The Garden Party, and Other Stories
into a balloon. And now it began to rain. There was nowhere.
Marriage à la Mode
On his way to the station William remembered with a fresh pang of
disappointment that he was taking nothing down to the kiddies. Poor
little chaps! It was hard lines on them. Their first words always were
as they ran to greet him, “What have you got for me, daddy?” and he had
nothing. He would have to buy them some sweets at the station. But that
was what he had done for the past four Saturdays; their faces had
fallen last time when they saw the same old boxes produced again.
And Paddy had said, “I had red ribbing on mine _bee_-fore!”
And Johnny had said, “It’s always pink on mine. I hate pink.”
But what was William to do? The affair wasn’t so easily settled. In the
old days, of course, he would have taken a taxi off to a decent toyshop
and chosen them something in five minutes. But nowadays they had
Russian toys, French toys, Serbian toys—toys from God knows where. It
was over a year since Isabel had scrapped the old donkeys and engines
and so on because they were so “dreadfully sentimental” and “so
appallingly bad for the babies’ sense of form.”
“It’s so important,” the new Isabel had explained, “that they should
like the right things from the very beginning. It saves so much time
later on. Really, if the poor pets have to spend their infant years
staring at these horrors, one can imagine them growing up and asking to
be taken to the Royal Academy.”
And she spoke as though a visit to the Royal Academy was certain
immediate death to anyone....
“Well, I don’t know,” said William slowly. “When I was their age I used
to go to bed hugging an old towel with a knot in it.”
The new Isabel looked at him, her eyes narrowed, her lips apart.
“_Dear_ William! I’m sure you did!” She laughed in the new way.
Sweets it would have to be, however, thought William gloomily, fishing
in his pocket for change for the taxi-man. And he saw the kiddies
handing the boxes round—they were awfully generous little chaps—while
Isabel’s precious friends didn’t hesitate to help themselves....
What about fruit? William hovered before a stall just inside the
station. What about a melon each? Would they have to share that, too?
Or a pineapple, for Pad, and a melon for Johnny? Isabel’s friends could
hardly go sneaking up to the nursery at the children’s meal-times. All
the same, as he bought the melon William had a horrible vision of one
of Isabel’s young poets lapping up a slice, for some reason, behind the
nursery door.
With his two very awkward parcels he strode off to his train. The
platform was crowded, the train was in. Doors banged open and shut.
There came such a loud hissing from the engine that people looked dazed
as they scurried to and fro. William made straight for a first-class
smoker, stowed away his suit-case and parcels, and taking a huge wad of
papers out of his inner pocket, he flung down in the corner and began
to read.
“Our client moreover is positive.... We are inclined to reconsider...
in the event of—” Ah, that was better. William pressed back his
flattened hair and stretched his legs across the carriage floor. The
familiar dull gnawing in his breast quietened down. “With regard to our
decision—” He took out a blue pencil and scored a paragraph slowly.
Two men came in, stepped across him, and made for the farther corner. A
young fellow swung his golf clubs into the rack and sat down opposite.
The train gave a gentle lurch, they were off. William glanced up and
saw the hot, bright station slipping away. A red-faced girl raced along
by the carriages, there was something strained and almost desperate in
the way she waved and called. “Hysterical!” thought William dully. Then
a greasy, black-faced workman at the end of the platform grinned at the
passing train. And William thought, “A filthy life!” and went back to
his papers.
When he looked up again there were fields, and beasts standing for
shelter under the dark trees. A wide river, with naked children
splashing in the shallows, glided into sight and was gone again. The
sky shone pale, and one bird drifted high like a dark fleck in a jewel.
“We have examined our client’s correspondence files....” The last
sentence he had read echoed in his mind. “We have examined....” William
hung on to that sentence, but it was no good; it snapped in the middle,
and the fields, the sky, the sailing bird, the water, all said,
“Isabel.” The same thing happened every Saturday afternoon. When he was
on his way to meet Isabel there began those countless imaginary
meetings. She was at the station, standing just a little apart from
everybody else; she was sitting in the open taxi outside; she was at
the garden gate; walking across the parched grass; at the door, or just
inside the hall.
And her clear, light voice said, “It’s William,” or “Hillo, William!”
or “So William has come!” He touched her cool hand, her cool cheek.
The exquisite freshness of Isabel! When he had been a little boy, it
was his delight to run into the garden after a shower of rain and shake
the rose-bush over him. Isabel was that rose-bush, petal-soft,
sparkling and cool. And he was still that little boy. But there was no
running into the garden now, no laughing and shaking. The dull,
persistent gnawing in his breast started again. He drew up his legs,
tossed the papers aside, and shut his eyes.
“What is it, Isabel? What is it?” he said tenderly. They were in their
bedroom in the new house. Isabel sat on a painted stool before the
dressing-table that was strewn with little black and green boxes.
“What is what, William?” And she bent forward, and her fine light hair
fell over her cheeks.
“Ah, you know!” He stood in the middle of the room and he felt a
stranger. At that Isabel wheeled round quickly and faced him.
“Oh, William!” she cried imploringly, and she held up the hair-brush:
“Please! Please don’t be so dreadfully stuffy and—tragic. You’re always
saying or looking or hinting that I’ve changed. Just because I’ve got
to know really congenial people, and go about more, and am frightfully
keen on—on everything, you behave as though I’d—” Isabel tossed back
her hair and laughed—“killed our love or something. It’s so awfully
absurd”—she bit her lip—“and it’s so maddening, William. Even this new
house and the servants you grudge me.”
