(16/20)Summer at Fairacre Read online

  'Horace Umbleditch?' My voice emerged as a startled yelp. Horace Umbleditch is a blameless bachelor who teaches at a local prep school. The very idea of his pursuing any married lady—or a single one, for that matter—was quite unthinkable.

  I rose to Horace's defence.

  'I'm horrified to hear that you are even suspecting dear old Horace of such behaviour! And of course Amy would never countenance such conduct anyway. I advise you to keep a check on your jealousy, James, for that's what this is.'

  I could have gone on much longer, so incensed was I, but James burst in.

  'Oh, don't be such an old schoolmarm! Here I am beside myself with worry, the house is a shambles, and I can hardly see across the kitchen for smoke! Do you reckon the frying pan's too hot for sausages?'

  'How should I know?' I replied crossly, and slammed down the receiver.

  Thank God I didn't have a husband!

  Mr Annett dropped his wife at Fairacre School at half past eight the next morning.

  'No, I won't come in,' he said in reply to my invitation. 'Must get back to my own chores.'

  'I promise to look after her well,' I said, waving him off.

  Isobel looked remarkably cheerful for one thrown into an arduous job with such suddenness.

  We went together into the school. Mrs Pringle was brandishing a duster.

  'Here's an old friend come to help us out,' I cried.

  'Good morning,' grunted Mrs Pringle.

  'I'm quite looking forward to a few days in my old classroom,' said Isobel pleasantly, ignoring my cleaner's hostility.

  'Daresay it'll be left a good bit tidier than usual,' conceded Mrs Pringle. 'But no one can hold a candle to Miss Clare. The place was always left like a new pin. She thought of others. Not like some.'

  'I don't think any of us can come up to Miss Clare's standards,' agreed Isobel, and went on her way with a smile.

  'What's the matter with her?' she whispered when we were in the infants' room. 'She's worse than ever!'

  'I think I've upset her. It'll blow over. You know our Mrs P.'

  Isobel began to unpack her basket. It contained a pink and white checked gingham overall, I saw with approval, as well as other things.

  'I daresay infant fingers are as messy as ever,' she commented. 'And I'm bound to be clumsy with poster paint and clay and all the other paraphernalia. I only hope I don't fall foul of Mrs Pringle with my activities.'

  'And what are those?'

  'Templates of cats in different positions. I found them on holiday and couldn't resist them. I'm going to read them Tom Kitten some time, and thought they could draw round these and then paint them. Perhaps make a frieze if Miss Briggs wouldn't mind. What do you think?'

  'They'll love it, and I'm sure our Miss Briggs will approve. In any case, she can always take them down later if she wants to. Honestly, Isobel, you certainly haven't lost your touch, and I can't begin to tell you how marvellous it is to have you here again.'

  Ernest bustled in importantly to tell me that one of them new little 'uns what lived up street next to Eileen Burton's gran was took bad his mum said, and wouldn't be acoming.

  I thanked him, decided that any grammatical correction of this statement must wait till later, and invited him to ring the bell.

  'Well,' I said turning to my assistant, 'the day's begun.'

  A blessed period of peace now enveloped Fairacre School. Isobel slipped back into her former quiet and efficient ways, the infants seemed to relish her efforts and I was delighted to have a tranquil infants' room after Miss Briggs' somewhat hectoring manner which tended to make her charges noisy.

  Mrs Pringle continued to wear a martyred look, and the leg, always of an inflammable nature in times of stress, appeared to be in a steady state of combustion judging by the lady's limp.

  I was not surprised, therefore, when she informed me that she would have to 'give that place of yours a miss this week.'

  'A rest will do you good,' I said. 'I hope it will be better next week.'

  'I may not come next week either,' said Mrs Pringle, her mouth turning down grimly. I began to feel some alarm, not on my account, but the school's.

  'Do you want a few days off all your duties?' I enquired. 'Have you seen the doctor? I'm sure we could manage somehow if you have to be laid up.'

  Mrs Pringle gave a snort of disgust.

