(11/20) Farther Afield
Read (11/20) Farther Afield Online
Authors: Miss Read
Tags: #Pastoral Fiction, #Crete (Greece), #Country Life - England, #General, #Literary, #Country Life, #England, #Fiction, #Villages - England
Farther Afield
Miss Read
Table of Contents
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Boston • New York
For Audrey and Jack
with love
First Houghton Mifflin paperback edition 2007
Copyright © 1973 by Miss Read
Copyright © renewed 2000 by D.J. Saint
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections
from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Read, Miss.
Farther afield / Miss Read ; illustrations by J. S. Goodall.
—1st Houghton Mifflin pbk. ed.
p. cm.
ISBN
-13: 978-0-618-88436-0 (pbk.)
ISBN
-10: 0-618-88436-x (pbk.)
1. Country life—England—Fiction. I.Title.
PR
6069.
A
42
F
35 2007
823'.914—dc22 2007030761
Printed in the United States of America
EB-L
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Part One
A Visit To Bent
1 End of Term
[>]
2 Struck Down
[>]
3 Medical Matters
[>]
4 Amy Takes Command
[>]
5 Recovery at Bent
[>]
6 Amy Needs Help
[>]
7 Flying Away
[>]
Part Two
Farther Afield
8 In Crete
[>]
9 At Knossos
[>]
10 Amy Works Things Out
[>]
11 Toplou
[>]
12 The Last Day
[>]
13 Going Home
[>]
Part Three
Return To Fairacre
14 Mrs Pringle Falls Ill
[>]
15 Term Begins
[>]
16 Gerard and Vanessa
[>]
17 A Visit From Miss Clare
[>]
18 Autumn Pleasures
[>]
19 James Comes Home
[>]
20 The Final Scene
[>]
Part One
A Visit to Bent
1 End of Term
W
HEN
do we come back?' said Joseph Coggs.
He stood close by my chair, rubbing the crepe sole of his sandal up and down the leg. A rhythmic squeaking, as of mice being tortured, had already turned my teeth to chalk. I turned to answer the child, anxious to put us both at ease, but again I was interrupted.
In the midst of the hubbub caused by end-of-term clearing-up, Patrick and Ernest had come to grips, and were fighting a silent, but vicious, battle.
Without a word, I left Joseph, moved swiftly into the arena, and plucked the two opponents apart with a practised hand. With a counter-movement I flung them into their desk seats where they sat panting and glowering at each other.
Despite all the modern advice by the pundits about irreparable damage to the child's ego, I continue to use out-dated but practical methods on an occasion like this, and find they work excellently. Sweet reasoning will not be any more effective with two young males in conflict than it will with a dog-fight on one's hands. The first objective is to part them; the second to find out why it happened.
In this case, a revoltingly dirty lump of bubblegum had been prised from under a desk, and both boys laid claim to it.
Both are well-nourished children, from decent homes, whose mothers would have been as disgusted as I was by this filthy and aged sweetmeat finding its way into their hands, let alone their mouths.
I held out my hand, and Patrick put the clammy object into it. For once, it landed in the waste-paper basket, without mishap, and the incident was closed.
Patrick and Ernest returned to their desk-polishing, much refreshed by the tussle, and at last I found time to answer Joseph Coggs.
'Term begins on September 5th,' I told him.
He sighed.
'It's a long time,' he said mournfully.
'A
very
long time,' I agreed, beaming upon him.
No matter how devoted, dedicated, conscientious and altogether
noble,
a teacher is, I feel pretty sure that each and everyone feels the same sense of freedom and relief from her chains when the end-of-term arrives.
And of all end-of-terms, the most blissful is the end of the summer term, when six weeks or more stretch ahead, free of time-tables, bells, children and their parents. Six weeks in which to call your soul your own, to enjoy the garden, to think about next year's border plants, and of stocking up the log shed, even, perhaps, a little house decoration and tidying cupboards, although the thought of Mrs Pringle over-seeing the latter operation cast a cloud upon the sunny scene.
Mrs Pringle, school cleaner and general factotum to Fairacre School, sometimes obliges by giving me an extra hour or two on Wednesdays. I greet her offers with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the house certainly benefits from her ministrations, but her gloomy forebodings and her eloquent dissertations on the deplorable way I manage my house-keeping affairs are enough to dash the stoutest heart.
