Miss Clare Remembers and Emily Davis Page 18

  Dolly lifted the untouched supper tray and went towards the door.

  'Bring your sewing up here tonight,' said Mary. 'I reckon that old dame knew a thing or two when she said you'd be a blessing to me. How would I have got on without you this winter?'

  'Ada would have had you,' answered Dolly reasonably.

  'She ain't worth the half of you,' said the old lady dispassionately, 'and never was—for all Francis thought of her!'

  Dolly laughed, but could not help a warm glow at the sincerity of her mother's remark. She returned with her sewing, and they talked for an hour or so, until Mary yawned and settled down for the night.

  In the morning Dolly carried up a cup of tea, to find her mother in exactly the same position, with her hands clasped lightly upon the white bedspread and a look of utter contentment upon her face. But the room was uncannily still, and when Dolly touched her mother's enlaced hands, they were cold in death.

  CHAPTER 20

  DOLLY was glad to return to her crowded classroom a week after her mother's death. The cottage seemed bleak without her warm presence, and Dolly was grateful for the return of the Milligan children. A neighbour had offered to put them up on the day of Mary's death, and they stayed there until after the funeral. Dolly had found her week of solitude profoundly depressing. Worn out with nursing, deprived now of both parents whom she had loved dearly, and low in health through meagre war-time diet, Dolly wondered if she were really fit to take charge of children again. All her instincts were to return to the cheering bustle of the schoolroom, but such weariness possessed her that she doubted if she could ever teach again.

  She need not have feared. The comfort of the children's presence at school and the Milligans' athome did much to restore her spirits, though she often longed to have another grown-up with her in the evenings when the little girls had been put to bed.

  Emily came over sometimes, but was tied with her own two evacuees and her ageing mother.

  'One day we'll share a house,' Emily promised. 'And I'll give you your breakfast in bed one day and you shall do it for me the next!'

  'Then it shall be in this house,' Dolly said, 'and you can choose your own bedroom—the one with the sparrows or the one with the house-martins outside.'

  And so, half in jest, they made their plans for the future, though each wondered secretly if circumstances would ever allow them the pleasure of sharing a home. It seemed as if the war would never end. The drone of bombers in the night sky, as they set off from an airfield to the west of Caxley, was the noise to which the inhabitants of that area fell asleep. There was a dour, business-like approach to this war, Dolly thought, quite different from the tragically idealistic outlook of the earlier one. It was a job to be done, as efficiently and as ruthlessly as possible, and though the young men possessed the same courage and endurance as their fathers, no poets sang them into battle. Dolly's generation had lived through a war to end war, followed by a period of hopes and dreams. There could be no glamour about this conflict which shattered the illusions of a quarter of a century.

  Ada's son, John Francis, was a bomber pilot, and Dolly shared his parents' anxiety for him. He was stationed in Yorkshire, and occasionally Ada made the tedious journey northward to see him, staying at the local inn with other wives and mothers. Dolly marvelled at her bravery throughout the war years. Her robust good health and spirits seemed to thrive in adversity, and she never showed her fears before her friends. She had volunteered for driving with the R.A.F. at the beginning of the war, and spent a large part of her time on the road.

  The terms dragged by. After D-Day, in June 1944, some of the London children returned to town, as the war seemed to be nearing its end, but the Milligan children remained at Beech Green. Dolly wondered how she would feel when they too returned. She hoped they would stay for a long time.

  At last, in May 1945, the long-awaited European peace came. Dolly's thoughts turned back to that earlier war as she listened to the joyous pealing of bells across the spring meadows around her. This time she mourned no lover. Her nephew, John Francis, remained unscathed, though many of his friends had gone, and Dolly was thankful for this mercy.

  In the months that followed, while the world waited for fighting to end in the Pacific and the Far East, Dolly wondered what the future held. This war was not ending with the same firm conviction of an ever-lasting peace, as when the first world war came to an end. On the contrary, it seemed almost as if the thought of future wars was present in people's minds. Mr Willett voiced many people's feelings when he spoke to Dolly one morning.

