(16/20)Summer at Fairacre (17 page)

12 Minnie Pringle Lends a Hand

MISS Briggs was now back in the infants' room and the dividing partition shuddered every now and again from the impact of her stentorian tones. I thought wistfully of the peace we had enjoyed during Isobel's brief reign, but tried not to dwell on the change.

The girl looked rather pale and thinner than usual.

'It was a tummy bug,' she told me, 'and the first lot of pills disagreed with me, which made matters worse. The only bright thing is that I'm an inch smaller round the waist, and my wedding dress will have to be taken in.'

I complimented her on her svelte appearance.

'You should be getting your invitation this week,' she continued. 'I do hope you can come. Do you know Leamington?'

'No, but I shall look forward to the wedding very much.'

'Good. I expect Mum can put you up, although I know we've some aunts and uncles, and my father's mother coming up from Cornwall, and some cousins from Holland that have been invited, but I'm sure we can find room. We've three bedrooms.'

I said hastily that I would not dream of troubling her mother when so many of the family would need accommodation, and I would look out for a modest hotel for my overnight stay.

'Do you know, I'm quite looking forward to it,' she said, sounding surprised. I remembered her landlady's surmise that girls about to marry frequently suffered from prenuptial nerves. Obviously our Miss Briggs was made of sterner stuff, and good luck to her.

Mr Willet summed it up when he met her on her first morning back at school.

'Looks a lot better with half a stone off, don't she? I mean, she's still a fair old lump of a girl, but got a livelier look about her. That young Wayne's done her a power of good. Nothing like marriage, Miss Read, for setting you up. You wants to try it some time.'

'Chance would be a fine thing,' I told him, opening the register.

The prolonged heat, which I relished, began to take its toll of the garden and of the children's energy.

The crimson petals pattered down from the peonies on to the dry soil. The downs shimmered in a blue haze, and I had to draw the curtains in my house against the heat of the midday sun.

The rainwater butts were empty, and a loudspeaker van from Caxley toured the villages exhorting us to save water and forbade us to use sprinklers and hoses in the parched gardens.

'I turns a deaf ear to that blighted van,' Mr Willet told me. it's only old Ted Bates anyway, throwing his weight about, and him no better than he should be with that fancy woman of his over Bent way. I've got some seedlings just up nice, and they gets a drop of water when needed, Ted or no Ted.'

Here was another instance of sturdy country independence born of personal knowledge. What cared Mr Willet for a flashy van and the might of the local water board? Such power was soon cut down to size by knowing old Ted who was running the thing. I found it all very heartening.

The children were listless. Perhaps they are so accustomed to the exhilarating freshness of our downland breezes that a warm and langorous environment, which suits me very well, saps their energy immediately.

Our lofty windows were propped open to their fullest extent, and the door to the lobby, as well as the outside one to the playground, were permanently ajar. Two large flower pots made sure that they stayed open and Tibby took to sitting on the outside one, washing his face and occasionally looking into the lobby and classroom, much to the children's delight.

But despite my efforts to mitigate their sufferings the children remained lethargic. I took them outside for lessons under the trees at the edge of the playground, but there was so much noise we did not get on very well.

People from the towns have the fond idea that we in the country could hear a pin drop, and that silence enfolds us. Here, in June, Mr Roberts was busy hay-making. The baler thumped its way round and round the fields adjoining the school. The vicar's lawn mower, a few yards away over the vicarage wall, seemed to be doing overtime. Various dogs in the village enjoyed a healthy barking, and Mr Roberts' cows added their lowing every now and again.

We also get a number of aircraft from a nearby aerodrome, and are in the flight path from an international airport. Some distance away, but quite audible when the wind is in the south-west, there is a motorway, and the hum of the traffic can become a roar in high summer. Fairacre itself is little changed, but sometimes I wonder if it is not a place besieged by outside pressure.

There was little activity at playtimes. Even the coke pile was neglected as children were too idle to climb it. Mostly they sat in the shade of the trees, rolling marbles or chewing grass in a desultory fashion, whilst only the really industrious essayed such feats as making daisy-chains or knocking the heads from plantains.

Nevertheless, it was rewarding to see how tanned and well they all appeared in their skimpy tee-shirts and cotton shorts or skirts. Even Joseph Coggs who rarely seems to enjoy a change of clothes, was clad in some good summer garments which I suspect had been bought at the W.I. jumble stall so bravely supervised by Miriam Quinn. With any luck, I told myself, this blissful spell of sunshine should set us up for the coming winter.

Mrs John began her ministrations much to my relief, and although I did not see much of her as I was in school, I did nip across at playtime to make sure she had a cup of tea.

Teresa seemed to be a model child and played or slept in her pram in a shady part of the garden. I returned to my duties congratulating myself on my new helper.

It was a different kettle of fish, of course, with Minnie Pringle barging about in school. She was only engaged to work after school had ended. The thought of facing Minnie Pringle at the beginning as well as the end of a school day was more than I could endure, and I said that we could easily manage first thing.

I stayed with Minnie on her first visit, hovering protectively, not on my helper's account, but to look after the school property. Fortunately, the toddler had been left with a neighbour, so I only had Minnie to direct. I let her start on the wash basins, putting out the Vim tin, drawing her attention to its size and colour, and even—such is the ardour of the true schoolmarm—pointing out that the three letters on the side spelt VIM. Minnie nodded her tousled red locks energetically, grinning madly the while, and I wondered how soon she would forget my first lesson.

I managed to dissuade her from giving the lower panes of the lobby windows a brisk drubbing with the Vim-coated dishcloth, but she attacked a mirror with such vigour while my back was turned, that I feared the resultant scratches were there for good.

