by Katie Flynn
Mo noticed a little window giving on to the tack room, and thought she could see movement on the other side. She went nearer and heard voices, then peeped through the glass and made out the dressing table. Even as she began to pluck up her courage to go and ask if she might buy it from the new owner, she saw a large dark-haired man raise an axe above his head and bring it crashing down on the wood.
Mo gasped just as a voice she had once known well came to her ears. ‘Cyril! Mind where you’re wavin’ that perishin’ thing. You nearly had me bleedin’ ear off,’ it said peevishly. ‘Why d’you want to destroy it, eh? I quite fancy a pretty piece of furniture, instead of the old rubbish your Auntie Letty thinks so posh.’
Mo stood on tiptoe and peered more closely, then hastily dropped on to all fours. She could not possibly be mistaken; it was the Huxtables! It had been more than seven years since she had seen them last but she would have known them anywhere, particularly the old woman. If only Jimmy were here, he would have known what to do! When they had lived in the Court he had told her to run to him if she was in trouble, but Jimmy was doing his National Service, so she would get her father – and Auntie Glenys, too – to tell the scuffers that they must arrest the wicked Huxtables before they could do any more mischief to her beautiful dressing table. She crawled carefully across the stable floor and did not rise to her feet until she reached the half-door which led out to the yard. Then she ran like the wind, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the Huxtables. When she collided with someone she was already breathless, and for a moment could not answer his: ‘’ello, ’ello, ’ello? What’s up with you, queen?’
‘Oh, constable . . . thank goodness! There’s a crime being committed not far from here and I want you to arrest someone; two someones in fact. They’ve got an axe and are breaking up the very dressing table I’ve set my heart on. Only we’d best fetch my dad in case you don’t believe me.’ She tugged imperiously at the constable’s jacket. ‘Please, do hurry, or they’ll escape!’
The policeman was beginning to argue as they reached Sam and Glenys, and Sam, conscious that his daughter had a bee in her bonnet about the Huxtables, would have pooh-poohed her fears, but Glenys had never forgotten the wretched state the children had been in when she had first met them, and joined her voice to Mo’s. ‘I’d be very much obliged, constable, if you’d come with us, especially if Cyril Huxtable has an axe. He’s a dangerous man without one, but armed . . . I shudder to think what he might do.’
The policeman looked at Glenys’s earnest face and Mo’s frightened one, and nodded gravely. ‘Lead on, young lady,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong, but I do seem to remember the name Huxtable from somewhere, so if it really is him, I’ll take him in charge.’
When they got back to the farm, the whole story came tumbling out. Despite his initial objection Sam had agreed to accompany Mo, Glenys and the constable to the stable block and find out if Mo really had seen someone wielding an axe. ‘Though why anyone would want to destroy a nice little piece of furniture in this day and age, I can’t imagine,’ Sam had said. ‘It’s not as if the weather’s cold and the fellow needed kindling for his fire . . . ah, there’s the stable. In we go, constable.’
As they entered the tack room, two enquiring faces turned towards them, and Mo shrank back until she was half hidden by Glenys. The man began to speak, demanding angrily why they were all staring at him and his mother. ‘And if you want to know why I’m smashin’ this perishin’ dressing table, it’s to get at my wallet what I’d put safely away in the middle drawer for the journey home, only somehow the drawer got stuck and it’s got all my money in it.’ He turned to the old woman. ‘Ain’t that so, Ma?’
‘Oh, really?’ the constable said, with a world of disbelief in his tone. ‘That sounds a pretty thin story, Mr Cyril Huxtable.’
Cyril’s eyes fairly bulged. ‘Cyril Huxtable?’ he said, his voice vibrant with astonishment. ‘Who’s Cyril Huxtable? I ain’t never heard of no one by that name. What makes you think I’m him?’
Sam began to laugh. ‘I know this man,’ he said. ‘And his name’s certainly not Cyril Huxtable. He was a rating aboard my ship towards the end of the war. His name’s Ernie Beaver, and he and I had several run-ins, Mr Beaver not understanding the difference between yours and mine as regards rum rations and personal property. In fact he’s a thoroughly unreliable person whom the Navy will be glad to do without in future.’
