Village Centenary Page 14

  Miss Briggs thanked him with such obvious gratitude that I thought it would be churlish to point out that it had obviously been sucked at one end.

  After all, I told myself, it was the thought that counted, and what were a few germs between friends?

  9 September

  I always enjoy the early part of the autumn term. The new entrants soon settle down, and it is good to have fresh faces in the infants' room. This year there were four new babies and luckily all were good-natured youngsters who refrained from bawling when their mothers left them, but looked about them, bright-eyed and as inquisitive as squirrels at all these fresh interests.

  For the last few years we have tried to let the newcomers visit us for a half-day a week in the preceding term, so that they become familiar with their surroundings.

  This has helped enormously when they finally make a start at the beginning of the school year. It is a great strain on a young child to be thrust, not only among large numbers of bigger children, but also into a strange building where each has to find his own clothes peg, his desk, the wash basins and, most important of all, the lavatory.

  Miss Briggs seemed much more settled, I thought, and certainly better tempered. No one could call her enthusiastic or charming, but her general demeanour was much more cheerful. This had a good effect on her class, and I supposed that the change in attitude resulted from the mellowing influence of the unknown young man, and also the fact that she now felt more confident in her work after two terms of teaching. She was far readier too, I was relieved to see, to remain after school when needed. Quite often she did not

  go until Reg Thorn's workmen finished at four-thirty, and seemed glad to take on extra little jobs connected with the coming celebrations.

  Things were going well in that direction. Mrs Moffat invited me to see Linda's Victorian dress, and 1 accompanied her from the butcher's where we had met one Saturday morning.

  In the room set aside for her sewing, there hung her latest masterpiece. It was a perfect replica of Miss Richards's frock of the early 1880s, as dimly seen in a faded photograph I had found among the school records.

  It was made of black woollen crêpe, complete with bustle, and draped over a pleated underskirt of black satin. At the neck was a ruffle of white lace, and embedded in the snowy froth was a beautiful jet brooch.

  I exclaimed with admiration.

  'Well, it's mostly bits and pieces,' she said modestly, though obviously pleased at my reaction.

  'The black material is from an evening frock of mine. The satin was a skirt lining, and the lace I had by me. The bustle is made of foam rubber - much more comfortable than the original horse hair, I should think. '

  'And that lovely brooch?'

  'My grandmother's. It was the mourning brooch she bought when her father died. She also had a pretty little mourning ring made from his signet ring, but it was lost not long afterwards.'

  'Well, Linda's going to be the belle of the ball on this occasion,' I said, stroking the costume.

  'Don't be too sure! I think young Patrick will run her pretty close. I've been helping his mother make a serge suit with knee breeches - Norfolk style, you know - and with an Eton collar and bow tie he's going to look absolutely splendid. The only difficulty is persuading Patrick that he won't look what he terms "a proper sissy" in it.'

  'I'll work on that problem,' I promised her as I took my leave.

  Mrs Pringle arrived at school one morning looking unusually militant. I soon learnt the cause.

  'That niece of mine, that Minnie, that awful Minnie!'

  She gulped with fury, slapping viciously at a desk with her duster.

  My heart sank. Minnie Pringle, still known by that name although she is a married woman, is the mother of several children, most of them illegitimate. In a weak moment I once engaged her as a second charwoman, and the havoc she managed to wreak in my house had to be seen to be believed. Whatever had happened to Minnie, I decided now, nothing would persuade me to have her in my home again.

  'What has she done?' I ventured to ask her irate aunt.

  'She's been and left her Ern, that's what. Had some sort of tiff last night, and up and left him with all those kids.'

  'You mean she left the children with Ern?'

  'No, no, no! I wish she had! She's brought 'em all up to our place, and I've left her grizzling over the corn flakes. I've told her straight she's to go back to Ern as soon as she's got breakfast down 'em.'

  'What went wrong, do you think?'

  'Well, you know our Min as well as I do. She's come across that chap Bert again, as she was sweet on once.'

