(8/13) At Home in Thrush Green (24 page)

It was while she was doing just this one chilly January morning, that Miss Fuller walked in, somewhat timidly, clutching a large envelope.

'Do hope I'm not interrupting,' she said, surveying the half-dozen children clustered round Miss Watson's desk, forefingers clamped to a line in their readers.

'Not at all,' said Dorothy graciously. 'Go to your desks, children, and carry on quietly.'

'I thought that you might find a use for these Christmas cards,' said Miss Fuller, proffering the envelope.

'Now, that is most kind of you,' said Dorothy, turning over the angels, reindeer, wise men, cats and dogs, all in happy medley. 'With these dreadful cuts in expenditure, it's a very welcome present, believe me. We can make all sorts of good things.'

Miss Fuller flushed with pleasure.

'I must admit, it's lovely to be back in the classroom again, if only for a few minutes. What were you doing with that little group when I came in?'

Miss Watson explained about the backward readers.

'I was rather hoping to get some remedial work when I'd settled,' responded Miss Fuller. 'Just part-time, you know.'

Miss Watson thought quickly, and replied with her usual frankness.

'As things are, I can't see the office expending any more money on extra staff, but we could certainly do with a hand at the moment with this reading effort.'

'Oh, I had no thought of payment,' said Miss Fuller, not quite truthfully. 'But if you really think I could help them I should be more than happy to come for an hour or so during the week.'

'It's a splendid offer,' said Dorothy, and her response was wholly truthful. 'I'll talk it over with the others, and call on you, if I may.'

The ladies parted with expressions of gratitude. Miss Fuller looked quite bright-eyed as she waved at the door, and Dorothy returned to her desk with much to consider.

She must inform the office of Miss Fuller's suggestion, she felt, and then have a word at playtime with her two colleagues.

Not that they would have any objection, she felt sure, to such an experienced teacher as Miss Fuller giving them a brief respite from the efforts of backward readers.

Who would, thought Dorothy, beckoning to the group with a sinking heart?

'There's just one thing,' ventured Agnes that evening. 'Much as I respect Muriel Fuller, I do feel that she can be a trifle – er – perhaps just a little –'

'Bossy?' said Dorothy. 'I've thought of that. She's not going to tell me how to run my school, just because she's been a headmistress. In any case, there were less than twenty on roll at one time at Nidden.'

'How well you sum up things!'

'She could have the staff room for her reading sessions. Five children for half an hour, I thought. If she's willing to give us two hours a week, say, it should fit in very well.'

'Which days does she want to come?'

'I'll have to discuss it with her, but if it fits in with her own plans, I suggest Tuesdays and Thursdays, after morning play. She can have her coffee with us, and then carry on when we've gone back to our classrooms.'

'It sounds splendid.'

'Well, time alone will tell,' said Dorothy. 'But it was most kind of her to bring her Christmas cards. I think we'll ask the children in assembly tomorrow morning to bring theirs too. What a lot we can do with such bounty! It's really rather depressing to have to eke out the painting paper and gummed squares in such a Scrooge-like fashion. Now, we can turn our attention to scrap books and wall pictures, and perhaps a screen. I've always wanted to make a screen!'

Agnes smiled indulgently at such enthusiasm. Really, Dorothy was quite a child at heart. Perhaps all teachers of young children were, she thought, with a flash of insight?

By mid-January the weather had deteriorated into bitterly cold conditions, with an icy north-easter and an overcast sky presaging snow to come.

The last few shrivelled leaves were ripped from the bare branches and skittered about the frozen roads and icy puddles. The birds flocked round the back doors and bird tables, hungry for any largesse that was going.

The hips and haws, the berries of the pyracanthas and cotoneaster were now being attacked ruthlessly, and the half-coconut hanging outside in the playground seemed to have a little posse of tits on it all through the day.

Winter ills now descended upon young and old alike, as well as the wretched chickenpox. Isobel and Harold Shoosmith took to their beds with influenza, managing to stagger in turns to heat soup or milk for each other while the plague lasted.

Jenny had a raging sore throat which John Lovell shook his head over, and spoke darkly about having her tonsils out before long. And Dimity and Charles Henstock found themselves suffering from chilblains, which neither had endured since childhood. They were now stuffing themselves with calcium lactate tablets, and rubbing their afflicted fingers and toes with ointment.

'No good taking calcium lactate now,' their kind friends assured them. 'You should have been taking a course all through the summer.'

'How people do enjoy others' misfortunes,' mused Charles to Dimity, when the third person that day had told them of the uselessness of expecting calcium lactate to work a miracle cure, it doesn't give one much hope, does it?'

'Never mind,' said Dimity, it makes them feel comfortably superior, and it really makes no difference to us. To be honest, I'm
quite sure
I'm better since we started the tablets.'

'Perhaps it's faith healing,' said Charles.

'And what's wrong with that?' cried Dimity triumphantly. 'You know it is
right
to have faith. And in any case, I don't mind
what
sort of healing it is as long as the chilblains go.'

Ada and Bertha Lovelock were in bed with bronchitis, and Violet did her best to provide rather thin soup, and a succession of depressing 'cold shapes' which were a Lovelock dessert speciality, for the invalids. Luckily, the Lulling doctor, surveying his patients' emaciated frames, suggested that suitable meals might be sent in from The Fuchsia Bush next door.

This, he told Violet, was to ensure that she herself did not succumb, but his advice was taken, and once a day a tray of succulent, but easily digested, dishes appeared, and was borne aloft by Gloria or Rosa to the two old ladies.

'Perishing cold it is in there too,' they remarked to Nelly. 'All they've got in the bedroom is a one-bar electric fire, and a stone hot water bottle apiece.'

Nevertheless, the good food, and their own indomitable constitutions, helped them to recover in record time.

