The Garden Party first edition 1922
During the reading and discussions several points came up repeatedly. These have been gathered together below as a prologue to the readings themselves.
1. Class Divide
Why does class divide play such a major role in Mansfield's short stories? She used her writing to critically expose the rigid social hierarchies and their associated prejudices during the early 20th-century society. Her stories are deeply influenced by her own upbringing in a wealthy New Zealand family that resided on the edge of a poor district, and served as a mirror to the inequalities she observed in both colonial New Zealand and London.
Mansfield often highlights the selfishness of the upper class, showing how they maintain their luxurious lifestyles through the labor of the working class while remaining indifferent to the latter's suffering. She might have been a Marxist in a different era. George Orwell, Edith Wharton, and D.H. Lawrence, were famous for exploring the class divide in Britain and America.
Class consciousness was indoctrinated into children, causing them to treat peers as inferior based on their socioeconomic status. This too Mansfield decided was worth exposing – how children are brought up in wealthy households to disdain the working classes.
The enlightenment of Laura in The Garden Party, who emancipates herself from the class consciousness she was born into is an exemplary moment that Mansfield wants to convey to her readers: you can overcome prejudice if you think with your heart as well as your mind.
2. The short story form as inferior
The short story is often unjustly considered an inferior genre compared to the novel, largely due to its brevity and focus on a single, intense moment rather than expansive, complex narratives. The brevity imposes limitations in character development, and narrative, and make it appear less substantial. But masters of the short story know it requires immense precision, skill and focus.
True it is a slice of life rather than the whole loaf, and if the short story makes a point, it is a sharp point not a whole massive structure that has to be unravelled slowly to discover its essence.
Writing a short story is challenging because it requires maximum impact with minimal words. Every sentence must serve a specific purpose, either developing the plot or revealing the character(s). Writers must cut scenes and descriptions that do not directly contribute to the central theme or conflict. It is often necessary to start in the middle of the action, avoiding lengthy exposition or scene-setting. There is no time to waste. The world has seen great short story writers – from the time of Chaucer and The Canterbury Tales. Modern masters come from all parts of the world: Alice Munro (Canada), Anton Chekhov (Russia), Ernest Hemingway (USA), Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina), Edgar Allan Poe (USA), Guy de Maupassant (France), James Joyce (Ireland), Rabindranath Tagore (India), and the list goes on.
Anton Chekhov, renowned Russian playwright and short-story writer
For the same reason of time, a short story can typically only focus on two or three main characters. Evolution of the characters and any significant change must happen quickly without feeling forced or abrupt.
The most important thing is that a successful short story must revolve around a central theme with perhaps, a few interconnected complications.
Coming to the ending, short stories rely on a surprise, a twist, or a profound revelatory conclusion.
3. Mansfield’s life as a writer and its associations
Katherine Mansfield was a rare New Zealand writer to achieve international renown. She left for Europe as a 19-year-old. This sensitive documentary examines her relationships with her family and homeland, her turbulent personal life, her writing, and her early death in France in 1923, at age 34. It quotes extensively from her letters to give an account of the years of her productive life.
John Middleton Murry and Katherine Mansfield in France 1921
John Middleton Murry (1889 – 1957) was an English writer. He was a prolific author, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime. A prominent critic, Murry is best remembered for his association with Katherine Mansfield, whom he married in 1918 as her second husband. Following Mansfield's death, Murry edited her work.
It seems that Mansfield wrote the short story, The Garden-Party, while she was dying of tuberculosis. Middleton Murray, her husband and primary publisher, wrote of his wife, “She loved life—with all its beauty and its pain.” In the story Laura experiences both the beauty and the pain of life, but Mansfield leaves Laura at the end of the story groping for a satisfactory definition of life.
4. The stories
Marriage à la Mode depicts the quiet tragedy of a marriage undone by incompatible desires and societal pressures, where neither partner truly understands the changes occurring in the other, resulting in mutual dissatisfaction and an ironic, sad conclusion.
The Stranger is concerned with how death affects the living, and in this respect it is like that of Mansfield’s two other short stories in this collection, Daughters of the Late Colonel and The Garden Party. In The Stranger Mrs.Hammond returning from a long absence has been greatly affected by the death of a passenger on the ship who dies in her arms. She seems distant and not very responsive to her surroundings after the experience, “She made no answer. She was looking away from him at the fire.” But the deaths also touches Mr. Hammond and deprives him of an intimacy that he has been yearning for.
Miss Brill analyses loneliness, illusion vs. reality, and aging, through the story of a fragile, solitary woman who creates a fantasy world where she's an actress in a grand play, only to have it shattered by a young couple's cruel words. Those words reveal her isolation and lead her to retreat like her fur, crying, into her “little dark room.” It explores the theme of social alienation.
Her art of writing is described by Mansfield in relation to this story in one of her letters:
I chose not only the length of every sentence, but even the sound of every sentence—I chose the rise and fall of every paragraph to fit [Miss Brill] on that day at that very moment. After I’d written it I read it aloud—number of times—just as one would play over a musical composition, try to get it nearer and nearer to the expression of Miss Brill—until it fitted her.
5. Her colonial locales
Many of the stories in Katherine Mansfield's collection, The Garden Party and Other Stories, are written with a New Zealand locale. The specific story The Garden Party is explicitly set in Wellington, New Zealand, and is based on her own childhood home. It pictures the cloudless blue sky “veiled with a haze of light gold, as it is sometimes in early summer” and the karaka trees “with their broad, gleaming leaves, and their clusters of yellow fruit.” They stand in contrast to the “mean little cottages” down the hill that reflect the real-life landscape and class distinctions of Mansfield's youth. Its luxurious setting is based on Mansfield's childhood home at 133 Tinakori Road (originally numbered 75), the second of three houses in Thorndon, Wellington that her family lived in.
Katherine Mansfield House and Garden was her early childhood home
The collection features fifteen stories in total; while many are set in her native New Zealand, others are set in England and the French Riviera, reflecting where she lived at various points in her life.
Her work often explores New Zealand identity, social class, and gender roles within that specific colonial context.
Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield (1888 – 1923) Bio by Saras
Katherine Mansfield (KM) was a NewZealand writer and critic whose works have been published in 25 languages. She wrote short stories and poetry which explored anxiety, sexuality, Christianity and existentialism.
She was born and raised in Wellington till the age of nineteen when she left NZ and settled in England where she became friends with D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Wolf and others in the Bloomsbury Group.
She was diagnosed with pulmonary TB in 1917 and died at the age of 34.
KM’s first printed stories appeared in her high school magazines in 1898 and 1899. In 1900 she published the short story His Little Friend which appeared in a society magazine New Zealand Graphic and Ladies Journal. In school, KM became friends with Mamata Mahupuku (Martha Grace ) who became a muse for her early works and with whom she is believed to have had a passionate relationship. For more about her read the account on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/aotearoanzhistory/posts/903797258109304/
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Maata Mahupuku
At the age of thirteen she left NZ to continue her schooling in England. At sixteen, she returned to NZ and started writing short stories in earnest. She had several works published in The Native Companion, a magazine in Australia, for which she was paid. Two years later, at nineteen she left NZ and headed back to England. She was never able to return because of her health.
She had two same sex relationships, with Martha Grace and Edith Kathleen Bendall; these figure prominently in her journal entries. She became pregnant by Garnett Trowell but since his parents disapproved of their relationship, she hastily entered into a marriage with her music teacher George Bowden, eleven years her senior. She left him the same evening before her marriage could be consummated. Her mother sent KM off to a spa town in Bavaria where she suffered a miscarriage.
Her time in Bavaria had a deep impact on her; she was introduced to the works of Anton Chekov. In fact she was accused of plagiarising Chekov in one of her earlier short stories. Her experiences there formed the foundation of her first published collection In a German Pension (1911) which she herself later describes as immature.
In 1910 KM had submitted a short story to Rhythm which was rejected by the editor John Middleton Murray (JM) who wanted something darker. She submitted another short story, a tale of murder and mental illness called The Woman at the Store. KM and JM started a relationship which culminated in their wedding in 1917 after her divorce from George Bowden came through. The characters of Gudrun and Gerald in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love were based on KM and JM.
