(6/13) Gossip from Thrush Green (9 page)

But not today,' replied Dorothy firmly, the complete headmistress. 'Now do say hello to dear Agnes who has been looking forward to seeing you so much.'

Reminded of their manners, Ray and Kathleen greeted her warmly, and did their best to ignore the persistent whining and yelping issuing from their car. But clearly their minds were elsewhere, and conversation had to be carried on at a high pitch to overcome the appalling din made by the unhappy animal.

'I take it that the management at The Fleece welcomes animals?' ventured little Miss Fogerty.

'I wouldn't say
welcomes
,' said Ray. 'Harrison is being allowed to sleep in his basket in one of the stables. No dogs in the hotel. That's the rule, we were told the minute we arrived.'

'Why "Harrison"?' asked Dorothy, passing the cucumber sandwiches. Kathleen looked momentarily pleased.

'Well, you see he is the image of the butcher who used to come round when we were first married. Isn't he, Ray?'

Exactly. Same brown eyes, same expression—'

'Same black coat?' murmured Dorothy.

The visitors laughed politely.

'Almost,' agreed Kathleen, 'and certainly interested in
meat
.'

Agnes, who began to feel that the dog would be better ignored, if such a happy situation should ever be possible with the ear-splitting cacophany engulfing them, asked after Kathleen's health. At once, Ray's wife assumed a melancholy expression.

I'm having some new treatment for my migraine attacks,' she told them, accepting a second cup of tea.

'It's terribly expensive, and I have to make two trips a week, but I think it may be doing me good.'

'I am so glad,' said kind Agnes.

And I've been having attacks of vertigo,' volunteered Ray, with a hint of pride. 'Something to do with the middle ear. Very disconcerting.'

Agnes wondered if the dog's powerful voice could contribute to this discomfort, but thought it wiser to remain silent. Not once, she noticed, with rare warmth, had they enquired after poor Dorothy's broken hip—a much more serious business, surely!

'But there,' continued Kathleen, with sad recognition, 'I suppose we can't expect to be as spry as we were twenty years ago.'

'Indeed no!' agreed Dorothy, rising to cut the splendid sponge. She walked across to Kathleen, plate in hand. Was her limp rather more pronounced than usual, Agnes wondered? A little stiff from sitting perhaps, she decided.

'And how is the leg?' enquired Ray, somewhat tardily.

'I do my best to ignore it,' replied Dorothy. 'No one wants to hear about the troubles of the elderly.'

Kathleen greeted this pointed remark with a swiftly indrawn breath, and a meaning glance at her husband. He, man-like, pretended to be engrossed with his tea cup.

'And where are you proposing to go tomorrow?' asked Agnes hastily.

Before Ray could answer, Kathleen spoke.

'It's amazing how quickly people get over these hip operations these days. Why, a young curate we know was actually
dancing
six months after he fell from his bicycle.'

'He was fortunate,' said Dorothy.

'Oh, I don't know,' said Kathleen, shouting above the racket from the imprisoned dog. 'I'm sure it's a matter of attitude of mind. He
intended
to get better, just as quickly as possible. I think some people enjoy being invalids.'

Agnes noted with alarm that a pink flush was suffusing Dorothy's face, a sure sign of temper, and really, thought her loyal assistant, she had every right to be cross under the circumstances.

'I don't,' said Dorothy shortly.

Of course not,' agreed Ray. 'It was exactly what I said to Kathleen when she was so worried about you in hospital.'

'Indeed?' replied his sister icily.

'Kathleen was a martyr to her migraine at the time, as you know, otherwise we should have invited you to stay with us when you were discharged. But we knew you wanted to get home and pick up your normal life again. I said so at the time, didn't I, Kathleen?'

'You did indeed, dear,' said Kathleen, dabbing her mouth with a spotless linen napkin and leaving lipstick as well as jam upon it.

