Village Centenary Page 18

But at last the great moment came when the vicar called for silence, the door opened and Mrs Willet came staggering in, bearing the magnificent cake ablaze with one hundred candles. A great cheer went up and the ancient floorboards quaked under the stamping of stout country boots.

  We had asked Miss Clare, as the oldest pupil present, and the youngest child from the infants' room to cut the cake together. My bread knife only just proved equal to severing the beautifully dark, rich mixture, but the two won through eventually and a slice was delivered to everyone present.

  It was dark by the time the last of our visitors had gone. The fragrance of the fruit cake still lingered about the empty schoolroom, and far too many crumbs lay upon the floor.

  'It all went beautifully,' I said to Miss Clare before we walked across the playground to my home. 'But I don't know what Mrs Pringle will say when she sees the mess.'

  'What Mrs Pringle says,' Miss Clare told me, 'can have very little meaning in face of a hundred years of our school's history.'

  And with this comforting thought we strolled home to take our ease. There was a sharp nip in the air, and our breath was visible in the dusk.

  'A frost tonight,' said Miss Clare. 'The first real one of the winter.'

  Sure enough, when I took her breakfast tray into my spare room the next morning, the trees and grass were white with hoar frost. It was a lovely sight, but a pointer to things to come.

  Miss Clare protested about being waited on, but I was adamant that she stayed in bed for an hour or two longer. We had a repeat performance to go through in the afternoon, and I knew that there would be a great many friends who would want to talk to her.

  As it was the last day of term, too, I should be busy clearing up and trying to remind the children of the date of our return in January, as well as keeping them relatively calm and prepared for their final performance. I found that it was no easy task. Success had quite gone to their heads, and I had never known them quite so excited and noisy. I pushed them out early to play in the frosty playground and to run off some of their excess energy.

  Miss Briggs, whose class was suffering from the same joie de vivre, joined me in the playground, and we gave them all a further ten minutes of strenuous exercise. If anything, these tactics seemed to rouse them even more, but we ushered the breathless mob indoors, and I suggested that a story might calm them down.

  'We have to expect this sort of thing on the last day of term,' I said indulgently. 'And then, of course, there's Christmas looming ahead. Are you going home?'

  'Yes,' said my assistant.

  'Tonight? Will you want to get off early?'

  I wished I could remember if it were Droitwich or Harrogate. Somewhere a good distance away, I knew.

  'No. It seemed better to go tomorrow in the light, and anyway Wayne doesn't finish until tomorrow morning.'

  I must have looked blank.

  'I'm driving home to Leamington and taking him with me.'

  Leamington. I must remember Leamington.

  'That will be nice for you both,' I said, anxious not to appear too pressing, but Miss Briggs was well launched.

  'My parents know about him, of course, but haven't met him yet. I expect we'll announce our engagement at Christmas.'

  I said, quite truthfully, that I was delighted to hear the news, and that Wayne was a fine young man.

  Miss Briggs gave me the biggest smile I had yet seen upon her countenance, and we returned to the noisy rabble within.

  Our second afternoon was even more successful than the first. For one thing, all those taking part were more relaxed, and the audience was even larger than the day before. How they all managed to squeeze in I shall never fathom.

  Mrs Willet's second cake was as rapturously received as the first, and almost all the school's offerings went too. The few cakes that remained, I put into a paper bag to give surreptitiously to the Coggs family later.

  Miss Clare was surrounded by friends, among them Elizabeth Mawne who had not met her before. Their conversation was animated, and I was glad to see my old friend Dolly so lively. I began to realise, more sharply than ever before, that she normally lacked company, and I was glad that I was about to invite her to spend Christmas with me.

  Even Mrs Pringle seemed to have mellowed with our festivities, and said nothing about the floor strewn with crumbs.

  'I'll see to that tea urn,' she said. 'The W.I. can turn a bit funny if it's not returned pronto, and clean.'

  At last we said goodbye to our guests, reiterated the phrase: 'Term begins on January the sixth' to those willing to listen, who were few among the general pandemonium, and left the schoolroom to the ministrations of Mrs Pringle and Mr and Mrs Willet, who insisted on putting all to rights.

  'Well,' I said to Miss Clare, when we sank exhausted one each side of my sitting-room fire. 'I'm whacked! Someone else will have to cope with the next centenary.'

  'But it's really been memorable!' replied Dolly. 'How glad I am to have seen it - and to have taken part!'

  'Have a glass of sherry,' I said, struggling to my feet. 'We need a pick-me-up after all that.'

  'Here's to Fairacre School,' said Dolly, raising her glass, and we drank thankfully.

  'Have you any plans for Christmas?' I asked, after the first rejuvenating mouthful.

