Village Centenary Page 15

  Much relieved - for who would not prefer a kindly, if hungry cow to an escaped madman? -1 rang Mr Roberts's number and awaited rescue.

  As I had guessed, Mr Willet was most indignant when he saw the state of my lawn the next morning.

  'Never saw such a muck-up in all my borns,' he said, blowing out his moustache with disgust. 'You wants to sue old Roberts. That animal's done pounds' worth of damage.'

  'I can't do that,' I protested. 'It's one of the hazards of living in the country. Cows do get out sometimes.'

  'Not if the fences is kept proper,' replied Mr Willet sternly. 'Well, if you won't do nothing, you won't, of course, but I shall tell him what I think when I comes across him next.'

  'Oh, don't make trouble!' I begged him. 'If I don't mind why should you?'

  'Because I shall have the rolling and flattening of this lot, I can see, that's why!'

  Against such straight reasoning I could say nothing, but made my way to school.

  Here more trouble awaited me. Water had blown through the half-finished dormer window and made a pool on the floor. Joseph Coggs was doing his best to mop it up, but in his zeal was using Mrs Pringle's new duster and I foresaw some ructions.

  'Let me have that, Joseph,' I said snatching it from him, 'and get the old floor cloth from the lobby.'

  I was wondering if I could tear home, and put the duster to dry out of Mrs Pringle's sight, when the lady arrived, and caught me duster-handed.

  'And who,' she boomed, 'done that?'

  'It was used in error,' I said placatingly. 'One of the children was mopping up and didn't realise—'

  At this moment, Joseph appeared with the floor cloth and Mrs Pringle rounded on him before I could intervene.

  'You use my dusters once more, young Joe, and you'll get my hand round your ear-hole! Understand?'

  Poor Joe turned pale. Mrs Pringle has hands like hams, and it was no idle threat.

  'You can leave the cloth with me, Joseph,' I said hastily, 'and go into the playground until the bell goes.'

  I mustered all the dignity I could manage whilst dangling a wet rag in each hand.

  'I will see to this,' I said coldly, 'and please don't bully the children.'

  Mrs Pringle grabbed the duster and shook it violently. 'You can do what you like with that floor cloth,' she shouted, 'but I'm not trusting you with my nice new duster.'

  With that she thrust the damp duster into her black oilcloth bag, presumably to be taken home for its correct treatment, and I was left to mop the floor and curse Mrs Pringle, dormer windows, the wind, and Reg Thorn with equal intensity.

  Miss Briggs arrived half an hour late with laryngitis. She had had a puncture, luckily in Beech Green, she whispered painfully, and two of Mr Annett's big boys had changed the wheel for her.

  1 went into the infants' room with her to supply their wants, and to tell them of their teacher's affliction and the necessity for exemplary behaviour. It was going to be one of those days, I thought grimly, as Wayne switched on his transistor set overhead and filled the air with discord.

  As it happened, with Miss Briggs's normally stentorian tones now hushed, it was the quietest day at Fairacre school since her arrival.

  The rough weather had done some damage in our area. A tarpaulin had blown from a newly built stack of straw and caught itself in a neighbouring plum tree, bringing down several laden branches.

  A branch had crashed on Henry Mawne's greenhouse, and rumour had it that the vicar had gone in his pyjamas to make sure that his beehives were safe.

  In my own garden, the cow had done more damage than the weather, but the television aerial was sloping at an extraordinary angle.

  'I can fix that, miss,' Wayne assured me. 'Just got to straighten one of the window catches, and then I'll be there.'

  The dormer window, so Reg Thorn said, when I was successful in catching him one morning, would be finished in a fortnight.

  'Just a final coat of paint, and we won't be bothering you no more,' he told me with pride. 'How d'you think it looks?'

  'Fine,' I said, gazing at the new structure. To be honest, I was not sure about it. It looked heavy and awkward, jutting out from the old roof, but I was so used to the unobtrusive line of the old skylight that anything different was bound to strike me as peculiar. Mr Willet's derogatory remarks too may have influenced me. In any case, the new window must surely be an improvement on the former one which had plagued all the inhabitants of Fairacre school for generations.

