by Read, Miss
'Oh dear,' cried Winnie, 'I'd better go across and see what's going on. I'll just let Margaret know where I'm going.'
She spoke to the headmaster's wife, and then hurried across the grass. Trust Richard to arrive when there was only one trout apiece for lunch! Why couldn't it have been steak and kidney, or something equally stretchable, a casserole perhaps?
Richard was in the kitchen with Jenny sipping coffee, and he greeted his aunt affectionately.
'I'm on my way to pick up Fenella and the children. They've been staying with an old cousin of hers. I must say, I'll be glad to have them back. The place has been like a morgue without them.'
Winnie thought this sounded most satisfactory. Richard's marriage had had its ups and downs, and sometimes Winnie had wondered if Fenella might leave him. She was a strong-minded young woman who ran a picture gallery in London where the family lived. Sometimes Winnie suspected that it was the main reason for keeping the family together, and wished that Richard would provide the home as most husbands did. Fenella definitely called the tune, but Winnie was the first to admit that Richard was a difficult fellow to live with, and perhaps it was as well that Fenella could hold her own.
When the school house had been on the market, Richard had made an attempt to buy it, but Fenella had refused point-blank to leave London and her livelihood.
'Do stay for lunch,' said Winnie.
'No, I'm due at the cousin's at twelve-thirty,' replied Richard. Immediately Winnie ceased trying to think of how to stretch the three trout so it would not have looked too contrived, and relaxed at once.
'Call in on your way back if you can.'
'We'll have to stop for tea with the old lady,' said Richard. 'Fenella says she's very proud of a fatless sponge she makes, and we are in duty bound to sample it and congratulate her. Damn dry it is too,' he added.
'It's all right if it's eaten the same day,' Jenny said stoutly, defending a fellow cook.
'Old Cora must make hers a week before,' said Richard.
'I must go back to Margaret,' said Winnie, kissing her nephew. 'Nice to have had a glimpse of you.'
He had gone when the two ladies returned from the Youngs' garden shortly before lunch.
'Sherry?' asked Winnie, in the sitting-room before lunch.
'Do you happen to have some gin?' asked Margaret. 'I find I can take a little gin,' she explained, 'without getting an attack of migraine. Sherry seems to bring it on.'
Winnie poured her a generous tot, and they sat back to enjoy their drinks. Winnie was a little surprised to see her visitor's glass empty so quickly—and even more so when her offer of 'the other half' was accepted.
Quite soon, Jenny appeared to tell them that lunch was ready, and the three sat down together.
Normally, Winnie and Jenny were content with a glass of water apiece with their meal, but today they had provided a bottle of white wine in honour of their guest. It was empty by the end of the meal.
Jenny brought them coffee in the sitting-room, but would not join them.
Margaret, now rather flushed, rattled away about her new kitchen cupboards, and the pleasure she was getting from her new oven. It was two-thirty by the time she rose to go. She seemed unsteady on her feet, and Winnie said that she would walk across the green with her.
People were clearing up in the Youngs' garden; Winnie could see Ben and Edward carrying trestle-table tops to the shelter of the old stable, and Molly Curdle and Joan Young seemed to be stacking crockery on trays. They waved to them as they-passed.
Winnie left Margaret at the gate of the school house. Children were playing in the playground, and Winnie thought, with a pang, how often she had seen Dorothy and Agnes among their charges. She missed them sorely.
The sun had come through and as she made her way back, Winnie sat down on one of the public seats. She felt very tired. The lunch had gone well, and it had been good to see Richard, but there was no doubt that entertaining, even with Jenny's incomparable efficiency, was getting increasingly burdensome. It was old age, she supposed, looking across at Rectory Cottages where even more aged friends lived.
Her thoughts turned to the new one she had just accompanied home on the other side of the green. There was definitely something wrong there. Winnie, as a doctor's wife for many years, was quite accustomed to seeing patients who were over-fond of alcohol, and knew the misery that it could bring to a family.
She roused herself from the bench and returned home. Jenny was on her knees putting away the best china, and looked up from the low cupboard with a welcoming smile.
