The Darling Buds of May

by H. E. Bates

  When Pop went to collect the animal, which was called Jasmine, he found it staring with detached interest at a soldier and a passionate, well-formed young blonde, both of whom were oblivious, in the grasses, of the presence of watchers. Jasmine, Pop thought, seemed so interested in what was going on that after being led away some paces she turned, pricked up her ears and looked around, rather as if she wanted to come back and see it all again.

  After all this Pop selected Jasmine for Miss Pilchester to ride. The animal stood dangerously still at the starting point, in stubborn suspense, while Pop gave earnest ante-post advice to Miss Pilchester, who sat astride.

  ‘Hang on with your knees. Don’t let go. Hang on tight. Like grim death.’

  Miss Pilchester, already looking like grim death, gave a hasty glance round at the other competitors, dismayed to find them all young, effervescent girls of sixteen or seventeen. She herself felt neither young nor effervescent and the donkey was horribly hairy underneath her calves.

  ‘Don’t mind them, Edith. Don’t look at them. Look straight ahead – straight as you can go. Hang on like grim death.’

  Miss Pilchester became vaguely aware of carrots, in orange arcs, being waved in all directions. A few animals trotted indifferently up the track, between shrieking, cheering rows of spectators. One trotted at incautious speed for thirty yards or so and then, as if inexplicably bored about something, turned and came back. Another sidled to the side of the track and leaned against a post, allowing itself to be stroked by various children, including Victoria and the twins. Two girls fell off, screaming, and there were gay momentary glimpses of black and apricot lingerie.

  Jasmine stood fast. ‘Git up, old gal!’ Pop said, and started to push her. ‘Git up there, Jasmine!’ Pop put his weight against her rump and heaved. Nothing happened, and it seemed as if Jasmine had sunk her feet into the ground.

  It was all absolutely ghastly, Miss Pilchester was just thinking when over the loudspeaker a voice started up an announcement about Anne Fitzgerald; aged three, who had lost her mother. Would Mrs Fitzgerald please –.

  The loudspeaker gave a few snappy barks. Jasmine cocked her ears and broke through with frenzy the final waving arcs of carrots, leaving Pop on the ground and everybody scattered.

  Miss Pilchester, as Pop had so earnestly and correctly advised, hung on firmly and desperately with her knees, just like grim death, and in thirty seconds Jasmine was back at the river, once more staring into the world of grasses, water-lilies, irises, and a soldier’s summer love.

  Half-dismounting, half-falling, a dishevelled and demoralized Miss Pilchester stood staring too. It was all absolutely and utterly ghastly and it only made things worse when the soldier, disturbed in the middle of his technique, looked up calmly and said:

  ‘Why don’t you go away, Ma? Both of you. You and your sister.’

  8

  Pop, uncertain as to quite who had been invited to the party and who had not, spent most of the rest of the afternoon hailing odd acquaintances, generously clapping them on the back, and saying: ‘See you at eight o’clock. See you at the party.’ The result was that by half-past eight the billiard room was a clamorous, fighting mass of fifty or sixty people, one half of whom had never received a formal invitation.

  ‘I never thought we asked this lot,’ Ma said. ‘Hardly enough stuff to go round –’

  ‘Let ’em all come!’ Pop said.

  The billiard room was the perfick place, he thought, for having the party. The billiard table, covered over by trestle table boards and then with a big white cloth, was just the thing for the eats, the champagne, and the glasses. One of the doors led back into the house, in case people wanted to pop upstairs, and the other into the garden, so that those who felt inclined could dodge out and take the air.

  Through the thickest fog of smoke Pop had ever seen outside a smoking concert, he and Ma, helped by Mariette, Mr Charlton, and Montgomery, served food, poured out champagne, and handed glasses round. Every now and then people collided with each other in the crowded fog and a glass went smashing to the floor. Nobody seemed to care about this and Ma was glad the glasses had been hired from caterers. That was another brilliant idea of Mr Charlton’s.

  Now and then someone, almost always someone he hardly knew, came up to Pop, squeezed his elbow, and said, ‘Damn good party, Larkin, old boy. Going well,’ so that Pop felt very pleased. Ma too moved everywhere with genial expansiveness. In the crowd she seemed larger than ever, so that whenever she moved her huge body from one spot to another a large open vacuum was formed.

