Village Centenary Read online

  I was sure Amy was right, the more I thought about it. Anything verging on the high faluting could prove boring or sentimental.

  I asked Miss Briggs to stay to tea one afternoon, and we set about tackling the programme. Not that our surroundings were conducive to heavy thought. The pinks in my border were beginning to shake out their shaggy heads, and the crimson feathers of peony petals fluttered to the baked earth beneath.

  We sat in the shade of my old plum tree, tea cups in hand, and relished the peace of a June afternoon. In the distance we could hear the steady thumping of a baler. Someone had cut an early crop of hay, it seemed. A blackbird scurried among the plants in the dry border, searching for titbits for its young family, and overhead our ever-present downland larks kept up their fervent outpouring.

  'Well, I suppose we'd better make a start,' I said at last. I could easily have drifted into sleep in these soporific surroundings, but it was hardly a good example to my assistant.

  'Are you thinking of ten scenes, one for each decade,' asked Miss Briggs with unusual briskness, 'or a scene for each reign?'

  'I hadn't really decided that point,' I admitted.

  'And we shall have to have a narrator, of course. You'd better do that.'

  I began to feel some awe for Miss Briggs. Who would have imagined she would be quite so efficient?

  'I had dallied with the idea of one of the children doing that,' I replied.

  'Oh, I think the thing needs to be held together by someone with authority,' said Miss Briggs. 'Besides, none of the

  children really reads well enough, and all of them are bound to be nervous in front of an audience.'

  I did not like to say that I should be nervous myself, but agreed meekly that it might be a good idea for me to do the linking. 'But not much of it,' I added. 'Just a few sentences to show what is happening in the world outside, and then a true scene straight from the log book.'

  'And what about music?'

  'Oh, heavens above,' I groaned. My piano playing is minimal, and Miss Briggs's non-existent. We could have records, I supposed?

  'Well, we'll think about that,' said my assistant, now busily making notes on a pad. 'But some singing might go down well, if we can get an accompanist. After all, that piano of ours has been here since the school started. It ought to have a part in the performance.'

  We worked for an hour or more as the teapot cooled in the grass at our feet, and a few early gnats hovered around. By that time, we had decided that the next step was to ransack the log book for suitable scenes, with not too many players in them, and to use the whole school as a chorus whenever it could be incorporated.

  'Must let the mums see their offspring in the limelight,' remarked Miss Briggs sagaciously. 'It's half the battle.'

  With that, we carried in our tea things and I saw the lady off, feeling more respect for my partner than ever before.

  As all Fairacre had foreseen, work began on the skylight some two months later than planned, and it was quite clear that the rest of the summer term would pass to the accompaniment of loud noises above, and showers of a century's rubbish falling about us.

  To give Reg Thorn his due, he certainly apologised very prettily. No doubt he got plenty of practice, was my private tart comment. He also rigged up a tarpaulin just under the skylight which was intended to catch the bits, but also blocked a great deal of light. I had not realised how much we relied on this ancient window for illumination until the tarpaulin flapped above my desk.

  It was all very annoying, and of course the children's attention was more distracted than ever. Reg Thorn appeared himself for the first hour or so each day, and then left his two younger assistants to carry on.

  'Got quite a lot of other jobs on hand,' he explained. 'Got some shelving for the Mawnes, and a little job at Beech Green. If I keep an eye on them it keeps you all happy.'

  I should like to have pointed out that finishing one job satisfactorily and then proceeding to the next on the date given originally and staying there till that job was done, would make us all a great deal happier. But before I could voice these sentiments Reg Thorn had departed. Such expert slipping away could also be the result of years of experience, I thought to myself.

  Later in the morning, when we were about to clear the desks ready for school dinner, Eileen Burton rushed in from the lobby in a state of panic.

  'There's a funny man in the playground,' she gasped.

  At once there was a rush to the door. The mob checked there and turned to me in some dismay.

  'He's all dressed up in white, miss.'

  'Got one of them sun 'ats on, miss.'

  'He's blowing smoke, miss.'

