by Miss Read
'Well, Minnie, what do you propose to do? I take it Mrs Pringle can't put you up, and you certainly can't stay here. You really must try and get Bert to go away if he's becoming violent.'
Minnie looked vaguely surprised, and wriggled nearer the edge of the chair. As expected, it tipped forward and pitched her on to the carpet, where she remained seated, looking perfectly at ease.
'Oh, I don't want Bert to go.' 'E's a good chap apart from the strap. I daresay 'e'll be all right if I gets 'im a good bit of steak for his tea.'
I began to feel somewhat dizzy. This frequently happens during a conversation with Minnie. She veers from one point to another like a storm-battered weathercock.
'Surely, that will cost a mint of money? I shouldn't feel inclined to cook an expensive steak for someone who hit me.'
'Only with a strap' said Minnie earnestly. 'Could have been 'is belt. Buckle end.'
I gave up, and rose to end the interview.
'Your money's on the mantel shelf,' I said wearily.
She gave me a radiant smile.
'Do just right for Bert's steak,' she said, reaching for the handbrush.
But I got there first.
Not long after this encounter, the village was staggered to hear that Mrs Coggs had been caught shop-lifting in Caxley, and was due to appear in Court.
I could not believe it when Mrs Pringle informed me of the fact.
'But it seems so absurd,' I protested, 'when she's better off now than ever she was! She told me herself that she had never had so much money to manage on.'
'That's why she went to Caxley,' said Mrs Pringle, with a trace of smugness which riled me. 'When she didn't have no money to spend she stayed home. Come she got to the shops in Caxley she was Tempted and Fell.'
It all seemed very odd, and very sad, to me. What had she bought, I asked?
Mrs Pringle bridled.
'She never bought. That was the trouble. She thieved. As far as I can gather, it was things like rashers and sausages and a great bag of them frozen chips.'
At least a change from bread and sauce, I thought, though no doubt the poor children were still having that ghastly fare.
'Perhaps she just forgot to pay,' I said 'it happens.'
Mrs Pringle snorted.
'Likely, ain't it! Anyways, she said straight out she'd nicked 'em.'
Her dour countenance showed a rare streak of pleasure.
'D'you reckon she'll get put inside? Fancy them both being in prison, at the same time!'
'I shouldn't think so for a moment,' I said shortly. 'And isn't it about time the stoves were Med?'
If looks could have killed, I should have been a writhing corpse by the fireguard, but I was only vouchsafed the back view of my cleaner retreating from the fray with a heavy limp.
Most people, it transpired, felt as bewildered as I did at Mrs Coggs's behaviour, and the general feeling in the village was one of sympathy. The Vicar had promised to appear in Court to speak on her behalf, and one of Mr Lovejoy's juniors was to appear for her. Mrs Coggs herself, I heard, hardly seemed to realise what was happening. She made no attempt to excuse her actions, not in any mood of defiance, but simply in her usual mood of apathy. It was all very puzzling.
Our butcher's comments seemed to echo Mrs Pringle's way of thinking.
'She's a poor tool as we all know, Miss Read. Let's face it, she wasn't born over-bright, and any wits she had have been knocked out of her by Arthur. I reckon she got carried away when she saw all the things in Caxley.'
'But she is better off now than ever,' I repeated.
'Yes, but not all that much better off. I mean, she's had a taste of spending a bit extra, and it's gone to her head. When she lives as she usually does, it's hand-to-mouth. She comes in here for a chop for Arthur, never anything for herself and the children. To tell you the truth, I've often given her meat scraps and told her to make a stew or a pudding, but it's my belief she doesn't know how to cook at all. How they manage I can't think.'
Another customer arrived, and we were forced to terminate our conversation, but it gave me food for thought.
We all agreed that as this was a first offence, imprisonment surely was out of die question, although Mr Roberts with unusual severity, said it might be an example to other light-fingered neighbours. However, as we heard later, twenty or so sheep belonging to him had that night been stolen from the downs, within two miles of his home, and naturally his judgement was coloured by his loss.
