Women on the Home Front (81 page)

‘I was dead lucky to find a man like Simeon,' said Kez. ‘I told him what happened and he still wanted to marry me. Any other gypsy girl in my position would have been mullered.'

Largely through Eva's efforts, and a campaign in the local paper, Connie had been vindicated. Of course, Matron never apologised for believing the letters she'd received nor for judging Connie so harshly but it was enough that Connie was allowed to continue her nursing. Several other people came forward as victims of Aggie's poison pen but because she was already in prison on a much greater charge, no case was brought against her. Connie and Eva had passed their exams at the end of 1949 under the umbrella of the new National Health Service but Connie didn't stay long at her post. She had married in the summer of 1950. Eva had to wait another year until her fiancé would be a fully qualified doctor and then they could marry, but at last her wedding plans were underway.

Connie continued to visit Kez and the family and it was during a meal with them that Peninnah began her family discourse again. Connie had heard it many times before but this time something resonated with her. ‘Little Mac took the tattooed lady's mare,' Pen recited, ‘and Abe gave Little Mac a piece of bread and a quart of ale but there was none for 'e, so he died …'

‘Can you say that again?' said Connie. Pen went back a further couple of generations and returned to the same sentence. Connie could hardly breathe. Didn't Cissy Maxwell once tell her something about a Little Mac in her family? How did the same name belong in both stories? Or was it only one story? As far as she knew, Cissy and the gypsies weren't related and yet this incident had apparently had a big influence on them both. But who was the tattooed lady? And more to the point, who was Little Mac? She and Eva had gone back to Cissy who had filled in some of the blanks. She had explained to them that Little Mac was Tobias Maxwell who had lived in the last century. A small, vain and greedy man, he had been ostracised by his community but even though they'd probed her with questions, Cissy didn't know why. Cissy had dug out some old photographs and Connie and Eva were surprised to see that in quite a few of them, both of their families were together. They found pictures of the Maxwells and the Dixons on picnics, on an outing somewhere in a large farm cart together and as part of a country dancing troupe.

‘They were all friends back then,' said Eva. ‘So what happened?'

Cissy shrugged. ‘I was only a little girl,' she said, ‘but I think it was something to do with Tobias and money.'

‘Do you know any more?' Connie wanted to know.

Cissy shook her head. ‘Abraham Dixon was a stonemason. It could have been something to do with that.'

Intrigued, Connie and Eva agreed to spend an afternoon in Patching looking for any trace of her ancestor. His cottage was still standing but his workshop was long gone. The lady who lived there had never even heard of Abraham.

‘You should find Ernie Sinclair,' she said. ‘He's lived in this village for nigh on sixty years. He usually sits on the bench outside the pub.'

‘You mean Mr Sinclair the road sweeper?' asked Connie. She remembered him from her childhood when he'd walked through the streets with a wheelbarrow, a long-handled brush and a spade. The streets of Patching were spotless.

Eventually they came across him and were pleased to find he remembered Connie and her family.

‘I remember you when you were knee high to a grasshopper,' he smiled. His gums glistened in the sunshine. ‘And now you're having one of your own?'

Connie told him about being a nurse and about her marriage to the most wonderful man in the world.

‘I'm glad,' said Mr Sinclair. ‘Your father would have been very proud of you. He was a good man, Jim Dixon.'

‘We wanted to ask you about our families,' said Connie.

Ernie Sinclair remembered the story well. So well that as he told them, he could hardly contain his amusement. ‘Abe agreed to carve old Mrs Maxwell's headstone,' he said.

‘That would be Tobias Maxwell's mother?'

The old man nodded.

‘So was it a case of taking the money but not doing the work?' asked Connie.

‘Oh no,' chuckled the old man. ‘He done the work all right. It still be up the church yard. Caused a right stink I tell ye. I remembers my granfer telling me, nobody spoke to him after that.'

The two women found their way to the church and spent the afternoon walking around looking at the inscriptions on the headstones. Some of them were almost impossible to read but as far as they could see, Maude Maxwell's stone wasn't there. Just as they were about to leave, they came across the grave-digger. ‘The old Maxwell stone? It's up by the yew tree,' he said. ‘They turned it round so no one could see.'