Before any civilised reply could be made, there was a rapping at the front door. Agnes, glad to escape, hurried to open it, and was confronted by Dotty Harmer with Flossie on a lead. A battered metal milk can dangled from the other hand.

Without being invited, Dotty pushed past Agnes and entered the sitting room. She was in a state of considerable agitation, and burst into speech.

'Oh, Dorothy my dear, there is a poor dog
absolutely stifling to death
in a car outside. No window left open, and it is in a terrible state of anxiety. Aren't people thoughtless? Really they need a horse-whipping, and my father would have administered it, I assure you, if he had come across such fiends! Someone calling at The Two Pheasants, I suppose, or at the Shoosmiths.'

'The dog belongs to my brother here,' said Dorothy, with a hint of smugness in her tone. 'I'm sorry it upset you so, Dotty dear. I'm afraid it must have upset a great many people at Thrush Green during the past hour.'

Dotty was not the slightest bit abashed.

'I don't think I have had the pleasure of meeting you before,' she said, transferring Flossie's lead to her left hand and entangling it dangerously with the milk can, whilst proffering her right.

'My sister-in-law Kathleen. My brother Ray. My friend Miss Harmer,' intoned Dorothy.

Ray bowed slightly, Kathleen gave a frosty smile, and Dorothy waved at the tea tray.

Let me give you some tea, Dotty. Do sit down.'

Outside, the barking changed to a high-pitched squealing, even more agitating than before. Ray began to make for the door.

'Excuse me, I'd better bring Harrison in,' he said. He was through the door before anyone could stop him.

So kind of you, Dorothy, but I'm on my way to Ella's and mustn't delay.'

She began to make her way to the door. Flossie's lead was now hopelessly tangled around Dotty's wrinkled stockings.

At that moment, Ray's labrador, slavering at the mouth, burst into the room, gave a demented yelp, and rushed at Flossie.

The noise was indescribable. Flossie, the meekest of animals, screamed with alarm. Harrison charged into the table, knocking the sponge cake, chocolate biscuits, two tea cups, milk jug and a flurry of knives and teaspoons to the floor.

Dotty, pulled off balance, fell across Agnes's chair, driving her mother's cameo brooch painfully into her throat. Dorothy, ever quick-witted, sat down abruptly before her own precarious balance added to the confusion, and Kathleen, cowering in her chair, gave way to hysterics.

This scene of chaos confronted Ray when at last he regained the sitting room. With commendable promptitude he caught Harrison by the collar, and held him firmly, while Agnes and Dotty recovered their balance. The milk-can had rolled under Agnes's armchair and was dispersing a rivulet of goat's milk over the carpet.

'I apologise for this mess,' said Dotty. 'You must let me pay for any cleaning you have to have done. Goat's milk can be so very
pervasive.
I'd better return home and fetch some more for Ella. Luckily, Dulcie is giving a splendidly heavy yield, at the moment.'

Quite in command of herself, she smiled politely in the direction of the hysterical Kathleen, now throwing herself about alarmingly in her chair, waved to Ray, and took the shaken, but now well-behaved, Flossie into the hall. Agnes accompanied her, hoping that the blood on her throat from the brooch's wound would not stain her best silk blouse.

'Are you
sure
you would not like to rest for a little?' enquired Agnes. 'The dining room has a most comfortable armchair, if you would like a few minutes' peace.'

'Thank you, my dear, but I am quite all right. The air will refresh me.'

Agnes watched her walk to the gate, as spry as a sparrow, and none the worse it seemed for her tumble. She returned, full of foreboding, to the scene of battle.

'Who
is
that interfering old busybody?' Ray was asking, as she returned.

'A dear friend of mine,' replied Dorothy, 'and a true animal lover. I absolutely agree with her that it was
monstrous
of you to leave that dog shut in the car.'

Kathleen's hysterics were now slightly muted, but had turned to shattering hiccups.

'If you remember,' she began, and gave a mighty hiccup, 'you yourself refused to have poor Harrison indoors.'

