Thrush Green by Miss Read Page A

another few minutes of Miss Bembridge's comments, delivered in a booming voice that would have been an asset in a shipwreck. He had heard all about Miss Dean's fancied ailments after he had listened to the more pressing ones of Miss Bembridge, and he felt more and more like the unfortunate Wedding Guest who encountered the Ancient Mariner.
    From outside came the sweet scent of the old-fashioned pheasant's-eye narcissuses which Mrs. Bailey massed against the wall beneath the surgery window, and the thump of Ben Curdle's mallet as he rammed home stake after stake. Dr. Lovell longed to be out in the freshness of Thrush Green's morning, but Miss Bembridge continued remorselessly.
    "I tell her a good blow is what she needs. Get rid of the cobwebs. But no, every afternoon she says she must have a rest on her bed! Unhealthy, I tell her. But then, dear old Dimity always was a one for imagining she'd every ill under the sun. This backache now, she complains of—" Dr. Lovell cut her short.
    "Too much lifting, I expect. You'll have to see she gets help with the heavy work. And tell her to call one morning. I'll have a look at her."
    Miss Bembridge looked startled.
    "Oh, there's nothing really wrong! That's what I'm trying to tell you. Sheer imagination! Now, my hands are quite a different kettle of fish—"
    He had let her run on for one more minute exactly, his eye on the round silver clock which had been Mrs. Bailey's mother's. It was then that Ella Bembridge had begun the sly comments about Ruth Bassett's shortcomings as an aunt which had made Dr. Lovell realize, with sudden passion, that he could not bear to remain in this wretched woman's presence for one split second more.
    The cries of the junior class as they emerged into the stony playground, there to bound breathlessly about as galloping horses, reminded the doctor that it must now be Miss Watson's physical-training session and therefore almost ten-thirty. He strode resolutely to the surgery door and held it open.
    "I mustn't keep you," he said firmly, and watched Miss Bembridge heave her bulk from the armchair, cross the threshold and depart, still booming and not a whit perturbed, down the flagged path.
    Dr. Lovell returned to the surgery to tidy his papers, shut drawers and files, and collect his bag.
    He closed the surgery door behind him and stood for one minute savoring the fragrance of the May morning. The air was cool and sweet. A spiral of blue smoke curled from Mrs. Curdle's gaily painted caravan, the children laughed and called from the schoolyard, and on the highest point of Dr. Bailey's roof a fat thrush poured out a stream of shrill-sweet trills, his speckled breast throbbing with the ardor of spring.
    No less enchanted, young Dr. Lovell went through the gate, his eyes upon the house where Ruth and Paul were to be found, and, crossing the shining grass of Thrush Green, prepared to make the first visit of the day.

    Paul was standing on his head on the pillow of his bed. His pajama-clad legs rested comfortably against the wall, and apart from a slight discomfort of the neck, Paul was feeling very pleased with himself.
    He had remained poised in this upside-down position for a full minute and this was easily the longest time he had managed so far. The room, he observed, really looked much more attractive this way, and the colors were definitely brighter. This fact so interested him that he lowered his legs with a satisfying bounce and looked again at his surroundings the right way up. They certainly looked duller. He adopted his former topsy-turvy position and gazed with fresh rapture at his transfigured world.
    An early fly hovered around the central light and Paul wondered how it must feel, swooping aimlessly here and there. Surely the ceiling would seem like the floor to the fly, and he would think it the most ordinary thing in the world to have chairs and dressing tables and wardrobes hanging from the ceiling. Paul pondered about this until the crick in his