Trouble at the Little Village School (17 page)

‘Well, it’s good to see you. Come on through.’

He led the way into the sitting-room, where a fire blazed and crackled in the hearth. When Elisabeth had first visited the house this room had been cold and unwelcoming with its heavy fawn-coloured curtains, earth-brown rug, dark cushions and dusty furniture. The bookshelf was crammed with books, journals and papers, and on a large oak desk were an old-fashioned blotter, a mug holding an assortment of pens and broken pencils and more papers stacked untidily. On the walls were a few dull prints and an insipid watercolour of a mountain and a lake.

Just before Danny had come to live at Clumber Lodge, Dr Stirling had arranged for one of the musty and unused bedrooms to be redecorated. Elisabeth and Mrs O’Connor had seen their opportunity – they had prevailed upon the doctor to give other parts of the house greatly in need of some refurbishment an overhaul, and the sitting-room had been transformed. It now looked homely and bright. The walls were painted, the wood shone, the prints and watercolours had been replaced by large bright paintings, the faded curtains had given way to long plum-coloured Dralon drapes and a thick-pile beige carpet had been fitted. The desk had been moved out and replaced by a deep-cushioned sofa. Even the large pot plant in the corner gleamed with well-being.

The only item remaining from the old decor was the delicate inlaid walnut table, on which several photographs in small silver frames had been arranged: one showing Dr Stirling with his arm around a striking-looking woman, his wife who had been killed in the riding accident; another a more formal portrait of the same woman posing in front of a horse; and several photographs of a serious-faced James.

‘You look just about done in,’ said Dr Stirling. ‘Come over by the fire and I’ll get you a drink. You look as if you need a whisky.’

Elisabeth warmed her hands and then sat on the sofa, stretching back and sighing. ‘I
am
done in,’ she agreed, ‘and I could do with something strong. Where are the boys?’

‘Upstairs,’ he told her. ‘Since you started that chess club at school they’ve become quite obsessed with the game.’ As he poured the drinks Dr Stirling asked, ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘I just need to talk,’ she told him. ‘It’s been a pretty nerve-racking week.’ He passed her a glass and she took a sip.

‘You’d better tell me about it,’ he said, sitting down next to her. He rested a hand on hers. ‘You know what they say, you can trust me, I’m a doctor.’ She gave a small smile. ‘Is it this proposed merger that’s worrying you?’ he asked.

‘Yes, it’s preying on my mind,’ she said. ‘The term started off so well. Everything seemed to be going fine, the school’s future assured, contented teachers, happy children, new furniture and then this comes out of the blue. There’ll be all this uncertainty and upheaval, changes of staff, two premises to manage and I just don’t think I could work with that irritating man at Urebank.’ He let her talk. ‘I went to see the Director of Education earlier in the week. He virtually offered me a job in the north of the county at a new, purpose-built primary school, but you know I can’t leave here. I don’t want to be miles away from John, and from you
.
’

‘I’m glad to hear it. You would be greatly missed if you left the village,’ he said. ‘And I would certainly miss you. I’m sure you know that, Elisabeth.’

She smiled. ‘Well, I’ve no intention of leaving.’

‘The thing is, the school isn’t going to close,’ he reassured her, ‘so why would you leave?’

‘But suppose this Mr Richardson at Urebank gets the headship and I have to work as his deputy? It would be unbearable.’

‘That’s not on the cards, is it?’

‘Well, Mr Preston didn’t go into that, but the papers I was given at the Education Office before I left say there will be one head teacher based at one site, probably with the junior children, and the deputy at the other with the infants and there may be staff redeployments and redundancies. Then the term had hardly started and I was savaged by a Rottweiler.’

‘You were what?’

‘Metaphorically speaking. Miss Sowerbutts cornered me by the school gates and had a go at me.’

‘Why?’

‘I told a parent I didn’t agree with what had been said to her about her son when Miss Sowerbutts was head of the school. I think perhaps it was a bit unprofessional, but I was so angry at what she had said. Do you know, she told the parent—’

Dr Stirling placed a finger gently over her lips. ‘No more,’ he said, leaning closer to her. He kissed her again.

The door opened and James and Danny rushed in. ‘Oh hello, Mrs Devine,’ they said in unison. ‘Dad,’ said James, ‘can you tell Danny that a bishop is worth more than a knight?’

