The Flowering Thorn (16 page)

Seduced by the charm of solitude, she strolled idly between the trees and reflected on nothing in particular. Odd shreds and pieces floated through her mind: the sad case of Florrie Walpole, to which Florrie herself seemed so remarkably indifferent: Mrs. Sprigg's partiality for whist-drives: that extraordinary walk home with Mr. Pomfret, and its no less extraordinary culmination in Vicarage tea and toast. The oddest part of all, of course, being that she had actually enjoyed herself. One day, in the distant future, she might even go again. Being so long cut off from civilisation had doubtless made her less critical, but she had also intelligence to realise that even at Elissa's Mr. Pomfret would have held his own. After two hours' conversation there was nothing Lesley could think of as being in the least likely to shock him. She had also discovered (though without for the moment regarding it as anything but an independent fact) that he was a great reader of Smollett.

Lost in these musings, she made a leisurely circuit of the orchard and at last came to a pause at the corner by Pig Lane. A great bough of chestnut swung down across the path, thrusting itself proudly upon her attention; and looking more closely Lesley saw that at the end of each long and upward-springing branchlet had sprouted either a clean white bud or a green and fawn tassel. Every miniature leaf was exquisitely and crisply pleated, the buds were like magnolia buds in their first week; and each most delicate line of tassel, bud, and branch contributed its part to the vigorous upward movement of the whole aspiring tree.

Involuntarily as a blackbird, Lesley sang.

3

The five children in the lane heard her and looked at each other. ‘She's in a good temper!' the look said, and they hurried their steps. But even so the pace remained slower than usual, for the eldest were carrying between them a couple of February lambs; and by the time they reached the orchard gate Lesley had broken off her song and was walking back past the well, where, at the sight of the caravan, she came to a sudden halt.

“Look at the lambs, Frewen!” shouted Pat, clasping the nearest round the neck like an Infant St. John.

Lesley looked.

They had long legs, black noses, and were in fact just like the creatures she had seen photographed in
The Times
every February or March. Set down upon the grass they at once began to frisk, also in a very conventional manner, with much kicking up of their black legs and a tendency to come down in the middle of a jump. Without really seeing anything very funny in it, Lesley laughed.

The eldest Pomfret child at once took a step forward.

“If you don't want to have them, Miss Frewen,” she said politely, “we're to take them back.”

“Have them?” echoed Lesley, for the moment uncomprehending.

In spontaneous antiphon the children explained.

“Have them here, Miss Frewen, for a month, for Pat and us to look after. They have to be fed out of bottles, because their mother's dead, and Florrie Walpole has all the poultry, so she'd be only too glad. Pat's got the bottles.”

“And they'll leave the milk every morning, with yours, Miss Frewen, so it won't cost anything, and they have to be fed five times a day—”

“Six—”

“Or else six, but we'll go back and make sure, and the milk has to be at blood heat, just a minute or so, and they can live in the shed, Miss Frewen, with netting over the door at night—”

“And they are not destructive like goats, Miss Frewen—”

“They don't dig up bulbs—”

“They get awfully affectionate—”

Lesley clasped her hands over her ears and retreated into the doorway. An inexplicable lightheartedness still possessed her, so that for the moment the inevitable nuisance of the thing seemed almost unimportant. Really they were rather charming! She said,

“If I let you—you'll have to look after them. The first time you don't I shall send them straight back.”

They agreed passionately. They would have agreed to anything on earth: and scrutinising their five faces, Lesley saw that they all looked slightly startled, as though bliss had taken them by surprise.

And so indeed it had, for they never expected her to be so reasonable. With youthful adaptability, however, they adjusted themselves to the new and pleasing situation, jettisoning in the process a whole cargo of arguments. Nor were the lambs far behind in
nous
or
savoir faire:
without a moment's hesitation they frisked off through the orchard and displayed in the most natural manner possible their willingness to feel at home.

“They're not to come in the house, mind!” cried Lesley. “I won't have them. You understand, Pat?”

