(9/13)The School at Thrush Green Read online

  Dorothy looked doubtful, and Isobel rose to refill the sherry glasses to fortify all those present. This final decision was obviously going to be taxing.

  'That impresses me, Harold. It really does. I value your opinion as you know.'

  She sighed heavily, and took a refreshing sip from her glass. 'And of course I have nothing against Germany now,' she added, turning over the Polo brochure and studying the bird's eye view of its interior seating arrangements.

  'However,' she resumed, putting it aside and reaching for the Metro's contribution to the temporary decor of the sitting-room. 'I still like the idea of a British car, supporting home industry and all that.'

  'Right,' agreed Harold. 'We'll go down to the garage in Lulling and have a good look at the Metro and a drive around.'

  It was a quarter-past ten when the two ladies said goodnight and retired to their bedrooms.

  Dorothy was excited but exhausted. It really was dreadfully tiring making such a decision. After all, a great deal of money was involved, and the car would have to last them for several years. Perhaps the Polo would have been the right choice?

  She was just removing her stockings when the telephone rang in the hall.

  'Now who on earth is ringing at this time of night?' she said testily, making her way downstairs, clad only in her petticoat.

  'Richard here.'

  'Who? Richard Who?'

  'Winnie's nephew Richard.'

  'Ah yes! What can I do for you?'

  He explained at some length, and Dorothy did her best to keep her feet warm by rubbing one against the other, with small success.

  Filled, as her mind was, with such things as car seats, two- or four-doors, gear-levers and what the trade euphemistically called 'optional extras', Dorothy hardly took in all that Richard was saying, but absorbed the salient point that he and his wife wanted to see the house.

  'What about Saturday afternoon? Shall we say at two-thirty?' she said, catching sight of something which looked distressingly like a dead mouse under the nearby radiator. She hitched her cold feet on to the chair rail, in case life still pulsed in that small body.

  'Goodbye,' she said civilly, replacing the receiver, and bravely went to investigate.

  Luckily, the object was nothing more terrifying than a small ball of wool which must have escaped from Agnes's knitting bag.

  Dorothy returned to her bedroom and the comfort of her warm bed.

  What a day it had been!

  Charles Henstock decided to call at the Misses Lovelocks' house one morning. He was rather anxious about Anthony Bull's protégée, and wondered how she was faring with her new employers.

  Prudently, he carried with him a copy of the monthly church magazine, so that he had a legitimate excuse for his morning call.

  It was a blustery April morning, and little eddies of dust whirled about the High Street. The striped awning over the window of The Fuchsia Bush flapped in the breeze, and the young leaves of the pollarded limes which lined the street were being tossed this way and that.

  Charles took off his hat, and held it in safety with the church magazine as he waited for the front door to be opened.

  It was Doreen herself who performed the operation. She was looking, Charles was relieved to see, quite healthy and well fed.

  'Ah, Doreen, I believe? You know my old friend Anthony Bull.'

  'Yes. Want to come in?'

  Charles entered, somewhat disconcerted by this laconic greeting. He was saved by the arrival of the three sisters from the kitchen quarters. They greeted him with little flutters of excitement, and ushered him into the drawing-room.

  'So you've now met Doreen,' said Ada. 'She's settling in very well, considering.'

  Charles wondered what doubts were covered by this last word.

  'Good. And you find her a real help?'

  'Rather slow,' said Bertha.

  'And refuses to take on any cooking,' added Violet. 'But works quite hard.'

  'Well, of course, it's early days yet,' said Charles soothingly. 'No doubt she will get quicker as she gets used to the work.'

  He surveyed the laden occasional tables. Dozens of small silver ornaments gleamed as brightly as ever, and the two massive trumpet-shaped silver vases which occupied each end of the mantelpiece appeared to be equally immaculate. It must make an enormous amount of work, he thought, with a pang of pity for the new maid.

  'I have to ring Anthony this evening,' he said, 'about a diocesan matter. I'm sure he will want to know how the girl has settled.'

  'Dear Anthony,' sighed Ada.

  'What sermons he gave us!' sighed Bertha.

  'And always looked so handsome!' sighed Violet.

