by Bates, H. E.
After Pop had apologized for the absence of Mr Charlton, who had gone out to take a trial run in a second-hand Jaguar that Pop had just taken over in a deal, Mr Candy said:
‘Oh! I’m sorry I shall miss him. He of course is the father of the two children who are to be christened?’
‘Oh! no,’ Pop said. ‘He’s the father of one and I’m the father of the other.’
‘I see. Son and grandson. Rather unique.’
‘You can’t say “rather unique”,’ Primrose said, gazing at Mr Candy with almost fervent remonstration. ‘It’s either unique or it isn’t.’
Mr Candy, the hairs on whose head and hands actually seemed to redden even deeper as the blood rushed to his skin, admitted that of course you couldn’t. It was silly of him. He ought to have known better.
‘Clever girl, our Primrose,’ Pop said. ‘You can’t get over Primrose.’
Mr Candy, acutely embarrassed, started fumbling in his inside jacket pocket for pen and paper. As he did so his dog collar went slightly askew, cutting against his Adam’s apple, which stuck out prominently from his rather scraggy neck. This caused Ma to think that perhaps he was another one of those who didn’t get enough to eat and inquired with earnest solicitude if he wouldn’t like a piece of pork pie?
‘Oh! no, no, no. Thanks all the same. I really wouldn’t.’
‘Well, I would,’ Pop said. ‘Good idea.’
‘I’ll get it,’ Primrose said.
‘And bring the ketchup,’ Pop said.
Before Primrose came back with a pork pie a quarter cut, a bottle of tomato ketchup and several knives and plates the Rev. Candy said:
‘And now may I have the names of the two children? I always like to make sure of the spellings and so on.’
‘Well,’ Ma said, ‘Oscar – that’s ours – is going to be called Oscar Columbus Septimus Dupont Larkin.’
Mr Candy, who seriously thought for one painful moment that he must be having his leg pulled, flushed deeply again and seized on the word Septimus, inquiring:
‘Septimus. The seventh? You have seven children?’
‘Think so,’ Ma said, laughing richly. ‘Lose count a bit sometimes. What with little Blenheim and everything.’
‘Blenheim?’ Mr Candy said. ‘Blenheim?’
‘Oh! he’s the other one,’ Ma said. ‘Mariette’s baby. He’s going to be called John Churchill Marlborough Blenheim Charlton.’
‘Great Heavens.’
‘Something wrong?’ Ma inquired.
It was nothing, Mr Candy said, so embarrassed again that he actually answered Pop’s enthusiastic ‘Have a piece of pie, old man? Very good. Ma’s own make’, with an unexpected yes, after all, he thought he would.
Primrose cut the pie with her own hands, placing a big wedge of it on a plate, with a knife, in front of Mr Candy, at the same time inquiring if he wouldn’t like ketchup? Mr Candy, who was desperately trying to write down the names of Mariette’s baby correctly and in correct order, said he didn’t think he would and took a strong gulp of whisky.
Pop, who was dipping his own piece of pie with great relish into a large red pool of ketchup, then remarked that Ma had painted a very nice picture of Blenheim and Mariette the other day. Perhaps Mr Candy would like to see it?
Mr Candy said he would. ‘It seems everyone is taking up painting nowadays. My mother paints. Mostly flowers.’
‘Go and fetch the picture, Primrose,’ Ma said, ‘there’s a dear. It’s on the top of the fridge.’
Two minutes later Mr Candy, abruptly pausing in the act of putting a piece of pork pie into his mouth, found himself gazing at a picture of Mariette entirely in the nude except for a narrow glimpse of the purple briefs. The baby was asleep slightly to the side of one splendid breast. Ma had been for some time very exercised about the purple briefs, not knowing whether to paint them in or not, in case they might not be understood. Now she thought they looked very nice – and art, she had read somewhere, had to be honest if it was to be anything at all – especially against Mariette’s skin, which she had on this occasion painted the deep gold colour of a ripe pumpkin.
‘Think it’s anything like her, Mr Candy?’ Pop inquired with a sort of brisk innocence.
