(12/13) The Year at Thrush Green (14 page)

Edward Young was restless.

Joan Young was used to these periodic upsets. They often coincided, as in the present case, with some hold-up in his work, and she did her best to calm him, although she knew, from experience, that only the resumption of the job in hand would cure his frustration.

Work on a splendid Regency house in Cheltenham had kept him engaged for some time, but the builders had been held up by a shortage of vital material and work had stopped for almost a week.

In his present state of impatience, Edward had turned again to the unresolved problem of Rectory Cottages' communal room. His doubts remained, and it was particularly unfortunate that it was at this time that he came across Mrs Thurgood in Lulling High Street.

She seized him by the arm so violently that he spun in his tracks.

'Just the man I wanted to see,' she trumpeted. Edward's heart sank at these ominous words. 'I should like a word in your ear about Rectory Cottages.'

'I'm afraid I can't stop now,' began Edward, but was ignored, just as poor Charles Henstock's protests had been.

'I shan't keep you a minute,' replied Mrs Thurgood, hemming him into a corner between the steps leading up to the Lovelock sisters' front door, and the Fuchsia Bush. She pushed her tartan-covered shopping trolley across Edward's line of escape, and started to hold forth to her captive.

'It seems,' she began, 'that the sitting-room is proving rather small, and as you designed it I wondered if you felt it should be enlarged. I gather that is the general opinion.'

Taken aback as he was, and literally hemmed in on all sides, Edward did his best to fight back.

'I stand by my original work,' he began, but was interrupted by his persecutor, who had now raised her voice to a remarkable pitch to overcome the din of a large and slow vehicle which was sweeping the gutters at enormous expense to the Lulling rate-payers.

'Times change!' she shouted. 'It may have seemed adequate at the time, but it now appears to be too small.'

'No one else thinks so,' retorted Edward. 'As I understand it, the matter was discussed at a meeting of the trustees, which unfortunately I had to miss, and it was found perfectly adequate.'

'That's not what I hear,' bawled Mrs Thurgood. The driver of the giant sweeper had now paused to greet a friend near by and their voices added to the bedlam.

'In any case,' responded Edward fortissimo, 'there is
no money!'

Half a dozen people now appeared and began to push their way towards the Fuchsia Bush, chattering noisily. One person shoved Mrs Thurgood's trolley aside and Edward escaped.

Mrs Thurgood, greatly disgruntled, continued on her way.

Inside the Lovelocks' house, Miss Ada said to Miss Violet: 'I don't know what the High Street is coming to. There was a dreadful brawl going on right outside our front door.'

'Oh, it was only Mrs Thurgood,' said Violet. 'She was talking to someone I couldn't see who was pinned against our wall.'

'Humph!' snorted Ada, 'that Mrs Thurgood gets more vulgar every week. Short of deporting her, I cannot think what can be done about her.'

'Just ignore her,' said Violet.

'I do that already,' said Ada tartly.

Edward Young was profoundly disturbed by this encounter. Reason told him that he should ignore the whole incident, that Mrs Thurgood was nothing but a troublemaker and that this wretched business of the communal room should be set aside.

Reason, however, was being overwhelmed by agitation for poor Edward as he mounted the steep hill to Thrush Green in time for lunch.

The schoolchildren were already at play. Their midday dinner had been demolished, and now, replete with shepherd's pie and rhubarb crumble, they were cowboys, aeroplanes, spacemen or, in the case of the infants, simply mothers and fathers in the quietest corner of the playground.

Alan Lester was talking to his neighbour Harold Shoosmith just outside the school gate. Edward went to join them.

'The sun has brought us all out,' said Alan, waving to the children. 'Hope it's like this on Open Day.'

'When's that?'

'Early July. That's if we're ready. I live in hope.'

'It's often perfect then,' said Harold, 'but in any case you won't have everything outside, will you?'

'In this climate?' replied Alan. 'Not likely! We've a couple of things planned for outdoors but only if the weather's fine.'

