by Miss Read
Time was up. Ella turned the gas off, cursing the rubber gloves which added to her habitual clumsiness. She surveyed the great pot with a doubtful eye. It was very heavy, she knew from long experience, and usually Dimity helped her lift it into the sink.
It was on the tip of her tongue to hail her unsuspecting friend above with her usual hearty exuberance. Dimity, she knew, would come readily tripping down the stairs, only too anxious to be of use. But today, with the milk of human kindness still pulsing its somewhat bewildered way through her veins, Ella decided, generously, to manage on her own.
Giving a tug to her maddening rubber gloves, Ella approached the stove. She gripped the two handles and gave a mighty heave. It certainly was heavy and she wondered, for a split second, if she should replace it.
But pride overcame caution. She gave a determined stagger toward the sink before disaster overtook her.
Whether, as she afterward maintained, the confounded rubber gloves slipped along the handles and shot the contents downward, or whether she caught her foot in the coconut matting, or whether, in fact, both calamities occurred, she was never quite clear. But, in one agonizing moment, the pot overturned, and fell, upside down, to the floor, cascading boiling dye down poor Ella's legs and draping her ankles and feet in searingly hot wet linen, which acted like some ghastly cleaving blood-red poultice.
Her screams brought Dimity pell-mell downstairs to stand aghast at the scene. Ella was disengaging herself from her fiendish encumbrances, her face contorted with pain.
"Oh, Ella, Ella!" was all poor Dimity could say, putting her thin arms around her suffering friend's shoulders. It was Ella herself who directed operations.
"Give me a hand getting my skirt and stockings off," she ordered, gasping painfully. She stumbled to the kitchen chair, once white but now mottled with claret-colored splashes, and began to fumble at her shoes. They were filled with the hot liquid and the metal eyelet holes were searing her flesh. Dimity collected her wits and helped her to strip off her garments, but as soon as she saw the scalded flesh, already beginning to blister, her face crumpled.
"Oh, poor Ella, poor darling Ella! I'll run and get Dr. Lovell You simply must have a doctor!"
"He's out," panted Ella, still struggling with a mammoth suspender, "and anyway we're going to wash this dye off before anyone starts messing about with my legs. Get some stuff out of the medicine chest, for pity's sake!"
Dimity fled to the bathroom and returned with the tiny first-aid box.
"There's this lotion that Dotty Harmer made up for your hands. D'you think that would help?" she asked, holding up an evil-looking green liquid in a shaking hand.
"Talk sense!" snapped Ella, with pardonable irritation. "D'you want gangrene to set in?"
Dimity rummaged frantically again, tears falling from her eyes.
"Which it may well do, anyway," went on Ella morosely, surveying a crimson ankle. "And I'll be stumping about Thrush Green on my knees for the rest of my life," she continued warming to her theme, and becoming garrulous, now that the first shock was over and she had a sympathetic audience.
Dimity could bear no more.
"I'm going now," she exclaimed. "You can't possibly see to that alone. I'll help you to the bathroom and you can swab it with cotton wool if you like, but you must have proper medical attention. Shall I ring the hospital for an ambulance?"
"Good God, Dim!" shouted Ella, shocked at this ruthless suggestion. "Do you want to kill me?"
For Ella's conception of hospitals was twofold. In the first place, she looked upon them as large, disinfectant-reeking establishments, provided by society, for the hygienic segregation of those about to quit this world; and secondly, as convenient and practical schools for medical men who literally had their raw materials at their finger tips. The thought of entering one alarmed her far more than the actual accident.
Together the two woman struggled to the bathroom, which was situated, luckily, on the ground floor. Dimity fetched Ella's dressing gown, established her on a stool by the bath and left her friend to bathe her legs and feet in tepid water. She was not at all happy about this, but Ella, now secretly near to tears with pain, shock and the truly awful suggestion of hospital treatment, was becoming voluble and obstreperous.
"I'm sure we should be putting oil, or a paste of bicarbonate of soda or something like that on it," protested poor Dimity, one distracted hand ruffling her hair. "If only I could remember what I learnt during the war! I used to know it all so well—and now I can only remember how to deal with incendiary bombs! Poor Ella!"
