Mrs. Pringle of Fairacre (18 page)

I knew that she could not read, so hid such dangerous things as disinfectant, bleach and scouring agents in case she used - or even drank - them during her labours.

By dint of putting out the Brasso, copper and brass together on the kitchen table one week, and Silvo and my meagre collection of silver and plated articles the next, as advised by Mrs Pringle, things went fairly smoothly, but there were some aspects of Minnie's ministrations which I was unable to alter.

Long before I had met her, she had been taught to wash her dusters and to leave them to dry before returning home. This excellent training had stuck in Minnie's feather brain, and the dusters were always spotless when I returned from school.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get it into Minnie's thick skull that they should be hung on a little line outside the back door to dry. In Minnie's past, dusters were always put to dry indoors, and I found my own draped over the
edge of the dining room table, the banisters, and even over the backs of upholstered chairs.

I always intended to point this out to Minnie, but often, by the next Friday, I had forgotten. It was useless to leave notes for her as she could not read, but I had not really taken in the fact that she could not tell the time, until I found her still in the house well after the hour when she should have departed.

'Well, I never sort of mastered the clock,' she said vaguely, implying that there were a great many other things which she
had
mastered in her time.

'But how do you manage?' I enquired, genuinely interested.

'I looks out for the Caxley,' she replied. 'It gets to the church about the hour.'

'But not
every
hour,' I pointed out.

'There's the kids coming out of school, too,' she explained.

'It still seems rather hit and miss,' I said, 'and there are lots of places where you can't see the bus, or the children for that matter. Has Springbourne Church got a striking clock? Can you hear it at home?'

'I never bothers to count,' replied Minnie. 'Sometimes I misses the first note or so.'

It began to seem more and more difficult to me.

'Actually,' said Minnie, 'I just asks somebody the time.'

I did not have to wait long before the comments on Minnie Pringle's return arrived.

Mr Willet was the first.

'You could've knocked me down with a feather when Alice told me Minnie was back. "Never!" I said to her. "Miss Read had enough last time. She's got too much
savvy to have Minnie back again." But there you are! I see you've been taken advantage of.'

This last sentence annoyed me on two counts. Firstly, it was ungrammatical, ending with a preposition as it did. Secondly, it seemed to put me on a par with all those gullible girls who are the victims of predatory males.

'It's only until Christmas,' I told him rather coldly.

'She can do plenty of damage before then,' he commented, and continued with his coke-sweeping.

The vicar said that it was a great credit to me to employ Minnie and that he was sure the girl must be most grateful.

Mrs Partridge, more of a realist, begged me to keep any breakables out of Minnie's clutches.

'She
once
— and I stress
once
,' she told me, 'helped wash up after a Fur and Feather Whist Drive in the village hall, and we lost four plates, three cups and a sandwich dish which unfortunately belonged to Mrs Pringle. I had a great deal of trouble trying to replace it, and she did not seem to appreciate it when we did track one down.'

I said that I could well believe it.

Mr Lamb said Minnie was a very lucky girl. Mrs Willet said Bob could have been knocked down with a feather. Mrs Richards, now in a capacious maternity smock, confessed herself amazed, Amy, on the telephone, responded to my news with: 'What on earth are you thinking about?', and even gentle Miss Clare, when I visited her, advised me not to let my heart rule my head.

It was all pretty hard to bear, but I only had myself to blame, and comforted myself with the thought that Christmas would soon be here, and my bonds would be broken.

It began to grow very cold. Rough winds which had chased the dead leaves round and round the playground,
and sent their most searching draughts down the skylight, now gave way to still weather of biting chill.

I shivered in my bedroom as I dressed each morning by the inadequate heat of an electric fire, and thought of Amy and many other lucky women, who had central heating in their homes.

I routed out my warmest clothes, regretting the thick cardigan which I had given to Minnie as the only one which had really matched my thickest skirt. This sort of thing is always happening.

And ten to one, I told myself, as I had never seen Minnie wearing my garment, it was on the baby's pram with her own coat. Unless, of course, she too had passed it on to a jumble sale.

It was good to get home after school and to settle in by a roaring fire, knowing that the frost was sparkling outside behind the drawn curtains.

I even changed my late night cup of coffee for one of milky cocoa, remembering Dolly Clare's account of this warming drink so much appreciated by long-ago Fairacre children.

Tibby enjoyed this too, and lapped at a saucerful in the hearth while I sipped mine with my feet up on the sofa.

'You wants to take your spade inside tonight,' Bob Willet called out to me one afternoon. 'You see! There'll be snow afore mornin'.'

I have a great respect for Mr Willet's weather lore, and although I did not take the garden spade indoors, I certainly found the coal shovel and put it ready with my Wellington boots.

He was right, of course. It was a white world in the morning. The trees were bowed with their burden, the garden beds hidden beneath their white blanket, and the distant downs shrouded as far as the eye could see.

Snow was still falling. It lay thick upon the window sills, and crusted the ledges of each windowpane. I dressed hurriedly, congratulating myself on looking out that shovel which I should need to get out of the back door.

Nothing moved in the garden. No birds hovered round the bird table. No doubt they were sheltering from the snow flakes in the hedgerows and buildings.

From the kitchen window, as I prepared porridge for breakfast as the best possible warmer on such a day, I could see Tibby's footmarks, a ribbon of rosettes in the snow, leading to the cat flap. The cat's fur was still flecked with melting flakes when we greeted each other.

I cleared the back and front steps just enough to let me open the doors, but I could see it was going to be love's labour lost with the snow still falling. With Wellingtons on, my thickest coat buttoned up, and an umbrella atop, I fought my way over the virgin wastes to the school.

