(3/20) Storm in the Village (25 page)

'Have you heard that my brother is engaged to the young lady we saw him with at the fete?' I said that I had heard, but had wondered if it were just a rumour. The woman's eyes grew troubled.

'No, it's no rumour. It'll be in The Paper this week.' She put her hand, in a sudden confiding gesture, on my arm.

'Break it to that poor girl,' she pleaded urgently. 'She was in a fair taking about him. Not that it's not ad for the best, as it's fallen out—but it'll come hard if she sees it without warning.'

I promised to do what I could, shelved the comparatively simple problem of Christmas cards and left the shop pondering on this knottier one.

As any teacher will ted you, Monday morning is a hectic time. What with notes from mothers, dinner money, savings money, returned absentees, new children and other distractions, affairs of the heart, however pressing, have to take second place.

I was considerably perturbed about the best way to approach this delicate subject, and decided that after midday dinner would perhaps be a good time to make as casual a mention of it as I could. But it was not to be. Linda Moffat complained of severe stomach pains and looked so wretchedly id at dinner time that Miss Jackson took her home to her mother.

It was not until school was over for the day and the children had run and skipped their way through the school gate to the lane that the opportunity occurred for an uninterrupted conversation.

Hilary Jackson came across to the school-house to borrow a book and, taking a deep breath, I made a cautious approach. I remembered our last catastrophic clash over John Franklyn, on that distant thundery day. The sound of that storm still echoed in my ears as I began reluctantly.

'I hope you will forgive me for asking you something very personal,' I said gently.

Hilary Jackson looked round from the bookshelves, wide-eyed.

'Good lord, no! What's that?' I began to feel like a baby-kider, but I stuck to it doggedly.

'It was about John Franklyn-' I began. Hilary drew in her breath so sharply, that I knew at once that I had no need to break any news to the girl. She already knew the truth.

She dropped the book she was holding, and with a dreadful despairing cry crumpled down on to the floor, pillowing her head in my armchair. Her shoulders shook with her sobbing and I stood there watching her, feeling powerless to help.

At last she lifted a blotched, woebegone face to me.

'Yes, I know, I know! And what's to become of me?' she burst out tragically. 'What's to become of me?'

21. The Problem of Miss Clare

T
HE
Caxley Chronicle
carried the notice of John Franklyn's engagement the next day, and Miss Jackson went sad-eyed about her affairs, the object of much sincere pity in the village. Although she had never made much effort to be pleasant to the parents and friends of the school, she was young and in love, and the romantic heart of the village was stirred. It rose to her support to a man.

'Enough to make your heart bleed!' announced Mrs Pringle lugubriously, laying a hand upon her afflicted member. Mr Willet, who was present, was much too delicate-minded to have mentioned the subject on his own, but was stung into speech by Mrs Pringle's dramatic excesses.

'Tis good riddance to bad rubbish,' he asserted sturdily, 'whatever you old women says, making sheeps' eyes over something that's none of your business. She'd get over it, and thank her lucky stars she's rid of him!'

Mrs Pringle bridled and looked to me for support.

'Broken hearts don't mend so easy, do they, Miss Read?' she said with dreadful meaning. I could only think that she was harping back to the long-forgotten affair of Mr Mawne and I replied with some tartness.

'I agree with Mr Willet,' I said with finality and watched Mrs Pringle retreat, registering extreme umbrage by her rigid back and sudden, severe limp.

But comfort was in store for Hilary Jackson.

The next day had dawned clear and bright, one of those sparkling December days ad the more precious because they are so rare.

The bare black elm trees looked as though they were drawings in charcoal sketched delicately against the wintry pale blue sky. The smoke from the village chimneys rose in straight columns, the larks sang as though spring itself had burst upon them, and our spirits soared with them.

At morning playtime the children scampered eagerly outside with no prompting from their teachers. Cowboys, Indians, mothers-and-fathers, horses, spacemen and an occasional idle dreamer disported themselves in the playground, revelling in the warm sunshine.

Miss Jackson was taking playground duty, and even her sad heart appeared to be a trifle cheered by the weather.

I went indoors to put on the kettle for our elevenses and found the telephone ringing.