Connie's heart skipped a beat. ‘Then it's still there,' she gasped.

The graveyard was in pristine condition apart from one overgrown area where the yew tree crowded out the sunlight and created a dank atmosphere. The ground was uneven and Eva was afraid Connie might trip. There was one stone leaning against the flint stone wall and a few broken bits of headstone scattered among the brambles. The broken stones were pieces of headstones which had been erected in the path of the prevailing wind and had eventually come off.

‘It's got to be that one,' said Eva, pointing to the large stone against the wall.

‘Let's hope so,' said Connie, ‘or this has all been in vain.'

It was only with great difficulty that they managed to move the heavy stone. Eva wanted to wait until they could find some strong men to lend a hand bearing in mind Connie's condition but she was far too impatient. They had to pull away the grass and get rid of some brambles but at last they uncovered the inscription which had caused Little Mac to be ostracised by the whole village and the two families to stop speaking to each other.

Eva began to laugh first, but Connie seemed puzzled. One line had obviously been defaced and the last line looked like an afterthought.

‘That “gl” was once an “s” wasn't it?' said Eva pointing to the inscription. ‘Sadly has been changed into gladly.'

‘So it has,' said Connie beginning to chuckle.

‘I suppose it's a bit tame by today's standards,' said Eva, ‘but back in Victorian times it must have been quite shocking.'

‘So this was the start of it,' said Connie. ‘By the time Arthur married your Gran, the families had been at loggerheads for more than twenty years.'

‘It's got to end,' said Eva. ‘It's not our fight.'

‘We should get everyone to come here for a picnic,' said Connie, suppressing a grin.

‘I can't see your great aunt agreeing to that,' said Eva.

‘Well, she's going to have to,' said Connie. ‘Perhaps if she sees this, she'll realise how ridiculous it is to hold grudges.'

They both giggled. ‘When shall we do it?' said Eva.

‘How about Bank Holiday Monday?' said Connie.

Unusually for a Bank Holiday, the weather was perfect. Mandy burst back through the open door, with all the exuberance of an over-excited eleven-year-old. ‘Hurry up, Mummy. They're all going to go without you!'

‘Nobody's going without your mother, Mandy.' Connie was relieved to hear Clifford's calming voice coming into the room behind her. He walked towards Gwen and beamed, ‘Come on now, my lovely. Take my arm and we'll be off.'

Connie couldn't have been happier. Just a few years ago she had dreaded that her family would be twelve thousand miles away and that she might never see them again. If the incident with Aggie and Stan had a positive side, it was that it had brought the family closer together. Once Ga realised how devious Stan had been and how manipulative Aggie was and the terrible things she had done, she was utterly repentant. It took Gwen a while to forgive Ga but things were a lot better now. Aggie's name was linked to the thefts as well. She'd obviously done it because she was so miffed that Eugène and Isaac hadn't given her logs during the winter of 1947 and had done her best to blacken his name. Having seen Reuben's caravan, one gypsy home was much the same as every other and so she had planted the watch. A search of the cellar revealed Mrs Wright's pearl brooch.

Ga was still awkward around Cissy Maxwell but with Roger and Eva being such an integral part of family occasions, her tongue was gradually becoming more civil. The thought of poor Leslie's body hidden all those years in the trunk in Aggie's cellar was almost too much for Ga.

‘I said such awful things about him,' she lamented. ‘May God forgive me.'

As for Roger, he'd been upset that things didn't work out for Connie and him but not for long. He may have been disappointed, but Roger wasn't the sort of man to hold grudges.

Ga and Kenneth had had a tearful reunion and she had helped him and his new wife to set up a small business and find a flat of their own. Clifford was a changed man too. Ever since Ga signed the nurseries over to him and moved out, he'd had the place buzzing. There was a proper shop now and a small café where Gwen served teas. A new start in Australia was forgotten. They had all they wanted in Worthing.

