by Miss Read
We have dusted our own classrooms each morning, and things have gone very smoothly, but with the colder weather coming I can see that we shad have to accept Mrs Pringle's return. Minnie finishes at Mrs Annett's in a week's time, and the tortoise stoves, which have so far remained unlit, will soon be roaring away.
Meanwhile, fired by the accounts from Miss Jackson of the excellent preserve which her mother concocted from the two marrows and at my wits' end to know just what to do with yet another monster which had appeared on the back doorstep, I decided to turn it into marrow jam.
I collected a most delectable mass of ingredients on the kitchen table; lemons, ground ginger, sugar and a small screw of greaseproof paper, which Minnie Pringle had brought from the chemist in Caxley, containing knobbly pale lumps of root ginger.
'It says: "Bruise the ginger,"' I remarked to Miss Jackson, who was busy filling up the copper for her bath. We pored over the recipe together. 'How did your mother do that?'
'Just banged it, I think,' said she vaguely, 'with a rolling-pin, or something.'
I carried my screw of greaseproof paper out on to the back step. There was a cold wind blowing, and I anchored the ginger with a large flint while I found a hammer.
I was busily pounding at my little parcel when Mr Willet arrived, bearing a brown-paper carrier-bag.
'Don't like the way the wind's turned east,' he said, blowing on his fingers. 'Fair shrammed I am, I can tell 'ee. Vicar said would I tell you he won't be able to get over this Friday after all. Got a funeral over at Springbourne.'
I said was it anyone we knew?
'Oh no, no one what matters,' said Mr Willet airily. 'Some old boy from London what only lived there two or three months. Just come to die, so to speak.' He peered down at my little parcel and the large hammer.
'And what are you up to?'
'I'm bruising ginger,' I replied. Busily I unwrapped the folds of greaseproof paper and displayed the flattened contents. I looked at them anxiously.
'Would you say I'd bruised that?' I enquired. Mr Willet broke into a guffaw.
'Bruised it? You've dam' wed pulverized it!' He laughed until he had to lean against the wad for support, while I collected the squashed remains carefully together, out of the wind's harm.
'Ah well!' he said, recovering at last. 'I'd get back to my supper. Steak and kidney pudden my old woman's had on the hob ad day—with a dozen button mushrooms inside it. Proper sharp-set I be—I'd do justice to that!'
I wished him good-bye and accompanied him to the corner of the house.
'Oh!' I said, looking back. 'You've left your carrier-bag.'
'That's ad right,' replied Mr Willet cheerfully. 'It is for you. A marrow!'
This morning, with the wind still in the east, I decided that the school stoves ought to be lit. In theory, they are supposed to wait until October i, but with the vagaries of the British climate we could often do with them in June. Mr Willet has chopped a neat stack of kindling wood, ready for the cold weather, and the coke pile in the playground looms over all.
'I'll light these 'ere for you each morning,' volunteered Mr Willet, 'until her ladyship turns up again. Fancy it won't be long now. Heard her telling my old woman yesterday that it was hard times for the unemployed and she wouldn't be going to the Whist Drive this week. It's a Fur and Feather too—so she must be hard pressed to miss that!'
Sure enough, in the evening, I found Mrs Pringle at my front door, her face set in a series of down-turned arcs, which made her look like a disgruntled tortoise.
'Come in,' I said politely, and settled her in the armchair by the fire. She looked at the flames with disgust.
'Fancy having a fire as early as this!' was her comment. 'Some has money to burn, seemingly!' I let this charitable remark go by, and asked if there was anything I could do for her.
'I've made up my mind to come back,' announced Mrs Pringle majestically. I was on the point of answering that no one wanted her back, but prudence restrained me. After ad, Minnie would be leaving on Friday, and the school must have a cleaner. And funnily enough, though the wicked old woman before me drove me quite mad at times with her sulks and her downright rudeness—yet somehow, I had a soft spot for her. It had cost her something, I could see, to pocket her pride this evening and offer to come again—even if it were to suit herself in the long run. For never before had our 'little upsets,' as the Vicar cads them, had quite such personal point as this one, and never before had I been quite so fierce with her.