"If you're going for the doctor, then go!" burst out her much-tried companion. And, without another word, Dimity fled for help.
Dr. Bailey was dozing in the sunny garden when Dimity pealed agitatedly at the bell.
Dimly, through the comfortable wrappings of slumber which surrounded him, the doctor became conscious of women's voices in the hall. Someone was pouring forth a torrent of words while his wife was doing her best to soothe the visitor. Rousing himself from his chair Dr. Bailey went in from the sunshine to investigate the commotion.
"It's Ella!" burst forth Dimity, as soon as he came in view.
"She has had an accident," put in his wife swiftly. "I'm going along to see if I can help. There's no need for you to be disturbed."
"She's most dreadfully scalded—" began Dimity, in a tearful gabble.
"Scalded, eh?" interjected the doctor. "I'll come along." He reached for the black bag which always stood in readiness on the hall table. His wife made another attempt to return him to his disturbed rest.
"Let me go first, and if we need you I promise I'll come back," she said, laying a hand on her husband's arm. He disengaged it gently.
"It's no distance, my dear, and we mustn't neglect an old friend like Ella when she's in trouble." He lifted the bag and made for the front door, followed by Dimity twittering her thanks and fears. Mrs. Bailey, knowing when she was beaten, wisely said no more, but watched them make their way to the gate through the warm flower-scented garden.
Ella was still sitting in the bathroom when the doctor arrived. He took one look at his patient whose teeth were now chattering with cold and shock, and said firmly:
"Bed for you, my dear. Come along."
"What, on a lovely afternoon like this?" protested Ella.
"Yes indeed. Dimity, put the kettle on and make a cup of tea for both of you." He turned to Ella. "I'll help you upstairs and Dimity can give you a hand later on. Those legs want dressing straight away."
Slowly they mounted the stairs. Ella's massive arm was thrown around the doctor's shoulders and it was as much as he could do to support her weight up the crooked staircase, across the landing, and into her bedroom.
Dimity, having put the kettle on, returned to help her friend undress and put on her nightgown while the doctor unpacked his bag.
"And she'll want that dressing gown too," ordered the doctor. "Keep her warm, my dear."
An ear-splitting whistle from below warned the company that the kettle was boiling and Dimity moved away, leaving Ella to the ministrations of their old friend.
The kitchen was in an unbelievable condition of chaos, as poor Dimity saw as she set out tea cups upon a tray. She lifted the soaking linen into the sink and put the great saucepan outside the back door. The mat was ruined and the walls, chairs and scrubbed table top spattered with crimson dye. There was an hour's hard work waiting for her here, decided Dimity sadly.
As she lifted the tray her eye fell upon the mound of revoltingly sticky utensils which Ella had left at lunchtime. She sighed bravely and made her way to the door. It was perhaps a good thing that domestic martyrdom was a commonplace in Dimity Dean's life.
"She'll do," said Dr. Bailey ten minutes later. "Not as bad as I first thought—but you're to stay there until Lovell's had a look at you. A shock like that takes more out of you than you realize."
He turned a shrewd and kindly eye upon Dimity.
"And you'd better ha
ve an early night too," he said. "Get as much sleep as you can. Both of you."
"On May the first?" cried Dimity. "You know the fair keeps us all awake for hours! Really, I do think it's too bad to allow that dreadful noise to go on as it does!"
"Only once a year, Dim," pointed out Ella from the bed. "And probably the last time anyway."
"I hope not," said Dr. Bailey, gathering his things together. "Stuff your ears with cotton wool, if you must! But don't forget—early bed!"
He parted from Dimity at the front door.
"There's nothing to worry about," he assured her, noticing her anxious face. "Ella's got the constitution of a horse."
He waved farewell, and somewhat comforted, Dimity Dean returned to the upheaval in the kitchen.
The dazzle of Thrush Green after the shade of Ella's bedroom was almost too much for the doctor. His head bumped strangely and the trees and caravans and busy fair-folk blurred together in a giddy whirling motion.
