by Miss Read
He continued to grate energetically, stirred up the mash, and ate it with much relish.
Winnie watched him as she sipped her coffee.
'I've been meaning to tell you about my immediate plans, Aunt Win,' he said, when at last the bowl was empty. 'I really do appreciate your hospitality. You've both been so kind. I hope I haven't been too much of a nuisance.'
Winnie reassured him on this point.
'Well now, I ought to be off in a week or two's time. The point is that the Carslakes have offered me their house while he has a year at Harvard as a visiting professor. They're asking only a nominal rent - they really want someone to keep an eye on things, I gather, and of course it would suit me perfectly.'
'And you are going to accept?'
'It all depends.'
'What on? It seems straightforward enough to me.'
For once in his life Richard appeared discomfited. The vestiges of a blush were apparent to Winnie's sharp eyes.
'The point is,' said Richard, pushing back his chair and walking to the window, 'I've been thinking of getting married, and I suppose the girl would like to see the house first. Hardly fair to take her there if she loathed the place.'
'Quite so,' agreed Winnie. 'And who have you in mind?'
'Why, Phil Prior!' exclaimed Richard. 'Surely you realized that I was interested?'
'I knew you liked her,' said Winnie guardedly, 'but not that you hoped to marry her.'
'Aunt Winnie,' said Richard, returning to the table and looking down at his aunt pleadingly. 'Do you think I've a chance? Has she said anything to you about me?'
'Nothing at all,' confessed Winnie, 'except to say how beautifully you'd cleaned out the drain.'
'Hardly a sufficient basis for marriage!' observed Richard, with a wry smile. 'But I suppose I can count it as half a point in my favour.'
He wandered back to the window, hands in his pockets. Something about the slouched back, the ruffled fair hair and general air of desolation, touched Winnie's kind heart.
'You could always ask her,' she pointed out.
'But what hopes, d'you think?'
'Who knows?' said Winnie. 'But why not try your luck?'
She began to pile the coffee cups on to the tray. Richard continued to stand, glooming out upon the garden with unseeing eyes. She wondered what effect this preoccupation with love would have upon Richard's fickle digestion.
He was certainly not her idea of a husband, thought Winnie, bearing the tray towards the kitchen.
Nor, she thought with some satisfaction, Phil Prior's, if she knew anything about that sensible young woman.
'Here,' cried Betty Bell to her employer one morning. 'Got something to tell you! I've got a new job!'
'Betty!' exclaimed Harold, dumbfounded. As everyone knows, one of the most heinous crimes which can be committed in a small community is inveigling someone else's domestic worker into coming to work for oneself. Many a deep friendship has been wrecked by such perfidy, and Harold could not believe that Betty Bell would be a party to such treachery.
'You're not going to leave me?' pleaded the stricken man.
Betty's hearty peal of laughter set the silver ringing on the sideboard.
'Now, would I do a thing like that? No, I was just pulling your leg. Made you sit up though, didn't it, eh?'
'It certainly did. But, tell me, what's all this about?'
Betty settled herself comfortably on the edge of the dining room table. Harold, forewarned, shifted the remains of his breakfast out of harm's way.
'Well, it's like this. Mrs Cooke's expecting again—'
'No!' broke in Harold.
'Strue! Like rabbits, ain't it? Well, as I was saying, she's off work for a bit - if she was ever on, if you take my meaning - and them two poor old things next door are up to their hocks in dirt in that school, so they've asked me if I'd help 'em out.'
'Oh,' said Harold, 'and what have you replied?'
Betty suddenly became rather distant and adopted the air of one-who-knew-her-place.
'I said I must ask your permission, sir. They was going to come and have a word with you themselves, but I said let me sound you out. If you was going to be funny about it, I said, I'd turn the job down.'
'What does it mean - from my point of view?' asked Harold cautiously.
'If you was willing, I'd come to you half an hour earlier, as soon as I'd done in there in the morning.'
'Humph!' said Harold, considering the matter. It seemed reasonable enough, and he knew Betty could do with the extra money which the school job would provide.