Dr Stirling sighed and shook his head. Elisabeth smiled.

‘’Ello, Mrs Sloughthwaite,’ said Danny, coming into the village store on the Sunday morning. He was holding a small bunch of white flowers.

‘Hello, love,’ replied the shopkeeper. ‘Are those for me?’

‘No,’ he replied.

‘For your girlfriend, are they?’

‘I ’aven’t got no girlfriend,’ he told her, colouring up. ‘I’m not into lasses. I’m sick of that Chardonnay following me round and making eyes at me. I can’t go anywhere without ’er being behind me. And that Chantelle’s t’same. I’m sick of it. I’m ’appy wi’ mi ferret. Tha know where thy are wi’ ferrets. Ya never know where ya are wi’ lasses.’

‘So who are the flowers for then?’ asked the shopkeeper.

‘I’m tekkin ’em to purron mi grandad’s grave. I want to tidy it up a bit this morning.’

‘That’s a nice thought, but it’s a bit cold for gardening.’

‘I don’t mind t’cold,’ the boy told her. ‘I’m used to it.’ He waved the flowers. ‘These are called Christmas roses but they’re not really roses and they don’t flower at Christmas either. Mi granddad loved these flowers. ’E planted ’em at t’back o’caravan and they’re the first flowers along wi’ snowdrops what ya see in January.’

‘You’d think the frost would kill them,’ remarked the shopkeeper.

‘Well, it dunt seem to,’ replied the boy.

‘They’re just right for your granddad’s grave,’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite, assuming her usual position leaning over the counter. ‘Mrs O’Connor was telling me that you’ve settled in at Clumber Lodge with Dr Stirling,’ she said, beginning her interrogation.

‘Yeah, I really like it theer,’ the boy told her.

‘You’re a very lucky boy, Danny Stainthorpe, to have found such a good home.’

‘I know.’

‘And a little bird tells me that Dr Stirling is minded to adopt you?’

The boy’s face lit up. ‘Yeah, ’e is. I’m really hexcited.’

‘I bet you are, living in that lovely big house.’

‘I’ve got a bedroom of mi own and I can keep mi ferret in his cage in t’shed at t’back and Mrs O’Connor’s a really good cook.’

‘You seem to have fallen on your feet,’ observed the shopkeeper.

‘I ’ave,’ replied the boy, nodding.

‘And did you have a nice Christmas?’

‘Yeah, it were great.’

‘Did you spend it at home with Dr Stirling then?’ She recalled Mrs Lloyd telling her that Chardonnay had gone around to Dr Stirling’s on Christmas Day when her sister went into labour but found no one at home, so she knew full well that Danny had not spent the day at Clumber Lodge.

‘No.’

‘So did you go out to a restaurant?’

‘No.’

The boy was less than forthcoming so the shopkeeper decided to get straight to the point. ‘So, where did you have your Christmas dinner then?’

‘At Wisteria Cottage.’

‘Oh, at Mrs Devine’s.’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘Yeah, she invited us all round and cooked t’best Christmas dinner I’ve ever ’ad. She’s a really good cook, is Mrs Devine.’

Was there anything this superwoman was not good at? mused the shopkeeper.

‘That was kind of her.’

‘I really like Mrs Devine,’ said the boy.

‘And from the sound of it Dr Stirling does as well,’ remarked the shopkeeper, probing.

‘We had a really great time. I need to get on, Mrs Sloughthwaite, so do ya sell cat food?’

‘I do, love. Is it for your ferret?’

‘No, it’s for a cat.’

‘I didn’t know you had a cat.’

‘It’s not mine. It’s a stray.’

‘Is it a cream colour with a black face and sticky-up ears?’

‘’Ow did ya know that?’

‘Because it’s Miss Sowerbutts’s cat and she’s been looking for it. Last time she saw it, it was running out of her kitchen with a salmon tin stuck on its head.’

‘That’s ’ow I found it, down by t’millpond. There’s a pair of kingfishers down theer and I went to see ’em and I saw this cat. I thowt it were dead at fust, an’ then I saw its belly movin’ up and down. It couldn’t breathe properly. Anyroad, I managed to get t’tin off of its ’ead.’