  In one of these spaces, alongside a wall, Pop found the two Miss Barnwells, Effie and Edna, who, to his infinite pain and surprise, had no crumb or glass between them. The Miss Barnwells, who were thinking of applying for National Assistance because times were so bad, were two genteel freckled little ladies, daughters of an Indian civil servant, who had been born in Delhi. Among other things they kept bees and their little yellow faces, crowded with freckles, looked as if they were regularly and thoroughly stung all over.

  ‘Nothing to eat? Nothing to drink?’

  Pop could hardly believe it; he was shocked.

  ‘We were just contemplating.’

  ‘Contemplate my foot,’ Pop said. ‘I’ll get you a glass o’ champagne.’

  ‘No, no,’ they said. ‘Nothing at all like that.’

  ‘Terrible,’ Pop said. ‘Nobody looking after you. I’ll get you a sandwich.’

  Coming back a moment or two later with a plate of Ma’s delicious buttery ham sandwiches, he returned to the painful subject of the Miss Barnwells and their having nothing to drink at all.

  ‘Glass o’ beer? Drop o’ cider? Glass o’ port?’

  ‘No, no. No, thank you. We are quite happy.’

  ‘Have a Ma Chérie.’

  The air seemed to light up with infinite twinkling freckles.

  ‘What is a Ma Chérie?’

  Ma Chérie was hardly, Pop thought, a drink at all. It was simply sherry, soda, and a dash of something or other, he could never remember quite what. It was nothing like Red Bull or Rolls-Royce or Chauffeur, the good ones.

  ‘Soda with flavouring,’ he said.

  ‘That sounds quite nice. Perhaps we might have two of –’

  Pop was away, pushing through the foggy crowd to the living room, where he presently mixed two Ma Chéries, double strength, adding an extra dash of brandy to hold the feeble things together.

  ‘There you are. Knock that back.’

  The Miss Barnwells, who hardly ever had much lunch on Saturdays, took their glasses, chewing rapidly, and thanked him. The air danced with freckles. He was, they said, infinitely kind.

  ‘I’ll keep ’em topped up,’ Pop said.

  A moment later a firm gentle hand fixed itself to his elbow and drew him away.

  ‘Mr Larkin, isn’t it?’

  A tallish lady in a small grey tweed hat with a peacock feather in it smiled at him over a piece of cheese toast and a glass of champagne.

  ‘Lady Bluff-Gore. You remember?’

  Pop remembered; they had met occasionally at village Christmas socials.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Pop said. ‘Lady Rose.’

  ‘Afraid we don’t run across each other very often.’

  She smiled again; her ivory teeth were remarkably long and large.

  ‘I hear you made an interesting suggestion to my husband this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh! about the house? That’s right. Time it was pulled down.’

  ‘So I heard.’

  All afternoon she had been thinking what an interesting suggestion it was to pull the house down. She had so long wanted to pull it down herself.

  ‘Who wants these old places?’ Pop said.

  Who indeed? she thought. She had so often longed to pull hers down, and all the miles of silly greenhouses, unused stables, and draughty barns. Perhaps if it were pulled down, she thought, they might have a little money in the bank instead of living on overdrafts. Perhaps Rosemar
y would come back. Perhaps they could really live in comfort for a change.

  ‘Would it be too much to ask what you feel it’s worth?’

  ‘Could take a squint at it tomorrow,’ Pop said, ‘and let you know.’

  Nothing like striking the iron while it was hot, Pop thought. That’s how he liked to do things. In a couple of hours he could get a rough idea what bricks, tiles, doors, flooring, and hard core he would get out of it. In two shakes he could be on the blower to Freddy Fox and do a deal with Freddy.

  ‘Yes, I’ll take a squint at it –’

  ‘Do you suppose – could we talk elsewhere?’ she said. Her voice was quiet. ‘It’s a little public here.’

  Elsewhere, at Pop’s suggestion, was under the walnut tree. The evening was overcast and humid, with a feeling of coming rain. Cuckoos were still calling across the fields in their late bubbling voices and a few people were wandering among Ma’s flower-beds, taking the air.

  ‘You see it wouldn’t be at all an easy business to persuade my husband.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Not at all an easy man.’

  Pop didn’t doubt it at all.

  ‘All the same I think I might persuade him.’

