Winter in Thrush Green Read online

  'If I might suggest—she began timidly, as the youth exerted all his pressure upon a peg too large for the hole, 'the one above is easier.'

  The board leant at a drunken angle as the boy adjusted the awkward peg. He and Harold hoisted it one jump higher and stood back to admire their handiwork. Miss Fogerty's neat printing told a simple but poignant tale upon the blackboard's face.

  NED IS IN BED

  HIS LEG IS BAD

  NED'S PET TED BIT NED'S LEG.

  BAD TED TO BITE NED'S LEG!

  All eyes were riveted upon the board with an attention which must have warmed Miss Fogerty's heart had she been less flustered. One or two enchanted members of her elderly class read the words aloud with slow absorption.

  The rector, seeing his parishioners' attention deflected so wholeheartedly, sighed resignedly and took off his spectacles, preparing to wait.

  'There's a case in point,' observed Harold to Ella. 'Ned! You simply never hear of a Ned these days.' He scrutinised the blackboard carefully.

  'Or Ted, even. Used to be dozens of Teds when I was a boy. Proper names, I mean, not hooligans.'

  Ella did not reply as she was trying to attract Dimity's attention. Dimity had found a resting place on a low table beneath the window and was idly unscrewing the bone acorn attached to the window blind.

  The rector coughed apologetically and called his wayward flock to the business in hand.

  'May we rub out your lesson, Miss Fogerty?' he enquired kindly.

  'Oh, yes, indeed. Please do,' quavered the lady. The bright youth eagerly accepted the proffered blackboard cleaner and dashed away at the writing amidst clouds of chalk and general regret.

  'The first suggestion," said the rector resuming his glasses, 'is a sundial.'

  'Shall I put it up?' asked the boy, fingering a lovely long stick of chalk handed to him from Miss Fogerty's store.

  'If you please,' said the rector.

  Rather crookedly the word was written in a passable copper plate. As an afterthought, the boy added the figure I in front of it.

  'Secondly,' said the rector, 'a fountain. I suppose that means a drinking fountain," he added doubtfully.

  'Not at all,' said the oldest Miss Lovelock. 'I envisaged plumes of water flashing in the sunlight. Like Versailles, you know.'

  'I see," said the rector gravely.

  'Be the devil of a job laying the water across the green,' observed someone in the front row.

  'Remember them a-laying of them electric light wires?' reminisced his neighbour. 'Cor! That were a proper Fred Karno affair, that were! Best part of the summer—"

  'Please!' said the rector beseechingly. 'We must get on. Discussion later, please.'

  There were apologetic growling' and the vicar consulted his list again.

  'A Celtic cross comes next.'

  'Celtic!' burst out Ella, in a booming voice that set a wire humming inside the decrepit piano. 'Why Celtic? What's wrong with a decent plain English cross for Thrush Green? Too much altogether of this twilihght-of-the-gods and Deirdre-of-the-sorrows nonsense!'

  The rector turned a look more anguished than angered upon her, and Ella subsided with a gruff 'Sorry!'

  'How do you spell "Celtic?" ' asked the boy at the blackboard, waggling the chalk in hesitant fingers.

  Several people told him several versions. More by luck than judgement an accepted spelling was finally inscribed, with a neat 3 in front.

  'There were a number of slips of paper,' continued the rector, 'bearing the suggestion that a statue of Nathaniel Patten should be erected.'

  A warm buzz went round the room. It was obvious that this idea was most welcome.

  'Statue,' said the youth, pressing unduly upon the chalk and snapping it in two. His finger-nails scratched the board and there was a hissing as several people drew in their breath sharply.

  'Puts your teeth on edge, don't it?' said old Mr Piggott glumly.

  'Not so bad as a slate pencil,' said his elderly neighbour.

  'Ah! It's walking on a stone floor in me socks that touches me up,' said someone else conversationally. 'Specially if your feet's a bit damp-like. Fair turns your teeth to chalk that does.'

  'Sorry all,' said the boy cheerfully, diving to retrieve one of the pieces from under the pedal of the piano. The rector, seeing his meeting stray once again, rapped smartly with the inkwell once more.

