(9/13)The School at Thrush Green (21 page)

At these appalling words Agnes felt her eyes fill with tears, and hurried from the room. In the privacy of the scullery she prepared the cat's food, and a few salt drops mingled with the tinned meat in the enamel dish.

It was that word 'abandoned' which hurt most. There was something so cruel and callous about it, and of course Agnes had tortured herself quite enough already thinking about the cat's future. And to call her tabby friend 'a perfect pest'! It was more than flesh and blood could endure.

She put the plate outside in its usual position, and the cat came trustingly towards it. But this evening Agnes could not bring herself to stand and watch this normally happy sight. Conscious of her tear-stained face, and complete inability to control her emotion, she rushed down the garden, and betook herself to the privacy of the field beyond.

Here she sat down on the grass behind the hawthorn hedge, and abandoned herself to the grief which engulfed her. It was insufferable of Dorothy to behave in this way! For two pins she would tell her that the idea of sharing a retirement home was now absolutely repugnant to her. A vista of long grey years giving in to Dorothy's bullying suddenly assailed her mind's eye. Could she bear it?

Why should she part from her dear new friend? If she stayed at Thrush Green she could keep it. After all, she had lived very happily for many years in digs at Mrs White's. There must be other lodgings where a well-behaved cat would be welcome.

Agnes's sobs grew more violent as she grew more rebellious. Her small handkerchief was drenched, and her head throbbed more painfully than ever.

It was at this stage that Isobel, who had been depositing vegetable peelings on her compost heap, came through the wicket gate at the end of the garden to see what the strange noise was about.

She was appalled to see her old friend in such a state of despair, and dropped to the grass beside her.

'But what is it? What has happened?'

She put her arm around Agnes, and felt hot tears dampening her shoulder. The colander, which had held the peelings, rolled away unnoticed, as Agnes's distress increased in the face of her friend's sympathy.

From an incoherent jumble of sobs, hiccups and comments about Dorothy's remarks and the cat's pathos, Isobel began to understand the real nature of Agnes's anguish, and was seriously perturbed.

It was even more alarming to hear Agnes's ramblings about her future, and the possibility of refusing to leave Thrush Green if it meant parting from the cat.

'If only Mrs White were here,' cried Agnes, shoulders still heaving. 'I know she would take me back again, and the cat too. She adored cats.'

At the thought of Mrs White's affection for the feline world, Agnes's tears broke out afresh.

There was little that Isobel could do apart from patting her friend's back and uttering words of comfort.

At last, the paroxysm passed, and Agnes was able to mop her eyes and control her breathing again.

'Oh, Isobel!' she wailed. 'What a comfort you are! What am I going to do?'

'You are coming home with me,' Isobel told her. 'And you are going to have a rest until you feel better. Does Dorothy know you are out?'

A look of panic crossed Agnes's tear-stained face. 'No, I'm sure she doesn't. Oh, please don't say anything to her! I shouldn't want to upset her.'

'Don't worry,' said Isobel. 'The first thing to do is to get you to my house for a little drink.'

'But Harold – ' quavered Agnes.

'Out at a meeting,' replied Isobel. 'We shall be quite alone.'

The two friends made their way through the evening sunshine to the house next door.

There, feet up on the sofa, and a restorative cup of coffee to hand, Agnes recovered her composure, regretted her outburst, and thought, yet again, how much she loved Isobel.

Dorothy meanwhile, ignorant of all the upset her words had produced, was engrossed in a television programme about education.

Those taking part were obviously more theorists than practitioners, and Dorothy's disgusted snorts accompanied many of the panel's remarks.

The programme which followed was about birds, and Dorothy found this equally absorbing and far less irritating. It did occur to her, half-way through, when a hummingbird was extracting honey from a trumpet-shaped exotic bloom, how much Agnes would enjoy it, and where could she be, but she guessed – correctly, as it happened – that she was probably next door visiting Isobel.

So that when the sitting-room door opened a chink, and Agnes said that she proposed to have an early night as her head ached, Dorothy replied that it was a sensible idea and she would come up later, and kept her eyes glued to the television screen, quite unconscious of all that had devastated her friend's evening.

True to her word, at ten o'clock she switched off the set, and made her way upstairs.

She knocked gently on Agnes's door, but there was no response. She eased it open and listened. There was no sound at all. Presumably, Agnes was asleep, and she closed the door, with infinite care, and crept across to her own room.

She was asleep within half an hour, but next door Agnes lay awake, too agitated to settle, until she fell asleep at five o'clock completely exhausted.

When Harold Shoosmith returned from his meeting, Isobel told him what had happened.

'Poor old dear,' was his response, 'but not much we can do about it. After all, this cat business is their affair.'

'I agree. But I feel rather responsible for Agnes.'

'Good heavens! Why?'

'She has no family. She talked wildly of staying on at Thrush Green in digs - somewhere where she could have the cat.'

'You mean she's thinking of ditching Dorothy, and Barton, and all the rest of it?'

'At one stage this evening, she certainly was. And how would she manage? Her pension won't be much. She'll be horribly lonely. I'm quite willing to have her here for a few weeks until she finds lodgings, if that's what she really wants, but the long-term outlook is so dismal.'

'She can't possibly intend to leave Dorothy!'

'No, I don't think she will when it comes to it. But it does show how desperate she is. I don't think Dorothy has any idea how much she wants that cat. I think I shall have to tell her.'

Harold sighed.

'Well, watch your step, my dear. It's really such a storm in a teacup.'

'Not to Agnes. I've never seen her like this, and I'm appalled to think she may be jettisoning her future - and Dorothy's too, for that matter. If I get the chance, I shall let Dorothy know how things are, and what's more I shall try and persuade her to accept the cat into the household.'

