(6/13) Gossip from Thrush Green (6 page)

'Affects the eyes, measles does,' agreed Albert Piggott knowledgeably. 'Got to keep the light low, and lay off the reading. I met a chap in hospital when they whipped out my appendix—'

Meaning glances, and a few groans, were exchanged among the regular patrons. Were they going to go through that lot again from old Albert?

'And he'd had measles a few months before and had to have his spectacles changed after that. Proper weak, his eyes was. Watered horrible.'

'Mumps is worse,' contributed Willie Marchant. 'Can upset all your natural functions. Rob you of your manhood, they say.'

'Well, we don't want to hear about it in here,' said the landlord briskly. 'There's two ladies over there, so watch what you're saying.'

Willie Marchant did not appear abashed, and continued.

'But chicken-pox is nasty too. Mixed up with shingles, and that's a real killer, I'm told.'

'Only if it meets round your ribs,' Albert assured him. 'You can have spots all over, but if they meets round your middle you're a goner.'

At this moment, Percy Hodge entered, and was informed of jenny's illness.

'Poor old girl,' commented Percy, looking genuinely upset. 'I got it when I was about twenty. Got proper fed up with people telling me not to scratch. As though you could stop! Well, she's got my sympathy, that's a fact.'

'One thing,' said one of the regulars, 'she's in the right place. Got the doctor on the premises, as you might say, and you couldn't have anyone better than Mrs Bailey to look after you.'

And with that, all agreed.

The next morning Winnie was surprised to open the front door to Percy Hodge. He was holding a basket with a dozen of the largest, brownest eggs that she had ever encountered.

'Thought Jenny might be able to manage an egg,' said Percy.

'Won't you come in?'

'Well, that's nice of you. How is she?' he asked, following Winnie down the hall and into the kitchen.

'She seems a little easier now that the rash has come out,' replied Winnie, unpacking the basket and placing the superb eggs carefully in a blue and white basin. 'Percy, I've never seen such beauties as these! I shall take them upstairs to show her later on. I'm sure she will be so grateful. What a kind thought of yours.'

Percy suddenly looked shy.

'Well, I've known Jenny since we was at Sunday School together. She's a good girl. I was sorry to hear she was poorly. Give her my regards, won't you?'

He accepted the empty basket, and retraced his steps to the front door.

'Of course, I will,' promised Winnie, and watched Percy cross the green towards the lane leading to his farm.

What a very kind gesture, thought Winnie, toiling upstairs with the eggs, and Percy's message, for the invalid.

She suddenly remembered that Percy was a recent widower. Could it be...?

But no, she chided herself, of course not. She must not put two and two together and make five.

'Just look what someone's sent you,' she said to the invalid, holding our the blue and white bowl.

'Good heavens!' cried Jenny. 'We'd best have an omelette for lunch!'

It was a sparkling April morning when the Hursts drove off from Tullivers to Heathrow.

Harold Shoosmith had offered to drive them there, and Jeremy and Winnie Bailey accompanied them in the car to see them off.

Much to everyone's relief, Jeremy was cheerful and excited. Winnie Bailey was quite prepared to cope with some tears at parting, but was pleasantly surprised when the final kisses were exchanged without too much emotion all round.

Not very long before we're back,' promised Phil, producing a small parcel for her son. 'Don't open it until you get back to Aunt Winnie's, darling.'

Jeremy waved vigorously to his departing parents and was quite willing to return to Harold's car, clutching the present.

It had been arranged beforehand that there would be no waiting about at the airport to see the aeroplane leave the ground.

'God knows how long it will be before we finally get away,' Frank had said to Winnie. You know how it is these days: "Regret to say there is a mechanical fault". That's a two-hour job while they solder on the wing. Then the tannoy goes again: "Regret there is an electrical fault", and off you go for your forty-third cup of coffee while they unravel the wires for another hour. No, Winnie dear, you and Harold make tracks back to Thrush Green with the boy, and then we shall be able to ring you to ask if you would mind fetching us back until the next day.'