Mr Candy, unacquainted as he was with the sitter, or at least those parts of her so boldly depicted by Ma, was simply crushed to silence, redder than ever. A trembling cube of pork-pie jelly stuck to his open lips, faltered there for a few moments and then went bouncing down his black clerical front, from which Mr Candy at last retrieved it with fumbling fingers.
‘Well, anyway, Ma, I’ll tell you this,’ Pop said, ‘I like ’em better now you’ve done ’em that gold colour instead of blue.’
Well, they did look more real, certainly, Ma admitted.
‘You’re getting better at it, that’s what it is, Ma. More experienced,’ Pop said. ‘I tell you what – you ought to do a big family group one of these days.’
Mr Candy was saved from any further discussion of this interesting possibility by the sudden entry of the twins, Zinnia and Petunia, each wearing bright scarlet bathing wraps and sucking iced lollies of a sort of pistachio green shade. Ma, having introduced them by name to Mr Candy, then introduced Mr Candy in turn as the gentleman who was going to christen Oscar and little Blenheim.
Simultaneously the twins demanded in shrill voices to know why they couldn’t be christened too? They hadn’t ever been done, had they?
Profoundly shocked, a piece of pork pie poised at his lips, Mr Candy said he most fervently hoped so.
‘Surely, Mrs Larkin?’
‘Afraid not,’ Ma said.
‘Great Heavens, what an extraordinary omission.’
In tones of velvet wonder Primrose now inquired what about her?
‘Good Lord,’ she said, giving Mr Candy the most provocative of luscious looks, ‘haven’t I been christened either? I can’t wait!’
Mr Candy, held by the precocious, luscious eyes, felt he couldn’t wait either. He desperately wanted to flee. It would have been merciful if he could have hidden himself somewhere. For a moment he half-choked on a chunk of pork pie and Ma said:
‘You look a bit pale, Mr Candy. Feeling all right?’
‘Perfectly. Only it’s rather an odd circumstance to find a whole family of seven that hasn’t received baptismal rites.’
‘Suppose it is,’ Ma admitted, ‘but you see Pop and me were too busy at the time getting on with other things.’
‘Oh! couldn’t we all be done together?’ Primrose said. ‘We could, Mr Candy, couldn’t we? There’s no age-limit, is there?’
Unfortunately not, Mr Candy wanted to say but couldn’t bring himself even remotely to the point of saying it. In a daze, the sudden victim of open feminine entreaty, he could only say:
‘One can receive the baptism at any time.’
‘Marvellous,’ Primrose said. ‘Absolutely marvellous. Let’s all be done together.’
‘Cheaper by the dozen, I suppose?’ Pop said. ‘Drop more whisky, Mr Candy?’
‘No, no, no. Really not, thank you.’
‘Go on, old man. Drink up. You’ll need it. After all you’ve got a lot more work on your hands than you bargained for, haven’t you?’
He had indeed, Mr Candy thought, he had indeed. If one could call it that.
Silent again, he watched Pop replenish his already generous measure of whisky, Pop at the same time inquiring if Mr Candy couldn’t find room for the other bit of pork pie? Mr Candy protested, though not very strongly, that he couldn’t and was pained and astonished a moment later to hear the seductive voice of Primrose entreating:
‘Go on, Mr Candy, share it with me. Half and half. You and I share.’
With unresisting eyes Mr Candy wretchedly watched her cut the remains of the pork pie in half and then with a deliberately over-delicate gesture put the larger portion on his plate. The moment was one of such intimacy that for the next few seconds he was mesmerized into thinking that she and Mariette, so alike
in their dark beauty, had become interchanged. The golden bust seemed to mature into palpitating reality before his eyes.
‘I love pork pie, don’t you?’ she said, in tones also golden, so that she might actually have been inviting him to accept some rare physical favour.
There was no doubt that people were right when they said girls grew up fast these days, Mr Candy thought. They certainly did; they were women before they started, he told himself, and for one awful moment had a vision of himself in church, painfully enacting the ritual of baptism for one beautiful Larkin after another.
‘Oh! I’m absolutely thrilled,’ Primrose said. ‘I can’t wait for that Sunday. We’ll all have new dresses, won’t we, Ma?’
