(5/20)Over the Gate Read online

  All went well. The baby was a lusty boy, who throve from the rime he entered the world. Job and Mary could hardly believe their good fortune and peered into his cot a hundred times a day to admire his fair beauty.

  One early October day, when the child was a few months old, Mary was sitting at the table with a pile of mending before her. The boy lay asleep in his cradle beside her.

  It was a wild windy day. The autumn equinox had stirred the weather to tempestuous conditions, and the trees in the little garden flailed their branches in the uproar. Leaves whirled by the cottage window and every now and again a spatter of had hit the glass like scattered shot. The doors rattled, the thin curtains stirred in the draught, and the whole cottage shuddered in the force of the gale. Mary was nervous, and wondered how poor Job was faring outside in the full force of the unkind elements.

  As the afternoon wore on, the gale increased. Mary had never known such violence. There was a roaring noise in the chimney which was terrifying and a banshee howling of wind round the house which woke the baby and made him cry. Mary lifted him from his cradle to comfort him, and walked back and forth with him against her shoulder.

  There was a sudden increase in the noise outside—a curious drumming sound in the heart of the fury. To Mary's horror she saw through the window the small chicken house at the end of the garden swept upward and carried, twisting bizarrely, into the field beyond. At the same time a great mass of straw, clearly torn from a nearby rick, went whirling across the garden, and, as it passed, one of the apple trees, laden with golden fruit, snapped off at the base as though it were a flower stem.

  Mary could scarcely believe her eyes. She stood rooted to the spot, between the table and the fireplace, her baby clutched to her. The drumming sound grew louder until it was unendurable. Mary was about to scream with panic when a terrifying rumbling came near at hand. The chimney stack crashed upon the cottage roof, cracking the rafters like matchwood, and sending ceilings, furniture, bricks and rubble cascading upon the two terror-stricken occupants of the little home.

  ***

  When Job arrived at the scene of die disaster, soaked to the skin and wild with anxiety, he found the whole of one end of his house had collapsed. No one was there, for the neighbours were all coping with troubles of their own, and there had been no rime to see how others were faring in the catastrophe that had befallen Fairacre in the matter of minutes.

  He began tearing at the beams and sagging thatch with his bare hands, shouting hoarsely to his wife and son as he struggled. There was no answer to his cries. A ghastly silence seemed to pervade the ruined house, in contrast to the fiendish noises which raged about it.

  An hour later, when neighbours arrived to help, they found him there, still screaming and struggling to reach his dead. Sweat and tears poured down his ravaged face, his clothes were torn, his battered hands bleeding. When, finally, the broken bodies of his wife and child were recovered, Job had to be led away, and only the doctor's drugs brought him merciful oblivion at the end of that terrible day.

  In the weeks that followed, while his house was being repaired, Job was offered hospitality throughout Fairacre, but he would have none of it. As soon as the pitiful funeral was over, he returned numbly to his work, coming back each night to his broken home and sleeping on a makeshift bed in the one remaining room.

  Neighbours did their best for him, cooking him a meal, washing his linen, comforting him with friendly words and advice. He seemed scarcely to see or to hear them, and heads shook over Job's sad plight.

  'There's naught can help him, but time,' said one.

  ''Tis best to let him get over his grief alone,' said another.

  'Once he gets his house set to rights, he'll start to pick up,' said a third. Fairacre watched poor Job anxiously.

  The men who had been sent to repair the cottage worked well and quickly. Their sympathy was stirred by the sight of the gaunt young man's lonely existence in the undamaged half of his tiny house.

  At length the living room was done. The bricks which had crashed on that fateful afternoon had been built again into the chimney breast. The broken rafters had been replaced, the walls plastered and whitewashed afresh.

  Job met the men as he trudged home from work. They called to him with rough sympathy.

  It's ready for you now,' they shouted through the twilight. 'We've finished at last.'

  A kindly neighbour had gone in to replace his furniture.

  'There now,' she said, in a motherly burr, 'you can settle in here tonight.' But Job shook his head, and turned into his old room.

