Phoenix and Ashes em-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  "It seems like an awful lot of work for you, Mater," he said doubtfully.

  She laughed—really laughed. "Don't you remember? You did most of the planning work, when the date was first changed last year. It was all in your letters. Everything was a great success, especially the prizes."

  Good gad—I do remember—telling her that the vicar could give out Bibles and prayer books all he liked, but that we ought to be giving things the kiddies would enjoy reading. Picture books for the littlest. Good ripping yarns for the boys—

  "You told me to patronize the local shops, so I did. Really, all I had to do was to consult with Pearl Shapland at the bookstore about what was popular—she's been a great help. She's picked out truly delightful books this year—and for the older girls, lovely writing paper and pen sets instead of books. Well, I did make one little change." She blushed. "When I found out that Lisa Satterfield, the head girl, had won the first prize for essay, I thought, a pretty girl like that, and no money to spare in her family—well, I went to Annie Hagan the milliner, and I got her a hat. I thought she would like it so much better than writing paper."

  "I think you're entirely right, Mater," he said, hiding his amusement. School prizes were supposed to reward scholarship—trust his mother to think of giving a hat instead! Then again, he'd seen perfectly sensible girls go all foolish with inchoate longing over a milliner's window display. "That was a capital idea, and terribly kind of you."

  It really did seem as if he had been very clever in his suggestions— it was just too bad he didn't remember them very clearly. Those letters seemed to have been written a century ago, by someone he couldn't even recognize. Swings hung from the trees in the park—a treasure-hunt among the paths for tokens to be exchanged for little bags of nuts and other small prizes—crackers at tea to ensure that every child went home with at least some trinket—it amazed him. How had he thought about such things in the middle of death and gunfire?

  "So you see, I really had very little to do—other than this year, finding ways of getting the sugar for the cakes and ice creams," she concluded. "The rest of it, I just left orders for."

  "I don't believe you for a minute, and you are an angel, Mater," he said warmly.

  She smiled at him, then sighed. "It's so little, really, when there isn't a family in the village that hasn't got someone at the front—or has lost someone," she said, pensively. "If I can just help those poor little ones to forget that for part of one day—"

  He went up to bed now feeling guilty that he had put his own pleasure ahead of those poor kiddies. As if they had anything much to look forward to anymore. They weren't the only ones who were trying to forget, for just one day, what was going on outside the walls and fences of Longacre Park.

  Knowing he would have to look presentable for the children, he took the precaution of using a strong sleeping draught to insure he got a decent night of slumber. He'd avoided them in hospital—preferring to doze during the day when they were less inclined to try and attack him—and since coming home, he'd generally found his drinks at the Broom to be soporific enough. But we don't want to frighten the little ones, he told himself, as he felt the narcotic take hold. You don't want to look the way you feel.

  He still felt a bit groggy when his valet woke him, but a couple of cups of good, strong "gunpowder" tea chased most of the mist from his brain. He thought about wearing his uniform to make the presentations, then decided against it. The children saw too many uniforms as it was; he didn't want to remind them of fathers and brothers who were gone, fighting, missing, or dead.

  By the time he finished breakfast, his valet Turner came to tell him that the old pony had been harnessed to the cart, and it and the auto were waiting on the driveway.

  "What else is done?" he asked.

  "The gardener and her helpers have finished seeding the garden with the buttons that will serve as prize-tokens, sir," Turner said, "And the tent has been set up for the refreshments. Her ladyship is already out there, overseeing everything."

  He might have known; he finished breakfast and strolled out to be, as he expected, "made useful."

  Within the hour, the vicar, his wife, and the entire contingents of the Ladies' Friendly Society and the Women's Institute had made the pilgrimage up the drive with farm carts full of tents and stalls and the bric-a-brac to fill them. And by ten, the fair was set up and waiting for the children. There were already adults moving among the stalls in summer frocks or tea-gowns and tennis-dresses, and cricket-flannels or summer suits suitable for a day at Brighton Pier, or at the very least, their Sunday best.

  It all looked so normal until you noticed that frocks outnumbered suits by a factor of four or five to one. It was at that point that Reggie elected to go and stand by his auto and wait for the children to arrive.

  Fortunately, they did turn up very shortly after that—being hauled up from the village in two old hay-wains pulled by four ancient workhorses that were spared being sent to pull guns because they couldn't have gotten out of a plodding walk if their lives had depended on it.

  Having had the experience of last year, Lady Devlin had very sensibly decided that the first thing to do was to allow the children to run off as much of the energy of excitement as possible. To that end, it was the button-hunt that took place first; well away from the flower-beds, with the buttons seeded all over the artificial "wilderness" and the follies that some Georgian Fenyx had erected. He thought to improve the landscape by dotting it with completely manufactured ruins. With happy disregard for the state of their best clothing, the younger children swarmed the wilderness while the older ones sauntered along, pretending that they were too sophisticated for such a childish pastime, but just as excited as the little ones when they found a button. It took a good hour before the last button was found and handed in for a prize; by then, the smaller ones were lining up for rides in the pony-cart while the older boys were doing the same for a ride in Reggie's motor. The swings in the trees were all fully occupied, the maze had its own set of explorers, and the games at the booths were doing a surprisingly brisk business.

