(2/20) Village Diary

by Miss Read

  'Going to make one?' asked the doctor hopefully, getting smartly out of his car, and opening the front door for me, before I could answer.

  Meekly I took off my gardening gloves, and we went into the kitchen.

  Over the tea-tray I broached the subject of Miss Clare. 'I didn't think she looked at ad well last week,' I said. 'Is there anything else wrong besides her heart?'

  Doctor Martin looked steadily across the table at me.

  'Do you ready want to know?'

  'Of course I do.'

  'Well,' said the doctor, replacing his cup very carefully. 'To be blunt, she doesn't get enough to eat.'

  'Good God!' I cried, appalled. My own cup crashed on to the saucer. 'You don't mean that?'

  I thought of Miss Clare's larder, with the gleaming rows of jam and chutney of her own making. I thought of the onions hanging up, the carrots and parsnips in an old well-scrubbed wooden rack. I thought of my last supper party there—of the cold brisket, the tart, the salad, the glinting silver and snowy cloth.

  As if he could read my mind Dr Martin spoke again.

  'Yes, I know she keeps a good store cupboard. There's not a morsel of waste there. She uses every bit of produce from her garden that she can. But she can't afford to use it all. She was giving baskets of windfall apples to the neighbours last week. Before, she would have turned them into jelly—but three pounds of preserving sugar costs half a crown or so, and that wants finding.'

  'This is awful—' I began. Dr Martin went on ruthlessly.

  'She gets next to no butcher's meat, and things that she should have, like liver and cream and a drop of Burgundy, are beyond her these days. It stands to reason. She's got the old age pension and a minute teaching one; and though she owns that little cottage she still has to keep it in repair. She told me last week that the repairs to her well came to over five pounds. Her shoes cost between ten and fifteen shillings to mend. God knows how long she wears her clothes. Her house linen was her mother's, and when it goes she can't afford to replace it. Her father thatched the roof just before he died—what, twenty years ago now—and it'll need doing again before long. How's Miss Clare ever to get two hundred pounds together for that?'

  'Fool that I am!' I said passionately. `I should have thought of ad that. But somehow—she's always so neat, and the house is so beautiful, and she's always given me such good meals——' I couldn't go on.

  'Oh she'd give her guests a good meal!' agreed the doctor brutally. 'You'd have butter too. But I noticed there was only margarine in the larder when I went there last week for a teaspoon.' Indeed, I thought, there's mighty little that this wise old man misses about his patients' background. 'Mind you, she's got a kind of instinctive knowledge of nutrition, handed down from peasant forbears. She sprinkles parsley around pretty heavily. She makes herself rough oatmeal porridge—but she doesn't have ad the sugar and milk with that, that she should have. She bakes a bit of bread now and again, when the oven's on; but naturally she's sparing with the firing these days.'

  'You don't mean she's going cold, as well?' I said piteously.

  'Hardly surprising,' rejoined the old man. 'And she can't work as she did in her garden. Peter Lamb, poor fellow, used to dig it for nothing. That idle neighbour of hers will condescend to turn it over for three bob an hour—which she can't afford anyway. I noticed that last year's potato patch is left rough this year. Less food again.'

  He pushed his chair back from the table as if the matter were closed. I leant across and caught his wrist.

  'Now sit down. You're not going till we've thought something out. We must help her. Besides,' I admitted, `I can't stick this out alone, until I can see some way round it.'

  The doctor smiled, hitched his chair up again and passed his cup across to be refilled.

  'For a tough old schoolmarm with a good caning arm, you've got a remarkably soft heart,' he commented. 'Good Lord, girl, Miss Clare's only one of hundreds! They're the new poor; fighting a rear-guard action and keeping the standard flying. I'll bet Miss Clare puts a shilling in the collecting tin next Poppy Day, and that chap next door who's picking up twelve pounds a week, won't be able to put his hand on a bit of change!'

  'I know ad that,' I said, 'but come on now. Let's be practical. How can we help?'

  'She won't let you. She's too proud.'

