Bliss, and other stories

ot possibly have held a lump of a child on hers for any distance. Isabel, very superior, was perched beside the new handy-man on the driver’s seat. Hold-alls, bags and boxes wer

r coats with brass anchor buttons and little round caps with battleship ribbons. Hand in hand,

lew from her lips; she leaned back against the buttoned leather cushions and shut her eyes, her lips tremb- ling with laughter. Happil

ell? They could go on the dray with the storeban when he comes

ront lawn. How absurd they looked! Either they ought to be the other way up, or Lottie and Kezia ought to stand on their heads, too. And she longed to say: “St

e smiled. “Dod’t you worry, Brs. Burnell. Loddie and Kezia can have tea

e best plan. We are very obliged to you, Mrs. Samuel Jo

ps: “Thank you, Mr

–” they advanced, “don’t forget to tell Mr

gra

rry, Brs.

let go Lottie’s hand and

s my granma go

dmother rummaging among the very curious oddments she had had put in her black silk reticule at the last moment, for something to give her daughter. The buggy

er! G

e a huge warm black silk

Be a brave child. You come

ed, making a face at Mrs. Samuel Josephs’ placket, which was undone

and a blob of a nose gave great satisfaction to the S.J.’s , who sat on two benches before a long table covered w

ou’ve bee

yes have gon

er nose lo

ll red-an

ess. She felt it and sw

aid Mrs. Samuel Josephs, “and Ke

as she sat down; but she pretende

ble very politely, and smiling at her. “Which will you have

and cream, ple

ble with their teaspoons. Wasn’t that a take-in!

hought it

and water, could not help smiling. “You bustn

e. Pooh! She didn’t care! A tear rolled down her cheek, but she wasn’t crying. She couldn’t have cried in front of those awful Samuel Josephs. She sat

hoked up with rubbish. She poked among it but found nothing except a hair-tidy with a heart painted on it that had belonged to the servant girl. Even that she left lying, and she trailed through the narrow passage into the drawing-room. The Venetian blind was pulled down but not drawn close. Long pencil

arum lilies growing at the gate, and then at a yellow lawn with yellow lilies and a yellow fence. As she looked a little Chinese Lottie came out on to the lawn and

she found a pill box black and shiny outsid

bird’s egg in th

rack some beads and a long needle. She knew there was nothing in her grandmother’s room; she had w

dark crept the wind snuffling and howling. The windows of the empty house shook, a creaking came from the walls and floors, a piece of loose iron on the roof banged forlornly. Kezia was suddenly quite, quite still, with wide open eyes and knees pressed together. She was frightened. She wante

nd three horses, Kezia. Mrs. Samuel Josephs has given us a big shawl to wear roun

as very

er their arms and up they swung. Lottie arranged the shawl “most beauti

. Easy d

felt over the cords holding his load, unhooked the brakech

“because otherwise you pull the

towered beside her big as a giant and h

maller than they did by day, the gardens far bigger and wilder. Bright stars speckled the sky and the moon hung over the harbour d

the storeman, pointing to a little

side the harbour disappeared, and although they were still in the town th

ht,

O,” he

use against one wall built by himself. All the glasshouse was spanned and arched over with one beautiful vine. He took her brown basket from her, lined it with three large leaves, and then he felt in his belt for a little horn knife, reached up and snapped off a bi

ew minutes one of the child

wk Street, or Ch

; she always felt that Charlotte Crescent belonged specially t

new roads with high clay banks on either side, up steep hills, down into bushy valleys, through wide shallow rivers. Further and further. Lottie’s head wagged; she d

er blow abou

ice,” said

he eldest is called, and the youngest’s name is Rags. He’s got a ram. He has to feed it with a nenamuel tea

has horns and

rushing animals like dogs and parrots. I often dream that animals rush a

wing up her eyes. Then she put her finger out and strok

answered the store

a whiplash, looping suddenly an island of green, and behind the island, but out of sight until you came upon it, was the house. It was long and low built, with a pillared veranda and balcony all the way round. The soft white bulk of it lay stretched upon the green garden like a

utton she had pressed against while sleeping. Tenderly the storeman lifted her, set her cap straight, and pulled down her crump

