Christmas At Thrush Green (14 page)

Frank executed a circle round the table and disappeared outside again. Phil picked up the big plates she had got out of the top cupboards and crossed to the sink to give them a good wash. Her head was still buzzing with how they could get over this latest defection from the cast. Perhaps Frank would have some ideas, she thought, as she ran warm water into the sink.

 

As arranged, Winnie and Jenny had their lunch promptly at one o’clock. Afterwards, Jenny waved away Winnie’s offer to help wash up.

‘You get off to the church. I know how you enjoy that,’ she said. ‘But wrap up warm, mind. That church can be very chilly and we don’t want your bronichals to be affected again.’

Winnie smiled, and pulled on her tweed coat and wrapped a scarf round her neck.

‘Here,’ said Jenny, handing her a couple of dusters, ‘you’re sure to need these. And ’ave you got the piece of carpet?’

‘Yes, it’s ready by the front door,’ and with that Winnie set forth on what was one of the highlights of her year.

She decided not to cross the green to the church, but sensibly walked round on the pavement. As she passed Ella’s cottage, she saw the little front garden had a fine display of Helleborus niger, the Christmas rose. The plants’ white, nodding, cup-shaped flowers shone out from their dark green leaves. How pretty they were!

A few minutes later, Winnie pushed open the door of St Andrew’s and stood for a moment in the gloom. English country churches had a very special smell about them, and this one was no different. Just a bit musty. And then her nostrils picked up the smell of the flowers placed on the font nearby. That meant the flower ladies had been in. Muriel Fuller, one of the residents at Rectory Cottages, was a first-rate flower arranger and led the team.

After standing there quietly for a few moments, she turned on the church lights and made her way down the side aisle where she knew Edward Young would have placed the crib and boxes of figures. And she stopped short - and stared in complete amazement.

The crib had already been set up, but not with the much-loved figures that St Andrew’s always had. Set around the crib were different figures, new figures, horrid figures.

Winnie’s heart beat so hard that she could almost hear it herself. Staggering slightly, she sat down in a nearby pew. ‘What on earth . . . ?’ she cried. In her agitation, she realized she was twisting the two dusters round and round in her hands. She dropped them into her lap but then found her hands were shaking so much, she picked them up again and began twisting them once more.

After a minute or so, she felt a little calmer and got to her feet. Steadying herself on the end of the pew, she peered at the crib. Yes, that was the Thrush Green crib but the figures most definitely were impostors. The face of the Virgin was pert, with reddened curved lips. Joseph was not so bad although his robe was a hideous maroon colour. The figures of the two shepherds were much too boyish, and as for the Wise Men - they looked cheap and modern.

Winnie had a quick look round to see if there were any clues as to who might have placed these dreadful figures here. All she could find were the boxes of Thrush Green figures, and just as she was pulling the second one out from under the front pew where it had been pushed, the main door opened at the other end of the church.

‘Hello, Winnie! We thought you’d get here first.’

That was Dimity’s voice, and she and Ella now came down the side aisle to where Winnie was standing.

‘Oh, you’ve already set things up,’ cried Ella. ‘You might have waited for us.’

But while Ella’s failing eyesight didn’t pick up the different figures, Dimity saw immediately, and clapped a horrified hand to her mouth. ‘What in heaven’s name has happened?’ she cried.

Ella moved closer to the crib and peered at it. She now saw the horrible figures. ‘Winnie! Did you put these beastly figures there?’

‘Of course not!’ responded Winnie sharply. ‘Why on earth would I do that? Our figures are here,’ and she pointed to the familiar boxes she had found.

Dimity tilted the figure of the new Virgin Mary towards her to examine it more closely. ‘This is truly horrible. Who on earth has done this? And just look at the Baby Jesus - it’s . . .’ Her voice faded away. ‘Charles will be horrified.’

Winnie seemed to pull herself together. ‘It doesn’t matter now. What matters most is that we should replace them with the proper figures. Did you bring the straw, Ella?’

