(2/20) Village Diary Read online

  'Not,' she went on, 'that he'd take advantage of anyone!'

  I could have wished that Mrs Pringle had used a less dubious phrase. But torn between amusement and irritation, I made my way to the house, there to order some films about birds, for the first Wednesday in June, when the mobile film van pays us its next visit, to follow up poor misjudged Mr Mawne's excellent discourse.

  This morning, while I was in the playground, directing litter-collecting in an unpleasantly cold wind, Mrs Partridge drew up in the ancient Ford. It was stuffed with spring cabbages, bunches of young carrots, spring onions and lettuces, for Mrs Partridge was on her way to Caxley to put her produce on the W.I. stall in the market.

  She told me that Mrs Pratt's father had had a stroke the day before, and that Dr Martin was afraid that he would be completely helpless, perhaps for many months. Mrs Pratt had been obliged to give up the secretaryship of the W.I. and would I be willing to take over if the members agreed to this proposition.

  I said cautiously that I would think about it, and let her know tomorrow, but if the meetings were to be held, as they always have been, in the afternoons, it was, of course, out of the question. The vicar's wife said: 'Of course, of course! How could I have forgotten! Well, we'll see what can be done! Perhaps Mrs Moffat might consider it. Linda's at school in the afternoon.' And with that, she drove off.

  I collected my class, who had now tidied the playground with such zeal that Erie was now dusting the shoe-scraper with his handkerchief, and we returned to the classroom, grateful to be out of the wind.

  As the children worked at their arithmetic, my mind wandered back to the problem of running village activities. In Fairacre we manage fairly well owing to the small number of clubs and so on, and to the hard work of Mr and Mrs Partridge who are more than willing to undertake extra duties. But Beech Green, which is a much larger village and has a good bus service to Caxley, has great difficulty in finding people ready to take office in such things as their Women's Institute, the Scouts, and the Sports Club.

  The vicar shakes his mild old head about dwindling numbers there and comments sadly on the flourishing men's clubs, glee clubs and the like, which had so many keen supporters twenty or more years ago. But then the buses to Caxley from Fairacre and Beech Green, were non-existent and the villagers were thrown on their own resources. Families were much larger, and there were more people to each age-group than there are now. Bands of friends would join the appropriate activity and keep the thing going. Then too, there were leisured people, who willingly gave their time and money to support village affairs, who would come no to the rescue when a financial crisis arose, who would lend houses and gardens generously, and would put their ideas and inspirations at the disposal of the village. This invaluable source of village richness is now no more.

  When I think of those on Fairacre's and Beech Green's various committees I am struck by the fact that they are, in the main, outsiders, and not natives of the village. Now, why is this? Does it mean that organized activities are not needed by those for whom they are intended? Or does it mean that newcomers to a village enjoy running things, harking back perhaps to their own childhood in other villages, when such affairs were in their heyday? On one thing committee members are united. They lament the fact that they get little or no support from the bulk of the populace. Are they, perhaps, an anachronism in this transition period? Will organized activity come into its own again if and when the villages flourish again, when rural education is improved, and the drift from the countryside is halted?

  That there is social intercourse is undeniable. We here in Fairacre are constantly visiting each other for tea parties, morning coffee, evenings at cards, or for watching television programmes, and we are always ready to stop and have delicious friendly gossips over our garden gates.

  The 'Beetle and Wedge' is crowded nightly, and this is where the men ready meet to exchange news and grumbles, and to relax after work. As P. G. Wodehouse truly says of the tap-room, 'The rich smell of mixed liquors, the gay clamour of carefree men arguing about the weather, the Government, the Royal Family, greyhound racing, the tax on beer, pugilism, religion and the price of bananas—these things are medicine to the bruised soul.'

  There is a natural disinclination to go out on winter evenings, and in the summer our gardens occupy a major part of our time. Perhaps church-going, the visits to the pub, the occasional whist-drive or fete, and the entertainment of neighbours is all that busy countrymen have time for at this stage of village life. With easy transport to Caxley and television in their own homes to supply entertainment, the people of our two villages certainly seem to find enough to occupy them, and whether one can expect large and flourishing clubs, admirable though they are, is a moot point.