  Not for the first time, poor Charles realised what a lowly figure he cut beside his distinguished predecessor. It was a good thing that he was so devoted to Anthony himself, or common jealousy might have soured his outlook.

  'Some coffee, Charles dear?' said Bertha, suddenly recalled from fond memories of Anthony Bull to the duties of a hostess.

  'Yes, do,' urged Ada. 'We have some left over from yesterday.'

  'Most kind, most kind,' murmured Charles rising, 'but I have one or two things to get for Dimity, so I mustn't delay.'

  They accompanied him to the door. Doreen was nowhere in sight, but the sound of a vacuum cleaner hummed from above.

  'I meant to ask you about her living arrangements. Is she living here?'

  'Good heavens, no!' replied Ada. 'Where would we put her?'

  'And the boy,' pointed out Violet.

  Charles, knowing full well the plentiful accommodation in the house, refrained from comment.

  'It so happens,' explained Bertha, 'that her younger brother has found a job in Shropshire –8 '

  'Somerset,' interjected Violet.

  'With an uncle,' went on Bertha, giving her sister a sharp look.

  'Cousin,' said Violet.

  'So that there is now a spare bedroom at Mrs Lilly's and she has let Doreen and the child stay there.'

  'Good. I'm glad to hear it,' said Charles, descending the steps to the pavement. 'I will let Anthony know how things are.'

  'And give him our love,' called Violet to Charles's departing figure.

  'I think "our love",' said Ada reprovingly, 'is rather forward. "Kind regards" would have been much more suitable for a man of the cloth.'

  12. Viewing the School House

  AS Winnie Bailey expected, Richard's telephone call came just before noon on the Saturday, when he announced that they would call about three-thirty. Miss Watson had arranged for them to see the house at half-past two.

  'Jenny and I will look forward to seeing you,' said Winnie. She wondered if she should offer to have the two children whilst Richard and Fenella paid their visit to the school house, decided that Richard was more than capable of asking this favour, and put down the receiver with some relief.

  What was Fenella like? Somehow she envisaged her as a wispy girl, dressed in unbecoming dark garments from an Oxfam shop, and with a vague expression. No doubt she would be entirely subservient to Richard, she decided. Richard, after all, was a very dominant person. It couldn't be much fun being married to someone quite so ruthlessly selfish.

  She helped Jenny to set the tea in the dining-room. If Timothy were to be one of the party it was simpler to have him on a chair, at least for part of the meal time. As for Imogen, it was to be hoped that such a young child would be content with a rusk in her pram.

  It was striking three by the grandfather clock in the hall when Winnie saw Richard's car parked outside the gates of Thrush Green school. There was no sign of life in or around it, so Winnie surmised that the tour of the house was taking place.

  Some twenty minutes later she saw the car driving round the green, beneath the budding chestnut trees, making for her own home. She went out into the spring sunshine to greet them.

  Contrary to expectation, Fenella turned out to be a large woman, quite as tall as Richard, and built on statuesque lines. She
had a mop of auburn hair which cascaded over her shoulders, and clashed disastrously with the scarlet of her coat.

  'Fenella, Aunt Win,' said Richard.

  'How do you do? I'm so glad that you decided to have a look at Thrush Green,' said Winnie.

  'I know Aunt Win,' said Timothy, appearing from the other side of the car. 'She gave me a banana.'

  'What about the baby?' queried Winnie.

  'Oh, she's fast asleep on the back seat,' replied her mother, in a deep contralto voice. 'Far better to leave her to it.'

  Winnie was a little perturbed at the thought of the child abandoned in the car, but as the rest of the family were making purposefully towards the open front door, Winnie went ahead and ushered them in.

  'Well, what did you think of the school house?' asked Winnie, when coats had been removed, and Timothy had departed to see Jenny in the kitchen.

  Richard and Fenella exchanged glances.

  'Well,' began Richard, 'I like it, of course, although it's really rather small. But then I've always wanted to live at Thrush Green.'

  Fenella made an impatient gesture. 'He has this thing about Thrush Green. A fixation, I suppose you'd call it. Frankly, I prefer town life, but of course one could get to London fairly quickly, I imagine.'

