(10/13) Friends at Thrush Green (2 page)

The school house remained empty throughout the winter, but just before Easter it was bought by a young and obviously prosperous couple called Angela and Piers Finch.

They were an exuberant pair and had great plans for enlarging the house. All through the summer they appeared at odd times in an old but dashing scarlet MG car which scandalized Thrush Green with its noise. They spent several weekends at the house, 'slumming' as they called it, while they pored over detailed plans, tidied the garden, lunched at The Two Pheasants, and visited Harold and Isobel next door.

Isobel found them exhilarating, enjoyed their chatter, and was much touched by the expensive flowers and chocolates with which they showered her.

Harold found them excessively tiring. It seemed to him that they always descended upon them just as he was settling down to read or to listen to music. He viewed their future proximity with some misgiving, especially as their plans to enlarge the modest house were being drawn up with a family in view.

But no actual building began, as it happened, and in the autumn the Finch couple arrived on the Shoosmiths' doorstep with surprising news: he had been posted overseas by his export firm at a salary which staggered Harold, and they were to fly out in a month's time to take up the appointment.

The school house at Thrush Green was on the market again.

Its fate, of course, was a constant source of speculation and surmise among the inhabitants of Thrush Green.

Mr Jones of The Two Pheasants hoped that it would be made into offices so that the staff would visit his establishment for lunch. Albert Piggott, the morose sexton of St Andrew's church on the green and one of Mr Jones's regular customers, was of the opinion that a decent, quiet couple would be best there.

'None of these 'ere yuppies, like that jazzy pair as bought it. Thrush Green don't want that sort.'

'Well, they was free with their money,' pointed out his old crony Percy Hodge, over their half pints. 'Give me three quid for a load of farm muck.'

'More fool them,' growled Albert.

Winnie Bailey, the doctor's widow who lived across the green, wondered if her nephew Richard would like to try his luck again.

'Not a hope,' he told her on the telephone. 'I'd love to live on Thrush Green, as you know, but I can't prise Fenella from London and the art gallery.'

The Reverend Charles Henstock who had the church of St Andrew's in his care, hoped that whoever took the house would support the church he knew so well, and his wife Dimity added her hope that children might live at the old school house, as it was so handy for the school next door.

And so the speculation continued, while the little house stood empty.

It was Betty Bell, the exuberant young woman who kept the school clean and also charged round the Shoosmiths' house twice a week, bringing them up to date with village gossip, who came nearest to the mark.

'It'd never surprise me,' she said, unwinding the flex of the carpet sweeper from the figure-of-eight pattern which so irked Harold, 'to hear as Mr Lester came to live next door. Real handy for the school it would be, wouldn't it?'

'He prefers to stay in his present place, I gather,' said Harold. Was it worth trying yet again, to get Betty to wind the flex straight up and down to withstand the strain of these contortions? He decided it would be a waste of time. She liked a good tight figure-of-eight finish to her carpet-sweeping labours, and that was that.

'It would be nice to have the Lesters next door,' conceded Isobel. 'But I should think it most unlikely. He thought about it all when he took on the post. I shouldn't think he would change his mind.'

'Ah well,' agreed Betty, crashing the sweeper against the skirting board and bending to pick up a flake or two of paint with a licked finger, 'time will tell, won't it?'

Meanwhile, news of the approaching visit of Dorothy Watson and Agnes Fogerty to their old haunts overshadowed the problematical future of the school house, which had once been the home of the two retired ladies.

Charles Henstock and his wife Dimity discussed the matter as they pottered about the lovely garden at their vicarage in the Cotswold town of Lulling, only a mile away from Thrush Green, where they had started their married life.

Dimity had shared a cottage for many years with her friend Ella Bembridge, and was still a frequent visitor. Charles Henstock had been a widower for a number of years, and lived opposite Ella and Dimity's cottage in a bleak and hideous rectory, grudgingly looked after by a formidable housekeeper.

On her marriage, Dimity had forsaken her snug quarters with Ella to share the rigours of life at Thrush Green rectory with her adored Charles; the housekeeper had returned to her native Scotland, to the relief of everyone at Thrush Green.

A year or two later, whilst Charles and Dimity were on holiday, a fire broke out at the empty rectory and it was gutted. No one mourned its loss except Charles, who had never really noticed its ugliness, its discomforts and its incongruity amongst so many lovely Thrush Green buildings.

On its site, 'arising like a phoenix from the ashes', as someone said dramatically, appeared a pleasant group of homes for old people, designed by the local architect Edward Young. He himself lived, with his wife Joan, in the most handsome house on the green, and the view of the Victorian rectory had annoyed him for years. The sight of the smoking remains after the night of the fire had given him acute satisfaction.

The Henstocks had spent several months in lodgings nearby but moved into the lovely Queen Anne vicarage at Lulling within the year. It was a great joy to Charles to find that he would still be looking after his old parishioners at Thrush Green, Lulling Woods and Nidden, as well as the more important and larger parish of Lulling in which he and Dimity now lived.

It was a morning in early May when they first heard that their old friends Dorothy and Agnes were coming back to Thrush Green for a week's visit.

The lawn was wet with a heavy dew. A pair of blackbirds ran about collecting food for their family nearby; a lark was greeting the sun with an ecstasy of song, and the great copper beech tree at the end of the garden was turning auburn with young leaves.

'They couldn't come at a lovelier time,' said Dimity. 'May is the best month in the year.'

Her husband straightened up from his weeding, a bunch of chickweed in his hand. His plump, pink face was thoughtful.

'I think I prefer April. Nearly always get Easter then. All those daffodils, and life renewed, and such a
festival of hope,
I always feel.'

