Thrush Green (16 page)

Ruth made no answer for a little while, but picked a blade of grass at her feet and nibbled idly at it. A cuckoo called in the distance, and somewhere, far away, some lambs bleated in the fields beside the Upper Pleshy road.

Their trembling young voices brought back with sharp clarity a picture of that lane, which was a favorite walk of Ruth's. Only a few days before she and Paul had wandered between its quickening hedges and trodden the springy grass of the roadside verges, so soon to be miller-white with a froth of cows' parsley and the powdering from myriads of overhanging hawthorn flowers.

It was the thought of the beauty yet to come, the beauty that would flood the countryside in her absence, that tore Ruth's heart. She tried to explain it, in a small apologetic voice, to the doctor's wife.

Mrs. Bailey, with her eyes closed against the sunshine, nodded sympathetically.

"You see," finished Ruth, "it's not so much that I dislike going back to town as finding that I simply cannot bear to leave the country. Joan and I always loved it—but, somehow, since Stephen left me, it has meant much more. More than a lovely place, more than a way of living, and something more than just a comfort. All I know is—I can't do without it now."

Mrs. Bailey did not reply for a minute. She was thinking that, at last, she had heard the girl speak of Stephen. It was the first time that she had said his name, and to hear her talk, calmly and dispassionately, of the absent lover gave the older woman much satisfaction. There was now no doubt about it. Ruth Bassett's wound had healed.

"Is there any need for you to do without it?" asked Mrs. Bailey. "There must be work in Lulling that you could do. And I know Joan and Edward hope that you will stay here. They have told us so many a time."

"They've been wonderful," replied Ruth warmly, "but I don't feel that I should stay here, in this house, any longer. But if I could get a tiny flat, or a cottage, somewhere nearby, I believe it would be the answer."

"I'll keep my eyes and ears open," promised the doctor's wife. "Both for posts and somewhere to live."

She leaned forward and placed a hand on the girl's knee.

"You are quite right, and so wise, to see that the country is the only home for you. Some people might think that you are trying to flee from society, that you can't face the fun and fury and stimulus of a crowded life. But I know you better than that.

"Follow your instincts. You've found refreshment here and you'll continue to. I know, for I have too."

She paused, thinking of that morning's delight in her May garden and her delicious walk down the hill to Lulling while the dew still still glittered on Thrush Green. It had taken almost all her life to realize, consciously, how much the country sights and scents around her had contributed to her inner happiness and had provided zest and comfort in turn.

"As one gets older," she continued slowly, "so many things get in the way of one's instincts. There's duty to one's children, the necessity to consider a husband's needs and feelings, the knowledge too that one's strength may not be great enough to do what one would like. All sorts of stupid little things too—like wondering what the children would think, or whether a doctor's wife should really do this or that—all these things one considers in relation to a fine, rapturous, instinctive desire, and so often, that fine, rapturous instinctive desire is gently smothered and its little fire dies under a wet blanket."

She smiled across at the girl.

"Young people, like you, are much freer. When they see what they want, they cut through difficulties, and take it. Just stick by your decision. Make a new life here, and you know that we shall all help you."

"I'll do that," promised Ruth gravely. "When Edward and Joan come back next week we'll talk things over. He offered me a secretarial post in his own firm—and I might begin with that, I think."

Mrs. Bailey smote her substantial thigh a resounding whack.

"Good girl! But do you know what I really came for? To borrow some magazines for poor Ella, and I'd almost forgotten."

She related the details of Ella's accident, and added that her husband seemed to have realized at last that he must have more help.

"He's resting now," she said, "and making very light of his weakness; but he was quite done up when he got back from Dimity's. I thought I'd take Ella something to read. She may turn a page or two and give poor Dimity time to clear up the mess."

"I'll go and find some magazines," said Ruth, jumping up.

"Not the ordinary women's magazines," implored Mrs. Bailey. "It's not a bit of good giving love stories to Ella, as you know; but anything with designs and furnishings she'll look at, and even if they only make her blow her top off, it'll keep her attention from her scalds."

Ruth vanished into the house leaving Mrs. Bailey to wander in the warm sunshine of the garden, and to ponder on the girl's vital change.