But Mo, standing at her father’s elbow, gave him a nudge. ‘Dad, I don’t know Ernie Beaver but I do know Cyril Huxtable, truly I do, and that’s who he is, and that fat old woman . . .’
Sam looked from Cyril to his mother, and smote his forehead. ‘You’re right, Mo; that’s the woman who came to the door when I was searching for you and Jimmy.’ He turned to the policeman. ‘There’s something very strange going on here,’ he said. ‘That woman is definitely Mrs Huxtable, which would seem to indicate . . .’
The fat old woman gave Sam a malevolent look. ‘It ain’t got nothin’ to do wi’ me,’ she said. She pointed dramatically at Mo. ‘As for that kid, she’s a real bad ’un, pilferin’, lyin’, gettin’ honest folk into trouble . . . why, she tied my son’s bootlaces together so he measured his length down the stairs. Ain’t that so, Cyril?’
Cyril was beginning to agree when he saw the trap yawning in front of him and tried desperately to unsay his mother’s words, but it was too late. The policeman did not move quickly enough, however, and Cyril was running before the man had so much as produced his handcuffs. Mrs Huxtable wept and wailed and used language seldom heard on the lips of a female, trying to prove that she had known nothing about the false identity which her son had acquired. ‘’Cos I ain’t gettin’ done for no murder,’ she whined, giving the policeman another reason for taking her straight to the cells.
‘Murder bein’ a word no scuffer can ignore,’ he said solemnly, clicking the handcuffs into place. ‘Come along now, and less of that language if you please.’
Mrs Huxtable had promptly begun to protest her innocence, condemning Cyril again without a moment’s hesitation. She had seemed quite content to blame her son for everything, and Sam, Glenys and Mo had watched with fascination as she was carried off in a black Maria, cursing freely.
Nain and Taid listened in astonishment to the story of this very odd example of a mother’s love, but when it was all told Taid nodded his grizzled head. ‘Sometimes we gets a sow which tries to eat her own babbies,’ he said. ‘We call her a rogue, and some other beast is give her piglets to rear. I reckon your Mrs Huxtable is a rogue, in every sense of the word.’
Cyril Huxtable had been nabbed down at the docks, trying to wheedle his way aboard a cargo boat bound for South America, and was now in custody and about to stand trial for the theft of Ernest Beaver’s identity, including the taking of his wages for several years. Mrs Huxtable was also in prison and would stay there for a long time, since not only had she aided and abetted her son in his fraud, but she had abused her position as carer of Sam Trewin’s children, stealing money and anything else she could lay her hands on meant for Jimmy and Mo, and interfering with His Majesty’s mail. Given her age, it was possible she would spend the rest of her life behind bars.
The riddle of the destruction of the dressing table was a mystery until Mo asked if she might get someone to mend it, and her father had agreed. ‘Though why Cyril was chopping it up is beyond me,’ he admitted frankly. ‘Was there anything of value in the locked drawer, when the carpenter got it open?’
‘No, nothing,’ his daughter assured him. ‘Just a box full of stage jewellery. Dad, did you know Mrs Rathbone was quite a well-known music hall artiste when she was young? The carpenter said his mam had been her dresser at one time, Mrs Rathbone’s I mean, only she was called Miss Tilly, Songbird of the North, then. He said that when you’re on the stage real jewellery looks insig – insigni . . .’
‘Insignificant,’ her father supplied. ‘Cyril must have bel
ieved the jewels to be real. He’s quite stupid enough to go stealing something worthless.’
Glenys found it difficult even to pretend sorrow at the old woman’s fate, for she remembered the two little waifs, skinny as sticks, who had come to her room on that dark December night. She had thought them delightful children, and had she not intervened they might never have escaped the Huxtables’ brutal rule. Glenys sighed, but decided that the Huxtables had got what was coming to them; and anyway, she had more important things to think about.
So now, at the end of September on the actual eve of her wedding, Glenys was trying to be calm and sensible. She had spent the afternoon scrubbing the cottage and rearranging the furniture for the hundredth time. She had made up the bed with lavender-scented sheets from Nain’s linen press and she had helped put the finishing touches to the wedding breakfast which would be held, after the church ceremony, at Weathercock Farm. She smiled across the kitchen at her husband-to-be, who was placidly darning socks. Glenys had giggled but Sam had assured her that seamen were past masters at many of the tasks she had once thought to be women’s work.