  'There are several modifications of this last suggestion,' he said in a firm voice, looking severely over his half glasses at old Piggott who was embarking upon a long rigmarole about the reaction of false as against natural teeth when they were being set on edge. Reluctantly Piggott rumbled to a halt.

  'Some have put "life-size," some have said the kind of material they prefer, such as "bronze" or "stone," and one rather charming suggestion wonders if Nathaniel might be surrounded by a group of African children for whom he did so much.' The rector's kindly gaze seemed to stray towards Dimity who twisted the acorn with such agitation that it fell off and rolled under a radiator.

  'Let me,' said Harold Shoosmith, kneeling down with an alacrity and suppleness which the rector envied. Not even a knee-crack, noted the rector wistfully, remembering the reports, which habitually punctuated the services, from his own stiffening joints.

  The acorn had rolled as far as it could into the murk under the radiator. Harold lay down at full-length and pulled out a toffee paper, part of a jig-saw puzzle, a rusty drawing-pin, two beads and a handful of grey fluff.

  'Really!' said Miss Watson, turning pink. 'I must speak to the cleaner.' She looked most annoyed. She had not been too pleased to see Miss Fogerty's archaic reading lesson made so public. There were plenty of bright modern readers in the cupboards, specially recommended by the new infants' school adviser for the area. It gave such a wrong impression to see all that stuff about Ned's bad leg on the board. Fond as she was of dear Agnes there was no doubt about it she was just a shade behind the times. And now all this rubbish being brought to light! Really teachers had enough, one way or another, to drive them quite mad, thought poor mortified Miss Watson, tugging at her cardigan.

  Harold retrieved the acorn and scrambled nimbly to his feet, smiling at Dimity. The rector, collecting his wits, returned to the fray.

  'Are there any more suggestions?' he asked. The heavy silence which met this remark was only to be expected. People lowered their eyes to inspect the desk lids or their own shoes. Somebody blew his nose like a trumpet, and the boy by the blackboard, who had been studying his broken finger-nail with close interest, now bit it off briskly with a decisive snap.

  'Well, shall we take the suggestions in turn?' asked the rector. 'How do we feel about the sundial?'

  'Not bad,' said Edward Young cautiously. 'It would look rather well on the green, I think.'

  Eyes were turned respectfully on the young architect. After all, he should know something about these things with all those years of training behind him.

  Doctor Bailey rose to his feet from a desk at the back.

  'It was my suggestion. I felt it wouldn't be too expensive, nor too big–I can't help feeling that a statue might dominate our small green rather too much–and might be useful too.'

  'Thank you,' said the rector. 'Any comments?'

  'Well, we've got a clock on the church already,' pointed out old Piggott sourly. 'And that tells the time fair enough, rain or shine, which is more'n you can say for a sundial.'

  'True,' agreed the doctor equably. There was a long pause broken at last by the rector.

  'Shall we go on to the next item? The fountain?'

  'Wouldn't never work,' said someone dourly.

  'Get frozen up come winter,' said another heavily.

  'All the kids would come home sopping wet,' came a woman's voice from the back. 'Might even get drowned. You know what kids are!'

  Murmurs of gloomy assent greeted this cheerful remark. The rector looked apologetically at the oldest Miss Lovelock, who continued to smile and nod her trembling head with un
concern.

  No further comments being made the rector consulted his list again.

  'Now we come to the Celtic cross,' said he.

  'Well, you know my feelings on that,' boomed Ella heartily. She hoisted her bulk round to face the assembly. 'Whose idea was it anyway?" she asked forthrightly.

  There was no reply to her belligerent question. Harold Shoosmith, half appalled and half amused, could not help feeling that it would be a brave man indeed who admitted to such folly before that stalwart Amazon. As a matter of fact, it had been Ruth Lovell's innocent suggestion, but although Edward Young, her brother-in-law, knew this, he kept silence. Ruth, at home on the sofa, at that moment enduring the belabourings of her unborn babe, would have been amused at the scene.

  'Then I take it there are no further points?' queried the rector, hurrying to safer ground. 'And that brings us to the statue.'

  Released from the tension of Ella's making, tongues now began to wag more readily.