  'Got them Germans beat for a second time,' he announced cheerfully, 'and now I s'pose it's them Russians next.'

  'But, Mr Willett,' protested Dolly, 'they're our allies!'

  'Hmph!' snorted the caretaker disbehevingly, 'how long for, I'd like to know? Best by far polish 'em off while we're at it!'

  It was not long after this conversation that the horror of Hiroshima's bombing burst upon the world. The frightening possibilities of warfare in the future clouded the rejoicing which accompanied the final stage of the war. Now, it seemed, not what kind of a world would we live in, but would there be a world at all, as mankind had always known it? Sitting before her innocent babes that summer, Dolly Clare wondered what hopes she could put before them. It had been much simpler at the end of the first world war. Then she and Mr Hope had honestly believed that the world would be built anew upon the ashes of the old, and that the sacrifice of thousands of young lives had not been in vain. They had been able to speak with conviction and hope to the children before them. But now those same children had experienced a war themselves, and many had made the same sacrifice. What could she say to their children now?

  She could only pass on to them the philosophy which sustained her throughout her life. She could teach them to face whatever came with calmness and courage, to love their families and their friends with unswerving loyalty, and to relish the lovely face of the countryside in which they lived. It might seem a humdrum, day-to-day set of values, but Dolly Clare knew from long experience that they could carry a man bravely through a lifetime's vicissitudes.

  In 1944 an Act of Parliament was passed which had an important effect upon the lives of Dolly Clare and those like her. This Education Act meant that almost all the older children in the villages around Caxley would leave the small schools after eleven years of age and be taught together in one of three types of secondary school, grammar, technical, or modern. Furthermore, the school leaving age was raised to fifteen, and this meant an extra year at school.

  It was impossible to put this revolutionary idea into practice immediately. Beech Green school was to have a large extension to take the over-elevens from the small schools nearby, including those from Fairacre and Springbourne, and was to be called 'Beech Green Secondary Modern School'. Children who were assessed as intelligent enough to profit by a grammar school education would go to the ancient Caxley Grammar School, as had been the custom for generations. Those who seemed best fitted for a technical school were destined to share the secondary modern schools' amenities, for no technical school was to materialise for many years.

  The effect of this step was far-reaching. The children themselves much resented the extra year, Dolly found. Country children have traditionally been early wage earners, and those who were looking forward to leaving Mr Fortescue's care and launching out on their own in a year or two's time felt thwarted when they found that they must mark time for another twelvemonth. For, despite the high-flown theories about the advantages of a further year's schooling, the truth of the matter was that there were very few schools equipped, either in apparatus or staff, to make the extra time of any real value to the lastyear pupils. In time this would be altered, but immediately after the war, labour and materials were short, money was needed desperately for other aspects of national recovery, and the schools struggled to put into practice a project which was almost unworkable in the circumstances. Nevertheless, Dolly and her fellow teach
ers realised that it was indeed a step forward which should, in time, prove a wise move.

  Another result of the Act was the transfer of some church schools to the County Education Committee, for the managers had to undertake to bear half the cost of improvements and maintenance. Springbourne was one of these schools. Fairacre's managers decided to continue as a church school, and undertook to find the money for its upkeep.

  During the next year or two Dolly found teaching a difficult task. Mr Fortescue was due to retire in 1949. He was certainly ready for it. To Dolly's eyes, he looked twenty years older than he had at the outbreak of war, and the addition of a dozen or so resentful fourteen-year-olds to his normal class taxed him sorely. He did his best to contrive useful work of a more advanced nature for them, but without equipment he could not undertake carpentry, metalwork or the electrical work which they would have enjoyed and profited from learning. He organised an occasional trip to Caxley to watch a council meeting or to visit factories there, but the children sensed that it was all a makeshift passing-of-time, and longed to be in a job where they could be earning money, as their older brothers and sisters had done at the same age.

