Seven Tales and Alexander

By H. E. Bates

Seven Tales and Alexander beautifully captures a spectrum of emotions from innocent childhood and early adolescence, to those of simple-hearted and uninquiring old age. On its original release in 1929 (The Scholartis Press), The New Statesman observed that Bates has 'by seeing with a child's eyes, found a world of marvellous and strange beauty, and has given the smallest shades of change and emotion the magnitude and drama they have in the minds of children and poets.'

In 'The Child' we meet a young girl mesmerised by the sea seen through a multi-coloured window, and, in contrast, 'The Comic Actor' sees an unsuccessful farmer who, encouraged by his devoted family, fulfils a life ambition by participating in a village play.

Bates draws on his own experiences of the barber shops of his youth in 'The Barber'. Forced to visit them on Saturdays, he was made to wait until the barber had served the army of 'black-necked, poaching, shoemaking, prizefighting, often stinking men.'

The title story, 'Alexander', follows a young boy as he travels with his uncle by horse cart to the garden of an eccentric old lady, where each year they pick fruit. The boy becomes enamoured with a young girl, meets a darkly cunning and cynical poacher, picks a forbidden apricot as a gift for the girl, and is consequently thrust into first reflections on pleasure, pain, and life itself in this most charming story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Aug 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781448214914

H. E. Bates

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.

Book preview

Alexander

Early one August morning a curious black cart on low springs, drawn by a little shaggy pony with a tail that swept about its legs like a skirt, jogged steadily off from a narrow street bordering the river, climbed in a leisurely manner through the town, and began travelling slowly and almost sleepily eastward, towards open country.

In the cart, half-concealed by piles of creaking baskets, sat a small, fair-haired boy of eleven or twelve, with drowsy blue eyes; and by his side a fat, sunburnt man with white hair, attired in breeches and black leggings and a red waistcoat evidently put on with special care and worn with special pride. All the buttons of this garment resembled fishes’ eyes, and a good many cunning pockets were concealed in every part of it, inside and outside, back and front. A silver watch-chain dangled across it, bearing handsome engraved medals won for fishing and shooting. Something about the waistcoat, perhaps the medals themselves, seemed to attract the boy, for he sat very still, his head to one side, gazing at it. Sometimes he looked exactly as if about to drop off to sleep, his head nodding and his eyes shutting with a kind of thankful bliss. At these moments, as if regarding this as the pleasantest, most flattering thing in all the world, the man would turn on him a gaze mild with approbation and beatitude. He crouched as he drove, flapping the reins gently on the pony’s back, and from time to time would raise his head and stare across the plain at the countless cornfields and orchards stretching away to a horizon darkened by misty woods lying upon it like sleeping giants.

For a mile or more the cart drove on in this fashion, the boy still half-asleep, the man meditative, the pony never changing its pace. The sun appeared, at first like a fluffy yellow ball, then like a disc of polished brass. Trees, cornfields, farms, pastures, horses and workmen among the mown corn all appeared instantly bathed in a soft transfiguring light. Objects a great distance off, little towers, smoking chimneys, village spires, became lightly pencilled into the scene. The sun ran swiftly over the plain, pursuing lines of black shadow. A covey of partridges scurried, screamed, then spread out like a black fan and vanished, the barley ears waving briefly and lightly where they came to earth. Slowly the woods resolved themselves; the trees stood in sharp, unbroken line; then the dew became visible in manifold, glittering drops, giving the parched grasses a look of fresh life, hanging upon the trees like ladies’ earrings and covering each of the black and crimson berries on the hedgeside like a shell of glass. Soon everywhere was under a warm stillness; all the mist dispersed stealthily and silently, without wind, and the trees seemed to stoop with an invisible burden of heavy airs and the overbearing loveliness of the ripening year.

As the cart went on, a black shadow began to glide steadily by the horse’s side, and a strong fresh scent, with something autumnal about it, began to blow softly into the nostrils of the boy, who could feel the sun growing warmer and warmer on his closed lids and on his cheeks and hands.

Presently the man took out his watch and remarked in a soft bass voice: ‘Nearly nine.’ The boy raised his head, and yawned, but did not answer.

Little by little the nature of the country began to change. Gentle hills and a long shallow valley with a white stream appeared. Soon a vast and magnificent view unfolded like a picture.

Being long-sighted, the man would rest his eyes upon remote objects like windmills, water-towers, specks that were cattle or harvesters. All at once his eyes sparkled with eagerness and he began to nudge and pummel the boy into a state of wake-fulness and attention. At last he tightened the reins and called excitedly, half-standing up among the baskets:

‘Alexander! Alexander! Boy, look, look! What is it? Can you see? Open your peepers, Alexander, and just look. Look, look. What do you make of it?’

