(1/20) Village School (16 page)

'Only the new little boy, Joseph Coggs,' she informed me, Til go and call on his mother now if she'll be in.'

I glanced at the clock. Mrs Coggs would be back from her floor-scrubbing at 'The Beetle and Wedge,' I told Nurse.

'What sort of home?' she asked. I told her what I knew of the Coggs family and she departed to Tyler's Row to see what advice and help she could give, and to leave a large bottle of noxious-smelling liquid for the anointing of Joseph's head.

Miss Gray had liked the idea of going to Mrs Moffat's bungalow if it could be arranged. Miss Clare, with true village caution, had advised us against going to Mrs Moffat too precipitately.

'Let me mention it to Mrs Finch-Edwards,' she had said, 'and let her sound Mrs Moffat. Then we can follow her lead.'

I was glad about this arrangement, for although I was willing to have Miss Gray at my house, I realized that it was not an ideal plan. We had to work together during school hours and I felt it would be better for both of us to have our leisure times apart. Our relationship at school could not be happier, and I did not want to subject it to too rigorous a trial.

Mrs Finch-Edwards had approached the subject of Miss Gray's future occupation of the spare bedroom with some wariness, but Mrs Moffat welcomed the idea.

'It would be a help with the housekeeping,' she said gratefully, 'and I only use that room for my needlework and the machine. All those things could easily go in the dining-room cupboard.' She pondered for a while. 'And she's a real lady-like girl,' she added, 'set a good example to Linda, and that sort of thing. I'll talk it over with Len tonight and let you know tomorrow.'

And so it had been settled. Miss Gray had called at the bungalow and inspected the bedroom, happily picture-free, and admired the bathroom—a refinement which Mrs Pratt's house lacked, and which had meant two trips a week to the friends in Caxley—they had discussed terms, to their mutual satisfaction, and Miss Gray was to move into her new home in a fortnight's time, with a very much lighter heart.

15. The Bell Tolls

T
HREE
energetic little girls were skipping in the playground. Two took it in turns to twist the rope, arms flailing round, while the third bobbed merrily up and down, hair and skirts dancing, in the twirling rope.

'Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper!
One, two, three, four, five…'

they chanted breathlessly, until the skipping child caught a foot or stopped from sheer exhaustion.

The rest of the children played more quietly, for the spell of fine weather continued and the spring sunshine beating back from the school walls sent most of them to the shade of the elm trees. Here they crouched, some playing with marbles, beautiful, whorled, glass treasures kept carefully in little bags of strong calico or striped ticking; some tossing five-stones, red, blue, green, orange and white, up into the air and catching them expertly on the back of their hands before going on to further complicated manoeuvres. These movements had old quaint names like 'Nelson, Crabses and Lobsters,' and involved much dexterity, patience and quickness of eye.

Among the roots, the little ones played the timeless make-believe games: mothers-and-fathers, hospitals, schools and keeping house. Above them the tight, rosy buds of the elms were beginning to break out into tiny green fans, and in the school garden the polyanthus, which the children here call 'spring flowers,' and early daffodils and grape hyacinths all nodded gently in the warm sunshine.

Against the north wall, in the cool shade, Cathy played two-ball intently by herself. Her cotton skirt was stuffed inelegantly into her knickers, for some of the seven movements of this game involved bouncing the balls and catching them between one's legs, and a skirt was a severe obstruction. She counted aloud, her dark eyes fixed on the two flying balls, and as she twirled and threw, and bounced and caught, she thought about the examination papers that she had attempted that morning … papers that would decide her future.

She had sat at her usual desk, with only Miss Read for silent company, while the rest of the class had taken their work into Miss Gray's room next door. She had felt lonely, but important, left behind, with only the clock's heavy ticking and the rustle of her papers to break the silence; but once begun she had forgotten everything in her steady work. If this was the way to get to Caxley High School with its untold joys and games, gymnastics, acting and never-ending supply of library books, why, then she'd work like a nigger and get there! That determination, which set her apart from the other members of her family, whose sweet placidity she lacked, carried her triumphantly through that morning's labours; and when, at last, she put down her pen and stretched her' cramped fingers,' she was conscious of work well done.

