by Miss Read
Amy came to lunch before we both drove over to her late aunt's house, some miles beyond Springbourne, to sort out the old lady's things.
Still worried about the Coggs' family, I poured out an account of my visit. Amy remained unperturbed.
I can't think why you worry yourself so much about other people's affairs,' she said. 'I imagine Mrs Coggs muddles along quite satisfactorily. After all, she's still alive and kicking, and the children too, despite her appalling housekeeping.'
'But it's all so unnecessary,' I began.
'It's purely relative,' said Amy, accepting a second helping of gooseberry pie. 'I mean, look at the way I could worry myself stiff about you—but what good would it do?'
'How d'you mean?' I said, bridling.
'Well, the slapdash way you go about things. This pastry for instance. I imagine it's frozen, or something like that?'
'Of course it is. I make ghastly pastry, and the kitchen floor wants a good scrub after I've done it. Why, does it taste horrible? You've had two helpings, so it can't be too bad.'
'I was always brought up,' said Amy, touching her lips delicately with her napkin, 'in the belief that it was excessively rude to comment on the amount eaten by one's guests.'
'Oh, come off it,' I said. 'What I want to know is why you compare me with Mrs Coggs?'
'Simply this. You worry about Mrs Coggs because she is so inefficient. I could worry about you because you, in your way, are just as feckless. Fancy spending all that money on frozen pastry when it would cost you about half to make your own!'
'Don't nag,' I said. 'All right. I take your point, and I'll try not to get too worked up about the bread and sauce menu at the Coggs'. But I shall see Joe gets a decent meal on the days he comes here.'
We washed up amicably, drank a cup of coffee (instant) apiece and drove over the hill towards Aunt Rose's establishment.
There had been a thunderstorm in the night, and the air was fresh and moist. The road ran between thick woods which gave off a delicious scent of wet leaves and moss. A slight mist hung over the little tributary of the Cax at Springbourne, and a flotilla of ducks splashed happily by the hump-back bridge.
A magpie flew chattering across the road, just in front of the car.
'One for sorrow' quoted Amy. 'Did you spit?'
'Spit?'
'How ignorant you are! You should always spit if you see a magpie alone. It takes the venom out of the spell.'
'I had no idea you were superstitious.'
'I'm not. But I do spit at one magpie, and I make a cross in spilt salt, of course, and I wouldn't dream of cutting my nails on a Friday, but I wouldn't consider myself superstitious.'
'What about walking under ladders?'
'Common sense not to. Someone might drop a pot of paint over you.'
I pondered on the fact that no matter how long one knows people there still remain depths unplumbed in their make up.
Aunt Rose's house lay some two miles along a narrow and twisted lane. A charm of goldfinches fluttered from the high hedges, bound, I felt sure, for some thistle seeds which were growing nearby. A crow was busy pecking at the corpse of a poor squashed hedgehog, victim, no doubt, of a car during its night time foraging. It was being watched by a pony whose shaggy head hung over a five barred gate. Animals, it seemed, enjoyed each other's company, and were as curious about each other's activities, as any of us village folk at Fairacre.
The house had a forlorn look as we approached it. The curtains were half-drawn and every window tightly shut. It, was deathly quiet and still when we went inside, and smelt of dust and old clothes.
'Leave the front door wide open,' directed Amy, 'and let's open a few windows, before we go upstairs.'
It had been built in the thirties, when Aunt Rose's father had died, leaving her comfortably off. It was quite a period piece and a very pleasant one too, with its cream walls and paintwork, its fawn tiled hearth, the standard lamp crowned with its beige bell-shaped shade, and the oatmeal-coloured great Knole settee tied at the corners with silk cord.
On the wide window sills stood the sort of flower vases one rarely sees these days-pottery posy rings, a glass bowl containing a heavy glass holder with bored holes, and several fine lustre jugs. On a little table nearby lay a half-finished piece of knitting in pale blue wool. It looked like part of a jumper sleeve, and a spider had spun a long gossamer strand across its dusty surface. It brought home to me, with dreadful poignancy, the swift transition from life to death, when our toys are set aside and we have to leave our playing.