  I remembered that Bert was the man who had taken up his abode in their house at Springbourne. Rather naturally Ern had resented it, and there had been ructions.

  'But surely Bert got a job elsewhere?'

  'Only laying gas pipes. He soon got done with that and made a pretty penny too at it. Now he's having a rest on the Social Security, and you know what they says about Satan finding work for idle hands to do? Well, he's found some with our Min, and Em's cutting up rough.'

  At this moment Eileen Burton rushed in to ask if she could pull the school bell 'as it wasn't fair the boys always done it'.

  I was too surprised by this passionate plea on behalf of equality for women to correct her grammar, and agreed to her request.

  Meanwhile Mrs Pringle, limping heavily, had taken herself into the infants' room to continue her onslaught on the furniture, and I shelved Minnie Pringle's problems to face my own.

  We were having a spell of unsettled weather. Two days would be calm and golden and the farmers would be wreathed in smiles as they fetched home the last of the harvest, or busily baled the golden straw. Then two or three days of rain would follow, drenching the straw awaiting collection, and filling our playground with extensive puddles which positively challenged the naughtier children to play 'Splashem' in defiance of my veto on the game.

  I had just dashed across the playground through a shower at the end of afternoon school, when the telephone rang. Elizabeth Mawne was calling.

  'I'm begging a favour,' she began.

  'Fire away.'

  'Well, I know you often go to Caxley on a Saturday morning, and I wondered if you could give me a lift. I'm going to Jenner's to pick up a christening mug - the christening is the next day and Jenner's have kept me in suspense all this time. Our car's out of order, or I wouldn't bother you.'

  I said that I should be delighted, particularly as I had a clock which had been waiting to be mended for quite six months, and 1 too would visit Jenner's with her.

  By half-past ten on Saturday we were on our way, splashing through the streaming lanes on one of the wettest days of our changeable spell.

  'It really is annoying,' said Mrs Mawne. 'All my roses are turning brown with the rain, and I am doing the church flowers this Sunday and was relying on roses for my arrangements. The most reliable flowers in the garden at the moment are marigolds. Perhaps not quite right for church decoration.'

  'Why not? Everyone likes them, and they always look so cheerful. I'd plump for the marigolds every time.'

  'Perhaps I will,' agreed Mrs Mawne, but she sounded doubtful. There is no gainsaying, I thought, that the ladies who take their flower-arranging seriously store up a mint of trouble for themselves one way or another.

  'You've heard that David hopes to move into Holly Lodge?'

  I said that I had.

  'Henry was so grateful to you for advising him. He gets into rather a tizzy over things like that.'

  'But I did nothing,' I protested.

  'You let him bumble on to you,' said his wife. 'It helped. He rang David straightaway, and he and Irene think it is exactly what they want. David can go to town by train quite easily, or on the motorway. He'll have to get a second car, but there we are. It will be good to have them at hand, and it will be so much healthier for them all, particularly for Simon. He's a frail child.'

  I thought of the strength which had
gone into the hurling of that quoit which had killed our dear albino robin, but said nothing.

  'Of course, Joan Benson has to find somewhere, and David is still advertising his place, but we hope the move can be made well before Christmas. At a pinch, they can move in with us temporarily, but we hope it won't come to that. It wouldn't please any of us, and between ourselves, I think poor Henry would go mad.'

  I jammed on the brakes to avoid a suicidal pheasant who strutted with great dignity and deliberation across the road in front of us.

  'Of course,' continued Elizabeth, when we drove on, 'you are so lucky having a place of your own. I imagine you will stay on there when you retire?'

  I explained my position.

  'So what will you do? I hadn't realised that the schoolhouse was virtually a tied cottage.'

  'Oh, something will turn up,' I said with a cheerfulness I did not feel. 'Well, here we are, and miracles will never cease! There's actually a parking place.'

  Jenner's is an old-fashioned shop, run in earlier times by the widow of the original jeweller, Edward Jenner. Although she is now bedridden, her two sons who run the business consult her over every transaction in the shop, which is somewhat trying if you are in a hurry.

