(2/20) Village Diary

by Miss Read

  'Yes, he will. But his rent will be three times what it is now—and though I says it as shouldn't—he will be lucky to find as easy a landlord.' I knew this to be true, for Mr Roberts's farm cottages are kept in good repair.

  'Oh yes, his pay will go up,' said Mr Roberts somewhat bitterly, 'but what a waste of knowledge! It's taken forty years to make that good cowman; I'd trust him with a champion, that chap—and all that's to be wasted on some soulless routine job that any ass could do. And where am I to get another? The days have gone when I could go to Caxley Michaelmas Fair and give my shilling to one of a row of good cowmen waiting to be hired—as my father did!'

  I felt very sorry for Mr Roberts, as he stood, kicking morosely with his enormous boots at my doorstep, pondering this sad problem. This is only one case, among many, of old village families leaving their ancient home and going to bigger centres to find new jobs. There must be some positive answer to this drift from the country to the town. It cannot be only the promise of high wages that draws the countryman, though naturally that is the major attraction, offering as it does an easier mode of living for his wife and family.

  'I picks up five pound a week for doing nothing,' boasted one elderly villager recently. Sad comment indeed, if this is true, on the outlay of public money and of his own starved mental outlook.

  Perhaps, for a family man, the advantages of bigger and more modern schools for his children are an added incentive; and I thought again of Mr Annett's outburst about his own all-standard country school, which, he is clear-sighted enough to see, runs a poor second to the new secondary modern school which can offer so much more to his older children.

  The new school year started today, and we have forty-three children in Fairacre School.

  Miss Jackson is esconced in the infants' room with twenty children, aged from five to seven; and I have the rest, up to eleven years of age, in my class.

  Among the new entrants is Robin Pratt, who created such a dramatic stir one year, when we went on our outing to Barrisford, by suffering an accident to his eye. His sister Peggy has been promoted to my class this term, and as Robin was rather tearful on his first morning, he was allowed to sit with her until he felt capable of facing life in the infants' room, without any family support. His eye has suffered no permanent damage, and he is going to be a most attractive addition to the infants' class.

  Miss Jackson has been unable to get lodgings in the village, and is with me at the moment. She is rather heavy going, and inclined to 'tell me what' in a way which I find mildly offensive. However, I put it down to youth and, perhaps, a little shyness, though the latter is not apparent in any other form. Getting her up in the morning is going to be a formidable task, I foresee, if she sleeps as heavily as she did last night. It was eight o'clock before I finally roused her, and my fifth assault upon the spare-room door.

  The wet weather, which persisted through the major part of the holidays, has now—naturally enough—taken a turn for the better. The farmers look much more hopeful as they set about getting in a very damp harvest, and Mr Roberts' corn-drier hums a cheerful background drone to our schoolday.

  To my middle-aged eye, the new entrants appear more babylike than ever, and my top group more juveiule than ever before; but this I find is a perennial phenomenon, and I can only put it down to advancing age on my part. For I notice too, these days, how irresponsibly young ad the policemen look, and on my rare visits to Oxford or Cambridge I find myself looking anxiously about to see who is in charge of the undergraduate innocents, dodging at large among the traffic.

  Yesterday evening Mr Mawne called at the school-house, bearing yet another basket of plums. This makes the seventh plum-offering to date, and really they are becoming an embarrassment.

  Miss Jackson and I were about to start our supper of ham and salad, and we invited him to join us. This he seemed delighted to do, making a substantial meal and finishing up all the cheese and bread in the house, so that we were obliged to have our breakfast eggs this morning without toast, but with Ryvita.

  He told us, in some detail, about his correspondence with his friend Huggett on the subject of the purple sandpiper, and it was eleven o'clock before he made a move to return to his own home. Miss Jackson bore up very well, taking a markedly intelligent interest in all Mr Mawne's exhaustive (and to my mind, exhausting) data on birds; but I was in pretty poor shape by ten o'clock, answering mechanically 'Oh!' and 'Really?' between badly-stifled yawns. Although I am not averse to Mr Mawne, and realize that his life is—as he himself has frequently told me—a trifle lonely, yet I must confess that, to put it plainly, I find him a bore.