The death of her younger brother in 1915 in Belgium changed her; it affected her deeply and her work changed. She entered her most prolific stage in 1916. In 1917 she was diagnosed with TB and she went to Cornwall and then to France hoping the weather there would improve her health. JM became editor of The Athenaeum for which she wrote over one hundred book reviews. Though married to JM their relationship floundered and they mostly lived apart. Worried about her, JM went to France and stayed with her over Christmas. KM depicted this in her short story, The Man without a Temperament about a sick wife and her long suffering husband. She published her first collection of short stories Bliss in 1920 followed by The Garden Party and Other Stories in 1922. This was a very productive period of her life, as she felt she did not have much time left.
KM spent the last few years of her life searching for unorthodox treatments for her illness without much improvement. In 1922 she wrote her last short story, The Dove. She moved to Fontainebleau to the G.I. Gurdieff Institute where she suffered a haemorrhage and died in 1923.
Most of her work remained unpublished at her death and JM took on the task of editing and publishing two additional collections of short stories The Dove’s Nest (1923) and Something Childish (1924), a volume of poems and her journals and letters. Katherine Mansfield was a prolific correspondent. The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield (edited by Vincent O'Sullivan and Margaret Scott) comprises 5 volumes (published 1984–96) containing thousands of her letters, particularly those written in her final decade.
Mansfield and Woolf, composite image
Virginia Woolf suggested that Mansfield lacked the ability to plot larger, more complex structures, viewing her focus on short stories as a limitation. Early critics often viewed the short story as a minor, less important art form compared to the novel, dismissing her focus on it. Some reviewers of her time, like Woolf, found stories like The Daughters of the Late Colonel to be “cruel” in their depiction of characters, a critique that deeply bothered her. Some critics argue she failed to connect with the reality of the lower classes, focusing instead on the bourgeoisie while failing to properly criticise their, or her own, privileged, commodified existence. Modern critics often argue that while she claimed to be apolitical, her work was actually filled with intense, sometimes frightening explorations of the "dark side" of modern life.
When Katherine met Virginia Woolf at Hogarth House (The Publishing Press Virginia Woolf owned with her husband Leonard Woolf), she felt envious, writing to John Middleton Murry (the lover who later became her second husband):
no wonder she can write. There is always in her writing a calm freedom of expression as though she were at peace – her roof over her – her own possessions round her – and her man somewhere within call.
You can read more about why Katherine Mansfield still divides opinion 100 years after her death.
Despite these criticisms, Mansfield is now considered a foundational figure in the modern short story, renowned for her psychological depth, symbolic richness, and innovative techniques.
Source : Wikipedia
She's written short stories and some poems.
Maybe, critics should not have been so quick to judge her. A short story can be the starting point for a novel, though masters of the short story form consider the brevity of the form as a challenge to say something worthwhile. Mansfield had been writing short stories since she was ten years of age, and had a lot of practice..
Virginia Woolf was very critical of her and even of her perfume (‘smelled like a civet cat,’ she said). Yes, a woman is a woman's worst enemy, said Saras.
Joe said in reality Virginia Woolf admired her writing and was jealous of her as a writer. Few critics today would argue that short stories are inferior to novels as a form. Novels, of course, require much more development than a short story does. But it is the deftness with which she sketches characters in the small compass of a short story that one admires about KM.
A short story is like a poem, KumKum said. You have to be very concise. You can't use too many words. And each sentence has to contribute to the effect the author wants to create. A novel is less taut, more explorative. It requires concentration over a longer period, and can take years to complete.
The other criticism levelled at her, that only the bourgeoisie appears in her stories, could be refuted by the title story of this collection, The Garden Party. Common-place people show up in it.
It is not a valid criticism about her to say that KM focuses on the upper classes. Indeed there is a lot of interaction in her stories between the different classes. She herself came from the upper class, definitely. So she writes about that class with a knowledge of its inner workings. But she also talks about the underprivileged. The Garden Party actually goes into that. And it's written very sensitively.
Arundhaty
Arundhaty chose the story, Marriage à la mode.
In this story, one of the things that Kathleen Mansfield depicts is the problem between people who have different ideas of what life and love is all about. And it's like a satire. She talks about a man called William, who believed in traditional marriage and traditional simple ways of being happy.
On his way to the station William remembered with a fresh pang of disappointment that he was taking nothing down to the kiddies
Whereas his wife wasn't so happy in a smaller accommodation, and their poorer condition in life. But later on, she happens to meet somebody and she moves on to adopt a different lifestyle. They move house also.
She meets a set of friends who have a bohemian attitude, very frivolous and rather silly. And their behaviour was like that, which the man just couldn't understand, because he was a lawyer, a serious kind of person. And he loved his wife and his children. He used to live in the city and he used to come home only for the weekend. He knew that his wife had acquired this new type of friend after moving, and was worried about that. But he didn't know how to deal with it. So finally he writes a letter and the wife feels bad when she reads it in a moment of quiet introspection. She's ashamed of what she was doing. She reads it out to her friends. And all of them join together and make fun of it.
And then she feels even worse, but at the same time, she's unable to avoid her new acquaintances. She gives in and goes on with her style of life and doesn't pay any attention to her husband’s letter any more.
[Passage]
All along in the story there is this reference to the new Isabel. Because when she moves house and she starts mixing with these new friends, she becomes a different person from the one that William knew. She was somebody he loved and she loved him. But he realised that there was a new Isabel now who was very different from his old Isabel.
In most of the stories, you'll find a conundrum posed like Hamlet's to be or not to be. There is confusion about which way to go, a conflict. Priya said the new bunch of friends are like bums – useless people, who are probably sponging on her also.
Saras at this point appeared on the screen from Kolhapur in Maharashtra, the land of Kolhapuri chappals, now adopted and branded by Prada with a huge price increase. The famous Kolhapuri Mahalakshmi Temple is nearby, said Priya. Yes, and the Amba Devi temple, replied Saras, who was planning to go there a little later.
Shoba
Shoba read the story Miss Brill. She was wondering about the locale of the story and what Miss Brill’s profession was. There's a line which says that she's teaching English pupils. She is in some foreign country and she's teaching English. She has the habit of going every week to the park in the evening, at the same time, and just sitting there. She's takes out the fur from the cupboard that she's going to wear to the park that day. Later in the park she meets a lady wearing an ermine toque, made from the fur of the stoat which is white in winter.
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Stoat, or short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea) – has a white fur coat in winter
She takes her fur coat from the cupboard – it's not been used in a while. Some things are wrong with it. She fixes it and she feels so happy putting it on. Later on in the story, we come to know there was some reaction from the people around her. But she's really thrilled to be going out wearing this fur.
Miss Brill – Seated by the rotunda in her grey fur on a bench under a tree watches the other people
She lives alone in a room. When Devika read the later part of the same story, the readers learned what happens at the end.
[Passage]
Here is a short film on the story:
The passage about her imagining she is in a play is brought out. But one misses the girl in the ‘ermine toque’. Quite a few changes have been made from the story but it all hangs to together.
Devika
Devika continued with Shoba’s reading. Every Sunday Miss Brill had the habit of going and sitting in a particular park next to the bandstand. She looks forward to that outing and it’s a routine. The story makes out that she's a lonely, sad woman, who gets her weekly thrill from this walk.
Miss Brill in her fur coat
[Passage].
The story of this impoverished old lady is very touching. She imagines everybody is thinking her to be an actress. They are making fun of her.
KumKum said the story reminded her of the film 36 Chowringhee Lane, written and directed by Aparna Sen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/36_Chowringhee_Lane) in which an Anglo-Indian teacher, Violet Stoneham (Jennifer Kendal), lives a quiet and uneventful life at 36 Chowringhee Lane in Calcutta until a student and her boyfriend appear.
It's a really lovely story of loneliness too. Kavita said nowadays many old people feel this loneliness. The kids are all away. They're all alone at home.They have a lot of money, but lack companionship. But Miss Brill does not have much money.