  Sad at heart, the good old soul returned home, but could not forget the sight of Job's ravaged face.

  'I'll go and take a look at him,' she said to her husband later that evening. 'If the lamp's alight in the room then I'll know he's settled in, and I'll go more comfortable to bed.'

  But the window was dark. She was about to turn homeward again when she heard movements inside the cottage and saw the living room door open. Job stood upon the threshold, a candle in his hand. Breathless, in the darkness of the garden, the watcher saw him make Ins wav slowly across the room to the chimney breast. He put down the guttering candle, and rested his fair head against the brickwork. Before long, his great shoulders began to heave, and the sound of dreadful sobbing sent the onlooker stealthily homeward.

  ''Tis best by far to leave him be,' comforted the neighbour's husband, when she told him what she had witnessed. 'We'll go and see him in the morning. It will all be over by then.'

  But there was little comfort for the woman that night, for the spectacle of Job's grief drove all hope of sleep away.

  Next morning they went together to the house. Her heart was heavy with foreboding as they walked up the little brick path. Inside the silent house they found him, with a noose about his neck, hanging against the chimney breast which had crushed his wife, his child, and every hope of Job himself.

  There was an uncanny silence in the sunny lane as Mr Annett finished speaking.

  'And that', he said soberly, 'is the tale of poor Job, as the vicar told it to me.'

  Suddenly, a blackbird called from a hazel bush, breaking the spell. Despite the sunshine, I shivered. We were alone, for Malcolm and his mother had gone ahead to pick primroses from the steep banks, and though we were surrounded by the sights and scents of spring I remained chilled by this strange winter's tale.

  'You're sure it was a ghost?' I asked shakily.

  'Other people have seen Job,' answered Mr Annett, 'and the vicar knew all about him. But I believe I am the only person that Job has spoken to.'

  'I wonder why?' I mused aloud.

  'Perhaps he felt we had much in common,' said Mr Annett quietly.

  I remembered suddenly Mr Annett's own tragedy. He, too, had adored a young wife and had lost her in the face of overwhelming violence. He too had watched a broken body removed to an early grave. There was no misery, no depth of hopelessness which Job had know, which was not known too to young Mr Annett.

  We were summoned abruptly from the shadowy past by the sound of young Malcolm's excited voice.

  'There's a nest here,' he called, 'with eggs. Come and look!'

  'Coming!' shouted Mr Annett, suddenly looking ten years younger. And he ran off, all grief forgotten, to join his wife and child.

  8. Mrs Pringle's Christmas Pudding

  ONE of the pleasures of school holidays is the opportunity to join in village affairs more fully than is possible in term time. When I was asked if I would help the Women's Institute to prepare for a party I agreed with alacrity.

  Once a year the members of Fairacre W.I. invite a coachload of Londoners for the afternoon. Many of the visitors were evacuated to this area from the East End during the last war. Some had their schooling, during the war years, at our village school. Their mothers, now elderly women, lived in our midst, made friends, worshipped at St Patrick's, shared our pains and pleasures, and generally forged bonds which will last a lifetime. It is always a
gay afternoon, with much reminiscing about shared memories and much gossip about new babies, marriages, good fortune and bad, which have been experienced since the last meeting.

  The visitors were due to arrive at two o'clock. The custom is to greet them at the village hall with the tea urns ready. The main tea—a gargantuan meal—is prepared for five o'clock, but the two o'clock cup is considered the right welcome after then-long trip from London, and their lunch-time stop on the way.

  At one time we used to prepare our offerings in our own kitchens, converge upon the village hall about two and deposit sandwiches, sausage rolls, cakes and so on upon the dishes provided for the main meal. As anyone who organises these things knows, the results could be chaotic. Four people who had offered sausage rolls would decide to provide chocolate sponge instead. The six who had promised sandwiches found that the local baker had no sliced bread, and so had opted to provide rock cakes instead, and the carefully prepared lists pinned up in the hall became covered with indescribable scribblings as the two people in charge tried to sort out the muddle.

