(12/13) The Year at Thrush Green (3 page)

They had been born, and lived all their long lives, in the beautiful Georgian house next door to Mrs Peters' premises. As neighbours they had presented difficulties. They complained about cooking smells, the sight of tea towels blowing in the yard at the rear of the restaurant and, chiefly, about the charges for anything purchased there.

The Misses Lovelock were renowned for their parsimony, and when Miss Bertha took to shoplifting, which included the occasional scone or shortbread finger from the Fuchsia Bush itself, no one was really surprised.

Mrs Peters, who was a magnanimous woman and had borne with her trying neighbours with exemplary patience and forbearance, had felt compelled to point out the matter to Miss Violet, who was really the only one approaching normality.

Violet had done her best to curb her sister's deplorable lapses, but Mrs Peters still kept a sharp eye on easily removed objects when Bertha was around.

She greeted the old ladies warmly, and summoned Gloria to take the order, as she proffered the menu.

Gloria, reluctant to be called away from the shop window which gave an absorbing view of Lulling High Street, ambled over to the table.

'I don't think we really need the menu,' said Violet. 'Just coffee for the three of us, don't you agree?'

She looked at her two sisters, who were busy uncoiling loops of scarves from their skinny necks and gloves from their claw-like hands. Mrs Peters could not help wishing that they would attend to their noses, all three of which sported a glistening drop of moisture.

'Perhaps a biscuit,' murmured Bertha, 'or just
half
a scone.'

'We'll have one each,' pronounced Ada with unusual firmness. 'We have been to the sale at the new draper's, and it really is quite exhausting in this cold weather.'

Gloria licked her pencil and wrote laboriously before making slow progress to the kitchen.

'Well,' said Mrs Peters brightly, 'and did you have any success with your shopping?'

'I was somewhat surprised,' said Bertha, 'to find that
hat elastic
was not included in the "Everything half-price" notice.'

'Hat elastic?' echoed Mrs Peters. She looked bewildered.

Violet sent a sharp glance around the shop before lowering her voice to answer. 'Latterly, I believe, it was called "knicker elastic", but that is
not
the sort of thing we like to ask for in public.'

'Quite,' agreed Mrs Peters, still wondering if it was possible to buy knickers which had elastic threaded at the waist. Surely such garments had vanished thirty or forty years ago?

'Ada looked at a very nice dress which was much reduced in price,' said Violet, speaking in her normal voice now that knickers had been dismissed from the conversation. 'Unfortunately it had a white collar.'

'We've given up things with touches of white at the neck,' explained Ada. 'In the old days our maid used to remove little collars, and cuffs too, of course, and wash them out and starch and iron them, and sew them back after use. We find that rather tiring, don't we?'

The other two nodded in agreement, and Mrs Peters noted, yet again, the number of brooches which the three were wearing pinned to their headgear. At least two of Bertha's were embellished with diamonds, she guessed, which flashed fire as she moved.

Ada had a splendid gold arrow among the half dozen which decorated her fur hat. Violet, more restrained in her decorations, simply sported a silver-mounted monkey's paw pinned across her velvet tam-o'-shanter.

'A pity in some ways,' continued Ada. 'I always liked a touch of white, but one has to forgo these little pleasures when one has no staff.'

At that moment, Gloria appeared with the tray, and Mrs Peters made her escape to take up a strategic position behind the counter, which offered a great many temptations to kleptomaniacs.

She felt a pang of pity for the three venerable figures intent on their refreshment. How their world had changed! No
hat
elastic, not even
knicker
elastic, and no maid to remove, wash, starch, iron and replace those little touches of white last thing at night!

She looked indulgently upon her neighbours. Poor dears, she thought.

Mrs Peters was a thoroughly nice woman.

While the Misses Lovelock were enjoying their coffee, Albert Piggott was making slow progress from his cottage along the snowy lane which led to Lulling Woods. He was bent upon calling to see Dotty Harmer.

These two odd characters shared strong bonds. They both liked animals. They did not care a fig about other people's opinions of them. Sturdy independent individuals, they found a strange comfort in each other's company.

