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

a canopy of bright flowers, Charles and Dimity went with Ella to her nearby cottage and had tea there. Dotty Harmer and her niece Connie had been persuaded to join them.
    Naturally, most of those present were in a subdued mood, grateful for the comfort of a bright fire and a cup of tea among friends, on a sad occasion.
    Dotty was the exception. She was at her most chirpy, chattering of her memories of Robert in his younger days, and scattering cake crumbs as she waved her claw-like hands about.
    'He had a most dreadful old bicycle he kept here in the coach house. D'you remember, Connie? It had an acetylene lamp. So smelly. No, of course, dear, it was before, your time. He ran into my father's flower bed with it once. Father was most upset.'
    'Oh dear!' commented Dimity nervously. Old Mr Harmer had been a fierce martinet, dreaded by all, and such an encounter must have had dire consequences.
    'Of course,' went on Dotty, 'Robert had such charming manners, and was so truly contrite, that Father let him off with only a slight kick on the shin. Very good of Father, we all thought.'
    Charles caught Ella's eye and looked away hastily.
    'I liked the hymns, didn't you?' continued Dotty, wiping her fingers on the hem of her skirt. 'He was always musical, and I'm so glad he didn't ask for "ER-bide with me". So lugubrious, don't you think? I mean, if someone is bound straight for heaven, as I'm sure dear Robert is, then why not have something cheerful to speed him on his way?'
    'May I have another cup of tea, Ella?' asked Charles, looking a little pinker than usual.
    'Personally,' said the irrepressible Dotty, 'I should like the Hallelujah Chorus, though it does take some time to get through, of course, and one would need a full choir. But it's so rousing, isn't it? Triumphant, and yet sacred. Do bear it in mind for me, Connie dear. Or failing that I rather like a pretty little song called "I Like Life", but perhaps if one were lying there dead, as presumably one would be if the doctors had examined one efficiently, then to ask for life might be a little presumptuous, in the circumstances. What do you think, Charles?'
    The rector put his cup down.
    'I think, Dotty, that you should sit back quietly and enjoy Ella's excellent tea. We've all had a sad afternoon, and need a little rest, I'm quite sure.'
    'Well,' said Dotty, 'speaking for myself I feel quite perky, but no doubt there is something in what you say.'
    And after Charles's gentle chiding she sat back in her chair and sipped her tea like an obedient child, much to the relief of her companions.

    The still grey days of February continued. The sky remained overcast. The leafless trees stood with no stirring of branches. It seemed as if all Nature slept.
    The roads were damp. The hedges were beaded with minute drops, and even the birds seemed silent.
    In Lulling High Street the pavements gleamed wetly. The pollarded lime trees, bristling with leafless twigs, were streaked with lines of moisture. The air was heavy, and Lulling folk looked across the water meadows of the nearby River Pleshey and longed for relief from this oppressive humidity.
    ' 'Tisn't natural,' said one waitress to another in The Fuchsia Bush. 'Not a bit like spring. And as for getting a polish on these tables, well, it's love's labour lost, I say.'
    'Never mind, love,' responded her fellow worker, Gloria Williams, who was busy arranging iced buns in a glass cabinet and licking her fingers noisily the while. 'Be March in a day or two, coming in like a lion, no doubt, and we'll have all the old biddies coming in grumbling about their hair being messed up.'
    Her companion, Rosa, flicked a duster idly over an improbable collection of plastic flowers with daffodils nuzzling red geraniums above some fiercely autumnal leaves, all set precariously in a tub which had once held margarine.
    'I was thinking of giving the windows a clean,' she said, with a yawn. 'But there, old Mrs Peters isn't coming in today, and it don't