Thrush Green Page 6

  She had become engaged to Stephen Gardiner just over a year ago amidst general approval. Only her father had looked coolly at the young man and had remained unaffected by the fair good looks and charming boyish manner which won Stephen so many friends. He was employed in a firm of tea and coffee importers and went daily by tube train to the city. His income was comfortable enough to support a young wife, his health was excellent, his family background very similar to that of the Bassetts', he was head over heels in love with his pretty Ruth and there was no reason for her father to refuse his consent. Nor did he. But he could not wholeheartedly like this young man. For some reason Stephen's straight blue gaze, his deferential manner and his ease with the ladies of the Bassett household aroused a small, nagging distrust in Mr. Bassett's heart, and Ruth was aware of it. She had taxed him once when they were alone together.

  "What is it that you dislike in Stephen?"

  Her father had answered her honestly.

  "I don't know, my dear, I just don't know. If he's your choice, I'm content to abide by it. But one thing I would like to ask you."

  "And what's that?" she had answered.

  "Don't marry too soon. Stephen tells me you'd like to marry this summer. Well, don't, my dear. Leave it until next spring, and I shall feel a lot happier."

  She had smiled and told him that she would talk to Stephen about it.

  "We don't want to see you go, you know," her father had said, smiling back at her.

  And so the wedding had been fixed for the first week in March, and the young couple had planned to go away for their honeymoon in Italy just before Easter.

  Early in the year they had found a flat in Kensington. It was the top floor of a Victorian house, in a quiet leafy road, shabby, but comfortable, with big rooms and broad windows.

  It would be convenient for Stephen's journey to the city and for Ruth's office job in Ealing which she proposed to continue after marriage. They spent their evenings painting walls, choosing curtains, planning their furnishings and dreaming of the future. Ruth never for one moment had any doubts about their happiness together. She moved toward her wedding day with serenity, unmoved by the bustle of activity surrounding her. Her mother's complicated plans for the wedding breakfast, the invitations, the presents, the cake, the organist, the bell ringers, the bridesmaids, the trousseau and all the other paraphernalia of a suitable wedding left her unperturbed. All would be well, she knew. Nothing could alter the unshakeable fact that she and Stephen would be married and living together in the adorable flat before the end of March.

  Looking back on that halcyon period, after the blow, Ruth became aware of numberless small things which should have warned her of Stephen's waning affections. He was a man who was accustomed to success in every undertaking. He approached his goals directly and with ease, and the long engagement was particularly frustrating to one of his impatient and ambitious caliber. Would all have been well, Ruth sometimes wondered, if they had married earlier; or, as her father had suspected, would Stephen's deflection have occurred in any case, and then had more serious consequences? It was one of those unanswerable problems which were to torture poor Ruth for many sad weeks.

  But at the time only one small incident had ruffled her calm. Stephen had been offered a position in the firm which made it necessary to take charge of their office in Brazil for two or perhaps three years. He had told her this news one rainy spring evening as they sat on the floor of the empty dining room at the flat, painting the skirting board. Ruth had not even bothered to look up from her work.

  "It's out of the question, of course," she had said, drawing her brush carefully along the wood.

  "It's promotion, and we could do with it," Stephen had answered, so shortly that she had put down her brush and gazed at him. His cheek twitched with a tense muscle and she realized, with a sharp stabbing pain, that he had looked strained and tired for some time. She spoke gently.

  "If you honestly think we should—" she had begun.

  "What's there to stay for?" he had answered.

  "Why, this!" she had responded, waving her hand at the new paint around them.

  "Four frowsty rooms in a scruffy little backwater," he had scoffed. "'Caged in Kensington.' What a title for a domestic tragedy!"

  Perplexed and hurt Ruth had tried to answer him. She had told him that if he felt like that then they would certainly go to Brazil together. She made him promise to see his doctor about the headaches that had been plaguing him. She was positive that he needed glasses. That direct, intense gaze, which fluttered so many hearts, might well be due to short sight and nothing more glamorous, but he had a great aversion to wearing spectacles and brushed away her suggestions of a visit to the oculist.

