The Song of the Wren

by H. E. Bates

  ‘Now about this concert, Mr Parr. The music for Christmas? What do you think? What are people saying? I mean, do you think they want it? Is it going to be an awful smash?’

  ‘Well,’ Mr Parr would say, ‘I ain’t saying this and I ain’t saying that.’

  ‘Yes, but what do they feel?’

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Parr would say, ‘What do they?’

  ‘I mean do they want it? Wouldn’t they rather have the ordinary Good King Wenceslas stuff?’

  ‘I daresay some want it. I daresay some don’t.’

  ‘It’s absolutely awful, isn’t it? You go to endless shattering trouble, and then people let you down. You want to give them something different and all the time there’s this awful treachery.’

  Miss Peploe would raise long thin arms and ruckle her forehead until it was like old pale crust below her grey hair.

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Parr would say, ‘you don’t hear half what I hear.’

  Leaning against the doorpost Mr Parr would strike sudden businesslike attitudes, retrieving his pencil from behind his ear. His ears were very large and always in winter he wore a thick brown balaclava helmet under which his ears appeared like the swellings of incipient mumps. From the front of the helmet protruded bland plum-like eyes.

  ‘This won’t do,’ Mr Parr would say. ‘Got to rush along. All behind.’

  ‘I’ve got a cup of tea on.’

  ‘More than my life’s worth. Well – all right, if I drink it standing up.’

  In Miss Peploe’s kitchen Mr Parr would drink a cup of tea standing up and then, after some moments, he would drink another cup of tea sitting down.

  ‘What have you heard?’ Miss Peploe would say.

  ‘Well, I’m going to one place today.’

  ‘Down there?’

  ‘I was down there yesterday.’

  ‘Was anything said?’

  ‘No: nothing was said. Not what you’d call said.’

  ‘Oh! That Mrs Cuthbert! These people!’

  Miss Peploe would pour Mr Parr another cup of tea and then discover that she had a sample of pre-Christmas cake, un-iced, in the kitchen cupboard. ‘I know you’ve a sweet tooth Mr Parr.’ Crumbs of rich cake would lodge themselves in the lower cup of Mr Parr’s balaclava helmet until Mr Parr washed them away with fresh swigs of tea.

  ‘I suppose she thinks Laura should sing?’

  ‘Don’t want to take no notice,’ Mr Parr said.

  ‘That’s it, isn’t it? She thinks that girl – that creature – should sing?’

  ‘Don’t want to take no notice.’

  ‘But this is a London affair. They’re London artists. It isn’t a local thing. After all, they are going to sing the lesser known Elizabethan things—’

  ‘Ah,’ Mr Parr would say, ‘that’s it.’

  ‘But it’s so absolutely imbecile. She herself is on the committee.’ Distractedly Miss Peploe would roam about the kitchen. ‘I’m off my head trying to get the best performers, the best artists and something unusual, then there’s this absolute treachery.’

  Suddenly she flew down on Mr Parr like a bird, her mouth pecking.

  ‘What did she say? Tell me – what did she say?’

  ‘Nothing was said.’

  ‘I give the whole thing up, I give it up, I simply give it up.’

  Blandly Mr Parr licked crumbs from his balaclava and sucked at his tea.

  ‘That’s what they’re after,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, no!’ Miss Peploe said. ‘Oh, no! That girl has never sung in a decent concert in her life. I’ve heard her, it’s true – but her voice might have been trained by an ironmonger or something. I say trained – but it’s a mere term, that’s all.’

  Mr Parr shook his head. ‘Nothing to do with me,’ he said. ‘Nothing to do with me.’ He rose to go. ‘It’s only what I hear.’

  ‘Oh! Really, oh! Honestly!’ Miss Peploe said. ‘You’d never dream. You’d think people would have something better to do, so near Christmas!’

  ‘You would,’ Mr Parr said

  All day Mr Parr bicycled about the town, his mump-like head pressed against the wind, calling from house to house. The open front of his woollen helmet was a bland naked yawn, giving him the appearance of a species of adenoidal monkey.

