by Miss Read
She wrapped the rhubarb securely in two of its own great leaves and tied the bundle with bass. From the dresser the owls gazed unblinkingly from under their glass case and I remembered the affair of Arthur Coggs. As if she knew what was in my mind, Mrs Willet spoke:
'And I believe that's partly why my husband's so set against the drink. He saw what it done to poor Mr Hope—he was asked to leave the school you know, becoming too much of a byword—and took up some job up north as an ordinary teacher. They say he was never a headmaster again; which was a pity really, he being so clever. He wrote some lovely poetry and used to read it to us. Of course some of the boys laughed about it, but us girls liked it.'
'Was Mr Willet at school when you were?'
'Oh, yes, miss. He was always sweet on me. Pushed a little stone heart through the partition to me when I was still in the babies' room. There's a biggish gap in one part, you know.'
I did know. The children still poke odd things through to the adjoining room. The last object confiscated had been a stinging-nettle leaf cunningly gummed on to a long strip of cardboard.
Mrs Willet crossed to the dresser and brought back an oval china box. The lid bore a picture of Sandown and inside it was fined with red plush. She turned out the contents on to the serge tablecloth—jet brooches, military buttons, clasps, a gold locket and chain, and, among these trinkets, a small pebble, shaped like a heart, which had been picked up in the playground by the ardent young Willet so many years ago.
After admiring the treasures I made my farewells and set off up the lane with the heavy cold bundle on my bare arm.
'I suppose you're thinking of a full store-cupboard,' shouted Mr Roberts across the hedge. But my thoughts were of the man who had lived once in my house, whose daughter had died, whose wife had ailed, whose poems had been laughed at by the only people he had found to listen to them. The log books, with their sparse entries, tell truly of 'old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago.'
Dr Ruth Curtis, who is our school doctor, employed by the County Council, is a man-hater. Or perhaps it would be better to say that she is a man-despiser, for she would scorn to whip up so much emotion against the lowly creatures as hatred. The men maintain, with their habitual modesty, that this is because she has not been lucky enough to secure one of them for a husband.
'Stands to reason,' they assert, soberly, 'that she feels frustrated! "Unfulfilled" is the word, isn't it?' And I try and look as solemn as they do, as I listen to them.
We women hold different views, but we don't air them quite so readily in front of the men. After all, as we say to each other, we all have to live together, don't we? No good making bad blood.
Dr Curtis arrived early in the summer term to examine the new children, Joseph, Jimmy and Linda, and the children who would be leaving at the end of the term, Cathy, Sylvia and John Burton.
The parents of these children had been notified of the time of the appointment and had been invited to be present. Chairs had been set in the lobby and doctor had my room for the examination. The chart for sight testing was pinned up on to the partition, the scales were in evidence, and the wooden measure was fixed to the back of the door to record the heights of the six children.
Doctor was busy sorting out the cards which record each child's medical history throughout its school life. Cathy's, John's and Sylvia's would be forwarded to their new schools at the end of this term.
'Sorry I'm late,' growled Dr Curtis. 'My brother's staying with me and wanted me to change an adhesive dressing on his leg before I came away. Really, the fuss! I'd just started to pull it when he made enough noise for six stuck pigs! "Here!" I said, "take the scissors and hot water and get it off yourself!" So I've left him soaking the stuff, trying not to hurt himself. I told him one good sharp tear would soon get it off, but what can you do with men?'
I assumed that this question was rhetorical and asked her if she would like to see Mrs Coggs first with Joseph, as I knew she would want to get down to 'The Beetle and Wedge' for her scrubbing.
Joseph's eyes were wide with alarm throughout his examination. His apprehension, as he stood with his back to the door and felt the wooden marker descending on to his head, was pitiful to see. But no tears fell, even when doctor stood him on a desk to see if his feet were flat.
