The Garden Party, Katherine Mansfield [rainbow fish read aloud txt] 📗

waited she took out a little, gold powder-box with a mirror in the lid, shook the poor little puff as though she loathed it, and dabbed her lovely nose.

“Hennie,” she said, “take those flowers away.” She pointed with her puff to the carnations, and I heard her murmur, “I can’t bear flowers on a table.” They had evidently been giving her intense pain, for she positively closed her eyes as I moved them away.

The waitress came back with the chocolate and the tea. She put the big, frothing cups before them and pushed across my clear glass. Hennie buried his nose, emerged, with, for one dreadful moment, a little trembling blob of cream on the tip. But he hastily wiped it off like a little gentleman. I wondered if I should dare draw her attention to her cup. She didn’t notice it—didn’t see it—until suddenly, quite by chance, she took a sip. I watched anxiously; she faintly shuddered.

“Dreadfully sweet!” said she.

A tiny boy with a head like a raisin and a chocolate body came round with a tray of pastries—row upon row of little freaks, little inspirations, little melting dreams. He offered them to her. “Oh, I’m not at all hungry. Take them away.”

He offered them to Hennie. Hennie gave me a swift look—it must have been satisfactory—for he took a chocolate cream, a coffee eclair, a meringue stuffed with chestnut and a tiny horn filled with fresh strawberries. She could hardly bear to watch him. But just as the boy swerved away she held up her plate.

“Oh well, give me one,” said she.

The silver tongs dropped one, two, three—and a cherry tartlet. “I don’t know why you’re giving me all these,” she said, and nearly smiled. “I shan’t eat them; I couldn’t!”

I felt much more comfortable. I sipped my tea, leaned back, and even asked if I might smoke. At that she paused, the fork in her hand, opened her eyes, and really did smile. “Of course,” said she. “I always expect people to.”

But at that moment a tragedy happened to Hennie. He speared his pastry horn too hard, and it flew in two, and one half spilled on the table. Ghastly affair! He turned crimson. Even his ears flared, and one ashamed hand crept across the table to take what was left of the body away.

“You utter little beast!” said she.

Good heavens! I had to fly to the rescue. I cried hastily, “Will you be abroad long?”

But she had already forgotten Hennie. I was forgotten, too. She was trying to remember something…She was miles away.

“I—don’t—know,” she said slowly, from that far place.

“I suppose you prefer it to London. It’s more—more—”

When I didn’t go on she came back and looked at me, very puzzled. “More—?”

“Enfin—gayer,” I cried, waving my cigarette.

But that took a whole cake to consider. Even then, “Oh well, that depends!” was all she could safely say.

Hennie had finished. He was still very warm.

I seized the butterfly list off the table. “I say—what about an ice, Hennie? What about tangerine and ginger? No, something cooler. What about a fresh pineapple cream?”

Hennie strongly approved. The waitress had her eye on us. The order was taken when she looked up from her crumbs.

“Did you say tangerine and ginger? I like ginger. You can bring me one.” And then quickly, “I wish that orchestra wouldn’t play things from the year One. We were dancing to that all last Christmas. It’s too sickening!”

But it was a charming air. Now that I noticed it, it warmed me.

“I think this is rather a nice place, don’t you, Hennie?” I said.

Hennie said: “Ripping!” He meant to say it very low, but it came out very high in a kind of squeak.

Nice? This place? Nice? For the first time she stared about her, trying to see what there was…She blinked; her lovely eyes wondered. A very good-looking elderly man stared back at her through a monocle on a black ribbon. But him she simply couldn’t see. There was a hole in the air where he was. She looked through and through him.

Finally the little flat spoons lay still on the glass plates. Hennie looked rather exhausted, but she pulled on her white gloves again. She had some trouble with her diamond wrist-watch; it got in her way. She tugged at it—tried to break the stupid little thing—it wouldn’t break. Finally, she had to drag her glove over. I saw, after that, she couldn’t stand this place a moment longer, and, indeed, she jumped up and turned away while I went through the vulgar act of paying for the tea.

And then we were outside again. It had grown dusky. The sky was sprinkled with small stars; the big lamps glowed. While we waited for the car to come up she stood on the step, just as before, twiddling her foot, looking down.

Hennie bounded forward to open the door and she got in and sank back with— oh—such a sigh!

“Tell him,” she gasped, “to drive as fast as he can.”

Hennie grinned at his friend the chauffeur. “Allie veet!” said he. Then he composed himself and sat on the small seat facing us.

The gold powder-box came out again. Again the poor little puff was shaken; again there was that swift, deadly-secret glance between her and the mirror.

We tore through the black-and-gold town like a pair of scissors tearing through brocade. Hennie had great difficulty not to look as though he were hanging on to something.

And when we reached the Casino, of course Mrs. Raddick wasn’t there. There wasn’t a sign of her on the steps—not a sign.

“Will you stay in the car while I go and look?”

But no—she wouldn’t do that. Good heavens, no! Hennie could stay. She couldn’t bear sitting in a car. She’d wait on the steps.

