by Miss Read
'Have you called in Dr Martin?' asked Miss Clare.
'No, nor shall I!' retorted Arthur. 'That kid's got nothing wrong with him, but a few gnat bites.'
He also said that Joe 'ate too rich,' added Miss Clare to me.
'Ha-ha!' I commented mirthlessly.
Miss Clare had then watched the tears pour hotly down Joe's flushed cheeks, and had taken decisive action.
'The child is ill and must have medical attention,' she said firmly. 'If you refuse to call in Dr Martin, I shall do so!' And grasping Joe's hand she walked swiftly to the school-house, followed by Arthur Coggs, bellowing and gesticulating. She adjured the child to he on the sofa, ignored Arthur's vociferous shoutings about a father's rights and what happened to kidnappers, and rang Dr Martin's house.
Luckily, he answered the telephone himself, heard the rumpus in the background, and came to the rescue within a few minutes. He had diagnosed chicken-pox, taken poor Joe's temperature, which now stood at 103°, and had told Arthur Coggs, in good round terms which had delighted and shocked Miss Clare, his opinion of him. He had now taken Arthur back to his cottage, keeping up a rapid fire of advice and threat of 'taking-it-to-the-police' under which the craven Arthur soon wilted, and was there now, seeing that a decent bed was prepared for his patient and that the parents knew what to do for him.
'Well done!' I said heartily to Miss Clare. 'I'd go over and see Joe. And then I think you'd better have a rest yourself after all that bother!'
'Nonsense!' said my assistant rebelliously. 'Stuff and nonsense! It's done me a world of good to have a battle with that wretched Arthur Coggs. And as for Dr Martin's language—!' Her old eyes sparkled at the recollection. 'It was quite wonderful! So fluent and so really dreadful!' Her voice was full of admiration and awe.
Within an hour Dr Martin returned, carried the now sleeping Joe wrapped in a rug, to his car, and settled him on the back seat. I had picked the finest roses I could find in my garden for Dr Martin, for I knew that roses were his first love.
'And the best one's for your button-hole,' I told him, fixing it through the car window. 'We can't thank you enough!'
'You're a good girl—despite your crotchety-old-maid ways,' retorted Dr Martin, blowing me a kiss as he drove slowly away.
'Well!' said an outraged boom behind me, and I turned to confront Mrs Pringle, purple with stupefaction. 'Such goings-on——!'
I concealed my mirth as best I could, and shook my head regretfully.
'I'm afraid Dr Martin is hopelessly susceptible!' I said. And assuming the air of a femme fatale I returned, in great good spirits, to the children.
Miss Clare's bouquet, on the last day of term, was even larger than Dr Martin's, for all the children had contributed from their gardens, and southernwood and lavender added their aromatic, spicy scent to that of the roses and carnations which formed the largest part of the massive bunch.
Joseph Coggs was not there, as he was still in the throes of chicken-pox, but Mrs Coggs had sent some madonna lilies to swell the bunch, and we recognized them as a silent tribute to her son's champion.
The schoolroom was very quiet when they had all gone. Bereft of pictures, piles of books, and flowers, it looked bare and forlorn. The floorboards sounded hollowly as I made my way to the door.
Mrs Pringle had told me that she would start 'that back-breaking scrubbing' the next day, so I locked the school door, admiring the soft, old green paint, so soon to be burnt off and replaced.
The sun scorched my back as I bent to the lock. Swinging the massive key round and round on my finger, I went to hang it up in its allotted place on the nad in the coal cedar.
Dazzled with sunshine I hummed my way back to the school-house. The swadows screamed excitedly round St Patrick's spire and seven glorious, golden weeks stretched ahead.
AUGUST
THE first few days of the holiday were gloriously hot, but the weather broke during the first week in August and steady relentless rain has covered the country. I spent ten days with an old friend at the sea—luckily during the fine spell—and returned to Fairacre to find the garden sodden, and farmers beginning to look gloomily at their corn.
