Day's End and Other Stories (25 page)

The little fat publican appeared at the head of the stairs, feverishly wiping his hands across his aproned stomach.

“He ain't 'isself, gentlemen. They say he went that mad this afternoon on having a note come. Yessir, it is funny, like.”

Somebody commented: “A quiet man.”

“Respectable,” vouchsafed the Chairman.

“Yessir,” said the publican obsequiously and disappeared.

Below the raving continued. “I won't sell! We must live! No, I can't!” It reached the Council with distressing shrillness.

The voice ended abruptly, bringing silence again. The Council exchanged looks, which were uneasy, and waited for the heavy tramp of feet which had begun to ascend the stairs.

White-faced and visibly ill at ease the publican showed himself in the doorway. His voice had dropped to a whisper, awful and remote.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “He just dropped down dead, just dropped down, like. They say he went mad – mad. Yessir.”

For a moment he paused to observe the effect of that tragic utterance, then, very quietly, the door closed. One or two members sat down, sighed heavily and were silent. There were white faces. Someone gulped at a bottle with a great sigh. After a pause the Chairman began:

“Gentlemen, I'm sure … In view of the fact that this …” His words half-suffocated each other. “Our quiet, respected … whom we all knew and esteemed ... never heard to utter a complaint … a long life.” He wandered helplessly in a waste of disconnected speech. “This is one of those things we cannot understand. God, our Almighty Father, God ...”

A silence descended in which the wind could be heard wandering over the leafy floor of earth, a silence with which none cared to tamper. Men held their breath. Across the table a hand trembled like a pale leaf on the black surface of a pond. The fear of death made itself visible in a hundred minute signs and it seemed as if the whole gathering gave up a great sigh as Robert Cowper expressed agreement in a heartfelt voice:

“Hear, hear!”

And then again, deeper and more fervent still, a certain profound richness about the grave intonation of his voice:

“God rest his soul.”

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 was awarded the CBE in 1973, and died in 1974. He married in 1931, had four children and lived most of his life in a converted granary near Charing in Kent.

Discover other books by H. E. Bates published by Bloomsbury Reader at
www.bloomsbury.com/HEBates
.

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For copyright reasons, any images not belonging to the original author have been removed from this book. The text has not been changed, and may still contain references to missing images.

This electronic edition published in 2015 by Bloomsbury Reader

Bloomsbury Reader is a division of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

Day's End and Other Stories
first published in Great Britain in 1928 by Jonathan Cape

‘In View of the Fact That' first published in Great Britain in 1927 by E. Archer

Copyright © Evensford Productions Limited, 1927 and 1928

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The moral right of the author is asserted.

eISBN: 9781448214907

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