  Later, he had comforted her, called himself a brute, a selfish pig, promised her that all would be well when they were married and had begged her to forget all about Brazil. They would be far better off as they were for the first year or two of their married life, and other opportunities would crop up, he knew.

  But Ruth was not entirely comforted, and although she seemed as tranquil as before, she watched Stephen secretly, conscious that he was working long hours under strain. But it was a transitory malaise, she felt certain, which would pass away as soon as they were married.

  One morning, four days before the wedding, Ruth's dress arrived, a misty white armful of chiffon and lace, which emerged from a cocoon of rustling tissue paper. The post had arrived at the same time and her father sat at the breakfast table, gazing fixedly at a short note written in Stephen Gardiner's hand. He rose from the table and looked across at his daughter and his wife.

  Ruth was pirouetting about the room, the fragile frock swirling as she held it against her. Mrs. Bassett's face was alight with wonderment.

  "My dear," said Mr. Bassett, in a husky voice, "leave that child to her own devices for a minute and come and help me on with my coat."

  The two went into the hall and Mr. Bassett closed the door. Then he handed the note to his wife. Her face crumpled as she read, but she made no sound. The letter bore the address of a Swiss hotel and began without preamble.

  I've made a hopeless mess of everything. Tell Ruth it's no use going on with the wedding and better to part now. She'll get a letter by the next post, but tell her not to think too badly of me. She's always been too good for me in any case. Forgive me if you can.

  STEPHEN

  "He's ill. He's not himself," whispered Mrs. Bassett at last, raising tear-filled eyes. Her husband looked grim.

  "I'll try and book an air passage today," said Mr. Bassett, "to see the fellow."

  "And Ruth?" faltered his wife.

  "Break it to her before the afternoon post arrives," answered Mr. Bassett, transferring the burden with customary male ability. "You'll do it better than I can. I'll see her when I get back."

  He kissed his wife swiftly, crammed the letter in his pocket and escaped through the front door.

  Ruth had received the news later that morning with amazing tranquillity. Her reaction had been the same as her mother's. Stephen was not himself. This sudden flight, the agitated note, the panic before the ceremony were all symptoms of intolerable strain. The appalling thought that Stephen might really leave her and that the wedding might never take place hardly entered her head. The plans were made, the guests invited, the beds in the house were already made up awaiting elderly aunts from Cheltenham, a Scottish cousin and a school friend from Holland. The wedding was as inevitable to Ruth as the approach of dawn, and though her heart was wrung with pity for Stephen, she felt none for herself. There was no need.

  It was she who calmed her mother that day. She read her letter from Stephen, which arrived that afternoon, in her bedroom, with the white wedding dress at her side. It added little more to the one her father had received, except that the post in Brazil was mentioned. He urged her to forget him, to forgive him, to waste no time in regrets. Better by far to part now, was the gist of the distracted communication, than to find out the
ir mistake too late.

  Ruth felt that she should go at once to Switzerland to see Stephen, but her mother insisted that she should await her father's return the next day. Both women slept little that night. Mrs. Bassett knew instinctively that Stephen would never be persuaded to return. Beside her grief on Ruth's account her wracked mind agitated itself with plans for the cancellation of the ceremony. At three o'clock she rose and paced distractedly about the quiet house, and Ruth joined her, equally distraught, but not for herself. She grieved for her unhappy lover, her agitated mother and her father's journeyings. She longed for his return, which she was positive would bring good news, and, possibly, Stephen himself.

  And so the blow for Ruth was all the more annihilating. When her father returned, gray-faced and weary, to tell her that there was no hope at all of a reconciliation, that Stephen had already accepted the post in Brazil and was to fly out on the day that was to have been his wedding day, and that he never wished to see Ruth again, the girl collapsed.

  Even then the tears refused to come. She lay in bed, white and small, dark eyes roving restlessly about her room, unable to eat or speak, while the dreadful news was dispatched to the invited guests, friends, neighbors, caterers and all.

  When she was fit to travel her father had driven her, still numb with shock, a woebegone little ghost, down to stay with her sister Joan. And there, throughout the slowly unfolding spring, amid the kindly scents and sounds of Thrush Green, her frozen heart thawed again.

