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

'Not for a day or two. Tell me where to find you a woolly.'

  He made his way towards a chest of drawers.

  'I'll tell Molly to look one out. Don't want you scrabbling through my stuff.'

  The doctor laughed. 'I'll tell her myself on the way down. Now you can stay there, take your medicine, drink plenty of warm liquid - and not any alcohol - and don't make a damn nuisance of yourself, or I'll put you in hospital.'

  He was pleased to see that this awful threat seemed to subdue his recalcitrant patient and he made his way downstairs.

  Molly was standing by the stove watching the soup. He mentioned the shawl, and then added, 'You and Nelly do a fine job between you, and I know you get little thanks for it. He's coming along all right. We'll let him out when the weather changes.'

  'If it ever does,' responded Molly, letting him out into the elements.

  Some of the newest inhabitants of Thrush Green were the oldest, for recently a block of old people's homes, designed by the doctor's architect brother-in-law Edward Young, had been built on the site of a former rectory.

  Here, seven little houses and their inhabitants were looked after by Jane and Bill Cartwright, the wardens, who lived in the last house of the eight.

  Jane had been brought up in Thrush Green, had been a nurse at Lulling Cottage Hospital and then a sister at a Yorkshire hospital where she had met and married Bill. They were both pleased to be appointed to the post at Thrush Green and were doing a fine job among their charges.

  While Doctor Lovell was speeding home to a late lunch, Jane Cartwright was sitting with one of the old people. Miss Muriel Fuller had been a headmistress at the little school at Nidden for many years, and was now thoroughly enjoying her retirement in this small house.

  Unfortunately, a septic throat was causing her acute pain and loss of voice, which is why Jane, although a trained nurse, had thought it wise to get the doctor's opinion.

  'I was sure I saw his car outside the Piggotts' house,' whispered Miss Fuller. 'I can't think why he didn't come over here. Perhaps he's forgotten.' She looked alarmed.

  'I'm sure he hasn't,' said Jane sturdily. 'Perhaps he had an urgent call. An accident, you know. Something that couldn't wait.'

  How all these professional people hang together, thought Miss Fuller wearily! 'The point is,' she whispered, 'I'm due to take my remedial class tomorrow morning at the school, and I ought to let Miss Watson know.'

  'Now don't you worry about that,' replied Jane, patting the patient's hand. 'As soon as the doctor's been I shall telephone Miss Watson. In any case, they won't be home until four at the earliest, and I'm sure he will have called long before that.'

  Miss Fuller nodded, and reached for a very nasty throat lozenge. The more unpleasant the taste, the more good it does, she remembered her grandmother saying. But then her grandmother had always been one of the fire-and-brimstone school, and thoroughly enjoyed being miserable.

  Jane rose to go. 'I'm just going to see the others, and I'll come along as soon as Doctor Lovell arrives.'

  Miss Fuller nodded. What with her throat and the lozenge, speech was quite impossible.

  'Now who can that be!' exclaimed Dorothy Watson when the telephone rang.

  She heaved herself from the armchair and made her way to the hall. A freezing draught blew in as she opened the sitting-room door, and sparks flew up the chimney from a burning log.

  Agnes closed the door quietly and hoped that the call would not be a lengthy one. She would have liked to spare dear Dorothy the bother of answering the call, but as headmistress and the true householder it was only right that she should take precedence.

  Within a few minutes her friend returned, and held out her hands to the blaze.

  'That hall is like an ice-well,' she shuddered. 'Of course, the wind is full on the front porch, and fairly whistling under the door. I fear that this house is getting too old for comfort.'

  'Anything important?' queried Agnes. It was so like Dorothy to omit to tell one the main message.

  'Only Jane Cartwright. Muriel Fuller has laryngitis and won't be able to come along tomorrow.'

  'Poor Miss Fuller!' cried Agnes. 'It can be so painful! Has the doctor been?'

  'So I gather. Anyway, it need not make much difference to the timetable. After all, Muriel's visits are very much a fringe benefit.' She picked up her knitting and began to count the stitches.

