Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis Read online

  To think that men could set out to reduce each other to that dreadful condition made the child feel cold with revulsion, as she prodded the steaming linen with the copper stick. It was bad enough to have Christmas overshadowed, to have to endure the loss of Ada's company, to face the ordeal of changing schools, and to see the Davises—and particularly dear Emily—suffer so, without this final overpowering horror of death to torment her.

  Later, she wondered if those black thoughts had been something in the nature of a premonition. For, before a month had passed, death was to come very close to Dolly Clare, setting a grim mark upon that little household which even time itself could never completely remove.

  CHAPTER 11

  ONE morning in January 1901 Dolly awoke first. It was still dark and she could hear her father and mother moving about downstairs getting ready for the day. Usually, young Frank woke when they stirred and insinuated himself into Dolly's bed hoping for more stories.

  But this morning he lay heavily asleep, drawing deep snoring breaths that at first amused his sleepy sister.

  'Wake up, Frank,' she called at length. 'You're snoring like an old piggy!'

  There was no reply.

  Dolly began to whistle a tune that he called their 'waking up' song, a modified version of the army reveille, but there was no response from the sleeping child.

  She climbed out of bed and padded across the cold ancient boards to peer at her brother. He seemed much as usual, as far as she could tell in the dim light, but when she put her hand on his forehead to push back his hair she found it hot and wet with sweat. Frightened, she ran downstairs to the lamp-lit room where the smells of breakfast rose from the stove.

  'Frank's bad,' she told her parents, and followed them up the narrow staircase, shaking with cold and fear.

  The candles were lit, and Mary and Frank leant over the bed. The child woke and smiled at them, and Dolly's heart was comforted.

  'He don't look too bad to me,' said Francis. 'Keep him in bed today, my love. He's just got a bit of a chesty cold.'

  'He will keep taking his scarf off,' said Mary anxiously. 'And it was that bitter yesterday when he was out in the garden.'

  She looked at her son closely.

  'D'you reckon we should get the doctor?' she asked hesitantly. Doctors cost money, and were not called unnecessarily to the Clare household. Besides, she did not want Francis to think her unduly pernickety, but Frank had never ailed anything before, and this seemed a severe type of fever.

  'You let him he there today,' repeated Francis. 'I'll get home in good time, and if he don't seem to have picked up, we'll send for doctor then.'

  He kissed his womenfolk, bade them cheer up, and set off for work.

  Frank slept most of the day, making the same alarming noise which had woken Dolly. Mary Clare's fears were calmed by Mrs Davis, who assured her that her own children had often suffered such symptoms, and a day in bed usually cured them.

  'Believe me, my dear,' she told the anxious mother, 'that little 'un's all right. You knows what children are—up one minute, down the next. It's because he's the only boy you're worrying so. You see, tomorrow he'll be fairly.'

  But when Francis came home that night he thought otherwise. Dolly had spent most of the day by the bedside, shaken by doubts, and only half-believing the comfort given by Mrs Davis. When she saw her father's face, her terror grew even greater.

  'You cut along and get the doctor, Doll,' he said. And Dolly fled through the darkening village for help.

  Bronchitis was diagnosed, and the child was moved downstairs to a makeshift bed on the sofa, drawn close to the stove where a kettle steamed for two agonising nights and days.

  Mary never left his side for the whole of that time. She sat white-faced and very silent, ministering to the unconscious child's needs, and watching his every movement with awful concentration. When she spoke to Dolly, it was with such tenderness that the child could scarcely bear it.