She swept the floors rather well, I thought, and I initiated her into the art of filling a pail half-full rather than brimming over, and showed her where the kneeler and scrubbing brush were kept, and the carton of soap powder. The latter perplexed her.

'You just put in enough powder to make a lather,' I told her, demonstrating with the plastic beaker kept inside. 'One measure is enough for half this size bucket.'

I swished about energetically until we had a useful mixture.

'There isn't time to do much this evening, Minnie,' I told her, 'but if you could start at the other side of the infants' room, it would help. Do a little each evening, I suggest.'

'It's dirtier by the door,' she pointed out. 'I'd best begin there.'

'Start over by the windows,' I directed, 'and work gradually this way.'

'Why?'

'Well, you won't be walking on the bit you've scrubbed, and you'll be kneeling on a dry part of the floor.'

She gazed at me in mystified silence, before bursting into a cackle of laughter.

'What a head-piece you've got on you, miss! No wonder you can learn them kids right.'

She spent the last quarter of an hour of her time working hard on the further strip of the floor. I dusted both rooms, partly to help and partly to keep my eye on our property.

'Time's up,' I said at last, it all looks splendid, Minnie.'

I was about to tell her that when the short hand was at five and the long one at six it meant that her duties were at an end, but somehow the thought of giving a lesson to Minnie on telling the time, after a full day's teaching, became insupportable. After all, she had already been initiated into the whereabouts of her cleaning materials, and the desirability of washing the floor without treading on the clean part.

I felt it was enough for one day. If not for Minnie, certainly for me.

On Sunday morning I breakfasted in the garden. The sun was pleasantly warm. Later, it would be too hot to enjoy its direct rays, but at nine o'clock all was perfect.

The grass was still dewy, and the Albertine rose growing over the garden shed was breaking into flower. What a marvellous old rose it is! I love the dark tight buds, the glossy foliage, and the pale pink open flowers. But best of all is its sharp-sweet scent. What matter if it only flowers once in the season, and drops its petals with profligacy? It is a true herald of summer, and I think I am fonder of it than any other rose in my cottage garden.

Later I went to church. The altar had roses on it, and some madonna lilies had been arranged on a pedestal by the lectern. Their heady scent perfumed the ancient building. Outside, the sun blazed and the distant thumping of the baler could be heard. All the farmers in the neighbourhood were literally making hay while the sun shone.

Inside, the church was cool and shadowy. I closed my eyes the better to attend to Gerald Partridge's sermon, and hoped he would not think that I had dropped off.

It was a good theme, a celebration of summer and all its blessings. He spoke of the beauty of natural things, noticed so much more sharply when one could loiter out of doors. He touched on the renewal of friendships which winter weather had discouraged, and I thought how true this was. I recalled the joys of our nature walks and my own garden, and the trips to see Miss Clare and Amy and other good friends.

He went on to point out that beauty begets beauty, quoting an incident in the woods near Beech Green where he came across members of the Caxley art group busy transferring the woodland scene before them on to their canvases. He added another instance, dear to his heart, of the happy sound of the bees collecting nectar to transform into honey. The vicar has only recently taken to bee keeping, and his charges are very dear to him.

It was a good sermon, I thought, as we scrambled to our feet at the end of it. It encouraged us to look about us, to be grateful for all we could see, and for the bounty of the earth, and to ponder on many hidden meanings in an apparently simple message as we truly celebrated summer.

I remembered to ask Miss Briggs for her wedding present list, and pored over it anxiously one evening. The children and I would get together when Miss Briggs was absent to decide on the school's offering. Judging from the list of things needed it would probably turn out to be: 'Soup Ladle, not plastic' or one of 'Trays, various sizes'.

I was pleased to see that she also wanted 'Vases, various sizes', and I decided to plump for something which I liked as my personal present to her. It is always a pleasure to buy china and good to have an excuse to indulge one's desires.

One hot afternoon, I prevailed upon Miss Briggs to take her charges into the shade of the trees for story time. This gave me the chance to consult my fellow conspirators about the present.

Patrick was all for giving her a pair of guinea pigs, as his pets had recently had a fine litter. It seemed to me that Patrick's guinea pigs produced litters far too often, and supply outstripped demand heavily in Fairacre.

Eileen Burton suggested a silk eiderdown and bedspread, preferably pink 'because it's always pretty', and Ernest thought a wheelbarrow would be useful.

When I could get a word in edgeways, I pointed out that all Miss Briggs' needs were listed, and I put forward the ideas possible on our modest budget. No one was to contribute more than twenty-five pence, and ten would probably be the average.

After much heart-searching, I was delegated to buy a tray.

'As big as the money goes to,' Patrick said firmly, and I meekly agreed to do my best.

Ernest, who had been allotted the job of Miss-Briggs-observer, and had been keeping an eye on the infants' movements from the lobby door, now called out:

'She's acoming, miss! She's acoming!'

At this, the children hastily took out their readers at my suggestion, and were engrossed in their pages, with unnatural fervour.

But when Miss Briggs came in to speak to me as she went to her own room, the nudges and knowing winks would have alerted anyone more observant than my assistant to the fact that Something Was Up.

Fairacre children are not very accomplished dissemblers.

As I was taking some letters to the post a day or two later, I met Peter Hale who lives at Tyler's Row. He bought the property a few years ago, and he and his wife have turned the row of four dilapidated cottages into one fine house.

He taught for many years at Caxley Grammar School, but has now retired and takes an active part in village affairs. I asked him if there were any developments in the proposed television programme about Aloysius, an earlier dweller at Tyler's Row.