Winter in Thrush Green Page 16

  Paul, used to seeing Dotty pottering about her colourful garden, hearing the squawking of her hens and the companionable mewing of Mrs Curdle as she followed her mistress about, suddenly felt a spasm of inexplicable fear.

  'There's nobody there," he said, gripping Christopher's arm. 'It looks all wrong.'

  'Only because of the snow,' said Christopher sturdily. 'It's all this whiteness. Makes you feel sick after a bit, my mother says, because our eyes are used to lots of colours.'

  This scientific explanation did not satisfy Paul.

  'I don't mean that,' he protested. 'It looks as though Miss Harmer's gone away. But she never goes away, Chris. Never! She's got the animals to look after.'

  While Paul gazed with anxiety at the house and his friend gazed at him with perplexity, a terrifying thing happened. One of the upstairs windows slowly opened, and a witch-like form, with grey eldritch locks hanging round a paper-white face, sagged over the sill. A skinny arm began to swing an old-fashioned hand-bell, and the eerie notes clanged across the snowy wastes to the frightened boys.

  'It can't be Miss Harmer,' whispered Paul, white as a ghost.

  'It is! said Christopher shakily. 'And she's ill or something. She wants help.

  'We can't get through that drift,' answered Paul, with a hint of relief in his voice. 'Let's shout to her and tell her we'll get help.'

  They cupped their hands round their mouths and began to call to the small wild figure. The bell kept up its erratic din, now loud, now soft, but the toller gave no sign of hearing the answering cries from the boys.

  At that moment, Harold Shoosmith, clad in fishing waders and an oilskin, appeared from his garden and approached the children.

  'How long has this been going on?' he asked.

  They spoke together in a rush, too relieved to see help to worry about their trespassing.

  'It's Miss Harmer—' began Paul.

  'She must be ill,' said Christopher. 'She's just come to the window.'

  'We were shouting to tell her we'd get help,' continued Paul.

  'It's too deep for us to get through.'

  'I'll go and get a spade,' said Harold. 'You wait here,' he added, 'I may need you.'

  They watched him plough back towards the house. The figure still sagged from the window, the bell hanging silent in one hand.

  'Mr Shoosmith's coming!' shouted Paul encouragingly. He felt brave with relief, and almost began to enjoy the adventure.

  'We're going to help him!' bellowed Christopher, not to be outdone.

  By way of reply it seemed, the bell gave a convulsive ring and fell from the inert hand into the muffling snow below. The figure slid out of sight, presumably to the bedroom floor. Alarm seized the boys again.

  'It's the shock,' said Paul aghast. 'We've jolly well killed her!'

  For once, Christopher was too stunned to reply. At this moment Harold appeared again, armed with two spades and a coal shovel.

  'She's fallen down,' quavered Paul.

  'Then there's no time to lose,' said Harold briskly. 'We'll see how we get on, but if it's deeper than we think, one of you must run for more help.'

  He set to, and cleared a way through the first deep drift, the boys flinging the snow energetically aside, pink-faced with excitement and exercise. Luckily, they soon came to shallower snow, and Harold proceeded alone, the snow almost to the top of his waders, unI'll the garden gate was reached.

  'Stay where you are,' Harold ordered. He struggled over the gate. He was beginning to wonder just what he would find inside the house. No sound had come from it, and he was secretly most alarmed.

  He had to dig his way again through the garden. The snow had drifted into grotesque shapes against the hen house and the cottage.

  After ten minutes' struggle he reached the back door. He was perspiring with his exertions, and the oliskins were horribly stuffy. He found the door unlocked, and entered the kitchen.

  It was very cold and quiet. An unpleasant smell, compounded of stale food, drying herbs and cats, greeted him. The clock had stopped, the barred grate was full of grey ash, and a spider had spun its web from a cold saucepan on the hob to the wall near by.

  'Anyone at home?' called Harold. 'Are you there, Miss Harmer?'

  There was no reply. Harold stamped the snow from his boots and mounted the stairs. The sound of frantic mewing reached his ears from behind a closed door. He undid the latch and out bolted Mrs Curdle, followed unsteadily by four young kittens. They vanished downstairs, presumably in search of food.