Footsteps led from the road into the building, and Mrs Pringle was already there stoking the stoves.

'No children yet,' I observed.

'Nor likely to be,' she replied, 'there's a fair old drift at the end of the lane. Mr Roberts give me a lift up in his Land Rover.'

Here was a dilemma. How was I to get her back after her labours? I knew that I should never be able to dig the snow away from my garage doors, let alone negotiate the drift in the lane with my small car.

As if she could read my thoughts, she continued: 'Mr Roberts and his shepherd's going by with the Land Rover in half an hour, when Mr Roberts has had his breakfast. Says I can squeeze in the cab with them two.'

A squeeze, I thought, it certainly would be.

'Why not go over to the school house,' I said, 'when
you have done here. The fire's going, and as soon as this snow lets up, I'll get you home somehow.'

'No, no. I'll go with Mr Roberts. I've got to get back. I've got Fred in bed with his chest.'

He would hardly be in bed without it, I commented mentally, but kept this flippancy to myself.

She bustled about humming some dirge while I found the register and wondered if I should have any attendances to mark in it.

At that moment the telephone rang and I snatched it from the cupboard top to hear Mrs Richards' voice.

'Absolutely impossible to make it,' she said, 'even in Wayne's van. The road between Beech Green and Fairacre's waist deep.'

I told her not to worry, and said that I did not think we should have many pupils, and that I should be ringing the office after nine to say that I intended to close the school.

'And what about my stoves?' demanded Mrs Pringle, who should not have been eavesdropping on the conversation. 'Another full week we've got before end of term. Who's to keep 'em going? Or do we let 'em out?'

'Look,' I said, 'be reasonable. How do I know? All I propose to do is to play it by ear. I shall stay here until mid-morning in case some children do get through, and they can have a bite to eat in my house, as obviously the dinner van will never make it. I shall ring the office any minute now, as
you heard,'
I added pointedly, 'and I'll tell you before you go home.'

At that moment there was a flurry at the door and Ernest, who lives nearest to the school, appeared caked in snow all down his coat, but with a pink shining face and bright eyes.

'Get out!' shouted Mrs Pringle.

'Shake your coat outside,' I said more mildly, 'and leave your Wellingtons in the lobby. Then come and get warm.'

Sniffing cheerfully, he obeyed.

'I shoved along under the hedge,' he said, when he was holding his hands over the stove. 'It ain't too bad there, in the shelter, see?'

'Anyone else in sight?'

'Not a sausage,' said my lone pupil.

The telephone rang again. It was a message from the office to say that closure of the schools in our downland area was inevitable. We chatted about the weather conditions: a bus had overturned in Caxley High Street making everyday confusion even more confounded, no one could get over the downs to Oxford in the north or Winchester
in the south, the farmers were fearing for their sheep, and the best thing to do was to sit by the fire.

I relayed this invigorating news to Mrs Pringle who began to swathe herself in layers of clothing ready for her homeward ride. There was a sound of voices shouting and a well-revved engine chugging, and Mrs Pringle set off for the door.

'Expect me when you see me,' she boomed, 'and look after yourself.'

It was very quiet when she had gone. Ernest looked apprehensive. 'D'you reckon any of the others will get here?'

'I doubt it, Ernest. Is your mother at home?'

'Not till ten. She goes down the Post Office to help with old Mrs Lamb, nine till ten. Blanket bath and that.'

I remembered that Ernest's mother had once been a district nurse.

'Well, you go and find something to read from the cupboard,' I said, 'and I'll see you home just after ten.'

I had a brainwave and rang the Post Office.

'Yes,' said Mr Lamb, 'Ern's mum made it across the back field. Jolly stout effort. We'll get her home, never fear, by ten.'

'Any sign of children coming to school?'

'Not one,' he told me.

'Spread the news that school's closed till further notice,' I said.

We exchanged pleasurably dramatic news. Up to the eaves down Pig Lane where the wind caught it. Two abandoned cars outside 'The Beetle and Wedge'. Bob Willet had sent a message to say he'd be up school as soon as he could make it. Some old tramp had been found sleeping in the church porch, and the vicar had taken him
home; Mrs Vicar wasn't best pleased; fleas and that. No sign of Mr Roberts' sheep in Long Meadow, probably under the snow.

He rang off at last, leaving me with hazy memories of
Lorna Doone
and gurt Jan Ridd rescuing his flock.

'Makes a bit of fun, don't it?' said Ernest happily.

We were snowbound for the rest of that week, and the thaw came slowly, leaving piles of snow at the sides of the lanes and under the field hedges. The roads were filthy, churned up during daylight by farm transport and the occasional lorry or Land Rover. At night everything froze solid again. It was a bitter spell.

School re-opened on the last Monday morning of term, but a number of children still stayed away, some because travelling was impossible, others the victims of coughs and colds. Our usual Christmas party, for parents and friends, was postponed to sometime in the New Year.

Bob Willet, muffled to the eyebrows, was busy clearing the playground as I walked across. A few children were making their way to the school door, one kicking a snowball before him.

'Now then!' shouted Mr Willet sternly. 'Lay off that lark!'

I smiled my approval, wondering the while about the idiocy of some of our daily utterances. Why 'Now then'? And 'there, there' was pretty silly too, when analysed.

I pushed open the door into the lobby. Mrs Pringle, bucket at her feet and floor cloth in her hand, stood there, looking grim.

Before I could make any greeting, she jerked her head towards the footprints I had made on the floor.

'I just done that,' she said flatly, and all at once I was
transported back to my first encounter with Mrs Pringle one wet July afternoon all those years ago - when she greeted me in the self-same place and with the self-same words: 'I just done that.'