(18/20) Changes at Fairacre Page 4

  There was a young woman there and, to my delight, she had a boy of about four or five with her. A new pupil, I wondered, with my hard-pressed school in mind?

  'Do you know Mrs Winter?' said Mr Lamb. 'She's come to live in one of the new houses.'

  I introduced myself and expressed hope that she would enjoy living in Fairacre.

  'I'm going back to make coffee,' I added. 'Would you like to join me?'

  She smiled and accepted.

  'Have you got a dog?' asked the boy.

  'No, but I've got a cat.'

  He looked pleased. They seemed a cheerful pair, and I looked forward to learning more about them.

  We bought our stamps and bade farewell to Mr Lamb.

  'What a nice man he is,' enthused Mrs Winter as we went back to the school house. 'He's introduced me to quite half a dozen people.'

  'He did the same for me years ago,' I told her. 'And in those days one still had the older generation calling on the newcomers. It's a pity that nice habit has died out. Really, I suppose, I should have called on you, instead of leaving it to Mr Lamb.'

  Over coffee, it transpired that she knew more about me than I had realized.

  'You see, I worked with Miriam Quinn for several years and I believe she is a friend of yours.'

  'Indeed she is,' I exclaimed, 'although I don't see quite as much of her now that she is married to Gerard Baker and lives in Caxley. How is she?'

  She gave me all the news, and it turned out that she herself had succeeded to Miriam's post as personal secretary to the great Sir Barnabas Hatch, the financier.

  'It's partly through Miriam that we decided to buy this house in Fairacre. She had always said how happy she had been in the village, and I visited her at Holly Lodge once or twice.'

  'And will you continue with your job?'

  'I shall indeed. Not only do I enjoy it, but we certainly need two incomes to pay our mortgage.'

  'Does Jeremy go to school yet?' I ventured, watching the young boy engrossed in a picture book on the sitting-room floor.

  'Play school twice a week,' said his mother, 'but he starts at the prep school in Caxley in September. It has a first-class Kindergarten group, and both my sister's children go there. We can drop him off each morning as we go into the office. My husband works for the same firm, but in another department.'

  My hopes for a new pupil were dashed, but I did my best to hide my disappointment.

  I showed her round the house and garden, accepted an invitation to tea one Sunday, and we parted company at the gate.

  'A very nice addition to the Fairacre community,' I told Tibby on my return to the kitchen.

  My encounter with Jane Winter and her little boy gave me much food for thought over that weekend. How things had changed at Fairacre School even in my own time there, let alone in Dolly Clare's! For one thing, there had been almost double the number of children on roll when I took over. The ancient log book showed almost a hundred pupils at the beginning of the century, but of course they could stay at school then until the age of fourteen. Nowadays they left at eleven.

  But that was only one reason for the fall in numbers. Smaller families was another. The drift from the land another one. The two or three local farmers who employed a dozen to two dozen men as ploughmen, carters, hedgers-and-ditchers, harvesters, thatchers and piece-workers of all skills, now coped with the two or three employees and barns full of expensive agricultural machinery, supplemented by contractors called in for seasonal work.

  There had also been a natural desire by parents to see their offspring better catered for than they had been themselves. A great many in Fairacre remembered the hard times of the thirties, and intended that their children should never be as deprived as they were in their youth. After the war, many of the farm labourers changed jobs and moved into the towns where wages were higher and the hours of work shorter. Consequently, children attending the school were few and far between.

  And then there came the pleasures and convenience of owning a family car. Their parents' world had been limited to the miles they could walk, or ride on horseback or in a carriage. For many of that generation and earlier, Caxley was as far as they had ever ventured. Very few had seen the sea, some seventy miles away, and fewer still had been to London, less than seventy miles to travel. Now, it seemed, they could spend their leisure anywhere in the British Isles, or even farther afield.

