(3/20) Storm in the Village (27 page)

'Must keep warm,' I replied equably.

'What some cads
warm,
' replied Mrs Pringle, loosening the buttons at her neck.'others cads
stifling.
Proper unhealthy in here with the stoves blazing away like that! Shouldn't be surprised if we had the chimney afire.' She limped off, outraged, before I could answer.

'It won't get no warmer till the snow's down,' said Mr Willet, surveying the iron-grey sky behind St Patrick's spire. 'And that won't be long now. You take your shovel indoors with you tonight, Miss Read. Wouldn't mind betting us has a bit of digging out to do tomorrow.'

Mr Willet was right. The first few flakes began to flutter down early in the afternoon. I was putting a writing copy on the blackboard, and wishing that my own handwriting were as elegant as Miss Clare's had been, when I heard the excited whispers behind me.

'Snowing! Look, 'tis snowing!'

'Smashing!'

'Reckon it'll settle?'

''Tisn't
half
snowing too! Coming down a treat!'

The children were bobbing up from their seats the better to see this wonder through the high windows. Their faces were radiant. Here was drama indeed, and, with any luck, they might be sent home a few minutes early! Their day was made.

Within ten minutes the snow was falling steadily, whispering sibilantly along the window sills outside and covering the playground, the coke pde and the roofs with a white canopy. As the children finished their writing, they were allowed to go to the window to watch. They gazed entranced, looking up at the whirling flakes as they swirled down and making themselves deliriously dizzy with the sight.

'Miss!' burst out Eric/they's black coming down!
Black
snow flakes! Come and look!'

The scene outside might have come from a Christmas card. The bare black trees stood out starkly against their grey background and the bulk of the church loomed larger than ever against the heavy sky. The church windows glowed with lights within the buddings and I guessed that Mr Willet was stoking up the stove again. Along the lane I could see two small figures bent against the onslaught. They each carried a shopping bag and I suspected that the Coggs twins, ostensibly absent from school with unspecified ailments, had been sent 'up shop' by their mother. I watched their red coats vanish round the bend and realised that the only spot of vivid colour had now gone. The thatched roofs, the gardens, hedges and ground were ad in muted shadings of g^rey, black and white.

At playtime the children had a few delirious minutes out among the flakes. I watched Patrick scoop up a handful of snow from the window ledge and eat it rapturously.

'S'lovely!' he shouted to the others, looking up with sparkling eyes and a thick white fringe round his wet, red mouth. The rest skimmed round and round like swallows, screaming as shrilly, and kicking up the wonderful stuff with their flying heels.

When they came in they stood apple-cheeked, warming their pink cold hands over the stove and chattering away about the joys in store for them, 'if it only lays.'

It continued to snow heavily and Miss Jackson and I sent the children home ten minutes early. It was settling, even then, to a depth of two or three inches and I feared that it would be over the top of some of the smaller children's shoes. We wrapped them up as best we could. They stood, chafing at the delay, as we buttoned coats and tied bonnet strings, and the minute that they could break away from our grasp they rushed ecstaticatly out into this glorious new world which had miraculously been transformed from everyday Fairacre.

There was an orchestral rehearsal that evening and I made my usual trip to Beech Green to mind Malcolm Annett while his parents went to Caxley. The snow lay thickly on the verges of the road, in the crooks of the trees and along their branches, but the road itself was easily traversed.

Malcolm had become a vivacious toddler with only one thing in mind—farm machinery. He was as elated as the school children were about the snow, but this did not deflect him from his usual obsession and whenever the sound of passing vehicles was heard he bolted to the window, shouting hopefully: 'Tractor!'

His dearest possession was a red model tractor which accompanied him everywhere. Teddies, golliwogs, soft animals and ad the other former loves now languished in the toy cupboard. To my enquiries after their well-being and his own health and interests, he answered brightly: 'Tractor!' holding up the object for my inspection.

