by Miss Read
"Peaceful, ain't it?" said young Ben, stopping still and looking at the view spread before him. "Let's sit down."
They sat on the cropped grass at the side of the path and talked slowly and shyly. Molly told him of her job at the Bassetts,' about Paul, about her father and about her daily round. He listened attentively, chewing a piece of grass, and nodding occasionally.
"But what do you do?" asked Molly. "My word, you've got some luck, going about, seeing all these different places!"
"I like it right enough," agreed the young man, "but it wouldn't suit everybody."
"It'd suit me," said Molly forthrightly, then blushed as she thought of the construction Ben might put upon these bold words. She need not have worried. Ben answered her gravely.
"It's a rough life," he said candidly, and he went on to tell her of the hardships and the discomforts and, finally, of old Mrs. Curdle who ruled them all so firmly.
"But she's a grand ol' gal," he asserted. "She says sometimes she'll take me in as a partner. Ah, I'd like that—but there, you mustn't count your chickens."
Molly rose and took up her basket.
"Chickens reminds me," she said, and together they wandered across the meadow to the distant cottage, oblivious of the cold wind that whipped their hair, and very contented in each other's company.
The children were streaming out of school when they returned to Thrush Green, and Paul flew across to her.
"That your young man?" asked Ben, looking at Molly with that engaging crooked smile.
Molly nodded.
"Reckon I shan't be jealous of 'ee!" said Ben. A harsh voice came floating upon the wind from a nearby caravan. It was Mrs. Curdle's. She loomed, large and impressive, in the doorway of her home.
"See you tonight," promised young Ben and hurried back to his duties.
Joan and Molly had taken the excited Paul to the fair as soon as it opened after tea. His bedtime was postponed time and time again at his own urgent pleading, but at last St. Andrew's clock struck seven. Paul was led home, protesting still, by his mother, and Molly walked to the cottage which was her home.
She had spoken again to Ben, but only briefly, and he had whispered to her urgently:
"You coming back? On your own?"
"When I've give my dad his supper," she promised him swiftly. "He goes off to pub soon as he's had it and I'll slip over again."
She had been as good as her word and by half past eight, she was back, her curly hair brushed into a dark cloud and her eyes shining. The blue and white frock which she had worn at their first meeting had been changed during the day for a yellow one, spotted with white, and she looked even more gypsy-like.
Ben put a young cousin in charge of the coconut shies and took Molly around all the side shows of the fair. Molly had never had an evening like this before. They had turns on the swing boats, roundabouts, switch-backs, dodgem cars and helter-skelters, without pause, and Molly was dizzy not only with exhilarating motion but with the exciting companionship of this amazing young man.
At ten-thirty the fair began to die down, much to the relief of those residents on Thrush Green who were hoping for an early night. As the stalls began to pack up and the crowds started to thin out, Ben took Molly to a little jewelry stall close by the roundabout. A few people were having a last long ride and the raucous music blared out a sentimental ballad.
"Choose what you like," said Ben to Molly, nodding at the dazzle displayed on the stall. There were necklaces, bracelets, earrings and cufflinks, all cheap and tawdry in the cold light of day, but under the electric light and the flashing of the revolving mirrors of the roundabout nearby everything seemed exquisite to young Molly, dazed and bedazzled by a hundred sensations.
She chose a modest brooch in the form of a cornflower and Ben pinned it solemnly at the neck of the yellow spotted frock. The noise of the roundabout was deafening, but Molly saw Ben's lips move and thought she heard him say, "Can you be true?" and she had nodded and smiled.
In the months that followed she often wondered about that half-heard question. Had he really said that? And, if so, had he meant to ask for her loyalty to him, or was he merely asking the silly sort of question that needed no answer, and which the voice from the roundabout was shouting too? Or had he said: "Can it be true?" or had she misheard him altogether? Those four words were to puzzle and torment poor Molly for a whole year.