  'I saw that young whipper-snapper that Doctor Martin's got to help him. A fat lot that boy knows! Gave me a prescription for some ointment, and told me to keep it up, and wear an elastic stocking.'

  'Sounds sensible to me,' I was rash enough to comment.

  'Except that's what I've been trying to do for the last twenty years!' snapped the lady. 'What chance have I got to put my leg up?'

  'Well, I've just been telling you—have a few days off—a week, say—and see how you get on.'

  'And what good will a week do? There's times when I reckon I'll just have to give in my notice.'

  There was a menacing note in Mrs Pringle's voice which has become familiar over the years. I used to try and placate the old virago. Now I am hardened. One can cry 'Wolf!' once too often.

  'Only you can decide that,' I told her. 'Meanwhile, I quite understand that you won't be coming to my house until you feel up to the work. But if you do decide to give up the school cleaning, do try and give me plenty of notice so that we can advertise the job.'

  'And that,' said Mrs Pringle venomously, 'is all the thanks one gets for Faithful Service!'

  Her limp was more severe than ever as she retreated.

  Mrs Pringle's threat of leaving, although depressingly familiar, gave me some secret disquiet that evening.

  Infuriating though she is, at least she does her work conscientiously, and is proud of the way she keeps the school. I have had periods without her assistance, and I know how quickly our ancient building and its furnishings lose their surface sheen when the lady is absent.

  Getting someone in her place was not going to be easy. I feared that her crazy niece Minnie Pringle might apply for the post. Worse still, she might be the only applicant! Anyone, I decided, would be better than Minnie about the place. I had suffered much from her administrations in the past, and would be alert if she made any approaches. Apart from her complete incompetence, the tangle of Minnie's love life in which one soon became reluctantly involved, was too horrific to contemplate.

  It was while these thoughts were tumbling about in my head that I first noticed a pain in my right eye. There was also a blur when I read, or watched the television screen.

  Rushing to the mirror, I surveyed my eye. It looked absolutely normal. I covered it and read and watched with my left eye. That was fine, but the right one was definitely defective.

  Like any other robust person, the slightest deviation from perfect health throws me into a panic. First thing in the morning, I told myself, I must ring the optician for an appointment. With any luck, my left eye would still work, otherwise it might be as well to memorise the position of the holes in the dialling plate of the telephone. Would it take me long to learn Braille, I wondered? And how quickly would one get used to a guide dog?

  Pondering gloomily on these things, I turned out my medicine chest and found an ancient eye shade, which reeked, for some reason, of camphor. This fragrant article I adjusted over a pad of lint over my afflicted eye, and then wondered how quickly the left one would give out with double work to do.

  'At this rate,' I told Tibby, 'I shall be out of a job, like Mrs Pringle. We'll be hard put to it to find a crust for me and a quarter of liver for you.'

  Why, I thought, I can't even play a mouth organ in the gutter! When it comes to it I'm completely useless, I decided hopelessly.

  Perhaps the optician could think of something—not in the way of future employment, of course—to give me a little hope. Everyone said how marvellous Moorfields Eye Hospital was, come to think of it, and as long as one did not have to have the retina stuck on again with those awful laser beams, which pre
sumably did a sort of stapling job like clipping papers together, one could cope with ordinary treatment, although that, perhaps mercifully, was at present unknown.

  John Milton had managed quite well, I told myself, though his daughter had a tough time copying down his poems as he dictated them, as far as I remembered from accounts of the poet's home life read years ago in the pages of Arthur Mee's My Magazine. And I had met several active and cheerful blind people who seemed to enjoy life. Should I ever be as brave?

  I made my way to bed enveloped in a cloud of apprehension and camphor, and counted the stairs earnestly on my way up.

  It is as well to be prepared.

  10 Mrs Pringle Deserts Us

  I WOKE to bright sunshine and the blessed relief of finding that both eyes were in first-rate working order.

  Nevertheless, I told myself, it would be as well to make an appointment with the optician. Why bother him, asked my craven half? He has probably more than enough to do with genuine sufferers, and could well do without panic-stricken hypochondriacs.