'It can't keep on at this rate,' I said to Mr Roberts, when I encountered him in the lane. 'It's much too heavy to last.'
'You'd be surprised!' he rejoined grimly, surveying his farmyard, which looked more like a lake. Rain drummed steadily on the corrugated-iron roof of the barn, and pattered on my umbrella. Little rivulets, carrying twigs and leaves, coursed down each side of the lane, and the heavy sky looked as though it held plenty of rain in reserve.
'Don't suppose it'd be fit for the pageant,' said Mrs Pringle, with gloomy relish. 'Muck things up a treat, this will. 'Twouldn't be safe to have the children running about the grounds at Branscombe Castle, in this lot—the river's fair rushing through, I'm told, and there's many a life been lost by that weir there.'
The pageant overshadows everything. Nothing is safe from the marauding hands of pageant-producers and actors. We are all busy sticking gummed labels on the undersides of old pieces of furniture, which have been requisitioned for the day, and our wardrobes have been ransacked—not only for fur for our own simple Ancient Britons' costumes—but for hats, cloaks, velvet jackets, feathers, jewels, buckles and belts for the rest of the county. I quite dread Amy's visits at the moment, as I see her predatory eye ranging round my house, and even over my person, for any little titbit that might further Bent's glory on the day of the pageant.
'You can't need that great pearl ring,' she insisted, on her last foray, eyes agleam. In vain to protest that it was a bridesmaid's present years ago, and that I was much attached to it. After five minutes of Amy's browbeating, I found myself taking it off and handing it over, having to content myself with awful threats if any ill befell it.
So it goes on ad over the county, and many an old friendship is cracking under the strain, I surmise.
***
I drove through squelching lanes to Beech Green school-house yesterday to have tea with the Annetts. They are not going away this summer, as the baby is due to arrive next week.
Mr Annett was in the throes of revising his time-table. His farming project is going wed, but the difficulties in arranging other school activities are great.
'I shall have a hundred and forty next term,' he said, 'from five to fifteen—and only four teachers for the lot.'
I knew that Miss Young took the infants' class and that it involved teaching thirt-yodd infants aged from five to eight. Miss Hodge had the juniors, from eight to eleven, which meant that they took the eleven-plus examination from her room. Mr Hopgood and Mr Annett took the older boys and girls, having about forty in each class. Several neighbouring schools—mine included—send their children on to Beech Green School, at the age of eleven, so that the top two classes are usually large and the children do not know each other as wed as do those in the lower two classes.
'It's arranging games that is giving me a headache,' confessed Mr Annett, running his fingers through his hair. 'Miss Young can take netball with the girls on Wednesday afternoon, while I take football with the boys from the top two classes, but that means we have about forty apiece to cope with, and it's too much. It means that Miss Young has three netball games to supervise, and I have two football teams. It also means that Hopgood has to go into the junior room to free Miss Hodge who takes the infants while Miss Young's out, and frankly, Hopgood's no earthly good with young children.'
'Can't he take the football?' I suggested.
'Got a gammy leg,' said Mr Annett, running an ink-stained finger round the inside of a nice white collar. 'Can you wonder,' he went on, 'that I've had two visits from parents who are trying to get their children accepted at that new secondary modern school this side of Caxley? In theory we're offering their children the same education—but are we? Here I have forty children, from thirteen to fifteen in my class, ranging from complete duffers to bright ones. True the girls have a day at the cookery and hou
sewifery centre once a week, and the boys have a day at carpentry. But what facilities have I got here at Beech Green to offer them, compared with the schools in Caxley?
'The parents know as well as I do that there are two, if not three, streams there, and the bright ones will get the chance to get along at their own pace, instead of being held back by the dim-wits. They will have a gymnasium, a metal-work room, a woodwork room, decent sanitation—and what's more, properly-trained specialist teachers to take them in different subjects—not a poor old hack like me who has to teach everything, in between filling in the forms and interviewing the hundred and one caders who come during the day.'
I protested that he was doing a difficult job very wed.
