Cast the First Stone by Margaret Thornton Page A

Fiona knew it was a family heirloom that had been tucked away in a cupboard until the advent of the new vicar. Wilfred had become more forceful in manner, and his conversation was now peppered with references to God, and with the opinions of the Reverend Cruikshank.
    Mary, on the other hand, was still her quiet unassuming self. She had used, though, to be a jolly, cheerful person, enjoying a laugh and a joke, in a gentle sort of way. Now she had become, to Fiona’s way of thinking, a trifle boring, lacking the spurt of humour that had been the leaven of her shy disposition. Mary was a pretty woman with natural blonde hair that had darkened a shade or two as she grew older. She had not been averse, at one time, to brightening it up with a coloured rinse. But that was now a thing of the past. Moreover, she was now wearing her hair scraped back from her face in what Fiona thought was an unbecoming style, the one favoured by her friend, Hannah Cruikshank, whom Mary seemed to be emulating in all sorts of ways. She no longer used lipstick or face powder. Fiona longed to tell her that she looked dowdy, but she had always been a respectful girl, not given to bouts of disobedience and wilfulness like some of her contemporaries.
    When she was fifteen, in the fifth form and preparing for her School Certificate Examination, Fiona started to use a little make-up – Coty Face powder and lipstick in a pretty coral colour that she had saved up for out of her weekly spending money. Most of the girls in her form were doing so, comparing the various brands – Coty, Max Factor, Yardley, and the far more expensive Helena Rubinstein (which none of them could afford) – and deciding which shade of lipstick went with their hair colour or the outfit they were wearing for best.
    They were not allowed to wear make-up at school, of course, but they made up for it at weekends when they went out on a Saturday night to the pictures or to a local dance. These were usually at the church halls of the more broad-minded C of E churches, and at the Methodist Church in Fiona’s neighbourhood. She was allowed to go on the understanding that she was home by ten o’ clock, a stricture that was upheld by most of her friends’ parents. The boys, however, were allowed a little more leeway.
    Fiona had a shirtwaister dress in pink and white gingham with a large white collar and a full skirt which she wore at the dances in the summer, and a peasant style blouse worn with a full skirt of a bright floral design, which was made to stand out as far as possible by wearing two or more ‘cancan’ petticoats underneath it. These petticoats were made of nylon with numerous frills, and were made stiffer by dipping them in a sugar solution and then drip-drying them.
    Fiona’s mother did not seem to object to such frivolities – the fancy clothes or the make-up – although she did not comment, as she might have done at one time, telling her daughter that she looked nice and showing an interest in what she was wearing. Nor did Mary pass any comments about the dances or the films that she watched with her friends – light-hearted films such as
Annie Get Your Gun
, the ‘Doctor’ films starring Dirk Bogarde, or the Norman Wisdom comedies that were considered hilarious – although Fiona noticed that her parents no longer went to the cinema themselves. Mary and Wilfred had used to go to the local cinema at least once a fortnight. It had been their one indulgence and something that they had both enjoyed.
    Fiona knew, of course, that she must dress circumspectly for church attendance on a Sunday morning. She was not forced to go along, but on the rare occasions when she had said she was staying at home – giving the excuse that she had homework to finish which, more often than not, was the truth – her mother’s reproving glance made her feel that she was committing a heinous crime. It was easier, therefore, to