Now she looked forward, her back turned forever upon the dark miseries which had held her prisoner for so long.

Mrs. Bailey's next visit was to Ella's, and as she crossed Thrush Green, bearing Ruth's carefully selected magazines and a bunch of mixed daffodils from the Bassetts' garden, she came face to face with Mrs. Curdle.

The old lady was standing by her bright caravan and Mrs. Bailey was shocked at the change in her appearance. Still massive, and still commanding, there was now something pathetic about her. There was a droop about the shoulders and a dullness in those dark eyes which the doctor's wife had not seen before.

The women greeted each other cordially.

"And how are you, Mrs. Curdle?"

"Very middlin', ma'am," answered the old lady. "Very middlin' indeed. And gets next to no help from my family these days." She shot a venomous glance in the direction of Sam's caravan.

"But how's your good man?" she continued. "I hear tell he's been took to his bed for some time past."

"He's been very poorly, I'm sorry to say," said Mrs. Bailey. "But improving daily."

"The years is too much for us," said Mrs. Curdle, with heavy solemnity. She looked across to the doctor's house with a grave face.

"I be coming to see him, after his surgery time, I expect," went on Mrs. Curdle.

"We'll be very pleased to see you," answered the doctor's wife warmly. "But he isn't taking surgery at the moment, so just come whenever you can fit it in most conveniently."

"I'll see the show started, and then be over," promised Mrs. Curdle.

"I hear," began Mrs. Bailey, rather diffidently, "that you are thinking of retiring. Is it true? We all hope not, you know."

Mrs. Curdle turned a somber glance upon her.

"'Tis true I be thinking of it. There's times I feel I can't go on for pain and trouble. But between ourselves, ma'am, I reckons 'twould break my heart to give up."

She put a dusky hand against the gay paintwork of her caravan, tracing a yellow cutout leaf, warm in the sunshine.

"Maybe your good man can help me," went on Mrs. Curdle. "He's been a real friend to me. And you too, ma'am, and that's true."

"You come and have a word with him," said Mrs. Bailey. "It'll do him good to see you, I know."

She made her farewells swiftly, for she did not want to leave her husband alone too long, and Ella had yet to be visited.

But when she had rung Ella's bell and was waiting on the doorstep of the corner cottage, she looked back at the dark figure standing motionless by the gaudy caravan, and felt that she had never seen such loneliness before.

Dimity answered the bell, her hands incarnadined.

"She'll be so pleased to see you," she twittered, leading the way up the stairs. Mrs. Bailey followed her red-speckled legs and scarlet-soled slippers aloft.

Ella Bembridge was an awe-inspiring sight in bed. Her short gray hair stood in a fine shock as she had run her fingers through it in her agitation. A bright red dressing gown, no less vivid than the paint which bespattered her friend, was pinned at her neck with a gruesome gray monkey's paw, and contrasted strongly with the white bandage which enveloped one scalded hand.

Dimity had erected a tunnel made, with considerable ingenuity, from a bow-fronted fireguard, in order to keep the bedclothes from pressing too heavily upon poor Ella's painful legs, and this great mound, covered with a patchwork quilt of Ella's own making, added to the bizarre effect.

"Nurse is bringing a proper leg cage later," said Dimity, gazing with pride at her own handiwork, "but she's at a baby case at the moment."

Mrs. Bailey admired the present appliance and inquired about the patient's sufferings.

"Simple ruddy torture!" responded Ella with energy. "If it hadn't been for your husband I'd have taken a meataxe to my lower limbs. Couldn't have hurt much more than they do now," she added, with gloomy relish.

Dimity uttered a horrified squeal.

"Now darling, don't be so naughty. It'll only make your rash worse."

"And if you toss about," warned Mrs. Bailey, "you'll capsize the tunnel."

"Might just as well give up and die, I suppose," boomed the patient, with a heartiness that belied her words. "What about some tea, Dim?"

"Not for me," said Mrs. Bailey hastily, "I must be getting back. I just wanted to see you and to leave these things." She put the magazines carefully at Ella's side, well away from the sufferer's hurts, but even so the patient winced away and let out a bellow that set the washstand ringing.

