(5/20)Over the Gate (3 page)

She scrubbed at her eyes fiercely with the back of her hand, then opened the door.

'Can I come and see him?' I asked impulsively. She nodded, her face expressionless.

I followed her up the steep wet path to the forlorn house. Its ugly exterior, blotched with damp, was more hideous than ever. Inside, in the lovely room, Fred Hurst lay asleep on a bed which had been brought from upstairs. He faced the portrait above the mantelpiece.

The sleeping man woke as we entered and tried to struggle up, but weakness prevented him. I was aghast at the change in him. It was apparent that he had very little time to live. His eyes wandered vaguely about the room, and his breathing was painful to hear. His wife crossed quickly to his side and took his hand. Her face softened as she gazed on him.

'Fred dear, it's me. And I've brought Miss Read to see you,' she said gently.

A flicker passed across his face and the dull eyes roiled in my direction.

'Come to see me?' he asked slowly. 'Me, or my great—' he took a shuddering breath, 'or my great-great-grandad? He is my kin, ain't he, my love?'

There was a terrible urgency in the hoarse voice as he turned to his wife. Across his wasted body her eyes met mine. They had become dark and dilated as though they looked upon hell itself, but her voice rang out defiantly.

'Of course he's your kin,' she cried, tightening her grip on his hand. 'Miss Read can see the likeness, can't you?'

I responded to the challenge.

'A strong family likeness,' I lied unfalteringly, and felt no regret.

2. Strange, But True?

P
OOR
Fred Hurst died a fortnight before Christmas, and Mr Willet, who is sexton of St Patrick's as well as caretaker of Fairacre school, had the melancholy task of digging his grave.

We could hear the ring of his spade as it met sundry flints embedded in the chalk only a foot or so below the surface of the soil.

It was a dark grey December afternoon outside, but within the classroom was warmth, colour and a cheerful hum as the children made Christmas cards. Above their bent heads swung the paper chains they had made. Here and there a pendent star circled slowly in the keen cross draughts which play constantly between the Gothic windows at each end of the school building. A fir branch, cut from the Vicarage garden, leant in a corner giving out its sweet resinous breath as it awaited its metamorphosis into a glittering Christmas tree.

Crayons stuttered like machine guns as snow scenes were created. Reindeer, with colossal antlers which took up far too much room, tottered on legs—inevitably short-across the paper. Robins, fat as footballs, stood on tiptoe; Father Christmas, all boots and whiskers, appeared on every side at once; holly, Christmas puddings, bells and stars flowed from busy fingers throughout the afternoon. And every now and then, during the rare quiet pauses in their activity, we could hear the distant sound of Mr Willet at work, in the desolate solitude of an empty grave.

The winter afternoon was merging into twilight when the children shouted and skipped their way homeward from Fairacre village school. Mr. Willet, coming from the churchyard next door, propped his spade against the lych gate and paused to light his pipe. In the murk, his wrinkled countenance was mummed, standing out against the dark background like a Rembrandt portrait. Hands cupped over the bowl of his pipe, he squinted sideways at me.

'Finished your day, I s'pose,' he commented. 'Nice work being a school teacher,' he added mischievously.

'What about you?' I retorted. Mr Willet flung back his head and blew a fragrant blue cloud into the mist around him.

'Got your plaguey coke to sweep up now I've dug poor old Fred's last bed,' he answered equably. He reached for the spade with a massive muddy hand.

'My kettle's on,' I said. 'Come and have a cup of tea before you start again.'

'Well now,' said my caretaker, eyes brightening, 'I don't mind if I do, Miss Read. I'm fair shrammed. Grave-digging be mortal clammy work this weather.'

We strolled back together, across the empty playground, to the school house.

'Here, I can't come in like this!' protested Mr Willet at the kitchen door. 'All cagged up with mud! What'll old Mrs Pringle say when she comes to wash your floor?'

'No more than she says every week. This house is the dirtiest in the village, so she tells me.'

'Miserable ol' faggot!' Mr Willet smiled indulgently. 'How she do love a good moan! Still, this mud's a bit much, I will say. Give us a bit of newspaper and I'll 'ave it under me boots.'