  Agnes considered this last remark. It seemed rather callous, she thought. Her own soft heart was much perturbed at the thought of Miss Fuller's suffering, but Dorothy, of course, had to think of the school's affairs first, and it was only natural that she saw things from the practical point of view.

  'Eighty-four!' pronounced Miss Watson, and gazed into the fire. 'You know, Agnes,' she said at length, 'I really think it is time we retired.'

  'To bed, do you mean? It's surely much too early!'

  'No, no, Agnes!' tutted Dorothy. 'I mean retired properly. We've been talking of it for years now, and the office knows full well that we have only stayed on to oblige the folk there.'

  'But we've nowhere to go,' exclaimed Agnes. 'It was one of the reasons we gave for staying on.'

  'Yes, yes, I know we couldn't get what we wanted at Barton-on-Sea, but I think we should redouble our efforts. I really don't think I could stand another winter at Thrush Green. Sitting in the hall just now brought it home to me.'

  'So what should we do?'

  'First of all, I shall write to those estate agents, Better and Better, at Barton, and chivvy them up. They know perfectly well that we want a two-bedroomed bungalow with a small garden, handy for the church and post office and shops. Why they keep sending particulars of top floor flats and converted lighthouses heaven alone knows, but they will have to pull their socks up.'

  'Yes, I'm sure that's the first step,' agreed Agnes. 'I will write if it's any help.'

  'You'd be much too kind,' said her headmistress. 'I think I could manage something sharper.'

  'You may be right,' murmured Agnes. 'But when should we give in our notice?'

  'The sooner the better,' said Dorothy firmly. 'We'll arrange to go at the end of the summer term. That gives everyone plenty of time to make new appointments.'

  'We shall miss Thrush Green,' said Agnes.

  'We shall miss it even more if we succumb to pneumonia in this house,' replied Dorothy tartly. 'We can always visit here from Barton. We shall have all the time in the world, and there is an excellent coach service in the summer.'

  She caught sight of her friend's woebegone face. 'Cheer up, Agnes! It will be something to look forward to while we endure this winter weather. What about a warming drink?'

  'I'll go and heat some milk,' said Agnes. 'Or would you like coffee?'

  'I think a glass of sherry apiece would do the trick,' replied Dorothy, 'and then we shan't have to leave the fire.'

  She rose herself and went to fetch their comfort from a corner cupboard.

  2. Dorothy Watson Takes Steps

  THE rumbustious January weather continued for the rest of the week, and the inhabitants of Lulling and Thrush Green were as tired of its buffeting as the rest of the Cotswold villages were.

  But on Saturday morning the wind had dropped, and a wintry sun occasionally cast a gleam upon a thankful world.

  Miss Watson and Miss Fogerty agreed that the weekly wash would benefit from a spell in the fresh air, and Agnes was busy pegging out petticoats, night-gowns and other garments, when she was hailed by a well-known voice on the other side of the hedge. It was her old friend Isobel, wife of Harold Shoosmith, who lived next door.

  When Agnes had heard that her old college friend of many years was going to be her neighbour, her joy was unbounded. The two students had soon discovered that they both hailed from the Cotswolds, and this drew them together.

  Isobel's father was a bank manager at Stow-on-the-Wold, and Agnes's a shoemaker in Lulling. It meant that they could visit each other during the holidays, and the friendship grew stronger over the years
.

  Marriage took Isobel to Sussex so that family affairs prevented her from visiting Thrush Green as often as she would have liked. But on the death of her husband she had renewed her close association with Agnes and her other Cotswold friends and, now that her children were out in the world, she had decided to find a small house in the neighbourhood.

  But marriage to Harold Shoosmith, who had retired to Thrush Green some years earlier, had provided a home and a great deal of mutual contentment, and everyone agreed that the Shoosmiths were an asset to any community.

  'Isn't it wonderful to have no wretched wind?' called Isobel, advancing to a gap in the hedge, the better to see her neighbour. 'How are you both?'

  'Very well. And you?'

  'Fed up with being stuck indoors. Harold has battled out now and again, but I really couldn't face it. One thing though, I've caught up with no end of letters, so I suppose that's a bonus.'

  Agnes wondered whether she should say anything about their proposed retirement but, cautious as ever, decided that dear Dorothy might not approve at this early stage of the project. She remained silent on this point, but joined her friend by the gap.