'Very well,' he agreed. 'Let's see how it works out.'
'You're a real gentleman!' cried Betty, bouncing off the table energetically. Harold retrieved a spoon which had been whisked to the floor by her skirt. 'I'll call in next door on my way home and tell the poor old soul!'
'I'll call on Miss Watson myself,' said Harold. Tm glad to be of some help to the lady.'
'You'll be mentioned in her prayers tonight,' said Betty heartily. 'And to tell you the truth, in mine too, Mr Shoosmith. Money's not easy to come by these days, and I'm thankful to get a bit of extra work.'
She whirled from the room and very soon Harold heard her voice raised in song as she polished the bathroom floor.
Harold smiled to himself. She really was a wonderful girl. He supposed he must be prepared to share his good luck with Thrush Green School. If Betty Bell took on the job, she would certainly do it splendidly.
It was, in fact, the school's luckiest day, for Betty Bell was to keep it spotless and shining for many a long year.
Two days after Richard's breakfast conversation with his aunt, the young man dressed himself with some care and made his way next door.
Dusk was falling, and although the weather still remained cold, a few early daffodils had braved the April winds, and the sticky buds in the avenue of chestnut trees were beginning to break into leaf.
The birds were busy struggling with wisps of dry grass, feathers, and other nesting material. It seemed a propitious time for a young man to go a-wooing, and Richard approached the late admiral's dolphin knocker in the appropriately nervous condition brought on by mingled hope and ardour.
Phil answered the door with a bath towel thrown over one shoulder, her hair in a state of disarray and a blue streak across one cheek, which had been made, Richard guessed correctly, by a ball-point pen, and would, he had no doubt, be the very devil to remove.
'Do come in,' she said somewhat distractedly. 'I'm just giving Jeremy a quick once-over before he puts on his pyjamas. He's rather like a cat in his ablutions - terribly busy working on one or two square inches, and completely neglecting the rest.'
She led the way to the sitting-room and handed him a decanter and a glass.
'Help yourself, Richard. I'll be back in a tick.'
Richard poured himself an inch of dry sherry. Otto did not approve of alcohol, but Richard felt that on this occasion even the stern Otto would have relaxed his rules. And as he had once said to his disciple, 'If you must drink such liver-rotting poison as sherry, then drink the dryest you can find.'
He sat there twirling his little glass disconsolately. Having girded himself for the endeavour, it was doubly hard to have the event postponed, even for a few minutes. He realized that he must approach the delicate proposal with some preliminaries, but he had decided that they must be as short as ordinary civility demanded. He was no speech-maker, and he had wisely made no rehearsals. He felt it best to rely on the spontaneous promptings of his feelings.
When Phil returned, she had combed her hair, miraculously removed the blue streak, and generally looked her usual neat and attractive self.
'May I pour you one?' asked Richard.
'Thanks. I can do with it. I always think that the time between tea-time and bed-time is the most exhausting for mothers. Just when one is most tired is the time when most is demanded.'
She accepted the sherry gratefully, put her feet up on a footstool, and
sighed happily.
'But what brings you here, Richard? I hear from Winnie you are leaving us very soon. Will you be sorry?'
Such an abrupt approach to the matter in hand, took Richard off his guard. He swallowed awkwardly, and set himself spluttering, as a drop of sherry went down the wrong way.
'Let me get you some water,' said Phil, getting to her feet, and viewing her scarlet-faced visitor with concern.
'All right now,' he gasped huskily, still fighting for breath. What a way to go about a proposal of marriage, thought Richard!
Phil resumed her seat.
'I always think it's extraordinary,' she remarked, 'how violently the body reacts to something in the windpipe.'
'Good thing it does,' responded Richard. 'You'd soon croak if it didn't!'
An amicable silence fell. A tiny jet of flame hissed from a crack in the coal in the fireplace. The clock ticked companionably above it, and outside the birds shrilled and piped before going to roost for the night.
Richard, now recovered, felt that he must return to the subject of his departure. He put down his glass carefully.
