(9/13)The School at Thrush Green

The School at Thrush Green

Miss Read

Illustrations by John S. Goodall

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston • New York

First Houghton Mifflin paperback edition 2008

Copyright © 1987 by Miss Read

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue South,
New York, New York 10003.

www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Read, Miss
The school at Thrush Green
I. Title
PR
6069.
A
42
S
36 1988 823'.914 88-9329
ISBN
0-395-46108-1

ISBN
978-0-618-88442-1 (pbk.)

Printed in the United States of America

DOC
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To
Betty and Vic
with love

Contents

Part One
Time To Go

1 Rough Weather 3

2 Dorothy Watson Takes Steps 16

3 News Travels Fast 27

4 Spring Plans 39

5 Personal Problems 52

6 What Shall We Give Them ? 64

Part Two
Battling On

7 Spring at Thrush Green 79

8 Cat Trouble 91

9 School House For Sale 103

10 The Accident 116

11 Decisions 126

12 Viewing the School House 139

13 Bingo Gossip 150

Part Three
Journey's End

14 Trying Times 165

15 Agnes Is Upset 176

16 A Trip to Barton-on-Sea 187

17 Summer Heat 199

18 An Intruder 213

19 The Drought Breaks 223

20 Last Days 235

Part One

Time To Go

1. Rough Weather

'JANUARY,' said Miss Watson, 'gives me the jim-jams!'

She jerked the sitting-room curtains together, shutting out the view of Thrush Green.

Firelight danced on the walls of the snug room, and shone upon the face of her friend Agnes Fogerty as she placed a log carefully at the top of the blazing coals.

The two ladies had lived in the school house at Thrush Green for several years, and had been colleagues for even longer. It was a happy relationship, for each middle-aged teacher felt respect and affection for the other.

In most matters Dorothy Watson, as headmistress, took command. She was a forthright and outspoken woman whose energy and enthusiasm had enriched the standing of Thrush Green school. As mistress of the school house she also took precedence over her companion when it came to any domestic decisions, and Agnes Fogerty was content that it should be so.

It was not that she always agreed with her headmistress's actions. Beneath her mouse-like appearance and timid ways, Agnes held strong views, but at this moment, with Dorothy's opinion of January, she entirely agreed.

'At its worst today,' she said. 'And the children are always so restless in a strong wind.'

A violent gust threw a spattering of rain against the window at this point, and Miss Watson sat down in her armchair.

'Must blow itself out before morning,' she said, taking up her knitting.

All day Thrush Green had been buffeted by a howling gale and lashing rain. Rivulets rushed along the gutters and cascaded down the steep hill that led to the nearby town of Lulling. The windows of the stone Cotswold houses shuddered in the onslaught. Doors were wrenched from people's grasp, umbrellas blew inside out, and the chestnut trees along one side of the green groaned and tossed their dripping branches in this wild weather.

It had made life particularly exhausting for the two schoolteachers. Every time the classroom door opened, a score of papers fluttered to the floor pursued by delighted children. A vase of chestnut twigs which little Miss Fogerty was nurturing in order to show her children one day the fan-shaped young leaves and the interesting horseshoe-shaped scars where the old leaves had once been, was capsised by a sturdy infant intent on rescuing his drawing.

The ensuing chaos included a broken vase, a miniature Niagara down the front of the stationery cupboard, a sodden copy of
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
from Agnes's own library, and a great deal of unnecessary mayhem which was difficult to suppress.

Through the streaming windows the two teachers, in their respective classrooms, had watched the inhabitants of Thrush Green struggling to go about their daily affairs.

Mr Jones, landlord of The Two Pheasants hard by, had lost his hat when he was staggering outside with a heavy crate of beer cans. He pursued it, with a surprising turn of speed, across the grass, where it came to rest against the plinth of Nathaniel Patten's statue.

Molly Curdle, who lived in a cottage in the garden of the finest house on Thrush Green, home of the Youngs, wheeled out her bicycle, and little Miss Fogerty was anxious on her behalf as she wobbled away townwards. Surely it was highly dangerous to cycle in such wicked weather! But then Agnes remembered that she had heard that Molly's father, Albert Piggott, the surly sexton who lived only yards from the school, was in bed with bronchitis and perhaps Molly was off to get him some medicine. No doubt his wife Nelly could have fetched it, but perhaps she too was ailing? With such conjectures are village folk made happy.

It was certainly a relief to be in the comfort of the school house at the end of such an exhausting day, and the fire was burning comfortingly.