A ‘Ghost House’ in Kerala
It's the same context in India, especially in Kerala. You can read about it here. Kavita knows a lot of old people who are going through this. You really feel sad. This story was very sad for her, said Devika.
Joe said you might feel sorry for her, but I don't think Miss Brill feels sorry for herself, since the outing to the park is the high point of her week and she looks forward to it. At the end, she does feel sorry, said Devika. Then she heard something crying. What was the crying?
Geetha
The story Geetha read from is The Daughters of the Late Colonel, who are named Constantia and Josephine. It opens on the death of their father, the colonel. They had a very strict upbringing. Unfortunately, their mother passed away very early. They were stationed in Ceylon. They had one brother who got married and had a son. He was out of the terror system prevailing in the home of their father, the colonel.
The Daughters Of The Late Colonel – Father would never forgive them. That was what they felt more than ever when, two mornings later, they went into his room to go through his things
The two daughters were totally petrified of their father. They stayed with him and went through life totally scared and always afraid of what their father would think in any kind of situation. They did everything to accord with what they thought proper.
In this paragraph the funeral has taken place. When they are lowering the coffin into the grave, Josephine suddenly feels her father would have minded being shut up like that. She was scared that putting him in the hole in his coffin, would displease the late colonel very much. The sister tries to pump some sense into her, saying, what else could they do – they can’t very well keep his body in the house?
Everything is uncertain. The sisters are jumpy and nervous. Here arrives the day that they have to actually check into his personal effects.
[Passage]
It's such a queer family. Geetha’s reading was wonderful in the way the sisters are portrayed unnerved and unmoored from the present by the passing of their too-much-reverenced father.
The writing is very visual, said Joe, and it's full of feeling, bringing out the two sisters’ reactions. The father stuffed in the cupboard, OMG! It's a sinister idea.
Just the fact that Mansfield thought of something like this to write a short story about is admirable. So realistic it is. She's written it so well a film could be made out of it without much effort by a film director since all the scenes are there, explicitly laid out. Mansfield has built up the whole thing visually.
The sisters got their courage back at the end. That’s good.
Pamela remembered when her father passed away, when she emptied his table, the particular table which had a safe on the right side, and a drawer on top. It was a table which was not touched by anyone in the family. It was taboo. So after he passed away, when Pamela went and touched it, it was a similar kind of experience. But not as scary as made out in KM’s story.
Saras thought of this as a very patriarchal family, where whatever the father does, the sisters just bow down and accept. There was a movie that she saw recently, one where Olivia Colman acts called The Wicked Little Letters. See https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20234774/
Wicked Little Letters film with Olivia Colman
The father rules their lives. It reminded Saras so much of that. The personalities of the women are so subdued – the colonel just crushed their spirits.
KumKum mentioned a short story by Tagore, Streer Patra (A Wife's Letter). Here is a translation of the story. There was a father and wife and a daughter. The father treated them well. After he died, they found his love letters in a cupboard. He had kept a mistress. The father objected in his lifetime to the daughter being married to a doctor next door whom she loved – because he was low caste. But all the while, he was having an affair with another woman of low caste, and even had children by her. The wife couldn't believe it. The neighbours said they would give her the title of being his “official mistress.”
It's like a serial we saw, House of Guinness, a 2025 Netflix drama series (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13542714/) created by Steven Knight that explores the, often fictionalised, dramatic rise of the Guinness brewing dynasty in 19th-century Dublin and New York. Following the 1868 death of patriarch Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, his four children—Arthur, Edward, Anne, and Ben—struggle for control of the company, dealing with family, political, and romantic scandals.
Priya
Priya continued reading from the same story The Daughters of the Late Colonel. These two daughters should be in their late 30s. Much more, said Saras, because the grandson by the brother is almost 20 or 25. These are older middle-aged ladies.
The name itself is very suggestive, pinning them down as desiccated spinsters. Life has passed them by. They suddenly realise that they have remained such weak personalities because of their domineering father, who rendered them unable to decide anything on their own.
The Daughters of the Late Colonel cartoon
The passage is towards the end of the story.
[Passage]
So that's their life, you know. They could never really say what they wanted to say, never express themselves and never move forward. They were quite unsure of themselves also, without purpose in their lives. They didn't know what to do, now that their father is gone. Their whole beings revolved around the father.
How their mother could have lived with such an imperious husband, and how Benny, their brother managed to escape from the father’s ambit, we are left to imagine. In their absence it was the sisters’ job to look after the father.
He was content to have slaves around himself. Priya likes the colonial imagery. The father must have been living in some plantation in Ceylon.
KumKum says she likes the Anglo-Indians mentioned in the story. She thanked Saras and Devika for choosing these stories. She had read The Garden Party a long time ago and really liked it. This selection gave KumKum, who is a short story fan, an opportunity to try out all the other stories in the collection.
Joe
This is about a husband finding that his wife has become a stranger to him.That's the meaning of the title, The Stranger. Joe chose this story because it shows how an unexpected occurrence can upset the emotional relations in a perfectly sound marriage.
In the passage the wife Janey has just returned by ship from a 10-month absence. Her husband Hammond who has been expectantly waiting by the wharf to meet her.
View of the dockside as the man waits for his returning wife
The novel depicts the anxious husband waiting for her to come off the ship. There are many delays. When she finally gets off then husband takes her to an expensive hotel he has booked for a romantic night before going home. He wants to spend a night alone with her, reviving his anxious love before they go to their home town by rail.
But then the wife narrates the story of a man she was with man during the last night of the sea voyage, saying he died of a heart attack in her arms. The story leaves vague why she was with the man alone in his cabin in the dying moments. Was there a liaison? No, it was just a good woman comforting a dying man, but it obviously took an emotional toll on her and spoiled the intimacy the husband was waiting for when his wife returned.
He feels jealous perhaps, somehow deprived of the warmth of this meeting he had been long waiting for. It is aggravated by the wife wanting to read their children’s letters ahead of paying attention to him. No doubt the man feels insecure, and this act of his wife being a Good Samaritan in the dying man’s hour of need is misconstrued. Janey's unusual experience separates her. Hammond's possessiveness pushes her further away. A distance has been created.
The story was first published in January 1921 in the London Mercury. It is set in a seaside town in New Zealand. Mansfield often began her stories in the middle of things. She neither introduces character backgrounds nor the locale. The male perspective in the story is atypical for Mansfield who preferred to write from a woman’s point of view about family relations. In the process she sets up a type of insecure man; but we can understand his disappointment.
Although Mr. Hammond’s devotion to his wife seems genuine, there is an undercurrent of neediness that masks his overwhelming desire to possess Janey body and soul. Mrs. Hammond, in turn, resists her husband’s attempts at intimacy. This prompts him to try harder, fuelling a growing suspicion that something is wrong or different about his wife. Mr. Hammond feels his marriage is in jeopardy.
The marriage does not seem unhappy and Janey is obviously devoted to her family but she has spent months away from her husband and her feelings have changed. Perhaps she found that she enjoyed her solitude while away, delighting in the freedom of being just Janey and not Mrs. Hammond. To Mr. Hammond signs of independence or the feeling that Janey is always on the verge of flying away from him prompt him to hold her tighter, become even more possessive of her time, her body, even her mind. In doing so he only serves to drive her farther away. Too caught up in his own desire to posses Janey, Mr. Hammond is blindsided by her confession.
Most probably Janey’s having been alone with the young man was an act of compassion. She knew that he was ill but thought he was getting better. His death shocked and grieved her. Janey knew that Mr. Hammond would be jealous of her interaction with the young man; however innocent, and chose not to tell him until he pressed her for details. Mr. Hammond feels betrayed by Janey not because she was the young man’s friend, but rather because she chose to hold him as he lay dying. Time and distance may separate them momentarily but death is eternal and he fears he will never experience such a binding and intimate moment with Janey as she had with the young man.
[Passage]
The husband is in an emotional state. And it quite overwhelms him that some passenger dies in his wife’s arms. The emotional distance that the incident has created bothers him. He feels that in future in life, he cannot become as close to her or as intimate with her as he was in the past. It has created a distance, perhaps permanently. And that's the nub of the story.