  'Don't be such a maddening man!' I almost shouted. 'You come in here torturing me, and making me give you cups of tea—oh sorry, I forgot to fid it up——' I pushed it across hastily. 'And you put me into an absolute fantod and fever——'

  'You wanted to know,' he pointed out.

  'And now I do know, we must do something, or I shall go clean out of my mind, and the children will find me sitting with straws in my hair, drooling, when they come tomorrow—and you'll have another patient on your hands.'

  This outburst appeared to sober him, I was glad to see; for no doctor, however zealous or impoverished, cares to hear of another patient being added to his burdens these days.

  'The answer, I think,' he said slowly, 'is a nice easy-going lodger. Like your Miss Jackson.'

  'I'd be delighted for Miss Clare to have her,' I said, 'but I don't know that she's exactly easy-going.'

  'Well, someone like that,' pursued the doctor. 'She's got a spare bedroom and that front parlour too, that's hardly ever used. Then she'd eat more. She'd be most conscientious about giving a lodger a nourishing meal and she'd have some as well.'

  'It's sounds a good idea,' I agreed. 'But could she stand the extra work?'

  'Speaking from a medical point of view, I think any extra work involved—and there needn't be much, I'd have a word with the prospective lodger and ted her to pud her weight with bed-making and lifting and so on—would be offset by the advantages. She wouldn't be anxious about making ends meet—and there's nothing more fraying than that, week after week—she'd have someone else to think about, which would take her mind off her own ills a bit; solitary people can't help dwelling on 'em a bit too much, and she'd have more money to spend on food. And that's the main thing!'

  He drained his cup, and then rose.

  'Now I must be off. Think it over, and think about Miss Jackson going there. I'll tackle Miss Clare. I shall tell her I'd feel happier if she had someone in the house with her. I'll suggest her sister. That'll properly put her back up—and she'd consider a lodger much more readily!'

  'Honestly,' I said, dabbergasted, 'I'd no idea you were such a Machiavelli! But I will suggest to Miss Jackson that she might like to make a change. But somehow—I don't know if she's quite right for Miss Clare.'

  'She'd be better off with Miss Clare than with you,' said the doctor shrewilly. 'Cooped up together all day—why, you don't want to hear her news when she gets back here to tea—you know it ad! Give her Miss Clare to pour her troubles out to, and she'll blossom like a rose; and so will her landlady! She'd look forward to her coming in to hear ad the school gossip. Do ad three of you good, I know that.'

  We proceeded to the front door and I surveyed my tulip bed, still unfinished.

  'And what does Miss Jackson give you for board and lodging?' he asked. I told him three pounds, which seemed to suit us both. He threw up his hands in mock horror.

  'You bloated profiteer!' he exclaimed. 'On top of your fat salary too! You pass her over to Miss Clare, my girl, and put that three pounds into her pocket.' This bit of by-play I recognized for what it was—a subtle way of relieving the tension of the past hour, and of bringing us back to a more normal plane. He pointed to my tulip bulbs.

  'Bought with your ill-gotten gains, I suppose.' He could not resist one final stab. 'Miss Clare makes her garden pretty with slips that friends give her. She might be able to afford bulbs if she had a lodger!'

  At this moment, Mrs Pringle, her work completed, came limping back, bucket in hand.

  'You are the most cruel, heartless creature I've ever met,' I told him, and hailed Mrs Pringle. 'Don't you agree?' I asked her, above the noise of the car's engine.
/>   'Ah!' said Mrs Pringle with much satisfaction, 'that he is. He's a walking monument of vice!' We stood, side by side, waving good-bye to him. For once, Mrs Pringle and I were united.

  Having given the children an earnest little homily on thrift, and the wisdom of putting some part of their money away, however small, for a rainy day, I was shocked to find that I have one and sevenpence only in my own purse.

  When I think of what I earn, and mv 'profiteering' three pounds a week in addition, I am ashamed of myself, for nearly every month I seem to spend the last few days of it counting out pennies and shamelessly embezzling needlework money or dinner money, until Jim Bryant brings the cheque.

