(1/20) Village School (22 page)

The tale got round, however, and Amos was nicknamed 'Acts' or rather, 'Axe,' from an early age. Now a man in his thirties, Axe Bryant ran a thriving fish and chip shop in Caxley, and was too busy this afternoon preparing his potatoes for the Saturday night rush to join his brothers at Fairacre in bowling for the pig.

After Ezekiel had had his turn, John Pringle arrived on the scene. He was popular, and everyone hoped he would give the Bryants a run for their money. With great cunning he bowled his three balls, and the last one, by some distortion of the pitch, knocked down three out of the remaining four standing.

'Eight!' went up the triumphant cry, 'Good old John! Eight!' And delighted glances were exchanged and much back-slapping. Even Mrs Pringle managed a faint congratulatory smile at her son, basking in his reflected glory. But the Bryant tribe looked grim.

'Malachi!' ordered Mrs Bryant in a voice of thunder, with a jerk of the trilby hat towards the balls. With his black brows drawn together, Malachi advanced with another sixpence, and after spitting on his hands, he sent down his first ball in answer to the challenge.

Mrs Moffat was receiving congratulations from the vicar's wife on her daughter's dress. Linda had won first prize of five shillings which she was now ploughing back into the fete funds by treating several small friends to ice-cream.

Several of the mothers had spoken to her and had said how pretty Linda looked. Fairacre, Mrs Moffat suddenly thought, was a very pleasant place, and, with an uprush of spirits, she remembered how gloomy she had been a year ago as a newcomer to the village. No, she decided, things were not too bad. Money was easier with Miss Gray boarding with her, Linda was happy at school, the house and garden were settled and she had made a staunch friend in Mrs Finch-Edwards. She moved among the crowd on the lawn, now one of Fairacre's inhabitants, accepted and content.

The schoolchildren in my class performed their play. John Burton's opening line, 'I am the Spirit of Summer,' which I had practised with him until it rang in my head from dawn to dusk, was, as I had feared, delivered in the perfunctory, off-hand mutter, that I had sweated blood to change to an arresting declamation. Everyone applauded heartily, however, and the infants gambolled on to perform their singing games under Miss Gray's direction.

In the vicar's drawing-room, Miss Clare sat at the piano, which had been pulled close to the french windows, and there she played the old nursery tunes, 'Here we go round the Mulberry Bush' and 'Poor Jenny is a-weeping,' and 'There was a Jolly Miller,' as she had done so many times for their fathers and mothers.

The babies clapped and sang, very delighted with themselves, gazing cheerfully over their shoulders at their parents all the time. The circle occasionally set off in the wrong direction and had to be steered by Miss Gray now and again, but the whole show was an enormous success, and I felt that Fairacre School had covered itself with glory.

A cold little wind sprang up after tea, rustling the leaves of the rhododendrons and sending the people back to their cottages. The stall-holders began to sell their wares at half-price, and the people in charge of Aunt Sally, fishing with a magnet, and rolling pennies, began to collect their paraphernalia and the pudding basins, heavy with money.

'It seems incredible,' said the vicar later, as he sat with neat piles of coins before him, 'but we seem to have made a hundred and fifty pounds! Of course, I know that that includes Mrs Bradley's most generous contribution, but even so … it is quite wonderful!' His face was glowing with happiness. He adored his church and the parlous state of the roof had afforded him much sorrow for some time. Now, well before the winter gales began, a start could be made.

Through the french windows he could see the bigger children, under Mr Willet's supervision, clearing up the debris. Mrs Coggs, with her young family, had made her appearance very late, but was now busily stuffing lettuces, gooseberries and spring cabbage into a string bag.

'It will be a relief to get rid of it,' the vicar's wife was assuring her. 'We can't keep it here and it will come in useful for the children, I hope.' She caught sight of Joseph's monkey eyes fixed mournfully upon her. 'Here, my dear, run over to Miss Clare and see if she has anything left on the sweet stall' And to Joseph's speechless amazement he found himself on his way to Miss Clare with a sixpence warm in his hand.

John Pringle was trundling a wheelbarrow covered with a net out of the vicarage gate. Loud squealing accompanied him as he wheeled his pig home, and on each side of the barrow trotted admiring children.