'I have a call for you,' said a distant voice. The line cracked and buzzed whilst I waited. Should I make a quick dash for the kettle, I wondered? It would be getting hot while I sat there.

'Have you finished?' asked a peremptory woman.

'No,' I answered aggrieved. 'I haven't even started!'

'Hold on!' commanded the voice. I held on whilst some violent clicking noises exploded against my eardrum. By this time I had imagined the worst. Ad my relatives had been taken id, met with serious accidents, been wrongly imprisoned, and were, each and ad, in urgent need of immediate help. I had mentally rearranged the timetable, enabling the school to be taught for the rest of the day by Miss Jackson alone, chosen a suitable wardrobe for travelling at a moment's notice in all directions, composed a note for Mrs Pringle about the household chores, and made arrangements for the cat's welfare, when another voice broke through the crackling.

It was, unmistakably, Miss Crabbe's.

'Is Hilary there?' she asked, sensibly going to the point at once and not spending ninepence of fatuous enquiries after my own health. I said I would fetch her at once, and fled to the playground.

'Miss Crabbe's on the telephone,' I said breathlessly, 'and wants a word with you.' If I had expected Hilary Jackson's face to light up I should have been disappointed. A distinctly sullen look was added to her dejected appearance.

'Oh! I'd better go, I suppose,' she answered resignedly, and departed into my house, while I remained outside among the hurtling bodies and ear-splitting shrieks of my pupils.

In a few minutes she returned, transfigured.

'She's wonderful——' she began.

'Miss,' shouted a child deafeningly, his face upturned by my waist. 'Miss, ol' George says there ain't no Father Christmas! NO FATHER CHRISTMAS!' he reiterated in an appalling crescendo.

'I'll see about it later,' I shouted back, above the din. With any luck, I thought cravenly, the dispute will be forgotten by then.

'Let's get the kettle on,' I said to Miss Jackson, 'and you can ted me in peace!'

'She's asked me to go to Switzerland with her, for the Christmas holidays,' burst out my assistant, and now her eyes were like stars, I noticed. 'The friend she was going with has been taken ill, and has had to cry off. I've always wanted to go to winter sports! Isn't it simply marvellous?'

It was a tonic to see the poor child in such good heart again, and I was glad too that at last she had made her peace with Miss Crabbe. This reconciliation and the wonderful holiday to look forward to should cure effectively the wounds made by John Franklyn.

'I'm absolutely delighted!' I told her honestly, and we fell to discussing ski clothes and kit, what to buy outright and what to hire, how much money one might need, the best method of travel and a hundred and one other matters whose discussion is as much part of the fun as the holiday itself.

I put the sugar and milk in our two cups, still chattering, and with one eye on the children whom I could see through the dining-room window. I raised the tea pot and poured a stream into Miss Jackson's cup. Shaking with laughter, she directed my attention to the liquid. It was crystal clear. In the excitement of the moment we had forgotten the tea.

The last few days of term sped by in an atmosphere of mounting excitement. The spring term, which normally lasts from January until early April, is acknowledged by the teaching profession to be the most gruelling of the three, but the two weeks at the end of the Christmas term, particularly in the infants' school, run a close second, from a class teacher's point of view.

The climax came with the customary Christmas party in the schoolroom on the last afternoon. Parents and friends joined in the time—honoured games. 'Cat and Mouse,' 'Hunt the Thimble,' and 'Oranges and Lemons,' and Miss Clare came to play the ancient piano, a period piece with a filigree walnut front through which one had a glimpse of once-scarlet pleated silk. It must have been an object of great beauty in its early Victorian days, and even now adds an archaic dignity to our schoolroom, standing against the wad like a well-bred, elderly chaperon watching over our revels.

The yellowing keys tinkled plangently under Miss Clare's fingers as she played. Her face was pink with happiness at being among the children once more, and I began to wonder, for the first time, if loneliness perhaps, was the major cause of her general decline in health. Certainly, on the afternoon of the party, she glowed like an autumn rose. I determined to give the matter more attention during the holidays.

The vicar cut the presents from the sparkling Christmas tree, we all sang carols together, wished each other a Merry Christmas, and went out into the darkness.