'You asked if I should miss Thrush Green, and I certainly shall. Uncle Donald and Aunt Winnie have been very patient, and so good to me.'
'They're absolute darlings,' agreed Phil warmly. 'Don't you agree?'
Richard refused to be side-tracked.
'But the person I shall miss most of all,' said Richard firmly, 'will be you.'
'Me?' cried Phil, with mingled surprise and dismay. 'But we've had very little to do with each other, after all.'
'I should like to think,' said Richard, warming to his theme, 'that we could be a great deal together in the future.'
'How do you mean?' asked Phil, her heart sinking. She rose and poured herself another glass of sherry. If this were to be a proposal of marriage, she could do with a little support, she told herself.
Richard launched into a long explanation of the Carslakes' offer of their house for a year, and before he was halfway through the saga, Phil could foresee the outcome.
'And there is no one in the world,' declared Richard, with more warmth in his voice than Phil had ever heard before, 'I should like to share it with, more than you yourself. It may seem a roundabout way of asking you to consider marrying me, but if you could—?'
His voice faltered to a halt, and his blue eyes were full of pleading. At that moment, Phil found him more alive, more attractive, more lovable than she would ever have thought possible. It was a pity that his Uncle Donald could not see the 'cold fish' now. For this one fleeting moment, Richard was a warm human being. Rare emotion had shaken him into life at long last.
'Could you?' he asked earnestly.
'Oh, Richard!' exclaimed Phil, genuinely moved. 'I hate to upset you - I really do. But it would never work, you know. We're not in the least - what's the word I want - compatible.'
'We could try,' said Richard.
Phil shook her head.
'No, we couldn't,' she said gently. Already, the mutinous little-boy-crossed look had come into Richard's face. 'In some ways, I'm so much older than you are. I'm a lot further along the road of experience, for one thing, with a marriage behind me and a boy to bring up. And then, in so many ways, you are much cleverer than I am. I'm afraid you would soon be impatient of my shortcomings. I know nothing of your work. You know nothing of mine. There's so little to hold us together, Richard.'
Richard's gaze was downcast. The hissing coal fell from the fire and smouldered, unheeded, on the hearth. Somewhere, on the other side of Thrush Green, a child called to another, and a man went by Tullivers, tapping rhythmically with his walking stick.
These little outside noises seemed to break the spell of silence.
'Well, that's that, I suppose,' said Richard mournfully. 'I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised. I suppose I'm not what Aunt Winnie would call "much catch". I've never had anyone to consider but myself. It makes a man selfish, but if you had felt you could marry me, I think it would have been the making of me.'
And what about me? was Phil's silent rejoinder. She surveyed the young man for a few moments, wondering if she should speak her mind or not.
She made her decision. She had nothing to lose. Richard, and perhaps another girl one day in the future, had much to gain.
'Richard, of course I'm grateful for being asked to think of marrying you, but do you realise that not once have you said you want me to marry you because you love me? I'm not a romantic woman, heaven knows, but you'll meet a great many who are, and any woman will want to be assured that she is loved before she enters marriage. Who on earth is going to get married without it?'
'But you must know that I shouldn't have asked you if I didn't love you!' protested Richard.
'Then say so,' said Phil, with some asperity. 'I think you will marry eventually - probably very soon, but you'll have to put your under-worked heart, as well as your over-worked head, into persuading any normal girl to take you on.'
She paused, and Richard rose to depart. Had she gone too far?
'I'm sorry to hurt you,' she said impulsively, 'but someone must tell you. No hard feelings?'
'Of course not,' said Richard. 'I'll think over what you've said.'
He held out a hand.
'I probably shan't see you again. I'll move into Carslake's place as soon as I can.'
Phil ignored the hand, and kissed him gently on the cheek.
'Dear Richard! Don't take it too badly, and look out for someone who really will make you a good wife one day. Thank you for being so kind, always, to me and Jeremy.
Richard's blue eyes blinked rapidly as he turned away.
Phil accompanied him to the front door. The green was dark now, and the light at the corner by the pillar box silhouetted the writhing branches of the chestnut trees.