  My craven half usually wins on these occasions, but I decided to be firm this time. So far, I had not needed spectacles, even for fine work, but no doubt I was now at the stage of life which demanded some help. At playtime I bravely made my appointment, and promised to be at the optician's the next Saturday morning.

  Now and again, during the day, I toyed with the thought of the best design to suit me. I rather fancied half-glasses. They looked decidedly efficient, and a little intimidating, which is always useful for a school teacher.

  On the other hand, the more modern owlish variety were definitely fashionable. Several ladies in the village favour upswept shapes, and Mrs Finch-Edwards, a somewhat flamboyant lady who acted as a supply teacher here, actually had a pair shaped rather like butterflies, with a flashing jewel in the upper wing tip. Frankly, I could not imagine myself in such dashing numbers.

  When Mrs Pringle appeared, as haughty as ever, I decided not to let her manner put me off. Fairacre folk who are proposing a trip to Caxley usually offer a lift now that we have no buses to take us to the market town.

  'I'm off to the optician on Saturday morning, Mrs Pringle,' I said. 'May I give you a lift?'

  'No, thank you,' said she, pulling in her three chins, and looking grumpier than ever. 'Got to have glasses at last, have you? I've never felt right about them since my Uncle George fell off his bike on Coronation Day, and the splinters of glass was rammed something cruel into his eyes. He was never the same!'

  She swept off into the lobby without the hint of a limp.

  To my delight, Amy rang me at half past five that evening.

  She sounded calm and cheerful, and in answer to my query about where she had been, said airily: 'Oh, here and there, you know. I'm ringing now from Vanessa's.'

  Vanessa, her niece, lives in a castle in Scotland, and my frugal soul was shocked at the thought of such an expensive telephone call.

  'But you should have waited until after six,' I protested, it's so much cheaper then.'

  'Well, never mind that, you old miser! I'll manage, no doubt. The thing is I'm coming home, probably tomorrow, and am arranging a little party for June the first. It's a Saturday, as you probably know. About eight or ten of us. Can you come?'

  'I'd love to.'

  'Good, then I'll try and get Horace Umbleditch, and the young Mawnes. Horace will balance you nicely, and I'm very fond of him.'

  Remembering my last conversation with her husband James, I wondered whether I should warn her not to get too fond of the unsuspecting Horace because of James's jealousy, but even a friendship as long and sturdy as Amy's and mine would probably not stand up to such bluntness.

  'Have you rung James?' I said.

  'Oh lord, yes! What an old fuss-pot he is, to be sure! Now, I'm relying on you then for June the first. About seven, shall we say? I'm going to ring the others now, and get things organised from here while I have the leisure. Vanessa's feeding the baby, but sends her love.'

  The line went dead, and I put down the receiver, mightily relieved to know that Amy was alive and well, and obviously in excellent spirits.

  But just what had she been up to?

  The school house had not received any of Mrs Pringle's attentions now for two weeks, and frankly it began to look like it.

  Dusting and vacuum cleaning I did fairly regularly, but the kitchen floor really needed a good scrubbing, and the cooker was approaching the stage where it should be dismantled, immersed in soda water, and generally forced to endure the stringent measures which Mrs Pringle regularly undertook.

  There was no doubt about it, if the lady was determined to leave me then I must try and get a substitute.

  Matters came to a head one morning when we both arrived at the school door to find that a tap had been left on, and the wash basin having been plugged with some unknown substance, the floor was awash.

  Mrs Pringle drew in her breath sharply. Her face grew redder than ever, and I began to wonder how one coped with a sudden attack of apoplexy.

  'That's the last straw!' she gasped. 'That's it then! You can take my notice now. I've had enough.'

  'Mrs Pringle,' I begged, 'please don't desert me now! Think things over, do!'

  But she turned away, dewlap quivering with rage, and her black oilcloth bag swinging dangerously on her arm.

