by Miss Read
'I believes in speaking my mind,' Mr Willet was saying firmly, '"Speak the truth and shame the devil!" There's plenty o' sense in that. That young Annett'd have us daubed with incense, like Ancient Britons, if he had his way!'
''Tis nothing to do with him-incense and that. 'Tis the vicar's job and he's all right,' asserted a woman's voice. Mrs Pringle had the last word.
'I trounced him proper about my grandpa! What if he was a sore trial at times? He was my own flesh and blood, wasn't he? Fair made me boil to hear him spoke of so low—' The booming voice died away as the footsteps grew fainter and fainter on the flinty road.
7. Miss Clare Falls Ill
TERM was now several weeks old. Jimmy, Joseph and Linda had settled down and played schools, space-ships and shops in the playground as noisily as the rest.
Mrs Coggs had taken a job at the public house down the lane. Each morning she spent two hours there, washing glasses and scrubbing out the bar and the bar parlour, while the baby slept in its pram in the garden where she could keep an eye on it.
This arrangement had happy results for Joseph. For three or four weeks he had brought craggy slices of bread to school for his lunch, with an occasional apple or a few plums to enliven it; and this dreary meal he had eaten sadly, his dark eyes fixed upon the school dinners that his more fortunate fellows were demolishing.
But now, with money of her own in her pocket, Mrs Coggs was able to rebel against her husband's order of 'No school dinner for our Joe!' and to everyone's satisfaction Joseph returned to the dinner table, a broad smile on his face and a three-helping appetite keener than ever.
The weather had been mellow and golden all through September. The harvest had been heavy, the stacks were already being thatched, and housewives were hard at it bottling and jamming a bumper crop of apples, plums and damsons. Even Mrs Pringle admitted that the weather was lovely, and looked with gratification at the two unsullied stoves.
But one morning I awoke to a changed world. A border of scarlet dahlias, as brave as guardsmen the afternoon before, drooped, brown and clammy; and the grass was grey with frost.
The distant downs had vanished behind a white mist and below the elm trees the yellow leaves were thickening fast into an autumn carpet.
After breakfast I went across to the school to face Mrs Pringle. She was rubbing the desks with a blue-check duster. Her expression was defensive.
'Mrs Pringle,' I began bravely, 'if it is like this tomorrow we must put the stoves on.'
'The stoves!' said Mrs Pringle, opening her eyes with amazement. 'Why, miss, wc shan't need those for a week or so yet. This 'ere's a heat mist. You'll see—it'll clear to a real hot day!'
'I doubt it,' I replied shortly. 'Get firewood and coke in tonight in case this weather has set in. I'll listen to the forecast this evening and let you know definitely first thing tomorrow morning.'
I returned to the school-house feeling that the preliminary skirmish had gone well. Mrs Pringle I had left, muttering darkly, as she nicked the window-sills.
During the morning a watery sun struggled through, its rays falling across the children's down-bent heads as they struggled with their arithmetic. It was very quiet in the classroom. There was a low buzzing from the infants' side of the partition and the measured ticking of the ancient clock on the wall.
Suddenly, we were all frightened out of our wits by a heavy banging at the door. It was Mr Roberts the farmer, and one of his men, Tom Bates. Each carried a stout sheaf of corn. Behind me, the children chattered excitedly.
'Vicar said you'd be needing this for decorating the church for Harvest Festival on Sunday,' said Mr Roberts in his cheerful bellow. He is one of our more energetic school managers, as well as our near neighbour, so that he comes in to see us very often. He stamped into the room followed by Tom Bates and put the corn down by a long desk which stands at the side of the room. The floor-boards shook with the tremor of their heavy boots and the thud of com.
The children always like Mr Roberts to come into the schoolroom. He is an enormous man with hands like hams and legs as thick as tree trunks. Once when he visited us he stepped back into the easel, capsizing the blackboard, a pot of catkins and a small boy who had been hovering in the vicinity. The children are always hopeful that this glorious confusion may happen again; and certainly their eyes light up at Mr Roberts' advent.
