Winter in Thrush Green by Miss Read Page B

partner in the practice, Doctor Bailey, did very little these days and found the weather particularly trying. Like most of Thrush Green's inhabitants he kept the fire company while the rain poured down.
    Winnie, his wife, viewed his condition with secret alarm. He seemed to have difficulty with his breathing, and she did her best to persuade him to take a holiday abroad where they would find some sunshine.
    'Can't be done, my dear,' wheezed the aged doctor. 'Costs
too much, for one thing, and young Lovell's got too much to do anyway. At least I can take surgery for him now and again. He'll need to feel free to go and see Ruth when the baby comes.'

    He caught sight of the anxiety in his wife's face, and spoke cheerfully.
    'Don't worry so. I've been fitter this year than I have for ages. It's just this dampness. It'll pass, I promise you.'
    'You must take care, Donald. Keep in the warm and read -or better still, shall I see if Harold Shoosmith is free for a game of bridge this afternoon?'
    The doctor's eye brightened. The newcomer to Thrush Green had many attributes which his neighbours approved. That of a fair-to-average bridge player made him particularly welcome in the Baileys' household.
    'Good idea,' agreed Doctor Bailey, sounding more robust at once. 'And maybe Dimity and Ella will come as well.'
    He watched his wife bustle from the room to the telephone and lay back, contentedly enough, in the deep armchair. He was more tired than he would admit to her. The thought of sunshine filled him with longings, but the effort of getting to it he knew was beyond his strength. Better to lie quietly at Thrush Green, letting the rainy days slap by, unI'll the spring brought the benison of English sunlight and daffodils again.
    The room was very quiet. The old man closed his eyes and listened to the small domestic noises around him. The fire whispered in the hearth, a log hissed softly as its moss-covered bark dried in the flames, and the doctor's ancient cat purred rustily in its throat. Somewhere outside, there was the distant sound of metal on stone as a workman repaired a gatepost. A child called, its voice high and tremulous like the bleating of a lamb, and a man answered it. Doctor Bailey felt a great peace enfolding him, and remembered a snatch of poetry from 'The
Task,' which he had learnt as a small boy almost seventy years ago.

'Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence.'
    He was blessed, he told himself, in having a retentive memory which tossed him such pleasures as this to enhance his daily round.
    He was blessed, too, with a wonderful wife and a host of good friends. Half-dozing now, he saw their faces float before him, friends of his boyhood, friends of his student days, friends among his patients. Most clearly of all he saw the face of the great Mrs Curdle whose burial he had attended at St Andrew's two years before. The flashing dark eyes, the imperiously jutting nose and the black plaited hair delighted his mind's eye as keenly as ever. He fancied himself again inside her caravan home, sipping the bitter brew of strong tea with which she always welcomed him. He saw again the dazzling stove which was her great pride, the swinging oil lamp, and the photograph of George, her much-loved son, whose birth might well have caused the death of his mother had young Doctor Bailey not acted promptly so many years ago. Bouquets of gaudy artificial flowers floated before the old man's closed eyes–each a tribute to his skill, a debt paid yearly by the magnificent gipsy woman he was proud to call his friend. Dear Mrs Curdle, whose annual fair had welcomed in each May at Thrush Green–there would never be another like her!
    The door opened and his wife stood before him.
    'They'll all come,' she said, smiling.
    'Thank God for good friends,' said the doctor simply, turning from those in the shades to the living again.

    If Harold Shoosmith was welcomed as a bridge player at the Baileys' he was