  This is another painful reminder of Miss Clare's plight, which is constantly in my mind. Since the doctor's visit, I have approached Miss Jackson, who seemed unflatteringly delighted to quit my portals if she could find another resting-place, so that that is one step forward.

  I have no doubt that before half term is here, in another week's time, Dr Martin will have his well-laid plans in working trim.

  NOVEMBER

  IT is wonderful to be solvent again, if only for the first week of the month. Shaken by my former extravagance, and determined to organize my expenditure, I have started an account book, and I intend to put down my daily spendings. How long this good resolution will last I can't tell. Today's entries make disagreeable reading:

  £ s. d.

  Electricity bill .. .. 3 6 0

  Coal Bid .. .. 3 18 o

  Garage's bill .. .. 2 4 0

  Weekly grocery bill .. 1 12 6

  I comfort myself with the thought that the first three will not appear again for a little while, and I certainly hope that the entry which follows these four will never appear again—though I have serious doubts about that. It says: 'Repayment to needlework money tin, and dinner money tin ... 8s. od.

  I am going to put an elastic band round each of those Oxo tins and remove them only when the exigencies of rightful duty make it necessary.

  'Always put a little by!' as I told mv children firmly last week, when the savings' money had fallen below average. Sometimes I wonder that a bolt from heaven doesn't strike me.

  We have had our first fog of the winter. Here, in open country, we are spared the sulphurous, choking fog that makes everything filthy, but the thick, white mist that rods down from the hills, or that creeps up from the valley where Caxley lies, can be equally disconcerting.

  It was very, very still. Drops of moisture hung in the hedges and cobwebs. From the school playground it was impossible to see the church, my house and the great elm trees. Only the occasional spattering of heavy drops from the elms showed where they were. In the distance Samson, Mr Roberts's cow, lowed in bewilderment.

  Tibby dishkes these damp mornings, and has taken to accompanying me over to the classroom. Here, his doting admirers have placed a chair from the infants' room, near the stove, furnished it with an old woollen jacket from the dressing-up box, and Tibby deigns to ensconce himself there for most of the day. At play-time he accepts offers of milk, cake, and occasionally chocolate from the children.

  'Don't 'e purr nice?' and

  'Pretty little dear, ennit?' they say fondly to each other, as they pet him, and this adulation is, of course, exactly what his lordship likes best.

  It grew so thick by midday, that I wondered if Mrs Crossley would be able to find her way along with the dinner-van. But ad was wed, and our canisters of stew, mashed potato, apples and custard arrived safely, only ten minutes later than usual.

  'It's even worse in Caxley!' she told us. 'It seems to be general everywhere.'

  The children elected to play indoors during the dinner hour, and as the weather was so appalling, it seemed the best thing to do. Jigsaw puzzles, beads, picture books, crayons and paper, and plasticine modelling kept them ad engrossed, and they begged to be allowed to hear 'Listen with Mother' at a quarter to two. As a special treat I switched it on. It is, as everyone knows, a programme intended for children under school age, but most of the Fairacre children listen with attention to it. This does not surprise me with the infants, for our children are remarkably unsophisticated and appreciate stories, games, songs and so on intended for much younger people; but I am astonished that some children of eight or nine, in my own class, should still get satisfaction from this excellent programme. I should be interested to know if other teachers find that their children are equally responsive, for I should have thought that the natural reaction of the older child to 'Listen with Mother' would have been impatience. In any case, it is a compliment to the planners of this programme, which I am happy to pass on.

  Joseph Coggs has brought his tortoise to school. This animal has been lost dozens of times during the summer, but has been found in various parts of the parish and returned to Joe. Now, it is comatose and ready to hibernate, and Joseph's mother has asked if we can find it accommodation in school. Today, the children put it in a box of dry earth and leaves, and it is back in the corner of the lobby. With any luck, it should survive, and will certainly be less disturbed there, despite forty-odd children's attention, than it would be in the Coggs' crowded and ramshackle cottage.

  We sent the children home ten minutes earlier this afternoon, much to their jubilation. The classroom was already too dark to see properly, and the four inadequate bulbs, which hang naked from the ceiling, did little to help. The children ran off into the mist, squealing like piglets, and shouting joyfully to each other.

