Free Thrush Green by Miss Read

possibly, Stephen himself.
    And so the blow for Ruth was all the more annihilating. When her father returned, gray-faced and weary, to tell her that there was no hope at all of a reconciliation, that Stephen had already accepted the post in Brazil and was to fly out on the day that was to have been his wedding day, and that he never wished to see Ruth again, the girl collapsed.
    Even then the tears refused to come. She lay in bed, white and small, dark eyes roving restlessly about her room, unable to eat or speak, while the dreadful news was dispatched to the invited guests, friends, neighbors, caterers and all.
    When she was fit to travel her father had driven her, still numb with shock, a woebegone little ghost, down to stay with her sister Joan. And there, throughout the slowly unfolding spring, amid the kindly scents and sounds of Thrush Green, her frozen heart thawed again.

    The sound of her nephew calling from upstairs roused Ruth from her musings. She left the coffee brewing and ran upstairs to see the little boy, pausing at the landing window to look at the golden glory outside.
    The horse chestnut trees were beginning to break, their palmate leaves looking like tiny green hands bursting from sticky brown gloves. She could see the children running about in the playground, their hair flying in the wind, their arms and legs gleaming like satin in the morning sunshine.
    Miss Bembridge was coming from Dr. Bailey's house and Ruth watched her sturdy figure stump along the road to the cottage on the corner. The surgery door opened again and young Dr. Lovell stood for a moment upon the threshold, before setting off across Thrush Green. Ruth watched his advancing figure with growing comfort.
    "Paul!" she called, hurrying across to the bedroom. "Doctor's coming!"
    Paul was scrambling into his tousled bed as she opened his door. He looked up at her, openmouthed.
    "Aunt Ruth," he said in astonishment, "your eyes are shining!"

6. Coffee at "The Fuchsia Bush"
    M RS. B AILEY was enjoying a cup of coffee in "The Fuchsia Bush," Lulling's rendezvous for the ladies of that small town. She had left the doctor in the garden, happily slicing the edges of the flower beds with a formidably sharp new edge-cutter, and filled with more zest than she had seen in him for many weeks.
    She had tripped light-footed down from Thrush Green, rejoicing in the sparkling morning and the exhilarating sounds of the fair's preparations. But now, with the shopping safely in her basket, she was quite pleased to sit alone, watching the inhabitants of Lulling pass by on their lawful occasions, before facing the long uphill pull to her house.
    "The Fuchsia Bush" prided itself on its appearance. Its architect had done his best to make a building which would harmonize with the surrounding Cotswold stone and yet suggest the "cozy-chintzes-within" atmosphere which his clients had insisted upon. An enormous bow window with several of its panes devoted to a bottle-glass effect kept his clients happy, and later their customers, for it was generally accepted in Lulling that the appearance of one's friends gazing through the bottle-glass panes was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. Like gigantic carp they goggled and gulped and when embellished with hats, or, better still, spectacles, even the handsomest of Lulling's inhabitants could strike fear and awe into the beholder's marrow.
    Mrs. Bailey stirred her coffee slowly and read the new placard outside the chapel opposite. It said:
T HE W AGES
O F S IN
I S D EATH
    which Mrs. Bailey found more irritating grammatically than thought-provoking. She suddenly remembered that, years ago, she had heard of a firm that had had written across its delivery van:
M AYS W AYS P AYS A LWAYS
    And at least, thought Mrs. Bailey, snatching comfort where she could, I was never forced to see that! She turned her attention to the interior of "The Fuchsia Bush."
    Apart from two elderly men in mufflers, who sipped their coffee noisily and