Village Centenary Read online

  Fortunately, the arrival of his main course saw the cessation of Timothy's cleansing operations, and he fell to with a will and did not seem to feel the need to polish anything else during the sweet and cheese courses.

  At last he leant back and gave a sigh of contentment. 'What a perfect dinner! I hardly ever sit down to a meal when I'm alone, and certainly never to one as splendid as this.'

  'But don't you get hungry?' enquired Amy.

  'I suppose I do,' replied Timothy, looking about him vaguely, i eat an apple or a biscuit sometimes. Anything that's lying about, you know.'

  No wonder he looked so emaciated, I thought.

  Conversation then became concentrated upon the form of Amy's proposed evening, and later she took us all into the drawing room to see the best way of arranging things for the great night.

  John Chandler appeared outstandingly practical about this, pointing out the best place for the piano with relation to the lighting and the french windows which, with any luck, might be open to admit the warm evening air, scented with roses and stocks. He also suggested seating arrangements which would ensure the greatest number of people being at ease, and reminded me yet again of a military commander deploying his resources to the best advantage.

  Timothy did not contribute much to the plans, but sipped his coffee thoughtfully, only surfacing once to remark that it was a blessing no microphone would be needed in a room this size as he had a horror of the things, and had been hurt by falling over one once, and hurt even more by the BBC mechanic's remarks about the accident.

  This led to a general discussion about whether it was a good thing to understand machinery, or whether it was better to disclaim all knowledge at the outset of how to deal with the objects, and to let someone else tackle the problem.

  Eventually the delicate task of allotting time for each artist's performance was undertaken, and it was agreed that roughly half an hour, give or take five minutes, for each, should ensure a full evening's pleasure, and that it was up to each performer to rehearse his own contribution to fix the time it would take.

  By eleven o'clock the company had dispersed, looking happy and well fed.

  Amy turned down my offer to help with the washing up. Evidently, unheard by me and probably by everyone else in Amy's beautifully soundproof house, her daily help had been hard at it and the kitchen awaited the morrow as spotless as ever.

  'Do you think it went well?' asked Amy, on the doorstep.

  'Everything - but everything,' I assured her, as I let in the clutch, 'was absolutely perfect.'

  I was delighted to have a letter from the office, a day or two later, to inform me that work on the new window to replace the present skylight would begin at the end of term and should be completed before the beginning of the summer term.

  This was good news indeed, although I should have preferred to read 'will be completed' rather than that cautious 'should be completed'. However, it was better perhaps to face the probability of a half-finished job than to be disappointed later.

  Mrs Pringle shared Mr Willet's doubts about Reg Thorn's ability to do the job at all, let alone to a deadline even as vague as this one.

  'What he done to my poor sister-in-law in Caxley you'd never believe,' she assured me. 'You'd think he'd feel downright sorry for a widow woman as suffers something so cruel with arthritis in her hands that she hasn't done her back hair for years now. She told me herself as Reg promised faithful to have her straightened up by last Easter. He'd only got the porch to put to rights. Bob Willet would have done it in two days flat, but Reg hung it out, just when the wind was in the east, fairly scouring out Peg's hall with the front door off, and the bill - which came pretty smartish, I can tell you - was twice the estimate, and give poor old Peg indigestion for a week.'

  'Let's hope he's improved since then,' I replied.

  Mr Willet, who had joined us, snorted with disgust.

  'We'll be lucky to get that dratted dormer by next winter, and then I don't reckon it'll work. If there ain't trouble with the roof I'll eat my hat.'

  I refused to be depressed by my two Job's comforters. Nothing could be worse, I felt, than the present ancient skylight. I acknowledged the office's letter in enthusiastic terms, and looked forward to seeing the workmen on the job before the Easter holidays.

  I felt less enthusiastic about Miss Briggs's progress in the infants' room. To be sure, she did not rush away at three-thirty as she had done previously, but I rarely saw her smile, she shouted at the babies who, naturally, became noisier than ever, and she made no response to any of my overtures. Mr Willet's early summing up of the young lady as 'a fair old lump of a girl' was true.