That this kind of an untoward incident, with absolutely no ill intention on the part of the wife could change relations with her husband permanently, is the strangeness of it all. There's this sort of needy guy who, instead of understanding the situation and making allowance for it, causes the situation to pull them apart.
The wife went away because their daughter was expecting. And she left the husband and two other children. They are not, either of them, very young. It's one of the very nice stories of the book.
The story is set in New Zealand, some seaport in New Zealand to which she's returning. That's what Joe understood by reading the background.
Kavita
Kavita read from An Ideal Family. The story is about Mr. Neave who is complimented by outsiders for how perfect a family he has. He's a typical workaholic businessman who gave more importance to his work than family. He's an elderly, weary man returning from work to his family in the story; they are indifferent to his exhaustion, focused only on their leisure, a consequence of his wealth.
The irony of the title is that there is an emotional void behind a perfect life, like Mr. Neave’s. Although the family appears to be very successful, actually they're shallow and disconnected, leaving Mr. Neave feeling lonely and unappreciated.
In the present time, we see a lot of this kind of people whose parents have spent their life making money for their children, and ultimately children have no time for the parents. So the children are enjoying all the fruits of the parents' hard work, but they don't appreciate it. They take it for granted that it is their entitlement.
Mr. Neave realises that he didn't spend quality time with his family. He was too busy working and now the family is busy with their own lives. They have no time for him. He's just a person who's there, in the background.
The family also wants the stuff. The son wants to take over from him. The family, though the story is set abroad, is like a typical Indian family, where the son is given all the importance. You can read in this article Why Indian Parents Glorify Sons More Than Daughters. The mother and the three sisters are doting on the son in this story, telling the father, the son is not at all competent. He is a lazy, shallow fellow.
The sisters and the mother fall for her son's good looks. 90% of Indian mothers are that. The son is the apple of their eye. Kavita then read the passage.
[Passage]
It's a beautiful story, well written. Most of us have read a couple of stories here that have sadness, and some loneliness too. Miss Brill is another sad story. Or is it?
KumKum
[Passage]
Katherine Mansfield's The Garden Party is a collection of 15 short stories. One of the stories in the book goes by the title name. KumKum chose to read from it. ”It's so delicious to have an excuse for eating out of doors,” says Laura as that story opens – a sentiment with which KumKum is in accord.
The story highlights the extravagant life style which rich people are used to, and side-by-side it depicts the lives endured by the less fortunate.
Canna Lilies in the garden
The story begins as the wealthy Sheridan family is getting ready for a garden party they are hosting for their friends. Laura, a daughter of the Sheridan family is the narrator of the events described in the story. Though Laura belongs to the upper class, she has empathy for the poor. She admires the workers who are gathered in the garden to put up the marquee, and the people who are cooking the food, and assembling or receiving catered items of the menu. Laura finds some of these workers are more interesting than the upper class boys she usually spends time with.
One of the delivery people brings the news of death of a resident in a poor nearby neighbourhood. Sensitive girl that Laura is, she feels that the garden party should be called off.
The passage KumKum chose to read begins with Laura's response after she learns about the accidental death of the poor man. Her initial reaction was to call off the party, but that was put to bed by the demurral of her siblings, and family. The Sheridans shall have their party as planned.
It could not have had a more perfect day for a garden-party
"And the perfect afternoon slowly ripened, slowly faded, slowly its petals closed,” as Laura helped her mother with the good-byes.
It is the poverty close to their neighbourhood and the contrast Mansfield shows in this story that gives it a poignant touch. This is a story KumKum had read of hers before in a collection. It probably reflects Mansfield’s own upbringing because she was the daughter of a rather wealthy family. What she's describing about the elaborate garden party and the servants laying out sandwiches under the marquees, and all that, probably reflects her own experience.
The roses and women in hats and marquees
And then Mansfield adds the experience of another part of the world, the lives of modest workmen, living not very far.
There are deft touches, suggesting that very smoke coming out their fireplaces is different from what comes out of wealthy homes. KumKum really liked Mansfield’s ability to describe in few well-chosen sentences the contrast between the wealthy and ordinary folk.
“In the garden patches there was nothing but cabbage stalks, sick hens and tomato cans. The very smoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty- stricken. Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlike the great silvery plumes that uncurled from the Sheridans’ chimneys.”
The Garden Party is set in New Zealand, specifically in the author's childhood hometown of Wellington. The luxurious Sheridan estate is based on Mansfield's real-life home on Tinakori Road in Wellington. This is what Joe found out.
Pamela.
[Passage]
Two or three things about this passage from The Garden Party really appealed to Pamela. One is, throughout the party, Laura was told that she was looking beautiful. There was a comment by her brother Laurie “My word, Laura! You do look stunning,”
The garden was full of pots of pink lilies
And, when later she visits the dead man lying in his home, she says, he looks beautiful. What does beauty really mean? For Laura, his lying there, after escaping from life, peacefully, seemed more beautiful than all her Belgian laces and her frilly frocks. All those frivolous things.
Laura sees the body of the man who died in a car accident
One thing about Laura is that she is seemingly the only one in the family who had a heart, blessed with empathy. She was sensitive to other people's troubles. Throughout the party, she kept thinking about the bereaved family that is suffering.
The party scene and the house of the dead man form a contrast, which Kumkum covered. Life is transient. But is life meaningless? It's nice to go through life. It's beautiful to be out of it too. Pamela noted that in the book of Ecclesiastes, which is written by King Solomon in the Old Testament, the opening says:
Vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
Even the pursuit of wisdom is vanity. Here is the verse:
Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!
Joe liked one touch in this story, which is that Laura was just going to take this basket of sandwiches and leave it at the door and go away. It was late at night. Instead, a welcoming woman actually tells her to come in. Thus she actually gains an entry into the household and experiences the sorrow that has overtaken them. She encounters the man laid out on his deathbed and experiences the peace surrounding him.
It's a sort of a reminder that among the rich and well-to-do, death can be a foreign thing. It may be something to be staved off, something to be kept at arm’s length. But these poor, humble folk realise that death is part of life. They invite her in to share the sorrow. And she does share their sorrow.
That's part of the story – to make her experience what the rest of her family are not going to come in contact with. Even her brother, Laurie, who was solicitous for her and came out to bring her back home, was inured to the actual sorrow, and was just glad to see his sister returning from her visit.
She had such a sensitive soul, this girl. Dying is such a sorrowful thing, which is what she was thinking. But when she actually goes and sees the dead man in a very peaceful countenance, she understands that it's not such a crushing event after all for the relatives.
When the workers are putting up the shamiana in one scene, she feels how nice it is to talk with these working men and serving women.
She dances with young men. These people are more interesting. She really had a heart.
This is one of the stories that you could actually turn into a film, Joe said. Here are two short video adaptations of the short story:
24-min adaptation in video:
A longer, more faithful 37min adaptation:
Saras
Saras read from the last story in the collection called The Lady's Maid. One of the criticisms of Katherine Mansfield is that her stories are always about the class divide between the wealthy upper class and the ordinary folk. In this particular story, she's talking about a maid, a lady's maid, and the great gulf between her and her lady. The lady seems to exercise control over her psychologically.
She is describing her life as a maid to somebody, what her life with her lady was like when she was working with her. It's not clear who she's speaking to.
[Passage]
The Lady's Maid
It's very manipulative. This girl devoted her whole life in service to this lady who manipulates her subtly. The maid gives up her chance at a marriage just because she feels her ‘Lady’ will not be able to manage on her own. The selection reminded Saras of The Reluctant Fundamentalist novel we read. The whole story is a first person dramatic monologue by the maid, telling us of her life and times with her ‘Lady.’ It explores class differences and the rigid social hierarchy of the early 20th century. Her life is completely subordinated to her Lady’s life. She suppresses her own life needs for the comfort of her employer, even refusing to marry her fiancée as it would leave her employer in the lurch. The psychological power play is also apparent, with the employer subtly holding her power over the employee.
