The Golden Oriole

by H. E. Bates

  Then she heard the ringing of the house-bell and she knew after all that Mr Mansfield had not come home. She listened a little longer, heard the house-bell a second and then a third time and at last looked through the canopy of apple-leaves to see, twenty yards or so away, a strange man of thirty-four or five admiring the wall of yellow roses, all curdling brilliance in the sun.

  ‘Good afternoon. Was there something you wanted?’ The words were formed and spoken before she realized how impossible and ridiculous her situation in the apple tree might seem. ‘I’m up here. In the tree.’

  Strongly featured, with a full mouth and dark hair and eyes, the man came across the lawn to the apple tree.

  ‘Oh! there you are. Mrs Mansfield? I couldn’t see you at first. You were quite hidden by leaves.’

  ‘Yes, here I am.’ It suddenly seemed necessary, for some reason, to explain her presence in the tree. ‘I’m gathering a few apples.’

  He smiled, cocking his head to one side in the way that birds sometimes do, half-listening, half-suspicious.

  ‘Apples? I can’t say they look very large.’

  ‘Oh! no, no. I mean I’m merely thinning them out.’

  ‘Oh! I see.’

  He smiled again and she thought the vivacity of the dark eyes seemed very slightly mocking.

  ‘Was there something you wanted? I’ll come down.’

  ‘Oh! no. Please don’t.’ He glanced swiftly and fully at her, perched up in the heart of the tree with her knees partly exposed against a branch, as if he frankly liked the sight of her in her light cream dress against the mass of shadow. ‘I really wondered if Mr Mansfield was at home?’

  ‘No. I’m expecting him. I thought in fact it was him when I heard you coming.’

  ‘It’s nothing desperate. It’s just about an insurance paper.’

  ‘I see.’

  He looked at her openly again and once more with the sort of smile that seemed to mock her slightly. Uneasy, she held the edges of her dress tightly in her fingers.

  He looked at his watch.

  ‘How soon are you expecting him?’

  ‘Oh! any moment. He’s always down on the six-eight train.’

  Again, and once more with the faintest mockery, he looked at his watch a second time.

  ‘Six-eight? It isn’t half-past five.’

  She felt herself flushing; like a girl she plunged into a vortex of hot embarrassment, her lips innocently quivering, her sudden rush of words unrelated to anything rational. She started to say stupidly:

  ‘Oh! yes I know – I ought to have known. I mistook the time. But it really seemed later when I started to hide—’

  ‘Started to what?’

  With a smile that was really deadly serious he held her transfixed. In another and still more acute rush of embarrassment she could think of nothing to say but:

  ‘I think I’ll come down after all. All right, I can jump—

  ‘Don’t jump. For God’s sake,’ he said. ‘You’ll break a leg.’

  With a springing sort of gesture he held up both arms. A moment later, hardly conscious in the depths of her embarrassment of doing it, she half-slid, half-dropped from the tree. He caught her under the armpits and she was conscious of a narrow dart of pain rushing up like an ecstatic arrow through the centre of her body as her feet touched the ground.

  ‘I once jumped out of a tree and broke a leg,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want you to go through that pain.’

  The way he said this seemed to her very personal; his voice was completely serious. Then something made her say:

  ‘They always say men can’t bear pain. But I must confess I’m not very good at it myself.’

  ‘The gnawing of the bone when it knits,’ he said, ‘God, I’ll never forget that. I can still feel it sometimes when I dream. I feel the actual pain.’

  ‘You dream a lot?’

  ‘Rather. Yes: often.’

  ‘In colour?’

  She did not know what made her ask this; all her thoughts were unpremeditated.

  ‘Yes, I do. Now you come to ask, quite often in colour.’

  ‘How extraordinary.’

  ‘Extraordinary. Why?’

  ‘It’s very rare for a man to dream in colour. Women often do. But not men.’

  ‘Oh?’ he said. Now his voice was sceptical. He looked at her again in that bird-like, sideways, softly mocking way. ‘How do you know? Do you ask people whether they—’

  ‘Oh! no, no, no.’ Confusion made her face redden again. She looked hopelessly shy. ‘I read all about it somewhere in an article. It said it was a fact – it was very, very rare for men.’