At the gate he turned, and raised his hand to his fair hair in the semblance of a salute.
It was to be a very long time before Phil Prior ever saw Richard again.
20 An Engagement
IT was May before Molly managed to rejoin Ben. The fair had come as usual to Thrush Green on the first day of that month, but as the doctor said to Winnie, it wasn't the same without Mrs Curdle to run it.
'And I still expect a bouquet of artificial flowers,' confessed Winnie. 'Embarrassingly large though it was, and really quite hideous, I loved her for bringing it.'
All the children of Thrush Green had spent a hilarious few hours on the simple swings and roundabouts, the coconut shies and side-stalls of Ben Curdle's little fair. Jeremy and Paul had tried everything, and Jeremy had presented his mother with a hard-won vase of shocking pink with heavy gilding, and a very small goldfish in a jam jar. These treasures she had accepted with praiseworthy, if mendacious, expressions of delight.
When the fair closed down that night, after its one-day stand, Ben and Molly sat in Albert's kitchen and talked of their plans. Upstairs, Albert snored noisily. In the next bedroom young George, thumb in mouth, slept just as soundly.
'Doctor Lovell says he can manage pretty well on his own, and I've made arrangements for him to have a hot dinner at "The Two Pheasants" next door every day,' said Molly. 'At least for a bit.'
'And who pays for that?' asked Ben.
Molly looked confused.
'Couldn't we do that, Ben? You know how he's placed and—'
Ben cut her short with a hug.
'Anything to get you back,' he told her cheerfully. 'I'll go round and settle things with them. But knowing your dad, I reckon it would be best to do this a month at a time. See how things go with him. If he gets hitched up again, he won't need it!'
'I can't see anyone being fool enough to take him on,' admitted Molly. 'He's nigh on killed me this last few months.'
And so it was arranged. A week later Molly was ready to go. The cottage was spruce, the larder well stocked, with a fruit cake in the cake tin, and a steak and kidney pie in the larder. Her father's linen was washed, ironed and mended, and Mol
ly said goodbye to him thankfully. She set out with little George on her lap and with Ben at the wheel, to go back to her own life.
They drove slowly across the green, Molly waving to the bent figure of Albert standing pathetically in the cottage doorway. Thrush Green had its newly-washed, innocent, early morning look - the wide grassy spaces bare of figures, the rooks circling lazily above the church.
Molly felt a pang at leaving it all. There was nowhere as dear as Thrush Green, and despite her father's niggardly ways, she felt a certain sympathy with the old man.
Ben, knowing her gentle heart, put a comforting hand on her knee as the car slid down the hill to Lulling.
'He'll do,' said Ben, and added wickedly, 'the devil looks after his own.'
Later that day, the rector found Albert Piggott walking briskly around the churchyard. He carried no walking stick, and although he was thinner and paler than usual, he seemed remarkably spry. He was inspecting old Mrs Curdle's grave. Ben had decked it with tulips and daffodils. At every visit he had thus honoured the memory of his much-loved grandmother, and even Albert's flinty heart was touched.
'Why, Albert,' cried the rector, with genuine joy, 'how well you look! I'd no idea you were getting on so famously!'
Albert acknowledged the kindness with a perfunctory nod.
'Got to do for meself now, sir, so I'd best get used to it. I was thinking I might manage the church again if you're so minded.'
'But, of course!' exclaimed the rector, delighted. 'If you are sure you feel up to it.'
Albert's face took on its usual woebegone and cautious look.
'I don't say as I could do the graves. I'm past that sort of work ~ but the boiler, now, and any little inside jobs as I used to do, well -1 reckons I can struggle along with they.'
'I'm sure we can come to some arrangement with Willie about the heavy work,' Charles Henstock assured him. 'Now look after yourself, Albert, and don't stay out too long in this treacherous wind.'
He returned to the rectory in high spirits.
'Dimity, my dear,' he declared to his wife, 'Albert Piggott's made a truly remarkable return to health. He was actually walking without a stick! Think of that!'