The wireless set belonging to the Fairchild household was a posh affair, as big as a small cupboard, with a pattern of a sunray on the front and lots of knobs, not at all like the little crackly thing that Maisie’s family had in Leeds. Luke had taken off his jacket and he looked rather odd in his white shirt with a black vest on top and his official clerical collar. He twiddled a few knobs and they all sat down in the comfortable sitting room to hear the Prime Minister’s broadcast. Maisie knew he was called Neville Chamberlain and she had seen pictures of him in the newspapers; an old man, he looked to her, with a kind but worried face and a little bristly moustache.
His voice, as he started to speak, sounded sad and flat. He said something about Berlin – that was the capital of Germany, she knew – and Poland, and words that Maisie did not properly understand. But she knew only too well what he was talking about when he said, ‘…this country is now at war with Germany.’
Even though they had known what was going to happen Patience gave a little gasp and Luke, sitting next to her on the settee, took hold of her hand, stroking it gently.
‘Now may God bless you all,’ said the Prime Minister at the end of his speech, and he used exactly the same words that Luke had used in his sermon only half an hour before. ‘I am certain that the right will prevail.’
Patience wiped a tear from her eye. Then she smiled sadly. ‘Come along now, Maisie. I’ll find you an apron and you can come and help me in the kitchen. I’ve made a nice big trifle for after our dinner, and it would be such a help if you could put the nuts and cherries on the top…’
Sunday School was at half-past two in the hall at the rear of the church. There was a smaller room behind a partition where the Infants met, but the Juniors, the department of which Patience was in charge, met in the main room. First of all they sang a hymn, ‘Loving Shepherd of Thy Sheep’, and Maisie noticed that the lady playing the piano, very loud and boldly, was one of the WVS ladies who had met them at the station the day before. It was the rather bossy one, the one who had seemed to be in charge, but today she was not wearing her red jumper and green hat. She had a hat on, though, with her tweedy costume, a brown one with a sticky-up feather like Robin Hood.
‘Thank you, Mrs Hollins,’ said Patience; then she said a prayer and they all said ‘Amen’ before dividing up into their classes and sitting down in little groups around the room. There were about six or eight in each group and they sat in a circle of chairs with the teacher at the front. Patience had a group of the oldest girls, ten and eleven years olds. The sexes were strictly divided, but Maisie noticed that most of the teachers were women. She was a little disappointed that she wasn’t with Aunty Patience, but she was delighted that Audrey was put into the same group as herself. Their teacher was another of the WVS ladies, who introduced herself as Mrs Spooner.
‘We are very pleased to welcome our visitors from Leeds and from Hull,’ she said, ‘and we hope they will be very happy in Middlebeck, don’t we, girls?’
‘Evacuees,’ whispered one of the local girls to the girl next to her, at the same time pulling her mouth down in a grimace.
Mrs Spooner frowned. ‘They are our friends, Gertrude,’ she rebuked her, ‘and we are all going to make them feel very welcome here.’
The lesson for the afternoon was the parable of the Good Samaritan. The girls took it in turns to read a verse each from the Bibles that Mrs Spooner handed out to them. Maisie was pleased, in view of what that rather rude girl had said, that the evacuees fared very well. Both she and Audrey read their verse without faltering, and so did the other newcomer, a girl of the same age as them from Hull; she was called Ivy Clegg. The three of them exchanged pleased little smiles, but when the girl who had spoken disparagingly about them faltered over her verse they were sensible enough not to giggle or even to let on that they had noticed. But Maisie thought to herself, ‘Serve her bloomin’ well right!’ She had already discovered when Mrs Spooner called out the names on the register that the unpleasant girl was called Gertrude Flint. She was a thin scrawny looking girl with stringy pigtails that stuck out on either side of her head because her hair was really too short to plait.
Mrs Spooner asked them questions about the story, which they all appeared to have heard before, then she explained that Jesus was pleased when people tried to help others, especially those who might not be close friends or neighbours. ‘And we are all going to make a special effort,’ she said again, ‘to be good friends to Maisie, Audrey and Ivy, and all the others who have come to live in our little town.’
