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CHAPTER 1

Afternoon Tea

In far too many places in England today, the agreeable habit of taking afternoon tea has vanished.

'Such a shocking waste of time,' says one.

'Much too fattening a meal with all that dreadful starch,' says another.

'Quite unnecessary, if one has had lunch or proposes to eat in the evening,' says a third.

All very true, no doubt, but what a lot of innocent pleasure these strong-minded people are missing! The very ritual of tea-making, warming the pot, making sure that the water is just boiling, inhaling the fragrant steam, arranging the tea-cosy to fit snugly around the precious container, all the preliminaries lead up to the exquisite pleasure of sipping the brew from thin porcelain, and helping oneself to hot buttered scones and strawberry jam, a slice of feather-light sponge cake or home-made shortbread.

Taking tea is a highly civilised pastime, and fortunately is still in favour at Thrush Green, where it has been brought to a fine art. It is common practice in that pleasant village to invite friends to tea rather than lunch or dinner. As Winnie Bailey, the doctor's widow, pointed out one day to her old friend Ella Bembridge, people could set off from their homes in the light, and return before dark, except for the really miserable weeks of mid-winter when one would probably prefer to stay at home anyway.

'Besides,' said Ella, who was fond of her food, 'when else can you eat homemade gingerbread, all squishy with black treacle? Or dip into the pounds of jam on the larder shelves?'

'I suppose one could make a sponge pudding with jam at the bottom,' replied Winnie thoughtfully, 'but Jenny and I prefer fresh fruit.'

'Jenny looks as though a sponge pudding might do her good,' said Ella, naming Winnie's maid and friend. 'She seems to have lost a lot of weight recently. She's not dieting, I hope?'

Winnie profferred the dish of shortbread, and Ella, who was certainly not dieting, took a piece.

'I've noticed it myself,' confessed Winnie. 'I do hope she's not doing too much in the house. As you know, we've offered to look after Tullivers when Frank and Phil are away, and Jeremy will stay with us. So I'm determined that Jenny shall not overwork then.'

Tullivers was the attractive house next door to Winnie Bailey's. Built of the local Cotswold stone, it faced south, standing at right angles to her own home, and their gardens adjoined. Since the death of her doctor husband, Donald, she had been more thankful than ever for her good neighbours, the Hursts.

Frank Hurst was an editor, and his wife Phyllida a free-lance writer. They had met when Phil was busy submitting work some years earlier. Her first husband had been killed in a motoring accident, and she had been left to bring up her young son Jeremy with very little money.

This second marriage had turned out to be a very happy one, and the inhabitants of Thrush Green thoroughly approved of the Hursts, who played their part in village life, supplying prizes for raffles, jumble for the many rummage sales, and consenting, with apparent cheerfulness, to sit on at least half a dozen local committees. Jeremy was a happy child, now in Miss Watson's class as Thrush Green village school, and due to start at his new school, in nearby Lulling, next September.

In April, Frank and his wife were off to America where he was to spend six weeks lecturing. It was too long a period to keep Jeremy from school, and Winnie had offered at once to look after him.

'It would give me enormous pleasure,' she assured the Hursts, 'and the boy is never any bother. Just the reverse in fact. It would be such a comfort to have a man about the place again.'

And so it was arranged.

On this particular February afternoon, when Winnie and Ella were enjoying their modest tea-party, the weather was as bleak and dreary as any that that wretched month can produce.

A few brave snowdrops had emerged under the shelter of Winnie's front hedge, and the winter jasmine on the wall still made a gallant show, but the trees remained gaunt and bare, and the prevailing colour everywhere, from heavy clouds above to the misty fields below, was a uniform grey.

'The winters get longer,' commented Ella, craning her neck to look out of the window, 'and the summers shorter. Dimity and Charles don't agree, but I'm going to keep a weather diary next year to prove my point.'

Charles Henstock was the rector of Thrush Green, and had married Dimity, Ella's lifelong friend, a few years earlier. They lived contentedly in the most hideous house on the green, a tall, badly-proportioned Victorian horror, covered in peeling stucco, whose ugliness was made more noticeable by the mellow beauty of the surrounding Cotswold architecture.

Most of the Thrush Green residents were resigned to this monstrosity, but Edward Young, the local architect, who lived in the most splendid of Thrush Green's houses, always maintained that a glimpse of the Henstocks' rectory gave him acute pains in the stomach. His wife Joan, a cheerful down-to-earth person, dismissed this as quite unnecessary chi-chi, and hoped that he was not going to grow into one of those tiresome people who affect hyper-sensitivity in order to impress others.

This trenchant remark had the effect of restoring Edward's good humour, but he still stuck to his guns and was the first to attack the unknown and long-dead architect of Thrush Green's great mistake.

'Dimity,' went on Ella, 'was wondering if she could persuade Charles to move his study upstairs. It's so cold and dark at the moment, and they could easily turn that little bedroom over the kitchen into a nice snug place for the writing of sermons. Heaven alone knows, there are only about two rooms in that house which get any sun.'

'I gather he doesn't like the idea,' commented Winnie.