  Dolly was now approaching sixty, and though she was as upright as ever, her hair was snow white and she suffered from occasional twinges of rheumatism. She still cycled daily the three miles from Beech Green to Fairacre, and still looked out with fresh joy for the coming of each year's violets and wild roses along that well-loved route. During the war school dinners had come, to stay for ever it appeared, and this extra duty taxed Dolly's strength more than she realised.

  Twice, during the last few years of Mr Fortescue's rule, Dolly suffered a momentary black-out, all the more alarming because she had no warning of the sudden attack. On both occasions she was in her own classroom, the children appeared to notice nothing, and she did not mention either occurrence to her headmaster, dismissing the incidents as the result of being rather over-tired, as indeed she was.

  Life alone at the cottage was very quiet without June and Dawn. Dolly had grown accustomed to their chatter and the pounding of their young feet overhead in the little bedroom. She had always prepared an evening meal while they were there, but now that she was alone she could not be bothered to cook, after a day's teaching, and took a glass of milk and a biscuit to an early bed. She hated to think of the empty room next door where first she and Amy and then the two Milligan children had slept. She herself now slept in the room which had been her parents', and very lonely she found it as autumn gave way to the cold of winter.

  One windy January evening Emily came to see her. They sat by the fire and Emily told Dolly some surprising news. Springbourne school was to be closed as its numbers had fallen steadily and it now boasted only sixteen pupils.

  'And what about you?' asked Dolly.

  'I'm to be transferred to a school in Caxley. That dreadful old place by the gasworks that's now called "Hillside Secondary Modern School". Not much modern about that ancient monument,' said Emily, poking the fire vigorously.

  'But where will you live?' persisted Dolly. The thought of Emily leaving the nearby village was shocking.

  'With Joe,' said Emily. 'It all works out very well. His housekeeper gave up at Christmas and he's glad to put me up in exchange for looking after things. I shall enjoy it.'

  Dolly said nothing, but she wondered if Emily really would enjoy it. Her mother had died a few months earlier so that she was free to go to Joe, but the two had never got on very well. He was the youngest of the Davis brood, and a bachelor of about fifty years of age. By trade he was a plumber, and, by the Davis's standards, a well-to-do man. Natural shyness had kept him from marriage, though it was well-known in the family that a personable widow in the same Caxley road pursued him relentlessly. So far he had resisted her enticements.

  'You must come into Caxley and see me often,' continued Emily, busy with the poker. 'Joe was always fond of you.'

  It would not be quite the same, Dolly felt, to visit Emily in someone else's home, but she promised to go frequently, and begged Emily to spend as much time as she could at Beech Green. She looked at her friend in the firelight. Her hair was sprinkled with silver threads but was still, in the main, the crisp dark crop she had known since they were children. Emily had altered little over the years, and still had the power to give that same comfort to Dolly as the first unforgettable Emily had done in her infant years. This was a sad moment for them both. Life in a Caxley street, no matter how comfortable Joe's home was, could not be as happy for Emily as her own rural independence.

  'When must you go?' asked Dolly, at last.

  'I start there next term,' said Emily. 'I shall move in the Easter holidays.'

  She looked at the clock upon the mantelshelf and uttered a cry of horror.

  'So late! Never mind, I've only myself to think of,' she said, putting on her coat. 'When I'm a housekeeper I shall have to take more care!'

  Dolly walked to the gate with her through the windy night. The light of Emily's bicycle wavered along the brick path, and the moon emerged from scudding clouds for a brief moment. By its gleam Dolly caught sight of Emily's face. It was sad, but had the dogged look about it with which she had always faced misfortune.

  She watched her old friend mount her bicycle, called farewell, and watched the brave little light until a bend of the road extinguished it. Dolly went to bed that night with a heavy heart.

