The Garden Party, and Other Stories
If mother had lived, might they have married? But there had been nobody
for them to marry. There had been father’s Anglo-Indian friends before
he quarrelled with them. But after that she and Constantia never met a
single man except clergymen. How did one meet men? Or even if they’d
met them, how could they have got to know men well enough to be more
than strangers? One read of people having adventures, being followed,
and so on. But nobody had ever followed Constantia and her. Oh yes,
there had been one year at Eastbourne a mysterious man at their
boarding-house who had put a note on the jug of hot water outside their
bedroom door! But by the time Connie had found it the steam had made
the writing too faint to read; they couldn’t even make out to which of
them it was addressed. And he had left next day. And that was all. The
rest had been looking after father, and at the same time keeping out of
father’s way. But now? But now? The thieving sun touched Josephine
gently. She lifted her face. She was drawn over to the window by gentle
beams....
Until the barrel-organ stopped playing Constantia stayed before the
Buddha, wondering, but not as usual, not vaguely. This time her wonder
was like longing. She remembered the times she had come in here, crept
out of bed in her nightgown when the moon was full, and lain on the
floor with her arms outstretched, as though she was crucified. Why? The
big, pale moon had made her do it. The horrible dancing figures on the
carved screen had leered at her and she hadn’t minded. She remembered
too how, whenever they were at the seaside, she had gone off by herself
and got as close to the sea as she could, and sung something, something
she had made up, while she gazed all over that restless water. There
had been this other life, running out, bringing things home in bags,
getting things on approval, discussing them with Jug, and taking them
back to get more things on approval, and arranging father’s trays and
trying not to annoy father. But it all seemed to have happened in a
kind of tunnel. It wasn’t real. It was only when she came out of the
tunnel into the moonlight or by the sea or into a thunderstorm that she
really felt herself. What did it mean? What was it she was always
wanting? What did it all lead to? Now? Now?
She turned away from the Buddha with one of her vague gestures. She
went over to where Josephine was standing. She wanted to say something
to Josephine, something frightfully important, about—about the future
and what....
“Don’t you think perhaps—” she began.
But Josephine interrupted her. “I was wondering if now—” she murmured.
They stopped; they waited for each other.
“Go on, Con,” said Josephine.
“No, no, Jug; after you,” said Constantia.
“No, say what you were going to say. You began,” said Josephine.
“I... I’d rather hear what you were going to say first,” said
Constantia.
“Don’t be absurd, Con.”
“Really, Jug.”
“Connie!”
“Oh, _Jug_!”
A pause. Then Constantia said faintly, “I can’t say what I was going to
say, Jug, because I’ve forgotten what it was... that I was going to
say.”
Josephine was silent for a moment. She stared at a big cloud where the
sun had been. Then she replied shortly, “I’ve forgotten too.”
Mr. and Mrs. Dove
Of course he knew—no man better—that he hadn’t a ghost of a chance, he
hadn’t an earthly. The very idea of such a thing was preposterous. So
preposterous that he’d perfectly understand it if her father—well,
whatever her father chose to do he’d perfectly understand. In fact,
nothing short of desperation, nothing short of the fact that this was
positively his last day in England for God knows how long, would have
screwed him up to it. And even now.... He chose a tie out of the chest
of drawers, a blue and cream check tie, and sat on the side of his bed.
Supposing she replied, “What impertinence!” would he be surprised? Not
in the least, he decided, turning up his soft collar and turning it
down over the tie. He expected her to say something like that. He
didn’t see, if he looked at the affair dead soberly, what else she
could say.
Here he was! And nervously he tied a bow in front of the mirror, jammed
his hair down with both hands, pulled out the flaps of his jacket
pockets. Making between £500 and £600 a year on a fruit farm in—of all
places—Rhodesia. No capital. Not a penny coming to him. No chance of
his income increasing for at least four years. As for looks and all
that sort of thing, he was completely out of the running. He couldn’t
even boast of top-hole health, for the East Africa business had knocked
him out so thoroughly that he’d had to take six months’ leave. He was
still fearfully pale—worse even than usual this afternoon, he thought,
bending forward and peering into the mirror. Good heavens! What had
happened? His hair looked almost bright green. Dash it all, he hadn’t
green hair at all events. That was a bit too steep. And then the green
light trembled in the glass; it was the shadow from the tree outside.
Reggie turned away, took out his cigarette case, but remembering how
the mater hated him to smoke in his bedroom, put it back again and
drifted over to the chest of drawers. No, he was dashed if he could
think of one blessed thing in his favour, while she.... Ah!... He
stopped dead, folded his arms, and leaned hard against the chest of
drawers.
And in spite of her position, her father’s wealth, the fact that she
was an only child and far and away the most popular girl in the
neighbourhood; in spite of her beauty and her cleverness—cleverness!—it
was a great deal more than that, there was really nothing she couldn’t
do; he fully believed, had it been necessary, she would have been a
genius at anything—in spite of the fact that her parents adored her,
and she them, and they’d as soon let her go all that way as.... In
spite of every single thing you could think of, so terrific was his
love that he couldn’t help hoping. Well, was it hope? Or was this
queer, timid longing to have the chance of looking after her, of making
it his job to see that she had everything she wanted, and that nothing
came near her that wasn’t perfect—just love? How he loved her! He
squeezed hard against the chest of drawers and murmured to it, “I love
her, I love her!” And just for the moment he was with her on the way to
Umtali. It was night. She sat in a corner asleep. Her soft chin was
tucked into her soft collar, her gold-brown lashes lay on her cheeks.
