(7/20) Fairacre Festival Read online

  Fairacre Festival

  Fairacre [7]

  Miss Read

  Houghton Mifflin (1968)

  Rating: ★★★★☆

  Tags: Fiction, Country Life, Fairacre (England : Imaginary Place), Fairacre (England: Imaginary Place), Festivals

  Fictionttt Country Lifettt Fairacre (England : Imaginary Place)ttt Fairacre (England: Imaginary Place)ttt Festivalsttt

  * * *

  * * *

  Product Description

  Tthe first day of October brings an unheralded and violent storm, which whips through Fairacre, blowing down trees and telephone poles -- and, worst of all, damaging the roof of St. Patrick’s Church. The inhabitants of tiny Fairacre can’t imagine how they will be able to afford the repairs, until Mr. Willett suggests a fundraising festival. Preparations for a food sale, a concert, a school play, and a gigantic Christmas bazaar are soon made -- but will they be enough? With her customary humor and grace, Miss Read recounts a story of catastrophe and courage.

  About the Author

  Miss Read is the pseudonym of Mrs. Dora Saint, a former schoolteacher beloved for her novels of English rural life, especially those set in the fictional villages of Thrush Green and Fairacre. The first of these, Village School, was published in 1955, and Miss Read continued to write until her retirement in 1996. In the 1998, she was awarded an MBE, or Member of the Order of the British Empire, for her services to literature. She lives in Berkshire.

  The Fairacre Festival

  Miss Read

  * * *

  Illustrated by J. S. Goodall

  * * *

  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

  Boston • New York

  * * *

  First Houghton Mifflin paperback edition 2007

  Copyright © 1968 by Miss Read

  Copyright © renewed 1996 by Dora Saint

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections

  from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,

  215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Read, Miss.

  The fairacre festival / Miss Read ; illustrated byJ.S. Goodall.

  —ist Houghton Mifflin pbk. ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-618-88418-6

  ISBN- 10: 0-618-88418-1

  1. Fairacre (England : Imaginary place)—Fiction. 2. Country

  life—Fiction. 3. Festivals—Fiction. 4. Villages—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6069.A42T54 2007

  823'.914—dc22 2006103464

  Printed in the United States of America

  MP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  * * *

  FOR ANNE

  with love from her godmother

  Chapter 1

  ON the first night of October a mighty wind arose and smote the countryside around Fairacre. The violence of that wild night took almost all by surprise. Only the exceptionally weather-wise, such as Mr Willet, had any inkling of the devastation which lay in store, and even they admitted, as they surveyed the wreckage the next morning, that it was 'a durn sight worse'n they'd thought it would be'.

  We had enjoyed a week of mellow sunshine at the end of September. Butterflies clung decoratively to the Michaelmas daisies, wasps lurched drunkenly from ripe pears to ripe plums, and the schoolchildren at Fairacre School were more comfortable in their cotton frocks and thin shirts than they had been on many other occasions during a changeable summer.

  Harvest Festival was celebrated on the last day of September and, as usual, we helped to deck the ancient church of St Patrick's with "all things bright and beautiful". Coral-berried bryony from the school hedge wreathed the font. At the foot lay mounds of apples, pears and marrows. Carrots, parsnips and onions lined the ledges, and two fine sheaves of corn gleamed and rustled in their time-honoured place, one on each side of the chancel steps. The ladies of the parish had put their natural talents, and the expertise learnt at the local floral society, into the handsome flower arrangements, and it was generally maintained by the congregation that the church had never looked so magnificent.

  Monday morning dawned as benignly as ever. I watched the children, summer-clad and relaxed, as they drank their morning milk, and congratulated myself on postponing the lighting of the two tortoise stoves. Far too often, in the autumn term, I have asked my curmudgeonly school cleaner, Mrs Pringle, to light these monsters, only to experience a spell of humid weather in which we have all sweltered in the classrooms. Mrs Pringle never lets me forget these unfortunate errors.