  'Looks like a man from Mars to me, miss,' said the school wag.

  'Well, let me come through and then I can see,' I said. A narrow passage was made through the milling mass.

  Sure enough, a white-clad figure, crowned with a topee from which white veiling fell to the shoulders, roamed apparently aimlessly round the playground. In its hand was a contraption with a nozzle which occasionally belched blue smoke. Memories of a recent television programme, which I had been too idle to switch off, came back to mc.

  'It's the vicar,' I told them.

  'He'd never dress up all funny,' Ernest rebuked me.

  'Looking for bees,' 1 continued. 'Now go inside, and I'll have a word with him.'

  Reluctantly they moved back a few feet. I did not imagine for a moment that they would return to their desks. Curiosity was too strong for them, but at least they stayed in the safety of the lobby and watched the proceedings.

  1 was within touching distance of our vicar before he became aware of me, so engrossed was he in surveying the hedges and trees which border the playground.

  'Oh, my dear Miss Read,' he exclaimed. 'How you startled me!'

  I expressed my regret.

  'I should have let you know that I was coming, but time pressed. Mr Lamb rang to say a swarm of bees was passing over - he thought they might be mine - so of course I got my things together, and ventured out.'

  He compressed the bellows of the gadget in his hand and smoke issued forth.

  'My smoker,' he said, with pride. 'It's still working, thank heaven. It calms the bees so that you can drop them into the skep easily.'

  He nodded towards the school wall where a fine straw skep awaited the elusive swarm.

  'But surely, they might be miles away,' 1 said. At that moment, Mrs Partridge's face peered over the wall which divides the school playground from the vicar's garden.

  'Gerald! Gerald! Margaret Waters has just rung to say the bees are in her damson tree, and could you come quickly before they get into the chimney.'

  'Into the chimney?' echoed the vicar in amazement. 'Why on earth should they wish to go into a chimney when they can enjoy the sunshine and fresh air on a damson tree?'

  'I don't know the reason, Gerald,' said Mrs Partridge, sounding justifiably exasperated, 'I am simply repeating her message - so hurry!'

  The vicar obediently collected his skep, threw back the veil from his perspiring countenance, and set off on his errand of mercy.

  Later, Mr Willet spoke of the episode.

  'D'you see the vicar in his moonship gear this morning? My word, he fair set all the village dogs barking their heads off as he went by! And young Mrs Smith's baby was outside in his pram, and hasn't stopped bawling since.'

  'But did he take the swarm?' I asked.

  'Oh, he took 'em all right,' said Mr Willet off-handedly. 'They're in the skep in the shade. Miss Waters said the vicar's coming to get them at dusk. But just to be on the safe side she told Mr Mawne, and he's promised to help collect 'em. He's a better man than I am, Gunga Din,' said Mr Willet, misquoting Kipling. 'I wouldn't go near a swarm of bees for all the tea in China. Did I ever tell you about my old gran's?'

  'Yes,' I said, and went to pick up an infant who had fallen painfully and deservedly from the coke pile. There was an agreeable literary sequel to this adventure. When the v
icar called to bring in the hymn list at the end of the week, I naturally enquired after the bees.

  'It was an extraordinary thing,' said the vicar. 'Henry and I collected the skep during the evening, and he helped me to transfer it to an old hive he lent me. But do you know, they simply would not stay in it! Luckily, I had a new hive not in use, so later we transferred them to that one, and since then we've had no trouble.'

  'What was wrong with Henry's hive, do you think?'

  'I think dear old Parson Woodforde put his finger on it some two hundred years ago. You know his diary, I have no doubt?'

  I very nearly said it was my Bible, but remembering to whom I was speaking, hastily said it was a great favourite of mine.

  'I looked up the passage, and he says something to the effect that he too had to hive a swarm twice. The first hive had evidently been kept in a barn and he suspected that mice or other small animals had used it. I liked his final comment that: "Bees are particularly Nice and Cleanly." He must have been a singularly kind and observant man, and obviously loved his bees.'