He stopped by a fence and steadied himself against it. His bag seemed uncommonly heavy and he set it down carefully, closing his eyes in case vertigo overcame him.
"Damn, damn, damn!" swore the doctor furiously to himself. "Twenty yards' walk, one simple case, and I'm useless!"
He leaned dizzily against the fence, praying that his wife should not happen to look out from their gate and see his helplessness. Another minute and he would be perfectly all right, he told himself.
A voice spoke, so close to him that he was startled.
"You all right, doctor?" It was Mr. Piggott, lately come from "The Two Pheasants," which had shut its doors some half-hour or so before. A smell of beer and plug tobacco emanated from him, so strongly that the doctor was partially revived by it.
"Yes, yes. I'm all right, many thanks, Piggott. Found the sunshine a bit dazzling, that's all."
He was surprised, and touched, too, to see the expression of concern on the old rapscallion's normally surly countenance, and even more surprised when the sexton lifted up his black bag for him and accompanied him to his gate.
"Well, that's very kind of you, to be sure," he said, when they arrived. For want of anything better to say he waved toward the fair.
"Are you going tonight?"
"Me? Not likely," growled Piggott, with his usual venom. "I'll be glad to see the back o' this lot, I can tell 'ee. Nothing but a set of rogues and thieves. Be a good riddance, when they clears out tomorrow." He hitched his trousers up viciously and ambled away through the offending collection of caravans to his work, leaving the doctor pondering on this exhibition of both sides of his neighbor's nature.
"How was she?" asked his wife first. And then, in the same breath: "You shouldn't have gone. You're overtired."
The doctor roused himself to speak calmly.
"Ella's not too bad. I've left her in bed and the burns will keep till Lovell can see her in the morning."
He had put down the black bag, as he had done so many times, upon the hall table; but this time his hand remained resting upon it as he faced his wife.
"Come and sit down," urged Mrs. Bailey. "You really shouldn't have gone."
"I'm glad I went," replied the doctor steadily, patting the bag as one might a much-loved dog.
"It's helped me to come to a decision."
"About Dr. Lovell?"
"About Dr. Lovell," agreed the doctor. "I shall offer him a partnership tonight."
9. At "The Drovers' Arms"
MOLLY PIGGOTT sang as she washed up the glasses in the back kitchen of "The Drovers' Arms."
She was alone in the house, for as soon as the bar had shut at two o'clock, Ted Allen, the landlord, and his wife Bessie had driven off to Lulling, in their twenty-year-old Baby Austin, to do the week-end shopping.
"We'll be back in an hour or so, love," fat, rosy Bessie had called from the car, "in time to let you get away real early, as it's fair day. Keep your eyes open for the laundry van. He's supposed to be calling about three—but you know what he is!"
They had rattled off, leaving Molly to enjoy the peaceful kitchen on her own. She was glad of her own company for she was in a state of great excitement.
Molly had been born at the little cottage on Thrush Green, and, for her, May the first had always been the highlight of the year. The traveling fair had become associated for Molly with the most bewitching time of the country year, when hope, warmth and color flooded fields and gardens, and the hearts of men could not fail to be quickened by the glory around them. And this year the fair-day held a particular significance for Molly Piggott.
The memory of that lovely evening with Ben had warmed Molly throughout the year. She had been more attracted by the young man than she had realized, and she was astonished at her own disappointment when she had failed to hear from him.
She had continued to go about her daily affairs looking as cheerful and as bustling as ever, but at heart she was sadly perplexed. She cooked and cleaned, washed and mended, weeded the garden and fed the hens, enduring the surly company of her father with less equanimity than usual, and escaping as often as she could to the haven of the Bassetts' house across the green. Paul was an enormous comfort to her, and although she was careful not to let too much slip out about the dark young man who had taken her to the fair, Paul's pertinent questions and shrewd guesswork soon uncovered her secret.