Mrs. Bailey tried to look contrite, and Dimity rushed to the bedside.

"Keep back! Keep back!" shouted Ella energetically, like a policeman with an exuberant crowd to control. The two women stood respectfully away from the bed and surveyed the vociferous patient.

"Don't worry," said Mrs. Bailey. "We'll keep right over here away from your legs. Perhaps I can put these flowers in water for you?"

Dimity hurried away and returned with a large glass jug.

"I can't reach anything else in the kitchen," she confessed, "but they should look lovely in that. I must go down again. There's someone at the door."

She fluttered off again and quietness fell upon the room. Mrs. Bailey took the jug and flowers to the washstand, and began to arrange the white and gold daffodils carefully.

Their fragrance crept about the room adding their breath of spring to the scents and sounds that came through the open window. The rooks wheeled and called above the elms nearby, and from Ella's flower beds could be heard the chattering and scolding of half a dozen starlings who were busily demolishing her velvety polyanthus flowers. An early bee droned against the pane, his scaly brown legs tap-tapping against the glass like the frail twigs of the jasmine nearby.

Ella watched, in one of her rare silences, as Mrs. Bailey moved the blossoms, standing back every now and again to survey her handiwork. The glass jug had been a happy choice, for the soft green beauty of the stalks and leaves could be seen. Myriads of tiny air bubbles studded their length, like crystal beads, and Ella, whose gruff exterior hid a discerning sensitivity to loveliness, was moved to speak.

"They're perfect, Winnie. Don't muck 'em about any more. They're just absolutely right in that jug."

"Clever of Dimity to get it," murmured Mrs. Bailey, still engrossed.

"I must say," went on Ella, now emerged from her brief spell of quietness, "it's a real pleasure to see flowers allowed to arrange themselves comfortably against the side of a vase, instead of being threaded through an entanglement of squashed-up chicken wire, or that wadding stuff the Lulling Floral Club will foist on its members."

"Oh come," protested Mrs. Bailey, advancing upon Ella with a pheasant's-eye narcissus flower which had broken off. "I think you must have some help sometimes for flowers. Think of nasturtiums or cowslips!"

She held out the flower for Ella to smell, but she made such violent gestures of dismissal, rocking the fireguard perilously, that Mrs. Bailey tossed her the flower and returned to the washstand. Ella raised the blossom to her heated face and continued her harangue between violent sniffs at its snowy petals.

"Well, I've got no time for the Floral Club, as I've told you all before. It doesn't matter which house you go into within a radius of six miles, you can always tell if the mistress goes to the Lulling meetings." She flung a bolster-like arm in the direction of Mrs. Bailey and pointed an accusing finger at her.

"You know what I mean. You do it yourself.
April!
Everybody's got some prissy little workbox fished out from the attic and stuffed up with primroses and moss.
May!
Dam' great boughs of cherry blossoms, impaled in wire, and perched up above eye level somewhere where they're bound to get blown down.
June!
One iris, Japanese fashion, in a 'cool-gray' or 'celadon-green' vase!"

Mrs. Bailey, shaking with laughter at her friend's vehemence, tried to protest, but was brushed aside.

"
July,
" continued Ella, warming to her theme, "three gladioli in a horrible flat white object, and arranged like a one-masted bark, with one up in the middle, and the other two horizontally fore and aft! And as for Christmas—"

Ella took a large breath, and turned a reddening, ferocious face upon her convulsed friend.

"I tell you plainly—now, in ample time. If you're thinking of concocting some horrible great table decoration out of plastic fern, dried grass, two dusty old sprigs of left-over Cape gooseberries, some ghastly artificial flowers from the haberdasher's, topped up with the bunch of violets you're worn to Lulling funerals for the past ten years, plus three poor little Roman hyacinths—like waifs among the corpses—then you can think again! I can face up to silver-painted holly, if that's what you people have in mind, with the rest of you—but I'm damned if I'll thank anybody, even you, Winnie dear, for a monstrosity like that or for an armful of frosted beetroot leaves!"

"Darling," said Mrs. Bailey, wiping her eyes, "I promise you that I'll give you nothing floral at all when Christmas comes."

She bent towards her old friend and gently kissed her good-by.