'A very nice arch,' she said, squinting at Joseph's grubby foot. 'Very nice!' she added, and I caught the note of disappointment in her voice. Obviously flat feet were going to be "the thing" this year, and I imagined half the children in the county walking about on the sides of their feet, as they did remedial exercises for the next few months.
Last year, hollow backs had been our doctor's obsession, and the year before, I remember, we were all exhorted to swim whenever possible to improve our physique. I could imagine the conversation when a few headmasters and mistresses met together later on in the term:
'And how many flat feet in your school?'
'Ten out of twenty.'
'Oh, we did better than that! We scored five out of six!'
Sure enough, the true fanatic gleam came into the doctor's eye only when she approached the feet this time. She left these to the last, in each case, working conscientiously on sight, hearing, hearts, posture, throats, height and weight, rather as a child works steadily through its pudding keeping the chocolate sauce intact to eat at the end.
John Burton was the only child who obliged Doctor on this day, but his feet were so triumphantly flat as to make up for the disappointingly springy feet of the other five. Mrs Burton was asked to take him to the clinic at Caxley where she would be shown the exercises he would need to do; and so Doctor's visit came to a successful close.
The lobby was empty, the chairs returned to the schoolroom and the smell of disinfectant from the tumbler on Doctor's desk, which had held the spatula that she used when inspecting throats, gradually faded away.
'A really bad case, that last one,' said Doctor with much gratification, snapping her case closed. 'I'll keep an eye on that boy. I really don't think I've ever seen anything flatter!'
Quite exhilarated, she waved good-bye from her little car, and I returned to the schoolroom reflecting that we do indeed take our pleasures variously.
Mrs Pringle's bad leg always took a turn for the worse on the first Wednesday of each month.
On this afternoon the mobile film van called at Fairacre School to the joy of all but Mrs Pringle.
I could never quite understand the grounds for Mrs Pringle's dislike of these educational films. She had hinted darkly once of a terror-laden afternoon when her sister had heard the shout of 'Fire!' go up at the Caxley cinema and had had a corn trodden on painfully in the general stampede to the exit. But this second-hand adventure could not have accounted entirely for the regular monthly 'flare-up' of her own afflicted member. I think the general disorganization upset her, for we had to trundle back the partition and arrange the chairs in rows at the infants' end, leaving my part free for the screen to stand. The black-out curtains were drawn and, except for the unbiddable skylight which defied all attempts to shroud it, very little light penetrated. The children loved this mysterious twilight, and excitement always ran high, until the purring of the projector quietened them.
'Waste of the ratepayers' money,' snorted Mrs Pringle as, limping heavily, she clattered plates into the crockery cupboard. 'Do the children more good, I'd say, to be learnt something useful. Spelling, for instance. We always had spelling lists every Wednesday afternoon in Mr Hope's time. And he knew how to spell them himself without having to look 'em up!'
Mrs Pringle had been scandalized to see me looking up a word in the dictionary the week before. I think she had seriously considered reporting me to the omnipotent 'office' for inefficiency.
'Never see Mr Hope with a rubbishy thing like a dictionary,' continued Mrs Pringle, shooting forks with quick-fire precision into their box, and shouting above the racket.
'Perhaps he kept it at home,' I replied amiably.
'And a
nother thing,' boomed Mrs Pringle, 'some of these films are downright improper. I saw one once at Caxley, with two people kissing each other, and though I daresay they were well on the road to a straightforward wedding, I didn't care for it myself and come out at once. Very unpleasant remarks I had to put up with too, I may say, from other people in the row who should have known better by the flashy way they were dressed up.'
I wondered whether it was worth while shouting myself hoarse against the clatter by explaining that the afternoon's programme consisted of a film about the building of a Norman castle, which would link up with the history lessons of this term, a second film about the herring industry, which might widen the outlook of some of these children who had only just seen the sea, although it lay less than eighty miles away; and a short film about the animals at the London Zoo. I decided to save my breath, and, leaving Mrs Pringle to her dark mutterings, I went to welcome Mr Pugh who was staggering in carrying heavy equipment. Behind him followed a train of admiring children who had had strict orders to stay in the playground until called, but were drawn to Mr Pugh's imposing collection of tin cases, cables, stands, the rolled-up screen and so on, like needles to a magnet.