  After a few years of such crises it was decided to leave the matter in the hands of the committee, ably headed by Mrs Partridge, the vicar's wife, who is our President. These noble and efficient ladies ordered the bread, butter and fillings for the sandwiches, and every other necessity, and detailed squads of underlings to prepare the food under their vigilant surveillance in the hall. It worked much better that way, we found.

  Consequently, at ten o'clock on the morning of the great day I made my way to the rendezvous, carrying my basket with a knife for buttering, a knife for cutting bread and some tea and sugar as my fool-proof contribution to the festivities.

  The hall was buzzing like a beehive when I entered. The card tables which are used for local whist drives had been placed at intervals round the hall and covered with bright cloths ready for the visitors. At one end, two long trestle tables were the scene of much activity. Here the noise was at its greatest for about twenty women cut and buttered bread, wielded salt and pepper pots, stacked sandwiches, arranged cakes on plates and generally made as much hubbub as my own schoolchildren.

  I joined the throng and found myself between Mrs Mawne and Mrs Willet. Mrs Mawne has lived in Fairacre only a year or two and is the wife of our local ornithologist. His other claim to fame is his wonderful grasp of the church accounts which used to drive the vicar to distraction before Mr Mawne's coming. Mrs Mawne has the happy knack of upsetting everyone in the village by much forthright and tactless comment.

  Her remark about the general incompetence, and probable dishonesty of the clergy in money matters, spoken directly to the vicar's wife in the presence of several speechless parishioners, has long been remembered. However, as we all have to live cheek bv jowl in the village here, we push such memories to the back of our minds as best we may, and get on with day to day living.

  Mrs Willet, the wife of our school caretaker, is a small mouselike creature who looks meek and frail. In fact, she is a dynamic person who gets through more work in twenty-four hours than I do in a week. Her washing line on a Monday morning flies a multiplicity of spotless linen, long before her neighbours have pegged theirs out. Her store cupboards bulge with jams, jellies, pickles and chutneys of her own making. Puddings and pies, batches of scones, roast joints, and a thousand other delicacies stream from her oven to nourish sturdy Mr Willet three times a day. Besides this, she makes her own clothes, sings in St Patrick's choir, enters all the W.I. competitions, knits, crochets, makes rugs and generally leaves one feeling quite useless and incorrigibly lazy.

  Now her hands flew briskly back and forth from potted meat to bread and butter, working at twice the pace and with twice the deftness of my own. Mrs Willet's sandwiches were models of square exactitude. Mine gradually grew more and more rhomboid as the loaf went down. Mrs Willet's crusts sliced away cleanly. Mine broke away raggedly despite my best endeavours. The only comfort was that Mrs Mawne's were, if anything, rather more dilapidated than mine.

  We shouted amicably to each other among the din.

  'The new people are moving in,' Mrs Willet told me. 'The Blundells. I knew her as a girl. Very pretty, she was then.' I remembered Amy's story, and waited for more. Mrs Mawne added her contribution with her usual tact.

  'Looks rather a rackety type now,' was her comment. 'Hair very obviously dyed, and in trade, I hear.' Mrs Willet began to bridle.

  'A very flourishing business in Caxley,' I put in placatingly. If trade is flourishing enough, I notice, there seems to be less antagonism towards it. Mrs Mawne, however, was not particularly moved. She sucked a buttery finger and continued to arrange her sandwiches. It would have made a sanitary inspector's hair curl, but we are tough in Fairacre, and one of our favourite maxims is: 'You have to eat a peck of dirt before you die,' which we quote as we sketchily dust the tomato that has rolled on the floor, or take in the loaf that has been lodged on the outside window sill.

  'I shan't bother to call,' said Mrs Mawne, filching my bread knife shamelessly, and making the handle horribly buttery, I observed.

  Mrs Willet muttered something which sounded like: 'Fat lot she'll care!' but was unheard by Mrs Mawne. Mrs Willet's neck was growing rosy with suppressed anger and, feeling rather nervous with so many knives flashing about, I attempted to be a little peacemaker once again.

  'I believe Mrs Blundell used to sing very well,' I began.

