(16/20)Summer at Fairacre (12 page)

One evening Miriam Quinn called to ask if I could collect for the Red Cross at the school end of the village. She had undertaken the Holly Lodge part, and Alice Willet, ever willing, had nobly taken on the main street of the village.

'In fact,' said Miriam, 'she's doing two-thirds of the job, but she says she can easily fit it in with her other work, and it's handy if she has to go a second time. It's only when you go collecting these days that you realise how many houses are empty during working hours.'

'Nice pickings for the opportunist thief,' I commented.

'It seems to me that they operate even if people are in,' replied Miriam. 'Joan Benson had her week's groceries lifted, basket and all, while she was upstairs taking off her coat.'

Joan Benson had once owned Holly Lodge where Miriam lived in the annexe. She had sold it to David and Irene Mawne, who now lived there, and had gone to live near her daughter in Sussex after her husband's death.

We all missed her in the village, and I was pleased when Miriam told me that she was coming to stay with her for a few days.

'Do bring her round one evening,' I said.

'I'd love to.' She hesitated for a moment and then went on. 'It would be an enormous help to me if she could call after school one day, perhaps?'

'Of course. Any day she likes. I'm here at four.'

'The thing is I'm going to be unexpectedly busy during that week, preparing for a business conference. Joan understands, but I feel I'm being somewhat neglectful.'

I assured her truthfully that Joan Benson would be welcome at any time. Miriam looked relieved.

'Another thing. Elizabeth Mawne is coming home.'

'Now that is good news! I've had three telephone calls from Henry this week, and my excuses are getting thinner every time. Did Irene speak to him? Or to Elizabeth?'

'Luckily there was no need. You know the fluffy little thing who was hanging on his words at the lecture? Eileen Something?'

'Bonamy.'

'That's right. Well, apparently after that she pursued Henry doggedly, and after the first flush of flattery had faded, Henry began to feel that he was being hunted. One or two friends in Caxley and Fairacre had added their mite by saying he was making himself ridiculous by encouraging an innocent girl young enough to be his daughter. You know the kind remarks people make in such a situation!'

'Indeed I do!'

'Well, Henry began to get desperate—so desperate in fact, that he rang Elizabeth and asked when she proposed to return.'

'And what was the answer to that?'

'Immediately! The ancient aunt had completely changed her tune, and instead of vowing to end up in her own bed with nothing altered in that great barn of a place she lives in, she told Elizabeth tearfully that she needed looking after, that nobody cared for her, the house was too big, too cold and too expensive to run, and she had decided that life in a comfortable nursing home was what she wanted.'

'I should think Elizabeth was flabbergasted.'

'Not too flabbergasted to act at once, and to fix up her admission immediately to the nursing home she'd had in mind for months.'

'So that's settled.'

'Well, she's not there yet, but with any luck she will be within a week. Elizabeth has put the house on the market already, striking while the iron was hot, as they say.'

She rose to go, and I went with her to the gate. The air was balmy, and a newly-emerged bat flitted between the trees.

'What a relief all round,' I said.

'Except for poor Eileen Bonamy. I hear she's considering applying for a post overseas.'

'I hope Henry gives her a very nice farewell present. She deserves it, poor girl.'

It was a week later that Joan Benson came to tea with me after school.

Her hair was a little greyer, but her figure was as trim and her eyes as bright as ever. How was she enjoying life in Sussex, I asked her?

'Well, I feel very much the grandmother with the children so much with me, but I like that. People are very friendly, I'm already on the W.I. Committee—'

'That was inevitable,' I broke in.

'I suppose so,' she replied, laughing. 'All village newcomers get roped in, don't they? Yes, there's lots to do, and it's good to have the family at hand, but it was marvellous to come back to Fairacre. Here, you see, I really ran my own life.'

I must have looked surprised, for she went on.

'I mean, I was still a wife. And a daughter too, as my mother was living with us, you remember.'

I did indeed. Mrs Penwood had been a charming old lady though very frail when she first accompanied Ambrose and Joan Benson to Holly Lodge. She had died within a few months of Ambrose, and it was soon after that that Miriam had gone to live in the annexe, as Joan's lodger.

'I was very much my own person,' continued Joan, i felt needed, valuable, appreciated, both by my mother and my husband. I always faced the knowledge that my mother would go very soon after we moved here, and I missed her sorely, but Ambrose's death really shattered me.'

'I can well understand that, although I'm not likely to experience such a loss.'

'I don't know which is worse, the awful feeling that a shared life is broken, or the fact that everything seems so pointless when one is alone. It hardly seems worth the bother of cooking, for instance, or buying new clothes. For the first few weeks I lived on tins of soup, cups of coffee and biscuits, until my daughter made me see reason. What really pulled me together was her good sense. "I'vejust lost a father, and I don't want to lose a mother too," she said one day. It was blunt speaking, but after that I buckled to, and went shopping again, and faced all the financial affairs I had been shelving, and generally took up living again.'

'You're a brave woman,' I told her.

'Not really, but looking back I realise I was lucky in the way things happened to me then. For one thing, I had the house virtually to myself while I was getting over the shock. Miriam was there at night, but by day I was alone, and it helped me. So many of my friends in the same position have found company absolutely essential, but others, like me, want time alone to adjust to the idea of widowhood. I had that, and then just when I was beginning to get to the recluse stage, my daughter pulled me back into the world, and I bless her for it.'

I refilled her tea cup.

'And that's enough of my affairs,' she said briskly. 'Now tell me how things have been going with Fairacre. Any hatches, matches or dispatches?'

I told her several of each, and brought her up to date with Fairacre and Caxley news.

After tea we inspected the garden in warm sunlight, and then I wrote a note to Miriam, accepting her invitation to supper at the end of the week, for Joan to carry back with her.

'Any hope of you ever coming back here to live?' I asked as she said her farewells.

'When I see it like this, all flowers and sunlight, I'm sorely tempted, but I remember the winters here, and believe me, Sussex is a good deal kinder to my old bones when the cold weather comes!'

'You have to be tough to withstand the winds of Fairacre,' I agreed. 'I've already started knitting a hefty cardigan in double-knitting wool ready for next winter.'

Mrs Pringle regaled me with a blow-by-blow account of how Basil Pringle's fingers had to be dressed, and very upsetting I found it first thing the next morning. As usual it was impossible to quell the flow.

'And how are the others getting on?' I enquired hastily, hoping to lead her to pleasanter topics. The little Pringles' one day with me had been distinctly exhausting, and I must confess I was thankful that they were not my responsibility permanently.

'Much as usual,' replied Mrs Pringle shortly. 'Now, I meant to let you know the latest about Mrs Coggs.'

'She's progressing well, I gather.'

'And who told you that, may I ask? She looks as near death's door as a great many as are now in the churchyard, to my knowledge. What's more she showed me her operation scar—'

'Well, don't tell me!' I cried. But one might as well try to stop the Nile in flood.

'All of nine inches long and double punch holes like boot eyelets. An 'orrible sight!' said Mrs Pringle with relish. 'I thought my poor old ma's was bad enough, but this was more inflamed, if you follow me. I told her so.'

Trust Mrs Pringle to be pessimistic! I could bear no more, and walked swiftly into the infants' room on the pretext of speaking to Miss Briggs. I might have known that she would pursue me.

'And if I may say so,' she boomed behind me, 'you look a bit peaky yourself.'

'That,' I said firmly, 'is hardly surprising in the circumstances.'

And I shut the door smartly in her face.

Later, I was to rue this lapse on my part. Looking back, I see now, that this was the beginning of a rapid decline in Mrs Pringle's comparative patience and good temper.

I think if I could have foreseen the consequences, I would have made a superhuman effort to control my feelings—heaven alone knows I get plenty of practice in my dealings with Mrs Pringle! But I had been sorely goaded, and retaliated with the slammed door, sad to say.

Other matters cropped up about that time which distracted my attention from Mrs Pringle's pronounced limp, always in evidence when she has taken umbrage.

An evening or two later, James, Amy's husband, telephoned. He sounded unusually agitated, and dispensed with his habitual opening compliments which I found surprising.

'I'm ringing about Amy. Is she with you by any chance?'