'I should have thought that
even you
knew better than to leave the car hermetically sealed. Calling yourselves animal lovers,' said Dorothy, with withering scorn. 'And the poor thing so badly trained that it cannot be brought into a Christian household.'

She bent down to retrieve the best china from the floor, whilst Ray picked up teaspoons with one hand and dabbed at the goat's milk with the other holding his handkerchief.

'
Please
, Ray,' said Dorothy, 'leave the mess to Agnes and me. We don't want it made worse by the use of your handkerchief.'

Agnes felt that, provoked though she might well be, such a slur on the cleanliness of her brother's personal linen, was carrying things rather far.

'I will fetch some clean water and a cloth,' she said hastily, and made her escape.

A wild wailing noise followed her. Obviously, Kathleen was off again!

'I think,' Ray was saying, when she returned with her cleaning materials, 'that we had better be going.'

'I whole-heartedly agree,' said Dorothy, standing facing him.

'You have thoroughly upset poor Kathleen,' he went on, 'and you know how she suffers with migraine.'

'When it suits her,' responded Dorothy.

'Are you implying,' cried her incensed brother, 'that Kathleen
pretends
to have these dreadful attacks?'

A terrible hiccup arrested Kathleen's wailing. She was now on her feet, eyes blazing.

'How dare you say such things? You know I'm a martyr to migraine! Not that I've ever had the slightest sympathy from you. You are the wickedest, most callous, unfeeling—'

Another hiccup rendered her temporarily speechless. Ray took the opportunity to put his arm about his wife, and to shepherd her and the panting Harrison to the door.

'Come along, my dear. We'll go straight back to The Fleece, and you must lie down with one of your tablets.'

'But poor Harrison hasn't had his tea,' wailed Kathleen. 'You know he likes it on the hearth rug!'

'There is plenty for him,' observed Dorothy, 'wherever he looks on the carpet.'

It was Agnes who saw them to the door, and then into their car.

'I shall never come here again,' cried Kathleen, still hic-cuping violently.

'We are deeply wounded,' said Ray. 'I don't think I shall want to see Dorothy—sister though she is - for a very long time!'

They drove towards Lulling, Harrison still barking, and Agnes returned to break the dreadful news that Dorothy might never see the pair again.

'What a relief!' said her headmistress, with infinite satisfaction. 'Now, we'll just get this place to rights, and have a quiet evening with our knitting, Agnes dear.'

7. The Fire

A
FTER
such a devastating experience it was hardly surprising that little Miss Fogerty slept badly. Usually, she read for half an hour, and then was more than ready to plump up her pillows, put out the bedside light, and welcome deep sleep within ten minutes.

But on this occasion sleep evaded her. She went over, in her mind, all the terrible details of that catastrophic tea party. The noise of Kathleen's hysterical wailing still sounded in her ears. Ray's furious face, and Dorothy's tart retorts tormented her memory.

St Andrew's clock struck midnight, and she tossed back the bedclothes and went to survey Thrush Green by moonlight.

It was still and beautiful. No lights shone from the houses around the green, but the moonlight silvered the windows and dappled the young leaves of the chestnut avenue. Far away, along the lane to Nidden, an owl gave his wavering cry, and from the other direction came the distant sound of one of Lulling's rare goods trains chugging through the deserted station.

The air was cool from the open window and scented with the pheasant-eye narcissi which grew against the wall. Agnes took deep breaths, relishing the silence and the peaceful scene. Below her, and to her right, the empty playground stretched. In twelve hours' time it would be astir and strident with children running and shouting.

The thought made Agnes return to her bed. She must be fit to attend to her duties in the morning. At this rate she would have seven hours' sleep at the most. She must compose herself.

She smoothed her sheets, straightened her winceyette nightgown, and put her head, with its wispy grey plait, down to the welcoming pillow.

The party must be forgotten. She owed it to the children.

Within ten minutes she was asleep.

At about the same time, a little farther along the road, Albert Piggott sat up in bed and rubbed his rumbling stomach.