(2/20) Village Diary (30 page)

I felt laughter welling up inside me, which would not be checked.

'Mrs Pringle,' I said, 'you can let it be known discreetly, that I'm as pleased as Punch about the news. Believe me, a heart as old as mine takes a lot of cracking !'

Her belligerent countenance softened, and a rare smile curved those dour lips. For a moment we sat smiling across the inkstand, and then Mrs Pringle heaved herself to her feet.

'Ah well! That's done with!' was her comment, and she retreated again to the infants' room, to finish her dusting. I could hear her singing a hymn in her usual gloomy contralto.

It was only when I had repacked my partridge, and looked out my register and red and blue pens for marking it, that I realized she was singing:

Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord, for He is kind!

By right and ancient custom at Fairacre School the last afternoon of the Christmas term is given up to a tea-party.

The partition had been pushed back, so that the two classrooms had been thrown into one, but even so, the school was crowded, with children, parents and friends. Mrs Finch-Edwards was there, showing her baby daughter Althea to Miss Clare. Miss Jackson, who had dressed the Christmas tree alone, was receiving congratulations upon its glittering beauty from Mrs Partridge. Mr Roberts's hearty laugh rustled the paper-chains so near his head, and the vicar beamed upon us all, until Mrs Pringle gave him the school cutting-out scissors and reminded him of his responsibilities. For it was he who would cut the dangling presents from the tree before the party ended.

In the quiet of the school-house across the playground my godson slept peacefully, too young yet for the noise and heat engendered by forty-odd hilarious schoolchildren. Mrs Annett was with us, busily discussing clothes with Mrs Moffat, her former landlady. Mrs Coggs and Mrs Waites had walked up together from Tyler's Row, and now sat, side by side, watching their sons engulf sardine sandwiches, iced biscuits, sponge cake, jam tarts and sausage rolls, ad washed down with frequent draughts of fizzy lemonade through a gurgling straw. Mr Willet, at one end of the room, had the job of taking the metal tops off the bottles, and with bent back and purple, sweating face, had been hard put to it to keep pace with the demand.

It was a cheerful scene. The paper-chains and lanterns swung from the rafters, the tortoise stoves, especially brilliant today from Mrs Pringle's ministrations, roared merrily, and the glittering tree dominated the room.

The children, flushed with food, heat and excitement, chattered like starlings, and around them the warm, country voices of their elders exchanged news and gossip.

After tea, the old well-loved games were played, 'Oranges and Lemons' with Miss Clare at the piano, and Mr and Mrs Partridge making the arch, 'Poor Jenny sits a-weeping,' 'The Farmer's in his Den,' 'Nuts and May' and 'Hunt the Thimble.' We always have this one last of ad, so that we can regain our breath. The children nearly burst with suppressed excitement, as the seeker wanders bewildered about the room, and on this occasion the roars of 'Cold, cold!' or 'Warmer, warmer!' and the wild yelling of 'Hot, hot! You're real hot!' nearly raised the pitch-pine roof.

The presents were cut from the tree, and the afternoon finished with carols; old and young singing together lustily and with sincerity. Within those familiar walls, feuds and old hurts forgotten, for an hour or two at least, Fairacre had been united in joy and true goodwill.

It was dark when the party ended. Fareweds and Christmas greetings had been exchanged under the night sky, and the schoolroom was quiet and dishevelled. The Christmas tree, denuded of its parcels, and awaiting the removal of its bright baubles on the morrow, still had place of honour in the centre of the floor.

Joseph Coggs' dark eyes had been fixed so longingly on the star at its summit, that Miss Clare had unfastened it and given it into his keeping, when the rest of the children had been safely out of the way.

The voices and footsteps had died away long ago by the time I was ready to lock up and go across to my peaceful house. Some of the bigger children were coming in the morning to help me clear up the aftermath of our Christmas revels, before Mrs Pringle started her holiday scrubbing.

The great Gothic door swung to with a clang, and I turned the key. The night was still and frosty. From the distant downs came the faint bleating of Mr Roberts' sheep, and the lowing of Samson in a nearby field. Suddenly a cascade of sound showered from St Patrick's spire. The bell-ringers were practising their Christmas peal. After that first mad jangle the bells fell sweetly into place, steadily, rhythmically, joyfully calling their message across the clustered roofs and the plumes of smoke from Fairacre's hearths, to the grey, bare glory of the downs that shelter us.

I turned to go home, and to my amazement, noticed a child standing by the school gate.

It was Joseph Coggs. High above his head he held his tinsel star, squinting at it lovingly as he compared it with those which winked in their thousands from above St Patrick's spire.

We stood looking at it together, and it was some time before he spoke, raising his voice against the clamour of the bells.

'Good, ain't it?' he said, with the utmost satisfaction.

'Very good!' I agreed.

M
ISS
R
EAD
is the pen name of Mrs. Dora Saint, who was born on April 17, 1913. A teacher by profession, she began writing for several journals after World War II and worked as a scriptwriter for the BBC. She is the author of many immensely popular books, but she is especially beloved for her novels of English rural life set in the fictional villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green. The first of these, Village School, was published in 1955 by Michael Joseph Ltd. in England and by Houghton Mifflin in the United States. Miss Read continued to write until her retirement in 1996. In 1998 she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire for her services to literature. She lives in Berkshire.