(8/13) At Home in Thrush Green (20 page)

'And what will happen?'

'Oh, they'll go up to Crown Court without a doubt, with the sort of offences they're charged with. It's been going on a long time, and a great deal of money is involved.'

'I'll be needed as a witness, I suppose?'

'Afraid so. You must hold yourself in readiness.'

'Well, it'll make a change from looking at chickenpox spots,' smiled John.

'Much about then?'

'Quite an epidemic. Nidden School is half empty.'

'I
think
I've had it,' said the superintendent thoughtfully. if you had any sense,' responded the doctor, 'you'd have put it behind you before your tenth birthday.'

They parted to their particular duties.

Jane Cartwright arrived home from hospital in good spirits, but woefully wobbly. The old people were touching in their welcome, and Bill had to be particularly tactful in restraining their visits in the early days.

'She's being killed with kindness,' he confided to his mother-in-law, when he had ushered out Miss Fuller who had brought a hyacinth bulb in a glass vase to distract the patient's attention from her ills.

'You'll have to be firm,' Mrs Jenner told him. 'I've said that she has a rest every afternoon, and that's that. I know they all mean well, and Jane's grateful to them, but it's going to be some weeks before she's really fit again.'

'You're quite right, mother,' said Bill, 'but it's difficult when they arrive with bunches of flowers, and little cakes and books, and then beg to see her. I think I'll pass them over to you.'

'You do just that,' said Mrs Jenner firmly. 'I can be quite a dragon if need be.'

One of Jane's early visitors was Joan Young. She gave her news of Mrs Bates and the church silver.

'She comes over to us either on Friday or Saturday afternoon, and stays for tea. She seems to enjoy coming, and we look forward to her visits. Incidentally, the silver has never looked so splendid, and we heat all the news from here as she gets to work.'

'Good news, I hope?' said Jane. 'I think all our people have settled in pretty well. It's a big upheaval for some of them.'

'Oh, I'm sure they all seem very glad to be here,'Joan assured her. 'Molly Curdle usually comes over when Mrs Bates comes, and she gets on with some ironing while the silver's being done. She hears more than I do, I think. They certainly have a hilarious time together and baby Anne gets thoroughly spoilt.'

When Joan had gone, and Jane was alone resting, she turned over Joan's comments in her mind.

Were the old people really as happily settled as she said? Jane was very much aware of all that was going on, and had sensed, since her return from hospital, that some of their charges were a little discontented. The occasional remark had been dropped by her visitors, about the shortcomings of neighbours. Monty's reprehensible sanitary arrangements had been mentioned once or twice. The perennial problem of too-loud radios had cropped up. Someone's refrigerator made a bang every now and again in the night. The lavatory flushings were unduly noisy.

And, of course, the paths were slippery, as poor Jane knew only too well.

She supposed it was inevitable, thought Jane, to have these teething troubles. Her mother had often said that old people were worse than children to deal with, and she and Bill had known this from the start. But somehow, there seemed to be more behind these little worries – a general discontent which could not be blamed on the weather, the reaction to initial euphoria, or any other reasons.

Perhaps, she told herself, she was exaggerating things. Her present low state might have something to do with it. How she longed to be up and about again!

Meanwhile, she must count her blessings. Bill and her mother together were coping splendidly with the job, and she was getting stronger and more mobile daily.

Time enough to worry when she had thrown aside her stick, and could scurry about as nimbly as she did before Fate had stricken her down, she told herself.

14 Visitors

TO everyone's relief the first few days of December became beguilingly mild and sunny. The last of the apples glowed on the bare branches. The hedges were still beaded with hips and haws, and a few hardy fuchsia bushes dangled bright tassels in defiance of the calendar.

In the gardens at Thrush Green there was great activity as the sodden masses of leaves were raked into piles and late bonfires coped with the outcome.

People who had not been able to face the torrential rain in the latter part of November, now hurried to Lulling High Street to catch up with neglected Christmas shopping, and to purchase Christmas air letters to send to all the people overseas who had been forgotten earlier.

At The Fuchsia Bush a spate of orders came in, not only for cakes and puddings, but also for catering arrangements for local office parties. Nelly and Mrs Peters worked happily overtime.

In the infants' room Miss Fogerty picked her way over mounds of paper chains which overflowed from the desks, and deplored the way that so many of the links broke, sending down cascades of coloured paper upon the delighted children below. Certainly paste was not what it used to be, thought Agnes, as she repaired the damage. There was a lot to be said for good old-fashioned paste made by hand in a pudding basin with strong plain flour. And it would work out at a quarter the price!

***

Across the green, Winnie Bailey was inspecting the bowls of hyacinths which she had planted at the beginning of September. They were destined to be Christmas presents for neighbours such as Phyllida Hurst, Ella and Dotty, but at this rate, she thought, they would be nowhere near ready.

Certainly, dear reliable Innocence bulbs were doing well, and Lady Derby too, but why was the bowl of Ostara taking so long? She carried them into the kitchen, and decided to give them all more warmth.

Jenny had just put two lamb chops in the grill pan, and was prodding the potatoes. They always lunched together in the kitchen, unless Winnie had one of her increasingly rare lunch parties.

Winnie was just setting the last of the bowls on the wide window sill, when the front door bell rang.

