The Garden Party, and Other Stories
“Carefully, children,” she warned. But they were taking the very
greatest care. They loved being allowed to carry things. “Have you said
good morning to your father?”
“Yes, grandma.” They settled themselves on the bench opposite Stanley
and Beryl.
“Good morning, Stanley!” Old Mrs. Fairfield gave him his plate.
“Morning, mother! How’s the boy?”
“Splendid! He only woke up once last night. What a perfect morning!”
The old woman paused, her hand on the loaf of bread, to gaze out of the
open door into the garden. The sea sounded. Through the wide-open
window streamed the sun on to the yellow varnished walls and bare
floor. Everything on the table flashed and glittered. In the middle
there was an old salad bowl filled with yellow and red nasturtiums. She
smiled, and a look of deep content shone in her eyes.
“You might _cut_ me a slice of that bread, mother,” said Stanley. “I’ve
only twelve and a half minutes before the coach passes. Has anyone
given my shoes to the servant girl?”
“Yes, they’re ready for you.” Mrs. Fairfield was quite unruffled.
“Oh, Kezia! Why are you such a messy child!” cried Beryl despairingly.
“Me, Aunt Beryl?” Kezia stared at her. What had she done now? She had
only dug a river down the middle of her porridge, filled it, and was
eating the banks away. But she did that every single morning, and no
one had said a word up till now.
“Why can’t you eat your food properly like Isabel and Lottie?” How
unfair grown-ups are!
“But Lottie always makes a floating island, don’t you, Lottie?”
“I don’t,” said Isabel smartly. “I just sprinkle mine with sugar and
put on the milk and finish it. Only babies play with their food.”
Stanley pushed back his chair and got up.
“Would you get me those shoes, mother? And, Beryl, if you’ve finished,
I wish you’d cut down to the gate and stop the coach. Run in to your
mother, Isabel, and ask her where my bowler hat’s been put. Wait a
minute—have you children been playing with my stick?”
“No, father!”
“But I put it here.” Stanley began to bluster. “I remember distinctly
putting it in this corner. Now, who’s had it? There’s no time to lose.
Look sharp! The stick’s got to be found.”
Even Alice, the servant-girl, was drawn into the chase. “You haven’t
been using it to poke the kitchen fire with by any chance?”
Stanley dashed into the bedroom where Linda was lying. “Most
extraordinary thing. I can’t keep a single possession to myself.
They’ve made away with my stick, now!”
“Stick, dear? What stick?” Linda’s vagueness on these occasions could
not be real, Stanley decided. Would nobody sympathize with him?
“Coach! Coach, Stanley!” Beryl’s voice cried from the gate.
Stanley waved his arm to Linda. “No time to say good-bye!” he cried.
And he meant that as a punishment to her.
He snatched his bowler hat, dashed out of the house, and swung down the
garden path. Yes, the coach was there waiting, and Beryl, leaning over
the open gate, was laughing up at somebody or other just as if nothing
had happened. The heartlessness of women! The way they took it for
granted it was your job to slave away for them while they didn’t even
take the trouble to see that your walking-stick wasn’t lost. Kelly
trailed his whip across the horses.
“Good-bye, Stanley,” called Beryl, sweetly and gaily. It was easy
enough to say good-bye! And there she stood, idle, shading her eyes
with her hand. The worst of it was Stanley had to shout good-bye too,
for the sake of appearances. Then he saw her turn, give a little skip
and run back to the house. She was glad to be rid of him!
Yes, she was thankful. Into the living-room she ran and called “He’s
gone!” Linda cried from her room: “Beryl! Has Stanley gone?” Old Mrs.
Fairfield appeared, carrying the boy in his little flannel coatee.
“Gone?”
“Gone!”
Oh, the relief, the difference it made to have the man out of the
house. Their very voices were changed as they called to one another;
they sounded warm and loving and as if they shared a secret. Beryl went
over to the table. “Have another cup of tea, mother. It’s still hot.”
She wanted, somehow, to celebrate the fact that they could do what they
liked now. There was no man to disturb them; the whole perfect day was
theirs.
“No, thank you, child,” said old Mrs. Fairfield, but the way at that
moment she tossed the boy up and said “a-goos-a-goos-a-ga!” to him
meant that she felt the same. The little girls ran into the paddock
like chickens let out of a coop.
Even Alice, the servant-girl, washing up the dishes in the kitchen,
caught the infection and used the precious tank water in a perfectly
reckless fashion.
“Oh, these men!” said she, and she plunged the teapot into the bowl and
held it under the water even after it had stopped bubbling, as if it
too was a man and drowning was too good for them.
IV
“Wait for me, Isa-bel! Kezia, wait for me!”
There was poor little Lottie, left behind again, because she found it
so fearfully hard to get over the stile by herself. When she stood on
the first step her knees began to wobble; she grasped the post. Then
you had to put one leg over. But which leg? She never could decide. And
when she did finally put one leg over with a sort of stamp of
despair—then the feeling was awful. She was half in the paddock still
and half in the tussock grass. She clutched the post desperately and
lifted up her voice. “Wait for me!”
“No, don’t you wait for her, Kezia!” said Isabel. “She’s such a little
silly. She’s always making a fuss. Come on!” And she tugged Kezia’s
jersey. “You can use my bucket if you come with me,” she said kindly.
“It’s bigger than yours.” But Kezia couldn’t leave Lottie all by
herself. She ran back to her. By this time Lottie was very red in the
face and breathing heavily.