Luckily, Frank's prognostications were proved wrong, and their flight actually departed on the right day, and only a quarter of an hour behind schedule.

'What do you think it can be?' asked Jeremy shaking the parcel vigorously, when they were on their return journey. It doesn't rattle.'

'Try smelling it,' suggested Harold. 'Might be bath cubes.'

'
Bath cubes?
' said Jeremy with disgust. 'Why
bath cubes?
'

'Right shaped box. Long and thin.'

'It might be sweets,' said Winnie. 'Some rather gorgeous nougat comes in boxes that shape.'

Jeremy's small fingers pressed round the edge of the wrapping paper.

'Anyway, I'm not to open it until we get home,' he said at last, 'so put your foot down, Uncle Harold. I'm
busting
to see what's inside.'

He sat in the front passenger seat, parcel held against his stomach and babbled happily to Harold about car engines, motor boats, his kitten, what Miss Fogerty said about tadpoles and a host of other interesting topics upon which Harold commented briefly as he drove.

In the back, Winnie Bailey, much relieved at the good spirits of her charge, dozed gently, and did not wake until the car stopped at Thrush Green.

'Now I can open it, can't I?' begged Jeremy.

'Of course,' said Winnie and Harold together.

The child ripped away the paper, and disclosed a long red box. Inside, lying upon a cream velvet bed lay a beautiful wrist watch.

Jeremy's eyes opened wide with amazement.

'Look!' he whispered. 'And it's mine! Shall I put it on?'

'Why not?' replied Harold.

He helped the child to slide the expanding bracelet over his wrist. The three sat in silence while the child savoured his good fortune.

At length, he gave a great sigh of supreme satisfaction.

'I can't believe it's really mine,' he said, to Winnie. 'I'm so glad I've had chicken pox.'

'Chicken pox?' said Winnie, bemused.

'I can go straight up to Jenny and show her,' said the boy, getting out of the car, and making for the Baileys' gate without a backward glance.

'I must thank you on behalf of us both,' said Winnie to Harold with a smile.

***

Over at the rectory Charles and Dimity were poring over a letter from their old friend Edgar. There was nothing that he and Hilda would enjoy more than two weeks at Thrush Green in the near future.

He had already made tentative arrangements with obliging neighbouring clergymen who would undertake his duties while he was away, so that Charles and Dimity would be quite free. He suggested the first two weeks in May, with Easter behind them and Whitsun well ahead.

Charles thought of Ella's remark about farmers taking their break between haytime and harvest. How well it would fit in, these two weeks between the great church festivals!

'I must get in touch with Anthony Bull at Lulling, and see if dear old Jocelyn feels up to coming out of retirement at Nidden,' he told Dimity, naming the Lulling vicar, and a saintly eighty-year-old who occasionally held the fort for local clergymen in times of emergency.

'Of course they'll help,' said Dimity, 'and they know full well that you will be happy to do the same for them at any time.'

'I'll go and see them both today,' replied Charles, 'and we'll ring Edgar about tea time.'

'Make it after six, dear,' said Dimity. 'Yorkshire is a long way off, and the phone call will be so much cheaper.'

'How right you are,' agreed the rector. With his modest stipend, it was a blessing to have Dimity to remind him of the need for frugality.

He looked round his study when his wife had departed to the kitchen. Since his marriage, Dimity had done her best to mitigate the austerity of this sunless room where so much of his work was done.

She had put a rug down by the desk, to keep his feet from the inhospitable cold linoleum which covered the floor of the room. She had bought some shabby but thick curtains from a village jumble sale, to take the place of the cotton ones which had draped the study windows ever since he had taken up residence years ago.

There was always a small vase of flowers on the side table, at the moment complete with pheasant's eye narcissi and sprigs of young greenery from the garden. An electric fire had been installed, and although Charles himself never thought to switch it on, used as he was to a monastic chill in the room, Dimity would tiptoe in and rectify matters on icy mornings.

