Village Centenary (4 page)

It was still blowing a gale when Amy left me at about nine-thirty. I saw by the light of her headlamps that a sizable branch had been torn from the horse chestnut tree in the garden, and the path was strewn with twigs and dead leaves. It was going to be pretty draughty sitting under that skylight tomorrow, I thought, if this weather continued.

I sat down by the fire again, and had a belated look at the daily papers. It was the usual conglomeration of strike threats, travel delays, violence, war and sudden death, and the most peaceful reading was the crossword and the obituaries.

The wind howled like a banshee and I found it distinctly unnerving. With Amy for company I had not noticed the vicious elements outside. Now, alone and responsible for any damage done, I became unusually jittery.

A cupboard door by the fireplace creaked slowly open, and I felt my blood pressure rising. Would a yellow clawlike hand with immensely long nails, Chinese fashion, appear round it? Or a black hand perhaps, holding a dagger? Or a white one dangling a knuckle duster?

'You've been reading too many bloods,' I thought, and steeled myself to shut the door firmly. At the same moment, Tibby rose, fur bristling, and advanced towards the kitchen door, growling horribly. I watched her, mesmerised. Could someone have broken in? Had I locked the back door earlier? Probably not, we are a trusting lot in Fairacre, and, under cover of the appalling racket outside it would be quite easy for someone to gain entry.

What should I do? Should I ring Caxley police? Should I arm myself with the poker and fight it out? Reason told me that any burglar, no matter how puny, could easily twist a weapon out of my grasp and use it to belabour me.

Surely I had read somewhere that it was best to offer no resistance. After all, hospitals are severely overcrowded without unnecessary casualties awaiting admission. If it were money that the intruder wanted he was going to be unlucky. I might rustle up three pounds or so, but that would be the most I could find in the schoolhouse at short notice. True, Aunt Clara's seed pearls might be acceptable, but that would constitute the bulk of my jewellery.

I took a deep breath, and flung open the door. The kitchen was as quiet as the grave. Tibby sat down and began to wash her face in the most maddeningly unconcerned fashion.

'Time I was in bed,' I told her, and went.

To my surprise, I had a letter from the office about the skylight. Obviously my pleas had touched some compassionate heart, and the gist of the reply was that this particular item, under 'minor works', would be treated as an emergency, and that Mr Reginald Thorn, of the Nook, Beech Green, had been instructed to call and examine the offending structure.

'Should have thought the office could've found someone with a bit more up top than old Reg,' commented Mr Willet, when I imparted the good news. 'Proper dog's dinner he'll make of it. I reckon I'd make a better job of it meself.'

I too had no doubts on that score, for Mr Willet's handiwork, whether with seedlings, paintbrush or bolts and screws, is always beautifully done. But the office had appointed Reg Thorn and that was that.

'When do you think he'll come?'

Mr Willet pushed back his cap to scratch his head.

'Now that's asking! I know for a fac' he's making a dresser for that new chap at Beech Green post office, and Mrs Mawne is going up the wall about some shelving he promised her last autumn and hasn't never done yet.' 'He's like that, is he?'

Mr Willet pursed his mouth judicially.

'Well, he's not a bad sort of chap, old Reg, but he's no flier. I mean, he
says
he'll do summat, and he means it too, but his trouble is he can't say "No" to no one, so the work sort of piles up.'

'So you reckon it'll be the summer before he gets round to our skylight?'

'Now, I'm not saying that. This bein' an office job like, and with forms and that to fill in, well, it might make old Reg get a move on. On the other hand, if all the other people get a bit whacky, and bully him, maybe he'll do their jobs to keep 'em happy. There's no telling.'

He raised his voice to a bull-like roar.

'Get off that there coke, you young devils, or I'll tan the skin off of your backsides, and you can tell your mums and dads why I done it!'

Mr Willet's method of dealing with the young might not find favour with modern psychologists, but it clears the coke pile in record time.