  At one, there was a break for luncheon in the refreshment tent, a break that Reggie was pleased to see. He had forgotten, when he had volunteered to take children for rides up and down the long driveway, that this would mean hours of driving. His leg was telling him that it would be some time before it forgave him.

  After luncheon, to his relief, came the official proceedings of the day, beginning with the Maypole dance. Reggie's gramophone was pulled into service, with Jimmy Grimsley, the head boy, dragooned into service to keep it cranked up. It had to be the first time in the history of Broom that Maypole dances were held to the tune of melodies by Bach instead of the pennywhistle and fiddle. The adults dutifully gathered around to watch, first the little ones blunder through an attempt at a simple in-and-out weave, then progressively more complicated weaves as the teams of dancers increased in age— the girls with enthusiasm, the boys with reluctance. The eldest—all girls, since not even the headmaster could convince teenaged boys to dance around a Maypole—did a quite credible job, leaving the pole with its crown of flowers covered in a tightly woven, patterned set of ribbons. Then it was time for everyone to assemble for the academic prizes.

  A low platform had been erected for the purpose, and the audience sat on blankets and tablecloths usually used for picnics. Reggie and the teachers all stood on the platform, while the children waited, squirming, on the blankets in the very front "rows."

  First, Miss Kathleen Davis, the teacher for the youngest children (who were not segregated by sex at their age), announced the winners of Best Penmanship, Most Books Read, Best Speller, and Best Recitation. The children solemnly and shyly, and with maternal encouragement, paraded up to the platform, and Reggie gave them their picture-books, wrapped in beautiful paper and ribbons, with just as much solemnity as if he had been distributing medals.

  They all sat through a repetition of the prize-winning recitation— predictabl
y, "How Doth the Little Busy Bee"—which at least the child in question managed to get through without needing to be prompted, without mumbling, or without bursting into tears, all of which Reggie could recall happening on previous prize days.

  Then it was Miss Judith Lasker's turn to announce the prizewinners for the older girls. Best Penmanship, Best Recitation, Spelling Prize, Literature Prize, and Best Essay on the subject of [Reggie tried not to groan] "My Country." The winner of the Best Essay looked very surprised when Reggie presented her with a hatbox instead of a stationery set or a book, and when she and her friends gathered around to discover what could be in the intriguing box, the winner was so delighted to discover that it really was a hat she almost forgot to return to the platform to read her winning essay aloud.

  Next time it'll be two hats, Reggie thought, ungraciously. That ought to keep them busy enough they'll completely forget to read the blasted thing.

  The Literature Prize winner, Maria Holmes, did not get a stationery set; that seemed wrong to Reggie, who had instead culled several unread volumes from his own stores—things given to him in the hospital that he had not had the heart to read. Poems of a V.A.D. seemed appropriate enough, and the complete Kipling verse as well as Kim and The Light That Failed, and a book of Shaw's plays. They weren't the sort of thing that a girl would ordinarily be given, but he had the feeling that a "bookish" girl was more than ready for something stronger.

  The Best Recitation was from a girl improbably called Marina Landman, and was, to Reggie's complete shock, "The Last Meeting," written only the year before by Siegfried Sassoon. She recited it beautifully, clearly—he had to wonder if she really understood what the words she was speaking from memory actually meant—

  Or to her was it all Romeo-and-Juliet, doomed, romantic young love? Certainly the poem was written that way. Where had she found it? Dear God, if she had seen any of his other poems, she surely would have tossed the book away, weeping. Sassoon might have begun writing his poetry about the nobility of sacrifice in war, and the glory of a grand death, but he was not writing of that now. . . .

  Well, it might make him uncomfortable, but evidently no one else was bothered. Or else they had no idea who had written this piece; well, truly there was nothing in it to mark it as the work of a man in the trenches.

  Probably someone saw it in The Strand or some other magazine or newspaper, and thought it appropriate for a young girl to recite, he decided. She can't possibly have seen any of Sassoon's other poetry.

  He presented her with her prize of stationery and a silver pen-set. She seemed pleased. "I want to be a teacher," she told him, when he'd asked her the usual question of what she wanted to do. "Like Miss Lasker."

  Miss Lasker colored up and looked pleased. "I'm sure you'll be a fine teacher," Reggie told her, and signaled the headmaster with his eyes that it was time for the boys to receive their prizes. One more lot, and then I can sit down. . . .

  Michael Stone stepped forward and announced the winners. Mathematics Prize, History Prize, Geography Prize—why weren't the girls given challenges like that?—Latin Prize, Best Recitation, and Best Essay on the subject of Patriotism.

  The recitation, unmercifully, was "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Reggie tried not to listen. It called up too many memories of similar idiotic charges he had seen from the relative safety of his aeroplane—yet another suicidal dash "over the top" straight into the machine guns. He kept his face fixed in what—he hoped—was a vaguely pleasant expression and wondered what idiot had encouraged the boy to memorize this particular piece at this particular time.