“Here, put your other foot over,” said Kezia.
“Where?”
Lottie looked down at Kezia as if from a mountain height.
“Here where my hand is.” Kezia patted the place.
“Oh, _there_ do you mean!” Lottie gave a deep sigh and put the second
foot over.
“Now—sort of turn round and sit down and slide,” said Kezia.
“But there’s nothing to sit down _on_, Kezia,” said Lottie.
She managed it at last, and once it was over she shook herself and
began to beam.
“I’m getting better at climbing over stiles, aren’t I, Kezia?”
Lottie’s was a very hopeful nature.
The pink and the blue sunbonnet followed Isabel’s bright red sunbonnet
up that sliding, slipping hill. At the top they paused to decide where
to go and to have a good stare at who was there already. Seen from
behind, standing against the skyline, gesticulating largely with their
spades, they looked like minute puzzled explorers.
The whole family of Samuel Josephs was there already with their
lady-help, who sat on a camp-stool and kept order with a whistle that
she wore tied round her neck, and a small cane with which she directed
operations. The Samuel Josephs never played by themselves or managed
their own game. If they did, it ended in the boys pouring water down
the girls’ necks or the girls trying to put little black crabs into the
boys’ pockets. So Mrs. S. J. and the poor lady-help drew up what she
called a “brogramme” every morning to keep them “abused and out of
bischief.” It was all competitions or races or round games. Everything
began with a piercing blast of the lady-help’s whistle and ended with
another. There were even prizes—large, rather dirty paper parcels which
the lady-help with a sour little smile drew out of a bulging string
kit. The Samuel Josephs fought fearfully for the prizes and cheated and
pinched one another’s arms—they were all expert pinchers. The only time
the Burnell children ever played with them Kezia had got a prize, and
when she undid three bits of paper she found a very small rusty
button-hook. She couldn’t understand why they made such a fuss....
But they never played with the Samuel Josephs now or even went to their
parties. The Samuel Josephs were always giving children’s parties at
the Bay and there was always the same food. A big washhand basin of
very brown fruit-salad, buns cut into four and a washhand jug full of
something the lady-help called “Limmonadear.” And you went away in the
evening with half the frill torn off your frock or something spilled
all down the front of your open-work pinafore, leaving the Samuel
Josephs leaping like savages on their lawn. No! They were too awful.
On the other side of the beach, close down to the water, two little
boys, their knickers rolled up, twinkled like spiders. One was digging,
the other pattered in and out of the water, filling a small bucket.
They were the Trout boys, Pip and Rags. But Pip was so busy digging and
Rags was so busy helping that they didn’t see their little cousins
until they were quite close.
“Look!” said Pip. “Look what I’ve discovered.” And he showed them an
old wet, squashed-looking boot. The three little girls stared.
“Whatever are you going to do with it?” asked Kezia.
“Keep it, of course!” Pip was very scornful. “It’s a find—see?”
Yes, Kezia saw that. All the same....
“There’s lots of things buried in the sand,” explained Pip. “They get
chucked up from wrecks. Treasure. Why—you might find—”
“But why does Rags have to keep on pouring water in?” asked Lottie.
“Oh, that’s to moisten it,” said Pip, “to make the work a bit easier.
Keep it up, Rags.”
And good little Rags ran up and down, pouring in the water that turned
brown like cocoa.
“Here, shall I show you what I found yesterday?” said Pip mysteriously,
and he stuck his spade into the sand. “Promise not to tell.”
They promised.
“Say, cross my heart straight dinkum.”
The little girls said it.
Pip took something out of his pocket, rubbed it a long time on the
front of his jersey, then breathed on it and rubbed it again.
“Now turn round!” he ordered.
They turned round.
“All look the same way! Keep still! Now!”
And his hand opened; he held up to the light something that flashed,
that winked, that was a most lovely green.
“It’s a nemeral,” said Pip solemnly.
“Is it really, Pip?” Even Isabel was impressed.
The lovely green thing seemed to dance in Pip’s fingers. Aunt Beryl had
a nemeral in a ring, but it was a very small one. This one was as big
as a star and far more beautiful.
V
As the morning lengthened whole parties appeared over the sand-hills
and came down on the beach to bathe. It was understood that at eleven
o’clock the women and children of the summer colony had the sea to
themselves. First the women undressed, pulled on their bathing dresses
and covered their heads in hideous caps like sponge bags; then the
children were unbuttoned. The beach was strewn with little heaps of
clothes and shoes; the big summer hats, with stones on them to keep
them from blowing away, looked like immense shells. It was strange that
even the sea seemed to sound differently when all those leaping,
laughing figures ran into the waves. Old Mrs. Fairfield, in a lilac
cotton dress and a black hat tied under the chin, gathered her little
brood and got them ready. The little Trout boys whipped their shirts
over their heads, and away the five sped, while their grandma sat with
one hand in her knitting-bag ready to draw out the ball of wool when
she was satisfied they were safely in.
The firm compact little girls were not half so brave as the tender,
delicate-looking little boys. Pip and Rags, shivering, crouching down,
slapping the water, never hesitated. But Isabel, who could swim twelve
strokes, and Kezia, who could nearly swim eight, only followed on the
strict understanding they were not to be splashed. As for Lottie, she
didn’t follow at all. She liked to be left to go in her own way,
please. And that way was to sit down at the edge of the water, her legs