She handed out sheets of paper and boards to rest them on and put a box of pencils and coloured crayons on a chair in the middle; the lesson always ended, they were to learn, with the drawing of a picture to illustrate the story. There were drawings of the previous weeks’ stories mounted and pinned up on the walls around the hall. Maisie could make out Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Noah’s Ark, Moses and the Burning Bush, and Moses parting the Red Sea. It was obvious that was what it was because the water round his feet was a brilliant scarlet colour. But now, it seemed, it was the turn of the New Testament.
Mrs Spooner didn’t seem to mind if they talked whilst they were occupied with their art work, so Maisie took the opportunity to ask Audrey if she really was all right with Miss Thomson.
‘I’ve been dead worried about you,’ she said. ‘She looks like an awful old witch to me, like the one in Hansel and Gretel.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Audrey. ‘She’s not as bad as all that. She isn’t going to fatten me up and eat me. Actually, I’ve not seen her all that much. I told you, that nice maid, Daisy, is looking after me. We had our meal with Miss Thomson last night, Daisy and me, because it was a special occasion, Miss Thomson said. It was liver and onions and mashed potatoes, real tasty, like my mother makes it. Daisy had made it…and then afterwards I helped her to wash the pots. Well, she washed and I dried them.
‘And then I told Daisy I had to write that card to my parents, so she helped me with it. Well, she didn’t help all that much because, actually, I don’t think she can spell all that well; she said she wasn’t much of a scholar. But she told me the address and I wrote it down. And then this morning I didn’t see Miss Thomson until she said it was time to go to church. Daisy says old Amelia – that’s what she calls her behind her back – expects her to go to church with her every Sunday, but she has to get the meat in the oven before they set off; Daisy, I mean, not Miss Thomson. So I helped her to clear away again after dinner. We had ours in the kitchen, Daisy and me.’
‘And…what about Miss Thomson?’
‘Oh, she dines in the dining room all on her own. She has all her meals in there and Daisy has hers in the kitchen. I expect she thinks I’d rather be with Daisy; I suppose I would, really… What about you then? D’you like it in your place with that rector and his wife? She’s a pretty lady, isn’t she? And he’s real handsome I think.’
‘He’s nice as well,’ said Maisie. ‘Real friendly. He says I’ve to call him Luke,’ she added proudly. ‘I’m glad you’re OK though, Audrey.’
‘Well, yes…I am,’ her friend answered, a shade doubtfully. ‘I’d rather be with you, like we said we would be…but I’m OK. And we’ll see each other at school, won’t we? Perhaps before that.’
One of the other girls, a local girl, had been half listening to the conversation and she joined in now. ‘You’ll be coming to our school, won’t you? We might be in the same class; I hope so.’ She turned to the other evacuee, the one from Hull. ‘And you an’ all, Ivy. It is Ivy, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I’m called Ivy Clegg,’ said the quietly spoken girl. She had straight carroty-coloured hair held in place with kirby grips.
‘And I’m Doris Nixon. Wouldn’t it be great, eh, if the four of us were in the same class? We don’t know yet who our teacher is going to be. They’ve had to do a lot of sorting out with you lot coming. We might even get one of your teachers instead of one of ours. That’d be a nice change.’ Doris was a plumpish girl with fl
axen hair tied in bunches with red ribbons, rosy cheeks and a little snub nose. Maisie was not surprised when she told them that her father was a farmer. She certainly looked as though she had her share of creamy milk and butter.
Gertrude Flint, at the other side of the circle, was whispering behind her hand to the girl next to her, a spiteful look in her eyes. The other girl nodded and grinned and they both started giggling.
‘That will do, Gertrude,’ said Mrs Spooner. ‘It is very rude to whisper.’
‘Take no notice of her,’ said Doris in a quiet voice. ‘She’s always causing trouble at school, and her friend – that’s Norma Wilkins next to her – she’s nearly as bad.’
‘Collect the papers up, please, Doris,’ said Mrs Spooner. ‘I can see there are some very good illustrations there, in spite of all the chattering!’ She laughed. ‘But I don’t mind that. I’m pleased to see you all making friends.’
‘Some of us…’ murmured Gertrude Flint, but Mrs Spooner pretended she hadn’t heard.
