The Garden Party, and Other Stories
something,” said Hammond. “What is it? Come and sit here—come and sit
on my knee before the fire.”
“I’ll just unpin my hat,” said Janey, and she went over to the
dressing-table. “A-ah!” She gave a little cry.
“What is it?”
“Nothing, darling. I’ve just found the children’s letters. That’s all
right! They will keep. No hurry now!” She turned to him, clasping them.
She tucked them into her frilled blouse. She cried quickly, gaily: “Oh,
how typical this dressing-table is of you!”
“Why? What’s the matter with it?” said Hammond.
“If it were floating in eternity I should say ‘John!’” laughed Janey,
staring at the big bottle of hair tonic, the wicker bottle of
eau-de-Cologne, the two hair-brushes, and a dozen new collars tied with
pink tape. “Is this all your luggage?”
“Hang my luggage!” said Hammond; but all the same he liked being
laughed at by Janey. “Let’s talk. Let’s get down to things. Tell
me”—and as Janey perched on his knees he leaned back and drew her into
the deep, ugly chair—“tell me you’re really glad to be back, Janey.”
“Yes, darling, I am glad,” she said.
But just as when he embraced her he felt she would fly away, so Hammond
never knew—never knew for dead certain that she was as glad as he was.
How could he know? Would he ever know? Would he always have this
craving—this pang like hunger, somehow, to make Janey so much part of
him that there wasn’t any of her to escape? He wanted to blot out
everybody, everything. He wished now he’d turned off the light. That
might have brought her nearer. And now those letters from the children
rustled in her blouse. He could have chucked them into the fire.
“Janey,” he whispered.
“Yes, dear?” She lay on his breast, but so lightly, so remotely. Their
breathing rose and fell together.
“Janey!”
“What is it?”
“Turn to me,” he whispered. A slow, deep flush flowed into his
forehead. “Kiss me, Janey! You kiss me!”
It seemed to him there was a tiny pause—but long enough for him to
suffer torture—before her lips touched his, firmly, lightly—kissing
them as she always kissed him, as though the kiss—how could he describe
it?—confirmed what they were saying, signed the contract. But that
wasn’t what he wanted; that wasn’t at all what he thirsted for. He felt
suddenly, horrible tired.
“If you knew,” he said, opening his eyes, “what it’s been like—waiting
to-day. I thought the boat never would come in. There we were, hanging
about. What kept you so long?”
She made no answer. She was looking away from him at the fire. The
flames hurried—hurried over the coals, flickered, fell.
“Not asleep, are you?” said Hammond, and he jumped her up and down.
“No,” she said. And then: “Don’t do that, dear. No, I was thinking. As
a matter of fact,” she said, “one of the passengers died last night—a
man. That’s what held us up. We brought him in—I mean, he wasn’t buried
at sea. So, of course, the ship’s doctor and the shore doctor—”
“What was it?” asked Hammond uneasily. He hated to hear of death. He
hated this to have happened. It was, in some queer way, as though he
and Janey had met a funeral on their way to the hotel.
“Oh, it wasn’t anything in the least infectious!” said Janey. She was
speaking scarcely above her breath. “It was _heart_.” A pause. “Poor
fellow!” she said. “Quite young.” And she watched the fire flicker and
fall. “He died in my arms,” said Janey.
The blow was so sudden that Hammond thought he would faint. He couldn’t
move; he couldn’t breathe. He felt all his strength flowing—flowing
into the big dark chair, and the big dark chair held him fast, gripped
him, forced him to bear it.
“What?” he said dully. “What’s that you say?”
“The end was quite peaceful,” said the small voice. “He just”—and
Hammond saw her lift her gentle hand—“breathed his life away at the
end.” And her hand fell.
“Who—else was there?” Hammond managed to ask.
“Nobody. I was alone with him.”
Ah, my God, what was she saying! What was she doing to him! This would
kill him! And all the while she spoke:
“I saw the change coming and I sent the steward for the doctor, but the
doctor was too late. He couldn’t have done anything, anyway.”
“But—why _you_, why _you_?” moaned Hammond.
At that Janey turned quickly, quickly searched his face.
“You don’t _mind_, John, do you?” she asked. “You don’t—It’s nothing to
do with you and me.”
Somehow or other he managed to shake some sort of smile at her. Somehow
or other he stammered: “No—go—on, go on! I want you to tell me.”
“But, John darling—”
“Tell me, Janey!”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said, wondering. “He was one of the
first-class passengers. I saw he was very ill when he came on board....
But he seemed to be so much better until yesterday. He had a severe
attack in the afternoon—excitement—nervousness, I think, about
arriving. And after that he never recovered.”
“But why didn’t the stewardess—”
“Oh, my dear—the stewardess!” said Janey. “What would he have felt? And
besides... he might have wanted to leave a message... to—”
“Didn’t he?” muttered Hammond. “Didn’t he say anything?”
“No, darling, not a word!” She shook her head softly. “All the time I
was with him he was too weak... he was too weak even to move a
finger....”
Janey was silent. But her words, so light, so soft, so chill, seemed to
hover in the air, to rain into his breast like snow.
The fire had gone red. Now it fell in with a sharp sound and the room
was colder. Cold crept up his arms. The room was huge, immense,
glittering. It filled his whole world. There was the great blind bed,
with his coat flung across it like some headless man saying his
prayers. There was the luggage, ready to be carried away again,
anywhere, tossed into trains, carted on to boats.
