Thrush Green (10 page)

There were two ways, Ben knew, in which Sam could help himself to money. In the first place he could secrete some from his own takings and pay in the rest after each day's work. This was not as easy as it seemed, for many eyes were about, the helpers on his stand would soon become suspicious and, in any case, the old lady, after years of experience, had a fairly shrewd idea of the amount to be expected.

There was a second way. Mrs. Curdle had become increasingly careless of late in the disposal of the money. She was ill, she was old, she was habitually tired, and to heave up the mattress to put away odd sums of money in the case was becoming a burden. Quite often, Ben knew, she thrust it into the little drawer by the side of the half-door, or into a pewter teapot which stood on the mantelpiece beside the photograph of his dead father. Usually she roused herself to transfer it to the case, but Ben had seen, only the week before, notes and silver stuffed into the narrow dresser drawer, which hitherto had only held a shilling or two for a passing beggar or for the purchase of a loaf or a bottle of milk from some traveling tradesman that the caravans might meet in the lanes.

The family came and went to its head's caravan a dozen times a day, and it would be the easiest thing in the world to abstract money from the drawer in Mrs. Curdle's absence. Sam made bets almost daily, and lately they had been heavier, Ben knew.

St. Andrew's Church chimed the half-hour and Ben stirred himself. Half-past eleven already! He leaped to his feet stretching his arms luxuriously above his head. His corduroy trousers slipped, cool and comfortable, around his bare waist and the light breeze played across his naked shoulders refreshingly.

He thought, with sudden joy, of his Molly. By half-past one he hoped to see her again. As soon as he had had his dinner with Gran, he would set off alone, through Lulling Woods to "The Drovers' Arms." She would be in the bar then, and with any luck would be free from two o'clock. He could hardly believe his good fortune in finding her again.

He became conscious that Sam was calling to him to give a hand with the bell tent, which housed the small menagerie. Another hour's hard work would see the fair ready and waiting for the evening's fun. And then, Ben told himself, he had two more jobs ahead. To find Molly—that was the first and all-important one; and to keep a sharp eye on the movements of his cousin Sam to confirm his suspicions.

"Coming, Sam!" he called, and went methodically about the first of the tasks ahead.

After coffee the four ladies had returned together up the hill from Lulling. It was soon after twelve as they stood making their farewells on the corner of Thrush Green near the church. The sun was now overhead in a cloudless sky of powdery blue. The rooks were wheeling above the clump of elm trees by the path which led to Dotty Harmer's cottage, the dew had vanished from the grass and the shadows of the trees in the horse chestnut avenue lay foreshortened, like dark pools, at the foot of the trunks. Later they would creep, longer and longer, across the grass until they almost reached the edge of the green opposite Dr. Bailey's house, and that, Mrs. Bailey knew from many years' experience, meant that it was almost time for the music of the fair to begin.

The heat shimmered above the caravans and along the white road to Nod and Nidden. The schoolchildren were skipping and darting home to their dinners.

Dotty Harmer, her half-loaf clutched against her chest and the bulging string bag dangling at her side, was the first to leave the group and vanish down the narrow passage between the Piggotts' cottage and "The Two Pheasants."

"And I wonder what
her
lunch is!" said Miss Bembridge. "Fried frogs with dandelion sauce, I expect. Poor old Dotty!"

The mention of lunch threw Dimity Dean into extreme agitation.

"We simply
must
fly," she said to Mrs. Bailey. Her watery eyes, screwed up against the sunshine, turned to St. Andrew's clock, which gave her small comfort.

"Darling," she squeaked, in horror. "Look, ten past twelve and the fish still to be done!" She tugged ineffectually at Ella Bembridge's bolster-like arm. So might a fluttering fledgling have attempted to pull off a branch.

Miss Bembridge gave a sigh that rustled the tissue paper over the lettuce in Mrs. Bailey's basket.

"Needs must, I suppose, when the devil drives!" she boomed, and the two friends set off to their cottage leaving Mrs. Bailey to cross the grass to her own home.

A piquant smell of fried pork chops and onions wafted from Mrs. Curdle's caravan as the doctor's wife passed nearby. The old lady was preparing lunch for herself and for Ben. Mrs. Bailey thought wryly of the bouquet which no doubt already lay in the matriarch's home, awaiting its bestowal, and she remembered, with a pang, that this might well be the last time that she would smell Mrs. Curdle's midday meal and receive a bunch of flowers, garish and gaudy, but made with love and in a spirit of steadfast gratitude, from those gnarled dusky hands.

Mrs. Bailey paused with her hand on her gate and looked back at the morning glory of Thrush Green. Would it ever look like this again on the first day of May, so blue, so golden, so breath-takingly innocent?

She looked with affection at the cheerful bustle of the little fairground, the tents, the flapping canvas, the blue smoke spiraling from a camp fire, and the brightly clad fair folk moving among it all. They were as gay as butterflies, thought Mrs. Bailey, and as ephemeral. By tomorrow the fair would be over, and only a ring of cold ashes and the ruts made by wooden wheels would remind them of their visitors. The mellow enduring houses, which sat like sunning cats, foursquare and tranquil, around the wide expanse of Thrush Green would have it to themselves again after tonight's brief bonfire-blaze of glory.

"A pity!" said Mrs. Bailey, with a sigh, looking across at Mrs. Curdle's caravan, blooming like some gay transient flower against the gray background of St. Andrew's. "We've weathered a lot together."

PART TWO

Afternoon

7. Noonday Heat

T
HRUSH
G
REEN
drowsed under the growing heat of the midday sun. It was that somnolent time, soon after one o'clock, when everything lay hushed. In cottage kitchens, where the midday dinner had been served an hour before, the plates had been washed and returned to their shelves, the tables had been scrubbed, the checked cloths spread upon them and the potted plants placed to the best advantage. After the hubbub of the morning the kitchens showed their peaceful afternoon faces, while their owners dozed in the armchairs by the hob or settled down to enjoy a quiet cup of tea.

The steady ticking of a clock, the sizzle of a kettle, or the rustle of a slowly read newspaper were the only sounds to be heard in that tranquil haven of time between the two tides of morning and afternoon.

But in the big sunny kitchen at the Bassetts' Ruth and Paul had only just finished their meal. Much to Paul's joy Dr. Lovell had said that he could get up, and providing that he had an hour's rest later in the day, he could go to the fair for a short while.

"And you'll be fit for school on Monday," he had pronounced. Paul, young enough still to dote on this institution, was energetic in his thanks.

He had eaten well, demolishing a plate of cherries, bottled earlier by his mother, and now rattled on gaily as he counted his stones.

Ruth sat beside him still in a state of bemusement at the inner peace which now engulfed her. Her gaze was fixed upon the sunlit garden, and she hardly heard the little boy.

"Mummy says girls count their stones to see who they'll marry, and boys count to see what they'll be," chattered Paul, busily. "So I'll tell you what I'm going to be."

He counted slowly, nodding his way through the rhyme:

"Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
Tinker, tailor—"

He paused and sighed heavily.

"A tailor, Aunt Ruth! Hear that? A tailor! I wouldn't want to be
a tailor,
would you?"

Ruth roused herself.

"I'll tell you another rhyme," she said, taking the spoon from her nephew. She leaned over the plate and recited slowly:

"Soldier bold, sailor true,
Skilled physician, Cambridge blue,
Titled noble, squire hale,
Portly rector, curate pale.
Soldier bold, sailor true—"

"How's that?" she inquired, looking at him.

"Sailor true." Paul nodded with immense satisfaction. "Much better. I'd like that!"

Ruth put down the spoon and was about to collect the plates but Paul stopped her.

"Your turn, Aunt Ruth. I'll see who you're going to marry. Say it with me."

Together they chanted slowly, pushing the wine-colored stones along the rim of the blue and white plates.

"Soldier bold, sailor true,
Skilled physician, Cambridge blue,
Titled noble, squire hale,
Portly rector, curate pale,
Soldier bold, sailor true,
Skilled physician—"

Ruth put down the spoon hastily as she came to the last of the stones.

"What's that?" inquired Paul.

"A doctor," said Ruth, brushing the stones into one plate.

"Like Dr. Lovell?" asked the child.

"Or Dr. Bailey," said Ruth evenly. She rose and took the plates to the sink.

"He's too old," objected Paul, "and Mrs. Bailey might not want you. But Dr. Lovell would do."

"If I'd had one less cherry, Paul, I might have married you," said Ruth, smiling at him. But the child was not to be put off his train of thought so easily, Ruth noticed wryly.

"Dr. Lovell's very nice," persisted the child. "Would you marry him?"

"Of course not!"

"Why not?"

"For one thing he hasn't asked me." Ruth said lightly. "Now, would you like to play in the garden while I wash up?"

The child ignored this suggestion and fixed his remorseless blue gaze upon his aunt. Ruth could not help feeling like a mother bird who has trailed a wing before some particularly dogged hunter only to find her wiles are of no avail.

"But if he
did!
" insisted Paul, clinging to the side of the sink, and staring unblinkingly at his victim. "The stones
said
a skilled fizzun and that probably means Dr. Lovell. And he is a real
nice
man. You
ought
to marry him if the stones say you ought. It's what—"

Ruth cut him short impatiently.

"Oh, don't fuss so, Paul! It's only a rhyme and doesn't mean a thing. Out you go now, while I wash up."

The boy disengaged himself slowly. It was obvious that his thoughts were wholly of the signs and portents of the cherry stones, but, childlike, he turned the situation to his own advantage.

"Can I go and see Bobby Anderson, before he goes into school?"

Ruth hesitated. She did not like the child to roam Thrush Green unaccompanied, but he could not come to much harm if he was within sight of the house, and she felt the need of a few minutes' solitude to collect her wits. The child, watching her, guessed her thoughts, but felt that all would fall out as he wished.

"Just for a little while then. But come back when the school bell goes at a quarter to two."

"Can I show him the post card Mummy sent?" This was a fascinating picture of a cat with large glass eyes which rolled about in the most enchanting manner, and had given the bed-bound Paul immense joy.

"Of course you can," said his aunt. "But put on your linen hat, and don't forget to keep in sight of the house. I may want you before a quarter to two."

The child rushed from the kitchen and Ruth heard him bounding up the stairs in search of his post card.

"And let's hope it puts other ideas out of his head," muttered his aunt aloud. But, as she disposed of the cherry stones which had caused so much discussion, she could not help but notice that the "other ideas" continued to flicker and dance in her own mind like the warm sunbeams that sparkled and twinkled about her as she splashed water into the bowl.

Paul, clutching his post card and crowned, obediently, with his linen hat, ran down the path to the green outside.

The hush which enveloped Thrush Green threw its spell over the excited little boy and his pace slowed as soon as he emerged from his own garden. There was no breeze now. The bright caravans, the trees, the daisy-spangled grass of Thrush Green lay, like a painted back cloth, motionless and unreal. It was an enchanted world, doubly arresting to the child who had been house-bound for several days.

He looked, with new wonder, at the blossoming cherry tree, which overhung the low stone wall of the next-door garden. For the first time he noticed, with a thrill of joy, the delicate white flowers suspended by threadlike stalks to the black tracery of the boughs. Those threads, he realized suddenly, would dangle cherries later where the flowers now danced, and he would be able to hang them over his ears and waggle his head gently from side to side for the pleasure of feeling the firm glossy berries nudging his cheek. It was a moment of poignant discovery for young Paul, and he felt a thrill of pride as he realized that he knew now exactly how the cherries came to be. In the future they would be doubly beautiful, for he would remember the glory of that pendant snow even as he sensuously enjoyed the feel of the fruit against his face and the cool freshness in his mouth as he bit it.