The grandmother came out of the dark hal

r way in the d

ectly

of the nest. If she stood still for a moment she fell asleep; if she le

dmother, “can I trust

my g

ht breathing thing into her hands and the

(but the parrots were only on the wallpaper) down a narrow passa

ng down Lottie and opening the dining-room doo

the room eating a dish of fried chops and drinking tea out of a brown china teapot. Over the back of her mother’s chair leaned Isabel. She had a comb in her fingers and in a

inda did not really care; she d

“or we shall have the house on fire before we

e table. “Have another chop, Beryl. Tip-top meat, isn’t it? Not too lean and not too

way she had. The grandmother brought the children bread and milk a

upper,” said Isabel,

per, the bone and all and Worc

st, Isabel,” s

, Mummy? I never thought of boasting. I thought th

hed back his plate, took a toothpick out of his

ite of something in the kitchen

” The old woma

where my slippers were put? I suppose I shall no

he top of the canvas hold-all

get them for me,

Stan

going over to the fire he turned his

is a pretty pic

amiliar pink pinafore; the sleeves of her blouse were rolled up to her shoulders showing

ll take to get straight-coup

girl and I have simply slaved all day, and ever since mother came she has wor

scented

pect me to rush away from the o

yl. She put down her cup and

th a palm-leaf fan while I have a gang of professionals to do the job? By Jove, if sh

in his sensitive stomach. But Linda put up a hand

ut she smiled and curled her fingers into the big red hand she held. Burnell became

going to like

ought to, mother,” said Isabel. “Kezia

candle; the stairs rang to their climbing feet. Isabel and Lottie lay

ing to be any sh

ot to-

dragged her grandmother down to her and kissed her und

the old woman, tucking her

oing to leave

h. Go to

have the do

ud whispering voices came from downstairs. Once she heard Aunt Beryl’s rush of high laughter, and once she heard a loud trumpeting from Burnell blowing

ay my prayers i

God only excuses you saying your prayers in bed

esus mee

a littl

, simpl

e to com

o back, their little behinds

s tired, but she pretended to be more tired than she really was-letting h

ired I am-

rden a young man, dark and slender, with mocking eyes, tiptoed among the bushes, and gathered the flowers into a big bouquet, and slipped under her window and held it up to her. She sa

ht, buttoning. And then as she lay down, there came the old th

ance . . . . The new governor is unmarried. . . . There is a ball at Government hous

place dirt cheap, Linda. I was talking about it to little Wally Bell to-day and he said he simply could not understand why they had accepted my figure. You see land about here is

heard every wo

. Business Man,” said she, and she took hold of his head by the ears and gav

slipped his arm under he

id the faint voice

rs hung from the door-peg like a hanged man. From the edge of the blanket his twisted toes protru

from the servant gi

o bed was th

Not asl

r head under her grandmother’s arm and gave a little squeak. But the old woman only pressed her fain

ark tree, called: “More pork; more pork.” And far away in the bus

ddocks, and was lost in the sombre bush. In the sky some tiny stars floated for a moment and then they were gone-they were dissolved like bubbles. And plain to be heard in the early quiet was the sound

the little birds, the goldfinches and linnets and fan-tails, flicked from bough to bough. A lovely kingfisher perc

and caught the tiny bird and stroked its head with her finger. It was quite tame. But a funny thing happened. As she stroked it began to swell, it ruffled and pouched, it grew bigger and bigger and its round eyes seemed to smile knowingly at her. Now her arms were hardly wide enou

you, did I? Nothing much wrong

on one elbow to see the room by daylight. All the furniture had found a place-all the old paraphernalia, as she expressed it. Even the photographs were on the mantelpiece and the medicine bottles on the shelf above the washstand. Her clothes lay across a cha

unlight he began to do his exercises. Deep breathing, bending and squatting like a frog and shooting out his legs. He was so delighted with his firm, obedient body that he hit h

white shirt only to find that some idiot had fastened the neck-

a big fat tur

nley. “I haven’t a square in

it’s iron,”

my age.” He began parting his bushy ginger hair, his blue eyes fixed and round in the glass, his knees bent, because the dressing-table was always-confound it-a bit too l