  We had a most unnerving accident here today. Eileen Burton, one of the infants, tripped over her own trailing shoe lace and fell like a log on to the metal milk crate. She hit her forehead on the sharp edge, concussing herself, and getting a horrible gash along the right eyebrow.

  Joseph Coggs, who, once before, when Miss Clare was taken ill, was a harbinger of woeful tidings, was sent in to ted me of the catastrophe.

  'Eileen Burton's busted 'er 'ead,' was his greeting and, as I hastened to the next room I heard him say, with relish to my round-eyed class: 'Er's prob'ly dead!'

  You could have heard a pin drop in the infants' room. Miss Clare was mopping the child's head with a swab of damp cotton-wool. It was obvious that she would need stitches in the gash, and that we must get her to hospital.

  'I'll get the car out and take her straight to Caxley, if you can manage both classes,' I said.

  'Mr Roberts may not have gone to market yet,' said Miss Clare, looking up at the big wad-clock. 'Do you think he'd help?'

  Mr Roberts farms next door to the school, is one of the school's managers and always a tower of strength. I sent a message over to the farm by Patrick, and returned to Eileen, still prostrate on the floor, but now with a cushion under her head and a rug over her from the school-house. My class surged ghoulishly in the partition doorway, and were dispatched to their desks with hard words and threats of no-play-for-nuisances.

  Eileen began to come round as Patrick returned.

  'Mr Roberts has gone, and Mrs Roberts too; so Jim's dad said.' He nodded to Jim in the back row. 'But he says if you wants a stretcher, he's got a hurdle he can send over.'

  It was quite apparent that word would already have flown round the village grapevine that Eileen Burton—and probably a couple more—were lying with every limb broken and at the point of death, in Fairacre School.

  'I must get a message to her mother,' I said hastily, 'before I take her into Caxley.'

  'She's back at the fish-shop,' chorused the children. 'Sutton's, miss! At Caxley, miss! You'd see her there, miss! Market day, she's bound to be there, miss!' continued the helpful babble. I quelled them with that daunting glance which every teacher worth her salt keeps in her armoury, and when peace was restored helped Miss Clare to fasten the bandage round Eileen's head.

  She had a drink of water and looked a little better. At last we propped her gently in the car, and I gave my children last-minute admonitions about helping Miss Clare, before setting off for the out-patients' department of Caxley hospital. I did not feel at all happy about leaving Miss Clare, for the shock had obviously upset her, and I hoped that the extra children would not be too much for her.

  On the other hand, I told myself as we drove past Beech Green school, how fortunate that there was another teacher to leave in charge. If Fairacre had had a one-teacher school, as so many villages have, what would have happened in a case like this? Either the child must have been given second-best treatment, on the spot, or the services of a kindly neighbour with a car enlisted—as we had hoped to do when we appealed to Mr Roberts—with the possibility of no one being available. Otherwise the school must have been dismissed, while the patient was taken to hospital, or the children given work to do without supervision—both most unsat
isfactory arrangements.

  A telephone call to the hospital would have been the other alternative, but there are many schools without this service, and the time taken to send the message and to wait for the ambulance to arrive might be considerable. No, I decided, as I drew up at Sutton's fish shop to break the news to Mrs Burton—and to take her with us if possible—I was very glad that I did not have to face all these hazards alone, as so many country head teachers are obliged to do.

  May has ended with a cold, gusty day, which has shivered the young elm leaves, and whipped the windows with little whirlwinds of upflung dust, twigs and straws. During afternoon play-time a vicious had storm sent the children scurrying into school for shelter. It fell heavily, looking like slanting rods of steel, and the playground and adjoining churchyard were quickly white.

  From the schoolroom window I could see Mr Wilier, who had been trimming the grass paths, sheltering from the storm in the church porch. He had folded the sack, on which had had been kneeling, to make a hood to shelter his head and shoulders from the onslaught which had overtaken him, and as he stood there with his rough brown hood, and his drab trousers bound round the legs to stop them flapping, he might have been a figure from any century.