I had already determined to assist Mrs Pringle in her 'bottoming', as she terms a thorough cleaning, and to behave in as kind and Christian a manner as was possible under extreme provocation. If, as I knew from experience, Mrs Pringle's needling became intolerable, I could always put some cheese, biscuits and fruit in the car, with the current book and that day's crossword puzzle to solve, and drive to one of the nearby peaceful spots, far from Mrs Pringle's nagging tongue and the reek of unnecessarily strong disinfectant.
'After all,' I told myself, 'I can take quite a lot of Mrs P. It's when Mrs Hope is dragged up and flaunted before me that I crack.'
Mrs Hope was the wife of a former headmaster, and had lived in the school house as I do now. She must have had a dog's life, for her husband drank, and she found solace in unceasing work in the little house.
'From dawn to dusk, from morning till night,' Mrs Pringle has told me, far too often, 'Mrs Hope kept at it. Never without a duster in her hand, and anybody invited to tea was met on the doorstep, and offered a clothes brush and a pair of slippers so as not to soil the place.'
'I shouldn't think many returned.'
'No, that's true,' said Mrs Pringle thoughtfully. 'But then Mrs Hope was
very
particular who came to the house.'
This was a side-swipe at me whose door stands open for all to enter.
Mrs Hope, so I am told, was always at the wash-tub before seven, twice a week, and even scrubbed out the laundry basket each time. Like Mrs Tiggywinkle she was 'an excellent clear-searcher', and naturally
nothing,
not even heavy bedspreads and curtains, was ever sent to the laundry.
'Mrs Hope would have scorned such a thing, and anyway laundries don't get the linen really clean. And, what's more they use
chemicals!'
If she had said that the dirty linen was prodded by devils with pitchforks, she could not have sounded more scandalised.
The introduction of Mrs Hope into any conversation was usually breaking point for me, and I could foresee many alfresco meals whilst Mrs Pringle was obliging.
There are many places within a quarter of an hour's drive from Fairacre which make glorious picnic spots. There are hollows in the downs, sheltered from the winds, where the views are breathtaking, and the clouds throw little shadows like scurrying sheep on to the green flanks of the hills.
There are copses murmurous with cooing wood pigeons, and fragrant with damp moss and aromatic woodland flowers. But my favourite spot is by the upper reaches of the River Cax, before it wanders into Caxley, and threads between the rosy houses to find its way eastward into the Thames.
Here the wild cresses grow in the shallows, their white flowers dazzling against the darker water. Little water-voles splash from the bank into the stream, stopping occasionally to nibble a succulent shoot, or to chase another of their kind. And here too a heron can be seen upstream, standing like some shabby furled umbrella, dark, gaunt and motionless upon the bank.
It is here, particularly on a sunny day, that its magic works most strongly. It is the 'balm of hurt minds'. No human being is in sight. No human habitation distracts the eye. The slow-moving water flows at the same pace as it has always done, sheltering and giving life to fish, plants and insects. Thirsty bees cling to the muddy brink. Dragon-flies dart, shimmering, across the surface, and the swallows swoop to drink. Below, in the murk, among the drifting water weeds, the dappled trout lie motionless. Life, in its infinite forms, pursues its unchanging course, timeless and unhurried, and a man's cares fall from him as the things that matter – sunshine, moving water, birds and small beasts – combine to cast their spell upon him.
I was snatched from my reverie by Linda Moffat's voice.
Where, she was demanding, should she put the two dozen or so fish-paste jars she had just collected and washed 'off of the nature table?'
'Never use "off of",' I replied mechanically, for the two thousandth time that term. A losing battle this, I thought resignedly, but one must soldier on. 'Having a lend of or 'a borrow of is a similar enemy, while 'she never learnt me nothing' or 'I never got teached proper', pose particular problems to those attempting to explain the niceties of English usage.
'Try the map cupboard,' I suggested, watching the child transferring a black smear from her hand to a freshly-starched linen skirt. Poor Mrs Moffat, I thought compassionately, and the child at home for six weeks!