(18/20) Changes at Fairacre Page 17

  It was good to see the snow plough chugging along during the morning. There was something to be said for mechanized transport, I thought, waving to the men as they passed by slowly. In 1881, even the stout shire horses had to remain in their stables while the weather was at its worst. Today, a poor benighted traveller trapped in the snow, as Emily's grandfather had been so long ago, would be rescued by a helicopter, and whisked into hospital. Change, I thought, was often deplored. In these conditions it was welcome.

  By mid-morning, there was still no sign of Tibby and I began to get alarmed. There were no tell-tale footprints around the house, but then they would soon have been obliterated in last night's conditions.

  I rang the Annetts and also Mrs John in the hope that they had seen him, but there was no help there. I called until I was hoarse, hoping to hear an answering mew from some over-looked shelter, but nothing happened. I had gloomy visions of the poor animal entombed beneath the blanket of snow like John Ridd's sheep in Lorna Doone. How long could a cat survive without food in such a situation? One thing, Tibby had plenty of surplus fat to live on, as Bob Willet was fond of pointing out, but would the cold kill him?

  I began to get more and more agitated as the hours passed, and remembered all the captivating ways of my truant, and how much his companionship meant to me. By the time early evening began to cast its shadows, I was near despair. At that moment, the lights began to flicker ominously, and I decided that it would be as well to delve into the recesses of the cupboard under the stairs to find the ancient Aladdin lamp stored there.

  I undid the door, and bent double to locate the lamp in the gloom. A lazy chirruping sound met me, and Tibby emerged sleepily and greeted me with much affection. Relief overcame my initial irritation with the maddening animal. Why had there been no response to my anguished cries? Why, last night of all nights, had he decided to sleep in that cupboard? I suppose I must have left the door ajar on my first visit there for candles, and then automatically shut it in passing later on. In any case, it was good to see my old friend, and a double portion of Pussi-luv vanished in a twinkling.

  Snow fell again that night, and the paths so exhaustingly cleared were white again. The roads from most of the villages into Caxley were partially open, but around Fairacre itself, I gathered, the drifts were still deep. It looked as though, yet again, my school would have to remain closed.

  I rang the office first thing on Monday morning to get an overall picture. It was not very encouraging.

  'All schools closed for the next three days,' I was told. 'The school buses and the dinner vans are going to have great difficulty in getting around. Some can't even get out of the depot yet. We'll be in touch on Wednesday, and simply hope that the thaw will have come by then.'

  I talked to Mr Lamb and the vicar on the telephone, and they assured me that everyone possible would be told the position.

  Gerald Partridge sounded unusually despondent. Snow had seeped into his beloved church and ruined a pile of new hymn books. Even worse, the organ was found to be thoroughly damp from some hitherto unsuspected leak from the roof, and repairs to it could cost a fortune.

  'And what about the school and the school house?' I asked him, hoping to deflect him from his own worries.

  'I'm afraid I haven't been into the school. Bob Willet has been unable to get up to it yet, there is such a great snow drift in the lane, but I struggled out with Honey to just behind your old home and it looks none the worse for the snow. The tarpaulin has stood up wonderfully against the weather.'

  I said I was relieved to hear it.

  'Incidentally,' he continued, 'the diocese has definitely decided to put it on the market as soon as it is habitable again. It should be ready by about Easter, if all goes well.'

  'Well, it's a dear little house as I know. It should sell, I think.'

  'One wonders. Or will it be the third empty house in Fairacre? I hear that the price of those two new ones has dropped again. It is definitely not the time to try and sell one's property.'

  'A buyer's market. Isn't that the expression?'

  'I believe so. But there seem to be no buyers about. I suppose they can't buy, until they have sold their own.'

  'There are such people as first-time buyers,' I told him, thinking of Horace and Eve. 'Perhaps they'll turn up in time.'

  'One can only hope,' agreed the vicar. But he sounded very unhopeful as I rang off.

