(3/13) News from Thrush Green

by Miss Read

  'I'd like to finish this job,' he said. 'Three or four afternoons should see it cleared.'

  Phil was looking at his fork with envy.

  'Is it stainless steel?'

  He said, somewhat apologetically, that it was.

  'One gets used to one's own tools, you know. When you replace, my dear, I do advise you to get stainless steel. It is well worth it.'

  'I shan't be replacing for some time,' said Phil, laughing. 'But I came to tell you that I had made some tea.'

  It was snug in the little house. Harold had been so happy and busy in the garden that he had not noticed the grey clouds scudding ominously from the west. A spatter of rain on the window heralded a wet evening.

  Phil nodded at a large envelope, stamped, sealed and ready for the post.

  'I've taken your advice,' she said, 'and looked out another story. I do hope he likes this one. I'm going to alter the one he's just sent back. I had a brain-wave last night in bed which might work, I think.'

  'Any more luck?'

  'A hopeful letter from a women's magazine in America. I sent an article about how to encourage children to take to books. So many don't, you know. Thank heaven Jeremy likes reading!'

  'I must be off,' said Harold, rising. 'Thank you for restoring me with tea. I'll be in London for the next two days, but I hope you'll let me tackle the border when I come back.'

  'You know I shall be very, very grateful,' Phil replied, opening the front door.

  The rain fell heavily, splashing from the admiral's brass dolphin upon the door mat.

  Harold picked up his bundle of tools, neatly swathed in a sack.

  'Here, give me your letters,' he said, eyeing the downpour. 'I'll put them in the box as I pass. You'll get drenched if you go out, and Willie's due to collect any minute now.'

  She put the bundle of letters, including the large packet, into his outstretched hand.

  'You really should spit on the big one, for luck,' she called after him as he hurried down the path.

  With his tools across his shoulder and the letters in his hand, Harold made his way to the letter box at the corner of Thrush Green. The Cotswold stone glistened with rain around the red oblong.

  Harold inserted the small letters, and then carefully threaded the large one into the aperture. It fell with a satisfying plop, and as it vanished Harold wished it luck.

  Whistling cheerfully, he splashed beneath the chestnuts to his home, thinking gaily of work well done and the pleasure derived from a good-looking woman's company.

  Little did he think that the packet he had so carefully posted would be the cause of much concern for the pair of them.

  On that same rainy evening Sam Curdle, who had managed to conduct his affairs in a relatively honest manner for some months, succumbed to temptation.

  It so happened that Percy Hodge, the farmer in whose yard the battered Curdle caravan was housed, had seen some fine wallflower plants going cheaply in Lulling market. He bought twelve dozen and left the twelve newspaper-shrouded bundles lodged against the comer of his back porch.

  'If you get that lot put in for me tomorrow, Sam,' he told him, 'there's half a sack of spuds for you. Fill up the round bed in the front of the house, and the border under the greenhouse. You'll need the gross, I reckon, to make a tidy show.'

  Sam agreed with alacrity. Half a sack of potatoes would be most welcome to the family, and planting out a few wallflowers was easy work.

  It took Sam less than five minutes to plan how he could make a few shillings for himself on the deal. Percy Hodge would be out all day at a sheep sale, Sam knew. By planting the wallflowers carefully, he reckoned he could keep two, or possibly three, dozen aside for sale elsewhere.

  That new woman at Tullivers, he pondered, as he lay beside his snoring Bella that night. She looked the sort who might fall for a few plants, and Lord alone knew that garden of hers was in need of something. Sam surmised, correctly, that she would know little about prices, and would not be the type to haggle.

  What should he ask now? Six shillings a dozen? Too steep, perhaps, even for a greenhorn such as that Londoner. He'd heard down at 'The Two Pheasants' that most of the locals were getting twopence a plant. Maybe it would be best to settle for fivepence. After all, he reasoned happily to himself, if he swiped two dozen from Percy Hodge he'd make a clear ten bob. With any luck, though, he could appropriate three dozen. Fifteen bob, now that really would be useful! He might even have a flutter on a horse in the afternoon, and make a bit that way too.

  As for Percy Hodge, he'd never notice a few wallflowers missing once the beds were planted. It was a chance too good to miss, Sam told himself.

