(7/13) Affairs at Thrush Green (6 page)

'Of course, now that Justin has retired he must have plenty of spare time to entertain,' observed the rector. 'I sometimes wonder if he would consent to coming on the Parochial Church Council. He would be such an asset with his grasp of legal and financial affairs.'

'Try him,' advised Ella. 'Besides he might back you up on such knotty problems as the new kneelers.'

'And how on earth do you know about the new kneelers?' asked Charles, looking at Dimity in bewilderment.

'Not from your wife,' responded Ella robustly. 'I've never met such a model of discretion. But Frances Thurgood button-holed me in the butcher's this week, and hoped I would "use my good offices", as she put it, to persuade you to agree.'

'Really!' the rector expostulated.

'Don't worry,' continued Ella. 'I wouldn't support Frances Thurgood on any of her projects, on principle. Of all the bossy, scheming, devious bullies I have met, she takes the biscuit.'

'Ella, please!' protested Charles, holding up a plump hand, i don't like to hear you speak so ill of anyone.'

'You wouldn't,' agreed Ella. 'You're far too tolerant. And if you really want me to speak ill, I can do a lot better than that.'

'Not now,' broke in Dimity. 'Sit down, dear, and have a cigarette.'

Ella allowed herself to be persuaded, took a chair, and then produced the battered tobacco tin which was her private cigarette-making factory.

'Don't you give way to her, Charles,' she said, when she had at last got the cigarette going and was wreathed in blue smoke. 'Let her win this round and she'll have you licked for many to come. As for this dreadful plan of using Janet's ghastly design, well, nip it in the bud, is my advice. Have you ever seen any of that girl's work?'

'No,' said Charles and Dimity together.

'Well, you've been spared a very horrific experience. She had a show of her drawings and paintings in the Corn Exchange last autumn. Enough to put your teeth on edge, believe me. Half the time you wondered if they were the right way up, and the other half you were sorry if they were. And all with such pretentious titles! The Reckoning, Meditation, Aspirations, A Theme of Beauty, Transcendental Awakening—all that sort of twaddle. And nothing under eighty quid! As you might imagine, there were mighty few red sales stickers about.'

'She did go to Art College, I understand,' said Dimity timidly.

'I should take that as an excuse rather than a recommendation,' replied Ella. 'No, Charles. Just you watch it! Smite her hip and what-ever-it-is, before she does it to you. And if Justin Venables will come and support you, I should get all the help he can give you. Or perhaps this new chap, Christopher Armitage, will turn out to be a pillar of the Church if he settles here.'

'I certainly miss Harold Shoosmith by my side,' admitted Charles. 'He's still such a help at Thrush Green, but so far I don't seem to have found anyone quite so supporting at Lulling.'

'Keep hoping,' said Ella, stubbing out her untidy cigarette, and collecting her things. 'Must be off. I promised to sit in with Dotty this afternoon, as Connie's off to have her hair permed.'

On the doorstep, she paused and looked skyward.

'Smells different, Charles. Has the wind turned round?'

They both gazed towards St John's weather-vane.

'It has indeed,' cried the rector. 'Let's hope we get a change in this depressing weather. We need something to raise our spirits.'

'Cheer up, Charles,' said Ella, smiting him quite painfully on the shoulder. 'You'll win through whatever the weather. But beware of Frances Thurgood!'

She stumped off towards the High Street on her way to Thrush Green. Dear old Charles! She hoped he would stand firm about those dam' kneelers. And not for worlds would she ever let that saintly man know of the beastly, condescending, cruel remarks which that cat Frances had made about him in her hearing.

Within twenty-four hours the grey clouds had lifted, the welcome sun shone again, and the March wind scoured the streets of Lulling.

Dead leaves frisked about the gutters like kittens. Inn signs creaked, saplings swayed, and the housewives of Lulling and Thrush Green watched with relief the lines of flapping washing billowing in the gardens.

At Thrush Green school the lethargy of the last few weeks had made way for the usual boisterous high spirits which wind invariably engendered. Grateful though little Miss Fogerty and her headmistress were for the change in the weather, nevertheless it brought its problems.