  ‘I must be a freak, then.’ He laughed a warm, friendly laugh, head thrown back. ‘Does Mr Mansfield dream in colour?’

  ‘Mr Mansfield? Oh ! I wouldn’t know about that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t know?’

  ‘Well, you see, I – Oh! I’ve never asked him. I wouldn’t know if he even dreams.’

  ‘How odd.’

  ‘Odd? Yes, I suppose it is – but then you see, we don’t – we have – I mean, we always—’

  A great rush of confusion overtook her again. Just as she had no idea why she should suddenly start discussing dreams with an entire stranger so she now had no idea what odd new words were coming next. Incredibly she said:

  ‘What I mean is – you see, we have separate rooms. We always—’

  She broke off, but the flight of the remaining few unspoken words had already reached their destination as surely as if she had uttered them.

  That’s Mr Mansfield’s way of keeping me on a throne – the thought went crazily whirling through her head like an accusing flagellation – the Princess. Me, Prinny. Gracious Heaven, what on earth am I thinking?

  ‘I had a marvellously clear dream in colour one night last week. Clear as paint,’ he said. ‘Oh! I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself. Here we stand talking and – my name’s George Seamark. I work for Lister’s. I met Mr Mansfield on the train the other day and we got talking. He’s arranging an insurance policy for me.’

  ‘I see. What was the dream?’

  ‘Oh! beautiful. I dreamed I caught a golden oriole. You know, it’s a bird.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘I don’t think I know it.’ She paused for quite some moments, remembering with irritation Mr Mansfield and the thrush. ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘Yellow. A lovely golden yellow.’

  ‘I don’t think I ever saw one.’

  ‘Oh! you wouldn’t. Not in this country: it isn’t a native. One or two sometimes migrate here in the summer, but—’

  ‘And you caught it in your hands?’

  ‘Picked it up off the ground. Just like that. Quite tame.’ He laughed lightly. ‘Oh! and another extraordinary thing. It spoke to me.’

  ‘Really?’ What did it say?’

  ‘Just its name. Oriole. That’s all. Oriole.’ He laughed again. ‘And then of course I woke up.’

  She too felt suddenly as if she were waking up. An extraordinary dream had unwoven itself in the short distance between the apple tree and the rose on the house wall. The heat of the evening sun extracted from the mass of golden petals a deep and drugging sweetness and she drew a great breath of it, momentarily shutting her eyes and then opening them again.

  When she consciously looked about her, fully awake as it were, it was to see Mr Mansfield, brief-case in hand, padding flabbily up the drive.

  ‘Ah! young Seamark. I thought it looked like you. Brought the papers, I suppose. Remember your birth certificate?’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘Never mind. Give it to me tomorrow morning on the train.’

  ‘I’m not going up tomorrow. I’ll have to drop it in – I’ll try to remember it tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Will you stay and have a cup of tea?’ Mrs Mansfield said. ‘Oh! it’s no trouble. I’m going to get some for Mr Mansfield anyway.’

  ‘Oh! yes – stay. Prinny will soon get it,’ Mr Mansfield said. ‘
I’m dying for a cup. The heat on that train!’

  Mrs Mansfield started to walk away to the house. As she turned towards the wall of petals the intense concentration of gold so momentarily dazzled her that when, at the doorway, something made her turn and look back she saw the two men almost as two tremulous ghosts, dream-bound and unreal, in a haze.

  A few moments later she was hiding away in the kitchen – only this time not from Mr Mansfield but in some strange way from herself.

  A curious premonition made her put the kettle on to boil, the following afternoon, at half-past three. Two minutes later George Seamark, birth certificate in hand, walked up the drive.

  ‘I thought tomato sandwiches would be cool,’ she said as she poured tea behind the drawn blinds of the sitting room. ‘It’s so awfully hot again.’

  The unguarded innocence of the remark was not lost on George Seamark, who suddenly realized that she had been expecting him.

  ‘The temperature didn’t even seem to drop in the night,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t sleep at all. In fact I came down and wandered around in the garden for a time.’

