A Few Green Leaves Page 7

  ‘I know,’ said Miss Lee, going out of the room and reappearing with a tissue-paper wrapped parcel, ‘perhaps Mrs Furse would like this.’

  It was a small mirror with a floral decoration round the edges.

  ‘Barbola work, isn’t it?’ said somebody.

  The mirror was accepted, examined and admired and the raffle was drawn again. This time Avice Shrubsole won the bottle and bore it away in triumph – the bring-and-buy had been worthwhile. Her mother had also enjoyed the morning and there was a slight feeling of guilt mingled with her enjoyment, for she had mislaid her saccharine tablets and taken two lumps of sugar in her coffee as well as eating a slice of homemade sandwich cake with cream and jam filling.

  Emma wished she had won the wine, but she had the quince preserve and a plastic bag containing six rock buns, so perhaps the morning had not been wasted. She had also gathered material for a note on an important village activity. Then she realised that Miss Lickerish was walking just behind her, so she turned back and tried to engage her in conversation, feeling that she might contribute some fragment of historical or sociological interest.

  ‘I see the young doctor’s wife took the bottle,’ Miss Lickerish said, initiating the conversation.

  ‘Yes, it was good of Mr Prince to give a prize,’ Emma said.

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t miss it, would he.’

  ‘No, perhaps not, but still….’

  They walked on in silence for a while, then Emma, making some trite remark about the fine weather, found that she had started Miss Lickerish off on a confused rambling about summer-time, the long light evenings, a ruined cottage in the woods and the goings-on there at some unspecified time in the past. Obviously the bottle of wine combined with the idea of summer weather had started some train of thought in the old woman’s mind that Emma was unable to follow.

  When they reached the door of Miss Lickerish’s cottage Emma looked in through the window and saw a cat on the kitchen table, eating something out of a dish that might or might not have been what the animal was intended to eat…. She said goodbye to the old woman and returned home in a state of some confusion.

  Back at Yew Tree Cottage Miss Lee and Miss Grundy set about clearing up the aftermath of the coffee morning and bring-and-buy sale which had made a shambles of their drawing-room. They went about their task in silence, an efficient one on Miss Lee’s part – ‘Let’s get this mess tidied up, shall we?’ But Miss Grundy’s silence was a hurt one – Miss Lee had taken the barbola mirror without asking her permission and it had been a present to both of them. Another source of quiet resentment on her part.

  11

  People’s attitudes towards the flower festival were ‘ambivalent’, Emma thought, the jargon word coming into her mind. Everybody knew about it, of course, could hardly fail to, with notices plastered all over the village, but there had never been such a thing in the old days. Flower arrangement was a fashionable modern pastime for a certain type of woman – a hobby for the gentler sex, almost like the accomplishments of a Victorian young lady – and even though the art of arranging flowers may have originated in Japan, it was now an unmistakably English activity. The chaste positioning of a single bloom or spray in the Oriental manner would be seen as totally inadequate in the present setting; much more would be expected. Emma liked the idea of a single dark red rose or peony in a pottery jug against the grey stone of the church, but knew better than to suggest it. Her own garden could provide a few delphiniums and lupins and there was a pink climbing rose on the front of the cottage. She was just in the act of cutting down some branches of this when she saw Tom approaching with Adam Prince.

  ‘What a charming picture you make, with the roses,’ said Adam smoothly.

  Emma tried to think of a gracious answer to this rather obvious compliment. Then, before she had been able to produce anything, Tom, suddenly and ridiculously, burst into poetry.

  The two divinest things this world has got

  A lovely woman in a rural spot,’

  he recited.

  There was a brief stunned silence, surely one of dismay, then Emma broke it by laughing. The two men must surely realise that she certainly wasn’t lovely, not even pretty.

  ‘Leigh Hunt,’ said Tom quickly, attempting to cover up his foolishness. ‘Not a good poem.’

  He was hardly improving matters – there had been no need to make that kind of critical judgement. ‘I thought of taking a few flowers along to the church,’ Emma said. ‘Mrs G. does want things out of people’s gardens, doesn’t she?’

