(7/13) Affairs at Thrush Green Read Online Free PDF Page A

Thrush Green. Joan and Edward Young's fine house had originally been Robert's, but he preferred to live in Ealing where he carried on his furniture business, only visiting his daughters and the lovely Cotswold house two or three times a year.
    When at last he had been obliged to retire he and his wife Milly had no desire to turn out the Youngs, nor in fact did they want to cope with such a large establishment. It was then that Edward, a sound architect, had so successfully converted the old coach house in the garden into an attractive bungalow, and where Milly and Robert had spent the last few years very happily.
    Winnie Bailey was one of the first to hear. She was the widow of Donald Bailey who had been the seniorpartner of the Thrush Green practice when young John Lovell had come to join him, had settled in successfully and later found Ruth Bassett for a wife.
    It was John who broke the news to Winnie as he left the surgery to hurry across the green to his father-in-law. Winnie watched his departure with a heavy heart. One of the saddest things about growing old was the inevitable loss of contemporaries. It was some comfort to know that Robert's widow was surrounded by her family at this sombre time, but nothing, as Winnie herself knew, could mitigate the loneliness of the partner left behind.
    She went into the kitchen to tell Jenny, her maid and friend who lived in the same house. Jenny was busy breaking a handsome cauliflower into its separate florets at the sink when she was told the news.
    To Winnie's alarm, her serene Jenny, who always seemed to face a crisis with exemplary placidity, burst into tears, and sat down heavily on the kitchen chair.
    'But Jenny,' said her mistress, much bewildered, 'we all knew the poor man had very little time left. Why are you so upset?'
    Jenny raised a wet and woebegone face.
    'He was kind to me once. It was when I first came to Lulling as a little girl. I was sent to the big house with a message, and I was a bit scared. Mr Bassett answered the door, and must have seen I was frightened, and he took me round the garden and asked me all about where I was living and that.'
    She gave a violent hiccup, and Winnie patted her back as though she were curing a baby of the wind.
    'And he picked me a bunch of flowers—pinks and roses, I remember—to take back to the old people, and he gave me a shilling for myself. I never was so rich in my life. And best of all, you see, I had something to give my pa and ma which I'd never had before. They thought the world of those flowers, and I thought the world of Mr Bassett, and always did.'
    A mighty sniff terminated the tale, but Winnie could see that the telling of it had eased poor Jenny's grief and that now she would recover her habitual calm.
    'That's a very fine memory to have of a very fine man,' she said gently. 'Typical of dear Robert.'
    Jenny rose to her feet, and mopped her face vigorously.
    'Well, now I must get back to the cooking. Poor old gentleman, but there—it's time the vegetables were put on.'
    And Winnie, returning to her own duties could not help being reminded of one of the entries in James Woodforde's Diary which she had been reading.
    'Found the old gentleman almost at his last gasp. Totally senseless with rattlings in his throat. Dinner today boiled beef and Rabbit rosted.'
    Life is just such a jumble of tragedy and everyday chores. Robert himself would have appreciated warmly the confrontation of death and the preparation of Jenny's cauliflower, in the same hour.

    The funeral was at St Andrew's church a week later. It was a still day, mild and grey, with only a few tattered shreds of snow under the hedges to remind the mourners of the bitter weather.
    The rector took the service for his old friend and gave a short and simple address. The two hymns chosen by the family were Robert's favourites, 'Ye holy angels bright' and 'God be in my head'.
    After the service, when the congregation had gone home and Robert rested alone beneath