Village Centenary (5 page)

'Probably collapsed exhausted after carrying a quarter of tea,' I suggested.

'She had a lovely face,' went on Mrs Willet. 'I thought I should like to look like that when I was grown up. But there, it never happened.'

She put down her cup, and began to get up.

'How I do run on! But it's nice to talk of old times. Bob thinks it's a waste of time to hark back, but I enjoy it. That's why I hope you'll be able to think of something for the centenary. We've got a lot to be thankful for in this village, and the school's the real centre of it.'

'It's good to hear you say so,' I told her. 'Never fear! We'll do the thing in style. And I won't forget the books.'

I showed her out into the murky winter dusk, and returned to my fire with much to think about. One day soon, I told myself, I must look through the school log books for some inspiration.

But before I had a chance to do this, Miss Briggs put forward an idea of her own.

'What about dressing the children in the costume of the 1880s, and making the schoolroom much as it was then? We could have copybooks, with pot hooks and hangers, and let them chant their tables, and even have a cane on the teacher's desk.'

I agreed that such a
tableau vivant
would no doubt appeal to the parents, but wondered if it might be rather ambitious.

'Why?' demanded Miss Briggs.

'Rigging out the children, for one thing. Plenty of parents could make the clothes for one, say, but I can't see big families like the Coggses even beginning.'

Miss Briggs began to look mutinous, and I hastily made amends.

'But I do like the idea, and we'll keep it in mind. After all, any brain waves we have will probably need to be modified. We must remember, though, that space is limited, and if all the children are present there won't be a lot of room for grown-ups.'

My assistant looked slightly less aggressive, and I began to wonder if this would be a good opportunity to discuss her too-prompt departure after school, but decided to postpone the task, as a bevy of infants swarmed in bearing one of their number with a bleeding knee, all bawling as fiercely as the wounded one. It was not the time for a delicate matter of school discipline, but I determined to broach it before the week was out.

Later that day, Miss Briggs approached me, starry-eyed.

'I've had another idea. Perhaps the vicar would dress up as the Reverend Stephen Anderson-Williams. I see from the log book that he was here for the first ten years of the school's existence, and seemed to pop in daily.'

I hardly liked to tell her, after throwing cold water on her earlier idea, that the reverend gentleman she had named was still remembered by the older generation, as the man who had left a perfectly good wife and six young children at his vicarage to run off with a sloe-eyed beauty from Beech Green. He was never seen again, but it was believed that he and his inamorata made a home together in Belgium.

Somehow, I doubted if the present vicar would wish to portray him in our revels. The Reverend Stephen Anderson-Williams would be better forgotten in my opinion, especially as some of his descendants still lived in the Caxley area.

'It's quite a thought,' I said guardedly, and we left it at that.

There was a sudden lull in the bleak weather, and for the best part of a week the sky was a pellucid blue, and the wind from the downs was warm and balmy. The catkins fluttered in the hedge. Bulbs thrust their stubby noses through the soil, and the birds, bright in their courting finery, began looking for nesting places.

We all felt ten years younger, and the children were as happy as sandboys now that they could play outside. Even Mrs Pringle looked a little less dour and sported a new flowered overall.

'Minnie give it to me for Christmas,' she said, when I admired it. 'I was keeping it for best, but what with the sun and this nice bit of spring, I thought why not wear it?'

'Why not indeed,' I agreed.

'Besides,' she added, 'what's the good of hoarding things? I mean, for all we know we may be knocked down by a bus before we have a chance to use our good stuff.'

This sounded more like Mrs Pringle to me. 'Always merry and bright,' as someone sang lugubriously in
The Arcadians,
but at least she had shown herself momentarily in tune with the spring sunshine around her. One must be thankful for small mercies.

1 took advantage of this blessing of early warmth and ushered the children out for an afternoon walk. The rooks were wheeling about the high trees, and one or two little birds flew across our path, trailing dry grass and moss in their beaks, intent upon their nest building. There was even a bold bumble bee investigating the ivy on the churchyard wall, and someone said the frogspawn might be starting in the pond. Of course we had to go and see, but there was none there.

I looked at my watch. It said almost three-thirty, and we set off for school at a brisk pace. There were several things to put away before Mrs Pringle appeared, and grace to be sung before the end of school at a quarter to four.

As we approached the school gate, Miss Briggs's little car appeared. The children scattered to left and right, but I stood my ground. The church clock said three-thirty exactly, and so did my watch.

Miss Briggs peered from the side window.

'Can you spare a minute?' I said. She looked a little annoyed, but duly reversed into the playground.

The children and I entered the school, tidied up, sang:
Now the day is over
and wished each other good afternoon.

Miss Briggs came into the room as the last of the footsteps died away. It was not quite ten to four.

No time like the present, I thought, and invited her to sit down.

'I oughtn't to stop,' she said. 'I'm picking up a friend at four o'clock.'

'This won't take a minute,' I promised her, and began to point out the necessity of staying until all her children were accounted for at the end of the day.

'But the hours are nine till three-thirty,' she protested.

'Not in teaching, they aren't,' I assured her. 'The children are in your care. What would have happened if one had injured himself before I got back? There were seven or eight infants under seven left to their own devices.'

She did not appear particularly contrite, or even fully aware of having been at fault, but I made it clear that she must not leave until my children had collected their younger brothers and sisters, and she went off looking more irritated than chastened.

Well, I had said my piece, I told myself, locking my desk drawers. Now it was up to my assistant to profit from it.