  'None. Except that I expect the kind Annetts will invite me there for Christmas Day.'

  I said how much I should like her to come to Fairacre for the two days, or longer if she could manage it.

  'There's nothing I should enjoy more,' she told me. And so it was happily settled.

  'I can honestly say I never feel truly lonely,' she went on, 'but now that I'm such "a great age I've no one of my own left. Ada's children lost touch years ago, even before my sister died. Of course, dear Emily meant more to me than anyone in the world, but when she went there was really no one left, except good friends like you. I believe you are in the same boat?'

  'I suppose so. No really close relations, though I have a dear aunt, and some jolly cousins, but they are all as busy as I am, and we don't keep in touch as we should. No, I'm like you, very glad of good friends who live near enough to see frequently, like you and the Annetts and dear old Amy at Bent, who wants to meet you incidentally.'

  'That will be nice,' said Dolly. She sounded a trifle abstracted, and I wondered if she were over-tired, which would not be surprising. She took another sip from her glass, and then put it carefully on the side table.

  'I think I ought to tell you something which perhaps I should have told you before. When I was talking to that nice Mrs Mawne this afternoon, I realised for the first time that you might be worrying about what might happen to you if this school ever had to close.'

  'Well, that's been a possibility for years, of course,' I said, puzzled.

  'You see, my dear, having no relatives to speak of, I left everything to dear Emily as she had nowhere of her own to live, and only a tiny pension. Not that I had much more, of course, but I did have the cottage to shelter us. When she had gone, I went one day to Caxley to see young Mr Lovejoy and to alter my will.'

  Young Mr Lovejoy, I knew, was about to retire as he was now in his sixties. But to Miss Clare, whose family had dealt with the old-established solicitors for two or three generations, young Mr Lovejoy must seem a mere boy.

  'He was as charming as ever,' said Dolly, 'and we made out a nice simple little will, leaving some money to the church at Beech Green and the same to Fairacre. My few trinkets I've left to Isobel Annett. Nothing much of value there, I'm afraid, but some are quite pretty.'

  'She'll treasure them, I'm sure,' I said.

  Miss Clare picked up her glass again. 'And the house I've left to you.'

  I felt my jaw drop. I gazed at her, speechless with shock.

  'Do you mind?' asked Dolly very gently.

  'Mind?' I croaked. 'I don't know what to say!'

  'I wanted it to be a surprise for you when I'd gone. I knew you hadn't made any arrangements to buy a place, and I t
hought you could find a home there while you looked round, if you wanted something better.'

  'There is nothing better!' I whispered. My voice seemed to have collapsed completely, and my heart was jumping about like a frog.

  'Well, of course, I'd always hoped that you would want to live in it, and be as happy as I have there. I ought to have realised though that you might be worrying about the future. It wasn't until this afternoon, when Mrs Mawne mentioned it, that I saw that I had really been rather self-indulgent in trying to keep my plans secret.'

  'Dolly,' 1 began, trying to control my wavering voice, 'I don't know how to thank you. I'm absolutely overwhelmed, and don't deserve such generosity. I'll try to tell you soon how I feel - but I'm too overjoyed for words just now.'

  'Good!' said Dolly comfortably. 'Well, that's settled. Now to more practical matters. What would you like for a Christmas present?'

  I went over to kiss her.

  'You've just given me one,' I told her.

  Later that evening, 1 took Dolly home, and saw her safely into bed with her hot water bottle and a warm drink. By that time, I had recovered enough to tell her how I felt about her wonderful gesture. It made the future quite different for me, and I was still too dazed to comprehend fully just what it would mean.

  I locked the cottage door as directed, and put the key back through the letter box. I still could not believe that one day - long distant, 1 sincerely prayed - this lovely house might be mine.

  'I shall never sleep a wink,' I said to myself, as I drove back through the frosty night.

  But I fell into bed within ten minutes of reaching home, and slept like a log until seven.

  I resolved to say nothing about my proposed legacy to any one. Dolly wanted to keep it a secret, and I should respect that wish.

  But buoyed up with my wonderful news, I set about all the Christmas tasks I had neglected during our celebrations.

  Christmas cards were arriving thick and fast. Trees, flowers, robins, skating parties, and every imaginable winter activity glowed from the tributes on my mantelpiece, and I must get down to sending off some of my own.

  The card I cherished most was a photograph of a baby seal sent to me by the kind people at the Tresco hotel. The seal had been born on the beach nearby, and no other Christmas card could touch it for its delightful appeal. It took pride of place among the others.

  It also galvanised me into doing something which Amy had urged me to do long ago. The first letter of the holidays was to that same hotel, booking a room for a fortnight in August. How Amy would approve!

