(3/20) Storm in the Village (8 page)

Mrs Pringle began to close in upon her subject.

'Not that I'm one to criticise. It's not my place, as I said to my husband when he repeated some gossip he'd heard about her down at "The Beetle" last night-but we've all got our own ideas, and say what you like, there's still such a thing as class.'

The form was not to be found in the log book drawer. I armed myself with a ruler, and set about getting into the drawer which holds envelopes full of cardboard money, packets of raffia needles, a set of archaic reading cards embellished with pictures of bearded men, ladies with bustles and little girls in preposterous hats and buttoned boots, and various other awkward objects known to all school teachers. By pulling the drawer open a crack, thrusting in the ruler upon the seething mass within, and bearing down heavily, it was just possible to jerk it open. (Every teacher who is not soullessly efficient has at least one drawer like this. I have several.)

Mrs Pringle warmed to her theme as I struggled.

'She's got all the world before her. A young girl like that, speaks nice, been to college, can read and write—why, she could have anyone! They do say there's someone interested.
Someone,
I won't say a
gentleman,
because that he isn't, not by any manner of means! But we all hope that that young thing won't have her head turned, and by someone no better than he should be.'

I felt that it was time to speak.

'Mrs Pringle, do try and scotch any gossip about Miss Jackson. She's quite old enough to choose her own friends.'

'Ah! but do her parents know who she's going round with? Their only daughter, I understand.' Her tone grew lugubrious, and she assumed the pious look that the choir boys mimic behind her back.

'Their one tender chick,' she continued, with an affecting tremor in her voice. I thought of Miss Jackson's sturdy frame and attempted to keep my face straight. 'How would you like it, if she was your daughter? Think now, if she was!'

I did. But not for long.

'Look, Mrs Pringle,' I replied, 'I think you're all making far too much of Miss Jackson's innocent affairs. She is in Miss Clare's care—and mine, for that matter—and writes regularly to her parents, and frequently goes home to see them. There are far too many busy-bodies in tins village!' I ended roundly, thrusting the last drawer back. Heaven alone knew where that form had vanished!

Mrs Pringle drew in a long, outraged breath. Hitching up her burdens, she continued her journey into the infants' room. Her leg, I noticed, was dragging badly.

Soon after this brush with Mrs Pringle, I was invited to tea at the vicarage.

The tea was set out on the verandah, sheltered from the wind and bathed in warm sunshine. Mrs Partridge had spread a very dashing cloth of red and white checks over the spindly iron table. Tins round table was painted white, and its legs were most intricately embellished with scrolls, fleur-de-lys and flourishes, with here and there a spot of red rust, for the table stood outside in all weathers.

A motley collection of chairs helped to furnish the verandah. Mrs Partridge, presiding over the tea-pot, sat in a creaking wicker chair which had once been cream in colour, but had weathered to grey. The vicar lay back in a chaise-longue, with his stomach skywards, until he was passed Ins cup of tea, when he straightened up, planted a leg on each side of his perch, and sat well forward, nearly split in half.

Mr and Mrs Mawne, who were also of the party, were more comfortably placed in canvas armchairs of a more upright nature. They sat very straight, to avoid knocking their cups off the narrow wooden arms, and looked remarkably careful and prim.

I think I was the worst off, for my seat was a basket chair, very close to the floor so that my legs could either be stretched straight ahead or pulled in with my knees just under my chin. No compromise seemed possible, and I feared that my best nylon stockings were taking a severe tousling from the wicker-work which caught them maliciously from time to time.

Despite our discomforts, however, the tea was excellent, the sun shone and we chattered away cheerfully enough. Mr Mawne told the vicar about a whitethroat's nest he had discovered, built in a most extraordinary position; Mrs Mawne told me how the Women's Institute should be run, and Mrs Partridge, who is President of Fairacre W.I., listened unperturbed and poured tea for her critic, in the kindest manner.