“But I scarcely like to leave you,” I murmured. “I’d very much rather not leave you here.”

At that she threw back her coat; she turned and faced me; her lips parted. “Good heavens—why! I—I don’t mind it a bit. I—I like waiting.” And suddenly her cheeks crimsoned, her eyes grew dark—for a moment I thought she was going to cry. “L—let me, please,” she stammered, in a warm, eager voice. “I like it. I love waiting! Really—really I do! I’m always waiting—in all kinds of places…”

Her dark coat fell open, and her white throat—all her soft young body in the blue dress—was like a flower that is just emerging from its dark bud.

 

6. LIFE OF MA PARKER.

When the literary gentleman, whose flat old Ma Parker cleaned every Tuesday, opened the door to her that morning, he asked after her grandson. Ma Parker stood on the doormat inside the dark little hall, and she stretched out her hand to help her gentleman shut the door before she replied. “We buried ‘im yesterday, sir,” she said quietly.

“Oh, dear me! I’m sorry to hear that,” said the literary gentleman in a shocked tone. He was in the middle of his breakfast. He wore a very shabby dressing-gown and carried a crumpled newspaper in one hand. But he felt awkward. He could hardly go back to the warm sitting-room without saying something—something more. Then because these people set such store by funerals he said kindly, “I hope the funeral went off all right.”

“Beg parding, sir?” said old Ma Parker huskily.

Poor old bird! She did look dashed. “I hope the funeral was a—a— success,” said he. Ma Parker gave no answer. She bent her head and hobbled off to the kitchen, clasping the old fish bag that held her cleaning things and an apron and a pair of felt shoes. The literary gentleman raised his eyebrows and went back to his breakfast.

“Overcome, I suppose,” he said aloud, helping himself to the marmalade.

Ma Parker drew the two jetty spears out of her toque and hung it behind the door. She unhooked her worn jacket and hung that up too. Then she tied her apron and sat down to take off her boots. To take off her boots or to put them on was an agony to her, but it had been an agony for years. In fact, she was so accustomed to the pain that her face was drawn and screwed up ready for the twinge before she’d so much as untied the laces. That over, she sat back with a sigh and softly rubbed her knees…

“Gran! Gran!” Her little grandson stood on her lap in his button boots. He’d just come in from playing in the street.

“Look what a state you’ve made your gran’s skirt into—you wicked boy!”

But he put his arms round her neck and rubbed his cheek against hers.

“Gran, gi’ us a penny!” he coaxed.

“Be off with you; Gran ain’t got no pennies.”

“Yes, you ‘ave.”

“No, I ain’t.”

“Yes, you ‘ave. Gi’ us one!”

Already she was feeling for the old, squashed, black leather purse.

“Well, what’ll you give your gran?”

He gave a shy little laugh and pressed closer. She felt his eyelid quivering against her cheek. “I ain’t got nothing,” he murmured…

The old woman sprang up, seized the iron kettle off the gas stove and took it over to the sink. The noise of the water drumming in the kettle deadened her pain, it seemed. She filled the pail, too, and the washing-up bowl.

It would take a whole book to describe the state of that kitchen. During the week the literary gentleman “did” for himself. That is to say, he emptied the tea leaves now and again into a jam jar set aside for that purpose, and if he ran out of clean forks he wiped over one or two on the roller towel. Otherwise, as he explained to his friends, his “system” was quite simple, and he couldn’t understand why people made all this fuss about housekeeping.

“You simply dirty everything you’ve got, get a hag in once a week to clean up, and the thing’s done.”

The result looked like a gigantic dustbin. Even the floor was littered with toast crusts, envelopes, cigarette ends. But Ma Parker bore him no grudge. She pitied the poor young gentleman for having no one to look after him. Out of the smudgy little window you could see an immense expanse of sad-looking sky, and whenever there were clouds they looked very worn, old clouds, frayed at the edges, with holes in them, or dark stains like tea.

While the water was heating, Ma Parker began sweeping the floor. “Yes,” she thought, as the broom knocked, “what with one thing and another I’ve had my share. I’ve had a hard life.”

Even the neighbours said that of her. Many a time, hobbling home with her fish bag she heard them, waiting at the corner, or leaning over the area railings, say among themselves, “She’s had a hard life, has Ma Parker.” And it was so true she wasn’t in the least proud of it. It was just as if you were to say she lived in the basement-back at Number 27. A hard life!…

At sixteen she’d left Stratford and come up to London as kitching-maid. Yes, she was born in Stratford-on-Avon. Shakespeare, sir? No, people were always arsking her about him. But she’d never heard his name until she saw it on the theatres.

Nothing remained of Stratford except that “sitting in the fireplace of a evening you could see the stars through the chimley,” and “Mother always ‘ad ‘er side of bacon, ‘anging from the ceiling.” And there was something- -a bush, there was—at the front door, that smelt ever so nice. But the bush was very vague. She’d only remembered it once or twice in the hospital, when she’d been taken bad.

That was a dreadful