(7/13) Affairs at Thrush Green (10 page)

'You listen to me, dad,' said Ben quietly, if anything happens to her you're going to regret it. And what's more, all Thrush Green is going to chuck it in your face. She's your wife, whatever she's done. You'd best get down there as fast as you can.'

'And how am I going to get to Brighton, may I ask? And who pays the fare?'

'We've been looking up ways and means. I can put you and your case on the morning coach at Lulling. It goes right up to Victoria Coach Station, and there's plenty of coaches direct from there to Brighton. You'd be with Nelly in a matter of hours.'

Albert began to look cornered.

'And Ben and I will pay the fare,' Molly promised him. 'We've talked it over, haven't we, Ben?'

Her husband nodded loyally, and Albert looked more hopeful.

'Well, I don't say as it might not be the right thing to do,' he admitted cautiously, 'but she's a fair old trollop, as well you know, and I don't reckon she deserves to see me again.'

Molly privately thought that her father's remark could be construed in two ways, but prudently remained silent.

'That's settled then,' said Ben, standing up. 'I'll pick you up in the van at a quarter past eight tomorrow morning, on my way to work. The coach sets off at eight-thirty, $0 you'll be all right.'

'And I'll come over tonight and pack one or two things for you,' added Molly swiftly. 'You may want to stay for a while.'

'That'll be the day,' commented Albert bitterly.

But he knew when he was beaten.

In common with most small communities, news in Thrush Green and Lulling has always spread with the rapidity of a forest fire.

Sharp eyes that morning had seen Albert waiting at the coach stop. He was actually wearing a tie as well as his best dark blue suit, the one in which he had married Nelly at St Andrew's. At his feet stood a small case.

Obviously, he was off on his travels, and where would that be? News of Nelly's illness had already gone the rounds, and it did not need much guesswork on the part of his observers to settle his destination.

The coach stop was immediately outside The Fuchsia Bush, and Mrs Peters, the owner of this establishment, noticed Albert as she drove up to open the café. Ten minutes later Gloria Williams arrived on foot, and soon after that her co-worker Rosa entered their place of work.

The coach was late, and Albert was shifting impatiently from one foot to the other.

'No doubt Nelly's took a turn for the worse,' surmised Rosa. 'I did hear she was in the intensive.'

'What's that when it's at home?' queried Gloria, licking her fingers and arranging a curl over one eyebrow. it's where they put you when it's touch and go,' Rosa explained. 'You're all wired up to a television thing for the nurses to watch.'

'And Nelly's that bad?'

'I expect so,' said Rosa with evident satisfaction. 'Can't see old Smiley there bothering to go and see her if she was just in an ordinary ward.'

'My mum said no one wasn't allowed to see people when they was wired up like you say.'

Rosa was somewhat put out by this sudden display of medical knowledge from a junior.

'Oh! Know it all, do you?' she enquired, with heavy sarcasm. 'Perhaps you can tell me—'

But at this moment, Mrs Peters came hurrying through from her swift inspection of the kitchen, and the two girls broke off their discussion to collect their overalls and to appear moderately active.

'Come along, girls,' cried their bustling employer. 'No time for gossip! The tables need dusting, and one of you must hurry along to Abbot's. We're nearly out of butter.'

Gloria cast a resigned look at her colleague behind Mrs Peter's back, and at that moment the London coach drew up with a dreadful squealing of brakes.

The door opened automatically. Albert picked up his case and mounted the steps. Within a minute he was on his way, all his movements having been watched by the three ladies behind the window of The Fuchsia Bush.

Betty Bell was full of the drama when she blew into the Shoosmiths' house at Thrush Green 'to put them to rights'.

'Fancy our Albert making such a trip! I bet he wouldn't have gone if he'd been left to himself though. They say Mr Jones gave him the rough side of his tongue, and Ben and Molly put the pressure on too. I'd dearly like to be a fly on the ceiling when he sees his Nelly in hospital. What's the betting he takes her some flowers? Or a bunch of grapes? I don't think! The mean old devil! Want your study done over?'

Harold looked helplessly at his wife. She came swiftly to the rescue, as always.

'Bedrooms today, Betty. I did the study yesterday.'

'Righty-o! I'll lug the vacuum up.'

She made for the kitchen, but lingered in the doorway.

'They say she's pretty bad, you know. Trouble with her breathing. Well, with all that fat and her being so short in the neck it's not surprising. My auntie was the same. Never had a cold but what it was bronchitis. Doctor Lovell took her off butter but it never did any good. Now it's all this fibre nonsense. Everyone comes out of that surgery being told to eat bran these days. Last year it was no animals fats, and the year before that no sugar. I s'pose we'll all be on hay or silage this time next year. Funny folk, doctors, I reckon.'

'Who told you that Mrs Piggott was seriously ill?' said Isobel, trying to stem the tirade against the medical profession.

'Why, Percy Hodge! He was just coming out of The Two Pheasants as I was leaving the school yesterday. Been in to get his courage up to face that Doris of his, I don't doubt. Now, there's a fine how-do-you-do. She's real sharp with poor old Perce. He has to take his shoes off outside the back door, and then she hands him a clothes brush to have a clean-up in case he's got any bits of straw and that on him. You'd hardly credit it, would you? And she once a barmaid. '

'But Nelly—' broke in Isobel.

'Ah yes! Well, Perce said Mr Jones had told him he'd read a letter of Albert's that said she was at her last gasp.'

'Oh dear!'

'One thing, I bet she ain't calling for Albert, ill though she is. And I wonder what she'll say when the old misery turns up at her bedside? Enough to give her a prolapse.'

'I think it's "relapse",' said Harold.

