"Yes." She looked at him steadily. "I am aware of what the numbers indicate, my lord. I have been aware for two years.""Then you know why I am here.""I know why you believe you are here," she said.And there it was: not aggressive, not performing bravery, simply the statement of a woman who had something to say and was going to say it."I wonder if you would permit me to show you something before we discuss the closure?"He looked at her across the small desk."The children's work," she said. "Not the slates. The books."She produced from the shelf behind her a stack of composition books: children's handwriting on the covers, names in various states of legibility."This is what they have written this year: about their families, about the village, about what they know and what they want to know. I would like you to read some of them," she set them on the desk between them, "before you make your decision."He looked at the composition books. He looked at her. "That," he said, "is not a conventional presentation to an inspector.""No," she said, "it is not." She met his gaze without apology. "But you are not a conventional inspector, my lord. You are the person who can decide whether this continues or ends. And I would like your decision to be made on the fullest available information." She paused. "And I would like you specifically to read what Thomas Buley wrote about the day he learned to read."He was quiet for a moment. He looked at the composition books. He thought about the pre-written closure notice in his breast pocket, and the two days he had allocated to this business, and the drive back to his Yorkshire estate, and the other fourteen properties, and the quarterly accounts, and the various matters of a large and prosperous life.He picked up the nearest composition book.
He read the composition books for an hour.Hartley, who had been waiting in the front room of the King's Head with the practiced patience of a solicitor accustomed to his employer's occasional detours from efficient decision-making, received no message until midday, at which point a note arrived saying that the inspection was ongoing, and that Thursday's return journey should be moved to Friday.