  Such a warm smile illumined the cherubic countenance of our own parson, that I thought he shared many of Parson Woodforde's virtues.

  The Caxley Spring Festival had netted over a thousand pounds, the local paper informed us, and more was expected as one or two extra efforts were still to be held. One of these was a flower festival involving half a dozen beautifully decked churches, St. Patrick's being one of them.

  I wandered in one evening to admire the exquisite arrangements. To my mind every one was perfect, a miracle of form and fragrance. It astonished me to hear the comments of two women who were following me round the display. They were evidently keen flower arrangers and knew all the things one should be looking for.

  'My dear,' said one, 'just look at that pedestal! One can positively see the Oasis!'

  'Dreadful,' agreed her friend, with a shudder, 'and she has obviously never heard of the Hogarth line!'

  I only hoped that the arranger was not within earshot.

  When I emerged from the church into the golden evening, a woman hailed me. Her name, luckily, I remembered. She was a Mrs Austen, and once belonged to our Women's Institute. We had not seen each other for months, and we greeted each other enthusiastically.

  As she had seen the flowers and had time to spare, she came back to the schoolhouse with me.

  'We're at Springbourne now,' she told me. 'My husband had the chance of a job in London, but we wouldn't take it although the money was better. We've been countrymen ever since we were evacuated.'

  'Tell me more,' I begged her. 'Were you at Fairacre School? You know it's our centenary this year?'

  'Yes, I was, and no, I didn't know,' she replied. 'I came down right at the beginning of the war. We lived in Camberwell in south London, and pretty crowded we were in our flat. There were three of us children. I was the youngest, just six when war broke out. We'd all been to the big L.C.C. school round the corner, and a very good grounding we got there.

  'Mind you, the classes were big - over fifty of us altogether, and the teachers had to keep order pretty well or nothing would have been learnt. Looking back, we did a lot of class work the children today wouldn't like. Chanting tables, and reading round the class out of the same reader, that sort of thing. And no end of spelling tests and mental arithmetic, all done very fast, and devil take the hindmost.'

  'But you got on, obviously.'

  'Oh, we all got on. In those days the teachers were the best in the country, we were told. They got the highest salaries, so the committee could take the pick of the training colleges when they appointed staff. They certainly made us work. I think that's partly why I liked Fairacre so much. The pace was slower and the teachers were quieter.'

  'Was that all you liked? It must have been an upheaval to be evacuated.'

  She shook her head. 'I told you we were crowded at home, and at school. Mine was a very respectable family. Mother kept us all spotless, and the house was polished to the nines. But we only had one room really to live in comfortably - the front room - and that was turned into a bedroom at night for my two brothers.

  'Behind that was the kitchen, and it was always so dark that we had to have the gas burning. And behind that was the only bedroom, where I slept on a little truckle-bed next to my parents.'

  'Any garden?'

  'Just a tiny paved yard where Mother hung her washing. If we wanted to see grass we had to be taken to the park. We weren't allowed to go on our own, because the roads were too busy.'

  'So all these fields seemed wonderful?'

  'Do you know, when we got out at Caxley Station and stood in lines with our little cardboard boxes holding our gas masks, some of the children were crying. But not me! There were lovely grassy banks, and roses in flower, and the air was just beautiful. I felt I had come home.'

  'And that feeling stayed?'

  'It's never gone away! As we drove to Fairacre with our new foster parents I grew happier and happier. Of course, I missed my father and mother, and at night-time, if I woke, I sometimes wept a bit for them. But Fairacre was bliss to me, and the children were kind to us as well as the teachers.'

  'I'm glad to hear it.'

  'We all squashed up together in the desks. Two of our teachers had come with us, nice lively girls they were. It couldn't have been easy for anyone, because every scrap of space was used, and we even had a couple of classes in the village hall. But after a bit, a lot of the children drifted back to London as there weren't any raids, so things settled down very comfortably. Mr Fortescue was the headmaster, and Miss Clare was teaching here then. How is she?'

  I gave her news of our old friend.