'But that's not enough,' said he vehemently, making the teacups jump as he banged a bony fist on the table. 'I often think the children would be better off staying in their own small schools. Take Springbourne, that closed recently. Miss Davis's fifteen children come here now; the school-house has been sold to somebody "up-the-atomic," and I see that the school itself is for sale, advertised in this week's Caxley Chronicle as "a commodious building suitable for conversion."'
'But it would have cost an enormous amount to repair properly—and for fifteen children-' I began.
'But why for fifteen children?' argued Mr Annett. 'I know as wed as you do that a one-teacher school is uneconomic, but there were two good classrooms there, and a school-house. Why not let dear old Miss Davis stay on, give her an assistant for the infants, and take some of the children who now burst our walls apart, over there to make up a worth-while little two-class school? As it is, I have ten children from Badger's End, only a stone's throw from Springbourne School, and there are a dozen council houses just finished on the other side—I expect ad the children there will come driving gaily past empty little Springbourne School and squash in here with all the rest.'
Mr Annett sounded so bitter that I felt quite guilty when I remembered that three of my old pupils would be adding to the congestion at Beech Green next term. Mrs Annett tactfully changed the subject by asking me if I would like to see the baby's layette, and thankfully we climbed the stairs to happier things, leaving Mr Annett to tear himself to shreds over the injustices of present-day rural education.
Tibby has become a renowned mouse and rat catcher, doubtless an admirable trait in a country cat, but one which gives me many a pang, for rats and mice I just cannot endure, and Tibby insists on dragging home her dead trophies to display proudly before me.
There is something about rodents—possibly their long, ghastly, naked tads—which fills me with the deepest revulsion, and I am quite unable to cope with these dreadful offerings which Tibby lays at my door. Imagine, then, my horror when, on reaching down for a saucepan from the cupboard under the sink, a live rat bolted across the kitchen. Obviously the cat had let it escape and being unable to get it out from its retreat, had sauntered off in search of further prey. I gave a yelp and fled upstairs.
After a few minutes' shuddering I tried to decide how on earth I could get rid of the wretched thing. To touch it at all-let alone kill it—was beyond me, and I was just working out a plan whereby I would go out of the front door, open the kitchen one, and pray that it made its own way out, when I heard the oil van stop outside.
Leonard, who drives it, was one of my pupils when I first came to Fairacre. A weakly, adenoidal boy, and not over-bright, he appeared, on this occasion, to have the attributes of Apollo himself.
'Leonard!' I called in quavering tones, from the bedroom window. He looked dimly about him, at ground floor level, until I was forced to cad:
'I'm upstairs, Leonard!' His gaze slowly travelled upward.
'Never saw you, miss!' he responded. 'Want anything?'
'The usual gallon,' I answered, 'and a dozen matches—not those dreadful things I had last time, but Bryant and May's.' He began to open the van doors at the back, as I screwed up my courage to ask for help.
'And Leonard——' I pleaded, 'could you possibly see to a rat that's in my kitchen? Get rid of it for me somehow?' I very nearly added, so low was my morale, that I was sorry that I had kept him in so often as a child, but a teacher's blood, even though at its lowest ebb, still trickled in my veins, and I forbore.
Leonard became positively brisk. His eye lit up and his manner became energetic.
'Got a stick?' he asked, advancing swiftly up the path.
'In the hall—' I faltered, and sat on the bed with my fingers in my ears as the first bloodcurdling whacks began.
Five minutes latex Leonard appeared underneath my bedroom window.
'"E's finished!' he said with great zest, 'I've chucked him out the back-over the far ditch. Made a bit of a mess, but I've mopped up with a bit of old cloth!'
Trying not to let my horror at these words show in my face, I thanked him deeply.
'That's all right, miss. I likes a bash at a rat!' said my bloodthirsty ex-pupil. I thought wryly of the numberless talks I had given the children on kindness to animals—but who was I to criticize? He waved good-bye, climbed into the rickety van, and roared off.