  ‘I like to watch ladies arranging flowers,’ Adam said. ‘It was one of the aspects of my calling that I most enjoyed.’

  Tom thought this an unusual way of looking on the duties of a parish priest, but made no comment. After all, his own most enjoyable aspect was concerned with delving into parish registers, which seemed little better than watching ladies arranging flowers. ‘Did you ever have a flower festival in your church?’ he asked Adam.

  ‘Oh, I think so – but I was so often away in the summer.’

  Tom expressed surprise.

  ‘Yes, I usually managed to avoid parish summer occasions – fêtes, and that kind of thing – couldn’t stand them,’ said Adam smugly.

  ‘But how did you manage to “avoid” them, as you put it?’

  ‘By arranging to be on holiday and out of the country – in Italy, for preference.’ Adam laughed. ‘You ought to try it.’

  Tom in his bewilderment could think of no answer to this. ‘Arranging to be in Italy’ at the time of the flower festival – if only he could!

  The three of them had now reached the church where Mrs G. was directing operations.

  ‘Ah, Miss Hislop,’ she said, giving Emma the wrong name, ‘how kind, bringing flowers too. So many delphiniums, one hardly knows….’

  What on earth to do with them, Emma thought, completing the sentence. She glanced beyond Christabel G. to where a group of women she did not at once recognise were doing things with flowers and even branches of trees. Then she saw that Miss Lee and Miss Grundy were among them, also Dr Shrubsole’s mother-in-law and even Mrs Dyer, though the last was just filling vases with water from the tap outside. Would she be allowed to participate in the actual arrangement? Emma wondered. There might be material for a note on village status here. And was the festival itself in some way connected with fertility, perhaps? Looking again at the assembled group of ladies, she doubted this interpretation. It was a mistake to suppose that every human activity was related to sex, whatever Freud might say.

  Seeing one of the doctor’s cats scratching in the shrubbery, Daphne found herself dredging up another Greek memory, this time of an early morning in Delphi when, looking down towards Itea, she had seen in a field far below a little cat scratching in the earth in the timeless manner of cats everywhere.

  ‘My wife has already gone to the church,’ said Dr G., coming out of the house with a black and white torn cat on his shoulder. ‘And how are you these days?’ he asked Daphne, almost as if he thought he was in the surgery and obliged to make such an enquiry.

  ‘Oh fine, thanks,’ said Daphne, embarrassed because she had deserted the old doctor.

  ‘Martin looking after you all right?’

  ‘Dr Shrubsole? Oh yes – thank you.’

  ‘Still want to get away to a Greek island?’ Dr G. asked, in a mocking, jovial tone.

  Daphne smiled but did not answer. Ought not her longing to have been a secret, or did everyone in the village know anyway? ‘I’d better be getting along to the church,’ she said.

  ‘Well, take care of yourself, my dear,’ said Dr G. ‘We all get a bit low at times. Nothing to worry about. Get yourself a new hat – that’s what I always say.’ He chuckled and bent down to allow the cat to descend from his shoulder.

  He did think he was in the surgery, Daphne realised. What a good thing she had transferred to Martin Shrubsole, especially now that she was getting older. Martin had made a special study of geriatrics
– nasty word, but we all came to it. He would look after her, but then she might not be here all that much longer to be looked after. Her friend Heather Blenkinsop was coming at the weekend, to visit the flower festival, of course, but also to discuss final plans for their holiday. Who knew what that might lead to? Not a beach hut on Mykonos, of course. Those were all the rage a few years ago, but that wasn’t the sort of thing that would suit Heather and herself. Perhaps one of the other more remote islands, comparatively undeveloped….

  How big the church was, she thought, as the building loomed in sight. The Victorians were ridiculously ostentatious, even with their larger congregations, adding to the unpretentious old structure in the way her brother Tom deplored. In Greece, certainly in the country places, they had those miniature whitewashed churches, almost like something made out of a child’s bricks….