Ella shoved her hand in a carrier bag she was holding. ‘With Dotty’s best compliments,’ she said.

The three women silently went to work. Dimity found some old cardboard boxes in the vestry, and the offending figures were placed in a couple of them. Ella lifted the crib to one side so that Winnie could put down her piece of blue carpet that was always used for the occasion, then the crib was placed on the carpet and Ella sprinkled the fresh straw round the base of the crib. One by one, Dimity handed Winnie the figures that were placed in exactly the same position as they had been for the last twenty years.

All right, maybe they were a little shabby but, they all agreed, they were the Thrush Green figures and that was that.

Ella picked up one of the boxes that now held the unwelcome intruders and staggered to the vestry with it. From the noise, it sounded to Dimity and Winnie that she had dropped it onto the stone floor from some height. They guiltily smiled at each other. The second box followed suit.

‘There!’ said Ella, coming back from the vestry and wiping her hands down the sides of her trousers. ‘Whoever had the audacity to put those dreadful figures in our crib can collect them from the vestry. Now, let’s go. I am dying for a ciggy.’

‘Jenny will have the kettle on for us,’ said Winnie. It was a tradition that the crib party went back to Winnie’s house for tea.

When the three of them were comfortably ensconced in Winnie’s sitting-room, cups of tea at their elbows and plates of cherry cake on their knees, they returned to the events of the afternoon.

‘The church is always open,’ said Dimity, ‘so it could have been anyone really.’

Winnie was the most methodical of the three, and liked to tackle such conundrums head-on. ‘It must have been a regular church-goer. Why would they bother otherwise?’

This met with general agreement.

‘Well, I can’t believe it would be Isobel - she knows we three do the crib. And certainly not Harold. He reckons it’s women’s work. What about Phil?’ Winnie asked.

Ella shook her head. ‘I think she’s much too busy with the Nativity play, and of course their party afterwards. No, it won’t have been Phil.’

‘Charles was going to Rectory Cottages this morning,’ said Dimity. ‘I’ll ask him if he knows anything when I get home.’

‘Surely no one from there would have put those dreadful figures there?’ said Winnie. The offending impostors were now referred to as ‘those dreadful figures’ by all three.

‘Charles said that Mrs Bates was going in to do the brasses today,’ Dimity said, ‘but she’s so small she’d never have been able to carry across those boxes of figures. And she’d never have done such a thing anyway.’

‘What about Muriel Fuller and her team of flower girls?’ asked Ella, stretching forward to help herself to another slice of cake. ‘Damn good cake, this, Winnie!’

‘Thank you, Ella. I made it especially since I know it is one of your favourites and one gets so much fruit cake at this time of year.’ Winnie then cocked her silvery head on one side, thinking, considering. ‘Perhaps we could ask Muriel if the figures were there when they went in to do the flowers. If they weren’t, we could find out what time they left the church so we shall know that the dreadful figures were put there between then and when I arrived just before two.’

‘Quite the Sherlock Holmes, Winnie!’ laughed Dimity.

‘Almost as good as doing a difficult crossword,’ she replied - and there the matter was left.

 

As arranged, Alan Lester arrived at Tullivers shortly before lunch and he and Phil sat at the kitchen table, with Phil’s pad of paper in front of them. Names were arrowed and then crossed out, new names added, and then arrowed. It looked like a crazy game of snakes and ladders.

‘And Frank didn’t have any ideas?’ Alan asked, leaning back in his chair and running his hands through his hair.

‘No, we did much as we’ve done now,’ replied Phil. ‘Then he took himself off to The Two Pheasants - for inspiration, he said.’

‘Well, I think we’ll have to go with just the two shepherds, Patrick and little Tom, and move Harry up to being a king. I just hope his stammer doesn’t get the better of him when he has to say his lines.’

‘Perhaps we can have some sheep to make up for the lack of shepherds,’ mused Phil, doodling a woolly ball on four legs on the notepad.

