Isabel looked at the shoes on Constance’s feet. They were what she would call old lady shoes, and it was hard to imagine her ever having worn pink satin dancing shoes. She said nothing, waiting patiently while Constance lifted the lid of the box and began sifting through. ‘This was our ration book.’ She held it aloft before putting it back and this time showing her a ticket stub. ‘My father took me to the circus in Portsmouth before the war. It was magical.’ Next, she produced a photograph, and held it out to Isabel. It had the creases of time and, of course, it was in the black and white tones of the era.
Isabel took it and gazed at it for a brief moment. ‘Is that you on the left?’
‘The smallest one, yes, that’s me and Evelyn, my elder sister, although there was only a year between us is next to me. She’s no longer with us. Evelyn left Wight not long after the war ended; she married a chap from Cornwall. They were only married a year, and she got sick with cancer, the ovaries it was, and that was that.’ It still made her eyes smart all these years later. Evelyn had been so full of life, and she too had it snatched away before she had a chance to live. And here she was in her ninth decade, no rhyme nor reason other than that was Evelyn’s lot, and this was hers. ‘We were a well turned out bunch, the Downers, but then you’d expect us to be given Mum and Dad’s line of work. They owned A Stitch in Time, a haberdashery shop where your Welsh friend’s gallery is now. My father was a tailor.’
They were indeed a smart lot, Isabel agreed looking at the picture of the young Constance and her family. Constance was very pretty, and looked to be around fifteen or sixteen, with her hair falling to her shoulder in soft waves. It was held back by a ribbon, which she’d fashioned into a side bow. She wore a polo style top and culottes, white bobby socks and flat loafers. A scarf was knotted at an angle around her neck, a hint of the young teenager’s mischievous personality. Evelyn had styled her hair into a victory roll, making her look much older than her sister despite there only being a year between them. A year could be a gulf in your teenage years though, Isabel mused noting Evelyn’s figure-skimming dress. She wondered as to what colour it might have been. Isabel fancied both sisters would have had a sense of fun about them.
‘My brother Teddy is in uniform, and that’s Ginny next to him.’
Isabel stared at the image, greedily eager to wipe the image of the dying old woman whose hand she had held in her lost moments and replace her with this vibrant soul looking back at her. ‘She was very pretty.’
‘Yes, she was. Her eyes were the colour of cornflowers. Teddy was absolutely besotted. They were besotted with each other.’
‘How sad.’ Isabel looked at the handsome soldier and back to Ginny. They’d have had so much hope for their future when that photograph was taken. It was a good job, she mused, that none of us knew what fate had waiting around the corner for us.
‘All of it was so very sad.’
Isabel sensed there was much more to her words, but Constance held her hand out and took the photograph placing it in the box and this time producing a leather-bound journal.
‘I can’t see the text anymore so I wonder if I might borrow your young eyes to glance through and see what, if anything, there is for gout.’
Isabel took the book from her. It must have been where Constance recorded her remedies, she thought the leather rough beneath her fingers with the ripples of time. It was not much bigger than a notebook, and she looked at it in a heartbeat or two longer before, sensing Constance’s impatience, she opened it. Her eyes settled on the tea coloured page inside, and she frowned. This was old, very old. It was filled with swirly, generous and almost illegible handwritten notes.
She focused on the writing taking her time to get used to the different style and slowly the words began to make sense despite being the prim language of yesteryear.
‘Chamomile, boil the flowers in a posset. Drink to produce sweat and to help expel all colds and aches and pains. It is also excellent for the bringing down of women’s courses,’ she read out loud before turning the page. It felt brittle to the touch, as though it could crumble away to dust if she said the magic word. The script on the next page revealed a cure for boils using a bread poultice and the next, a remedy for hay fever involving the brewing of butterbur tea.
The wording was too old-fashioned to have been Constance’s, she decided and looked over at her wondering if she’d tell her where this book had come from.
‘The journal came to me when I was a young girl. I believe it once belonged to Molly Downer. We were related she and I, you know—much to my mother’s shame.’
Isabel’s mouth fell open. ‘This was Molly Downer’s? As in the last witch on Wight?’ The words came out in a whispered gasp, and she had no idea why she felt the sudden need to lower her voice. The days of witch hunts were long gone.
Constance looked amused, and the light dancing in her eyes told Isabel she’d enjoyed Isabel’s reaction. ‘Yes.’ She tapped the side of her nose.