In all the schools around Caxley preparations were going forward for the annual Caxley Musical Festival, which is held in the Corn Exchange each May.

Miss Gray and I had spent a long singing lesson picking our choir. This was not an easy task, as all the children were bursting to take part, but Miss Gray, with considerable tact, managed to weed out the real growlers, with no tears shed.

'A little louder,' she said to Eric, now once again.' And Eric would honk again, in his tuneless, timeless way, while Miss Gray listened solemnly and with the utmost attention. Then, 'Yes,' she said, in a considering way, 'it's certainly a
strong
voice, Eric dear, and you do
try:
but I'm afraid we must leave you out this time. We must have voices that blend well together.'

'He really is the Tuneless Wonder!' she said to me later, with awe in her voice. 'I've never known any child quite so tone-deaf.'

I told her that Eric was also quite incapable of keeping in step to music; the two things often going together. Miss Gray had not come across this before and was suitably impressed.

'When you think how hard it is not to prance along the pavement in time with a barrel-organ,' she remarked, 'it seems almost clever!'

I handed over the choir to her care as she was a much more competent musician than I was, and for weeks the papers on the walls rustled to the vibrations of 'Over the Sea to Skye' and 'I'll Go No More A-Roving,' and the horrid intricacies of the round 'Come, Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow Me.' This last was usually punctuated with dreadful crashings of Miss Gray's ruler and despairing cries from the children who had failed to come in at the right bar, battled against overwhelming odds, faltered to a faint piping, and finally finished with a wail of lamentation. The thought that this sort of thing was going on in dozens of neighbouring schools was enough to daunt the stoutest heart; but Miss Gray, with youth and ardour to sustain her, struggled bravely on.

One afternoon, while the choir was carolling away with Miss Grav at the piano, and I was watching the infants and 'growlers' drawing pictures of any scene they liked from 'Cinderella' in the next room, the bells gave out a muffled peal from St Patrick's spire close by. The peal was followed by solemn tolling. Next door the music continued cheerfully enough, but in my room the children looked up with startled faces, pencils held poised in their hands.

On and on tolled the great bell, beating out its slow measure over the listening village. Out across the sunny fields floated the sound and men looked up from their hedging and harrowing to count the strokes. In the cottages housewives paused in their ironing or cooking, and stood, tools in hand, as the tolling went on. Sixty … seventy … still the bell tolled … and little children squatting by backdoor steps suddenly became conscious of the tension in the air and ran in, fearfully, to seek the comfort of familiar things.

'Come follow, follow, follow…' the children's voices stumbled next door; and Mrs Pringle's face appeared at the window opposite. I heard her in the lobby and went out to see her.

'Forgot my apron,' she volunteered. 'They say poor Miss Parr's passed on.' She stuffed her checked apron into a black shiny bag and I noticed that her hands, wrinkled and puffy with her recent washing-up, were trembling slightly. 'I was in service with her, as a girl … just for a bit, you know … she was good to me, very good.'

I said I was sure she had been, and it was sad to hear the bell tolling. Mrs Pringle appeared not to hear these lame remarks. She was gazing, with unseeing eyes, at the pile of coke in the playground.

'Always paid well too, and was generous with her clothes, and that. I've still got a scarf she give me … mauve, it is. Yes, never grudged nothing to me, I must say——' Her voice faltered, and she turned hastily away to pick up the black bag from the draining-board. When she faced me again it was with her usual dour expression.

'Ah, well! No good grieving over times past, I suppose. And after all, if she couldn't afford to be generous with the lot she'd got, who could?'

This uncharitable comment seemed to give Mrs Pringle some comfort; but I could see that this seeming indifference, this harshly-expressed philosophy, was Mrs Pringle's challenge to something which had shaken her more than she cared to show. Her parting comment was a truer indication of her feelings.

'I suppose we've all got to go, but somehow … that old bell! I mean, it brings it home to you, don't it? It brings it home!' As she stumped off, the black bag swaying on her arm, I felt for Mrs Pringle, my old sparring partner, a rare pang of pity.

Miss Parr's funeral was held on an afternoon as glorious as that on which she had died.