  ‘Slept like a top,’ he said. ‘I was tired. Not a sign of a dream either.’

  She was wearing a sleeveless dress of very pale blue, open at the neck for coolness, that exaggerated the air of innocence, almost girlish, that always hung about her. The skin of her rather long bare arms was creamy in tone. The pale wide eyes were almost transparent. But it was really the extraordinary pristine smoothness of the shoulders and arms that struck George Seamark with increasing fascination. It was not merely unblemished; it gave the impression of never having been touched before.

  George Seamark ate six or seven tomato sandwiches and drank two cups of tea and they talked for a time of trivialities. Then at last he said:

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to get used to this heat. Going to get plenty of it in my new job.’

  ‘New job?’

  ‘Lister’s are sending me to Amman. They’ve got a huge new contract there. It’s quite a step up. That’s why I took out the insurance.’

  She felt she wanted to say something like ‘How nice for you. Congratulations,’ but she suddenly felt a peculiar coldness in the cavity of her heart again and said:

  ‘How soon do you go?’

  ‘I fly out in three weeks.’

  ‘Oh! my goodness that isn’t long.’

  ‘Long enough. I’ve had a month’s leave to pack.’

  ‘A whole month? Really?’

  She spoke as if it were a matter of personal concern. At the same time, quite unaware of it, she threw up her hands. When they fell again the long arms seemed to droop.

  The gesture aroused George Seamark to a realisation that the arms were very beautiful. The soft underparts of them quivered softly. Later, when she got up to pour tea, she bent over the table and he saw the same unblemished softness in the upper line of her breasts. Everything about her had the pristine mould of a girl.

  Now he remembered something.

  ‘I hope you won’t think I’m being very personal,’ he said. ‘But what was it Mr Mansfield called you yesterday? Pinny?’

  ‘Oh! no, no.’ She tried to laugh lightly but sucked at her lip instead. ‘Prinny. Not Pinny.’

  ‘Oh! I see. I didn’t quite catch it.’

  ‘It’s really rather silly.’

  ‘Oh! I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh! it isn’t that I mind.’

  Neither of them spoke for a few moments. She lifted the lid of the tea-pot and looked inside it. She needed, she thought, to fetch some more hot water.

  ‘I suppose married people often have silly names for each other. Just like children. Are you married, by the way?’

  ‘Escaped so far.’

  ‘Escaped? You think it might be an escape?’

  ‘Not really. Plenty of time yet, that’s all.’

  She laughed, this time with relief. ‘I just thought you might be one of those men who go about pretending that all women are insufferable—’

  ‘Oh! Good Lord, no. I’m gone on them.’

  She picked up the tea-pot, nervous now. The inner fold of her crooked arm, with its shadowy division of the flesh, all at once struck George Seamark as being like the soft hollow between two breasts and he had a sudden powerful impulse to catch it and hold it in his hand.

  ‘Let me take the tea-pot.’

  ‘Oh! no, I can manage it. I won’t be a moment. Please have something else to eat, won’t you?’

  He followed her into the kitchen. The shadowy hollow of the crooked arm as she lifted the kettle from the stove once again obsessed him while he stood a yard or two away, watching.

  ‘I told you I could manage—’

  ‘Prinny,’ he said. ‘That isn’t right for you. How did that come about?’

  ‘I told you, it’s awfully silly. Why did you come into the kitchen?’

  She was about to pick up the tea-pot; instead she let her hands fall to her sides. The very flatness of her attitude merely heightened the habitual pristine innocence, embalming her in a state of apparently appalled wonder.

  ‘I wanted to be near you.’

  ‘Near me? Why?’

  He slipped his hand into the crook of her arm. The blood throbbed up from the pulse fiercely. He let his hand travel slowly up the arm until it reached the armpit and then the apple of the shoulder and as he did so she gave something like the beginnings of a protesting cry.

  ‘Prinny,’ he said. ‘Prinny. How ever did that come about?’

  ‘It was just that he called me a princess once. That’s all. That’s how it began.’

  ‘Princess. I understand that. That’s more like it.’