And the boy, excited also, sat upright.

‘Herons!’ the man whispered.

As the boy gazed up the word was several times repeated, more and more excitedly. Two large, beautiful birds appeared overhead, flapping their way with splendour towards the east, silently and impressively, with the sun shining golden upon them at sudden intervals. The cart had come for the first time to a standstill. The little horse stood quietly panting. Nothing else could be heard; only the strange, golden stillness seemed to ring like the dim echo of a bell over everything as they watched the birds, two diminishing shapes becoming swallowed in the depth of blue sky.

After a long interval, during which the boy emerged for the first time into unconfused wakefulness, the man flapped the reins and remarked:

‘I used to know a man who stuffed birds, specially herons. If I’d had a gun just now I might have knocked that pair down for him. He was a masterpiece. For all you knew they might as lief have been alive as dead.’

The cart moved forward again. The boy, on whom the herons had made a great impression, suddenly remarked:

‘You shouldn’t shoot birds, not even sparrows.’

‘Sparrows are pests,’ said the man. ‘That’s law, Alexander. You can’t get away from the law.’

‘God might strike you, all the same,’ said the boy.

‘God what?’ uttered the man, as if astonished or not catching the words. ‘God what did you say?’

‘It’s been known! Ursula told me about a man who had stolen a calf from a widow woman and while he was eating it afterwards, God struck him.’

‘How? Struck him?’

‘I don’t know how. Ursula says——.’

‘Never mind what Ursula says! The woman’s all nonsense and popery. Never you mind what she says, the old fool. There’s no truth in it.’

The boy did not speak. To all this conversation he had listened gravely, taking everything to heart. Each time he looked at the man, his uncle, he was overcome with reverence and admiration. Nevertheless, there was a warm note of affection between them. Often something serious and mature lurked in Alexander’s eyes; and frequently from the other’s some child-like and naive light shone down upon him.

The cart proceeded at the same unvarying pace as before. Now the boy sat upright. The hot morning sun began to burn him. Gradually the sky assumed a richer shade of blue and the grasses began to give off a little vapour. The boy began to take a great interest in what was going on, his mind dwelling on the day ahead—where they were going, what would take place, how much longer they must drive. He tried often to picture the great house to which he understood they were driving, the long avenues of plums and pears, the over-reaching apple trees, the walls bearing peaches, apricots and even quinces in great abundance, and the old, wizened, solitary creature who lived in this house surrounded by many brown-and-black dogs and a white cat which she never allowed out of sight. He pondered for a long time, but without enlightenment, on this strange creature who sold fruit to his uncle—‘Because, Mr Bishop, you knew me when I was a girl and I can trust you not to break the trees and put the wrong measure in the basket for yourself,’ and sometimes he pictured the garden with great success, almost smelling the warm ripeness given off by fruits and leaves.

‘What time shall we be there?’ he looked up and asked.

The man was lighting his pipe and to Alexander it seemed a long time before he answered:

‘A little after ten if we don’t stop anywhere. Are you hungry? Ursula put some cheese-cakes in the basket in case you were hungry.’

He was not hungry. In spite of this and though he considered Ursula’s cheese-cakes very moderate indeed, he ate two and while eating, loosened the collar of his shirt. The sun was hot on his face and neck. A little afterwards the road turned abruptly to the left, and from the hot stillness of the open country they passed suddenly into a cool wood of beeches, oaks and firs, to the accompaniment of stirring leaves and branches, a fitful talking of birds, a gentle whispering of a thousand unknown mysterious voices.

‘The house sits that way, on the far side of the wood,’ said the man, pointing the whip.

Alexander looked into the wood, from which now and then broke strange scuffling noises. He saw nothing but a vast extent of trees with a glimpse of some fungi as large as pancakes and bright orange in colour. All the leaves, twigs, grasses were dripping with dew, setting up everywhere a kind of watery music, as if from a hidden spring. Drops fell from the overhanging branches and plopped on the cart and the baskets and even on his hands.

Something red appeared along the road. Before long it grew large and life-like and resolved into a woman in a red woollen jacket and a black skirt, carrying a basket. His uncle suddenly began whistling and gave the horse a playful flick as if he were very happy.

From that moment, until they drew level with the woman, the man stared hard at the red skirt, and when they came closer brought the little horse to a walk and tried to catch a glimpse of the woman’s face, which was turned away from them. Suddenly she started violently at the sound of wheels, and turning sharply, almost dropped her basket.

His uncle ceased whistling. ‘I thought so! Annie Fell, my girl!’ he shouted at once. ‘It is you! Yes, it’s you right enough. Thinks I, coming