Thrush Green (21 page)

"I'll tell you," said Ella, with fiendish satisfaction in her tone. "You cut up pieces of lino that you have no further use for—"

"Like that bit in the shed," exclaimed Dimity, eyes brightening.

"Like that bit in the shed," conceded Ella grimly. "That is if you
really want
dinner mats made of lino covered with mildew like Prussian-blue fur, or even just made of lino
without
the Prussian-blue fur—"

"Well, go on," said Dimity.

"I
am
going on," shouted Ella rudely, "but you keep interrupting."

"You'll upset the fireguard," warned Dimity.

"Do you, or do you not, want to hear about these infernal mats?" inquired Ella furiously.

"Why, yes," cried Dimity. Ella turned back to the magazine and continued truculently.

"Then you cut out sprays of flowers from plastic material. And then you stick these horrible sprays onto the lino mats, varnish the lot and there you are. As evil a set of vicious-looking table mats as ever saw the dim religious light of any church bazaar!"

She leaned back upon her pillows contemplating these innocent suggestions as if they had been some dreadful rites connected with black magic. Dimity hastened to change the subject.

"I think it's time you had a dose of medicine for your rash."

Ella continued to watch the lights revolving dizzily across the ceiling for a minute. When she spoke it was in a changed tone.

"D'you know, Dim, I feel quite extraordinary. Whether it's those dam' lights, or something I've eaten, I don't know, but I feel jolly queasy."

Dimity, with a guilty start, recalled Dotty Harmer's quince jelly.

"Could be that ghastly fish in parsley sauce," continued Ella speculatively. "Never could stomach the stuff. Might as well eat whitewash or that muck they make you swallow before X-rays."

She turned a searching glance upon the wilting Dimity.

"You feel all right? You ate it."

"Well, yes," faltered poor Dimity. "I feel quite fit, but—" She hesitated, wringing sad limp hands still rosy from the dye.

"But what?" asked Ella. Her face was contorted with a sudden spasm of pain and she put a hand upon her capacious stomach.

Dimity took a brave deep breath and made her confession.

"I forgot to tell you—that quince jelly, dear. It was made by Dotty. She sent it up this afternoon."

Groaning, Ella sank back upon the pillows.

"You're a fine friend!" she said roundly, but her gruff tone held a hint of kindliness. "You know Dotty. She probably put a cupful of hemlock in to give it a bit of a kick!"

"Oh, Ella darling!" moaned poor Dimity, "I wouldn't have had it happen for worlds. What shall we do?"

"Don't suppose it'll be fatal," answered Ella morosely. "Though with all I've got at the moment death would be a mercy, and that's flat! I'll get young Lovell to give me some jollop when he comes."

She looked at her friend and gave her a sudden warm smile.

"Cheer up, Dim, it might be worse! Pull the curtains and shut out those vile lights. That'll help."

Dimity crossed to the window and looked out upon the bustle and glitter of Mrs. Curdle's fair across the road.

"Why," she exclaimed, "there is Dr. Lovell! And it looks like Ruth he's talking to! Yes, it is. I can see Paul running up to them."

"Time that child was in bed," snorted Ella. "Ruth should know better, keeping him up while she philanders with her young man."

"Oh, Ella, really!" protested Dimity.

"It's been sticking out a mile for weeks," said Ella firmly, her pains momentarily forgotten. "If they don't make a match of it before the year's out, I'll eat my hat. But not tonight," she added hastily, as Dotty's jelly made itself felt.

"He's coming this way," said the watcher at the window suddenly. "He must be calling here."

"Then for pity's sake get him up here quickly," urged her friend. "He'll find plenty to do."

Sure enough, within two minutes the knocker was being attacked and soon young Dr. Lovell confronted his patient. Although he could not take to this brusque ungainly woman, yet so warm and radiant is the power of love that the doctor found himself feeling a new sympathy. The unaccustomed sparkle in his dark eye and his gentle manner only confirmed the suspicions of his tough spinster patient. Here indeed was a man in love.

He examined the scalds and the rash and listened sympathetically to Dimity's incoherent confession. This was not his first encounter with Dotty's handiwork. He smiled benignly as he scribbled down a prescription on his little pad, and took out two white pills from his case.

