(7/13) Affairs at Thrush Green (24 page)

Dimity said farewell to her charge with real regret. She patted the docile old lady as she sat meekly on the back seat of the car.

'Take these too, dear,' said Dimity handing over a basket. 'They will save Tom bothering with catering for a day or two.'

Charles drove circumspectly towards the river. The willow trees were pale gold in the autumn sunshine. Soon they would be stripped bare by the first winds of winter. Already there were drifts of crisp leaves beneath the beech and horse chestnut trees, and chrysanthemums and dahlias outnumbered the roses in Lulling's front gardens.

There was already a chill in the air at dawn and dusk. Dimity had lit the fire in the drawing room on several recent evenings. Far too soon the curtains would be drawn at tea time, and the long dark nights would be upon them.

Not that Charles was wholly sad at the prospect. There was something remarkably satisfying about the domestic side of winter. He enjoyed splitting the logs that Tom had supplied earlier in the year, before his illness had struck him down. He liked piling them in the hearth, ready for the evening's comfort. He relished the long hours of reading or listening to his beloved Mozart on their ancient record player.

Secretly too, he was relieved to see the garden at rest for a few months. He knew quite well that such a vast expanse would benefit from the attention of a full-time gardener, if not two, but Charles's salary would not rise to it. He was lucky to have Caleb's help and advice, but it was evident that the garden was not kept in the pristine state it had been during Anthony Bull's incumbency.

In the winter, with the curtains safely drawn across, the garden was hidden from Charles's eyes, and his self-reproach was lessened.

But although he relished the snugness of his new house and rejoiced to see Dimity so happy in it, the winter brought hardship outside. Despite the blessings of a welfare state, which Charles was the first to acknowledge, there were still families among his parishioners who were short of the basic needs of shelter, food and fuel. There were animals too who suffered, and this grieved the good rector sorely.

The wild birds who flocked around his bird table, the stray cat who came nightly from a neighbouring barn, were given his bounty and his blessing. But there were one or two dogs, chained to kennels, and a few poor farms where the sheep and cattle never seemed adequately fed and housed which touched Charles's tender heart. He spoke his mind to the owners of these unhappy creatures, for when his duty was clear Charles shirked nothing. Sometimes matters improved, sometimes not, and for all his flock, both human and animal, Charles knew that winter could be a cruel season.

As he approached Tom's cottage, basking in the thin sunshine, Polly began to show signs of excitement. She stood up on the seat, her nose pressed to the side window, and began to make curious little growling sounds which were new to Charles.

'Nearly home, Poll,' he told her. 'Soon see your master. Soon see old Tom, Poll.'

He drew into the grass verge, and fastened Polly's lead. The dog was now quivering with excitement and leapt from the car with more energy than Charles had ever seen.

She tugged so strongly that the rector was almost pulled of This feet. She began to bark, high frantic yelps of rapture, and at that moment the door opened and Tom stood there his arms wide in welcome.

Charles let go of the lead, and Polly raced across the gap between them, still yelping hysterically.

'Poll! Poll!'called Tom.

The old dog leapt upon him, almost knocking him down. Tom stooped to caress her, and she licked his face with her large pink tongue, making ecstatic little cries, and dancing on her back legs. Charles was much moved by this reunion.

'Well, Tom old boy, she knows who is her true master, doesn't she?'

'Ah! I knew she wouldn't forget. How's she behaved? Any trouble?'

'None at all,' Charles assured him, 'and we're both sorry to lose her.'

He paused on the threshold. The cottage was as spruce as ever, and Tom seemed quite strong, if somewhat thinner.

'I forgot the basket,' confessed Charles. 'You go in out of the wind, while I fetch it.'

By the time he returned, the old man was sitting in his wooden armchair with his feet propped up on a stool. Polly lay across his lap, almost covering him, with her head resting on his shoulder.

'You'll have to stay there for the rest of the day,' said Charles. 'It's quite apparent she's not going to let you get away again.'

'And I'm not going, sir, that's a fact. I'm managing well, and my good neighbour keeps things up together for me, and does a bit of shopping. I'll be all right now.'

Charles wondered if he should broach the subject of one of the new homes on Thrush Green, but felt that the matter could wait. He turned his attention to unpacking the basket instead.

Dimity had sent a home-made cake, some eggs and rashers and some kedgeree in a screw-top jar. There was also a packet of dog biscuits and the bone which Charles recognised as the residue from yesterday's leg of lamb.

'It seems you've both been provided for,' he said, setting out the provender. 'Now what can I do for you while I'm here? Do you want coal brought in, or anything fetched?'

'No indeed, sir. But if you like to put on the kettle, I'd be pleased to make you a cup of tea when I can get out from under this great silly of a dog.'

And the rector gladly obeyed.

The equinoctial gales came with unusual force, and the leaves came tumbling down. Housewives began looking out extra blankets and warmer underclothes, and those who had forgotten to order coal and logs during the summer, made hasty arrangements for quick deliveries.

'I don't like to sec it getting parky so early,' observed Mr Jones of The Two Pheasants. 'Makes you think of frosts, and my hanging baskets are still ablaze with colour. I don't relish bringing them in so soon.'

Next door at the school house Miss Watson and her assistant also deplored the sudden cold weather.

'We shall have to get the stove going if the weather stays like this,' said Dorothy. 'I must mention it to Betty.'

'But what about the office? You know they really frown upon the stoves being lit too early.'

'The office can lump it,' said Dorothy tartly. 'Good heavens, it's October this week, and I'm not having the children suffering. Nor you, Agnes, for that matter. You must be kept warm. We don't want you laid up again.'

'Oh, I shall be all right. My arthritis is really so much better since I've been doing my exercises.'