  We were closed for a week. It was a frustrating time for everyone. Two days of the seven we were without electricity, and I found that half a day coping with oil stoves, candles and matches, was quite enough for the small amount of pioneering spirit I possessed, especially as the only source of hot water was a kettle lodged on the Primus stove which took forever, it seemed, to come to the boil.

  After that, I was heartily fed up with automatically and vainly switching on in every room I entered, only to be frustrated yet again.

  The snow plough had made me thankful for mechanized transport, and now I realized all too clearly how much we took for granted in our all-electric houses. It was probably salutory to be reminded of our dependence on this source of power, but it did nothing to improve our tempers.

  I found myself using methods of cooking, lighting and heating which Dolly's mother had used daily in this selfsame cottage years before. The open fire had to be kept going with coal and logs, and I left the sitting-room door open at night so that some heat would penetrate into the chilly bedrooms.

  The lamps had to be trimmed and filled, and the candles replaced. I even rolled up an old rug to stuff against the bottom of the outside door to keep out the wicked draughts, and wished I had the straw-filled sausage of Victorian times to do the job, as Dolly had described.

  When at last the power returned, we were all mightily grateful to those men who had restored it, and we counted our blessings with thankful hearts.

  It was quite a relief to return to school.

  Bob Willet had done a magnificent job in clearing the playground, and Mrs Pringle gave me a graphic account of the state of her beloved tortoise stoves after a week's neglect.

  'They was that damp and mildewy you could've written your name on 'em. And all down one side there was the beginning of rust where the water had run along a beam from that dratted skylight, and dropped down on to my poor stove. We'll have to get another load of blacklead from the Office, and if they gives you any hanky-panky, Miss Read, just let me speak to them.'

  I promised to do that, rather looking forward to such an encounter. Mrs Pringle, in defence of her stoves, is a formidable figure, and I trembled for any of the staff at the Caxley Education Office who questioned her demands. What can they know of blacklead, who only red tape know?

  The children were full of tall stories about the snow and the havoc it had caused. Patrick told us that his little brother fell in a drift near Mr Mawne's and they only found him because he was wearing a red bobble hat and the bobble stuck up from the snow.

  Ernest then capped this with a long rigmarole about his father's bike which was hidden for days by the front gate. But when John Todd tried to make us believe that he had rescued Mr Roberts's house cow single-handed from a snow drift in a neighbouring field, I thought it was time to put a stop to matters. Imagination is one thing; downright lying is another.

  'To your desks,' I ordered briskly. 'We'll have a really stiff mental arithmetic test.'

  I was not popular.

  17 Minnie Pringle Lends a Hand

  WE were all very thankful to tear off JANUARY from our calendars and to look hopefully at FEBRUARY.

  The days were now perceptibly longer, and I took my first walk-after-tea of the year, in the light. The catkins were a cheerful sight, fluttering from the bare hedgerows, and the bulbs in the garden were poking through. A clump of early yellow irises were already in flower. I had given the tiny bulbs to Dolly some years earlier, and she had planted them under the shelter of the thatch where they thrived.

  The birds were busy, bustling
about, full of self-importance as they scurried about their courting.

  Life was beginning to look more hopeful after all we had endured from gales, snow and flooding.

  The children's coughs and colds faded. At playtime they could get into the playground for exercise and fresh air, and altogether I began to enjoy a period of relaxation and to make plans for a variety of outdoor pursuits in the months ahead.

  Alas for my euphoria!

  As one might expect, I was about to have my comfortable rug snatched from under my feet, and of course it was inevitable that Mrs Pringle would do the snatching.

  She caught me in the lobby as soon as I arrived. I might have guessed from her unusually cheerful face that something was up.

  'My doctor,' she began importantly, 'though a poor tool in many ways, as well you know, Miss Read, says I'm to have a thorough check-up on my leg, and I've got to go to The Caxley for an X-ray.'

  'Oh dear! When?'

  'Friday. Not till the afternoon, so I can do the washing-up. But he says I may have to lay up for a bit.'

