The Legacy (39 page)

Evelyne sat down, trembling, expectant. The clerk stood waiting for the judge, the ushers closed the doors.

‘Please be upstanding …’

The noisy clamour of everyone rising drowned the last words as Smethurst and Henshaw preceded the judge into the court. Smethurst did not so much as glance at Evelyne, or Sir Charles, who was standing at the back of the court.

The jury filed back into their seats, the foreman obviously nervous, twisting his cloth cap round and round in his hands.

The clerk of the court waited for the judge to settle himself, then stepped up to the jury foreman.

‘You have made your decision?’

‘Yes sir, Your Honour sir, we have, sir.’

‘And is it the decision of all of you?’

‘Yes, sir, it is.’

The clerk held out his hand for the slip of paper in the foreman’s shaking hand. He licked his lips. ‘Please tell the court your decision. Do you find the accused, Freedom Stubbs, guilty or not guilty of murder?’

‘Not guilty.’

The court erupted in one enormous cheer. Evelyne covered her face, the relief was unbearable. She repeated, ‘Not guilty, not guilty,’ over and over as if she could hardly believe it.

Freedom, standing in the dock, lowered his head and wept. The noise of the court was like a drum beating in his brain. A whirlwind whooshed around him, he was floating above everything, no voice was clear, no face -just hands grabbing, shaking his. He realized his handcuffs had been removed without knowing how. It was all a blur of confusion which climaxed in Freedom, surrounded by Sir Charles, Smethurst, Freda and Ed, walking from the court. He was free.

The press clamoured around them, camera flashes popped, the babble of voices asking him to look this way and that way, people screamed at him, wanting to know how it felt to be free. Crowds of women threw flower petals like a wedding party as they stood on the courthouse steps.

Sir Charles waved and smiled to the people, his arm around Freedom, then he held up Freedom’s right arm as if he was in the boxing ring. The crowd went wild, chanting ‘Freedom, Freedom, Freedom …’ and still he kept feeling it was a dream, that he would wake up, at any moment he would wake up in his small cell.

Ed pushed the people away as they moved down to a cavalcade of cars drawing up outside the court. Evelyne put her hands over her face as the flashing cameras blinded her, and she was separated from the main group. In the excitement Ed turned to Miss Freda, who was crying one moment and laughing the next, and shouted to her above the din.

‘Marry me, will you marry me?’

Freda flung herself into his arms and they were carried along by the crowd to the waiting cars.

Evelyne was helped into Ed and Freda’s car. Sir Charles had taken Freedom in the first car, which was now drawing out of the driveway. People ran beside the car, cheering, and Sir Charles waved to them as though he were the Prince of Wales himself.

Smethurst bundled himself into the last car and leaned back, satisfied with himself.

At the hotel, reporters hung around the entrance, more hovered inside the tearoom, and the cameras popped and flashed. They clustered around Sir Charles and Freedom, all talking at once, demanding interviews with the boxer. Sir Charles dominated the proceedings, while Freedom stood at his side.

‘Gentlemen, please, please stay back, we will give a press interview in the morning, please, please stay back.’

Freedom looked over the heads to see Evelyne standing to one side. She seemed as overawed by the whole experience as he was. He tried to catch her eye, but she was jostled by a group of women determined to touch Freedom.

Some large porters arrived on the scene and began to move the crowd out of the hotel. Sir Charles steered Freedom towards the lift, where the snooty bellhop, beside himself, bowed and flushed and smiled to the cameras at the same time. They were the first to get clear of the lobby.

The movement of the lift made Freedom’s heart lurch, and he put out his hands to steady himself.

‘Keep your hands off the sides, sir, or you’ll get hurt.’

The bellhop swung the gates open and Sir Charles stood aside for Freedom to go ahead of him. Dewhurst was hovering at the door of the suite, delighted but trying very hard to remain aloof and cool, as was his place.

‘Book a table for dinner, Dewhurst, take over the small private dining room. Tonight we will celebrate.’

The door to Sir Charles’ suite closed as the second lift reached the third floor, and Freda, Ed and Evelyne stepped out. The pair were so brimming with happiness and excitement that Evelyne’s quietness went unnoticed.

