(11/13) Celebrations at Thrush Green (12 page)

Perhaps, after all, April was a perfect month. It combined the outdoor joys of spring and the equally enjoyable pleasure of the domestic fireside. Her favourite month was still May, she told herself, but meanwhile she would be very content to take all that April offered.

Later that evening, stretched out by the welcome fire, their feet on footstools, Harold and Isobel exchanged the news of the day.

'And to see the sea again was a bonus,' added Isobel when she had described the old friends' welcome, and Winnie's pleasure at seeing them again. 'I wish we were neater. Nothing can beat a walk on the sands, or on a cliff top.'

'My walk,' said Harold, 'was much less exciting. Just along Lulling High Street to get some half-inch screws. Still, I did bump into the Lovelock sisters.'

'And what were they doing?'

'Going into the Fuchsia Bush for their lunch, I gather. We had quite a gossip. They were very good about lending me that pamphlet of their father's.'

He began to look rather uneasy, and cleared his throat before speaking again.

'I thought — er — I wondered if it might be nice to invite them up for tea one day.'

'Nice for whom?'

'Oh, come on, darling! Don't be awkward. I just felt we should do something about them as they helped me with that essay abut Octavius.'

Isobel smiled forgivingly. 'They can come, but you know how I feel about those dreadful old harpies. We shall have to hide all the bits of silver from their beady eyes.'

'Oh, and I saw Charles. He and Dimity are going to a concert at the Barbican.'

'Good heavens! How dashing of them!'

'Robert Wilberforce has invited them. Evidently he's down in London for a day or two on business.'

'I hope Charles isn't thinking of driving. Parking's bad enough in Lulling, let alone London.'

'No. They're going up by train, he said, and Robert is meeting them at Paddington. I'm so glad for them. They get away so seldom. They seem really excited.'

'Well,' said Isobel, yawning. 'I think it's bedtime. It's been a long day, and I've a lot to do tomorrow.'

'Don't forget to ring the Lovelocks,' Harold reminded her.

'I'm not likely to forget that,' Isobel told him tartly.

8. Plans Go Ahead

A
S THE
summer term progressed, preparations for Thrush Green school's centenary celebrations started to take shape.

Few preparations were necessary for the school's part in the church service, or in the general joint celebrations, in which it would participate with even greater fervour, one suspected, but the Victorian day at the school needed more particular care.

Alan Lester called upon the Parent-Teacher Association to co-ordinate the plans. It was as well, he thought, to get the formidable Mrs Gibbons on his side without more ado, and in any case it was only right and proper that they should take an active part.

Many of the parents were old pupils. Some grandparents were, too, and although of course, there was no one alive who could remember the school as it was in 1892, there were a number who had heard their own parents and grandparents talking of their schooldays. This sense of continuity in a small community touched Alan Lester deeply.

He was delighted at the general enthusiasm for the idea of a Victorian schoolday when he spoke to the assembled company one evening.

Mrs Gibbons, in the chair, occasionally raised a query, but he felt it was more as a way of reminding them all that she was in charge, rather than from a genuine desire to alter the arrangements.

'The daily timetable for that period,' Alan told the gathering, 'is clearly set out in the first log book, and I have left it open on the desk, in front of Mrs Gibbons, so that you can have a look at it later.'

Mrs Gibbons tapped the stout volume in a proprietorial manner. 'Only
three
at a time,' she said. 'Otherwise it will be difficult to study it. And
after
these proceedings, of course.'

'Of course,' agreed Alan, giving her the smile which disarmed even such dragons as the present chairman.

'The biggest problem,' he went on, 'is finding the right furniture of the time. There were long desks for six pupils then, and of course most of them vanished long ago. I have discovered a couple at Nidden school which closed some time ago, and I think we can borrow them.'

'There's one in my dad's garage,' said one mother. 'He bought it off of the chap as was at the sale years ago.'

'And the chapel's got a couple in the back kitchen,' called another. 'They keeps the tea urns and china and that on 'em.'

'They did have one up the cricket pavilion,' said a third, 'but some kids got in and scandalized it one night. Daubed paint on it. Might be all right if you could get the paint off of it.'

