Thrush Green (19 page)

Her husband's voice recalled Mrs. Bailey from "old unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago" to the present.

"'Dairycats,'" he was saying speculatively. "'An anagram.' Any idea?"

"Caryatids," responded Mrs. Bailey, without hesitation. Beaming, the doctor filled in the clue in his neat precise hand. Now that the spell of silence was broken Mrs. Bailey told her husband about her meeting before tea with old Mrs. Curdle.

"And she looks quite desperately ill," she said. "And as far as I could gather, she wants to consult you. I did hint gently that Dr. Lovell would be taking the surgery tonight—"

"She won't take that hint!" pronounced Dr. Bailey emphatically. "In any case, I should like to see her myself, and I don't think she would allow anyone else to examine her."

"Well, I certainly hope you'll find her fit to carry on," said Mrs. Bailey. "I can't imagine May the first without that background!"

She nodded her head in time with the raucous and distorted rendering of "Happy Days Are Here Again" which floated through the open window.

"She'll keep going if there's half a chance," prophesied the doctor. "She's a grand old girl. She won't want to give up any more than I do."

He wriggled himself into a more comfortable position, then wagged a solemn finger at his wife.

"You know what? Mrs. Curdle and I are in the same boat. We're old and we don't like it. I think we shall both feel better when we've faced that uncomfortable fact. Now, my dear, give me your advice. Should you say that 'Knickerbocker Glory' was an anagram?"

Across the road, on Thrush Green itself, the head of the fair moved methodically from one stall to the next. Mrs. Curdle's dark eyes missed nothing, and as the members of her tribe saw her approach they straightened up the prizes, flicked the dust from mirror and brass, and renewed their shouts of encouragement to the few customers already exploring the attractions.

Tonight, particluarly, after the scene of Sam's shame, her family were on the
qui-vive.
Ma, on the warpath, was a figure they had cause to fear, and this was pay day too. Curdle's Fair was at its most efficient.

Sam was at his post, by the switch-back, despite a bruised face, a swollen jaw containing two loose teeth, and a headache which normally would have kept him in his bunk bed. He knew well enough that he would have more to suffer if Mrs. Curdle found him malingering on his last day in her employ.

Bella, to his amazement, had said little, too confounded by the shock of dismissal and Sam's disgrace to remonstrate further. She had often enough, he remembered bitterly, nagged him to leave the fair. Well, now he had no option but to go. He leaned his aching back against the painted support of the switch-back, his dizzy head whirling as madly and as noisily as the machinery behind him. It said much for Mrs. Curdle's discipline that Sam never for one moment considered approaching her for forgiveness or change of heart. From that implacable matriarch nothing, he knew, would be gained. Go he must, and in the early light of dawn, when Mrs. Curdle's retinue took the high road toward the north, on its way to join a large fair at an ancient market town near Oxford, Sam's family would be missing from the procession. He knew, from experience of other family outcasts from the Curdle tribe, that he would never be spoken of again.

He straightened up as he saw the old lady bearing down upon him. She looked better than she had done all day. She carried the ebony stick, but leaned upon it less obviously, and her flashing eyes above the jutting haughty nose had a fire in them which had been missing for many a long day. It was as if the fight had given her new strength. Many a woman, the victim of robbery and treachery in her own family, would have been shaken with shock, but Mrs. Curdle was made of lusty stuff and had thrived all her life on just such battles. Firmly she approached the switch-back and the trembling, unhappy Sam.

She gave a grim searching glance at the circling contraption, her hawklike gaze passing over her nephew without a flicker. He might have been one of the gnats that hovered in her path, so little notice did she take of him. Neither by word nor gesture did she acknowledge his presence. He was no longer part of Mrs. Curdle's world.

She passed on, leaving Sam even more wretched than before. The thought of a drink at "The Two Pheasants" floated ravishingly into Sam's dizzy head, and was instantly rejected. Sam knew when he was beaten, and watched this tyrant continue her regal progress toward the coconut shies, where Ben, with Molly beside him, exhorted the customers to greater efforts.

And, to his chagrin, Sam saw the old lady's grim mouth soften into a warm smile as she approached the pair.