“Oh,
yes
,” said Pat radiantly. Always a little slower than the rest, his astonishment still lingered. But the excitement, the joys and fears of the afternoon, had quickened his spirits beyond their usual flow. Gratitude overwhelmed him, and seeing Lesley so near he flung himself at her knees and hugged them hard. It was all over in an instant, so that she scarcely realised what was happening; but when he had run off, she became aware of a curious silky sensation just fading from her palm. Instinctively she put up a hand to smooth her own smooth locks: they gave just the same feeling.

‘Very odd!' thought Lesley.…

The rest of the afternoon was spent in christening the newcomers (rather arbitrarily, perhaps) with the names of Alice and John; in airing the tool-shed (which fortunately contained no more than an old spade or two and a broken mangle); and in constructing a detachable wire door from the remains of a Pomfret rabbit-hutch. Mrs. Sprigg, with her usual resource, also acquired a couple of sacks and a double armful of straw, under which she scurried up the lane like a mouse with a wheat-ear.

“I've never seen better lambs in my life,” she said cordially. “That John'll turn out a proper champion.”

Like Pat and the Pomfrets, she at once began calling them by name, and moreover displayed a most reassuring familiarity with their habits and requirements. Not all her observations, however, were equally welcome; it was she who first pointed out that in spite of all promises the last feed of the day must inevitably fall to Lesley. It was due at ten o'clock, and though the eldest Pomfret honourably proposed that he should slip nightly out of bed, the offer could scarcely be accepted.

“You'll soon get used to it, Miss Frewen,” prophesied the old woman cheerfully. “Meself I like a breath of air before I go to bed, same as I like a bite o' cheese or something before I take me teeth out.”

But Lesley listened unconvinced. Already she was a little regretting her impulse: and that night, in the pleasant fireside warmth, she regretted it even more.

4

‘Those blasted lambs,' thought Lesley, hearing the cuckoo slam his door.

The fire glowed, the clock ticked; she had never in her life felt less desire to move. A lamb, however, was obviously a highly perishable object: one which might easily be found dead in the morning; and for all Lesley's knowledge to the contrary such would be the fate of both Alice and John unless she now took them their milk.

With a final sigh of resentment she pushed back her chair, went into the kitchen, and there found both milk and bottles put ready by Mrs. Sprigg. Blood heat, they said—and what the hell was that? Mrs. Sprigg, earlier in the day, had simply dipped her finger after about a minute's heating: she said thermometers were too tricky.… Lesley waited about the same length of time, then filled the bottles and put in the rubber teats.

Outside it was so dark that she had to take a candle, sheltering it with her fingers against the soft fresh-smelling airs. In the crook of her arm the milk-bottles generated a faint warmth, almost as though she were carrying a child: it was impossible, so lighted and so burdened, to move un-gently.

And mind following body, her humour changed. Night, motion, errand, all combined to soothe her. From the little outhouse, black and ark-shaped among the apple-trees, a tiny cry now came to guide her, and over the half-door, quilted by the netting, two soft rough muzzles pressed up against her hand. Lesley bowed her head under the lintel and thrust a way in.

An importunate nose pushed gently under her elbow. It was Alice, with the ribbon. Lesley seated herself on an upturned box, the candle beside her, and offered the first bottle. At once John came nuzzling too, so that she had to hold him off with her free hand. His wool felt thick, springy, just touched with grease, but not unpleasant. Alice was drinking in short steady pulls, never shifting for an instant her grip on the teat.

‘Just like Pat,' thought Lesley.

Through the open door she could see the cottage, compact and dark and with a line of light showing under the rim of the barn thatch. It was the effect Toby or someone had likened to badly-joined scenery, but she was not just then thinking of him. The first lamb moved away; it was John feeding now, the lamb that was going to be a champion.

Mechanically Lesley tilted the milk to his needs. The atmosphere in the shed—of candlewax, old sacking, earth and growing wool—was making her sleepy. Rhythmic between her knees came the steady pull at the warm bottle: close above her head bent the shadowy curve of the roof. She felt quiet, protected: solaced of her troubles; acquiescent; assuaged.

Part III

CHAPTER ONE

The early summer opened eventfully. Half-way through May, Lesley dined with Sir Philip, and on the very same date Mr. Povey began trying to sell her his bird-bath.