Patience was standing at the front of the hall again as it was time to sing their final hymn.
‘There’s a Friend for little children
Above the bright blue sky,
A Friend who never changes,
Whose love will never die…’
Maisie knew that was Jesus. She had never given him much thought except as a baby at Christmas time, and then there was that terribly sad Easter story. But if He really was up there, above the bright blue sky, looking after everyone, then there could be nothing to be afraid of…could there?
‘You are very welcome here, my dear,’ said Charity Foster to the young woman who was to be one of her fellow teachers, Anne Mellodey. ‘I want you to make yourself at home. We will take our meals together, of course, if that is agreeable to you; but if there are times when you want some privacy, then I will understand. I have become very used to living on my own, but I’m sure we will get along splendidly together.’
‘Yes, so am I, Miss Foster,’ said Anne. ‘Thank you again for offering to accommodate me. This is a lovely cosy room, and I am thrilled with the view from my bedroom window. It’s such a change to see hills and green fields and the blue sky, after the factory chimneys and the smoke of Leeds. Still…’ She could not help giving a little sigh. ‘It’s home, and I know my parents will miss me, just as I will miss them.’
But Anne was feeling already on the second day of her stay in Middlebeck that she would grow to be very fond of Miss Foster. A kindred spirit, she thought, this neat little woman, no more than five foot in height, with her kindly smile and all-seeing brown eyes, and her copious grey hair drawn into a bun at the back, but escaping in curling tendrils around her face. She was relieved that her colleague from Armley, Dorothy Cousins, had been billetted elsewhere; in point of fact with Jean Bolton, one of the local teachers, and her mother and father. Anne found her colleague, Dorothy, more than a trifle bossy and very much inclined to ‘know it all’ from the lofty height of her twelve years’ teaching experience, where as she, Anne, had been a teacher for only four years.
‘Yes, you are sure to miss your family at home,’ said Miss Foster gently, ‘but when the new term starts we will all find ouselves very busy; and there is a good deal of organizing to be done before then, of course. There is nothing like hard work, is there, Miss Mellodey, to take one’s mind away from problems? I am wondering though, dear…if I may call you Anne? Seeing that we are going to be living together…’
‘Of course you may, Miss Foster,’ replied Anne. ‘I would be delighted. Miss Mellodey sounds so formal.’
‘A pretty name, though,’ said Miss Foster, smiling. ‘You should be musical with a name like that. Are you, I wonder?’
Anne laughed. ‘Yes, just a little. Well, I know what I like; nothing too highbrow.’
‘And you must call me Charity,’ said the headmistress.
‘Oh, are you sure…? I wouldn’t have presumed…’
‘No, I know you wouldn’t, my dear. That is why I am suggesting it. I do like to hear my baptismal name now and again, but hardly anyone ever calls me by it any more. Over the years I’ve become Miss Foster, the schoolmistress. Of course, that is only right and proper in school. I wouldn’t dream of allowing my two young teachers to call me by my Christian name, and I only use theirs on rare occasions, when we are away from our work. But it is rather different with you… Now, are you going to tell me something about yourself, Anne dear? Might there be…someone else at home in Leeds, as well as your mother and father?’ Her brown eyes were alive with interest, and Anne guessed that Charity Foster, as well as being a very perspicacious lady, might also be the tiniest bit nosey. Still, Anne supposed, as the village schoolmistress, she was sure to know pretty well everything that was going on around her.
‘Yes, I have a fiancé,’ replied Anne, smiling a little coyly. ‘Actually, Bill and I only got engaged a couple of weeks ago.’ She looked down at her left hand, twiddling with the crossover ring of three small diamonds that Bill had placed there so lovingly. Maybe Miss Foster had already noticed it? ‘We have been friendly for more than two years, and we both knew that…well, that we would get married sometime, in the not too distant future. But then…the war was imminent and Bill couldn’t wait to join the RAF. He was a cadet in his last year at school and he’s been a member of the ATC ever since. He wants to be a pilot and I’m quite sure he will be accepted for training, with his background, and he is so keen. So…we decided to get engaged.’
‘And was he a teacher, like you, dear?’
