Lark Rise to Candleford (30 page)

So, after his visit, the school became animated. What should
be sung and who should sing it were the questions of the moment. Finally, it
was arranged that everybody should sing something. Even Laura, who had neither
voice nor ear for music, was to join in the communal songs.

They sang, very badly, mildly pretty spring and Nature songs
from the
School Song Book
, such as they had sung the year before and the
year before that, some of them actually the same songs. One year Miss Shepherd
thought it 'would be nice' to sing a Primrose League song to 'please Squire'.
One verse ran:

O come, ye Tories, all unite

To bear the Primrose badge with might,

And work and hope and strive and fight

And pray may God defend the right.

When Laura's father heard this, he wrote a stiffly polite
little note to the mistress, saying that, as a Liberal of pronounced views, he
could not allow a child of his to sing such a song. Laura did not tell him she had
already been asked to sing very softly, not to put the other singers out of
tune. 'Just move your lips, dear,' the mistress had said. Laura, in fact, was
to have gone on to help dress the stage, where all the girls who were taking
part in the programme sat in a row throughout the performance, forming a
background for the soloists. That year she had the pleasure of sitting among
the audience and hearing the criticism, as well as seeing the stage and
listening to the programme. A good three-pennyworth ('children, half-price').

When the great night came, the whole population of the
neighbourhood assembled, for it was the only public entertainment of the year.
Squire and his Negro Minstrel Troupe was the great attraction. They went on, dressed
in red and blue, their hands and faces blackened with burnt cork, and rattled
their bones and cracked their jokes and sang such songs as:

A friend of Darwin's came to me,

A million years ago said he

You had a tail and no great toe.

I answered him, 'That may be so,

But I've one now, I'll let you know

— G-r-r-r-r-r out!'

Very few in the audience had heard of Darwin or his theory;
but they all knew what 'G-r-r-r-r-r out!' meant, especially when emphasised by
a kick on Tom Binns's backside by Squire's boot. The schoolroom rocked. 'I pretty
well busted me sides wi' laughin',' they said afterwards.

After the applause had died down, a little bell would ring
and a robust curate from a neighbouring village would announce the next item.
Most of these were piano pieces, played singly, or as duets, by young ladies in
white evening frocks, cut in a modest V at the neck, and white kid gloves
reaching to the elbow. As their contributions to the programme were announced,
they would rise from the front seat in the audience; a gentleman—two gentlemen—would
spring forward, and between them hand the fair performer up the three shallow
steps which led to the platform and hand her over to yet another gentleman, who
led her to the piano and held her gloves and fan and turned her music pages.

'Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle', went the piano, and 'Warble,
warble, warble' went the voices, as the performers worked their conscientious
way through the show piano pieces and popular drawing-room ballads of the moment.
Each performer was greeted and dismissed with a round of applause, which served
the double purpose of encouraging the singer and relieving the boredom of the
audience. Youths and young men in the back seats would sometimes carry this too
far, drowning the programme with their stamping and shouting until they had to
be reprimanded, when they would subside sulkily, complaining, 'Us've paid our
sixpences, ain't we?'

Once, when the athletic curate sang 'You should see Me dance
the Polka' he accompanied the song with such violent action that he polked part
of the platform down and left the double row of schoolgirls hanging in the air
on the backmost planks while he finished his song on the floor:

You should see me dance the polka,

You should see me cover the ground,

You should see my coat tails flying

As I dance my way around.

Edmund and Laura had the words and actions by heart, if not
the tune, and polked that night in their mother's bedroom until they woke up
the baby and were slapped. A sad ending to an evening of pure bliss.

When the school-children on the platform rose and came
forward to sing they, also, were applauded; but their performance and those of
the young ladies were but the lettuce in the salad; all the flavour was in the comic
items.

Now, Miss Shepherd was a poet, and had several times turned
out a neat verse to supplement those of a song she considered too short. One
year she took the National Anthem in hand and added a verse. It ran:

May every village school

Uphold Victoria's rule,

To Church and State be true,

God save the Queen.

Which pleased Squire so much that he talked of sending it to
the newspapers.

Going home with lanterns swinging down the long dark road,
the groups would discuss the evening's entertainment. Squire's Minstrels and
the curate's songs were always unreservedly praised and the young ladies' performances
were tolerated, although, often, a man would complain, 'I don't know if I be
goin' deaf, or what; but I couldn't hear a dommed word any of 'em said.' As to
the school-children's efforts, criticism was applied more to how they looked
than to their musical performance. Those who had scuffled or giggled, or even
blushed, heard of it from their parents, while such remarks were frequent as:
'Got up to kill, that young Mary Ann Parish was!' or 'I declare I could see the
hem o' young Rose Mitchell's breeches showin',' or 'That Em Tuffrey made a poor
show. Whatever wer' her mother a thinkin' on?' Taken all in all, they enjoyed
the concert almost as much as their grandchildren enjoy the cinema.

After the excitement of the concert came the long winter
months, when snowstorms left patches on the ploughed fields, like scrapings of
sauce on left-over pieces of Christmas pudding, until the rains came and washed
them away and the children, carrying old umbrellas to school, had them turned inside
out by the wind, and cottage chimneys smoked and washing had to be dried
indoors. But at last came spring and spring brought May Day, the greatest day
in the year from the children's point of view.

The May garland was all that survived there of the old May
Day festivities. The maypole and the May games and May dances in which whole parishes
had joined had long been forgotten. Beyond giving flowers for the garland and
pointing out how things should be done and telling how they had been done in
their own young days, the older people took no part in the revels.

