It has been a while since I have posted about what I am reading. I am always reading something. I have been reading a LOT. I am reading the Fairacre Series by Miss Read (Mrs. Dora Jesse Saint) right now. I am on the third book, Storm in the Village (Copyright 1958). The books are from the point of view of a village schoolmistress in a small English village in the 1950’s. I came across a very nifty part and wanted to share it. This is why I love these books so much:
The first day of the holidays dawned bright and fair. I made up my mind to spend it alone, savouring to the full the exquisite pleasure of being free.
To those who have never had to undergo regular employment with set hours of work, the glory of not being clock-bound cannot be truly appreciated. I looked gleefully at my kitchen clock as I took a leisurely breakfast at nine o'clock, and thought to myself, "Ah! Yesterday at this time I was marking the register!"
I wandered round the dewy garden, admiring the velvety dark phlox just coming into flower, and getting an added fillip from the thought that normally I would be setting about an arithmetic lesson at the stern behest of the timetable on the wall. It is heady stuff, freedom -- this cocking-a-snook at clocks, bells, whistles, timetables, syllabuses, and all the other strait-jackets curbing the gay flow of time.
I sauntered through the village, swinging my basket as St. Patrick's clock struck eleven o'clock. ('Time to bring them in from play!' warned my teacher-shadow. 'And rats to that!' chortled my exuberant holiday-self.) What bliss it was to be at large in Fairacre on a Friday morning, instead of cooped up in a dark school!
It was fun to see the difference in the village at this time of the morning. The sun slanted from a different angle, winking on the brass knocker of Mr. Lamb's door, a beautiful lion's head with a ring in it's mouth, which I had not noticed before when the sun had slipped further round. In a cottage window stood a cactus plant which I had noticed before, but now, with the sun shining full upon it, two vivid orange flowers gaped like young birds beaks in its warm benison.
On the other side of the village street a topiary hedge, finely clipped into towers and battlements, cast its black shadow upon the sun-drenched road, and a young thrush with jewelled eyes sheltered in the cool shade there.
Other Fairacre folk were still about their everyday business. From the Post Office came the irregular thumping of Mr. Lamb's date-stamping as he hastened to get the mail ready for the van. The clinking of brass weights came from the grocer's and the whirring of the coffee-grinder, accompanied by the most seductive of all food smells.
Dusters flapped from upstairs windows as the bedrooms received their morning toilet. Here a woman bent in her vegetable garden cutting a lettuce or pulling spring onions for the midday meal. A baby lay kicking in its pram, eyes squirrel-bright as it crowed at the fluttering leaves about it.
From the bakehouse at the rear of the grocer's shop wafted the homely fragrance of new bread. In there, I knew, the great tables had been scrubbed clean and the white-overalled baker, with his short sleeves rolled up, would be waiting to rap the top of this loaves to see if the batch were done. At the far end of the village, near Tyler's Row, I caught a glimpse of Mr. Rogers, the blacksmith, in dusky contrast to his equally hot bakehouse neighbour, standing at the door of his forge to get a breath of fresh air.
Nothing can beat a village, I thought, for living in! A small village, a remote village, a village basking, as smug and snug as a cat in morning sunlight! I continued my lover's progress, besotted with my village's charms. Just look at that weeping willow, plumed like a fountain, that lime tree murmurous with bees, that scarlet pimpernel blazing in a dusty verge, the curve of that hooded porch, the jasmine -- in fact, look at every petal, twig, brick, beam, thatch, wall, pond, man, woman, and child that make up this enchanting place! My blessing showered upon it all.
It was the first day of the holidays.
Then some water passes under the bridge. You will have to get the book (either buy it or get it at the library) to find out what...
This was the halcyon village I had mooned over so sentimentally early in the holidays, I thought grimly. Where now was the tranquil sunshine, the serenity, the innocent-hearted populace going about its honest business?
I thought of the misplaced passion of Hilary Jackson, the cupidity of John Franklyn, the evil gossiping of neighbours, the sad injustice of Miss Clare's ill-health, the misery of the Coggs family at the mercy of their drunken father under the broken dripping thatch of Tyler's Row, of the chained unhappy dogs in back gardens, bedraggled hens cooped all too closely in bare rank runs, and, over all, the tension engendered by the housing scheme and the ugly passions it aroused.
A flash of lightning illuminated the landscape in quivering mauve and yellow lights, distorting its normal lovely colouring to something livid and sinister.
Sick at heart, with the noise of the storm still raging round me, I sought in vain for the comfort of sleep. -- Miss Read (Storm in the Village)
Virginia C. McCoy Fine Art 