(18/20) Changes at Fairacre

by Miss Read

  The vicar began to look more agitated than ever, and dropped his custard cream biscuit on the floor. He bent to retrieve it with a shaking hand, but Honey kindly cleared it away for him.

  'No, no! Of course there is absolutely no urgency. You can stay here as long as you wish. It was simply that happening to meet dear Rochester he asked if I knew your plans. You know I should give you every support if you decided to stay on here and, say, let your Beech Green property until you wanted it for yourself.'

  'I know I should never be homeless,' I told him. 'You've reassured me about that on several occasions, and I'm eternally grateful. But I really do want to live in Dolly's cottage. It was what she wanted too, and I think I can safely say that I hope to move sometime before the winter - possibly before the beginning of term, if the alterations are done by then.'

  Mr Partridge rose, looking mightily relieved, and - much to my surprise - gave me a vicarish kiss on the cheek.

  'And now Honey and I must be on our way,' he said, making for the door. 'Thank you for that excellent coffee, and for being so understanding. I really have been so worried about broaching the subject.'

  'Well, there's no need to worry any more,' I told him, making my way with him to the useful gap in the hedge. 'I'm glad we've spoken about it.'

  'I shall sleep more easily tonight,' said he soberly.

  'And so shall I,' I assured him.

  PART TWO

  BEECH GREEN

  11 A Family Survivor

  THE last day of term, and of the school year, was its usual muddle of clearing up and general euphoria.

  Only one child was leaving to go to Beech Green school under George Annett's care. He had a sister there already and was happy about his future. To my delight there would be one new admission to the infants' class in the next term, so our numbers would remain unchanged. Mr Roberts's new farm worker had a son of five years old. He would be warmly welcomed by all those at Fairacre School.

  As usual, the vicar called to wish everyone a happy holiday, exhorting them to help their mothers and fathers and to remember the date on which the new term began.

  He turned anxiously to me. 'Could you remind me again?'

  'September the fifth.'

  'Ah yes! Of course!'

  He picked up the chalk and wrote the date on the blackboard, looking triumphant as he dusted his hands afterwards.

  'Just read it out,' he urged the children.

  They chanted it obediently. Was there a touch of indulging-an-old-man, I wondered? But there were no smiles, and they stood politely, without my prompting, as Gerald Partridge departed.

  I was particularly glad to start the summer holidays. Wayne Richards, husband of my assistant teacher and owner of a local building firm, had asked 'if I minded' his men making an early start in Dolly's house.

  So dumbfounded was I by this unusual request that I simply gazed at him speechless.

  'You see,' he explained, 'what with things being so bad in the trade, I'd be glad to see the two chaps I had in mind for your little problem, getting some work. I don't want to stand anyone off, though I reckon it'll come to it before long.'

  'Is it really as bad as that?' I managed to say, when I had got over the initial shock of a real live builder wanting to come earlier than arranged.

  'Things are tight. Even the big firms are feeling the pinch. People can't afford to move. Can't afford to have repairs done, for that matter.' He looked at me speculatively.

  'You won't have to wait for your money on my little job,' I promised him. 'I've put aside the amount in your estimate.'

  He hastened to assure me that he had never had any doubts on that score, but I thought that he looked relieved, as well he might if more prosperous firms than his were already suffering.

  'The company that built these new places in Fairacre is going bust, so I heard last night. Nobody's buying, see, with mortgage rates as they are. They'll have to bring the price down to get rid of those two that are left.'

  'They have already reduced the price,' I said. 'So the Winters told me.'

  'I bet they're cursing they bought when they did,' he replied. There was a touch of contentment in his expression. How often other people's misfortune gives gratification, I thought!

  'Well, do start as soon as you like,' I told him. 'I shall be glad to move in during these holidays.'

  Heaven alone knows, I thought after his departure, it will take weeks to sort out my present abode, even the goods and chattels in the rooms themselves. What the cupboards, the loft, the garage and the glory-hole under the stairs would bring forth, I shuddered to think.