'And if she's fined, then who is to pay it?' asked another. 'The Social Security people? Meaning us?'
'She might just get a ticking-off,' said one hopeful. 'That Colonel Austin's got a sharp tongue they tells me, specially with poachers.'
'She might get a conditional discharge,' said Mr Lamb, with such authority that his few customers awaiting their pensions or postage stamps began to wonder if he had first-hand knowledge of Courts and their procedure.
It was thus that we anticipated the Court's decision. Meanwhile, we had to wait and hope that, when the time came, Mrs Coggs's case would evoke mercy as well as justice from the Bench.
16 Snow
THE end of the Christmas term came suddenly upon us, and we were caught up in a whirl of parties, concerts, and carol services. Added to these school and village activities were the personal ones of shopping for Christmas presents, trying to find out the correct time to post parcels to friends overseas, and stocking the larder for what looked like being the longest public holiday on record.
'You wouldn't think the country was dead broke,' commented Peter Hale acidly, when I met him in the village street, 'when you hear that the local factories are closing until January the fourth or roundabout.'
I found myself buying mounds of food against the siege, and having considerable difficulty in packing it away. Does everyone, I wondered, as I stacked away tins of this and that, imagine that starving families are going to arrive after all the shops have shut, and will be obliged to stay for days because of sudden blizzards? I always over-estimate my own—and my imaginary visitors'—needs, at these times, and never learn my lesson.
Because of this unwanted bustle, the question of the closure of Fairacre School seemed to be in a state of suspended animation, and I was relieved to have something else to worry over.
But, all too soon, the festivities were over, the Christmas decorations were taken down, I continued to eat left-overs and term started.
It was quite apparent that we were in for a bleak spell of weather. The wind had whipped round to the North-East, and every night brought us frost. The ground was sodden after die heavy rains of Autumn, and long puddles in the furrows froze into hard ice. At the sides of the lanes of Fairacre more ice lay in the gutters, and the children had a wonderful time making slides on their way to school.
'Cruel weather,' said Mr Willet. 'My greens look fair shrammed. What with the weather, and the pigeons, and all them other birds, I sometimes wonder why I bothers to grow them. If I had my way I'd stick to root crops, but my old woman says we must have a bit of winter greens, so I doos my best. 'Tis a thankless task though, when the winter's like this.'
'As long as we don't get snow,' I said.
Mr Willet looked surprised.
'Snow?' he echoed. 'You'll get that aplenty, my dear, and afore the week's out too.'
As usual, he was right.
It began during the dinner hour, while the children were tearing about digesting, I hoped, steak and kidney pie and pink blancmange. Hilary was on playground duty, and I was cutting up painting paper for the afternoon session, when the classroom door burst open to reveal a knot of panting children, proudly displaying the spatters of snow on their clothes.
'Snowing, miss! Ennit lovely? It's snowing! And it's laying too.'
They were much too excited to have understood die different uses of the verbs 'to lie' and 'to lay', and anyway I have almost given up hope of any success in that direction.
I contented myself with telling them to let M
iss Norman know that they must all come in to school.
They clanged over the door scraper with enough noise for a mechanised army, and I went to the window to see the worst.
The snowflakes were coming down in great flurries, whirling and turning until the eyes of the beholder were dazzled. The icy playground was white already, and the branches of the elm trees would soon carry an edging of snow several inches deep. Across the playground, sitting inside the window of my dining-room, I could see Tibby watching the twirling flakes as interestedly as I was doing.
The snow hissed against the glass, but that sibilant sound was soon drowned in the stamping of feet in the lobby and the excited voices of the children. I could see we were in for a boisterous afternoon. Wind is bad enough for raising children's spirits to manic level. Snow is even more potent a force.
