Village Centenary (20 page)

The wind was more violent than ever when Amy departed. Branches clashed overhead, plants shuddered in the onslaught, and a weird hooting came from the television aerial as the wind whistled around it.

Tibby rushed in through the front door as I waved farewell to Amy. She looked startled and affronted. I had little sympathy for her as she can get into shelter through the cat flap on the back door, but this is beneath her dignity if anyone is about to open a proper door for the lady.

It was good to get indoors again. I cleared away our tea things, put aside a pile of exercise books due to be corrected, and settled down gleefully with my lovely new book. After twenty minutes' bliss, a strange sound became evident. It was difficult to pin-point just what and just where it wa^in the confusion of noises outside, but to my horror it sounded remarkably like heavy breathing.

A burglar, with bronchitis? But he would hardly be at his work in such a condition. An escaped lunatic? But our nearest asylum was some twenty miles away. Some poor traveller taken ill and needing my assistance? If my conjecture was correct, he would need a doctor and oxygen tent immediately.

It was all very unnerving. The longer I listened, the more sure I became that it really was breathing that I could hear. What on earth should I do? It is on occasions like this that I realise how useful a husband could be. How lovely to be able to say: 'I think someone is breaking in, dear,' and to settle back while a masculine hand raises the poker.

However, spinsters learn to cope alone, and I decided that I must go and investigate. Tibby remained quite unmoved by the noise, which was unusual. Anything strange often causes her to growl, and to bristle with fright or fury, which only adds to one's misgivings.

I took the poker in hand, and went to the front door,
switching on lights as I went. Outside, grazing peacefully among my herbaceous plants was a fine Guernsey cow, one of Mr Roberts's herd, I guessed. By the light from the hall I caught sight of my lawn, heavily indented by hoofs, and wondered what Mr Willet would have to say about his newly mown grass when he turned up next morning.

The cow gazed benignly at me, some choice penstemon flowers dangling from her rotating jaw. She seemed pleased to see me, and made a gentle lowing noise through her mouthful of light supper.

Much relieved - for who would not prefer a kindly, if hungry cow to an escaped madman? -1 rang Mr Roberts's number and awaited rescue.

As I had guessed, Mr Willet was most indignant when he saw the state of my lawn the next morning.

'Never saw such a muck-up in all my borns,' he said, blowing out his moustache with disgust. 'You wants to sue old Roberts. That animal's done pounds' worth of damage.'

'I can't do that,' I protested. 'It's one of the hazards of living in the country. Cows do get out sometimes.'

'Not if the fences is kept proper,' replied Mr Willet sternly. 'Well, if you won't do nothing, you won't, of course, but I shall tell him what I think when I comes across him next.'

'Oh, don't make trouble!' I begged him. 'If I don't mind why should you?'

'Because I shall have the rolling and flattening of this lot, I can see, that's why!'

Against such straight reasoning I could say nothing, but made my way to school.

Here more trouble awaited me. Water had blown through the half-finished dormer window and made a pool on the floor. Joseph Coggs was doing his best to mop it up, but in his zeal was using Mrs Pringle's new duster and I foresaw some ructions.

'Let me have that, Joseph,' I said snatching it from him, 'and get the old floor cloth from the lobby.'

I was wondering if I could tear home, and put the duster to dry out of Mrs Pringle's sight, when the lady arrived, and caught me duster-handed.

'And who,' she boomed, 'done that?'

'It was used in error,' I said placatingly. 'One of the children was mopping up and didn't realise—'

At this moment, Joseph appeared with the floor cloth and Mrs Pringle rounded on him before I could intervene.

'You use my dusters once more, young Joe, and you'll get my hand round your ear-hole! Understand?'

Poor Joe turned pale. Mrs Pringle has hands like hams, and it was no idle threat.

'You can leave the cloth with me, Joseph,' I said hastily, 'and go into the playground until the bell goes.'

I mustered all the dignity I could manage whilst dangling a wet rag in each hand.

'I will see to this,' I said coldly, 'and please don't bully the children.'

Mrs Pringle grabbed the duster and shook it violently. 'You can do what you like with that floor cloth,' she shouted, 'but I'm not trusting you with my nice new duster.'