Yes, indeed Mansfield is describing a hidden aspect of the class divide: the enslavement of the minds of those who work for the higher classes. Even The Garden Party treats the class divide.
In the story that Kavita read, An Ideal Family, there's the servant, almost a child really, who is actually looking after the old man’s personal needs, like a footman.
There’s a difference between him and his wife. The wife came from a richer background. He was a lawyer, and must have been earning a lot, but he had his origins in a lower social stratum.
When you have generational wealth, somebody working for a living was looked down upon. Mansfield actually brings out this division quite well in her story; she describes the kind of life she knows intimately from experience, for she was from a very well-to-do family.
There's a lot of criticism about her. It first came from some below-the-belt remarks by Virginia Woolf on the perfume she used (“smelled like a civet cat”). Despite this, she admitted, “KM's is 'the only writing I have ever been jealous of.’” In her diary, Woolf wavered between finding her “common” and recognising her as a “genius.” Despite the rivalry, Woolf defended Mansfield’s work, calling her “the very best of women writers – always of course passing over one fine but very modest example.” (herself)
It is curious to read Woolf’s reaction on reading an obituary on the death of Mansfield: “Katherine won't read it. Katherine’s my rival no longer. There's no competitor.”
Saras felt that Mansfield probably wrote about what she knows and understands well. She does offer her reflections on the class divide, showing her sensitivity to its various unsavoury manifestations.
Virginia Woolf may have considered Katherine Mansfield lightweight. But she is not. She was not so well-appreciated in her time, not taken seriously as a writer. Most of her stories were published after she passed away. Her husband was a failed publisher, let us admit. Only a few of her books or stories were published in her lifetime. About 50 years after she died her stories began to resonate with the reading public.
Saras remembers reading The Garden Party during her formative years in school. Mansfield had a very colonial viewpoint coming from a colonial upbringing in a distant colony of Britain, New Zealand.
Thomo
Most of Katherine Mansfield's short stories, as we just mentioned, are about the upper class; the distinctions between them and the lower class are dealt with in a few stories.
The one Thomo took up, Bank Holiday, does not have a story line. It's a snapshot of people who could be described as the great unwashed in that society. Out on a public holiday, they're all together. You could just imagine the whole scene without any narrative threading the characters.
A public holiday, a bank holiday as they call it, is pictured. The story has no plot, no protagonist. It's just a moment on a sunlit street with street musicians and children, vendors, and soldiers on holiday. Everybody's there.
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
[Passage]
If you write a screenplay for a little short movie of 30 minutes, this perfectly describes the entire setting and what happened. You can visualise the whole thing from Mansfield’s description. It's very visual. She's good at descriptions, and conveys it very well to the reader who can really be immersed in the scene mentally while reading.
Another reader also found the scene very beautiful, and was glad that Thomo chose this story. Joe said that on YouTube, there are a few short stories of hers that have been adapted for video, e.g. The Daughters of the Late Colonel.
Zakia
Zakia was going last, as usual because Zakia, is last alphabetically. Abbas, her husband, is always first, but Zakia is happy to be last.
Joe actually wanted Zakia to pull up her socks, said Zakia. So he put it very politely at the birthday celebration in David Hall because Zakia is always the last to enter her selection. He didn't mean that. Only that ‘Z’ made her Eppolum avasanam! (Always last)
Zakia chose a story that others had not noticed, Her First Ball. On reading it Zakia felt the excitement in the country cousin Leila being introduced to the other dance goers. From the first lines you know, Leila’s so excited to be going for her first ball.
It could be the same Sheridan family of The Green Party she's going with, for they have the same names, Laura and Laurie. Zakia then read a small part. It is a nice little short story, very descriptive, like the others.
[Passage]
Leila was just led onto the dance floor and she was just swept off, gliding and sliding. Swept off her feet, almost, by those young men. They kept changing partners. They have these little ‘dance cards’ in which they write their name. Dance cards, or carnet de bal, were small, decorative booklets used by women at 19th and early 20th-century balls to manage, schedule, and remember their dance partners for the evening. Often attached to the wrist with a string, they helped women organise engagements for dances like the waltz or polka. See this YouTube video for an explanation of their origin and what they looked like:
‘After the Ball’ by the French artist Henri-Lucien Doucet
When Zakia got married and came to Cochin, the Anglo-Indian club in Fort Cochin used to have a New Year's Eve or Christmas dance. All the young girls and boys would be waiting for that event all year long. Zakia got to dance with these girls.
And it used to be organised just like this. They pull their partner, then they go for a dance and the next girl, etc. It was a tag dance maybe.
Thomo said at all the clubs in Calcutta, the main event was a New Year's Eve ball. Even in Cochin, that was the only time when they would really go for a dance. There was this USO club in the Naval Base. The Navy Queen was selected and announced at the event. Here is the 2010 winner of the Navy Queen crown, Elizabeth Thadikaran:
Elizabeth Thadikaran – 2010 winner of the Navy Queen crown
She went on to become Miss Kerala the following year. The Navy Queen was declared in the first or second week of December. In the 80s and 90s, only the Naval club used to have the dance and the New Year's dance and the Naval ball. Nobody else used to have a function like that. That was during Navy Week, where the public were invited to visit the docked naval ships.
In Fort Cochin only the United Club had a New Year's Eve ball those days. That's the club that Zakia was talking about.
But in Calcutta, all the clubs had a ball for New Year: Saturday Club, Rangers club, Grail club, all of them. Those beautiful fun-loving Anglo-Indian girls are no longer there. They are there, but they no longer identify as Anglo-Indians, said Thomo.
KumKum knows quite a few ladies who are Anglo-Indian in Fort Kochi. Some Anglo-Indian families are in Edakochi too. At the Mass said in English in the Santa Cruz Basilica Cathedral, KumKum meets many of her Anglo-Indian friends. That Mass always has lots of attendants from the vibrant Anglo-Indian community. Very friendly people. Very chilled out. No inhibitions. Not stuck up.
There's Valerie de Abreu, said Thomo, “I’ve never seen her in any garment other than a sari.” She's always dressed in sari but she's Anglo-Indian and she identifies as an Anglo-Indian. She married a Latin Catholic that's why she wears a sari always, said Kavita. She's married to Bernie uncle, a Latin Catholic. Thomo knows both the brothers very well, in fact, Bernie’s elder brother Solomon and Thomo share the same birthday. “I thought they were Latin Catholics,” said Kavita. “All the Anglo-Indians are Latin Catholics, they're not Syrian Catholics,” said Thomo.
They had major dealings with Harrisons – Thomo worked for the company, Harrisons when it was in Quilon, now called Kollam. Harrisons Malayalam Limited (HML) is a major, historic corporation headquartered in Kochi, Kerala. It is one of South India's largest plantation companies, with a legacy spanning over 150 years.
And when Harrisons moved to Cochin they also moved and then everything was in Cochin. Quilon even now has a fairly big Anglo-Indian community said Saras. They are concentrated in Thangassery, said Thomo. The Anglos there refer to it as ‘Tangi.’ Kavita thought Valerie had to work because she had a job there.
‘Dingos’ is a derogatory term for Anglo-Indians and should never be used, said Saras – stems from a lot of them emigrating to Australia in Thomo’s opinion. Mostly they are called Anglos. They are everywhere in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, etc said KumKum.
Joe thanked Devika and Saras for choosing these brilliant short stories. In a couple of hundred pages they give you exposure to a variety of life and description that's quite striking. ‘We are making January month into short story month’ said KumKum. That is a good suggestion, said Kavita.
Saras wanted one month down time after Christmas and New Year and Saras pleaded to be moved to March and to nominate some other pair for Jan. Joe and KumKum will have to choose the January selection. ‘The last will come first then,” said Geetha.
Will Zakia end up on top?
Pamela said, “On behalf of my husband here, he wants me to say that when he and I danced long ago at the Navy Ball, we were chosen as one of the five finalist couples.” They won a hamper for the most spirited couple.
“Oh, nice, very nice,” the rest exclaimed. We need a replay of that dance. And we need to meet Pamela’s husband, John, if he'll come for lunch with the team; that way we can see both their moves.