‘You comin’ in? We’ll ‘ave some champagne, double celebration, eh? You told ‘er yet, Freda? Come on, let’s get in there.’

Evelyne was at the door of her own suite before Freda gasped out that she and Ed were going to be married, then Ed pulled Freda’s hand and led her towards Sir Charles’ suite.

Evelyne let herself into her room and closed the door, welcoming the silence, the peace. She was exhausted. She threw her hat on to the bed. So much for Freda’s creations, no one seemed to have noticed her, never mind her clothes.

The bath water was running as Evelyne lay on her bed. She realized then that it was all over, she had finally seen something right through from start to finish. Freedom had been proved innocent, he was free, and instead of feeling elated she felt empty. While the trial had been on, she had had somewhere to go, something to do, and now she had nothing. She knew Sir Charles would be returning to London and, if Freda and Ed married, more than likely her only friend would be gone, too. She was alone, once more she was Miss Evelyne Jones, but now there was no ‘schoolteacher’ after her name. She had nothing. ,

She closed her eyes and tried to think what she would do with her life. The truth was, she didn’t know what she wanted. She hadn’t thought much of home - her Da, yes, but not the village. The verdict would certainly make some of those bitches swallow their words. They all seemed so far away, it was hard for her to believe she had only been away for a matter of weeks. She made up her mind that she would put a call through to the post office, just to see how Da was.

Evelyne had no idea that while she was soaking in the bath the papers were streaming off the printing machines. Headlines declared Freedom Stubbs’ innocence, and there was a large photograph of Freedom standing next to Sir Charles. Below it was a smaller, single photograph of Evelyne. She was called the heroine, the woman who had brought about the gypsy’s release from jail.

EVELYNE may not have thought that anyone had noticed her clothes, but one person did, and was so bitterly angry she tore the newspaper to shreds.

Lizzie-Ann, with a charabanc full of miners’ wives, was on a day trip to Swansea. They had scrubbed their best clothes, begged or borrowed their fares for the trip to listen to a political meeting organized by striking miners’ wives.

The lecturer addressed the women, unaware that actually to be there some of them had spent their week’s food money. Their clothes were clean, why shouldn’t they be? They were proud women, women who would not in any circumstances plead poverty, and their men were proud too. They were there to prove that they encouraged their men to fight for their rights, to claim better wages, they were there to stand up for their striking men.

The naivete of the women, their belief that, by standing up and showing others, they would be followed went sadly amiss. The report that eventually found its way back to the powers-that-be claimed that, judging by the women who had shown up at the meeting, there was not so much hardship as was believed. The women showed no signs of exceptional stress, they seemed clean and prosperous, and it was noted that since the strike the death rate in the villages had dropped. Articles were written by various people stating that the men and boys were benefiting from the open-air life. The women, free from coal dust, began actually to enjoy regular hours. Schoolchildren now had a decent meal provided by the school every day, in some cases eleven meals a week, at a cost to the government of three shillings and sixpence per child. Special supplies of clothes and boots were sent to mining villages.

The state of the women’s minds was even harder to detect than their outward show of ‘prosperous, middle-class women’. The papers reported that they all seemed to be in good spirits, hard-working and running relief funds, collecting money from whist drives, women’s football matches, dances and socials.

None of the government officers seemed really to see these four hundred women or the miners for what they were, an embattled community fighting for its life. The more determined they were to win, the braver the face they showed to the world. As their fellows, the blacklegs, caved in under the strain of unemployment and returned to work, they were slowly breaking the fighting spirit. The ridiculous calculations of strike pay and poor relief screamed out by government propaganda nailed their coffins down.

The strike was almost over, but the women didn’t know it yet. As they travelled back to their villages they had high hopes that they had accomplished much for their men. The year was 1926, and it was a sad year for almost all the families of the largest single body of workers in the country. They had lost their battle and returned to work, caps in hands, defeated.

The Rhondda contingent was on the last stage of the journey. Tired, happy and ignorant, they passed around a bottle of gin they had clubbed together to buy. As the bus careered and jolted over the rough roads, the women sang their hearts out. ‘My Little Grey Home in the West…’ For some who had never travelled beyond their village, it was a day out to remember for the rest of their lives.

