(8/13) At Home in Thrush Green Read online

  On his death, marked by a packed church at his memorial service ('Relief rather than respect!' as some wag remarked later), Dotty had moved to her present abode and enjoyed her freedom. As well as caring for her animals with passionate devotion, she experimented with the bounty of the fields and hedgerows, making chutneys and preserves of dubious plants and berries which she pressed upon her apprehensive friends. John Lovell, the Thrush Green doctor, was well aware of the local stomach trouble known as Dotty's Collywobbles, and it was the first question he asked of his suffering patients before turning to more orthodox complaints.

  Dotty's own health was the concern of her friends for several years, but when her niece Connie came to take charge they breathed a sigh of relief. Now Connie had married Kit Armitage, a handsome widower, who once had attended Lulling's grammar school and known Dotty's ferocious father only too well for comfort. The enlargement of Dotty's thatched cottage was the result of their marriage.

  It was Connie who opened the door to Ella and Dimity, and greeted them with affection.

  'Do come in. Aunt Dotty's in the sitting room. Kit's shopping in Lulling. Have you had tea?'

  They assured her on this point and went through the hall to see Dotty. They found her semi-prone on a sofa, a tapestry frame lodged on her stomach, and mounds of wool scattered around her.

  'Don't get up!' exclaimed Ella, as Dotty began to thrash about. 'What are you making?'

  She gazed with an expert eye at Dotty's efforts.

  'A cushion cover, so the pattern says,' replied Dotty. 'It's called Florentine stitch, and supposed to be quite simple.'

  'It is,' said Ella. 'Let's have a look.'

  She removed the frame from Dotty's stomach, tightened some nuts, and then studied the work closely, back and front.

  'You've missed a whole row of holes in some places,' she said at last. 'See these white lines? That's the canvas showing through.'

  'Oh really?' said Dotty, yawning. 'Does it matter?'

  'It does if you want the work to look well done,' said Ella with spirit. 'Tell you what, I'll take it home and put it right for you.'

  Dotty lowered her skinny legs to the ground, and pulled up her wrinkled stockings.

  'Oh, don't bother, Ella dear. I quite like the white lines. Rather a pretty effect. In any case, I'm rather busy sorting out a drawerful of old photos at the moment, and I think I'll put this work aside till the winter.'

  She took possession of the frame and thrust it under the sofa. There was a yelp, and Flossie the spaniel emerged, looking hurt.

  'Oh, my poor love!' cried Dotty. 'I had no idea you were there! Let me find you a biscuit as a peace offering.'

  She scrabbled behind a cushion on the sofa head and produced a crumpled paper bag. From it she withdrew a piece of Rich Tea biscuit, and offered it to the dog. It was warmly received.

  'Now,' said Dotty, rising to her feet and wiping her hands down her skirt. 'Come and see the new building.'

  'Aunt Dotty,' protested Connie, now entering the room, 'there's nothing to see yet. Let Ella and Dimity have a rest after their walk.'

  'No, let's see it,' said Ella, stumping along behind Dotty. 'How long have the men been here?'

  The four women surveyed the piles of building material scattered about the garden. Dimity thought the sight depressing. Planks were propped against the fruit trees. Piles of bricks lurched drunkenly on what was once a lawn. Buckets, wheelbarrows, hods and spades all jostled together, and the inevitable cement mixer lurked behind the lilac bushes which were already covered in white dust.

  'Full of hope, isn't it?' cried Dotty, eyes shining through her spectacles. 'Of course, there will be rather a mess when the thatcher comes. All that straw, you know, and his little hazel spars. I'm so looking forward to that. I shall have a chair out here and watch him at work. I think it must be rather a lonely job up on a roof. A little conversation should help him along.'

  No one dared to comment on this appalling plan, but Connie hastily blew her nose, and looked towards the distant Lulling Woods.

  'And when do you hope to see it complete?' asked Dimity.

  'Edward says it should be ready by the winter,' replied Dotty. 'It's not a very big project, after all. The garage will be there.' She pointed to the powdered lilac bushes. 'And behind that will be a sitting room, or is it the larder, Connie dear?'