'Well, he's not being too obstinate, but suggests that they wait until after their holiday.'

'That should put it off nicely,' agreed Winnie, pouring her guest a second cup of Darjeeling tea. 'Now tell me the rest of the news.'

Ella frowned with concentration.

'Dotty is toying with the idea of adopting a little girl.'

Winnie put down the tea pot with a crash.

'She can't be! The way she lives? No adoption society would countenance it!'

Dotty Harmer, an elderly eccentric friend, beloved of both, lived some half a mile away in a dilapidated cottage, surrounded by a garden full of chickens, ducks, geese, goats and any stray animals in need of succour. Indoors lived several cats, kittens, dogs and puppies. Occasionally, a wounded bird convalesced in a large cage in the kitchen, and once an ailing stoat had occupied the hospital accommodation.

'He is rather smelly,' Dotty had admitted, 'but it's handy for giving him scraps when I'm cooking.' Even her closest friends had found hasty excuses for declining invitations to meals whilst the stoat was in residence. At the best of times Dotty's food was suspect, and a local ailment, known as 'Dotty's Collywobbles' was quite common.

'I don't think Dotty has thought about that side of it. She told me that now that she was getting on it might be a good idea to train someone to take over from her, and look after the animals and the house.'

'The mind boggles,' said Winnie, at the thought of dear Dotty training anyone.'

'Well, she said it seemed a shame that she had no one to leave things to when she died, and it really could provide a very nice life for someone.'

'I am shocked to the core,' confessed Winnie. 'But there, we all know Dotty. She's probably forgotten about it by now, and is full of some other hare-brained scheme. '

'Let's hope so,' said Ella beginning to collect her bag and gloves. 'And that reminds me that I must get back to collect my goat's milk from her. She promised to call in about five-thirty with it, and I want her to choose some wool for a scarf. I've dug out my old hand loom, and I warn you now, Winnie dear, that all my friends will be getting a handwoven scarf next Christmas.'

'You are so kind,' said Winnie faintly, trying to remember how many lumpy scratchy scarves, of Ella's making, still remained unworn upstairs. Sometimes she wondered if fragments of heather and thistle remained in the wool. It was impossible to pass them on to the local jumble sales for Ella would soon come across them again in such a small community, and Winnie was too kind-hearted to inflict them upon such distant organisations as Chest and Heart Societies. Their members had quite enough to put up with already, she felt.

'By the way,' said Ella, turning at the front door, are you going to Violet's coffee morning? It's in aid of Distressed Gentlefolk.'

'I should think those three Lovelock sisters would qualify for that themselves,' observed Winnie.

'Don't you believe it,' said Ella forthrightly. 'With that treasure house around them? One day they'll be burgled, and then they really will be distressed, though no doubt they're well insured. Justin Venables will have seen to that.'

She set off down the wet path, a square stumpy figure, planting her sensible brogues heavily, her handwoven scarf swinging over her ample chest.

Winnie watched her departing figure affectionately.

'Yes, I'll be there,' she called, and closed the door upon the bleak world outside.

The Misses Lovelock, Violet, Ada and Bertha lived in a fine old house in Lulling High Street, less than a mile downhill from Thrush Green.

Here the three maiden ladies had been born at the beginning of the century, and here, presumably, they would one day die, unless some particularly forceful doctor could persuade them to end their days in one of the local hospitals.

They had been left comfortably off by their father, which was as well, as the house was large and needed a great deal of heating and maintenance. Not that they spent much on these last two items, and prudent visitors went warmly clothed when invited to the house, and could not help noticing that walls and woodwork were much in need of fresh paint.

The amount spent on food was even more meagre. The sisters seemed able to survive on thin bread and butter, lettuce when in season, and the occasional egg. Guests were lucky indeed if meat appeared on the table, not that the Lovelocks were vegetarians, but simply because meat was expensive and needed fuel and time to cook it. Most of their friends consumed a substantial sandwich before dining with the Lovelocks, or faced an evening of stomach rumblings whilst sipping weak coffee.

The extraordinary thing was that the house was crammed with valuable furniture, and with glass cabinets stuffed with antique silver and priceless porcelain. All three sisters had an eye for such things, and were shrewd bargainers. They were also quite shameless in asking for any attractive object which caught their eye in other people's houses, and this effrontery had stood them in good stead as a number of exquisite pieces in their collection proved. There were several people in Thrush Green and Lulling who cursed their momentary weakness in giving way to a wheedling Miss Ada or Miss Violet as they fingered some treasure which had taken their fancy.

On this particular afternoon, while Winnie was tidying away the tea things and Ella was unlocking her front door, the three sisters were sorting out an assortment of articles already delivered for the bring and buy stall at the coming coffee morning.

'I wonder,' said Violet pensively, if we should buy this in, dear?'

'Buying things in' was another well-known way of acquiring some desirable object. It really meant having first pick, as it were, at the preview, and many a donor had looked in vain for some pretty knick-knack on the stall when one or more of the Misses Lovelock had had a hand in the preparations.