Miss Clare, Miss Jackson and I watched the torches bobbing away down the lane, like fireflies, before we locked the school door upon the debris within, which was to await tomorrow's ministrations.

Later that evening I drove the two back to Beech Green and accepted an invitation to tea the next day.

It would be Miss Jackson's last meal at Beech Green before catching the night plane with Miss Crabbe to Switzerland, and she was as excited and as whole-heartedly happy as the children had been at their party.

As she chattered, Miss Clare and I exchanged secret smiles compounded of relief and extreme satisfaction. Franklyn was forgotten!

I spent the next day packing Christmas parcels and sending off my Christmas cards, jobs which have to be left until the whirl of end-of-term festivities are over. The house was refreshingly peaceful, and I pottered about enjoying my leisure and solitude.

It is deeply satisfying to me, after spending so much of my time among a number of energetic young people, to hear the clink of a hot coal and the whisper of flames in my own chimney, the purring of Tibby delighting in company, and the chiming of the clock on the mantelpiece. Ad these domestic pleasures tend to be taken for granted by the normal housewife, for they are her working conditions as wed as her home, but they have an added appealing charm for the woman who is forced by circumstances to spend only part of her time at home. As I went happdy about my small affairs I turned over in my mind the problem of Miss Clare. It seemed right to me that I should offer her a home with me at Fairacre school-house if she would like to come. I was beginning to see that she should not live alone, and that even if she had a lodger for some time to come, it would not be many years—or perhaps months—before that would become too much for her.

There were many factors to consider, I knew. Miss Clare would not want to give up her independence and her lifelong home any more than I, or anyone else, would. She would hate to feel that she was imposing on anyone, and I certainly might prove an awkward person to live with. I remembered wryly, with what relief Miss Jackson had quit my portals, not so long ago! But I intended to make the offer. She would have companionship, someone in the house at night when she might be in urgent need, be within sight and sound of the children during the daytime, and have a house which would be probably more comfortable, if not as dear to her, as her own cottage.

A small faint regret about my own precious solitude I thrust resolutely and fiercely from me. I was getting downright selfish and it would do me a power of good to have someone else to consider. I went off to the tea party hoping for a chance to put my suggestion forward.

Miss Clare had drawn her round table close by the crackling fire. There were hot buttered crumpets under a covered dish and a very fine dark fruit cake covered with nuts.

As we ate the crumpets, with butter oozing deliciously over our fingers, Miss Clare poured tea. She had brought out the family silver teapot for this state occasion, a wonderful fluted object with a yellowed ivory knob like a blanched almond.

'I've made a large Christmas cake,' said Miss Clare nodding at the one before us, 'from the same mixture. You must sample this and ted me if it's good.' She began to recite the recipe, a list of so many mouth-watering ingredients including raisins, cherries, brown sugar and brandy, that it was like listening to a particularly luscious and fleshly poem.

Miss Jackson, resplendent in a new dark red suit, watched the clock eagerly. Mr Annett, who was going to meet his father-in-law at the county town, had offered to take her in to catch a fast train. He was due at half past five.

'Remember me to Miss Crabbe,' said Miss Clare, 'and I hope that she'll come down here again when the evenings are lighter.'

'I'm sure she'd like to,' responded Miss Jackson, warmly. She paused while she cut a piece of cake carefully into fingers and then looked from one of us to the other.

'She means a great deal to me. I'm beginning to realise that trouble shows you your real friends.'

Miss Clare nodded gravely, and it was at this moment that we heard the hooting of Mr Annett's car at the gate.

Miss Jackson fled upstairs for her things and we all escorted her down the garden path to the gate.

'Enjoy yourself!'

'Have a lovely holiday!' we called into the darkness, as we waved goodbye to the back of the disappearing car.

We washed up the tea things and settled thankfully one on each side of the roaring fire. The wind was rising outside, and though I should dearly have loved a holiday in Switzerland, I was glad that I was not setting off on such a long journey. An aeroplane seemed a very flimsy little thing to 'be conflicting with the mighty winds which were at large, sweeping the dark heavens.