother must have suffered to have lost two babies so young and within two years of each other. But what of John? What had happened to John? She had still been unable to find any trace of him.

When Matt returned from the ARC he found an upset Gideon and a puffy eyed and very quiet Emily. She was going through the motions of caring for their son almost automatically and apparently switching from seeming unwilling to touch him to wanting to hold the bemused child in a vice like hug whilst kissing and stroking his head.

"Mammy keeps crying, Daddy. I tried to kiss her better like when I get a boo-boo. Please Daddy, what's wrong with Mammy? I'm scared. " His poor little boy looked at him with frightened pleading eyes, begging his Father to make his Mammy's hurt go away and to make everything all better.

Matt's heart nearly broke not only at his son's sadness, but also that he cared so much for his Mammy. All he could do was usher Gideon into bed giving him extra hugs, kisses and stories and promising that Mammy would be alright in the morning.

Now he had to deal with Emily. This was what he had been afraid of when she decided to investigate her family. She was so far removed from them by time that she could do nothing for them. Their lives were pages in a history book or in some digitised record on the internet. But for her the memories and emotions were still fresh. They were her family and she loved them, and something she had discovered was tearing her apart.

Emily was sat on the sofa, her head in her hands. He sat next to her rubbing her back and shoulders to ease the tension and trying to gently calm her.

"How is he? I didn't mean to frighten him, but the emotions were so overwhelming. I didn't know Matt. How could they have kept this from me? How did I not know?" Her voice was full of anguish and tears had again begun to fall.

"Gideon's fine, precious. Yes he's frightened because you're upset but he'll be OK. He just doesn't understand why. To be honest I don't understand why yet. Do you want to tell me what you found, what it was you didn't know?"

Emily handed Matt the pages from the parish records. The pages that documented the births of three older siblings she knew nothing about and the deaths of two of them.

Now he understood her strange behaviour. Now he was a parent himself he could relate to the anguish she was feeling. Also, he had lost his own baby sister when she was just eighteen months old. He understood the pain of losing a sibling, although at least he had known about her and shared her short life.

"Why didn't they tell me, and why can't I find John?"

"I suppose they wanted to forget it ever happened. You know grief gets some people that way, and from what little you've told me of your father I can't see him as the kind of man to allow wailing and gnashing of teeth. What good would it have done any of you to know that you had two siblings that died in infancy before you were born? William was probably too young to even remember." Matt remembered his own mother sinking deeper into despair after the death of his sister until she finally took her own life in 2122.

Emily looked at him with understanding. "Yes, I suppose you're right. My father wouldn't have allowed anything other than the exact length of mourning stipulated as proper by Society. And no unpleasant shows of emotion would have been allowed. It must have nearly killed my poor mother." She thought of the lovely, gentle woman she so admired and how she used to look at her children with wistful sadness, especially on birthdays and at Christmas. Suddenly those strange moments that she had never understood made sense. At that moment she felt closer to her mother than ever.

"But Matt, what of John? Why can't I find John? The records say he was born in 1833, but there is no record of him dying before 1839. Oh god, what if there was something wrong with him and he was sent away, or committed. Oh Matt, I couldn't bear that."

Matt soothed her as best he could. After her experiences with Henry he could understand her fear. Bedlam was no place of safety and for a small child it would have been akin to a living hell. "Don't jump to conclusions, darlin'. All we know is that he's not in the parish records for St Mary Abbotts. Anyway, hadn't your family moved to Buckinghamshire by then? You've got far enough forward for his death to have been registered. Let's check EasyBMD and see if there is a death certificate."

A search soon showed five death certificates for John Bradleys in the decade from 1837 to 1847. If anything had happened to him, it would have to have been before Emily could have any lasting memory of him and, as she was born in 1842, 1847 seemed a reasonable timescale. All five records were ordered online.

"Now we wait." Emily knew there was nothing to be done until the certificates arrived. With luck one would be for her missing older brother. His death would be infinitely preferable to the other possibilities that swam round her mind.

-0-0-0-

The next few days were almost unbearable for Emily. Matt had arranged for a brief leave of absence from the ARC for her. She was so distracted it would have been dangerous to have her anywhere near the place, not that he was much better. He'd already managed to kill half of a batch of rare Cornus piggae plant specimens from the Paleocene period by pouring bleach onto them instead of growing solution.

He didn't dare go into the field on the one anomaly alert that week, and had persuaded Becker that it was best if he stayed behind. As it was there was no incursion and it was a straight forward closure and clean-up operation, but the mere fact that he felt unable to attend and had left the team short-handed sat badly with him.