  'The sitting room. And a bedroom above with a bathroom.'

  'For Kit and Connie,' explained Dotty. 'A large bedroom, you understand. I think married people should have plenty of air at night. Two of them, in one room, you see. Now I only need that small room of mine. Plenty of cubic space for one sleeper. If ever I married, of course, I should have the wall knocked down between the two small rooms at the other end of the house.'

  The hope of matrimony for dear old Dotty, now in her eighties, seemed so remote to all three ladies that they made no comment upon these wild conjectures, but contented themselves with picking their way among the muddle, and making polite noises.

  'We really came to collect the milk,' said Ella at last, tired of stepping round piles of bricks, and circumventing wheelbarrows.

  'It's all ready,' said Connie, turning towards the kitchen door.

  Ella and Dotty followed the younger woman, but Dimity lingered in the garden.

  The air was warm, and heavy with the scent of hay lying in the field beyond Dotty's hedge. Soon the baler would be thumping the crop into neat oblongs, grass and flowers and aromatic leaves compacted together, to carry the smell and comfort of summer into the winter byres where the store cattle stood, or to the snowy fields and the hungry sheep.

  Of all the seasons, summer was the one that Dimity loved best. Thin and frail, she dreaded the cold Cotswold winter which dragged on, more often than not, into a chilling April. But a sunny June, with its many blessings of roses, hayfields, strawberries and long warm evenings, raised Dimity's spirits to near ecstasy.

  She sighed with deep contentment, and made her way after the others. It was good to live in the country. It was good to have so many friends. It was good to feel warm and in splendid health.

  She paused by the kitchen door to pick the bright bud of an Albertine rose to thread in her buttonhole.

  'Perfect!' said Dimity, entering the house.

  2 Problems at Thrush Green

  THE hawthorn blossom along the hedges gave way to the showy cream plates of elder flowers, and sprays of wild roses, pink and frail as sea shells.

  The gardens of Thrush Green were bright with irises and peonies, and the air was murmurous with the sound of lawn mowers.

  But not all was idyllic.

  Albert Piggott, caretaker, sexton, and erstwhile gravedigger at St Andrew's, found the June heat a sore trial, his nature being inclined to melancholy and excessive self-pity. But it was the mowing which gave him his present reason for complaint.

  Some years earlier, Charles Henstock had decided that the tombstones of the Thrush Green forefathers should be moved, with due reverence, to the edge of the graveyard, and the turf flattened, so that a mower could keep the area tidy with the minimum of effort.

  For too long it had been an eyesore. Albert, whose job it had been to scythe the grass over and around the mounds, was clearly beyond the work, and it seemed impossible to get a replacement.

  There was some opposition to the good rector's proposal, but eventually it was accepted, and now, years later, it was generally agreed that the churchyard of St Andrew's was an exceptionally pleasant place, and the change had been quite successful.

  Albert did not agree, as he told his long-suffering neighbour, Mr Jones of The Two Pheasants, one bright morning as soon as the pub was open.

  'Them dratted tombstones was put too close to the outside wall when they done the job.'

  He took a noisy slurp of his beer.

  'Young Cooke,' he went on, replacing the dripping glass on Mr Jones' carefully polished bar counter, 'can't get the mower between them and the wall.'

  'Oh-ah!' r
eplied Mr Jones without much interest. Albert and his young assistant had been at loggerheads for years now. The publican had heard both sides of the many arguments between the two, and for far too long.

  'Means as I has to get down on me hands and knees with the bill-hook, round the back, like. Not that easy at my age. Not after me Operation.'

  A shadow fell across the sunlit floor. Percy Hodge, a farmer from the Nidden road hard by, was seeking refreshment.

  'You ain't still on about your innards, are you?' he queried. 'I reckon all Thrush Green knows about them tubes of yours. And fair sick of 'em too. Haifa pint, please.'

  Albert's face grew even more morose.

  'All right for you. Never had a day's illness in your life!'

  'Ah! But I got my troubles.'

  He pulled some coins across the counter and settled on the next stool to Albert.

  'Oh? Your Doris come back?'

  Percy drew in his breath noisily.