  Wayne put my aerial to rights as he promised and I thanked him at playtime.

  'Don't you mind heights?' I asked him.

  'Enjoy 'em,' he said beaming. 'My uncle was a steeplejack. Used to scramble up factory chimneys and walk round the rim at the top.'

  To hear about it made me feel queasy.

  'No good being a builder unless you've got the stomach for heights,' said Wayne, carrying Reg Thorn's ladder back to its proper place.

  The children came out of school to play, and I was thankful that sunshine had followed the stormy weather. Miss Briggs emerged too to take up her playground duty, and Wayne hurried over to talk to her. It was good to see her so friendly and animated, I thought. She would miss the young company when our dormer window was done at last.

  The Pringle children were still with us and much as I wanted to know what Minnie's plans were - if any -1 was anxious not to /appear too curious by asking Mrs Pringle about conditions at her home. However, she appeared one morning with a nasty scratch down one cheek and a large lump on her forehead.

  'Good lord, Mrs Pringle,' I exclaimed, 'have you had a fall?'

  'No. But someone else has,' she told me with enormous satisfaction.

  She settled herself on the front desk, her usual perch when about to give me all the news. I glanced anxiously at the clock. No need to ring the school bell yet, and although I had still to look out the morning hymn and open the windows, it seemed far more important to me to hear the story behind Mrs Pringle's injuries.

  'Well, it's like this. That Minnie wouldn't do nothing about getting Em back as long as Bert was around and she could see him. I threatened to put her and the kids out in the road, but you know our Min. Water off a duck's back it was, and me going half-barmy with that lot under my feet.'

  'But I thought Em worked at Springbourne Manor. Didn't the Potters wonder where he was when he didn't turn up?'

  'That's just it! He did turn up! Come on the bus from Caxley each morning, so the Potters never twigged anything was wrong for some time. But, of course, someone tittle-tattled to Mr Potter, and he waylaid Bert, as he sacked for pinching the vegetables if you remember, and got the truth out of him about Minnie and Ern.'

  'What happened?'

  'He ticked off Bert, and told him not to come between husband and wife, and to keep out of Springbourne or he'd set the police on him. Then he come up our place the other day and had a good talking to Minnie. He told her that Em would lose his job if she didn't persuade him to go back to live in Springbourne.'

  'And did she?'

  'Not Minnie! She's a proper soft one! Said Em might hit her and she was scared, though if he promised to treat her right she might go back. I said to her: "If you won't persuade Ern, then I will, my girl! I've had enough of you and your brats eating me out of house and home, and using my sheets and towels, day in and day out!" So yesterday evening I went to Caxley, and sorted things out.'

  She fingered the bump on her head with pride. I was mightily impressed at the thought of even such a doughty fighter as Mrs Pringle facing the formidable Mrs Fowler. She once lived in Fairacre, and was a tough shrewish woman who frightened the life out of me just to look at her.

  'You went to Mrs Fowler's?'

  'I did indeed. She started shouting before I'd hardly got the words out of my mouth about Ern. "You let me in and we can talk this over nicely," I said to her, but what she said in return I wouldn't sully my lips by repeating. She made a run at me and that's when I got this scratch, the spiteful cat
.'

  'Did you retaliate?'

  'If you mean did I give her as good as I got, I certainly did. Two handfuls of her hair I tore out, and I blacked her eye.'

  Mrs Pringle spoke with quiet satisfaction. It must have been a real battle of the dinosaurs, I thought, and I wondered if the neighbours had enjoyed it.

  'She said Ern wasn't there, but down The Barleycorn, and what's more he spent all his time there. Then she slammed the door in my face. I was about to go off to the pub to see if she was telling the truth, when she opened a top window and chucked a suitcase at me, with Em's things in evidently. Anyway, that's what caused this bump - not that woman.'

  At this juncture, Joseph Coggs put his head round the door to say was it time for the bell, and could he ring it?

  'Not just yet, Joe. Mrs Pringle and I are having a little talk. I'll call you in a few minutes.'