  ‘Shall I do my usual window?’ she asked, confronting Mrs G.

  ‘Your usual window….’ Mrs G., her arms full of lilies, spoke absently, as if she hardly remembered who Daphne was. It was hurtful, that kind of thing. Tears came into Daphne’s eyes as she stood there, waiting to be told what to do. ‘Oh, I think we’re going to do a bit more than our usual windows,’ Christabel said. ‘After all, it is a festival, isn’t it?’

  Daphne realised that she hated flower arranging altogether. Sometimes she hated the church too, wasn’t sure that she even believed any more, though of course one didn’t talk about that kind of thing. And Christabel G. hadn’t told her what she was to do, just snubbed her and left her standing uselessly by a heap of greenery. Into Daphne’s mind came yet another Greek vignette, the memory of an old man on the seashore bashing an octopus against a stone….

  ‘I wonder if this is all right?’ Magdalen Raven was asking Daphne’s opinion. ‘These tall branches keep falling over, but I don’t like to make them shorter. Mrs

  Gellibrand said she wanted the effect of height – I suppose I could put crumpled wire-netting in the bottom – that might do…. It’s going to be lovely, isn’t it?’ Martin had suggested that she might like to go along and help at the church even though she wasn’t as yet on the flower-arranging rota, and she was really enjoying herself in spite of not being able to get the branches of beech leaves to stand up properly. ‘Getting involved’ was one of Martin’s favourite prescriptions for the approach of old age, the beginning of the end of life. But in a sense we were all ‘involved’, weren’t we, always had been. ‘Do you remember?’ she wanted to say to Daphne, hoping to share a few more wartime memories, but before she could put her thoughts into words somebody had brought her a green plastic substance to prop up the branches and she had to get on with the business in hand.

  It certainly did look lovely, Emma decided on the day of the festival, though not quite like a church. The arrangements were too elaborate, too much like the foyer of an advertising agency or an expensive block of flats or the decorations for a smart wedding. But what exactly did one want? Simple arrangements of cow-parsley and campion or bunches of drooping bluebells in jam jars? Perhaps not flowers at all, ancient grey stone set off by the austerity of Lent?

  ‘Well, I must say it’s an improvement on the last time I was here.’ Unknown to Emma, Terry Skate and a friend had come into the side chapel and were contemplating the crusader effigy and the dog with its head broken off. ‘But they haven’t taken my advice – I told them they could conceal the damage with a posy of small flowers – forget-me-nots and moss roses would be just the job – but they didn’t want to know.

  Emma had noticed the broken dog’s head, but to her it was a pathetic, even romantic, touch rather than something to be concealed with a posy of flowers. And after all, one must remember that it was history. She was just about to point this out to the young man when she noticed another man in a rather long raincoat standing in one of the side aisles, examining a wall tablet rather than the elaborate arrangement of peonies and delphiniums behind him. Why was he wearing a raincoat on this beautiful summer day? she wondered. The first lines of a Shakespeare sonnet came into her mind,

  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day

  And make me travel forth without my cloak?

  But this was the other way round, for the day was already beauteous and there was no need for any kind of cloak, certainly not a raincoat. She concealed herself behind the delphiniums and studied the man more closely. When he turned round she saw that it was Graham Pettifer. There was a kind of bent look about the shoulders which might explain why she had not recognised him immediately. She could not run away and hide or pretend she had not seen him, if that was what she wanted to do, for in her confusion she hardly knew what she wanted. Obviously she must face him and find out why he had come in this unexpected way.

  ‘Why, Graham….’ She feigned surprise.

  ‘Emma, I had to come….’ He moved towards her, arms outstretched, as if about to embrace her.

  Not here, she thought, backing away from him and almost knocking over the peonies and delphiniums. The church was full of people, strolling round admiring the flower arrangements.

  ‘I don’t seem to have eaten since yesterday,’ he said surprisingly.

  ‘But why not?’ This was really too much.

  ‘I couldn’t, somehow – things have been too upsetting – I didn’t feel like food.’

