(3/20) Storm in the Village, page 2
Mr Willet, the school caretaker, verger and sexton of St Patrick's next door, and general handyman to all Fairacre, had also noted the strangers.
'Nice little car that, outside here this morning. Them two chaps from the Office?'
The Office, which is always spoken of with the greatest respect, referred in this case to the divisional education office in Caxley, from which forms, directions and our monthly cheques flutter regularly.
'No,' I said, 'I don't know who they were.'
'Oh lor'!' said Mr Willet, blowing out his moustache despairingly. 'Hope it ain't anything to do with the sanitary. They're terrors—the sanitary! Ah well! Time'll tell, I suppose—but they looked uncomfortable sort of customers to me!'
He trudged off, with resigned good humour, to sweep up the playground.
But it remained for the Reverend Gerald Partridge, vicar of Fairacre and Beech Green, to say the last word on this mysterious subject.
'Did you have visitors this morning?' he asked, after he had greeted the children. I told him that we had not seen anyone strange in school.
'I noticed two men in a little car outside here, as I drove over to see about poor old Harris's funeral at Beech Green. Now, I wonder who they could have been?'
I said that I had no idea.
'Who knows?' said the vicar happily. 'We may look forward to having some new people among us perhaps?'
As it happened, the vicar had spoken more truly than he knew.
2. Fairacre's Daily Round
BY NEXT day, of course, the two strangers were forgotten. Life, particularly in a village, has so many interests that each day seems to offer more riches than the last.
Miss Clare turned her attention to a magnificent steak and kidney pudding, which simmered gently on her stove from two o'clock onwards, for her lodger's, and her own, supper together at eight o'clock. It filled the little house with its homely fragrance, and Dr Martin, who called in hopefully about half-past three for a cup of tea with his old friend and patient, noticed it at once.
'That's the stuff!' he said approvingly, rubbing his hands, and he cast a glance at Miss Clare's spare frame. 'You're putting on weight since that girl came. Good idea of yours to have a lodger!'
It had not been Miss Clare's idea at all, as they both knew very well, but Miss Clare let it pass. It was Dr Martin who had engineered Miss Jackson's removal from her headmistress's house to Miss Clare's; and he could see that young company as well as an addition to her slender housekeeping purse was doing his patient all the good in the world.
'Have a ginger nut,' said Miss Clare, pushing the massive biscuit barrel across to him.
'I'll have to dip it. My new bottom set's giving me hell!' said the doctor, with disarming frankness. 'We're getting old, Dolly, that's our trouble.'
They smiled across at each other, and sipped their tea in comfortable silence. The steak and kidney pudding sizzled deliriously on the stove. The fire warmed their thin legs, and though indeed, thought Miss Clare, we're both old and white-haired, at least we're very happy.
Mrs Pringle was busy washing out the school tea cloths at her own sink. This was done every day, but on this occasion Mrs Pringle was particularly engrossed, for it was the first time that she had used what she termed one of these new-fangled deterrents.'
A staunch upholder of yellow bar soap, Mrs Pringle had set her face against the dazzling array of washing powders which brightened the grocer's shop. On a wooden shelf, above her sink, were stacked long bars, as hard as wood, which she had stored there for many months. This soap was used for all cleaning purposes in the Pringle household. The brick floors, the stout undergarments and Mrs Pringle's dour countenance itself were all scoured with this substance, and when one piece had worn away, Mrs Pringle fetched her shovel, laid a bar on a piece of newspaper on the kitchen floor and sliced off another chunk to do its work.
But the gay coupons, all assuring her of their monetary value, which fluttered through Mrs Pringle's letter-box from time to time, gradually found a chink in her armour. The day came when, slightly truculent, she handed one across the counter, and put the dazzling packet in her basket. She was careful to cover it with other packages, in case she met neighbours who, knowing her former scorn of these products, would be only too pleased to 'take a rise out of her' if they saw that she had finally fallen.
