(19/20) Farewell to Fairacre Page 2

  'I'm sure you'll find her getting on well,' I assured him, hoping that was the truth. 'Lots of people have strokes, and are as right as rain soon after.'

  He was not to be comforted, however, and took himself off after a few minutes. It was sad to see him suddenly so old.

  'What's up?' I heard Patrick whisper to Ernest.

  'Mrs Mawne. She's been struck.'

  'Struck? By lightning or something?'

  'No, chump! With a stroke, like that chap down the pub.'

  'But he's all—' began Patrick looking horrified.

  'That'll do,' I said firmly. 'You can stop talking and get on with your work.'

  Resignedly, and with heavy sighs, they returned to their labours, while I sorted out a pile of forms to take home to study in peace before returning them to our local education office. Somehow, there seemed to be more than ever these days, and I did not relish an evening poring over them.

  Henry's sad face haunted me. If his wife were laid up in hospital for any length of time it might be a good idea to have him to a meal one evening.

  What Fairacre and Beech Green would make of the matter I did not know, nor care. If two middle-aged old dears could not enjoy a meal together without scandal it was a pity.

  Nevertheless, I resolved to ask our vicar Gerald Partridge and his wife, or failing that, my old friends George and Isobel Annett to join the party. Decorum apart, four would fit nicely round my table, and make more cheerful company for a sad man.

  Mrs Pringle, when she appeared at midday to wash up the dinner things, knew all about Mrs Mawne's troubles. With lugubrious relish she told me about several stroke sufferers of her acquaintance. None, it seemed, had survived, or if they had, she told me, it was a great pity considering the plight in which they were left.

  'I don't want to hear anymore,' I told her roundly, and left her quivering with anger and frustration amidst the washing-up steam.

  Later that evening I tried to settle down to those wretched forms, but found my attention wandering. Mrs Pringle's ghoulish enjoyment of disaster, which I can usually dismiss with some amusement, irritated me unduly on this particular evening. I had lived long enough with her, in all conscience, to be able to ignore her habitual gloom, but I had to admit that latterly she had riled me more than usual.

  Was she getting even more trying, or was I getting crabbier? Of course, we were both getting older and our tempers became less equable. Even so, I thought, stuffing the forms into a file and abandoning the task for the moment, should I be feeling quite so depressed?

  Perhaps I was sickening for something? Perhaps I needed more stimulus? Perhaps I needed company? Even Tibby seemed to have deserted me on this particular evening, going about some private feline business.

  I walked out into the garden, still troubled. Heavy clouds had rolled up from the west, and no doubt rain would fall during the night. This was the first overcast evening we had seen for many days, and it fitted my mood. The air was still, somehow menacing, and I shivered despite the humid warmth.

  I would go early to bed, I told myself, and read the latest Dick Francis book, and perhaps plan my proposed dinner party.

  We get the Hump,

  Came lions Hump,

  as Rudyard Kipling said. Doing something was the cure for that, and tomorrow I should be myself again.

  I was in bed by nine o'clock.

  CHAPTER 2

  Old and New Friends

  The roads were wet when I set off for school the next morning, feeling rather more cheerful after my early night.

  Mrs Pringle was limping heavily about her duties, and was decidedly off-hand with me. Mrs Pringle's bad leg is a sure pointer to prevailing conditions. If she is in one of her rare moods of comparatively good temper, she walks at her normal waddle.

  If, however, the limp is noticeable, it means that she is resentful of all the work she is called upon to do, or she is in a flaming temper about one of her pet interests. Anything connected with the misuse of her precious tortoise stoves, for instance, puts her in a rage and the limp is most pronounced. When Mrs Pringle's leg has 'flared up', as she says, we are on guard.

  Obviously, the present malaise was the outcome of my short shrift with her over Mrs Mawne's condition, and I did not propose to do any mollifying. She must just get on with it.