  So must his forefathers have often stood, from Norman times on, dressed in sober serviceable cloth, waiting patiently for the weather to clear, gnarled old hands nursing elbows and long-sighted eyes fixed on the sky above the massive walls of their church.

  JUNE

  THE Whitsun and half-term holiday combined gave Fairacre School almost a week's break, which I spent, most agreeably, at Cambridge, with an old college friend. The Backs, enchanting at any time and season, seemed lovelier than ever, and Evensong at King's College Chapel exerted the same magic as it did on my first visit, with the same friend, many years ago.

  What a hauntingly lovely place Cambridge is! It has a gentleness, an ambience, a wistful elegance that is unique. A visit to London, or Oxford, or any other great and ancient city for that matter, exhilarates and stimulates me; but Cambridge always gives something more—so deeply stirring, that I could not dismiss it simply as nostalgia for mv long-lost youth. Tentative questioning of other people has confirmed my suspicions, that Cambridge has a quality, compounded of great skies, shimmering willows and water, ephemeral youth in age-old buildings and the loneliness of its setting in the desolate fens, which evokes a strangely powerful response from those who walk her ways.

  The train journey back to Caxley was a tedious crosscountry affair lasting over three hours. Luckily Mr and Mrs Annett were shopping near the station and gave me a lift to Fairacre, so that I did not have to wait another hour for the local bus.

  The school-house was unnaturally quiet, when the sound of the Annetts' car had died away. I prowled round, savouring the joys of the newly-returned. The clock had stopped at four-twenty, the house was flowerless, and, in the kitchen, the dishcloth hung dry and stiff, arched over the edge of the sink, like a miniature canvas tunnel.

  I put the kettle on for that first inspiring cup of tea, and resumed my prowling upstairs. Tibby, curled up comfortably in a patch of sunlight on my eiderdown, stretched out luxuriously, all claws extended, gave a welcoming yowl, half-yawn, half-mew, and resumed her interrupted slumbers again.

  Mrs Pringle had been detailed to feed the cat, and when I returned to my singing kettle, I noticed that every morsel of food had been used. As I had left an imposing variety of delicacies, including cold meat, cold fish, dried cat-food and two tins of another variety much appreciated by Tibby, as wed as half a pint of milk daily, my companion had obviously been living like a lord, and I could see that I should have the unenviable job of restoring her to a more humble way of life.

  With all the windows in the house opened, I sat down with my tea tray and thought how lovely it was to be back. I feel like a sword in a scabbard, I told myself, and instantly decided that a sword was much too dashing. Perhaps a cup, hanging again on its accustomed hook on the kitchen dresser, would be a better simile. At any rate, to be a village schoolmistress, with a fine border of pinks just breaking before me, and the sound of rooks cawing overhead, seemed a very right and proper thing to be, and I envied no man.

  The second half of the term has started in a blaze of sunshine. Yesterday the temperature was up in the eighties, and we had the schoolroom door propped open with the biggest upturned flower-pot that Mr Willet could find. The green paint on the doors and windows of Fairacre School has long since faded to a soft silvery green, like a cabbage leaf with a fine bloom on it. It is a most beautiful colour, and I regret that we are due to be repainted in the summer holidays. The managers have not decided on the new colour, I hear, but Mr Willet tells me that Mr Roberts, the farmer, favours a deep beetroot, Colonel Wesley 'a sensible chocolate,' and the vicar is pressing for green once again. I am doing a little subtle propaganda each time I see the vicar, and supporting his claim, as the least objectionable of the three colours.

  The children spend their play-time and dinner hour in the shade of the elm trees, at the corner of the playground. The heat thrown up from our poorly-asphalted playground is unbelievable, and the two buckets of drinking water, which Mr Willet carries over from my kitchen daily, have been increased to three.

  The distant clatter and hum of Mr Roberts' grass cutter at work, is a real high summer sound, and while the children loll in their desks, fidgeting as the backs of their knees stick uncomfortably to the edge of their wooden seats, they can hear the swallows screaming as they flash by St Patrick's spire next door, and the drone of a captive bee who has blundered through the Gothic window.