  Well content with his plans, he turned on his side, wrenched rather more of his share of the marital blankets from his wife's recumbent form, and settled to sleep.

  9 Sam Curdle Tries His Tricks

  ON the whole, Winnie Bailey found Richard's stay with them less punishing than she had first feared. Nevertheless, she was becoming heartily sick of his preoccupation with his alimentary canal, and said as much to her husband one day when her nephew was safely in Oxford about his affairs.

  'Ignore it,' advised Dr Bailey.

  'That's easier said than done,' said Winnie, knitting briskly. 'After all, I have to spend a great deal of time and thought on our meals, and it really is maddening to see him picking about like an old hen.'

  'The boy wants more exercise,' said her husband. 'As far as I can see, the walk from the front door to the garage is about the sum total of his exertions. He's bound to be liverish.'

  'Have a word with him,' begged Winnie. 'It really can't be good for him to be so introspective about his food, and honestly, it's driving me quite crazy.'

  'I'll do my best,' promised her husband, but privately he had little hope of curing a hypochondriac so easily.

  His chance came a day or two later when Winnie was out at an evening meeting of the Lulling Field Club, accompanied by her old friend Dotty Harmer. Winnie had left cold chicken and ham, and a fresh green salad for the menfolk, with a delicious orange trifle for their pudding. She herself would be dining on two Marie biscuits and a cup of weak tea, as the Lulling meeting began at 7.00 p.m. and these exciting refreshments would be served at half-time - somewhere about 8.15 p.m. This was the usual pattern of evening meetings in Lulling and Thrush Green, and accounted for the internal rumblings of hungry stomachs which invariably accompanied local lectures and whist drives.

  Dr Bailey helped his nephew to the meat which his wife had left neatly sliced on the dish.

  'Oh, far less than that, please,' begged Richard. 'Somehow I seem to be averse to flesh these days.'

  The doctor obligingly transferred two small slices to his own plate.

  He watched Richard turning over the salad. Now that Winnie had made him aware of the young man's foibles, he noticed how anxiously he picked over the greenery, selecting a lettuce leaf here, a sprig or two of cress there and taking care to miss the sliced cucumber which hid among the leaves.

  'Averse to cucumber too?' asked the older man pleasantly. 'I always enjoy cucumber, I must confess.' He helped himself generously.

  'Aunt Winnie's food is always delicious, but I don't seem to get as hungry as I used to do. And then, of course, I like to keep to Otto's diet. I'm sure he's in advance of his time in these matters.'

  'You need more exercise,' said the doctor.

  'I agree, my dear uncle. I couldn't agree more. As you know, I've had to cut down my walking time since I've been engaged on this Oxford project, and I certainly feel all the worse for it,' replied Richard vigorously. 'It's one of the reasons why I try to cut down on my intake of food.'

  'You probably worry too much about your work at the moment. Nothing like worry to deaden the appetite. You should take life more easily.'

  Richard, chewing his lettuce as conscientiously as Mr Gladstone, looked gratified. Rarely did he get any active encouragement to talk about his health. To have the attention of a medical man, eve
n a medical man with ideas as antiquated as his uncle's, was wholly delightful. He became more confidential, encouraged not only by the doctor's interest but also by the absence of his aunt.

  'I think you are quite right, uncle. Otto seemed to think that I was a shade too highly-strung. He suggested that marriage might help. It relieves tension, you know.'

  'It can increase it,' observed the doctor drily, dabbing his lips with his napkin. 'A lot depends on one's wife.'

  'I have been thinking about it,' continued Richard, brushing aside his uncle's comment. 'It looks as though I shall need to settle in London within the next year or so, and it would be wise, I think, to buy a small house. A wife would be very useful domestically. I'm no hand at cleaning and cooking, I'm afraid.'

  'You could always get a housekeeper,' said Dr Bailey, with a touch of asperity.

  'I was thinking of Otto's advice. He seemed to think that I needed a comfortable settled background in order to do my best work. And although I don't consciously miss it, busy as I am with my research, he assures me that I am deeply deprived sexually.'

  'You could always get a mistress too,' said Dr Bailey, even more frostily. His thin fingers drummed on the edge of the table. Winnie would have known that he was becoming very angry indeed. Richard blundered on.