  Even more pertinent, from my point of view, the car could take children out of the village to nearby schools of their parents' choice. The preparatory school at Caxley, to which young Jeremy Winter was bound in September, was a case in point. It had been a thoroughly reliable and thriving school for many years, and was deservedly respected in the community. Many local people had passed through its hands, and in the old days had usually gone from there to the ancient local grammar school. One could see why the Winters would have no difficulty in taking the child in by car, and it was absolutely right that they should have the school of their choice. But it did not help my numbers, alas!

  The proliferation of cars in the village certainly contributed, in some measure, to the plight of my own school and many others in the same quandary. But what could be done about it?

  When I first came to Fairacre public transport was adequate. There were several buses a day to Caxley and back, and from there one could proceed to larger towns such as Oxford, Reading, Andover, and even Salisbury with a little planning. Now we had several days in the week with no buses at all.

  There had been a branch line on the railway to Caxley, much used by school children and other daily passengers. When it closed, in company with hundreds of other lines after the war, there was a definite loss to the community. To have a car in Fairacre is now a necessity rather than a luxury, and what was once an added pleasure to life is now a vital means of getting to one's living.

  Well, there was mighty little I could do to halt the dwindling of my flock. Perhaps the other two new houses would provide some future pupils for Fairacre School.

  But somehow I doubted it.

  4 Newcomers

  MRS Pringle returned to her duties after her visit to hospital. Her mood was more militant than usual.

  'That new doctor I saw this time said I was to lose two stone and take more exercise. "More exercise, young man," I says to him, "if you saw how much exercise I have to take, day in day out, at my work - which is Real Work, I'll have you know, not just looking at legs and writing out bits of paper for the chemist - you would get a real shock." He didn't say nothing after that.'

  It was my private opinion that Mrs Pringle had not delivered the tirade quoted but wished she had, and I was being the recipient of her wishful thinking.

  'A mere boy he was too,' she went on, puffing about the classroom with her duster. 'Could've been my grandson except I'd have learnt him better manners if he'd been one of mine, I can tell you.'

  'Has he prescribed any medicine or ointment?' I enquired, really in order to stem this vituperative flow.

  Mrs Pringle sat down heavily on the front desk, chest heaving under her flowered overall. I confronted her glaring eyes as bravely as I could.

  'Much too posh for that, this one was. Going to get in touch with our own doctor, I gather, and says he'll see me when I've lost the first two stone. The first two stone! He'll have to wait a bit, and that's flat.'

  She heaved herself to her feet and made for the floor. It was no surprise to see that her limp was much in evidence.

  ***

  March was almost over and before long we should be breaking up for the Easter holidays.

  Our vicar, the Reverend Gerald Partridge, paid his usual weekly visit and gave a talk to the children about the coming Holy Week followed by the Festival of Easter.

  I always enjoy his visits, and so do the children, but much of his discourse is far above their heads. He had been a brilliant student, I had heard, at his theological college, and this I could well believe. But his beliefs were couched in such obscure and le
arned language that I found as much difficulty in understanding him as did my class.

  However, he has a lovely voice, and kindness oozes from him like honey and this we all appreciate. The children are quite content to listen in peaceful bemusement as the words flow round them, and we all feel rested and happy.

  On this particular afternoon, after the children had gone out to play, the vicar broached the subject of our falling numbers.

  'I know,' I said. 'It is worrying, but what's to be done?'

  'We've faced this before. It was the worrying part for you that my wife and I were concerned about. You can be sure that if the worst happens, which pray to God it won't, we shall all see that you can stay on in the school house.'

  'I have no doubt that the education committee would be humane enough to allow that,' I agreed. I wondered if this were the moment to tell him about Miss Clare's wonderful bequest to me. So far, I had kept silent about it, although I had a strong suspicion that the news had been common knowledge for some time in the neighbourhood. I decided to take the plunge.

  'As it happens,' I began, 'I don't think I should be entirely homeless -'

  'Ah yes! Dear Dolly Clare's house. I had heard of her plans that you should have it.'