We made our way upstairs where a smell of lavender greeted us. A bowl of dried flowers stood on the table on the landing and scented the whole top floor. Amy wanted to go through her aunt's clothes before tackling anything else, and we set to with a will.
Out of the wardrobe came the sort of clothes which a repertory theatre would welcome. There were coats trimmed with silver fox fur, black evening gowns, ablaze with sequins at the neck, and a musquash coat from which flew several moths as we dumped it on the bed.
On the rack at the bottom of the wardrobe we removed beautiful cream kid shoes with Louis heels, and some later ones with stiletto heels and sharply pointed toes. Everything was in applie pie order.
'Now, what I propose to do,' said Amy, 'is to make three piles. One for myself, one for friends and relatives, and one for local jumble sales. Let's make a start.'
It all seemed very well thought out, until we began. Amy's pile was extremely modest. She put aside two almost new tweed skirts and a pretty little fur stole. It was the division of the rest between relatives and jumble which gave us a headache. Amy proved surprisingly dithery over the allotment.
'I think we ought to let the two nieces have a look at these woollies. After all, they're practically new and came from Harrods. Perhaps they're too good for the jumble pile.'
And so they would be transferred, changing places—but only temporarily—with four pairs of elbow length gloves with rows of pearl buttons.
My head was beginning to buzz by the time Amy called a halt and we went downstairs for a change of occupation.
Aunt Rose, methodical to the last, had left a list of objects which she wanted close friends to have. Our job was to tie on labels bearing the new owner's name.
It was not quite so exhausting as the upstairs sorting, and we duly affixed labels to pieces of beautiful Wedgwood, Venetian glass, a nest of tables, two bronze clocks and a few choice pieces of furniture.
I found the job rather sad. It seemed such a pity that all these lovely things, which had lived together cheek-by-jowl for so many years, should now be parted. But I comforted myself with the thought that no doubt they were going to homes where they would be cherished as dearly as they had been by Aunt Rose.
The sky was overcast as we locked up and drove away.
'More rain tonight' forecast Amy, dodging a rabbit that sprinted across the narrow lane. 'Bang goes any idea of mowing the lawn tomorrow. Can you come again tomorrow afternoon to finish off upstairs?'
'I've got Joseph Coggs to lunch,' I said, 'but I could be ready by two.'
'You and your gentlemen friends,' commented Amy. 'I only wish this one were more your age and you took him seriously.'
She drew up at the school house, and shook her head when I asked her in.
'No, I must get back. But a thousand thanks for helping. I'll see you tomorrow.'
She let in the clutch, and then shouted over her shoulder as the car moved forward.
'Give Joe a good lunch!'
14 The Summer Holiday
THE clock of St Patrick's was striking ten when Joseph Coggs arrived. The sun was beginning to break through the clouds which had brought more rain at dawn, and gilded the wet paths and sparked tiny rainbows from the droplets on the hedge. My temporary gardener looked remarkably happy.
'Wodjer want doin', miss?' he enquired after our greetings. He surveyed the garden appreciatively.
'What about weeding the border?'
&
nbsp; 'I likes weedin'! said Joe, accepting a bucket and small fork, 'but if I don't know which is which I'll 'ave to 'oller to you.'
I agreed that that would be wise, and watched him tackle the job. He was quick and neat in his movements, and the groundsel and twitch were soon mounting in the bucket. There is one thing about neglecting a border. By the time you get down to it the results are really spectacular.
Joe began to hum happily to himself and I returned to the kitchen.
I had prepared a chicken casserole, and as the oven was in use I decided to make a treacle tart, for where would you find a small boy who doesn't like treacle tart? With Amy's rebuke still ringing in my head, I resolved to make my own pastry.
I must admit, I found the task quite rewarding, despite the shower of crumbs which managed to leap from the bowl on to the floor. I found myself becoming quite dreamy as I rolled the pastry. It was such a soporific exercise that I was quite startled when Joe appeared at the open window before me. His eyes were bright as he watched me at work.
'Us havin' poy then?'
'Treacle tart.'
'Cor!' breathed Joe. He rested his elbows on the outside window sill and settled down to watch. It was not long before his gaze became as bemused as I guessed my own was. Perhaps it was the rhythmic movement of the rolling pin, I thought.
'I loves pastry,' growled Joe. 'Bein' made, I mean, as well as when I eats it.'
I nodded in reply, and lifted the floppy material on to a shallow dish.
'Like sittin' by the fire, or sleepin' with your back against your mum,' went on Joe, suddenly loquacious. 'You want that bit what's cut off?'
'No,' I said, handing over a strip. 'But should you eat it raw?'
'Gives you worms, my mum says,' said Joe contentedly, retreating rapidly with his booty, 'but I still likes it.'
He returned to the border leaving me to ponder on the primitive needs which still make themselves felt, and which had given Joe such unusual powers of expression.
The chicken stew was relished as keenly as the treacle tart, and while we were demolishing my handiwork we chatted of this and that, his next gardening spell with me, why rabbits have so many babies, what happens to your inside if you eat soap, why Mrs Partridge has summer curtains as well as winter ones, and other interesting topics.
'Is our school truly going to shut?' he said suddenly, spoon arrested halfway to his mouth. A thread of treacle drooped dangerously tableward, and I steered his hand over his plate.
'I don't know. I hope not.'
'Mrs Pringle told me mum it was going to.'
I should like to have said: 'Don't believe anything Mrs Pringle tells you,' but civility and the enforced camaraderie of those in authority forbade.
'No one knows yet.'
Joe's dark eyes looked troubled.
'Well, I don't want to go off in a bus to that 'ol Beech Green.'
'Why not?'
Joe twirled his spoon slowly, winding up the treacle.
'I'm afeared of that Mr Annett. 'E walloped my cousin Fred 'orrible.'
'He probably misbehaved,' I said primly. 'Mr Annett doesn't punish children unless they've been really bad.'
'Well, I'm not going anyways,' said Joe, looking mutinous. 'I 'ates going on buses away from Fairacre.'
'Why? Do you feel ill?'
'No. But I bin to Caxley sometimes, and to Barrisford on the outings, and I don't like it. I don't like being so far away.'
I remembered his look when he described the comfort of sleeping with his back against his mother.
'I likes to be home,' he sighed. 'It's right to be home. It's safe there.'
The vision of that appalling kitchen rose before me, the stinking fish heads in the colander, the dirty rags on the draining board, the grease on the floor, the meals of bread and sauce consumed at that filthy table. But to Joe it meant happiness.
Miss Clare, I remembered, had a sampler hanging on her cottage wall, by the fireplace.
'Home is where the heart is' it said in cross-stitch. It certainly seemed to apply in the case of Joseph Coggs.
I told Amy about Joe's disclosure as we continued to sort out Aunt Rose's effects that afternoon.
'It seems to me that everyone in Fairacre is taking it for granted that the school is going to close,' I said, holding up a pair of vicious-looking corsets with yards of pink lacings hanging from them.
Amy took them from me and deposited them on the jumble pile.
'Well, what do you expect? After all, it affects everybody and you know what village life is like, better than most. If there isn't a real drama going on then someone will invent one.'
'But nothing has been decided yet.'
'All the more fun. You can make your own ending, can't you? I suppose you realise that you are the central character?'
'How? I've said nothing.'
'A dispossessed person, you'll be. The evicted innocent cast out into the snow, frail, noble and uncomplaining. The village is dying to rally to your support.'
'That'll be die day!'
'Or maybe you'll be rescued, just in time to save you from complete penury, by some gallant hero who marries you in Fairacre Church while the children throw rose petals in your path.'
'Lumps of coke, more likely, knowing them.'
I held up a vest which looked remarkably short.
'What's this?'
'A spencer, dear. It's time they came back. You wear it under or over your petticoat in cold weather. A very sensible garment. Put it on my pile. It'll be just the thing for next winter.'
I did as I was bid.
'I hope you're wrong,' I went on, 'about village feelings. Lord knows there's enough to keep all the gossip-mongers busy at the moment, what with Minnie Pringle's affairs, and Mrs Pringle's spasmodic dieting, and talk of Doctor Martin retiring at last, and Mr Lamb's brother and his family coming over from America very soon, and the mystery of two dead rats in the rainwater butt outside the vestry door.'
Amy broke into a peal of laughter, and sat down on the side of the bed clutching a black velvet evening cape to her ribs.
'Heavens, how you do go on in Fairacre,' she managed to gasp. 'No wonder you don't want to leave with all that happening around you! But, mark my words, there will still be time left to attend to you and your affairs, even if they do have to compete with two dead rats in the vestry's rainwater butt.'
She shook out the velvet cape and studied it with her head on one side.
'For bridge parties, should you think?'
'For the jumble pile,' I told her.
And, for once, she obeyed.
A few days later, I set off for a short holiday in East Anglia, staying with friends and revisiting on my way to Norfolk the little resort of Walton-on-the-Naze where I had stayed as a child with my grandparents. The air was still as bracing as I remembered it from my youth, and I felt no desire to plunge into the chilly waves of the North Sea, despite the sunshine.
I forgot my cares as I travelled. It was a relief to leave all gossipers to get on with their tongue-wagging and wonderful not to have to guard my own conversation. I returned to Fairacre, after nine days of enjoyment, much refreshed.
It was Mrs Pringle's day for 'doing' me, and she was in the kitchen when I went in, doing something complicated with an old toothbrush at the sink.
'A dirt-trap, these 'ere taps,' was her greeting. 'I'd like to meet the fellow as designed 'em. No room to get behind 'em to scrub out the filth. And filth you can always reckon to find in this kitchen, I can tell you!'
She did, quite often, but I forbore to say so.
'I'm having a cup of tea,' I said. 'Will you have one too?'
'I don't mind if I do,' she said graciously, attacking the crack behind the taps with renewed vigour.
'Well,' I said, when the tray was ready, 'what's the news?'
'Plenty,' she said. 'Our Minnie goes from bad to worse.'
'What now? Is she moving?' I asked, my heart taking a hopeful leap. Would Friday afternoons rever
t to their former tranquillity again?
'Moving? I wish she was! No, she's not moving, but that dratted Bert of hers is. He's moving in.'
'But what about her husband? Ern, isn't it? I thought he was going to move in.'
'I settled him,' said Mrs Pringle grimly. I remembered her threat of sleeping with the rolling pin on one side and the poker on the other. Perhaps Ern had met his match.
'After all Ern's hullabaloo Bert said his place was at Minnie's side.'
'But that's just what Ern said!' I expostulated. If all the men who had received Minnie's favours over the years suddenly decided that their place was at her side, she would undoubtedly have to look for larger premises.
Mrs Pringle blew heavily upon her tea, creating a miniature storm in the cup.
'Well, Bert's not a bad chap, although no better than he should be, of course, when it comes to Minnie, and no doubt he could settle Ern's hash if he comes back in a fighting mood. So he's gone to live with our Min. In the spare room, of course,' she added austerely.
'A lodger.'
'A paying guest,' corrected Mrs Pringle. 'Five pounds a week. All found.'
I was musing upon the expression 'all found' when Mrs Pringle casually threw in her bombshell.
'So maybe she won't need to do as much cleaning work now. I'll find out if she wants to give you up, for one, shall I?'
'Yes, please,' I said fervently.
I poured Mrs Pringle a second cup. My feelings towards Bert, the philanderer, whose relationship with Minnie I had hitherto deplored, became suddenly much warmer. When it came down to brass tacks—Minnie's moral welfare versus my self-preservation—the latter won hands down.
As always, the holidays rushed by at twice the speed of term-time, reminding me of vague wisps of Einstein's theory of relativity which was once explained to me at Cambridge and involved something to do with Wordsworth's 'Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.' I may have taken in one hundredth of the explanation at the time, but now I remember nothing clearly, except the fact that things are not what they seem. Certainly, this time business is purely relative, and I give Einstein points for that.