'You're a brave woman,' said Harold.

16. A Trip to Barton-on-Sea

WHILE little Miss Fogerty was weeping in the shelter of the hedge, attended by Isobel, two more old friends were enjoying each other's company on the other side of Thrush Green.

Dimity had called to see Ella Bembridge. She looked with affection at the cottage which they had shared for several happy years before Charles had proposed and she had gone to live at the bleak rectory across the road.

A fire had razed that home to the ground, and now some very pleasant homes for old people were on the site, called Rectory Cottages in remembrance of the former building.

Ella appeared to be wrapped in a brightly stitched garment reminiscent of those worn by Peruvian peasants. Actually, it was one of the stitched rugs which so engrossed her at the moment, and after she had disengaged herself from its folds, she showed her work to Dimity with some pride.

'It's wonderfully colourful,' said Dimity politely. Secretly she thought it downright garish and quite unsuitable for the cottage. A nice plain beige Wilton now, thought Dimity, would look tasteful anywhere.

'It's a runner for the hall,' explained Ella, looking fondly at her handiwork. 'Nice cheerful welcome it'll make, won't it?'

'Very colourful,' repeated Dimity, trying to be truthful without giving offence, a common predicament among well-mannered people.

'Let's have a cup of something,' suggested Ella, 'or a glass. Which, Dim?'

'Nothing for me,' said Dimity.

'Well, I must have a gasper. I'm cutting down but it's killing work, I can tell you.'

She rooted among the clutter of bright wools, magazines, ashtrays and two apples on the table, and found the battered tin which constituted her cigarette-making factory.

As she rolled a very thin, and very untidy, cigarette, she asked Dimity about any news from Lulling.

'Charles is getting rather agitated about the Lilly girl at the Lovelocks.'

'What's the trouble? Slave driving?'

'Pretty well. They are adamant about how little they ask of her, but I gather she's already talking of giving in her notice. Gladys Lilly is pretty cross about it.'

'So why does Charles worry?'

'He feels he's letting down Anthony, you see. It was his idea to see if the Lovelocks would take on the girl. I don't think he realises how demanding they are.'

'Tell him from me to forget it. Half the time these things blow over. In any case, he acted in good faith and if things have gone wrong I don't see that it's any fault of his.'

Dimity took some comfort from these stout words.

'And now your news. I heard about the house at Barton. Have they seen it yet?'

'Next weekend, I believe. I hope something comes of it. This hanging about would drive me up the wall.'

Patience, Dimity knew, was not one of her old friend's strongest virtues, and was not surprised when she changed the subject to Muriel Fuller who had evidently called earlier in the day.

'What's known as "an excellent woman",' said Ella, shaking ash in the vague direction of the ashtray. 'She came here at eleven o'clock just when I was counting twenty-five holes on my canvas, and stayed until twenty-past twelve.'

'Was she collecting for something?'

'Yes, she always is. Something to do with an African mission. I gave her fifty pence and hoped she'd go, but I had to listen to the history, customs, marriage rites - and very unpleasant they were, I can tell you - not to mention how much they needed my money. She really is the most outstanding bore.'

'Oh, come!' protested gentle Dimity. 'She's only trying to do good.'

'All I can say,' said Ella forthrightly, 'is that doing good always seems to bring out the worst in people.'

Charles Henstock's concern about Doreen Lilly's position at the Misses Lovelock was shared by the ladies themselves.

They certainly expected too much of the girl, and Violet at least recognised this.

All three sisters had been used to first-class resident help until the last ten or twelve years. They still expected the house to look immaculate, the meals punctually on the table, the laundry snowy and the prodigious array of silver in sparkling condition.

While their parents were alive, a cook, a general maid and a parlour maid had occupied the two attic bedrooms, and served the family devotedly from seven-thirty in the morning until ten-thirty at night.

It was hardly surprising that, with the sketchy domestic help now available, the house and its contents had lost their pristine look, and that the mingled fragrance of beeswax polish and home-baked bread had been superseded by a general fustiness.

The three old ladies did their best in the circumstances, but they were untrained in the art of housekeeping themselves, and had no knowledge of the effort needed to keep such an establishment as theirs in perfect order. They found Doreen's ministrations deplorably inadequate, and became more and more querulous.

'Surely she knows that the
bedroom
furniture needs polish on it,' protested Ada. 'Why just do the dining-table?'

'Because she sees it gets marked,' explained Violet. 'So she gets out the polish and tackles it.'

'And she hoovers for hours,' added Bertha, 'but never thinks to dust the skirting boards.'

'I have told her,' said Violet, 'but I don't think she takes in anything very readily.'

'And she's getting a little impertinent,' added Ada. 'Tossed her head at me when I pointed out the smears on the landing window, and said she had no head for heights. Why, dear old Hannah thought nothing of balancing a plank across the stairwell when she did the high parts of the landing and stairs.'

'Dear old Hannahs have gone,' said Violet shortly.

There was a heavy silence, broken at last by Ada. 'Well, what's to be done? Do we give her notice or not?'

'Who could we get in her place?' queried Bertha. 'You know how difficult it was to find Doreen.'

'Carry on as we are,' advised Violet. 'It wouldn't surprise me to find that
we
get given notice, not Doreen.'

And so the unsatisfactory state of affairs was left.

Gladys Lilly was equally worried about her daughter.

She confided her fears to Nelly Piggott one evening before the bingo session began.

'She's proper unsettled. Back to biting her nails, like she used to do as a little mite. Always was secretive. I tell you, I'm real worried about her.'

'I can't say I'm surprised,' said Nelly. 'That house of the Lovelock ladies would get anybody down. Can't she find some other place?'