'Nice party,' she said. 'But my word, she can put it away, can't she?'
It would not be long, Winnie realized, before a great many people would be of Jenny's opinion, and what might that augur for the happiness of the Lester family?
The former occupants of the school house were in the throes of packing for a few days away in Wales. It was Dorothy who took longer over this chore than Agnes. Possibly it was because Agnes owned far fewer clothes, and was not distracted by having to make a choice between six or eight different cardigans, say, or four or five frocks suitable to wear in the evening.
Dorothy too was more clothes-conscious altogether and, as a headmistress, had always made sure that she looked well turned out. Agnes, much less perturbed by her appearance, aimed to be neat, clean and unobtrusive. So when it came to packing, she was at a distinct advantage.
'Now, if I take my black,' Dorothy said, 'it means putting in my black patent shoes which are most uncomfortable and will take up far too much room.'
'I shouldn't take the black,' advised Agnes. 'I think the green, and that pretty new fawn dress should be ample for evenings. Then your brown shoes would look right with both.'
Dorothy looked undecided. 'It means wearing each one twice,' she said.
'I don't suppose anyone will have the vapours if you do,' retorted Agnes with unusual tartness. 'I'm only taking one skirt for evening with two dressy blouses, and people will have to put up with it.'
Dorothy nodded abstractedly.
'In any case,' continued Agnes, 'they will be worrying about their own appearance, not ours.'
'I'm sure you are right,' responded Dorothy, putting the black dress back in the cupboard.
'I'll just go down and check Timmy's provisions,' said Agnes. 'It's so good of Eileen to take him on. He's becoming quite devoted to her.'
When Dorothy appeared downstairs, case in hand, she found that Agnes was about to fill a flask with coffee for their picnic lunch.
'I'm popping along to say goodbye to Teddy,' she announced.
'But I thought Eileen was going in this morning,' replied Agnes, jug poised.
'She is,' agreed Dorothy, 'but I thought it would look more friendly to say we were just off, and leave our telephone number with him.'
'But I left it with Eileen!' protested Agnes.
'No harm in letting them both know where we are,' said Dorothy. 'I shall only be a minute.'
She vanished, to leave Agnes sitting on the kitchen chair watching Tim cleaning his handsome whiskers.
'Teddy this, and Teddy that,' sighed Agnes. 'Where will it all end?'
The coffee morning brought in almost three hundred pounds, a record sum at Thrush Green for such an event. Much cheered, the inhabitants braced themselves for further efforts during autumn, and watched the progress of the new extension with renewed proprietorial interest.
The topic was discussed by Nelly Piggott and her friend Mrs Jenner as they made their way down the hill to Lulling one evening, bound for an evening's diversion at bingo. Nelly thoroughly enjoyed her regular outings, not only for the possible thrill of winning some money, but also for the more practical pleasure in sitting down after a day on her feet at The Fuchsia Bush.
Mrs Jenner was one of the oldest residents of Thrush Green, and sister to Percy Hodge the farmer. She lived a short distance along the road to Nidden, had once been a nurse, and was mother to Jane Cartwright, one of the wardens at Rectory
Cottages. In any emergency it was ten chances to one that Mrs Jenner was called first, before the doctor or the vet, or the police or the fire brigade. She was indeed, as the rector often said: 'A very present help in trouble.'
Both he and Dimity knew this from first-hand, for when the rectory had gone up in a blaze that fateful night, it was Mrs Jenner who had offered them a home for several months and given them comfort as well as shelter after their shock.
She and Nelly had met at bingo, and struck up a friendship. Mrs Jenner appreciated Nelly's good sense, her industry and cheerful disposition. She felt some pity too for her role as Albert Piggott's wife. She had known Albert since their school days, and knew also that he was incapable of changing his curmudgeonly ways.
The evening was fine, the two ladies agreed, but there was a definite nip in the air. At the bottom of the hill they saw Gladys Lilly hurrying towards them. Occasionally she joined the bingo-players, but as a devout chapel-goer she sometimes had qualms about games of chance which her old father had roundly condemned as 'the devil's work'. Tonight, it seemed, she was about to put aside her doubts and was going to enjoy an evening out.
