by Miss Read
15. The Bell Tolls
THREE energetic little girls were skipping in the playground. Two took it in turns to twist the rope, arms flailing round, while the third bobbed merrily up and down, hair and skirts dancing, in the twirling rope.
'Salt, mustard, vinegar, pepper!
One, two, three, four, five…'
they chanted breathlessly, until the skipping child caught a foot or stopped from sheer exhaustion.
The rest of the children played more quietly, for the spell of fine weather continued and the spring sunshine beating back from the school walls sent most of them to the shade of the elm trees. Here they crouched, some playing with marbles, beautiful, whorled, glass treasures kept carefully in little bags of strong calico or striped ticking; some tossing five-stones, red, blue, green, orange and white, up into the air and catching them expertly on the back of their hands before going on to further complicated manoeuvres. These movements had old quaint names like 'Nelson, Crabses and Lobsters,' and involved much dexterity, patience and quickness of eye.
Among the roots, the little ones played the timeless make-believe games: mothers-and-fathers, hospitals, schools and keeping house. Above them the tight, rosy buds of the elms were beginning to break out into tiny green fans, and in the school garden the polyanthus, which the children here call 'spring flowers,' and early daffodils and grape hyacinths all nodded gently in the warm sunshine.
Against the north wall, in the cool shade, Cathy played two-ball intently by herself. Her cotton skirt was stuffed inelegantly into her knickers, for some of the seven movements of this game involved bouncing the balls and catching them between one's legs, and a skirt was a severe obstruction. She counted aloud, her dark eyes fixed on the two flying balls, and as she twirled and threw, and bounced and caught, she thought about the examination papers that she had attempted that morning … papers that would decide her future.
She had sat at her usual desk, with only Miss Read for silent company, while the rest of the class had taken their work into Miss Gray's room next door. She had felt lonely, but important, left behind, with only the clock's heavy ticking and the rustle of her papers to break the silence; but once begun she had forgotten everything in her steady work. If this was the way to get to Caxley High School with its untold joys and games, gymnastics, acting and never-ending supply of library books, why, then she'd work like a nigger and get there! That determination, which set her apart from the other members of her family, whose sweet placidity she lacked, carried her triumphantly through that morning's labours; and when, at last, she put down her pen and stretched her' cramped fingers,' she was conscious of work well done.
In all the schools around Caxley preparations were going forward for the annual Caxley Musical Festival, which is held in the Corn Exchange each May.
Miss Gray and I had spent a long singing lesson picking our choir. This was not an easy task, as all the children were bursting to take part, but Miss Gray, with considerable tact, managed to weed out the real growlers, with no tears shed.
'A little louder,' she said to Eric, now once again.' And Eric would honk again, in his tuneless, timeless way, while Miss Gray listened solemnly and with the utmost attention. Then, 'Yes,' she said, in a considering way, 'it's certainly a strong voice, Eric dear, and you do try: but I'm afraid we must leave you out this time. We must have voices that blend well together.'
'He really is the Tuneless Wonder!' she said to me later, with awe in her voice. 'I've never known any child quite so tone-deaf.'
I told her that Eric was also quite incapable of keeping in step to music; the two things often going together. Miss Gray had not come across this before and was suitably impressed.
'When you think how hard it is not to prance along the pavement in time with a barrel-organ,' she remarked, 'it seems almost clever!'
I handed over the choir to her care as she was a much more competent musician than I was, and for weeks the papers on the walls rustled to the vibrations of 'Over the Sea to Skye' and 'I'll Go No More A-Roving,' and the horrid intricacies of the round 'Come, Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow, Follow Me.' This last was usually punctuated with dreadful crashings of Miss Gray's ruler and despairing cries from the children who had failed to come in at the right bar, battled against overwhelming odds, faltered to a faint piping, and finally finished with a wail of lamentation. The thought that this sort of thing was going on in dozens of neighbouring schools was enough to daunt the stoutest heart; but Miss Gray, with youth and ardour to sustain her, struggled bravely on.