  The only other bedroom had its door propped open. There Dotty lay, crumpled on the floor, by the open window.

  Harold was relieved to find that her eyes were open and that she was attempting to speak. She looked desperately ill, and her breathing was loud and stertorous. He lifted her on to the untidy bed and covered her gently.

  'Just he there for a moment,' he said. 'Now don't worry about a thing.'

  He strode to the window and leant out.

  'Cut back home, Paul,' he shouted, 'and ask your mother to ring Doctor Lovell. I'm going to carry Miss Harmer to my house. She's not well.'

  'Me too?' asked Christopher.

  'No. I may need you,' said Harold. 'Hang on there.'

  Dotty was becoming agitated, rolling her untidy grey head from side to side restlessly. Harold went closer to hear what she was trying to say.

  'Poor cats! Poor chickens! No food!' croaked Dotty.

  'What about you?" asked Harold. 'When did you eat last?'

  She shook her head.

  'I'm going downstairs to get you a hot drink, and I'll sec to the animals,' he promised. 'Then we must get you out of this.'

  He closed the window, switched on an archaic electric fire, which looked none too safe for his peace of mind, but was better than nothing, and departed downstairs.

  The cats mewed plaintively, and he explored the tiny larder. A bottle of milk was now solid cream cheese, but a dozen or more tins of cat food, prudently purchased by Dotty at the onset of the blizzard, cheered him. He opened two, scooped out the contents and let the cats wolf it down. Dotty's provender was harder to find, but he discovered some Bovril and an electric kettle and soon returned to the bedroom with a steaming cup.

  The warmth of the bed and the room seemed to have given poor Dotty more strength. She sipped her Bovril gratefully. Harold wondered how she would react to his suggestion that he earned her bodily up the hill to his own house. It was quite apparent that she was desperately ill. Ideally, she should not be moved, but the house was cold, without food, and inaccessible. If he could get her to Thrush Green then Lovell could take over. She was as light as a bird, and the path had been made. It should not be too difficult a journey, but he must wrap her up well. He looked at the shabby coats hanging behind the door with a speculative eye.

  'I'm taking you to Thrush Green,' he said, with gentle authority. 'Then Doctor Lovell can have a look at you. You'll have to let me carry you, you know.'

  'No need,' wheezed Dotty, surprisingly acquiescent. 'Sledge downstairs.'

  'How splendid!' cried Harold. I'll go and get it ready.'

  He found old Mr Harmer's masterpiece, and some leather straps, hanging in the lean-to. He collected some spare blankets from the room in which Mrs Curdle and her kittens had been incarcerated and made a warm comfortable bed upon the sledge, and then returned for his patient. It seemed most practical and decorous to wrap the old lady in the warm bed clothes which already surrounded her, and carrying the unwieldy bundle, Harold stepped carefully down the staircase and deposited her on the sledge. He returned for a pillow, and leant from the window to shout to his assistant who was busy making a snow man.

  'Be ready,' he called. 'I'm bringing Miss Harmer on a sledge. Are you warm enough?'

  'Boiling!' said Christopher, scarlet in the face.

  Harold closed the window, switched off the fire, gathered up the pillow and returned downstairs.

  'Drink,' said Dotty, looking exhausted.

 
Harold hurried to get a glass of water.

  'Cats!' said Dotty, with weak exasperation. Harold meekly filled a bowl and put it on the floor.

  'I promise you,' he said solemnly, 'that someone will come and look after all the animals, as soon as we've got you safely in bed again.' He strapped the small figure safely on to the sledge, tucked an old mackintosh over and under the whole contraption and set off through the snow to Thrush Green.

  The journey was comparatively easy, and Dotty stood the jolting well. Harold was glad, however, of Christopher's help, and tireder than he cared to admit when he finally arrived, by way of the garden, at the corner house's back door.

  To his relief, Joan Young was there with Paul awaiting him, and he left her to put Dotty to bed in the spare room while they waited for the doctor.