And so, on this day, Mrs Pringle washed her tea cloths with a critical eye. The packet had been tucked away behind the innocent bars of soap, for Mrs Pringle had no doubt that her husband and grown-up son could be as equally offensive as her neighbours about this experiment, if they caught sight of the soap powder.
'Hm!' said Mrs Pringle grudgingly, as she folded the wet tea towels, and put them into her laundry basket. 'It don't do so bad after all!'
With some pride, she trudged up the garden and began to peg out the cloths on the line. When she had done this, she propped the line up with a sturdy forked hazel branch, and surveyed the fluttering collection.
'Might be something to be said for these deterrents, after all!' she told herself, returning to the cottage, 'and it do save chipping up the soap—that I will give 'em!' It was, indeed, high praise.
Miss Jackson, in the infants' room at Fairacre was embarking on the most elaborate and artistic frieze yet attempted by her class. It was to go all round the room, fixed with drawing pins to the green-painted matchboarding, and it was to represent Spring.
The children were busy snipping with their blunt-nosed little scissors—which were always much too stiff for small children to manage properly-at gummed paper, in all the colours of the rainbow.
'Make just what you like!' Miss Jackson had exhorted them. 'Flowers, leaves, lambs, birds, butterflies—anything that makes you think of Spring!'
Most of her class had flung themselves with abandon into this glorious snipping session, but there were, as always, one or two stolid and adenoidal babies who were completely without imagination, and awaited direction apathetically.
'Make grass then!' had said Miss Jackson, with some exasperation to the Coggs twins, who sat with glum, dark eyes fixed upon her. Ten minutes later, she found that a large mound of green snippings lay on the desk between them, while, with tongues protruding, and with a red ring round each hard-working thumb, the grass-makers added painfully to their pile.
Anyway, thought Miss Jackson, that's far better than making them go, step by step, drawing round tobacco tins and paste jars to make horrid little yellow-chicks-in-a-row, for an Easter frieze! For she had found just such a one-made by her predecessor Mrs Annett—and had looked scornfully upon its charming regularity. The children, needless to say, had loved it, but Miss Jackson favoured all those things which were written in capital letters in her own teaching notes—such as Free Art, Individual Expression, Untrammelled Creative Urge, and so on, and anything as formal and limited as poor Mrs Annett's despised chicks were anathema to her.
And so the children snipped and hacked and tore at a fine profusion of gummed papers. Mrs Annett's and Miss Clare's frugal eyes would have expressed concern at the large pieces which fell to waste on the floor. But Miss Jackson, seeing in her mind's eye the riotous glory which was to flower around her walls so soon, and with a fine disregard for the ratepayers' money, smiled upon her babies' efforts with approval.
In the churchyard, next door to the school playground, Mr Willet was having a bonfire. He had made himself a fine incinerator by knocking holes in a tin tar barrel. This was set up on three bricks, so that the draught fairly whistled under it, and inside Mr Willet was burning the dead flowers from the graves, stray pieces of paper, twigs, leaves and all the other rubbish which accumulates in a public place.
He had had some difficulty in getting the fire to start, for the debris was damp. But, having watched Mrs Pringle returning to her home after washing up the school's dinner plates, he had made a bold sortie to the school woodshed, and there found a paraffin-oil can, which Mrs Pringle fondly imagined was known to her alone.
He sprinkled his languishing bonfire lavishly, and stood back to admire the resulting blaze.
'Ah! that's more like!' he said with satisfaction. He bent to retrieve the oil-can and stumped back to the woodshed.
'And if the old Tartar finds out, 'tis all one to me!' he added sturdily, tucking it behind the sack which shrouded it.
Meanwhile, the vicar was polishing his car, and doing it very badly. It wasn't that he was lazy about it. In fact, he was taking the greatest pains, and had an expensive tin of car polish, half-a-dozen clean rags of various types, ranging from a soft mutton-cloth to a dashing blue-checked duster which he had found hanging on the banister.
Mrs Willet, who was helping with the spring-cleaning at the time, was much perplexed about this duster. It had vanished while she had fetched the feather mop for the top of the spare room wardrobe, and was never seen by her again.