  'Not snowdrops already?' she cried with pleasure. 'Now isn't that cheering!'

  'And aconites too at the end of the garden,' Isobel told her. 'And my indoor hyacinths are at their best. Come round, Agnes, when you have a minute and see them.'

  Agnes promised to do so, and the two ladies chatted for five minutes, glad to see each other again after their enforced incarceration.

  'Well, I must go and see about lunch,' said Isobel at length.

  'And I must finish my pegging out,' agreed Agnes, and the two women parted company.

  What a warming thing friendship was, thought Agnes, fastening two pairs of respectable Vedonis knickers on the line. Even such a brief glimpse of dear Isobel enlivened the day. She would miss her sorely when the time came to move to Barton.

  ***

  While little Miss Fogerty was busy with the washing, Nelly Piggott was in The Fuchsia Bush's kitchen in Lulling High Street.

  Here she was engaged in supervising the decoration of two large slabs of sponge cake ready to be cut into neat squares for the afternoon teas for which The Fuchsia Bush was renowned.

  The new recruit was a nervous sixteen-year-old whose hand shook as she spread coffee-flavoured water icing over the first of the sponges.

  Lord love old Ireland, thought Nelly! Would the girl never learn? She had come with a glowing report from her school's domestic science teacher, and another, equally fulsome, from her last post. Glad to see the back of her no doubt, thought Nelly grimly.

  'If you dip your knife into the warm water more often,' said Nelly, striving to be patient, 'it won't drag the icing.'

  The girl flopped the palette knife into the jug and transferred a small rivulet of water on to her handiwork.

  Unable to bear it any longer, Nelly took over and began to create order out of chaos. To give her her due she bit back the caustic remarks trembling on her tongue.

  'You fetch the walnut halves,' she commanded, 'and I'll leave you to space them out when this has begun to set.'

  The girl fled, and at that moment Nelly's employer and partner at The Fuchsia Bush entered the kitchen from the restaurant.

  'Can you leave that a moment? Bertha Lovelock is in the shop and wants to know if we can send in lunch - an inexpensive lunch - for three today.'

  Nelly gave a snort, drew one final steady blade across her masterpiece, and followed Mrs Peters.

  The Misses Lovelock were three ancient spinsters who lived next door to The Fuchsia Bush in a splendid Georgian house in which all three had been born and which they had inhabited all their lives.

  Although quite comfortably off, and the possessors of many valuable antiques, the sisters were renowned for their parsimony. No one knew this better than Nelly Piggott, who had 'helped out' for a time before finding permanent work next door.

  Nelly still remembered, with a shudder, the appalling meals she had been expected to cook from inferior scraps which she would not have offered to a starving cat. The memory too of a tablespoonful of metal polish, intended for a score of brass and copper articles, still rankled, and the meagre dab of furniture polish with which the dining-room table and chairs were meant to be brought to mirror-like condition.

  Nowadays, she rejoiced in catering and cooking amidst the plenty of The Fuchsia Bush. She had grown confident in the knowledge that her work was appreciated and that, as a partner, she was enjoying the fruits of her expertise.

  She approached her former old employer secure in the knowledge that here she had the upper hand.

  'Good morning, Miss Lovelock. Lunch for three, I gather? You'll take it here, I imagine, so I'll book a table, shall I?'

  Nelly felt pretty sure that this was not what Miss Bertha really wanted. For a time, when the three old ladies had been quite seriously ill, the doctor had suggested that their midday meal might be sent in from next door.

  It had not been easy to find someone free at exactly the right moment to take in a hot meal, but Nelly and Mrs Peters had felt sorry for the Lovelocks and had been obliging.

  They were glad though when the arrangement ended. The Lovelock sisters, anxious to stop the expense, had cancelled the lunches as soon as possible, to the relief of all.

  But now, it seemed, the Misses Lovelock were attempting to use the staff of The Fuchsia Bush as if it were their own, and Nelly was determined to nip this plan in the bud.

  'No, Nelly, that is not quite what I meant. Miss Violet is in bed with her chest - '

  Not that she would be in bed without it, thought Nelly reasonably.