He made his way to the end of the house where Dotty had her quarters. The larger part of the home was now occupied by Dotty's niece Connie and her husband Kit, but Dotty relished her independence and muddled along in what she refused to call 'her granny flat'. She was lucky in that Connie and Kit respected the old lady's feelings whilst still keeping a loving eye on their sprightly relative.

Dotty welcomed Albert and invited him into her cluttered kitchen.

'I'll take off me boots,' said Albert, hopping about in the porch, before sitting down at the kitchen table. It was strewn with a variety of objects ranging from an onion cut in half, a saucer of peanuts, various tins and a collection of papers at one end upon which Dotty appeared to be working.

She pushed them to one side, almost capsizing a glass jar containing a cloudy liquid in which floated some yellow objects which Albert could not identify.

'Fungi,' Dotty said, following his gaze. 'A very nutritious type of bracket fungus which grows on those wild plum trees at the southern end of Lulling Woods. Delicious with cold meat. I'll give you a jar.'

'Thank you,' said Albert, realizing that this offering would join many others in the hedge as he went home. 'Dotty's Collywobbles' was a common local complaint, familiar to Dr Lovell and his partners, and the inhabitants of Thrush Green and Lulling had soon learned that it was wiser not to broach any of Dotty's sinister brews. No one had actually died, but many had hoped to, when suffering from sampling Dotty's offerings.

'Kettle's on,' said Dotty briskly. 'I shan't offer you coffee. It's bad for that ulcer of yours, but I'll give you some of my hot blackcurrant.'

Albert's heart sank, but obviously there was no obliging hedge to hand, and he resolved to take evasive action as best he could.

The kettle gave an ear-splitting scream and Dotty switched it off whilst she bent to rummage in a low cupboard. Several sinister-looking bottles emerged, and from one of them Dotty poured an inky fluid into two mugs.

'There,' said Dotty triumphantly, putting two steaming mugs on the table. 'Just try that! That'll tone up your innards, Albert.'

He took an exploratory sip, repressed a shudder, and watched his hostess attack her own mug.

'You been busy?' enquired Albert, eyeing the profusion of papers.

'Trying to sort out my funeral arrangements,' said Dotty.

'You don't want to start thinkin' about such things,' said Albert. 'It's morbid, that is.'

'Rubbish!' replied Dotty. 'I think one should leave matters as tidy as possible. I'm not so much concerned with the actual
funeral
arrangements. Connie has very good taste in music and choice of hymns, although I have made sure that we don't have 'Ur-bide with me', which I detest.'

'I like it meself,' said Albert.

'It reminds me of the
Titanic
disaster,' reminisced Dotty. 'Those poor people singing that hymn - unless it was 'Nearer my God to thee', equally lugubrious - as they slid into that awful Atlantic. I find it terribly upsetting.'

Albert was dismayed to see that his old friend's eyes were brimming with tears.

Before he could decide how best to cope with this strange behaviour, Dotty had recovered herself and was rattling on again about her demise.

'It's the disposal of the
body
which is the difficulty, as murderers always find. I should
really
like to be buried in the vegetable garden. All that good humus and those minerals being released slowly into the soil would do so much for the plant growth. However, there seems to be a great reluctance to let me have my way about this, and I suppose it must be cremation after all.'

'They do it very nice,' said Albert comfortingly.

'Well, I hope so,' said Dotty doubtfully. She picked up her mug and drank deeply.

'I suppose the ashes would contribute a certain amount of nourishment,' she continued more cheerfully. 'I shall tell Connie to put most of it by the rhubarb.'

Albert felt it was time to change the subject. 'I really come along to see if I could do any little job outside for you. How's the goats? And how's the hens?'

'Most kind of you, Albert! Kit has cleared the snow from the pens, I know, but I should appreciate it if you would check that they all have plenty of dry bedding. And I've got some cabbage leaves here which they'll all enjoy.'

She made her way into the larder, and Albert was about to nip to the sink with his unwanted drink when Dotty returned with a large basket.