‘Course,’ Ma said. ‘You don’t think we’re going to turn out in sack-cloth and ashes do you?’
Pop was also moved to express his thrill and pride. He was blowed if it wouldn’t be quite something to see his whole brood being sprinkled at one go, little Blenheim an’ all.
Fortified by a further gulp of whisky Mr Candy was impelled to remind Pop that the occasion was one of great solemnity.
‘Course,’ Pop said. ‘Course. Pardon me.’
‘If you don’t mind my saying so your attitude ought to be one of “better late than never”.’
‘We’ll see it doesn’t happen again,’ Ma said.
Pop couldn’t help wondering what Ma meant by that exactly. You could take it two ways.
‘Well, shall we settle on the day?’ Mr Candy said. He felt again that it was time to go. The over-generous measure of whisky was putting a slight slur on his speech and the already warm June evening seemed to be growing rapidly more and more stifling. ‘You did suggest the third Sunday in July?’
‘That’s right,’ Ma said.
‘And there will be how many for baptism? Seven?’
‘Eight,’ Ma said. ‘Three boys and five girls.’
The Lord give him strength and patience, Mr Candy felt himself silently entreating.
‘Eight,’ Pop said. ‘That’s set me back a shillin’ or two.’
Mr Candy pointed out that there was, on the contrary, no charge for the service. But of course a contribution –
‘Leave that to me,’ Pop said in his most generous fashion, ‘leave that to me. Nice to know there’s a few things left that are free.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Primrose said, again looking Mr Candy straight in the eyes.
Mr Candy felt he could bear no more; this was the signal for departure. He started to get to his feet, succeeded in rising seven or eight inches or so and then fell back again. The act of sitting down in the chair, far from being awkward or embarrassing, was pleasurable. He actually gave a short chuckle.
‘Perhaps Mr Candy would like a lift home?’ Ma said.
‘Be a bit difficult,’ Pop said, ‘unless I take him in the pick-up. The Rolls has got a flat tyre and Charley ain’t back yet.’
‘I could take him in the buggy,’ Primrose said.
‘No, no,’ Mr Candy said. ‘I shall walk across the meadows, the way I came.’
‘Riding in the buggy’s absolutely marvellous,’ Primrose said. ‘We’ve only just got it.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever ridden in a buggy.’
‘No? It’s an absolutely wonderful sensation. Quite different from a car. You feel sort of on air.’
‘You do?’ Mr Candy said and started to get up again, this time succeeding in standing fully erect, so that Pop said:
‘You let our Primrose drive you home, Mr Candy She handles the pie-bald like a real dabster. All my kids are good with horses.’
That’s right,’ Ma said. There was something quite attractive about young parsons, she thought, in a moley sort of way. Perhaps it was the collar being wrong way round. ‘Well, off you go. Then you can get back before you need the lamps.’
Ten minutes later Mr Candy was sitting in the buggy wrapped in a midsummer dream. Primrose said she would drive by the back lanes; it was quieter that way; there was hardly any traffic. Already Pop had fixed the silver bells to the harness and as the buggy jogged along, not very fast, the delicate jingle of them leapt to the height of the thick hornbeams and hawthorns arching across the road and then came as delicately prancing back again.
‘Wonderful sensation. Like it?’
‘I do, I do.’
‘It must have been wonderful in the old days.’
‘What must?’
‘This. Riding about like this. Not racing everywhere. You can take everything in so much better.’
Mr Candy, now slightly recovering from the effects of the whisky but still in a pleasant daze, agreed. The little pie-bald slowed to a walk and Primrose said:
‘You notice that? That’s a trick of his. He’s very artful. It’s to get me to stop on the side of the road and let him graze.’
‘Is it indeed?’ Mr Candy said. ‘Is it?’
‘Clever as a monkey, this pony,’ Primrose said and a few moments later drew the buggy into the shadow of a big Spanish chestnut, by a gateway. ‘You simply let him graze for a few moments and then he’s all right again.’
The pony grazed; an occasional solitary tinkle of bell broke on the calm and pellucid air. Many birds were still singing, deepening rather than breaking the silence, and the scent of may was clotted and intoxicating everywhere.