You’ll never be fat. Yo

ted for the hundredth time, and taking a pearl pen

r says you are not to get up yet.” She popped her head in at t

ng. You should see poor dear mother wringing out the tables and the chairs

ggy round in time? It’s a good si

the office will be like,” thought Linda

g. But Pat was evidently hard to find; the si

final slam of the front door told

ain, to her great surprise, round the next tree or the next corner. “Oh, there you are after all.” They had been turned out after breakfast and told not to come back to the house un

onged to find some light and menial duty that Kezia

way,” said

o come alive. She could feel the sticky, silky petals, the stem, hairy like a gooseberry skin, the rough leaf and the tight glazed bud. Things had a habit of coming alive like that. Not only large substantial things like furniture but curtains and the patterns of stuffs and the fringes of quilts and cushions. How often she had seen the tassel fringe of her quilt

mes, when she had fallen asleep in the daytime, she woke and could not lift a finger, could not even turn her eyes to left or right because THEY were there; sometimes when she went out of a room and left it empty, she knew as she clicked the door to that THEY were filling it. And there were times in the evenings when she was upstairs, perhaps, and everybody else was down, when she could hardly escape from them. Then

, and she heard the silence spinning its soft endless web. H

e floated, held up in the air. Only she seemed to be listening with her wide open watchful eyes, waitin

the vegetable garden and the rhubarb beds. On one side the grass patch was bordered by the scullery and wash-house and over this whitewashed lean-to there grew a knotted vine. She ha

d ribbon tie-ups on the shoulders screaming so dreadfully that half the street rushed in. And how the child’s leg had swelled! “T-t-t-t!” Mrs. Fairfield caught her breath remembering. “Poor child, how terrifying it was.” And she set her lips tight and went over to the stove for some more hot water. The water frothed up in the big soapy bowl with pink and blue bubbles on top

e from the stove to the dresser, looking into the pantry and the larder as though there were not an unfamiliar corner. When she had finished, everything in the kitchen had become

! Are you there

r. Do you

ushed in, very flushed, dragg

e valuable, because they were hanging in Chung Wah’s fruit shop for months before. I can’t make out why Stanley wants them kept. I’m sure he thinks them

ssage?” suggested Mrs. Fairfield;

iness friends, and that awful enlargement of Isabel lying on the mat in her singlet.” Her angry glance swept the placid kitchen. “I know

it, took a hammer and a big nail out

nough! Hand me th

r mother was wiping ove

es.” And she frowned at the top of her mother’s head and bit her lip with impatience. Mother

side by side. She jumped off the ch

them except Pat and the servant girl-have I got a spider’s web on my face, mother? I’ve

as there, nodding and smiling. They heard the latch of the scullery door lift and she came in. She had

o eat, mother? This is the first time I’ve been in the ki

d, spreading a clean napkin over a corner of t

Linda waved the knife at her. “Beryl, do

rything to me. I can’t imagine people coming out from town to see us in that dreadful jolting bus, a

d Linda. “Pat can drive you

s something at the back of Beryl’s mind, someth

putting down her empty cup and standing up and stretchin

thousand b

oud from eve

. . “ But when she reached the dining-room she stopped

she muttered savagely, digging the stiff br

lt she could never do without. She needed the sweet smell of her flesh, and the soft feel of her cheeks and her arms and shoulders still softer. She loved the way her hair curled, silver at her forehead, lighter at her neck and bright brown still in the big coil und