'Minnie will be here until Friday,' I pointed out. 'She came to help us over a difficult patch, so I can't turn her away immediately.'
'Suits me,' said she, rising with some difficulty from the depths of the chair. 'I'd be along Monday.' I noticed, with some amusement, that there was no word of apology. What was past was now past, I supposed.
She hung her black shiny shopping bag, from which she is never parted, over her arm, and stumped towards the door.
On the doorstep she turned. Her face was grimmer than ever.
'I see them chimneys smoking today,' she said, jerking her head towards the school. 'I don't let no one else meddle with my stoves—even if they has been lit days before the Office gives the word. We'd be needing a new tin of blacklead, and a new blacklead brush. Mine's worn right down to the board. I'd bring 'em with me Monday—and the bill.'
She fished inside the black bag, withdrew a paper one and pressed it upon me. Before I could find words, she had trudged off to the gate.
'See you Monday!' she boomed threateningly, and vanished round the bend of the lane.
When I opened the paper bag I found six brown eggs, double-yokers to a man, and with the bloom of that day's laying on them.
It was Mrs Pringle's peace-offering and silent apology.
Michaelmas Fair at Caxley, is an enormous affair, held in the market-place, where it causes the greatest disturbance possible and utter confusion to normal traffic conditions. The inhabitants of Caxley and the surrounding countryside curse roundly about the noise and the congestion, but look forward to its advent as soon as the dahhas are out, and would be the first to fight, with jealous pride, if anything were done to stop its coming.
'Livens things up a bit!' remarked the girl in Budd's knitwear department to me, as I chose a twin-set. She stood by the window gazing bright-eyed at the swarthy men who were erecting helter-skelters and swing-boats. Customers reckon to take second place in the shops overlooking the fair-ground, and no one would be so pernickety as to complain about inattention from the staff. We all face the simple fact that if you want whole-hearted and devoted service in the choice of purchases, then to choose to shop in Fair Week is asking for trouble.
The children have talked of nothing else, and the infants' room which is the scene of Miss Jackson's fair-ground project is a jumble of stalls with trays of plasticine toffee-apples, candy-doss made of dyed cotton-wool, and a table laid out with a model fair with roundabouts, switch-backs and all, contrived from cardboard and paper. It is the joy of the whole school; and my class have to be routed out from there at playtimes, as they stand entranced—and full of suggestions for further delights—forgetting to drink their milk, eat their elevenses, cad at the lavatory, find their handkerchiefs and generally do ad the things that very properly should be done at play-time.
It was their delight in this project that first gave me the idea of taking a party of children to the Michaelmas Fair this year.
'Most of them will go with their parents or with "Caxley aunties,"' I told Miss Jackson, as we sipped our tea in the school-house, 'and I don't think we can take the real babies—those who have just entered—it's too big a responsibility. But would you be willing to help me with those that are left? Probably eight or ten of them?'
Miss Jackson was most enthusiastic. We decided that wc would discreetly make a list of all those definitely going, and then see how many were left. If the parents in the village knew of our scheme we guessed that they would cheerfully let us take the lot, and that
was rather more than we could face.
'Miss Clare will give us a hand I know,' I said, 'and perhaps Mrs Partridge. It seems a pity for the children to miss it, especially as you've fired them so with your project. It's been most successful.'
Miss Jackson said that she felt it had eased many nervous tensions in the less well-coordinated members of her class, and she welcomed the idea of the visit to Caxley. She would take a note-book, she said, so that she could make up the case-histories after the event, as it would give her an excellent opportunity of observing the children's individual emotional reaction to the stimulus of strong colour, noise and movement.
`I can ted you that,' I said. 'They just shout. Or are sick.'
About six o'clock on the great day, almost the whole of Fairacre School stood outside St Patrick's. Although only twelve were coming with Mrs Partridge, Miss Jackson and me, the rest had come along to see us safely on the 6.10 bus. The din was terrific.