Not for the first time Dimity was reminded of how closely woven into his life was her husband's religion.

'But May is
warmer
she pointed out, 'and the evenings are longer, and there are far more varieties of flowers to pick.'

'Do you think Dorothy and Agnes will go picking flowers?'

'They'll probably be visiting local gardens open to the public. I know that's the sort of thing they promised themselves when they retired to Barton-on-Sea.'

'Well, we can't compete with Hidcote or Stourhead,' commented Charles, 'but I hope they will visit Lulling Vicarage garden while they're here.'

It was Ella Bembridge, Dimity's old friend, who first mentioned the approaching visit to the Misses Lovelock. These three ancient sisters lived in a fine house in Lulling High Street, and from it they kept their sharp eyes upon the affairs of the town in which they had been born.

Ella had entered the local restaurant, known as The Fuchsia Bush, in search of a much-needed cup of coffee after carrying a heavy box of petunia plants the length of the High Street. She found the three sisters debating the merits of a fruit cake, which would last for several teatimes if the slices were cut thinly, or three scones, one apiece, slit and buttered sparingly, for that day's repast.

'I should take both,' advised Ella robustly. 'The fruit cake will last for days. Save you hunting about tomorrow.'

The sisters looked at each other. Bertha and Ada were obviously shocked by such wanton extravagance but before the protestations could flow, Violet, who was the youngest of the three and still in her seventies, nodded her approval.

'Such a good idea, Ella. Let's do that.'

She called across to one of The Fuchsia Bush's lethargic assistants who was picking little pieces of fluff from the mauve and red overall in which all the staff were arrayed, in deference to the flower named over the establishment's bow window.

The girl came across unhurriedly, looking extremely bored.

'Three scones, please,' said Violet briskly, 'with plenty of sultanas in them, and that small fruit cake. Now, how much is that?'

As she fumbled in her purse, surveyed by her two sisters, Ella broke in.

'I'm in here for coffee,' she said, heaving the petunias on to a chair. 'Come and join me.'

'We really should be getting back,' murmured Ada.

'My treat,' said Ella. 'You gave me coffee the other day, remember?'

'Well,' said Bertha graciously, 'that is most kind of you. Coffee would be very welcome, wouldn't it?'

The four settled themselves at the somewhat wobbly table and Rosa, the languid waitress, exerted herself enough to make her way into the kitchen with their order.

It was then that Ella mentioned the visit of Dorothy Watson and Agnes Fogerty.

'How nice,' said Ada. 'I know that Charles and Dimity know them well, but somehow we never came across them.'

'Not
socially
,' added Bertha.

'But of course we know them
by sight,'
said Violet.

'And heard what excellent women they were,' agreed Ada.

'Well then,' said Ella—she began to roll one of her deplorable cigarettes, but thought better of it in present company, and returned the tin containing papers and tobacco to her pocket—'you
do
know them.'

'By
sight
and
hearsay
,' explained Bertha. 'They never came to the house.'

Ella's face must have expressed the astonishment she felt, for Violet, rather more in touch with life than her venerable sisters, spoke hastily.

'You see, the two teachers were working so much of the time.'

'But
I'm
working,' protested Ella, 'at my handiwork, of one sort and another, and you invite me to your house.'

'You are in
The Arts,'
said Bertha kindly. 'Father always encouraged artistic people. He was devoted to William Morris's principles.'

'And some of the professional people came too,' put in Bertha. 'We often had the vicar to tea, and that nice doctor whose cousin was Lord Somebody-or-other. Father was very broad-minded.'

'What about your dentist?' asked Ella, now thoroughly intrigued by these bygone niceties of social distinction.

Bertha drew herself up.

'One did not meet one's dentist
socially
in those days.'

'The very idea!' said Ada, scandalized.

'Good! Here's the coffee,' said Violet, as Rosa emerged from the kitchen. She sounded relieved.

'I think I could do with a biscuit,' said Ella, looking somewhat shaken at her friends' disclosures of times past. 'Will you join me?'

The ladies accepted with smiles and Rosa, sighing, returned to the kitchen.

'That lot in there,' she said to Nelly Piggott, who was in charge of The Fuchsia Bush kitchen, 'wants a plate of biscuits now. Fair livin' it up today them Lovelocks. I bet Miss Bembridge foots the bill.'

'It's no business of yours who foots the bill, my girl,' responded Nelly. 'It's all money in the till, and that's where your wages comes from, don't forget.'

She watched Rosa rummage in the large biscuit tin to find suitable provender for the four ladies.

'Them custard creams and bourbons are all right, and a few little wafer biscuits, but have a heart, girl, who's going to crunch gingernuts at their age?'

She whisked away the offending gingernuts, added two slender chocolate sticks, inspected the completed plate, and pushed Rosa towards the door.

'There you are! Look lively!' she exhorted.

She watched the door swing back.

'Might as well save my breath,' said Nelly, returning to the sink.

2. Looking Ahead

NELLY Piggott was the wife of Albert Piggott, who was the official sexton of St Andrew's church. She had been a buxom widow when she married Albert some years earlier. If anything she was now even more buxom, with her passion for cooking both at her place of work and in her small kitchen at their Thrush Green house.

She had little encouragement from Albert when she presented him with succulent pork pies, steak-and-kidney puddings and rich trifles, for Albert's digestive system had been ruined by the steady imbibement of alcohol over the years. Doctor Lovell had forbidden a rich diet, as well as the alcohol, but Nelly was incapable of curbing her hand when it came to butter, cream and eggs in her delicious concoctions.

The kitchen at The Fuchsia Bush gave her more scope. She had started as a temporary help when Mrs Peters, the owner of the establishment, pleaded with her 'to help out for a week or two'.