  'Remember last year?' she demands belligerently, massive jaw out-thrust. 'You would have it. Said the children was cold, and up I come with paper, with sticks, with matches, although my leg was not what it should be—.'

  'But it was cold,' I begin, but am swept aside.

  'I fetches the coal, fetches the coke, goes down on me hands and knees for a full quarter of an hour to get the stoves to draw—and what happens?'

  I don't bother to answer. This, I know from experience, is a rhetorical question. Sometimes I think what a wonderful actress the stage has lost in Mrs Pringle. Her looks are definitely a drawback, but she has a fine sense of drama and puts plenty of punch into her lines.

  'We gets a hot spell. All my work's for nothing, and the coke's got to come out of us ratepayers' pockets. What's more, the children's pores are left hanging open for all the germs to get in as soon as they goes out into the cold playground!'

  This year, I told myself, on that fair Monday morning, I had behaved in an exemplary manner. Tomorrow would be October the second, and after that the lighting of the stoves must surely be considered acceptable by my task mistress.

  But, by midday, I was beginning to have doubts. The sun went in, the temperature dropped sharply, and the children began to rub their goose-pimpled arms. By the time they ran home in the afternoon, a cold wind had sprung up, snatching the yellow leaves from the plum tree in my garden and sending me scuttling to light my sitting-room fire.

  As darkness fell, the force of the wind increased. It roared in the elm trees towering above the school. It screamed round the school house, spattering leaves against the window and sending the dustbin lid clanging across the garden. The little house shuddered at its onslaught. Safe by the leaping fire, with a pile of exercise books to mark and the cat asleep by my feet, I gave the elements scant attention.

  But later, in bed, I became anxious. Never before had I heard the wind quite so violent in Fairacre. I remembered the doleful tales about elm trees which Mr Willet never tired of telling me. If one of those hefty branches fell across my roof it could be pretty damaging. And what about the roof tiles? It seemed incredible that anything could withstand the fury of the wind tonight. Strange creaks and groans seemed to come from the loft above me and an ill-fitting window let in a piercing draught accompanied by an ear-splitting whistling.

  I pulled the bed clothes up round my ears, thanked heaven that I was a schoolteacher and not a sailor, and slept amidst the uproar.

  Throughout the night the wind wreaked destruction. In the streets of Caxley it wrenched slates from roofs and toppled a dozen chimney-pots into the gutters. A flying tile broke the plate-glass window of Howard's restaurant in the market square, and a poor unfortunate man, cycling head down against the onslaught on his way to night shift, was blown from the towpath into the cold waters of the Cax, and there drowned.

  Just outside Caxley station a telegraph pole fell across the line throwing all into confusion, and on the road to Beech Green a tree had crashed, tearing down the telephone wires in its fall. But Caxley, t
ucked in its hollow, came off comparatively lightly. It was the windswept villages on the downs which bore the full brunt of the wind's savagery and it was Fairacre which suffered the most shattering blow.

  On a little knoll of high ground between the vicarage and St Patrick's a cluster of ancient elms stands, cradling a rookery in the topmost boughs. We, in Fairacre, admire the way that these lovely old trees form a background to the church. Rosy-purple in spring as the buds swell, providing dense shade in full summer, turning to clear gold in the autumn and spreading a black lacy tracery against the winter skies, they are a constant pleasure to the eye.

  But Mr Willet has never been one of their admirers.

  'One of these days,' he has said, on many occasions, 'them dratted elms is going to cause trouble. Got no proper root growth has elms. All spread out too near the surface for my liking. A good wind up top and over they goes.' And he was to be proved right.

  About two o'clock the fury of the wind was at its height. Its screaming woke me. The loose window shuddered and thudded, and the roaring outside was terrifying. It must have been this particular gust which caught the tallest of the elms nearest the church and sent it toppling. The topmost branches swept St Patrick's stubby spire, and bent the proud weathercock until it drooped head-down from its twisted stay. The heavy branches came to rest across the nave, scattering tiles and damaging the roof for which the church is famed. The massive trunk lay athwart the graveyard and the old roots, torn from the turf, writhed above a huge gaping hole.