  'I dislike the idea,' he said primly. 'And frankly, uncle, I'm surprised that you suggest it. No, I feel sure that I'm ready for marriage. After all, I shall be thirty-three next birthday. I think it's time I found a wife.'

  'You may have some difficulty,' said Dr Bailey.

  'Really?' Richard was genuinely surprised. 'I don't want to appear conceited, but I'm reasonably healthy and good-looking, and as for prospects - well, I think I can safely say that I shall be at the top of my particular tree within the next five years.'

  The older man hit the table so sharply that the glasses jumped.

  'Richard, will you never grow up?'

  His nephew looked at him with startled blue eyes.

  'You seem to view marriage purely as a panacea for your own ills,' continued the doctor, his cheeks flushed with exasperation. 'You talk as though a wife were a cross between a box of tranquillising pills and a Hoover. Not once have you mentioned affection, respect or mutual happiness. D'you think any girl worth her salt is going to take you on, on your terms? Believe me, Richard, you're the one that will remain single if all you are offering are the attractions you've just mentioned.'

  'Uncle—' began Richard, in protest, but he was ignored.

  'I must say it, my boy, hard though it sounds. You are as bone-selfish now as you were at seven years' old, and you've grown no wiser with the years. Marriage might well do you a power of good - heaven knows you need humanising somehow - but I pity the girl who ever takes you on.'

  The doctor raised his glass and sipped some water. Across the table his nephew sat transfixed, a slightly sulky look replacing the one of utter surprise.

  'I'm sorry I should have upset you,' he said stiffly at last. 'I had no idea I was so objectionable.'

  'Oh, tut-tut!' said Dr Bailey testily. 'Don't get in a huff over a bit of straight talking. You've got your good points, my boy, as we all have-but unselfishness is not among them at the moment. You think over what I've said now.'

  He reached for the trifle.

  'Let me give you a helping of this, Richard. Dr Goldstein would approve, I feel sure.'

  But Richard was not to be mollified by a helping of trifle or a quip about his medical adviser. He rose from the table, his whole demeanour expressing acutely wounded dignity.

  'No, thank you, uncle. My appetite has completely vanished after those remarks. If you'll excuse me, I will go for a walk.'

  'You couldn't do better,' said the doctor cheerfully. 'And take an alka-seltzer before you go to bed. You'll be as right as a trivet in the morning.'

  When Winnie returned, Richard was still out.

  'Walking somewhere,' said her husband, in answer to her enquiries. 'Getting over the sulks. We had that little talk you suggested.'

  'Oh, Donald, you haven't upset him, have you?'

  'I rather hope so. We went from food to marriage. Richard seems to think that a wife might be a useful cure for his constipation and save him from doing his own chores.'

  'Donald! Is that all?'

  'That's what I asked him. He's out now, I fancy, trying to find the answer.'

  Next door, at Tullivers, Harold Shoosmith continued his assault on the neglected border. Some days had elapsed since his first visit, and on his second he was surprised to see that the narrow bed under the dining-room window had been planted with healthy wallflower plants.

  'Your handiwork?' he asked.

  'Yes. Are they put in properly? Not too close, are they?'

  'No, they're just right. Very fine specimens too. They put my own to shame. Where did you buy them?'

  'As a matter of fact,' said Phil, 'a sandy-haired man came to the door with them while you were in London. I can't remember his name - but he's often about. He helps old Piggott sometimes, I think.'

  'Sam Curdle,' said Harold grimly.

  Phil looked at him anxiously.

  'Why, what's wrong?'

  'What did he ask for them?'

  'I paid him ten shillings for two dozen. Was that too much?'

  'Much too much, my dear. Especially as he probably pinched them in the first place.'

  'Damn!' said Phil softly, thrusting her hands into her coat pockets and surveying the border ruefully. 'I might have known. What shall I do? If these have been lifted from someone else's garden, they'll be furious.'

  'Leave it to me,' replied Harold. 'I'll have a word with Sam Curdle. He's no business to charge more than two shillings a dozen anyway, and well he knows it. Don't have any dealing with that chap. You'll be done every time.'

  'I'll watch him in future,' promised Phil. 'How I do hate to be fooled!'

