(1/20) Village School (21 page)

'Lend us yer yaller,' he hissed to Eileen Burton beside him, but she was uppish this afternoon, and shook her head.

'I wants it,' she said firmly, putting down the green one she had been using for grass. The subject was 'A Summer's Day,' and all the green crayons were wearing down fast. She snatched up her yellow crayon close to her chest. 'I wants it,' she repeated, and then leaning over surveyed Joseph's picture closely. 'I wants it for the sun,' she announced triumphantly, and began to draw a yellow circle, exactly like Joseph's, on her paper.

This annoyed him, and, gripping Eileen's fragile wrist, he tried to prise the crayon from her fingers. Miss Gray, humming still, and sitting on her heels with her head in the cupboard, remained oblivious of the gathering storm.

'You ol' devil!' breathed Joseph, scarlet in the face. 'You copy-cat! You give it here!'

With a wrench, Eileen gained possession of the crayon again, and holding it above her head, she put out an impudent pink tongue at her pursuer. Maddened, Joseph lowered his dark head and butted her on the shoulder, and then, fastening his teeth in her arm he bit as hard as he could.

A terrible screaming broke out from Eileen and cries from the rest of the class. Miss Gray, rushed into action, slapped Joseph and released Eileen who inspected her wounds and howled afresh at the neat teeth marks on her tender flesh.

'He swored, Miss,' volunteered Jimmy Waites, 'he said "Devil," Miss, didn't he? didn't he swear, then?'

Yes, he had, agreed everybody, rather smugly. Joseph Coggs had swored and tried to take Eileen's crayon and bit her when she wouldn't let him have it. Joseph Coggs was a naughty boy, wasn't he? Joseph Coggs wouldn't be allowed to go to the Fête, would he? Joseph Coggs, in the opinion of his self-righteous classmates, was not fit to mix with them.

Miss Gray silenced them peremptorily, sent Joseph to stand by her desk and Eileen to wash her arm in the lobby.

The artists continued in comparative silence, but there were many accusing nods towards the culprit, who was having his version of the incident drawn from him by Miss Gray.

'It doesn't excuse you, Joseph,' said Miss Gray finally, 'you must say you are sorry to her and never do such a dreadful thing again. I shall have to write a note to Eileen's mother to explain her hurt arm, and you must sit on your own until we can trust you again.'

So Joseph sat in splendid isolation to finish his picture, and a few sad tears mingled with the daisies that he drew in the grass.

But once the hated apology was over, the crayons collected, and Miss Gray's 'Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes' appeared again on her desk, his spirits revived.

Who cared what ol' Eileen Burton's mother said? She couldn't hurt him, and anyway it served her right for copying his sun. And he didn't call 'Devil' swearing—why, it was in the Bible the vicar read to them! Swearing indeed! With a glow of pride Joseph thought of all the real swear words his father used. He bet he knew more than anybody in the class, if it came to that!

Much heartened, he turned an attentive face to Miss Gray, who thought what a dear little boy he was, despite everything. And there she was right.

The fête was held on the first Saturday in May, in the Vicarage garden; 'Proceeds' said the posters, that fluttered from vantage points in the village, 'in aid of the Church Roof Fund.'

'And how slowly it grows!' sighed the vicar. 'We need another three hundred pounds at least, and the roof is deteriorating every day.'

He was in his shirt-sleeves, his mild, old face screwed up against the sunshine. He bore a wooden mallet for driving in the stakes which were to hold the various notices. In the distance we could hear the clatter of the lawn mower which Mr Willet was pushing over the tennis court.

This, the only flat piece of the vicar's garden, which lay on the slope of the downs, was to be used for bowling for the pig. Golden bales of straw were stacked at the side, ready to make an enclosure for the great skittles, when Mr Willet had finished his ministrations.

A breeze fluttered the crêpe paper along the edge of the stalls. Miss Clare was busy setting out dozens of crêpe paper dorothy bags filled with home-made candy, and tempting bottles and boxes of toffee, humbugs and boiled sweets. Rows of lollipops lined the edge of the stall and it was obvious that Miss Clare's old pupils would soon be flocking round her again.

She was having lunch with me; cold meat, new potatoes and salad, with gooseberry fool for sweet—a meal which, I surmised, would be echoed in most Fairacre homes that day—a direct result of a bumper gooseberry crop coupled with hectic last-minute preparations for the fête.