He doted on her delicate little nose, her perfect lips, her ear like a
baby’s, and the gold-brown curl that half covered it. They were passing
through the jungle. It was warm and dark and far away. Then she woke up
and said, “Have I been asleep?” and he answered, “Yes. Are you all
right? Here, let me—” And he leaned forward to.... He bent over her.
This was such bliss that he could dream no further. But it gave him the
courage to bound downstairs, to snatch his straw hat from the hall, and
to say as he closed the front door, “Well, I can only try my luck,
that’s all.”
But his luck gave him a nasty jar, to say the least, almost
immediately. Promenading up and down the garden path with Chinny and
Biddy, the ancient Pekes, was the mater. Of course Reginald was fond of
the mater and all that. She—she meant well, she had no end of grit, and
so on. But there was no denying it, she was rather a grim parent. And
there had been moments, many of them, in Reggie’s life, before Uncle
Alick died and left him the fruit farm, when he was convinced that to
be a widow’s only son was about the worst punishment a chap could have.
And what made it rougher than ever was that she was positively all that
he had. She wasn’t only a combined parent, as it were, but she had
quarrelled with all her own and the governor’s relations before Reggie
had won his first trouser pockets. So that whenever Reggie was homesick
out there, sitting on his dark veranda by starlight, while the
gramophone cried, “Dear, what is Life but Love?” his only vision was of
the mater, tall and stout, rustling down the garden path, with Chinny
and Biddy at her heels....
The mater, with her scissors outspread to snap the head of a dead
something or other, stopped at the sight of Reggie.
“You are not going out, Reginald?” she asked, seeing that he was.
“I’ll be back for tea, mater,” said Reggie weakly, plunging his hands
into his jacket pockets.
Snip. Off came a head. Reggie almost jumped.
“I should have thought you could have spared your mother your last
afternoon,” said she.
Silence. The Pekes stared. They understood every word of the mater’s.
Biddy lay down with her tongue poked out; she was so fat and glossy she
looked like a lump of half-melted toffee. But Chinny’s porcelain eyes
gloomed at Reginald, and he sniffed faintly, as though the whole world
were one unpleasant smell. Snip, went the scissors again. Poor little
beggars; they were getting it!
“And where are you going, if your mother may ask?” asked the mater.
It was over at last, but Reggie did not slow down until he was out of
sight of the house and half-way to Colonel Proctor’s. Then only he
noticed what a top-hole afternoon it was. It had been raining all the
morning, late summer rain, warm, heavy, quick, and now the sky was
clear, except for a long tail of little clouds, like ducklings, sailing
over the forest. There was just enough wind to shake the last drops off
the trees; one warm star splashed on his hand. Ping!—another drummed on
his hat. The empty road gleamed, the hedges smelled of briar, and how
big and bright the hollyhocks glowed in the cottage gardens. And here
was Colonel Proctor’s—here it was already. His hand was on the gate,
his elbow jogged the syringa bushes, and petals and pollen scattered
over his coat sleeve. But wait a bit. This was too quick altogether.
He’d meant to think the whole thing out again. Here, steady. But he was
walking up the path, with the huge rose bushes on either side. It can’t
be done like this. But his hand had grasped the bell, given it a pull,
and started it pealing wildly, as if he’d come to say the house was on
fire. The housemaid must have been in the hall, too, for the front door
flashed open, and Reggie was shut in the empty drawing-room before that
confounded bell had stopped ringing. Strangely enough, when it did, the
big room, shadowy, with some one’s parasol lying on top of the grand
piano, bucked him up—or rather, excited him. It was so quiet, and yet
in one moment the door would open, and his fate be decided. The feeling
was not unlike that of being at the dentist’s; he was almost reckless.
But at the same time, to his immense surprise, Reggie heard himself
saying, “Lord, Thou knowest, Thou hast not done _much_ for me....” That
pulled him up; that made him realize again how dead serious it was. Too
late. The door handle turned. Anne came in, crossed the shadowy space
between them, gave him her hand, and said, in her small, soft voice,
“I’m so sorry, father is out. And mother is having a day in town,
hat-hunting. There’s only me to entertain you, Reggie.”
Reggie gasped, pressed his own hat to his jacket buttons, and stammered
out, “As a matter of fact, I’ve only come... to say good-bye.”
“Oh!” cried Anne softly—she stepped back from him and her grey eyes
danced—“what a _very_ short visit!”
Then, watching him, her chin tilted, she laughed outright, a long, soft
peal, and walked away from him over to the piano, and leaned against
it, playing with the tassel of the parasol.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “to be laughing like this. I don’t know why I
do. It’s just a bad ha-habit.” And suddenly she stamped her grey shoe,
and took a pocket-handkerchief out of her white woolly jacket. “I
really must conquer it, it’s too absurd,” said she.