  'That's the best idea of the lot,' said one.

  'The only thing,' said another downrightly.

  'A real good big 'un,' suggested another. 'Don't want nothin' mean-lookin'!'

  There was quite a hubbub in the little room and the rector was forced to thump again with the red inkwell.

  'I really think the time has come to take a vote on these suggestions,' he said. 'Shall we raise hands? Those in favour of the statue?'

  Almost all the hands in the room seemed to be aloft. The rector stood up, the better to do his counting, then turned to Harold.

  'Shoosmith, my dear fellow, would you check for me?'

  The two men stood at the front of the classroom on tiptoe, their mouths slightly open, their foreheads slightly wrinkled in concentration. On the wall the great clock ticked in the sudden quietness, and outside in the wet December night a distant car splashed along the muddy lane to Nod and Nidden.

  'Thirty-seven,' said Harold Shoosmith.

  'Thirty-seven,' agreed the rector. 'I think there's no doubt that the statue will be our choice, but it would be wise to vote upon the others in turn. Now, first of all. the sundial!'

  A few hands went up, including Edward Young's.

  'Seven,' said Harold.

  'Eight,' said the rector.

  'Sorry,' said the bright youth who had perched himself again on the nature table. 'I was scratching under my arm.'

  'Seven it is then,' said the rector. 'Now the fountain!'

  Only three hands were raised in support of Miss Lovelock's suggestion. The delights of the flashing plumes in summer sunlight were obviously overborne by the thought of the trench-digging and freezing possibilities put forward by the killjoys earlier.

  The Celtic cross fared even worse, whether by reason of Ella's contumely, natural patriotic pride, or plain apathy, no one could tell, but only two hands were raised aloft, one of them belonging to the nail-biting boy.

  'Well,' said the rector. 'That seems to be that.'

  An excited buzz ran round the room. There seemed to be general pleasure at the verdict. Above the hum the sound of St Andrew's church clock could be heard, striking eight.

  The rector rapped again, after looking at Harold Shoosmith and Edward Young.

  'Perhaps while we are all here together we might go a little further into this question of the statue.'

  'Time's getting on, said the woman at the back. 'My husband wants to get down to "The Two Pheasants," but he's minding the baby.'

  'Do him good,' said Ella robustly. 'Don't you hurry back.'

  There was general laughter.

  'Ah maybe!' replied the woman grudgingly. "Tis all right for you single 'uns to talk, but us poor married toads has to keep the boat up straight!'

  'It does seem,' said the rector, ignoring the interruption and secretly fearful of being drawn into this incipient argument, 'that there are a number of points to bear in mind. First of all, I think Mr Young will tell us, a life-size statue of Nathaniel Patten will be an expensive affair. Not only arc there the materials to pay for, but the sculptor too.'

  'I don't see why Miss Bembridge can't be given a chance,' said someone at the back. 'We'd all be proud to see her work on our green.'

  'Good Lord!' exclaimed Ella. 'I've never done anything like that!' Her eye began to gleam with a dangerously creative light. 'But I wouldn't mind having a bash,' she added, with growing enthusiasm.

  Harold Shoosmith trembled. He had settled himself beside Dimity, after screwing back the acorn, and she looked at him with sudden anxiety as their shared table-top shook.

  The rector, with an aplomb born of many similar village crises, spoke smoothly.

  'I'm sure we can come to some arrangement later about the person we ask to undertake the work, but first of all I think we should decide what medium we want. Bronze has been suggested or stone of some sort.'

  'A nice bit of pink granite,' suggested old Piggott, 'well shone up.'

  Edward Young shuddered.

  'I like copper myself,' said his neighbour. 'Goes that nice green shade in time.'

  'We'd get it pinched,' commented the bright boy. 'Copper fetches ten bob a lump these days. A small lump. Come to that, any sort of metal statue's going to cost a packet. Specially life-size.'

  This sound piece of sense brought forth a few grunts of agreement, and a small speech from Dimity.

  'In this connection, perhaps I could withdraw my first suggestion about a group of figures,' she began breathlessly, her earnest gaze fixed upon the rector's encouraging face. 'It did seem to me that children should be part of the memorial, but why not have Nathaniel as a child? After all, he played on the green as a little boy, and the statue would be much smaller and less expensive.'