  Whisky and soda in hand, he stood at the sitting-room window watching the trees dropping flurries of snow as the wind caught them. If there were much more of this weather, thought Harold gloomily, they would not get Nathaniel's statue erected in time. He resolved to find out more from Edward Young about the progress he had made.

  At that moment, young Doctor Lovell appeared and Harold took him upstairs to the patient.

  Paul and Christopher were on the landing, gazing from the window. It occurred to Harold that the two boys might well be tired and hungry too.

  'Come down to the kitchen,' he said, "and we'll find some biscuits and a hot drink.'

  'Not hot; begged Paul.

  'What then?' asked Harold. 'Iced lemonade?' he added amusedly, looking at the bitter world outside.

  'Oh please!' breathed the two fervently, following him downstairs. Shuddering, he led them to the refrigerator.

  'Hospital job,' said Doctor Lovell, crashing downstairs. 'Can I use your phone?'

  'Carry on,' said Harold and waited unI'll all was arranged before making more enquiries.

  'Bronchitis, perhaps pneumonia,' said the doctor. 'Basically, of course, it's malnutrition. I shouldn't think she's eaten a square meal for years. But she'll be all right. Keeps fretting about her pets.'

  'Tell her I'll go down myself while she's away,' said Harold. 'It's no great distance.'

  'You're what's known as a good Samaritan,' said the doctor, making for the door. 'And one who was just in time, I may say. She wouldn't have lasted much longer without attention-and then where would all the pets have been?'

  The arrival of the ambulance broke short their conversation. Curtains twitched at several windows on Thrush Green, and one or two bolder spirits emerged from their cottages the better to see who might be the victim. The arrival of Doctor Lovell had not gone unnoticed. The sight of the ambulance increased the excitement. What could have happened to Harold Shoosmith?'

  It was with considerable mystification that the watchers saw Harold himself striding beside the stretcher a few minutes later. Who could he have been harbouring in his house all these years? Must be a deep one–that newcomer.

  After the tedium of several house-bound days it was delightful to speculate about the drama unfolding before their eyes. Here was mystery, here was excitement, here was food for endless gossip! Thrush Green was agog.

  Harold Shoosmith was a good Samaritan in more ways than one.

  17. Two Clues

  SNOW shrouded Thrush Green for over a week and throughout that time Harold trudged daily to Dotty's cottage to care for the animals. People were heartily sick of the snow. Travelling was difficult, supplies were getting scarce, influenza spread alarmingly and tempers were sorely frayed.

  It was with the utmost relief that the good folk of Lulling and Thrush Green saw their barometers rising and the weather-vanes veering towards the south-west. Soon a warm wind enveloped the Cotswolds and within two days little rivulets ran down the hill to Lulling, the snow slithered with a heartening rushing sound from the steep tiled roofs, and the green grass could be seen again.

  People emerged from their houses as joyfully as children let out from school. It was wonderful to smell the earth and grass again, and more wonderful still to feel a gentle warmth blowing instead of the withering east wind.

  Dotty Harmer had recovered, and was able to sit up in bed at Lulling Cottage Hospital and receive visitors bearing flowers and little home-made cakes and fruit. Once she had been made to realise that all the animals were being cared for, to the point of cosseting, she had taken a turn for the better. She could not get over Harold's kindness and was delighted to think that her father's sledge had proved so useful.

  'I always say,' she told her visitors, more times than they cared to count, 'that it is wise to keep everything! There's always a time when one finds a use for things. Father's sledge is a case in point.' To be proved right did more to help Dotty's progress than all the pills which she was persuaded to swallow.

  Betty Bed came to see her as soon as the weather released her from her distant cottage, and she resumed work at Dotty's and Harold's again. Another released prisoner was Nelly Tilling who went back to 'The Drover's Arms' as soon as possible, and flung herself, with joyful abandon, into scrubbing the traces of the weather from the brick floor in the bar. It was the reward of her zealous labours which was to give Albert Piggott the greatest moment of his life.

  Nelly set out to see how he had fared during the snow-storm, with a basket on her arm. She earned it carefully, through the darkening afternoon, and looked forward to making a pot of tea for herself and Albert when she reached Thrush Green. It was wet and muddy along the field path past Dotty's cottage and her shoes were soon soaking. She was glad to reach the shelter of Albert's kitchen and take them off. Albert seemed almost pleased to see her, and the kettle was already humming on the hob.