One afternoon, while the choir was carolling away with Miss Grav at the piano, and I was watching the infants and 'growlers' drawing pictures of any scene they liked from 'Cinderella' in the next room, the bells gave out a muffled peal from St Patrick's spire close by. The peal was followed by solemn tolling. Next door the music continued cheerfully enough, but in my room the children looked up with startled faces, pencils held poised in their hands.
On and on tolled the great bell, beating out its slow measure over the listening village. Out across the sunny fields floated the sound and men looked up from their hedging and harrowing to count the strokes. In the cottages housewives paused in their ironing or cooking, and stood, tools in hand, as the tolling went on. Sixty … seventy … still the bell tolled … and little children squatting by backdoor steps suddenly became conscious of the tension in the air and ran in, fearfully, to seek the comfort of familiar things.
'Come follow, follow, follow…' the children's voices stumbled next door; and Mrs Pringle's face appeared at the window opposite. I heard her in the lobby and went out to see her.
'Forgot my apron,' she volunteered. 'They say poor Miss Parr's passed on.' She stuffed her checked apron into a black shiny bag and I noticed that her hands, wrinkled and puffy with her recent washing-up, were trembling slightly. 'I was in service with her, as a girl … just for a bit, you know … she was good to me, very good.'
I said I was sure she had been, and it was sad to hear the bell tolling. Mrs Pringle appeared not to hear these lame remarks. She was gazing, with unseeing eyes, at the pile of coke in the playground.
'Always paid well too, and was generous with her clothes, and that. I've still got a scarf she give me … mauve, it is. Yes, never grudged nothing to me, I must say——' Her voice faltered, and she turned hastily away to pick up the black bag from the draining-board. When she faced me again it was with her usual dour expression.
'Ah, well! No good grieving over times past, I suppose. And after all, if she couldn't afford to be generous with the lot she'd got, who could?'
This uncharitable comment seemed to give Mrs Pringle some comfort; but I could see that this seeming indifference, this harshly-expressed philosophy, was Mrs Pringle's challenge to something which had shaken her more than she cared to show. Her parting comment was a truer indication of her feelings.
'I suppose we've all got to go, but somehow … that old bell! I mean, it brings it home to you, don't it? It brings it home!' As she stumped off, the black bag swaying on her arm, I felt for Mrs Pringle, my old sparring partner, a rare pang of pity.
Miss Parr's funeral was held on an afternoon as glorious as that on which she had died.
The children had brought bunches of cottage flowers, daffodils, polyanthus, wallflowers, and little posies from the woods and banks, primroses, blue and white violets and early cowslips. We put them all in my gardening trug, which was lined with moss, and Cathy wrote on a card, 'With love from the children at Fairacre School,' in her most painstaking hand, and we laid it among the blooms. Mr Willet was entrusted with it, and he set off to deliver it at the house.
As the playground is in full view of the churchyard, I decided to let the children have an early playtime, and then be comfortably indoors while the service was going on.
We had begun 'The Wind in the Willows,' and I thought, as I waited for the children to settle down after playtime, what a perfect afternoon it was to hear about the adventures of Wa
ter Rat and Mole. An exhilarating wind was blowing the rooks about the blue and white sky. Somewhere, in the vicarage garden, a blackbird whistled, and an early bee, bumbling lazily up and down the window-pane, gave a foretaste of summer joys.
Together, the children and I set out into that enchanted world where the river laps eternally and the green banks form the changeless setting for Mole's adventures. The sun dappled the children's heads as it shone through the tossing boughs into the schoolroom. Around them lay the sunshine, and within them too, as they contemplated, with their minds' eye, the sunlit landscape conjured up by magic words.
I was conscious, as I read steadily on, of ominous sounds from the churchyard, slow footsteps on the scrunching gravel, a snatch or two of solemn phrase in Mr Partridge's gentle voice, blown this way by the exuberant breeze, and the muffled thumpings of heavy wood lowered into the earth. Very near at hand a lark soared madly upwards, singing in a frenzy of joy, with the sun warm on its little back. It seemed hard, I thought, to have to be buried on such an uprushing afternoon.
Out there, in the churchyard, the black silent figures would be standing immobile around the dark hole. Above them, no less black, the rooks would be wheeling and crying, unheeded by the mourners. They would stand there, heads downbent, with who knows what emotions stirring them … pity, regret, the realization of the swiftness of life's passage, the inevitability of death. While here, in the classroom, sitting in a golden trance, our thoughts were of a sun-dappled stream, of willows and whiskers, of water-bubbles and boats … and, I venture to think, that of all those impressions which were being made on that spring afternoon, ours, for all their being transmitted, as it were, second-hand, would be more lasting in their fresh glory.
Thoughts by a graveside are too dark and deep to be sustained for any length of time. Sooner or later the hurt mind turns to the sun for healing, and this is as it should be, for otherwise, what future could any of us hope for, but madness?
16. April Birthday Party
APRIL had come; one of the most beautiful within living memory. The long spell of sunshine and the unusually warm nights had brought early rows of carrots and peas and sturdy broad beans into all the cottage gardens.
'Unseasonable!' announced Mr Willet. 'We'll pay for it later, mark me, now! Just get the fruit blossom out and there'll be a mort of frosts. Seen it happen time without number!' He seemed to gain some morbid satisfaction from this augury.
The children were glorying in it and were already tanned and freckled. They came in from the playground and spreading their hot arms along the cool wood of the desks, they sniffed luxuriously at the warm, biscuity smell that the sun had drawn from their scorched skins.
In a week's time the Easter holidays would begin, and I hoped that the fine weather would hold, for my garden was weedy and the hedges, usually clipped at the beginning of May, were already needing attention.
On this particular afternoon the girls were busy with their sewing and the boys were making raffia mats or cane baskets or bowls according to their ability. The last few stitches were being put, by Linda Moffat, into a kettle-holder of especial importance; and as the other children worked they watched Linda with excitement.
The kettle-holder was their own present to Miss Clare who celebrated her birthday that day. All the children in the school had put several stitches in it—some, I fear, which Miss Clare would privately think of as 'cat's teeth'—and I had promised to take it to her when I went to her tea-party that afternoon.
Linda cut the cotton with a satisfying snip of the scissors and came out to the front of the class, bearing it as if it were the Holy Grail itself. It certainly was a magnificent object, made of a piece of vivid material, in deep reds and blues of a paisley pattern. It was edged with scarlet binding and had a rather bumpy loop to hang it by.
Linda held it up for the children to admire and they looked at it with reverence.
'Us've done it real nice!'
'Don't it look good!'
'Miss Clare'll like that all right!'
'Ah! Even if she's got a little old kettle-holder, she can always do with another one!'
They nodded wisely to each other, exchanging sagacious remarks like old women at a market stall.
John Burton, who was the neatest-fingered child, had the enviable task of wrapping it in tissue paper and tying it with a piece of red raffia. The children, handwork neglected, clustered round his desk to watch the delicate operation and to give advice.
'You pulls it too tight, mate!'
'He's right, you know … you'll have it all twizzled up inside!'
'If you leaves it to me,' said John soberly and without any rancour, 'I'll do it all right. It ain't no good getting excited-like when you does parcels.' He tied a neat bow with unhurrying fingers, and I put it in a prominent position on top of the piano, so that they could gloat over it until it was time to go home.
There were four of us sitting at Miss Clare's round table that afternoon.
A cloth of incredible whiteness, bordered with a deep edging of Miss Clare's mother's crocheting, covered the table, and in the middle stood a bowl of primroses. The best tea-service, patterned with pansies, was in use, and cut-glass dishes held damson cheese and lemon curd of Miss Clare's own making. The bread and butter was cut so thin as to be almost transparent.
'I've a special old carving-knife,' explained Miss Clare earnestly, 'and I always sharpen it on the bottom step up to the lawn. It's really quite simple.'
The kettle-holder had been much admired and hung on a hook by the fire-place. Miss Clare glanced at it fondly from time to time.
'I shan't dirty it, you know. I've an old one I shall use … no, I really don't feel I could soil that one!'
Miss Gray and Mrs Finch-Edwards were with us and the conversation turned to Miss Gray's new home.
'No complaints anywhere!' announced Miss Gray. 'Except perhaps over-feeding. She's a wonderful cook.'
'And dressmaker,' added Miss Clare, peering into the depths of the teapot.
'She's making me some silk frocks,' began Mrs Finch-Edwards, then stopped suddenly. Her face became a warm red and she crumbled her cake.
'For any special occasion?' asked Miss Gray, who seemed unaware of her neighbour's sudden shyness.
Mrs Finch-Edwards looked up from her crumbling.
'I want them in September. I … that is, my hubby and I … are looking forward to a son then.'
We were all delighted and a hubbub of questioning broke out about knitting needs, the desirability of real wool for first-size vests, no matter what time of the year the baby was born … the advantages of high prams over low prams, and draped cots over plain ones … until it dawned on us three spinsters how fervent we were being with our advice to the only member of the party, who, presumably, knew more about the business than the rest of us put together.
The tea-party gained immensely in hilarity and animation after this disclosure, Miss Clare even going so far as to scold her guest for cycling over 'in her present state … very naughty indeed! And she was inclined to get her brother to take her back in his car!'
While we were thus cosily gossiping Mr Annett came up the path with a basket of eggs.
His older boys produced a weekly supply of eggs, vegetables, herbs and flowers which were sold on a stall in the market, belonging to a local market gardener. With the proceeds they bought seeds, plants, netting, tools and so on to carry on this good work. Mrs Partridge and Miss Clare always helped at the Women's Institute stall for two hours each market day, and I used to see the vicar's ancient car nosing its way round the bend by the school just before ten each Thursday morning. In the back would be piled Fairacre Women's Institute's contributions, and the vicar's wife would stop at Miss Clare's to pick her up with her offerings.
Beech Green School was the next stop on their way, and by the time the boys had loaded up their products Miss Clare and Mrs Partridge would be seated in a bower of greenery, peering above bunches of scrubbed carrots and turn
ips, and feeling for the gears among the cabbages at their feet.
At this time of year the school garden was not producing enough to be sent in, so that Mr Annett brought the eggs to Miss Clare to pack with hers overnight to save the car stopping again.
He sat himself down by Miss Gray and ate birthday cake. He looked very much more relaxed and happy, and could be called almost good-looking, I decided, when he smiled at his neighbour. If only he were fed properly and did not drive himself so hard at everything … if only he could find a thoroughly nice wife … I found myself looking at Miss Gray speculatively and pulled myself up sharply. Really, I was quite as bad as Nurse!
But for all that I was glad to see how very much at ease they were in each other's company, and although I didn't go so far as to name their children for them, I must admit that I was favouring a draped creamy wedding-dress for Miss Gray, rather than a white, when Miss Clare brought me back to earth by inquiring kindly if I had found the cake perhaps a trifle too rich.
The children were busy copying a notice from the blackboard. It said:
'Spring term ends on April 9th.
School will reopen on Tuesday, April 28th.'
Pens were being wielded with especial care for their parents would receive these joyous communications and the children were aware that criticism, kindly or adverse, would greet their handwriting.
My class had to do two copies apiece; the best writers might even have the honour of writing a third, for Miss Gray's children could not yet be relied upon for a fair copy and the older children would supply theirs.
As they rattled their nibs in the inkwells and thumped their blotting-paper with fat fists, I marked the compositions which had been written that morning. The subject was 'A Hot Day.' John Burton who has a maddening habit of transposing letters had written:
