‘Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at –nothing – at nothing, simply’

KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Born 14 October 1888, Wellington, New Zealand

Died 9 January 1923, Fontainebleau, France

‘Bliss’ first appeared in book form in Bliss and Other Stories in 1920; ‘The Daughters of the Late Colonel’ in The Garden-Party and Other Stories in 1922; and ‘The Doll’s House’ in The Dove’s Nest and Other Stories in 1923.

ALSO PUBLISHED BY PENGUIN BOOKS

The Collected Stories • The Garden Party and Other Stories • Something Childish But Very Natural

KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Bliss

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN CLASSICS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

www.penguin.com

Selected from The Collected Stories, published in Penguin Classics 2007

This edition published in Penguin Classics 2011

Copyright © Katherine Mansfield, 1920, 1922, 1923

All rights reserved

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-197003-5

Contents

Bliss

The Daughters of the Late Colonel

The Doll’s House

Bliss

Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had moments like this when she wanted to run instead of walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or to stand still and laugh at – nothing – at nothing, simply.

What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss – absolute bliss! – as though you’d suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe? …

Oh, is there no way you can express it without being ‘drunk and disorderly’? How idiotic civilization is! Why be given a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare fiddle?

‘No, that about the fiddle is not quite what I mean,’ she thought, running up the steps and feeling in her bag for the key – she’d forgotten it, as usual – and rattling the letter-box. ‘It’s not what I mean, because – Thank you, Mary’ – she went into the hall. ‘Is nurse back?’

‘Yes, M’m.’

‘And has the fruit come?’

‘Yes, M’m. Everything’s come.’

‘Bring the fruit up to the dining-room, will you? I’ll arrange it before I go upstairs.’

It was dusky in the dining-room and quite chilly. But all the same Bertha threw off her coat; she could not bear the tight clasp of it another moment, and the cold air fell on her arms.

But in her bosom there was still that bright glowing place – that shower of little sparks coming from it. It was almost unbearable. She hardly dared to breathe for fear of fanning it higher, and yet she breathed deeply, deeply. She hardly dared to look into the cold mirror – but she did look, and it gave her back a woman, radiant, with smiling, trembling lips, with big, dark eyes and an air of listening, waiting for something … divine to happen … that she knew must happen … infallibly.

Mary brought in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl, and a blue dish, very lovely, with a strange sheen on it as though it had been dipped in milk.

‘Shall I turn on the light, M’m?’

‘No, thank you. I can see quite well.’

There were tangerines and apples stained with strawberry pink. Some yellow pears, smooth as silk, some white grapes covered with a silver bloom and a big cluster of purple ones. These last she had bought to tone in with the new dining-room carpet. Yes, that did sound rather far-fetched and absurd, but it was really why she had bought them. She had thought in the shop: ‘I must have some purple ones to bring the carpet up to the table.’ And it had seemed quite sense at the time.

When she had finished with them and had made two pyramids of these bright round shapes, she stood away from the table to get the effect – and it really was most curious. For the dark table seemed to melt into the dusky light and the glass dish and the blue bowl to float in the air. This, of course, in her present mood, was so incredibly beautiful … She began to laugh.

‘No, no. I’m getting hysterical.’ And she seized her bag and coat and ran upstairs to the nursery.

Nurse sat at a low table giving Little B her supper after her bath. The baby had on a white flannel gown and a blue woollen jacket, and her dark, fine hair was brushed up into a funny little peak. She looked up when she saw her mother and began to jump.

‘Now, my lovey, eat it up like a good girl,’ said nurse, setting her lips in a way that Bertha knew, and that meant she had come into the nursery at another wrong moment.

‘Has she been good, Nanny?’

‘She’s been a little sweet all the afternoon,’ whispered Nanny. ‘We went to the park and I sat down on a chair and took her out of the pram and a big dog came along and put its head on my knee and she clutched its ear, tugged it. Oh, you should have seen her.’

Bertha wanted to ask if it wasn’t rather dangerous to let her clutch at a strange dog’s ear. But she did not dare to. She stood watching them, her hands by her side, like the poor little girl in front of the rich little girl with the doll.

The baby looked up at her again, stared, and then smiled so charmingly that Bertha couldn’t help crying:

‘Oh, Nanny, do let me finish giving her her supper while you put the bath things away.’

‘Well, M’m, she oughtn’t to be changed hands while she’s eating,’ said Nanny, still whispering. ‘It unsettles her; it’s very likely to upset her.’

How absurd it was. Why have a baby if it has to be kept – not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle – but in another woman’s arms?

‘Oh, I must!’ said she.

Very offended, Nanny handed her over.

‘Now, don’t excite her after her supper. You know you do, M’m. And I have such a time with her after!’

Thank heaven! Nanny went out of the room with the bath towels.

‘Now I’ve got you to myself, my little precious,’ said Bertha, as the baby leaned against her.

She ate delightfully, holding up her lips for the spoon and then waving her hands. Sometimes she wouldn’t let the spoon go; and sometimes, just as Bertha had filled it, she waved it away to the four winds.

When the soup was finished Bertha turned round to the fire.

‘You’re nice – you’re very nice!’ said she, kissing her warm baby. ‘I’m fond of you. I like you.’

And, indeed, she loved Little B so much – her neck as she bent forward, her exquisite toes as they shone transparent in the firelight – that all her feeling of bliss came back again, and again she didn’t know how to express it – what to do with it.

‘You’re wanted on the telephone,’ said Nanny, coming back in triumph and seizing her Little B.

Down she flew. It was Harry.

‘Oh, is that you, Ber? Look here. I’ll be late. I’ll take a taxi and come along as quickly as I can, but get dinner put back ten minutes – will you? All right?’

‘Yes, perfectly. Oh, Harry!’

‘Yes?’

What had she to say? She’d nothing to say. She only wanted to get in touch with him for a moment. She couldn’t absurdly cry: ‘Hasn’t it been a divine day!’

‘What is it?’ rapped out the little voice.

‘Nothing. Entendu,’ said Bertha, and hung up the receiver, thinking how much more than idiotic civilization was.

They had people coming to dinner. The Norman Knights – a very sound couple – he was about to start a theatre, and she was awfully keen on interior decoration, a young man, Eddie Warren, who had just published a little book of poems and whom everybody was asking to dine, and a ‘find’ of Bertha’s called Pearl Fulton. What Miss Fulton did, Bertha didn’t know. They had met at the club and Bertha had fallen in love with her, as she always did fall in love with beautiful women who had something strange about them.

The provoking thing was that, though they had been about together and met a number of times and really talked, Bertha couldn’t make her out. Up to a certain point Miss Fulton was rarely, wonderfully frank, but the certain point was there, and beyond that she would not go.

Was there anything beyond it? Harry said ‘No.’ Voted her dullish, and ‘cold like all blonde women, with a touch, perhaps, of anæmia of the brain.’ But Bertha wouldn’t agree with him; not yet, at any rate.

‘No, the way she has of sitting with her head a little on one side, and smiling, has something behind it, Harry, and I must find out what that something is.’

‘Most likely it’s a good stomach,’ answered Harry.

He made a point of catching Bertha’s heels with replies of that kind … ‘liver frozen, my dear girl,’ or ‘pure flatulence,’ or ‘kidney disease,’… and so on. For some strange reason Bertha liked this, and almost admired it in him very much.