  'It's a very sensible and charming idea,' agreed the rector gently. Taking heart from his support, Dimity continued rather breathlessly.

  'And it could be most attractive. I mean, look at Peter Pan! What could be sweeter? Perhaps the same person would do it?'

  Edward Young opened his mouth as though to speak, thought better of it, and subsided.

  'We will certainly bear that in mind, Miss Dean,' nodded the rector, watching Dimity resume her place beside Harold.

  'Then we must choose our sculptor,' went on Mr. Henstock, 'one who can work in the medium of our choice, and give us a memorial which suits its surroundings and which we all are proud of.'

  His plump face began to pucker with worry.

  'It occurs to me that we must, of course, get planning permission from several authorities if we want to put up the statue. Really, there is a great deal to consider.'

  Edward Young then spoke up.

  'Perhaps you would allow me to make enquiries about prices and possible sculptors on behalf of us all here? I should be delighted to be of some service, and I think I could advise you too about the best way of approaching the necessary authorities.'

  A hum of agreement ran round the room. The rector looked mightily relieved.

  'It is most kind of you. Would someone propose that Mr Young should undertake this particular set of enquiries?'

  'I will: said Miss Watson briskly.

  'And I'll second it,' added Doctor Bailey.

  'That really is a great comfort,' said Mr Henstock gratefully. 'I am sure we are all much indebted to you for offering your professional help so freely.'

  He turned over The Quarterly Letter to Incumbents and scrutinised it closely.

  'Just one more thing,' he continued, looking at the assembled company over his glasses. 'A good friend of Thrush Green, who wishes to remain anonymous, has said that he would like to defray half the expense of this project. I think you might like to register your approval of this most generous offer.'

  Loud clapping and a few foot-drummings demonstrated the fervour with which this announcement was met. As it died down, Edward Young spoke again.

  'That is wonderful news, sir. I just wondered if it might not be a good idea to form a very small committee, representing all assembled here tonight, to go f
urther into this statue business. For one thing, we shall want it unveiled presumably on Nathaniel's birthday, some time in March, I believe.'

  'That's right,' said Harold. 'The fifteenth!'

  'Then in that case, we must work quickly,' went on Edward. 'It might be rather nice if one of Nathaniel's descendants could unveil his memorial.'

  'His daughter's dead,' said a very old man, who was leaning against Miss Fogerty's weather chart and smearing the black umbrellas and yellow suns most carelessly. 'Died soon after she were married. I knows that 'cos my sister and she used to send each other Christmas cards for years. There were a boy though, I do recollect.'

  'That's most interesting," said Mr Henstock. 'We'll follow that up. Now, what about Mr Young's very sound suggestion? Shall we appoint someone–or two perhaps–to help him?"

  'Yourself, sir,' suggested the bright boy.

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  'I shall be most happy,' said the rector. 'Doctor Bailey, do you feel that you could join Mr Young and me?'

  Doctor Bailey shook his silvery head.

  'I'd rather someone else took it on, if you don't mind. I'm not as reliable these days as I'd like to be. What about Mr Shoosmith?'

  The name brought forth such a burst of warm assent that the normally self-possessed newcomer looked almost shy.

  'I should be very glad to be of any use,' said Harold politely.

  And so it was left. The three men would look further into the matter and let Thrush Green know more about their findings later.

  It was almost nine o'clock when the company dispersed into the wet darkness.

  'Keeps mild, don't it,' said the old man, who remembered Nathaniel's daughter, to Mr Piggott as they made their way to the brightly-lit pub.

  'Ah!' responded old Piggott morosely. 'You know what they say about a green Christmas? Makes a full churchyard. And that makes more work for me, I may say.'

  'I don't know as I believes that,' replied the old man with a flash of spirit, 'but that's as may be. What I do know is these meetings give a chap a rare thirst. You come on in and have a pint with me, my boy.'

  At this generous invitation old Piggott's face softened a little, and united in a common bond, the two crossed the welcoming threshold of'The Two Pheasants' and left the dark behind them.