Getting ready for Christmas

Winter had really come. Woolly scarves, thick coats, and wellingtons decked the lobby. Gloves were constantly getting lost; children vanished, in the wrong wellingtons, on foggy afternoons, and others had to hobble home in those that were left. The classroom resounded to coughs, sniffs, and shattering sneezes,* and toes were rubbed up and down legs to ease chilblains.

During these last few weeks of term preparations for the concert kept us very busy. Mrs Finch-Edwards called in one afternoon a week to coach the infants in the plays and the action songs she had chosen for them. She and Mrs. Moffat were spending almost every afternoon cutting and sewing the costumes, shouting cheerfully above the hum of their machines and becoming fast friends in the process.

'What I should like better than anything,' confessed Mrs. Moffat one day to this new friend, 'would be to have a dress shop!'

'Me too!' rejoined Mrs. Finch-Edwards, and they looked at each other with surprise.

'If it weren't for the family, and the house, and that,'* finished Mrs. Moffat, her eyes returning sadly to her sewing.

'If it weren't for hubby,'* echoed Mrs. Finch-Edwards gazing glumly at a dress. They sewed on in silence.

*

The day of the concert arrived and the afternoon was spent in getting the school ready for the hundred or so parents and friends we expected to be in the audience at seven o'clock.

The partition was pushed back and Mr. Willet, John Pringle, Mrs. Pringle, Miss Clare, and I erected the stage at the end of the infants' room and piled desks outside in the playground, hoping that the weather would stay fine until the next morning.

The children had been sent home to rest, but a few of them clustered open-mouthed in the playground to watch the preparations, despite requests to go home and stay there.

Mrs. Pringle had arranged the first row of chairs for the school managers and their friends.

At the back of the hall, which was the side of my classroom, were rows of plain benches on which I knew the boys would stand and gape at the distant stage. We had never yet got through a concert without several deafening crashes, but so far we had had no injuries. I hoped our luck would hold.*

The children were dressing in the lobby superintended by Mrs. Moffat and Mrs. Finch-Edwards. The air was full of excitement.

Miss Clare, refusing to sit in the first row, had her own chair set by the side of the stage and acted as prompter and relief pianist.*

Mr. Annett had come over to help and I could hear him at the further lobby door collecting the shillings which were going to increase the school funds. The rows gradually filled and the air became thick with tobacco smoke.

A twittering row of fairies creaked excitedly up on to the platform behind the drawn curtain. The fairies took a deep breath and up went the curtain in spasmodic jerks.* The concert had begun.

*

It was a very successful evening. No one was hurt when three benches overturned. Mr. Annett told me that he had collected nearly five pounds at the door and that everyone had been most complimentary about the costumes. Mrs. Moffat and Mrs. Finch-Edwards beamed with pleasure when they heard this in the lobby where they were packing clothes wearily into baskets and boxes. The vicar took Miss Clare home and I reminded him of the Christmas party on the last day of term during the next week.

The night sky was thick with stars as the people dwindled away into the darkness.

'What about them desks, miss?' said Mr. Willet at my elbow. 'They might get wet.'

'Forget them!' I said, turning the key in the school door. It had been a very long day.

*

On the last Saturday of term I caught the bus to Caxley to buy presents for the children with some of the concert money. I struggled round Woolworth's* buying little dolls, balls, coloured pencils, clockwork mice,* and decorations for the Christmas tree, and spent the next hour searching the rest of the town for more interesting toys. In the market-place I came across Mr. Annett.

'Do you want a lift?'* he asked. 'I'm just off.'*

I consulted my shopping list. There seemed nothing more of extreme urgency and I grate­fully climbed into the car.

'I sometimes wonder about Christmas,' said Mr. Annett meditatively, looking at my feet which I was resting on their outer edges.

'The thing to do,' I said as we reached the lane that leads to Beech Green and Fairacre, 'is to get absolutely everything in the summer and lock it in a cupboard. Then order all the food you'll need from a shop the week before Christmas and sit back and enjoy watching everyone else go mad. I've been meaning to do it for years.'

'Come and have tea with me,' said Mr. Annett swerving into the school playground before I had a chance to answer. His school-house was bigger than mine and also had a bathroom, but poor Mr. Annett's towels were grey, I noticed, and the floor needed cleaning. The dust of several days lingered on the banisters, and it was quite obvious that his housekeeper did not overwork herself.

His sitting-room, however, though dusty, was light and sunny, with an enormous radiogram in one corner and two long shelves above it stacked with gramophone records. In the other corner was his 'cello, and I remembered that Mr. Annett was a keen member of the Caxley orchestra.

Mrs. Nairn, a little Scotswoman, brought in the tea, and smiled upon me graciously.

'Your brother rang up while you was out,' she said to Mr. Annett, 'and said to tell you he'll be down next Friday tea-time, and he's bringing two bottles of whisky and a bird ready cooked.'

This news delighted Mr. Annett.

'Good, good!' he said, dropping four lumps of sugar carefully into my cup. 'That's wonderful! He's here with me for a week or more over Christmas. He's just had a book published in America, you know, and he's expecting big sales.'*

As I knew that his brother was a professor of mathematics at one of the northern universities and occasionally wrote books with such titles as. 'The Quadrilateral Theory', I felt unequal to any chit-chat* about this publication, and contented myself with polite noises at this good news.

I did not get back until seven and spent the rest of the evening packing presents in blue tissue paper for boys and pink for girls and thanking my stars* that there were only forty children in Fairacre School.

*

It was the last afternoon and the Christmas party was in full swing.* Lemonade glasses were empty, paper hats askew, and the children's faces flushed with excitement. They sat at their disordered tables, which were their workaday desks, pushed together in fours* and covered with tablecloths. Their eyes were fixed on the Christmas tree in the centre of the room, glittering and sparkling with frosted baubles* and tinsel.

Miss Clare had insisted on decorating it on her own, and had spent all the previous evening in the shadowy schoolroom alone with the tree and her thoughts. The pink and blue parcels dangled temptingly and a cheer went up as the vicar advanced with the school cutting-out scissors.

Round the room were parents and friends, who had come to share the fun of the party and to see the presentation of a clock and a cheque to Miss Clare on her last school day.

The children had all brought a penny or two for a magnificent bouquet which was now hidden under the sink in the lobby. The youngest little girl, John Burton's sister, was in a fine state of nerves* at the thought of presenting it at the end of the proceedings.

The floor was covered with paper, bent straws,* and crumbs, and I saw Mrs. Pringle's mouth drooping down, as she looked at the wreckage.

Luckily the vicar clapped his hands for silence before she had a chance for any damping remark.

The room was very quiet as he spoke of all that Miss Clare had meant in the lives of those of us there that afternoon. It was impossible to repay years of selfless devotion, but we would like her to have a token of our affection. Here, he looked helplessly round for the parcel and envelope, which Mrs. Pringle found for him and thrust hastily into his hand as though they were hot potatoes.

Miss Clare undid* them with shaking fingers, while a little whisper of excitement ran round the room. There was the sudden clang of the bucket from the lobby, and little Eileen Burton emerged triumphantly with the bouquet and presented it with a curtsey, amid a storm of clapping.

Miss Clare replied with composure, and I never admired her more than on this occasion. I think that this was the first time that she realized how warmly we all felt towards her. She thanked us simply and quietly, and only the brightness of her eyes as she looked at the happy children told of the tears that could so easily have come to a less courageous woman.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16