  'Who doesn't?' smiled Harold, moving off to his digging.

  Sam Curdle's peccadillo, as it happened, had already been discovered. Percy Hodge had a farmer's sharp eye, and a pretty shrewd idea of how twelve dozen plants would look in the garden beds allotted to Sam's care. It did not take him long to discover that they were fairly sparsely planted. He confronted Sam the morning after the sheep sale.

  Sam denied the charge.

  'You be allus down on us Curdles,' he complained, a gypsy whine creeping into his voice. 'Every blessed plant as was outside your back door I planted, as God's my Saviour.'

  'Fat lot of saving you'll get,' said Percy Hodge roundly. 'There's a good score or more plants missing, and I want them back. Understand?'

  'How'm I to get 'em? I tell you, sir, they're all set in, as you can see.'

  'You get them back, Curdle, or tell me what's happened to 'em. You can take yourself and your missus off my land if I don't get the rights of this business. You had fair warning when I let you come into the yard.'

  'You be a hard man,' whimpered Sam. In truth, he was more frightened of his wife's reaction to the news than his master's threats. Bella could be ferocious in anger, and Sam still bore the scars of marital battle from earlier engagements with his wife.

  At that moment, the telephone rang and Percy Hodge strode indoors to answer it, leaving Sam to his thoughts.

  For the rest of that day, and the next, Sam puzzled over his problem. Not for a minute did he consider telling the truth. Such a straightforward course was completely foreign to Sam's devious temperament. Somehow he must slide out of this tangle of trouble and, more important still, without Bella finding out.

  Fate was against him. Percy Hodge and Harold Shoosmith met on the evening of Harold's discovery at Tullivers. Both men were on their way to the post-box at the corner of Thrush Green. After the usual greetings, and comment on the weather, Harold came to the point.

  'Is Sam Curdle still with you?'

  'Yes, indeed, the rogue. But he'll not be with me much longer, I fancy. He's up to his old tricks. Pinching wallflower plants
this time.'

  'I'll show you where they are,' said Harold, and led the way across the road to Tullivers.

  It was beginning to get dark, but the sturdy plants, so carefully put in by Phil, were clearly to be seen. The two men gazed at them over the gate.

  'D'you know what he got for them?' asked Percy, turning away. The two men moved towards the green.

  'He fleeced Mrs Prior of ten shillings,' said Harold. 'It's despicable.'

  'She must be a green 'un,' commented the farmer. Harold's wrath kindled.

  'She is a Londoner. One wouldn't expect her to know the price of plants. And Sam Curdle knew that well enough!'

  Percy Hodge looked at his companion curiously.

  'No offence, old man. I'm not trying to excuse Sam. He's a twister right enough, and he'll get his marching orders in the morning.'

  'I can let you have a couple of dozen plants,' said Harold, more coolly, 'if you're short. It seems a pity to worry Mrs Prior about this. She was upset when I told her my suspicions.'

  'Well, that's very handsome of you, but I've got all I need really. Tell the lady to leave them where they are, and not to worry her head about the matter. I'll deal with our Sam, you mark my words.'

  They walked across to the Land Rover which the farmer had left in the chestnut avenue, and bade each other a cheerful good night.

  'That was a rum thing,' mused Percy Hodge to himself, as he drove up the shadowy lane to Nod and Nidden. 'I shouldn't wonder if old Harold Shoosmith isn't a bit sweet on that young woman. Ah well, no fool like an old fool!'

  He trod on the accelerator, keen to confront Sam Curdle with the fruits of this chance encounter.

  Suddenly, the thought of his farmyard, free of the Curdle tribe for ever, filled him with pleasurable relief.

  Harold Shoosmith's flash of anger surprised the man himself quite as much as it surprised the observant farmer.

  He returned thoughtfully to his quiet house and sank into an armchair. What exactly was happening to him? He didn't mind admitting that he was attracted to Phil Prior, but then he had been attracted to many girls in the past. He had always enjoyed the company of intelligent women, and if they were pretty, then so much the better. This protective feeling for Phil Prior, he told himself, was the result of her unfortunate circumstances. Anyone with a spark of humanity would want to help a poor girl left defenceless and hard up, especially when she had to cope with the rearing of a young child, single-handed.