Free (4/13) Battles at Thrush Green by Miss Read Page B

herself from the remaining bounty. Bertha proffered the salad, and Dotty, chatting brightly, helped herself liberally to mustard and cress and two pieces of tomato. Meaning glances flashed between the three sisters, but Dotty was blissfully unaware of any contretemps.
    'No, no beetroot or onion, thank you,' she said, waving away the Meissen dish. There was an audible sigh of relief from Bertha.
    The ladies, who only boasted five molars between them, ate daintily with their front teeth like four well-bred rabbits, and exchanged snippets of news, mainly of a scurrilous nature.
    'I saw the dear vicar and Mr Shoosmith pass along the street this morning. And where were they bound, I wonder? And what was dear Dimity doing?'
    'The washing, I should think,' said Dotty, eminently practical. 'And I can't tell you what the men were up to. Parish work, no doubt.'
    'Let's hope so,' said Violet in a tone which belied her words. 'But I thought I saw a picnic basket on the back seat, with a bottle in it.'
    'Of course, it's racing today at Cheltenham,' said Ada pensively.
    The conversation drifted to the death of Donald Bailey, and even the Misses Lovelock were hard put to it to find any criticism of that dear man. But Winnie's future, of course, occasioned a great deal of pleasurable conjecture, ranging from her leaving Thrush Green to making a second marriage. 'Given the chance!' added Violet.
    The second course consisted of what Bertha termed 'a cold shape', made with cornflour, watered milk and not enough sugar. As it had no vestige of colour or flavour, 'a cold shape' seemed a fairly accurate description. Some cold bottled gooseberries, inadequately topped and tailed, accompanied this inspiring dish, of which Dotty ate heartily.
    'Never bother with a pudding myself,' she prattled happily, wiping her mouth on a snowy scrap of ancient linen. 'Enjoy it all the more when I'm given it,' she added.
    The Misses Lovelock murmured their gratification, and they moved to the drawing-room where the Cona coffee apparatus was beginning to bubble.
    What with one thing and another, it was almost a quarter to four before Dotty became conscious of the time.
    She leapt to her feet like a startled hare, grabbing her handbag, spectacle case, scarf and gloves which she had strewn about her en route from one room to another.
    'I must get home before dark. The chickens, you know, and Ella will be calling for her milk, and Dulcie gets entangled so easily in her chain.'
    The ladies made soothing noises as she babbled on, and inserted her skinny arms into the deplorable jacket which Lulling had known for so many years.
    Hasty kisses were planted on papery old cheeks, thanks cascaded from Dotty as she struggled with the front door, and descended the four steps to Lulling's pavement.
    The three frail figures, waving and smiling, clustered in their doorway watching the figure of their old friend hurrying towards the car park.
    'What sweet old things!' commented a woman passing in her car. 'Like something out of Cranford. '
    Needless to say, she was a stranger to Lulling.

    The overcast sky was beginning to darken as Dotty backed cautiously out of the car park and set the nose of the car towards Thrush Green.
    The High Street was busier than usual. Housewives were rushing about doing their last-minute shopping. Mothers were meeting young children from school, and older children, yelling with delight at being let out of the classroom, tore up and down the pavements.
    Some of them poured from the school gateway as Dotty chugged along. Several were on bicycles. They swerved in and out, turning perilously to shout ribaldries to their friends similarly mounted.
    Dotty, still agitated at the thought of so much to do before nightfall, was only partly conscious of the dangers around her. She kept to her usual thirty miles an hour, and held her course steadily.
    Unfortunately, one of the young cyclists did not. Heady with freedom, he tacked along on a bicycle too big for him,