"I must get back to my dad. He'll be kicking up a fuss!" said Molly breathlessly. Ben had ambled at her side, past the stalls which were now packing up, to the cottage on the green.
They stood on the red-brick doorstep which the girl had scrubbed that morning.
"We're off first thing, so I'll say goodby now," said Ben. "Had a good time?"
"Lovely," breathed Molly. There was so much to say and somehow no words to say it. They stood in embarrassed silence for two long minutes, while the lights of the fair dimmed.
"Might get over if I can," said Ben at last. "Depends, though."
"There's always the post," suggested Molly.
Ben kicked moodily at the bricks.
"I ain't much of a fist at letter-writing," he muttered.
From inside the cottage they could hear the scrape of chair legs on a stone floor.
"My dad!" whispered Molly in alarm. "Goodby, Ben. It's all been lovely."
She reached up and gave his cheek a hasty peck. Then she turned the door handle and slipped inside the cottage before he could answer.
Bemused, young Ben wandered back to his caravan beneath the rustling lime tree; while, upstairs in the cottage, Molly, in her petticoat, put away the cornflower brooch in a shell-encrusted box and prepared for bed with a singing heart.
But circumstances had combined against poor Ben. An alteration in the fair's accustomed route and his grandmother's ill-health had prevented him from getting within visiting distance of Thrush Green. To his deep shame he could not write, for he had had very little schooling, and apart from signing his name he could do little. He had mastered the technique of reading, and though he was slow, he enjoyed browsing through the newspaper and an occasional paperbacked thriller.
His pride forbade his asking a friend to write to Molly for him, and in any case he could not have put into words the deep feelings which rent him. To ask for help in expressing such emotions was unthinkable.
And so Ben suffered throughout the months that followed. Would he see her next May? Would she still be at Thrush Green? She might have got another job and gone away. Supposing another man had found her? This thought was so appalling that Ben's mind shied away from it only to be confronted by a worse horror.
Suppose she was dead? Killed, say, on the roads? Hundreds of people were each week. Or crippled? Or beaten by her horrible old dad? Thus Ben tortured himself and roamed, restless and distraught, about his duties until it was no wonder that old Mrs. Curdle, herself a prey to morbid fears, lost patience with her mooning grandson and compared him, more and more unfavorably, with that adored son buried in France. Ah, if only he had been alive, she told herself, throughout that worrying year, she would never have to think of giving up the fair, for there would have been a man—a real man—to carry on for her.
And now, a year later, Ben stood on Thrush Green once more. He had learned that Molly still lived at the cottage, but not for all the week. Part of the time she was to be found at "The Drovers' Arms" on the heights of Lulling Woods where she was now employed for four days a week.
Ben had made his inquiries cautiously of the milkman. He had called at the cottage the night before but no one was there. He had asked a postman, going home from late duty, if he knew where she was, and he had not known. After that Ben had not dared to ask anyone too closely connected with Thrush Green, for he feared that old Mr. Piggott might hear of his inquiries and vent his annoyance on Molly. He had gone to bed much troubled, but was determined to track her down as early as possible next day.
The milkman had been most forthcoming.
"Ah! Up Lull
ing Woods, me boy. Helps in the house and then the bar Tuesdays to Fridays. Some chap takes over weekends and Molly gets back then. Yes, still does a bit at Bassetts' now and again."
He started up his ancient van with a roar, and shouted above the racket.
"You'll find her, me boy! Up Lulling Woods! She'll be in the bar till two, but free till six, I knows that 'cos I sometimes gives her a lift into the town from there. You'll find her all right!"
He rattled off, the milk bottles clashing and clattering in the metal crates, as the van shuddered its way down the hill to the town.
And thus it was that at half-past seven one May Day young Ben Curdle found the moon and stars joining the morning sun in a crazy heart-bursting dance over an enchanted Thrush Green.
4. Thrush Green Astir
BY NINE O'CLOCK the sun was shining strongly from a cloudless sky. The light mists that had spread a gauze over the water meadows of the river Pleshy had now dispersed. As the dew dried in the gardens of Lulling the scent of narcissuses and hyacinths began to perfume the warm air.
