(3/13) News from Thrush Green by Miss Read Read Free Book Online Page B

garden was alive with movement, as branches tossed, flowers quivered, grass shuddered, and drops splashed from roofs and hedges.
    Winnie Bailey gazed unseeingly upon its wildness, turning over this problem in her mind. Richard, after all, was her nephew, she told herself - probably rather hard up, and simply asking for a bed and the minimum of board. Perhaps, for a little while—?
    'Shall I invite him for a fortnight to see how we all manage?' she asked her husband, now deep in The Times crossword puzzle.
    'By all means, if you would like to.'
    'It wouldn't be a nuisance to you?'
    'Of course not, I don't suppose I shall see much of the fellow, anyway, and he was always a quiet sort of chap about the house.'
    Winnie sighed, partly with relief and partly because she had a queer premonition that something unusual - something disquieting - might come from Richard's visit.
    Time was to prove her right.

    During the next week or so the inhabitants of Thrush Green observed their new resident with approval. They watched her tackling Tullivers' neglected garden with considerable energy. The smoke from her bonfire billowed for two days and nights without ceasing, as hedge-trimmings, dead grass, long-defunct cabbage stalks and other kitchen-garden rubbish met their end.
    The flagged path was sprinkled with weed-killer, and the hinge mended on the gate which had hung slightly awry for three years, wearing a scratched arc on the flag-stone each time the gate was opened or shut.
    The gate was also given a coat or two of white paint, and the front door as well. The girl's efforts were generally approved, and Jeremy too was considered an exceptionally well-brought-up little boy.
    But the continued absence of Mr Prior was, of course, a cause of disappointment and considerable speculation among the newcomer's neighbours at Thrush Green. He was obliged to be abroad for a few months, went one rumour, getting orders for his firm - variously described as one dealing in French silk, Egyptian cotton, Italian leather and Burmese teak.
    Others knew, for a fact, that he was a specialist in television equipment, computers, road-surfacing, bridge-building and sewage works. Betty Bell, however, had it on the highest authority (her own; that he had something to do with advertising, and went overseas to show less advanced countries the best way to sell ball-point pens, wigs, food-mixers, plastic gnomes for the garden, and other necessary adjuncts to modern living.
    Albert Piggott, on the other hand, thought that he was probably in hospital with a lingering complaint which would keep him there for many months to come. He said as much to his fat wife Nelly, whose response was typical.
    'Trust you to think that, you old misery! More like he's run off with some lively bit. That wife of his don't look much fun to me!'
    It certainly seemed nearer the target than some of the wild rumours. Winnie Bailey, who knew her neighbour better than the rest of Thrush Green's inhabitants, had come to much the same conclusion, but kept it to herself.
    Young Doctor Lovell, who occasionally caught a glimpse of the newcomer from his surgery window, also wondered if the girl had parted permanently from her husband, and felt sorry for her vaguely forlorn appearance. He spoke about her to Ruth, his wife, and she pleased him by replying:
    'Joan and I are going to see her this afternoon. Paul and her little boy would probably get on very well together, and she might be lonely, even if she is up to her eyes in getting that place straight.'
    The two sisters were not the only people to welcome Phil Prior. The rector, of course, called a few days after she had arrived, his chubby face glowing with the warmth and kindness he felt for all he met, even such stony-faced parishioners as his own sexton. Ella Bembridge called, bearing a bunch of Michaelmas daisies tied with what appeared to be a length of discarded knicker elastic, and an invitation to 'blow in any time you feel like it'. Harold