  'What an interesting man!' enthused Miss Jackson, as I closed the front door thankfully upon him. 'He's just what you need—a really stimulating companion!'

  More dead than alive, I crawled to bed.

  This morning Mrs Pringle said that she hoped I'd enjoyed my evening with Mr Mawne, and it was shameful the way his underclothes wanted mending.

  'I'm doing for him while his housekeeper's having her fortnight's break,' she told me. 'If ever a man needed a woman to look after him, that poor Mr Mawne does. He sits about, moping in an armchair, with me dusting round him, as you might say. And not a rag has he got to his back that doesn't need a stitch somewhere!'

  I said, with some asperity, that that was no concern of mine, and had she removed my red marking pen from the ink stand.

  Ignoring this retreat to safer ground, Mrs Pringle sidled nearer, dropping her usual bellow to an even more offensive lugubrious whine.

  'Ah! But there's plenty thinks as you should make it your concern. He's fair eating his heart out—and the whole village knows it, but you!'

  This was the last straw. I had suffered enough, heavens knows, from hints and knowing glances lately, but now that Mrs Pringle had the temerity and impertinence to bring this into the open, I had the chance to put my side plainly.

  I pointed out, with considerable hauteur, that she was doing a grave injustice to Mr Mawne and to me, that to repeat idle gossip was not only foolish, but could be scandalous, in which case I should have no hesitation in asking for my solicitor's advice and recommending Mr Mawne to do the same.

  At the dread name of 'solicitor' even Mrs Pringle's complacency buckled, and seeing her unwonted abjection, I hastened to press home my attack.

  'Understand this,' I said in the voice I keep for those about to be caned, 'I will have no more behind-hand tittle-tattle about this poor man and me. I count upon you to give the lie to such utter rubbish that is flying about Fairacre. Meanwhile I shall write for legal advice this evening.'

  Purple-faced, but silent, Mrs Pringle positively slunk back to her copper in the lobby; whilst I, full of righteous wrath, looked out our morning hymn. Fight the good fight seemed as proper a choice as any, and my militant rendering so shook the ancient piano that quite a large shred of red silk fell from behind its fretwork front and landed among the viciously-pounded keys.

  ***

  Throughout the day Mrs Pringle maintained a sullen silence and, as I expected, arrived at the school-house after tea to give in her notice. This is the eighth or ninth time she has done this and, as usual, I accepted it with the greatest enthusiasm.

  'I am delighted to hear that you are giving up,' I told her truthfully. 'After this morning's disclosures, it's the best possible thing for you to do!'

  Mrs Pringle bridled.

  'Never been spoke to so in my life,' she boomed. 'Threatened me—that's what you done. I said to Pringle: "I've had plenty thrown in my face-but when it comes to solicitors—Well!" So you must make do without me in the future.'

  I said that we should doubtless manage very well, wished her good night and returned to the sitting-room. Miss Jackson looked up with a scared expression.

  'I say! What an awful row! What will you do without her?'

  'Enjoy myself,' I said stoutly. 'Not that I shall get the chance. She'll turn up again in a day or two, and as there's really no one else to take
the job on, we'll shake down together again I expect. It'll do her good to lose a few days' pay and to turn things over in her mind for a bit. Offensive old woman!'

  Much exhilarated by this encounter I propped up on the mantelpiece the grubby scrap of paper—torn from the rent book I suspected—on which Mrs Pringle had announced her retirement, and suggested that we celebrated in a bottle of cider.

  'Lovely!' said Miss Jackson, catching my high spirits and beaming through her unlovely spectacles, 'and if you like I'd make tomato omelettes for supper!'

  And very good they were.

  I have paid my promised visit to the Annetts to see Malcolm (not Oswald, I am relieved to know). He is a neat, compact, little baby, who eats and sleeps well, and is giving his mother as little trouble as can be expected from someone who needs attention for twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four.