  'Now, Albert,' began Mr Jones. 'We don't want no trouble between old friends.'

  'Who's talking about old friends?' enquired Albert nastily. Percy's breathing became heavier.

  'You keep Doris's name out of this,' he said. 'I don't keep on about your Nelly, though we all know what she is!'

  'Gentlemen!' cried Mr Jones in alarm.

  Percy and Albert fell silent, and turned their attention to their glasses. A distant clanking sound, followed by a steady chugging, proclaimed that the cement mixer was at work.

  'By the time them places is finished,' said Albert, 'our lot'll all be in the graveyard. Be about ready for young Cooke, I reckon.'

  'Wonder who they'll choose?' asked Percy, secretly glad to pick up this olive branch. 'You put your name down?'

  'What, with my Nelly to look after me? And my girl Molly across the green at the Youngs? No point in me havin' a try. They'll be looking for old folk on their own.'

  'Well, I've put my name forward,' said Percy. 'I'm old, and on my own.'

  His listeners seemed taken aback. Albert was trying to work out how much younger Percy was than he himself. Mr Jones was shocked at the cheek of a man who was only middle-aged, and had a house and a living, in applying for one of the new homes. But he forbore to comment. He did not want any trouble in his respectable hostelry, and both customers were touchy.

  'You'll be lucky!' commented Albert at last, putting his empty glass down. 'Must get back to my bill-hook. I'd like to meet the chap as set them tombstones round the wall. I'd give him a piece of me mind.'

  'He got hurt in a car crash, other side of Oxford,' volunteered Percy. 'My cousin told me. Broke his arm, he said.'

  'No more'n he deserved,' said Albert heartlessly, and hobbled back to his duties.

  Later that morning, as the church clock struck twelve, the noise of the cement mixer growled into silence.

  Two of the workmen appeared, hot and dusty, and ordered pints of bitter across the counter.

  'And how's it going?' asked Mr Jones.

  'Not bad,' said the one in a blue shirt.

  'Just doin' the steps,' said the other, who sported a black singlet.

  'Steps?' echoed Mr Jones. 'I should've thought there'd be no steps at all in a place for old people. Bit of a hazard, surely?'

  'That's what the orders are,' said Blue Shirt.

  'Only three of them,' said the second man. 'Shaller ones too.'

  'And a rail to hang on to,' chimed in Blue Shirt. 'You'll be safe enough, Dad, when you move over there!' He winked at his companion.

  Mr Jones smiled a shade frostily. If he had spoken to his elders in such a way, when he was young, his father would have boxed his ears for him.

  'Well, I'm sure Mr Young knows best,' he said diplomatically. 'He's reckoned to be a top-notch architect.'

  But privately, the good publican found the thought of steps, no matter how shallow, and even when accompanied by a rail, a somewhat disconcerting feature of an old people's home.

  'Could lead to trouble,' he confided to his wife that afternoon when the pub door was closed.

  He was to recall his misgivings later.

  Almost facing The Two Pheasants across Thrush Green stood the house where Winnie Bailey and her maid Jenny lived.

  Adjoining it was John Lovell's surgery. Old Doctor Bailey had died a year or two earlier, and sorely did his younger partner miss the wisdom and local knowledge of his senior.

  The practice was a busy one. John had two junior partners, both keen young men well up in modern medicine. The older folk in Thrush Green still viewed them with some suspicion, and tended to hark back to 'good old Doctor Bailey' and his methods. But gradually the newcomers were beginning to be recognised, much to John Lovell's relief.

  He himself was glad to have Winnie Bailey at hand. Her memory was prodigious, and she could frequently give him a brief history of a family which he found enormously helpful.

  He was now very much a part of Thrush Green. As a junior partner to Donald Bailey, he had met and married Ruth Bassett, sister to Joan Young, the architect's wife. They lived some half a mile or so from the green itself, and as well as their own two young children they cared for old Mrs Bassett who had made her home with them since the death of her husband.

  John was a serious and conscientious man, deeply appreciative of his good fortune in having such a settled marriage and a rewarding job. He enjoyed his trips to outlying villages, for he had a great love of country life and was knowledgeable about flowers and birds. These interests were of particular value to him for they helped him to relax.