“You
want
a bird-bath, with an orchard,” explained Mr. Povey, waylaying her one morning outside the Three Pigeons. “It's just where the birds come. Once you get 'em into the habit, they dabble about all day. Your little boy 'ud like that, Miss Frewen.”

“Thank you, but they dabble about already,” Lesley told him, “in an old seed-pan.”

He looked at her with pity.

“A seed-pan?” said Mr. Povey. “A
seed
-pan? You come in here, Miss Frewen.” He moved majestically down the path; and fascinated as always by the sheer spread of his personality—the whale-like form and small hypnotic eye—Lesley too turned aside and followed him into the yard.

“Look there,” said Mr. Povey.

With unwilling astonishment, Lesley looked. It was a piece ‘of importance,' as the collectors say. Birds could have bathed in it, and babies as well. The nucleus of the thing was a shallow rectangular trough, very much resembling a small kitchen sink, but enriched here and there with a good deal of fancy beading. It was supported at one end by a rock, at the other by a Bacchante: but as though to preserve the balance of interest, the rock was covered with frogs. There were also frogs along the rim of the trough, and one frog, rather unfairly, at the Bacchante's feet, the whole being executed, with unbelievable persistence, in some sort of Aberdeen granite.

“Striking, isn't it?” said Mr. Povey.

Lesley nodded. She had a good critical vocabulary, but not good enough for that.

“It would look nice,” he continued thoughtfully, “over against your big pear-tree. It would look natural.”

Apprehension restored her. She seized on the first objection that came to hand.

“It's too big.…”

“
Just
what I say. There aren't many places round here,” conceded Mr. Povey, “where it
would
look natural. It's too big, and too artistic. That's why I sh'd like to see it in yours.” He paused, impressively. “And
because
I sh'd like to see it, Miss Frewen—you can have it for six-pound-ten.”

Lesley moved hastily towards the gate. She was aware how swiftly, how unexpectedly, in the village of High Westover, things could happen to one. Mrs. Sprigg, for example, and bacon for breakfast, to say nothing of two lambs who for the last month had been the virtual occupiers of the White Cottage. (The weather had changed, during their visit, from a forward spring to a belated winter, so that they spent most of their time gambolling uncontrollably before the sitting-room fire. It meant removing most of the furniture and taking up the carpet: but as Pat pointed out, the lambs did splendidly.)

“Thank you,” said Lesley, “but I couldn't
possibly
afford it.”

Mr. Povey waved his hand.

“Puttin' money in a thing like that,” he explained, “isn't spendin' it, Mis Frewen, it's investing it. A thing like that, why you could always get your price back, and maybe a bit over. There's a lot of work in it, Miss Frewen.”

Lesley backed a step farther.

“I'm sure there is, Mr. Povey, but I'm afraid I haven't got time to examine it.” She was now at the outer gate and could see up and down the road: if only Mrs. Sprigg would pass by, or Pat, or the Vicar! And at that very moment, like an answer to prayer, the Post Office door opened and Mrs. Pomfret came out.

“
There's
Mrs. Pomfret!” cried Lesley: and with the alacrity of a favourite Girl Guide she pushed open the gate and ran across the yard.

Mrs. Pomfret too was pleased at the encounter: there was a little hitch, a little alteration, in the evening's plans. The maid at the Vicarage—one of the Coxes, not the village Coxes, but the Aylesbury Coxes—was showing symptoms of feverishness: it might be nothing, but again it might not: and if at half-past seven the issue was still undecided, would Miss Frewen very much mind going alone with the Vicar?

“Not in the least,” agreed Miss Frewen, quite calmly. “But I'm sorry you're so doubtful.”

“Oh, I'm sorry too,” said Mrs. Pomfret, with a sigh. “It's always such lovely food. When Henry and I go by ourselves he and Sir Philip do all the talking and I just tuck in.” She sighed again. “But you'll be quite all right with Henry, my dear, and he'll come and fetch you in Sir Philip's car.”

Lesley asked what time.

“Eight o'clock. I shouldn't like my own meal so late, of course, but it does give you a chance to get up an appetite. What are you doing about Pat?”