  How did the news get about, I wondered for the hundredth time? I had said nothing, Dolly had said nothing, that I knew. Her solicitors presumably were like the proverbial clams. I suppose things are air-borne in rural parts. There seems to be no other explanation.

  'It's true,' I said. 'I am an extremely lucky woman, and Dolly says I can stay at her house whenever I like.'

  'Well, that's a great weight off our minds,' sighed the vicar. 'You are going to have a roof over your head one way or another.'

  I went with him to the door. A few spots of rain were falling, and I called the children inside, waving goodbye to our chairman of governors at the same time.

  Within two minutes the heavens opened and the windows were streaming with rain. At least I had collected my little flock before the chance of playing 'Splashem' had been a temptation.

  The rain continued through the night and I lay in bed listening to it gurgling into the water butts. I heard the thump of the cat flap on the kitchen door, and a second thump very soon afterwards. Obviously Tibby had not spent long out in the garden, and had returned to warmth and a dry bed with the minimum of delay. I too enjoyed my bed, and thought how extra snug it seemed with the rain splashing outside.

  In the morning it had cleared, and a bright sun was already sparking the raindrops on the edge. A spring morning in this downland country is a joy, and my garden was looking at its most hopeful. The ancient plum tree, brittle with age, was a mass of white blossom, and the grass was 'pranked with daisies', as Robert Bridges put it. I decided then and there that the children should learn his poem Spring Goeth All in White that very afternoon, in readiness for all the pleasures of the spring now, and those about to come.

  The clematis was showing buds and, in the two tubs by my door, scarlet early tulips made a splash of colour against the faded brickwork of the house. Farther off in the border the daffodils made a brave show behind the mixed colours of velvety polyanthus. I savoured the freshness of it all before going in for my breakfast. Everything was so clean, so new, so hopeful. Before long the weeds would come, and the greenfly. The birds would peck at the polyanthus and primrose, and scatter the earth everywhere as they scratched for insects. The grass would need mowing, the paths would need weeding, the flowers would need deheading.

  Never mind! That was in the future. It was bliss enough to relish this early morning vista of young life and fresh beauty, and I proposed to look no further.

  On the following Sunday I went to tea at Jane Winter's new house.

  I had looked forward to this for some time, for I have the usual curiosity about how others live, and we have had so few really new houses in the village that this was going to be an extra excitement.

  Since my arrival in Fairacre, a number of cottages had been sold and renovated. With the decrease in the number of farm workers, many of their homes had gone on the market. Some, but not many in Fairacre, had become weekend cottages for Londoners, but more had been taken by couples working in Caxley, or retired people from the neighbourhood.

  This, of course, was traditional. The young couples wanted a garden, and a pleasant place to bring up a family. The retired couples often wanted to leave their town homes which had sometimes been their business premises as well, and were looking for something peaceful and pretty, and easy to run.

  The Hales were typical of such people. He had been a history master at Caxley Grammar School for most of his career, and they both enjoyed retirement now in Tyler's Row, a row of small and once shabby cottages which they had converted into one house. The Hales had proved to be a great asset to Fairacre, supporting the church and school, and well to the fore in helping with all our village activities. No doubt the Winters too would join in, although their business commitments would mean that their time was limited.

  The front garden of the Winter's house was still rather raw, but the border had been planted with dwarf conifers of varying shapes and hues, and would look pleasant before long. It was obviously planted with an eye to saving labour in the future, which I thought wise. The Mr Willets of this world get scarcer weekly, more's the pity, and what one cannot do has of necessity to be left.

  'Come and see the back garden,' said Jane, leading me round the house. There was a newly planted lawn, young grass already sprouting, and the whole area covered with lines of black cotton supported by a forest of sticks.

  'The birds are such a pest,' said Jane, 'but I think we're winning. We're planning to have a rockery in the corner, and a long border with perennials at that side. And we're going to get a shrubbery going next autumn.'

