(16/20)Summer at Fairacre (27 page)

The news was disturbing, but I did not intend to let it upset me unduly. Mrs Pringle had had her chance. Minnie Pringle would certainly not be taken on permanently, if she were rash enough to apply, and that was that.

The next thing to do, was to get in touch with dear reliable Bella, and to see if her offer of getting the school in good trim, for the beginning of term, still held.

I determined to see her the next day and went home to follow Mr Lamb's example, and to do some weeding as the evening cooled.

I awoke to another dewy morning, and looked forward to yet another golden day.

Full of good resolutions, I planned to give my house a thorough cleaning, secretly rather stung by Amy's remark about it looking in need of Mrs John's ministrations.

In the afternoon, I proposed to visit Bella, and to tell her how grateful I should be if she would put things straight before term started.

Life, of course, was already waiting with a spanner to throw in the works.

When I was at my most dishevelled, and had spent some time on my stomach attending to dust under the beds, the door bell rang.

Cursing, I ran downstairs. It was nearly half past ten. Whoever it was could have a cup of coffee and then, I hoped, they would leave me to my chores.

Not many people come to the front door. I fully expected to find a gipsy selling pegs, or some earnest soul with a handful of tracts asking if I were saved. Friends and neighbours usually come to the back door and halloo cheerfully to see if I am in.

On wrenching open the door, which tends to stick with infrequent use, I was severely shaken to be confronted by Miss Crabbe and my past assistant Miss Jackson.

'Well,' I said with false enthusiasm. 'This is a lovely surprise!' Sometimes I wonder that I am not struck by a bolt from heaven when I dissemble in this fashion—but there it is. Civilisation rears its head yet again.

'Do come in. I was just going to make coffee.'

The two ladies followed me into the sitting room, where a full dust-pan lay on the hearthrug, a vase of roses had been upturned by Tibby in his understandable haste to leave home on seeing the visitors, and water dripped steadily, and a few dead leaves had blown in the French windows and added to the general squalor.

'We were just returning from a marvellous course in Dorset, and saw the signpost to Fairacre, and we felt we must pop in,' said Hilary Jackson, teeth and spectacles flashing as brightly as ever.

'I'm so glad,' I said, picking up the dust-pan with one hand, and trying to arrange some stray locks of hair with the other. 'Let me put on the kettle, and then you must tell me all about it.'

I escaped to the kitchen, and did my best to tidy myself. It was a pity that I was wearing a paint-splashed cotton frock, no stockings and sandals with two straps adrift. Minnie Pringle was probably a good deal tidier than I was at the moment, I thought.

I put out cups and saucers, and surveyed the deplorable fragments in the bottom of the biscuit tin. Luckily, I had some oat cakes of Scottish derivation, as hard and gritty as the Grampians, and I added these to my offerings.

The ladies accepted my invitation to call upstairs, and I only hoped that they would not measure their length falling over the vacuum cleaner on the landing. The beds had been stripped, and piles of bedclothes were festooned over the banisters. The whole house must give the impression of total chaos.

However, it could not be helped, and I managed to mop up the water, and straighten a cushion or two, before they returned smelling nicely of my Morny's pink lilac soap.

'We hoped to see you at the course,' said Miss Crabbe, accepting a Scottish rock, it was really inspiring, wasn't it, Hilary?'

'Yes, indeed,' said the girl earnestly. She had had the sense, I noticed, to select half a Nice biscuit from the rubble in the tin.

'It dealt with Difficult Children. Half of them, of course, as we know only too well, are the Victims of Unhappy Marriages.'

'But there are so many other factors,' went on Miss Crabbe, who was gamely trying to chip off a fragment from her oat cake with an eye tooth. 'Unsympathetic Teachers, Hereditary Defects and the Pressures of Modern Life.'

'We had some wonderful lecturers,' enthused Hilary. 'So understanding and really jolly. In the evenings we played old-fashioned games like charades and I-Spy.'

Privately, I thanked my stars that I had not been among those present, and changed the subject by offering more coffee and enquiring which route they had taken to Fairacre.

Miss Crabbe was still fighting her oat cake, and was now attempting to snap it into pieces before transferring the morsel to her mouth. I began to feel quite sorry for her.

'Do leave that if it is too hard,' I said.

'Indeed no! It is absolutely delicious, and full of nourishing roughage,' said the lady. 'I am a great believer in Fibre.'

'I have bran with everything,' volunteered Hilary, who had finished her half biscuit. I offered the oat cakes, but she declined.

Coffee over, I took them round the garden. I do not think they really noticed anything, they were so agog with the mental stimulation of the past course.

However, they seemed to be content to sit on the garden seat to continue their discussion, and I excused myself as the telephone rang.

It was Bella George.

'I was coming to see you,' I said. 'Are you still game to tidy up the school before term?'

'Yes indeed, that's why I rang. But I thought I'd better find out if Mrs Pringle was definitely not returning. I shouldn't like to get across that lady.'

I was in firm agreement with Bella's feelings, and said so.

'No,' I told her. 'Mrs Pringle told me herself that she can't manage the job at the moment, so it will be marvellous if you can help out.'

'You haven't heard about
The Upset
then?'

'With Minnie?'

'Yes.'

'Mr Lamb told me that Mrs Pringle had threatened Minnie when she expressed an interest in applying for the post.'

'That was a while ago. She's been up since evidently, and is still talking about putting in for the job.'

'Well, she wouldn't get it,' I said flatly. 'The work's beyond Minnie, so you need not worry on that score.'