With that she thrust the damp duster into her black oilcloth bag, presumably to be taken home for its correct treatment, and I was left to mop the floor and curse Mrs Pringle, dormer windows, the wind, and Reg Thorn with equal intensity.

Miss Briggs arrived half an hour late with laryngitis. She had had a puncture, luckily in Beech Green, she whispered painfully, and two of Mr Annett's big boys had changed the wheel for her.

1 went into the infants' room with her to supply their wants, and to tell them of their teacher's affliction and the necessity for exemplary behaviour. It was going to be one of those days, I thought grimly, as Wayne switched on his transistor set overhead and filled the air with discord.

As it happened, with Miss Briggs's normally stentorian tones now hushed, it was the quietest day at Fairacre school since her arrival.

The rough weather had done some damage in our area. A tarpaulin had blown from a newly built stack of straw and caught itself in a neighbouring plum tree, bringing down several laden branches.

A branch had crashed on Henry Mawne's greenhouse, and rumour had it that the vicar had gone in his pyjamas to make sure that his beehives were safe.

In my own garden, the cow had done more damage than the weather, but the television aerial was sloping at an extraordinary angle.

'I can fix that, miss,' Wayne assured me. 'Just got to straighten one of the window catches, and then I'll be there.'

The dormer window, so Reg Thorn said, when I was successful in catching him one morning, would be finished in a fortnight.

'Just a final coat of paint, and we won't be bothering you no more,' he told me with pride. 'How d'you think it looks?'

'Fine,' I said, gazing at the new structure. To be honest, I was not sure about it. It looked heavy and awkward, jutting out from the old roof, but I was so used to the unobtrusive line of the old skylight that anything different was bound to strike me as peculiar. Mr Willet's derogatory remarks too may have influenced me. In any case, the new window must surely be an improvement on the former one which had plagued all the inhabitants of Fairacre school for generations.

Wayne put my aerial to rights as he promised and I thanked him at playtime.

'Don't you mind heights?' I asked him.

'Enjoy 'em,' he said beaming. 'My uncle was a steeplejack. Used to scramble up factory chimneys and walk round the rim at the top.'

To hear about it made me feel queasy.

'No good being a builder unless you've got the stomach for heights,' said Wayne, carrying Reg Thorn's ladder back to its proper place.

The children came out of school to play, and I was thankful that sunshine had followed the stormy weather. Miss Briggs emerged too to take up her playground duty, and Wayne hurried over to talk to her. It was good to see her so friendly and animated, I thought. She would miss the young company when our dormer window was done at last.

The Pringle children were still with us and much as I wanted to know what Minnie's plans were - if any -1 was anxious not to /appear too curious by asking Mrs Pringle about conditions at her home. However, she appeared one morning with a nasty scratch down one cheek and a large lump on her forehead.

'Good lord, Mrs Pringle,' I exclaimed, 'have you had a fall?'

'No. But someone else has,' she told me with enormous satisfaction.

She settled herself on the front desk, her usual perch when about to give me all the news. I glanced anxiously at the clock. No need to ring the school bell yet, and although I had still to look out the morning hymn and open the windows, it seemed far more important to me to hear the story behind Mrs Pringle's injuries.

'Well, it's like this. That Minnie wouldn't do nothing about getting Em back as long as Bert was around and she could see him. I threatened to put her and the kids out in the road, but you know our Min. Water off a duck's back it was, and me going half-barmy with that lot under my feet.'

'But I thought Em worked at Springbourne Manor. Didn't the Potters wonder where he was when he didn't turn up?'

'That's just it! He
did
turn up! Come on the bus from Caxley each morning, so the Potters never twigged anything was wrong for some time. But, of course, someone tittle-tattled to Mr Potter, and he waylaid Bert, as he sacked for pinching the vegetables if you remember, and got the truth out of him about Minnie and Ern.'

'What happened?'

'He ticked off Bert, and told him not to come between husband and wife, and to keep out of Springbourne or he'd set the police on him. Then he come up our place the other day and had a good talking to Minnie. He told her that Em would lose his job if she didn't persuade him to go back to live in Springbourne.'

'And did she?'