For the children as the day approached all hardships were forgotten
and troubles melted away. The only thing that mattered was the weather. 'Will
it be fine?' was the constant question, and many an'aged eye was turned skyward
in response to read the signs of wind and cloud. Fortunately, it was always
reasonably fine. Showers there were, of course, at that season, but never a May
Day of hopelessly drenching rain, and the May garland was carried in procession
every year throughout the 'eighties.

The garland was made, or 'dressed', in the schoolroom.
Formerly it had been dressed out of doors, or in one of the cottages, or in
some one's barn; but dressed it had been and probably in much the same fashion
for countless generations.

The foundation of the garland was a light wooden framework of
uprights supporting graduated hoops, forming a bell-shaped structure about four
feet high. This frame was covered with flowers, bunched and set closely, after
the manner of wreath-making.

On the last morning of April the children would come to
school with bunches, baskets, arms and pinafores full of flowers—every blossom
they could find in the fields and hedges or beg from parents and neighbours. On
the previous Sunday some of the bigger boys would have walked six or eight
miles to a distant wood where primroses grew. These, with violets from the
hedgerows, cowslips from the meadows, and wallflowers, oxlips, and sprays of
pale red flowering currant from the cottage gardens formed the main supply. A
sweetbriar hedge in the schoolmistress's garden furnished unlimited greenery.

Piled on desks, table, and floor, this supply appeared
inexhaustible; but the garland was large, and as the work of dressing it
proceeded, it soon became plain that the present stock wouldn't 'hardly go nowheres',
as the children said. So foraging parties were sent out, one to the Rectory,
another to Squire's, and others to outlying farm-houses and cottages. All
returned loaded, for even the most miserly and garden-proud gave liberally to
the garland. In time the wooden frame was covered, even if there had to be
solid greenery to fill up at the back, out of sight. Then the 'Top-knot',
consisting of a bunch of crown imperial, yellow and brown, was added to crown
the whole, and the fragrant, bowery structure was springled with water and set
aside for the night.

While the garland was being dressed, an older girl, perhaps
the May Queen herself, would be busy in a corner making the crown. This always had
to be a daisy crown; but, meadow daisies being considered too common, and also
possessing insufficient staying power, garden daisies, white and red, were
used, with a background of dark, glossy, evergreen leaves.

The May Queen had been chosen weeks beforehand. She was
supposed to be either the prettiest or the most popular girl in the parish; but
it was more often a case of self-election by the strongest willed or of taking turns:
'You choose me this year and I'll choose you next.' However elected, the queens
had a strong resemblance to each other, being stout-limbed, rosy-checked
maidens of ten or eleven, with great manes of dark hair frizzed out to support
the crown becomingly.

The final touches were given the garland when the children
assembled at six o'clock on May Day morning. Then a large china doll in a blue
frock was brought forth from the depths of the school needlework chest and arranged
in a sitting position on a little ledge in the centre front of the garland.
This doll was known as 'the lady', and a doll of some kind was considered
essential. Even in those parishes where the garland had degenerated into a
shabby nosegay carried aloft at the top of a stick, some dollish image was
mixed in with the flowers. The attitude of the children to the lady is
interesting. It was understood that the garland was her garland, carried in her
honour. The lady must never be roughly handled. If the garland turned turtle,
as it was apt to do later in the day, when the road was rough and the bearers
were growing weary, the first question was always, 'Is the lady all right?' (Is
it possible that the lady was once 'Our Lady', she having in her turn, perhaps,
replaced an earlier effigy of some pagan spirit of the newly decked earth?)

The lady comfortably settled in front of the garland, a large
white muslin veil or skirt, obviously borrowed from a Victorian dressing-table,
was draped over the whole to act as drop-scene and sunshade combined. Then a
broomstick was inserted between the hoops for carrying purposes.

All the children in the parish between the ages of seven and
eleven were by this time assembled, those girls who possessed them wearing
white or light coloured frocks, irrespective of the temperature, and girls and boys
alike decked out with bright ribbon knots and bows and sashes, those of the
boys worn crosswise over one shoulder. The queen wore her daisy crown with a
white veil thrown over it, and the other girls who could procure them also wore
white veils. White gloves were traditional, but could seldom be obtained. A
pair would sometimes be found for the queen, always many sizes too large; but
the empty finger-ends came in handy to suck in a bashful mood when, later on,
the kissing began.

The procession then formed. It was as follows:

Boy with flag.

Girl with money box.

THE GARLAND with two bearers.

King and queen.

Two maids of honour.

Lord and lady.

Two maids of honour.

Footman and footman's lady.

Rank and file, walking in twos.

Girl known as 'Mother'.

Boy called 'Ragman'.

The 'Mother' was one of the most dependable of the older
girls, who was made responsible for the behaviour of the garlanders. She
carried a large, old-fashioned, double-lidded marketing basket over her arm, containing
the lunches of the principal actors. The boy called 'Ragman' carried the coats,
brought in case of rain, but seldom worn, even during a shower, lest by their
poverty and shabbiness they should disgrace the festive attire.

The procession stepped out briskly. Mothers waved and
implored their offspring to behave well; some of the little ones left behind
lifted up their voices and wept; old people came to cottage gates and said
that, though well enough, this year's procession was poor compared to some they
had seen. But the garlanders paid no heed; they had their feet on the road at
last and vowed they would not turn back now, 'not if it rained cats and dogs'.

The first stop was at the Rectory, where the garland was
planted before the front door and the shrill little voices struck up, shyly at
first, but gathering confidence as they went on:

A bunch of may I have brought you

And at your door it stands.

It is but a sprout, but

It's well put about

By the Lord Almighty's hands.

God bless the master of this house

God bless the mistress too,

And all the little children

That round the table go.

And now I've sung my short little song