It was Mr Mawne who first mentioned the proposed housing site.

'A scandal if that land is taken for building!' he said, chopping up a piece of chocolate cake viciously. 'More larks there to the square yard than anywhere else in England!'

'Have you heard any more?' asked Mrs Mawne, deflected momentary from her account of the lost splendours of former W.I.s run by herself.

'I was on the telephone this morning,' said the vicar, 'to Miller—about an address I needed—and evidently things are moving.'

'Which way?' asked Mrs Mawne.

'As far as I could gather—and I must say he was so very—er—
cross
about the whole affair, that it was difficult to hear him clearly—it seems that he has had a letter pointing out that the land can be purchased compulsorily, if need be, and that the proposals are now in the hands of the County Council.'

'But we just
cant
have a great, ugly, housing estate on our doorsteps!' exclaimed Mrs Partridge, voicing the feelings of us all.

'Think what an enormous parish you'd have!' said Mr Mawne to the vicar, who had gently tipped back to his prone position, with his legs up.

'Think of the visiting!' said Mrs Partridge. There was a touch of horror in her tone.

'They might,' said the vicar, in a small voice, addressing die roof of the verandah, 'I say it is
just
possible that they
might
have a small church of their own.'

There was a shocked silence. It was broken by Mr Mawne, who shifted his canvas chair nearer to the vicar, with a horrible scraping noise on the tiles, and looked down upon him.

'You mean, it's going to be
that big?
' he enquired.

The vicar heaved himself upright again and straddled his leg-rest as though he were riding a horse.

'No one knows, but there's no doubt that five or six hundred workers are to be taken on. Then there arc their families. They'll need a lot of houses, and I believe a row of shops is envisaged. Miller gave me to understand that the preliminary layout provided for a playing field as well.'

'Shall we have enough room at Fairacre School—and Beech Green—for all the children?' I asked.

The vicar turned Ins gentle gaze upon me. His face was troubled.

'It's possible,' he began slowly, 'that a school is planned for the estate as well.'

We looked at each other in silence. You could have heard a pin drop on the verandah.

'And my school,' I answered, equally slowly, 'is dwindling steadily in numbers——'

The vicar jumped to his feet, and smote me on the shoulder.

'It shall never close!' he declared militantly, his eyes flashing, 'Never! Never!'

PART TWO

The Storm Breaks

7. Miss Jacksons Errand

T
HE
early summer months were bathed in sunshine, and Fairacre shimmered in the heat. The shining days followed, one after the other, like blue and white beads on a string, as every morning dawned clear.

The hay crop was phenomenal, and was carried with little of the usual anxiety at this time. Wild roses spangled the hedges, buttercups gilded the fields, and even in such raggle-taggle gardens as the Coggs' beauty still flowered, for the neglected elder bushes were already showing their creamy, aromatic blossoms.

The shabby thatch, which served the four cottages comprising Tyler's Row, was bleached to ash-blonde with age and the continued heat. In the garden of the second cottage Jimmy Waites, now nearly eight years old, was having the time of his life.

His mother, worn down at last by repeated entreaties, had allowed him to have the family zinc bath on the minute grass patch, and had let him put two inches of water in the bottom.

'But no more, mind!' she had said firmly. 'The well's getting that low, and us all shares it as you know. And don't tell your father as I let you have it-or there'll be no supper for you tonight!'

She spoke more sternly than she felt, for she was smarting from a guilty conscience not only about the use of precious water, but also of the bath itself. She was a good-natured mother, and had sympathised with her young son's craving for cool water on such a day. She watched him indulgently, through the kitchen window, as he splashed and capered in the bath, clad respectably in an old bathing suit of his sister's, that clung hideously to his brown legs.

To a gap in the hedge came the three eldest Coggs children, Joseph and his younger twin sisters. They watched enviously, their eyes and mouths like so many O's, as the bright drops glittered in the sunshine around the capering form of their lucky neighbour.