... “He was too weak. He was too weak to move a finger.” And yet he
died in Janey’s arms. She—who’d never—never once in all these
years—never on one single solitary occasion—
No; he mustn’t think of it. Madness lay in thinking of it. No, he
wouldn’t face it. He couldn’t stand it. It was too much to bear!
And now Janey touched his tie with her fingers. She pinched the edges
of the tie together.
“You’re not—sorry I told you, John darling? It hasn’t made you sad? It
hasn’t spoilt our evening—our being alone together?”
But at that he had to hide his face. He put his face into her bosom and
his arms enfolded her.
Spoilt their evening! Spoilt their being alone together! They would
never be alone together again.
Bank Holiday
A stout man with a pink face wears dingy white flannel trousers, a blue
coat with a pink handkerchief showing, and a straw hat much too small
for him, perched at the back of his head. He plays the guitar. A little
chap in white canvas shoes, his face hidden under a felt hat like a
broken wing, breathes into a flute; and a tall thin fellow, with
bursting over-ripe button boots, draws ribbons—long, twisted, streaming
ribbons—of tune out of a fiddle. They stand, unsmiling, but not
serious, in the broad sunlight opposite the fruit-shop; the pink spider
of a hand beats the guitar, the little squat hand, with a
brass-and-turquoise ring, forces the reluctant flute, and the fiddler’s
arm tries to saw the fiddle in two.
A crowd collects, eating oranges and bananas, tearing off the skins,
dividing, sharing. One young girl has even a basket of strawberries,
but she does not eat them. “Aren’t they _dear_!” She stares at the tiny
pointed fruits as if she were afraid of them. The Australian soldier
laughs. “Here, go on, there’s not more than a mouthful.” But he doesn’t
want her to eat them, either. He likes to watch her little frightened
face, and her puzzled eyes lifted to his: “Aren’t they a _price_!” He
pushes out his chest and grins. Old fat women in velvet bodices—old
dusty pin-cushions—lean old hags like worn umbrellas with a quivering
bonnet on top; young women, in muslins, with hats that might have grown
on hedges, and high pointed shoes; men in khaki, sailors, shabby
clerks, young Jews in fine cloth suits with padded shoulders and wide
trousers, “hospital boys” in blue—the sun discovers them—the loud, bold
music holds them together in one big knot for a moment. The young ones
are larking, pushing each other on and off the pavement, dodging,
nudging; the old ones are talking: “So I said to ’im, if you wants the
doctor to yourself, fetch ’im, says I.”
“An’ by the time they was cooked there wasn’t so much as you could put
in the palm of me ’and!”
The only ones who are quiet are the ragged children. They stand, as
close up to the musicians as they can get, their hands behind their
backs, their eyes big. Occasionally a leg hops, an arm wags. A tiny
staggerer, overcome, turns round twice, sits down solemn, and then gets
up again.
“Ain’t it lovely?” whispers a small girl behind her hand.
And the music breaks into bright pieces, and joins together again, and
again breaks, and is dissolved, and the crowd scatters, moving slowly
up the hill.
At the corner of the road the stalls begin.
“Ticklers! Tuppence a tickler! ’Ool ’ave a tickler? Tickle ’em up,
boys.” Little soft brooms on wire handles. They are eagerly bought by
the soldiers.
“Buy a golliwog! Tuppence a golliwog!”
“Buy a jumping donkey! All alive-oh!”
“_Su_-perior chewing gum. Buy something to do, boys.”
“Buy a rose. Give ’er a rose, boy. Roses, lady?”
“Fevvers! Fevvers!” They are hard to resist. Lovely, streaming
feathers, emerald green, scarlet, bright blue, canary yellow. Even the
babies wear feathers threaded through their bonnets.
And an old woman in a three-cornered paper hat cries as if it were her
final parting advice, the only way of saving yourself or of bringing
him to his senses: “Buy a three-cornered ’at, my dear, an’ put it on!”
It is a flying day, half sun, half wind. When the sun goes in a shadow
flies over; when it comes out again it is fiery. The men and women feel
it burning their backs, their breasts and their arms; they feel their
bodies expanding, coming alive... so that they make large embracing
gestures, lift up their arms, for nothing, swoop down on a girl, blurt
into laughter.
Lemonade! A whole tank of it stands on a table covered with a cloth;
and lemons like blunted fishes blob in the yellow water. It looks
solid, like a jelly, in the thick glasses. Why can’t they drink it
without spilling it? Everybody spills it, and before the glass is
handed back the last drops are thrown in a ring.
Round the ice-cream cart, with its striped awning and bright brass
cover, the children cluster. Little tongues lick, lick round the cream
trumpets, round the squares. The cover is lifted, the wooden spoon
plunges in; one shuts one’s eyes to feel it, silently scrunching.
“Let these little birds tell you your future!” She stands beside the
cage, a shrivelled ageless Italian, clasping and unclasping her dark
claws. Her face, a treasure of delicate carving, is tied in a
green-and-gold scarf. And inside their prison the love-birds flutter
towards the papers in the seed-tray.
“You have great strength of character. You will marry a red-haired man
and have three children. Beware of a blonde woman.” Look out! Look out!
A motor-car driven by a fat chauffeur comes rushing down the hill.
Inside there a blonde woman, pouting, leaning forward—rushing through
your life—beware! beware!
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am an auctioneer by profession, and if what I
tell you is not the truth I am liable to have my licence taken away
from me and a heavy imprisonment.” He holds the licence across his
chest; the sweat pours down his face into his paper collar; his eyes
look glazed. When he takes off his hat there is a deep pucker of angry
flesh on his forehead. Nobody buys a watch.