'Such news!' she gasped, as she approached the two friends. 'My Doreen's back!'
Nelly and Mrs Jenner said how pleased they were and they expressed their gratification as the three made their way up Lulling High Street together.
'She just turned up at midday. Some fellow she'd met, a window-cleaner in London, was off to see his mother in Cirencester, and he gave her a lift.'
'Is she staying long?'
'That I couldn't say.'
'And the little boy?'
'Into everything. Had my dripping bowl over before he'd been in the house five minutes. I'm going to have my hands full, I can see.' By now they had reached the hall where more people were going in. Gladys Lilly lowered her voice. 'There's one snag about all this. Glad though I am to see the girl, she's expecting again, and I've no doubt she'll reckon to stay with me till it arrives.'
Mrs Jenner had gone ahead and was talking to a friend.
'Oh lor!' said Nelly. 'The same fellow, is it?'
'Who's to tell?' replied Gladys despairingly. 'She won't, that's for sure. And to think I brought her up strict chapel.'
The chilly spell of weather which had been blamed for Charles Henstock's illness and a host of other people's ailments, now changed to warm sunshine.
Harold Shoosmith, who was at the end of his garden surveying the view across to Lulling Woods, wondered if anything could beat a sunny, dewy early September morning.
The harvest was now in, and most of the fields sloping away to the Pleshey valley had already been ploughed or drilled, ready for planting. The one immediately adjoining Harold's was still bristling with stubble, and Harold was pleased about that. For one thing, at night it had a strange luminosity which had a beauty of its own. More practically, it provided food for a covey of six partridges which sometimes wandered through the hedge and delighted Harold and Isobel as they sat at breakfast.
This morning they were not to be seen, but Harold became conscious of noises coming from next door in the school house garden. The children were in school and Thrush Green lay peacefully in the morning sunlight; gradually, Harold became aware that Margaret Lester was pottering about at the end of her garden, just as he was.
'Hello!' he called. 'Lovely morning.'
'Oh, you made me jump,' gasped Margaret. She came towards the hedge, and Harold approached her.
'Enjoying the sunshine?'
'It is rather nice,' she said vaguely. 'I've really been too busy to notice.'
There was a sound which Harold surmised was a hiccup.
At that moment, Isobel appeared to say that he was wanted on the telephone. She waved to Margaret, and the Shoosmiths excused themselves to hurry indoors.
'Margaret Lester doesn't look well,' commented Isobel as they traversed the garden.
'Margaret Lester,' said her husband shortly, 'is drunk.'
10. Crisis for Violet Lovelock
ON that same bright September morning, Violet Lovelock was busy in the garden too. Girded in a hessian apron and wearing leather gardening gloves, she was cutting a few late roses for the drawing-room's silver trumpet-shaped vases, and deheading the dead ones at the same time.
Violet liked gardening, unlike Ada whose arthritis hindered her from stooping. She limited her gardening activities to watering geraniums in pots at waist level, while her younger sister bent and stretched, trundled the wheelbarrow, and enjoyed comparative agility.
Among the roses, Violet thought about Bertha; so far, nothing untoward had happened. John Lovell had had to be called when Bertha had developed pains in the chest after the ubiquitous cold germ had done its worst in Lulling, and Violet, finding herself alone with him downstairs, had told him, somewhat guardedly, about Bertha's eccentricities.
John Lovell, who had heard the rumours anyway, was reassuring, simply saying that it would be best to accompany Bertha everywhere in her present state, and that if her symptoms gave cause for anxiety she was to get in touch at once.
On these carefully ambiguous phrases they had parted company, and since then Violet had been comforted by the thought that both Charles and John would now be at hand for support if needed. Meanwhile, it seemed that Bertha, who had soon recovered, was behaving in a normal manner although her bedroom still remained crammed with articles from all over the house, and every now and again some fresh piece of china or silver was added surreptitiously to the collection upstairs.