She went into the drawing-room and lighted the fire; then, picking up the cushions, one by one, that Mary had disposed so carefully, she threw them back on to the chairs and the couches. That made all the difference; the room came alive at once. As she was about to throw the last one she surprised herself by suddenly hugging it to her, passionately, passionately. But it did not put out the fire in her bosom. Oh, on the contrary!

The windows of the drawing-room opened on to a balcony overlooking the garden. At the far end, against the wall, there was a tall, slender pear tree in fullest, richest bloom; it stood perfect, as though becalmed against the jade-green sky. Bertha couldn’t help feeling, even from this distance, that it had not a single bud or a faded petal. Down below, in the garden beds, the red and yellow tulips, heavy with flowers, seemed to lean upon the dusk. A grey cat, dragging its belly, crept across the lawn, and a black one, its shadow, trailed after. The sight of them, so intent and so quick, gave Bertha a curious shiver.

‘What creepy things cats are!’ she stammered, and she turned away from the window and began walking up and down …

How strong the jonquils smelled in the warm room. Too strong? Oh, no. And yet, as though overcome, she flung down on a couch and pressed her hands to her eyes.

‘I’m too happy – too happy!’ she murmured.

And she seemed to see on her eyelids the lovely pear tree with its wide open blossoms as a symbol of her own life.

Really – really – she had everything. She was young. Harry and she were as much in love as ever, and they got on together splendidly and were really good pals. She had an adorable baby. They didn’t have to worry about money. They had this absolutely satisfactory house and garden. And friends – modern, thrilling friends, writers and painters and poets or people keen on social questions – just the kind of friends they wanted. And then there were books, and there was music, and she had found a wonderful little dressmaker, and they were going abroad in the summer, and their new cook made the most superb omelettes …

‘I’m absurd. Absurd!’ She sat up; but she felt quite dizzy, quite drunk. It must have been the spring.

Yes, it was the spring. Now she was so tired she could not drag herself upstairs to dress.

A white dress, a string of jade beads, green shoes and stockings. It wasn’t intentional. She had thought of this scheme hours before she stood at the drawing-room window.

Her petals rustled softly into the hall, and she kissed Mrs Norman Knight, who was taking off the most amusing orange coat with a procession of black monkeys round the hem and up the fronts.

‘…Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy – so utterly without a sense of humour! My dear, it’s only by a fluke that I am here at all – Norman being the protective fluke. For my darling monkeys so upset the train that it rose to a man and simply ate me with its eyes. Didn’t laugh – wasn’t amused – that I should have loved. No, just stared – and bored me through and through.’

‘But the cream of it was,’ said Norman, pressing a large tortoiseshell-rimmed monocle into his eye, ‘you don’t mind me telling this, Face, do you?’ (In their home and among their friends they called each other Face and Mug.) ‘The cream of it was when she, being full fed, turned to the woman beside her and said: “Haven’t you ever seen a monkey before?” ’

‘Oh yes!’ Mrs Norman Knight joined in the laughter. Wasn’t that too absolutely creamy?’

And a funnier thing still was that now her coat was off she did look like a very intelligent monkey – who had even made that yellow silk dress out of scraped banana skins. And her amber ear-rings: they were like little dangling nuts.

‘This is a sad, sad fall!’ said Mug, pausing in front of Little B’s perambulator. ‘When the perambulator comes into the hall –’ and he waved the rest of the quotation away.

The bell rang. It was lean, pale Eddie Warren (as usual) in a state of acute distress.

‘It is the right house, isn’t it?’ he pleaded.

‘Oh, I think so – I hope so,’ said Bertha brightly.

‘I have had such a dreadful experience with a taxi-man; he was most sinister. I couldn’t get him to stop. The more I knocked and called the faster he went. And in the moonlight this bizarre figure with the flattened head crouching over the lit-tle wheel …’

He shuddered, taking off an immense white silk scarf. Bertha noticed that his socks were white, too – most charming.

‘But how dreadful!’ she cried.

‘Yes, it really was,’ said Eddie, following her into the drawing-room. ‘I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.’

He knew the Norman Knights. In fact, he was going to write a play for N. K. when the theatre scheme came off.

‘Well, Warren, how’s the play?’ said Norman Knight, dropping his monocle and giving his eye a moment in which to rise to the surface before it was screwed down again.

And Mrs Norman Knight: ‘Oh, Mr Warren, what happy socks?’

‘I am so glad you like them,’ said he, staring at his feet. ‘They seem to have got so much whiter since the moon rose.’ And he turned his lean sorrowful young face to Bertha. ‘There is a moon, you know.’

She wanted to cry: ‘I am sure there is – often – often!’

He really was a most attractive person. But so was Face, crouched before the fire in her banana skins, and so was Mug, smoking a cigarette and saying as he flicked the ash: ‘Why doth the bridegroom tarry?’

‘There he is, now.’

Bang went the front door open and shut. Harry shouted: ‘Hullo, you people. Down in five minutes.’ And they heard him swarm up the stairs. Bertha couldn’t help smiling; she knew how he loved doing things at high pressure. What, after all, did an extra five minutes matter? But he would pretend to himself that they mattered beyond measure. And then he would make a great point of coming into the drawing-room, extravagantly cool and collected.

Harry had such a zest for life. Oh, how she appreciated it in him. And his passion for fighting – for seeking in everything that came up against him another test of his power and of his courage – that, too, she understood. Even when it made him just occasionally, to other people, who didn’t know him well, a little ridiculous perhaps … For there were moments when he rushed into battle where no battle was … She talked and laughed and positively forgot until he had come in (just as she had imagined) that Pearl Fulton had not turned up.

‘I wonder if Miss Fulton has forgotten?’

‘I expect so,’ said Harry. ‘Is she on the ’phone?’

‘Ah! There’s a taxi now.’ And Bertha smiled with that little air of proprietorship that she always assumed while her women finds were new and mysterious. ‘She lives in taxis.’

‘She’ll run to fat if she does,’ said Harry coolly, ringing the bell for dinner. ‘Frightful danger for blonde women.’

‘Harry – don’t,’ warned Bertha, laughing up at him.

Came another tiny moment, while they waited, laughing and talking, just a trifle too much at their ease, a trifle too unaware. And then Miss Fulton, all in silver, with a silver fillet binding her pale blonde hair, came in smiling, her head a little on one side.

‘Am I late?’

‘No, not at all,’ said Bertha. ‘Come along.’ And she took her arm and they moved into the dining-room.

What was there in the touch of that cool arm that could fan – fan – start blazing – blazing – the fire of bliss that Bertha did not know what to do with?

Miss Fulton did not look at her; but then she seldom did look at people directly. Her heavy eyelids lay upon her eyes and the strange half-smile came and went upon her lips as though she lived by listening rather than seeing. But Bertha knew, suddenly, as if the longest, most intimate look had passed between them – as if they had said to each other: ‘You, too?’ – that Pearl Fulton, stirring the beautiful red soup in the grey plate, was feeling just what she was feeling.

And the others? Face and Mug, Eddie and Harry, their spoons rising and falling – dabbing their lips with their napkins, crumbling bread, fiddling with the forks and glasses and talking.

‘I met her at the Alpha show – the weirdest little person. She’d not only cut off her hair, but she seemed to have taken a dreadfully good snip off her legs and arms and her neck and her poor little nose as well.’

‘Isn’t she very liée with Michael Oat?’

‘The man who wrote Love in False Teeth?’

‘He wants to write a play for me. One act. One man. Decides to commit suicide. Gives all the reasons why he should and why he shouldn’t. And just as he has made up his mind either to do it or not to do it – curtain. Not half a bad idea.’

‘What’s he going to call it – “Stomach Trouble”?’

‘I think I’ve come across the same idea in a lit-tle French review, quite unknown in England.’

No, they didn’t share it. They were dears – dears – and she loved having them there, at her table, and giving them delicious food and wine. In fact, she longed to tell them how delightful they were, and what a decorative group they made, how they seemed to set one another off and how they reminded her of a play by Tchekof!

Harry was enjoying his dinner. It was part of his – well, not his nature, exactly, and certainly not his pose – his – something or other – to talk about food and to glory in his ‘shameless passion for the white flesh of the lobster’ and ‘the green of pistachio ices – green and cold like the eyelids of Egyptian dancers.’

When he looked up at her and said: ‘Bertha, this is a very admirable soufflé!’ she almost could have wept with child-like pleasure.

Oh, why did she feel so tender towards the whole world to-night? Everything was good – was right. All that happened seemed to fill again her brimming cup of bliss.

And still, in the back of her mind, there was the pear tree. It would be silver now, in the light of poor dear Eddie’s moon, silver as Miss Fulton, who sat there turning a tangerine in her slender fingers that were so pale a light seemed to come from them.

What she simply couldn’t make out – what was miraculous – was how she should have guessed Miss Fulton’s mood so exactly and so instantly. For she never doubted for a moment that she was right, and yet what had she to go on? Less than nothing.

‘I believe this does happen very, very rarely between women. Never between men,’ thought Bertha. ‘But while I am making the coffee in the drawing-room perhaps she will “give a sign”.’

What she meant by that she did not know, and what would happen after that she could not imagine.

While she thought like this she saw herself talking and laughing. She had to talk because of her desire to laugh.

‘I must laugh or die.’

But when she noticed Face’s funny little habit of tucking something down the front of her bodice – as if she kept a tiny, secret hoard of nuts there, too – Bertha had to dig her nails into her hands – so as not to laugh too much.

It was over at last. And: ‘Come and see my new coffee machine,’ said Bertha.

‘We only have a new coffee machine once a fortnight,’ said Harry. Face took her arm this time; Miss Fulton bent her head and followed after.

The fire had died down in the drawing-room to a red, flickering ‘nest of baby phœnixes,’ said Face.

‘Don’t turn up the light for a moment. It is so lovely.’ And down she crouched by the fire again. She was always cold … ‘without her little red flannel jacket, of course,’ thought Bertha.

At that moment Miss Fulton ‘gave the sign’.

‘Have you a garden?’ said the cool, sleepy voice.

This was so exquisite on her part that all Bertha could do was to obey. She crossed the room, pulled the curtains apart, and opened those long windows.

‘There!’ she breathed.

And the two women stood side by side looking at the slender, flowering tree. Although it was so still it seemed, like the flame of a candle, to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air, to grow taller and taller as they gazed – almost to touch the rim of the round, silver moon.

How long did they stand there? Both, as it were, caught in that circle of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly, creatures of another world, and wondering what they were to do in this one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their bosoms and dropped, in silver flowers, from their hair and hands?

For ever – for a moment? And did Miss Fulton murmur: ‘Yes. Just that.’ Or did Bertha dream it?

Then the light was snapped on and Face made the coffee and Harry said: ‘My dear Mrs Knight, don’t ask me about my baby. I never see her. I shan’t feel the slightest interest in her until she has a lover,’ and Mug took his eye out of the conservatory for a moment and then put it under glass again and Eddie Warren drank his coffee and set down the cup with a face of anguish as though he had drunk and seen the spider.

‘What I want to do is to give the young men a show. I believe London is simply teeming with first-chop, unwritten plays. What I want to say to ’em is: “Here’s the theatre. Fire ahead.” ’

‘You know, my dear, I am going to decorate a room for the Jacob Nathans. Oh, I am so tempted to do a fried-fish scheme, with the backs of the chairs shaped like frying-pans and lovely chip potatoes embroidered all over the curtains.’

‘The trouble with our young writing men is that they are still too romantic. You can’t put out to sea without being seasick and wanting a basin. Well, why won’t they have the courage of those basins?’

‘A dreadful poem about a girl who was violated by a beggar without a nose in a lit-tle wood …’

Miss Fulton sank into the lowest, deepest chair and Harry handed round the cigarettes.

From the way he stood in front of her shaking the silver box and saying abruptly: ‘Egyptian? Turkish? Virginian? They’re all mixed up,’ Bertha realized that she not only bored him; he really disliked her. And she decided from the way Miss Fulton said: ‘No, thank you, I won’t smoke,’ that she felt it, too, and was hurt.

‘Oh, Harry, don’t dislike her. You are quite wrong about her. She’s wonderful, wonderful. And, besides, how can you feel so differently about someone who means so much to me. I shall try to tell you when we are in bed to-night what has been happening. What she and I have shared.’

At those last words something strange and almost terrifying darted into Bertha’s mind. And this something blind and smiling whispered to her: ‘Soon these people will go. The house will be quiet – quiet. The lights will be out. And you and he will be alone together in the dark room – the warm bed …’

She jumped up from her chair and ran over to the piano.

‘What a pity someone does not play!’ she cried. ‘What a pity somebody does not play.’

For the first time in her life Bertha Young desired her husband.

Oh, she’d loved him – she’d been in love with him, of course, in every other way, but just not in that way. And equally, of course, she’d understood that he was different. They’d discussed it so often. It had worried her dreadfully at first to find that she was so cold, but after a time it had not seemed to matter. They were so frank with each other – such good pals. That was the best of being modern.

But now – ardently! ardently! The word ached in her ardent body! Was this what that feeling of bliss had been leading up to? But then, then –

‘My dear,’ said Mrs Norman Knight, ‘you know our shame. We are the victims of time and train. We live in Hampstead. It’s been so nice.’

‘I’ll come with you into the hall,’ said Bertha. ‘I loved having you. But you must not miss the last train. That’s so awful, isn’t it?’

‘Have a whisky, Knight, before you go?’ called Harry.

‘No, thanks, old chap.’

Bertha squeezed his hand for that as she shook it.

‘Good night, good-bye,’ she cried from the top step, feeling that this self of hers was taking leave of them for ever.

When she got back into the drawing-room the others were on the move.

‘… Then you can come part of the way in my taxi.’

‘I shall be so thankful not to have to face another drive alone after my dreadful experience.’

‘You can get a taxi at the rank just at the end of the street. You won’t have to walk more than a few yards.’

‘That’s a comfort. I’ll go and put on my coat.’

Miss Fulton moved towards the hall and Bertha was following when Harry almost pushed past.

‘Let me help you.’

Bertha knew that he was repenting his rudeness – she let him go. What a boy he was in some ways – so impulsive – so – simple.

And Eddie and she were left by the fire.

‘I wonder if you have seen Bilks’ new poem called Table d’Hôte,’ said Eddie softly. ‘It’s so wonderful. In the last Anthology. Have you got a copy? I’d so like to show it to you. It begins with an incredibly beautiful line: “Why Must it Always be Tomato Soup?” ’

‘Yes,’ said Bertha. And she moved noiselessly to a table opposite the drawing-room door and Eddie glided noiselessly after her. She picked up the little book and gave it to him; they had not made a sound.