‘I’m thrilled that you’re going to christen me.’
Primrose spoke in a whisper and Mr Candy sat silent, unable to think of a suitable reply.
‘I mean I’m thrilled it’s you and not anyone else.’
‘Really? Me? Why me?’
‘Because you’re you and no one else.’
Mr Candy started to feel uncomfortable to the point of trembling. His hands felt hot and clammy. In confusion he started to say something about the act of christening being something into which no hint of personality could or should enter and she said:
‘I know all about that. But it’ll be different with you. I know.’
All of a sudden Primrose appeared to be holding up her face to be kissed. Mr Candy, recoiling, didn’t know whether to resist this in outspoken refusal or clerical reprimand, but Primrose saved him the trouble by putting her soft, moist, partly opened lips on his.
Mr Candy felt himself reel in complete astonishment and then become inert, his lips hard and flat. After about half a minute of this Primrose disengaged herself from the unequal struggle and said:
‘You don’t encourage people very much, do you?’ and in the artless innocence of the question it might well have been Ma speaking.
‘I don’t think it’s proper that I should.’
‘Proper, why proper? We’re all alone, aren’t we?’
‘Well, even if I thought it proper I don’t think your mother would quite approve.’
‘No?’ The single word, so palpably innocent as to imply almost nothing at all, was followed by a hint of mischief. ‘Perhaps you’d rather talk about poetry or something like that?’
Mr Candy didn’t particularly want to talk about poetry either and was about to say so when she gave him a lustrous glance of inquiry and said, her voice very soft:
‘Do you know Donne?’
Mr Candy was sorry, but he didn’t know a thing about Donne.
‘He was a parson like you,’ she said. ‘You mean you don’t know that marvellous, marvellous poem of his that begins “I wonder by my troth what thou and I did till we loved”?’
Mr Candy didn’t know about that either and excused his ignorance by pointing out that he’d spent a good part of the last three or four years helping out in a parish in the East End of London where, on the whole, he didn’t think Donne would cut much ice.
‘In the East End? Doing what?’
‘Oh! welfare work. Youth clubs and that sort of thing. Rather toughish sometimes. One had to learn to take care of oneself.’
‘I’m sorry you don’t know about Donne,’ she said. ‘He puts it all so gorgeously.’ She turned and sat full fac
e to him, dark eyes absolutely still, and gave him another glance of such lustrous and captivating quality that he felt the muscles of his throat contracting sharply. ‘There’s another one that starts “Dear love, for nothing less than thee would I have broke this happy dream.” Don’t you know that?’
Mr Candy confessed he was absolutely ignorant of that one too.
‘Rather like us, sitting here, don’t you think? I mean I feel in a dream too and don’t want anything to break it.’
It was utter madness, Mr Candy suddenly thought, wildly. It had got to be broken. Here he was, sinking under the seductive power of a girl of fourteen and letting himself go under. It was illegal anyway. It was full of ghastly possibilities. It was like being tempted with ripe fruit. Clearly, like all the rest of the family, she hadn’t the shadow of an inhibition in her whole being. You could fairly hear her thinking with the pores of her skin.
‘I think I really should go –’
‘Oh! don’t go. Why? You’re not afraid of being along with me here, are you?’
Oh! no, it wasn’t that he was afraid –
‘What then?’
Well, it was just that there were – well, to put it frankly, certain limits beyond which – well, you couldn’t be involved.
‘Oh! are there?’
‘Of course there are.’
‘Well, it doesn’t worry me. I’m doing the involving.’
With irresistible fingers she touched his face. Every pore in Mr Candy’s own skin responded in a protest that was also, against all his better nature, as physically pleasurable as the eating of ripe fruit. There was a faint but detectable scent of honey on her lips and a moment later her arms were completely round him and she was giving him a kiss of such protracted, accomplished and passionate nature that he fell back flat against the cushions of the buggy, her young body pressing full against him.
Oh! God, Oh! God, was all Mr Candy could think. He was sunk; he was in for it now. And how in the name of all the saints was he ever going to get through that awful, awful, Sunday?
5