Sam looked up from his task and smiled lovingly at her. ‘These past few weeks haven’t been as hard for you as they have for me,’ he observed. ‘It’s been like sitting at a table with a wonderful meal spread out before one, unable to take so much as a mouthful. Tomorrow . . .’
Mo had been sitting on the floor stitching away at the rag rug she was making as a wedding present for Glenys. It was almost finished, only needing half an hour’s work to complete, but as she dug her needle into the braiding she raised a frowning face to her father’s. ‘I don’t get it,’ she said plaintively. ‘It isn’t as if we mean to eat Auntie Glenys tomorrow, so what do you mean?’
Glenys intervened quickly. ‘It’s what we call a figure of speech,’ she explained. ‘We wanted to get married months and months ago, but I didn’t want an army wedding and neither did Sam, so I stayed with my section until they decided to demob me . . .’
‘Oh, I know all that,’ Mo said impatiently. ‘But you’re going to get married tomorrow so I still don’t understand . . .’
Sam put down his darning, bit the end off the wool and grinned at Mo. ‘Sorry, poppet, it was a daft thing to say,’ he said remorsefully. ‘I think the best way of putting it is to say that the past few weeks, with both of us living at Weathercock Farm, have tried our patience somewhat. We were living together without being able to behave as married people. Does that satisfy you?’
Mo thought for a moment and then spoke with her usual devastating directness. ‘Do you mean you can’t sleep in the same bed together? That’s the only thing which will change tomorrow, isn’t it? And if I’m right . . .’
Glenys decided it was time to put her oar in. ‘You know too much, young lady,’ she said severely. ‘And if you’ve nearly finished the braiding on the rug you might nip upstairs and try on your bridesmaid dress. It’s hanging on the door in our bedroom. And try the satin slippers on as well; they’re in the wardrobe by the . . .’
‘I know, I know, and I’ll be down again in two ticks,’ Mo gabbled. ‘I wish you could try your dress on too, but Dad might see and that would be bad luck. Oh, how I’m looking forward to tomorrow! Though of course I’ll miss you, because Nain and Taid say I’m not to go down to the cottage for two whole weeks. Taid says it’s the nearest you’ll come to a honeymoon, whatever that may mean . . .’
But the rest of her remarks were lost as she ran up the stairs, still chattering gaily.
Glenys and Sam exchanged a speaking glance and Sam blew out his cheeks in a long whistle. ‘Phew! That kid’s too knowing by half,’ he observed. ‘But living on a farm with all the animals around, it would be strange if she didn’t know the facts of life.’ He sighed and stretched luxuriously. ‘Oh, well! Come and sit on my lap so I can give you a cuddle.’
Glenys got to her feet, but before she could take up Sam’s invitation the back door opened and Nain and Taid came into the kitchen. Glenys hastily went over to the Aga and pulled the kettle over the flame, promising the newcomers a cup of tea just as soon as the kettle boiled. ‘Mo’s gone upstairs to try on her bridesmaid dress,’ she said rather awkwardly. ‘She’ll be down in a minute.’
Nain laughed. ‘She’s only had it on a hundred times since that woman agreed to lend it to her,’ she said. ‘She’s been queening it over the rest of her class for weeks. I keep pointing out that everyone in the school will rush out at eleven o’clock to watch the bride coming out of church – and you, Sam – but she still wants a promise from all her pals that they’ll make sure her teacher is there to cheer her on.’
Presently Mo joined them, looking, Sam told her, prettier than any bridesmaid had a right to look. But Nain tutted disapprovingly as she and Glenys laid the table and got out the food which had been set aside for supper. ‘You’re becoming a conceited little madam,’ she said, making shooing movements with both hands. ‘Go and take that beautiful dress off before you spill something on it, and don’t get too near the fire, because in my opinion that gauzy stuff would go up like a firework if a spark flew up and landed on it.’