'If you want any more,' said Mr Roberts, stepping perilously near the milk crate, 'just you let me know. Plenty where that came from!' He skirted the easel adroitly and vanished into the lobby after Tom.
Hubbub broke out; long division, shopping bills, pounds and ounces were all neglected as the children surveyed the riches on the floor.
'Can us do 'em this afternoon, miss?'
'You said us boys could make the bunches this time.'
'The girls done it all last time.'
'Vicar said all us schoolchildren could do the altar rail.'
'No, he never then! The Guides always does the altar rail.'
I interposed. 'Nothing will be done until this afternoon. Get on with your arithmetic'
Sadly they bent to their task again. Pens scratched in inkwells, fingers were surreptitiously counted under desks, brows were furrowed and lips moved, as if in prayer, as the work went on again.
It has always been the custom in this parish for the children of Fairacre school to decorate certain parts of the church for Harvest Festival. The pew ends are always in our care and, this year, the altar rail had been given into our charge too. Last year we had been allowed to adorn the font steps, and striped marrows had jostled with mammoth cooking apples for a foothold. The corn is divided up into small bunches to be tied to the pew ends, the rest being left for the other decorators to use in other parts of the church.
Mrs Pringle snorted with disgust as she passed through the room after dinner, on the way to her steaming boiler.
'Fine old mess, that's all's to be said about corn! Fancy bringing that ol' stuff in here all over my clean floor! No more than a pighole this room'll be for two days, I can see! Shan't waste me strength on it till the lot's cleared out.'
She kicked the sheaf contemptuously to one side with her black laced boot to show her disgust of the whole concern.
The children squatted among the straw like so many clucking hens, their fingers busily arranging the corn into neat bunches. They chatted to each other as they scratched about the floor.
Next door the infants were employed in the same way. There was always a great surge of happiness in the school as they prepared for Harvest Festival. Tomorrow they would bring their own offerings from home: scrubbed carrots, bronzed onions, cabbages like footballs, and any other fruits of the earth that they could cajole from their parents. These, with our bunches of corn we would carry to the church, and this was the excitement to which they were now looking forward so eagerly.
While they were busily employed the door of the partition opened a crack and a dark eye appeared. I waited to see what would happen.
Gradually the crack widened and Joseph Coggs, finger in mouth, gazed silently at me. I gazed back, amused, wondering if he would come in or scamper away. He did neither. He stood stock-still and then beckoned to me urgently.
'Say!' he called in his husky voice, 'Miss Clare's been and fallen over!'
Panic gripped me as I fled into the infants' room. The chattering of my own class continued unconcernedly behind me as I closed the dividing door.
It was very quiet in Miss Clare's room. The children stood round her chair gaping, while slumped across the table, her white hair lying in a pool of water from an overturned vase, lay their teacher. Her lips were blue and she moaned in a terrifying rhythm.
'Take your bunches,' I said hastily, 'and go into my room.' They moved away slowly as I bent over her. At this moment she gave a little sigh and raised her head. Voices floated through the door.
'Look at all them babies coming in our room!'
'Here, what's up?'
'You git
back in your own place!'
'You are all to work together,' I ordered from the door. 'And quietly! Miss Clare's not very well. There will be sweets for people who work best!' This shameless piece of bribery was justified by the occasion, I felt.
I shut the door firmly. Miss Clare looked at me with a wan smile.
'A drink,' she whispered.
The floor of the lobby was still damp from Mrs Pringle's scrubbing brush and the windows covered in steam. I whipped the clean cloth from the top of the drinking bucket and filled a mug.
The colour gradually crept back into Miss Clare's cheeks as she sipped. I sat on the front desk and watched her anxiously.
'Will you be all right for a minute while I go across to fill a hot bottle?'
'There's no need,' protested Miss Clare, flushing pink at the thought of leaving her post in the middle of the afternoon, 'I can manage now. This isn't the first time this has happened; but luckily it's never happened in school'
'Just sit still for a few minutes and I'll be back,' I told her, and went through to the children, my legs wobbling under me in the most cowardly fashion. It was a relief to enter this normal buzzing atmosphere and to breathe the homely smell of straw.
