The Garden Party, and Other Stories
“Well, what else?” said Constantia. “I was thinking—it doesn’t seem
quite sincere, in a way, to wear black out of doors and when we’re
fully dressed, and then when we’re at home—”
“But nobody sees us,” said Josephine. She gave the bedclothes such a
twitch that both her feet became uncovered, and she had to creep up the
pillows to get them well under again.
“Kate does,” said Constantia. “And the postman very well might.”
Josephine thought of her dark-red slippers, which matched her
dressing-gown, and of Constantia’s favourite indefinite green ones
which went with hers. Black! Two black dressing-gowns and two pairs of
black woolly slippers, creeping off to the bathroom like black cats.
“I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary,” said she.
Silence. Then Constantia said, “We shall have to post the papers with
the notice in them to-morrow to catch the Ceylon mail.... How many
letters have we had up till now?”
“Twenty-three.”
Josephine had replied to them all, and twenty-three times when she came
to “We miss our dear father so much” she had broken down and had to use
her handkerchief, and on some of them even to soak up a very light-blue
tear with an edge of blotting-paper. Strange! She couldn’t have put it
on—but twenty-three times. Even now, though, when she said over to
herself sadly “We miss our dear father _so_ much,” she could have cried
if she’d wanted to.
“Have you got enough stamps?” came from Constantia.
“Oh, how can I tell?” said Josephine crossly. “What’s the good of
asking me that now?”
“I was just wondering,” said Constantia mildly.
Silence again. There came a little rustle, a scurry, a hop.
“A mouse,” said Constantia.
“It can’t be a mouse because there aren’t any crumbs,” said Josephine.
“But it doesn’t know there aren’t,” said Constantia.
A spasm of pity squeezed her heart. Poor little thing! She wished she’d
left a tiny piece of biscuit on the dressing-table. It was awful to
think of it not finding anything. What would it do?
“I can’t think how they manage to live at all,” she said slowly.
“Who?” demanded Josephine.
And Constantia said more loudly than she meant to, “Mice.”
Josephine was furious. “Oh, what nonsense, Con!” she said. “What have
mice got to do with it? You’re asleep.”
“I don’t think I am,” said Constantia. She shut her eyes to make sure.
She was.
Josephine arched her spine, pulled up her knees, folded her arms so
that her fists came under her ears, and pressed her cheek hard against
the pillow.
II
Another thing which complicated matters was they had Nurse Andrews
staying on with them that week. It was their own fault; they had asked
her. It was Josephine’s idea. On the morning—well, on the last morning,
when the doctor had gone, Josephine had said to Constantia, “Don’t you
think it would be rather nice if we asked Nurse Andrews to stay on for
a week as our guest?”
“Very nice,” said Constantia.
“I thought,” went on Josephine quickly, “I should just say this
afternoon, after I’ve paid her, ‘My sister and I would be very pleased,
after all you’ve done for us, Nurse Andrews, if you would stay on for a
week as our guest.’ I’d have to put that in about being our guest in
case—”
“Oh, but she could hardly expect to be paid!” cried Constantia.
“One never knows,” said Josephine sagely.
Nurse Andrews had, of course, jumped at the idea. But it was a bother.
It meant they had to have regular sit-down meals at the proper times,
whereas if they’d been alone they could just have asked Kate if she
wouldn’t have minded bringing them a tray wherever they were. And
meal-times now that the strain was over were rather a trial.
Nurse Andrews was simply fearful about butter. Really they couldn’t
help feeling that about butter, at least, she took advantage of their
kindness. And she had that maddening habit of asking for just an inch
more of bread to finish what she had on her plate, and then, at the
last mouthful, absent-mindedly—of course it wasn’t
absent-mindedly—taking another helping. Josephine got very red when
this happened, and she fastened her small, bead-like eyes on the
tablecloth as if she saw a minute strange insect creeping through the
web of it. But Constantia’s long, pale face lengthened and set, and she
gazed away—away—far over the desert, to where that line of camels
unwound like a thread of wool....
“When I was with Lady Tukes,” said Nurse Andrews, “she had such a
dainty little contrayvance for the buttah. It was a silvah Cupid
balanced on the—on the bordah of a glass dish, holding a tayny fork.
And when you wanted some buttah you simply pressed his foot and he bent
down and speared you a piece. It was quite a gayme.”
Josephine could hardly bear that. But “I think those things are very
extravagant” was all she said.
“But whey?” asked Nurse Andrews, beaming through her eyeglasses. “No
one, surely, would take more buttah than one wanted—would one?”
“Ring, Con,” cried Josephine. She couldn’t trust herself to reply.
And proud young Kate, the enchanted princess, came in to see what the
old tabbies wanted now. She snatched away their plates of mock
something or other and slapped down a white, terrified blancmange.
“Jam, please, Kate,” said Josephine kindly.
Kate knelt and burst open the sideboard, lifted the lid of the jam-pot,
saw it was empty, put it on the table, and stalked off.
“I’m afraid,” said Nurse Andrews a moment later, “there isn’t any.”
“Oh, what a bother!” said Josephine. She bit her lip. “What had we
better do?”
Constantia looked dubious. “We can’t disturb Kate again,” she said
softly.