She hurried to answer it, and to her amazement found Richard on the doorstep.

'Well, what a surprise! Do come in, Richard dear. Are you alone?'

A vision of two lamb chops floated before her. Something would have to be rustled up quickly, especially if Fenella and the children were hard by.

'Quite alone, Aunt Win. I'm on my way to Bath, and saw a familiar signpost, and thought I'd drop in.'

'You'll stay for lunch?'

'Yes, please. I should like that.'

'Then I shall give you a glass of sherry, and leave you for a minute to tell Jenny. Then I want to hear all the news.'

She poured her nephew a glass and left him reading the newspaper.

Jenny was equal to the emergency.

'Plenty of rashers here, and a few sausages. And there are eggs and tomatoes, so we can make a mixed grill. But what about pudding?'

'There are lots of apples in the fruit bowl, and cheese and biscuits to spare. He's lucky to get that,' said Richard's aunt, 'if he can't be bothered to ring up beforehand.'

'Shall I set the table in the dining room?'

'Lord, no, Jenny! He can have it here with us.'

She was about to return to the sitting room when she put her head round the door again.

'And he has
my chop,
Jenny, not yours! That's an order.'

'Now tell me about the family,' said Winnie. 'How's the baby?'

'Growing. Cries rather a lot. Especially at night.'

'It's a way babies have. And Fenella?'

'Quite busy with the gallery. There's an exhibition of paintings on glass at the moment. Ready for Christmas, you know.'

'How does she find time with two young children?'

'Actually, Timothy goes to play school three mornings a week, and of course Roger is mainly in charge of the exhibition.'

'Roger?'

'Fenella's cousin. I think it's five times removed. Something like that. I believe their great-grandfathers were first cousins, but I can never work out those things.'

'Nor me,' confessed Winnie. 'And where does he live?'

'Roger has a flat just round the corner. At least, his wife has. I'm afraid they are not on speaking terms just now, and he quite often sleeps in the gallery.'

'It doesn't sound very comfortable,' said Winnie.

'Oh, he has a sleeping bag,' replied Richard, helping himself unasked to another glass of sherry. 'And the floor of the gallery is carpeted. Can I fill your glass?'

'No thank you, dear.'

At that moment, Jenny came in to say that all was ready, and Richard carried his glass with him to the kitchen table.

Winnie noted, with approval, that Jenny had opened a large tin of baked beans to augment the rations. Richard rubbed his hands gleefully.

'What a spread! Do you always eat so splendidly?'

'Only sometimes,' said Winnie, catching Jenny's eye.

'I'm very glad I didn't drop into a pub,' announced Richard, it did cross my mind, but I thought it would be so much nicer to see you both and have a snack with you.'

'And I suppose you will spend Christmas in London?' said Winnie, as they set to.

'Fenella will. I shall be on my way back from China.'

'China? At Christmas? But it's the baby's first one, and surely Timothy will be just the right age to love it all!'

'Yes, it's rather a pity, I suppose, but I was asked to go when I was on the earlier lecture tour, and it's so well paid I felt I really couldn't turn it down.'

'Does Fenella agree?'

'She was a bit miffed at first, but she hasn't said anything since, so I suppose she's got over it.'

It all sounded remarkably unsatisfactory to Winnie, but she felt that she could not continue to cross-question a grown man, even if he were her nephew, about his domestic arrangements, and the subject was changed to Thrush Green's news and the doings of old friends.

Later, aunt and nephew walked around the garden. The sun still shone bravely although the shadows were as long at two-thirty this bright December day, as if it were nine o'clock of a summer evening.

Winnie plucked a few late apples from a tree which she and Donald had planted so long ago.

'Take them with you in the car,' she said. 'They're a lovely flavour, and I think they are so beautiful.'

She held the golden globes towards him, and for once Richard seemed aware of something other than his own affairs. He looked closely at the tawny beauty, striped in red and gold, in his hand and sniffed at it appreciatively.

'Ah! That takes me back to my childhood,' he exclaimed. He looked around the garden, the dewy grass marked with their dark footsteps, and a collared dove sipping from the bird bath.

'Do you know. Aunt Win, I should dearly like to live in Thrush Green. I've always felt at home here.'

'Well, Richard, it would certainly be a splendid place to bring up a family, but property's rather expensive. People can get quite quickly now to the motorway, and it has pushed up the price of houses.'

'I suppose so. And Fenella might not like the country. She seems to enjoy the gallery, and of course she owns it, which means we live very cheaply. I couldn't afford to live as we do if we had to pay rent, or we were buying a house.'

'Then you are lucky to be so well provided for,' remarked Winnie, with a touch of impatience. When she had married, it was the man who expected to provide the home, but times had changed, certainly for Richard, it seemed.

He glanced at his watch.

'I must be off. Thank you for the lunch and those lovely apples. They will remind me of Thrush Green all the way to Bath.'

Occasionally, thought Winnie, as she waved him good-bye, just occasionally, there was a nice side to dear Richard.

But what a pity he was not more of a family man!

One golden afternoon in the following week, Charles Henstock went to visit some of his house-bound parishioners at Thrush Green.

He had dropped Dimity at Ella's, leaving the two friends in animated conversation and an aura of blue tobacco smoke from Ella's pungent cigarettes.