It had been an extraordinary tea party in Mrs. Curdle's caravan that afternoon, and Molly was never to forget it.

When Sam had departed, and the crowd had vanished as quickly as it had formed, Ben had found her halfway home. Already under considerable strain from the emotion of the day, and strung up at the thought of meeting Ben's formidable grandmother, poor Molly had found this sudden, fierce, silent fight absolutely unbearable. She had determined to slip back to the cottage and to venture forth later when the rumpus had died down.

Ben, bleeding and disheveled, was a fearsome figure when he caught up with her, but his dark eyes shone and his voice was gentle as he pleaded with her to return with him. She could not refuse him and he had led her back to that awe-inspiring figure at the foot of the caravan steps. Mrs. Curdle had watched in silence as they approached and it was Ben who spoke first.

"Gran, this is Molly. She lives over the green. I've brought her to tea." He wiped a hand across his cheek, and looked with some surprise at the blood on his fingers.

Mrs. Curdle turned a smile upon the girl, so quick, so warm, and so like Ben's that Molly's fears fell from her.

"You be very welcome," said the old lady, graciously, inclining her head with a royal gesture. She turned to Ben, who stood beaming upon them both.

"And if you be coming to tea too you'd best wash that muck off yourself," she ordered. Ben pulled himself together and began to brush the dust from his corduroy trousers.

"I'll get cleaned up, Gran," he promised and set off toward his caravan. Mrs. Curdle watched him go with a smile.

"He's a good boy," she murmured, as if to herself. "A real good boy. His dad all over again."

For a moment she seemed to have forgotten Molly and to have slipped away to some time or place of which the girl knew nothing. But, after a long minute, she sighed and turned politely to her guest.

"Come you in, my dear. And if we're going to get a cup of tea—well, maybe you'll give me a hand tidying up the mess them young fellows have made."

The two women had mounted the steps and faced the turmoil. Molly was used to creating order from chaos and wasted no time on useless bewailing. Old Mrs. Curdle sat on the edge of her tumbled bed and began returning the scattered money to the attaché case, while the girl swept up broken china, replaced the pots and pans that littered the floor and mopped up the water that had been spilled around Mrs. Curdle's shining stove. The old lady watched her deft movements with approval.

"You known my Ben long?" she inquired shrewdly.

"Since last year," said Molly, looking up from her mopping. She wrung out a dripping cloth into an enamel bowl and set to again. It was easier to talk with her hands occupied in such familiar tasks, and her qualms were leaving her under the kindly scrutiny of the old lady on the bed.

"He's a boy you can trust," Mrs. Curdle said soberly. "No fly-by-night, young Ben. But he wouldn't stand for any flirting, mind!"

Molly flushed.

"There's no need for him to," she retorted. "I ain't the flirting kind." The thought of her year's unhappy vigil pricked her into speech again, for the old lady's words rankled.

"I been waiting to hear from him for a twelvemonth, and refused aplenty, and that's flat!"

She rubbed energetically at a tarnished streak on the side of the stove. Her mouth was rebellious and Mrs. Curdle stretched down a dusky hand to the curly head that bobbed so near her knee.

"You don't need to take on, my dear," said Mrs. Curdle very gently. "Ben won't look at no one else. And I hope—yes, I do hope—as you'll see fit to stick to our Ben. You're the one for him."

The girl sat back on her heels, still clutching the wet cloth, and the two women exchanged a look of complete understanding. Mutual affection, respect and the love which they both bore Ben united them in that instant. The bond was never to be broken.

"How old be you?" asked Mrs. Curdle, resuming her tidying.

"Near enough eighteen," answered Molly, rising to her feet. She rested the enamel bowl easily against her hip and old Mrs. Curdle looked her up and down approvingly.

"I had my first at eighteen," said she, nodding sagely. "'Tis a good thing to start a family young in our line of business. They helps as you gets older and the big 'uns brings on the little 'uns."

Molly was momentarily disconcerted at this calm acceptance of the position.

"My dad don't know nothing about Ben. I keeps house for him really. He'll have something to say if I tell him."