  She stumped off towards the school gate, and one or two early arrivals hastened to get out of her way, like refugees hurrying to the side of the road when a tank comes along.

  I rolled up my sleeves, turned off the tap, unplugged the basin, (bubble gum yet again, I noted), and set to with the floor cloth.

  Well, at least we knew where we were. I proposed to call to see the lady that evening to get her resignation in writing, or a firm promise to return to her duties with as much willingness as her nature could muster.

  After that, I must work fast to find a cleaner for my house, and if need be one for Fairacre school.

  I was still wringing out the floor cloth when Isobel arrived, and I told her the tale.

  'You would really be far better off without her. She's been a blight on your life ever since you came here.'

  'Oh, I don't know,' I protested. 'I'm quite fond of the old harridan in a perverse sort of way, and she needs the money, I know. I can't just kick her out without giving her a chance to retract.'

  'Well, see how you get on this evening,' advised Isobel. 'And if she persists in going, I should count your blessings. As a matter of fact, I think I could find a young woman for you. She lives between Fairacre and Beech Green, and wants a job, I know.'

  'That sounds hopeful. One thing I'm determined not to do, and that is to employ that nutty Minnie Pringle.'

  And on this note we parted to go to our respective registers and the day's business.

  The weather was so balmy and seductive that it was impossible to worry about Mrs Pringle, Amy, or anything else.

  May was at its loveliest. It was true that the best of the daffodils awaited deheading, and the crocuses were drooping tattered heads, but the lilac was in bud, and the peonies and irises were flaunting their showy beauty.

  My peonies are of the dark red common kind which flourish here and delight me with their blowsy top-heavy blossoms. Several times I have tried to grow the white and pale pink varieties, both single and double, but despite my cosseting they have faded away. The old-fashioned crimson ones flower bravely year after year, and I bless them for their hardiness.

  The mats of aubretia and golden alyssum were still a cheerful sight, and the cotoneaster by the wall was spangled with pink and white flowers. The bees droned in it all day, and the birds sang with springtime fervour.

  The earth was warm and friable, just right for scattering poppy and marigold and larkspur seeds to take their chance of providing summer colour in the gaps in the border. The air from the downs was soft and soporific, so different from the usual fresh breezes that buffet us, in all seasons, in this area.

 
I had my tea in the garden, relishing all these delights, and watching Tibby rolling on the gravel nearby. If only one could have more of this blessed solitude, I pondered, just enjoying the simplejoys about one, when 'every prospect pleases', how good and loving and noble one would be!

  But the hymn continues:

  'And only man is vile', I recalled, which reminded me that I must tear myself away from my miniature Eden, and go to visit Mrs Pringle, my personal serpent, and get the interview over.

  The lady opened the door a matter of two inches, and from what I could see of her stern visage, I fully expected her to slam the door in my face.

  However, she pulled it open and invited me to step inside. I felt like Daniel entering the lions' den, but tried to appear calm.

  'Best sit down, now you've got here,' said Mrs Pringle grudgingly, and we both sat one each side of her empty fireplace. Every metal surface gleamed, every tile shone, not a crumb or cotton end showed on the carpet, and the windows were crystal clear. I was glad Mrs Pringle could not see my own home at the moment.

  As if she could read my thoughts, she said: 'I'm not up to coming back to your place, you know. There's work and work, and some's back-breaking work, like your kitchen floor. So it's out of the question.'

  'I quite understand that,' I said, 'but my chief concern is the school cleaning. I know we have had our little upsets in the past, but I wouldn't like you to give up entirely, and I came to see whether you would change your mind.'

  The lady's expression changed. One could not, in all truthfulness, describe it as oftening, but the down-turned mouth was perhaps a little less severe, and the eyes a trifle less flinty. My hopes grew.

  'I'm not one to change my mind, as you well know, Miss Read, and I feel I owe it to myself to have a break. I'm up and down the street to that place, day in and day out, and my leg is not what it should be. Doctor said as it needed rest, and I ought to do as he says, though I doubt whether he knows much about it, nor cares, for that matter.'