'I must say it's a bit tedious,' said his mother plaintively, 'and when I mislaid it the other day I thought he'd have apoplexy.'

The conversation turned to Miss Clare, while Malcolm shunted the tractor blissfully back and forth between our feet on the hearthrug.

'We loved having her with us on holiday last summer,' said Isobel, 'and George and I talked it over with Dr Martin when she was groggy again later on, and we suggested that she might like to come and live here, if ever she found her own house too much for her.'

'I'm very glad,' I answered, 'but did she accept the idea?'

'Not at first,' said George. 'In any case it is far better for her to manage on her own in her own home for as long as she can comfortably do so. I hear Miss Jackson's likely to go.'

I said it looked as though she would be leaving Fairacre at the end of the summer and told them what I knew of her plans.

'Lord!' said George Annett, with profound awe, 'think of Miss Jackson
and
Miss Crabbe on one staff!'

They went on to ted me about the provision of a suitable lodger for Miss Clare, as long as she wanted one.

'I can never find enough decent accommodation for my young staff,' said George. 'Any one of them would jump at the chance of being with Dolly Clare.'

'And we're keeping a room ready here where she can have all her things and make her home,' continued his wife. 'She could let her cottage probably and that would bring her in a little income. It's all very much in the future we hope, but she has promised to come if she needs to, and we are ad of us—and Dr Martin too—very much relieved.'

I said that it was a most satisfactory arrangement, and thought what thoroughly good hearted people these two Annetts were.

'Look at the clock!' exclaimed George, jumping to his feet. 'Come on, Isobel, we'd be late!'

The usual scurrying began with Isobel shouting last-minute injunctions about her son's needs as she dressed.

'Let him have plenty of supper—he won't bother to eat during the day. And when he goes to bed, don't forget that he always takes——'

'Don't ted me,' I said, 'I can guess!'

'Tractor!' said my intelligent and besotted godson.

The snow continued intermittently for over a week, much to the joy of the children and the annoyance of then—parents as they struggled about their affairs in a white world.

It was during this bleak period that a meeting was held of the Rural District Council at the offices in Caxley. Muffled in thick overcoats and scarves, and beating then—leather gloves together, the members made their way up the stairs to the committee room, among them Mr Roberts from Fairacre accompanied by a cheerful young reporter from the
Caxley Chronicle.
They little realised what momentous news they would hear, for although the agenda lay in their pockets, the Clerk to the R.D.C. had received that morning a missive from the Minister of Housing and Local Government, sharing that honour with the Clerk to the County Council and the representative of the Atomic Energy Authority who had also received similar messages. It was this delicious letter which the Clerk looked forward to reading to his fedow councillors.

Within an hour the meeting was over and down the stairs tumbled the councillors with most gratified expressions. Mr Roberts' great laugh shook some flaking plaster from the hall ceiling as they emerged and the young reporter tore along the snowy streets to the offices of the
Caxley Chronicle
with the biggest scoop of bis brief career. This, surely, he could sell to a national dady and win himself, not only approval from his own local editor, but a guinea or two from the lords of Fleet Street!

Mr Roberts drove through the black and white lanes to Fairacre in roaring good spirits. As he passed Hundred Acre Field, a sheet of unsullied whiteness stretching to the misty obscurity of the downs behind, Mr Roberts gave it an affectionate wink and a smile.

His wife was making dripping toast for tea when he entered the farmhouse kitchen. He kissed her boisterously, told her the good tidings, and inspected the toast. It was a delicacy of which Mr Roberts was a connoisseur.

'Plenty of that brown goobly from the bottom, my dear, and a good sprinkling of salt,' he directed, as he made his way to the telephone. Anxious as he was to let one or two intimates know his good news, Mr Roberts recognised that there was a time and place for everything. Dripping toast has as much right to respect as parish affairs, and at tea-time on a winter afternoon it must take pride of place.

'I'll go,' said the vicar, when he heard the telephone bed. He heaved himself from his shabby leather armchair by the fire and hurried into the draughty tiled had where the vicarage telephone was housed.