  Sometimes a good bellow up the stairs suffices. A faint reply is vaguely heard by the customer, and one of the sons returns to cope with the matter, fortified by mother's help. But today, Mrs Mawne and I had to wait while John Jenner pounded up the stairs holding two christening mugs.

  Time passed. We shifted from one foot to the other, and studied barometers, clocks, wrist watches, dress rings, engagement rings, babies' spoons and pushers, rose bowls, and innumerable candlesticks.

  It was obvious that Elizabeth was growing even more impatient than I was. She has not had to put up with waiting for others, and is extremely forthright in her speech when crossed. I wondered what sort of welcome John Jenner would get on his return. Elizabeth's foot was tapping dangerously when he appeared at last.

  'Your mother, Mr Jenner,' she said severely, 'reminds me of the Almighty. Invisible and omnipotent.'

  'She's all of that,' agreed John Jenner.

  Determined though I was not to get mixed up in Minnie Pringle's matrimonial squalls, yet nevertheless I found myself unwillingly involved.

  She arrived one day in the following week with three of her brood to see if they could attend Fairacre School while she was 'with auntie'. There was not much I could do about it, and so I agreed with as much grace as I could muster.

  I handed the three into the charge of Linda Moffat, who is a kind motherly child with plenty of sense. She undertook to show them where to hang their coats, and so on.

  Meanwhile, Minnie showed no desire to leave my presence. The children were still out in the playground as it was only twenty to nine. Miss Briggs had not yet arrived, and so had no inkling of two new infants to be added - temporarily, I trusted - to her roll. The eldest child would be with me.

  Minnie looked as much like a scarecrow as she had always done. Her ankle-length frock must once have been an evening dress. Over it she wore a thick ribbed pullover which had half a dozen grimy badges tacked on to it. Her bare feet were thrust into broken peep-toe sandals of scarlet plastic material, and her red hair was as unkempt as a well-used floor mop.

  A young baby was asleep under the hood of the battered pram in the lobby, and a toddler with a repellently runny nose sat at the other end. With five children under nine one could not help but feel sorry for poor silly Minnie, but I steeled myself to withstand any offers of renewed housework. I had suffered enough in the past.

  'You heard about my Em?' she enquired.

  I said guardedly that Mrs Pringle had said that he had left home.

  'Ah! But did she tell you where he'd gone?'

  'No.'

  'Back to that Mrs Fowler in Caxley!'

  Minnie spoke triumphantly, as though she had scored a point. Frankly, I was flummoxed. An earlier union between the renowned Mrs Fowler and Minnie's Em had ended in such acrimony that I should have thought that they would never see each other again.

  'She's been at him for months to go back as a lodger. Misses the money, see? Well, now he's gone.'

  'Just like that? He must have had a reason.'

  Minnie hesitated, running her dirty fingernails through her equally dirty locks. She seemed to be struggling with a desire to tell me all.

  It won.

  'I don't mind you knowing, but Em got a bit nasty about Bert popping in, and he took his belt to me. Then Bert got wild and clocked him one, so Em cleared off, and the language what he used I wouldn't tell a lady like you. Real rude, it was! Animals and that!'

  'But where will you live? 1 believe the house is in your name, isn't it?'

  'That's right. But I'm feared of sleeping there alone in case Em comes back.'

  'I should certainly move back as soon as you can,' I advised her, thinking of myself as much as Minnie, I don't mind admitting. 'The council won't want the place empty, and I gather your aunt can't have you there.'

  'She don't seem very pleased about it,' agreed Minnie, taking a grubby handkerchief to the toddler's nose, and not before time. 'I'll be all right. I'm going to get Bert to sleep in until Ern comes back.'

  She gave me her wide demented smile and pushed the pram out of the lobby.

  'I'll be all right,' echoed in my brain for most of the day. Inconsistent, crazy, immoral, come to think of it, there was no doubt that Minnie would emerge from this little battle quite unscathed. It would be the non-belligerents, encountered on the way, who would be scarred.