  In my first months at Fairacre I had worried about Mrs Pringle's feelings, and had done my best to apologise for any hurt which I might have done her unknowingly. Now I knew better, and it was Bob Willet who had opened my eyes not long after my arrival.

  'Don't you take no heed of that ol' besom's tantrums,' he told me sturdily. 'Maud Pringle's been a bad-tempered old bag ever since she was born. Turn a deaf ear and a blind eye.'

  It was sound advice, and nowadays Mrs Pringle's temper and her bad leg's combustibility held no terrors for me.

  Mrs Richards, my assistant, was on playground duty after we had finished school dinner, so I walked down to the Post Office to buy boiled sweets to replenish the school sweet tin, and to pay in some of the children's savings. This thrifty habit had started, years before my arrival, as a wartime effort, and somehow continued.

  Mr Lamb greeted me with his usual bonhomie and his habitual crack about how many sweets I got through.

  I asked after Mrs Mawne. Mr Lamb has his finger on the pulse of Fairacre life and knows more even than Mrs Pringle.

  'Much the same, Mr Mawne told me. He's just been in for some eggs. Must be living on 'em, I reckon. They're keeping her in hospital for at least another week. He visits daily, afternoons mostly.'

  Armed with this knowledge I decided to go ahead with my invitations that evening, and returned to my duties.

  One of Fairacre's major interests at this time was the completion of the second new home which was to house five more children under the Trust's guardianship.

  The first home was now flourishing, and the couple who ran it had settled happily among their neighbours. Their charges who had swelled my school's numbers were good-tempered easy children, and gave me no trouble.

  The couple for the second home had been appointed, and were frequently seen watching last-minute alterations to their new house. The plumbing problem which had held up proceedings seemed to have been overcome, and it was generally expected that the family would arrive some time in October.

  After school one day I walked over to make myself known to the man and woman who were working in the garden.

  'We were going to call on you,' the man said. 'You'll be having our children I believe.'

  'And very welcome they will be,' I told him.

  We introduced ourselves. They were Molly and Alfred Cotton, and they already knew their neighbours and co-hosts the Bennetts from next door. They also knew Mr Lamb, Bob Willet and Jane and Tom Winter who lived close by.

  The Winters' home was one of the three new houses to be built recently in the village, and Jane and Tom had moved in some time earlier. They were a friendly pair, and their young son Jeremy had made friends with the four newcomers as soon as they had settled in. The Cottons were delighted with their appointment as joint wardens to their five children, and it seemed pretty obvious to me that they would be a great asset to the village.

  'You won't be having all our children,' Molly told me. 'The youngest is not walking yet, and the next up is only four. The two brothers, seven and nine, will come to you, and the girl who is ten.'

  I said that I should welcome them, and asked a little more about their family.

  'The two brothers and the baby are all from one family,' said Alfred. 'They were saved by neighbours from a fire at their home. The parents perished.'

  'That's a terrible thing!'

  'They're young enough to have half-forgotten it,' said Molly, 'but I think the older boy, Bobby, still gets nightmares about fire. It's one reason why they have been moved right away, to give them a fresh start.'

  'Well, you are doing a fine job,' I told them.

  'Not very well paid though,' added A
lfred, in a semi jocular way.

  Much later I was to recall that rather odd remark.

  My old home at Fairacre, the school house which stood only a stone's throw across the playground from Fairacre school, had been badly damaged by a storm a few years earlier.

  Luckily, no one was hurt, and I had already removed to Dolly Clare's cottage at Beech Green.

  The repairs took some time, but eventually it was restored and put on the market. To my delight two friends of mine had bought it, and now lived there with their baby.

  Horace and Eve Umbleditch had met at the preparatory school where he taught and she had been the school secretary. They had adopted village life with enthusiasm, and were generally liked. Horace had been roped in by the vicar as a general help to Henry Mawne, who made himself responsible for the finances and general welfare of St Patrick's. Now that Henry was so much engaged with his wife's illness, Horace was being called upon to do more, which he undertook very cheerfully.

