Seven Tales and Alexander Read online

  For nearly a minute he was true to this resolve: he stood caressing the silk of her nostrils as he had so often done, humouring her, talking to her, full of patience for her. But she did not drink. All the time her head dropped a little towards the water, as if she were making up her mind, as if she were dreaming. The ripples her feet had made in the surface ran far away, grew faint, and then died—she remained so still.

  ‘Drink! for God’s sake! Drink, and let’s get away!’

  His words were half-command, half-entreaty. But she did not move, though it seemed to him she must understand why he had brought her there, simply because for fifteen years, morning by morning, she had understood and obeyed.

  Lanko grew desperate again. ‘Drink!’ He slapped her ribs. It was as if she were dead to all feeling—she did not respond, did not even quiver.

  ‘Drink, damn you, drink !’ he shouted suddenly. He pulled down her head to the water again, wetting her lips. Without even a mouthful she raised it again and turned away.

  He led her to another part of the pool and repeated the gesture to which she had never failed to respond, suppressing momentarily all impatience and anger. But there, as before, he drew from her only the response, as it seemed to him, of a stupid and stubborn will.

  His anger grew uncontrollable—he wrenched the halter upward and from the bank dragged at the white mare’s head until she followed him. ‘If you won’t drink you must go thirsty, damn you!’

  Suddenly he thought: ‘I shall be last. They’ll be harnessed up and gone. I shall be crowded out.’

  Again he shouted to the mare, threatening her.

  The mare remained still, staring emptily ahead. Lanko turned and looked at her, and then, angered by this long succession of futile words, of unanswered gestures and tendernesses, strode forward and with his uplifted knee kicked her in the ribs.

  There was a pause. Then Lanko, though able to see how startled she was, how deeply she felt the blow, pushed her hind-quarters desperately. To his immense relief she responded and began to move off. But she seemed slower even than usual, heavier in body; her feet touched the ground uncertainly, her head had drooped a little.

  It began to be urged upon Lanko very slowly, in spite of his joy at seeing her move again, that his difficulties with her were not ended. Matters grew worse as he recalled the mornings when she had trotted back from drinking, when the longest journeys in summer had not seemed to tire her.

  His anger abated a little and he walked at her side with all his old patience, exactly in time with her, patting her side gently in order to remind her of his presence.

  Some caravans were already leaving the fair-ground as he arrived there. It was a relief to find that he would not be crowded out: looking at the sky he thought he would be away before the sun was far up.

  The white mare stood very still while he fetched her harness. This morning, as always before, he dropped it over her back with practised quickness and ease, with a great jingle of buckles and bells. To his astonishment the white mare started forward as if struck and seemed to shudder under the weight. ‘Whoa!’ She shivered involuntarily again. His astonishment and impatience increasing, he put on her bridle, but having buckled it, caressed her silky nostrils and spoke to her softly. She seemed to understand. Gently, little by little, he backed her into his little covered cart bearing his pots and pans, his food, and the red and white striped awnings and poles of his stall.

  They joined the long line of brightly painted caravans and the engines drawing the roundabouts. The white mare was quiet. She moved steadily, as if the shouting and rattle of departure had awoken her against herself. Lanko walked at her side, relieved but silent, chewing a straw. Now and then, when the mare seemed to hesitate and slacken her pace again, he stroked her side, encouraging her. It was autumn and the red of the trees, the heavy dew sparkling on the dying grass and the frosty smell in the air reminded him how often he and the mare had travelled this way, how she had never failed him, and how always, as on this morning, the jingle of the bells on her bridle had filled him with happiness.

  Soon afterwards the sun broke out, shedding a soft, sudden light on that long line gleaming like a multi-coloured snake over the road. It seemed to bring out also not only colour but smell, so that besides the scent of frosty leaves and decay, Lanko suddenly caught all the odours that were precious to him—the smell of horses and straw, of cooked herrings, of onions and cabbage, of oil, and the smoke belched out far ahead. It seemed difficult to believe he was not young again, so fresh and strong were these smells, as if coming to him for the first time.

  Suddenly he was aroused out of these memories by the white mare. Her bells had ceased jingling. She had become perfectly still.

  Lanko caressed her head with one hand and patted her side with the other. He consoled her, as he consoled himself, with the whisper that they had not far to go. She went on again, and with the habit of fifteen years he fell in with her slow, patient and uncomplaining step.

  ‘Good girl—good girl,’ he said.

  The tinkle of her bells was once more a delight to him. His deep, dark-browed eyes shone. In the sunshine the mare’s coat gleamed like silk.

  The journey did not seem long to him, but sometimes the mare seemed to lose all courage and would stop again, shivering, staring ahead and breathing hard, so that her sides rose and fell under his hand. Each time by consoling and caressing her he managed to make her go again. Gradually, however, her pauses grew more frequent, her breathing so difficult as to be almost agonising, and her struggles to draw the cart more terrible.

  Lanko dropped behind the rest of the line. Now, however, the thought that he would be crowded out at the pitching did not trouble him. He began to see now, even though with intense reluctance, that the mare was not stubborn or stupid or capricious, but ill. He began to reproach himself for having kicked her, even for having struck her. His efforts to atone for this were desperately tender.

  ‘Good girl, good girl! Ain’t far now, steady! ain’t far.’

  They arrived at last. In the only remaining pitch, in one corner of the ground, he unharnessed the mare. As before she stood very still, uncomplaining, until he had finished. Then suddenly, as if only the burden of the harness and the existence of the cart behind her had borne her up since morning, she sank down upon the grass at his feet.

  Lanko knelt down too, impelled by astonishment and fear. Her head was still upright but the nostrils were faintly distended and from the mouth hung a little foam, like the slobbering of a child. The look in her eyes, sick and remote, began, even then, to grow deeper. It drove away very slowly but certainly all the intelligence, all the softness and understanding that had gathered there during all the years of her life. Lanko opened her mouth and touched her tongue. Her mouth seemed to him full of the deathly heat of a fever.

  He stared at her for a long moment. She seemed to him to grow no worse. It was not yet afternoon and he began to console himself with the thought that she would be able to rest there all day and all night—even for nearly a week, if need be. ‘Good girl, good girl,’ he whispered to her.

  An inspiration seized him. He fetched water in a bucket and held it to her lips in the profound hope that he had found her remedy. As in the morning, at the pool, however, she would not drink. In desperation he cajoled and pleaded with her: she seemed to him to turn away at last with all the weariness and distaste of a deadly sickness.

  Afternoon drew on. The painted poles of the stalls and the tops of the great roundabouts began to show themselves against the sky. Lanko unpacked his belongings, then let them remain where they had fallen on the grass. He could not think of trade, and, after lighting a fire, boiled up a concoction which it seemed to him, if only he could persuade or force the mare to drink it, must ease her before morning. All the time the mare crouched in the grass, the deathly sickness of her eyes growing steadily more terrible.

  The faith in the remedy he had spent so long in preparing made Lanko approach her at last with
both an entreaty and a smile on his lips. ‘Good girl—drink—good girl.’ He opened her mouth.

  When he brought the medicine to her lips they closed suddenly again. He tried to be patient, to be calm. Again he stroked her soft nostrils and put his head against hers. In this way he told her not to be afraid, that he was only nursing her. But her lips would not remain open. Again and again they closed, feverish and clammy with foam, trembling as if both from fear and sickness. Sweat came out on Lanko’s brow, he also trembled. ‘Good girl, good girl!’ he repeated.

  Now she seemed to make no conscious effort to withstand him—it was as if the fever seized and held her mouth closed, until she was rigid and terrified beneath it. She became exhausted quickly, with the result that while she had no power to with-stand Lanko she had also none to repulse the tenacity of the sickness.

  The medicine grew cold at Lanko’s side. For a little while he felt helpless, full only of a dejected wonder that the strong, patient, silky body of the white mare should sink to this. Once again, and now more bitterly, he reproached himself for the blows and the single kick he had given her that morning. ‘That might have begun it,’ he thought. Suddenly this enraged him, quickened him into life.

  He left the mare, and running off, seized the first man he knew. It was the ‘Fat Lady’ man, the one with whom he had begun the argument so trivial and ridiculous that neither could remember on what subject it had been. Lanko seized him.

  ‘Come and look at my old mare a minute!’

  They went and knelt at the mare’s side. She seemed to have sickened, even in those few moments, more rapidly and terribly than ever before. ‘Look at her, look at her!’

  The other spent a long time regarding her. Unable at last to bear this any longer, Lanko said:

  ‘What is it? What do you think it is?’

  Before them the mare grew visibly weaker, breathing with pathetic effort. The ‘Fat Lady’ man answered in low tones:

  ‘You don’t know—it might be anything.’

  Lanko began to talk with intense desperation, explaining it all. ‘I couldn’t get her to drink this morning, not anyhow. Then on the road she kept lagging and stopping.’ His voice fell a little. ‘After that, just as we got here she fell down and hasn’t been up since. She can’t get up.’

  The ‘Fat Lady’ man indicated the medicine and said slowly: ‘We’ll try her with that again—see if that’ll do anything.’

  Lanko heated the concoction again and brought it to the white mare’s lips. He had become more than ever patient, fuller of sympathy and care. ‘Open her mouth—gently,’ he asked. The ‘Fat Lady’ man was tender also. Very slowly he forced open the lips which, having no longer the power to hold their own spittle, let it run down his wrists and arms in a pitiful flow. To his attentions there came no resistance, no struggle. Into the mouth held open thus, without strength or spirit, Lanko poured some of the medicine. Along the mare’s neck ran a ripple or two; he poured in a little more, making more ripples in her silky flesh, and so on until she had drunk it all. The ‘Fat Lady’ man let the lips close again. ‘Good girl, good girl,’ Lanko whispered.

  Both men rose to their feet. ‘You can’t do no more than that,’ the ‘Fat Lady’ man whispered. ‘Let her be—keep her still. Put something over her.’