  'Oh, she sung lovely!' replied Mrs Willet, with enthusiasm. 'Used to come out here with the Operatic during the war, and we had rare old times!'

  She gazed round our dingy village hall with affection. The walls are covered with sticky gingery-brown matchboarding and upon its surface hang lop-sided photographs of football teams of long ago, faded brown with age. Stern country countenances, many of them wearing fine moustaches, peer from among the clouds which the damp has drawn over the group. Here and there are pinned such notices as 'Scouts' Rules,' 'The Resuscitation of the Drowned' (though we are miles from any water), and 'Suggestions for W.I. Programme-PLEASE HELP!' By the door there is a dilapidated piece of cardboard on which is printed: PLEASE SWITCH OF THE LIGHT and that missing F has been a thorn in my flesh ever since coming to Fairacre.

  Dusty plush curtains, on a sagging wire, screen the minute stage from sight, and the floor is of splintery bare boards with here and there a knot of wood, polished by friction, projecting like a buttered brazil. There is nothing truthfully to gladden the eye in our hall, and yet Mrs Willet looked upon it now with all the doting tenderness of a mother gazing upon her firstborn. Such, I observed, is the power of association.

  'A lot went on here during the war,' continued Mrs Willet. 'We used to have canning sessions in here twice each summer—soft fruit time, and then later when the apples and plums were ready. The W.I. used to bring the canning machine and we spent all day up here. Had some fun, I can tell you!'

  'I always bottled mine,' said Mrs Mawne. 'Much more wholesome.'

  'Sometimes there'd be as many as thirty of us up here canning,' continued Mrs Willet, ignoring the interruption. 'With the evacuees, and that. Some of 'em will be here this afternoon. You ask 'em, Miss Read, about this hall in the war. Fairly hummed with life it did! We had the clinic here, and First Aid classes, and no end of concerts and whist drives. And when we won the war, we had a proper beanfeast for the Welcome Home!'

  'I suppose most of the evacuees had gone home by then,' I said.

  'Nearly all,' agreed Mrs Willet sadly. 'We missed 'em, you know. Never really wanted 'em to begin with, as you can guess, but somehow, sharing everything, we got fond of one another—and then, well, they was a larky lot, real mischieful, some of'em! You couldn't help laughing! There was one—her name was Mrs Jarman—she'll be coming this afternoon, she was a caution. We all reckoned she was the larkiest of the lot. And I'll take my oath,' said Mrs Willet solemnly, turning earnestly towards me, 'that she was at the bottom of that Christmas pudding affair.'

  'The Christmas Pudding Affair?' I echo
ed. 'It sounds like a detective story.'

  'Well, it was one what never got explained,' said Mrs Willet. 'I'll tell you what happened—some time.'

  And she returned to her sandwich stacking.

  When our preparations were completed we all trooped home to a midday meal and to exchange our pinafores and working attire for more elegant ensembles in honour of the visitors.

  Efficient and hardworking married women, like Mrs Willet, returned to their kitchens to dish up such succulent dishes as beef casserole or steak and kidney pudding which had been cooking themselves gently since nine or ten o'clock that morning. Scatter-brained spinsters, like me, with no hungry husbands to consider, had a piece of cheese, three biscuits and a cup of coffee, while they propped up their aching feet on a kitchen chair and read the paper. It was a good thing Amy couldn't see me I thought, as I dusted the crumbs from my lap to the floor. This was Letting Myself Go in the way which caused her such heart-burning. Amy, my censorious college friend, when she lunches alone, sets one place at the dining room table, complete with glass, side plate, table napkin and so on and eats her meal as decorously as any memsahib.

  'And just think of the washing-up!' I said to Tibby, offering him a cheese rind. The disdainful creature took one sniff, flirted his tail and walked away.

  'Thousands of poor cats,' I told him severely, retrieving the cheese rind for the birds, 'would give their eye-teeth for a delicious piece of cheese rind like that!' I tossed it through the open window. It was followed immediately by Tibby who devoured it instantly, and I sipped my coffee meditating on the maddening, but absorbing, ways of cats in general.