"Ben'll call on your dad tonight," pronounced Mrs. Curdle with finality. "There's no call to be flustered. I don't doubt Ben'd rush you off to church tomorrow if he had his way. Ben's always hasty, and his dad was the same. But, at eighteen, going steady's no crime for a bonny girl like you, and your dad can like it or lump it."

"He won't like it, that I do know," said Molly emphatically. "He don't like traveling people. He'll say I'm—" She hesitated, anxious not to hurt the old lady's feelings by putting the ordinary settled man's suspicions of the nomad into words.

Mrs. Curdle gazed at her shrewdly.

"He'll say you're throwing yourself away on a gypsy› who ain't got two ha'pennies to rub together. Is that it?"

The girl nodded unhappily. There was a silence in the little caravan broken only by the fluttering of an early butterfly against the sunny caravan window.

"Do you think you are?" asked the old lady at length. The girl's face lit up.

"Never!" she said softly. Mrs. Curdle sighed happily.

"There's time for your dad to get used to the idea of your marrying a gypsy boy. Won't hurt you two to wait a few months and start your married life when we're resting for the winter. And besides—"

She paused as though wondering if she should add what was in her mind. The girl waited, with her head on one side, looking down at that dark thoughtful face.

"And besides," continued Mrs. Curdle, "what your dad don't know is that Ben's no pauper, but a chap with a grand business behind him. He needn't fear his daughter'll starve while Curdle's Fair is going strong."

At that moment, Ben had appeared in the doorway, washed and clad in clean clothing.

"Ain't you two women had time to put the kettle on with all that talking?" he inquired. And grabbing the empty vessel from the side of the hob he went, whistling, to remedy their omission.

And now, as the sunset did its best to rival the gaudy splendor of the fair, Mrs. Curdle finished the tour of her little world with her spirits restored. Every booth and side show and every piece of machinery was in order and buckling to its daily business. The clamor, the shouting, the throbbing of motors, and the oily smell that emanated from them and was as incense in the nostrils of the old lady who owned them filled the warm evening air.

Up the steep hill from Lulling in the south, across the western golden meadows below Lulling Woods and down from the north-lying hamlets of Upper Pleshy, Nid and Nodden, came the country folk to enjoy the brief pleasures of the glittering fair.

For tonight Thrush Green throbbed and beat like a great heart, pulsing out its message to the countryside around, and there were many who answered the call, remembering, with a pang, that it might be the last time that they would hear it.

With a heart as bright and indomitable as the fair itself Mrs. Curdle stood at the doorway of her home and surveyed the bustle. It had been a good day, she told herself, trash thrown out and a bit of real gold found, she fancied, thinking of Ben's fine girl. Well, there it was, her fair, her whole world, spinning away as usual, and quite capable of looking after itself for an hour or two while she took time off to face the last job of this long, bright day.

She turned her back upon it resolutely and began to prepare herself for her visit to Dr. Bailey.

14. All the Fun of the Fair

P
AUL'S HAPPINESS
was complete. At last he was in the midst of that glorious world which he had seen being created, that morning, from his bedroom window. It was even more intoxicating than he had remembered it. Were there ever such lights, such music and such a galaxy of pleasures?

He gripped his aunt's hand, but was unconscious of her presence. His eyes and mouth formed three great O's, and he was oblivious of everything but the splendor which surrounded him. His schoolfellows hailed him, grown-up friends spoke to him, but he was too entranced to notice them. This was a magic world and he was in its spell.

Ruth led him toward the roundabout, for she knew that this was his favorite attraction of the fair. He clambered up the steep wooden step and edged purposefully toward an ostrich, a creature resplendent in pink and green plumage, and one that lived in remarkable amity with the galloping horses beside it. It was this beast which he had ridden last year, and his affection for it had remained constant.

Ruth hoisted him aloft and mounted the horse beside him. From her perch she looked down at the faces of those watching below, many of them known to her since childhood. The feel of the smooth wood between her knees, and of the curly cold brass pillar between her hands, gave Ruth the same thrill that she remembered feeling years ago. Tonight, with her decision to stay at Thrush Green still fresh in her mind, the fact of being here on the day of the fair possessed an added poignancy.