  Time, and back-breaking work, would tell.

  A day or two after this, Amy called in unexpectedly, accompanied, to my surprise, by Brian Horner.

  After our greetings, we sat in the garden and I told Amy about my move, possibly in a few weeks' time.

  'Splendid!' said Amy. 'Once you've made up your mind it's best to get cracking. No point in drifting along as you so often do.'

  'Oh, come!' I protested. 'I'm not quite as bad as that. I'm always telling myself that "procrastination is the thief of time". What a marvellous phrase, incidentally.'

  'Not quite as reverberating as that one in our Handbook for Teachers,' Amy reminisced. 'Something about teachers in dreary city schools "directing the children's attention to the ever changing panorama of the heavens".'

  'I can go one better than that,' I told her, still smarting from her remarks about drifting. 'In some scriptural commentary or other, I read once that "Job had often to suffer the opprobrium of anti-patriotism." What about that?'

  'I think I can top both those reverberating phrases,' broke in Brian. 'It was said by Dr Thompson, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1866 to 1886, about Richard Jebb: "The time that Mr Jebb can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties." How's that?'

  'Perfect,' we agreed. Brian's final two words emboldened me to ask if he was called 'Basher' because of his cricketing ability.

  'Only partly. My full name, I'm sorry to say, is Brian Arthur Seymour Horner, and naturally boys soon called me 'Basher'. What a lot parents have to answer for when they name their children.'

  'Excuse me,' I said. 'I must look at my oven. I'm cooking a chicken.'

  Amy followed me into the house while Brian meandered about the garden admiring, I hoped, my flower borders.

  'I thought he was safely in Bristol,' I said to Amy, in the privacy of the kitchen.

  'So did I,' she responded, 'but he has to go to headquarters with James tomorrow, and so he's spending this weekend with us. I'm quite sorry for him. He misses his wife and home so much. He fairly jumped at the chance of coming to see you.'

  'Well, I'm not particularly sorry for him,' I said, slamming the oven door, 'and I've got quite enough to think about without taking on an estranged husband.'

  'You're a hard woman,' said Amy, giving me a loving pat, and we returned to the garden.

  I was pottering about that evening wondering if Amy would ever be free of Brian Horner. Would James's hero worship survive all the strain that was being put upon it? To my mind, Brian was a mediocre little man, full of self-pity, and I should like to have heard his wife's side of the tale. Still, I told myself more charitably, both James and Amy came very well out of the present situation: generous, and good-hearted. I only hoped that their faith in their friend would remain unclouded.

  The telephone bell aroused me from my conjectures, and I was surprised to hear a strange woman's voice announcing herself as 'Dolly Clare's niece, Mary.'

  'Well,' I said, 'I am delighted to hear from you. Where are you?'

  'In Caxley for a few days. My husband - my second husband, that is - is over from the States on business, so I came with him to visit some old friends here. They told me about Aunt Dolly.'

  'Would you like to come and see the cottage?'

  'Indeed I should.'

  I went on to tell her about Dolly Clare's legacy to me,
but naturally she knew about that from her Caxley friends. I arranged to pick her up two days ahead, and to take her to Beech Green.

  'I didn't see as much of Aunt Dolly as I should have liked,' she told me. 'She and mother became somewhat estranged in later life. To be truthful, I think my mother was jealous of Dolly's friend, Emily Davis.'

  'What a pity!'

  'It certainly was. Anyway, I should like to see the little house again, and perhaps you could spare something of hers as a little keepsake?'

  'Of course, I'm sure we can find something,' I told her, and we went on to arrange the time of our meeting.

  Later, I began to wonder what could be offered to Dolly's niece. As she had stated in her will, all her trinkets, as she called them, were to go to Isobel Annett who had been such a staunch friend, and this request had been met.