  I did not hear the crash; nor do I think anyone else did. The noise was so continuous that it was impossible to pick out any particular incident. But the vicar said later that he awoke at that time and was conscious of some extraordinary commotion at the heart of the storm, and confessed frankly that he had felt very frightened.

  When light returned, the damage was discovered, and in no time at all a bevy of villagers came to survey the wreckage. Mr Willet was first on the scene, and with commendable magnanimity forbore to say: 'I told you so!' It was he who broke the news to Mr Partridge, the vicar, who was shaving when the bell of the back door rang.

  'Bad news, sir,' Mr Willet shouted up to the frothy face which appeared at the bathroom window.

  'The greenhouse?' queried the vicar, holding the window against the wind.

  'No, sir. The church. Tree across it, sir.'

  'Oh, my dear Willet!' cried the vicar, his face puckering in distress. 'What a terrible thing! I will be with you directly.'

  The window slammed, and within five minutes the vicar and his wife joined Mr Willet at the scene of the disaster. Several workmen, on their way to their labours, had propped their bicycles against the flint churchyard wall, and stood shaking their heads at the confusion.

  'We must get help from Caxley,' said Mrs Partridge decisively. 'There's no one in Fairacre with the equipment to shift that enormous thing.'

  'We must indeed, my dear,' agreed the vicar distractedly. There were tears in his blue eyes as he paced from one position to another assessing the appalling damage to his beloved St Patrick's. 'I suppose a crane or some such piece of machinery will be necessary, Willet? I can't bear to think of the wreckage we shall discover when the tree is lifted. I must go inside at once and make sure that everything is safe.'

  'I'll come inside with you,' said Mr Willet. 'You wants to watch out that none of them roof timbers is busted.'

  They entered the church while more villagers arrived to inspect the night's work. Here was drama in plenty! The schoolchildren were pleasurably excited by it all, and to a certain extent so were their elders, but there was in addition a shocked solemnity in the face of this tragedy, and thin-lipped Mrs Fowler from Tyler's Row put into words the unspoken thoughts of all when she asked of the villagers at large:

  'And who's going to pay for this lot, may I ask?'

  It was a question which was to perplex Fairacre for many a long month.

  Meanwhile, the work of clearing up the mess began. It was impossible to telephone to Caxley as the Post Office men were busy all the morning repairing the line at Beech Green, but Mr Mawne, churchwarden and member of the Parochial Church Council, set off for Caxley at the vicar's behest.

  Henry Mawne is a comparative newcomer to Fairacre, a retired schoolmaster and a keen ornithologist. He and his wife take their fair share of responsibilities in village matters, and the vicar, in particular, relishes the friendship and support of this quiet man. His competent handling of church accounts is a source of great comfort to the vicar whose grasp of financial details is hopelessly vague. Mrs Partridge confided once to me that her devout and erudite husband is under the impression that ten pennies make a shilling, and that this fundamental misapprehension is at the root of his difficulties. Certainly parochial affairs have been much more businesslike under Henry Mawne's administration.

  As Mr Mawne expected, the plant hire firm had most of its equipment spread about the country that morning, but a crane was promised for the afternoon and two men set off at once from Caxley to start cutting away branches and to clear the site for the rescue operation. He returned to find the vicar in conversation with his Bishop at the county town, the telephone lines in that direction having miraculously escaped damage. He had already been in touch with the Rural Dean, he told Henry Mawne, when he replaced the receiver, and the diocesan architect would be along as soon as possible to look at the damage.

  'But the best news of all, my dear Henry,' cried the vicar, 'is from Jock Graham, who arrived just after you had gone, to say that he will act as our architect without any payment. Isn't that a magnificent gesture?'

