(19/20) Farewell to Fairacre Page 13

  He sighed, and sat more upright on the footstool. I fetched his coffee and gave it to him.

  'I suppose I shall have to be content with "truly fond", but I beg you to take pity on me. I'd do anything for you. We could move to wherever you fancied. Go abroad if you like. To France, say. I've a little cottage there. I'm not a rich man, but we shouldn't want for anything, and I do most dearly love you.'

  'I know that. It touches me deeply.'

  He put down the coffee cup again. It was still almost full. He stood up, and put his arms round me.

  'Say you'll think about it. Say you'll tell me quickly. I shan't have an easy minute until I know. And please, please say "Yes".'

  He kissed me very gently and made for the door. Outside the rain lashed down more fiercely than ever, and I handed him the umbrella which was still glistening with raindrops.

  'I'll ring you tomorrow,' I promised, as he ran down the path.

  Within a minute he was off, with a valedictory toot of the horn, and I put the cups and saucers in the sink, and put the fireguard round the ashes of the logs, and put myself, at long last, between the sheets.

  What a day! I felt exhausted with all this emotion.

  I had plenty to think about the next morning. I looked at myself in the looking-glass and wondered why anyone should want to marry me.

  Certainly my hair was still thick and had very little grey in it, and I had always been fortunate enough to have a good skin, but otherwise I was humdrum enough in all conscience.

  It was very flattering, though, to receive a proposal of marriage in one's late fifties, and I was duly elated in a moderate and middle-aged way. Perhaps, I thought, with some deflation, John had already asked more attractive women and they had turned him down?

  Not with that silvery hair and those devastating blue eyes, I decided. He would make a most decorative adjunct to anyone's household, and no doubt be quite useful too in little manly things like changing electric light bulbs and washers on taps.

  But did I want him? The answer was definitely 'No'! A pity, but there it was, and the really wretched thing was that I must tell him so in the kindest possible way.

  I drove to school rehearsing different ways of turning down a nice man's proposal of marriage. They all seemed pretty brutal, and I was glad to reach school and to be confronted by my exuberant pupils.

  Mrs Richards did not appear, and I took the entire school for prayers in my classroom. It was a quarter past nine when she arrived, full of apologies. Her car was being repaired. Wayne's van would not start. She had been obliged to go to catch the bus, and promised to tell me more at playtime.

  Meanwhile, she hastened to her own duties, and I to mine. Every now and again, the awful fact of the impending telephone call I must make plunged me into gloom.

  Mrs Pringle, arriving with clean tea towels, commented on my looks. 'Proper peaky again. You want to watch you don't have another funny turn,' she told me.

  I said that I felt quite well. I could have said that if I were to have any more funny turns, it was not much good setting out to watch them, but I was in no mood to cross swords with Mrs Pringle in my present debilitated condition, and let it pass.

  At playtime Mrs "Richards enlarged on her early morning difficulties as we sipped our coffee.

  'There I was by the bus stop when Alan came along and gave me a lift. I've known him for years. He was sweet on me at one time, but I was only eighteen and he was quite old, about thirty.'

  I thought of John Jenkins, who must be in his sixties. No doubt Mrs Richards would consider him in his dotage. Perhaps he was? A dispiriting thought.

  'He was a proper pest,' she went on, 'and I asked my mum to choke him off. She told him I was about to be engaged to Wayne, and I was furious with her.'

  'Why?'

  'Well, I'd only been out once or twice with Wayne, and I didn't want him to think that I was running after him. I mean, I knew I could never take to Alan. You always know, don't you?'

  I agreed fervently that indeed one did always know.

  'But I was quite keen on Wayne, and I thought people would tittle-tattle and he'd be frightened off. It was stupid of my mum to say that, wasn't it?'

  'I must get out to the playground,' I said, 'before murder is done.'

  Out in the fresh air, with the rooks wheeling about the trees, and the children rushing around being aeroplanes or trains, I felt much better.

  On the whole, I thought that my assistant had been jolly lucky to have a mother to take her part. If only I had someone to 'choke off' my poor old John!