He was a fortunate man, he told himself, to have such a wonderfully unselfish wife, and one who had the gift of making a home in the straitened circumstances in which they lived.

He thought of her suggestion about transferring his things from his present room to the upstairs one above the kitchen. Frankly, he disliked the idea. The very thought of carrying all his books up the steep stairs, of getting new shelves built, of sorting out his archaic filing system, and of asking someone to help him to manhandle his desk and armchair and all the other heavy furniture which was needed in his work, appalled him.

And yet Dimity was quite right, of course. That room was certainly much lighter and warmer. They would not need the electric fire as they did here. In the end, he supposed, they would save money. But what an upheaval! Could he face it?

He looked again at the results of Dimity's labours on his behalf. How it would please her to have him safely ensconsed in that pleasant back room! Surely, it was the least that one could do, to give way to one who was so unselfish and loving!

Charles leapt to his feet on impulse, and traversed the dark wind tunnel of a corridor to find Dimity in the comparative warmth of the kitchen at its end.

'My dear,' he cried, I've decided that your idea of moving the study upstairs is a wonderful one! As soon as we get back from Yorkshire we'll transfer everything, and meanwhile I'll think of someone to ask to make some shelves while we're away.'

Dimity left the onion she was chopping on the draining board and came to hug her husband.

'What a relief, Charles dear! It will be so much better for you, I know. You really are a good man.'

Her face was radiant.

'I ought to be a lot better,' replied Charles. One can only go on trying, I suppose.'

That afternoon, when Charles had mounted his bicycle to go down the hill to Lulling to visit the vicar, Dimity went across the road to see Ella at the cottage which she had shared for many years with her redoubtable friend.

She found her threading her ancient handloom on the table in the sitting room window.

'Hello, Dim,' she greeted her friend. 'Look at this for organisation! I'm getting ahead with my scarves for Christmas. Any particular colour you fancy?'

Dimity swiftly went over the plentiful supply of Ella's scarves which were already stocked in a drawer. Pink, fawn, yellow, grey—now, what
hadn't
she got?

'I think a pale blue would be lovely,' she said bravely. 'It goes with so many colours, doesn't it? Thank you, Ella.'

She sat herself on the well-worn sofa, and watched Ella's hands moving deftly at her task.

'I've brought some good news,' she began.

'Won the pools?'

'Alas, no. But Charles has agreed to move his study upstairs.'

'Well, it's about time too. I wonder he hasn't had double pneumonia working in that morgue of his. Want a hand shifting stuff?'

'Well, not at the moment, Ella dear. But perhaps later. We don't propose to do anything until we come back from our holiday.'

'Tell me more,' demanded Ella.

Dimity explained about Edgar and Hilda, and the hoped-for help of Lulling's vicar and old Jocelyn.

'Thrush Green will be empty for most of May then,' said Ella. 'What with the Hursts away, and you two gallivanting in Yorkshire.'

'Oh come!' protested Dimity, 'that's only four of us. And in any case, the new couple will be at Tullivers then. Think how nice it will be to have some fresh faces here.'

'Depends on the faces,' replied Ella. 'Frankly, I prefer old friends. For all we know, these two outsiders are going to cause more trouble than Thrash Green bargains for.'

And as it happened, Ella was to be proved right.

5. The Henstocks Set Off

T
HE
last day of April closed in golden tranquillity. Warm and calm, from dawn until sunset, there had been promise of the summer to come.

The daffodils and early blossom in the Thrush Green gardens scarcely stirred all day, and the bees were already busy, their legs powdered with yellow pollen.

Joan Young, wandering about their small orchard, thought that she had never seen such drifts of daffodils there before. They surged around the wheels of Mrs Curdle's ancient caravan, and she remembered, with a sudden pang, that this would be the first year without Curdles' Fair to enliven May the first.