Thrush Green (13 page)

They had rattled off, leaving Molly to enjoy the peaceful kitchen on her own. She was glad of her own company for she was in a state of great excitement.

Molly had been born at the little cottage on Thrush Green, and, for her, May the first had always been the highlight of the year. The traveling fair had become associated for Molly with the most bewitching time of the country year, when hope, warmth and color flooded fields and gardens, and the hearts of men could not fail to be quickened by the glory around them. And this year the fair-day held a particular significance for Molly Piggott.

The memory of that lovely evening with Ben had warmed Molly throughout the year. She had been more attracted by the young man than she had realized, and she was astonished at her own disappointment when she had failed to hear from him.

She had continued to go about her daily affairs looking as cheerful and as bustling as ever, but at heart she was sadly perplexed. She cooked and cleaned, washed and mended, weeded the garden and fed the hens, enduring the surly company of her father with less equanimity than usual, and escaping as often as she could to the haven of the Bassetts' house across the green. Paul was an enormous comfort to her, and although she was careful not to let too much slip out about the dark young man who had taken her to the fair, Paul's pertinent questions and shrewd guesswork soon uncovered her secret.

He was genuinely sympathetic to poor Molly and hated to know that she was in any way upset. Touched to the heart by his warmhearted solicitude, Molly still tried to treat the whole affair lightheartedly, but Paul was not to be so easily put off.

"You should write to him," said Paul decidedly, as they walked together one afternoon to Dotty Harmer's to get the eggs. The rain was slanting across the field, shrouding Lulling Woods in a gray veil. Paul strode through the puddles in his gum boots. His sou'wester dripped water upon his shiny oilskins in little rivulets. One hand was thrust in his pocket and the other comforted Molly's with a warm wet grasp.

"He may be a real nice man," he continued judicially, ignoring the torrents about him, "but he can't know you're worrying about him, or he'd come and see you."

"I'm not worrying," Molly had said, with a very good imitation of a light laugh. "And I can't write to him if I don't know where the fair is, can I? Even if I wanted to—which I don't!" she had added hastily.

"He should come," maintained Paul stoutly. "He must be a friend because he gave you that brooch and he took you to the fair. He should come and see you. Or he should send you a picture post card of wherever the fair is."

"Perhaps he's ill," suggested Molly, making excuses for Ben against her will. "Or maybe old Mrs. Curdle don't like him wasting his time writing to girls. She's a proper ol' pip, they say, at keeping 'em all working."

Paul, with a child's black and white conception of right and wrong, and having no interest or recognition of those forgiving shades of gray with which adults confuse the issue, would have no excuses made for poor absent Ben.

He asked Molly whenever they met if she had heard from Ben, so that Molly grew more and more alarmed at the interest taken in her affairs, and dreaded lest the child should let fall some chance remark at home or anywhere else on Thrush Green. She knew, only too well, how quickly rumors spread in a small community and was horrified to think how a spark, so innocently dropped by sympathetic young Paul, would blaze a trail from Thrush Green to Lulling, to Nod and Nidden, and all the little hamlets that clustered near the river Pleshy. As for her father, if he should come to hear of the evening out, let alone anything further, he was quite capable of making her life a misery with braggart threats and mean-spirited mockings.

"Don't you say a word now," she had said severely to Paul one day when he had questioned her once more about the errant Ben. "It's a secret, see? I wish I'd never said a word about him to you. I don't care all that about him anyway," protested poor Molly, tossing her head.

"Then why do you wear that cornflower brooch every day?" Paul had answered mildly. For two pins Molly could have slapped the child, torn as she was between exasperation and affection. She did her best to speak calmly.

"Well, he was kind to me, Paul, and I likes to wear it to remind me of a lovely time. But there's no call for you to think I'm fretting, you know. And don't forget—what I've told you is a secret. Promise?"

"Promise," echoed Paul solemnly, and he had kept his word.

But Molly had grown increasingly perturbed as the year slid from summer into winter. Her father's boorishness, his bouts of morose drinking and her own disappointment over Ben's silence combined to make her life depressing. She almost dreaded going to the Bassetts' house in the winter months, for then she and Paul were together indoors, often in the company of Joan and Edward, and Molly trembled lest Paul should forget his promise and reveal her feelings unintentionally. It was during the autumn that she heard about the post at "The Drovers' Arms."

"They wants a girl as'll help in the bar and give them a hand in the house," the milkman had told her one day. He was a cheerful fellow who always stopped for a word, and was fond of any lively buxom girl like Molly. He was a great favorite with most of the ladies on Thrush Green, though Dimity Dean had found him "detestably familiar" once when she had been obliged to answer the door in her dressing gown.

"Why tell me?" Molly had asked, with genuine interest.

"You're too good to waste away under this roof," the man had said shrewdly. "You'd see a bit of life up there. The Aliens is real nice and homely. Food's good, pay's good, and home here for the week end if you still wants to see old Happy Face!" He had jerked a thumb in the direction of Mr. Piggott, who was stirring up a bonfire in the churchyard.

"They won't want me," said Molly. "I've never done bar work."

"You go and see 'em," urged the milkman, patting her arm. "I told 'em you'd be just the right sort of gal if they could persuade you. You think it over. Tell 'em I sent you up."

She had turned this amazing offer over in her mind as she had gone about her duties that day, and had almost decided not to go. But that evening her father had been unbearable. He had pushed the piece of steak that the girl had cooked for him this way and that across his plate, prodding it with a fork and grumbling about its toughness, its meager dimensions and his daughter's poor cooking. That decided the matter for Molly. She had stood enough.

She said nothing at the time, but the next day she walked through the autumn woods to "The Drovers' Arms" and faltered out her willingness to take the post.

