Evelyne’s heart was pounding. She gripped Freda’s hand tightly. She could see the row of witnesses for the prosecution nodding their heads in agreement with everything Henshaw said. She looked only once at Freedom, and it was as if he sensed she was looking – he lifted his head and gave her the faintest glimmer of a smile. She bit her lips and stared at the floor.
Henshaw continued. ‘I beg you, consider the evidence that has been heard in this courtroom. This man is guilty, and he must pay the penalty. This is no Romany court, no eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth. I ask for nothing more than justice, and it is in your hands. You, the jury, must find this man guilty of murder in the first degree.’
Smethurst tossed his toffee-paper aside and began his speech in a low voice. ‘Oh, my learned friend is very persuasive and, looking around this court now, right now, I feel many people have already made up their minds that the man standing there, the man in the dock, is guilty.’ He swung his big, domed head from side to side, and gradually turned to look up into the gallery, not once directing his gaze at the jury. Instead, he looked over the assembled people with a faint look of disgust on his face.
‘Freedom Stubbs is accused of killing Willie Thomas, a boy who, as you have heard, raped and beat one of his people. Looking around this court right now I would say that any man here, any man confronted with someone they loved in the state that young girl was in, would threaten revenge. That is not to say that any person would actually go through with the threatened act. The defendant was not alone when this girl was discovered. There were at least forty other gypsy men at the boxing fair that evening – perhaps one of those men did take revenge, but we have a witness to prove that this man did not – could not, because at the time Willie Thomas was murdered she was with the accused.
‘My learned friend has taken pains to point out that the witness for the defence, Miss Evelyne Jones, was more than familiar with the accused man. Is there a woman here today who would not have gone to the aid of a raped girl? Who would not have felt a certain amount of disgust that William Thomas was not punished for this crime? We know he was scared, we know he went to the Cardiff police, terrified the gypsy people would take some kind of revenge. You have heard a statement made by William Thomas to the Cardiff Constabulary stating that he did indeed play some part in that poor girl’s rape. Miss Jones saw this girl, and has said, under oath, that she was raped and beaten. And what is the outcome? Her name has been blackened, she has been accused of being this man’s mistress, he her lover, and both have sworn on oath that this is not true . . . I say she is a woman who showed nothing more than simple, decent kindness to a group of travellers. Miss Evelyne Jones should be held up as an example to us all, instead of being belittled, her education sneered at because, as my learned friend pointed out, she had not the qualifications to teach at the school. We have had a witness stand in front of you and give glowing reports of her ability – a qualified man, a man with examinations, the present headmaster of that same school . . . But more, her character is without blemish, she is a Christian, a deeply religious, honest woman. She has not lied to this court, and her evidence is of the utmost importance. She has stated on oath that on the night of the killing of William Thomas she talked with the accused, that at no time could he have returned to the village, to the picture house, and committed murder.’
Smethurst was building up steam, facing the jury, his voice growing louder and louder as he swung his arms around. His black gown billowed like a bird, a big, dangerous bird. ‘Where is the witness to say the accused was at the picture house? Look at him, look at his face, the size of him – do you think you would forget that face? If this man paid over money for a ticket, don’t you think one person would remember? Come forward?’
Evelyne swallowed hard, and took a sneaky look around the court. All the faces showed rapt attention. ‘Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let no one mention the back door, the other entrance to poor Billy’s picture house, always better used than the main door.’
Smethurst was sweating, his hair sticking to his head, his face redder than ever. Now he banged hard on the bench, slapping it, punctuating his words, ‘Where is the murder weapon?’ he demanded, bellowing, ‘The police questioned every man in that gypsy camp, searched every wagon, and they found nothing, nothing! No blood on any of the accused man’s clothes, and at no time after he was arrested did he try to escape. Is this the behaviour of a guilty man? This man is innocent . . . he stands in the dock for one reason, and one reason alone – he is a gypsy. Can you really believe that Miss Evelyne Jones could have an ulterior motive for coming forward? She is one of you, one of your kind, you in the gallery, and she has been mocked and insulted because she dared, yes, dared to come forward on behalf of the accused. She gains nothing, she wants nothing more than to see justice done . . . and you, the jury, if you have any reasonable doubt, then you have only one choice – only one – give this man justice, and pronounce him innocent. He is not guilty.’
Smethurst slumped into his seat. He had not referred to his notebook once. He sat back, exhausted.
The judge called for a recess until the following day, when he would give his summing-up. Evelyne wanted to weep – it was still, after all this time, not over.
The following morning, the judge spent two hours summing up the case. He then instructed the jury in their duty. His voice was chesty and hoarse as he patiently explained to them that they must digest all the evidence they had heard. That they must be unanimous in their verdict, and if there was any reasonable doubt in any of their minds they had no alternative but to find Freedom Stubbs innocent. The jury filed out, and the judge went for a glass of port with Smethurst and Henshaw.
Evelyne, Ed and Miss Freda waited in the corridor, afraid to leave in case the jury came back in. None of them felt like talking – they just sat with their eyes on the ushers standing quietly in a group by the entrance to the court. Evelyne wanted to scream. She clasped Freda. ‘Oh God, Freda, they’ve been out over an hour, it must be a bad sign, it’s a bad sign – Ed, do you think it’s a bad sign? Oh . . .’
Ed saw the spectators streaming in through the main doors. The group of ushers broke up and began directing people back into court. ‘Here we go, Evie love, this is it by the look of it. Come on, or we’ll miss our seats.’
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 tea-room, 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.
Chapter 16
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 naïveté 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 Legacy (1987) Page 31