“Isabel!”
“Yes, yes, it’s true in a way,” said Isabel quickly. “You think they
are another bad sign. Oh, I know you do. I feel it,” she said softly,
“every time you come up the stairs. But we couldn’t have gone on living
in that other poky little hole, William. Be practical, at least! Why,
there wasn’t enough room for the babies even.”
No, it was true. Every morning when he came back from chambers it was
to find the babies with Isabel in the back drawing-room. They were
having rides on the leopard skin thrown over the sofa back, or they
were playing shops with Isabel’s desk for a counter, or Pad was sitting
on the hearthrug rowing away for dear life with a little brass fire
shovel, while Johnny shot at pirates with the tongs. Every evening they
each had a pick-a-back up the narrow stairs to their fat old Nanny.
Yes, he supposed it was a poky little house. A little white house with
blue curtains and a window-box of petunias. William met their friends
at the door with “Seen our petunias? Pretty terrific for London, don’t
you think?”
But the imbecile thing, the absolutely extraordinary thing was that he
hadn’t the slightest idea that Isabel wasn’t as happy as he. God, what
blindness! He hadn’t the remotest notion in those days that she really
hated that inconvenient little house, that she thought the fat Nanny
was ruining the babies, that she was desperately lonely, pining for new
people and new music and pictures and so on. If they hadn’t gone to
that studio party at Moira Morrison’s—if Moira Morrison hadn’t said as
they were leaving, “I’m going to rescue your wife, selfish man. She’s
like an exquisite little Titania”—if Isabel hadn’t gone with Moira to
Paris—if—if....
The train stopped at another station. Bettingford. Good heavens! They’d
be there in ten minutes. William stuffed that papers back into his
pockets; the young man opposite had long since disappeared. Now the
other two got out. The late afternoon sun shone on women in cotton
frocks and little sunburnt, barefoot children. It blazed on a silky
yellow flower with coarse leaves which sprawled over a bank of rock.
The air ruffling through the window smelled of the sea. Had Isabel the
same crowd with her this week-end, wondered William?
And he remembered the holidays they used to have, the four of them,
with a little farm girl, Rose, to look after the babies. Isabel wore a
jersey and her hair in a plait; she looked about fourteen. Lord! how
his nose used to peel! And the amount they ate, and the amount they
slept in that immense feather bed with their feet locked together....
William couldn’t help a grim smile as he thought of Isabel’s horror if
she knew the full extent of his sentimentality.
“Hillo, William!” She was at the station after all, standing just as he
had imagined, apart from the others, and—William’s heart leapt—she was
alone.
“Hallo, Isabel!” William stared. He thought she looked so beautiful
that he had to say something, “You look very cool.”
“Do I?” said Isabel. “I don’t feel very cool. Come along, your horrid
old train is late. The taxi’s outside.” She put her hand lightly on his
arm as they passed the ticket collector. “We’ve all come to meet you,”
she said. “But we’ve left Bobby Kane at the sweet shop, to be called
for.”
“Oh!” said William. It was all he could say for the moment.
There in the glare waited the taxi, with Bill Hunt and Dennis Green
sprawling on one side, their hats tilted over their faces, while on the
other, Moira Morrison, in a bonnet like a huge strawberry, jumped up
and down.
“No ice! No ice! No ice!” she shouted gaily.
And Dennis chimed in from under his hat. “_Only_ to be had from the
fishmonger’s.”
And Bill Hunt, emerging, added, “With _whole_ fish in it.”
“Oh, what a bore!” wailed Isabel. And she explained to William how they
had been chasing round the town for ice while she waited for him.
“Simply everything is running down the steep cliffs into the sea,
beginning with the butter.”
“We shall have to anoint ourselves with butter,” said Dennis. “May thy
head, William, lack not ointment.”
“Look here,” said William, “how are we going to sit? I’d better get up
by the driver.”
“No, Bobby Kane’s by the driver,” said Isabel. “You’re to sit between
Moira and me.” The taxi started. “What have you got in those mysterious
parcels?”
“De-cap-it-ated heads!” said Bill Hunt, shuddering beneath his hat.
“Oh, fruit!” Isabel sounded very pleased. “Wise William! A melon and a
pineapple. How too nice!”
“No, wait a bit,” said William, smiling. But he really was anxious. “I
brought them down for the kiddies.”
“Oh, my dear!” Isabel laughed, and slipped her hand through his arm.
“They’d be rolling in agonies if they were to eat them. No”—she patted
his hand—“you must bring them something next time. I refuse to part
with my pineapple.”
“Cruel Isabel! Do let me smell it!” said Moira. She flung her arms
across William appealingly. “Oh!” The strawberry bonnet fell forward:
she sounded quite faint.
“A Lady in Love with a Pineapple,” said Dennis, as the taxi drew up
before a little shop with a striped blind. Out came Bobby Kane, his
arms full of little packets.
“I do hope they’ll be good. I’ve chosen them because of the colours.
There are some round things which really look too divine. And just look
at this nougat,” he cried ecstatically, “just look at it! It’s a
perfect little ballet!”