  Dolly was thankful that it was the school holidays and that she could be there to help in the house and prepare the simple meals that, in fact, none of them had the heart to eat. Throughout the time that she worked, she prayed so vehemently that her head ached with effort. She tried to will God to make Frank better. Surely, she told herself, He wouldn't let him die! Not a little boy like that, who'd done nothing wrong! If men at war were killed, it was understandable, for they knew what they were doing, and God, she supposed, took some of them simply because men did die in wars. But there was no reason why Frank should be so sacrificed. Her distracted thoughts followed each other round and round in a demented circle, and all the time the prayers went up, and she saw them, in imagination, as an invisible vapour rising through the kitchen ceiling, and then the thatch, and finally the lowering grey winter clouds, spiralling their way heavenwards to that omnipotent Being in whose hands the life of little Frank was held.

  On the third night, while Dolly slept above, the child slipped away, one hand in each of his parents'. He had never regained consciousness, but there was nothing to show that death was so close. He gave a little hiccup, and the harsh breathing which had dominated the house, quietly stopped. The silence had an icy quality about it, and for a stunned moment the stricken parents were powerless to move.

  Then, across the motionless body of their son, their eyes met. Francis took Mary in his arms, and their bitter grief began.

  The day of the funeral was iron-cold. A light sprinkling of snow whitened the churchyard, throwing the gaping black hole, awaiting the small coffin, into sharp relief.

  In Dolly Clare's memory that day was etched for ever in stark black and white. The sad little family stood watching the coffin being lowered into the icy earth. A bunch of snowdrops trembled upon the lid, as frail and pure as the child within. Clad in heavy mourning, Dolly remembered that other family she had pitied, so long ago it seemed, on the sunlit afternoon of the Diamond Jubilee. The bare black elm trees were outlined against a sky heavy with snow to come. Black spiked railings round a tomb nearby were tipped with snow, and from the church porch a row of footprints blackened the snow where the mourners' feet had passed. No colour, no warmth, no sunshine, no movement, comforted the spirit at that poignant parting, and Dolly remembered, with sharp intensity, the feeling of loss which had shaken her when she had kissed her brother's forehead, as cold and hard as marble, a few hours before. In the utter negation of death lay its chief terror.

  In the weeks that followed, Mary Clare remained calm and unusually gentle with her family. After the first few hours of grief, she showed little sign of her loss. The neighbours shook their heads over her.

  'She ought to cry, that she ought!' they told each other. 'That poor lamb's been buried over a week and she ain't shed a tear. 'Tis unnatural! She'll suffer for it, you'll see!'

  There was certainly something uncanny, as well as heroic, about Mary's composure, but Francis was glad of it. His own tears were too near the surface for him to have endured his wife's emotion bravely.

  It was perhaps as well for Dolly that her departure to Fairacre followed hard on the heels of this tragedy. Great was her joy when Emily told her that she too was starting at Fairacre School, and they could begin the new adventure together.

  They set off through shallow snow on the first day of the term, Dolly clad in her mourning black and Emily, in gay contrast, in a bright scarlet coat which had once been her sister's.

  They carried bacon sandwiches for their midday meal, and an apple apiece from Mrs Davis's store. The clatter of their strong nailed boots was muffled by the snow as they tramped along, and their breath steamed as they discussed what lay ahead.

  'I knows about half of them anyway,' said Emily, seeking comfort. 'There's the Willets and the Pratts. I've played with them sometimes, and they said Mr Wardle's all right if you don't give him no cheek.'

  'But what about Mrs Wardle?' asked Dolly.

  'Rips up the sewing a bit,' said Emily laconically, jumping sideways into a fresh patch of snow w
hich invited a few footprints.

  'But I reckon they'll both be better than old Milk-and-Waterman.'

  And Emily was right. On that first morning, as they sat together among their new school fellows, Dolly took stock of Fairacre School and began to feel the warmth of her surroundings thaw the bleakness which had numbed her for the past few weeks.

  A massive fire roared behind the fireguard, and though it could not hope to warm completely a room so lofty and so full of cross draughts, yet it was a cheering sight on a cold January day. Mr Wardle, warming his trouser legs before it, proved to be a hearty boisterous man who welcomed the newcomers, and bade his schoolchildren do the same.

