The Little Village School

by Gervase Phinn

  ‘Are you listening, Charles?’ asked his wife.

  ‘Indeed, my dear,’ he replied.

  ‘It is a fact that most of the women come to church to show off their new hats and to exchange village gossip, and that the men come to talk about farming after the service,’ observed his wife, cutting the piece of the insipid ham on her plate into stamp-sized squares.

  ‘That’s a trifle unkind,’ said the vicar, with a gentle reproof in his voice.

  ‘Oh, Charles, really,’ said his wife in an exasperated tone. ‘You sound so “holier than thou” at times. “A trifle unkind.” You always have to look for the good in people, don’t you?’

  It was true that the vicar always looked for the good in others, tried to be fair and see the other person’s point of view. It was in his nature. ‘I’m a priest, my dear,’ he reminded her. ‘I think that is what priests are supposed to do.’

  Mrs Atticus stared at her husband unblinkingly. ‘Please don’t patronise me, Charles.’ She posted a piece of ham in her mouth and chewed slowly. They ate in silence for a while. ‘Of course, you would have been much more than a mere priest if you had a bit more ambition,’ she said. The vicar bit his lip. ‘My father, the bishop, always made his sermons short and sweet,’ she continued, prior to posting another square of meat into her mouth. ‘The church was invariably full when he spoke.’

  Here we go again, thought the vicar, forcing a piece of tasteless lettuce into his mouth. He’d thought it would not be long before the sainted bishop arose in his wife’s conversation. He had never really got on with his wife’s father. He could picture the narrow, bony face set in an expression of severe sanctity, and the wild bushy eyebrows that frequently arched with disapproval. He could hear the deep, resonant voice dripping with condescension and recall the searing blue eyes which had frequently rested upon him when they had disagreed.

  The Reverend Atticus knew, soon after his marriage to the bishop’s daughter, that he was something of a disappointment as a son-in-law. But she had taken to this rather serious and intense young man when she had first met him at one of her father’s soirées and had been attracted by his warm, attentive manner and kindly eyes. The young clergyman was not a handsome man in any conventional sense, but, unlike some of the young clerics who fluttered and flattered around her father, Charles Atticus had a thoughtful intelligent face and was his own man. Indeed, when the others at the clerical get-togethers talked inconsequentially, he had tried to debate with the bishop a number of ecclesiastical matters that had been troubling him. She had rather taken to the man who had the temerity to stand up to her father. The bishop had stroked his hand over his high bald dome and had told the young curate irritably that this was neither the time nor the place to be arguing points of theology.

  For his part, the young Charles Atticus was drawn to the striking, almond-shaped green eyes and golden auburn hair of this pale-skinned young woman who introduced herself as the bishop’s daughter. They had talked for most of the evening and he had been invigorated by her company.

  She reminded of him of the Pre-Raphaelite figure that featured in the painting adorning his tutor’s rooms at Oxford. Sadly, he thought, over the years, that lovely, interesting woman had become increasingly dissatisfied with her lot, more critical and tetchy and certainly more outspoken. She’d dreamed of ending her days in the bishop’s palace, surrounded by her children. Sadly he recalled the time when they had come to realise at last that they would never be blessed with children. His wife more than he had felt the great sense of loss.

  ‘And, of course,’ continued his wife now, ‘my father spoke in the sort of plain and simple language that people understood. I do think your sermons are way above their heads, with all these biblical quotations, classical references and theological opinions. You are not lecturing to divinity students.’

  ‘I do try to stimulate some thought in those who hear me,’ said the vicar, having succeeded in swallowing the lettuce.

  ‘My father, though you did not share his stance on a number of theological matters, imagined that you might go far in the Church when you married me,’ she said. ‘He said you had a good mind and had great potential if you could only be less serious and more sociable and mix with the right people. Yes, and I too thought you might go far.’

