(19/20) Farewell to Fairacre Page 4

  I accepted this explanation absolutely, but I was aware that the decision to buy the two houses had been a lifesaver for the school I had cared for so long. We were all much indebted to the Malory-Hope Trust.

  Amy and I sipped our coffee, and I was conscious that she was watching me closely.

  'You look rather tired,' she said. 'That dinner party must have worn you out.'

  'Not the party,' I told her, 'but I must admit that the news from the hospital shook us all.'

  'It must have done. But James and I have thought you've seemed under the weather for some time. Are you overworking?'

  'Me? Overworking?' I cried. 'Amy, you've known me long enough to know that I have an in-built laziness that makes sure that I don't strain myself.'

  'Well, I know you procrastinate, and you dither. Look at the dozens of jobs you've thought about over the years and never applied for. And here you are, wasted and washed up, still at Fairacre.'

  'Thank you for those few kind words. You make me feel like a dish cloth.'

  Amy laughed, and patted my arm. 'No offence meant, and none taken I hope, but seriously, you do look a little wan. What about having a check-up with the doctor?'

  'I'm not bothering him. He's quite enough to do with people who are really ill.'

  'Then take a tonic. An iron tonic might be just the thing.'

  'The sort you take through a straw so that your teeth don't go black? I haven't done that since I was about six.'

  Amy snorted impatiently. 'No, no! They have pills these days. Sometimes I wonder where you have been all these years.'

  'Here,' I said cheerfully. 'And here, Amy dear, I propose to remain.'

  'Hopeless!' sighed Amy.

  I studied my face in the looking-glass when I went to bed. As far as I could see, I looked much the same. Older, of course, hair greying, jaw-line definitely heavier, plenty of lines here and there, but I was still recognisable, I thought.

  It was nice of Amy to worry over me, but unnecessary. I certainly felt tired, and once or twice had been slightly dizzy, as when the vicar had told me about the new pupils who would be attending Fairacre school. And, of course, I was reluctant to get up in the mornings, but with autumn beginning to cast its chill across the country this was understandable. As for consulting our hard-pressed doctor, the idea was simply ludicrous, I told my reflection sternly.

  Two days passed with no real news about Henry Mawne's wife, who remained critically ill in hospital.

  Henry was at home, staying within earshot of the telephone, and with his car ready to set off if a call came.

  We all worried about him, and even Mrs Pringle seemed genuinely sympathetic, curbing her usually ghoulish comments and simply shaking her head when Bob Willet mentioned the invalid.

  But one evening Gerald Partridge rang me. Our vicar's voice was shaking.

  'I heard about midday,' he told me. 'She died without regaining consciousness, and I've been with Henry. He's taken it very quietly and bravely. I think he knew all along that it was hopeless. I grieve for the poor fellow.'

  I asked about funeral arrangements.

  'Family only at the county crematorium. No flowers or letters, as she directed. And the remains will go to the family plot in Ireland. A melancholy journey for Henry. I have offered to go with him.'

  It was a short conversation and I put the receiver down feeling very sad.

  Another link with Fairacre life was broken.

  Half term came at the end of October, and I spent most of it in the company of my cousin Ruth who lives in Dorset.

  Her parting words were, 'You look better than when you arrived,' which I found faintly disquieting. How dilapidated had I looked on arrival, I wondered?

  I returned to find four Christmas catalogues, as well as the usual letters.

  Could Christmas really be so imminent? Visions of carols to be learnt, a nativity play, the usual Fairacre school party given to friends in the village, paper chains, Christmas cards and calendars to be constructed, all passed before my inward eye, and I thought, like Wordsworth, of the bliss of solitude.

  Ah well! I had done it before, I comforted myself, and no doubt I could cope with it again.

  Mrs Pringle greeted me with the news that the Cottons' house was now in order, and that the children would be coming to school, probably that very morning.