  He was that rare thing, Dolly discovered later, a happy man. Blessed with boundless energy, superb physique, a lively wife and four children now out in the world, Mr Wardle enjoyed his little domain and liked to see those in it equally happy. His recipe was simple, and he told it to the children over and over again:

  'Work hard. Do your best, and a bit more, and you'll get on.'

  Sometimes he put his recipe into a different form and read them a homily about the sin of Sloth, which he considered the most vicious one among the seven.

  'If you start getting lazy,' he would say, bouncing energetically up and down, 'you'll get liverish. And if you get liverish, you'll get sorry for yourself. And that's when the rot starts. Use your brain and your body to the utmost, and the Devil will know that he's beaten.'

  He certainly set them all a fine example. His teaching was thorough, exact and lively. His spare time was taken up with gardening, walking his hounds for miles around the countryside, training the church choir, and adding to a magnificent collection of moths and butterflies. His authority was unquestioned, unlike that of poor Mr Waterman at Beech Green, and Dolly soon found herself responding to the vitality of this man who could kindle a spark in even the stolidest of his country scholars.

  The children, perhaps because of Mr Wardle's example, seemed friendlier than those at Beech Green, and Emily and Dolly, who had secretly feared a little teasing and bullying, found no antagonism. Nor were any remarks passed about Dolly's black clothes, much to her relief. Although she did not know it until many years later, Mr Wardle had already warned his children about Dolly's loss and given them to understand that extra kindness would be expected of them, and good manners most certainly enforced, if his vigilant eye saw any shortcomings.

  He was a man whose good heart and good head worked well together. Quick to recognise a child's vulnerability, he never descended to sarcasm and ridicule to gain his ends. Severe he could be, and when he was driven to caning them the cane fell heavily, but it rarely needed to be used. Work, exercise, fresh air and laughter kept his charges engrossed and healthy; and from Mr Wardle Dolly Clare learnt much of the ways of a good teacher.

  About a week after their arrival, on January 22nd, 1901, Dolly and Emily sat with the rest of the big girls at one end of the main room, with needlework in their hands and Mrs Wardle's eye upon them.

  It was called 'Fancywork' on the timetable, and each child had a square of fine canvas and skeins of red, blue, yellow and green wool on the desk in front of her. They were busy making samplers, using the various stitches which Mrs Wardle taught them. 'Fancywork' was a pleasant change from 'Plain Sewing' which involved hemming unbleached calico pillow slips with the strong possibility of seeing Mrs Wardle rip them undone at the end of the lesson.

  The room was quiet. The boys at the other end were drawing a spray of laurel pinned against a white paper on the blackboard, and only the whisper of their pencils as they shaded the leaves and carefully left 'high-lights', broke the sleepy silence.

  It was then that the muffled bell of St Patrick's next door began to ring, and Mr Wardle, looking perplexed, hurried out to investigate. When he returned a minute later, his rosy face was grave.

  'I have very sad news,' he told his surprised listeners. 'Queen Victoria is dead.'

  There was a shocked silence, broken only by the distant bell and the gasp from Mrs Wardle, as her hand flew to her heart.

  'All stand!' commanded Mr Wardle. 'And we will say a short prayer for the Queen we have lost, and the King we have now to rule us.'

  Afterwards, it seemed to the children, the grown-ups made too much of this event, but they were wrong. Their lives were short, and to them the Queen had always been a very old lady near to death. To their parents and grandparents, who had known and revered her for all their lives, this passing of a great Queen was the end of the world they had always known. National mourning was sincere, and tinged with the bewilderment of children who have lost the head of a family, long loved and irreplaceable.

  Dolly never forgot Emily's words to her as they crept quietly from the playground that day to make their way homeward.

  'Won't Frank be pleased,' said Emily, 'to have the Queen with him!'

  It was exactly what Dolly herself had thought when Mr Wardle had broken the news, and the comfort of hearing it put into words was wonderfully heartening. Certainly the shock of this second death was considerably lessened by Emily's innocent philosophy, and the thought of Frank's gain mitigated their own sense of loss.