  If he could persuade Miss Pilchester to ride the donkey, Pop thought, it ought to be possible to persuade Bluff-Gore to do a little thing like pulling a mansion down. Nothing to it. Perhaps by much the same process too?

  ‘It’s just a thought,’ she said, ‘but supposing I did?’

  ‘Don’t get it,’ Pop said.

  ‘Mightn’t it be an idea to come to some little arrangement? You and I?’

  Women were clever, Pop thought. That showed you how clever women were. All the same under their skins. He snagged on now. Lady Five Per Cent he would call her now.

  ‘I get you,’ Pop said.

  ‘Good. Shall I let you know when we might have another little talk?’

  Back in the smoky, clamorous fog he discovered the Miss Barnwells gazing at empty glasses. How had they liked the Ma Chérie? Quite delicious, they thought; and he went away to get them more.

  In the comparative quiet of the sitting room, where it was getting dusk, he got the impression that the entire billiard room would, at any moment, blow up behind him. The place was a whirring dynamo, rapidly running hot.

  ‘And what about me?’

  It was Miss Pilchester, furtive against the Spanish galleon. Another one come to collect her interest, Pop supposed.

  ‘Having a nice time?’

  ‘It’ll be nicer when you’ve kept your promise.’

  Might as well get it over, Pop thought.

  ‘Lovely party. Such luck with the weather. Best gymkhana we’ve ever had.’

  Pop put down the two Ma Chéries and braced himself. Miss Pilchester simply didn’t know how to hold herself for the act of kissing and Pop seized her like a sheaf of corn. There was a momentary bony stir of corsets and Miss Pilchester gave a short palpitating sigh. She had determined, this time, to give everything she’d got.

  For all the velvet artistry he put into it Pop could make little impression on lips so well fortified with teeth that he felt they might at any moment crack like walnuts underneath the strain.

  ‘Thanks. That was just what the doctor ordered. Time for one more?’

  ‘Last one,’ Pop said. ‘Must get back to the party.’

  With thrilling silence Miss Pilchester gave everything she’d got for the second time. It was almost too much for Pop, who throughout the kiss was wondering if, after all, he might indulge in a firework or two. Finally Miss Pilchester broke away, gazing wildly up at him.

  ‘And in case I don’t get another chance of seeing you alone again, thanks for everything. Marvellous day. All your doing. Simply wouldn’t have been anything without you. Best gymkhana we’ve ever had. And this party. Made me very happy.’

  The length of the speech suddenly seemed to take away the rest of her capacity for calm. She gave something like a sob, patted Pop’s cheek, and rushed hurriedly away and upstairs, brushing past two women already on their way up. Once more she had forgotten to say how absolutely ghastly everything was.

  ‘You simply must see the polly,’ one woman was saying. Purple and yellow tiles with big blue hollyhocks coming out the top. And pink nymphs on the bath mirror.’

  ‘Oh! God!’ Miss Pilchester said.

  Taking the two Ma Chéries back to the Miss Barnwells Pop found them laughing merrily, chewing at their seventh ham sandwich.

  ‘Going positively to drag you away if you’ll let me.’

  The longest, slimmest, coolest hand Pop had ever touched suddenly came and took him sinuously away from the munching Miss Barnwells, now eagerly sipping their second Ma Chéries.

  ‘They tell me you practically organized this whole bunfight single-handed.’

  A tall aristocratically fair girl, so fair that her hair was almost barley-white, with a figure like a reed and enormous pellucid olive eyes, had Pop so transfixed that, for a moment, he was almost unnerved. He had never seen her, or anyone like her, before.

  ‘The thing positively went like a bomb.’

  The cool, long hand still held his own. The large pale eyes, languidly swimming, washed over him an endless stream of softer and softer glances.

  ‘And this party. What a slam.’

  Her dress was pure clear primrose, with a long V-neck. She wore long transparent earrings that swung about her long neck like dewy pendulums.

  ‘Going to have a party of my own next week. Say you’ll come.’

  Pop, who had so far not spoken a word, murmured something about he’d love to, trying at the same time to decide where and when he’d seen this unheralded vision before, deciding finally that he never had.

  ‘Gorgeous party. Do you dance at all?’

  ‘Used to fling ’em up a bit at one time.’

  ‘Scream.’

  She laughed on clear bell-like notes.

  ‘My dear. Absolute scream.’