  I viewed the prospect with pleasure, and hoped that they would settle with us as happily as their next-door neighbours, the Bennett children, had done.

  Sure enough, as Joseph Coggs pulled the school bell rope, a blissful smile lighting up his gipsy-dark face, Mrs Cotton arrived with three of the five children.

  There was a fair-haired girl of about ten, and two brothers of seven and nine. These two, I knew, were the children who had lost their parents in a fire. A younger child, not related to the brothers, would be eligible for admission next term when she would have her fifth birthday. An even younger girl, sister to the two brothers, was still only a toddler, and it would be some time before I had the pleasure of entering her name in the school register.

  All the three newcomers came into my class. There was a certain amount of staring and whispering among my old hands, but within half an hour the three had settled in, and there was a general atmosphere of acceptance from new and old pupils.

  The brothers seemed to be exceptionally well advanced in their school work. They had been attending a school in a neighbouring county, and I began to wonder if my teaching methods were behind the times. Were these two unusually forward, or were my children less intelligent? Was I falling down in my duties? Perhaps I should go to those refresher courses always being urged upon me by the school authorities. Too often such missives ended up on the wastepaper pile, together with all those harrowing appeals to save deprived people, starving children, diminishing rain forests, endangered species and sufferers from a multitude of agonising diseases.

  I am far from callous, and frequently have a few sleepless hours at night worrying about these horrors which come tumbling through the letter-box. But there is a limit to my ability to help, and I simply support four or five pet charities, and have done so faithfully over the years.

  Perhaps those pamphlets about evening classes and weekend refresher courses should be rescued from the pile, and studied earnestly?

  Certainly my three newcomers seemed to be well in advance of Fairacre's standards in reading, writing and arithmetic.

  I was filled with misgivings.

  ***

  Our vicar usually takes prayers at the school one day a week, but a message came to say that he was accompanying Henry Mawne to Ireland for the interment of his wife's ashes, and would not be able to come to the school as usual.

  Mrs Pringle seemed to take this news as a personal af front.

  'Poor Mr Partridge, having to go all that way for a burial! If Mrs Mawne had been laid to rest decently in Fairacre churchyard, he could have come to school like he always does, and I could have got my stoves polished just as usual.'

  I enquired why the vicar's visits should upset the stoves' routine.

  'They always gets a special blackleading before vicar's day,' she told me. 'Surely you've noticed?'

  I had to admit that I had not. Her breathing became heavier than usual, and her face turned red with outrage.

  'Sometimes I wonders,' she puffed, 'why I spend my time working my fingers to the bone in this place, day after day, week after week—'

  She paused for breath.

  'Year after year,' I prompted helpfully.

  'Pah!' said Mrs Pringle, and limped away.

  That combustible leg of hers would register disgust, I knew, for the rest of the day.

  CHAPTER 4

  Personal Shock

  Henry Mawne was in Ireland for three weeks, staying with his wife's relations.

  During that time he sent me a sad little note thanking me for the evening he had shared at my house with the Annetts. He described it as 'a warm and comforting spot in a bleak wor
ld', but felt that he was slowly getting back to normal after the distress of the past weeks.

  The vicar was only away for two nights, returning immediately after the service in which he had taken part.

  He told me something about it when he called just after school closed one wet afternoon.

  I was unlocking my car when he arrived, the children and Mrs Richards having departed.

  I went to greet him, and made tracks for the school door, but he waved me back to the car, and we sat side by side watching the splashing of raindrops into the playground puddles.

  'I found the occasion very moving,' he said. 'Such a green and lovely spot. I think Henry might be persuaded to stay permanently. He met his wife there, you know, and her family are being very pressing.'

  'Would it be a good thing? Is there anything to bring him back here?'

  Gerald Partridge looked troubled. 'I hope he does decide to stay here. He is such a tower of strength to me over church affairs, and he is very well-liked in the locality. Also he said that this drier climate suits him better,' he said, surveying the puddles.