  It was not the first time that Emily had been of comfort to Dolly by her ability to come to terms with the unknown. In the years to come, her Child-like simplicity and faith brought refreshment to them both.

  Sixty or so years later, Miss Clare, half asleep in the shade of her plum tree, recalled that historic day, and its dark solemnity lit by Emily's touching confidence.

  There certainly could be no greater contrast in the weather, thought Miss Clare, watching the heat waves shimmer across the sun-baked downs. In the border, the flaunting oriental poppies opened their petals so wide in the strong sunlight that they fell backwards to display the mop of black stamens at the centre. At the foot of the plant, Miss Clare's tortoise had pushed himself among the foliage, to escape from the June heat which even he could not endure.

  She could hear the faraway voices of children at play, and guessed it must be about half past two, when Beech Green school had its afternoon break. Soon Emily would be with her again, as comforting and as hopeful as she had been on that bitter bleak day so long ago.

  Miss Clare stretched her old stiff limbs in great contentment, revelling in the hot sunshine and the joy of Emily's coming. Looking back, she saw now that an age had closed on the day that Mr Wardle had called them to prayer, and she who since then had seen many reigns, could imagine the impact which Victoria's passing had made upon her parents' generation.

  But for Dolly the twelve-year-old Child, that day had been chiefly a turning-point in her own happiness. She could see now, sixty years later, that several things had contributed to the sudden lightening of her misery. Mr Wardle's infectious vitality, new surroundings, work praised and encouraged, had all helped together to raise the child's spirits from the depths into which her brother's death had cast them. The natural buoyancy of youth and time's healing powers added their measure of restoration, but it was Emily's homely words which had really set her free at last. It was as though the Queen had taken Dolly's burden upon herself by entering into that unknown world where Frank already waited, and, fanciful though the idea seemed a lifetime later, yet it still seemed touching in the strength and hope it had given to a sad little girl who had needed comfort sorely.

  'Ah! It's good to grow old,' said Miss Clare, contemplating that pitiful young figure across the years, 'and to know that nothing can ever hurt you very much again. There's a lot to be said for being seventy!'

  And turning her face gratefully to the sun, she continued to wait, lapped in warmth and contentment, for the coming of Emily.

  Part Three: Fairacre

  CHAPTER 12

  FROM the first, Dolly Clare liked Fairacre. It was a compact and pretty village, grouped charmingly about its church, unlike Beech Green, which straggled along the road to Caxley. Some of the cottage roofs had been thatched by her own father, since they had com
e to live nearby, and still shone golden in the sunshine. More ancient roofs had weathered to a silvery grey, while others, more venerable still, sagged thinly across their supports and sprouted with green patches of moss and grass.

  Not all the cottages were thatched. More than half were tiled with small tiles of a warm rosy brown which combined with the weathered brick to give a colourful appearance to the village. A few large houses, built in the reigns of Queen Anne and the early Georges, glowed with the same warm colour among their trees, and little Dolly Clare grew to love the vicarage, which could be seen plainly from the playground of Fairacre school, admiring its graceful fanlight over the front door, and the two great cedar trees which stood guard before it.

  Fairacre, in those Edwardian days, was rich in fine trees, planted to give shelter, no doubt, from the roaring winds which swept the whaleback of the downs above it. Limes and horse-chestnuts shaded gardens, and clumps of magnificent elms sheltered the cattle and horses in the farm meadows. Close by the school, protecting both it and the school house, towered more elm trees, in which a thriving rookery clattered and cawed, and several of the neighbouring farms had leafy avenues leading to their houses. There was much more ivy about at that time. The dark glossy leaves muffled many a garden wall and outhouse, and added a richness to the general scene. When, in later life, Miss Clare looked at old photographs of the Fairacre she had known as a child, she realised how denuded of trees the village had become within her lifetime.