Agnes opened a crack in a large piece of coal with an exploratory poker. A splendid yellow flame leapt out and she surveyed it with pleasure.

'I often think,' she mused aloud, 'that it must be trapped sunshine.'

'What is?' enquired Dorothy, lowering her knitting.

'Flames from the coal. After all, coal comes from very ancient forests, and it stands to reason that the trees must have seen sunshine. And when, after all these millions of years, we crack the coal - why, there it is!'

Dorothy, who was not given to such flights of fancy, considered Agnes's theory for some minutes. It might not be scientifically feasible, but it was really rather poetic.

She smiled indulgently upon her friend. 'It's a nice idea, dear. Now what about scrambled eggs for supper?'

Molly Curdle, tacking along Lulling High Street in the teeth of the gale, was indeed going to fetch some medicine for her father.

What a problem he was, thought Molly! Every winter now, it seemed, he had these spells of bronchial coughing. His second wife Nelly could not be said to neglect him. Her cooking was as splendid as ever. Albert was offered luscious soups, casseroles, roasts, pies and puddings in abundance.

Nevertheless, thought Molly, swerving to dodge a roving Sealyham, it was a pity she was not at home more often. Nelly was now a partner in The Fuchsia Bush, a flourishing cafe in Lulling High Street, and her duties took her out from the house soon after eight in the morning, and her arrival home varied from five to seven o'clock.

Not that you could blame Nelly, Molly commented to herself. She could never really take to this step-mother, far too fat and vulgar for Molly's taste, but at least she took good care of Albert and not many would do that for someone as pig-headed as her father. This job at The Fuchsia Bush gave her some respite from Albert's constant moaning, and her salary was now the mainstay of the Piggott household.

By now she had reached the chemist's shop, and tried to lodge her bicycle against the kerb, but the wind made it impossible. She wheeled it across the pavement and leant it against the shop window.

'Not against the glass, please,' said a young woman peremptorily, and Molly pushed it wearily a few paces along to a brick pillar.

The chemist's assistant, resplendent in a white coat, watched smugly from the shelter of the door. When she caught sight of Molly, whose face was almost hidden in a sodden headscarf, her mood changed.

'Why, Moll, I never knew it was you! Come on in. You're fair soaked.'

Molly recognised a schoolfellow, Gertie, who had shared her desk at one time at Thrush Green school.

'I've come to get Dad's cough mixture. Doctor Lovell's given me a chit.'

She followed the snowy coat towards the back of the shop. It was marvellous to get out of the raging wind, and she was glad to sit down on a high stool by the counter.

'I'd have thought your ma could have come in for this,' observed the girl. 'She's only a few doors down the street.'

'She has to be at The Fuchsia Bush dead early. Long before Doctor Lovell's surgery opens. Anyway, he's my old dad. I don't really mind.'

The girl handed the prescription through a hatch behind her, and settled down for a few minutes' gossip.

'And how's Thrush Green then? I'm in one of them new houses behind the vicarage here. Don't get up your way often.'

'Much the same. The Two Pheasants is doing well. My Ben likes his job, Anne, my youngest, goes to play school, and our George is doing well with Miss Fogerty.'

'She still there? I heard as she and Miss Watson were thinking of retiring.'

'Well, that's been on the cards for some time, but they're both still at the school.'

'Proper bossy-boots that Miss Watson,' said Gertie, blowing some dust from a row of first-aid tins.

The hatch opened behind her, and a disembodied hairy hand passed out a large bottle. Gertie took it, the hatch slammed shut, and Molly looked in her purse for money.

'Hope it does the trick,' said Gertie. 'I'm not saying it will cheer him up, Moll. We all know him too well for that, don't we?'

Molly smiled. As a loyal daughter she had no intention of agreeing with this barbed remark, but nevertheless she knew it had the ring of truth.

People in Lulling and Thrush Green knew each other too well to be deceived, and there could be no hidden secrets in such a small community.

Whether this was a good thing or not, Molly could not say, but she pondered on the problem as she set out again through the twig-littered street to her home at Thrush Green.

Meanwhile, Albert Piggott looked gloomily about his bedroom. Beside him on a small table stood a glass of water, a medicine bottle containing the last dose of cough mixture, a tin of cough lozenges, so strong that even Albert's beer-pickled tongue rebelled at their potency, and an egg-cup containing his wife's cure-all for ailing throats and chests, butter, sugar and lemon juice mixed together. At least, thought Albert grudgingly, Nelly's stuff tasted better than the rest.