But despite his armoury and his zeal, the vicar's handiwork was a failure.
'I must admit,' said the vicar aloud, standing back on his gravel path to survey the car better, 'that there are far too many smears.'
'Gerald!' called his wife, from the window. 'You did remember to ask the Mawnes to call in for a drink this evening?'
'Well, no!' answered the vicar unhappily. 'To be truthful, it slipped my mind, but I have to take a cheque to Mawne for the Church Maintenance Fund. I'll ask them then.'
'Good!' said his wife, preparing to close the window. The vicar forestalled her.
'My dear!' he called. The window opened again. 'What do you think of the car?'
'Smeary!' said his wife, closing the window firmly.
'She's right, you know,' sighed the vicar sadly to the cat which came up to rub against his clerical-grey legs. 'It definitely is smeary!'
With some relief he turned his back on the car, and went into the house to fetch his biretta. He would visit the Mawnes straight away. An afternoon call would be much more satisfying than cleaning the car.
The smoke from Mr Willet's most successful bonfire began to blow into my classroom during history lesson, and I went to the window to close it.
I could see Mr Willet, his shirt-sleeves rolled up, forking dead vegetation into the smoking mouth of the incinerator. He turned, as he heard the window shut, and raised his hands in apology and concern.
I shook my head and smiled, waving my own hands, hoping that he would accept my grimaces and gestures as the verbal equivalent of Don't worry! It doesn't matter!'
It appeared that he did, for after a minute or two of further dumb show, he saluted and returned to his fork; while I gave a final wave and returned to my class.
The slip-shod spelling in the older children's history essays had roused me to an unaccustomed warmth and I had been in the midst of haranguing them when I had broken off to close the window. I returned to the fray with renewed vigour.
'Listen to this Patrick, "There were four Go-urges. Go-urge the Frist, Go-urge the Scond, Go-urge the Thrid, and Go-urge the Froth." And to make matters worse, I had put "George" on the blackboard for you, and spent ten minutes explaining that it came from a Greek word "Geo" meaning earth.'
Patrick smiled sheepishly, fluttering alluring dark lashes. I refused to be softened.
'Who remembers some of the words we put on the blackboard, beginning with "Geo"?'
There was a stunned silence. The clock ticked ponderously and outside we could hear the crackling of Mr Willet's bonfire. Someone yawned.
'Well?' I said, with menace.
'Geography,' said one inspired child.
'Geology,' said another.
Silence fell again. I made another attempt to rouse them.
'Oh, come now! There were several more words!'
Joseph Coggs, lately arrived in my room, broke the silence.
'Je-oshaphat!' he said smugly.
I drew in a large breath, but before I could explode, his neighbour turned to him.
'That's Scripture, Joe!' he explained kindly.
I let out my breath gently and changed the subject. No point in bursting a blood-vessel, I told myself.
Mrs. Annett had asked me to tea that afternoon.
'And stay the evening, please!' she had implored on the telephone. 'George will be going into Caxley for orchestra practice, and I shall be alone. You can help me bath Malcolm,' she added, as a further inducement.
The thought of bathing my godson, now at the crawling stage, could not be resisted, so I had promised to be at Beech Green schoolhouse as soon after four as my own duties would allow.
It began to rain heavily later in the afternoon. I saw Mr Wilier, his bonfire now dying slowly, scurry for shelter into the church. By the time the clock stood at a quarter to four, the rain was drumming mercilessly against the windows, and swishing, in silver shivers, across the stony playground.
We buttoned up the children's coats, turned up their collars, tied scarves over heads, sorted Wellington boots on to the right feet, and gloves on to the right fingers, before sending them out to face the weather. One little family of four, somewhat inadequately clad, had the privilege of borrowing the old golfing umbrella from the map cupboard. So massive is this shabby monster that all four scuttled along together, quite comfortably, in its shelter.
'I'll give you a lift,' I said to Miss Jackson. 'I'm going to Beech Green for tea, and you'll get soaked if you cycle.'