Outside in the yard, already baked in August sunshine, friends and family waited patiently. Roger had collected Cissy and Vi from Durrington. He looked a lot more relaxed now that he'd come out of bomb disposal. He was working as a military advisor for the government now. He blew Connie a kiss as she emerged through the door. Kenneth and Pearl were behind Roger in their Ford Prefect, with their two children, Dick and Johnny in the back seat. It was unusual for Kenneth to leave his cabinet making business but he had given himself and the three disabled servicemen who worked with him the day off. Ga sat in the back of Clifford's car and Gwen sat next to her husband.

Connie made her way to a battered Humber and gazed into the face of her beloved husband. There hadn't been a day since he'd held her in his arms in Aggie's kitchen that Connie hadn't thanked God for Eugène Étienne. Things had finally looked up for him when the boggy wasteland he'd bought along the seafront fell under the watchful eye of three developers. Eugène held on until the price had almost doubled. He used the cash to buy a cottage and had it done up before selling it on. Having done it more than once, by the time Connie finished her training, he had enough money to buy a house with an outhouse which he converted into a studio. With the Festival of Britain sweeping the country, Eugène's paintings were selling like hot cakes.

‘Ready sweetheart?' he said softly.

‘Ready,' she grinned.

The picnic was wonderful and later, when the children were all tuckered out, Connie and Eva explained why they had brought them all back to Patching.

‘We've found the reason why our two families fell out all those years ago,' Connie explained. ‘When I heard Peninnah telling the story of the tattooed lady, I realised that must have been Aunt Gertrude.'

Gwen took in her breath. ‘Not the same Aunt Gertrude who ran off with the chap from the fairground?'

‘Only she didn't join the fairground,' Connie nodded. ‘She became the wife of a gypsy. Aunt Gertrude was Pen's grandmother.'

‘So our family and Kez's family are related?' cried Ga incredulously.

‘'Fraid so,' Connie grinned. ‘And it gets better.'

She told them how Abraham Dixon had made the edifice for a Maxwell tomb. She pointed out the masterpiece, complete with crowns, trumpets, exotic plants and the inscription, which was magnificent but it seems that Abraham wasn't paid. And when he wasn't paid for another tombstone, that of the man's widow, Tobias Maxwell's mother, he was very upset.

‘When Pen tells her oracle,' Connie went on, ‘she says Abe, that's Abraham Dixon gave Little Mac, that was Tobias Maxwell, a piece of bread and a quart of ale but there was none for him and so he died …'

Gwen frowned. ‘So, what does that mean?'

‘On the day they struck the deal,' Eva explained, ‘the two men shared a meal.'

‘But Abraham Dixon wasn't paid,' Connie continued, ‘and shortly after he'd completed the work he died.'

‘But that's so sad!' cried Vi Maxwell. ‘I feel terrible now.'

‘I think he may have known his time was coming,' said Connie, ‘because he had time to exact his revenge.'

They took the family into the churchyard and showed them Abraham Dixon's handiwork. It took a few minutes to sink in and then everyone was laughing.

‘In loving memory of Margaret Maude Maxwell.

b. June 21 1813 d. Jan 31 1883.

Gladly missed by her son.

What is life without you?

Peace, perfect peace.

Connie watched them laughing, all the people she loved most in the world, together and happy. Best of all, Ga and Cissy stood together, arm in arm.

I should like to thank my agent Juliet Burton, my editors Caroline Hogg and Helen Bolton, and the wonderful team at HarperCollins Avon for their encouragement and above all their friendship.

The letter had come as a bit of a shock.

Of course he knew he had been there. It was the place where they'd stayed in that amazing old manor house. He'd been with a crowd of mates on a so-called cultural exchange to Poitou- Charentes in France, organised by the local council. The idea was to foster relations with the people of the area as part of the twinning of their two regions.

Jason worked in the Parks department and his older brother, Tom, worked in the electoral registration department.

‘There's a whole crowd of us going, Jase,' Tom had said. ‘You should come too. It'll be a laugh.'

‘What, boring civic dinners and a load of OAP coach trips?' Jason had laughed. ‘I don't think so.'