'I see. Well, I'll be along tomorrow and put things straight. I do hope someone turns up for the regular work. What about Mrs John?'

I told her about the coming baby.

'Oh dear! So you're without help too?'

'It looks like it. But I'm not too worried.'

'See you tomorrow then,' said Bella, and rang off.

I took the opportunity of clearing away the coffee cups and straightening the sitting room. Upstairs must wait.

Through the window I could see my two visitors engaged in earnest conversation still. The clock now said a quarter to twelve, and I wondered if I should offer them lunch. And if so, what?

Those of us who live alone do not have cold joints, or large stews standing ready in the larder.

On this occasion, I had one chop which I had intended to grill, with some lettuce from the garden as a side salad. All that I could manage, if the worst came to the worst, was an omelette which should suit Miss Crabbe, the non-flesh-eater, with a somewhat more interesting salad with chives, radishes, spring onions and any other snippets from the garden added to the lettuce.

I mentally reviewed the bread situation (poor), the cheese situation (disastrous, mouldy cheddar only), the fruit situation (two black bananas, and some sharp apples). Of course, I thought, I could always open a bottle of gooseberries.

I returned to my guests.

'It will soon be twelve o'clock,' I said brightly. 'Would you like to stay for lunch? Or I could take you to the Beetle and Wedge for a sandwich, if you prefer?'

My enquiries were met with a flurry of agitation.

'Nearly twelve? Good gracious, Hilary, we must set off at once!'

Miss Crabbe had leapt to her feet, and Hilary was scrabbling about for her handbag.

'No, no! Most kind of you to offer us lunch, but we have an evening engagement in Cambridge, and must be on our way.'

I did my best to look regretful.

'We are very much refreshed by your delicious coffee and oat cakes,' said Miss Crabbe, as they entered the car. 'By the way, do call and see us if you are ever in Cambridge.'

I thanked her, and helped to guide the car out of my somewhat awkward drive, before returning to my neglected duties.

The lamb chop was delicious, and all the more enjoyed because it was eaten in blissful solitude.

20 The End of Summer

TRUE to her word, Bella appeared the next day and got down to her scrubbing, dusting and polishing.

At mid-morning I went across with our coffee, and we sat on the desks and I admired the tortoise stoves, already gleaming like jet, and the glittering brass rail round the fireguard.

'It looks marvellous,' I told her.

'I like a bit of a shine-up,' she answered, stirring her coffee dreamily. 'I was talking to Jack last night, and he says he don't mind if I want to help out for another week, say, until you get a new cleaner.'

'That's very noble of him. I appreciate that. As a matter of fact, things are slightly more hopeful. Mr Roberts called in yesterday to say that he has a new stockman starting at Michaelmas, and his wife wants a job. So maybe she will take it on.'

'And Bob Willet said he'd do the stoves when the time came, if need be. That's something I really couldn't take on.'

'I've got all my scouts out,' I said. 'The vicar, the Annetts, Miss Clare, Mrs Mawne and Mrs Partridge. Between us all, someone will turn up. Meanwhile, if you really feel you can come after school for a day or two, I'd be more than grateful.'

As it happened, I saw Mr Willet in the churchyard that afternoon, and went to thank him for his offer of coping with the stoves.

'Lord, that's nothing!' he replied, ceasing his slashing at the long grass, and subsiding on to the flat tomb of Hezekiah Bootle who departed this life in 1832, respected by all.

'I'll see you and the kids keep warm,' he went on. 'I always enjoy a nice bit of stoking. Keeps hot, don't it?' he added, pushing back his cap, and scratching his head.

'A wonderful summer,' I agreed. 'I can't remember a better one.'

We sat side by side in the sunshine. Bees fondled the clover at our feet, and a pair of collared doves pattered about on the gravel path, looking like two curates dressed in clerical grey. High above us, a flock of rooks winged their way westward, their harsh cawing muffled by distance.

It was very peaceful. A country churchyard takes a lot of beating on a sunny afternoon, and I can never understand people's aversion to such places.

We brooded in companionable silence for. a time, until Mr Willet sighed, and reached for his bill hook.

'No real news then, I take it, about Bella's job?'

I told him about Mr Roberts' new stockman.

'Oh, I knows that couple! Lived over Springbourne way some years ago. Yes, she'd be a bonny worker if she'd take it on. Fat girl. Name of Martha. Don't get many Marthas these days.'

He creaked to his feet.

'Well, I'd best stir me stumps. Don't you worry about this cleaner business. Someone'll turn up, you'll see.'

I roused myself too, and we parted company.

It was the last day of the holidays and it ended very pleasantly for me with a little party at Holly Lodge, where Henry Mawne's nephew David and his wife Irene, sister of Horace Umbleditch, now lived.

The older Mawnes were there, and also David's boy Simon, as well as the vicar and his wife, and a sprinkling of friends from Caxley.

'It's really to celebrate Horace and Eve's engagement,' Irene told me, as she took my coat. 'But they are not here yet. I can't think what has held them up. I do so hope they haven't forgotten. They are so befuddled with love, I wouldn't put it past them.'

Luckily, at that moment there was a scrunching of tyres, and the couple arrived. I made my way into the sitting room, while Irene welcomed them.

'I've always loved this house,' said the vicar, coming up to me with a tray of glasses. 'And everyone who has lived here has enjoyed it. I know Miriam Quinn finds it a real haven after a day's work in that busy Caxley office. You know her good news, I take it? Unfortunately, she is still away, but I think her engagement to Gerard Baker is now general knowledge.'