No one asked why Emily wasn’t there, and they didn’t comment on her father either. Maybe they would discuss them when they got home, or in the pub over the next few days, but Molly didn’t care about that. She’d laid her parents to rest, and her mother, at least, had gone with everyone remembering her for her kindness and warmth.
Enoch Flowers even made her laugh. He’d put on a suit, which obviously passed in his eyes for ‘best’, but it was shiny with age, had mildew marks on the jacket and stank of it, too. He approached Molly to compliment her on getting justice for Cassie and rescuing Petal. He said Cassie would rest easy knowing she had such a good friend.
‘Yer ma was a kind soul, too,’ he said. ‘Many’s the time she slipped me a few rashers of bacon or a lump of cheese when the old man weren’t looking. She seemed to always know when I was skint. Now yer dad was a miserable bastard and no mistake. I can’t bring meself to lie about him just to cheer you. Wouldn’t be right, but you just make sure when you get the insurance money that you go over to his grave and pour a drop of whisky on it to thank him for sparing you the need to care for him when he was an old codger like me.’
A little black humour was just the lift she needed, and she planted a thank-you kiss on his heavily lined cheek. ‘I like it when people say what they really mean,’ she told him. ‘That would’ve made Cassie laugh, too.’
‘You and young Walsh oughtter get married,’ he said, wagging a very grubby finger at her. ‘Plain as the nose on me face you was meant for each other. And why don’t you adopt little Petal and give her a good home? You’ll have some brass coming from the insurance and, besides, I know you’ve always had a soft spot for her.’
George was just walking towards them, and he smiled because he’d heard what Enoch had said. As the old man moved away, George took her hand.
‘Sometimes old folk see things clearer than us,’ he said, still smiling. ‘And I know the only thing I want for Christmas is you.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
May 1955
‘Ready?’ Ted Bridgenorth asked as he opened the door of the limousine and reached in to take the wedding bouquet of pale-pink roses from Molly.
‘Willing, and able, too,’ she laughed, lowering her feet to the ground, then, scooping up the skirt and train of her dress, she stood up.
It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. St Barnaby’s in Sawbridge was a pretty eleventh-century church, but it looked even prettier than usual as, today, the churchyard cherry trees were a mass of pink blossom. On either side of the path to the lychgate stately white tulips pushed through a mass of dark-blue forget-me-nots.
Petal was waiting at the lychgate with Evelyn Bridgenorth and Dilys, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement at being Molly’s smaller bridesmaid. She looked a picture in a duck-egg-blue satin dress and with a garland of white rosebuds in her curly, dark hair. Dilys’s dress was the same colour and style, except it had a scoop neck rather than the high one Petal’s had.
‘I’ll lift your train until we get to the church porch,’ Ted said, bending to gather it up. ‘We don’t want it sweeping the path and taking leaves and God knows what into the church.’
‘I hope George hasn’t changed his mind and fled,’ Molly said with a wide smile, knowing that would be impossible.
Ted laughed. ‘I think there would be a posse at the gate ready to turn us away if that were the case.’
‘There’s still time to change your mind and let me marry George,’ Dilys joked.
‘I believe in sharing with friends,’ said Molly, ‘but I wouldn’t go that far, not even for you. But his brother, Harry, is available still!’
Evelyn arranged Molly’s train at the church porch and put the end of it in Petal’s hands.
‘Now, don’t forget you put it down when Molly reaches the altar, where George will be waiting. Uncle Ted will take his place alongside Harry, the best man, ready to give Molly away. You take her flowers and take a couple of steps back to stand in the aisle, alongside Dilys, like the very important person you are!’
When Molly heard the church organ begin to play the Wedding March she turned her head and blew a kiss to Petal, who had a smile almost as wide as the River Avon. Evelyn nipped past her and into the church, and Ted crooked his arm and smiled. ‘Shall we go, Miss Heywood? Your last few steps with that name.’
Nothing had ever felt so right. To be in the church which had been such a major part of her childhood with George, the boy who had held her hand on her first day at school, waiting for her at the altar rail.
He had proposed to her on Christmas Eve, and he’d done it properly and reverently, getting down on one knee outside the church, just as they were going in to the midnight service. He had even bought a ring, a small sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds and, amazingly, it fitted perfectly.
All through the service he had kept reaching for her hand and smiling. It wasn’t possible to erase the sadness of her parents’ deaths entirely, but it went an awfully long way towards it.
It was a lovely Christmas, the best she’d ever known. The Walshes were a lively, warm family, and they were anxious to draw her in with them and keep her for ever. After so many dreary Christmas days with her own parents, her father carping about everything and her mother afraid to laugh or agree with anything Molly said, it was like soothing ointment on a wound.
Now, finally, they were to be married.
When the vicar asked the groom to lift Molly’s veil, George felt his heart swelling up and becoming tight in his chest because Molly looked so lovely. He had always thought of her as the prettiest girl in Sawbridge but, in her ivory satin dress, she looked simply beautiful. Her skin was radiant, her hair fixed up in some kind of topknot with her veil but with little curls escaping onto her pink cheeks. And those beautiful blue eyes were fixed on him as if he were a god.
The church was packed. It was, after all, the wedding that even the most cynical people in the village had wanted to take place.
Earlier today, George’s father had given his opinion about the impending marriage. ‘Son, if I’d been asked to pick the right girl for you, Molly would have been my first and only choice. She’s got a mind, a caring heart, a ton of patience and a pretty face. You belong together.’
George might have always believed she was the girl for him, but it had been a long road and, even after the engagement, there had still been hurdles in the way.
Miss Gribble was hanged on 2 January. The newspapers had a field day with it, rehashing every last bit of information about her, Christabel, Sylvia and Molly, and plenty of newer, juicy stuff that had surfaced during the trial.
Molly was struggling enough with all the dreadful memories it brought back, and she wasn’t prepared for all the extra gossip and speculation in the village. It got to the point where she couldn’t leave the house without someone accosting her. And these people often grew indignant and quite nasty when she said she had nothing to say about it.
Things got so bad she opted to go back to work in Rye. She used the excuse that she needed to work, but George knew it was more because she was afraid Petal might be having the same difficulties.
He understood. It was quite feasible that Petal might get to hear things that would upset her, and Molly could explain things in a way a little girl would understand. Another reason to leave Sawbridge was the burnt-out shop; each time Molly passed, it was an unwanted memory of how her parents had died.
George had swallowed his disappointment, agreed she should go and put in for his sergeant’s exam, which he’d been talking about taking for over a year. Without Molly in the house he had no distractions from studying for the exam, and one weekend in four he drove his motorbike down to see her.