After Violet's gardening session, the three sisters partook of their usual sparse lunch, took a rest, and spent the remainder of the day in various domestic pursuits. The roses were much admired in the drawing-room that evening as Violet did the crossword, with equal help and hindrance from her sisters, and Ada and Bertha knitted.
At ten o'clock, as the grandfather clock in the hall was striking, the three ladies retired to bed.
Violet remained wakeful. A large moth, pattering against the window pane, obliged her to get out of bed and rescue it. No sooner had she settled again, when she found that the moon, as large and round as could be, was sending brilliant beams across her pillow. She stirred herself again to adjust a curtain, and returned to bed.
This time it seemed she was about to find rest, and was in that pleasant state of drifting between conscious thought and the dreams awaiting her when she was startled to hear loud cries emerging from Bertha's room across the landing.
She struggled once more from her bed, envisaging a dozen emergencies from a severe stroke to a bat which had lost its way during its night-time pursuits, and hurriedly put on her dressing-gown. She heard Ada's door bang along the passage and her voice raised. Within half a minute, the three sisters had met in Bertha's room.
Bertha herself was sitting bolt upright in bed, and a very alarming sight she posed for her two agitated sisters. She was wearing what was known to her as 'my boudoir cap', a confection of pink net decorated with a rosette over each ear, and fastened with pink ribbons under her wrinkled chin. Under the pink net were a dozen or so bumps denoting hair-rollers.
But it was not the boudoir cap which so alarmed Ada and Violet, for they were quite accustomed to Bertha's night-time appearance. What made this particular night's costume remarkable was the cascade of necklaces around their sister's neck. Gold chains, ropes of pearls, and an Edwardian opal pendant which had been one of their mother's favourites jangled, together with strands of glass beads of every colour, two amber necklaces and one of jet.
Pinned to Bertha's pink bed jacket were over a dozen brooches ranging from regimental marcasite-and-silver badges to gold horseshoe tie pins with seed pearls for nail-heads. Gold jostled silver, agate vied with lapis lazuli, and an outsize Italian cameo brooch dwarfed the diamond cluster and the solitary ruby beneath it.
Bertha's bony fingers were ablaze with rings, and there was even a man's signet ring adorning one thumb. Overturned jewel boxes of every shape and size
lay on the bedspread, and she was busy scrabbling in another which seemed to hold eatings.
'What's the matter, Bertha dear?' enquired Ada, intent on ignoring her sister's bizarre appearance, and rather hoping that what she saw before her was a mirage.
Violet, strengthened with the indignation of one snatched from sleep all too often, was more positive in her approach. 'What on earth are you doing with all the jewellery? It ought to be in the bank anyway.'
'Rubbish!' retorted Bertha. 'It's far better off here where it belongs, and I can keep my eye on it.'
'It is simply inviting a burglar,' pronounced Violet, 'and in any case, why were you shouting for us in the middle of the night?'
'I simply wanted to find out where the watches and bracelets are,' said Bertha, with a dignity which did not match her bedizened appearance. 'Have you girls moved them from the bottom of the wardrobe drawer?'
'Indeed no,' quavered Ada, now beginning to sound tearful. She had always been the timid one.
'I had no idea all this stuff was here,' responded Violet with spirit, 'and the best thing would be to put it all back.'
She advanced upon the bed, but Bertha began a shrill screaming which made the two sisters recoil. At the same time she began to tug at the ribbon which secured the boudoir cap, her scrawny neck twisting this way and that in her struggles. The multi-jewelled collection of necklaces tinkled and jangled, sending out gleams from gold and flashes of fire from precious stones, and all the time the high-pitched screams continued.
When at last she had flung the cap to the floor, she tore out the plastic rollers which it had concealed, hurling them one by one after the cap. Her hair stood out from her scalp in wild spikes, her breathing came in noisy gasps and her eyes rolled in an alarming way.
With considerable courage, Violet strode towards her and slapped one withered cheek smartly. The screaming stopped and Bertha fell back upon her pillows.