  Miss Jackson and I stoked up a roaring fire, drew the curtains to shut out the first dismal, dispiriting day of November, and made anchovy toast for tea. I only hoped that all our pupils were as happily and snugly sheltered.

  I am appalled at the amount of litter lying about in Fairacre's once tidy lane. I suppose it is more noticeable since poor old Bannister, the road man, died a few weeks ago, for no one can be found to take the job on.

  At this time of year, too, the leaves are thick in the sides of the roads and any rain carries them along to the drains which soon get blocked. Then again, far more things are wrapped in paper these days; but litter baskets stand outside the grocer's shop, the butcher's and the 'Beetle and Wedge' and one would have thought that three would have been ample in a little place like Fairacre. I can't help feeling that this nuisance shows complete callousness towards the look of the place, and also an unpleasant trait in the public's attitude to the welfare state. As Mrs Pringle horrified me by saying, when commenting on the rubbish blowing about near the church: 'We pays to have it done, don't we? In rates and that?' Presumably, that should be enough!

  I have been having an extraordinary anti-litter campaign at school, but with only partial success. Linda Moffat, of ad people, peeled a mint sweet free from its wrappings in the playground, and let each wisp flutter delicately to the ground. When the last had fallen, I pounced upon her, and drove her into picking each minute piece up.

  She obeyed, with a mixture of one-humouring-an-idiot and genuine bewilderment, which made me give yet another blistering lecture to Fairacre School, which the children listened to with great resentment, as it should have been a percussion band period, and they felt themselves most hardly used.

  Mrs Willet commented on this problem too when I went down to her cottage to leave a message for Mr Willet.

  'Not much good ticking off the children,' she remarked, 'when the parents are behaving like that!' She nodded through the window towards Mrs Coggs who was passing. The latest baby was blissfully clawing a newspaper and dropping the pieces over the side, while its mother gazed at it with fond pride.

  Mrs Willet was busy making sloe gin when I called. She sat at her kitchen table, pricking the sloes diligently with a stout darning needle, and dropping them into a bottle half-full of gin.

  'Ready at Christmas!' she said proudly. 'I do a bottle every year, and sometimes wine as well!'

  She opened her larder door and displayed the riches inside. It was as well-stocked with jars and bottles as Miss Clare'
s, and I was struck—not for the first time—with the versatility and energy of the average countrywoman.

  Mrs Willet can tackle a hundred jobs, without having been specifically taught any of them. She can salt pork or beef, make jams, jellies, wines, chutneys and pickles; she can bake pies—with ad manner of pastries—cakes, tarts and her own bread, which is particularly delicious. She makes rugs, curtains, and her own clothes. She can help a neighbour in childbirth and—at the other end of life's span—compose a corpse's limbs for decent burial. She is as good a gardener as her husband, can distemper a room, mend a fuse, and sings in the choir.

  She is, in fact, typical of most countrywomen, and with them she shares that self-reliance which is the heritage of those who have had to face tackling daily jobs of varied kinds.

  Mrs Willet is small and pale and yet she is always on the go,' as she herself will ted you. The fact that she can do so many things, and takes enormous pride in doing them wed, is, I think, the secret of this apparently inexhaustible energy. There are so many different activities to engage her, that when she tires of one, there is another to which she can turn and get refreshment. From turning her heavy old mangle in the wash-house, she will come in and sit down to stitch a new skirt. She will prepare a stew, and while it simmers on the hob, filling the little house with its fragrance, she will practise her part in Mr Annett's new anthem, ready for the next church festival. And—this perhaps is the most important thing—she sees a satisfying result from her labours. The clothes blow on the line, the skirt is folded and put away in the drawer ready for next Sunday; Mr Willet will come in 'sharp-set' and praise her bubbling stew; and, with any luck, Mr Annett will congratulate her on her grasp of that difficult passage just before the basses come in.

  It is a creative life. There is something worth while to show for energy expended which engenders the desire to accomplish more. Small wonder that the Mrs Willets of this world are happy, and deserve to be so.