  There were several nice pieces of china, and some silver spoons; also a pretty little clock which had graced Dolly's bedroom mantelpiece. Perhaps Mary would prefer some of her aunt's linen, embellished with hand-made crochetwork? In any case, I thought, I was glad to be able to offer a selection of mementoes. She seemed to be the only living tie with Dolly.

  I had given several things to people who had been close to my old friend, such as Mrs John, Alice and Bob Willet and various neighbours who had looked after her during her long life. I only hoped that there would be something suitable for Mary to take back.

  I suddenly remembered an occasion many years ago when I met an elderly Austrian man and admired a magnificent set of eight mahogany dining-room chairs in his home. His eyes had filled with tears as he said: 'Ah, my dear friend Wilhelm! When he died his good wife asked me to choose a little keepsake. So I chose these chairs.' I had often wondered what that poor widow thought.

  I only hoped that Mary would not take a fancy to the cottage staircase or Dolly's kitchen dresser. It was some comfort to remember that she had to transport her choice to the United States eventually, and weight would have to be considered.

  Mary Linkenhorn turned out to be a middle-aged, cheerful woman with absolutely nothing in her appearance to connect her with Dolly Clare.

  She was beautifully dressed with many fine rings and a three-row string of pearls. Her expensive crocodile shoes had high heels and matched an enormous handbag. I felt that she was perhaps a little too exquisitely turned out for a morning visit to a cottage where possibly Wayne Richards's employees were messing about with plaster and emulsion paint. However, I liked her at once. She was friendly and unaffected, and obviously delighted to be going to see Dolly's house. She chattered about her early memories of the place, and of her affection for her Aunt Dolly.

  'My mother, I'm sorry to say, rather looked down on her, you know. She was a bit of a social climber, my mother, I mean, and she felt that she couldn't invite Dolly to meet some of her affluent Caxley friends.'

  'Dolly Clare,' I said, 'would have been welcomed in any society.'

  'I agree, but mother didn't think so. To tell the truth, my brother and I fell out with her when we were old enough to leave home. We visited her, of course, and always kept in touch by letters when we left England, but there wasn't much love lost. She was a headstrong woman, and we were better apart.'

  'What happened to your brother?'

  'He went sheep farming in New Zealand, and did very well, but he contracted cancer some three years ago, and died last Christmas.'

  We drew in to the side of the lane outside Dolly's cottage, and I switched off the engine.

  Mary sat, silently gazing at the little thatched house. I was rather relieved to see that no builders were at work this morning. We should have the house to ourselves.

  It was very quiet in the lane, and we were both content to sit there in silence. A lark was singing overhead, high above the great whale-back of the downs behind the village. A young pheasant crossed the road a few yards from the car, stepping haughtily from one grass verge to the other, and ignoring a small animal, shrew or vole, which streaked across the road within yards of the bird. There was a fragrance in the air compounded of cut grass, wild flowers and, above all, the pungent scent of a nearby elder bush heavy with creamy flowers.

  Mary broke the silence first.

  'It's so small,' she said.

  'Actually,' I told her, 'it has been enlarged since your time. Dolly had the sitting-room made wider, and the kitchen too. But I agree, it is a little house. I think that's why I like it so much.'

  We climbed out of the car, and I unlocked the front door. The familiar smell greeted me of ancient wood, slight dampness, and the faint smell of dried lavender which Dolly had never failed to keep in china bowls in each room.

  The furniture remained much as Dolly had left it. Some if it would have to go later to the Caxley auctioneers; I had removed anything portable of value to my school house for safety. Beech Green may look idyllic to the passing stranger, but it has its share of villains, as well as a few marauders from elsewhere who take advantage of the nearby motorway to steal anything which will bring them a few pounds, and then make a hasty getaway. It was this hoard which I proposed to display to Mary when we returned to my house for lunch, so that she could choose her keepsake; and this I told her.

  Her face was transfixed with pleasure and wonder as she stood inside the sitting-room: 'It still smells the same. Isn't it strange how strongly smells evoke memories? Far more so than sight.'