'I'll do it right away,' promised Albert, taking the basket and making for the door.

Dotty watched him stumping towards the chicken run, and then turned back to the table.

'There!' she exclaimed, seeing Albert's mug. 'He forgot his delicious blackcurrant!'

For the rest of January the fields around Thrush Green lay white and unblemished, stretching their glistening purity as far as the eye could see.

But at Thrush Green and Lulling the scene was different.

Here the snow was pock-marked with drips from the trees, and stained by the traffic which had thrown slush upon it.

Each day it shrank a little in the hour or two of comparative warmth at midday. The piles of besmirched snow at the roadsides dwindled slowly. The crisp crunchiness had vanished, and boots now squelched rather than squeaked as their wearers went their way.

It was still bitterly cold at night when frost came with the darkness. The first excitement about the snow had long vanished, giving way to a feeling of endurance and a longing for spring.

On the last evening of the month Harold Shoosmith went upstairs to draw the curtains in the bedroom. A new moon, a silver crescent, was rising above the houses across Thrush Green. He opened a window and looked out.

Everything was still. The lights from the Two Pheasants shone upon a black-and-white world. Nathaniel Patten's statue threw a black stain across the snow around him.

Harold's face grew cold. His breath blew a little cloud into the silence about him.

Suddenly, from the bare branches of a lilac tree the stillness was broken by the sweet sad song of a robin.

Gently, Harold shut the window.

February

And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

A.C. Swinburne

On the second day of the new month the wind changed course and turned from north-east to south-west, much to the relief of everyone.

Now the snow shrank faster, revealing the brown ploughed fields around Thrush Green, and the gardens which had been hidden for so long.

With the thaw came floods. The River Pleshy which bisected Lulling overflowed its banks and spread sheets of water across the meadows beside it. At the lowest point in the town, near the ancient bridge which spanned the Pleshy, the water was two feet deep at one time, and the cellars of the adjacent houses were full of muddy water in which floated such things as deck chairs, garden tables, demoted chests of drawers and other household flotsam, together with beer barrels and smaller kegs.

At Thrush Green the last of the snow slid from the roofs with soft plops, and little rivers gurgled along the gutters and down the hill to join the floods in Lulling High Street. Wellington boots were the only sensible footwear as people slid and squelched their way around.

But it was warm again. The sun shone, lighting the dripping trees into chandeliers of shining droplets. The snowdrops were out, and the stubby green noses of later bulbs pushed above the glistening earth. Nature was on the move again, and everyone rejoiced.

Molly Curdle, making her way across the green from her house to her father's, breathed in the fresh air with rapture. It seemed a very long time since she had been outside and able to enjoy a world beyond that of her own kitchen and that of Joan Young's. The return of colour to the view was particularly welcome. The harsh light from the unrelenting snow everywhere had had a depressing effect, and to see green grass, brown earth, and one or two brave early flowers such as snowdrops and the yellow fronds of witch-hazel raised the spirits of all who had been housebound for so long.

Albert Piggott was not in, but Molly had a key and let herself into her old home. It was warm and quiet. Tired after struggling through the mud of the green, Molly sat down to rest for a moment before seeking her father in the church which she could see through the cottage window.

She looked appreciatively at the room which she knew so well. Everything was in apple-pie order, and shone from Nelly's ministrations.

She had not approved of Nelly when they first met. Her own mother had died when Molly was in her teens, and she had automatically taken over as housekeeper to her curmudgeonly father.

They had not been happy years for Molly, and the fact that she could escape into the welcoming Youngs' household every afternoon was her salvation. Later, after meeting Ben Curdle at one May Day fair on the green, life really took on some meaning, and the happy marriage which followed had transformed her outlook.

Her dislike of her stepmother Nelly began to change to appreciation. It was true that she still regarded Nelly as over-boisterous and vulgar. She suspected that Nelly was the one who brought Albert to the altar, and not the other way round. In this she was right, and her own natural modesty and feeling for what was correct could never come to terms with this knowledge.