'Not Minnie! She's a proper soft one! Said Em might hit her and she was scared, though if he promised to treat her right she might go back. I said to her: "If you won't persuade Ern, then I will, my girl! I've had enough of you and your brats eating me out of house and home, and using my sheets and towels, day in and day out!" So yesterday evening I went to Caxley, and sorted things out.'

She fingered the bump on her head with pride. I was mightily impressed at the thought of even such a doughty fighter as Mrs Pringle facing the formidable Mrs Fowler. She once lived in Fairacre, and was a tough shrewish woman who frightened the life out of me just to look at her.

'You went to Mrs Fowler's?'

'I did indeed. She started shouting before I'd hardly got the words out of my mouth about Ern. "You let me in and we can talk this over nicely," I said to her, but what she said in return I wouldn't sully my lips by repeating. She made a run at me and that's when I got this scratch, the spiteful cat.'

'Did you retaliate?'

'If you mean did I give her as good as I got, I certainly did. Two handfuls of her hair I tore out, and I blacked her eye.'

Mrs Pringle spoke with quiet satisfaction. It must have been a real battle of the dinosaurs, I thought, and I wondered if the neighbours had enjoyed it.

'She said Ern wasn't there, but down The Barleycorn, and what's more he spent all his time there. Then she slammed the door in my face. I was about to go off to the pub to see if she was telling the truth, when she opened a top window and chucked a suitcase at me, with Em's things in evidently. Anyway, that's what caused this bump - not that woman.'

At this juncture, Joseph Coggs put his head round the
door to say was it time for the bell, and could he ring it?

'Not just yet, Joe. Mrs Pringle and I are having a little talk. I'll call you in a few minutes.'

Joseph vanished.

'Go on! Was he there?'

'He was. I picked up the case and went round the corner and found him in the bar. We just had time to get the last bus back.'

'He came without any trouble?' I asked mystified.

'I
took him,
' said Mrs Pringle.

I gazed at her with respect.

Outside 1 could hear the sound of children's voices. Were my latest pupils among them? I asked my cleaner.

'They're all going back to Springbourne tonight. Mr Potter's lending Ern the van to fetch the lot, and told him straight that he's out on his ear if he don't treat our Minnie right.'

'And you think he will behave now?'

'If he don't,' said Mrs Pringle rising majestically, 'he knows there's
two
of us can settle him.'

She made her way into the lobby, and I called Joseph in to ring the bell, some five minutes after time.

Meanwhile, I looked out the morning hymn, and settled for
Fight the Good Fight,
as an appropriate choice in the circumstances.

Oddly enough, I heard more about the clashing of the monsters from Amy when she visited me a few days later. Her window cleaner lives next door to Mrs Fowler in Caxley, and he evidently gave her a lively description of the scene.

'He and his wife went upstairs to get a better view from the bedroom window,' Amy told me. 'And whatever Mrs P. may say to the contrary, her language was quite as lurid as Mrs Fowler's. He said their money was on Mrs Pringle right from the start. "She'd got the
motive
and thei/jirif and the
weight!
" was how he put it.'

'Very neatly put too. They must have made an unholy noise. It's a wonder the neighbours didn't call the police.'

'They were enjoying it so much I don't think they wanted to break it up. According to him, it was pretty plain that Ern was getting fed up at Mrs Fowler's anyway. She used to expect him to do all the odd jobs around the house when he got back from Springbourne, and the food was rather sparse, I gather.'

'I can well believe that! Mrs Fowler had the reputation of being the stingiest woman in Fairacre when she lived here.'

'So it looks as though Ern was ripe for the picking, and Mrs P. plucked him at the right moment.'

'Well, heaven bless the old harridan,' I said. 'Now we've seen the last of Minnie and her brood.'

'For a time, anyway,' Amy said. 'I've no doubt they'll turn up in your life again before long.'

'Heaven forbid! Tell me, how's the dismemberment of the book going?'

Amy looked quite animated. 'I sent two short episodes to
Woman's Hour
and they've taken one. I'm going up to broadcast it, probably early next year.'

'Marvellous! We'll have it on at school in the afternoon. Tell me more.'

'Well, I'm writing an account of our sick room at school.'