  The sound of her nephew calling from upstairs roused Ruth from her musings. She left the coffee brewing and ran upstairs to see the little boy, pausing at the landing window to look at the golden glory outside.

  The horse chestnut trees were beginning to break, their palmate leaves looking like tiny green hands bursting from sticky brown gloves. She could see the children running about in the playground, their hair flying in the wind, their arms and legs gleaming like satin in the morning sunshine.

  Miss Bembridge was coming from Dr. Bailey's house and Ruth watched her sturdy figure stump along the road to the cottage on the corner. The surgery door opened again and young Dr. Lovell stood for a moment upon the threshold, before setting off across Thrush Green. Ruth watched his advancing figure with growing comfort.

  "Paul!" she called, hurrying across to the bedroom. "Doctor's coming!"

  Paul was scrambling into his tousled bed as she opened his door. He looked up at her, openmouthed.

  "Aunt Ruth," he said in astonishment, "your eyes are shining!"

  6. Coffee at "The Fuchsia Bush"

  MRS. BAILEY was enjoying a cup of coffee in "The Fuchsia Bush," Lulling's rendezvous for the ladies of that small town. She had left the doctor in the garden, happily slicing the edges of the flower beds with a formidably sharp new edge-cutter, and filled with more zest than she had seen in him for many weeks.

  She had tripped light-footed down from Thrush Green, rejoicing in the sparkling morning and the exhilarating sounds of the fair's preparations. But now, with the shopping safely in her basket, she was quite pleased to sit alone, watching the inhabitants of Lulling pass by on their lawful occasions, before facing the long uphill pull to her house.

  "The Fuchsia Bush" prided itself on its appearance. Its architect had done his best to make a building which would harmonize with the surrounding Cotswold stone and yet suggest the "cozy-chintzes-within" atmosphere which his clients had insisted upon. An enormous bow window with several of its panes devoted to a bottle-glass effect kept his clients happy, and later their customers, for it was generally accepted in Lulling that the appearance of one's friends gazing through the bottle-glass panes was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Like gigantic carp they goggled and gulped and when embellished with hats, or, better still, spectacles, even the handsomest of Lulling's inhabitants could strike fear and awe into the beholder's marrow.

  Mrs. Bailey stirred her coffee slowly and read the new placard outside the chapel opposite. It said:

  THE WAGES

  OF SIN

  IS DEATH

  which Mrs. Bailey found more irritating grammatically than thought-provoking. She suddenly remembered that, years ago, she had heard of a firm that had had written across its delivery van:

  MAYS WAYS PAYS ALWAYS

  And at least, thought Mrs. Bailey, snatching comfort where she could, I was never forced to see that! She turned her attention to the interior of "The Fuchsia Bush."

  Apart from two elderly men in mufflers, who sipped their coffee noisily and discussed chess, Mrs. Bailey was the only customer. Two girls, in mauve overalls with cherry-colored cuffs and collars, did their best to emulate fuchsia flowers, and certainly drooped silently against the gray walls quite successfully. A stack of mauve- and cherry-striped boxes stood on the glass counter in readiness to hold the excellent home-made cakes which were already cooling in the window, adding their fragrance to that of the coffee.A beam of sunlight fell suddenly upon Mrs. Bailey's hand, the first real warmth for months, she thought delightedly, and her spirits rose at this token of the summer to come.

  What fun Lulling was! she told herself for the thousandth time. She looked affectionately at the old men, the lackadaisical waitresses, the chapel notice, the few leisurely-moving people walking outside on the wide pavement beneath the whispering lime trees. I suppose I'm so fond of it because I'm really part of it, she mused to herself. Attached to it, she added, echoing Eeyore as he mourned his lost tail; for Mrs. Bailey's mind was a ragbag of snippets, some of which she drew out for herself to admire and delight in, and some of which fell out of their own accord, gay unconsidered trifles which she had long forgotten, as in the present case, but which afforded her infinite joy when they reappeared.