  The frost continued. The ground was iron hard and every morning found the grass and trees covered with hoar frost. Ice was everywhere, and the roads treacherous.

  Miss Clare sent a message to say that she had decided against coming to the school service at St. Patrick's the next Sunday, because of the weather, but would look forward to seeing me on Christmas Eve for tea at her house. We should miss her at the service, but I was relieved to know that she was not venturing out in this bitter weather. I hoped that by the following Wednesday the thaw would have set in.

  Attendance at morning service on Sunday must have delighted Gerald Partridge's heart. Parents, pupils, managers and other friends of Fairacre School turned up in full force, and there were very few empty pews.

  The singing was hearty, and I had found time to coach the children in the two hymns chosen particularly for this occasion, so that they added to the joyful noise considerably. The vicar's sermon was a model of sincerity, brevity and gratitude, and Mr Annett had chosen some stirring music for the service. The final voluntary was Mozart's Turkish March, and I wondered, yet again, how anyone, Turks or otherwise, could march in step to that dancing rhythm.

  But it was a joyous and uplifting ending to our centenary celebrations.

  By Wednesday, the murky cold weather had lifted slightly. It was still bitterly cold, but the roads had thawed, and for two or three hours at midday a feeble sun dispersed the clouds.

  I drove over to Beech Green and walked up the short path to Dolly Clare's cottage with the most unusual feelings. Pleasure at being there was now mingled with something like awe. That this, one day, might be mine! I could still not fully realise my good fortune, and felt very humble in the face of Dolly's superb generosity. Of one thing I could be certain. The cottage would be cherished as dearly as before, and if ever her gentle ghost reappeared it would be given honour and a warm welcome.

  We were at St. Patrick's the next morning, admiring the Christmas roses, the holly, the ivy and the mistletoe. Mr Partridge's suggestion that the children might help had not been followed up, and certainly the flower-arranging ladies had made a superb job of their labour of love without juvenile aid.

  We walked back through the thin winter sunshine to find that the chicken I had left roasting was done to a turn, and the small pudding was bubbling cheerfully on the stove.

  After our modest Christmas dinner we indulged in a glass of port and both slipped off into slumber, awaking just in time to listen to the Queen's message.

  We spent the rest of Christmas Day and Boxing Day very quietly and lazily, going for short walks round the familiar lanes of Fairacre when the sun came through in the early afternoon. But it was always good to return to the fireside and to pick up our knitting, or attempt to solve the crossword puzzle, or sometimes simply to doze. To tell the truth, I was dog-tired at the end of term, and this one had been particularly arduous. Not that I would have missed any of our jollifications for a minute, but I began to realise just how exhausted I was when I could relax at home. Dolly Clare was the perfect companion for this pace of life, serene, undemanding and unfailingly happy.

  I managed to persuade her to stay until the Saturday morning, but no longer. She was anxious not to put her good neighbour to any unnecessary trouble.

  'She is looking after the cat,' she said, 'and getting in my milk and bread. And no doubt she will light a fire, and generally cosset the house, so I must get back to look after myself.'

  We drove over in the morning, and sure enough a fire blazed in the grate. We settled down to enjoy a cup of coffee before 1 returned.

  'I've lived here for six reigns now,' said Miss Clare, looking about her. 'I thought when I was telling our friends about my time as a pupil teacher at Fairacre, that I must have closed the door of this cottage some thousands of times and set off on my bicycle along the lane to that dear old school. I've seen the trees and fields breaking into leaf, shading the road later, turning into the gold of autumn and then bitter nakedness, for more years than I care to remember. But always this cottage has been the beginning and end of every journey. The thought that you will do the same after me gives me infinite pleasure. I don't know when I've felt quite so happy.'

  'I can echo that,' I told her.

  No snow came to our downland country during the remaining days of December, but the skies were ominously grey and the iron cold made one feel that this respite might be short-lived. On New Year's Eve I was invited to the Mawnes for the evening. I walked through the village in the frosty air to the sound of the bells ringing a practice peal at St. Patrick's.

  Well, the Old Year had been good to me, I thought. I had seen Fairacre School celebrating a hundred years of useful work, and my personal life had been enriched by friends old and new. And Dolly Clare's incredible kindness had put the final seal upon a memorable year. I had a great deal to be thankful for.

  So what would the New Year bring, I wondered, opening the gate of the Mawnes's house? Lights gleamed in the windows. A lantern by the door lit up the welcoming holly wreath dangling its scarlet ribbons against the white paint.

  'Come in, come in!' called Henry, opening the door, 'and a Happy New Year to you, and all Fairacre!'

 

 

 
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