  I felt greatly honoured when I was asked to be godmother and accepted this high office with much pleasure, for although I have two delightful goddaughters, this will be my only godson. The christening is fixed for the first Sunday in October and I am looking forward to a trip into Caxley to find a really attractive silver rattle and coral, worthy of such a fine boy.

  'My brother Ted is to be one of the godfathers,' said Mr Annett, 'and Isobel's cousin, who is in the Merchant Navy, is the other. With any luck he may have shore leave just then. If not, I'll stand proxy.'

  He rubbed his hands gleefuly.

  `I must say I enjoy a party,' he went on. 'We'll have a real good one for every baby we have. Will you take it as a standing invitation?'

  I said indeed I would, and that I looked forward to many happy occasions. But Mrs Annett, I noticed, was not so enthusiastic.

  As is customary in Fairacre at harvest time, the children at the school helped to decorate the church for Harvest Festival.

  Mr Roberts sent over a generous sheaf of corn and the children had a blissful morning tying it into small bundles to decorate the ends of the pews. The floor was littered with straw and grain, and I was glad that Mrs Pringle had given in her notice and that we could make as much mess as we liked without hearing many sour comments when that lady passed through the classroom.

  Miss Jackson was inclined to be scathing about our efforts and also about the use to which we should apply the fruits of our labours.

  'Straw,' she announced, 'is a most difficult medium for children to work in. Why, even the Ukrainians, who are acknowledged to be the most inspired straw-workers, reckon to serve an apprenticeship—or so our psychology teacher told us.'

  One of the Coggs twins held up a fistful of ragged ears for my inspection at this point.

  'Lovely!' I said, tying it securely with a piece of raffia, 'that will look very nice at the end of a pew.'

  Flattered, she swaggered back to her place on the floor, collecting her second bunch with renewed zest. Miss Jackson looked scornful.

  'And I don't know that it's not absolutely primitive—all this corn and fruit and stuff! Makes one think of fertility rites. I did a thesis on them for Miss Crabbe at college.'

  'Harvest Festival,' I said firmly, 'is a good old Christian custom, and we here in Fairacre put our hearts into it. If you object to such practices, I don't quite know why you have accepted an appointment in a church school.' She had the grace to look abashed, and the preparations went forward without further comment, except for one dark mutter about it being a good thing that Miss Crabbe—the psychology lecturer, who seems to have exerted a disproportionate influence on my assistant—doesn't live in Fairacre; with which statement I silently concurred.

  In the afternoon we ad trooped over to the church, bearing our corn bundles, about two bushels of plums, six bulbous marrows and some rather dashing cape gooseberries.

  The children love decorating the church and do their part very well. The boys lashed the corn to the pew ends while the girls threaded cape gooseberries through the altar rails, and put a neat little row of plums—with a marrow at regular intervals—along the foot. It all looked very formal' and childlike—and none the less effective for that.

  The tranquil atmosphere of the church did much to soothe our nerves, after the excitement of the morning, and we returned much refreshed in spirit, to practise We plough the fields and scatter ready for the great day. And so busy were Miss Jackson and I trying to wean our charges from singing: But it is fed and wor-hor-tered that it was time to send them home before we knew where we were.

  I usually do my washing on Saturday morning and iron, if I've been lucky with the weather, just after tea. With the kitchen door propped open I have a very pleasant view of the garden. I find ironing one of the less objectionable forms of housework, for it is quiet, clean and warm, three attributes which rarely come together in other household activities.

  Miss Jackson manages to get home most week-ends, which gives me time to catch up with all the little jobs which a schoolmistress has to leave until then, without bothering over much about Saturday's meals.

