The Wedding Party
Authors: H. E. Bates
H. E. BATES
A Note from the Family
My grandfather, although best known and loved by many readers all over the world for creating the Larkin family in his bestselling novel
The Darling Buds of May
, was also one of the most prolific English short story writers of the twentieth century, often compared to Chekhov. He wrote over 300 short stories and novellas in a career spanning six decades from the 1920s through to the 1970s.
My grandfather's short fiction took many different forms, from descriptive country sketches to longer, sometimes tragic, narrative stories, and I am thrilled that Bloomsbury Reader will be reissuing all of his stories and novellas, making them available to new audiences, and giving them â especially those that have been out of print for many years or only ever published in obscure magazines, newspapers and pamphlets â a new lease of life.
There are hundreds of stories to discover and re-discover, from H. E. Bates's most famous tales featuring Uncle Silas, or the critically acclaimed novellas such as
The Mill
and
Dulcima,
to little, unknown gems such as âThe Waddler', which has not been reprinted since it first appeared in the
Guardian
in 1926, when my grandfather was just twenty, or âCastle in the Air', a wonderful, humorous story that was lost and unknown to our family until 2013.
If you would like to know more about my grandfather's work I encourage you to visit the
H.E. Bates Companion
â a brilliant comprehensive online resource where detailed bibliographic information, as well as articles and reviews, on almost all of H. E. Bates's publications, can be found.
I hope you enjoy reading all these evocative and vivid short stories by H. E. Bates, one of the masters of the art.
Tim Bates, 2015
We would like to spread our passion for H. E. Bates's short fiction and build a community of readers with whom we can share information on forthcoming publications, exclusive material such as free downloads of rare stories, and opportunities to win memorabilia and other exciting prizes â you can sign up to the H. E. Bates's mailing list
here
. When you sign-up you will immediately receive an exclusive short work by H. E. Bates.
I have always believed that H.E. Bates was the absolute master of short story writing. He managed to create a little world for you to enter into, and that soft focus world would stay with you long after you'd finished the story.
When I first started writing I tried my hand at short stories, assuming quite wrongly it would be easier than attempting a book. Bates was my guiding light; there appeared to be a simplicity about his work that I sought to emulate. I did get a few short stories accepted by magazines, but they could never be in his league. I certainly never created anything as lovely as âThe Watercress Girl'. Did any writer before or since? I think I found it in a magazine and read it curled up in my aunt's spare room one wet school holiday and then went on to rush to the library to find more of his work.
Fair Stood the Wind for France
was the first book I borrowed and I was totally hooked on his work, but it was always the short stories I really admired the most.
Lesley Pearse, 2015
Miss Kingsford had long been in the habit of keeping herself very much to herself; in that way there was no one to quarrel with.
The small white guest-house at the top of the cliff faced directly on to the sea, its wooden balconies shabby and scaly from much salt air. Many of the guests were old and frail. They moved slowly up and down stairs and in and out of thin-carpeted rooms like grey uncertain snails. A few also kept dogs; and since there was a large notice in the entrance lobby which said
All Dogs Must Be Carried
these few looked more like decrepit creeping nursemaids guiltily carrying with them shaggy infants, some wrapped in shawls.
By contrast Miss Kingsford, fiftyish, prided herself on really being quite young. She too kept a dog, a small grey poodle she had brought up to stare with disdain, even derision, at other dogs, so that he had become a kind of canine pharisee. Miss Kingsford, thin and neat and small and blue-eyed with skin as smooth as a balloon, looked not at all unlike a poodle herself, her hair carefully permed and tinted to the shade of pale-medium sherry. Her dog's disdain of other dogs had been directly inspired by her own disdain of other people, so that just as he was above the
common company of lesser creatures she kept herself aloof from the dim affairs of snails and creeping nursemaids.
âCome along, darling pet. We mustn't loiter. Mummy will be very cross if you don't do as you're told.'
By the middle of September the summer visitors in the guest-house began to thin out a little, leaving behind mostly regular guests, of whom Miss Kingsford was one. But suddenly, wholly unexpectedly, towards the end of September, a Mr Willoughby appeared. And there were, Miss Kingsford was quick to notice, two exceptional things about Mr Willoughby.
The grey-haired, grey-eyed Mr Willoughby was neither snail nor nursemaid. He dressed with a certain air of smartness. His suit of thorn-proof tweed was of a shade of lichen green touched here and there with flecks of orange, with cap to match. A woollen tie of deep amber picked up the tips of orange to perfection and the same rich touch of gold shone from the highly polished brogues. Mr Willoughby was, Miss Kingsford thought, clearly distinguished. He was obviously, she told herself, not quite as other men.
Mr Willoughby was also well-mannered. In all her experience he was the only man ever to stand up in the lounge when a lady entered. It was an extraordinary experience, in a way quite thrilling, to see him rise politely to his feet at the entrance of even the slowest, dimmest female snail.
He was also, it was obvious, acutely shy. Every morning as Miss Kingsford exercised her dog along the wide grassy cliff-top Mr Willoughby fairly skimmed past her, head
averted, to disappear into distances of gorse and tamarisk from which, some long time later, he scurried out again as if something unpleasant had frightened him there.
Always at these moments Miss Kingsford, who constantly kept her poodle on the leash for fear of having him contaminated or even sniffed at by other dogs, wished hopefully that Mr Willoughby would pause in his scurried passage and perhaps raise his cap to her or even offer a syllable of greeting. But for some days nothing of the sort ever happened or even looked like happening. Mr Willoughby always found some sudden path of retreat down the cliff face or over towards the town.
Suddenly one morning there emerged from the clumps of bushes not merely Mr Willoughby but two large, bounding, almost laughing Dalmatians. Unpleasantly joyful, they leapt wildly along the cliff-top, circled Miss Kingsford madly and then, as if intent on suicide, bounded over the cliff-top and disappeared.
A second later Miss Kingsford's poodle sprang into the air with the force of an electrified jack-in-the-box, broke from the leash and with toy-like barks of delight disappeared over the cliff-top too.
Miss Kingsford let out a sudden scream and Mr Willoughby, startled from shy retreat at last, came running.
âOh! you wicked, wicked boy! Come back here! Come back! How
dare
you do that? Come back at once, I tell you!
At once!
â'
Even in this moment of crisis, when it seemed that Miss Kingsford might instantly burst into tears, Mr Willoughby
was polite enough to raise his cap. In answer Miss Kingsford let out an incoherent shriek or two and then started to run with Mr Willoughby to the edge of the cliff-face.
âOh! my God, he'll be killed. He'll surely kill himselfâ'
âOh! no, no. Don't worry.' Mr Willoughby's voice was calm and very soft. âThere he is.'
Twenty-five feet down the cliff the poodle was standing on a ledge of chalk, tongue and tail intensely vibrant, looking down at the shore below, as if about to join the gay Dalmatians.
âCome back! Come back at once, I tell you! You naughty, naughty, wicked boy.'
âWhat do you call him?' Mr Willoughby said. âWhat's his name?'
âToff â Oh! you terrible, terrible, disobedient creatureâ'
âI think I'd better go down and get him,' Mr Willoughby said. âOh! it isn't difficult. Do you mind holding my cap?'
Why Mr Willoughby should have asked her to hold his cap she never quite knew, but suddenly, without it, she thought he looked shyer than ever, oddly naked and unprotected. She began to tremble visibly as he climbed down the cliff-face, here and there dislodging a stone or two, and then all at once Mr Willoughby and the poodle became completely identified one with another. It was now not merely that the dog might be killed. A violent fear rushed through her that Mr Willoughby might be killed too.
A tuft of grass as big as a football suddenly dislodged itself from under Mr Willoughby's foothold and went bouncing past the poodle, startling it into another electrified
jump that seemed about to take it down the cliff-face. Miss Kingsford managed to stifle a scream by biting at Mr Willoughby's cap but he, by contrast, seemed utterly calm.
âToff boy, come on. Come along now. No more nonsense, boy. Toffâ'
Mr Willoughby gave a low whistle and snapped his fingers. The poodle appeared almost to laugh. Then Mr Willoughby actually turned calmly round and said:
âThe Dalmatians seem to have caused a bit of a stir. There's quite a crowd down there.'
âOh! do take care.' Mr Willoughby was within four or five feet of the poodle now, crouching a little, in the attitude of stalking it. âDo watch what you're doing.'
âPerfectly all right. Toff boy, come â come now.'
Perversely the poodle started to trot further down the cliff but in the same instant Mr Willoughby half-fell, half-jumped and caught him firmly in both hands, a moment later giving him a light but stern box on one ear. Whether from the shock of seeing her dog struck for the first time in his life or from the sheer violence of her relief at seeing him saved Miss Kingsford never quite knew, but suddenly cliff and sea and sky tilted and swayed in sickening confusion. A white veil of vertigo enshrouded her completely and then turned suddenly to black. A moment later she dropped to the grass, burying her face in Mr Willoughby's cap, smothered by a faint aroma of hair oil.
When she finally looked up again Mr Willoughby was sitting on the grass too, holding the dog in his lap. There was no heart in her to speak to the dog or even, at that
moment, to Mr Willoughby. She simply gave the two figures a sickly stare.
âI think you'd better let me buy you a drink,' Mr Willoughby said. To her infinite astonishment he gave a short laugh. âYou look a little peaky. You won't be sick into my cap, will you?'
âOh! my God. I'm sorryâ'
Mr Willoughby stood up, gave her a hand and pulled her to her feet. She wanted to be sick but succeeded, somehow, in not being sick. Restlessly the poodle struggled in Mr Willoughby's arms and playfully he slapped its ear again.
âWe'll get a sherry or a brandy or something at
The Mariner's Arms
,' he said. âI sometimes drop in there.'
They started to walk slowly across the grass, Mr Willoughby carrying the poodle in one hand and his cap in the other.
âWhy do you call him Toff?'