  The flowers have burst into bloom in this heat, and the cottage gardens blaze with irises, lilies, cornflowers and peonies. Miss Clare brought a bunch of her white jasmine to the infants' room and Jimmy Waites brought me a bouquet of roses, but it is a pity to pick these lovely things while the weather is so phenomenally hot, for they dropped in a day.

  I have never seen the elder bushes so covered in flowers, and, until this year, had never realized what beautiful trees they are with their hundreds of floating white faces, ad tilted at the same angle, each composed of a myriad tiny flowers, each flower having five petals star-wise, with five golden stamens projecting above and looking like a tremblant piece of jewellery. The bushes in this summer heat are dazzling. Their luminous quality, compounded of their massed moons against young green leaves, which Sir Alfred Munnings has caught so brilliantly in paint, has never struck me so forcibly as during this vivid sped of weather.

  The road through Fairacre, which the rural district council saw fit to tar and gravel a few weeks ago much to the joy of the schoolchildren—who arrived late because 'we was helping the steam-roder man'—is now a sticky black mess, which is ruinous to shoes, and is driving ad the dogs in the neighbourhood mad, as the tar squelches between their paws.

  Last night, as I returned from taking Miss Clare some gooseberries, I rounded the sharp corner into the viflage and nearly ran down Joseph Coggs and his two little sisters, who were squatting in the middle of the road, popping tar bubbles with leisurely forefingers.

  The car screeched to an abrupt stop, while I lashed the amazed trio with my tongue. Joseph was as shaken as I was, and inclined to be tearful.

  'We wasn't doing no harm,' he faltered, underlip quivering.

  'You wasn't doing no good either,' I retorted wrathfully, letting the hand brake go—and it wasn't until I had changed into third gear, and was cooling down slightly, that my ungrammatical echo burst fully upon me.

  Amy spent Saturday afternoon and evening with me, as James had been called away on a mysterious errand connected with the firm's business, which necessitated absence from home for the whole of the week-end.

  As we sat in the shade of the apple trees, topping and tailing gooseberries for bottling, Amy surprised me by asking:

  'Tell me, what do you do with your time when you're not in school?'

  'Why, this sort of thing!' I replied, ho
lding up a whiskery giant, 'I have to do ad the things that other women do, I suppose. I wash my clothes, and iron them, and bake cakes, and mend things, and fetch in coal and clean the windows—' I could have continued the list indefinitely, but I could see that that was not ready what Amy wanted to know. How did I use my leisure, and more particularly, was I happy here, living alone—a solitary woman, exposed to the interested gaze of my village neighbours and with virtually no private life of my own? Did I ever crave for city pleasures, for crowds, for shops, for excitement? Would I like to change my way of life? Wasn't I in danger of becoming a vegetable?

  I don't know whether Amy believed me when I answered truthfully, that I was completely happy; for single women living alone like me—and there are thousands of us up and down the country—are often the object of pity and speculation. Amy had voiced the unspoken queries of many married people that I knew.

  Amy said sternly that with the world in the state it was, and the misery that surrounded us on every side, she was surprised to hear me say that I was happy. To which jeremiad I replied sturdily that I knew just as much about the world's miseries as she did, but still remained incorrigibly content, and that nobody would find me apologetic for being so.

  'But don't you feel you ought to be more ambitious?' persisted Amy, slightly nettled. 'Do you want to do nothing better than be schoolmistress at Fairacre School?'

  'It suits me,' I said equably. Amy said: 'Tchah!' which I'd always hoped to hear somebody say one day, and nicked tops and tads off with a vicious snapping of scissors. I was mildly sorry that I had riled her, but I thought over our conversation when she had departed in the glorious car, and came to the conclusion that we should never see things in the same light. For Amy is the victim of today's common malaise—too much self analysis; while I, finding myself remarkably uninteresting, am only too pleased to observe others and the natural objects around me. Thus I am spared the pangs of self-reproach, and, as my lot is cast in pleasant places, find endless cause for happiness and amusement.