***

At the old people's homes, the only real casualty was Tom Hardy who also went down with bronchitis, but Jane insisted that he stayed in bed, supplied him with an extra-thick cardigan of Bill's to wear as a bed-jacket, and generally cossetted the old man.

His chief worry was Polly. Was she getting her walk regularly? Was she having the tablets the vet recommended? Had anyone brushed her coat? The ruff round her neck was inclined to tangle.

John Enderby undertook these duties cheerfully, and kept his neighbour company, teaching him to play chess and keeping him informed about all the news of Thrush Green.

He himself had offered to give Ella Bembridge a hand in her garden, and gladly had she accepted.

'Not that there's much to do at the moment,' he told Tom one bitterly cold afternoon, 'but I did the rose pruning for her, and I'm going to spread the muck from the compost on her vegetable patch. She does well enough, for a woman, but don't dig as deep as she should. I'll soon get the place to rights.'

Jane Cartwright had seen this development with the greatest satisfaction. This was what was needed to settle her charges. Mrs Bates was as happy as a sandboy with her little weekly silver cleaning, Miss Fuller had found herself a couple of hours' teaching at the school, and now Johnny was doing something which used his skills and, even more important, made him feel needed. It looked as if things were looking up at Rectory Cottages after earlier teething troubles, and Jane felt mightily relieved.

The day of Kit and Connie's departure was as cold as ever, but mercifully clear and bright, and the flight was due to go at the time announced, much to their relief.

Harold had offered to take them to the airport, but was still suffering from influenza. As it was a Saturday, Ben Curdle offered to take his place, and Harold knew that he would take even more care of his car than he would himself, and agreed gratefully.

'Well, you're lucky to be going to the sunshine,' said Ben, whose idea of anywhere abroad was of coral beaches, palm trees and continuous sunlight. it should be warmer than this,' agreed Kit, 'but we'll be lucky to see much sun in Venice at this time of year. Still, it's such a beautiful city, and with dozens of lovely buildings and pictures to look at, we shall have plenty to do.'

It did not sound much of a holiday to Ben, but people had their own ideas of fun. Look at all those people who went ski-ing in deep snow and ended up, more often than not, with their legs in plaster. Give him a deckchair on the beach with an ice cream cornet, thought Ben, taking the turning to Heathrow.

The place was a seething mass of agitated people, piles of luggage and a formidable block of traffic.

Kit took charge with his usual calm authority.

'I'll get a trolley, Ben, if you could get the cases out of the boot. Connie dear, just mind the hand luggage and stay here by this door. I want Ben to get away as quickly as possible with Harold's car. I can't imagine anything worse than getting it damaged before we set off.'

He hurried away and Ben went to the rear of the car.

Connie gazed despairingly at the throng of people. What an unnerving sight! If only she could go back with Ben to the peace of Thrush Green!

'Oh, Ben,' she cried, 'you will let us know if anything goes wrong at home, won't you? I'm really horribly worried about my aunt. She's not quite – not quite –' she faltered.

'Miss Harmer will be as right as rain,' said Ben, with his slow sweet smile. 'We'll
all
be looking after her, don't you fret.'

Calmed and relieved, Connie returned his smile. One could quite see why Molly had married him, Ben would be a tower of strength in any crisis.

'Here we are!' called Kit triumphantly, piling cases on a trolley. 'Practically there!'

'Yes, they went off all right,' he said to Molly on his return. 'She was a bit panicky at the last minute about Dotty, but I told her she'd be fine.'

'I think she will,' said Molly slowly, 'but I wouldn't want to be in that Mrs Ellis's shoes, not for all the tea in China.'

17 Nelly Piggott Meets the Past

CONNIE need not have had any fears, for the two ladies settled down very well together.

It was true that Dotty, with her usual forthrightness, had taken it upon herself to put certain matters straight, but after a day or two's adjustment, harmony reigned.

The first clash had come when Vi, slipping back into hospital language, had said, as she tucked a shawl round her charge's shoulders: 'There, dear, we don't want to get a chill, do we?'

Dotty looked at her with some hauteur.

'When you use the word "we", are you using it in the editorial, or royal, sense? Or are you simply referring to the two of us—you and me?'

After that, Vi was more careful.

She was touched too to get a telephone call from Connie on the night of their arrival in Venice. Although she privately considered it overwhelmingly extravagant, she was proud and pleased to get Connie's appreciation of her services.

Dotty had her own conversation with Connie once the preliminaries were over.

'Oh, we're doing splendidly, dear. So glad the flight was satisfactory and the plane wasn't hi-jacked. It must be so tiresome when that happens, and. if people are firing off guns in such a confined space, the noise must be indescribable. Yes, dear, Mrs Ellis is unpicking my Florentine stitch cushion cover, and I'm doing the crossword. Do you know the anagram of
DAIRYCATS
? Of course,
CARYATIDS
! That will help a lot. We're having poached eggs for supper. Goodbye, dear, and my fondest love to you both.'

She smiled across at her companion.

'Now, wasn't that thoughtful of her?'

'It was indeed. It's good to know that they arrived safely.'

Dotty suddenly looked agitated.

'Oh dear! I believe I said we were to have
poached
eggs for supper, but now I come to think of it, I think you suggested
scrambled.
'

'I can cook whichever you prefer,' said Vi.

'Then let's make it poached eggs. You see, I shouldn't like Connie to be imagining us eating poached if we were actually eating scrambled eggs. I should feel rather dishonourable. '

'Then we'll certainly poach the eggs,' said Vi kindly, 'if you would feel happier about it.'

'I would indeed, Mrs Ellis. Incidentally, would you be offended if I called you Vi?'

'I should like it.'

'Then you may call me "Dotty". Most of my friends seem to think it a very suitable name for me, though I can't think why.'