  The door swung open and interrupted Mrs. Bailey's ponderings. Ella Bemsbridge blew in, her felt hat jammed low over her brow, followed by Dimity Dean bearing a laden basket. The room, which had seemed so large and peaceful, suddenly shrank to half its size and became a battleground of conflicting noises as Ella Bembridge thrust her way between wheel-backed chairs, booming cheerful greetings. It was at times like this that Mrs. Bailey had the feeling that she had at last grasped Einstein's theory of relativity, but it was always a fleeting glimpse of Olympian clarity. Almost at once the clouds would close over that bright vision and Mrs. Bailey would realize that she was still in her usual woolly-minded world of three dimensions.

  "Anyone with you? Coming, I mean?" shouted Ella.

  "No. No one," responded Mrs. Bailey, lifting her basket from a chair and smiling at Dimity who collapsed upon it gratefully.

  "Just been to get—" began Dimity in an exhausted whisper.

  "My prescription made up," roared Ella.

  "The fish," added Dimity.

  "For my rash," boomed Ella.

  "For lunch," finished Dimity.

  Mrs. Bailey was quite used to this dual form of conversation and nodded politely.

  "Think that young Lovell knows what he's up to?" asked Ella, planting her sturdy brogues well apart and affording the assembled company an unlovely view of the formidable underclothes which had offended Dr. Lovell earlier that morning.

  "I'm sure he does," answered Mrs. Bailey equably. She wondered how many more questions Ella would ask.

  "How's your husband? Taking a partner yet?" went on Miss Bembridge, feeling in her jacket pocket.

  "Much better," said Mrs. Bailey, answering the first, and ignoring the second, question. Ella produced a worn tobacco tin, undid it, took out a cigarette paper from a small folder, pinched up a vicious-looking dollop of black tobacco from the depths of the tin and began to roll a very untidy cigarette.

  "Oh, do let me do it for you, darling," said Miss Dean, leaning forward eagerly.

  "Don't fuss so, Dim," said her friend brusquely, raising the limp tube to her mouth and licking the edge of the paper with a thick wet tongue. She lit the straggling tobacco which cascaded from one end, inhaled strongly, and blew two terrifying blasts down her nostrils. Mrs. Bailey
was reminded of the rocking horse which had lived in her nursery sixty years earlier, and would have liked the leisure to recall its half-forgotten beauties, the dappled flanks, the scarlet harness bright with gilded studs and its worn hospitable saddle. But no one mused in Ella's company.

  "Hell of a time that girl takes getting the coffee," said she, in far too carrying a voice for Mrs. Bailey's peace of mind. One of the drooping fuchsias detached herself from the wall and drifted toward the kitchen.

  "We oughtn't to be too long—" began Dimity timidly, hauling up a watch on a long silver chain from the recesses of her bodice.

  "Doesn't matter if we fry it!" responded her friend. Dimity looked tearful.

  "But you know it doesn't—"

  "Agree with me?" boomed Miss Bembridge menacingly. "Of course it does! Fried fish is the only way to eat the stuff."

  "But doctor said only this morning that you shouldn't touch fried food, darling, with that rash. It's for your own—"

  Ella broke in mercilessly, tapping her cigarette ash forcefully into Mrs. Bailey's saucer.

  "My own good! I know, I know! Well, I've said we'll have it in parsley sauce, much as I detest it, so let's forget it."

  Dimity turned apologetically to Mrs. Bailey.

  "I do feel fish is so much more wholesome in a mild white sauce. So pure and nourishing, and so light too. But it takes longer to cook of course. I said to Ella this morning, 'A little light fish, or perhaps a boiled egg, while you've got that rash, will be the most wholesome thing you can have.'"

  Mrs. Bailey smiled and nodded and thought of Mr. Woodhouse, her favorite Emma's father, who also recommended boiled eggs. "An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome, Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs." And she wondered, looking at Dimity's pathetic anxiety, if she might be driven by it to go even further and suggest "a small basin of thin gruel," which was all that Mr. Woodhouse could honestly recommend, if Miss Bembridge's rash persisted. For the sake of the friends' domestic harmony Mrs. Bailey prayed that Dr. Lovell's prescription would be speedily successful.