  I called to see Eve and the baby one afternoon after school. Young Andrew was sitting in his pram, bouncing about with enormous energy and making a bleating noise which his fond mother told me was singing.

  Eve was ironing, but seemed happy enough to stop and put on the kettle.

  'Horace won't be in for some time. Rugger practice,' she told me.

  'Do they start as young as that?'

  'Well, they all rush about wherever the ball happens to be. You don't see much passing of any elegance and skill, but they have a rattling good puff about, and get fearfully dirty and hungry, and everyone's happy, so I suppose it does them good.'

  She looked through the window at the pram. The bleating had stopped.

  'He's dropped asleep,' she said. 'I always suspect sudden silence. It usually means he's found something to eat. He made quite a meal of his pram strap last week.'

  We sipped our tea, and I looked about my old sitting-room with affection.

  'Tell me,' said Eve, sounding worried. 'Do you mind?'

  'Mind?'

  'About us living here. In your house.'

  'Good heavens, no! Why should I? It looks lovely to me. And it isn't my house now. It was only lent to me, so to speak, while I taught at Fairacre school, just as it was lent to my predecessors.'

  She looked relieved.

  'I still can't believe it is our house. Well, will be when the mortgage is paid,' she added with a smile. 'I still feel that it belongs to you.'

  'I promise not to haunt you,' I said, 'but I know how you feel. The ghosts of the Hopes, who taught here years ago, always seemed to be about, largely I think through Mrs Pringle's constant reminders of how clean Mrs Hope had kept the place, in contrast to my own sketchy housekeeping. I gather from Mrs P. that Mrs Hope dusted the tops of her doors daily, and any visitors had to brush their clothes and take off their shoes before entering.'

  'I don't believe it.'

  'Frankly, neither do I, but you know Mrs Pringle! She has a way of telling you the most outrageous things, with such concentrated venom that one begins to think they are true.'

  'Well, we're happy as sand-boys here, and I hope that all these other newcomers will settle in as contentedly as we have.'

  She went on to tell me that she had made friends with Jane and Tom Winter and the Bennetts who were the foster-parents near by, but had not yet met the Cottons.

  She asked after Mrs Mawne whom she knew, and with all this exchange of news about old and new friends it was six o'clock before I realised it.

  'Tibby will be pretty off-hand with me,' I told Eve, as I hurried to my car.

  'And Horace will with me,' she replied, 'if I don't get our dinner in the oven.'

  We departed to cope with our respective tyrants.

  Plans for my modest dinner party went ahead.

  The Reverend Gerald Partridge and his wife would be away for a week visiting friends in Norfolk, but Isobel and George Annett, who lived near me at the school house in Beech Green, said that they would love to come.

  They and Henry Mawne were invited for the next Wednesday evening when the house would be at its cleanest after Mrs Pringle's ministrations in the afternoon.

  Now what should I give them? was the next problem. Cold salmon and salad would be elegant, and easily prepared, but already the evenings were getting an autumnal feel about them, and hot food is somehow more welcoming.

  I put my load of school forms, records, files and general correspondence to one side - yet again - and let my thoughts dwell much more pleasurably on my entertaining.

  Something that would look after itself in a casserole, I decided. Who wants their hostess in the kitchen at the last minute stirring sauce?

  I thought of lamb cutlets, pork chops, steak and kidney. Perhaps rather heavy as an evening meal for four middle-aged people, I decided.

  A brace of pheasants, a present from the farmer Mr Roberts after his final shoot of the season, still lay in the freezer. But pheasant can be surprisingly tough, and not everyone likes it. What about fish? A halibut steak apiece, in a good white sauce, would suit me well, but did my guests like fish?

  In the end, I took the safe and rather mundane way out by settling for chicken, jointed neatly by the butcher for my proposed casserole, and served with seasonal vegetables supplied by Mr Willet from his garden.