The 'soft weather', as the Irish say, remained with us, and March came in like the Iamb rather than the lion. I was pottering about in the garden after tea, admiring the swelling buds on the lilac bushes, when a car stopped at the gate, and out stepped Miss Quinn.

The little I know of Miriam Quinn I like. She is an extremely hard-working and efficient secretary to an eminant industrialist whose offices are in Caxley. So far, she has managed to stay fairly clear of the multitudinous activities in the village, and one rarely sees her.

She and Joan Benson, her landlady at Holly Lodge, are good friends despite their difference in temperament. Joan, since her husband died recently, has taken on all kinds of public work in Fairacre, and her good humour has endeared her to us all.

This visit from Miriam, I surmised, was something to do with the Caxley Festival. I took her indoors with pleasure and offered her a drink, but she shook her head.

'We've just had a farewell party for one of our staff at the office,' she told me, 'and I've had quite enough for one evening, I think.' She went on to explain her visit which, as I had guessed, was about the festival.

'I hope you aren't going to ask me to open my garden,' I said. 'Not that people might be delighted to see more weeds than in their own, but I can't compete with real gardeners.'

She laughed, and I thought how attractive she was when her usually serious expression was lit by laughter.

'Don't worry! It's something far less arduous. We're going to have teas in the village hall, and I'm trying to find out who would be willing to help. Joan's in charge, but would need about a dozen people to make a rota.'

'Oh, I'll willingly help,' I cried, much relieved. 'And if you want a cake, I am rather a dab hand at an almond one.'

'Splendid!' she said, producing a notebook and pencil. I noticed how neat the list was, and how quickly she made her notes. Obviously a treasure in the office at Caxley. No wonder she had been importuned by all the local clubs for help.

'Joan will be so grateful. We've got four names so far, including Mrs Willet who is marvellous, I hear.'

'You couldn't do better,' I assured her.

'What a pretty house this is,' said Miriam.

'I love it,' 1 said, 'but the snag is, of course, that it's a tied house and I really ought to look for somewhere else for my old age. I keep putting it off, which is quite mad, as house prices get more impossible each week.'

'It's not easy to find a place,' she agreed.

'Would you like to see the rest of it?'

'I'd love to. Houses are a great interest of mine. I was so lucky to find the annexe at Holly Lodge. Nothing in Caxley could compare with it.'

She followed me through the few rooms of the schoolhouse and seemed enchanted with all she saw, pausing at the bedroom windows to exclaim at the superb views which I am lucky enough to enjoy.

'I find this downland country marvellously exhilarating,' she said. 'When I get back from Caxley I feel pretty jaded,

but ten minutes in this air, and with these views, and I'm a new woman. The thought of leaving it fills me with despair.'

'But you don't have to leave it, do you?' I asked, puzzled.

She made a grimace.

'I don't know. It will soon be common knowledge, I expect, so that I don't think I'm betraying confidences. Joan is probably moving nearer her daughter whenever anything suitable turns up. She will sell Holly Lodge then, of course. I suppose I could stay on, but I shouldn't care to live at such close quarters with strangers, and in any case Joan would get a much better price without a tenant in the place.'

'She'll be missed,' I said. 'Let's hope she won't have to go for some time. Isn't she happy here?'

'Very happy. But she's about seventy, and getting less and less fond of driving, and I think her daughter feels she should be at hand if her mother were ill. It's all very sensible and understandable, but I dread her going, and dread house-hunting all over again even more.'

'Well, it was nice of you to tell me, and I won't say anything until I hear from other people that it's known in the village. Not that that will take long, knowing Fairacre,' I added.

Miriam laughed and made for the door.

'No secrets in a village!' she agreed, and departed down the path to the car.

One morning, soon after Miriam Quinn's visit, Reg Thorn appeared again with two men from the education office. They wanted to inspect the skylight again, and to see if the roof would stand a more solid structure built upon it.

This sounded hopeful to me. Could Fairacre School really be getting a proper dormer window to replace our temperamental skylight after a hundred years? I readily gave my permission for them to clamber about on the roof, and they departed.

Luckily, the weather was still fine, and apart from a good deal of thumping overhead which produced a light shower of flaked paint, dead leaves and an assortment of defunct wasps, spiders and earwigs upon my desk, we managed to continue our lessons in comparative peace.

The three vanished just before playtime, and I listened to the children's comments as they imbibed their morning milk.

'I bet them two men was telling oP Reg the best way to do it'

'What's a dormer anyway?'

'Do it have curtains like a proper window?'

'My auntie up Caxley says dormers lets in the draught something cruel.'

'D'you reckon we'll get it by the summer?'

'You'll be lucky! What with ol' Reg doin' it?'

It was like hearing their parents talking. Fairacre loves a new topic. The replacement of our skylight was going to keep everyone happy for a long time to come.

But not too long, I fervently hoped. I had a feeling that the fine weather would break the minute the glass was removed.

Mr Willet was of the same opinion. He was surveying the school roof when I went across to my house during the dinner hour.

'That'll never stand nothin' stronger than a skylight, that roof,' he asserted. 'Stands to reason, all that was gone into when this place was built. If it wouldn't bear the weight then, when them beams was new, what chance will it have now?'

'Perhaps it was too expensive to have a proper window put in then,' I hazarded.

'What, with all the money the Hurleys put up to help pay for it? They'd not grudge a few more quid to make the school ship-shape and Bristol fashion. Always had to be the best for the Hurleys.'

'Come and look at my broad beans,' I urged, anxious to change the subject, and to collect a book of Greek myths to read to the children in the afternoon.