He was genuinely sympathetic to poor Molly and hated to know that she was in any way upset. Touched to the heart by his warmhearted solicitude, Molly still tried to treat the whole affair lightheartedly, but Paul was not to be so easily put off.
"You should write to him," said Paul decidedly, as they walked together one afternoon to Dotty Harmer's to get the eggs. The rain was slanting across the field, shrouding Lulling Woods in a gray veil. Paul strode through the puddles in his gum boots. His sou'wester dripped water upon his shiny oilskins in little rivulets. One hand was thrust in his pocket and the other comforted Molly's with a warm wet grasp.
"He may be a real nice man," he continued judicially, ignoring the torrents about him, "but he can't know you're worrying about him, or he'd come and see you."
"I'm not worrying," Molly had said, with a very good imitation of a light laugh. "And I can't write to him if I don't know where the fair is, can I? Even if I wanted to—which I don't!" she had added hastily.
"He should come," maintained Paul stoutly. "He must be a friend because he gave you that brooch and he took you to the fair. He should come and see you. Or he should send you a picture post card of wherever the fair is."
"Perhaps he's ill," suggested Molly, making excuses for Ben against her will. "Or maybe old Mrs. Curdle don't like him wasting his time writing to girls. She's a proper ol' pip, they say, at keeping 'em all working."
Paul, with a child's black and white conception of right and wrong, and having no interest or recognition of those forgiving shades of gray with which adults confuse the issue, would have no excuses made for poor absent Ben.
He asked Molly whenever they met if she had heard from Ben, so that Molly grew more and more alarmed at the interest taken in her affairs, and dreaded lest the child should let fall some chance remark at home or anywhere else on Thrush Green. She knew, only too well, how quickly rumors spread in a small community and was horrified to think how a spark, so innocently dropped by sympathetic young Paul, would blaze a trail from Thrush Green to Lulling, to Nod and Nidden, and all the little hamlets that clustered near the river Pleshy. As for her father, if he should come to hear of the evening out, let alone anything further, he was quite capable of making her life a misery with braggart threats and mean-spirited mockings.
"Don't you say a word now," she had said severely to Paul one day when he had questioned her once more about the errant Ben. "It's a secret, see? I wish I'd never said a word about him to you. I don't care all that about him anyway," protested poor Molly, tossing her head.
"Then why do you wear that cornflower brooch every day?" Paul had answered mildly. For two pins Molly could hav
e slapped the child, torn as she was between exasperation and affection. She did her best to speak calmly.
"Well, he was kind to me, Paul, and I likes to wear it to remind me of a lovely time. But there's no call for you to think I'm fretting, you know. And don't forget—what I've told you is a secret. Promise?"
"Promise," echoed Paul solemnly, and he had kept his word.
But Molly had grown increasingly perturbed as the year slid from summer into winter. Her father's boorishness, his bouts of morose drinking and her own disappointment over Ben's silence combined to make her life depressing. She almost dreaded going to the Bassetts' house in the winter months, for then she and Paul were together indoors, often in the company of Joan and Edward, and Molly trembled lest Paul should forget his promise and reveal her feelings unintentionally. It was during the autumn that she heard about the post at "The Drovers' Arms."
"They wants a girl as'll help in the bar and give them a hand in the house," the milkman had told her one day. He was a cheerful fellow who always stopped for a word, and was fond of any lively buxom girl like Molly. He was a great favorite with most of the ladies on Thrush Green, though Dimity Dean had found him "detestably familiar" once when she had been obliged to answer the door in her dressing gown.
"Why tell me?" Molly had asked, with genuine interest.
"You're too good to waste away under this roof," the man had said shrewdly. "You'd see a bit of life up there. The Aliens is real nice and homely. Food's good, pay's good, and home here for the week end if you still wants to see old Happy Face!" He had jerked a thumb in the direction of Mr. Piggott, who was stirring up a bonfire in the churchyard.
"They won't want me," said Molly. "I've never done bar work."
"You go and see 'em," urged the milkman, patting her arm. "I told 'em you'd be just the right sort of gal if they could persuade you. You think it over. Tell 'em I sent you up."