  They exchanged news of the storm. Albert described the horrors of the mess he had had to clear up in the church, the ordeals he had undergone to get the coke free from snow and the difficulty he had found in keeping the larder even moderately filled.

  Nelly countered with her own privations and–a sly stroke–how much she had worried on Albert's account.

  'There I was,' she told him, rolling her dark eyes at him, 'wondering how you was managing without someone to cook you a bite or clean the place up. Kept me awake at nights, it did, hoping you was looking after yourself.'

  Albert appeared a little touched by her solicitude, and gave a kindly grunt as she poured his tea.

  'I brought something for you to have a look at,' she went on. 'Mrs Allen give it to me for doing a bit extra. It's a little clock she bought cheap, but it won't go. You mended my mother's wrist watch a rare treat, and you might be able to see to this. It's real pretty.'

  She fished in the basket at her feet and produced a newspaper parcel. Albert undid it gingerly and set a little gilt clock on the kitchen table.

  'I've seen one like this afore,' said Albert ruminatively. 'Can't think where for the minute.' He turned the pretty thing about in his horny hands.

  'It's French,' he said, still musing.

  'Mrs Aden bought it off Bella Curdle, you know, Sam's wife—' began Nelly conversationally, but was cut short by a thump of Albert's fist on the kitchen table which made the teacups rattle.

  'That's it!' cried Albert. 'This is Miss Watson's clock, I'll wager.'

  'Never!' gasped Nelly. 'Are you trying to tell me that this is the clock that got stolen? And that Sam was the chap as done it?'

  'That's right!' chortled Albert gleefully. 'That's it!'

  'But why should Bella sell it if she knew Sam had pinched it? It'd be bound to be found out.'

  'Don't suppose Sam told Bella,' pointed out Albert. 'And I bet Bella never told Sam she'd sold it to Mrs Allen. How did it happen, anyway?'

  Nelly said that Mrs Allen had told her that Bella was worried because she was behind with her payments for the clothing club. The young woman occasionally helped to dress poultry or do piece-work on the farm and was a frequent visitor to 'The Drover's Arms.' She had brought the clock one day to Bessie Allen and asked her if she would give her a pound for
it. Although Bessie did not want it, she had taken pity on the feckless Bella and had given her a pound and kept the clock. Later, touched by Nelly's arduous efforts after the snow, and knowing that she admired the gilt clock, she had made her a present of it.

  'Well, it's Miss Watson's by rights,' insisted Albert. 'Give it here, my gal, and I'd walk along and show her. She'll know well enough.'

  'Wait for me,' said Nelly, drawing on her wet shoes again. I'll come with you.'

  This seemed an admirable opportunity to consolidate her position with the headmistress. For who knew, thought Nelly, shrugging on her coat, how soon she might be living at Thrush Green, conveniently placed to take over the cleaning of the village school?

  Unaware of the visitors who were about to descend upon her, Miss Watson sat before her fire pondering upon a most upsetting incident. A pile of history test papers lay on the hearthrug, a red pencil across the top, but Miss Watson could not bring herself to begin marking.

  It had happened only an hour or two before, as the children were dressing to go home. The two little Curdle girls were struggling into their coats when their father appeared. He had the van outside, he said, and as the lane was still awash with melted snow he thought he would pick them up as he was passing.

  Miss Watson rarely saw Sam. Occasionally Bella met the children, trailing the toddler behind her, but Sam seldom showed his face at the school. He seemed a little disconcerted to see Miss Watson in the cloakroom. Normally Miss Fogerty saw the children off, but today she had left early to keep an appointment with the local dentist.

  He bent down to help his younger daughter tie her shoelace. Something in his movements gave Miss Watson a shock. A moment later she had a second shock. Unable to feel the laces properly with his gloves on, Sam had tossed them on the floor beside the child's feet. Miss Watson had seen those gloves before. They were knitted grey ones, bound with leather and they had gripped a heavy stick.