Christmas At Thrush Green (7 page)

Dotty continued to concoct alarming potions from the herbs she grew in the garden, or gathered in the spring and summer from the hedgerows, and these she pressed upon anyone who called to see her. Her friends from Thrush Green and Lulling would think up any of a dozen reasons for not partaking of a glass of nettle beer or sweet cicely cordial that would undoubtedly lead to a go of what was known as ‘Dotty’s Collywobbles’, a complaint with which Dr Lovell was well acquainted.

Connie had long stopped trying to persuade her aunt from making these concoctions. She knew it made her aunt happy and she reckoned that their friends were well aware of the risks they took if they accepted a glass of ‘a little something’ from Dotty. One of the blessings, if you could call it that, of Dotty’s old age was that she didn’t seem to miss the bottles and jars that Connie would quietly take from the pantry, disposing of the contents down the sink or onto the compost heap.

Ella was stomping along at a fair pace, her mind turning over which excuse she had given Dotty on her last visit, and which excuse she might use this time. She had only recently had a lunchtime snack so perhaps she could—

And at that moment, Ella went flying. She was a substantially built woman and there was no way she could save herself. She landed in a heap in a particularly muddy part of the path.

For a moment she lay there, breathing heavily and uttering little curses under her breath. When she struggled to her knees, she decided nothing had been damaged other than her pride. With some difficulty she heaved herself to her feet. Her voluminous mackintosh was covered in mud, and was not improved when Ella found a cleanish bit round the back on which she wiped her hands. She peered down at her skirt. ‘Drat!’ she muttered. There was a tear near the hem.

Ella turned round to see why she had fallen. There was a small but stout branch lying across the path, obviously brought down in the wind earlier that week. But why hadn’t she seen it? she thought. She would normally sidestep such a hazard automatically.

Since she was so close to Dotty’s cottage, Ella decided to continue on her way. The old girl would be disappointed if she didn’t turn up as promised. As she plodded on, she thought back to what the eye specialist had told her some eighteen months earlier, information that she had pushed to the back of her mind and refused to think about. She had blamed her fall on the muddy and slippery path, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that she hadn’t seen the small branch.

A few minutes later, it was a very bedraggled Ella who presented herself at the cottage.

‘Hello, Dotty!’ she called, letting herself into the kitchen.

‘Through here, Ella. Come along in,’ sang out Dotty from her sitting-room.

Dotty, sitting on the sofa with a favourite tartan rug over her legs, was looking expectantly at the door to greet her old friend. When Ella’s muddied bulk loomed in the doorway, she squawked in dismay.

‘Good gracious, Ella! What on earth has happened to you? You look as if you’ve been competing in an obstacle race - through hedges, over ditches, that sort of thing.’

‘I had a close encounter with the path coming down here. A branch I swear wasn’t there one moment suddenly tangled itself round my legs and I went a purler.’

‘Sit down, sit down,’ ordered Dotty. ‘Connie will be back in a moment, and she can make us both a nice cup of tea. That is unless you would like a little of my crab apple brandy?’

Ella shook her head firmly. ‘No, thank you, Dotty. Tea will do nicely but first I must wash off some of this dirt, so I’ll put the kettle on at the same time.’

She disappeared back into the kitchen and from the huffing and puffing noise Dotty surmised correctly that Ella was taking off her mackintosh. There followed a few bangs and crashes, then the tap was turned on and the kettle filled.

Ella came back into the sitting-room, pushing her now-clean hands through her short-cropped and wet hair. She had large hands for someone who was a most accomplished needlewoman.

‘What I need now most of all is a ciggy. Do you mind, Dotty?’

‘No, of course not - except I thought you were trying to give up.’

‘And so I am but I’m not succeeding very well,’ replied Ella, extracting from a pocket a battered old tin which contained her cigarette-making equipment.

There was silence in the room for a moment, then from among a billow of blue smoke came a great contented sigh and ‘That’s much better!’

At that moment, they heard the sound of Connie and Kit’s car returning, and soon Connie was clucking round Ella to make sure she was all right.

‘I expect I’ll have a bruise or two in the morning, but nothing to worry about,’ said Ella robustly, accepting a mug of sweet tea. ‘It worries me that I didn’t see the wretched branch.’ She took a sip of tea then continued: ‘I’ve got an appointment with the eye man next week so will find out more then. I know I’m not seeing as well as I did because it takes ages to thread a needle, even with my specs on.’

A little later, kind Kit drove Ella home and as she heaved herself out of the car, clutching her dirty mackintosh to her ample frontage, he called after her. ‘I hope the appointment with the optician sorts things out, Ella.’

He wasn’t sure she’d heard him since she shut the car door with a bang and stomped up the path to her front door without a backward glance.

 

Edward and Joan Young had decided to go to The Bear in Woodstock for dinner that evening. Their son Paul was due home from boarding school any day now, and this was an opportunity to give Joan a treat before she had to cook endless meals to satisfy the fast-growing boy, let alone the festive food for Christmas itself.

Edward had just got to the stage when he found he was able to drive past the Burwells’ house in the Woodstock Road without turning his head to see what latest ghastliness had been perpetrated, but from the corner of his eye this evening he saw something that made him apoplectic. He pressed the brake so hard that Joan’s seat belt locked automatically.

‘What on earth—’ she spluttered. ‘Edward! What’s the matter? Are you ill?’

‘I am most definitely ill,’ stormed Edward, and got out of the car, slamming the door behind him so hard that the car rocked.