  'No vegetables?'

  'Simply not worth it,' she said. 'We are surrounded with first-class market gardeners, and I can always pop into Tesco's or Sainsbury's from the office. Besides, when would we find the time to tend a vegetable garden? I know my father spends all his days planting peas and training raspberries, but then he's retired.'

  It all made good sense, but again brought home to me the change in Fairacre ways. The older people in the village still maintain their vegetable plot in the back garden, and when I came here first a great many grew vegetables in their front gardens as well. The idea of spending money, and energy, in bringing stuff unnecessarily from Caxley on the bus was unthinkable. Only foreign produce such as oranges or bananas needed to be transported, the bulk of fruit and vegetables came from one's own patch and was eaten in season. All the peelings, the outer leaves of cabbages and lettuces and so on, went to the pig, for almost all cottagers had a sty, and even in my own days, most gardens had a family pig in the corner.

  Needless to say, there was no pig in this garden. It was very well planned, and given a few years it was going to look lovely, as I told my hostess.

  We went indoors to be greeted by Jane's husband Tom, a large and cheerful man who was engaged in bandaging young Jeremy's knee.

  'Nothing serious,' he assured me. 'It isn't a hospital job, is it Jeremy?'

  The child nodded agreement. There were still signs of tears, but he seemed to be over the shock.

  'Our paving stones are still wobbly,' explained Tom, 'and we shall have to get them laid properly, I can see.'

  The drawing-room was large and light, and the furniture new and comfortable. Jeremy was prompted into handing round sandwiches and cake, which he did nobly despite the limp, but his father was given the job of delivering teacups.

  It was all very jolly, and I enjoyed meeting new people and admiring their splendid possessions. It was stimulating to see the latest bathroom equipment, the modern double-glazing, the fitted cupboards and up-to-date gadgets in the kitchen and the adjoining utility room. The washing machine and tumble drier, as well as some large objects which I could not recognize, were housed here, while the kitchen itself was reserved for
the cooking arrangements and also had a large table where meals could be taken. This, I could see, was already the heart of the house, as it is in all real homes.

  After tea and the inspection of the house, we returned to the sitting-room and helped Jeremy with a large jigsaw puzzle of Mrs Tiggywinkle.

  'He loves Beatrix Potter,' commented Jane.

  'What a right-minded child,' I said.

  'But I still wish we'd chosen "Benjamin Bunny",' said his father, studying a mottled piece of jigsaw. 'These prickly bits are the devil to sort out.'

  I returned home with a pot of home-made jam, a picture drawn by Jeremy, and the comfortable feeling of having made new friends.

  Later that evening, as I soaked in my very ordinary white bath, I dwelt on the beauty of the Winter's new home, and particularly on the luxury of their bathroom. The walls were painted a pale green, and the bath, wash-basin, bidet and lavatory echoed the colour. Even the soap was green and the towels too. It was a most beautiful sight.

  And yet, not all that long ago, as I well remembered, almost all the water in our village was that which fell from the skies, and ended up in water butts and tanks. It is true that there were several deep wells, and my school house possessed one in which the water was pure and ice-cold. But bathrooms were few and far between, and in my early years at Fairacre I took my bath in front of the kitchen fire enjoying silky rain water in a galvanized iron tub.

  Very few houses now were without a bathroom. My own had been adapted from a tiny box room between the two bedrooms, and very well it suited me.

  I remember how excited I was when main water was laid through the village, and I turned on my new bath taps. Here indeed was luxury!

  There was no doubt about it, I thought as I towelled myself dry, Fairacre folk were a great deal better off these days. Gone were the buckets of hot and cold water to be carried into the house. Better still, gone were the earth privies at the end of the garden which, no matter how well embowered in lilac and elder bushes, were not a pleasure to visit at any time, and at their very worst on a dark wet night.