  'And neither Miss Ada nor I really feel up to coping with the cooking and shopping,' continued Miss Bertha. 'It would be a great help if you could send in a hot meal each day as you did before.'

  Nelly assumed an expression of doubt and regret. 'It can't be done, Miss Lovelock,' she said. 'We haven't enough staff to make a regular arrangement like that. As you know, we're run off our feet here at lunch time.'

  'But you did it before!'

  'That was an emergency. We did it to oblige the doctor as well as you, but it couldn't be a permanent arrangement.'

  'Well, that's very provoking,' said Miss Bertha, turning pink. The Lovelock sisters almost always got their own way.

  'If I might suggest,' said Nelly, 'that you was to advertise for a cook-general in the paper, you might get suited quite quickly. Or the Labour might help.'

  'The Labour?' echoed the old lady, looking mystified.

  'Exchange,' added Nelly.

  'Exchange?' echoed Miss Bertha.

  'Job Centre like,' amplified Nelly. 'Up near the Corn Exchange.'

  Miss Bertha picked up her gloves from the counter and began to put them on with extreme care, smoothing each finger. Her mouth was trembling and Nelly's kind heart was moved.

  'Tell you what,' she said. 'You let me know if you'd like me to look out for someone when you've had a talk with Miss Ada and Miss Violet.'

  'Thank you, Nelly,' said Miss Bertha. 'Most kind. We shouldn't want a great deal of cooking done. Just something light.'

  'I know that,' said Nelly, with feeling, as she opened the door for her.

  It was dark when Nelly toiled up the hill to Thrush Green, but it was a relief to find the air so still and the stars already twinkling from a clear sky.

  Albert, still in his dressing gown and slippers, was sitting by the fire, but he had put on the kettle Nelly noted with approval.

  'Well, and how have you been getting on today?' she enquired, sitting down heavily on a kitchen chair.

  'Had a look at the paper. Took me medicine. Took a dekko out of the winder. This sunshine's brought 'em all out. Even old Tom Hardy, over at the Home, took out Polly for a walk on the green.'

  'That dog must be on its last legs,' commented Nelly. 'Nearly as shaky as old Tom.'

  The kettle set up a piercing whistle, and she rose
to attend to it.

  'I near enough went next door for a drink,' said Albert, 'but our Molly came in and put a stop to it.'

  'So I should hope! What'll I say to the doctor if you catch your death?'

  'Won't matter much what you say,' rejoined Albert morosely, 'if I'm a corpse, will it? Molly says he's coming on Monday, and may let me get out again, if I don't go too far.'

  'Well, next door's about as far as you'll want to go anyway,' replied Nelly, stirring the teapot vigorously.

  'There was a car stopped over by Mrs Bailey's,' observed Albert changing the subject. 'Some young chap got out.'

  'Meter man, most like.'

  'No. I knows him. Looked like that nephew of hers, Richard.'

  'He'll be about as welcome as a sick headache,' pronounced Nelly. 'What's he come badgering his poor aunt for, I wonder?'

  It would not be long before Nelly, Albert and the rest of Thrush Green knew the purpose of Richard's visit to Dr Bailey's widow. Meanwhile, there could only be the pleasurable conjecture of diverse opinions on the subject.

  That weekend, there was considerable literary activity at the school house as Dorothy Watson took up her pen to write to the estate agents at Barton-on-Sea, who had the honour to be dealing with her affairs. She had chosen them from many in the area as she thought their name, Better and Better, sounded hopeful.

  Agnes was busy sewing together the pieces of a baby's matinée jacket, in between bobbing in and out of the kitchen to keep an eye on a cake in the oven.

  As she stitched she listened, in some alarm, to Dorothy's occasional snort as her pen hurried over the paper. She did so hope that the letter was courteous. After all, civility cost nothing, as her old father had so often said, and really one did not want to antagonise the estate agents at Barton on whom they were relying for their future comfort. Dear Dorothy could be so downright at times, and not everyone realised how kind her heart really was.

  She was about to rise and go into the kitchen to stab the cake with a skewer, when Dorothy threw down her pen, leant back and said proudly, 'Now listen to this, Agnes.'