I judged it best to give out the paints and paper as soon as the register had been called, for it was quite apparent that my voice could never compete with the drama that was going on outside the windows.
'You can paint a snow scene,' I said, working on the principle that if you can't beat your rival you join him.
'What like?' said Ernest.
Our Fairacre children are chary of anything involving the imagination. If I had told them to paint the tasteful arrangement of dried flowers and leaves, concocted by Amy and kept on my desk, they would have set to without a word. But to be asked to create a picture from nothing, as it were, filled them with dismay.
I used to be rather hard on them, refusing to suggest themes, and urging them to use their imaginations. But they are genuinely perturbed by these forays into the unknown, and advancing age has made me somewhat kinder.
'Well, now, you could make a picture of yourselves running about in a snowy playground. Or making a slide.'
'Or a snowman?' suggested Patrick, in a burst of inspiration.
'Quite. Or a picture of men clearing the snow away from the roads. Perhaps digging a car out of a snow drift.'
'Or a bus,' said Ernest. 'Only I ain't got much red for a bus. Might do a tractor.'
They seemed to be fairly launched now, and they began their attempts without too much hesitation. A fierce argument broke out, at one point, about the best way of depicting snow flakes which looked black as they came down, but which one knew were white really, and anyway turned white when they reached the ground. Linda Moffat said she was going to leave spots of paper showing through her sky, to look like snow. Joseph Coggs said they'd look like stars then, and anyway the sky wasn't blue like that, it was 'grey sort of'.
Altogether, it was a distracting art session, considerably enlivened by the constant uprising of children looking to see how deep the snow was in the playground. Certainly, by the time their afternoon break arrived, the snow was thick enough for Hilary to consult me about sending the infants home early.
'I think the whole school had better go early,' I replied. The sky was low and heavy with snow to come, and there was no respite from the blizzard around us.
The news was greeted with even greater excitement. One or two were apprehensive because their mothers were still at work.
'I knows where our key is,' said one. 'It's in the secret place in the coal hole. I can easy get in.'
'Old Bert can come in my house till his mum gets back,' offered another, and gradually we were able to account for all the children's safety from the storm.
Except, as it happened, for the Coggs children. No one seemed to offer to have them. Mrs Coggs was out at work and would not be home until after three-thirty. I was not very surprised that there were no invitations from the other children. For one thing, the Coggs had no near neighbours with children at the school. For another, the Coggs family has always been a little ostracised by the more respectable villagers, and I had a suspicion that since Mrs Coggs's shop-lifting escapade, the family was even less popular. So far, her case had not been heard, but as she herself admitted her guilt, there were quite a few who censored her, and the innocent children.
'You'd better come home with me,' I said to the three, 'and I'll run you home when your mother is back.'
They waited patiently by the tortoise stove, warming their grubby hands, while Hilary and I buttoned and tied the others into their outdoor clothes and threatened them with all manner of retribution if they forbore to go straight home.
They vanished with whoops of joy into the veils of snow which swept the outside world, and I ushered my three visitors across the playground to my warm sitting-room.
I had had the foresight to light the fire at dinner time, and by now it was a clear red glow, ideal for making toast, which no doubt would be welcomed before taking the children home.
Joseph was inclined to be unusually self-confident in front of his little sisters. After all, his attitude seemed to say, I know this place. You don't.
They watched me cut some substantial slices of bread. The toasting fork intrigued them, and I set them to make toast while I brewed a pot of tea which I really did not need, but it made an excuse to pass the time before Mrs Coggs returned.
Their faces were flushed with heat and excitement. They handled the toast reverently.
'Never cooked toast,' announced Joseph. 'Never knew a fire done cooking like this.'
I remembered that the Council houses had a closed stove for cooking and heating the water. But surely, there was an open fire in the living room?
'We never lights that,' said Joseph, slightly shocked. 'Us has the electric if it's cold.'
And pretty cheerless too, I thought. No wonder that die children enjoyed my fire, and their first attempts at toast-making.