Joan released the seat belt and swivelled round to see what had made her husband so angry. Edward was standing on the pavement, looking across at the Burwells’ house. By the glow of a nearby street light, she saw immediately what the problem was. The perfectly ordinary wooden gate that used to stand permanently open had gone, together with its metal gateposts. In their place were two large new stone pillars and on the top of each - even Joan shuddered - there was a lion and a unicorn, turned slightly inwards. It was one thing to have such resplendent statues on the gateposts of a stately home, but not a house built between the last two wars!

But her eye was drawn not so much to the statues but to something much worse and, knowing her husband as she did, she knew it would further enrage him. At the foot of each pillar was a light which shone up the stonework, and seemed to end under the chins of the two stone statues. ‘Floodlighting’s for places of beauty, and nowhere else!’ Edward had said to her not long ago when they had passed a Victorian pile that had been converted into a hotel, and had been garishly illuminated.

Edward returned to the car, again slamming the door shut. ‘I simply can’t believe it. How could anyone be so vulgar! And do you know what else they’ve done?’ He turned almost accusingly towards Joan.

‘No, dear, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘Did you see those shield things set in front of each of the statues?’

Joan hadn’t and it was too late now since Edward restarted the car, letting the clutch out so quickly that the car kangaroo-jumped forward and stalled. She shook her head.

‘They’ve gone and put the name of the house on the shields. And do you know what they’ve called the place?’

‘No. I didn’t think it had a specific name. I thought the houses along here were just numbers.’

‘Hah!’ snorted Edward, re-starting the car. ‘Mr and Mrs Hoity-Toity Burwell have gone and called it Blenheim Lodge. Blenheim Lodge! Can you beat it! I can’t think why they didn’t call it Blenheim Palace while they were at it.’

It wasn’t surprising that dinner that evening at The Bear was not a very happy one. Once Edward’s architectural taste had been slighted, he was a difficult man to calm down. As they drove home, past Blenheim Lodge, Joan was horrified to see that both her husband’s eyes were tightly shut.

T
he Fuchsia Bush was increasingly busy as Christmas approached and Nelly Piggott was dog-tired when she got home each evening, but even so her thoughts often turned to the forthcoming award ceremony.

Clothes also were very much on her mind but there was nothing she could do about it until her day off the following Sunday. As soon as Albert had left the house to go and open up the church for the ten o’clock service, Nelly lumbered up the cottage’s steep stairs to her bedroom and went through her entire wardrobe to see what she could wear for the ceremony.

She tried on several dresses and, to her shame, had to set two aside to take down to the charity shop in Lulling. ‘Must’ve shrunk,’ she muttered to herself, knowing perfectly well that wasn’t true. One dress was possible but, having a rather low neckline, it was more suitable for the evening. She had bought it when Charlie the oilman had taken her to a dinner dance when they lived in Brighton, and that had been the only time she’d worn it.

There was nothing for it, she decided, surveying the pile of discarded dresses on the bed, she’d have to buy a new one. And why not? She rarely spent any money on herself, and had Mrs Peters been alive, she’d have insisted.

Next she checked on her pair of good black shoes. They were several years old, but were still in decent shape. She rubbed her sleeve across the toe, and planned to ask Albert to give them a polish. It was one of the few things her husband did without complaining.

As she made her way downstairs to prepare the Sunday dinner, she felt a flutter of excitement about both the shopping trip and the ceremony.

 

It was a few days later that Harold Shoosmith decided it was time to have a word with Bobby Cooke. He walked the short way down his garden path and leaned over the gate. Yes, he could see the lad’s figure over the churchyard wall. A sullen plume of smoke rose from somewhere close by, which meant that at last the leaves had been raked up and were now being burned. Harold looked at his watch: twelve-thirty so Albert would be out of the way in The Two Pheasants.

The previously unsettled weather had changed and a weak winter sun shone in a sky that was streaked with soft clouds. However, the sun belied the temperature and Harold popped back into the house to collect his sheepskin jacket. He walked down the green to the churchyard and, as he usually did, detoured slightly to the statue of Nathaniel Patten. As he approached, a blackbird that had been perching on the figure’s shiny head flew off with a squawk of alarm. Harold inspected the statue for any telltale white markings, but the good missionary was pristine.

The lime trees round the churchyard were now quite bare of leaves, of course, but Harold noted there were plenty of leaves still to be swept up this side of the church wall. There was always something of a dispute as to who was responsible for clearing them up - the sexton of St Andrew’s or the street-cleaner.

He found Bobby Cooke, a scrawny lad, desultorily sweeping up the twigs that had come down in the previous week’s gale. He was whistling a Christmas carol so totally out of tune it was difficult to know which one it was. A bit of everything, Harold decided.

‘Ah, Bobby,’ Harold said as he approached him.

Bobby stopped what he was doing and leaned on his broom, just like Albert did, Harold noted.

‘Af’noon, sir.’

‘Now then, Bobby, has Albert talked to you about his decision to retire?’

The boy shifted from one scuffed boot to the other. ‘Yeah, well, he did mention somethink about it. Christmas, I thinks he said.’

‘Well, the end of the year probably. Neater, don’t you think?’ Harold asked.

Bobby wasn’t sure whether he was meant to reply to that, so just grunted.

‘I know you do some gardening work for various people in the village, but I - at least, the PCC - was thinking that you would be the ideal person to take over Albert’s job full-time. How does that appeal to you?’

Bobby pushed his less than clean cap to the back of his head, and scratched at his mop of untidy hair.

‘Well, I don’t rightly know. What’s it involve, then?’

Harold pulled an old envelope out of his jacket pocket on which he had scribbled a few headings and peered at it.

‘To be honest, I think it’ll be just what you’ve been doing ever since you started helping Albert. Is there anything you don’t do?’