Lizzie-Ann cavorted up and down the aisle, hanging on as the charabanc rounded the sharp mountain bends. She was doing her old music-hall turns. She flopped into one of the empty seats at the back and saw a clutter of newspapers, a couple of days old, crumpled up on the floor. They had been used to wrap sandwiches in Swansea. The photograph of Evelyne stared up from the floor.

‘They only gone an’ freed the bugger, he’s been proved innocent … will you look at ‘er, all togged out for a dance an’ mixin’ with the posh people, an ‘er a dirty gyppo lover.’

One skinny woman stood up and said that in her opinion if a man was proved innocent in a court then that was the Lord’s word.

‘You’re only saying that, Agnes Morgan, because your old man’s been inside more times than you’ve had hot dinners, so siddown and shuddup.’

The rain started pelting down, and the bus bumped and rolled its way to the valley. Lizzie-Ann held a shredded piece of the paper. She smoothed it out on her worn skirt and studied the picture in minute detail.

Evelyne looked like a lady, standing there with a titled gent and wearing her fancy clothes. Lizzie-Ann couldn’t help but compare herself, her worn, red hands, her stockingless legs and her puffy feet encased in hand-me-down lace-up shoes with thick, unflattering soles. Lizzie-Ann couldn’t contain herself, she started to sob, her whole body shook, and all the bitterness and jealousy rose to the surface. ‘I hate her, I hate her guts! It should have been me, it should have been me!”

The rain was still bucketing down as the women made their way home. Depression hung over every house in the village, and none more so than at Hugh Jones’. He stared into the fire, shaking his head. He had failed, the men had trusted him and now they were to return to work for even lower wages. He pounded the mantelpiece with his fist. ‘Bastards … Bastards… You bloody bastards!’

Lizzie-Ann pushed open the back door and chucked in the torn and muddy newspaper. ‘Here, Hugh Jones, read what your own’s doin’, whilst we’re stuck here fightin’ for a livin’ wage, you should be ashamed of her. She’ll never step over my front sill again, that’s for sure.’

She banged the door shut so loud the curtains along the street flickered and faces peered out into the dark, rainy night.

Hugh picked up the paper, pressed it out flat on the table and saw his daughter’s beloved face crowned with a smart hat. She was staring arrogantly into the camera. Above her was a picture of Sir Charles Wheeler, one of them rich land-owning bastards, how could she? Hugh felt a shadow cross his grave, and slowly he picked the paper up and stared at the photograph of Sir Charles Wheeler. He was holding the arm of the boxer, Freedom Stubbs, above his head.

Hugh dropped the paper and grabbed his cap, the back door banged once more and the curtains along the street flickered. The neighbours watched the big, . hunched figure of Hugh Jones walking down the street.

‘Probably goin’ to Gladys’s.’

But Hugh went into the pub. The place was empty apart from a few old’uns, and they sat hunched with their fags stuck in the corners of their mouths, playing dominoes.

‘Yaaalright, Hugh lad? I’ll have a half if you’re buyin’, and if you’re not, sod ya.’

Hugh paid them no attention. He carried his frothing pint to an empty table and sat down. The men’s hacking coughs and mutterings were accompanied by dull thwacks from the dartboard. Jim, Lizzie-Ann’s husband, with his skeletal frame, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, stole sly looks at Hugh, but Hugh seemed not to notice. He was drinking steadily, draining his glass and banging it down for a refill.

‘Ya gel’s gone off with a gyppo, we hear, Hugh boy. Like ‘em big, does she?’

The toothless old domino players cackled and coughed and went silent as they fingered their empty mugs.

Eventually, Hugh lurched out of the pub, and one old boy creaked to his feet and pottered over to drain the very last dregs from Hugh’s fifth pint.

‘All right fer some buggers, course, she hadda legacy, that’s wot’s carryin’ ‘im.’

Gladys could smell the drink on Hugh’s breath. She said nothing, but folded her arms. She’d not seen him this bad before. He had a tipple like the rest of the men, but he was well away tonight. ‘Have you eaten, lovey?’

‘The lad got off free, Gladys, the gypsy, they found him not guilty.’

Gladys pursed her lips.

‘Well, we know who we’ve got to thank for that, so the least said the better.’