He was pointing to the book on the table, but had the good sense to add, ‘Please, Mrs Baindor, lift it up!’
At this request Jackie took the book from the table, looked at it for a second, then suddenly thrust it at Bella, who was standing by her side.
Shaking her head, Bella cried, ‘Oh, no! No!’
With a broad smile and a quick lifting of a hand Richard told her to do what the photographer was asking.
Bella stared down for a moment at the cover: There was her lass, draped in the long dirty coat; but the beauty of her face shone out from the dark background and drew the eye upwards to the cloth crown, all that was left of the weird hat. In the seconds that she stared at it her heart cried, ‘Oh, my lass, my lass. This, as your son says, will vindicate your life.’
And on this thought her arms swung up and outwards as if she were about to launch the book into the air.
Such had been Bella’s gesture that the following morning one newspaper showed the exact picture, and the editor, being in poetic mood, added, ‘It was as if the little woman was opening a cage and letting free an imprisoned bird.’
The Silent Lady Page 34