  It was difficult to know how to improve matters. Over the years, I had worked with dozens of infants' teachers with just the screen between us. Some had been shy, some bold, some flighty, but all had been fairly cheerful, and some outstandingly gifted. A two-teacher school must be harmonious. There is no getting away from each other, which is possible in a large establishment, and I was at a loss to know how to overcome the girl's sulkiness.

  Was she ill perhaps, I wondered? Was she in love? Was she homesick? Or had she realised that she was in a job she disliked, and worried about how to get out of it?

  As far as I could find out, she had few friends in Caxley and had not joined any clubs or societies. She must be lonely, I felt, and her digs, though adequate, were not particularly comfortable, I gathered.

  I should have to have a word with her sometime, I supposed gloomily. Only a week or two of the present term remained, and she was having a holiday in France at Easter. With any luck she would return with more zest to Fairacre School.

  I did not need much persuading to put off this problem until her return, telling myself - not for the first time - that things might sort themselves out. My faith in the power of destiny to resolve my problems is touching, but usually misplaced.

  The April weather, which had been kindly, now switched to the other extreme and became violently windy, with sudden vicious storms which scoured the countryside, dowsing newborn lambs and tossing the daffodils to the ground.

  The skylight dripped steadily during these onslaughts, and the worst of the storms always seemed to coincide with playtime, so that the children were obliged to spend their break indoors, much to everyone's annoyance.

  Several new puddles appeared in the playground, and on the rare occasions when the children spent a few minutes outside a new game had been devised, called, I gathered 'Splashem'. This involved jumping in the deepest part of a puddle just as someone passed, preferably an infant too small to retaliate and likely to get more of him drenched, and then to enjoy not only the victim's discomfiture, but also the hilarious glee of the onlookers.

  It was a game I did my best to stamp out promptly, but not before several cross mothers had called to complain about sopping clothes and squelchy shoes.

  On one of the stormiest days, the dinner lady slipped over in the playground, all the gravy was spilled, her knee was badly grazed and her tights ruined. Miss Briggs took care of the school while I rendered first-aid in the school house. She seemed more agitated about the loss of the gravy than her own injuries.

  'I could easily pour some of Beech Green's into a jug for you,' she offered, as I dabbed at her knee with TCP.

  'Don't worry, it won't hurt us to go short for once. This skirt is soaked. Would you like to borrow one?'

  The offer was accepted, and she went off dry if not particularly elegant, and full of apologies.

  Mr Annett, the headmaster at Beech Green, and also choirmaster and organist at Fairacre, called on choir night to tell me that Miss Clare was staying with them.

  'She's not too bad,' he began, shaking a wet umbrella energetically, 'but Isobel found her with a heavy cold yesterday when she called, and persuaded her to have a day or two in our spare bed.'

  'You are good Samaritans,' I said.

  'Not a bit. But come and see her if you can.'

  'I'll come tomo
rrow if it suits you.'

  'Fine. We'll look forward to it.'

  He sprinted churchwards, and I went indoors out of the beastly wind. This was no weather for poor frail Dolly Clare, I felt, but was comforted to think of her in such safe hands at Beech Green.

  If anything, the weather was wilder still when I drove the few miles from Fairacre to Beech Green. The windscreen wipers could scarcely keep pace with the torrent of rain which lashed the car. Young leaves and scraps of early blossom littered the leafy road as though it were an autumn evening. A fast running rivulet ran each side of the lane, and every puddle sent up a shower of drops, reminding me of 'Splashem' and my naughty boys.

  The few people I passed on the road were well wrapped up in waterproof garments ranging from sou'westers to Wellingtons. I only saw one umbrella, and that was causing its owner considerable trouble. In rough weather, our downland winds can soon rip such a thing to pieces, and it is wiser to have one's hands free to tighten a headscarf or to turn up a raincoat collar against the onslaught.

  I found Miss Clare sitting by a cheerful fire. She was dressed, and had a pretty lacy shawl round her shoulders.