Her granddaughter gave a squeak of dismay and fled, lifting up her pink silk skirts and displaying scratched bare legs, down-at-heel ankle socks, and the fact that the pink satin slippers were a trifle too large. ‘I’m going, I’m going,’ she said as she clattered up the stairs. ‘Oh, I can’t wait until tomorrow! I just hope that the guests don’t eat all the grub while I’m changing, which I’ll have to do because we promised Mrs Reynolds that I would only wear the dress for the ceremony itself.’
When her bright head had disappeared and they heard a bedroom door slam shut, Glenys and Nain smiled at one another.
‘She’s a good girl, despite her funny ways,’ Nain said, beginning to slice the loaf. ‘It’s a pity she can’t wear the dress for the wedding breakfast, but she wouldn’t enjoy herself if she was worrying all the time about keeping it clean.’ She glanced across at Glenys. ‘And of course you’re in the same position. I’d heard that Pinewood studios rented out wedding dresses that actresses had worn in the films, but I never thought I’d see one. What a good thing your mate told you how to arrange it! It’s a pity you have to take it off once you leave the church, but I dare say you won’t mind – by then you’ll be a married woman at last!’
‘At last,’ Sam echoed with a quizzical smile. ‘I’m staying at the cottage overnight so I don’t see my wife-to-be until I reach the church. Glory be, I don’t know how I can wait!’
Glenys laughed. ‘Remember that you proposed to me ages ago, when we were both still in uniform,’ she reminded him. ‘It’s a perishing miracle that we’re still both sane and in our right minds. Oh, Sam, now that it’s getting so near I’m downright nervous.’
‘Oh yeah? Well, don’t you go leaving me at the altar,’ he said sardonically, and began to sing:
‘There was I, waitin’ at the church,
Waitin’ at the church, waitin’ at the church,
When I found he’d left me in the lurch,
Lor’, how it did upset me!’
Glenys, laughing, joined in the next verse.
‘All at once he sent me round a note,
Here’s the very note, this is what he wrote,
“Can’t get away to marry you today,
My wife won’t let me!”’
*
The wedding was a great success, and, as Glenys said, Jimmy’s presence set the seal on a wonderful day. He had come home the previous evening and Glenys, Sam and Mo hung on his every word, laughed at all his stories and pressed him to take some pieces of wedding cake and other goodies back to his unit when he left.
Nain and Taid swelled with pride in their tall, handsome grandson, telling him that there was not only a home but a job for him on the farm when he left the army. Jimmy had confided in his father and Glenys that he meant to go to university when he finished his National Service, but he was too fond of his grandparent
s to admit that he had no desire to work on the land, and simply hoped that when the time came both Nain and Taid would understand.
When they had first begun to plan the wedding, Glenys had been very conscious that she had no relatives of her own to invite, although because she had spent all her leaves since then at Weathercock Farm she no longer felt like a stranger in the Griffiths family. However, she had a great many friends. Indeed, she had issued a wedding invitation to almost the whole of B Section of the ATS, and had been delighted at the response. She had not received one apology, and though they might not be relatives it showed that she was well liked. Confident in her peers’ approval, Glenys was sure that Mo was the prettiest bridesmaid anyone could imagine, that Jimmy and his father were the handsomest men present, and that the wedding breakfast itself would be a great success. And it was, for neighbouring farmers, mindful of the rationing that looked set to continue for several years yet, had made sure that their gifts took the form of food. There were hams from those who had recently killed a pig, baskets of eggs, and boxes of fruit and vegetables. In fact, everything needed to make a wedding breakfast something that friends and neighbours would remember for many a long day.
When the meal was over and the barn was being cleared for dancing, Glenys passed amongst her guests, with Nain and Mo at hand to introduce her to anyone she had not already met. One woman, Mrs Amelia Griffiths, whom Glenys had already marked down as a gossip who never lost an opportunity to say something nasty, shook hands as though she were conferring a favour and began to criticise everything around her in a whiny, discontented mutter.
‘That dress, Maureen, ain’t the sort of thing I’d have let me own daughter wear, if she were still at home, that is. You can see through the skirt; disgustin’, I calls it. And as for that white weddin’ gown, it’s a disgrace to waste kewpongs on finery which won’t be wore more than once. And seeing as how Sam’s been wed before, I should have thought you’d all have sneaked off into Liverpool and done the deed on the q.t. But there, young people today is all the same: shameless, that’s what they are.’