The children were noisy and excited. Doors banged, papers flew from desks, windows burst open, and general disorder prevailed. At break the children rushed screaming around the playground, pushing and romping like so many crazy puppies, clothes flattened against bodies, and hair on end.

Miss Fogerty was quite used to such behaviour. On duty in the playground, a mug of tea in hand, she watched the chaos about her with a benevolent eye, but alert to any particular recklessness which might lead to injury. John Todd, for instance, temporary aeroplane though he was, had no need to zoom quite so menacingly round the unsuspecting infants nearby. Arms outstretched, a mad gleam in his eye, and a terrible puttering noise emerging from his mouth, he constituted a considerable danger to his fellows, and Agnes Fogerty went at once to chide him.

It was because of this, and her subsequent attention to other malefactors crazed with March euphoria, that she failed to notice the two men who were pacing round the empty plot left by the vanished Thrush Green rectory, where Charles and Dimity had been so happy.

It was her companion, Dorothy Watson, who noted their activities and mentioned it when school had finished for the day and the two friends were restoring themselves with a cup of tea and shortbread fingers in the school house.

Even in here the wind made itself felt, singing through the key hole and stirring the curtains. But compared with the upheaval at school, it was remarkably peaceful, and anyway very pleasant to see the branches tossing in the garden, and the grass silvering as the breeze combed it.

'They were surveyors, I imagine,' said Dorothy. 'They had one of those great tape measures in a leather case. I think one works for the council. It's strange we haven't heard anything.'

'We will,' Agnes promised her. 'You know Thrush Green. The news gets round in no time. And if you managed to see them, Dorothy, dear, I'm quite sure plenty of other people did too. More shortbread?'

Miss Fogerty was quite right. Albert Piggott and his neighbour Mr Jones, landlord of The Two Pheasants, had also noticed the two men at work.

'Council chaps,' said Mr Jones. 'I did hear from Perce Hodge that the council had bought the site.'

'What for?' asked Albert, toying with his half-pint of bitter. 'And how does Perce know? 'E never goes nowhere to find out. That missus of his keeps him knuckled down, I hear.'

'You wants to watch your tongue about Percy's Doris,' warned the landlord. 'It don't do to come between husband and wife, and their private life's their own, I reckon.'

'What's come over you, turning so righteous?' asked Albert. 'You was the first to blab about my Nelly when she left me for that dratted oilman. One thing, he'll have learnt his mistake by now, I don't doubt. And nothing's private in Thrush Green, as you knows, and I do too. So come on, tell us what Perce said about the council.'

Mr Jones polished a tumbler carefully, huffed inside it, and polished it again before replying.

'Going to build old people's homes, so he said. Heard it from his cousin who cleans the council offices.'

Albert digested this news with a mouthful of beer to settle it.

'Ah! I wonder! By rights it should have another rectory on it. It's church land, ain't it?'

'Not now, boy. The church sold it to the council, and it's my bet they're looking over plans for these homes and going to choose the cheapest. I bet Mr Young's put in a plan. He fair hated that old place, and he always said he'd like to see something worth looking at on the site.'

'Bet that'll be a fine old eye-sore, if his own new offices are anything to go by. I'd a done better myself. No roof hardly, and the windows hanging off of the guttering, and brick as black as your hat. Makes a proper mess of Lulling High Street, I reckons,' said Albert sourly.

At that moment young Ben Curdle, his son-in-law, came in with a basket full of empty bottles.

'Morning, Dad,' he nodded. 'What you having?'

Albert brightened, and pushed his empty glass forward.

'Been talking about these new homes the council's going to build over yonder,' he said. 'I was just wondering who's going to live in 'em.'

'Well, you might be one,' said Ben.

Albert bridled.

'What would I need with a council place?' he asked indignantly. 'I got me own nice little cottage, paid for by the church. I'm not all that old anyway!'

'You will be soon,' replied Ben, with maddening calm. 'And it won't be long before young Cooke is doing all the church caretaking—he does most of it now as far as I can see. Then he'll want a place. Yours would suit him fine one day.'

Albert grew red with wrath, and began to bluster.

'See here, Ben, I still pulls my weight. Why, only yesterday I had all the mats up and swilled over the aisle. Took me best part of two hours, that did.'