  'Isobel had to go out,' she told me. 'She is giving a talk over at Springbourne and 1 wouldn't let her put it off. Really, I'm quite rested now after two nights and one whole day in bed.'

  She certainly looked very well, though as thin as ever, but her eyes were bright and 1 think she was enjoying the company of the Annetts.

  'They are so kind,' she went on. 'And the more I know of them the more I am reminded of my early teaching days when Mr and Mrs Hope looked after me so well.'

  'Was that the headmaster who had to leave Fairacre?'

  Miss Clare nodded sadly. 'He was a gentle soul, and very musical like the Annetts, but they lost their only child when she was twelve or so, and he never got over it. He took to the bottle, you know, and left soon after the Great War in 1919, if I remember rightly.'

  'You remember the war well enough,' 1 said.

  'Too well,' she said. 'Not only because I lost my dear Arnold in France, but because of the appalling number of young men from here who never came back. One of the saddest sights in Fairacre School was the black armbands worn by so many of the children. And the tears! You would see some little mite busy writing, and then the pen would stop, and the head would go down and the crying begin. It was dreadful to feel so helpless in the face of such sorrow. Mr Hope felt it all terribly. Sometimes I wonder if that was another reason for his taking to drink.'

  'He didn't drink in school?'

  'No, thank goodness! He made up for it at home, and was simply morose and befuddled in school towards the end. He still worked hard though, and did a great deal to help the war effort, and saw that the children helped too. Why, I remember that even the youngest babies were set to fraying pieces of white cotton and linen with a darning needle to make field dressings. And of course we all put as much as we could spare - which wasn't much, in those days - into War Savings stamps.'

  'But at least you were spared bombings and rushing into air-raid shelters in that war.'

  'We saw practically nothing of the war in Fairacre,' agreed Miss Clare, 'and I think, despite the horror stories in the newspapers, that there was less real hatred towards the Germans. We prayed every morning for the war to end, and I daresay we realised that German children were doing the same. We disliked them, of course, and intensely and I remember Mr Hope taking a grammar lesson at the other end of the classroom. He was trying to get the children to stop using the word "got" - with small success, as you might imagine. He wrote it on the blackboard, and crossed it through. "Got, got, got," he cried. "A horrible word! It must be German! Simply leave it out, and say: 'I have a pen! I have a new nib!' Understand?" And one of the Bryant boys, a real little gipsy said: "I ain't got neither, sir!" and everyone broke into laughter, including Mr Hope.'

  'He sounds a good chap,' I said. 'A pity he had to leave.'

  'A tragedy,' agreed Dolly. 'He was as much a casualty of war as my dear Arnold.'

  She fingered the gold locket which hung under the lacy shawl. She wore it constantly, and I knew that it contained a photograph of the red-haired young man who had shared the fate of thousands of others whose names were written upon country memorials, and in the hearts of those who loved them.

  'Heard the latest?' enquired Mr Willet the next morning. 'About the vicar?'

  Elevated to rural dean? Broken a leg? Off on holiday? All these dramatic possibilities leapt to mind before Mr Willet spoke again.

  'He's going to keep bees. I only hope he knows what he's letting himself in for. My old gran had three of those straw skep hives on an old table by her bottom hedge, and by gum, you didn't dare go near 'em to scythe the grass or pick a few runner beans nearby. Fair vicious they was.'

  'I expect he's gone into all that.'

  'I doubt it. Mr Mawne's been eggin' him on, and got him a couple of hives from some chap over at Bent who's giving up. Seen the light, 1 reckon. Why, 1 remember getting some of my gran's bees up my jersey as a kid, and havin' swellings like pudden basins.'

  'They tell me that's good for rheumatism.'

  Mr Willet snorted.

  'Them old wives' tales! My gran had rheumatics something terrible and 1 bet she was stung often enough. She still told them old bees all that went on, like you hear about. She told 'em about Grandad dying in Caxley Hospital of the dropsy, and about the grandchildren being born. Funny really. People says bees are wise, but the more I hear about 'em the more 1 wonder. Did you know they goes for people dressed in blue?'