  'It is indeed,' agreed Mr Mawne. He did not care for this elderly Scot, recently retired, but realised how much this generous offer would mean to the parish.

  'You see,' went on the vicar, 'I gather that all the expenses will have to be found by Fairacre. The diocesan people have just made it clear that there can be no money forthcoming from them. It's a parish responsibility. I suppose we must expect a bill of a hundred pounds or so?'

  'I should prefer to wait until the diocesan architect has had his look,' said Mr Mawne cautiously, 'but from what I saw this morning, I should say we'd be lucky to get away with anything less than two thousand.'

  'Two thousand?' quavered the vicar. Horror and stupefaction showed in his face. 'It's impossible, Henry!'

  Henry Mawne rose from his seat and patted the vicar's shoulder kindly.

  'Cheer up, Gerald,' he said. 'I'm probably hopelessly wrong, but I don't want you to get a shock later on. I think you'll find the bill is going to be a great deal more than a few hundred pounds, that's all.'

  'But we can't pay it,' protested the vicar helplessly. 'Fairacre can't possibly raise anything more than a hundred at the outside!'

  'I'm aware of that,' said his friend.

  'And even that amount,' went on the vicar despairingly, 'means a succession of whist drives, fêtes, jumble sales, coffee mornings and all those terrible, terrible affairs. You realise that, Henry?'

  'Only too well, Gerald,' replied Henry Mawne, doing his best to suppress a shudder.

  The vicar rose from his chair and began to pace distractedly round his desk, his hands clasped behind his back and his brow furrowed. Mr Mawne watched him sympathetically from the doorway. It seemed hard to leave his stricken friend in his present distress, but there was much to be done.

  Gerald Partridge stopped suddenly and faced him.

  'It is a challenge, Henry! This is something sent by Providence to test us, to strengthen our faith. We must, and shall, restore St Patrick's!'

  'That's the way to take it,' agreed Mr Mawne, touched by this brave display of resolution. Closing the study door gently behind him, he returned home through the wind.

  When school dinner was over, I made my way to the church to see the extent of the damage. The men were busy clearing the worst of the mess from the churchyard, and I went inside by the west door.

  Several people had volunteered to tidy up.
Mr and Mrs Willet were there, the two sisters, Margaret and Mary Waters, and various other women.

  'Got my washing on the line and come straight up,' said one.

  'Had to find my poor hens first,' said another. 'The hen house blew clean off of their backs, and they was everywhere from the fir tree to the coal-hole.'

  Tales of the night's wrecking flew back and forth as they plied brooms and dustpans.

  'The top half of Mr Roberts' hay stack went whirling by our roof.'

  'Our Nelly lost three tea towels off the line. And the cat! He would go out and it's her belief he's been blown out of the parish.'

  Somehow, I suspected, listening to these exchanges, the damages grew at each recital. We enjoy a bit of excitement in Fairacre, and the drama of this wild night would certainly go down, suitably embellished, in local history.

  There was a great deal of plaster on the floor of the nave, and the pews were white with dust. Mr Willet was collecting the rubble in a wheelbarrow in the aisle. A dark patch gaped above, in the beautiful hammer-beam roof, but no daylight showed through. Hopes were running high that the damage was only superficial, but more would be known when the surveyor had inspected it.

  The pulpit was badly scratched and one of the chandeliers had bounced from its hook, at the time of impact, and lay shattered on the floor.

  'No loss!' remarked Mrs Mawne to me in an aside audible to all. 'Hideous Victoriana! Pity the rest didn't come down too!'

  Afternoon school was a somewhat distracted affair. The children are always excitable in windy weather, and this fascinating disaster added to their general fidgetiness. Hoping to channel their feelings into some positive and useful work—as exhorted to do by all good educationists—I set them to write an essay on the night's storm.

  'And you can illustrate it too,' I added, hoping for a prolonged period of peace in the class room.