Ted and Bessie Allen were a boisterous, kindly pair, who took at once to the pretty girl whose character had been given them by the milkman. It was all quickly arranged. Molly was to live there from Monday night until Friday afternoon each week, and the week ends were her own, as Mrs. Allen's brother came down from town each week end and liked to help in the bar to earn his keep.

Mr. Piggott was too flabbergasted at this
fait accompli
to make much comment. Joan Bassett was glad for the girl's sake, for she knew that her home conditions were wretched, but glad too to know that Molly would come to help her at week ends if ever she were needed.

And so the winter and spring had slipped by and Molly's spirits had risen as the good company and good living at the little pub had had their effect. She was willing and lively and glowed with good health and fun, and became a great favorite with the customers.

No one would have thought that Molly Piggott had a care in the world. Her eyes sparkled, her curly hair sprang crisply above her clear white brow, and she tripped lightly about her business.

But the cornflower brooch was always pinned on her dress and at night when she put it carefully away in the shell-encrusted box which had accompanied her to "The Drovers' Arms," her eyes would cloud as she remembered the young man who had asked her to be true but, alas, had forgotten to be true himself.

As May had approached she had become more and more excited. At least she would see him again. Not that she was going to run after him! she told herself. If he liked to come and find her—well, that was different!

And if he didn't come? Then she had her plans ready. There were several young men who called at the pub who had already suggested that she might honor them with her company at Thrush Green fair. To all she had given an evasive answer, praying secretly that Ben would have called for her long before the fair opened. But if he didn't come—and at this dreadful thought her spirits fell like a plummet—then she would go with the first young man who asked her, and she would see Ben again, and speak to him too. And woe betide that dark young breaker-of-hearts if he failed to clear up the mystery of a silence which had lasted a year!

All through the sparkling morning Molly had hoped and wondered, plotted and surmised. Ben would not be able to see her much before teatime, she reckoned, for she knew that it took most of the day to prepare the fair and Mrs. Curdle would see that there were no defaulters.

She had looked out the yellow spotted frock which she had worn the year before, and had polished her new black shoes with the high heels. She had tried a yellow ribbon across her dark hair and had approved of her reflection in the dim mirror in the little attic bedroom under the thatch. The ribbon lay now, beside the spotted frock, across the white counterpane.

Molly sang at the thought of the pretty things awaiting her upstairs. She would wash up, and then she would take up a jug of warm rain water to her bedroom and wash herself in the blue and white bowl on the corner washstand. She would brush her hair till it frothed around her head and then tie the yellow ribbon smoothly across. And then, she told herself with a beating heart, dressed and freshly clean, she would sit in the sunshine and wait.

She glanced through the window at the trim garden. Heat waves shimmered across the pink and white apple blossom, and a few fragile petals fluttered down, in the heat, upon the forget-me-nots that clustered below. It was all so beautiful that Molly's song ceased abruptly as she stared.

She rested her plump arms along the edge of the sink. Soap suds popped softly on the creamy skin. Her red frock, so soon to be changed for the immaculate yellow one above, was wet with her energetic splashings, and her curls clung damply against her brow.

"He'd have to come, a day like this," whispered Molly to herself, gazing bemused at the view before her.

And, at that moment, Ben knocked upon the back door.

Outside, in the scorching sunshine, Ben waited anxiously. The heat beat back from the worn paint of the door. A blister or two had risen here and there, and in the vivid light Ben noticed minute iridescent specks freckling the paintwork, reminding him of the sheen on a pheasant's throat.

He was never to forget that endless moment of waiting, in the full murmurous beauty of May Day, the acrid smell of the hot paintwork mingling with the fragrance of the spring garden.

He heard the singing stop. There was a sudden silence, and then the sound of footsteps on the stone-flagged floor. The door opened, and Ben's heart turned over.

There she stood, prettier than ever, her eyes sparkling with such radiance that Ben knew instantly that he need never have doubted his welcome.

"Ben!" breathed Molly rapturously, all preconceived ideas of a frigid approach to the errant young man melting at once as their eyes met.

Ben was unable to speak, but stood gazing at the cornflower brooch at her neck.

"Ben!" repeated Molly, holding out two soapy hands and a striped tea towel. "Come in out of the heat!"

Obediently, Ben stepped over the threshold into the cool shade of the kitchen. He was still speechless with joy and wild relief. But if his tongue was useless his arms were not. And throwing them around the tea towel, the wet frock, and his plump, lovely Molly, he hugged her until she gasped for breath.

After the first joy of meeting, Ben took another tea towel and helped the girl to wipe the glasses.

"And then we're going out," he said firmly.

"But I can't, Ben, honest, I can't!" pleaded Molly. "There's no one here to see the laundryman and there's the chicken food to cook up, and the—"

Ben cut her short.

"Stick a note on the door for the laundry, and put the chickens' grub over the side of the hob. That won't hurt. We'll go up the common for a bit."

"I've got to be here about five, though, just to see the others in. Then I'm free."

"You must come and see my old gran before the fair starts," persisted Ben. "I wants her to see you. You'll like her all right." He gazed admiringly at Molly, whose brow was furrowed with trying to work out an afternoon's program which gave her as much time as possible with Ben and yet saw her duties done.

"And what's more," went on Ben, "she'll like you!"

It all sounded alarmingly fast for Molly, trying to keep her head amidst this sudden whirl of events.

"I'll go and change my frock first," she said, hoping to escape to the peace of her bedroom for a few minutes in order to collect her scattered wits. But Ben would have none of it. They'd been apart for a year and now he had found her again he had no intention of letting her out of his sight.