It was Thursday evening when he arrived home to find Emily feeding Gideon and a large brown envelope sitting prominently on the kitchen table.

"They've arrived?"

"So it would seem."

"You've not opened them?"

"I thought that would be unwise until you returned, given the … situation last time."

Matt leaned over and kissed his wife on the temple with great tenderness. "I always knew you were an incredibly wise woman." Then he turned his attention to greeting and laughing with his son, taking over cleaning his face and hands from where he had just finished his tea.

Picking Gideon up, he carried him to the living room rug to play with fire trucks and dinosaurs whilst Emily cleared the kitchen in preparation for their own supper.

After Gideon had gone to bed, they sat in the kitchen, eating the meal Emily had prepared. Matt marvelled at what an excellent cook she had become since her arrival in the modern world with no appreciable culinary skills at all, except excellent knife work and an unusual line in tree creeper stew. As they ate, the envelope lay at the other end of the table. Every so often one of them would glance at it, but neither broached the subject.

They finished their meal and Emily tidied the dishes into the dishwasher whilst Matt made cups of tea (they had compromised on the appropriate crockery for tea and found some cheerful bone china mugs which satisfied both of them). As Matt led Emily through to the living room sofa, he picked up the envelope, tucking it under his arm.

"OK, let see what we can find. Are you ready for this darlin'?"

"Yes" Emily bit her lip and twisted her fingers together in her lap. "I need to know."

Matt tore open the envelope and took out the six death certificates. Elizabeth had been born in early 1837 when there was no registration, but had lived long enough for her death to be registered. She had died aged nine months from diarrhoea.

"Oh, no Matt! Poor baby!"

Emily's hand had flown to her mouth as she'd read the words. Both she and Matt came from worlds where this illness, so innocuous in 21st century Britain with its plentiful clean water, was a killer, especially amongst the young, old and weak. Even so, it was a shock.

Perhaps this explained her Mother's hatred of London and her refusal to ever return. Maybe the clean air and water of the countryside were what drove her insistence on long bracing walks and lots of outdoor pursuits. Emily remembered her mother's fondness for "clean air to make you strong." Unknowingly, her mother's obsession had prepared Emily well to survive through the anomaly, creating a strong, vigorous young woman well used to the outdoors instead of a feeble shrinking violet.

Matt wrapped his arm around Emily's shoulders and gave her a gentle hug, before turning his attention to the remaining five certificates. It was the fourth in the pile that proved pertinent.

"John Robert Bradley, born 27th October 1833 in Kensington. Died 5th January 1843 aged 9 years. It says he fell through the ice whilst skating. It was an accident."

"Oh Matt, I was only seven months old. No wonder I have no memory of him. Oh my poor mother." Whilst she felt grief for her lost brother and sorrow for the pain her mother must have felt to lose another child through a foolish accident, compared to the horrors she had imagined for him, this was almost a relief.

The family had moved to Buckinghamshire shortly before James's birth in 1839, it was likely that John was buried at the parish church there. His death certificate stated that he had died on their Hartstone Estate in Buckinghamshire.

"Please Matt. Can we go there this weekend? I would like to try to find his grave and maybe lay flowers. It would ease my mind to say both hello and goodbye to the elder brother I never knew, but who I love none the less. And perhaps my mother will be there too. She died in 1867 and I would like to let her know I am well. The information I have gathered this last week has given me a new appreciation of her strength and a renewed closeness to her."

"Then this was no bad thing, despite the heart ache. It's good to know where you got your strength and tenacity from." Matt smiled tenderly at his wife. She seemed to have accepted this new information about her family and become comfortable with it.

"I'm not expected on call this weekend so why don't we go? I'd love to see where you grew up. I wonder if Hartstone House is still there? It would be interesting to look around."

"It is. I looked it up. It is now a golf and country club with excellent leisure facilities. Perhaps we should book a room and stay overnight. That might prove … interesting."

"Alright, we will. But promise me you won't berate the staff for changing the wallpaper." He tried to look stern but only succeeded in smirking.

"Very well, but if they have damaged the plasterwork there will be hell to pay. The ceilings were by Joseph Cortese." Then she laughed and the tensions of the last few days disappeared.

Perhaps this genealogy thing wasn't so bad after all.

tbc

Oh my that was a bit angsty. I know where I want to end up with this story, but I'm not entirely sure how I'll get there at the moment because Conby keeps popping into my head distracting me. Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear from you.