Nurse Andrews waited, smiling at them both. Her eyes wandered, spying
at everything behind her eyeglasses. Constantia in despair went back to
her camels. Josephine frowned heavily—concentrated. If it hadn’t been
for this idiotic woman she and Con would, of course, have eaten their
blancmange without. Suddenly the idea came.
“I know,” she said. “Marmalade. There’s some marmalade in the
sideboard. Get it, Con.”
“I hope,” laughed Nurse Andrews—and her laugh was like a spoon tinkling
against a medicine-glass—“I hope it’s not very bittah marmalayde.”
III
But, after all, it was not long now, and then she’d be gone for good.
And there was no getting over the fact that she had been very kind to
father. She had nursed him day and night at the end. Indeed, both
Constantia and Josephine felt privately she had rather overdone the not
leaving him at the very last. For when they had gone in to say good-bye
Nurse Andrews had sat beside his bed the whole time, holding his wrist
and pretending to look at her watch. It couldn’t have been necessary.
It was so tactless, too. Supposing father had wanted to say
something—something private to them. Not that he had. Oh, far from it!
He lay there, purple, a dark, angry purple in the face, and never even
looked at them when they came in. Then, as they were standing there,
wondering what to do, he had suddenly opened one eye. Oh, what a
difference it would have made, what a difference to their memory of
him, how much easier to tell people about it, if he had only opened
both! But no—one eye only. It glared at them a moment and then... went
out.
IV
It had made it very awkward for them when Mr. Farolles, of St. John’s,
called the same afternoon.
“The end was quite peaceful, I trust?” were the first words he said as
he glided towards them through the dark drawing-room.
“Quite,” said Josephine faintly. They both hung their heads. Both of
them felt certain that eye wasn’t at all a peaceful eye.
“Won’t you sit down?” said Josephine.
“Thank you, Miss Pinner,” said Mr. Farolles gratefully. He folded his
coat-tails and began to lower himself into father’s arm-chair, but just
as he touched it he almost sprang up and slid into the next chair
instead.
He coughed. Josephine clasped her hands; Constantia looked vague.
“I want you to feel, Miss Pinner,” said Mr. Farolles, “and you, Miss
Constantia, that I’m trying to be helpful. I want to be helpful to you
both, if you will let me. These are the times,” said Mr Farolles, very
simply and earnestly, “when God means us to be helpful to one another.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Farolles,” said Josephine and Constantia.
“Not at all,” said Mr. Farolles gently. He drew his kid gloves through
his fingers and leaned forward. “And if either of you would like a
little Communion, either or both of you, here _and_ now, you have only
to tell me. A little Communion is often very help—a great comfort,” he
added tenderly.
But the idea of a little Communion terrified them. What! In the
drawing-room by themselves—with no—no altar or anything! The piano
would be much too high, thought Constantia, and Mr. Farolles could not
possibly lean over it with the chalice. And Kate would be sure to come
bursting in and interrupt them, thought Josephine. And supposing the
bell rang in the middle? It might be somebody important—about their
mourning. Would they get up reverently and go out, or would they have
to wait... in torture?
“Perhaps you will send round a note by your good Kate if you would care
for it later,” said Mr. Farolles.
“Oh yes, thank you very much!” they both said.
Mr. Farolles got up and took his black straw hat from the round table.
“And about the funeral,” he said softly. “I may arrange that—as your
dear father’s old friend and yours, Miss Pinner—and Miss Constantia?”
Josephine and Constantia got up too.
“I should like it to be quite simple,” said Josephine firmly, “and not
too expensive. At the same time, I should like—”
“A good one that will last,” thought dreamy Constantia, as if Josephine
were buying a nightgown. But, of course, Josephine didn’t say that.
“One suitable to our father’s position.” She was very nervous.
“I’ll run round to our good friend Mr. Knight,” said Mr. Farolles
soothingly. “I will ask him to come and see you. I am sure you will
find him very helpful indeed.”
V
Well, at any rate, all that part of it was over, though neither of them
could possibly believe that father was never coming back. Josephine had
had a moment of absolute terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was
lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without
asking his permission. What would father say when he found out? For he
was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did. “Buried. You two
girls had me _buried_!” She heard his stick thumping. Oh, what would
they say? What possible excuse could they make? It sounded such an
appallingly heartless thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a
person because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other
people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were
strangers; they couldn’t be expected to understand that father was the
very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame
for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she
thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him
the bills. What would he say then?
She heard him absolutely roaring. “And do you expect me to pay for this
gimcrack excursion of yours?”
“Oh,” groaned poor Josephine aloud, “we shouldn’t have done it, Con!”
And Constantia, pale as a lemon in all that blackness, said in a
frightened whisper, “Done what, Jug?”
“Let them bu-bury father like that,” said Josephine, breaking down and
crying into her new, queer-smelling mourning handkerchief.
“But what else could we have done?” asked Constantia wonderingly. “We
couldn’t have kept him, Jug—we couldn’t have kept him unburied. At any
rate, not in a flat that size.”
Josephine blew her nose; the cab was dreadfully stuffy.
“I don’t know,” she said forlornly. “It is all so dreadful. I feel we