“Pam, I have not seen him ever,” said Arundhaty. Somewhere, sometime, he has to make an appearance – maybe on Valentine’s Day when we meet next.
The Readings (PDF)
The Readings (Text)
Arundhaty – Marriage à la Mode
“Pages and pages! Look at her! A Lady reading a Letter,” said Dennis.
“My darling, precious Isabel.” Pages and pages there were. As Isabel read on her feeling of astonishment changed to a stifled feeling. What on earth had induced William...? How extraordinary it was.... What could have made him...? She felt confused, more and more excited, even frightened. It was just like William. Was it? It was absurd, of course, it must be absurd, ridiculous. “Ha, ha, ha! Oh dear!” What was she to do? Isabel flung back in her chair and laughed till she couldn’t stop laughing.
“Do, do tell us,” said the others. “You must tell us.”
“I’m longing to,” gurgled Isabel. She sat up, gathered the letter, and waved it at them. “Gather round,” she said. “Listen, it’s too marvellous. A love-letter!”
“A love-letter! But how divine!” Darling, precious Isabel. But she had hardly begun before their laughter interrupted her.
“Go on, Isabel, it’s perfect.” “It’s the most marvellous find.” “Oh, do go on, Isabel!”
God forbid, my darling, that I should be a drag on your happiness.
“Oh! oh! oh!”
“Sh! sh! sh!”
And Isabel went on. When she reached the end they were hysterical: Bobby rolled on the turf and almost sobbed.
“You must let me have it just as it is, entire, for my new book,” said Dennis firmly. “I shall give it a whole chapter.”
“Oh, Isabel,” moaned Moira, “that wonderful bit about holding you in his arms!” “I always thought those letters in divorce cases were made up. But they pale
before this.”
“Let me hold it. Let me read it, mine own self,” said Bobby Kane.
But, to their surprise, Isabel crushed the letter in her hand. She was laughing no longer. She glanced quickly at them all; she looked exhausted. “No, not just now. Not just now,” she stammered.
And before they could recover she had run into the house, through the hall, up the stairs into her bedroom. Down she sat on the side of the bed. “How vile, odious, abominable, vulgar,” muttered Isabel. She pressed her eyes with her knuckles and rocked to and fro. And again she saw them, but not four, more like forty, laughing, sneering, jeering, stretching out their hands while she read them William’s letter. Oh, what a loathsome thing to have done. How could she have done it! God forbid, my darling, that I should be a drag on your happiness. William! Isabel pressed her face into the pillow. But she felt that even the grave bedroom knew her for what she was, shallow, tinkling, vain....
Presently from the garden below there came voices. “Isabel, we’re all going for a bathe. Do come!” “Come, thou wife of William!”
“Call her once before you go, call once yet!”
Isabel sat up. Now was the moment, now she must decide. Would she go with them, or stay here and write to William. Which, which should it be? “I must make up my mind.” Oh, but how could there be any question? Of course she would stay here and write.
“Titania!” piped Moira. “Isa-bel?”
No, it was too difficult. “I’ll—I’ll go with them, and write to William later. Some other time. Later. Not now. But I shall certainly write,” thought Isabel hurriedly.
And, laughing, in the new way, she ran down the stairs.
Devika – Miss Brill
Oh, how fascinating it was! How she enjoyed it! How she loved sitting here, watching it all! It was like a play. It was exactly like a play. Who could believe the sky at the back wasn’t painted? But it wasn’t till a little brown dog trotted on solemn and then slowly trotted off, like a little “theatre” dog, a little dog that had been drugged, that Miss Brill discovered what it was that made it so exciting. They were all on the stage. They weren’t only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn’t been there; she was part of the performance after all. How strange she’d never thought of it like that before! And yet it explained why she made such a point of starting from home at just the same time each week
—so as not to be late for the performance—and it also explained why she had quite a queer, shy feeling at telling her English pupils how she spent her Sunday afternoons. No wonder! Miss Brill nearly laughed out loud. She was on the stage. She thought of the old invalid gentleman to whom she read the newspaper four afternoons a week while he slept in the garden. She had got quite used to the frail head on the cotton pillow, the hollowed eyes, the open mouth and the high pinched nose. If he’d been dead she mightn’t have noticed for weeks; she wouldn’t have minded. But suddenly he knew he was having the paper read to him by an actress! “An actress!” The old head lifted; two points of light quivered in the old eyes. “An actress—are ye?” And Miss Brill smoothed the newspaper as though it were the manuscript of her part and said gently; “Yes, I have been an actress for a long time.”
The band had been having a rest. Now they started again. And what they played was warm, sunny, yet there was just a faint chill—a something, what was it?—not sadness—no, not sadness—a something that made you want to sing. The tune lifted, lifted, the light shone; and it seemed to Miss Brill that in another moment all of them, all the whole company, would begin singing. The young ones, the
laughing ones who were moving together, they would begin, and the men’s voices, very resolute and brave, would join them. And then she too, she too, and the others on the benches—they would come in with a kind of accompaniment—something low, that scarcely rose or fell, something so beautiful—moving.... And Miss Brill’s eyes filled with tears and she looked smiling at all the other members of the company. Yes, we understand, we understand, she thought—though what they understood she didn’t know.
Just at that moment a boy and girl came and sat down where the old couple had been. They were beautifully dressed; they were in love. The hero and heroine, of course, just arrived from his father’s yacht. And still soundlessly singing, still with that trembling smile, Miss Brill prepared to listen.
“No, not now,” said the girl. “Not here, I can’t.”
“But why? Because of that stupid old thing at the end there?” asked the boy. “Why does she come here at all—who wants her? Why doesn’t she keep her silly old mug at home?”
“It’s her fu-fur which is so funny,” giggled the girl. “It’s exactly like a fried whiting.”
“Ah, be off with you!” said the boy in an angry whisper. Then: “Tell me, ma petite chère—”
“No, not here,” said the girl. “Not yet.”
On her way home she usually bought a slice of honey-cake at the baker’s. It was her Sunday treat. Sometimes there was an almond in her slice, sometimes not. It made a great difference. If there was an almond it was like carrying home a tiny present—a surprise—something that might very well not have been there. She hurried on the almond Sundays and struck the match for the kettle in quite a dashing way.
But to-day she passed the baker’s by, climbed the stairs, went into the little dark room—her room like a cupboard—and sat down on the red eiderdown. She sat there for a long time. The box that the fur came out of was on the bed. She unclasped the necklet quickly; quickly, without looking, laid it inside. But when she put the lid on she thought she heard something crying.
Geetha – The Daughters of the Late Colonel-Chapter VI
Father would never forgive them. That was what they felt more than ever when, two mornings later, they went into his room to go through his things. They had discussed it quite calmly. It was even down on Josephine’s list of things to be done. “Go through father’s things and settle about them.” But that was a very different matter from saying after breakfast:
“Well, are you ready, Con?” “Yes, Jug—when you are.”
“Then I think we’d better get it over.”
It was dark in the hall. It had been a rule for years never to disturb father in the morning, whatever happened. And now they were going to open the door without knocking even. Constantia’s eyes were enormous at the idea; Josephine felt weak
in the knees.
“You—you go first,” she gasped, pushing Constantia.
But Constantia said, as she always had said on those occasions, “No, Jug, that’s not fair. You’re the eldest.”
Josephine was just going to say—what at other times she wouldn’t have owned to for the world—what she kept for her very last weapon, “But you’re the tallest,” when they noticed that the kitchen door was open, and there stood Kate....
“Very stiff,” said Josephine, grasping the doorhandle and doing her best to turn it. As if anything ever deceived Kate!
It couldn’t be helped. That girl was Then the door was shut behind them, but—
but they weren’t in father’s room at all. They might have suddenly walked through the wall by mistake into a different flat altogether. Was the door just behind them? They were too frightened to look. Josephine knew that if it was it was holding itself tight shut; Constantia felt that, like the doors in dreams, it hadn’t any handle at all. It was the coldness which made it so awful. Or the whiteness—which? Everything was covered. The blinds were down, a cloth hung over the mirror, a sheet hid the bed; a huge fan of white paper filled the fireplace. Constantia timidly put out her hand; she almost expected a snowflake to fall. Josephine felt a queer tingling in her nose, as if her nose was freezing. Then a cab klop-klopped over the cobbles below, and the quiet seemed to shake into little pieces.
“I had better pull up a blind,” said Josephine bravely. “Yes, it might be a good idea,” whispered Constantia.
They only gave the blind a touch, but it flew up and the cord flew after, rolling round the blind-stick, and the little tassel tapped as if trying to get free. That was too much for Constantia.
“Don’t you think—don’t you think we might put it off for another day?” she whispered.
“Why?” snapped Josephine, feeling, as usual, much better now that she knew for certain that Constantia was terrified. “It’s got to be done. But I do wish you wouldn’t whisper, Con.”
“I didn’t know I was whispering,” whispered Constantia.
“And why do you keep staring at the bed?” said Josephine, raising her voice almost defiantly. “There’s nothing on the bed.”
“Oh, Jug, don’t say so!” said poor Connie. “At any rate, not so loudly.”
Josephine felt herself that she had gone too far. She took a wide swerve over to the chest of drawers, put out her hand, but quickly drew it back again.
“Connie!” she gasped, and she wheeled round and leaned with her back against the chest of drawers.
“Oh, Jug—what?”
Josephine could only glare. She had the most extraordinary feeling that she had just escaped something simply awful. But how could she explain to Constantia that father was in the chest of drawers? He was in the top drawer with his handkerchiefs and neckties, or in the next with his shirts and pyjamas, or in the lowest of all with his suits. He was watching there, hidden away—just behind the door-handle—ready to spring.
She pulled a funny old-fashioned face at Constantia, just as she used to in the old days when she was going to cry.
“I can’t open,” she nearly wailed.
“No, don’t, Jug,” whispered Constantia earnestly. “It’s much better not to. Don’t let’s open anything. At any rate, not for a long time.”
“But—but it seems so weak,” said Josephine, breaking down.
“But why not be weak for once, Jug?” argued Constantia, whispering quite fiercely. “If it is weak.” And her pale stare flew from the locked writing-table—so safe—to the huge glittering wardrobe, and she began to breathe in a queer, panting away. “Why shouldn’t we be weak for once in our lives, Jug? It’s quite excusable. Let’s be weak—be weak, Jug. It’s much nicer to be weak than to be strong.”
And then she did one of those amazingly bold things that she’d done about twice before in their lives: she marched over to the wardrobe, turned the key, and took it out of the lock. Took it out of the lock and held it up to Josephine, showing Josephine by her extraordinary smile that she knew what she’d done—she’d risked deliberately father being in there among his overcoats.
If the huge wardrobe had lurched forward, had crashed down on Constantia, Josephine wouldn’t have been surprised. On the contrary, she would have thought it the only suitable thing to happen. But nothing happened. Only the room seemed quieter than ever, and the bigger flakes of cold air fell on Josephine’s shoulders and knees. She began to shiver.
“Come, Jug,” said Constantia, still with that awful callous smile, and Josephine followed just as she had that last time, when Constantia had pushed Benny into the round pond.
Joe – The Stranger
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.
Kavita – An Ideal Family
There young Charles was waiting for him. Carefully, as though everything depended on it, he was tucking a towel round the hot-water can. Young Charles had been a favourite of his ever since as a little red-faced boy he had come into the house to look after the fires. Old Mr. Neave lowered himself into the cane lounge by the window, stretched out his legs, and made his little evening joke, “Dress him up, Charles!” And Charles, breathing intensely and frowning, bent forward to take the pin out of his tie.
H’m, h’m! Well, well! It was pleasant by the open window, very pleasant—a fine mild evening. They were cutting the grass on the tennis court below; he heard the soft churr of the mower. Soon the girls would begin their tennis parties again. And at the thought he seemed to hear Marion’s voice ring out, “Good for you, partner.... Oh, played, partner.... Oh, very nice indeed.” Then Charlotte calling from the veranda, “Where is Harold?” And Ethel, “He’s certainly not here, mother.” And Charlotte’s vague, “He said—”
Old Mr. Neave sighed, got up, and putting one hand under his beard, he took the comb from young Charles, and carefully combed the white beard over. Charles gave him a folded handkerchief, his watch and seals, and spectacle case.
“That will do, my lad.” The door shut, he sank back, he was alone....
And now that little ancient fellow was climbing down endless flights that led to a glittering, gay dining-room. What legs he had! They were like a spider’s—thin, withered.
“You’re an ideal family, sir, an ideal family.”
But if that were true, why didn’t Charlotte or the girls stop him? Why was he all alone, climbing up and down? Where was Harold? Ah, it was no good expecting anything from Harold. Down, down went the little old spider, and then, to his horror, old Mr. Neave saw him slip past the dining-room and make for the porch, the dark drive, the carriage gates, the office. Stop him, stop him, somebody!
Old Mr. Neave started up. It was dark in his dressing-room; the window shone pale. How long had he been asleep? He listened, and through the big, airy, darkened house there floated far-away voices, far-away sounds. Perhaps, he thought vaguely, he had been asleep for a long time. He’d been forgotten. What had all this to do with him—this house and Charlotte, the girls and Harold—what did he know about them? They were strangers to him. Life had passed him by. Charlotte was not his wife. His wife!
... A dark porch, half hidden by a passion-vine, that drooped sorrowful, mournful, as though it understood. Small, warm arms were round his neck. A face, little and pale, lifted to his, and a voice breathed, “Good-bye, my treasure.”
My treasure! “Good-bye, my treasure!” Which of them had spoken? Why had they said good-bye? There had been some terrible mistake. She was his wife, that little pale girl, and all the rest of his life had been a dream.
Then the door opened, and young Charles, standing in the light, put his hands by his side and shouted like a young soldier, “Dinner is on the table, sir!”
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” said old Mr. Neave.
KumKum – Garden Party
“Jose, come here.” Laura caught hold of her sister’s sleeve and dragged her through the kitchen to the other side of the green baize door. There she paused and leaned against it. “Jose!” she said, horrified, “however are we going to stop everything?”
“Stop everything, Laura!” cried Jose in astonishment. “What do you mean?” “Stop the garden-party, of course.” Why did Jose pretend?
But Jose was still more amazed. “Stop the garden-party? My dear Laura, don’t be so absurd. Of course we can’t do anything of the kind. Nobody expects us to. Don’t be so extravagant.”
“But we can’t possibly have a garden-party with a man dead just outside the front gate.”
That really was extravagant, for the little cottages were in a lane to themselves at the very bottom of a steep rise that led up to the house. A broad road ran between. True, they were far too near. They were the greatest possible eyesore, and they had no right to be in that neighbourhood at all. They were little mean dwellings painted a chocolate brown. In the garden patches there was nothing but cabbage stalks, sick hens and tomato cans. The very smoke coming out of their chimneys was poverty- stricken. Little rags and shreds of smoke, so unlike the great silvery plumes that uncurled from the Sheridans’ chimneys. Washerwomen lived in the lane and sweeps and a cobbler, and a man whose house-front was studded all over with minute bird-cages. Children swarmed. When the Sheridans were little they were forbidden to set foot there because of the revolting language and of what they might catch. But since they were grown up, Laura and Laurie on their prowls sometimes walked through. It was disgusting and sordid. They came out with a shudder. But still one must go everywhere; one must see everything. So through they went.
Pamela – The Garden Party
Laura only wanted to get out, to get away. She was back in the passage. The door opened. She walked straight through into the bedroom, where the dead man was lying.
“You’d like a look at ’im, wouldn’t you?” said Em’s sister, and she brushed past Laura over to the bed. “Don’t be afraid, my lass,”—and now her voice sounded fond and sly, and fondly she drew down the sheet—“’e looks a picture. There’s nothing to show. Come along, my dear.”
Laura came.