  ‘So you constantly keep reminding me, my dear,’ said the vicar, smiling tolerantly. He gazed, frowning, at the view through the window and another quotation came to mind. ‘A low voice is an excellent thing in a woman,’ it ran. Was that in the Bible, he thought, or was it Shakespeare?

  ‘Well, he did. He was an archdeacon by the time he reached thirty-five and a bishop when he was forty-six. You are as well qualified as he was, went to same college at Oxford and were very highly thought of. All my friends at university thought you were destined for high office. I think it is very short-sighted of the Church to pass you over for the dean’s position in favour of that sanctimonious little man with the wire-rimmed spectacles and the loud voice.’

  ‘I hardly think I was “passed over”,’ the vicar told her, smiling awkwardly. ‘Dr Peacock is very good-humoured and kindly when you get to know him and he works extremely hard.’

  ‘You see, there you go again, Charles, always looking for the good in people and rarely agreeing with my opinions. Dr Peacock lives up to his name. He is full of his own importance, strutting about the cathedral in his fancy cassock, and his wife is the same. And as for referring to herself as Mrs Dean … How ridiculous.’

  ‘I am very content here,’ said the vicar.

  ‘Well, I am not content here,’ his wife retorted. ‘I imagined that you would at the very least have been offered the dean’s position when it came up, but it went to him, fussy, shrill-voiced little man that he is, who no doubt ingratiated himself with the bishop.’

  The Reverend Atticus raised his eyes heavenwards and the snatch of verse again came to mind: ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.’ Of course, no help was forthcoming. He sighed inwardly and examined his plate. He had never revealed to his wife that the present bishop had tried to persuade him that his name should be put forward for the said position, and that in every likelihood he would have been offered it; or that he had told the bishop he was honoured, but he was quite content to be the vicar of the small rural parish of Barton-in-the-Dale.

  His wife, having consumed her salad and placed her knife and fork together on her plate, dabbed at the corners of her mouth. ‘And then there’s the bishop,’ she said.

  ‘And what about the bishop, my dear?’ enquired the vicar, predicting what she was about to impart.

  ‘“Call me Bill,” he says, with that irritating laugh of his and his hearty handshake and happy-clappy services. The confirmation service was like a revivalist meeting, all that loud singing and clapping. It was like the Methodists. All they needed were tambourines.’

  ‘I think they are actually called timbrels,’ said the vicar, ‘and it’s the Salvation Army that—’

  ‘Whatever!’ snapped his wife testily. ‘My father must have spun in his grave when they saw fit to elevate such a man.’

  ‘A merry heart doeth good as medicine,’ observed the vicar.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ asked his wife.

  ‘The Song of Solomon,’ murmured her husband.

  His wife gave a weary sigh.

  He prayed to himself: Dear Lord, give her patience and charity. He was saddened by his wife’s resentful words and by the fact that he had not lived up to her expectations. ‘You are not at all happy today, are you, Marcia?’ he asked, putting down his knife and fork and resting his white, well-cared-for hands on the table with priestly precision.

  ‘No, Charles, I am not,’ she replied.

  ‘Has something upset you?’ he asked.

  ‘If you really want to know, it’s this village that has upset me. I can’t walk down the high street without a curtain moving, I can’t say anything in the doctor’s surgery without it bein
g broadcast around the whole neighbourhood, and I can’t purchase an item from the village shop without all and sundry knowing what we are having for tea. I get stopped by parishioners all the time asking about church functions and services, and what are we doing about the Harvest Festival and the Summer Fête, and when is the next meeting of the Mothers’ Union. And I am always the vicar’s wife and expected to behave like someone they consider a vicar’s wife should behave like. People seem to forget that I am a person in my own right.’ She bit her lip momentarily and looked down at her empty plate. ‘It’s so very claustrophobic here. I imagined that when the dean’s position came up we would be moving from this incestuous little village to that lovely Georgian house in the cathedral precinct and be at the centre of the city, meet different and interesting people and have something of a life.’