The children had brought bunches of cottage flowers, daffodils, polyanthus, wallflowers, and little posies from the woods and banks, primroses, blue and white violets and early cowslips. We put them all in my gardening trug, which was lined with moss, and Cathy wrote on a card, 'With love from the children at Fairacre School,' in her most painstaking hand, and we laid it among the blooms. Mr Willet was entrusted with it, and he set off to deliver it at the house.

As the playground is in full view of the churchyard, I decided to let the children have an early playtime, and then be comfortably indoors while the service was going on.

We had begun 'The Wind in the Willows,' and I thought, as I waited for the children to settle down after playtime, what a perfect afternoon it was to hear about the adventures of Water Rat and Mole. An exhilarating wind was blowing the rooks about the blue and white sky. Somewhere, in the vicarage garden, a blackbird whistled, and an early bee, bumbling lazily up and down the window-pane, gave a foretaste of summer joys.

Together, the children and I set out into that enchanted world where the river laps eternally and the green banks form the changeless setting for Mole's adventures. The sun dappled the children's heads as it shone through the tossing boughs into the schoolroom. Around them lay the sunshine, and within them too, as they contemplated, with their minds' eye, the sunlit landscape conjured up by magic words.

I was conscious, as I read steadily on, of ominous sounds from the churchyard, slow footsteps on the scrunching gravel, a snatch or two of solemn phrase in Mr Partridge's gentle voice, blown this way by the exuberant breeze, and the muffled thumpings of heavy wood lowered into the earth. Very near at hand a lark soared madly upwards, singing in a frenzy of joy, with the sun warm on its little back. It seemed hard, I thought, to have to be buried on such an uprushing afternoon.

Out there, in the churchyard, the black silent figures would be standing immobile around the dark hole. Above them, no less black, the rooks would be wheeling and crying, unheeded by the mourners. They would stand there, heads downbent, with who knows what emotions stirring them … pity, regret, the realization of the swiftness of life's passage, the inevitability of death. While here, in the classroom, sitting in a golden trance, our thoughts were of a sun-dappled stream, of willows and whiskers, of water-bubbles and boats … and, I venture to think, that of all those impressions which were being made on that spring afternoon, ours, for all their being transmitted, as it were, second-hand, would be more lasting in their fresh glory.

Thoughts by a graveside are too dark and deep to be sustained for any length of time. Sooner or later the hurt mind turns to the sun for healing, and this is as it should be, for otherwise, what future could any of us hope for, but madness?

16. April Birthday Party

A
PRIL
had come; one of the most beautiful within living memory. The long spell of sunshine and the unusually warm nights had brought early rows of carrots and peas and sturdy broad beans into all the cottage gardens.

'Unseasonable!' announced Mr Willet. 'We'll pay for it later, mark me, now! Just get the fruit blossom out and there'll be a mort of frosts. Seen it happen time without number!' He seemed to gain some morbid satisfaction from this augury.

The children were glorying in it and were already tanned and freckled. They came in from the playground and spreading their hot arms along the cool wood of the desks, they sniffed luxuriously at the warm, biscuity smell that the sun had drawn from their scorched skins.

In a week's time the Easter holidays would begin, and I hoped that the fine weather would hold, for my garden was weedy and the hedges, usually clipped at the beginning of May, were already needing attention.

On this particular afternoon the girls were busy with their sewing and the boys were making raffia mats or cane baskets or bowls according to their ability. The last few stitches were being put, by Linda Moffat, into a kettle-holder of especial importance; and as the other children worked they watched Linda with excitement.

The kettle-holder was their own present to Miss Clare who celebrated her birthday that day. All the children in the school had put several stitches in it—some, I fear, which Miss Clare would privately think of as 'cat's teeth'—and I had promised to take it to her when I went to her tea-party that afternoon.

Linda cut the cotton with a satisfying snip of the scissors and came out to the front of the class, bearing it as if it were the Holy Grail itself. It certainly was a magnificent object, made of a piece of vivid material, in deep reds and blues of a paisley pattern. It was edged with scarlet binding and had a rather bumpy loop to hang it by.