There lay a young man, fast asleep—sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he was far, far away from them both. Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream. What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful. While they were laughing and while the band was playing, this marvel had come to the lane. Happy... happy.... All is well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content.
But all the same you had to cry, and she couldn’t go out of the room without saying something to him. Laura gave a loud childish sob.
“Forgive my hat,” she said.
And this time she didn’t wait for Em’s sister. She found her way out of the door, down the path, past all those dark people. At the corner of the lane she met Laurie.
He stepped out of the shadow. “Is that you, Laura?” “Yes.”
“Mother was getting anxious. Was it all right?”
“Yes, quite. Oh, Laurie!” She took his arm, she pressed up against him. “I say, you’re not crying, are you?” asked her brother.
Laura shook her head. She was.
Laurie put his arm round her shoulder. “Don’t cry,” he said in his warm, loving voice. “Was it awful?”
“No,” sobbed Laura. “It was simply marvellous. But Laurie—” She stopped, she looked at her brother. “Isn’t life,” she stammered, “isn’t life—” But what life was she couldn’t explain. No matter. He quite understood.
“Isn’t it, darling?” said Laurie.
Priya – The Daughters of the Late Colonel
Some little sparrows, young sparrows they sounded, chirped on the window- ledge. Yeep—eyeep— yeep.
But Josephine felt they were not sparrows, not on the window-ledge. It was inside her, that queer little crying noise. Yeep—eyeep— yeep. Ah, what was it crying, so weak and forlorn?
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.”
Saras – The Lady’s Maid
… No, madam, never now. Of course, I did think of it at one time. But it wasn’t to be. He had a little flower-shop just down the road and across from where we was living. Funny—wasn’t it? And me such a one for flowers. We were having a lot of company at the time, and I was in and out of the shop more often than not, as the saying is. And Harry and I (his name was Harry) got to quarrelling about how things ought to be arranged—and that began it. Flowers! you wouldn’t believe it, madam, the flowers he used to bring me. He’d stop at nothing. It was lilies-of-the- valley more than once, and I’m not exaggerating! Well, of course, we were going to be married and live over the shop, and it was all going to be just so, and I was to have the window to arrange.... Oh, how I’ve done that window of a Saturday! Not really, of course, madam, just dreaming, as you might say. I’ve done it for Christmas—motto in holly, and all—and I’ve had my Easter lilies with a gorgeous star all daffodils in the middle. I’ve hung—well, that’s enough of that. The day came he was to call for me to choose the furniture. Shall I ever forget it? It was a Tuesday. My lady wasn’t quite herself that afternoon. Not that she’d said anything,
of course; she never does or will. But I knew by the way that she kept wrapping herself up and asking me if it was cold—and her little nose looked... pinched. I didn’t like leaving her; I knew I’d be worrying all the time. At last I asked her if she’d rather I put it off. “Oh no, Ellen,” she said, “you mustn’t mind about me. You mustn’t disappoint your young man.” And so cheerful, you know, madam, never thinking about herself. It made me feel worse than ever. I began to wonder... then she dropped her handkerchief and began to stoop down to pick it up herself—a thing she never did. “Whatever are you doing!” I cried, running to stop her. “Well,” she said, smiling, you know, madam, “I shall have to begin to practise.” Oh, it was all I could do not to burst out crying. I went over to the dressing-table and made believe to rub up the silver, and I couldn’t keep myself in, and I asked her if she’d rather I... didn’t get married. “No, Ellen,” she said—that was her voice, madam, like I’m giving you—“No, Ellen, not for the wide world!” But while she said it, madam—I was looking in her glass; of course, she didn’t know I could see her—she put her little hand on her heart just like her dear mother used to, and lifted her eyes... Oh, madam!
When Harry came I had his letters all ready, and the ring and a ducky little brooch he’d given me—a silver bird it was, with a chain in its beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger. Quite the thing! I opened the door to him. I never gave him time for a word. “There you are,” I said. “Take them all back,” I said, “it’s all over. I’m not going to marry you,” I said, “I can’t leave my lady.” White! he turned as white as a woman. I had to slam the door, and there I stood, all of a tremble, till I knew he had gone. When I opened the door—believe me or not, madam—that man was gone! I ran out into the road just as I was, in my apron and my house-shoes, and there I stayed in the middle of the road... staring. People must have laughed if they saw me….
Shoba – Miss Brill
Although it was so brilliantly fine—the blue sky powdered with gold and great spots of light like white wine splashed over the Jardins Publiques—Miss Brill was glad that she had decided on her fur. The air was motionless, but when you opened your mouth there was just a faint chill, like a chill from a glass of iced water before you sip, and now and again a leaf came drifting—from nowhere, from the sky. Miss Brill put up her hand and touched her fur. Dear little thing! It was nice to feel it again. She had taken it out of its box that afternoon, shaken out the moth-powder, given it a good brush, and rubbed the life back into the dim little eyes. “What has been happening to me?” said the sad little eyes. Oh, how sweet it was to see them snap at her again from the red eiderdown!... But the nose, which was of some black composition, wasn’t at all firm. It must have had a knock, somehow. Never mind— a little dab of black sealing-wax when the time came—when it was absolutely necessary.... Little rogue! Yes, she really felt like that about it. Little rogue biting its tail just by her left ear. She could have taken it off and laid it on her lap and stroked it. She felt a tingling in her hands and arms, but that came from walking, she supposed. And when she breathed, something light and sad—no, not sad, exactly— something gentle seemed to move in her bosom.
Thomo – 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.
Zakia – Her First Ball
“This is my little country cousin Leila. Be nice to her. Find her partners; she’s under my wing,” said Meg, going up to one girl after another.
Strange faces smiled at Leila—sweetly, vaguely. Strange voices answered, “Of course, my dear.” But Leila felt the girls didn’t really see her. They were looking towards the men. Why didn’t the men begin? What were they waiting for? There they stood, smoothing their gloves, patting their glossy hair and smiling among themselves. Then, quite suddenly, as if they had only just made up their minds that that was what they had to do, the men came gliding over the parquet. There was a joyful flutter among the girls. A tall, fair man flew up to Meg, seized her programme, scribbled something; Meg passed him on to Leila. “May I have the pleasure?” He ducked and smiled. There came a dark man wearing an eyeglass, then cousin Laurie with a friend, and Laura with a little freckled fellow whose tie was crooked. Then quite an old man—fat, with a big bald patch on his head—took her programme and murmured, “Let me see, let me see!” And he was a long time comparing his programme, which looked black with names, with hers. It seemed to give him so much trouble that Leila was ashamed. “Oh, please don’t bother,” she said eagerly. But instead of replying the fat man wrote something, glanced at her again. “Do I remember this bright little face?” he said softly. “Is it known to me of yore?” At that moment the band began playing; the fat man disappeared. He was tossed away on a great wave of music that came flying over the gleaming floor, breaking the groups up into couples, scattering them, sending them spinning....
Leila had learned to dance at boarding school. Every Saturday afternoon the boarders were hurried off to a little corrugated iron mission hall where Miss Eccles (of London) held her “select” classes. But the difference between that dusty- smelling hall—with calico texts on the walls, the poor terrified little woman in a brown velvet toque with rabbit’s ears thumping the cold piano, Miss Eccles poking the girls’ feet with her long white wand—and this was so tremendous that Leila was sure if her partner didn’t come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark windows that showed the stars.
“Ours, I think—” Some one bowed, smiled, and offered her his arm; she hadn’t to die after all. Some one’s hand pressed her waist, and she floated away like a flower that is tossed into a pool.
“Quite a good floor, isn’t it?” drawled a faint voice close to her ear. “I think it’s most beautifully slippery,” said Leila.
“Pardon!” The faint voice sounded surprised. Leila said it again. And there was a tiny pause before the voice echoed, “Oh, quite!” and she was swung round again.
He steered so beautifully. That was the great difference between dancing with girls and men, Leila decided. Girls banged into each other, and stamped on each other’s feet; the girl who was gentleman always clutched you so.
The azaleas were separate flowers no longer; they were pink and white flags streaming by.
So well put together. Joe! I was reliving those moments!
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