In Linda Moffat's house, Mrs Moffat, her mouth full of pins, was putting the final touches to her daughter's flowered head-dress. Linda was going to the fête dressed as a shepherdess, complete with blue satin panniers, sprigged apron and a shepherd's crook, borrowed from old Mr Burton and decked for the occasion with bunches of blue ribbons. Miss Gray stood by admiring.

'Sweet!' said Miss Gray.

'Hold ftill!' said Mrs Moffat, much impeded in her speech by pins. 'Ftand ftraight for juft a fecond more!'

And Linda, sighing deeply, but submitting to the fuss, only hoped that her long suffering might result in a prize in the fancy-dress competition that afternoon.

In Tyler's Row, at the Wakes' cottage, there was great excitement, for a letter had come, with the education committee's seal on its envelope, bringing the good news that Cathy had been deemed fit for a place next September at Caxley County Grammar School for Girls.

'But I wanted to go to the High School!' protested Cathy, when this was read out to her.

'Same thing!' her mother assured her. 'Cathy, my love, you've done real well.'

Her father beamed at her, and feeling in his pocket, presented her with half a crown.

'Here, duck, that's for the fête this afternoon. I reckon you deserves a bit of a spree!'

The letter was propped carefully behind the tea-tin on the mantelpiece, and Cathy, rushing into the little garden turned cartwheel after cartwheel, her red checked knickers bright in the sunshine, letting off some of the high spirits that fizzed and bubbled within her.

Joseph Coggs, squatting on the ash path next door, watched these antics through the hedge. Beside him sat his two little sisters, crop-headed since nurse's visit, busily stirring stones and mud together for a delightful dolls' pudding.

'Going up the fête?' asked Cathy, standing upright at last and staggering slightly as the garden slowed down around her.

'Dunno,' answered Joseph gruffly. The two little girls ceased their stirring, and advanced towards the gap in the hedge, wiping their hands down their bedraggled skirts.

'What fête?'

'Up the vicar's. You know, what we been practising for at school.'

Joseph suddenly remembered all he had been told about races, fancy-dress competitions, sweet-stalls, prizes and his own beautiful picture which had been pinned on to the board for the judges to see. Without a word he pounded up to the house, the sisters scampering, squeaking, behind him.

In the stuffy kitchen his mother was shaking the baby's bottle and looking at it with some impatience. The baby cried fitfully.

'Can us go to the fête?'

'Do let's, Mum; let's go! Say us can go, Mum!' they clamoured above the baby's crying.

'Oh, we'll see,' said their mother testily. 'You get off in the garden while I feeds baby. This bottle don't draw right.'

She sucked at it lustily and then turned it upside down, watching it critically.

'Oh, Mum, you might! Just for a bit. Please, Mum!' they pleaded.

The bottle was thrust into the baby's mouth and peace reigned.

'I'll see how I gets on,' said Mrs Coggs grudgingly. 'I don't know as I've got enough clean clothes for you all to go up to the vicar's, with aU the rain this week. You get on outside and play quiet for a bit. Perhaps we can.'

She joggled the baby on her arm. The children still waited.

'Oh, buzz off!' shouted Mrs Coggs with exasperation. 'I've said us might go, haven't I?'

And with this unsatisfactory answer ringing in their ears, the Coggs children returned reluctantly to the garden.

The vicar had prevailed upon a well-known novelist, Basil Bradley, who lived locally, to open the fête, and this he had done in a speech of charm and brevity.

Beside him, accommodated in the vicar's best armchair, sat his mother, an old lady in her ninety-third year, so wayward and so eccentric in her behaviour as to cause her celebrated son many moments of anxiety.

She was the widow of a brewer and was said to be very wealthy indeed.

It was common knowledge that her son had none of this money. He lived, comfortably enough however, upon his earnings, and was wont to smile patiently when his mother said, as she did frequently, 'Why the dickens should the boy have any of my money? He'll have it when I'm gone—do him good to wait for it!'

It was her habit, however, to give him expensive, and often useless, presents at odd times, which he did his best to receive gratefully, for he was devoted to this maddening despot. Only this morning he had accepted, with well-simulated gratification, a quite hideous paper-rack, made of black bog-wood, which his mother had purchased from an antique dealer who should have known better.