'At least you have the school to shelter in if it pours,' observed Edward. 'When it has teemed down on fête days we've had to invite everyone into the house. This year we shall be away, so Harold here had better be warned. He's nobly taken over my duties, as you probably know.'

'We'll keep our fingers crossed,' promised Alan.

Betty Bell appeared wheeling her bicycle. She was making her way home after her morning's work.

'There's a steak and kidney pie just being dished up,' she informed Harold. 'Smells a dream!'

'Then I'd better go and see about it,' agreed Harold, and the three friends parted.

It was in this week that Ella and Winnie took their promised walk. They were both early risers, and agreed that the country was at its best in the first hours of daylight.

They set off, sticks in hand, soon after nine o'clock, two sturdy middle-aged ladies in coats and stout shoes, for although it was June the morning was fresh despite the sunshine.

The lane to Nidden was as peaceful as ever. People who worked in Lulling or Woodstock or Oxford had already gone. The schoolchildren were safely at assembly, and Winnie and Ella had the quiet road to themselves.

One of Percy Hodge's black-and-white Friesian cows put her head over the hedge and gazed speculatively at them. Her eyelashes were fringed with mist. She chewed the cud slowly, ropes of saliva dripping from the great pink tongue. She looked infinitely content.

'It's funny how soothing cows are,' observed Ella. 'All that milk, I suppose, comes to mind.'

'I think it's the smell of their breath,' said Winnie. 'So soporific. Very calming. And so completely the opposite of bulls which frighten the life out of me.'

The mist of early morning had now cleared, and the view to Lulling Woods lay spread before them, a gentle rolling patchwork of varying greens, here and there enlivened by a vivid yellow field of rape. The two friends propped their arms on a convenient field gate, and gazed their fill in companionable silence.

A blackbird flew past, its yellow bill stuffed with squirming insects. It vanished into the hawthorn hedge beside them, and the air was instantly aquiver with the cries of young birds greeting their meal.

The brambles and goosegrass at the base of the hedge glistened with dew in the shadow, but already the shiny hawthorn leaves and may blossom in the sun were lightly steaming in the growing warmth.

'It's going to be a scorcher,' said Winnie, stirring at last.

'And about time too,' said Ella. 'I like summer to
be
summer.'

The cow parsley was now over. The froth of white flowers had turned to green seed heads, but among the luxuriant leaves the crane's-bill was appearing, its startling blue flowers giving colour to the verge. Pink campion, starry marguerites and the rusty spires of dock added their portion, and low on the ground, among the dusty edges of the road, spread the grey leaves of silverweed.

They strode past the cottages where the Cootes lived. Even here, among the derelict cars, mowers and wheel-barrows and building materials, there were signs of summer. An elder tree leant from the hedge, showing its great creamy blossoms to the sun, and some exuberant crimson peonies had found their way through the detritus to flaunt their beauty.

The two friends walked on, past the copse where the bluebells had so stirred them on their earlier walk, and on towards the scatter of cottages which comprised Nidden. A tabby cat sat on a stone gatepost, and responded to Ella's stroking by opening a pink triangle of mouth and giving little purrs of appreciation. A toddler stumbled down the path to the gate, and gazed, thumb in mouth, at the two strangers, but refused to speak.

Ella looked at her watch. 'I'm supposed to be back for the laundry man,' she said. 'Do you mind turning back now?'

'Not a bit. I'm mightily refreshed in body and spirit.'

They waved goodbye to the unresponsive child and the friendly cat, and turned for home.

At Thrush Green school preparations were well ahead for Open Day towards the end of term.

Alan Lester had already sent out invitations to parents, governors and other friends of the school, including one to his predecessors Miss Watson and Miss Fogerty, now enjoying retirement at Barton-on-Sea.

'Really,' commented Miss Watson at the breakfast table, 'it is most gratifying to be kept in touch with school affairs. But it seems a pity to me to see that the children have not written the invitations in their own handwriting. I suppose they have a copier now. It no doubt cost a fortune.'