'Can us come?' growled Joseph, in his husky gipsy voice. The capering stopped. Jimmy advanced towards the trio, with delicious cool runnels of water trickling down his legs.

'Dunno. I'll ask my mum,' responded Jimmy.

Mrs Waites heard this exchange, and was torn between pity and exasperation. She had become very fond of Joseph whilst his mother had been away in hospital some time before, but did not care to encourage the family too much, for there was no denying the dirtiness and slap-dash ways which might undermine her own child's more respectable upbringing. She had, since Mrs Coggs' return, become a little more intimate with that dejected lady, lending her the weekly magazine which she took regularly, and occasionally handing over outgrown garments for Joseph. Arthur Coggs was notorious in Fairacre. 'A useless article,' was Mr Willet's summing-up of the head of the Coggs family, and Fairacre agreed.

Mrs Waites heard the padding of bare feet at the kitchen door, and opened it hastily. No need to have the clean brick floor all messed-up, she told herself, looking down into the upturned face of her youngest child. His blue eyes, bluer than the cloudless sky behind his fair head, melted her heart as usual.

'All right,' she said good-naturedly, 'let 'em come for a bit.'

With squeals of delight the three children squeezed through the ragged hedge, and hurled their battered sandals aside. Mrs Coggs hurried from her back door to see what caused this commotion and stood, nonplussed, at the sight that met her eyes. Mrs Waites hurried from her own cottage to reassure her. They stood, one each side of the hedge, and watched the four children jumping ecstatically up and down in the zinc bath.

'They likes a drop of water,' said Mrs Coggs indulgently. 'Pity there ain't no ponds much round here. The Caxley kids has the swimming bath, of course. They's lucky!' Her tone was envious.

'From what I hear,' said Mrs Waites, with some importance, 'Fanacre might get a swimming bath before long if that new estate comes along.'

Mrs Coggs looked suitably impressed.

'My! I hope it does then,' she said emphatically. 'That's what us wants for our kids, ain't it?'

Mrs Coggs tacit assumption that she and Mrs Waites were united, jarred upon Mrs Waites considerably. She at once disassociated herself from such low company.

'Not that there won't be plenty against a new estate,' she said, as one explaining matters to a backward child. 'The high-ups is in a fine old fever already. And quite right too!' she added righteously. 'That's a real pretty view over there to Beech Green!' In a few sentences she had ranged herself on the side of those who Lead Affairs in Fairacre, and poor Mrs Coggs looked bewildered, and, once again, an outcast.

'But 'tis only a field!' she protested.

'It won't be if they builds houses all over it,' pointed out Mrs Waites.

'Well, I don't know, I'm sure,' said Mrs Coggs miserably, and faltered to a stop. It was obvious that she had put her foot in it somewhere, but just where and how, she could not determine. She made a fumbling attempt to get matters right again.

'Still, us might get a few more buses and that. 'Twould make it easier for shopping to be able to go to Caxley any day like.'

Mrs Waites agreed graciously. Somewhat emboldened, Mrs Coggs continued diffidently.

'Which reminds me! I wanted to slip up the shop for half a pound of broken biscuits. Would the kids be in your way?'

Mrs Waites, still in her role of great lady, was about to grant permission for Mrs Coggs' temporary absence, in suitably cool terms, when a cry from the zinc bath attracted her attention.

'Look at Jim!' crowed Joseph Coggs admiringly. Jimmy stood poised on his hands, in the water. His fair hair hung like a mop and his wet shining legs pointed towards the vivid sky.

'Ain't he
clever
!' squealed Joseph, beside himself. Touched by this tribute Mrs Waites' warm heart melted entirely. She cast a compassionate glance upon the bedraggled mother beside her.

Some life she had of it, poor toad, thought Mrs Waites. She spoke gently, jettisoning the refined accent she had used during the conversation, and using her homely country burr.