  Well, it would have to be me, and perhaps that was all for the best, I decided, as we returned to the classroom.

  It was almost five o'clock when I returned home, as I had been waylaid by a parent who was worried about her child's asthma and wanted to know if PE lessons upset him.

  It seemed sensible to fortify myself with a cup of tea before tackling my difficult task. It was a bright afternoon and no doubt John was either in his garden or even farther afield. Would it be better to wait until it became dark, I wondered? He would be much more likely to be near the telephone then.

  On the other hand, I wanted to get the job over. Besides, if I rang after six o'clock he might think I had waited for the cheap rate period, and I should appear parsimonious as well as callous. How difficult life is!

  I finished my tea, took a deep breath, and rang John's number. He must have been standing by the telephone, for it only gave two rings.

  'Thank God it's you,' he said. 'I've been snatching up the phone all day, and had the laundry, the vicar, George Annett, and some idiot trying to get Venezuela. I've been dying for you to ring.'

  'Well, I was at school,' I said weakly.

  'Of course! I'd forgotten that.'

  'I've only just got in.'

  'You poor darling. You must be whacked. You need a cup of tea.'

  I did not like to say that I had just had one. It seemed so heartless, especially as he had obviously had a distracting day.

  'About last night,' I began, and wondered how to go on. Should I ask him if he remembered asking me to marry him? Should I say that I had been thinking of his kind offer? Should I say that I was feeling terrible? This last was true enough anyway.

  Luckily, John took over the initiative.

  'You've decided? Is it "Yes" or "No"? Please say it's "Yes"! I can't tell you how much it means to me.'

  'John, it has to be "No", I fear.'

  There was a strange sound at the other end. A sigh? A sob? A laugh?

  He sounded calm when he spoke again.

  'I was afraid it would be so. But at least you haven't asked me to be "just a good friend" because I'm a dam' sight more than that.'

  'I know, John, and I'm sorry to have to refuse.'

  'Well, there it is. No harm done, and I give you fair warning that I shall try again.'

  'Please, John—' I said in alarm.

  'Don't worry, I shan't pester you, but I'm not giving up.'

  'Oh dear!'

  'Will you come to a concert with me at Oxford next month?'

  'Thank you. I should like that.'

  'There's a nice girl! And wear that blue thing you had on last night. It was so pretty.'

  He rang off before I could say any more.

  Last night? Was it only last night that all this had blown up? Thank heaven he had taken it so well. My knees were knocking together after my ordeal, and I tottered into the garden to recover.

  It was over anyway, and having staved off his first proposal I felt sure that I could cope with any more to come. Anyway, it would be nice to go to a concert with him later on.

  What was it he had said? 'That blue thing, that looked so pretty.'

  I had always thought it was green. Ah well!

  CHAPTER 12

  Romantic Speculations in Fairacre

  Bob Willet was busy doing something to the school gate when I drove into the playground the next morning.

  'Dropped a bit,' he
explained. 'Them dratted kids swings on it.'

  'I know. I've told them not to dozens of times.'

  'You wants to give 'em a clip round the earhole.'

  'I agree, but I'd probably lose my job these days.'

  'Mind you,' went on Mr Willet fairly, 'most gates drop a bit. I had to do Mr Mawne's last week.'

  'How is he?'

  'Chipper. Very chipper indeed. His lady visitor's gone back to Ireland.'

  'He'll be relieved.'

  'But she's coming back! It seems she's gone back to put her house on the market.'

  'So she is going to settle here after all?'

  'Looks like it. And settled in with Mr Mawne if she gets half a chance.'

  'Oh dear!'

  He gave me a swift look, and I wondered if he expected to see disappointment in my countenance. Or perhaps relief?

  'She's a very nice woman,' I said. 'I liked her.'

  'But ain't she related to Mr Mawne? I was going to look up the Table of Infinity in my prayer book, but I trimmed the privet hedge instead.'

  'She's no relation of Henry's. It was Mrs Mawne who was her cousin.'