The birds were clamorous. Blackbirds alternately fluted and scolded as they bustled about in search of food for their nestlings. Thrushes ran to and fro upon the tender grass, which bent beneath their fragile claws, stopping abruptly every now and again, to peer intently with a topaz eye at the ground before them. From gardens, woods and parkland a dozen cuckoos called to one another with thrilling liquid notes.
The buds of the trees had cracked imperceptibly during the last week or so. Already the sycamores had frothed into yellow leaf and the elms, until recently covered with a rosy haze of tight buds, now showed a curdy mass of pale breaking leaves. Only the beeches, it seemed, were loath to emerge from their winter sleep, for still the long slender buds remained furled, upthrust and glinting in the sunshine, like the bronze tips of spears.
On Thrush Green life was now well astir. Little Paul, still in his bedroom, and pajama-clad, had finished his breakfast of boiled egg and bread and butter, and had watched his schoolfellows running to school. Some had waved and called to him, and he had shouted back that his spots were gone but the doctor was coming, so he wouldn't be at school today.
Bobby Anderson, a lumpish child with a perpetually damp nose, pointed to the end of the green where the fairground men were erecting scaffolding.
"Comin' tonight?" he bawled up at the window.
Paul nodded.
"Who said? Doctor?"
Paul nodded again.
"You better then?"
Paul nodded a third time.
'Oughter be over school then," said his fellow-pupil severely, and terminated this one-sided conversation by leaping upon a friend of his, knocking him to the ground and pom-meling him in an affectionate manner. The school bell rang out, the boys got up, dusted themselves down in a perfunctory way and ambled across to the playground with their arms across each other's shoulders, with never a backward glance at the little figure watching from the bedroom window.
Dr. Bailey too was still pajama-clad and had just finished his breakfast in bed. The remains of toast and marmalade lay on the tray on the side table.
The sound of the school bell floated across Thrush Green and Dr. Bailey put aside The Times, pushed his reading glasses up on to his forehead and gazed through the window at the blue and white morning.
He could see a spiral of smoke from the chimney of Mrs. Curdle's caravan and a few gaunt spars as the men began to erect the framework for the swing boats. He could hear their cheerful voices and the creak of timbers being hauled and strained. There were heavy thuds as mallets rammed supports into place, and the occasional, high-pitched squeal of a fairground child. Dr. Bailey sighed and drew up his thin legs between the sheets.
If the rumors were true then this would be the last time that he would hear the sounds of the fair. It seemed unthinkable that the first day of May should find Thrush Green as empty and quiet as on the other mornings of the year. What must the old lady be feeling, he wondered, as he watched her smoke curling delicately against the background of the fresh lime leaves. Where would she be next May? And where, for that matter thought the doctor, would he be?
He faced this nagging problem afresh. For months now he had lived with it and he knew that he must find a solution, and the sooner the better. He knew, only too well, that he would never recover the strength and health which he had rejoiced in for seventy years. Well, he told himself, he had had a good inning, and he supposed he should give up the practice and go and live in some confounded cottage where the roof was too low, and play bridge with other old dodderers every Wednesday afternoon, and do a bit of fishing when the weather allowed, remembering to wear a Panama hat in case of sunstroke!
Pah! The doctor tossed his legs rebelliously and The Times slid to the floor. He'd be damned if he'd give up! Give him another fortnight and he'd be back taking his surgeries and paying a few visits. There was still plenty he could do—it was just that he tired easily. No doubt about it, if he intended to continue in practice he must take a partner.
He heard the bang of the surgery door. It always caught the wind if there was a sou'wester. He wondered how many patients young Lovell would have calling today. Dr. Bailey looked approvingly at the small silver clock on the mantle-piece. Only five past nine and that young man was well down to it! Yes, if a partner was needed then he would be quite content to have young Lovell in harness with him. He had watched him closely for six weeks, and he had listened to the gossip about his work. He was liked, not only for his youth, but for his quiet and sympathetic manner. The older patients were delighted to find a new audience for their complaints, describing their symptoms with a wealth of nauseating detail which old Dr. Bailey would have cut short ruthlessly, as well they knew.