We settled in the warm kitchen, the tea tray between us on the table. We were both tired and cold and sipped the tea gratefully. It was good to have company and Mr Willet always has something new to impart. He did not fail me on this occasion.

'Poor old Fred Hurst,' he mused, stirring his cup thoughtfully. 'I've got him right at the end of a row next to the old bit of the churchyard. Funny thing, he's lying aside Sally Gray. Two fanciful ones together there, I reckons.'

'Sally Gray?'

At the querying tone of my voice the spoon's rotation stopped suddenly. Mr Willet looked at me in astonishment.

'You don't tell me you ain't heard of Sally Gray! Been here all this time and missed Sally?'

I nodded apologetically, and pushed the fruit cake across to him to atone for my short-comings. Mr Willet waved it aside, his eyes wide with amazement.

'Can't hardly credit it. She's about the most famous person in Fairacre. Why, come to think of it, we had a young chap down from some magazine or other writing a bit about her. Before your time, no doubt. Nice enough chap he seemed, although he had a beard.'

Mr Willet checked himself, blew out his own thick walrus moustache, and resumed his tale.

'Well,
beard,
I calls it. 'Twasn't hardly that. More like one of those pan cleaners, the bristly ones, and much the same colour. For two pins I'd have advised him to have it off, but you knows how touchy young fellers get about their bits of whisker, and I was allus one for peace. "Civility costs nothing", my old ma used to say. She were full of useful sayings.'

I began to see where Mr Willet got his own fund of maxims. No matter what the occasion, tragic or farcical, our caretaker-cum-sexton at Fairacre always has some snippet of homely wisdom to fit the case.

'And what did he write?' I prompted, edging him back towards the subject.

'Next to nothin', when it come to it!' Mr Willet was disgusted. 'I thought at the time, watching him put down these 'ere twiddles and dots and dashes and that—'

'Shorthand,'I interpolated.

'Maybe,' said Mr Willet dismissively, 'but I thought at the time, as I were saying, that he'd never make head nor tail of that rigmarole, and I bet you a quid that's just what happened. You know why?'

Mr Willet raised his teaspoon threateningly.

'After us talking to 'im best part of a January afternoon, up the churchyard there, with an east wind fit to cut the liver and lights out of you, all e 'ad to show for it was a measly little bit in the corner of a page. And most of that was a picture of the grave-stone, what you could make out through the fog, that is. Proper disappointing it was.'

'Which paper?'I asked.

'Some fiddle-faddling thing they brings out the other side of the county. Not worth looking at. All about flowers, and old ruins and history and that. Waste of time really, and not a patch on
The Caxley Chronicle:

Mr Willet drained his cup and set it carefully down on the saucer.

'Well, must be off to me coke-sweeping, I 's'pose.' He began to push back his chair.

'Not yet,' I begged. 'You haven't told me a word about Sally Gray.'

'Well, now—' began Mr Willet, weakening. 'I daresay the coke'd keep till morning, and it don't seem hardly right that you don't know nothing about our Sally.'

He watched me refill his cup without demur, rearranged his muddy boots on the newspaper and settled, with evident relish, to his task of enlightenment.

Sally Gray, Mr Willet told me, died a good ten years or more before he was born, in 1890 to be exact, and as her grave-stone bore testimony, 'in her 63rd year'. Consequently, as he pointed out, he was not speaking at first hand, although he could vouch for this strange story, for his mother and grandmother had both heard it from Sally's own lips during her last illness.

Evidently she had always been 'a funny little party', to quote Mr Willet. She was the only child of elderly parents and was brought up in the end cottage of Tyler's Row. Her father was a carter, her mother took in washing, and the child grew up used to hard work and little reward for great labour. Nevertheless, she was happy enough, although the other children in the village found her prim and shy and tended to tease her. She was small of stature, so that she was called 'Mouse' by the boys, and dressed in cut-me-downs of her mother's which gave her a ludicrous dowdiness which invited the ridicule of the girls. No doubt her primness and shyness were the outcome of this treatment.

Her greatest joy was in reading, which she mastered at an early age. Books were scarce, but tattered volumes cast out from the vicarage nursery came her way and gave her endless pleasure. Sometimes a newspaper became available and she read the account of Victoria's coronation to her parents, to their wonder and pride.