‘And however did you manage to do that?’ asked the shopkeeper.

The boy produced a knife from his pocket and placed the flowers on the counter. Then he held the knife with one hand and tapped his nose with the other. ‘Swiss army knife,’ he told her. ‘It’s got all sorts o’ things on. It were mi granddad’s. It ’as a tin oppener.’

‘That was handy,’ remarked the shopkeeper.

‘Well, ya never know, Mrs Sloughthwaite,’ said the boy grinning, ‘when you might come across a cat wi’ a tin on its ’ead. Anyway, I gorrit off and now t’cat won’t stop followin’ me abaat.’

‘A bit like them two lasses you were telling me about,’ said Mrs Sloughthwaite, winking.

Danny grimaced. ‘So could I ’ave a tin o’ cat food please, Mrs Sloughthwaite? It looks dead ’ungry.’

‘I wouldn’t feed it if I were you, love,’ she told him, recalling Miss Sowerbutts’s description of the special diet the animal was on. ‘You take it round to Mrs Sowerbutts – you never know, you might get a reward.’ And pigs might fly, she thought.

The boy gave a small shudder and pulled a face. ‘I don’t want to go round to ’er house,’ said Danny. ‘I’ll ’ave to see ’er and I can do wi’out that.’

‘Well, just put the cat in her garden then,’ said the shopkeeper. ‘Then it’ll know where it is and you won’t have to see Miss Sowerbutts.’

‘OK, Mrs Sloughthwaite,’ said Danny.

She passed a bar of chocolate across the counter. ‘And have this on me,’ she said.

‘Thanks Mrs Sloughthwaite,’ he said.

‘And you say hello to your granddad for me, will you? I reckon he’s up there in heaven looking down on you and feeling happy with how things have turned out.’

‘D’ya think ’e is?’ asked the boy thoughtfully.

‘I’m sure he is, love.’ She passed him the flowers. ‘Now you run along.’

So, Dr Stirling and the boys spent Christmas at Wisteria Cottage, did they, Mrs Sloughthwaite reflected when the boy had gone. Funny that Mrs O’Connor had never mentioned it when she was in the store. Although she had spent Christmas with her sister in Ireland, she would have known. Of course, Mrs O’Connor was always very circumspect. She gave nothing away. Mrs Sloughthwaite, resting her bosom on the counter, smiled to herself, feeling rather pleased. There was nothing she could not find out – one way or the other.

‘Would you mind, Fred!’ shouted the landlord of the Blacksmith’s Arms.

‘Would I mind what?’ asked Fred Massey gruffly. He was dressed in his ill-fitting Sunday best suit, a bargain from a charity shop, and was standing with his back to the fire warming himself and shielding any heat from the other three customers in the public house, who sat at a small table by the window.

‘Would you mind shifting yourself out from in front of the fire?’ said the landlord. ‘You’re blocking all the heat.’

‘I don’t hear anyone complaining,’ said Fred.

‘Well, I am,’ the landlord told him. ‘Now shift yourself.’

Grumbling, Fred moved away and approached the bar. ‘You wants to get this here chimney seen to,’ he said. ‘Yon fire gives out about as much heat as a frigid polar bear in a snowstorm. It all goes up the chimney.’

‘Well, if you don’t like it,’ retorted the landlord, ‘you can always take your custom elsewhere. You’re lucky I’ve let you come back in here after that argument you had with Albert Spearman, attacking him with your crutch.’

‘I didn’t attack him,’ Fred snorted. ‘I poked him and he deserved it, conning our Clarence into buying that duff animal feed soon as my back’s turned and me disabled as well.’

Clarence, Fred’s long-suffering nephew, had held the fort on the farm while his uncle had been incapacitated after an accident with the sugar beet cutter. His uncle had been taken to hospital and had spent the next month hobbling about the village on crutches, moaning and groaning.

‘Albert Spearman must have thought my brains were made of porridge, trying to pull a fast one like that,’ he said now. ‘Tried to palm him off with a load of rubbish. Didn’t think I’d notice. Aye, well I did.’

‘I know all about that, Fred,’ said the landlord. ‘I’ve heard it often enough, as have most people who come in here. Now, I’m telling you, any more trouble out of you and I shall bar you again.’