  His wife Ruth knew that if his nature had a flaw at all – which she would have denied hotly, if challenged – it was in the very seriousness which his patients found so reassuring. She did her best to lighten his load, but books, music and theatre, in which she had always delighted, could not engage his attention for any length of time.

  'You are always telling your patients,' she said, 'that they must have a few hobbies to relieve any tension, but you don't take your own advice.'

  'Doctors never do,' he told her.

  It was with Winnie Bailey, as much as anyone, that John Lovell really found some relief from the pressures of his practice.

  As soon as surgery was over, on this sunny June morning, he saw Winnie in her garden picking the dead heads from the roses.

  'I was coming to get some directions from you, Winnie,' he called, putting his case in the back of the car.

  'Come in and have a cup of coffee. I know Jenny's just getting some ready.'

  'I dare not stop, many thanks. '

  He walked across the lawn.

  'I've had a call from a Leys Farm. Do you know it? Somewhere off the road to Oxford, I gather. '

  'Who lives there?'

  'That's what all my patients asked,' said John smiling. 'Why is it in the country that we know the names of the people and never the names of their houses?'

  Winnie laughed.

  'I don't think I ever heard of Leys Farm, and I'm sure Donald never mentioned it. Could the owners have renamed it?'

  'Quite likely. One of my patients said it was once known as Trotters. Does that mean anything?'

  'Yes, indeed. A large family used to live at Trotters. They were Bells. Some vague relation of Betty Bell who cleans the school, you know?'

  'And where is it?'

  'Now you're asking! If you go about two miles out of Lulling on the Oxford road you will come to a narrow lane on the left. There used to be a fir tree there.'

  'No gate? No sign?'

  'Nothing. It's just a rough track. Heaven help you if you meet a tractor, John. But it's about another two miles to the house. I went there once with Donald.'

  'Well, many thanks, Winnie dear. I'll go and blaze a trail to Leys-Farm-once-Trotters, and what's more I'll tell you the name of the people who live there now, when I get back.'

  'If you get back,' replied Winnie. 'It's that sort of place if I remember it aright.'

  He waved, and departed on his mission.

>   Winnie had her coffee with Jenny in the kitchen. The room was warm and peaceful, and filled with the mixed scents of Jenny's cooking preparations.

  At one end of the scrubbed table was the chopping board with mint awaiting the attention of Jenny's knife. Beside it stood a punnet of strawberries.

  'Percy Hodge brought 'em,' said Jenny. 'His first picking, so he said.'

  'He's not courting you again, Jenny? I thought you had nipped that little affair in the bud.'

  'He knows my feelings right enough,' replied Jenny. 'But I didn't see any harm in turning down some good strawberries, even if his Doris has left him. Anyway, he knows there's no chance here for him.'

  'So we can eat his strawberries with an easy conscience, can we, Jenny?'

  'Why not?'

  'I had a letter this morning from Richard,' said Winnie, changing the subject.

  'Coming to stay, is he?'

  'He doesn't say so. He'll be in the area next week and invites himself to lunch or tea. I have a phone number. Tea, I think, it's simpler for us.'

  'Good. I'll make him some of my cheese scones. Men always like 'em.'

  'I'm sure Richard will too, but don't expect extravagant thanks from him,' warned Winnie. 'He's inclined to take everything for granted, I'm sorry to say.'

  She rinsed her cup and went upstairs to dust the bedrooms, her mind busy with thoughts of this, her least favourite, nephew.

  Donald had always said: 'The boy's head's all right, but he has no heart.' Certainly, he had done brilliantly in his career as a physicist, and was acknowledged as supreme in his particular field. He spent much of his time lecturing abroad on subjects with such abstruse titles as: 'Molecular structures in relation to nuclear principles'. In fact, thought Winnie, that would probably be one of his elementary lectures, for she remembered seeing one listed which had a title four lines long. Richard's world was a vast unknown to his aunt.

  She had not seen him since Donald's death, which had occurred while the young man was in America. To give him his due, he had written a very kind letter, expressing sympathy, which had touched Winnie.