  Bewitched, Pop again had nothing to say. A vacuum left by Ma, three or four feet away from him, made him feel quite naked before it filled up again.

  ‘That donkey ride, they tell me, was your idea. Blistering success.’

  Pop, with a certain touch of pride, admitted it.

  ‘The seven foolish virgins. Scream. Couldn’t stop laughing. Practically needed changing –’

  Again she laughed on pure bell-like notes, the dewy earrings dancing.

  ‘Just what it needed. They can be absolute stinkers, gymkhanas, don’t you think? Everybody jog-trotting round. Fond mothers biting lips because little Waffles doesn’t win the trotting on Pretty Boy. Oh! absolute stinkers.’

  She held him captured with moist splendid eyes.

  ‘But you thought of the virgins. That was the stroke. Absolute genius. Absolute scream, the virgins.’

  She suddenly gave Pop what he thought was a fleeting sporting wink.

  ‘So few, after all, aren’t there?’

  To Pop it now began to seem that he might have met, under the sheer primrose sheath, the dancing earrings, the aristocratic voice, and the shining languid eyes, a character something after his own heart and kind.

  ‘But seriously, dear man, what I came to say was this. My name’s Angela Snow. Emhurst Valley. We’ve got one of these pony-trots coming off in August – what say you come over and bring the donkey outfit and make that one go with a bang?’

  The word bang made Pop remember something. It was, he thought, the one thing needed to make the day a perfick one.

  ‘Like fireworks?’

  ‘Love ’em. Adore ’em.’

  ‘Stay here,’ Pop said, ‘while I fetch you a drop more champagne.’ He started to struggle through the smoky screen hemming him in on all sides and then remembered something and came back to her. ‘Or a cocktail? Rather have a cocktail?’

  ‘Adore one. Just what I need.’

  ‘This way.’

  He started to lead the way out to the s
itting room, but half way he was stopped by Mr Charlton and Mariette, who said:

  ‘Pop, Charley has something he’d like to say to you.’

  ‘Not now,’ Pop said. ‘Busy now.’

  ‘It’s terribly important. It’s something he’s got to ask you.’

  Mr Charlton looked unexpectedly strained and tense. Must have found out about the baby, Pop supposed. Pity.

  ‘Be back in five minutes,’ he said and followed the tall, reedy, primrose figure into the sitting room.

  There, over his Spanish galleon, he asked the dewy, languid girl which she would rather have – Rolls-Royce, Red Bull, or Chauffeur. Red Bull was the blinder, he said.

  ‘Red Bull then, dear,’ she said. ‘What names they give them nowadays.’

  Pop mixed two double Red Bulls and in the falling twilight the elegant Angela Snow knocked hers back with the coolest speed, like a man.

  ‘One more of these, dear boy, and I’m ready.’

  Pop was ready too. Ten minutes later the first firework went off like a bomb under Ma, who showed hardly any sign of disturbance at all. The two ladies who had been to investigate Ma’s impossible bathroom met a Roman Candle on the stairs. The tall reedy girl put two jumping crackers under the Brigadier’s sister and another under Sir George Bluff-Gore. Ma started laughing like a jelly and Pop put a Mighty Atom under the billiard table where it set the glasses ringing like a xylophone. The two Miss Barnwells started giggling uncontrollably and said it reminded them of a pujah in Delhi and Miss Pilchester was heard saying she knew this would happen and that it was absolutely ghastly and she’d hide under the stairs. People started running from the smoky house into the garden, where the tall, languid girl had a big fizzing Catherine Wheel already going on the walnut tree and was now getting ready to put a Roman Candle as near as she could without killing him under a man named Jack Farley, who was a complete slob and had tried to pinch her three times in the tea tent early in the afternoon. A few rockets started shooting up from empty champagne bottles into a sky now summerily dark, cuckoo-less, and completely canopied with cloud. Pop did what he had so long wanted to do and put a beauty under Miss Pilchester, who started shrieking she was burned. Upstairs Primrose, Victoria, and the twins hung out of the bedroom windows shouting, laughing, and eating the day’s last ice-cream, potato crisps, and appletart. In the middle of it all Mariette and Mr Charlton tried once again, with little success, to speak with Pop, who was running about the flower beds waving a Golden Rain, calling like a Red Indian, happy as a boy. When finally Pop had thrown the Golden Rain over a damson tree Mr Charlton said: