(3/13) News from Thrush Green (11 page)

As for Percy Hodge, he'd never notice a few wallflowers missing once the beds were planted. It was a chance too good to miss, Sam told himself.

Well content with his plans, he turned on his side, wrenched rather more of his share of the marital blankets from his wife's recumbent form, and settled to sleep.

9 Sam Curdle Tries His Tricks

ON the whole, Winnie Bailey found Richard's stay with them less punishing than she had first feared. Nevertheless, she was becoming heartily sick of his preoccupation with his alimentary canal, and said as much to her husband one day when her nephew was safely in Oxford about his affairs.

'Ignore it,' advised Dr Bailey.

'That's easier said than done,' said Winnie, knitting briskly. 'After all, I have to spend a great deal of time and thought on our meals, and it really is maddening to see him picking about like an old hen.'

'The boy wants more exercise,' said her husband. 'As far as I can see, the walk from the front door to the garage is about the sum total of his exertions. He's bound to be liverish.'

'Have a word with him,' begged Winnie. 'It really can't be good for him to be so introspective about his food, and honestly, it's driving me quite crazy.'

'I'll do my best,' promised her husband, but privately he had little hope of curing a hypochondriac so easily.

His chance came a day or two later when Winnie was out at an evening meeting of the Lulling Field Club, accompanied by her old friend Dotty Harmer. Winnie had left cold chicken and ham, and a fresh green salad for the menfolk, with a delicious orange trifle for their pudding. She herself would be dining on two Marie biscuits and a cup of weak tea, as the Lulling meeting began at 7.00 p.m. and these exciting refreshments would be served at half-time - somewhere about 8.15 p.m. This was the usual pattern of evening meetings in Lulling and Thrush Green, and accounted for the internal rumblings of hungry stomachs which invariably accompanied local lectures and whist drives.

Dr Bailey helped his nephew to the meat which his wife had left neatly sliced on the dish.

'Oh, far less than that, please,' begged Richard. 'Somehow I seem to be averse to flesh these days.'

The doctor obligingly transferred two small slices to his own plate.

He watched Richard turning over the salad. Now that Winnie had made him aware of the young man's foibles, he noticed how anxiously he picked over the greenery, selecting a lettuce leaf here, a sprig or two of cress there and taking care to miss the sliced cucumber which hid among the leaves.

'Averse to cucumber too?' asked the older man pleasantly. 'I always enjoy cucumber, I must confess.' He helped himself generously.

'Aunt Winnie's food is always delicious, but I don't seem to get as hungry as I used to do. And then, of course, I like to keep to Otto's diet. I'm sure he's in advance of his time in these matters.'

'You need more exercise,' said the doctor.

'I agree, my dear uncle. I couldn't agree more. As you know, I've had to cut down my walking time since I've been engaged on this Oxford project, and I certainly feel all the worse for it,' replied Richard vigorously. 'It's one of the reasons why I try to cut down on my intake of food.'

'You probably worry too much about your work at the moment. Nothing like worry to deaden the appetite. You should take life more easily.'

Richard, chewing his lettuce as conscientiously as Mr Gladstone, looked gratified. Rarely did he get any active encouragement to talk about his health. To have the attention of a medical man, even a medical man with ideas as antiquated as his uncle's, was wholly delightful. He became more confidential, encouraged not only by the doctor's interest but also by the absence of his aunt.

'I think you are quite right, uncle. Otto seemed to think that I was a shade too highly-strung. He suggested that marriage might help. It relieves tension, you know.'

'It can increase it,' observed the doctor drily, dabbing his lips with his napkin. 'A lot depends on one's wife.'

'I have been thinking about it,' continued Richard, brushing aside his uncle's comment. 'It looks as though I shall need to settle in London within the next year or so, and it would be wise, I think, to buy a small house. A wife would be very useful domestically. I'm no hand at cleaning and cooking, I'm afraid.'

'You could always get a housekeeper,' said Dr Bailey, with a touch of asperity.

'I was thinking of Otto's advice. He seemed to think that I needed a comfortable settled background in order to do my best work. And although I don't consciously miss it, busy as I am with my research, he assures me that I am deeply deprived sexually.'

'You could always get a mistress too,' said Dr Bailey, even more frostily. His thin fingers drummed on the edge of the table. Winnie would have known that he was becoming very angry indeed. Richard blundered on.

'I dislike the idea,' he said primly. 'And frankly, uncle, I'm surprised that you suggest it. No, I feel sure that I'm ready for marriage. After all, I shall be thirty-three next birthday. I think it's time I found a wife.'

'You may have some difficulty,' said Dr Bailey.

'Really?' Richard was genuinely surprised. 'I don't want to appear conceited, but I'm reasonably healthy and good-looking, and as for prospects - well, I think I can safely say that I shall be at the top of my particular tree within the next five years.'

The older man hit the table so sharply that the glasses jumped.

'Richard, will you never grow up?'

His nephew looked at him with startled blue eyes.

'You seem to view marriage purely as a panacea for your own ills,' continued the doctor, his cheeks flushed with exasperation. 'You talk as though a wife were a cross between a box of tranquillising pills and a Hoover.
Not once
have you mentioned affection, respect or mutual happiness. D'you think any girl worth her salt is going to take you on, on your terms? Believe me, Richard, you're the one that will remain single if all you are offering are the attractions you've just mentioned.'

'Uncle—' began Richard, in protest, but he was ignored.

'I must say it, my boy, hard though it sounds. You are as bone-selfish now as you were at seven years' old, and you've grown no wiser with the years. Marriage might well do you a power of good - heaven knows you need humanising somehow - but I pity the girl who ever takes you on.'

The doctor raised his glass and sipped some water. Across the table his nephew sat transfixed, a slightly sulky look replacing the one of utter surprise.

'I'm sorry I should have upset you,' he said stiffly at last. 'I had no idea I was so objectionable.'

'Oh, tut-tut!' said Dr Bailey testily. 'Don't get in a huff over a bit of straight talking. You've got your good points, my boy, as we all have-but unselfishness is not among them at the moment. You think over what I've said now.'

He reached for the trifle.

'Let me give you a helping of this, Richard. Dr Goldstein would approve, I feel sure.'

But Richard was not to be mollified by a helping of trifle or a quip about his medical adviser. He rose from the table, his whole demeanour expressing acutely wounded dignity.

'No, thank you, uncle. My appetite has completely vanished after those remarks. If you'll excuse me, I will go for a walk.'

'You couldn't do better,' said the doctor cheerfully. 'And take an alka-seltzer before you go to bed. You'll be as right as a trivet in the morning.'

When Winnie returned, Richard was still out.

'Walking somewhere,' said her husband, in answer to her enquiries. 'Getting over the sulks. We had that little talk you suggested.'

'Oh, Donald, you haven't upset him, have you?'

'I rather hope so. We went from food to marriage. Richard seems to think that a wife might be a useful cure for his constipation and save him from doing his own chores.'

'Donald! Is that all?'

'That's what I asked him. He's out now, I fancy, trying to find the answer.'

Next door, at Tullivers, Harold Shoosmith continued his assault on the neglected border. Some days had elapsed since his first visit, and on his second he was surprised to see that the narrow bed under the dining-room window had been planted with healthy wallflower plants.

'Your handiwork?' he asked.

'Yes. Are they put in properly? Not too close, are they?'

'No, they're just right. Very fine specimens too. They put my own to shame. Where did you buy them?'

'As a matter of fact,' said Phil, 'a sandy-haired man came to the door with them while you were in London. I can't remember his name - but he's often about. He helps old Piggott sometimes, I think.'

'Sam Curdle,' said Harold grimly.

Phil looked at him anxiously.

'Why, what's wrong?'

'What did he ask for them?'

'I paid him ten shillings for two dozen. Was that too much?'

'Much too much, my dear. Especially as he probably pinched them in the first place.'

'Damn!' said Phil softly, thrusting her hands into her coat pockets and surveying the border ruefully. 'I might have known. What shall I do? If these have been lifted from someone else's garden, they'll be furious.'

'Leave it to me,' replied Harold. 'I'll have a word with Sam Curdle. He's no business to charge more than two shillings a dozen anyway, and well he knows it. Don't have any dealing with that chap. You'll be done every time.'

'I'll watch him in future,' promised Phil. 'How I do hate to be fooled!'

'Who doesn't?' smiled Harold, moving off to his digging.

Sam Curdle's peccadillo, as it happened, had already been discovered. Percy Hodge had a farmer's sharp eye, and a pretty shrewd idea of how twelve dozen plants would look in the garden beds allotted to Sam's care. It did not take him long to discover that they were fairly sparsely planted. He confronted Sam the morning after the sheep sale.

Sam denied the charge.

'You be allus down on us Curdles,' he complained, a gypsy whine creeping into his voice. 'Every blessed plant as was outside your back door I planted, as God's my Saviour.'

'Fat lot of saving you'll get,' said Percy Hodge roundly. 'There's a good score or more plants missing, and I want them back. Understand?'

'How'm I to get 'em? I tell you, sir, they're all set in, as you can see.'

'You get them back, Curdle, or tell me what's happened to 'em. You can take yourself and your missus off my land if I don't get the rights of this business. You had fair warning when I let you come into the yard.'

'You be a hard man,' whimpered Sam. In truth, he was more frightened of his wife's reaction to the news than his master's threats. Bella could be ferocious in anger, and Sam still bore the scars of marital battle from earlier engagements with his wife.

At that moment, the telephone rang and Percy Hodge strode indoors to answer it, leaving Sam to his thoughts.

For the rest of that day, and the next, Sam puzzled over his problem. Not for a minute did he consider telling the truth. Such a straightforward course was completely foreign to Sam's devious temperament. Somehow he must slide out of this tangle of trouble and, more important still, without Bella finding out.

Fate was against him. Percy Hodge and Harold Shoosmith met on the evening of Harold's discovery at Tullivers. Both men were on their way to the post-box at the corner of Thrush Green. After the usual greetings, and comment on the weather, Harold came to the point.

'Is Sam Curdle still with you?'

'Yes, indeed, the rogue. But he'll not be with me much longer, I fancy. He's up to his old tricks. Pinching wallflower plants this time.'

'I'll show you where they are,' said Harold, and led the way across the road to Tullivers.

It was beginning to get dark, but the sturdy plants, so carefully put in by Phil, were clearly to be seen. The two men gazed at them over the gate.

'D'you know what he got for them?' asked Percy, turning away. The two men moved towards the green.

'He fleeced Mrs Prior of ten shillings,' said Harold. 'It's despicable.'

'She must be a green 'un,' commented the farmer. Harold's wrath kindled.

'She is a Londoner. One wouldn't expect her to know the price of plants. And Sam Curdle knew that well enough!'

Percy Hodge looked at his companion curiously.

'No offence, old man. I'm not trying to excuse Sam. He's a twister right enough, and he'll get his marching orders in the morning.'

'I can let you have a couple of dozen plants,' said Harold, more coolly, 'if you're short. It seems a pity to worry Mrs Prior about this. She was upset when I told her my suspicions.'

'Well, that's very handsome of you, but I've got all I need really. Tell the lady to leave them where they are, and not to worry her head about the matter. I'll deal with our Sam, you mark my words.'

They walked across to the Land Rover which the farmer had left in the chestnut avenue, and bade each other a cheerful good night.

'That was a rum thing,' mused Percy Hodge to himself, as he drove up the shadowy lane to Nod and Nidden. 'I shouldn't wonder if old Harold Shoosmith isn't a bit sweet on that young woman. Ah well, no fool like an old fool!'