  'If ever there was a saint, she's one,' said Mrs Austen. 'I suppose she's coming to the celebrations?'

  'I hope she'll tell us some of her memories,' I replied. 'She knows more about Fairacre School than anyone living.'

  'She helped us all to settle in,' remembered Mrs Austen. 'You know there were a lot of things that shook us about the country. Cows for one, and earth closets for another. And I was scared stiff of real darkness in a winter's lane, after lamp posts along the pavements. I think our hostesses had plenty to put up with. On the whole I like to think that we three didn't give too much trouble. We'd been brought up quite strictly, and my parents came down at least twice a month, and made sure we behaved properly. But there were some pretty rough families, as you can guess, and all that talk about bed-wetting and head lice and impetigo and scabies and so on - well, a lot of it was true.'

  'We get the odd case now,' I told her. 'Fairacre isn't unadulterated Arcady, you know.'

  'I realise that, but to me as a six-year-old Fairacre was Arcady, and this part of England has stayed that way, to my mind, ever since.'

  'I'm inclined to agree,' I said.

  Mrs Pringle arrived the next morning looking full of importance, and with no trace of a limp. She had the appearance of one with a message to deliver.

  It was sad news.

  'Bob Willet says he won't be in today until later. His poor brother Sid has passed on, and Bob's gone over there to see his sister-in-law and fix up the funeral.'

  I murmured condolences.

  'Well, he's been bad for months, poor soul. Something to do with his digestion - the lower end of it, if you know what I mean. I never liked to ask Bob too much about it, as it was rather a personal complaint.'

  'Aren't they all?'

  'Some,' said Mrs Pringle frostily, 'is more personal than others.' And she swept away.

  Mr Willet looked rather subdued when he appeared in the late afternoon, and shook his head sadly when I expressed my sorrow.

  'Thank God I didn't have to see him dead,' he said. 'Never let anyone show you a corpse, specially if you've been fond of the person. My mum made me kiss my grandma in her coffin, and I've never got over it. What's more, 1 can never remember my gran as she was when she was alive. The look of her dead face is the only one I can see. A pity! She was a lively old
party and I loved her a lot.'

  I said I'd heard about her from several of her Fairacre friends.

  'She was good to us kids. There was five of us, and not much money, of course. We lived in a cottage at Springbourne and my gran lived nearby. We always called in going to and from school, and she used to put an apple or some plums in our dinner basket.

  'Sid was the eldest. He was quite a scholar, used to sit there when old Hope was headmaster.' Mr Willet nodded towards a corner desk at the back. 'He could have gone to the grammar school, but with all of us to keep Dad said he'd best get out working. Old Sid never complained and he made a durn fine cabinet maker in the end, but I reckon he minded a bit about not going to Caxley Grammar.'

  Mr Willet sighed, and began to make for the door. 'It's a funny thing, when someone dies, you never remember them as they were then, but always as children. I saw poor old Sid in hospital last week, but all I can see now is Sid about ten, lugging the rush basket with our school dinners up the hill here to Fairacre School. Or swinging our little sister round and round by her hands, or feeding his pet rabbit.'

  He opened the schoolroom door. 'Old Sid will always be about ten for me. Funny really!'

  'Perhaps that's as it should be,' I told him.

  When I saw Amy next I repeated Mr Willet's remarks about viewing the dead.

  'It's perfectly true,' she agreed. 'I can't say I've seen many dead people, but the two aunts whose bodies I saw simply will not come to life for me now. I always do my best not to see corpses for that reason. I like to remember my relatives as they were.'

  'I'm remarkably short of close relatives,' I said, 'though I'm told I look more and more like my Aunt Bessie the older I grow. I'm sorry to say she was remarkably plain, but very determined.'

  'I often wonder if we only see the good points of relatives in ourselves. You say your Aunt Bessie was determined. Maybe she was just pig-headed. I know I like to think I have my Aunt Maud's efficiency, but really I know she was plain bossy, and nearly drove poor Uncle Edward demented. She would tidy away his jigsaw puzzle and put it back in the box when he was only halfway through.'