I sped across to the school house to put things to rights before leaving my establishment. Tibby, my black and white cat, turned a sour look upon me, as I shovelled small coal on to the fire, and put up the guard.
'And is this meagre warmth,' his look said, 'supposed to suffice? Where, pray, are the blazing logs and flaring coals best suited to the proper warming of a cat's stomach?'
I escaped from his disapproving eye and got out the car.
The downs were shrouded in rain clouds, and little rivers gurgled down each side of the lane as we drove along to Beech Green.
'Betty Franklyn told me that she was going to live with an aunt in Caxley,' Miss Jackson said, speaking of a six-year-old in her class. 'I wonder if that's right? Have you heard?'
'No,' I answered, 'but it would be the best thing, I should think. She'll be looked after properly, if it's the aunt I'm thinking of.'
Betty's mother had died early in the year, and the father was struggling along alone. I felt very sorry for him, but he was a man I had never taken to, sandy-haired, touchy and quick-tempered.
He was a gamekeeper, and lived in a lonely cottage, in a small copse, on the Beech Green side of Fairacre. He brought the child to school each morning on the cross-bar of his bicycle, and sometimes met her, when his work allowed, after school in the afternoon.
It must have been a cheerless home during the last two or three months, and the child had looked pathetically forlorn. I hoped that this rumour would prove to be true. The aunt had always seemed devoted to her little niece, and, in Caxley, the child would have more playmates. I felt certain that the aunt had offered to have the child as soon as her mother had died; but the father, I suspected, was proud and possessive, and would look to his little daughter for company. He was certainly very fond of her, and probably he had realised that she would be far happier in Caxley, and so given in to persuasion.
I said as much to Miss Jackson, as we edged by a Land-rover which was drawn up on the grass verge by Hundred Acre Field. Despite the sweeping rain, old Mr Miller, a small, indomitable figure in a trench coat and glistening felt hat, was standing among his young wheat surveying his field. He appeared oblivious of the weather, and deeply preoccupied.
'It will be a good thing for Betty,' I said, 'I shouldn't think her father's much company.'
To my surprise, Miss Jackson replied quite sharply.
'I should imagine he's very good company. He's always very nice when he brings Betty in the mornings. I've found him most interesting, and very well read.'
I negotiated the bend near Miss Clare's house in silence.
'And what he doesn't know about trees and birds and woodland animals!' continued Miss Jackson warmly. 'He's suggested that I take my class to the wood for a nature walk one day, and he'll meet us there.'
'Will he, indeed?' I said, somewhat taken aback.
'And when you think of the lonely life he leads, since his poor wife's death,' went on my assistant, her face quite pink with emotion, 'it really is quite shattering. How he must have suffered! And he's a sensitive man.'
I drew up outside Miss Clare's cottage. She waved through the window from behind a pink geranium, and beckoned me in.
'I'm going to tea with Isobel,' I bellowed in an unladylike way, 'so I mustn't stop!' She nodded and smiled, and watched her lodger, who was alighting, still pink and defensive.
'Goodbye, and thanks!' said Miss Jackson, somewhat shortly, pushing open the wet gate.
I drove off slowly and thoughtfully.
'It looks to me,' I said aloud, 'as if Miss Crabbe will soon be supplanted in Miss Jackson's heart. But not, heaven forbid, by that Franklyn fellow! I know a scamp when I see one!'
3. Mrs Annett Has Doubts
'HELLO, hello!' called Mr Annett, bursting out from his school door as he heard my car forge its way slowly into the playground.
'Put it under cover! Up in the shed,' he shouted, through the pouring rain. I edged carefully under the corrugated iron roof of the playground shelter. The drumming of the downpour was thunderous under here.
Two small boys, ostensibly tidying up some gymnastic apparatus, watched my manoeuvres with interest.
'Best leave 'er in gear, miss,' advised one. 'Nasty slope back if the 'and brake give up the ghost!'
'I'll stick a brick by your back wheel,' said the other. 'Don't do no harm, if it don't do no good! And don't forget your ignition keys, miss!'