  Joseph vanished.

  'Go on! Was he there?'

  'He was. I picked up the case and went round the corner and found him in the bar. We just had time to get the last bus back.'

  'He came without any trouble?' I asked mystified.

  'I took him,' said Mrs Pringle.

  I gazed at her with respect.

  Outside 1 could hear the sound of children's voices. Were my latest pupils among them? I asked my cleaner.

  'They're all going back to Springbourne tonight. Mr Potter's lending Ern the van to fetch the lot, and told him straight that he's out on his ear if he don't treat our Minnie right.'

  'And you think he will behave now?'

  'If he don't,' said Mrs Pringle rising majestically, 'he knows there's two of us can settle him.'

  She made her way into the lobby, and I called Joseph in to ring the bell, some five minutes after time.

  Meanwhile, I looked out the morning hymn, and settled for Fight the Good Fight, as an appropriate choice in the circumstances.

  10 October

  Oddly enough, I heard more about the clashing of the monsters from Amy when she visited me a few days later. Her window cleaner lives next door to Mrs Fowler in Caxley, and he evidently gave her a lively description of the scene.

  'He and his wife went upstairs to get a better view from the bedroom window,' Amy told me. 'And whatever Mrs P. may say to the contrary, her language was quite as lurid as Mrs Fowler's. He said their money was on Mrs Pringle right from the start. "She'd got the motive and thei/jirif and the weight!" was how he put it.'

  'Very neatly put too. They must have made an unholy noise. It's a wonder the neighbours didn't call the police.'

  'They were enjoying it so much I don't think they wanted to break it up. According to him, it was pretty plain that Ern was getting fed up at Mrs Fowler's anyway. She used to expect him to do all the odd jobs around the house when he got back from Springbourne, and the food was rather sparse, I gather.'

  'I can well believe that! Mrs Fowler had the reputation of being the stingiest woman in Fairacre when she lived here.'

  'So it looks as though Ern was ripe for the picking, and Mrs P. plucked him at the right moment.'

  'Well, heaven bless the old harridan,' I said. 'Now we've seen the last of Minnie and her brood.'

  'For a time, anyway,' Amy said. 'I've no doubt they'll turn up in your life again before long.'

  'Heaven forbid! Tell me, how's the dismemberment of the book going?'

  Amy looked quite animated. 'I sent two short episodes to Woman's Hour and they've taken one. I'm going up to broadcast it, probably early next year.'

  'Marvellous! We'll have it on at school in the afternoon. Tell me more.'

  'Well, I'm writing an account of our sick room at school.'

  'It sounds somewhat morbid.'

  'Not really. It's supposed to be rather funny. You've no idea how dreadfully depressing that place was. It's doing me good to write it out of my system.'

  'What was wrong with it?'

  'Everything! For one thing, it was a symphony in green, of all colours.'

  'Very restful, they say.'

  'Not when you're bilious, as most of the inmates were. And the greens didn't harmonise, to make it worse. And the only decoration was a past pupil's lettering exercise in the most excruciating calligraphy, quite impossible to read from one's sick bed, but it was evidently that passage from Chaucer about the poor scholar who had twenty books clad in black and red. What with the writing and the spelling, one could feel one's mind giving way.'

  'You should have closed your eyes.'

  'Even so you were assailed by the most nauseating smell of something the mistress who had attended you burnt on an enamel plate on the floor. It was called Persian tape, if I remember rightly, and if you weren't sick when you arrived you pretty soon were once the Persian tape got going.'

  'Were you allowed visitors?'

  'Only the odd relative. Anyway, this ghastly place was at the very top of a high building, and most people jibbed at all the stairs. Patients were always in a state of collapse when they finally arrived, with their knees like jelly.'

  'Well, 1 hope you can do justice to it,' 1 said. 'It sounds as though you have plenty of material.'

  'It should do something for my suppressed emotions anyway,' said Amy, with evident satisfaction. 'Now tell me your news. How's the centenary programme going?'

