(5/20)Over the Gate (25 page)

St Patrick's was very peaceful after the wind outside, and very soon the children had decked the pews, the steps of the font, and the allotted window-sids. They wandered about admiring their efforts.

'I reckons it looks real good,' said John, squatting down at the foot of the font. 'Tidy and careful!' He gazed with appraisal at the neatly-spaced apples before him.

''Twould look better with a marrer in the middle,' said Ernest, surveying it.

'A marrer!' echoed John, shocked. 'Much too big! Them apples is
exactly
the same size, and four inches apart!' He whipped from his sock a yellow school ruler to prove his point. His expression was scandalized.

'A marrer!' he repeated, with infinite disgust. 'That'd properly put the kibosh on it!' He gave Ernest a withering glance, replaced the ruler in his sock, and moved away in high dudgeon, every inch an outraged artist.

We returned to the school, wind-blown and much refreshed. Mrs Pringle had already arrived to clear up the mess. To give her a surprise we had already swept the door clean of bits of straw and other debris from our harvest preparations. If we expected praise from our curmudgeonly cleaner we were to be disappointed.

'Hm! And so I should think!' was Mrs Pringle's comment, when an innocent infant drew her attention to the unusually clean floor. 'Pity it ain't done every day!'

She limped heavily across the room towards the infants' class room, and did not hear Ernest's regrettable, but justified, remark to his neighbour.

I did. But I don't mind confessing that I turned a deaf ear.

On Saturday afternoon I made my way across the churchyard again. This time I was carrying an armful of foliage for the ladies of the village to use in their part of the church decorations.

Luckily, I am not required to assist on this occasion. It is considered that I have done my share with the schoolchildren the day before, so that my visit is usually brief.

Mrs Partridge, the vicar's wife, and Mrs Mawne were standing back surveying two large stone vases which flanked the altar. Doubt was writ large upon both faces.

'It isn't so much the
form,
dear, as the
colour,
' said Mrs Partridge earnestly. 'That mass of peony leaves near the base looks far too dominant, to my mind.'

'Rubbish!' retorted Mrs Mawne, who had obviously put the peony leaves there. 'It's just a good splash of colour, repeated, if you notice, in the left hand top of the set. Personally, I feel it is perfect for
form.
I just rather wonder if that spray of yellow golden rod which you've just added, isn't the tiniest bit jarring.'

Mrs Partridge looked hurt. She is one of the keenest members of the Caxley Floral Society, and has won several diplomas for flower arrangements of a somewhat sparse and austere nature. A few spikey leaves, and one or two tulip heads, balanced in five stones from the vicarage rockery, were much admired last year by those who know about such things.

'Such economy of line!' breathed the judge, making a little box of his fingers and peering at the arrangement through the gap. And Amy, who was present on that occasion, said that it well deserved first prize for 'inspired asymmetry.'

'She deserves first prize for keeping the thing upright,' I said. 'One good cross-draught and the lot'd capsize.'

Amy informed me coldly that I lacked the right approach to flower arrangements, and regretted my mundane outlook on Beauty and Higher Things. I was unrepentant.

Mrs Partridge, on this occasion, rose to the defence of the golden-rod.

'It is freely acknowledged,' she told Mrs Mawne, 'by both Eastern and Western authorities on Floral Art, that a touch of yellow, in any arrangement, adds the vital spark of life and sunshine to the whole. It is closely connected with the fact that yellow is one of the primary colours—and the most dominant one at that!'

She advanced militantly upon the stone vase with yet another spray of the offending plant. Mrs Mawne's mouth took on a grim line, and I deposited my armful thankfully on the chancel floor and fled outside.

I get quite enough sparring with Mrs Pringle from Monday to Friday. On Saturdays and Sundays I like a little peace.

Mr Willet was working in the churchyard. He was armed with a bill-hook and was taking vigorous swipes at the long grass which grew beneath the hawthorn hedge dividing the graveyard from the vicarage garden.

He straightened up as I approached, resting one horny hand on the smad of his back.

'Not so young as I was,' he said, puffing out his stained walrus moustache. 'Bending double, after three helpings of my wife's treacle pudden, don't seem as easy as it used to.'

The sun was warm. It was a mellow September day, with the elm trees turning a pale gold against a pellucid blue sky. Mr Willet's ruddy face was beaded with sweat. He had rolled up his shirt sleeves, and his muscular hairy arms were smudged with grass stains and blotched with pink where the nettles had stung him. Nevertheless, he appeared unperturbed.

He seated himself on the low flat lid of a tomb, and I sat down beside him. It was comfortable and warm with the sunshine which had been pouring on it since daybreak. Among the moss and lichens which covered the stone was the inscription: 'Jno Jeremy—Gent of this Parifh.' I felt sure that he would have no objection to our presence.

'Fred Hurst's grave's coming on a treat,' said Mr Willet approvingly. He had put the bill-hook flat on the stone beside him, and his two tired hands drooped between his knees. His eyes, however, were bright as they surveyed his domain.

I followed his gaze. Certainly, a fine strong growth of green grass, neatly clipped, covered poor Fred's resting place. But it was the older grave beside it that caught my eye.

'What's that on Sally Gray's mound?' I asked.

Mr Willet looked a trifle shame-faced.

'Well, to tell you the truth, it's a little rose-bush—one I took as a cutting from ourn in the garden. Seemed a pity for it to go to waste, and the poor old dear hasn't got nothing' growing along her. I put it in soon after I told you the tale about her. Remember?'

I nodded. The tale of Fairacre's flying woman had certainly intrigued me.

'Funny how we all likes a story,' ruminated Mr Willet, watching a red admiral butterfly settle on some Michaelmas daisies. 'Don't matter if you ready believes it or not—as far as I can see. I mean, half of you believes, let's say, but the other half doubts, and in the end it's the half that wants to believe in the story that wins.'

'What's put this in your mind?' I asked lazily. A pigeon cooed from a tree nearby, and the air was so soft that I found the two together peculiarly soporific. If Mr Willet's sturdy bulk had not been beside me, I should like to have stretched out dat upon Jno Jeremy's warm stone, and had a gentle doze.

'That business of Joe Coggs,' answered Mr Willet. 'I bet he ready knew that little chap under the pier was a midget. Yet you see, he sticks to it it was the Lord of the Seas, or some such.'

'It's difficult to know,' I murmured.

'When you're that age,' continued Mr Willet, 'these 'ere fairytale ideas get hold of you real strong. Witches and that.'

He stopped suddenly and there was a pause. I felt myself slipping from reality to the world of sleep. The pigeon's cooing sounded fainter and fainter.

'We 'ad one in Fairacrc,' said Mr Willet's voice, startlingly close at hand.

'A pigeon?' I asked, struggling to sit upright.

'Tch! Tch!' tutted Mr Willet. 'A pigeon! Who was talking about pigeons? What I said was—we 'ad a witch once in Fairacre. At least they said she was.'

'And when was this?' I asked, now fully awake.

'When I was a nipper. Same age as young Joe, come to think of it. Proves what I was saying. You want to believe anything out of the ordinary when you're a kid. Take me, for instance.'

'Did you believe she was?' I queried, scenting a story.

'Me? I was positive. And I went out to prove it, what's more.'

He took out a short-stemmed pipe from his trouser pocket, and a small tin of tobacco.

'May as well 'ave one as I ted you the tale,' said Mr Willet, with mischievous sidelong glance. 'You ain't busy, I suppose?'

'Never too busy for a story,' I assured him, watching him fill his pipe.

Within two minutes, with the fragrant blue smoke wreathing his head, Mr Willet began.

Mr Willet was about seven at the time, he told me. He and his brothers and sisters lived in a cottage on the way to Springbourne, and walked daily to school at Fairacre.

There were four children of school age, and a baby of two at home. The four Willet children carried a rush basket with them, containing a substantial midday meal. A large proportion of it was bread and butter, but a finger of cheese apiece, a hard-boiled egg, or a slice or two of cold fat bacon, added relish and nourishment and old Mrs Willet made sure that fruit in season and a mammoth bottle of buttermilk accompanied her little family daily.

The schoolmaster at that time was Mr Hope. He was a clever, rather sad fellow, who wrote poetry, and occasionally read it, too, to his pupils. They were not, it seemed, particularly appreciative, and, in fact, looked upon their headmaster as 'a bit loopy.' Tragedy touched the Hope family when their only daughter, much the same age as young Willet, died at the age of twelve. After that Mr Hope found consolation in drink, and before long was asked to leave the district.

But while young Willet was in his class, Mr Hope taught wed. He read many stories to them, chiefly the classic tales of adventure, the myths of Greece and Rome, some stirring passages from Scott or Henty, and so on. But now and again, conscious that the younger members of his class were finding difficulty in following some of the excerpts chosen, he took down the fairy boob of Andrew Lang and read them a tale of enchantment and fantasy.

It was thus that young Willet—Bob to his family—became acquainted with the supernatural. He had heard of ogres and giants, of wizards and witches, before, but now they became much more real to him. He entered, it seemed, into a knowledge of their ways, became conscious of their powers and of the infringement of such powers upon an ordinary mortal's life. He began to look at grown-ups with a slightly suspicious eye. Could it be that among them was a wizard? Or a witch? Circumstances combined to persuade him that there was such a one—and very near at hand.

About a quarter of a mile from the Willets' cottage, the road to Springbourne dropped suddenly downhill into a hollow. The ground here was marshy, and trees and dowers, foreign to the surrounding downland, made it seem a strange and slightly eerie place. Here, at the foot of the hid, was a small ramshackle cottage known as 'Lucy's.'

Lucy had lived there for many years. At the time of the story she was a bent old woman in her eighties, a fearsome sight with sparse grey locks and one formidable eye-tooth which had grown so long that Lucy had difficulty in accommodating it comfortably in her mouth. It protruded over her lower lip and gave the poor old crone a most sinister appearance.

Fairacre was not at all sure about Lucy, and never had been. She and her husband, Seamus Kelly, had been brought from Ireland by Sir Francis Hurley who lived at Springbourne Manor. The Kellys had been brought to his notice one day when he was visiting friends in Ireland. He had mentioned that he was in need of a coachman with a real understanding of horses, and Seamus Kelly was warmly recommended.

The couple were duly installed in rooms above the coach house at Springbourne and gave great satisfaction until one sad day when Seamus was involved in an accident. He had taken the carriage and pair to Caxley Station to meet Sir Francis who was returning from London, when one of the magnificent bays took fright as the train drew in, and bolted. Seamus was thrown, the wheels passed over his back, and his spine was permanently damaged.

Everyone agreed that Sir Francis behaved with the utmost generosity. Ad medical care was lavished upon the unfortunate man and he spent many months in a convalescent home by the sea, at his employer's expense. Finally, he was given a pension and the small cottage in the hollow for the rest of his days.

Lucy, who had been a somewhat scatter-brained lady's maid, also had to retire from service to look after her crippled husband. Lucidly, she was a strong woman, more than able to tend the garden and look after hens and two goats, as well as running the house and acting as nurse.

Seamus's temper, always violent, grew worse as he grew older. Lucy gave as good as she got, her Irish tongue uttering the most blood-curdling oaths, which scandalised the Fairacre worthies whose swearing was limited to a paucity of curses of Anglo-Saxon origin. Lucy, they agreed, was a wild one! To hear the way she went on made you wonder if she was right in the head! I mean, they said, we know she's
Irish,
but even so—.

One winter's day, when the mist from the hollow shrouded the little house, Seamus gave a great cry from his bed. Lucy, milking the goat in the nearby shed, set down her pad and ran in. There, his face tipped towards the smoky ceding, lay her husband, his blue eyes wide open in death.

After that dreadful day, Lucy had lived alone, with only her pets for company. Three cats had lived inside the cottage, and their numerous progeny had been dealt with by Seamus, keeping the numbers within bounds. Many a Fairacre cat had started life at Lucy's, and very fine specimens they were.

Now, with Seamus gone, Lucy did nothing about the kittens, and the number grew to a score in no time. It was true that she still gave one away, now and again, to anyone in need of a cat, and gratefully received the basket of plums or bowl of chitterlings which might be given in return, but the fact remained that there were far too many cats in the house.

Lucy did not seem to worry. She did not seem to worry about anything after Seamus's death. It was as though, with her sparring partner gone, she lacked the will to live. She neglected the house and her person, and Fairacre tongues wagged even more feverishly about Lucy's feckless ways.

'A dirty ol' saucepan on the kitchen table, as large as life, and her eating out of it with a wooden spoon! It's the truth, my dear! I saw it with my own eyes!'