  'Well, there it is. I'm glad you told me. Are you in pain?'

  The reply was as expected.

  'I'm always in pain, as well you know. Not that it stops me doing my duty. Never has! My mother used to say to me: "Maud, you are your own worst enemy with that conscience of yours. Can't you ever spare yourself?" And I used to say: "No, mother. I'm just made that way. What needs to be done, I must do, cost what it may in time and trouble." And it's the same today.'

  'It does you credit,' I said, paying a tribute to this eulogy of self-satisfaction. 'Let's hope the X-ray shows nothing seriously wrong.'

  Mrs Pringle limped about rather more heavily than usual while the hospital mills ground their slow way through her data. The results were that she should rest the leg for a fortnight and then have another examination.

  'Don't worry,' I said, on hearing the news, 'we can easily manage for two weeks. I believe Alice Willet might sweep up, and Bob has always been helpful about the stoves in an emergency.'

  'If you let Bob Willet lay so much as a finger on my stoves,' said Mrs Pringle, puffing up like an outraged turkey, 'I shall give in try notice.'

  I have heard this threat so often that I take it in my stride, but I felt sorry for my old adversary in her present afflictions, and simply said that I'd see Bob only filled and did not attempt to polish her two idols.

  Unfortunately, Alice Willet had promised to go and stay with a sister who herself was just out of hospital, so it looked as though we should have to muddle along on our own.

  'Of course, our Minnie could come,' said Mrs Pringle. She sounded doubtful, and with good reason. We both know Minnie's limitations. 'She's not a bad little cleaner - if watched.'

  'Oh, I don't think it's as desperate as that,' I replied, wondering if that could not have been expressed more tactfully. 'I'll look around,' I added hastily.

  But in the end, when Mrs Pringle had taken to her bed and sofa for the allotted time, it had to be Minnie who came to provide help and havoc in unequal portions to Fairacre School.

  During Mrs Pringle's absence, I took to staying on after school to supervise Minnie's activities, and to protect the more vulnerable of the school's properties from her onslaught.

  I discovered that she was comparatively safe with such things as desk tops, window sills and the floors. Anything horizontal presented little difficulty, and I felt she was really getting quite proficient with broom and duster. But vertical surfaces seemed to defeat her. She took to sweeping a broom down the partition between the two rooms, bringing down anything pinned thereon such as the children's artwork, pictures cut from magazines and the like.

  'Well, look at that!' she cried in amazement, gazing at the fluttering papers on the floor. I helped to pick them up, and stopped her attacking another wall with her broom.

  On one occasion, in my temporary absence, she tried her hand at window-cleaning. She had begun an energetic attack with a rather dirty wet rag, well coated with Vim, and was fast producing a frosted-glass effect when I arrived back.

  She was anxious 'to have a good go', as she put it, 'at Auntie's stoves', but knowing what I should have to face on Auntie's return, I was adamant that she should not touch the stoves. In fact, I did my poor best to clean them myself, knowing the withering scorn which I should receive in due course from Mrs Pringle, but at least that was better than risking Minnie's ministrations with, possibly, more Vim, or even metal polish, which would be impossible to get off.

  The fact that Minnie was unable to read complicated matters, as the directions for use on the cleaning packets meant nothing to her. Neither could she tell the time, so she relied on me to see her off the premises before I locked up.

  Nevertheless, the hour after school which we spent together at our labours, had its compensations, and I grew daily more fascinated by Minnie's account of her love life which was considerably more interesting than my own.

  I had not liked to ask about her marital affairs after Mrs Pringle had given me the account of Minnie's flight to Bert in Caxley, and his refusal to let her stay. But Minnie blithely rattled away as she dashed haphazardly about the schoolroom with her duster.

  'Em was a bit nasty with me for a time,' she admitted. 'I s'pose he's jealous of Bert.' This was said with some satisfaction.

  'Naturally,' I responded. 'You married him. He expects you to live with him.'