  She crossed to the window and looked across the little garden, now in sore need of attention I noticed guiltily, to the sweep of the downs beyond.

  'And the view's exactly the same. What a relief!'

  She sat down Suddenly, as though everything was too much for her.

  'You know,' she said after a while, 'my friends in Caxley dissuaded me from going to visit a place near the town where we used to picnic as children. There seemed to be every wild flower imaginable there - cowslips, scabious, bee orchids and early purple orchids, and lots of that yellow ladies' slipper. They told me it has all gone. A new estate has been built there, and all the trees cut down "Cherish your memories," they said to me, and I'm sure they are right.'

  She looked about the room.

  'But this has changed so little, and I'm glad you've brought me. Can we see the rest?'

  We wandered into the kitchen, and Mary ran her fingers over the old scrubbed kitchen table, ridged with years of service. She peered excitedly into the larder with its slate shelves, and the massive pottery bread crock on the brick floor.

  'It's all as I remember it,' she said delightedly. 'Will you keep things as they are?'

  'I shall do my best,' I assured her, as we mounted the stairs.

  It was plain that work was in progress here, though not at the moment. Dust sheets draped the beds and the rest of the furniture which had been put into the middle of the rooms. Paint pots and brushes stood on newspaper on the window sills, and there was a smell of fresh paint.

  Mary gazed out of the window. It did me good to see how much she relished her visit here after so many years, and I was glad that so little had changed for her. It was right, as her friends had said, 'to cherish her memories'. But how much better to find that some of those memories, at least, were still reality.

  She was very quiet as we drove back from Beech Green to Fairacre and, I guessed, much moved by all she had seen. I was careful not to break the silence until we had stopped the car outside my home, when Mary seemed to return to this world with a cry of delight.

  'But this is a lovely house!' She turned to me, looking perplexed. 'It is so much better than Aunt Dolly's! Can you bear to move away?'

  I laughed, and led her into the house.

  As we sipped our glasses of sherry, I explained that the school house was virtually a tied cottage, something that went with the job, and when I retired I should have had to have found another abode. That was why Dolly's wonderful legacy to me had been so deeply appreciated. Her house would be my haven in the future.

  'But won't you mind what happens to this pl
ace when you go?'

  'Of course, I shall. I've always loved it, and I think the school authorities would let me buy it if the school were closed down. But that's out of the question. The property will be sold, I've no doubt, and if the school closes, then that will be sold too. It could make a splendid house with care and money spent on it.'

  'I hope that never happens,' said my guest.

  'So do I,' I assured her, 'but things don't look very promising at the moment. Now, come and have some lunch.'

  Afterwards, I broached the subject of a memento and told her about Dolly's valuables which I had stored upstairs.

  We went up to inspect them, and I spread out Dolly's things on the bed for Mary's inspection. She fingered the beautiful old linen, and picked up the pieces of ancient china with great care.

  'It's all so lovely, and so difficult to choose. I love this little china cream jug, but I think I'll settle for one of Dolly's tablecloths, if that suits you?'

  'Take both,' I said. 'I know Dolly would love to have seen them in family hands.'

  She made her selection from the pile of linen. The chosen cloth had a deep edging of hand-made crochet, done years ago, I felt sure, by Dolly's mother Mary, after whom the present Mary had been named.

  'I shall use it on very special days, like Christmas,' Mary said.

  Later I drove my new friend to Caxley. Only three days remained before she and her husband returned to America, and I was much touched when she invited me to go and stay with them, and have a holiday there.

  'Perhaps next summer?' she pressed, as I stopped outside at her friends' home.

  'There's nothing I should like more,' I told her, 'but I shall have to think about it.'

  We parted with a kiss, and I drove back thinking how good it had been to have contact with this last link with Dolly's family.

  Should I ever go to the United States, I wondered? A lot would depend on the future of Fairacre School. Would it still be there? For that matter, would I still be there?