  The vicar rubbed his forehead. ‘I am sorry you feel this way, Marcia,’ he said. ‘My one ambition was to be a country parson and serve a small community and hopefully to make some difference to people’s lives. It was never my intention to climb up some ecclesiastical ladder. I am not an ambitious man. I have never wanted all the trappings and the responsibilities of a dean or an archdeacon or a bishop. You knew that when you married me.’

  ‘Yes, Charles, you may be very happy being just a country parson but what about me?’ She dabbed her eyes with her napkin. ‘What sort of life is this for me?’

  ‘Perhaps if you involved yourself in the life of the village a little more,’ he suggested, with a harassed look on his face.

  ‘You mean become a Morris dancer?’ she said. ‘Attend the local history society meetings? Join the Countrywomen’s club? The WI? I don’t think so.’

  The couple sat in silence for while.

  ‘I have not managed to do a dessert,’ said the vicar’s wife, sniffing. ‘I have been very busy with other things this afternoon.’

  The vicar decided it was judicious not to enquire what exactly his wife had been so busy with that afternoon. It certainly wasn’t polishing the brasses or arranging the altar flowers in the church.

  ‘We appointed the new head teacher at the school this morning,’ he said, changing the subject and trying to sound cheerful.

  ‘Well, I hope you picked someone different from the present incumbent,’ replied his wife. ‘That sour-faced woman should have gone years ago.’

  The vicar thought for a moment and recalled the surprise on the faces of his fellow governors when this attractive blonde-haired woman with the red shoes and the black stockings had walked through the door at the interviews that morning. As soon as she spoke he had been immediately impressed by her confident manner, her sensible views on education and her obvious enthusiasm and good humour.

  ‘Are you listening, Charles?’ asked his wife. ‘I said I hope you have picked someone different from the present incumbent.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied, ‘the new appointment is very different, very different indeed.’

  ‘That head teacher who’s at the school at the moment is a most disagreeable woman,’ the vicar’s wife informed him. ‘And before you spring to her defence and tell me she has all these good points and I shouldn’t be so unkind, I have not heard one person in the village say a good word about her.’

  ‘I was about to say,’ said the vicar, ‘that Miss Sowerbutts does have something of a joyless disposition and a somewhat disconcerting countenance, I have to admit.’

  ‘In simple language, Charles,’ said his wife, ‘she’s a miserable, bad-tempered gorgon of a woman. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile. She walks about the village with a permanent scowl. One good thing that came out of that inspection of the school was getting her to retire. It’s a pity that it had to be the inspectors and not the governors who had to get rid of her. One wonders what you governors are for. I mean, you should have grasped the nettle years ago.’

  The vicar sighed with weary sufferance and felt it better not to pursue this line of conversation. He could have told his wife that the governors had discussed a number of times the possibility of suggesting to Miss Sowerbutts that she might consider retiring early, when parents began to move their children to other schools, but that they had discovered it was extremely difficult to remove a head teacher – unless of course he or she ran off with the dinner money or interfered with a child.

  ‘So what’s the new head teacher like?’ asked his wife.

  ‘She’s a very amiable and experienced person,’ the vicar told her. ‘Extremely well qualified and with excellent references. She’s at present the head teacher of a large and very successful inner-city primary, which received a glowing report from the school inspectors. I feel certain she will change the school for the better.’

  ‘One wonders,’ said the vicar’s wife, ‘if she is so well qualified and experienced, why on earth she would want to leave a thriving and successful school and come to a backwater like Barton-in-the-Dale.’

  That very thing had in fact been raised by one of the governors on the appointment panel, but the vicar said nothing and turned his attention to the circles of cucumber on his plate.

  The governors had convened in Miss Sowerbutts’ room for the interviews at nine o’clock that morning: the Chairman, Major C. J. Neville-Gravitas, RE (Retd); the Reverend Atticus, rector of Barton; Mr Nettles, an education officer from County Hall; Dr Stirling, a local GP; Mrs Pocock, a parent governor; Mrs Bullock, a foundation governor and Councillor Cyril Smout, the Local Education Authority representative.