  'Oh, I don't see why!' said Minnie, standing stock still in her surprise. A troubled look replaced her usual mad grin. 'I knew Bert long afore I met Ern. He bought me some lovely flowers when I was up The Caxley having my Salopians done.'

  I decided against correcting Salopian to Fallopian, and to ignore the past use of the verb 'to buy' when it should have been the past tense of the verb 'to bring'. I get quite enough of that sort of thing in school hours, and I did not propose to do overtime.

  'But Minnie,' I pointed out, concentrating on the moral issue, 'if you made a solemn contract at your marriage you should keep it. You are Ern's wife, after all. You married him because you wanted to, I take it.'

  'Oh, no!' said Minnie, smiling at such a naive suggestion. 'I married Ern because he had a council house, and my Mum was that fed up with us under her feet, so that's really why.'

  I must say, I found this honesty rather refreshing. Plenty of people with greater advantages, both mental and material, than Minnie, marry for the desire for property rather than passion, and who was I to criticize?

  'Mind you,' went on Minnie, taking a swipe at the blackboard and nearly knocking it from the easel, 'that council house doesn't half take a bit of cleaning. I really like my Mum's better. Life don't always work out right, do it, Miss Read?'

  And I agreed.

  Now that the weather had returned to normal, the repairs to the school house went on apace.

  Wayne Richards enjoyed visiting his two workmen, and also gave a hand himself. The fact that his wife was close at hand, and that he shared our school tea-breaks seemed to please the young man, and we found him good company.

  'Take about three weeks,' he told us, standing with his back to us and looking out at the repair work through the schoolroom window. The mug steamed in his hand, and he did not appear to be in any great hurry to leave us. I began to find that, on the mornings he shared our refreshment, it was I who had to shoo him out so that I could get on with my work.

  Every now and again the vicar called to note progress, and the children had to be discouraged from purloining pieces of putty, odd bits of wood and roof tile, and curly wood-shavings which the wags among them used as ringlets fixed over their ears. At least it made a change from the coke pile which was their usual illicit means of finding exercise.

  There was a good deal of noise, not only from the workmen themselves, but from vans and lorries which drove up to deliver materials or to remove the vast amount of rubble that this comparatively small job seemed to engender.

  I was glad that I could leave the scene of bat
tle each day to seek the peace of my new home at Beech Green.

  I grew fonder of the cottage as the time passed. It was full of memories for me, not only of dear Dolly herself, but of the people she had told me about, who had lived there before. Her parents, Mary and Francis Clare, her sister Ada whose daughter I had met, her friend Emily Davis who had visited this little house all her life, and had ended it under this roof, as Dolly had done later, all seemed to me to have left something intangible behind them: a sense of happiness, simplicity, courage and order. I am the least psychic of women, and am inclined to suspect those who lay claim to extra-sensory experiences, but there is no doubt about the general reaction most people have to the 'feel' of a house.

  Some houses are forbidding, cheerless and indefinably hostile. Others seem to welcome the stranger who steps inside. Dolly Clare's was one such house. I felt that I was heir to a great deal of happiness, and I blessed the shades of those who had lived in and loved this little home, and who had now gone on before me.

  One morning, Bob Willet accosted me as I arrived at school.

  'Time I come up to do a bit of pruning up yours,' he told me.

  'Sunday?' I suggested.

  'Best not. My old woman's got these funny ideas about working on Sundays. Anyway, we've got some tricky anthem Mr Annett's trying out at morning church. What about Saturday afternoon? Alice is off to Caxley wasting her money on a new rig-out.'

  I said that Saturday afternoon would suit me well.

  'Gettin' on with the job all right,' he said, nodding towards the school house. 'Wonder when it'll be up for sale? Vicar tells me the diocese copes with all that business. Should make a bomb, nice little place like that. That is if it sells at all, the way things are.'

  'Well, the new houses are still hanging fire, I gather. I don't see as much of Fairacre these days, but I haven't heard of anyone being interested.'