'Since you've been eating properly,' her friend corrected her. 'Which reminds me. I must leave those beef bones to simmer for stock before we go across to school. This weather makes one think of soup.'

Some half mile away, at Dotty Harmer's, Connie too was dealing with stock and was busy dicing vegetables to put in with a chicken carcase in Dotty's largest saucepan.

Kit had asked her to go with him to see yet another house, this time quite close at Nidden. He had arranged to pick her up at half past two. Dotty had declined the invitation, and said she preferred to take a nap but would see them at tea time.

As Connie chopped carrots and onions her spirits were high. She cherished this friendship with Kit, and knew it was something more than that on her part. As for Kit, who could say? He was cheerful, kindly, attentive and perceptive. She suspected, and hoped, that he too felt as she did. Farther than that she would not go in her thoughts, as things were at present.

One thing bothered her considerably. Why were the houses that he went to see so much too large for a bachelor? And why did he consider that so much garden was essential? Even if he proposed to marry again—and here Connie resolutely put aside the memory of the delectable Diana—there would be no children presumably. And he was not an avid gardener, nor a man who would consider keeping animals. Connie did not like to broach the subject, but it did perplex her.

Squalls of rain were veiling Lulling Woods when Kit arrived, and Dotty, snuggled under the eiderdown, was glad that she was not facing the elements.

'Something smells good,' commented Kit.

'Only stock,' Connie told him. i often think it smells better than a whole dinner cooking.'

'Mrs Jenner cooks a great saucepan of odds and ends for her chickens,' Kit remarked. 'The most delicious scent floats up to my flat. Makes me quite hungry. She mixes in some sort of stuff called "Karswood". I tell her she ought to dish it up for us, it must be good enough.'

He held her mackintosh while she put it on, and they set out to the car through the blustery weather.

Mr Jones's hanging baskets were swinging in the wind outside the pub. A window was banging at Albert Piggott's, and the playground of Thrush Green school was awash with puddles.

'What a beast of a day! I was hoping to show you this latest house in brilliant sunshine.'

'Is it a large house?'

'Four bedrooms. Two bathrooms, and just over an acre of ground. The paddock next to it is up for sale too.'

Connie could keep silence no longer.

'Do you really need anything so big?'

There was silence for a few moments, and Connie wondered if he were offended. His face was serious.

'No,' he said. 'I don't need anything as big. Not for myself.'

A most unwelcome vision of Diana Oliver floated momentarily before Connie's inward eye, blotting out the flicking windscreen wipers and the view beyond.

The road widened here, and a fine beech tree towered on the left hand side. Russet leaves eddied beneath it in the whirling rain.

Kit drew up beneath it and turned to face Connie.

'I should have said all this long before. I wanted you to see the houses because I hoped -1 dared to hope, let's say—that I might persuade you to live there with me. And Dotty too, of course.'

'Oh Kit!' said Connie, with a most unromantic hiccup. 'But what about Diana?'

'What Diana?' replied Kit, too much taken aback to bother about correct grammar.

'Diana Oliver,' said Connie, now hiccuping with unbecoming regularity.

'Good God!' cried Kit. 'She doesn't come into it! Anyway, she got married a month ago. I forgot to tell you.'

'I'm glad to hear it,' said Connie. She took a deep breath in order to quell the hiccups.

'Well, my dear, I am trying to ask you if you would think of marrying me. You must have known. I've been trying to say it for weeks!'

Connie looked at him, scarlet in the face from holding her breath. She let it go with a crescendo of hiccups.

'Think of it?' echoed Connie. 'I've thought of nothing else ever since we met.'

A hiccup interrupted her.

'Is that hopelessly unmaidenly? And don't worry about these damned hiccups. I always get them when I'm suddenly happy.'

Kit put his arms around her.

'There's nothing I like more than a hopelessly unmaidenly woman. And what you need is a lump of sugar. I shall carry some in my pocket for the rest of my days.'

Mrs Cooke, pedalling against the wind on her bicycle, was intensely interested in the sight of Mrs Jenner's respectable lodger locked in a close embrace with Dotty Harmer's niece.

'Fine goings-on,' she muttered to herself, as she struggled past the car. 'And both old enough to know better.'

She felt obliged to express her displeasure at the scene when she met Betty Bell on her way to her duties at the school. It was hardly surprising that the famous bush telegraph was humming before many hours had passed.

Bemused, the two elderly lovers drove to the house and followed its owner from one room to the next with unseeing eyes. They nodded vaguely at the conservatory ('very large'), the larder ('north-facing—always cool'), the four bedrooms ('all doubles, if the bed isn't too big') and the monkey-puzzle tree in the garden ('such a feature of the place').

The seller was surprised at their lack of interest, and even more surprised to see them holding hands.

'I take it you are married,' she said at last.

'Not yet,' replied Kit, with such a doting look at his companion, who occasionally emitted a hiccup, that their guide was quite scandalised.

They promised to let her know their decision in a day or two. She showed them to the front door with alacrity, and watched them battle through the rain to their car.

'Well!' she exclaimed as she shut the door. 'They talk about the young ones' behaviour! But what about that?'

Before they reached home, Connie bade Kit stop the car. Reason was beginning to return and almost succeeding in routing the bliss in which she was engulfed.

'We must talk before we go back to Aunt Dotty. You see, it's really out of the question for me to leave her.'

'I know that. That's why I've wanted plenty of ground for the animals, and a big enough place for her to have a room or two of her own.'

'Yes, I see it all now, and love you even more because of it. But still, it would never do, Kit.'

'Why on earth not?'

'I can't ask her to leave her own house. It would be like prising a snail's shell from its back. She's lived there for years now. She couldn't bear to be uprooted.'

Kit gazed at his affianced's troubled face. At least the return of reason, however damping, had stopped the hiccups. He thought she looked prettier than ever.