'Speak up, Basil,' she had commanded, in a shrill pipe, towards the end of his speech, 'Mumble-mumble-mumble! Use your teeth and your tongue, boy! Where are your consonants!'

She was now at Miss Clare's stall inquiring the price of sweets, and expressing her horror at such outrageous charges.

'As a gel,' she said to the imperturbable Miss Clare, 'I bought pure home-made fig toffee for a halfpenny a quarter. Good wholesome food, with a wonderful purging property. Not this sort of rubbish!' She waved an ebony stick disdainfully at Miss Clare's stall and turned away in disgust. Her son, smiling apologetically, bought humbugs and lollipops in such enormous quantities that Miss Clare wondered where on earth he would get rid of them.

Dr Martin, holding a large golliwog which he had won at hoop-la, was admiring the rose which climbed over the vicarage porch.

'That's a nice rose,' said the old lady, coming up behind him. 'A good old-fashioned rose. A nice flat face on it, you can get your nose into!'

The vicar basked in this sudden approval.

'A great favourite of mine, isn't it, doctor? I planted it the autumn that my son was born.'

'Can't beat a Gloire de Dijon,' agreed the doctor, 'splendid scent!' And he bent a spray for the old lady to sniff.

'Allow me to pick you some,' said the vicar, and vanished into the house for the scissors.

'Most sensible man I've seen for a long time,' commented Mrs Bradley. 'Knows a good rose and gives you some too. Don't often get a bunch of flowers these days. Old people get neglected,' she added, squeezing a tear of quite unnecessary self-pity into her eye. Doctor Martin and poor Basil Bradley exchanged understanding looks. Doctor Martin thought of the numerous well-kept hothouses in the Bradley grounds and forbore to make any comment; but taking the old lady's hand in his he patted it comfortingly.

The vicar bustled back and snipped energetically, taking great pains to cut off any thorns. He was very proud of his rose and delighted to find an admirer in this crusty old lady.

'And now,' she said, when the bouquet was tied with bass, 'I must give you something for your funds before my son takes me home. Go away, Basil,' she ordered the poor man, who had stepped forward to take her arm. 'Go away, boy, while I go into the vicarage to write a cheque. And don't fuss round me as though I were incapable!'

Her son meekly sat on the edge of the stone urn while the vicar, expostulating politely, led his visitor to the drawing-room. There, in a spiky handwriting, reminiscent of the French governess of her childhood, Mrs Bradley wrote a cheque and gave it to the vicar.

'But, my dear Mrs Bradley, I simply can't accept——' began that startled man.

'Stuff!' snapped Mrs Bradley, 'I haven't been given a bunch of roses like that for years. Stop fussing, man, and let me get home for my rest.'

She stepped out into the sunshine again and set off for the car.

Mr Partridge, much bewildered, held out the cheque for Basil Bradley's inspection.

'Your mother, so kind, but I feel perhaps … her great age, you know,' babbled the vicar incoherently. The son reassured him.

'I'm so glad that she has given generously to such a good cause. Believe me, you have made her very happy this afternoon.'

'Hurry up, boy,' came a shrill voice from the car, 'don't waste the vicar's time when he's busy!' And, waving a claw-like hand, she was driven off.

Over on the tennis court, bowling-for-the-pig was doing a roaring trade. Mr Willet was in charge, perched up on the top of the straw bales, and hopping down, every now and again, to roll the heavy balls back to John Burton's father, who was taking the sixpences and handing out the balls.

Away, in the corner of the walled kitchen garden, stood the pigsty, usually empty, but now housing a small black Berkshire pig, who was accepting such dainties as apple cores, and even an occasional toffee-paper, from the children who stood round admiring him.

Mrs Bryant, her trilby hat a landmark, sat on the grass at the side of the tennis court, with several of her sons and daughters around her. All her boys were noted marksmen, and very few pigs from the local fetes found other homes than with the Bryant tribe.

Malachi, a swarthy six-footer, in a maroon turtle-neck sweater, had just knocked seven of the nine skittles down with his three balls, and Ezekiel was now about to try his luck.

All Mrs Bryant's boys had Biblical names and as she had mastered the reading of capital letters, but had never gained the ability to read small ones, their names had been garnered from the headings of the books of the Bible. Her fifth son she had decided to call 'Acts' but was gently dissuaded from this by the vicar who had suggested that 'Amos' might be a happy substitute, and in this the old lady had concurred.