  'Would you want to?'

  'Naturally. I have the gallery to run.'

  Winnie was somewhat nonplussed. She had envisaged a straightforward choice. Either the family moved from town, firstly to remove Fenella from Roger's attentions, and secondly to raise the money for the new abode by the sale of the gallery, or else they did not move at all.

  'I think,' said Richard, 'that we might build a large room at the back of the school house, and have a good-sized bedroom above with a bathroom and so on over the new room.'

  'It would look clumsy,' said Fenella. 'Far better to knock down that grotty little kitchen, and make a really big living-room there.'

  Winnie was glad that neither Dorothy nor Agnes were at hand to hear their immaculate kitchen so summarily dismissed.

  'So you think it might be altered?' she said diplomatically. 'I mean, it looks possible for your needs?'

  'Richard seems to think so,' said Fenella off-handedly. 'Where he's getting the money from, I really don't know.'

  'Fenella,' began Richard, 'you know we've discussed this time and time again! If you sell the gallery – '

  'I've no intention of selling my only means of livelihood,' replied Fenella, her voice rising dangerously. 'So you can put that idea out of your mind at once.'

  Luckily, Timothy burst into the room at this juncture, and waved a fistful of finely cut bread crusts in his father's face.

  'Jenny's making sandwiches for tea. Tomato. She said I was to throw these out for the birds, but I'm not going to. I'm hungry.'

  He shook his burden fiercely, scattering crumbs upon the carpet. Richard and Fenella, glowering at each other, appeared to be oblivious of the child's presence, and it was Winnie who took him into the garden, and directed his attention to the bird-table, with some relief.

  Whilst the boy deposited some of the crusts there, and three or four into his mouth, Winnie considered the recent conversation. Either Richard had not told her the whole story on his earlier visit, or Fenella had suddenly decided to hold out and remain at the gallery. Without its sale, Winnie had gathered, they could not consider a move, even into something as relatively modest as Thrush Green school house.

  Well, it was their affair, she told herself, returning to her duties as hostess.

  'Come along, Timothy. We'll ask Jenny to put on the kettle. If you are so hungry we'd better have an early tea.'

  Richard was standing by the sitting-room window, gazing across the green, and jingling coins in his trouser pocket. He looked extremely irritable.

  Fenella had put her feet up on the couch and was immersed in a copy of Country Life. The air was heavy with unspoken acrimony.

  'I think we'll have tea early,' said Winnie. 'Timothy seems hungry after his journey, and I'm sure you can both manage a cup.'

  Fenella dropped the magazine to the floor, and removed her feet from the couch.

  'I never take tea,' she said. 'And, do you know, this is the first house I've been in which takes Country Life.'

  'I'm having tea,' said Richard.

  'So am I,' said Timothy.

  'Oh well,' said Fenella, flouncing to her feet. 'I suppose I'd better have some too.'

  Winnie would like to have retorted with: 'Don't strain yourself!' but common civility restrained her, and she led the way into the dining-room.

  This, she feared, was going to be one of the stickiest tea parties she had ever had to direct.

  ***

  Whilst Winnie and Jenny were entertaining their guests, Albert Piggott and Dotty Harmer were surveying the ornamental pond site.

  At the moment it was far from ornamental. The pile of Cotswold stone from Percy's farmyard was stacked to one side, and six inches of slimy water filled the shallow crater which was to be metamorphosed in days to come.

  Most people would have found it a depressing sight, but Dotty and Albert, with future beauty in their inner eyes, were beaming upon it as if irises, goldfish, lilies, dragonflies and all the delights of water were already before them.

  The ducks were huddled together beneath a nearby gooseberry bush. There was disenchantment in their beady eyes and their only hope, it seemed, was a nice bran mash before darkness set in.

  'Won't they just love it,' cried Dotty, pulling her shabby cardigan round her with such force that a button flew into the depths of the pool.

  'Ah, they will that!' agreed Albert. 'I've bin thinking. Once we've set these 'ere stones around flat, what about a little stone path for them to walk down into the water?'

  'An excellent idea, Albert,' exclaimed Dotty. 'How soon can you start?'