  Bob Willet looked slightly dejected, and hit the gate a thwacking blow with his hammer.

  'Well, I suppose that's fair enough,' he said, 'but I'd sooner see Mr Mawne looking nearer at hand for a good wife.'

  At that moment Mrs Pringle arrived, her oil-cloth bag bulging.

  'Brought you some early spinach,' she puffed. 'Do you good to get a bit of green down you.'

  I expressed my thanks and we left Bob Willet to enter the lobby together.

  It was a most generous present, and I could see that most of it would have to go in the freezer for another day.

  'Fred put cloches over 'em,' explained Mrs Pringle. 'Brought 'em on a treat. I've given a bag to Minnie, though she says her kids won't eat greens. I said to tell them that thousands of poor children would be thankful for a nice plate of spinach. But you know Minnie. She won't say nothing.'

  'And how is she? When's that baby due?'

  I suddenly remembered that evening of lashing rain last March when Minnie had sought refuge with me. Surely, I had not seen her since then, and I wondered how her stormy marriage was faring.

  'The baby? Oh, that came to nothing,' said Mrs Pringle in an off-hand manner.

  She must have seen my astonishment.

  'Minnie's always in a muddle with her dates and that, and she thought there was another little stranger on the way. All for the best there wasn't.'

  I agreed. It was certainly for the best, both for Minnie and the little stranger, in the present circumstances.

  'I hear Mr Mawne's lady has left him at last. She's got her eye on him, you know. Bob Willet told me she's going to come back again.'

  'Well, it's a free country,' I said equably.

  'Not when you go shopping in Caxley on market day,' said Mrs Pringle. 'Why, I paid nearly a pound for a piece of cheese, that hardly did Fred's supper.'

  Her cheeks wobbled with outrage, and reminded me of a flustered turkey-cock.

  But at least the subject was changed, and that was a great relief.

  Arthur Coggs had appeared in the magistrates' court at Caxley, so the local paper said, on a number of charges of theft.

  The chairman had deferred sentence as he said he felt sure that there were some deep-seated problems in Arthur's past, so that the bench needed an up-to-date report from the probation officer and one from a psychiatrist.

  Mr Willet was scathing. 'Anyone in Fairacre could tell him what Arthur's deep-seated problem is. He won't work, that's all. And he likes his beer. Put the two together and our Arthur's going to be in trouble all his life.'

  He was right of course.

  'My old ma used to tell us that if you don't work you can expect to starve. No one tells kids that these days, and they grows up expecting everythin' for nothin'.'

  Mrs Pringle joined in at this juncture.

  'I blame the parents. Our Minnie's kids never goes to church, and they don't never learn the Ten Commandments. Why, we had to recite them to the vicar, didn't we, Bob?'

  'That's right.'

  '"Thou shalt not steal" was one of 'em. But Arthur Coggs don't remember that one. And he won't get punished, I'll lay.'

  'Nobody don't,' agreed Bob Willet. 'Punishment's out! No wonder they grows up not knowing right from wrong.' He turned to me. 'You given 'em something to think about over that dropped gate?'

  He blew out his moustache belligerently.

  'Well, I haven't lashed about them with a horse-whip,' I said mildly, 'but I did give them a talking-to.'

  Bob Willet and Mrs Pringle exchanged disgusted glances, and I thought it discreet to take my leave.

  In Fairacre, as elsewhere, the older generation takes a poor view of those growing up, and I expect it was ever thus.

  It was the loveliest May I could remember. My spirits were high, as I looked forward, with increasing excitement, to the end of term and my retirement.

  I had no fears now about my health. In fact, I occasionally wondered if I had been over-anxious and given in my notice before time, but these doubts soon passed, and I revelled in the future before me.

  The summer flowers began to adorn the classroom window-sills and my desk. Everything was early this year. The may buds were bursting on the hawthorn. Dandelions glowed on the grass verges, and the cottage gardens were gay with wall flowers, early pinks and irises.