'Get on quietly,' I said as I tottered through. Til be back soon.'
I switched on the kettle and rang Miss Clare's doctor. By a miracle he was in and promised to come at once. He arrived as I was tucking the rug round her on the sofa. I poured them some tea and returned to school.
It is a funny thing, but faced with a crisis, children always suffer a sea-change for the better. When they might well be resentful at changes of plan and deprivation of their liberty they become instead soft-voiced and unnervingly angelic. Perhaps the sudden removal of adult supervision lessens the tension, and they feel relaxed and happy. I can't account for it, but it has happened to me many times. On the occasions when an accident has befallen one child and I have imagined rioting and mayhem breaking out among the others in my absence, I have always tortured myself unnecessarily, and returned to find as meek a flock of lambs as ever rejoiced a teacher's heart.
This afternoon was no exception, and thankfully I passed round the sweet tin.
Cathy collected the bundles of straw; dozens of them, ranging from sleek beauties to ragged mops; the floor looked like a chicken run, Uttered with straw and some bright specks of grain which Jimmy Waites was picking up with his fat fingers.
'For me bantam cock,' he explained, 'and if he lays an egg I'll bring it for you, miss.' Cathy gave me a sidelong smile, as one woman to another in the presence of innocent childhood.
As they sang grace I pondered on the best message to send by the children about their early home-coming. It was' inevitable that the news of Miss Clare's illness would get about rapidly, but I did not want a succession of visitors during the next hour or so. The majority would, no doubt, be anxious to be of use, but there were one or two whose ghoulish desire for any grisly details would bring them to my door, and these I felt I could not face for a little while.
'Tell your mothers,' I announced, 'that you are home early as Miss Clare is not very well this afternoon. I expect she will be back tomorrow.'
This white lie I hoped would keep the more avid newsmongers at bay.
A spiteful little wind had sprung up, spattering the windows with the flying elm leaves, as the children straggled away. A tiny whirlwind chased the dead leaves rustling round and round by the door-scraper. With a rush they rattled suddenly over the threshold. Winter was forcing its way in.
'Stoves alight tomorrow, Mrs Pringle,' I said aloud.
Dr Martin, I noticed with some annoyance as I entered the kitchen, was drying his hands on my clean tea towel. He was whistling tunelessly to himself.
'How is she?'
'She'll be all right now; but I'd like her to stay here for the night if you can have her.'
'Of course.'
'I'll call in to see her sister on my way back. It might be as well if she stayed with her for a week or two, though I doubt if she will go there. It's a pity they don't hit it better.'
Dr Martin is now in his seventies and knows the histories of the village families intimately. Twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, he comes to Fairacre to hold his surgery in the drawing-room of Mr Roberts' farmhouse. His enormous white cupboard, smelling of drugs and ointments, dominates this room, which is set aside for his use.
'Has she needed to call you in before?' I asked. 'She's said nothing to me about these attacks.'
'Had them off and on for two years now, the silly girl,' said Dr Martin, folding the tea-towel into a very small damp square that would never dry and putting it carefully on the window-sill. He faced me across the kitchen table.
'She will have to give this up, you know. Should have done so last year, but she's as obstinate as her father was. Do your best to make her see it. I'll call in tomorrow morning.'
He put his head round the door of the living-room.
'Now, Dolly, stay there and rest. You'll do, my dear, you'll do!'
Outside the back door he checked, and I thought he had some last minute instructions to give me, but he was staring at a climbing rose, that nodded in the wind.
'Now, that's a nice one,' he said intently, and carefully picked a bloom. Tucking it into his buttonhole he trotted briskly across to his car, and I remembered with amusement what I had heard the villagers say about him. 'That ol' Dr Martin—can't never resist a rose, nor a glass of home-made wine. They're his failings, see?'
Dr Martin must have put a match to the fire for its cheerful light was the first thing I noticed in the quiet living-room. Miss Clare was lying back on the sofa with her eyes shut, and I thought that she slept.