Whether Reg Thorn was awed by the county's official letter, or simply wished for a change of job, thus evading his earlier customers who were breathing fire, no one will ever know. But the outcome was decidedly cheering for me. Reg Thorn arrived within the week just as we were dishing out minced lamb (alleged - I suspected some manmade fibre) and mashed swede.

He was a tall lantern-jawed fellow, and said very little. He gazed up at the skylight with an expression of gloom. I had served all the children, and dispatched the containers to the lobby to await Mrs Pringle's ministrations, before he spoke.

'Rotted,' he said.

I agreed.

He sighed heavily.

'Still leaks?'

'It's been doing it for nearly a hundred years.'

'Ah! Looks like it.'

He remained rooted to the spot, very much in the way of the children returning their plates, but I did not like to say so. At length, he spoke again.

'Best see outside. All right?'

'Yes indeed. Mr Willet's ladder is by the wall if you want it.'

'Got me own. Insurance, see.'

To my relief he vanished, only to reappear framed in the skylight some minutes later. He appeared to be gouging pieces of wood from the window frame, and I only hoped that this operation would not add to the draught trouble.

I served helpings of crimson jelly decorated with blobs of rather nasty artificial cream. It is the children's favourite sweet and I was kept so busy scraping the tin for second helpings that I was quite startled to see Reg again at my elbow.

'Needs a dormer,' he shouted above the clatter.

'Won't that be expensive?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's up to the people at the office,' I shouted back. 'You can only tell them what you think.'

'Ah!' agreed Reg, and plodded off towards the door.

'My mum,' said Patrick conversationally, 'says old Reg don't get nothin' done in a month of Sundays.'

'That will do,' I replied witheringly. Privately, I feared that Patrick's mum was probably dead right.

Time alone would tell.

There is a widespread belief among town dwellers that remarkably little happens in the country. As any villager will tell you, the amount of activity that goes on is quite exhausting.

I am not thinking of the agricultural pursuits by which most of us get our living, but of the social side of life. What with the Women's Institute, amateur dramatics, various regular church activities such as choir practice and arranging the flowers, Cubs and Brownies for the younger people, fetes, jumble sales and whist drives, one could be out every night of the week if one so wished.

As village schoolmistress I try not to take on too much during term time, although I do my best to make amends in the holidays, but nevertheless one has to face pressing requests for such things as two dozen sausage rolls for the Fur and Feather Whist Drive, or a raffle prize for the Cubs' Social.

It was no surprise then, when Mrs Pringle approached me one morning and asked if I would do her a favour. This polite phrase, accompanied by a slight lessening of malevolence in her expression, was the prelude to my whipping up a sponge for some cause dear to her stony heart, I guessed.

I was right, or nearly so.

'I'm helping Mrs Benson with Cruelty to Children,' she announced. 'Could you give us a bottle of something? It's a good cause, this Cruelty to Children.'

I wondered if a bottle of arsenic, or even castor oil, would be fitting in the circumstances.

'Anything, Mrs Benson says, from whisky to shampoo. Or even homemade wine,' she added.

At that moment the children surged in in a state of wild excitement.

'It's snowing, miss,' they yelled fortissimo.

In the stampede, Ernest stood heavily and painfully upon my foot.

'I'll find you something,' I promised Mrs Pringle, as I retired, wincing.

And if ever anyone needs support for the Prevention of Cruelty to Teachers, I thought, nursing my wounds, I shall be in the forefront.

Fortunately the snow was not severe. One or two flurries during the afternoon soon died out, leaving the playground wet but not white, for which I was thankful. It was good to get home again by the fire on such a cheerless day. I was relishing a cup of tea and Tibby's welcoming purrs, when Mrs Willet arrived.

She is a neat quiet little person and renowned in Fairacre for her domestic efficiency. Mrs Willet's sponge cakes and home-made jam invariably take first prizes at our Flower Show, and if there were awards for laundry work and exquisite mending she would doubtless take those too.