  The head teacher’s room, in contrast to the rest of the school, was bright, comfortable and well furnished. There was an occasional table and two easy chairs, a pale shag-pile carpet, long pale drapes at the window, and it had its own small private toilet. The room was dominated by a large desk. There were filing cupboards and cabinets of various sorts, an expensive-looking bookcase, and the walls, which were plain and the colour of soured cream, were decorated with colourful prints. With so many people clustered uncomfortably around the head teacher’s desk it had been cramped, hot and airless. There being no staff-room, the four candidates, who had arrived at 8.30, had either wandered around the school or waited seated in the corridor outside until they were called, in turn, to be interviewed.

  ‘It’s a rum do, is this,’ Councillor Smout announced, leaning back expansively on his chair, stretching his fat legs underneath the desk and sucking in his teeth. He was a broad individual with an exceptionally thick neck, a vast florid face and small darting eyes. His face seemed set in a permanent frown. His stomach pushed forcefully against his waistcoat, revealing a show of white shirt and the top of his trousers. ‘T’head teacher clearing off like that. She shot out of that door like a rabbit wi’ t’runs. Walked straight past me in t’corridor she did, wi’out a by-your-leave and with a mouth like a torn pocket.’

  ‘She is rather upset that she was not invited to sit in on the interview,’ the chairman told him. ‘I’m afraid she is not best pleased with the governors, if you follow my drift. I had quite a contretemps with her last week.’

  ‘A what?’ Mrs Bullock asked, craning her neck in the major’s direction.

  ‘A difference of opinion, Mrs Bullock,’ the chairman said loudly.

  ‘As I have been at pains to point out, Mr Chairman,’ the education officer explained, ‘there was no question whatsoever of Miss Sowerbutts being invited to sit on the appointment panel. It would be quite out of the question, particularly under the circumstances.’

  ‘Well, she was not best pleased,’ the major informed them, ‘and she was extremely belligerent with me.’

  ‘I can’t see why she should be miffed,’ the councillor said. ‘I should ’ave thought that what with that critical report and all, she would ’ave wanted to keep ’er ’ead down.’ He flicked through the papers in front of him. ‘Any road, Mr Chairman, can we get on? I’ve a meeting of t’Parks and Recreation Committee this afternoon. I shouldn’t think this’ll tek too long. I mean, it’s not as if we’ve got a reight good field
to choose from, is it?’

  ‘That is to be expected, councillor,’ the education officer remarked. ‘There is often a paucity of applications for head teacher posts at the small schools, and the salary is not that attractive. I guess also that those who live in the area and know the school will have got wind of the inspectors’ report. That, no doubt, will have put some people off.’

  ‘Do I take it that in the details sent to the candidates the findings in the school inspectors’ report were not revealed?’ the vicar asked.

  ‘We felt it prudent not to mention it,’ the education officer told him.

  ‘I think it would have been fair-minded to do so,’ the Reverend Atticus said, clearly displeased. ‘It seems to me that those who have applied for the post should at the very least have been informed—’

  ‘Could we please resist talking persistently and tediously about the school report?’ the major asked, sighing. ‘We have discussed what the inspectors had to say in great detail at the last two meetings. I for one have heard quite enough about the report. It is surely time to move on and to appoint someone who will take the school forward and breath fresh life into it.’

  ‘Quite right, Mr Chairman,’ Councillor Smout agreed. ‘We were on t’edge of a precipice after what them inspectors said about t’school, but, as you’ve just said, we now need to move forward wi’ confidence. Let’s get cracking or we’ll be ’ere all day.’

  ‘And I do think, Reverend Atticus,’ the education officer added, ‘that it would be unwise to mention the report to the candidates. We really do not want any withdrawals. It is imperative that we appoint someone today.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ the vicar retorted. ‘I think it is “imperative”, to use your word, that they do know about the inspectors’ report and what they will be taking on, and I for one will most certainly be mentioning it.’