  'In any case,' I said, 'he will have to return to do something about the house, I imagine.'

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, the rain drumming on the car roof, and the windscreen running with water.

  'Henry said how much he had enjoyed his evening with you,' said the vicar. 'But he thought you looked rather tired.'

  My heart sank. Did I really look such an old hag these days?

  'You are well, I hope,' went on the vicar, turning in his seat to study me anxiously.

  'I'm fine,' I said firmly. 'Right as a trivet, whatever that may mean.'

  'Good, good! Can't have you under the weather, you know. It's a miserable time of year.'

  'I'll run you back,' I said. 'The rain's getting heavier.'

  We trundled through the gathering gloom of a November afternoon, and I dropped him at his front door, refusing his kind invitation to tea.

  Driving under the dripping trees to Beech Green, I pondered on this recent display of concern for my health.

  Maybe I should get an iron tonic, as Amy had suggested.

  The thought was disquieting, but I put aside my health problems after tea, and bravely settled down to some of my growing pile of paper work.

  I found it heavy going, and by seven o'clock I was beginning to wonder, yet again, if all these questionnaires and forms were really necessary.

  While I was looking back to the relatively free-from-form days of yesteryear, in a nostalgic mood, Amy rang to enquire after my health.

  'What about that iron tonic? Have you seen the doctor? Are you sleeping and eating properly?'

  'Oh, Amy!' I cried. 'It's sweet of you to be so concerned about me, but I am perfectly healthy. Simply lazy, that's all.'

  'Well, I don't believe that, and all I wanted to say was that I hope you will come for a weekend soon, and we can see that you get a proper rest and some food.'

  I began to feel like a victim of some national catastrophe being rescued by the Red Cross from starvation, homelessness and disease.

  'What are you doing now?' queried Amy.

  'Filling in quite unnecessary forms which should have been at the office last week.'

  'That's no good to you,' said Amy firmly. 'Put them away, have a tot of whisky and go to bed.'

  'I don't like whisky.'

  Amy tutted impatiently. 'Well, hot milk then. With perhaps a raw egg in it.'

  'It would go down like frogs' spawn! I couldn't face it.'

  'What a tiresome girl you are! Anyway, take things quietly, and do let us know if we can do anything. Think about a weekend here. Any weekend suits us, except the next one. I've Lucy Colgate coming for the night, and I don't suppose you want to meet her?'

  'Definitely not,' I agreed. Lucy Colgate had been at college with Amy and me. Amy, being of a more kindly disposition, had kept in touch, but I had always found Lucy pretentious, self-centred and irritatingly affected. I found that a little of Lucy's company went a long way.

  'But thank you, my dear, for thinking of me, and I'll look forward to a weekend at Bent with enormous pleasure.'

  After promising to eat, sleep, take iron tablets, consult my doctor in the near future, put my feet up whenever possible, and to Keep in Touch, I put down the receiver and went to feed Tibby.

  The next morning my alarm clock failed to go off, and I awoke twenty minutes later than usual to a dark wet day.

  Hurrying to the bathroom I noticed a heaviness in one foot, and supposed that I had been sleeping with it trapped under me.

  Stumbling about, getting dressed, I felt annoyed that my foot and leg were taking so long to return to normal. However, there was absolutely no pain, and by the time I had snatched a hasty breakfast of cornflakes and a cup of coffee, I had forgotten the discomfort. It would wear off, I told myself, when I found that I had a slight limp on my way to the garage.

  I drove to school determined to ignore a certain numbness in my left foot when using the clutch. Time to worry when something hurt, I told myself, and before long was so immersed in my school duties that I really did forget the trouble with my foot.

  Preparations for Christmas were already starting, and Mrs Richards and I had decided that it was a year or two since we had embarked upon a nativity play, and that this Christmas we would produce a real masterpiece.

  We had a number of Eastern costumes and various other props in a large box. We also had three shepherds' crooks which were stored in the overcrowded map cupboard along with rolled-up aids to education with such outdated labels as 'The British Empire 1925' and 'Aids to Resuscitation 1940'.

  The vicar was enthusiastic about this project and invited the school to perform in St Patrick's chancel one afternoon towards the end of term.

  'I think we might even have a collection. I'm sure that lots of parents and friends of the school would like to contribute to the Roof Fund.'

  On this particular afternoon Mrs Richards and I took the children across to the church for a preliminary assessment of this natural stage offered to us.

  The church was unheated, and uncomfortably dark and dank. I sat with the older children in the cold hard pews whilst Mrs Richards was busy positioning her children around the imaginary crib in the chancel.

  As well as the physical discomfort I felt remarkably tired, and could have nodded off if I had been alone. It seemed a long time before Mrs Richards had arranged her groupings to her satisfaction, and I was glad to stir myself to take her place with my own class.

  In the gloom I stumbled on the chancel steps but saved myself from falling by grabbing a choir stall.

  We went through this first tentative rehearsal of positioning and then decided that it was too cold to linger. On our way back, Bob Willet hailed me from the churchyard.

  'All right to bring you up some keeping apples?' he called. 'Alice's sister's given us enough for an army, and I've got to come your way after tea.'

  I said that would be fine, and we made our way back to school.

  'You're limping,' said my assistant. 'What's wrong?'

  I told her about my numbed foot.

  'Surely it shouldn't be numb for hours!'

  'Well, sometimes it tingles,' I assured her. 'It's nothing. It doesn't hurt.'

  'I should see the doctor,' said Mrs Richards.

  'I should see the doctor,' said Bob Willet, when we were sitting at the kitchen table later that day.

  He had watched me pouring tea into two mugs, and commented on my shaking hand.

  'It's nothing,' I said shortly. I was beginning to get rather cross with all this advice. First Amy, then Mrs Richards, and now Bob. 'The pot's heavy, that's all.'

  'Well, I've seen you pouring tea for years, and never seen you wobblin' about like a half-set jelly afore.'

  'Those apples,' I said, nodding towards the box he had brought, and keen to change the subject, 'are more than welcome. Will they keep all right in the garden shed?'

&
nbsp; 'Wrapped up in a half-sheet of newspaper,' said Bob, 'they'll be sound as a bell till after Christmas.'

  He finished his tea, and I bade him farewell at the door. The rain still pattered down, the trees dripped and the ground was soggy.

  I returned to the kitchen. Should I wrap the apples now, or get on with the children's personal records as requested by the office?

  Frankly, I felt too tired to face either. I leafed through the Radio Times, and was offered 'Sex Slavery in Latin America', a modern play described as 'explicitly sensual', or a quiz game which I knew from experience plumbed the depths of banality, to the accompaniment of deafening applause from the captive audience.

  I cast the magazine from me, and eyed Tibby, blissfully asleep in the armchair.

  An excellent idea, I thought, and went upstairs to my own bed.

  The rain had stopped when I awoke next morning, and I told myself that now all would be well after such a long and deep sleep.

  My foot still hampered me, and I had to admit that I was wobbling 'like a half-set jelly' as Bob Willet so elegantly put it. Perhaps I really ought to visit the doctor? The prospect was depressing.

  Not that I had anything against the young man who was one of several who had come after our well-beloved Dr Martin who had died, but I did not relish spending part of my evening in his company. At least, I thought hopefully, as I drove to school, it would mean postponing those wretched personal records that were beginning to haunt me.

  The vicar came to take morning prayers, and said when he left that I looked rather tired and that he hoped that I was not over-doing it.

  Mrs Richards insisted on pouring the hot water into our coffee mugs at playtime as she could see that I was 'not quite right yet'.

  Mrs Pringle, arriving to wash up after school dinner, said that her aunt, although a strict teetotaller, had 'staggered about' just as I was doing, 'looking as drunk as a lord'.