Our charges included Linda Moffat whose mother had a heavy cold and was unable to take her, and Joseph Coggs. They were ad unbelievably clean and neat, with faces as shiny as apples.
Joseph had on his best jersey, and Linda was most suitably dressed for the fair in a chic ensemble of dark-green tartan dungarees and a thick red sweater.
'I don't usually wear trousers to an evening outing,' she assured me, 'but mum thought they'd be better than a skirt on the roundabouts.' Her ideas on the sartorial fitness of things are already strongly advanced.
We waved good-bye to our well-wishers from the bus, and then settled down to a rousing journey to Caxley. Miss Clare was waiting outside her gate, just before the road bends to Beech Green. She looked very neat and trim in her navy-blue coat and sensible felt hat. Not one of her white hairs was out of place, and I knew that, however tousled the rest of us would look after an hour or two at the Michaelmas Fair, Miss Clare would be as tidy as when she boarded the bus.
She was greeted with the greatest affection by the children, who ad besought her to let them sit by her, and she made the journey into Caxley with one on her lap and two other lucky ones squeezed beside her on the seat.
The evening was a great success. The Fairacre party wandered enchanted among the blaze of electric lights, the pounding engines and the coils of oily cable that snaked across the market square.
Pink and white candy floss vanished like magic. One minute a child would be waving a billowing cloud of it on a stick, and the next he would be licking the stick itself with fervour.
Joseph Coggs spent most of his time at the helter-skelter plodding patiently up the narrow stairs with his mat to reappear again, feet first, at the bottom of the corkscrew chute. His hair was on end, his hands black and his face transformed with bliss.
The other children seemed to prefer the games of chance, rolling pennies down grooved slopes and trying to manoeuvre horses into loose boxes, ducks into ponds and the like. The prizes, in many cases, were goldfish, and Eileen Burton was the envy of all when she walked away with two, thrashing madly, in a jam jar.
Mrs Partridge and I enjoyed the roundabouts and switchbacks, and had quite a job to get the children to join us.
Mrs Partridge showed herself a most intrepid rider, electing to sit on the outside of the fastest roundabout, and at one stage sitting side-saddle in the most dashing and insouciant style.
Miss Clare preferred the swing-boats. From my perch on a mad-looking horse with enraged nostrils, I could see her blissfully floating up and down pulling gently on her furry caterpillar of a rope, whilst Linda Moffat hauled more energetically on the other. They were both, I noticed, as immaculate as when they started out, which could not be said about the rest of the party. My own skirt was inelegantly twisted round the ribs of my uncomfortable steed, my shoes had been stood on, and I could feel a ladder, of alarming magnitude, creeping steadily down one leg.
We caught the last bus back to Fairacre, arriving at half-past nine, gloriously dirty and tired. Even Miss Jackson looked young and happy, and had a prodigious mass of notes which she looked forward to incorporating into the case-histories.
The next morning the usual mob of admirers stood round the fair-ground model in her room, discussing the excitement of the night before.
'And that candy-floss,' said one with rapture, 'Coo! Didn't half taste good!'
'But this ere,' said another indicating the dyed and dusty cotton-wool substitute before him, 'looks more like it!'
Could loyalty go further?
OCTOBER
'ADJER!'
'Adjerback!' came floating through the window from the playground this morning. These cryptic sounds, suggesting some exotic mid-European dialect, are readily construed by the initiated into 'Had you!' and 'Had you back!' and are a sure indication that autumn is really upon us and that the weather is cold enough for a brisk game of 'He' before school begins.
Mrs Pringle, austerely reserved in her conversation at the moment, is back in full force. The stoves gleam like black satin, the kitchen copper steams cheerfully and such dirgelike hymns as Oft in danger, oft in woe, mooed in Mrs Pringle's lugubrious contralto, once again sound among the pitch-pine rafters.
Mr Mawne's name has not passed her lips, but the vicar told me that he is in Ireland with friends, for a short holiday.