While he looked it up she turned her head towards the hall. And she saw … Harry with Miss Fulton’s coat in his arms and Miss Fulton with her back turned to him and her head bent. He tossed the coat away, put his hands on her shoulders and turned her violently to him. His lips said: ‘I adore you,’ and Miss Fulton laid her moonbeam fingers on his cheeks and smiled her sleepy smile. Harry’s nostrils quivered; his lips curled back in a hideous grin while he whispered: ‘To-morrow,’ and with her eyelids Miss Fulton said: ‘Yes.’

‘Here it is,’ said Eddie. ‘ “Why Must it Always be Tomato Soup?” It’s so deeply true, don’t you feel? Tomato soup is so dreadfully eternal.’

‘If you prefer,’ said Harry’s voice, very loud, from the hall, ‘I can ’phone you a cab to come to the door.’

‘Oh, no. It’s not necessary,’ said Miss Fulton, and she came up to Bertha and gave her the slender fingers to hold.

‘Good-bye. Thank you so much.’

‘Good-bye,’ said Bertha.

Miss Fulton held her hand a moment longer.

‘Your lovely pear tree!’ she murmured.

And then she was gone, with Eddie following, like the black cat following the grey cat.

‘I’ll shut up shop,’ said Harry, extravagantly cool and collected.

‘Your lovely pear tree – pear tree – pear tree!’

Bertha simply ran over to the long windows.

‘Oh, what is going to happen now?’ she cried.

But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower and as still.

The Daughters of the Late Colonel

I

The week after was one of the busiest weeks of their lives. Even when they went to bed it was only their bodies that lay down and rested; their minds went on, thinking things out, talking things over, wondering, deciding, trying to remember where …

Constantia lay like a statue, her hands by her sides, her feet just overlapping each other, the sheet up to her chin. She stared at the ceiling.

‘Do you think father would mind if we gave his top-hat to the porter?’

‘The porter?’ snapped Josephine. ‘Why ever the porter? What a very extraordinary idea!’

‘Because,’ said Constantia slowly, ‘he must often have to go to funerals. And I noticed at – at the cemetery that he only had a bowler.’ She paused. ‘I thought then how very much he’d appreciate a top-hat. We ought to give him a present, too. He was always very nice to father.’

‘But,’ cried Josephine, flouncing on her pillow and staring across the dark at Constantia, ‘father’s head!’ And suddenly, for one awful moment, she nearly giggled. Not, of course, that she felt in the least like giggling. It must have been habit. Years ago, when they had stayed awake at night talking, their beds had simply heaved. And now the porter’s head, disappearing, popped out, like a candle, under father’s hat … The giggle mounted, mounted; she clenched her hands; she fought it down; she frowned fiercely at the dark and said ‘Remember’ terribly sternly.

‘We can decide to-morrow,’ she said.

Constantia had noticed nothing; she sighed.

‘Do you think we ought to have our dressing-gowns dyed as well?’

‘Black?’ almost shrieked Josephine.

‘Well, what else?’ said Constantia. ‘I was thinking – it doesn’t seem quite sincere, in a way, to wear black out of doors and when we’re fully dressed, and then when we’re at home – ’

‘But nobody sees us,’ said Josephine. She gave the bedclothes such a twitch that both her feet became uncovered and she had to creep up the pillows to get them well under again.

‘Kate does,’ said Constantia. ‘And the postman very well might.’

Josephine thought of her dark-red slippers, which matched her dressing-gown, and of Constantia’s favourite indefinite green ones which went with hers. Black! Two black dressing-gowns and two pairs of black woolly slippers, creeping off to the bathroom like black cats.

‘I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary,’ said she.

Silence. Then Constantia said, ‘We shall have to post the papers with the notice in them to-morrow to catch the Ceylon mail … How many letters have we had up till now?’

‘Twenty-three.’

Josephine had replied to them all, and twenty-three times when she came to ‘We miss our dear father so much’ she had broken down and had to use her handkerchief, and on some of them even to soak up a very light-blue tear with an edge of blotting-paper. Strange! She couldn’t have put it on – but twenty-three times. Even now, though, when she said over to herself sadly ‘We miss our dear father so much,’ she could have cried if she’d wanted to.

‘Have you got enough stamps?’ came from Constantia.

‘Oh, how can I tell?’ said Josephine crossly. ‘What’s the good of asking me that now?’

‘I was just wondering,’ said Constantia mildly.

Silence again. There came a little rustle, a scurry, a hop.

‘A mouse,’ said Constantia.

‘It can’t be a mouse because there aren’t any crumbs,’ said Josephine.

‘But it doesn’t know there aren’t,’ said Constantia.

A spasm of pity squeezed her heart. Poor little thing! She wished she’d left a tiny piece of biscuit on the dressing-table. It was awful to think of it not finding anything. What would it do?

‘I can’t think how they manage to live at all,’ she said slowly.

‘Who?’ demanded Josephine.

And Constantia said more loudly than she meant to, ‘Mice.’

Josephine was furious. ‘Oh, what nonsense, Con!’ she said. ‘What have mice got to do with it? You’re asleep.’

‘I don’t think I am,’ said Constantia. She shut her eyes to make sure. She was.

Josephine arched her spine, pulled up her knees, folded her arms so that her fists came under her ears, and pressed her cheek hard against the pillow.

II

Another thing which complicated matters was they had Nurse Andrews staying on with them that week. It was their own fault; they had asked her. It was Josephine’s idea. On the morning – well, on the last morning, when the doctor had gone, Josephine had said to Constantia, ‘Don’t you think it would be rather nice if we asked Nurse Andrews to stay on for a week as our guest?’

‘Very nice,’ said Constantia.

‘I thought,’ went on Josephine quickly, ‘I should just say this afternoon, after I’ve paid her, “My sister and I would be very pleased, after all you’ve done for us, Nurse Andrews, if you would stay on for a week as our guest.” I’d have to put that in about being our guest in case – ’

‘Oh, but she could hardly expect to be paid!’ cried Constantia.

‘One never knows,’ said Josephine sagely.

Nurse Andrews had, of course, jumped at the idea. But it was a bother. It meant they had to have regular sit-down meals at the proper times, whereas if they’d been alone they could just have asked Kate if she wouldn’t have minded bringing them a tray wherever they were. And meal-times now that the strain was over were rather a trial.

Nurse Andrews was simply fearful about butter. Really they couldn’t help feeling that about butter, at least, she took advantage of their kindness. And she had that maddening habit of asking for just an inch more bread to finish what she had on her plate, and then, at the last mouthful, absent-mindedly – of course it wasn’t absent-mindedly – taking another helping. Josephine got very red when this happened, and she fastened her small, bead-like eyes on the tablecloth as if she saw a minute strange insect creeping through the web of it. But Constantia’s long, pale face lengthened and set, and she gazed away – away – far over the desert, to where that line of camels unwound like a thread of wool …

‘When I was with Lady Tukes,’ said Nurse Andrews, ‘she had such a dainty little contrayvance for the buttah. It was a silvah Cupid balanced on the – on the bordah of a glass dish, holding a tayny fork. And when you wanted some buttah you simply pressed his foot and he bent down and speared you a piece. It was quite a gayme.’

Josephine could hardly bear that. But ‘I think those things are very extravagant’ was all she said.

‘But whey?’ asked Nurse Andrews, beaming through her eyeglasses. ‘No one, surely, would take more buttah than one wanted – would one?’

‘Ring, Con,’ cried Josephine. She couldn’t trust herself to reply.

And proud young Kate, the enchanted princess, came in to see what the old tabbies wanted now. She snatched away their plates of mock something or other and slapped down a white, terrified blancmange.