'That's what I mean,' said Ben. it should only take half an hour at the most. You're gettin' past it, Dad, and you'll have to face it. If you could get one of these new homes, you'd be quids in. I bet there'd be a warden to look after you, and that'd save my Molly working her fingers to the bone for you.'

He picked up his empty basket, nodded pleasantly to the landlord and departed.

'Well I'm blowed!' puffed Albert in disgust. 'That's a fine way of goin' on, ain't it? Telling me I'm too old to work, and practically handin' over my house to that young lay-about Cooke. Me livin' in an old people's home indeed! I'd watch it.'

Mr Jones let him rumble on crossly. He wiped the counter with a red-checked cloth and then lent across it conspiratorially.

'See here, Albert. You're looking ahead a bit. No one's said anything about you losing your house, and while you're still working it remains yours.'

Albert looked slightly mollified.

'And what's more,' went on his companion, draping the damp cloth over the beer handles to dry, 'no one knows for sure if old people's homes are going up there. Someone once said it might be a clinic or some such.'

'Or a brewery?' queried Albert. 'Now that would be a real good idea, wouldn't it?'

He swilled down the remainder of his glass and hobbled quite briskly to the door.

5. A Visit To Tom Hardy

ONE BLUE and white day towards the end of March, the rector made his way towards a remote cottage near the River Pleshey.

He walked by the path bordering the river, holding on his hat every now and again as the boisterous wind tried to tear it from his head.

The gentle murmuring of the water was lost in the noise of the wind around him. The pollarded willows along the banks were bristling with young twigs, and the golden-green leaves were beginning to unfurl.

Here and there an ancient willow, spared the woodcutter's attention, trailed branches in the river. As the wind whipped them the long twigs flailed the water creating little whirlpools and eddies.

A moorhen fled squawking as the rector passed by, its feet making a sequinned track on the surface of the stream. A water vole crossed nearby leaving an arrow-shaped wake as it forged towards the safety of the bank.

The rector had an observant eye for such details. They added to the joy of his walk which he had undertaken for just such refreshment. He had felt the need for a little solitude, for time to relish the lovely natural scenes about him, free from the intrusion of fellow humans.

He noted the crinkled bark of the willow trunks, the criss-cross pattern softened by grey-green lichen. He smelt the pungency of water-mint growing in the muddy shallows at the brink of the Pleshey. He heard the plop of small animals making for watery cover as he approached, and he saw the great galleons of white clouds sailing superbly across the blue sky above the water meadows, and felt the wind on his face.

He revelled in his senses which brought to him such richness, and thanked God that he still had health and strength to enjoy all five. This morning walk acted as balm to Charles's spirits, for despite his serene appearance and his gentle courtesy to everyone, he was a secret worrier, and at the moment there was plenty to perplex him.

He had only been at Lulling for a few months and already he knew that he fell short in many ways of the expectations of his new parishioners. It grieved him.

It grieved him, not because he was a vain man eager for the approbation of his fellows, but because he seemed to be causing anxiety to others. Mrs Thurgood's obvious disdain was comparatively easy to bear. Charles was perceptive enough to realize that her adoration of Anthony Bull made her consider any successor inadequate. But she was not alone in her criticism. It was this that perturbed him.

He had known from the start that to follow someone as magnetically outstanding as Anthony Bull would not be easy. He had been a man who engendered strong feelings, particularly in women. Charles recognised that there would be robust loyalty for his predecessor, and he considered it a laudable thing among his flock. What was hard to bear was the simple fact that anyone who succeeded Anthony was bound to be different, and that that particular fact was being ignored by some of his followers.

He had heard comments on his inadequacy, some obviously intended to wound. Several devout ladies had reproached him delicately about the simplicity of his services compared with the more extravagant ritual of Anthony's reign. He did his best to explain his beliefs. Comparisons might be odious, but he had to face them. For all the pin-pricks, the petty humiliations, the unnecessary injustices done to him, yet Charles never wavered in his own admiration of Anthony Bull nor in the forbearance with which he faced his critics.

His chief unhappiness was caused by the fact that at least three families had now started to support a neighbouring vicar. This he found extremely upsetting. Only half an hour earlier, outside The Fuchsia Bush on his way to the river, he had run into one of his deserters, Albert Beverley.