They demolished several slices of their handiwork, plentifully spread with butter and honey. Outside, the snow drifted along the window ledges, and settled on the roofs and hedges. It was time we made a move before the snow became too deep to open the garage door.
Mrs Coggs had just arrived home when we reached their house. I saw them indoors with a sinking heart. It looked as sordid, and was certainly as smelly, as ever.
Driving back through the driving snow, I pondered on the differences between neighbours and their surroundings in such a tiny place as Fairacre. I was not comparing the fairly well-to-do such as the Mawnes and Hales, with those who had very little, but people like the Willets, for instance, or my sparring partner Mrs Pringle, who really had no more money coming into their homes than Mrs Coggs had at the moment. In most of die homes in Fairacre, one could be sure of finding a welcome. There would be a fire in winter, a cup of tea or coffee offered, biscuits or a slice of home-made cake, or a glass of home-made wine (deceptively innocuous incidentally) put into one's hand. The house would be as welcoming as the householder. There would be the smell of furniture polish, the gleam of burnished brass and copper, and a bunch of flowers from the garden standing on the window sill.
It was lucky that Mrs Coggs was in the minority in our little community, I thought, as I put away the car and shuffled through the snow to my own home.
But hard luck on those children!
It snowed, off and on, for over three weeks, and a very trying time was had by all. Mrs Pringle seemed to take the snow as a personal insult directed towards her by a malevolent weather-god, and loud were her daily lamentations about the state of the school floors, and the wicked way the children brought the snow inside on their boots.
It was useless to try and placate her, and useless too to bully the children into greater care. The snow was everywhere, and after a time, I decided that the only thine to do was to be philosophical about it.
'It can't last for ever,' I said, trying to comfort my surly cleaner. 'Look, the catkins are showing on the hedge!'
'Sure sign the Spring-cleaning will want doing,' replied Mrs Pringle, enjoying her misery. Irritated though I was by her dogged determination to see the gloomy side of things, I was not blind to the fact that she was not looking at all well.
One day I ventured to comment on it. Was she still dieting?
&nbs
p; She gave a grunt.
'I lost two pounds last month, and even that never pleased Doctor Martin. He's a hard taskmaster that one. I wouldn't care to be under the knife when he's holding the handle. "Got no feelings," I told him straight. I get the stummer-cake something awful some nights, but he only laughs when I tell him.'
'Perhaps you are doing too much,' I said, in an unguarded moment.
Mrs Pringle rose to the bait beautifully.
'Of course, I'm doing too much! It's me nature. "You're a giver, not a taker, my girl," my old mother used to say, and I fair gets wore out. What with this 'ere school to keep clean-well, try to keep clean would be truer—and our Minnie driving me mad and the worry over this place closing next year—'
'Closing next year?' I echoed in astonishment. 'Who told you that?'
Mrs Pringle looked surprised in her turn.
'Why, it's general knowledge in the village! And at Beech Green, and at Caxley, come to that. Why else are they havin' new buildings at Mr Annett's? And what about that managers' meeting? I tell you, Miss Read, you must be the last person to know. It's the talk of the parish, and a fine old rumpus there's going to be before long!'
I gazed at her, speechless with dismay. All my old worries, suspended for some weeks, and ignored because of more pressing claims on my time, now flocked back to haunt me, like so many evil birds.
'So it's no wonder I'm not meself,' continued Mrs Pringle, with some satisfaction. 'I can feel meself growing old afore my rime. It's as much as I can do to get round my own housework these days, let alone this lot. You'll see my place looking like Mrs Coggs's before long, I shouldn't wonder.'
'Never!' I said, finding my voice.
'Which reminds me,' said my cleaner, picking a piece of squashed clay from the front desk, 'that silly woman's been in Court, and got to go again in three weeks.'
'Why?'
'Them magistrates want reports on her before passing sentence. At least that's what The Caxley Chronicle said.'