‘Jam, please, Kate,’ said Josephine kindly.

Kate knelt and burst open the sideboard, lifted the lid of the jam-pot, saw it was empty, put it on the table, and stalked off.

‘I’m afraid,’ said Nurse Andrews a moment later, ‘there isn’t any.’

‘Oh, what a bother!’ said Josephine. She bit her lip. ‘What had we better do?’

Constantia looked dubious. ‘We can’t disturb Kate again,’ she said softly.

Nurse Andrews waited, smiling at them both. Her eyes wandered, spying at everything behind her eyeglasses. Constantia in despair went back to her camels. Josephine frowned heavily – concentrated. If it hadn’t been for this idiotic woman she and Con would, of course, have eaten their blancmange without. Suddenly the idea came.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Marmalade. There’s some marmalade in the sideboard. Get it, Con.’

‘I hope,’ laughed Nurse Andrews – and her laugh was like a spoon tinkling against a medicine-glass – ‘I hope it’s not very bittah marmalayde.’

III

But, after all, it was not long now, and then she’d be gone for good. And there was no getting over the fact that she had been very kind to father. She had nursed him day and night at the end. Indeed, both Constantia and Josephine felt privately she had rather overdone the not leaving him at the very last. For when they had gone in to say good-bye Nurse Andrews had sat beside his bed the whole time, holding his wrist and pretending to look at her watch. It couldn’t have been necessary. It was so tactless, too. Supposing father had wanted to say something – something private to them. Not that he had. Oh, far from it! He lay there, purple, a dark, angry purple in the face, and never even looked at them when they came in. Then, as they were standing there, wondering what to do, he had suddenly opened one eye. Oh, what a difference it would have made, what a difference to their memory of him, how much easier to tell people about it, if he had only opened both! But no – one eye only. It glared at them a moment and then … went out.

IV

It had made it very awkward for them when Mr Farolles, of St John’s, called the same afternoon.

‘The end was quite peaceful, I trust?’ were the first words he said as he glided towards them through the dark drawing-room.

‘Quite,’ said Josephine faintly. They both hung their heads. Both of them felt certain that eye wasn’t at all a peaceful eye.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Josephine.

‘Thank you, Miss Pinner,’ said Mr Farolles gratefully. He folded his coat-tails and began to lower himself into father’s arm-chair, but just as he touched it he almost sprang up and slid into the next chair instead.

He coughed. Josephine clasped her hands; Constantia looked vague.

‘I want you to feel, Miss Pinner,’ said Mr Farolles, ‘and you, Miss Constantia, that I’m trying to be helpful. I want to be helpful to you both, if you will let me. These are the times,’ said Mr Farolles, very simply and earnestly, ‘when God means us to be helpful to one another.’

‘Thank you very much, Mr Farolles,’ said Josephine and Constantia.

‘Not at all,’ said Mr Farolles gently. He drew his kid gloves through his fingers and leaned forward. ‘And if either of you would like a little Communion, either or both of you, here and now, you have only to tell me. A little Communion is often very help— a great comfort,’ he added tenderly.

But the idea of a little Communion terrified them. What! In the drawing-room by themselves – with no – no altar or anything! The piano would be much too high, thought Constantia, and Mr Farolles could not possibly lean over it with the chalice. And Kate would be sure to come bursting in and interrupt them, thought Josephine. And supposing the bell rang in the middle? It might be somebody important – about their mourning. Would they get up reverently and go out, or would they have to wait … in torture?

‘Perhaps you will send round a note by your good Kate if you would care for it later,’ said Mr Farolles.

‘Oh yes, thank you very much!’ they both said.

Mr Farolles got up and took his black straw hat from the round table.

‘And about the funeral,’ he said softly. ‘I may arrange that – as your dear father’s old friend and yours, Miss Pinner – and Miss Constantia?’

Josephine and Constantia got up too.

‘I should like it to be quite simple,’ said Josephine firmly, ‘and not too expensive. At the same time, I should like – ’

‘A good one that will last,’ thought dreamy Constantia, as if Josephine were buying a night-gown. But, of course, Josephine didn’t say that. ‘One suitable to our father’s position.’ She was very nervous.

‘I’ll run round to our good friend Mr Knight,’ said Mr Farolles soothingly. ‘I will ask him to come and see you. I am sure you will find him very helpful indeed.’

V

Well, at any rate, all that part of it was over, though neither of them could possibly believe that father was never coming back. Josephine had had a moment of absolute terror at the cemetery, while the coffin was lowered, to think that she and Constantia had done this thing without asking his permission. What would father say when he found out? For he was bound to find out sooner or later. He always did. ‘Buried. You two girls had me buried!’ She heard his stick thumping. Oh, what would they say? What possible excuse could they make? It sounded such an appallingly heartless thing to do. Such a wicked advantage to take of a person because he happened to be helpless at the moment. The other people seemed to treat it all as a matter of course. They were strangers; they couldn’t be expected to understand that father was the very last person for such a thing to happen to. No, the entire blame for it all would fall on her and Constantia. And the expense, she thought, stepping into the tight-buttoned cab. When she had to show him the bills. What would he say then?

She heard him absolutely roaring. ‘And do you expect me to pay for this gimcrack excursion of yours?’

‘Oh,’ groaned poor Josephine aloud, ‘we shouldn’t have done it, Con!’

And Constantia, pale as a lemon in all that blackness, said in a frightened whisper, ‘Done what, Jug?’

‘Let them bu-bury father like that,’ said Josephine, breaking down and crying into her new, queer-smelling mourning handkerchief.

‘But what else could we have done?’ asked Constantia wonderingly. ‘We couldn’t have kept him, Jug – we couldn’t have kept him unburied. At any rate, not in a flat that size.’

Josephine blew her nose; the cab was dreadfully stuffy.

‘I don’t know,’ she said forlornly. ‘It is all so dreadful. I feel we ought to have tried to, just for a time at least. To make perfectly sure. One thing’s certain’ – and her tears sprang out again – ‘father will never forgive us for this – never!’

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 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 tallest,’ when they noticed that the kitchen door was open, and there stood Kate …

‘Very stiff,’ said Josephine, grasping the door-handle 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 fire-place. 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 on 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 way. ‘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 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.

VII

But the strain told on them when they were back in the dining-room. They sat down, very shaky, and looked at each other.

‘I don’t feel I can settle to anything,’ said Josephine, ‘until I’ve had something. Do you think we could ask Kate for two cups of hot water?’

‘I really don’t see why we shouldn’t,’ said Constantia carefully. She was quite normal again. ‘I won’t ring. I’ll go to the kitchen door and ask her.’

‘Yes, do,’ said Josephine, sinking down into a chair. ‘Tell her, just two cups, Con, nothing else – on a tray.’

‘She needn’t even put the jug on, need she?’ said Constantia, as though Kate might very well complain if the jug had been there.

‘Oh no, certainly not! The jug’s not at all necessary. She can pour it direct out of the kettle,’ cried Josephine, feeling that would be a labour-saving indeed.

Their cold lips quivered at the greenish brims. Josephine curved her small red hands round the cup; Constantia sat up and blew on the wavy steam, making it flutter from one side to the other.

‘Speaking of Benny,’ said Josephine.

And though Benny hadn’t been mentioned Constantia immediately looked as though he had.

‘He’ll expect us to send him something of father’s, of course. But it’s so difficult to know what to send to Ceylon.’

‘You mean things get unstuck so on the voyage,’ murmured Constantia.