  It was a relief to everybody when Beech Green's new buildings were ready and the long-awaited transfer of the older children took place. Fairacre's parents had been vociferous about the scandal of moving their offspring at first. Later, they said it was 'a crying shame they never learnt nothing in their last year' at Fairacre, and it was high time they went on to Beech Green's superior instruction at eleven.

  Mr Fortescue had just retired, and as Fairacre was now a primary school only, a woman head was appointed. Dolly Clare liked Miss Read from the first, and the two worked well together. It was much more peaceful with the bigger children absent. Playground duty was far less arduous, and fewer numbers in the classroom meant that it was easier to give the children individual help in a quiet atmosphere.

  Dolly was grateful for a less busy working day. She had been obliged to go to Doctor Martin's surgery one day and confess that she had had 'a turn'. The old doctor listened gravely to her heart and shook his head.

  'Feel like retiring?' he asked.

  'No,' said Miss Clare composedly.

  'I thought not,' replied the doctor. He surveyed his old friend with a gleam of amusement. 'Well, take one of these tablets once a day, and try to rest more. I suppose I might just as well talk to that table there, but that's my advice, Dolly.'

  It was soon after this encounter that fate struck again. One autumn afternoon, the children were engrossed in making bunches of corn to decorate St Patrick's church next door for Harvest Festival. It was a time that Dolly always loved. She loved the clean floury smell of the grain, and the sight of the busy children preparing to garland the sombre old church. She sat at her desk watching their solemn faces as they arranged the heads of corn evenly together.

  It was warm and close, and suddenly the room began to tilt alarmingly. Her heart began to beat so loudly that she felt the children must hear it. She struggled to rise from her chair to open a window, but the last thing she was conscious of was the stream of water which flowed across the desk top from an overturned vase of pink dahlias.

  Later she found herself in the school house with Doctor Martin gazing steadily at her.

  'I'm sorry,' she whispered.

  'Nothing to be sorry about,' he replied cheerfully. 'You can't control your heart's antics, you know.'

  Dolly heard his voice as he made his farewells to the head mistress. She knew suddenly, with devastating clarity, that this was the end of the life she loved at Fairacre. She was no more use to the children if these attacks were to become frequent. She must have frightened them to death by this afternoon's collapse. It was not
right to stay in her condition.

  The room swam before her tear-filled eyes, but her voice was steady when her headmistress came in to see her.

  'I shall go at Christmas,' she said, and felt as though her heart would break.

  Retirement was something which Dolly had dreaded. To be idle, to be useless, to be laid aside, seemed appalling to her. But when it actually happened, and she had made the sad farewells to the school she had known all her life, and had put a generous cheque from the managers in the bank and a presentation clock upon her bedside table, she found that there were compensations in this time of enforced leisure.

  At first she looked at her new clock and thought of what they would be doing in the classroom at that time. Now they would be out in the playground, now they would be at arithmetic, now washing their hands ready for school dinner. But gradually other activities engaged her attention, and she found it wholly delightful to potter in the garden when she would have been marking a register or collecting savings money.

  Emily retired very soon after, for she was a little older than Dolly, but still she kept house for Joe and the two seemed to get along very well together. Once or twice she suggested to him that he might find another housekeeper, and that Dolly could do with her company, but he seemed so distressed by the idea that she did not pursue the subject. The friendly widow called as often as ever, and played cards on two evenings a week. On these occasions Emily and Dolly usually met.

  To augment a tiny pension, Dolly Clare occasionally took in a lodger. Her first was a redoubtable young woman called Hilary Jackson, who taught her own infants' class at Fairacre school. It began as a happy relationship, for Dolly looked forward to the girl's return at the end of each day, and to hearing the school news. But she soon found that Hilary Jackson's love affairs were too tempestuous to endure, and when at last the girl decided to leave the district Dolly Clare was relieved to see her go.