  'Never heard of it.'

  'No, nor I bet you haven't heard as they don't like compost heaps or bonfires or mowing the grass and a lot of other things you finds in a garden. Pesky little objects! I don't envy the vicar, that I don't!'

  'But think of all the lovely honey,' 1 said.

  'Bet you a dollar they'll be getting rape honey. Mr Roberts usually has a good field of that - you know, that blazin' yellow stuff.'

  1 said 1 knew what rape looked like. 1 had not lived in the country all these years without -

  Mr Willet interrupted me.

  'All right, all right! All I'm saying is that the vicar will have to take his honey off smartish if it's rape, or it'll gum up the whole works. Terrible stuff to extract, as my old gran could tell him, if she'd been spared. No, he don't know what he's letting himself in for, and I only hope he's got a blue bag for banging on the stings.'

  'Can you still get a blue bag?'

  'I doubt it,' said Mr Willet. He sighed and moved off. After a few steps he stopped and called across the playground:

  'Hope you aren't thinkin' of startin' bees,' he shouted. 'That's one thing I'm not helping you with, I can tell you.'

  During the last day or two of term, I turned over in my mind the snippets of history that I had heard from Dolly Clare. Somewhere here there was the theme for our centenary celebrations, I felt sure.

  To give Miss Briggs her due, the idea of dressing the children in the costume of 1880 had some merit. Perhaps we could have just two children in costume telling Fairacre School's story in each decade? Or, more practically, a boy and girl of each of the five reigns - six, if you included Edward VIII - through which the school had passed, suitably apparelled for their particular narrations.

  It would be best if we could let the whole school take part, and perhaps a song or poem typical of each period could intersperse the narration. 1 discussed my nebulous ideas with Miss Briggs, who seemed remarkably co-operative for once. Perhaps her impending holiday in France was having a stimulating effect.

  'Have you fixed a date?' she enquired sensibly.

  'Sometime in the first week in December,' I told her. 'And for two performances definitely, otherwise we shan't have room for everyone. I thought parents of infants one afternoon, and the others the next.'

  'What a good idea! And perhaps we could combine it with the tea party the children usually give at Christmas.'

 
'That's a thought,' I agreed.

  The Christmas party for parents, with the children acting as hosts, is a long-standing tradition in the school. Sometimes we are hopelessly overcrowded; dividing the party into a two-day event might help considerably. I looked at my assistant with new respect. At times she was quite bright, I thought.

  'Of course, there's heaps of time for making arrangements,' she said.

  'We'll have to start pretty early,' I assured her. 'We must know what we propose to do next term so that the mothers can think about costumes, and it looks to me as though the whole of the autumn term will be devoted to rehearsing, whatever we decide upon.'

  'Let's hope the dormer window will be done by then,' said Miss Briggs, watching a steady drip dropping into a bucket by my desk.

  'It had better be!' I said grimly.

  Mercifully, the rough weather subsided as suddenly as it had arrived, and the last day of term ended in a clear, serene evening.

  Its blissful tranquillity matched my own feelings. The empty school basked in the golden rays of the setting sun. The rooks' cawing was the only sound above the tidy playground, and Tibby and I sauntered in the garden relishing our solitude. The narcissi wafted heady draughts of fragrance towards us. The grape hyacinths were a sea of blue in the shrubbery, and some fine scarlet tulips, straight as guardsmen, towered above them. What if the groundsel and dandelions and chickweed were making steady progress? With the holidays ahead I could soon root them out.

  The hooting of a car horn brought me back to earth, and I found Amy at the door.

  'I've been shopping in Oxford,' she said, 'and thought I'd call on my way home. Is it convenient, or are you having a cocktail party or anything?'

  'Don't be funny,' I begged her. 'Whenever have you caught me preparing for a cocktail party?'

  'You never know,' replied Amy vaguely. 'How pretty your garden looks.'