‘Oh no; Bill went to university, whereas I just went to training college for two years. He is a chartered accountant – was, I should say – in partnership with an older man. But he will be able to go back to it when…when this lot is all over. Bill is twenty-four, the same age as me.’
The poor young things, thought Charity, thinking back to the years of the Great War, as it had been called, 1914 to 1918, and the loss she had suffered because of it.
‘He was born and bred in Leeds, same as me,’ Anne continued. ‘In Headingley, though; a rather more salubrious area than where I lived. I’m from Armley, on the other side of the city. I managed to get a teaching post at a local school when I left college, so I’ve always lived at home, apart from my college days in Bingley. Bill and I met through mutual friends. We hit it off straight away…’
She stared into the fire that Charity had lit in the morning and then built up after they had had their tea. Now the flames flickered in the hearth, radiating a comforting warmth and a glow that lit up the chintz covered settee and armchairs, the oak-beamed ceiling, and the shelves on either side of the fireplace, crammed to overflowing with Charity’s books, ornaments and vases of autumn flowers. Much of the room was in semi-darkness, the only other source of light being a red-shaded standard lamp which stood at the back of the room. But Anne found the firelight and the dim lamplight to be friendly and restful.
‘He’s stationed somewhere in East Anglia now,’ she continued. ‘We’re not sure when we will be able to see one another…’ She turned her eyes towards her hostess, before her thoughts became too dismal. ‘Anyhow, that’s enough about me. What about you, Miss Foster…er…Charity? I mean, how long have you lived here?’
‘Oh, it seems like for ever.’ The older woman smiled reminiscently. ‘I’m sure some of the people in the village – I should say town – regard me as quite as institution here. Actually, it is getting on for twenty years. Just after the war, it was, when I came here. I am almost sixty years old now. I should be thinking about retiring in a few years’ time, but I’m still very fit and active. And now…well, of course I can’t even think about giving up. We all have a very important job to do.’
‘So you have been teaching – how long? – about forty years?’
‘Yes, that’s right, Anne. Forty years, ever since I was twenty years of age. Teachers were not allowed to get married in my day, you know. Well, that is not strictly true; you could get married, o
f course, if you wished; but what I mean is that, if you did so, then you were obliged to give up your post. So that is why…’ Charity, also, now stared thoughtfully into the fire.
‘I had a fiancé,’ she continued quietly after a moment or two. ‘We were quite a lot older than you, my dear, Jack and I, but there didn’t seem to be any particular hurry for us to get married. I had elderly parents, and my teaching career, and the money I was earning was a great help to the family budget. Jack and I, we intended to get married at the end of the war. We loved one another very much. I know it might not seem so, waiting for so long, but we did…but…he didn’t come back.’
‘Oh; I’m so sorry,’ breathed Anne.
‘There were so many thousands who didn’t come back. I was only one of many who had lost a loved one; and I was nearly forty years old. Well and truly on the shelf.’ She gave a wry little chuckle. ‘Too old to find anyone else; besides, so many of the younger men had gone. Not that anyone would have compared with Jack… Then my parents both died, within a few months of one another, and I had the chance of this post, high up in the Dales. It seemed like the other side of the world to me – I had lived in Sheffield all my life – but I came for an interview, and I had the feeling at once that I could be happy here. When they offered me the post I was delighted. And I have been happy, very contented indeed. I think of myself as a real country lass now. It’s a grand place to bring children up, with the fields and woods all around and the clean fresh air. There is a certain amount of industry, down in the valley, but nothing to compare with the big towns.
‘I hope your stay here will be as happy as mine has been – not as long, of course – and… circumstances permitting. I know, for all of us, that the future is very uncertain.’
‘And what about the schooling arrangements?’ asked Anne. ‘We won’t all fit into the school building, will we?’
‘No, but we have the promise of other quarters; the church hall and the Village Institute. We should be able to accommodate six classes without any difficulty… We are meeting in the morning, as I told you; myself and my two teachers, you and your colleague, and the teacher from Hull. Then we can decide who is going where and about the dividing up of the various groups of children. I feel it would be better to integrate rather than to segregate the boys and girls. It will make for greater harmony and understanding and that is what we all want to achieve.’
Above the Bright Blue Sky Page 13