Shaking, I crept down to the scene of carnage. It was all very quiet. A new tea-cloth, gruesomely stained, was draped along the sink. Shuddering, I picked it off with the fire-tongs and dropped it in the dust-bin. It seemed a small price to pay for Leonard's services.
Throughout the rest of the day I found I had a marked aversion to opening cupboards and even drawers, and I made a mental note to be less severe with the children, in future, when they fussed about wasps, gnats and so on in school.
I decided that an early bath and bed would be a good idea, having sampled a radio play, so obscure and so full of people with dreadful allegorical names like Mr Striving and Lady Haughtyblood as to drive one mad.
The kitchen is also the bathroom at the school-house. The rain-water is tipped, bucket by bucket, into an electric copper and while it heats, I spread a bath-mat, fetch the zinc bath that hangs in the back porch and pour in two buckets of cold rain-water in readiness. There are quite a few preparations to make for a rain-water bath—including skimming out a few leaves—but the result is wed worth it, and the soft scented water ready gets one clean.
The telephone rang as I was soaking, but I ignored it. At ten o'clock I was in bed, and at half-past ten, asleep. To my alarm, the telephone rang shrilly again, in the middle of the night—or so it seemed to my befuddled brain, as I crossly grabbed my dressing-gown, and groped downstairs. I managed to get one arm in a sleeve on the way. The rest trailed behind.
'Hello, hello!' said an exuberant voice, 'George Annett here. Thought you'd like to know that Isobel's had a boy. Five pounds!'
I said that that was wonderful and how were they both? There was a cruel draught under the door and my feet were frozen. I attempted to put my other arm in the second sleeve behind my back, found the sleeve was inside out, and gently put the receiver down, in order to arrange myself.
'Hi!' said an alarmed voice. 'Have you rung off? What's that click? You there?'
I put my mouth down to the table and spoke with what patience I could muster with both arms behind me, and my nightclothes twisted all round, and no shoes on, at a quarter to twelve at night.
'Yes, I'm here!'
'We're so pleased about it being a boy. Isn't it amazing? We wanted a boy, you see. And five pounds! Pretty good for a first attempt, isn't it? It's got a lot of black hair—doesn't seem to grow any particular way. Can't think how we'll part it!' Mr Annett sounded concerned. With a superhuman effort I wrenched my second sleeve out, to a nasty snapping of stitches, and inserted my second arm.
'What are you going to call him?' I asked.
'Well, my father's name was Oswald—' began Mr Annett, and rattled gaily on, as I hitched my frozen feet on the chair rail out of the draught, and made fruitless efforts to wrap them in the bottom of my dressing-gown.
At last the voice slowed down. The clock stood at midnight, and pleased though I was to hear suc
h very good news, my bed called me seductively.
'Now you must go to bed,' I said to Mr Annett. 'You must be very tired after all this excitement.'
'Funnily enough,' said the tireless fellow, 'I feel fine. I'm just going to ring one or two more friends—I've done the relatives!'
Feeling that I should drop asleep at the table if I stayed there one minute more, I promised to come and see Isobel and the baby in a day or two's time, rang off firmly, and took my icy feet to bed.
'I hope to goodness they think of something better than Oswald,' I thought to myself, as I crept into bed. 'Such a pursed-lips-and-Adam's-appley sort of name.' I racked my brain to think why I disliked it so. The only Oswald I could think of was an old friend, of whom I have always been very fond, a man of great charm and vivacity, but even this fact could not reconcile me to the name.
I heard St Patrick's clock strike two before I finally fell asleep.
On the day of the pageant, I woke to hear the rain gurgling merrily down the pipe from the gutter to the rain-water butt, by the back door. Large puddles lay in the hollows of our uneven playground, and Tibby, rushing into the kitchen, shook drops disdainfully from her paws, and mewed her complaints.
We were due to start off for Branscombe Castle at eleven sharp. The coach was to appear outside the church wed before that time, and Mrs Partridge had impressed upon us the great need for punctuality.
'And bring packed lunch,' she had said at the end of our last rehearsal, 'and don't let the children have anything too rich, please?