Mr Pugh is a small, volatile Welshman who takes his work very seriously. His job is really to bring the films and to show them, but he takes such a passionate interest in every one of them that any sort of adverse criticism throws him into Celtic protestations. One would imagine that he had produced, directed and acted in aU the films that flicker in our murky classroom, so quick is he in their defence. Luckily, he is soothed by cups of tea, and I make sure that the tray is set and the kettle filled in readiness, on the first Wednesday afternoon of each month.
At last the room was ready, the children were called in and exhorted by me in the playground to step carefully over the cable, and by Miss Gray inside to sit down and sit still. Mr Pugh flicked a switch, the projector purred, the pictures wavered before us and the old magic had begun again. After each film the children clapped energetically. The most popular, of course, was the animal film. Some of the children had already been to the Zoo and I knew that others might go in the near future with the Mothers' Union outing.
A satisfied sigh went up from the school as the last film ended. Miss Gray and I drew back the curtains and surveyed our family, sitting in rows and blinking like little owls in the unaccustomed light.
While Mr Pugh dismantled his paraphernalia, Miss Gray went to switch on the kettle and I led the children out to play, their heads buzzing with castles, herrings and hippopotami. Tomorrow I should have to sort out these troubled images for them, as best I could, and I made a mental note that another trip across to the church to see the Norman window there, would be a good thing to do in the morning.
These visits from the film unit are of inestimable value to the country school. The choice of films is wide and gives an added fillip to the classroom lessons which follow them.
Perhaps the welcome that the children give to Mr Pugh and his fellows is the surest indication of their success.
18. The Musical Festival
THERE was a bus drawn up in the lane outside Fairacre School. It quivered and vibrated in the May sunlight; and beside it, in their best clothes, the children clustered hopping with excitement. It was the great day of the Caxley Musical Festival and Miss Gray, who was to conduct the choir, was doing her best to fight down her own stage-fright and calm her charges.
She wore a pale-green linen frock which had been much admired by the children.
'Real smashing!' said John Burton.
'It suits her lovely!' said the girls, head on one side; and Linda Moffat said, with much pride:
'My mum helped her with it. You never saw so many darts in the bodice! That's what makes it fit so good.'
'Now you understand,' I addressed the children when they were finally seated, 'you are to be on your best behaviour. All the other schools will be there at the Corn Exchange. Let them see how polite and helpful you are!'
Whether these admonitions were heeded I doubt, for the excitement of the occasion was almost unendurable, but the driver climbed in, was greeted cheerfully by the children, for he was a local boy, and the bus began to grind along the flower-starred lanes to Caxley.
'Miss,' said Eric, 'what happens when we want a drink?'
'Or we feels sick?' added Ernest.
'Or wants to be excused?' asked Linda in a prim, but anxious whisper.
We assured them that Caxley Corn Exchange offered facilities which could cope with all these contingencies, and we begged them to cease to worry, to relax, to rest their throats or otherwise they would forget their songs or sing horribly sharp with anxiety.
At last we chugged into the market-place. There, outside the Corn Exchange which dominates one side of the square, were queues of excited children slowly edging through the wide doorway.
Shepherding their flocks were determinedly patient teachers, the women with their hair freshly set, wearing undramatic summer dresses and their best sandals, and the men almost unrecognizable in formal suits … their beloved shapeless grey flannels and jejune hacking jackets mercifully left behind on the backs of their bedroom chairs.
We collected our twittering children and joined the mob.
Caxley Corn Exchange is described as 'an imposing pile' by the local guide-book and perhaps it is as well to leave it at that. Certainly one's feelings on first catching sight of it are incredulity and then pity for so much misapplied labour.