'This is marvellous news,' exclaimed Alan, turning the smile on Mrs Gibbons, who had begun to tap her pencil vigorously on his desk to draw attention to the fact that questions were not being addressed to the chair.

One would have imagined, thought Alan, still smiling, that any chairman in Thrush Green, or any other village community for that matter, would be quite resigned to the general conversation which took over proceedings every now and again.

'I must say,
through the chair'
he said, 'how grateful I am for these suggestions. I shall follow them up, and if anyone has any news of other contemporary school fittings I should be delighted to hear about them. If not, we might get some made.'

Mrs Gibbons smiled graciously and the pencil stopped tapping. 'Now, about clothes,' she said briskly. 'Mr Lester has pictures of the sort of thing the children would have worn then. The Misses Lovelock have kindly lent some old family photos. They are on the wall there. You might like to study them when you come,
three at a time,
to see the log book.'

'The urn's bubbling,' said someone. 'Shall I make the coffee?'

A look of exasperation passed over the chairman's face, but she spoke patiently. 'Very well. Better perhaps to have our refreshments now, and we can clear everything away before looking at the display material.'

Within five minutes there was a cheerful racket of gossip and coffee cups, and Mrs Gibbons turned to Alan Lester, who was now sharing the desk with her.

'All going very well, I think,' she commented.

'Very well indeed,' Alan agreed sincerely.

Although the Henstocks' trip to London had been generally noted and approved by the residents of Lulling and Thrush Green, it was some time before Harold and Isobel heard the details of that memorable evening.

They were sitting in the Shoosmiths' garden one balmy evening of early summer enjoying the scent of pinks in the border and the sharp fragrance from the Albertine rose on the wall.

'Beautiful music,' enthused Charles. '
Real
music, you know, Haydn and Vivaldi, or one of those thumpy bits from Handel that you ought to know and never do.'

'It was Bach, dear,' said Dimity. 'And Robert took us to a very good Italian restaurant just off the Strand. So welcoming the owners were. A family concern, with Papa and Mama, and I should think Grandpapa in that basket chair, wouldn't you, Charles?'

'Definitely,' agreed Charles, 'and such delicious food. It really was a great treat for us.'

'And so nice to see Dulcie Mulloy again,' added Dimity.

'So she was there,' commented Isobel, refilling glasses.

'Yes, she works in the City and met us at the restaurant.'

'By the way, Robert had more news of the Fennel family. You know that our Octavius's money came from the Lancashire cotton trade originally?'

'Yes, I remember. We wondered if he might feel guilty about it.'

'He was looking up a name in his local directory in the Fs, and came across some Fennels. He was talking to his doctor a day or so later and he told him that quite a few wealthy Fennels retired to the Lake District. One of the survivors was one of his patients, who lived in a hideous Victorian mock-castle built by one of his rich forebears near Windermere.'

'How extraordinary!' exclaimed Harold. 'And are they related to our Octavius? It's an unusual name.'

'Robert went to see him. Yes, he is vaguely related, I gather. He's in his nineties, a bachelor, very frail, and living in part of the old house. He was most interested in all Robert had to tell him.'

'Had he ever met Octavius?'

'No. But his father had visited Octavius several times and thought a great deal of him.'

'And what about the other Lake District Fennels?'

'Distantly connected evidently, but no contact. Different generations, and not in touch with the old man Robert met. He wants to be kept informed about our celebrations. I wonder if we should invite him?'

'Would he come? He sounds rather past travelling,' said Harold.

Charles nodded thoughtfully. 'Nevertheless, I think I will send him an invitation when I get round to sending them out. Incidentally, I have sent a copy of the parish magazine to Nathaniel's African mission station, to show them that we are celebrating their opening.'

'Good!' said Harold. 'It all sounds very exciting, and your evening was a fruitful one. What was the journey like?'

'Very simple, thanks to Robert. He met us at Paddington and took us back there after the concert. I fear we must have taken him out of his way.'

'You see,' explained Dimity, 'he insisted on taking Dulcie home to her flat in north London, after dropping us off. She said she could easily go back on the Tube, as she does every day, but Robert didn't like the idea. He was quite firm, wasn't he, Charles?'

'Indeed he was! He said he thought that women should be escorted home safely, particularly after dark. He was rather anxious about Dulcie on our first meeting at the vicarage, you may recall, because she had to set off rather late.'

'I well remember,' replied Isobel.

It wss agreed that the invitations should go out early.

'It's amazing,' said Charles, 'how quickly one's diary gets filled, and after all i October will soon come round.'

There were not many personal invitations, for everyone in Thrush Green and Lulling had been apprised of the date and of the welcome awaiting them at the celebrations.

But Robert Wilberforce, as the person who had discovered the letters and the diary, headed the list, and Dulcie Mulloy, as a direct descendant, came next, and the aged and unseen Mr Fennel in the Lake District was also invited, and a few others.

Harold himself wrote to the head of the mission station and hoped that he or anyone else interested might be able to make the journey to join them, and offered hospitality in his own home. But somehow he doubted if anyone from so far away would undertake the trip.

The question of raising money for a modest memorial to the two men had been discussed. Charles, from the first, had felt that the offerings on the Sunday nearest i October should be used for such a scheme, and it had been decided to plant two trees, one for Nathaniel and the other for Octavius, as part of the celebrations.

It was a chance remark of Alan Lester's, some time after the Parent-Teacher meeting, which made Charles and Harold wonder if more could not be done, and when letters arrived from the African mission station, the three men met at the Shoosmiths' to make some plans.

'I suppose I set the ball rolling,' confessed Alan. 'I let the children send a card to the children at the mission school, telling them briefly about our festivities here. I had a long letter back from the head there, and he asked us to write regularly.'

He put a packet of leaflets about the project and the letter on the coffee table in front of them.

'I've had these, too,' said Charles, handling the leaflets, 'but my letter came later separately.'

Harold had also received a letter from the mission's head. 'They don't feel that they can send anyone on the day in question, as they will be holding their own celebration, of course, but when the head gets leave later he will come and see us, he says.'

'What's quite apparent,' said Alan, 'is their own centenary project of adding a room to the present school so that they can admit younger children. Can we afford to send them something towards that?'

'It's a nice idèa,' commented Harold. 'Let's have a really rousing fundraising effort.' He looked at Charles.

'It is indeed,' said the rector thoughtfully, 'but I felt from the start that we shouldn't look upon this affair as a money-making project. That's why I sincerely hope that the church offerings on that Sunday will cover the cost of the two trees, and in any case we can supplement the sum from the Free-Will offering fund, if need be.'

'I think everyone appreciates that,' agreed Harold, 'but nevertheless I have had one or two people offering a contribution if we are collecting funds. Robert Wilberforce for one. He says that he has had such pleasure in being involved with this fresh slant on the lives of Nathaniel and Octavius. There will be others.'

'Mrs Gibbons,' added Alan, 'I suppose I should say the Parent-Teacher Association, wants to give something to the school to celebrate the centenary, and we proposed to have a bird bath in the playground. But there might possibly be some money over.'

'I think the best thing to do,' said Charles slowly, 'would be to leave it to individuals to do as they please. No pressurizing. Perhaps a note in the parish magazine, and a box in the church and elsewhere for any donations? Let's see what sort of response we get, and we can decide then about any help towards the new schoolroom.'

'I think that's wise,' agreed Harold. 'But there's just one thing. I feel that any cash given to our own school should remain for the school's needs. If parents like to give to the boxes or at the church service, well and good, but we must not lose sight of our own centenary.'

And on this note the informal meeting broke up.

Thrush Green looked at its best in the summer, thought Winnie, looking from her front garden across the expanse of green to the Two Pheasants.

Mr Jones had six hanging baskets full of geraniums, lobelias and fuchsias adorning the front of the public house. In the great tub by the front door a blaze of petunias showed up against the background of creamy Cotswold stone. Winnie recalled the Christmas tree with its twinkling lights which had stood there in December, and remembered, too, how wretched she had felt with her internal troubles.