'That as well, I shouldn't wonder,' conceded Betty. 'I'll get that vacuum cleaner. Standing here listening to you running on won't buy the baby a new frock, will it?'

She vanished through the door, and the Shoosmiths exchanged conspiratorial glances.

'I think I could do with a second cup of coffee,' said Harold handing over his cup.

'I'll join you,' said his wife.

April was at its loveliest that year, the first spring that Charles and Dimity had enjoyed in their new home at Lulling.

Charles woke early one April morning and lay quietly watching the changing sky. The first apricot warmth faded slowly to pink and then to a clear shade of lemon yellow.

Charles watched the young leaves fluttering in silhouette against their changing background. A dove cooed. A blackbird poured forth a liquid stream of bird music, and the metallic call of a nearby wren added to the dawn chorus.

As the day brightened into silvery light the birds became more active, swooping from trees to earth, from hedge to further hedge, in their search for food and nesting material. The air seemed full of their activity, and the flutter of wings and the varied cries brought the morning to life.

Charles lay beside his sleeping wife savouring this joyousness of spring. Truly, his lot had been cast in pleasant places, he thought, as he watched the sun burnishing the eastern side of the ancient cedar tree.

It was good to have a quiet contemplative time now and again. He recalled one of Wordsworth's sonnets learnt long ago at school:

The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

His own day, Charles knew only too well, was a succession of activities which kept him busy mentally and bodily. Somehow one was always looking ahead, planning the next move, trying to cut down time. And in all this bustle the present was lost. The daisy opened, closed and died. The chaffinch threaded the last shred of moss into its nest before sitting. The sun reached the point in the heavens when the weathercock turned to gold. And all these wonders passed unremarked, because the clock on the mantelpiece gave stern reminder of the service at three-thirty, the visit to a sick parishioner at five o'clock, and the meeting of the Parochial Church Council at eight sharp.

Charles Henstock was the first to honour his duties towards God and his neighbours. But what a bonus it was, he told himself as he stretched his toes luxuriously in the warmth of the bed, to have these precious moments of just
being
, of becoming aware of all the other lives impinging on one's own, and of having time to give thanks for such revelation.

He sat up, being careful not to disturb his wife, and gazed out of the window. There was a heavy dew. It looked more like September than April. The grass shimmered and glittered in the low rays of the rising sun. Each little spear, it seemed to Charles, bore a shining droplet. How many thousands would there be, he wondered, clustered beneath the trees, spreading far and wide, almost to the church itself?

Surrounded by leaves! All sorts of shapes and sizes, large and small, green and gold, smooth and rough, some aromatic, some not, but all breathing entities, as far as the eye could see!

He found the thought strangely moving and comforting. It put his own life into perspective. It made him more sharply aware of his modest place amidst such a wealth of living things. The trees he looked upon now would still be there when he himself had gone. And that little jewelled chaffinch, rose-breasted and blue-capped, which fluttered at the window, would have become a lacework of small ivory bones long before he himself took the same way home.

Dimity stirred.

'Are you all right?' she asked drowsily.

'Everything's all right,' Charles assured her truthfully.

One breezy spring afternoon Connie emerged from Dotty's cottage, milk-can in one hand and Flossie's lead in the other, and made her way to Thrush Green to deliver Ella Bern-bridge's daily quota of goat's milk.

Albert Piggott had proved surprisingly capable at dealing with Dulcie's bounty while her aunt had been laid up, but once Connie had settled in she assured him that she could manage the animals.

'Well, I don't mind givin' a hand when you're pushed,' said Albert. 'Makes a change from humping a broom round the church or tidying the grave-yard, and old Dulce and me gets on pretty fairish. Goats has got more sense than people, I reckons.'

Connie thanked him sincerely. She knew that by nature he was a gloomy soul, and that he had strangely blossomed in his new role as animal minder. She assured him that she might well need his services if a domestic emergency arose, and he seemed content.

It was as well that she had not relied upon him daily, she thought, following Flossie along the footpath, for she had just heard about his departure to Brighton to visit his wife. As things were, she found looking after Dotty and the many animals well within her capabilities, and enjoyed renewing her friendships in Thrush Green. But just occasionally, when the sun was setting over Lulling Woods and that wistful time between daylight and dark spread its shadows, she mourned the cottage she had left behind in Somerset, and the familiar shapes of hills and trees around it. But it was a momentary sadness, and Connie was able to dismiss it bravely. Aunt Dotty had always been good to her and Connie knew that she was sole heir to her little estate. She was glad to be able to give her a hand now that she needed it. Certainly, no one could have been kinder or more grateful than her eccentric aunt, and what were known in the neighbourhood as 'Dotty's funny little ways' gave Connie no cause for alarm. She was quite used to them, and in any case the affection she felt for this unusual relative was strong enough to over-ride any fears.

Flossie quickened her pace when they reached Thrush Green, and Connie found herself running to keep up. Luckily, the lid of the old-fashioned milk can was well-fitting, but she could hear the liquid splashing about inside.

The children were having games in the playground, and Connie could hear them chanting:
I sent a letter to my love,
while little Miss Fogerty watched carefully from outside the circle to make sure that all the rules of the game were properly kept.

The path to Ella's front door was lined with velvety wallflowers, wine-dark, gold and cream. The scent was delicious, and even Flossie stood still, nose upraised, as if enjoying their fragrance.

No one was in. Connie went into the garden to see if Ella were there, but both back and front doors were locked, and the windows tight shut. Obviously, Ella was out for some time, and now she came to think of it, Connie recalled that she had said something about going to that excellent shop in Ship Street, Oxford, to buy tapestry wools.

'Well, Floss,' said Connie, 'we must just leave the milk in the porch. No biscuit for you today, old girl. We'll see if we can find one at home.'