  ‘You’d like to eat something now, perhaps?’ Emma suggested. It was a little after three o’clock, so an early tea, provided by Daphne with Miss Lee and Miss Grundy in the rectory garden, was a possibility, or would a late lunch be more appropriate? If ‘things’ had been ‘upsetting’ it was most likely that Graham would be unable to specify any particular meal, but tea – always tea –and a boiled egg and toast might be suitable, she thought, and this was what she began to prepare when they returned to her cottage.

  Graham sat slumped in a chair, not speaking but fixing his gaze on various objects in the room, almost as if he were noticing dust or some other displeasing aspect.

  ‘Two eggs?’ Emma asked. ‘And how do you like them?’

  ‘Oh, just as they come.’

  ‘Boiled eggs don’t exactly do that.’ On the hard side, then, she thought, five minutes. A too-soft-boiled egg would be awkward to manage, slithering all over the place in the way they did. Not to be coped with by a person in an emotional state, though Mr Woodhouse in that novel about her namesake had claimed that it was not unwholesome. ‘I’ll have some toast too,’ she said, ‘to keep you company.’ It was hardly the weather for toast but it seemed easier.

  ‘Aren’t you going to have a boiled egg then?’

  ‘No, I’ve had lunch.’ She wished he would explain his presence here a little more fully, but whatever urge had driven him to seek her company now seemed to have evaporated. ‘Did something happen?’ she asked at last. ‘Did Claudia…?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that. Ah, this is good!’ He had cracked open one of the eggs and was spooning out the richly yellow yolk on to a piece of toast.

  Emma was relieved to see that the egg was perfectly done, with the white firm and the yolk just runny enough.

  ‘Free range, are they?’ he went on. ‘I suppose they would be, in the country. It’s so good to be here, free-range eggs and all – just what I need.’

  Daphne’s friend, Heather Blenkinsop, arrived in her little yellow car and parked outside the church. She was a short dumpy woman of fifty-nine but she looked a good deal younger and smarter than Daphne, wearing her usual garments of Welsh tweed trousers and matching cape. She rather liked Tom and wished she could have gone up to him with a kiss, as older people tended to do nowadays – a new fashion, not perhaps meaning very much but, in her opinion, a pleasant one. But Tom was standing in the church porch to welcome visitors and discreetly draw attention to the large glass bottle which had been placed in the doorway for donations. It was already quite full of ten-and fifty-pence pieces and there were even a few folded notes.

  Tom had been hoping to come upon Emma in the churc
h – surely she would put in an appearance at the flower festival if only for its anthropological interest? – and was disappointed when he learned that she had been seen leaving the church – he must have missed her somehow – in the company of a man. What man could this be? he wondered. She was perfectly entitled to number men among her friends – it might even be a brother, though he had always understood that she was Beatrix Howick’s only child….

  ‘Ah, Heather – good to see you….’ Tom did not care for his sister’s friend very much, though he respected her as a librarian, even if her interest in local history appeared a little excessive at times and there was something forced and unnatural about her frequent references to the sites of deserted medieval villages and the appearance of ridge and furrow in the landscape. Could any normal woman be quite so interested? he sometimes wondered, conscious tha^ he was being unfair to Heather. He could have wished that Emma might show a bit more interest, might express a desire to study rent rolls or help in his search for the site of their D.M.V. Instead of which she had been seen to leave the church with a strange man, some anthropologist, no doubt.

  ‘Before I forget, Tom,’ Heather was saying, ‘I came across a very interesting new book on hedge-dating the other day – something right up your street – a completely new theory.

  Tom murmured a polite acknowledgement. He was not particularly interested in hedge-dating.

  Emma had been glad when Graham suggested a drink at the pub, for it seemed that the suddenness of his impulse had made him forget the original reason for his coming. He had said that it was good to be with her but no further explanation was offered and Emma did not yet feel that she had progressed far enough in their revived relationship to demand anything more. So, after the ritual cup of tea, the ritual comfort of the pub, the drink, the cosy atmosphere, the company.