"These will help at the moment," he promised Ella. "Nurse is coming with the cage for your legs and I really think you'll feel much better tomorrow."

"I should hope so," responded the patient feelingly. "What a day! I never thought so much could happen to me in one day."

"Nor me," agreed the young man warmly, but his tone held a wonder lacking in his patient's. He stood for a moment as though his thoughts were engaged elsewhere on Thrush Green. The sardonic gaze from the bed brought him to his senses.

"I'll see you in the morning," he said hastily, collecting his belongings. "You're a pretty straightforward case, you know. Burns, shock, dermatitis and now this last disease."

"D'you know what it is?" asked Ella.

"Unique to the district, ma'am, so I understand," said young Dr. Lovell, smiling from the doorway. "Dotty's Collywobbles!"

From among the noisy activity of the coconut shies Molly Piggott watched young Dr. Lovell emerge from Miss Bembridge's house and make his way briskly back to Dr. Bailey's.

"Wonder how he found the poor old dear," thought Molly to herself, descending from the rapturous heights which she had inhabited for the last few hours for a brief visit to the everyday world of Thrush Green. But on such an evening the affairs of anyone as mundane as Ella Bembridge could hold Molly's attention but momentarily, for here, beside dear Ben, accepted by his grandmother and with the future glittering as brightly as the fair itself, enchantment lay.

But despite her joy, one shadow remained. Her father had yet to be informed of her plans and Molly dreaded the encounter for Ben's sake. She had cast anxious eyes toward the cottage for the past two hours, but the windows had remained dark. The master of the house was still enjoying his leisure under the hospitable roof of "The Two Pheasants" next door.

At last Molly saw a light in the window and her heart sank. Now she was for it, she told herself. Best cut across home, fry the old boy's supper of rasher and egg and break the news as best she could. She turned to Ben and put a hand upon his arm. The noise was deafening about them, and although the girl put her mouth within an inch of Ben's bruised ear, she could not make herself heard. Only by nodding in the direction of the cottage did she make her meaning clear.

Ben took her arm, calling as he did so to Rachel's father, who was leaning dreamily against a booth negligently picking his teeth with the end of a feather.

"Take over, Bob, will you, for a bit?" shouted Ben. "Be back in half an hour."

Bob nodded casually, and strolled toward the coconut shies.

"Won't make a fortune there for the next half-hour, I'll lay," said Ben grimly. "But never mind, my gal, let's get over and see your dad."

Molly stood still and looked at Ben with eyes dark with worry.

"Hadn't I best go back alone? I always gets his supper, see, my nights off, and I could easy tell him a bit about us, without your botherin'. He can be a bit nasty—short like, you know, if he's surprised or anything. I don't want no unpleasantness, not on a lovely day like this has been."

"This is my business, Moll, as well as yours and his. If there's any unpleasantness I'm the one to stop it. You needn't fear I won't behave civil in your father's house. My gran's learnt me proper manners, you know, but this 'ere's a man's job. You cook his supper and I'll break the news while you breaks the eggs. How's that?"

He put his head on one side and gave her his crooked smile. Molly nodded silently, too moved with relief and love for speech.

Together they crossed the soft spring grass toward the cottage. The blare of the fair faded behind them and the rustle of the trees in the warm night air could be heard again.

"This is Ben, dad. Ben Curdle—from the fair," said Molly. She was smiling bravely, but her heart fluttered in a cowardly way.

"Oh it is, is it?" grunted her father. He had been rooting in the table drawer when they had entered and now faced them with a pointed knife in his hand and an expression of extreme disgust upon his sour old face.

"Evening, sir," said Ben pleasantly. Mr. Piggott turned his back and continued to rummage in the drawer.

"I'm trying to rustle up a bit of grub for meself," grumbled the old man. "Most nights I has to fend for meself, but Fridays I reckons to find a bit ready for me after a hard day's work."

"I'll get you something," broke in Molly swiftly. "Bacon and egg I was going to do. You sit down and talk to Ben."

"What for?" asked Mr. Piggott, looking at the young man with loathing. "I never had no truck with gyppos all me life and I don't intend to start now. What you bring him in the house for, I'd like to know?"

Molly's blue eyes began to blaze.

"Ben here's a friend. And we don't want no talk about gyppos neither. Ben and me—"

"It's all right, Moll," said Ben, with disarming gentleness. "You go and see about the supper."