‘Sheep? Real sheep?’ asked Alan in some alarm.

‘No, not real sheep. I’ve got an idea that might work. It should detract from there being only two shepherds.’

At that moment, there were noises outside the back door and Frank and Jeremy both came in.

‘Is lunch ready?’ asked young Jeremy. ‘I’m starving!’

Phil laughed and ruffled her son’s head. ‘When have I heard that before? Yes, it will be about ten minutes.’

Alan got to his feet. ‘I’ll leave you making sheep then,’ he said with a smile. ‘And I’ll phone Harry’s parents and give them the news that he’s been elevated to a king.’

Frank turned round from the sink where he was washing his hands. ‘Is that a replacement for Jimmy Todd?’

‘Yes,’ Phil replied. ‘It’s the best we can do.’

‘Hold that call, Alan,’ Frank said. He had a great grin on his face. ‘I have The Solution - it’s going to be good. No, it’s going to be better than that. It’s going to be brilliant!’ And he proceeded to tell Phil and Alan his plan.

‘
W
hat a nerve!’ Joan Young exclaimed. ‘Poor Winnie, you must have been horrified to find someone else had set up the crib.’ She continued to listen for some minutes, the telephone receiver tucked under her chin while she attempted to spread butter on her toast.

Across the table, Edward and their son Paul listened to Joan’s side of the conversation with interest.

‘Well, anyway,’ Joan said, ‘the right figures are in place. Thank heavens for that. And if that awful woman comes to the Nativity tonight, I shall cut her dead!’

There were words from the other end, and Joan laughed and said, ‘All right, but I won’t go out of my way to speak to her. I’m glad it’s ended up all right. I’ll see you there - five-thirty! Bye.’

Having replaced the receiver, she exhaled noisily. ‘We-ell! What about that then!’

‘So?’ asked Edward. ‘Go on, tell us!’

Joan relayed what Winnie had told her, how she’d gone into St Andrew’s to set up the crib the previous afternoon and had found ‘those dreadful figures’ already there.

‘And have they discovered who did it?’ asked Paul.

‘Indeed they have. Mrs Burwell!’ replied Joan.

Edward’s reaction was like a mini-explosion. ‘That bl—that wretched woman, that ghastly burbling Burwell woman! It would be her, wouldn’t it?’ He got to his feet and paced round the kitchen table like a tiger in a cage. ‘Why can’t she keep her blithering nose out of every damn thing in the village?’

‘Calm down, dear,’ said Joan, worried about her husband’s blood pressure. She knew that anything to do with the Burwells was apt to send him into orbit.

‘I’ve only met her once or twice,’ said Paul. ‘I didn’t think she was that bad.’

Edward swung round to face his son, and gave him two minutes’ worth of his opinion of Mr and Mrs Burwell and their house. Joan just sighed and finished off her breakfast.

When Edward had run out of steam, Paul asked his mother, ‘How did Mrs Bailey discover it was her who did it?’

‘Dimity talked to Muriel Fuller who had done the flowers in the church earlier that morning. A group of them do the flowers for Christmas, and Mrs Burwell was one of them. Apparently she suggested a large arrangement should be set just where the crib goes, and was told why space had to be left there. Muriel saw her peer into the boxes holding the Nativity figures, and apparently she remarked to one of the other flower women that she thought they were very tatty and she had better ones at home. So Winnie and Dimity put two and two together.’

‘Have they had it out with the wretched woman?’ asked Edward.

‘Dimity thought it would be better if Charles rang her.’

‘Poor Charles! He’s always draws the short straw. Do we know what the ghastly woman said?’

‘You really don’t like her, do you, Pa?’ Paul said, laughing.

‘No, I don’t. She and her dreadful husband are total menaces.’

‘Well,’ Joan said, ‘she didn’t apologize, if that’s what you were hoping for. She went all high and mighty apparently, and said she thought her figures were much better, more modern.’