  I would make an apple and blackberry pie, and a raspberry mousse for dessert, and nice easy accommodating melon for starters. I had some fresh coffee beans, and if I could remember to buy some chocolate mints I should be well set up.

  Having settled this in my own mind, I picked up the armful of school papers, thought better of it, put them all back, and watched a television programme until it was time for bed.

  I found that I was ready for bed much earlier these days, and when I had time to think about it I felt vaguely worried by my increasing tiredness.

  It was still a pleasure to see friends, to write to those at a distance, or to talk to them by telephone. I had real joy in planning such simple entertaining as my little dinner party. Even a jaunt to Caxley at the weekends held a certain excitement.

  But, I had to admit that school these days was increasingly demanding. The actual teaching, and the company of the children, I still enjoyed. The fact that the fear of closure, because of dwindling numbers, had now receded, thanks to the advent of the two new homes provided by the Trust, was an enormous relief, and by rights I should be feeling on top of the world.

  But I was not. There was nothing physically wrong with me, no sinister pains or lumps in evidence. It was just that somehow the sparkle seemed to have gone out of life.

  From school life anyway, I told myself. I remembered Eve Umbleditch's anxiety about my relinquishment of the school house which had been my home for so many years. Could I, subconsciously, be missing it? I did not think so. I was blissfully content with Dolly Clare's cottage at Beech Green.

  Certainly, my routine had been slightly altered. I needed to get up earlier and to make sure that the car was ready for its daily short drive.

  But I had always woken early, and was at my liveliest in the morning hours, so that nothing could account for my present malaise. Of course, I was getting older, and expected to be slower, but I was beginning to feel worried by the mound of paperwork which seemed to accompany me everywhere.

  Like most people, I had never taken kindly to form-filling, but when I looked back to my early years at Fairacre, it seemed to me that I used to dash them off, send them back to the education office, and forget the whole affair. Now each morning brought a pile of work, usually marked 'Urgent', and I was beginning to feel submerged and desperate.

  I told myself sternly that most people had the same problems and one must just soldier on. With any luck, I should adjust to my load, just like a tired old cart-horse.

  It was on one of these evenings when I was being firm with myself, and trying to whip up enough energy to tackle at least some of my papers, that my old friend Amy rang.

  We first met at college m
any years ago. She was, and still is, pretty, vivacious and intelligent. She gave up work when she married James after only two years' teaching, but occasionally took on a short spell as a supply teacher in local schools, 'to keep my hand in', as she puts it. Occasionally, she has helped me at Fairacre school, and she has certainly not lost her touch.

  Our friendship has stood the test of time remarkably well, despite our different circumstances. Amy is much more sophisticated than I am, is a wonderful wife to James, and a wonderful hostess to the important business friends they entertain. She dresses exquisitely, keeps up-to-date with the world of music, theatre, films and painting, and generally puts me in the shade, where I am very content to stay.

  The one really trying trait in Amy's character is her desire to see me married, and I have lost count of the various men she has paraded before me in her quest to find me a suitable partner. I am loud and vehement in my protestations to dear Amy, but it does no good. She cannot believe that any woman can be happy without a man in the house.

  I constantly point out that I should find a husband a nuisance. I do not want to wash socks, thread new pyjama cords through hems with a safety-pin, listen to news of rugby teams, the stock market, golf averages and, in the case of older men, their war-time reminiscences. Besides, even the nicest men snore, and I like a peaceful bedroom.

  Luckily, on this occasion, husbands were not on Amy's mind.

  'It's about the opera,' said Amy, after our usual enquiries after health. 'There's a good company coming to Oxford. Care to join me one evening? James will be in China on some trade lark.'

  'What's on offer?' I am no opera fan. The idiocy of the plots I find infuriating, and I don't know enough about music to appreciate the finer points. In any case, I have exceptionally acute hearing, and find the noise excessive. Before now I have sat through an entire opera with cotton wool in my ears, to the disgust of the opera-lovers around me. Even so, I have returned home with a splitting headache.