‘No, lost,’ said Josephine sharply. ‘You know there’s no post. Only runners.’

Both paused to watch a black man in white linen drawers running through the pale fields for dear life, with a large brown-paper parcel in his hands. Josephine’s black man was tiny; he scurried along glistening like an ant. But there was something blind and tireless about Constantia’s tall, thin fellow, which made him, she decided, a very unpleasant person indeed … On the veranda, dressed all in white and wearing a cork helmet, stood Benny. His right hand shook up and down, as father’s did when he was impatient. And behind him, not in the least interested, sat Hilda, the unknown sister-in-law. She swung in a cane rocker and flicked over the leaves of the Tatler.

‘I think his watch would be the most suitable present,’ said Josephine.

Constantia looked up; she seemed surprised.

‘Oh, would you trust a gold watch to a native?’

‘But, of course, I’d disguise it,’ said Josephine. ‘No one would know it was a watch.’ She liked the idea of having to make a parcel such a curious shape that no one could possibly guess what it was. She even thought for a moment of hiding the watch in a narrow cardboard corset-box that she’d kept by her for a long time, waiting for it to come in for something. It was such beautiful, firm cardboard. But, no, it wouldn’t be appropriate for this occasion. It had lettering on it: Medium Women’s 28. Extra Firm Busks. It would be almost too much of a surprise for Benny to open that and find father’s watch inside.

‘And, of course, it isn’t as though it would be going – ticking, I mean,’ said Constantia, who was still thinking of the native love of jewellery. ‘At least,’ she added, ‘it would be very strange if after all that time it was.’

VIII

Josephine made no reply. She had flown off on one of her tangents. She had suddenly thought of Cyril. Wasn’t it more usual for the only grandson to have the watch? And then dear Cyril was so appreciative and a gold watch meant so much to a young man. Benny, in all probability, had quite got out of the habit of watches; men so seldom wore waistcoats in those hot climates. Whereas Cyril in London wore them from year’s end to year’s end. And it would be so nice for her and Constantia, when he came to tea, to know it was there. ‘I see you’ve got on grandfather’s watch, Cyril.’ It would be somehow so satisfactory.

Dear boy! What a blow his sweet, sympathetic little note had been! Of course they quite understood; but it was most unfortunate.

‘It would have been such a point, having him,’ said Josephine.

‘And he would have enjoyed it so,’ said Constantia, not thinking what she was saying.

However, as soon as he got back he was coming to tea with his aunties. Cyril to tea was one of their rare treats.

‘Now, Cyril, you mustn’t be frightened of our cakes. Your Auntie Con and I bought them at Buszard’s this morning. We know what a man’s appetite is. So don’t be ashamed of making a good tea.’

Josephine cut recklessly into the rich dark cake that stood for her winter gloves or the soling and heeling of Constantia’s only respectable shoes. But Cyril was most unmanlike in appetite.

‘I say, Aunt Josephine, I simply can’t. I’ve only just had lunch, you know.’

‘Oh, Cyril, that can’t be true! It’s after four,’ cried Josephine. Constantia sat with her knife poised over the chocolate-roll.

‘It is, all the same,’ said Cyril. ‘I had to meet a man at Victoria, and he kept me hanging about till … there was only time to get lunch and to come on here. And he gave me – phew’ – Cyril put his hand to his forehead – ‘a terrific blow-out,’ he said.

It was disappointing – to-day of all days. But still he couldn’t be expected to know.

‘But you’ll have a meringue, won’t you, Cyril?’ said Aunt Josephine. ‘These meringues were bought specially for you. Your dear father was so fond of them. We were sure you are, too.’

‘I am, Aunt Josephine,’ cried Cyril ardently. ‘Do you mind if I take half to begin with?’

‘Not at all, dear boy; but we mustn’t let you off with that.’

‘Is your dear father still so fond of meringues?’ asked Auntie Con gently. She winced faintly as she broke through the shell of hers.

‘Well, I don’t quite know, Auntie Con,’ said Cyril breezily. At that they both looked up.

‘Don’t know?’ almost snapped Josephine. ‘Don’t know a thing like that about your own father, Cyril?’

‘Surely,’ said Auntie Con softly.

Cyril tried to laugh it off. ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘it’s such a long time since – ’ He faltered. He stopped. Their faces were too much for him.

‘Even so,’ said Josephine.

And Auntie Con looked.

Cyril put down his teacup. ‘Wait a bit,’ he cried. ‘Wait a bit, Aunt Josephine. What am I thinking of?’

He looked up. They were beginning to brighten. Cyril slapped his knee.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it was meringues. How could I have forgotten? Yes, Aunt Josephine, you’re perfectly right. Father’s most frightfully keen on meringues.’

They didn’t only beam. Aunt Josephine went scarlet with pleasure; Auntie Con gave a deep, deep sigh.

‘And now, Cyril, you must come and see father,’ said Josephine. ‘He knows you were coming to-day.’

‘Right,’ said Cyril, very firmly and heartily. He got up from his chair; suddenly he glanced at the clock.

‘I say, Auntie Con, isn’t your clock a bit slow? I’ve got to meet a man at – at Paddington just after five. I’m afraid I shan’t be able to stay very long with grandfather.’

‘Oh, he won’t expect you to stay very long!’ said Aunt Josephine.

Constantia was still gazing at the clock. She couldn’t make up her mind if it was fast or slow. It was one or the other, she felt almost certain of that. At any rate, it had been.

Cyril still lingered. ‘Aren’t you coming along, Auntie Con?’

‘Of course,’ said Josephine, ‘we shall all go. Come on, Con.’

IX

They knocked at the door, and Cyril followed his aunts into grandfather’s hot, sweetish room.

‘Come on,’ said Grandfather Pinner. ‘Don’t hang about. What is it? What’ve you been up to?’

He was sitting in front of a roaring fire, clasping his stick. He had a thick rug over his knees. On his lap there lay a beautiful pale yellow silk handkerchief.

‘It’s Cyril, father,’ said Josephine shyly. And she took Cyril’s hand and led him forward.

‘Good afternoon, grandfather,’ said Cyril, trying to take his hand out of Aunt Josephine’s. Grandfather Pinner shot his eyes at Cyril in the way he was famous for. Where was Auntie Con? She stood on the other side of Aunt Josephine; her long arms hung down in front of her; her hands were clasped. She never took her eyes off grandfather.

‘Well,’ said Grandfather Pinner, beginning to thump, ‘what have you got to tell me?’

What had he, what had he got to tell him? Cyril felt himself smiling like a perfect imbecile. The room was stifling, too.

But Aunt Josephine came to his rescue. She cried brightly, ‘Cyril says his father is still very fond of meringues, father dear.’

‘Eh?’ said Grandfather Pinner, curving his hand like a purple meringue-shell over one ear.

Josephine repeated, ‘Cyril says his father is still very fond of meringues.’

‘Can’t hear,’ said old Colonel Pinner. And he waved Josephine away with his stick, then pointed with his stick to Cyril. ‘Tell me what she’s trying to say,’ he said.

(My God!) ‘Must I?’ said Cyril, blushing and staring at Aunt Josephine.

‘Do, dear,’ she smiled. ‘It will please him so much.’

‘Come on, out with it!’ cried Colonel Pinner testily, beginning to thump again.

And Cyril leaned forward and yelled, ‘Father’s still very fond of meringues.’

At that Grandfather Pinner jumped as though he had been shot.

‘Don’t shout!’ he cried. ‘What’s the matter with the boy? Meringues! What about ’em?’