  In the afternoon, Mr Parr called on Mrs Cuthbert. Mrs Cuthbert came from the north Midlands where people knew what music was; where the term artist was never used; where singers were simply singers and where, indeed, they could sing. Mrs Cuthbert, who was tall and large boned and had a weakness for frills in dresses, had something of the look of a discarded Christmas cracker. She spoke in a strong northern accent and was fond of talking of experiences in choral society work and in quartets and of saying that the south – implying Miss Peploe – did not really know what music was. In regions north of Nottingham people were favoured by Providence with voices of whose quality the south knew nothing. ‘Up there don’t need telling about music. We know.’ Mrs Cuthbert would say. ‘It is in our blood.’

  Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter, Laura, was married to a traveller in wholesale chemicals whose work took him for weeks at a time to western coastal towns. She was tall and dark, with a contralto voice of average quality and friendly attractive manners and warm brown eyes. On several occasions Mr Parr had seen her talking to the secretary of the Liberal Club, a Mr Wyndham, who sometimes took the tenor lead in local operettas and appeared to have nothing better to do than drink coffee in the Mecca tearooms or walk the streets all day. Mr Parr always gazed at Mr Cuthbert’s daughter and Mr Wyndham with open mouth. He touched the corner of his woollen helmet and sucked at his teeth in monkey-like surprise.

  At Mrs Cuthbert’s house there was strong honest north-country tea for Mr Parr to drink at four o’clock in the afternoon, together with girdle scones and pre-Christmas mince-pies, snowy with sugar.

  ‘Everybody knows you’ve got a sweet tooth, Mr Parr.’

  ‘Well,’ Mr Parr would say, ‘some do.’

  Mrs Cuthbert’s Christmas cracker figure rustled harshly.

  ‘And how is the great carol concert going?’

  Mr Parr snuffled out the word ‘committee’ between mouthfuls of mince-pie.

  ‘Yes, I am on the committee. I am on the committee and I know nothing,’ Mrs Cuthbert said.

  ‘There’s some as don’t want you to know.’

  ‘I am a mere cipher. I have given up asking.’

  Mr Parr between mouthfuls of mince-pie, mentioned the word ‘profits.’

  ‘Profits!’ Mrs Cuthbert said. ‘What profits? Where do you suppose profits are coming from? What possible profits with the soloists alone costing a minimum of sixty guineas?’

  ‘Some are doing all right,’ Mr Parr said.

  ‘Would you credit it?’ Mrs Cuthbert said. ‘Can you believe?’

  ‘Only what I hear,’ Mr Parr said. ‘I only put two and two together.’

  ‘Would you credit it?’ Mrs Cuthbert said. ‘Would you believe? I can’t think why we don’t have the good old-fashioned carols sung by a choir.’

  ‘When you know what I know,’ Mr Parr said.

  ‘I shall bring it up in committee,’ Mrs Cuthbert said. ‘I shall clear the air once and for all. We have one more committee meeting before Christmas. I shall have a showdown.’

  Bicycling back through the town Mr Parr saw Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter and Mr Wyndham drinking tea in the window of the Mecca restaurant. The window was gay with Christmas cakes sparsely decorated with sprigs of synthetic holly. Mr Parr wondered where Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter’s husband was that week and if it were significant, or simply an accident, that travelling in chemicals took him so far away.

  ‘I would say nothing if the girl were trained,’ Miss Peploe said.

  ‘Trained in some things,’ Mr Parr said.

  ‘I’m quite sure.’

  ‘It’s not one day. I see it every day.’

  Mr Parr gave a simple off-hand description of Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter and Mr Wyndham in the Mecca restau
rant. He plucked carelessly at his balaclava helmet as if what he said was a trivial thing.

  ‘Wyndham,’ Miss Peploe said. ‘He’s another. They themselves are on the committee and yet there is always this dreadful talk behind one’s back. There is always this lack of trust.’

  Mr Parr now referred to Mr Wyndham as being ‘on the prowl.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Well, when you get round like I do— ’

  ‘It shakes your faith in human nature,’ Miss Peploe said. ‘It absolutely shakes you.’

  ‘Women are as bad as the men,’ Mr Parr said.

  ‘I’ve been opposed to her singing all the way along on artistic grounds,’ Miss Peploe said. ‘But the other thing – well, I am very glad we are not involved in that.’

  ‘Of course I ain’t saying— ’

  ‘No, no,’ Miss Peploe said. ‘No, no.’

  Committee meetings were held at Miss Peploe’s on Wednesday evenings. When Mr Parr had gone Miss Peploe spent twenty minutes on the telephone talking to Mr Grafton Brown, the treasurer.

