(10/13) Friends at Thrush Green (15 page)

Ada's door opened a crack as Violet returned to her bed. 'Is she all right?'

'As right as she'll ever be,' responded Violet despairingly. 'We'll talk in the morning.'

And that won't be long in coming thought poor Violet, climbing once again into her crumpled bed.

The news of Doreen Lilly's return and, of course, her interesting condition, was soon spread about Lulling and Thrush Green. Speculation upon the possible paternity of the expected child also gave considerable pleasure to the gossips.

Charles Henstock rang his friend Anthony Bull to let him know the whereabouts of the girl he had befriended. Anthony had heard nothing since his earlier encounter, but was glad to hear that she had returned to her mother.

'What are her plans, do you know?' he enquired.

Charles admitted that he had no idea, but intended to call at the Lilly household, and would keep him informed of any developments.

They rang off after suitable messages to their families, and Charles decided to put aside his weekly sermon-in-the-making, and call on Doreen and her mother that afternoon.

Already the lime trees in Lulling High Street were dropping a few crumpled leaves. There was an autumn freshness in the air, and the sky was of that pellucid blue particular to early autumn. Great cumulus clouds towered in the north, lit brilliantly by the sunshine. It was a day when cares were cast aside and the world of nature offered refreshment of spirit.

Charles was admitted by Mrs Lilly who told him that Doreen had gone shopping, taking the little boy with her.

'I've called because I let my friend Anthony Bull know that she was here. As you know, she turned to him when she was worried in London. He has been anxious.'

Mrs Lilly expressed surprise. 'I thought she'd written to him,' she told Charles. 'She said she was going to. He was very good to her.'

Charles brushed aside her apologies with a smile. 'The thing is, what is she going to do now?' asked the rector.

'She'll stay here for a bit,' said Mrs Lilly. 'Maybe you know she's expecting again?'

'I had heard so.'

'She'll have to get a little job—part-time, say, to bring in a bit. The boy can go two mornings a week to play-school down the road. I found that out yesterday.'

'An excellent idea.'

'Doreen was with the Lovelock ladies before, but I don't think she'd fancy going back.'

Charles's private opinion was that the Lovelock ladies would certainly not have her back. She had previously left them in the lurch, and it was generally thought that she had helped the burglar who had broken into that house some time before. Doreen Lilly would certainly not be welcome there.

'Well, we'll keep in touch,' said Charles rising, 'and if I hear of any work which might suit Doreen I will send a message. I'm sure Mr Bull would be very glad to have a letter from her.'

'I'll see she sends one,' promised Gladys, opening the door. 'And it's very nice of you to call.'

She did not actually say the words, 'as you are church and I'm chapel', but Charles felt that they hovered somewhere in the air as he made his farewells.

Harold Shoosmith's blunt assessment of Margaret Lester's condition had shocked his wife. Isobel had not said a great deal about it, but naturally it was very much in her mind. Did the two little girls have any inkling? What misery it must be for her husband! Was that, she wondered, why the family had moved, so that Alan could keep a closer eye on Margaret?

At breakfast the next morning Isobel said to Harold, 'Surely Margaret couldn't be drunk so early in the morning? I can't believe it, you know.'

'Habitual drinkers,' replied Harold, reaching for the marmalade, 'are pretty well sozzled all the time. We had a fair number in Africa. No a lot you can do for them.'

'But we must do something,' protested Isobel. 'Can't we help?'

'We can help her best by keeping quiet about it, and being at hand if Alan and the children want some first-hand support,' said Harold.

At that moment, Willie Marchant arrived with the letters, and Harold and Isobel examined their post.

'A lovely card from Agnes and Dorothy,' said Isobel. 'What a stupendous Welsh waterfall!'

'Where is it?' asked Harold.

Isobel studied the card more closely. 'It's a place with a long name, which has no vowels in it, beginning with two LLs,' she said.

'You surprise me,' said Harold.

On the morning after the Lovelocks' disturbed night, Violet rang the surgery to ask if Doctor Lovell would call to see her sister.

'Doctor Lovell,' said the new young receptionist, 'is out on an emergency case.'

'When will he be back?'

'In emergency cases,' said the voice with hauteur, 'we have no way of assessing the time needed.'

'Naturally,' replied Violet, with equal frigidity.

'Doctor Lovell's assistant
could
call, of course.' She made it sound as if, despite innumerable difficulties, such as physical paralysis, overwhelming commitments to urgent cases and extreme exhaustion, the new doctor might possibly martyr himself to the extent of struggling into his car to drive half a mile to see the patient.

Violet, holding the receiver, knew that it would be hard enough to persuade Bertha to see John Lovell—the new doctor would not have a chance of being admitted.

'Don't bother him,' said Violet, 'I will ring another time.'

'That would be best,' conceded the receptionist graciously, and rang off.

Bertha, the cause of Violet and Ada's exhaustion, was in considerably better shape than her sisters. She received her breakfast tray happily, commented on the sunshine with pleasure, and seemed oblivious to the night's mayhem.

Violet was not amused, and was determined to get at least some of her problems solved.

'John Lovell is engaged at the moment,' she told Bertha, 'but I intend to consult him.'

'A lot of fuss about nothing,' commented Bertha.

'And I am getting in touch with Jenkins to revalue the jewellery. Then it is going to the safe-deposit at the bank.'

'Jenkins died last Easter,' said Bertha.

'Jenkins' son is running the shop,' responded Violet quickly, 'and very competently too.'

'I can't see why you make such a to-do about the stuff,' said Bertha.

'It's too valuable to have lying about. Those gold chains alone are worth a great deal of money, and there are several diamond and sapphire rings.'

'But we may want to wear some of it,' cried Bertha, dropping a piece of toast, butter-side down, on the top sheet.

'We can keep back a few favourite things,' replied Violet, 'but the rest goes to the bank.'

'I think you are being
quite
unreasonable,' stated Bertha, attending to the buttery patch with an even more buttery knife.

Violet, who had suffered much, was stung into action.

'You
are the unreasonable one, and well you know it! Any more of these tantrums and Doctor Lovell will be obliged to refer you to a
mental specialist
, and you know where he might well send you!'

At this, Bertha really did look a little shaken. She pushed aside her tray, and was temporarily deprived of speech. She suddenly looked very old and very frail, and for a brief moment Violet felt compunction.

But this weakness did not last long. Picking up the tray she made her way to the bedroom door. 'The best thing you can do, Bertha, is to lie there, think things over, and decide to mend your ways.'

And with this parting shot she made for the stairs.

The fact that Doreen Lilly was back in Lulling soon reached the ears of Violet and her sisters. As Charles surmised, they were determined never to let her into their house again.

It was at the next bingo session that Doreen's future employment was settled, and that was through the practical good sense of Mrs Jenner.

Nelly Piggott, Gladys Lilly and Mrs Jenner were enjoying a cup of coffee and bourbon biscuits during the interval in the bingo hall, discussing Doreen's plight.

'At least,' said Gladys, 'she's got the child enrolled at the play-school: Tuesdays and Thursdays from nine-thirty to twelve, so at least I'll have a few hours to myself.'

'If we had a vacancy at The Fuchsia Bush,' said Nelly, 'I'd give her some work there and could keep an eye on her for you, but the fact is we're fully staffed just now.'

'Would you like me to have a word with Jane?' enquired Mrs Jenner, putting down her cup. 'She sometimes likes some extra help with the old people. It might not be much, general cleaning probably, but it wouldn't be far for her to go, and she would be earning something.'

'That would be ideal,' said Gladys warmly, 'and she could pick up Bobby on the way home.'

'Well, I can't promise, of course,' said Mrs Jenner, 'but I'll speak to Jane, and she'll get in touch with Doreen, one way or the other, and your girl can decide if she likes the idea.'

'She'd better,' said Doreen's mother grimly, stacking the cups and saucers in readiness for the next half of the bingo session.

11. Where is Emily Cooke?

IT was Mrs Jenner's intention the next morning to go to visit her daughter Jane at Rectory Cottages, as soon as she had finished her breakfast. She always rose early, a legacy from her nursing days, and knew that she would find Jane, who had also trained as a nurse, well on the way with her morning duties among her elderly charges.

Mrs Jenner was putting away the last of the breakfast washing-up when there was a thumping noise at the back door. On opening it she was not unduly surprised to find Mrs Cooke who lived some quarter of a mile away on the road to Nidden.

Mrs Cooke was a byword in Thrush Green and Lulling. Her large family was known to most of the residents, the rector, the probation officers and the local police force. Very few months passed without a mention of one or another of the Cooke family in the local paper, usually concerning a hearing at the Lulling Magistrates' Court.

Mrs Jenner, as midwife, had attended several of Mrs Cooke's lying-ins, and later had been called into the house for various crises such as a broken arm, beads stuffed into infant Cookes' ears and noses, sudden rashes on Cooke chests, or lacerations on rather grubby Cooke feet.

She let in her agitated visitor and offered her the kitchen chair. What did she want now, wondered Mrs Jenner? Medical advice? Help with an official form? Money 'for the meter'? A cupful of sugar?

All these things and many more, had been asked for over the years, but today her visitor produced a crumpled piece of paper, and thrust it towards her.

She read:

'Gone of for a bit back by Satday
Nigel's
shoos need mending
Emily.'

'Oh dear!' said Mrs Jenner.

'Oh lor!' howled Mrs Cooke, throwing her apron up over her face and head, like someone at a wake in an Irish film. She began to sway back and forth emitting harsh cries of grief.

Mrs Jenner put on the kettle.

After a minute it began to hum comfortingly, and Mrs Cooke replaced her apron. The yells changed to sobs and hiccups, and Mrs Jenner reached for the recently emptied teapot.

'What she want to go and do this for?' sniffed the bereaved mother. 'Leaving me with all yesterday's washing-up.
And Nigel.'

'What's happened to Nigel?' asked Mrs Jenner, making the tea. 'Is he alone at your house?'

She knew from experience that any young Cooke left alone in a house could create havoc, and Nigel was no exception.

'I pushed him off to school,' said Mrs Cooke, 'afore I come up here.'

She accepted the cup of tea and spooned in three teaspoonfuls of sugar.

'Well, have you any idea why she's gone?'

'I blame St Giles for this,' said Mrs Cooke, stirring her tea morosely.

'What's he got to do with it?'

'Who?'

'St Giles.'

'St Giles'
Fair,
up Oxford. She
would
go. Took young Nigel too, and they never got back till past midnight. That's where she met this chap. He's at Oxford.'

'You mean he's one of the college boys?'

'No, no! He
works!
Up Cowley, I think.'

She sipped noisily at her tea cup, the hiccups subsiding.

Mrs Jenner studied the note again.

'I don't think there is much to worry about,' she told her visitor. 'She says she'll be back on Saturday. If she doesn't turn up then, you could tell the police.'

'Tell the police?
echoed Mrs Cooke indignantly. 'I don't want that lot scratting around! We're respectable folk.'

Mrs Jenner, with remarkable self-control, refrained from comment.

'I come up here really,' went on Mrs Cooke, 'to see if you'd heard anythin' about my girl. I knows your brother Perce takes an interest in her.'

Mrs Jenner realized with some shock that she had completely failed to link Emily with Percy. He had made so many attempts, over the past months, to find a companion that she had dismissed the rumours out of hand. In truth, she had little in common with her brother, and the two rarely met, although their gardens adjoined.

A terrible thought struck her: if Percy ever married Emily Cooke (heaven forbid), she would be related by marriage to this dreadful old woman before her.

'I know nothing of that,' she said as calmly as she could. 'If I were you I should leave things alone. Emily's old enough to know what she's doing, and ten chances to one she'll be back on Saturday as she says.'

Mrs Cooke gulped down the last of her tea, and stood up.

'Well that's that. Maybe you're right. Best wait and see.'

Mrs Jenner opened the back door for her.

'Oh, by the way,' said Mrs Cooke on the doorstep, 'you couldn't give me a lend of half a loaf? I was that upset about Emily I forgot the baker.'

Mrs Jenner returned to the kitchen, cut a loaf in half, put the bread into a paper bag and handed it, without a word, to the waiting woman.

'Ta ever so,' said Mrs Cooke, walking briskly to the gate.

Somewhat later than she had intended, Mrs Jenner arrived at Rectory Cottages. As she had expected, Jane was there sorting out a First Aid kit which was an important part of her warden's equipment.