"Proper nice chap, that new assistant," they said to each other.
"Hope he stops. Listened to me 'eart and that 'orrible rumbling in me stomach, as nice as pie, and what's more give me a good bottle of medicine. Ah! A proper nice chap!"
A twittering, and a flash of black and white across the bedroom window, roused the doctor from his ruminations. The house martins were up and doing, and so must he be, he told himself. It was going to be a perfect day. He would potter about in the garden and get some sunshine. Nothing like fresh air and exercise for giving you strength! He had told enough people that in his time, and he knew that it was true. He would follow his own advice and he would try and come to some decision about this proposal to young Lovell. He believed he would jump at the chance and somehow he felt that Thrush Green would suit him.
He thrust his long thin legs out of bed and stood up. Now he could see the bustle of fairground preparations and the sight wanned him.
The first of May again! There was always excitement in the air on Thrush Green then—and a bunch of flowers to come, he thought wryly, looking with affection at Mrs. Curdle's caravan. As good a day as any to make a decision. Who knows, he might even ask that young fellow today.
With a light heart Dr. Bailey donned his dressing gown and went, whistling, to the bathroom.
Mrs. Bailey, sitting downstairs in the sunny little back room which had once been their dining room, heard her husband whistling, and smiled. It was good to hear him so cheerful. He was getting stronger daily.
The whistling changed to singing and Mrs. Bailey listened attentively.
"I think that we shall have
A very, very lovely day:
Very, very warm for May.
Eighty in the shade, they say
Tra la la..."
With an uprush of spirits Mrs. Bailey remembered that night, over forty years before, when she and her husband had gone up to London to see The Arcadians. A visit to town was a rare treat in those days and they had enjoyed every minute. She had worn a lilac chiffon frock, she remembered, bought specially for the occasion, and shoes to match with diamanté buckles. What a shining, glorious time of life that had been, when everyone had seemed as young and as happy and hopeful as themselve
s!
Mrs. Bailey set down the shopping list she was engaged upon and looked out into the sunny garden. An early butterfly was abroad, hovering among the velvet wallflowers. They were so very lucky, Mrs. Bailey told herself for the thousandth time, to have had their lot cast in such a pleasant place. Just suppose that the doctor's practice had been in one of the great industrial cities! She would have been looking upon a small soot-blackened garden, or—dreadful thought—upon no garden at all, and instead of Lulling's sleepy tranquillity they would have had to face the clamor and killing pace of life in a large town.
She had loved Thrush Green from the first moment that she saw it, and had grown fonder of it as the years passed; but she wished at times that it were easier to get to London, for she missed the theater and the gay restaurants sorely. Had London really been as wonderful as she remembered it just before the first world war, or was it the natural nostalgia, born of passing years, which made it appear so enchanting in retrospect? People nowadays seemed too busy for gaiety, and what was worse, appeared to frown upon innocent enjoyment. Life was too dreadfully real and earnest these days, thought Mrs. Bailey, and all the young people were middle-aged at twenty. And look at the dreary and revolting books and plays they wrote, about the most brutal and depraved creatures who didn't know their own minds, even when they had them!
The strains of The Arcadians floated from the bathroom strongly. Ah, there was fun for you! thought Mrs. Bailey. If only people would realize that light-hearted and gay things were not any less significant than the violent and brutish, what a step forward it would be. Because a song, a book, a play, a picture or anything created was gay it did not necessarily follow that it was trivial. It might well be, mused Mrs. Bailey gazing into the moving sunshine with unseeing eyes, a finer thing, because it had been fashioned with greater care and artifice; emotion remembered and translated to give pleasure, rather than emotion remembered and evincing only an involuntary and quite hideous howl.