  This week-end she relieved me of two large vegetable marrows, which, she said, her mother would welcome for jam. The spate of plums has begun to slacken, but marrows—alas!—are arriving in a steady stream at the back door. As Miss Jackson and I can only cope with about half a marrow between us in a week, I can see that I shall have to start digging, under cover of darkness, and inter the unwieldy monsters. To give them away again, in Fairacre itself, might cause the greatest offence, and in any case, every garden seems to boast a fertile heap swarming with flourishing marrows. Oddly enough, the majority of people who grow them in Fairacre say, as they hand them over: 'Funny thing! I don't care for them myself. In fact, none of the family likes them!' But still they plant them. It must be the fascination of seeing such a wonderful return for one small seed, that keeps marrow-growers at their dubious task.

  As I ironed, I amused myself by watching a starling at the edge of the garden bed. He was busy detaching the petals from an anemone, conscious that I was watching, and half-afraid, but persisting in his destruction. His iridescent feathers, as smooth and sleek as if oil had been stroked over them, gleamed like chain-mail in the level rays of the sinking sun. Having finished with the anemone, he began to run, squawking, about the lawn, his feet thrown rather high and forward, which gave him a droll, clown-like air. In time, others joined him, and I realized that they had found the remains of Tibby's cornflakes which I had thrown out. Chattering, quarrelling and complaining, they threw themselves energetically into this job of self-nourishment. As suddenly as they had arrived, they checked, and then whirred away over the house.

  This short scene, I thought as I pressed handkerchiefs, is typical of the richness that surrounds the country dweller and which contributes to his well-being. As he works, he sees about him other ways of life being pursued at their own tempo—not only animal life, but that of crops and trees, of flowers and insects—all set within the greater cycle of the four seasons. It has a therapeutic value, this awareness of the myriad forms and varied pace of other lives. Man, particularly the town dweller, scurrying to catch up with what he considers the important jobs, which none but he can do, presses himself onward at a crueller pace daily. He scuttles from stone and steel office to and tube-station. If he sees a blade of grass, prising its way between the paving stones, it only registers itself to his overwrought brain as something which should be reported to the corporation. Small wonder that sleeping pills he within reach of so many tousled beds, when man has lost sight of the elementary fact that he must go at his own pace, or face the consequences.

  Two other benisons are more generously bestowed in the country—solitude and handling earth. Not to be alone—ever—is one of my ideas of hell, and a day when I have had no solitude at all in which 'to catch up with myself I find mentally, physically and spiritually exhausting.

  When one is. alone one is receptive—a ready vessel for the sights, the scents and sounds which pour in through relaxed and animated senses to refresh the inner man.

  As for
the healing that lies in the garden, let Mr Willet's wise words be heard. 'Proper twizzled up, I was after that row at the Parish Council. I went and earthed up my celery, on my own. That sorted me out a treat!'

  While Mrs Pringle has been preserving a dignified silence at her cottage for the past week, Minnie Pringle has called in after school, 'to give us a lick-round,' as she so truly says.

  It is convenient for her at the moment, as she spends most of the day at Mrs Annett's, leaves there at half-past three, and arrives here at about ten to four ready for her labours. She then cycles on to Springbourne.

  We finish our last lesson of the day, and sing our grace, to the accompaniment of Minnie's clatterings in the lobby as she washes up the dinner things. In theory, Miss Jackson, whose room leads into the kitchen-lobby, switches on the copper at three fifteen, but for three days it slipped her mind and Minnie arrived to find a copper full of cold rain-water, in which swam half a dozen hardy earwigs.

  'Good thing you never switched on,' was her comment. 'Think of they poor little dears being boded alive like lobsters!'

  Miss Jackson, when I reminded her about the copper, said that her mind was so engaged with the Harvest project in her classroom and in making out a case-history for each child (which she was amazed to find had never been done in Fairacre—despite the strong recommendations of the Perth-Pullinger investigating committee as long ago as 1952), that she very much doubted if she could wrench it from the sort of work for which she imagined she had been trained, in order to deal with a domestic trifle of such a lowly nature.

  I said that in that case I would give Ernest the job of walking through her room at three-fifteen each afternoon, and she must put up with the interruption. Various biting retorts, which rose to my lips, I forbore to utter, which made me feel unwontedly virtuous.