When she was twelve or so she entered into service at the Parrs, a well-to-do family who lived in a Queen Anne house at the end of the village. She was quick and neat, obedient and dutiful, and gave satisfaction to the mistress of the house and, more important still, to the housekeeper who ruled the staff with a rod of iron. She lived in as a matter of course, although only five minutes' trot from her own home, but was often allowed to slip along the village street to see her family. Sometimes the cook gave her a bowlful of dripping, or a stout marrow-bone for the stock pot, to eke out the meagre commons of the Grays' diet. Sally was always careful to hide these titbits under her cloak, safe from the eyes of the housekeeper or village gossips who might be encountered on the brief journey.

Time passed. Housemaids came and went at the Parrs' house, but Sally remained. Girls who had worked beside her, dusting, brushing stair carpets, carrying interminable cans of hot water to bedrooms, married and left. They showed their fat offspring to Sally, in the fulness of time, and commiserated with her about her state of spinsterhood. Sally did not appear to mind. She was as spry and nimble as ever, although a few grey hairs now mingled with the dark ones, and she continued to trot briskly about Fairacre.

One bitterly cold winter the two old Grays fell desperately ill, and Sally asked leave to sleep at home and to work part-time at the Parrs. Mrs Parr, who was an autocratic person, did not care for the idea. By now, Sally was senior housemaid. It was she who carried in the early morning tea, pulled back the heavy curtains on their massive brass rings, and announced the weather conditions prevailing, to her comatose mistress. She disliked the thought of someone else taking on these duties and told Sally that she must 'give it much consideration.' However, Mrs Parr knew full well that if she wished to keep Sally in her service then there must be some slackening of the reins whilst the old people were in need, and graciously gave her consent. 'But understand,' added the lady severely, 'you are to bring in the morning tea whenever it is
humanly possible.'
Sally promised, obedient as ever, to do all in her power.

For the next few months she scurried between the great house and the little thatched cottage and more often than not was early enough to take up the tea to her mistress and prepare her for the return to consciousness.

One summer morning, just before seven o'clock, she hastened by the dew-spangled shrubbery and was amazed to see the doctor's carriage outside the front door. In the kitchen a woebegone staff, sketchily dressed and with hair in curlers, poured forth the dramatic news. The master was dead! A heart attack, said the doctor, and mistress must be kept lying down to get over it!

Within a month poor Mr Parr was buried, his widow was settled in France, and his son was directing the decoration and alteration of his heritage. To Sally's stupefaction she found that she had been left the fabulous sum of one hundred pounds by her late employer. Young Mr Parr took her into Caxley and deposited it for her in the safety of a bank.

The village was agog with the news. Sally's parents were beyond understanding her good fortune. Their days and nights were spent in fitful dozing, hovering between life and death, stirring occasionally to sup a bowl of gruel before sliding down thankfully upon the pillows again. In the thick of harvest time, as Fairacre folk sweated beneath a blazing sun, they slipped away within three days of each other and were buried together not far from Mr Parr's newly-erected marble angel.

Although she mourned her parents sincerely there was no doubt that Sally's life now became very much easier. She still worked for the new master, but lived at home enjoying being mistress of her own small domain. Always an avid reader, she now had more time to indulge in this pleasure, and often took a book in one hand and her candle in the other and made her way to bed before nine o'clock, there to read until St Patrick's great clock struck midnight and the candle must be blown out.

She had been given a pile of books from her dead master's library when things were being sorted out, and these were to keep her occupied in her leisure moments for many years to come. Contentment of mind, more rest, and plenty of good country air and food began to show their effect on Sally. Hitherto small and rather skinny, she now began to put on flesh and soon became a little dumpling of a woman, albeit as quick on her feet as ever despite a certain breathlessness. She was now well on in her forties and her neighbours gave her no comfort.

'You be bound to put it on at your age,' said one.

'Better be fat and happy,' said another, 'than a bag o' bones.'

'You won't lose it now, my dear,' said a third smugly. "Tis on for good when 'tis put on at your time of life.'