  Albert pushed back his cap and scratched his lank locks. Years of procrastination made him cautious when confronted by such a direct request.

  'I might manage a couple of days later in the week,' he said grudgingly. 'But I'd need a hand shifting some of these bigger slabs. Too much for you, miss.'

  'Never fear,' cried Dotty. 'Kit will help, I know, and I could direct things.'

  The prospect of Dotty supervising the laying of the pond's surround, with numerous agitated and contradictory directions, was not one which Albert cared to dwell upon, but having committed himself so far there was nothing much which could be done about it.

  He replaced his cap, and sighed. 'Well, see you Wednesday then, if that suits Mr Armitage.'

  'He will fit in with you, Albert,' said Dotty firmly.

  Poor devil, thought Albert! A rare pang of pity for a fellow-creature stirred his stony heart. There was a good deal of Dotty's rugged old father in her, and a wicked tyrant he had been, as any past pupil of Lulling Grammar School would affirm.

  Albert, as a reluctant scholar, had always counted himself lucky to be in the dunces' class at his much more kindly elementary establishment at the other end of Lulling.

  'I'll leave all that to you, miss,' he said, shuffling off towards Thrush Green.

  Harold Shoosmith took Dorothy and Agnes to view the three cars which they had selected from the brochures, but it was quite apparent to Harold that Dorothy was already determined to have the Metro.

  Luckily, there was a demonstration model waiting at the garage, and the manager took out his prospective customer with Harold sitting in the back. Agnes excused herself, saying that she had some Vedonis underwear to collect from the draper's, and four currant-buns from The Fuchsia Bush. She would meet them again at the garage.

  Dorothy managed the car very well, and Harold felt very proud of his minor part in her tuition. Ben Curdle had done a good job, and if she had needed to pass a driving test, thought Harold, she would have been perfectly competent.

  She coped with the traffic in Lulling's busy High Street, and then drove a few miles out into the Cotswold countryside. Harold was relaxed
enough to notice the signs of spring, the lambs in the fields, the warm breeze blowing through the window, and the freshness of young leaves. It was a good time to buy one's first car, he thought, and how much the two friends would enjoy it!

  They had certainly earned their leisure after so many years of devoted teaching. He hoped that they had many years of health and retirement before them at Barton.

  When they turned into the forecourt of the garage, Agnes was already waiting for them. She looked at Dorothy's face, pink with pleasurable excitement. There was no doubt about it. This was the car she wanted. Left to herself, she would have signed, there and then, any papers put before her by the delighted manager, but Harold felt a few minutes to calm down might be a wise thing.

  'I suggest that we have a cup of coffee,' he said, 'and we will let you know after that.'

  'Good idea,' said the manager. 'I have one or two telephone calls to make, so I shall be on hand if you need me.'

  Harold ushered the two ladies into the café, and ordered a pot of coffee from the languid Rosa who seemed reluctant to leave the job of painting her nails.

  'Definitely the right car,' announced Dorothy when Rosa had ambled away. 'What do you think?'

  'It will suit you very well,' said Harold. 'The Metro's got a good name, and it is a British car which is what you want. You handled her beautifully, my dear.'

  Dorothy flushed with pleasure at such praise.

  'But the colour?' faltered Agnes.

  'I was coming to that,' said Dorothy. 'You still like the idea of a white one?'

  'Well,' said Agnes, 'it's just that I think a white car shows up so much better than a dark one. Coming out of turnings, or driving under trees, you know, one always seems to take notice of a light-coloured car. But, of course, Dorothy, if you prefer another colour, you know that – '

  'White it shall be,' said Dorothy firmly. 'Now, Harold, tell me about any particular points that you think we should consider before we return.'

  Over coffee the two discussed such matters as petrol consumption, maintenance, the advisability of having mud flaps fixed, a wiper for the rear window and a host of financial queries, so that Agnes let her mind drift happily on the peculiar names given to car colours. Quite as odd, she thought, as the names on the stockings she had inspected when going to collect her underwear at Lulling's foremost draper's. Who would know what colours to expect from 'Wild Mink', 'Desert Rose', or 'Spring Smoke', if they were ordering by post?