"And who might you think you are?" shouted Mr. Piggott, with a belligerence born of six pints of beer on an empty stomach. "Whose house is this? Yours or mine? You clear off over the green, where you come from. Sticking your nose into decent folks' houses and laying down the law—" He raised his right elbow threateningly, the dinner knife wavering dangerously near Ben's throat.

Ben grabbed the older man's wrist and lowered him forcibly into the wooden armchair that stood by the table. Mr. Piggott sat down with a jerk and Ben quietly removed the knife from his grasp.

"God help us!" exploded Mr. Piggott, attempting to bounce to his feet again. Ben's hand on his shoulder thwarted his efforts, and something about the glint in the young man's eye, despite his steady smile, seemed to flash a warning to Mr. Piggott's beer-befuddled senses. He took refuge in pathetic bellowings to Molly in the kitchen.

"Here, Moll, what's all this about? Your poor old dad beaten up by this young gyppo—ted then, if you don't like gyppo," he added hastily, as the grip on his shoulder tightened. "Molly, who is this chap? You come on in here and see what he's adoing!"

Molly put a mischievous face around the door and she and Ben exchanged a swift smile.

"I told you, dad, it's Ben Curdle. You and him's going to have a little talk while I cooks your supper. Two rashers, Ben?" she asked.

"He's not having no rashers," stormed her father. "Not a morsel or bite of my hard-earned bread passes 'is lips—"

"Now, dad," remonstrated Molly, advancing farther into the room. "Ben's as hungry as you are. You'll talk better together over a meal."

"If you take it easy, sir," put in young Ben, "maybe a drop of something from next door might help the meal along."

Mr. Piggott's black visage was softened into the semblance of a smile.

"Now that's talking sense, boy. 'Double X' for me, unless you fancies something stronger yourself. Get the boy a jug, Moll, and get a move on, will you?"

He settled back in his chair and watched Ben vanish out the door. From the kitchen came the fragrance and sizzling of frying rashers and the sound of a daughter hard at woman's work.

Mr. Piggott licked his wet lips and sat back well content.

By the time Ben returned, Molly had set the cloth and was bearing in three plates. Mr. Piggott had bestirred himself to the extent of lifting down from the dresser two thick glass mugs, souvenirs of the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and placing them expectantly upon the table.

His eye brightened as Ben deposited a foaming jug of draft beer by the cruet and he became even more jubilant when Ben pulled a half-bottle of whisky from his pocket and put it deferentially before him.

"Now that's very handsome of you, me boy," said Mr. Piggott, his voice husky with emotion. "Very handsome indeed. Maybe, you ain't so blackhearted as you looks."

This, Molly knew, was as honeyed a speech as would ever fall from her parent's lips, and the only hint of apology that Ben could expect. They downed the meal with relish. Molly was surprised to find how hungry she was, and her father's unlovely openmouthed mode of mastication for once failed to nauseate her.

Ben prudently waited until the plates were empty and his host's first mugful had been drained before approaching the business in hand. Then, characteristically, he came directly to the point.

"Molly and me's hoping to get wed some day, Mr. Piggott."

"Oh ah!" said Mr. Piggott carelessly, refilling his glass. He appeared oblivious to the importance of this remark, but fixed all his attention on the billowing head of froth that wavered at the brink of the mug.

Ben spoke a little louder.

"We've been friends like for a year now." He looked across at Molly with a quick smile, and she nodded, smiling, in reply.

"That's right, dad," she said earnestly. A look of annoyance crossed her pretty face as she saw the complete absorption of her father in his brimming mug. Her voice became tart.

"You listening? Ben's trying to tell you something important. I shan't be here to cook your suppers much longer."

This practical attack on his creature comforts had the desired effect. Mr. Piggott raised his rheumy eyes and his habitual expression of truculence reappeared.

"What say? Not be here? What's all this?"

"I been saying," Ben said patiently, "as Molly and I wants to get married—"

"Too late!" asserted Mr. Piggott, in his sexton's voice of authority. "Dark now. Can't get married this time o' night. Besides I've swep' up the church "

"We wasn't thinking of tonight, sir," said Ben, trying to control the laughter in his voice. "This summer, say—later on before we lays up the fair for the winter."