'I heard,' she said, without opening her eyes; and for the life of me I could say nothing-nothing of comfort to an old tired woman who was facing the end of more than forty years' service—that would not sound either presumptuous or patronizing. For a minute I hated my own boisterous good health that seemed to put up a barrier between us. She must have thought from my silence that I had not heard her, for she sat up and said again:
'I heard what Dr Martin said. He's right, you know. I shall go at Christmas.'
Now, although I could have spoken, I was afraid to do so, lest she should hear from the tremor in my voice how much I was moved. She looked anxiously at me.
'Or do you think I should go at once? Is that what you think? Do you wish I'd gone before? You must have noticed that I was not doing my job as I should.'
This had the effect of loosening my tongue, and I told her how groundless were these thoughts.
'Don't think about plans tonight,' I urged her, 'We'll see what the doctor says about you tomorrow and talk it over then.'
But although she acquiesced with surprising meekness about the postponement of her own arrangements, her mind returned to school affairs.
'Should you phone to the office, do you think, dear? It closes at five, you know, and if you need a supply teacher——'
'I shall manage easily tomorrow on my own,' I assured her, 'we shall go over to the church to get it ready, and I can ring the office when I've seen Dr Martin. Don't worry about a thing,' I got up from the end of the sofa to go upstairs to get the spare room ready for her. She sat very still with her head downbent. There were tears on her cheek, glistening in the light from the fire.
'I always loved Harvest Festival,' she said, in a small shaken voice.
8. Harvest Festival
MRS PRINGLE greeted me in a resigned way when I went over to the school soon after eight the next morning. She was limping ostentatiously—a bad sign—for it meant that she expected to be 'put upon' and so her leg, as she expresses it, 'had flared up again.' This combustible quality of Mrs Pringle's leg obliges one to be careful of expecting any extra effort—such as lighting the stoves—the present fear.
'I haven't got round to the stoves yet,' breathed Mrs Pringle painfully. She winced as she moved the inkwell on the desk. It w
as apparent that this morning's 'flare-up' was more than usually fierce.
'Don't bother!' I said, 'I shall have all the children in here today, and in any case we shall spend quite a time over at the church.' At this her face relaxed and there was a marked improvement in the afflicted limb as she walked quite briskly to open a window.
'Sad about Miss Clare,' said Mrs Pringle, arranging her features in a series of down-turned crescents. 'A fit, so Mr Willet understood.'
'No, not a fit——' I said, nettled.
'Can't hardly ever do anything about fits,' Mrs Pringle went on complacently. She folded her arms and settled down for a cosy gossip. 'My sister's boy, what's due to be called up any time, why he's had 'em since a dot. Just after whooping-cough it started; my sister had a terrible time with him over whooping-cough. Tried everything! Dr Martin's stuff never helped—all that did was to take the varnish off the mantelshelf where the bottle stood; and Mrs Willet's old mother—who was a wise old party though she lost her hair terrible towards the end—she recommended a fried mouse, eaten whole if possible, to stop the cough!'
'Surely not!' I exclaimed, feeling that a fried mouse, in my case, would successfully stop respiration altogether, let alone a cough.
'Ain't you ever heard of that? Oh, a good old-fashioned cure, that is—though it never done Perce much good. These 'ere fits come on after that. It's the swallering of the tongue that makes it more trying like.'
I said I was sure it was and beat an ignoble retreat before fresh horrors were thrust upon me.
There were several bunches of flowers for Miss Clare when the children trickled into school and these I took over to her as she lay breakfasting in bed. She seemed better, and awaited Dr Martin's visit with composure.
The work of making straw bunches proceeded briskly. Dust thickened the golden bars of sunshine and every time the door opened a little eddy of chaff would whisper round the floor. The long desk at the side was packed high with apples, marrows, giant parsnips and a fine bright orange pumpkin that Linda Moffat's grandfather had brought for her from his Caxley back-garden. It was much admired, as an exotic bloom from foreign parts.