  'I'm having Linda and Patrick over here after school tomorrow to try them out with their lines. Miss Clare, bless her, needs no rehearsing, nor Mrs Austen, and Mr Lamb from the post office has promised to tell us something about the famous trip to Wembley in the 1920s. It's not going to be such a formidable job as I first thought, and Miss Briggs is being unusually helpful with the singing.'

  'Do you think she'll stay?'

  'I'm beginning to hope so. She's much more cheerful since she found that young man, and she's gradually forgetting a lot of the high-falutin' rubbish she was stuffed with at college, thank heaven.'

  'Well, good luck with it all,' said Amy, collecting her things. 'By the way, James and I are having a short break in Wales next week to make up for his missing Tresco in the summer, so I shan't see you for a time.'

  'Do you know, I thought I might go again next summer to Tresco. I loved it so much.'

  'Then book up early,' advised Amy. 'We're going again, but in May, when you'll be hard at work, of course, and we've already staked our claim.'

  'It seems rather soon,' I said, 'to book for August.'

  'You do it now!' replied Amy sternly. 'What a terrible procrastinator you are! I wonder anything ever gets done in this establishment. Now mind! Sit down and write to that hotel this evening.'

  'Yes, Amy,' I said meekly.

  I had written the simplest possible dialogue for Linda as Miss Richards, and for Patrick as the bad boy John Pratt, but even so they seemed to find it difficult to memorise.

  'Don't worry if it's not exactly the same,' I implored them. 'As long as you get the meaning across, that's all that matters.'

  If anything, this confused them even more. We had a break, and I produced lemonade and biscuits. Tibby entered and received a great deal of admiration from the two, and then we resumed. After two or three attempts, things went more smoothly. Linda seemed to be less self-conscious than Patrick and with practice 1 thought the little scene should go well.

  'We'll try it with the other children one day this week,' I promised them, 'and by that time you'll know your lines so well, it will be much easier to concentrate on the movements.'

  They looked doubtful, and I must confess that if these two comparatively bright pupils made such heavy weather of their parts, it did not look too hopeful for the rest of my cast. Again I felt thankful that most of the performances would be in the more capable hands of three or more adults.

  They departed clutching their two-page scripts with them, their young brows furrowed with anxiety. Perhaps I was expecting too much from them, I thought, as I waved them goodbye? Fairacre children are shy by nature, and

  perhaps the idea of displaying their modest talents
in front of parents and, even worse, their schoolfellows, was going to prove too much for their nerves.

  We could only wait and see.

  As so often happens in October, the weather was balmy, the skies cloudless, and that clear light peculiar to a fine autumn bathed Fairacre in end-of-summer beauty.

  The hedges were bright with glossy berries. The trees were beginning to blaze in all shades of yellow, bronze and crimson, and the cottage gardens, so far untouched by frost, were still gay with asters, Michaelmas daisies, chrysanthemums and dahlias.

  I relish these sparkling autumn days, all the more keenly because one knows that there cannot be many of them before waking one morning to a hoary scene and the knowledge that winter has arrived. I took the children out for plenty of exhilarating walks on the downs, and after tea each day walked again on my own before the sun set. By six o'clock it was beginning to grow chilly, and I enjoyed lighting a fire and congratulating myself on having the best of both worlds while the fine spell lasted.

  On one of my solitary walks, through a little copse at the foot of the downs, I came across Miriam Quinn who was enjoying the fresh air as much as I was, to judge by her pink cheeks and bright eyes. We walked along together in great content.

  'This is the breath of life to me,' she said, 'after the office. I look forward to it all day. Caxley's all very well for working, but I simply couldn't go back there to live after Fairacre.'

  'You're not proposing to, are you?' I asked.

  She looked thoughtful, bending down to remove a briar which had caught her skirt.

  'No. I'm staying, and I hope I'm doing the right thing. You know the young Mawnes are taking over?'

  I said that Joan had told me.

  'Well, I still have slight doubts about whether they truly want me living under the same roof. They've been terribly kind, and pressed me to stay, and as I honestly can't find a thing worth considering elsewhere, I have agreed. In any case, I love it here, as you know, and it would be a dreadful wrench to have to leave.'