'I can hardly believe it!' Mrs Partridge heard her husband say. 'Indeed, Roberts, it's almost more than I can take in! Thank you a thousand times for telling me.' She heard the tinkle as the vicar replaced the telephone, and a moment later he appeared in the doorway. He held out both hands to her and looked strangely moved.

'There is to be no housing estate. The Minister has made his decision known. It will be in the
Caxley Chronicle
the day after tomorrow.'

Mrs Partridge gripped her husband's hands thankfully. Tears, which did not come easily to the robust Mrs Partridge, filled her eyes as she felt relief flooding her.

'It is a direct answer to prayer,' said the vicar gently. 'I shall give public thanks in church next Sunday.'

'If that's a baby arriving,' said Dr Martin, setting down his unsipped tea as he heard the telephone, 'it can dam' wed wait half an hour.' He lifted the receiver that lay within arm's reach on top of the bookshelf.

'Ah, Roberts,' he smiled across at his wife. 'Stand back a bit from the blower, man. You're deafening me!'

The roaring noise which Mrs Martin could hear subsided slightly. The doctor's face grew more and more pleased as he listened.

'Best news I've heard this year!' exclaimed the doctor delightedly. 'It solves a lot of my problems as wed as everyone else's. Many thanks for letting me know!'

He put down the receiver and beamed at his wife.

'You can put ad those plans about moving out of your head, my dear. The housing scheme is off!'

He took a long, satisfying draught from his tea cup.

'Thank God for that!' said Mrs Bradley when she heard the news. 'If anything had happened to Dan Crockford's field I think it would have killed me.'

She paused to listen to Mr Roberts's booming voice giving further particulars of the Minister's decision.

'Wed, ad I can say is this,' cackled the old lady mischievously, 'it was that Christmas card of mine that did the trick! I told you we must keep fighting—and now, you see, we've won!'

George Annett heard the news later that evening when the vicar telephoned to him about some arrangements for the next Sunday's anthem.

He rushed at once to the sitting-room where his wife and Miss Clare sat listening to the news on the wireless.

'Switch that off!' ordered Mr Annett excitedly, 'and I'll ted you some
real
news, that'll make that international stuff look pretty silly!'

The two women gazed at him in surprise, but Isobel obediently switched off.

'Now then, it had better be good,' she said warningly.

'It is!' responded her husband proudly. '
Were not going to have a housing estate!
'

And snatching two knitting needles from Miss Clare's lap, he set them crosswise on the carpet and executed a lively sword dance, complete with triumphant, blood-curdling cries, much to the delight of the ladies.

Over at Springbourne late that night, Mr Miller filled four glasses. He had heard the wonderful news earlier that day by letter from the Rural District Council, and he looked upon it as a personal reprieve.

His two distinguished sons were at home when the news came, and they agreed that their father had shed twenty years from his eighty, as he had perused the letter. They stood now, glasses in hand, smiling warmly upon their spritely father.

Old Mr Miller raised his glass to his wife.

'To our home!' he said simply.

24. Farewell to Fairacre

D
URING
the night a warm westerly wind blew across the downs and Fairacre folk woke to find that the thaw had started. The thatched roofs dripped under a warm sun, little streams began to trickle in the gutters, the thirsty birds rejoiced in the puddles and life began to stir again.

The thermometers rose steadily, and as the news of the Minister's findings began to circulate with the village's customary briskness, the spirits of all who lived in Fairacre and Beech Green rose too. Many a village quarrel was patched up that morning. With such sunshine and such news, such relief from iron-hard frost and restricting suspense, it was impossible to pass a neighbour, even if one had been on 'no-speaking' terms for months, without stopping for a lively gossip. At backdoor steps, over hedges, in the village street, in the grocer's shop and at the post office the loosened tongues wagged. A great burden had been lifted and life in Fairacre raided on ad the more lightly and merrily.