‘Oh, Aunt Josephine, must we go on?’ groaned Cyril desperately.

‘It’s quite all right, dear boy,’ said Aunt Josephine, as though he and she were at the dentist’s together. ‘He’ll understand in a minute.’ And she whispered to Cyril, ‘He’s getting a bit deaf, you know.’ Then she leaned forward and really bawled at Grandfather Pinner, ‘Cyril only wanted to tell you, father dear, that his father is still very fond of meringues.’

Colonel Pinner heard that time, heard and brooded, looking Cyril up and down.

‘What an esstrordinary thing!’ said old Grandfather Pinner. ‘What an esstrordinary thing to come all this way here to tell me!’

And Cyril felt it was.

‘Yes, I shall send Cyril the watch,’ said Josephine.

‘That would be very nice,’ said Constantia. ‘I seem to remember last time he came there was some little trouble about the time.’

X

They were interrupted by Kate bursting through the door in her usual fashion, as though she had discovered some secret panel in the wall.

‘Fried or boiled?’ asked the bold voice.

Fried or boiled? Josephine and Constantia were quite bewildered for the moment. They could hardly take it in.

‘Fried or boiled what, Kate?’ asked Josephine, trying to begin to concentrate.

Kate gave a loud sniff. ‘Fish.’

‘Well, why didn’t you say so immediately?’ Josephine reproached her gently. ‘How could you expect us to understand, Kate? There are a great many things in this world, you know, which are fried or boiled.’ And after such a display of courage she said quite brightly to Constantia, ‘Which do you prefer, Con?’

‘I think it might be nice to have it fried,’ said Constantia. ‘On the other hand, of course, boiled fish is very nice. I think I prefer both equally well … Unless you … In that case – ’

‘I shall fry it,’ said Kate, and she bounced back, leaving their door open and slamming the door of her kitchen.

Josephine gazed at Constantia; she raised her pale eyebrows until they rippled away into her pale hair. She got up. She said in a very lofty, imposing way, ‘Do you mind following me into the drawing-room, Constantia? I’ve something of great importance to discuss with you.’

For it was always to the drawing-room they retired when they wanted to talk over Kate.

Josephine closed the door meaningly. ‘Sit down, Constantia,’ she said, still very grand. She might have been receiving Constantia for the first time. And Con looked round vaguely for a chair, as though she felt indeed quite a stranger.

‘Now the question is,’ said Josephine, bending forward, ‘whether we shall keep her or not.’

‘That is the question,’ agreed Constantia.

‘And this time,’ said Josephine firmly, ‘we must come to a definite decision.’

Constantia looked for a moment as though she might begin going over all the other times, but she pulled herself together and said, ‘Yes, Jug.’

‘You see, Con,’ explained Josephine, ‘everything is so changed now.’ Constantia looked up quickly. ‘I mean,’ went on Josephine, ‘we’re not dependent on Kate as we were.’ And she blushed faintly. ‘There’s not father to cook for.’

‘That is perfectly true,’ agreed Constantia. ‘Father certainly doesn’t want any cooking now whatever else –’

Josephine broke in sharply, ‘You’re not sleepy, are you, Con?’

‘Sleepy, Jug?’ Constantia was wide-eyed.

‘Well, concentrate more,’ said Josephine sharply, and she returned to the subject. ‘What it comes to is, if we did’ – and this she barely breathed, glancing at the door – ‘give Kate notice’ – she raised her voice again – ‘we could manage our own food.’

‘Why not?’ cried Constantia. She couldn’t help smiling. The idea was so exciting. She clasped her hands. ‘What should we live on, Jug?’

‘Oh, eggs in various forms!’ said Jug, lofty again. ‘And, besides, there are all the cooked foods.’

‘But I’ve always heard,’ said Constantia, ‘they are considered so very expensive.’

‘Not if one buys them in moderation,’ said Josephine. But she tore herself away from this fascinating bypath and dragged Constantia after her.

‘What we’ve got to decide now, however, is whether we really do trust Kate or not.’

Constantia leaned back. Her flat little laugh flew from her lips.

‘Isn’t it curious, Jug,’ said she, ‘that just on this one subject I’ve never been able to quite make up my mind?’

XI

She never had. The whole difficulty was to prove anything. How did one prove things, how could one? Suppose Kate had stood in front of her and deliberately made a face. Mightn’t she very well have been in pain? Wasn’t it impossible, at any rate, to ask Kate if she was making a face at her? If Kate answered ‘No’ – and, of course, she would say ‘No’ – what a position! How undignified! Then, again, Constantia suspected, she was almost certain that Kate went to her chest of drawers when she and Josephine were out, not to take things but to spy. Many times she had come back to find her amethyst cross in the most unlikely places, under her lace ties or on top of her evening Bertha. More than once she had laid a trap for Kate. She had arranged things in a special order and then called Josephine to witness.

‘You see, Jug?’

‘Quite, Con.’

‘Now we shall be able to tell.’

But, oh dear, when she did go to look, she was as far off from a proof as ever! If anything was displaced, it might so very well have happened as she closed the drawer; a jolt might have done it so easily.

‘You come, Jug, and decide. I really can’t. It’s too difficult.’

But after a pause and a long glare Josephine would sigh, ‘Now you’ve put the doubt into my mind, Con, I’m sure I can’t tell myself.’

‘Well, we can’t postpone it again,’ said Josephine. ‘If we postpone it this time – ’

XII

But at that moment in the street below a barrel-organ struck up. Josephine and Constantia sprang to their feet together.

‘Run, Con,’ said Josephine. ‘Run quickly. There’s sixpence on the – ’

Then they remembered. It didn’t matter. They would never have to stop the organ-grinder again. Never again would she and Constantia be told to make that monkey take his noise somewhere else. Never would sound that loud, strange bellow when father thought they were not hurrying enough. The organ-grinder might play there all day and the stick would not thump.

It never will thump again,

It never will thump again,

played the barrel-organ.

What was Constantia thinking? She had such a strange smile; she looked different. She couldn’t be going to cry.

‘Jug, Jug,’ said Constantia softly, pressing her hands together. ‘Do you know what day it is? It’s Saturday. It’s a week to-day, a whole week.’

A week since father died,

A week since father died,

cried the barrel-organ. And Josephine, too, forgot to be practical and sensible; she smiled faintly, strangely. On the Indian carpet there fell a square of sunlight, pale red; it came and went and came – and stayed, deepened – until it shone almost golden.

‘The sun’s out,’ said Josephine, as though it really mattered.

A perfect fountain of bubbling notes shook from the barrel-organ, round, bright notes, carelessly scattered.

Constantia lifted her big, cold hands as if to catch them, and then her hands fell again. She walked over to the mantelpiece to her favourite Buddha. And the stone and gilt image, whose smile always gave her such a queer feeling, almost a pain and yet a pleasant pain, seemed to-day to be more than smiling. He knew something; he had a secret. ‘I know something that you don’t know,’ said her Buddha. Oh, what was it, what could it be? And yet she had always felt there was … something.

The sunlight pressed through the windows, thieved its way in, flashed its light over the furniture and the photographs. Josephine watched it. When it came to mother’s photograph, the enlargement over the piano, it lingered as though puzzled to find so little remained of mother, except the ear-rings shaped like tiny pagodas and a black feather boa. Why did the photographs of dead people always fade so? wondered Josephine. As soon as a person was dead their photograph died too. But, of course, this one of mother was very old. It was thirty-five years old. Josephine remembered standing on a chair and pointing out that feather boa to Constantia and telling her that it was a snake that had killed their mother in Ceylon … Would everything have been different if mother hadn’t died? She didn’t see why. Aunt Florence had lived with them until they had left school, and they had moved three times and had their yearly holiday and … and there’d been changes of servants, of course.