  ‘What is it? What do you think it is?’

  ‘You don’t know—it might be anything.’

  He went off, and over the mare Lanko laid sacks and a blanket or two. Again he told himself he must be patient and calm—so long as she kept up her head, even though with the sickness staring from her eyes, there was hope.

  Dusk began falling; the grass was clothed in mists. In the fair itself lights sprang up from the vans; here and there was a paraffin flare.

  The covered flanks of the mare gleamed softly in the dark, motionless, uncomplaining, expressive of her quiet and stoical spirit. To his joy her head did not droop again. At her side he sat and watched looking at her as if to say: ‘Tell me what I can do?—Good girl, good girl.’

  Out of the surrounding darkness began to come figures. One by one they bent and looked at the mare as she half-lay, half-sat in the grass, and then to Lanko expressed their opinions. He knew them all; he recognised the voices of the men who had jeered good-naturedly at him that morning by the drinking-pool. Their dark, check-shirted, red-shirted, swarthy figures blacked out the light of his fire. He saw the cocoanut man, the ‘Aunt Sallies,’ the shooting men, the skittle-board and bagatelle owners, the watch and clock men, little Jews with rings on their fat fingers, the joy-wheel proprietor, the peacock man, his wife with long rings in her ears. The ‘Fat Lady’ herself came, too. Each of them looked at the white mare, some even touched her, all of them spoke to Lanko kindly, answering his persistent and desperate little enquiries with tact, with bluff, in whatever manner seemed to them best for keeping alive his hope in her ebbing life.

  In each of them he found something for which to be thankful. He discovered too that his spirits did not droop, that he had now such faith in the mare as never before. It even seemed to him that so far from drooping her head had raised itself a little. In the darkness, also, the sickness seemed to have been driven from her eyes.

  The men continued their advice, their calm bluff, the sympathies of their understanding yet undeceived minds. ‘You can’t tell—know better in the morning—might be over in a week or a day.’ They spoke with the difficult care of men seeking to conceal a painful truth. Then one by one they wandered off slowly, as if reluctantly, into the darkness.

  Lanko and the white mare were alone again. Her head had drooped, her flanks were steadier, she seemed at rest, he thought. He fell into reminiscences about her—of her early days, when she too had cantered, had borne her head with an arched, beautifully shadowed neck, when he had had to cut her tail in order to keep it from dragging on the ground. In those days he had decorated her not only with bells, but with coloured ribbons and cords and painted banners. She had travelled everywhere with him, in spring-time, in summer and autumn, and in winter had camped with him or had been stabled in some village while he traded. In his mind he could see her anywhere—on the road, in the meadows, at the fairs—with her white reflection in the drinking-pools where they went.

  Suddenly he looked up. It was very dark, his fire became momentarily dim, but he saw that her head had fallen. Very slowly he crawled on his hands and knees towards her. He saw that what he had for so long dreaded and hoped against had taken place and was still going on. He could see, even as he came up to her, that her head was lowering in fast, spasmodic jerks, her mane falling across her black eyes, the sickly foam once again dripping from her lips. He leaned forward and took her head in his hands, striving to hold it erect in spite of its heaviness, smoothing back her mane as he might have done a child’s hair. He wiped the foam from her lips with the sleeve of his coat. He spoke to her. He exerted his strength in order to keep her head from sinking a fraction. ‘Good girl, good girl,’ he whispered.

  Suddenly she sank beyond his grasp. As if unable to realise the swiftness of it all, he raised her head again and held it in his arms. She was still warm. She raised a murmur. This sound, either of protest or pain, seemed to strike him like something cold, in the centre of his breast. It crept to his heart. Her head sank to the ground. There was silence. He could not even call to her.

  But into her soft, silky flanks, still warm for him with the memory of a life recently there, and gleaming in the grass with the rest of her like some pale, appealing ghost, he suddenly buried his face. His lips opened as if to say something, but nothing came, and they closed without a sound.

  On the dark grass the white mare lay silent too.

  Author’s Note

  From the Original 1929 Publication

  Of these tales, ‘Lanko’s White Mare’ has appeared in the London Mercury; ‘A Tinker’s Donkey’ in the Manchester Guardian; ‘The Barber’ and ‘A Comic Actor’ in the New Statesman; and ‘The Child’ in the Criterion, Now
and Then, and The Best Short Stories of 1929.

  To the editors of these publications I extend the usual acknowledgements and thanks.

  The remaining three stories, including the long title-piece, are here published for the first time. In the others, considerable changes have been made.

  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).

  His most popular creation was the Larkin family which featured in five novels beginning with The Darling Buds of May in 1958. The later television adaptation was a huge success.

  Many other stories were adapted for the screen, the most renowned being The Purple Plain (1947) starring Gregory Peck, and The Triple Echo (1970) with Glenda Jackson and Oliver Reed.

  H. E. Bates married in 1931, had four children and lived most of his life in a converted granary near Charing in Kent. He was awarded the CBE in 1973, shortly before his death in 1974.