Thrush Green (11 page)

He found Bobby Anderson lying on his stomach, a daisy stalk between his lips, and legs waving idly, for even this vociferous youngster had succumbed to the spell of midday sloth.

"Smashing!" was his verdict on the treasured post card.

Paul glowed in the sunshine of his hero's approbation.

"You comin' in then?" asked Bobby, nodding toward the school.

"Monday, not now," answered Paul casually. It was wonderful to be able to dismiss school so airily.

"Bet you've been sucking up to ol' Dr. Whatsit," grumbled Bobby enviously. Paul was stung.

"No, I didn't then," he protested indignantly, "but I've got to have a rest this afternoon."

Bobby Anderson contorted his features into a hideous travesty of a crying baby.

"'Got to have a rest,'" he mimicked, in a maddening, mewing squeak. "You and your rest!" he continued, in normal tones of extreme scorn. "In your soppy ol' hat!" he added, tipping it off with an adroit blow.

Paul was about to join battle inflamed by this last insult, but Miss Watson appeared in the school doorway, and instantly, Bobby fled to her across the playground, crying urgently as he went:

"Can I ring the bell, Miss? Miss, Miss, please let me!"

Paul watched his friend and tormentor vanish into the porch. Two seconds later the bell above the steep-pitched roof gave out its cracked message, and Paul knew that Bobby's sturdy frame was swinging lustily on the end of the bell rope hidden within.

Nearly a quarter to two already, and he hadn't done half the things he had intended, thought Paul mournfully. He turned his back upon the school and looked, with some awe, upon Mrs. Curdle's distant caravan. As he watched, he saw the old lady emerge, carrying a bucket. There was an arc of flashing water as she tossed its contents into the sunshine, and then she stood motionless, a massive, majestic figure againt the dazzling sky.

Paul saw that she was watching somebody who was crossing the grass toward him. As the figure approached him Paul recognized it joyfully. It was Ben—his Molly's Ben—and he was waving to him!

"How do, Paul?" asked the young man, smiling down at the little boy.

"Very well, thank you," responded Paul, flushing at this unexpected honor.

"Bet you don't remember me," said Ben. His voice held a slight query and he seemed unaccountably anxious. Paul hastily reassured him.

"'Course I do. You're Ben Curdle and you took my Molly to the fair last time."

Ben laughed, and Paul noticed again how crinkly his eyes were. No wonder Molly had missed him. She had said only a little to Paul, about the young man, as they took their excursions, but it had been enough for the child to realize that she had taken an uncommon liking to this fleeting visitor.

"Are you going to see Molly?" inquired Paul. Ben bent down to pick a stalk of grass and his face was red when he straightened up.

"Ah, maybe!" he answered, with carefully assumed indifference. Such cavalier behavior annoyed young Paul.

"Well, you
did ought!
" he maintained stoutly. "You never wrote, and you never wrote, and Molly looked out for a letter for
weeks and weeks.
She thought you were real mean, not writing."

Ben's eyes widened at this vehement attack, but he answered equably enough.

"I'll look her up, Paul. Don't you fret." He dusted down his black corduroys, and gave a sudden swift grin at the boy.

"Comin' to the fair tonight?" he asked.

"Yes, rather!" said the boy warmly.

"See you then," nodded Ben. He sketched a salute and set off, with long, rapid strides toward the lane which led to Lulling Woods, leaving Paul standing gazing after him.

The child watched until the energetic black legs, the dazzling white shirt and the bright neckerchief vanished between "The Two Pheasants" and the Piggotts' cottage.

He's got his best clothes on, thought young Paul sagaciously. And he's going the right way!

And, savoring these very satisfactory portents, he returned slowly to his gate.

Ben's heart was light as he swung along through the meadows that lay before the heights of Lulling Woods. In the sunshine the buttercups were opening fast, interlacing their gold with the earlier silver of the daisies. For the sheer joy of it young Ben left the white path and trod a parallel one through the gilded grass, watching his black shoes turn yellow with the fallen pollen.

The field fell gently downhill to his left, tipping its little, secret, underground streams toward the river Pleshy, a mile distant. Dotty Harmer's cottage was the only house to be seen here, basking among the buttercups like a warmly golden cat.

Dotty herself was in the garden, a straw hat of gigantic proportions crowning her untidy thatch of hair. She waved to the young man and called out something which he could not catch.

He waved back civilly.

"Nice day, ma'am," he shouted, for good measure.

Rum ol' trout, he added to himself, noting her eccentric appearance. Not quite the ticket I should think. Or else gentry.

He forgot her as soon as the cottage was behind him. A bend in the path brought him to a stile at the entrance to Lulling Woods. It was nearly a mile of steep climbing, he knew, before he would emerge onto the open heathland where "The Drovers' Arms" stood.

His spirits were buoyant. So she'd missed him! She hadn't forgotten him! Everything pointed to happiness. He forged up the narrow path, slippery with myriad pine needles, as though his feet were winged.

It was very cool and quiet in the woods after the bland sunshine of the meadows. Above him the topmost twigs of the trees whispered ceaselessly. An occasional shaft of sunlight penetrated the foliage and lit up the bronze trunks of the pines, touching them with fire. A gray squirrel, spry after its winter sleep, startled Ben by scampering across his path. It darted up a tree with breath-taking ease, and the young man watched it leaping from bough to bough, as light and airy as a puff of gray smoke.

The primroses were out, starring the carpet of tawny dead leaves, and the bluebells, soon to spread their misty veil, now crouched in bud among their glossy leaves in tight pale knots. The faint, but heady, perfume of a spring woodland was to stay with Ben for the rest of his life, and was connected, forever, with a lover's happiness.

At last, exhausted by his own fervent speed, Ben was obliged to rest, and it was then that his feverishly high spirits suffered their first check. What had that boy said? Molly thought him "real mean" not to write? His heart sank like a plummet, and he kicked moodily at the log upon which he had sunk.

Suppose she was fed up with him? Suppose she refused to see him because he hadn't bothered to get in touch with her? She was a real pretty girl, and in a pub she'd have plenty of followers. Back flocked his familiar fears to torment him with renewed savagery.

And if she did speak to him again, what could he offer her? It was a poor sort of life he led in the caravan. A decent girl, used to service in a great house like the Bassetts', and living in a snug little cottage on Thrush Green, wouldn't be likely to take up with a traveling-fair man. Might just as well mate up with some good-for-nothing tinker or scissor-grinder, thought Ben gloomily, now as dejected as he was formerly elated.

Be different, he told himself, rubbing salt into his wounds, if there was any chance of Gran taking him into partnership, as she had once suggested. But what hope of that now? Hardly spoke to a chap, he thought morosely, remembering their almost silent dinner together an hour or two before.

Suddenly overcome with despair he let his unhappy head fall into his hands. His fingers knotted and writhed in and out of his wiry black hair and he groaned aloud. An inquisitive robin settled on a twig nearby and surveyed his agony with an unfeeling bright eye.

What should he do? What should he do? he begged himself as he rocked his hot head this way and that. Go on and be humiliated, or turn tail and slink back to Thrush Green like the coward he was? He looked up and caught sight of his companion, whose beady eye was still cocked upon this strange creature's sufferings.

It was at this moment that two thoughts combined to make poor Ben's way clear.

"She missed you!" came one comforting whisper. And hard upon its heels came a great cry from Ben himself, as he jumped to his feet.

"I've got to see her! Just to see her! Whatever comes of it, I'll see her first!"

He took to the uphill path again, but now his feet were leaden. Only his fierce single-minded passion to see the girl once more helped him to ignore the swarm of doubts which stung and plagued his progress.

He drew toward the edge of Lulling Woods and emerged from their dusk into the clear sunshine of the open heath. Bees hummed among the gorse flowers and two larks vied with each other as they sang a duet high in the blue air.

Not fifty yards away, where four modest tracks met, "The Drovers' Arms" stood waiting for him behind its neat strip of mown grass. The door was shut, no smoke rose from the chimneys and not a soul was in sight. Only two gray and white geese rose menacingly from the shade of a low hedge, and advanced, with necks stretched out ominously, toward the unhappy young man.

But the windows were open, he noticed, and, very faintly, he could hear the sound of dishes being clattered in the kitchen at the rear of the house. A young clear voice began to sing, and Ben's heart turned over.

He took a great shuddering breath, raised his head, and set off to meet his fate.

8. A Chapter of Accidents

"N
OT BAD
! Not bad at all," pronounced Ella Bembridge, dabbing parsley sauce from her chin with a hand-woven napkin.

Pink with praise, Dimity Dean carried the empty dish into the kitchen, returning with bananas in custard. The two friends hitched their wheel-backed chairs to the table again and continued their meal and their gossiping.

"I must say," said Ella, between succulent mouthfuls, "that Winnie Bailey wears well. What must she be? Nearly seventy?" There was a slightly grudging note in her voice which did not escape her sensitive friend's notice.

"Oh, hardly that, dear," she answered, in mollifying tones. "And of course she's had a very
sheltered
life, being married, you know."

Ella nodded, somewhat comforted.

"Time he gave up, if you ask me. That young fellow could do worse than settle here, and he seemed fairly competent, I thought. Inclined to take himself a bit seriously," added Ella, remembering her hasty dismissal from the morning surgery. "Likes to think he's the only one with any work to do—but there you are! That's the way with everyone today."

"It might be rather dull for a young man at Thrush Green—" began Dimity, but was cut short.

"
Dull?
" boomed her friend. "What's
dull
about Thrush Green? And anyway, if I'm not a Dutchman, he'll be marrying before long. He's been making sheep's eyes at Ruth Bassett ever since the cocktail party Joan and Edward gave this spring."

"Now, Ella darling," protested Dimity, with ineffectual severity, "that's really too naughty of you! I'm sure you're imagining things. Ruth has been much too upset to look at anyone else."

"Doesn't stop him looking at her, does it?" persisted Ella stoutly. She pushed aside her plate, took out the battered tobacco tin and rolled one of her monstrous cigarettes. Dimity considered this possible romance as her friend blew smoke upon the remains of the food. It might well be true. Darling Ella was wonderfully astute in matters like this. It would be the best possible thing for poor little Ruth, thought Dimity, her eyes filling as her sympathetic heart was pleasurably wrung. For once Ella noticed her friend's overbright eyes, and remembering Dr. Lovell's remark about heavy lifting, she spoke with bluff kindness.

"Here, young Dim, you get along to bed and have your rest. I'll wash up today. You look a bit done up."

Such unaccustomed consideration caused the tears to hover perilously at the brink of Dimity's blue eyes.

"Are you sure, darling? You're so good to me."

"Rubbish!" roared Ella cheerfully, crashing plates together like tinkling cymbals. The custard spoon fell with a glutinous thwack upon the rush mat at their feet and the water jug slopped generously upon the polished table, as Ella bent her back, grunting heavily, to retrieve the spoon.

"Soon have everything shipshape and Bristol fashion," she said heartily, emerging red-faced from her exertions. "Up you go for an hour."

"But what about that stuff you wanted to dye? Can you manage it alone?" quavered Dimity, hovering about the table.

"Easily!" replied Ella, screwing the linen table mats into tight balls before thrusting them into the table drawer. Dimity averted her gaze. Dear Ella, so goodhearted, but so clumsy! Depend upon it there would be as much work to do clearing up after Ella's ministrations as if she had done the job herself, thought Dimity. But she mustn't be disloyal, she told herself, and really it was uncommonly thoughtful of Ella to offer to do these chores she so hated.

"Very well, dear," she said gratefully. "I'll go up, if you insist! But do put on your rubber gloves!"

She mounted the creaking stairs to the little bedroom above and turned a stoical ear to a dreadful crash, followed by a muttered imprecation, which shook the cottage.

"As long as it isn't mother's fruit bowl," thought Dimity anxiously, and climbed resignedly under the eider-down.

Having washed up the glass, silver and china, and carefully stacked the sticky casserole, caked with parsley sauce, a saucepan equally encrusted with mashed potato, a parsley cutter, a stained board on which the herb had been cut, and various other utensils used in the preparation of the meal, all upon the draining board to await Dimity's ministrations later, Ella felt aglow with righteousness.

It was really rather pleasant to have the kitchen to herself, she decided. She filled an enormous two-handled saucepan with water and set it on the gas stove ready for the dyeing. The rubber gloves annoyed her. They were slippery, and her hands felt clumsy in them, but she realized that she had better obey Dr. Lovell's injunctions if she were going to handle her painting materials.