thing for me to

the garden and give an eye to your chil

u know Isabel is much mor

is not,” said

ull hours ago,” said Linda, windi

den. She did not believe that she would ever not get lost in this garden. Twice she had found her way back to the big iron gates they had driven through the night before, and then had turned to walk up the drive that led to the house, but there were so many little paths on either side. On one side they all led

could not see a leaf on the syringa bushes for the white clusters. The roses were in flower-gentlemen’s button-hole roses, little white ones, but far too full of insects to hold under anyone’s nose, pink monthly roses with a ring of fallen petals round

s and a bed of pelargoniums with velvet eyes and leaves like moths’ wings. There was a bed of nothing but mignonette and anoth

. She sat down on one of the box borders. By pressing hard at first it made a nice sea

ick flowery orchard grass. As she lay waiting for things to stop spinning, she decided to go up to the house and ask the servant girl for an empty matchbox. She wanted to make a surprise for the grandmother. . . . First she

s for the grandmother, and th

t a match,

at I’m looking for.” The grandmother slowly op

child! How you

re,” she thought, scrambling up

ade of grass banked up high. Nothing grew on the top except one huge plant with thick, grey-green, thorny leaves, and out of the middle there sprang up a tall stout stem. Some

hing like it before. She stood and stared. An

at is it?”

lmed in the air, and yet holding so fast to the earth it grew from, it might have had claws instead of roots. Th

oe, Kezia,” sa

ver have a

down at her, and half shut her

aman’s shop next door he bought a pineapple in the pink of condition, and noticing a basket of fresh black cherries he told John to put hi

off the box and tucked him

nell, while I give yer

” said Stanley. “You can m

re a touch and the b

rown bowler. He liked the way Pat had tucked him in, and he liked his eyes. There was nothing servile about him-and if there was o

get right out of that hole of a town once the office was closed; and this drive in the fresh warm air, knowing all the while that his own house

rooted in the bag and began to eat the cherries, three or four at a time, chucking the stones ove

mese twins. And he stuck them in his button-hole. . . . By Jove, he wouldn’t mind giving that c

t them to give him a couple of slices of cold meat and half lettuce when he got home. And then he’d get a few chaps out from town to play tennis in the afternoon. Not too many-three at

ess of Death Thou didst open the King dom of Heaven to all Believers.” And he saw the neat brass-edged card on the corner of the pew–Mr. Stanley Burnell and family. . . . The rest of the day he’d loaf about with Linda. . . . Now they were walking about the garden; she was on

had put the brake on again. Ugh! What a brute of a th

ht?” And then he did not believe it was until he heard Linda say: “Hullo! Are you home again?” That was the worst of living in the country-it took the deuce of a l

he mare’s back and he coaxe

om the paddocks on either side there streamed the milky scent of ripe grass. The iron gates were open.

said Pat, getting off the bo

ndeed, Pat,”

her voice rang in the shadowy qu

that he could hardly stop himself dashing

again. Is every

round to the side gate tha

he said to Linda, “I’ve brought you back a bottle of oysters and a pin

in the other. Burnell shut the glass door, threw his hat down, put his arms round h

and she put the bottle of oysters and the pine on a little carved chair. “What have

, darling. The

if I save them. They’d spoil my appetite for dinne

up to table wearing large bibs embroidered with their names. They wiped their mouths as their father came in ready to be kissed.

the light. Isabel and Lottie sat one on either side of the

. He tightened his arm round Linda’s shoulder. By G

nug,” said Mrs. Fairfield, cutt

an town-eh, childr

and Isabel added as an afterthought: “

aid Linda. “I’ll b

rm. It was quite dark in the room. He heard her ring tapp

darling. I’ll li

d again he put his arms round her an

oundedly hap

put her hands on his bre

t has come over m

da shut the window the cold dew touched her finger tips. Far away

had risen-that she was being strangely discovered in a flood of cold light. She shiv

.

the guitar. She had bathed and changed all her clothes. Now she wore a white mus

gone to her

we ar

r hand to p

y within

lf playing and singing. The firelight gleamed on her shoes, on

really would be rather struck,” thought she. Still more softl

were not alone-you were sitting with your little feet upon a hassock, playing the gu

moon is a

the door. The servant girl’s

eryl, I’ve got

of ice. She put the guitar in a corner. A

h that oving,” said she. “I

!” said

and down. . . . Oh, she was restless, restless. There was a mirror over the mantel. She leaned her arms

face in the mirror. “You were not

so adorable that she smiled again-but t

ning, Mrs

. I’m so glad to see you. Hav

saw you last, but she came so suddenly that I haven’t had time to

Queen Victoria-she’s my godmother, you know-sent him a case of pi

ly had her two days. Oh, Gwen,

h. Dinner won’t be ready

uce me to the servant. I think I o

rvant and you do introduce lady-helps, I k

cloth on a pink garden seat. In front of each person she put two geranium leaf plates, a pine needle fork and a twig knife. There were three daisy heads on a laurel leaf for poached eggs, some slice

s. Smith graciously. “If you’ll just take this b

spered to Mrs. Jones: “Shall I go and a

charming table, leaving the rissoles and the poached eggs to the ants and to an old snail who p

ront, children. Pip

e combing and brushing Snooker and dosing him with various awful mixtures concocted by Pip, and kept secretly by him in a broken jug covered with an old kettle lid. Even faithful little Rags was not allowed to know the full secret of these mixtures.. .. Take some carbolic tooth powder and a pinch of sulphur powdered up fine, and perhaps a bit of starch to stiffen up Snooker’s coat. . . . But that was not all; Rags privately thought that the rest was gun-powder. . . . And

and fighting dog,” Pip would

. Besides, both of them liked playing with girls–Pip, because he could fox them so, and because Lottie was so easily frightened, and Rags for a shameful reason. He a

keep them stiff like that. You’ll

ack Snooker, who wanted to go into the house but wa

o spend the afternoon with you. We brought over a batch of our gi

oiling water and grabbed them out and gave them a kind of pinch and the nuts

ay in the kitchen, Rags and me, and I get the bowl and he gets the spoon

, planted his hands on the grass, bent fo

lat place for standing on your head. I can walk round t

said Rag

the veranda. That’s q

oft. Because if you give a jerk and fall over, something

play something

tals. I will be the nurse and Pip can be the doctor

se last time Pip had squeezed somethin

was only the juice out of

el. “Pip can be the father and you c

“You always make us go to church hand

sir,” he called. But Snooker, as usual, tried to sneak away, his tail bet

e tied the handkerchief round Snooker’s he

that for?”

ead-see?” said Pip. “All fighting dogs have ears th

hey are always turning i

to get the handkerchief off, but finding he could no

his hand he held a little to

en, “and I’ll show you how the kings

eve him, and besides, the Trout

ed, smiling and holdin

ck’s head? One f

y one, and he stuck the tomahawk in his belt and h

ny blood about,” said Pip, “because the sight of blood makes him

” whispered Isabel. “We haven

he bank on the other side you were on the fringe of the paddocks. A little old stable in the first paddock had been turned into a fowl-house. The fowls ha

eam was wide and shallow, but at others it tumbled into deep little pools with foam at the edges and quivering bubbles.

easts, and other ducks with the same dazzling bre

d look at the old admiral there with the green

egan to walk towards the fowl-house, lazy, his str

id-lid-lid–

e bank they streamed after him in a long waddling line. He coaxed them, pretending to throw th

ross the paddock, their heads thrust forward, their wings spread, turn

e stooped, seized two, one under each arm, and strode across to the children

ey haven’t any teeth. They’ve only got those two l

” asked Pat. Pip let go of Snooker. “Won’t I? Won

light when Pat gave the

d it flat across the stump, and almost at the same moment down came the little tomahawk and the

o scream. Even Isabel leaped about crying: “The blood! The blood!” Pip forgot all about his duck.

, put out a finger as if he wanted to touch it, shrank back ag

, began to laugh and pointed at the d

ong spurt of blood where the head had been; it began to pad away without a sound t

yelled Pip. He ran among the littl

It’s like a funny little rai

her arms round his legs and butted her he

Put head back!

head away. She held on as hard as she could and sobbed: “Head

s tumbled over. It

but she would not let him look at her face. No, she pressed her fa

gun. They stood round the dead duck. Rags was not frighte

t,” he said. “Do you think it would keep

Bah! You baby.” He whistl

up to Lottie, Lot

lways touching

to Kezia. “There’s t

e raised her quivering face and looked. Pat wore little round gold ear-r

n and off?” she

f dress that smelt under the arms, a white apron like a large sheet of paper, and a lace bow pinned on to her hair with two jetty pins. Also

jig as the water bubbled. The clock ticked in the warm air, slow and deliberate, like the click of an old woman’s knittin

ad a lump of butter on the table, a barracouta

rty, greasy little book, half unstitched, with cur

ar, either father, husband, brother, son, or intended. If beetles crawl backwards as you watch

near future. Should party be in family way an easy confinement may be expected. But care

housand bi

to the table, and the first thing her eye lighted on were those greasy edges. Alice saw Miss Beryl’s meaning little smile and the way she raised her eyebrows and screwed up her eyes

hem and the turning of them over and over in her mind comforted her just as much as if they’d been expressed. Really, they kept her alive in places where she

little doyleys under the plates-will you? You did yesterday, you know, and the tea looked so ugly and common. And, Alice, don’t put on that dreadful old pink and green cosy on the afternoon

yl had f

oud from eve

itchen, very pleased with

curl up inside, as you might say, and she fair trembled. But what Alice really hated Miss Beryl for was that she made her feel low. She talked to Alice in a special voice as though s

he scones, “I’d rather not take my orders from Miss Beryl. I may be only

her so much that she qu

oom door, “is to cut the sleeves out entirely and just have a

Stanley Burnell that night. It lay, in beautifully basted resignation, on a blue dish-its

basted; they were both such a rich colour and they both had the same air o

eeing a woman carve; they were always too slow and they never seemed to care what the meat looked like afterwards. Now he did; he took a real pride in

e products?” he asked, knowin

ome. We have found out that

of those birds whose mother played to it in infancy upon the German flute. And the sweet strains of the dulcet instrument acted with such effect upon the infant mind . . . Have

since he came home, suggested a game of crib. They sat at a little table near one of the open windows. M

a?” said Beryl. She moved the tall lam

mysterious movement. Stanley himself, big and solid, in his dark suit, took his ease, and Beryl tossed her bright head and pouted. Round her throat she wore an unfamiliar velvet

d a run of three is nine,” said Stanley, so de

d Beryl, exaggerating her woe bec

sharp corner, and coming down the road again. They were pursuing each other. They did not

e up, and would not listen. Perhaps the white peg was frightened of the red one

, and once when the little pegs were side by side, she

the pansies. “Just as they had a ch

aughed Stanley, and aw

ain. A little piano stood against the wall with yellow pleated silk let into the carved front. Above it hung an oil painting by Beryl of a large cluster of surprised-looking clematis. Each flower was the size o

h the window and round and r

it is too late.

ring the silence and the moonlight in

s,” said Stanl

ood,” sa

up. Stanley looked across. “

I’m going to

e foot of the stairs she called, but her mo

eman’s wagon was full, and the house, the garden, the

I believe it is going to flower this year. Look at the to

a wave, and the aloe seemed to ride upon it like a ship with the oars lifted. Bright

al voice that women use at night to each other as though they spoke in their

mast. Now the oars fell striking quickly, quickly. They rowed far away over the top of the garden trees, t

ould go back to the house where the sleeping childr

mother. I like that aloe. I like it more than anything here. And I am s

walked down the steps, round the island and on

ves, and at the sight of them her heart grew hard. . . . She particularly liked the

og,” thought she, “that I’m

an anyone else in the world. She knew him through and through. He was the soul of truth and decency

always hated things that rush at her, from a child. There were times when he was frightening-really frightening. When she just had not

heart is affected, and the doctor has told you I may die any m

ation she hated him. And how tender he always was after times like those, how submissive, how thoughtful

uld you ligh

I will, my darling.” And he leapt out of bed as

s the other. And there was this other, this hatred, just as real as the rest. She could have done her feelings up in little packe

s-it was laughable, simply laughable. And why this mania of hers to keep a

nd Stanley will go on making money and the children and the gardens will grow

red and white camellia trees. Beautiful were the rich dark leaves spangled with light and the round flowers that perch

d, child? Are you trembling? Yes, your hands

thinking about?” s

hether we should be able to make much jam this autumn. There are splendid healthy currant bushes in the vegetable gar

ARLIN

n before. I haven’t had a moment, dear, and even no

town, and I can’t see how we shall ever go back again, for my brother-in

place in the country ever since I’ve lived with them-and I must say the house and

dear. Buried

e moving and said they would be pleased to help. But my sister who lives a mile away doesn’t know a soul here, so I am sure we never shall. It’s pretty certain nobody will ever come

st awful frump in a year or two and come and see you in a mackintosh

wo are promised as a great treat to-day. But, my dear, if you could see Stanley’s men from the club . . . rather fattish, the type who look frighfully indecent without waistcoats-always with toes that

there about three times they all called me Miss Beryl. It’s a dreary world. Of course mother simply loves the place, but

fair, per usual, I haven’t the sligh

ly, put bands of black velvet across the shoulders and two big red poppies off my dea

fectly true, but in another way it was all the greatest rubbish and she didn’t believe a word of

ten that letter. It not only bored

d it and she’d always write that kind of twaddle to Nan Pym. In fact,

eemed to come up to her from the page. It was faint already, like a voice heard over the

added, rather mournfully, for men were not at all keen on Nan, who was a solid kind of girl, with fa

her real self with Nan Pym, Nannie would have jumped out of the window with surprise. .

ously, half consciously she dri

ge skirt, a white silk blouse, and a leather

t too pointed. Her eyes, her eyes were perhaps her best feature; they were

that when they lay on her cheeks you positively cau

underlip protruded a little; she had a way of sucking it

a perfect little nose. Hers spread rather-not badly. And in all probability she exaggerated the spreadiness of it just because it

did it in a long plait she felt it on her backbone like a long snake. She loved to feel the weight of it dragging her head back, and

; she took a long breath of d

she was, back again, playing the same old game. False-false as ever. False as

r, and why was she staring? She dropped down to o

special trilling laugh if they had visitors, standing under the lamp if a man came to dinner, so that he should see the light on her hair, pouting and pretending to be a little girl when she was asked to play the guitar. Why? She even kept it up for Stanley’s

Beryl-a shadow . . . a shadow. Faint and unsubstantial she shone. What was there of her except the radiance? And for what tiny moments she was really she. Beryl could almost remember every one of them. At those times she had felt: “Life is rich and mysterious and good, and I am rich a

u please come down? Father is ho

crumpled her skirt, kne

nt over to the dressing-ta

e pot of cream and sniffed it. Under her

at the cat up on the dressing-table and s

yourself,” sh

d bumped and bumped on to the floor. And the top of the cream jar flew throug

through the air, and she picked it up, hot al

way, far too quick