Little Miss Fogerty, at the other side of the table, rallied to Alan Lester's defence. She knew how much dear Dorothy missed her position as a respected headmistress, but she saw no reason why she should find fault with her excellent successor.

'You must admit, Dorothy, that the invitations are easier to read. And I believe that the parents raised the money for the copier. I think it is a good idea.'

'Would you pass the marmalade?' enquired Dorothy somewhat coldly.

There was silence for a few minutes, broken only by the crunching of toast.

'You're quite right, dear,' said Miss Watson at last. 'I must say I am looking forward so much to our visit. Isobel asked if I would be willing to judge the children's fancy dress competition at the fête. Alan Lester had broached the subject.'

Miss Fogerty recognized this speech as an overture of reconciliation and forbore to tell her friend that Isobel had already mentioned the matter to her in a recent telephone conversation. The two had been friends since college days, and the fact that they had been neighbours at Thrush Green had strengthened the tie.

'I do hope you will do it,' said Miss Fogerty. 'You are quite the right person to appreciate the work and ingenuity that goes into these affairs.'

'I don't know about that,' replied Dorothy, with unusual modesty, 'but I shall do my best, and hope that Thrush Green will forgive any shortcomings.'

'I'm just going to have a look at some cuttings in the cold frame,' said Agnes Fogerty folding her napkin. 'I promised Isobel some slips from our shrubs, and I must say they are looking very perky.'

'You have green fingers, Agnes,' said Dorothy kindly, propping up the invitation on the mantelpiece. 'And a much more generous nature than I have.'

But the second comment, though strongly felt, she kept to herself.

Willie Marchant, the postman, dropped three letters through Albert Piggott's door one sunny morning and, as usual, it was Nelly who bent to pick them up.

Two were addressed to Albert, and looked like run-of-the-mill circulars, but the third was addressed to Nelly, in a hand she did not recognize immediately.

It was quite heavy and bulky, and Nelly saw that the postmark bore the stamp of Leicester. She slipped it into her apron pocket, out of sight of Albert, and handed him the two which were addressed to him. He gave them scant attention.

'More rubbish!' was his only comment.

Nelly did not open her letter until she was safely in the office at the Fuchsia Bush. To her surprise, a cellophane bag containing a gold chain was enclosed with a letter from Mrs Butler, Charlie's landlady.

The letter read:

Dear Mrs Piggott,

Charlie asked me to send you this as a little keepsake. It belonged to his mother, and it is real gold. He hoped you would like it to remind you of happy times past.

The letter was signed with Mrs Butler's shaky scrawl, and Nelly undid the present with mixed emotions.

The long necklace slid out of its wrapping. Nelly knew gold when she saw it, and this was certainly the real thing. It was of Victorian design, quite heavy, and well over two feet in length.

Her first feeling was that it was too valuable for her to accept. Her second was that it was typical of Charlie's generosity, and that she was overwhelmed by it.

Remembering her last glimpse of Charlie, shabby and almost destitute, she wondered that he had not sold such a valuable object. But it was also typical of him to have kept something of his mother's which he prized on her account.

Nelly sat alone in the quiet office, remembering those days with Charlie. They had ended in Brighton with the deepest humiliation and hurt that she had ever suffered. Even now, the remembrance made her shudder and feel sick.

When he had thrown her over for another woman, and Nelly had no alternative but to return to Thrush Green and the recriminations, and probably rejection of Albert, she would never forget that long miserable journey home, shaken by Charlie's treachery and fearful for what lay ahead. Although Albert was remarkably forbearing, contenting himself with a few wounding words now and again, the general disapproval of her neighbours was harder to bear. Nelly knew that in such a close-knit community her shame would never be completely forgotten. But her natural exuberance and hard work gradually overcame the censure of her neighbours, and as the years had passed, Nelly's back-slidings, if not quite forgotten, were almost quite forgiven.