It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. St Barnaby’s in Sawbridge was a pretty eleventh-century church, but it looked even prettier than usual as, today, the churchyard cherry trees were a mass of pink blossom. On either side of the path to the lychgate stately white tulips pushed through a mass of dark-blue forget-me-nots.

Petal was waiting at the lychgate with Evelyn Bridgenorth and Dilys, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement at being Molly’s smaller bridesmaid. She looked a picture in a duck-egg-blue satin dress and with a garland of white rosebuds in her curly, dark hair. Dilys’s dress was the same colour and style, except it had a scoop neck rather than the high one Petal’s had.

‘I’ll lift your train until we get to the church porch,’ Ted said, bending to gather it up. ‘We don’t want it sweeping the path and taking leaves and God knows what into the church.’

‘I hope George hasn’t changed his mind and fled,’ Molly said with a wide smile, knowing that would be impossible.

Ted laughed. ‘I think there would be a posse at the gate ready to turn us away if that were the case.’

‘There’s still time to change your mind and let me marry George,’ Dilys joked.

‘I believe in sharing with friends,’ said Molly, ‘but I wouldn’t go that far, not even for you. But his brother, Harry, is available still!’

Evelyn arranged Molly’s train at the church porch and put the end of it in Petal’s hands.

‘Now, don’t forget you put it down when Molly reaches the altar, where George will be waiting. Uncle Ted will take his place alongside Harry, the best man, ready to give Molly away. You take her flowers and take a couple of steps back to stand in the aisle, alongside Dilys, like the very important person you are!’

When Molly heard the church organ begin to play the Wedding March she turned her head and blew a kiss to Petal, who had a smile almost as wide as the River Avon. Evelyn nipped past her and into the church, and Ted crooked his arm and smiled. ‘Shall we go, Miss Heywood? Your last few steps with that name.’

Nothing had ever felt so right. To be in the church which had been such a major part of her childhood with George, the boy who had held her hand on her first day at school, waiting for her at the altar rail.

He had proposed to her on Christmas Eve, and he’d done it properly and reverently, getting down on one knee outside the church, just as they were going in to the midnight service. He had even bought a ring, a small sapphire surrounded by tiny diamonds and, amazingly, it fitted perfectly.

All through the service he had kept reaching for her hand and smiling. It wasn’t possible to erase the sadness of her parents’ deaths entirely, but it went an awfully long way towards it.

It was a lovely Christmas, the best she’d ever known. The Walshes were a lively, warm family, and they were anxious to draw her in with them and keep her for ever. After so many dreary Christmas days with her own parents, her father carping about everything and her mother afraid to laugh or agree with anything Molly said, it was like soothing ointment on a wound.

Now, finally, they were to be married.

When the vicar asked the groom to lift Molly’s veil, George felt his heart swelling up and becoming tight in his chest because Molly looked so lovely. He had always thought of her as the prettiest girl in Sawbridge but, in her ivory satin dress, she looked simply beautiful. Her skin was radiant, her hair fixed up in some kind of topknot with her veil but with little curls escaping onto her pink cheeks. And those beautiful blue eyes were fixed on him as if he were a god.

The church was packed. It was, after all, the wedding that even the most cynical people in the village had wanted to take place.

Earlier today, George’s father had given his opinion about the impending marriage. ‘Son, if I’d been asked to pick the right girl for you, Molly would have been my first and only choice. She’s got a mind, a caring heart, a ton of patience and a pretty face. You belong together.’

George might have always believed she was the girl for him, but it had been a long road and, even after the engagement, there had still been hurdles in the way.

Miss Gribble was hanged on 2 January. The newspapers had a field day with it, rehashing every last bit of information about her, Christabel, Sylvia and Molly, and plenty of newer, juicy stuff that had surfaced during the trial.

Molly was struggling enough with all the dreadful memories it brought back, and she wasn’t prepared for all the extra gossip and speculation in the village. It got to the point where she couldn’t leave the house without someone accosting her. And these people often grew indignant and quite nasty when she said she had nothing to say about it.

Things got so bad she opted to go back to work in Rye. She used the excuse that she needed to work, but George knew it was more because she was afraid Petal might be having the same difficulties.

He understood. It was quite feasible that Petal might get to hear things that would upset her, and Molly could explain things in a way a little girl would understand. Another reason to leave Sawbridge was the burnt-out shop; each time Molly passed, it was an unwanted memory of how her parents had died.

George had swallowed his disappointment, agreed she should go and put in for his sergeant’s exam, which he’d been talking about taking for over a year. Without Molly in the house he had no distractions from studying for the exam, and one weekend in four he drove his motorbike down to see her.

One loose end about Cassie was finally stitched up during that time – the question of why she had gone to Bristol every Thursday and where she had got her money from. An elderly gentleman called Thomas Woods had rung the Sawbridge police station just after Miss Gribble was sentenced.

‘I should’ve come forward before,’ he said to the desk sergeant. ‘I didn’t because I thought my friendship with Cassandra would be misinterpreted. I am almost completely blind, and she came to read to me, through a librarian in Bristol library. She was a real treasure. She not only read to me but wrote letters for me, did a bit of cleaning and became a dear friend, because she loved books as much as I do. I paid her well because I valued her.

‘A friend who had watched Miss Gribble’s trial closely told me that the defence barrister had implied that Cassandra’s income had come from immoral earnings. It was then that I felt I had to put the record straight. No woman should be wrongly accused of such a thing, especially when that woman was as kind and intelligent as Cassandra was.’

That last piece of the jigsaw meant a great deal to Molly. It rounded everything off; all her questions had been answered. It was another good thing she could tell Petal about, and perhaps they could even go to see Mr Woods one day.

That last mystery about Cassie might have been cleared up, but George found himself thinking that the situation he and Molly were in, being so far apart, would never change. He had begun to think that the journey would seem to grow longer each time and leaving her ever more painful. Yet it did change. He passed his sergeant’s exam and shortly afterwards was offered a posting in Hastings, just a bus ride from Rye.

Both he and Molly saw the new posting as heaven sent, and decided to marry as soon as possible. The insurance money from the shop had come through, and Molly’s share, after sending half to Emily, was enough to put a deposit down on a house. George had enough savings to buy furniture and pay for the wedding. They booked a honeymoon in Hastings so they could look for a house while they were there.

Everything was arranged in the three weeks it took to have the banns read at church. Molly got both her dress and Petal’s made in Rye, and Janice, George’s mother, took on the arrangements for the flowers and wedding cake. It seemed to George that Molly was on the phone to Janice about all this more often than she was to him.