  He pressed his mouth against the side of her face. Immediately she gave a convulsive start and began to turn away.

  ‘You shouldn’t do that. It’s not right to do that.’

  ‘Not right?’ he said. ‘Why not right? Just because he doesn’t do it?’

  With something like anguish she lifted both arms in a lost, erratic sort of gesture and held her head in her hands.

  ‘Oh! my God,’ she said, ‘Oh! my God, don’t confuse me. Don’t confuse me, please.’

  She was walking in the garden the following afternoon when, about four o’clock, she suddenly saw him coming up the drive. Almost as if she had mistaken him for Mr Mansfield she hurriedly hid herself behind a large syringa bush in full white bloom. She stood there for almost five minutes, holding her breath and trembling and hearing the house-bell ring.

  Shortly after this, out of curiosity, George Seamark strolled into the garden and she was at once in the ridiculous situation of not knowing whether to reveal herself or to stay hidden until, as with Mr Mansfield, she was discovered. She stood trapped in a mortal agony of embarrassment, made worse by the thick heavy perfume of syringa, exquisite at any time but now so overpowering that it was almost like a drug.

  Presently she knew by the sound of his footsteps that he was coming towards her. A violent and ill-controlled impulse to run away had the effect of suddenly making her swivel her whole body round in a full circle, so that she felt positively faint for a moment or two and almost overbalanced as she turned.

  Then he was there, by the syringa bush, staring at her. She was still trembling so much that in pure fear of being seen she whipped her hands behind her back exactly as if she were concealing something from him.

  When he spoke at last it was very slowly, in a whisper.

  ‘You were hiding from me. Didn’t you want to see me today?’

  ‘It wasn’t that.’

  ‘You were hiding, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She too was speaking in a whisper.

  ‘Why?’

  She paused for several seconds, biting her lip.

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You’re not afraid of me, are you?’

  ‘Oh! no, no. Oh! dear, no.’

  ‘Was it because of what I did yesterday?’

/>   ‘Not exactly. Well, partly perhaps, yes.’

  ‘But I didn’t do anything yesterday really, did I? I simply touched you, that’s all.’

  Before speaking again she gave him a look of desperate appeal, hopelessly at a loss, her face almost as white as the great mass of syringa blossom behind her.

  ‘I told you before, these things are very confusing to someone like me.’

  ‘You mean just because I touched your arm?’

  ‘It wasn’t only that. You said you came into the kitchen because you wanted to be near me.’ She looked at him again with an appeal so painful that it magnified her habitual air of innocence into something so manifestly complicated that her now flushed face actually seemed twisted. ‘But don’t you see? – you’ve only known me such a little while! Only a few minutes—’

  He made as if to take her by both arms and then, sharply aware of all the acuteness of her embarrassment, thought better of it and said:

  ‘There are people you want to touch the first time you ever see them. Haven’t you ever felt like that?’

  ‘I can’t say that I have.’

  ‘It’s often happened to me,’ he said. ‘I was in a café once, having tea. I had an awful impulse to touch the waitress’s arm while she served me. I suppose she might not have minded but I couldn’t stand it. I had to go out—’

  ‘You’re a real man,’ she said with sudden and almost violent bitterness. ‘Choked with vanity. I suppose she might not have minded!—’

  ‘I didn’t mean it quite like that.’

  ‘No? It sounded as if you made a habit of going round touching women for fun. Or perhaps it’s just at tea-time that it comes over you?’

  This last remark, exactly like something delivered by a vexed and sarcastic schoolgirl, made him smile. She lacked the necessary experience to answer his quiet ‘Really now?’ or, for a moment or two, his sudden change of subject:

  ‘You still haven’t told me why you were hiding from me.’

  ‘Do I have to tell you? It’s a very personal matter.’

  ‘So is dreaming in colour.’

  ‘Yes: I asked you about that, didn’t I?’

  He held her for nearly half a minute in a full gaze, not speaking. The particular warm whiteness of the great mass of syringa blossom had seemed for the last few moments to give her face an exceptionally dark flush but now the blood drained suddenly away again, leaving her mouth pale.