  ‘I don’t want to appear prejudiced. I don’t want there to be any feeling of bias or favour. I want it to be quite open.’

  ‘Would you rather it were held at my house? – here?’

  ‘That was what I was coming to.’

  When the committee was held at Mr Grafton Brown’s house the following evening it struck Miss Peploe to be of curious significance that neither Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter nor Mr. Wyndham was present. She declined the chairmanship on grounds of prejudice. The chair was taken instead by a Miss Scott, who gave lessons in the violin at the local high school, and played the violin herself in the Ladies’ String Ensemble. In Miss Peploe’s view Miss Scott taught and had been taught, an antiquated provincial technique with effects that were disastrous. ‘But then you see it’s not London.’

  Miss Scott gave a brief report of the activities of the last meeting. ‘I think that’s the position as I understand it,’ she said. ‘Is it your wish I sign?’ and there were murmurs and mumblings and raised hands.

  Mrs Cuthbert rose and said. ‘That is not the position as I understand it. There are matters I would like to bring up—’

  ‘The next item on the agenda is the treasurer’s report. We must take the agenda— ’

  ‘Oh! Very well.’

  Mrs Grafton Brown gave the treasurer’s report, during which Mrs Cuthbert and Miss Peploe did not look at each other. At the end of the treasurer’s report Mrs Cuthbert said: ‘Is it or is it not in order to comment on the finances at this juncture?’

  ‘The meeting is not yet thrown open.’

  ‘I simply wanted to know.’

  ‘We must keep to the agenda,’ Miss Scott said.

  It was then discovered that there was no further agenda. Miss Scott threw the meeting open. Mrs Cuthbert and Miss Peploe began at once to speak together. Miss Peploe began to say that Christmas was almost upon them. Miss Scott, who knew of Miss Peploe’s prejudices against her playing of the violin, called on Mrs Cuthbert.

  Mrs Cuthbert gazed at the mantelpiece and in a rectangular brick-like accent said:

  ‘There have been certain rumours.’

  ‘I think the meeting is entitled to facts, not gossip,’ Miss Peploe said.

  ‘Hear, hear.’ It was Mr Grafton Brown, who was manager of the local bank and wished the society to make profits.

  ‘Madame Chairman,’ Mrs Cuthbert said, ‘I would like to place before the meeting a proposition that this Christmas concert be abandoned.’

  ‘Oh! No, no,’ Mr Grafton Brown said.

  ‘That’s going a bit far, I think.’ It was a Mr. Cornwallis, who kept a small music store in the High street and was anxious for the society to succeed, as he put it, on grounds of urban prestige.

  ‘I am a north-country woman. I say what I mean,’ Mrs Cuthbert said. ‘I consider the concert should be abandoned.’

  ‘On what grounds?’ It was Miss Peploe.

  ‘We have embarked on a project far too ambitious for the town. That’s on what grounds.’

  ‘We are a musical society. Either we should provide music of the best quality or none at all. We should do something above the average— ’

  ‘Average! Very soon we shall be having Flagstad down at three hundred guineas a time,’ Mrs Cuthbert said.

  ‘Nothing of the kind. There is after all sense and reason— ’

  ‘Exactly. Then why do we not encourage local talent? There are those who would like the opportunity of hearing local talent. Especially at a Christmas thing like this.’

  ‘What local talent?’

  Mrs Cuthbert gave a terrible and devastating gasp. Mr Cornwallis felt the air to be charged with disaster and said:

  ‘I don’t think this is going to get the washing done.’

  Miss Scott said: ‘Am I formally to accept this resolution?’

  ‘I suggest that the meeting lacks the necessary quorum of seven members.’ It was Mr Grafton Brown.

  ‘That is so,’ Miss Peploe said. ‘Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter and Mr Wyndham are missing. Somewhere.’

  In outrage Mrs Cuthbert said: ‘There have been rumours! Ugly, dirty rumours!’

  ‘Order, order!’

  ‘I say there have been wicked, ugly, dirty rumours!’

  ‘I think I hear most of what goes on,’ Mr Cornwallis said, ‘but I must say – what rumours?’

  ‘I don’t wish to go into what rumours.’

  ‘It is all so terribly vague and beside the point,’ Miss Scott said.

  ‘When your honour has been impounded you will not say that sort of thing!’ Mrs Cuthbert said.

  ‘Honour? What honour?’ It was Miss Peploe.

  No one could quite understand what the word impounded implied in respect of Miss Scott’s honour and Miss Peploe did not know if it meant that Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter’s honour had also been impounded. She must speak of it to Mr Parr tomorrow.

  At this point Mrs Cuthbert broke down, and white and rustling, began weeping. Tears and words flowed out together.

  ‘You are nothing but a public gossip shop trying to smash other people’s lives! And so near Christmas!—’

  ‘I appeal to you! Madame Chairman!’ Miss Peploe said. ‘I appeal!— ’

  Mrs Cuthbert was led away, weeping; Mr Cornwallis and Mr Grafton Brown followed her into the kitchen, where Mr Grafton Brown poured three glasses of whisky; Miss Peploe drew on her gloves and spoke of the ‘appalling and childish irresponsibility of grown-up people’ and said to Miss Scott:

  ‘She was after your blood, too. What did she mean by the remark about honour?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘Nor,’ Miss Peploe said, ‘would anyone else.’

  In the morning Mr Parr drank tea and ate un-iced plum cake in Miss Peploe’s kitchen. Miss Peploe gave an account of the evening’s proceedings, embellishing the word honour with doubtful meaning. Mr Parr said he had not heard a thing from anybody at all except that the previous afternoon Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter had caught the London train. Miss Peploe poured a second cup of tea and said there was no smoke without fire.

  ‘It’s astonishing how things uncover themselves.’

  ‘You hear some bits,’ Mr Parr Said.

  ‘It’s incredible,’ Miss Peploe said. ‘Quite incredible. But then it’s not London, is it? It’s so local. Need you wonder?’

  In the afternoon, when Mr Parr bicycled down to the far end of town, bland monkey-like face open to the wind, to call on Mrs Cuthbert, there was already a feeling of Christmas in the air. But neither Mrs Cuthbert nor Mrs Cuthbert’s daughter was at home. Only the gardener swept dry yellow lime leaves from the gravel drive.

  ‘Gone away for a few days with the madam’s aunt.’

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘Bit of a dust-up over the music committee.’

  ‘Allus rows on committees,’ Mr Parr said.

  ‘Too true.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Mr Parr said. He pulle
d his balaclava helmet clear of his lips and wetted the end of his pencil. ‘Must get on. This won’t get the washing—’ The gardener leaned dreamily on his brush-handle, then struck several matches and lighted a pipe that enveloped him and Mr Parr in clouds of nauseous, intimate fog. Mr Parr put his pencil behind his ear and leaned his arms on the handle of his bicycle. The gardener spat thoughtfully and said he thought women talked too much and Mr Parr sighed and agreed in sad, windy tones that they put years on you. You never knew where you were.

  ‘Think it’s going to be a white Christmas?’ the gardener said.

  ‘Never know’ Mr Parr said. ‘Might be.’

  For some minutes they considered the prospects of a white Christmas; and then; ‘ah, once you git women together—’ the gardener said. ‘Wonder they ain’t got summat better to do.’

  A few yellow leaves blew along the drive.

  ‘Ah! Well,’ Mr Parr said. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  The gardener blew final nauseous clouds of fog.

  ‘Well, Happy Christmas if I don’t see you again,’ he said.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ Mr Parr said. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. All the best of the season.’

  ‘Same to you.’

  ‘And to you,’ Mr Parr said. ‘I must git on. I got work to do. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ the gardener said.

  A few dead leaves rattled dryly on the path, and in the bare lime boughs above them a pair of robins, with short bright piping’s, made music in the air.

  A Note on the Author

  H. E. Bates was born in 1905 in the shoe-making town of Rushden, Northamptonshire, and educated at Kettering Grammar School. After leaving school, he worked as a reporter and as a clerk in a leather warehouse.

  Many of his stories depict life in the rural Midlands, particularly his native Northamptonshire, where he spent many hours wandering the countryside.

  His first novel, The Two Sisters (1926) was published by Jonathan Cape when he was just twenty. Many critically acclaimed novels and collections of short stories followed.

  During WWII he was commissioned into the RAF solely to write short stories, which were published under the pseudonym ‘Flying Officer X’. His first financial success was Fair Stood the Wind for France (1944), followed by two novels about Burma, The Purple Plain (1947) and The Jacaranda Tree (1949) and one set in India, The Scarlet Sword (1950). Other well-known novels include Love for Lydia (1952) and The Feast of July (1954).