Outside 'The Beetle and Wedge' lounged the Bryant menfolk. Mrs Bryant had stalked home in disgust some half-hour earlier, and the men were loth to face her acid tongue when they returned.

They watched the pig and its escort go by them, with hostile glances, but in stony silence. As the cavalcade turned the bend, Ezekiel spoke.

'Come and 'ave one, mates,' he muttered, and the brothers turned silently in at the pub door to gain consolation for past tribulations and strength to face those to come.

20. Perplexed Thoughts on Rural Education

'H
EARD
about Springbourne?' asked Mr Willet. He was sheltering in the school doorway from a sharp spattering of hail. Beside him was propped a besom with which he had been sweeping the coke back to the pile. An outbreak of Cowboys-and-Indians, involving ambushes behind the pile and wild sorties over it, had spread the crunching mess far and wide.

'What about it?' I said, peering out to see if I could make a dash for the kettle. The spasmodic spatterings suddenly turned to a heavy bombardment. Hailstones danced frenziedly on the asphalt, so thick and fast, that it seemed as though a mist were rising. I leant against the stone sink in the lobby, ready to gossip.

'They say the school's closing down,' said Mr Willet, 'You heard that?'

I said I had.

'Well, it ain't good enough by half. The people over Springbourne are proper wild about it. After all, it's been there pretty near as long as this one.'

'But it's so expensive to keep up. Only fifteen children, I believe, and the building in need of repair.'

'What about it? Got to go to school somewhere, ain't they? Can't walk this far, some of 'em only babies; now, can they? Besides every village wants its own school. Stands to reason you wants your own children to run round the corner to where you went yourself.'

He blew out his stained moustache with vexation.

'And another thing,' he said, nodding like a mandarin, 'the bus'll cost a pretty penny to cart 'em over here. And what about poor old Miss Davis? Been there donkey's years. She and Miss Clare was pupil teachers together as girls. Where's she to go? Pushed offto some ol' school in Caxley, I've heard tell, with great ol' classes that'll shout her down, I shouldn't wonder!' He paused for breath, glowering out across the veiled playground.

'Mark my words, Miss Read,' he continued, wagging a finger, 'this'll be the death of that poor soul. Give her life up, she has, to Springbourne—and the people there won't let her go without a tussle. Run the cubs, played the organ, done the savings—Oh! I reckons it's cruel!'

I agreed that it was.

'And where's the poor ol' gel to live? There's rumours going that she'll be turned out of the school-house, where she's lived all these years. Look at the garden she's made! A real picture—and took her all her life! And that's another thing!' Mr Willet moved closer to me to emphasize his point. The ragged moustache was thrust aggressively near.

'Suppose these school people up the office ever wants to open that school again? Who's coming there, if they've sold the house? Tell me that?' he demanded. 'You know, miss, we've seen it time and time again—no house, no schoolteacher! And in the end it's the kids and the village what suffers. No one living there to take an interest and know everybody. "Yank 'em off in a bus," says the high-ups!' Mr Willet's tone changed to one of mincing refinement.' "Push 'em all into one big school—it's economy we've got to think of!"'

I laughed, and was immediately sorry, for Mr Willet was so burning with righteous indignation that I could not explain that I was laughing at his impersonations and not at his sentiments.

'Economy!' Mr Willet spat out, with disgust. 'I don't call that economy! Economy's taking care of what you've got and making good use of it. And if shutting up the village schools for the sake of a bit of hard cash is what the high-ups call economy, they just wants to sit down quiet for a minute and think what real value means—not ol' money—that's the least of it—and then to think again and ask themselves "What are we throwing away?"'

The hail stopped with dramatic suddenness, and with Mr Willet's wisdom ringing in my ears I sped across to the kettle.

While Mrs Pringle was still flicking her duster the next morning, Miss Gray beckoned me into her empty room to show me a very beautiful sapphire ring snug in its little satin-lined box.

'I can't tell you how pleased I am!' I said, kissing her heartily, 'you'll suit each other so well——' A thought struck me. 'It is Mr Annett, I suppose?'

Miss Gray laughed, although her eyes were wet and she was rather tremulous.

'Yes, indeed, who else would it be?'

'I'm so glad. He deserves to be happy at last.'