'Do you know that he is thinking of buying a small house, somewhere in the neighbourhood?' added the vicar. He has resurrected the leopard-skin gloves now that the weather is cooler, and he beat them gently together, filling the air with floating pieces of fur which Patrick and Ernest caught surreptitiously as they fluttered near the front desk.
I said that I had not heard the news.
'A good sign, I think,' went on the vicar. 'It looks as though he intends to settle here. That place of Parr's is all very wed in its way, but ready only suitable for a bachelor.' He looked at me speculatively.
I was about to ask if Mr Mawne proposed to change his status, but thought better of it.
'Not that I can see him as a family man,' mused the vicar, half to himself. 'Not a large family man, anyway!' He pondered for a moment, and then shook himself together.
'But a wonderful head for the church accounts,' he finished triumphantly. 'I do so hope he stays!'
Amy spent the evening with me and was unusually preoccupied.
It was a cold, blustery evening. The rose outside the window scrabbled at the pane. Every now and again a particularly fierce gust shuddered the door in its frame; and the roaring in the elm trees at the corner of the playground compelled us to raise our voices as we talked.
Amy surprised me by saying that she hoped I realized how lucky I was in being a single woman. As Amy's usual cry is: 'How much better you would be if only you were married,' I was a little taken aback by this volte-face. Before I could get my breath, she said that she had been thinking a lot about the married state recently, as a friend of hers was having some trouble.
It appeared, said Amy, that her husband was much attracted to a young woman in his office, that his wife knew of it, but could not make up her mind if it would be wiser to ignore the whole thing—despite her great unhappiness—or if it would be better to tax the man with it.
At this point Amy put her knitting in her lap, with such a despairing gesture, that I was glad the twilight veiled both our faces. There was nothing that I could say to help, and after a few minutes' silence, Amy continued.
It wasn't as if her friend were a young woman, she pointed out. Twenty years ago she would have been able to snap her fingers in the man's face, go out and earn her living, and have thought herself glad to be shot of such a wastrel. But now it wasn't so simple. She was older, was not so keen on, or so capable of making a good living on her own. And in any case, he was her husband, after all, and she was fond of him, they were accustomed to each other, and her friend could easily forgive, if not forget, these little peccaddloes.
Amy's voice faltered slightly towards the end of this narrative, and she rummaged in her sleeve for her handkerchief
. For what it was worth I gave my spinsterish advice.
'If I were your friend,' I began cautiously, 'I should say nothing. It's bound to blow over, and there's no point in breaking up twenty years of comfortable married life for a week or two's nonsense. "Least said soonest mended" I should think.'
'My feelings entirely,' said Amy, blowing her nose briskly. She stuffed her handkerchief away, and talked of some new rose bushes that she had just ordered, and her plans for their arrangement.
So we passed the evening, and I was careful not to put the light on until Amy had completely regained her composure.
At half-past nine she rose to go and I accompanied her to the gorgeous car, by the hedge. The wind still roared, and the trees groaned, as they were wrenched this way and that. Round our feet the dead leaves scurried in whispering eddies.
To my surprise Amy gave me a sudden and most unexpected kiss, then entered her car.
'Lucky old maid!' she said, but I was relieved to hear the laughter in her voice. And with a final toot, she drove away.
The storm raged for hours, and to sleep right through the night was, even for me, quite impossible.
A terrific crack woke me soon after two o'clock and I lay wondering if I could be bothered to get up and investigate. By the time I had persuaded myself that it might only be the chest of drawers giving one of its occasional gun-like reports, it was almost three o'clock, and by that time I was ravenous.
I wished I were as provident as Miss Clare, who kept by her bedside a tin of biscuits, and a smaller one of peppermints, for just such an occasion as this. Downstairs I knew were such delicacies as fruit cake, apples, cream cheese, eggs and a hundred and one delights—but that would mean getting out of my warm bed. I had fought for an hour, I told myself, I could fight again. Doubling my fist, I lay on it and wooed slumber, trying to ignore the clamours of my hunger.