Inside, the walls are of bare brick. The windows are glazed with a greenish glass and these admit a curious underwater light which adds to the general feeling of submersion. On each side of the windows are brick curlicues, like gigantic barley-sugar sticks, and at the end of the hall looms a massive statue of one of the benefactors of the town. This forbidding person, who is twelve feet high, gazes with bewhiskered severity at the crowd below him, and holds in his hand a watch, for all the world as if he is saying: 'Late again, eh? This must be reported!'
The hall was rapidly filling with schoolchildren from more than twenty schools. We found our places and gazed about us.
In the centre of the hall was a dais with a large table, a microphone, masses of papers and a handbell. Here the judges were to sit. Near the stage was the grand piano with banks of hydrangeas at its feet.
'Real beautiful, ain't it?' said Sylvia in an awed whisper—her eyes on the barley sugar sticks.
'Been here often!' announced John Burton casually, with a cosmopolitan air. 'Come with my dad for the chrysanthemum show last autumn. There's a bigger place than this up London.'
A respectful silence greeted this piece of news. At last Eric spoke.
'Show off!' he said witheringly, and had the satisfaction of seeing John turn pink, but whether from rage or discomfiture no one knew.
The morning wore on. We sailed over the sea to Skye at various paces from staccato to near-static. We follow-follow-followed till we were dizzy and our heads throbbed. The air inside the Corn Exchange grew thicker despite the open windows, which had yielded grudgingly, with dreadful groanings, to much heavy battering.
But the Fairacre children looked bright-eyed as squirrels as they waited on the stage to begin their songs. Miss Gray's green linen back registered acute anxiety and her baton trembled when she raised it first, but once they were launched all went well and they beamed smugly at the applause which followed their efforts. Swaggering slightly, they simpered back to their places. Mr Annett, who had somehow managed to seat himself near our school, murmured congratulations into Miss Gray's ear as she returned, and hitched his chair a foot closer.
The chairman rose on the dais.
'We'll stop now for lunch. Everyone back here please at one-thirty sharp. Thank you all very much.' This welcome announcement brought the biggest clap of the morning.
After lunch Miss Gray and I took the children to a nearby park. They made a rush for the paddling pool, for in the downland village of Fairacre there is very little wa
ter to play in.
The sim was warm and a dragon-fly hovered, vibrating and iridescent over the water. I sat on the grass to watch our children as they gazed at the lucky owners of toy boats who were running importantly round the edge with long sticks.
At the other end of the park I could see the Beech Green children, with Miss Young and Mr Annett. He appeared to be scanning the horizon in a purposeful way, and at length he detached himself from his school and, leaving poor Miss Young to cope with the entire school, advanced rapidly upon Miss Gray who was sitting composedly upon a bench under a poplar tree.
'There's fish here!' screamed Joseph Coggs, across the pond, in great excitement. 'Little 'uns, miss. You come and see!'
'There's real fish what you can eat in that ditch behind you,' a tall boy told him, in a voice that trembled between soprano and baritone, indicating a little stream that slips along the side of the park to join the river that flows through Caxley. At this moment hubbub broke forth behind me and there, emerging dripping from the pool, with hair sleeked down like a seal and mouth agape for bawling, stood Jimmy Waites.
His beautiful white shirt and grey flannel shorts were soaking, and spattered with flotsam from the surface. In fact, the only dry things about him were his socks and sandals which Cathy had helped him to remove for a surreptitious paddle while my eye was averted. Crying herself, with vexation and shock, she knelt beside her little brother.
I halloed to Miss Gray who was still sitting on the bench studying her shoes demurely while Mr Annett chattered away beside her. Really, I thought with some exasperation, it was too bad of them to be so blissfully removed from the vexations of this life. Somewhat peremptorily, I told Miss Gray that I was taking Jimmy to the lavatory to mop him up and would she keep an eye on the others. Mr Annett returned hastily to this world from the elysium where he had been floating, and had the good sense to offer to run the child home in his car when I had dried him.