'Poor man!' agreed Miss Gray, with a sigh so fraught with sympathy and pity that I foresaw a very maudlin few minutes. 'He has suffered terribly,' she went on, looking at me with anguished grey eyes. I composed my features and prepared to listen to the harrowing account of Mr Annett's past love-life and the hopes, declared with becoming downcast modesty, for his future. But luck was with me. The door burst open, and a gaggle of small children entered.

'Miss,' said Jimmy Waites breathlessly, 'Eileen Burton's knicker elastic's busted, and she won't come out of the lavatory she says, until you brings a pin!' Miss Gray put the ring in her bag and hastened away, while I returned to my room to choose the morning hymn, observing, as I went, how seldom one can indulge in the inflation of any sort of emotion without life's little pin-pricks bursting the balloon.

'And a very good thing too,' I was moralizing to myself, 'emotions cannot be enjoyed without them becoming dangerous to one's sense of proportion,' and I was about to develop this lofty theme, when I caught sight of Ernest, and was obliged to break off to direct him to wipe his nose.

On Tuesday the
Caxley Chronicle
carried the announcement of the engagement and all the village was agog.

'Not that it wasn't plain to see for weeks,' was the general verdict. 'Let's hope they'll be happy.'

Mrs Pringle was at the top of her form when she heard the news.

'That poor girl!' she said, dragging her leg slightly, 'he's got through one wife and now he's setting about another!'

'Oh, come!' I protested, 'you make him sound a Bluebeard! It wasn't Mr Annett's fault, merely his misfortune, that his first wife was killed in an air-raid!'

'That's his story,' replied Mrs Pringle, darkly, 'and anyway who's to say we shan't get more air-raids?'

This piece of reasoning was quite beyond me, but I determined to let some light into the gloom of Mrs Pringle's argument.

'You are saying, in effect, Mrs Pringle, that anyone marrying Mr Annett lays themselves open either to slow-death-by-matrimony or sudden death-by-air-raid.'

'What a wicked lie!' boomed Mrs Pringle indignantly, bristling and breathless. 'I simply said Mr Annett had got a good wife in Miss Gray and I hope she's got some idea of the state of the house she's taking over before she goes to it as a bride.'

Before this
volte-face
I was silent.

'And if she wants to know of a real good scrubber, my husband's niece over to Springbourne would be the one for the job, but would need to be supplied with old-fashioned bar soap, these new sudses, she says, brings her up all of a nettle-rash!' She paused for breath and assumed the look of piety which the choir-boys mimic so well.

'May she be very happy,' she said lugubriously, 'and I only pray she doesn't have her confinements in that front bedroom of Mr Annett's! Mortal damp, it is, mortal damp!'

'Delightful news,' said the vicar, beaming, 'so very suitable—a most charming pair! But, my dear Miss Read, Annett's gain must, of course, be Fairacre's loss, I fear. Has she mentioned anything to you? Whether she is willing to continue here I mean? At any rate for a few months, shall we say? Just until—well, in any case—does she want to go on teaching?'

I said that I had no idea.

'I must set about drafting another advertisement if she decides to leave us, I suppose. Such a short time since our last interviews. I wonder now if Mrs Finch-Edwards would help us out again?'

I pointed out that Mrs Finch-Edwards would be busy looking after a young baby by that time.

'Of course, of course,' nodded the vicar. 'More good news! I never can quite decide which I find the pleasanter—news of a wedding or a birth. Well, who can we think of?'

'Let's find out if Miss Gray is planning to leave or stay first,' I suggested. At the back of the class I could see a picture, drawn by Ernest, being displayed secretly to his neighbour, under the desk. From a distance it looked remarkably like a caricature of the vicar and I felt the matter should be investigated immediately. I did my best to catch the malefactor's eye, but he was much too engrossed with his handiwork to bother about me.

'I'll call again,' said the vicar, setting off for the door, so preoccupied that he forgot his farewells to the children. At the door, he paused:

'Perhaps Miss Clare?' he suggested. His face was illuminated. He looked like a child who has just remembered that it is Christmas morning. With a happy sigh, he vanished round the door.

The warm weather had returned. On the window-sills, pinks, so tightly packed that they looked like cauliflowers, sent down warm waves of perfume to mingle with the scent of roses on my desk.

The elm trees in the corner of the playground cast comforting cool shadows, and beyond them, in the lower field that stretched away to the foot of the downs, the hay was being cut.