She accepted a cup of tea after some demurring and sat rather primly on the edge of her chair. Tibby rubbed round her lisle-clad legs affectionately, and soon Mrs Willet began to look more relaxed.

'Has Mrs Pringle asked for a bottle?' she said at last.

'Yes. I can find her one quite easily.'

This sounded as though I had a cellar stuffed with strong drink, and as I knew that Mrs Willet and her husband were staunch teetotallers I wondered if she would disapprove.

'Then I hardly like to ask you for anything more, Miss Read, but the truth is I've taken on a book stall at this bazaar of Mrs Benson's, and I wondered if you could spare one.'

'You can have a dozen,' I cried. 'Probably two dozen. I'll bring them down during the week.'

'Bob'll do that,' Mrs Willet assured me. 'You put 'em in a sack, and he'll hump 'em home all right.'

I was not too happy about my books-even rejected ones - ending up in a sack, but said I would have a word with Mr Willet when they were ready.

'And what's happening about the centenary?' asked Mrs Willet. 'Any plans?'

'Not
firm
ones,' I prevaricated. 'Do you remember much about the school when you were here?'

'Quite a bit, though I started school in Caxley. We didn't move out to Fairacre until the end of the Great War, sometime in 1918. I had an auntie that lived in one of those cottages near the post office.

'What brought you from Caxley?'

'Lack of money,' said Mrs Willet sadly. 'My dad was killed in the January in France, and Mum had three of us at home with her. Mum got a good job helping at the Manor here, so we up-sticks and came to Fairacre.'

'A big change for you.'

'We liked it. Mr Hope was the headmaster here then, and a good kind chap he was although he was on the bottle then, poor soul, and that was the ruin of him. Fairacre was a lot different then - more shops and that. There was a smithy and two bakers, as well as a butcher and the stores. I used to have my dinner at the baker's sometimes.'

'Why was that?'

'Well, once a week my mum and auntie had to stay all day at the Manor. I believe Auntie did a bit of dressmaking there, and Mum had to do the windows. Something extra anyway. Most of the children took sandwiches to school, but there was a lot of horseplay among the big boys and Mr Hope didn't come over to stop 'em, as by rights he should've done. I was fair scared, so Mum made an arrangement that I had two boiled eggs and bread and butter and a cake at Webster's, on the day she was up the Manor.'

'What happened to the other two children?'

'Oh, they were younger, not school age, and went with Mum and Auntie. So they had their dinner in the Manor kitchen. Best meal of the week, Mum said. Always a cut off the joint and vegetables from the kitchen garden, and a great fruit pie to follow, but I wasn't envious. I felt like a queen having my boiled eggs at the shop.'

'With the baker's family?'

'Oh no! Much better than that! There were two or three marble-topped tables for customers. Not that anyone ever came in to eat when I was there, but the Websters did teas for these cyclists that were all about, and ramblers, as they were called before they turned into hikers. Sometimes someone from the village would pop in for a loaf or a pennorth of yeast, and then I'd feel very superior being waited on. My meal cost sixpence, 1 remember, and 1 could choose any cake I liked from the window, after the eggs and bread and butter.'

'And what did you choose?'

'Always a doughnut. It was either that, or a currant bun or a queen cake. I reckoned a doughnut was the best value. I had that with a glass of milk. Not bad for sixpence.'

I agreed. Mrs Willet's eyes became dreamy as she looked back almost sixty years.

'There was a lovely picture pinned up on the wall. I think it was an advertisement for Mazawattee tea. There was this lady in a long skirt and a fur stole, with a beautiful hat on top with her Queen Alexandra fluffy fringe just showing. She was sitting on a park bench, and dangling a little parcel, with "Mazawattee" written on it, from one finger. She had on the most beautiful long suede gloves. I often wondered why she was sitting on a park bench in such gorgeous clothes. It might have dirtied them.'