  Amy called to see me one blustery afternoon. She had brought me the latest collection of Flora Thompson's writings as a present, and as a lover of Lark Rise to Cattdleford I could hardly wait to begin A Country Calendar.

  'You spoil me', I told her.

  'I know. You can give me a cup of tea in exchange.'

  'And where have you been?' I asked, as I warmed the teapot.

  'Oxford. Bumbling round Blackwell's in a happy daze, and spending far too much money. I tell myself I am getting Christmas presents, but I known damn well I shan't be able to part with any of them.'

  'Never mind. Think how it boosts trade.'

  'Mind you, 1 did get a splendid eiderdown for the spare room, but can you guess what it's called?'

  'Not a clue.'

  'Well, wait for it. On the label it says: Morsnugga!'

  'I don't believe it.'

  'I'd show you if I could be bothered to unwrap it, you doubting Thomas! For two pins, I would have given it back, but it was the only one which was the right colour, and I only hope my visitors will sleep too soundly to want to read eiderdown labels. But I ask you—Morsnuggal It really is the end, isn't it?'

  'It could have been something with "cosy" in it, spelt with a "K".'

  'That's true. This is a first-class cup of tea. I can well do with it. Shopping creases me these days, and I used to enjoy it.'

  'How's the book getting on?'

  'It isn't. I'm still aged eight, and I honestly don't think I can go on. It seems a pity. I've done about eight thousand words, and the thought of doing another fifty or sixty, which is what is needed, I gather, for a book's length, is too daunting for words.'

  'Can't you do something with the bit you've done? Make a magazine article, say, or a talk for the radio?'

  Amy looked thoughtful. 'That's an idea. I could make something of being a Brownie half a century ago, and there's quite a nice episode about my mother opening a flower show when the marquee collapsed.'

  'It all sounds good clean fun to me,' I told her, refilling her tea cup. 'You have a bash. You can't waste all that effort.'

  'I agree. Do you know, I sometimes think you are more intelligent than you look.'

  'Thank you, Amy,' I said. 'I shall treasure that remark.'

  The wind was more violent than ever when Amy departed. Branches clashed overhead, plants shuddered in the onslaught, and a weird hooting came from the
television aerial as the wind whistled around it.

  Tibby rushed in through the front door as I waved farewell to Amy. She looked startled and affronted. I had little sympathy for her as she can get into shelter through the cat flap on the back door, but this is beneath her dignity if anyone is about to open a proper door for the lady.

  It was good to get indoors again. I cleared away our tea things, put aside a pile of exercise books due to be corrected, and settled down gleefully with my lovely new book. After twenty minutes' bliss, a strange sound became evident. It was difficult to pin-point just what and just where it wa^in the confusion of noises outside, but to my horror it sounded remarkably like heavy breathing.

  A burglar, with bronchitis? But he would hardly be at his work in such a condition. An escaped lunatic? But our nearest asylum was some twenty miles away. Some poor traveller taken ill and needing my assistance? If my conjecture was correct, he would need a doctor and oxygen tent immediately.

  It was all very unnerving. The longer I listened, the more sure I became that it really was breathing that I could hear. What on earth should I do? It is on occasions like this that I realise how useful a husband could be. How lovely to be able to say: 'I think someone is breaking in, dear,' and to settle back while a masculine hand raises the poker.

  However, spinsters learn to cope alone, and I decided that I must go and investigate. Tibby remained quite unmoved by the noise, which was unusual. Anything strange often causes her to growl, and to bristle with fright or fury, which only adds to one's misgivings.

  I took the poker in hand, and went to the front door, switching on lights as I went. Outside, grazing peacefully among my herbaceous plants was a fine Guernsey cow, one of Mr Roberts's herd, I guessed. By the light from the hall I caught sight of my lawn, heavily indented by hoofs, and wondered what Mr Willet would have to say about his newly mown grass when he turned up next morning.

  The cow gazed benignly at me, some choice penstemon flowers dangling from her rotating jaw. She seemed pleased to see me, and made a gentle lowing noise through her mouthful of light supper.