'No,' I said, somewhat bewildered.

'Well, it's the oddest thing, but she's not here, and some of her clothes have gone, and her cheque book and so on, and not a word left for me. No note. Nothing. I can't make it out.'

'Come to think of it,' I said, 'she mentioned something about being away for a time. Naturally, I assumed that you knew.'

'That I don't!'James sounded thoroughly cross.

'Are you sure that her note hasn't slipped down somewhere and got hidden?' I enquired.

'Of course I'm sure!' snapped James. 'I've searched everywhere. There's not a clue as to where she can be, and it's jolly upsetting.'

'Have you rung anyone else?'

'No. You were the first. I thought she might have driven over to you, and stayed the night, I got home yesterday about seven, expecting her to arrive during the evening. In fact, I rang you about nine or ten, and there was no answer.'

He sounded aggrieved. I explained that I had spent the evening with Miriam Quinn and Joan Benson.

'She'll probably ring you any time now,' I said, trying to comfort him.

'Well, if she doesn't do so before dark, I shall inform the police. For all I know, she may be lying murdered in a lay-by.'

Why a
lay-by,
I wondered? But it was no moment to discuss this interesting side-line. Obviously, the poor chap was becoming more distraught every minute, and I was hard put to it to know how best to help him.

'If you think she might have been involved in an accident,' I began carefully, 'perhaps you should ring the local hospitals.'

'Oh, for pity's sake!' shouted the exasperated man, 'don't make things worse! What a ghoul you are, suggesting she might be lying injured in hospital!'

It was hardly the time to remind him that he had imagined his poor wife lying murdered in a lay-by, which was far more ghoulish than my modest and reasonable suggestion.

'If I hear anything at all to help you, I'll ring immediately,' I promised him, and put down the receiver.

'Now I wonder,' I said to Tibby, 'is Amy really in trouble, or is she just enjoying her freedom somewhere, with thoughts of what's sauce for the gander holds true for the goose?'

9 Troubles Never Come Singly

THE mystery of Amy's disappearance had to be shelved in the pressure of day to day school problems, but I intended to get in touch with James to find out if he had heard from her. Knowing James, I thought it would be unlikely if he rang me, whatever the news.

In the midst of halcyon weather, I struggled with a spate of problems. Miss Briggs fell ill with some sort of stomach trouble, and so was absent from school. My anguished pleas to the education office were met with some sympathy but little practical help. Supply teachers, it seemed, were like gold dust in our area.

I put down the telephone and racked my brain. In the old days, Miss Clare used to step into the breach. Sometimes Amy, a first-class teacher, had come to our aid. Old helpers like Mrs Bonner and Mrs Finch-Edwards had now moved away, and the outlook appeared bleak.

I struggled all through the first day of Miss Briggs' absence with the dividing door open, and by making sorties between the two rooms, a certain amount of work was kept going, but this state of things was far from satisfactory.

In the evening I rang Miss Briggs' landlady in Caxley to enquire how my assistant was progressing. I must confess that I hoped she was soon going to be fit to return, as much for my own sake as hers.

'Still in bed,' was the depressing response to my enquiry. 'To my mind, it's just nerves, Miss Read. Getting upset about the coming wedding. Girls do get these funny ideas, as no doubt you know.'

I had to admit that pre-marital qualms had never been experienced by me.

'Oh, it's quite common,' she assured me. 'You wonder if you're doing the right thing, you know. And then all the arrangements are a dreadful worry. Should you ask everybody, or nobody? I well remember how suicidal I got before my own wedding. I took such a dislike to my wedding dress, I threatened to go in my mackintosh. My mother couldn't do anything with me!'

She sounded rather proud of the fact, I thought, and privately congratulated myself on having escaped such traumas. There are many occasions when I thank my stars that I am single. This was one of them.

Getting back to the point, I asked if Miss Briggs seemed likely to be back within a few days.

'Oh, I doubt it,' she replied cheerfully. 'The doctor came this morning and I'vejust fetched the tablets he prescribed, and she says they make her feel awful, so what with the germs she's got and the cure the doctor's given her, I should say she'll be laid low for at least a week!'