Violet now held up a small silver-plated butter dish in the form of a shell.

Ada scrutinised it shrewdly.

'I think Joan Young sent it. Better not. It's only plate anyway.'

Violet replaced it reluctantly.

'Would you say fifty pence for these dreadful tea-cosies?' asked Bertha.

'Mrs Venables crocheted those,' said Ada reprovingly, 'and you know how her poor hands are crippled with arthritis. At least seventy pence, Bertha, in the circumstances.'

Bertha wrote three tickets for that amount. Ada always knew best.

A circular biscuit tin bearing portraits of King George V and Queen Mary proved to be a treasure chest of buttons, buckles, beads and other trifles.

The three white heads met over the box. Six skinny claws rattled the contents. Six eyes grew bright with desire.

'And who sent this?' enquired Bertha, anxious not to offend again.

'Miss Watson from the school,' replied Violet. She withdrew a long piece of narrow black ribbon studded with jet. 'How pretty this would look as an edging to my black blouse!'

'It would look better as a trimming on my evening bag,' said Bertha. She took hold of the other end.

'Miss Watson,' said Ada dreamily, 'will not be able to come to the coffee morning. These things were left her among a lot of other trifles, she told me, by her aunt in Birmingham.'

'Well, then — ' said Violet.

'In that case — ' said Bertha. Both ladies were a little pink in the face.

'Put it on one side,' said Ada, 'and we'll think about buying it in later. I see there are some charming jet buttons here too. They may have come from the same garment. A pity to part them, don't you think?'

Scrabbling happily, the three sisters continued their search, while outside the lamps came on in the High Street of Lulling, throwing pools of light upon the wet pavements, and the damp figures of those homeward bound.

One of the figures, head bent, and moving slowly towards the hill which led to Thrush Green, was that of St Andrew's Sexton, Albert Piggott, who lived alone in a cottage facing the church and conveniently next door to The Two Pheasants, Thrush Green's only public house.

Albert was always morose, but this evening his gloom was deeper than ever. Cursed with habitual indigestion which his diet of alcohol, meat pie and pickles did nothing to help, he had just been to collect a packet of pills from Lulling's chemist.

Doctor Lovell of Thrush Green, who had married Joan Young's sister and had served as a junior partner to Donald Bailey, was now the senior partner in the practice, and Albert Piggott was one of his oldest and most persistent patients. It was vain to try to get the irritable old man to change his ways. All that he could do was to vary his prescription now and again in the hope that Albert's tormented digestive tract would respond, at least temporarily, to new treatment.

'Plain bicarb, again, I don't doubt,' muttered Albert, slouching homeward. 'What I really needs is good hot meals.'

He thought wistfully of Nelly's cooking. Nelly, his wife, had left him — twice, to make it worse — and both times to share life with the oilman whose flashy good looks and honeyed words had attracted her on his weekly rounds.

Nelly now lived with her new partner on the south coast, and it was he who now enjoyed her superb steak and kidney puddings, succulent roasts, and well-spiced casseroles. The very thought of that chap's luck brought on Albert's indigestion.

Not that Albert lacked attention. In many ways, he was better off.

Nelly's cooking had tended to be rich, even by normal standards. She excelled with cheese sauces, fried potatoes, and creamy puddings. Her cakes were dark and moist with fruit, her sponge cakes were filled with butter icing, and more icing decorated the top. Doctor Lovell's pleas to her to provide plainer fare for her husband fell on deaf ears. Nelly was an artist. Butter, sugar and the best quality meat and dairy foods were her materials. She cooked, and Albert ate. Doctor Lovell hadn't a chance.

But since Nelly's departure, presumably for good this time, his daughter Molly had done her best to look after the old man.

She was married to a fine young fellow called Ben Curdle, and the couple lived nearby with their little boy George in a flat at the top of the Youngs' house. Ben was employed in Lulling, and Molly helped Joan in the house. The arrangement worked well, for Molly had been known to the Youngs for all their lives. They had rejoiced when Molly had finally succeeded in escaping, through marriage, from the clutches of her selfish old father. Now that she was back in Thrush Green they only hoped that she would not be so kind-hearted as to fall into the trap again.

Molly, wiser than Nelly, cooked with prudence for her father, leaving him light dishes of fish or eggs as recommended by the doctor. More often than not these offerings were given to the cat by Albert, in Molly's absence. He dismissed them as 'pappy stuff' and either went next door for his pie and beer, or used the unwashed frying pan to cook himself another meal of bacon and eggs.

At times Molly despaired. Ben took a realistic attitude to the problem.

'Lord knows he's old enough to know what's good for him. Let him go his own way. Don't upset yourself on his account. He never put himself out for you, did he?'

There was truth in this. Molly had enough to do with looking after Ben and George, and the housework. She loved being back in Thrush Green. The only snag was her obstinate old father. At times she wished that Nelly would return to look after him. Although she disliked her blowsy stepmother, at least Albert's cottage had been kept clean and he had been looked after.

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Excerpted from "Gossip from Thrush Green"
by .
Copyright © 1981 Miss Read.
Excerpted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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