  Beside the massive brass inkstand, on my desk, a relic of a Victorian headmaster, stood an earthenware honey pot of equally ancient vintage, bearing a nosegay of clove pinks that scented the classroom with their spicy perfume.

  One evening during this halcyon time of early summer, I had an unexpected visit from James, Amy's husband.

  'I've been to see the Cottons,' he began, coming straight to the point. 'Have you been worrying about them?'

  I had to admit that I had been a little perplexed about their finances but Bob Willet had heard that there was money owing on a Caxley clothing club.

  'Well, I'm thankful to say we seem to have come to the bottom of things.'

  It appeared that this was Mr Cotton's second marriage. His first wife had left him and had married again. By this first marriage they had had one daughter, now in her early twenties. She was a nurse at a large hospital in the north, and it was she who had caused the money problems.

  'He's a very devoted father,' said James. 'We knew all about his matrimonial background when the Trust appointed him and the present Mrs Cotton to this post. The girl then was just about self-supporting, but she got into the clutches of an unscrupulous fellow who wheedled her savings from her, and then began to exert really menacing pressure. She turned to her father, who tried to extricate her from her troubles. He should have gone straight to the police, of course, but he was reluctant to get the daughter involved in court proceedings.'

  'How did you find out?'

  'I asked him what the trouble was. He seemed relieved to have someone to talk to. He's had a pretty awful time worrying about the present family, and letting the Trust down, and so on. Why he didn't tell us, I can't think. We'd have supported him and the girl. He's a jolly good father - one of our best.'

  I marvelled, yet again, at James's ability to communicate with all sorts and conditions of men. It was not just his obvious charm and good looks. They were the outward expression of a true understanding of the other fellow's point of view, ready sympathy and a clear mind to sum up the problem and its handling.

  'So how is the girl coping?'

  'She's just become engaged to a young chap with his head screwed on. He's put the matter in the hands of the police, and luckily he is in a steady job, and they propose to marry this summer.'

  'So it's a happy ending?'

  'It looks like it. Mrs Cotton gave me a lovely kiss at the end of our little pow-wow.'

  'I bet she did! Have a drink?'

  'No. I'm driving; and I expect Amy has the grub waiting.'
/>   I walked with him to the car. A blackbird was singing its heart out on a lilac bush.

  'You've relieved my mind about the Cotton family,' I told him.

  'That was the idea. Can't have your last few weeks at Fairacre clouded in any way.'

  He gave me a farewell kiss which I found as satisfactory I imagine, as Mrs Cotton had, and off he went.

  A day or two later, I encountered our vicar as I was coming back from Fairacre Post Office.

  'What weather!' he enthused waving a hand and encompassing in the gesture the cottage gardens near at hand, the rooks wheeling round the church spire, and the hazy downs beyond.

  'I know. Aren't we lucky?'

  'I've just been to see Henry,' he told me. 'Have you seen him lately?'

  'No. How is he?'

  'Rather lonely, of course. I'm surprised he hasn't been to see you. Deirdre's away, you know.'

  I said that I had heard.

  Gerald Partridge began to look troubled, and stopped to flick non-existent dust from his shirt-front. I knew the signs. Our vicar was preparing to face a difficult few minutes.

  'I'm just a little worried about him. He obviously misses his dear wife, and I should so like to see him settled happily.'

  'We all should.'

  He looked relieved.

  'I know it is a long time ago,' he continued, 'soon after you came to Fairacre, but I know that we all hoped - wrongly, as it turned out - that you and Henry—' He faltered to a stop.

  'I well remember it,' I told him, not wishing to be reminded of an embarrassing interlude.

  'Of course, Henry was married already, but we did not know that,' he continued hastily. 'Now, of course, the poor fellow is permanently bereaved, and I must say I grieve for him.'

  He began to move on again, and we approached the school gate. The playground was empty, and the hands of the church clock stood at four fifteen. The sun had moved round and was now streaming down on my car. It was going to be a hot drive home.

  'I don't think I should worry too much about Henry,' I said. 'He has lots of good friends in Fairacre. Both of us, for instance.'