  He expected much the same out of the Grimsley boy's essay— But got a shock. It read like the poetry of Wilfrid Owens, or at least, a very, very young Wilfred Owens, one who hadn't yet seen the slaughtering grounds with his own eyes, but knew very well they were there, and knew that their leaders were idiots, and while questioning the sanity of it all, did not question that doing one's duty was the right and proper thing to do.

  Oh, it wasn't laid out so skillfully as all that, and there was still more than a veneer of the youthful idealism that sent those first boys to their deaths in 1914, thinking it was a glorious thing to fall in battle. But still, the bones of intelligent questioning were there—and it astonished him.

  So much so that the headmaster caught sight of his startled expression and leaned over to whisper, "Jimmy is the only boy left in his family. Father, both brothers, three uncles and all his male cousins. He'd like to go to university in two years, but—" Stone shrugged. "Whether he can get a place, I don't know."

  "You just get him ready for the entrance examinations," Reggie said, fiercely. "I'll see that he gets there." He hadn't even known that he was going to say such a thing until after the words were out of his mouth, but he was glad that he had done so a moment later as he caught the look of astonishment, followed by gratitude, on Michael Stone's face.

  He nodded to confirm the pledge, then returned his attention to the boy feeling a kind of proprietary determination. Too many of the bright intellectual lights of his generation had been put out already. He would, by heaven, save this one, at least.

  After the prizes came the highlight of the day—what one little fellow joyfully called "A proper tea at last!" with jam buns, currant scones, and iced biscuits, ice creams, honey and more jam for the proper sandwiches, all the sweet things that children craved. And if they could not, as they had in days gone by, eat sweet things until they were sick, well perhaps that wasn't so bad a thing. There was just enough of the rationed sugar to make sure every child got enough to feel properly rewarded—to fill them up, they had to make do with slightly more wholesome fare. The adults did have to make do with what they could purchase at the church fair stalls; this was, after all, the school treat. Every child also got one of the finest crackers obtainable, with little prizes inside like pennywhistles, so that they all went home with at least a bag of nuts from the button hunt and a cracker prize in their pockets, along with the memory of a day stuffed full of fun without the shadow of war on it. After tea, the wagons arrived to carry them back down to the village again; the adults lingered until the church fair officially closed.

  Reggie kept himself mostly out of the way. By this time, his leg was a torment, but the last thing he wanted was for anyone to notice.

  Between the Longacre staff and the men from the village who came up to help with the dismantling, the tents came down and were stowed in the hay-wains. The stalls and booths did not come down quite as quickly as they had gone up, but by sunset, the only vestiges of the May Day festivities were the trampled grass, a few bare places where little girls had been unable to resist picking flowers in the gardens, and the swings still hanging in the trees.

  Reggie got up onto the terrace without drawing any attention to himself, and paused there ostensibly to admire the setting sun, but in reality to give his knee a rest. Lady Devlin came up from the gardens when he had been standing there for a few moments to stand beside him. She surveyed the empty lawn and sighed happily. "Well, we'll be scraping our jam a bit thin for the next several weeks, and the gardens will look a little motheaten for a week or two, but it was worth it," she said with content. "Did you see their little faces?"

  "And their not-so-little faces," Reggie told her, putting his arm around her shoulders to give her a squeeze. "Well done, Mater; you put on a ripping treat for them. Oh, that Grimsley boy—"

  "If you're going to say we're finding him a place at Oxford, good," she interrupted. "That was an amazingly mature essay. Your father always meant to have a fund for the village, and never got around to taking care of it." She stopped for a moment, closed her eyes, then went on, bravely, "Since he never got the chance, we should do it for him. We'll make that boy the first to have it, shall we?"

  He blinked at her, then grinned. "Mater, you are trumps!" he exclaimed warmly. "I'll get it set up with Mrs. MacGregor and Andrew Dennis tomorrow. I'll have Andrew set up a trust, and Lee can tell me what we should use t
o fund it with."

  "That would be the wisest, I think." She nodded decisively. "You know, I'm glad you invited the Brigadier. You were right; we need more people about. I will invite your aunt—perhaps Lady Virginia too. We'll have some small summer weekends—"

  So long as you don't plan to have 'em with the sole intention of trotting potential brides in front of me, he thought, though in truth, he knew that any such hope was probably in vain. What he said aloud was, "It'll be good to have people around. But at the moment—if you'll forgive me, dearest, I am going to go to my room, put my leg up, and have someone bring me a tray with the sad remains of the feasting. My leg is not at all pleased with me."

  Truth to be told, his leg was telling him that if he didn't get weight off it soon, he might not like what it was going to do. He'd been able to ignore the pain for most of the day, but it was coming on with a vengeance now.

  "You do look pale, dear," she said, casting a worried glance at him. "And do you know, that sounds like a capital idea to me, too. A hot bath, a book, and whatever the cook can throw together on a tray. The staff have worked their hearts out for this, too." She smiled. "However, I am very glad it is only once a year! Now I'll go and let the housekeeper know we'll be making an early evening of it. I'm sure the staff will be pleased."