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 night-gown 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.’

The Doll’s House

When dear old Mrs Hay went back to town after staying with the Burnells she sent the children a doll’s house. It was so big that the carter and Pat carried it into the courtyard, and there it stayed, propped up on two wooden boxes beside the feed-room door. No harm could come to it; it was summer. And perhaps the smell of paint would have gone off by the time it had to be taken in. For, really, the smell of paint coming from that doll’s house (‘Sweet of old Mrs Hay, of course; most sweet and generous!’) – but the smell of paint was quite enough to make anyone seriously ill, in Aunt Beryl’s opinion. Even before the sacking was taken off. And when it was …

There stood the doll’s house, a dark, oily, spinach green, picked out with bright yellow. Its two solid little chimneys, glued on to the roof, were painted red and white, and the door, gleaming with yellow varnish, was like a little slab of toffee. Four windows, real windows, were divided into panes by a broad streak of green. There was actually a tiny porch, too, painted yellow, with big lumps of congealed paint hanging along the edge.

But perfect, perfect little house! Who could possibly mind the smell. It was part of the joy, part of the newness.

‘Open it quickly, someone!’

The hook at the side was stuck fast. Pat prised it open with his penknife, and the whole house front swung back, and – there you were, gazing at one and the same moment into the drawing-room and dining-room, the kitchen and two bedrooms. That is the way for a house to open! Why don’t all houses open like that? How much more exciting than peering through the slit of a door into a mean little hall with a hat-stand and two umbrellas! That is – isn’t it? – what you long to know about a house when you put your hand on the knocker. Perhaps it is the way God opens houses at the dead of night when He is taking a quiet turn with an angel …

‘Oh-oh!’ The Burnell children sounded as though they were in despair. It was too marvellous; it was too much for them. They had never seen anything like it in their lives. All the rooms were papered. There were pictures on the walls, painted on the paper, with gold frames complete. Red carpet covered all the floors except the kitchen; red plush chairs in the drawing-room, green in the dining-room; tables, beds with real bedclothes, a cradle, a stove, a dresser with tiny plates and one big jug. But what Kezia liked more than anything, what she liked frightfully, was the lamp. It stood in the middle of the dining-room table, an exquisite little amber lamp with a white globe. It was even filled all ready for lighting, though, of course, you couldn’t light it. But there was something inside that looked like oil and moved when you shook it.

The father and mother dolls, who sprawled very stiff as though they had fainted in the drawing-room, and their two little children asleep upstairs, were really too big for the doll’s house. They didn’t look as though they belonged. But the lamp was perfect. It seemed to smile at Kezia, to say, ‘I live here.’ The lamp was real.

The Burnell children could hardly walk to school fast enough the next morning. They burned to tell everybody, to describe, to – well – to boast about their doll’s house before the school-bell rang.

‘I’m to tell,’ said Isabel, ‘because I’m the eldest. And you two can join in after. But I’m to tell first.’

There was nothing to answer. Isabel was bossy, but she was always right, and Lottie and Kezia knew too well the powers that went with being eldest. They brushed through the thick buttercups at the road edge and said nothing.

‘And I’m to choose who’s to come and see it first. Mother said I might.’

For it had been arranged that while the doll’s house stood in the courtyard they might ask the girls at school, two at a time, to come and look. Not to stay to tea, of course, or to come traipsing through the house. But just to stand quietly in the courtyard while Isabel pointed out the beauties, and Lottie and Kezia looked pleased …

But hurry as they might, by the time they had reached the tarred palings of the boys’ playground the bell had begun to jangle. They only just had time to whip off their hats and fall into line before the roll was called. Never mind. Isabel tried to make up for it by looking very important and mysterious and by whispering behind her hand to the girls near her, ‘Got something to tell you at playtime.’

Playtime came and Isabel was surrounded. The girls of her class nearly fought to put their arms round her, to walk away with her, to beam flatteringly, to be her special friend. She held quite a court under the huge pine trees at the side of the playground. Nudging, giggling together, the little girls pressed up close. And the only two who stayed outside the ring were the two who were always outside, the little Kelveys. They knew better than to come anywhere near the Burnells.

For the fact was, the school the Burnell children went to was not at all the kind of place their parents would have chosen if there had been any choice. But there was none. It was the only school for miles. And the consequence was all the children of the neighbourhood, the Judge’s little girls, the doctor’s daughters, the store-keeper’s children, the milkman’s, were forced to mix together. Not to speak of there being an equal number of rude, rough little boys as well. But the line had to be drawn somewhere. It was drawn at the Kelveys. Many of the children, including the Burnells, were not allowed even to speak to them. They walked past the Kelveys with their heads in the air, and as they set the fashion in all matters of behaviour, the Kelveys were shunned by everybody. Even the teacher had a special voice for them, and a special smile for the other children when Lil Kelvey came up to her desk with a bunch of dreadfully common-looking flowers.

They were the daughters of a spry, hard-working little washerwoman, who went about from house to house by the day. This was awful enough. But where was Mr Kelvey? Nobody knew for certain. But everybody said he was in prison. So they were the daughters of a washerwoman and a gaolbird. Very nice company for other people’s children! And they looked it. Why Mrs Kelvey made them so conspicuous was hard to understand. The truth was they were dressed in ‘bits’ given to her by the people for whom she worked. Lil, for instance, who was a stout, plain child, with big freckles, came to school in a dress made from a green art-serge tablecloth of the Burnells’, with red plush sleeves from the Logans’ curtains. Her hat, perched on top of her high forehead, was a grown-up woman’s hat, once the property of Miss Lecky, the postmistress. It was turned up at the back and trimmed with a large scarlet quill. What a little guy she looked! It was impossible not to laugh. And her little sister, our Else, wore a long white dress, rather like a nightgown, and a pair of little boy’s boots. But whatever our Else wore she would have looked strange. She was a tiny wishbone of a child, with cropped hair and enormous solemn eyes – a little white owl. Nobody had ever seen her smile; she scarcely ever spoke. She went through life holding on to Lil, with a piece of Lil’s skirt screwed up in her hand. Where Lil went, our Else followed. In the playground, on the road going to and from school, there was Lil marching in front and our Else holding on behind. Only when she wanted anything, or when she was out of breath, our Else gave Lil a tug, a twitch, and Lil stopped and turned round. The Kelveys never failed to understand each other.

Now they hovered at the edge; you couldn’t stop them listening. When the little girls turned round and sneered, Lil, as usual, gave her silly, shamefaced smile, but our Else only looked.

And Isabel’s voice, so very proud, went on telling. The carpet made a great sensation, but so did the beds with real bedclothes, and the stove with an oven door.

When she finished Kezia broke in. ‘You’ve forgotten the lamp, Isabel.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Isabel, ‘and there’s a teeny little lamp, all made of yellow glass, with a white globe that stands on the dining-room table. You couldn’t tell it from a real one.’

‘The lamp’s best of all,’ cried Kezia. She thought Isabel wasn’t making half enough of the little lamp. But nobody paid any attention. Isabel was choosing the two who were to come back with them that afternoon and see it. She chose Emmie Cole and Lena Logan. But when the others knew they were all to have a chance, they couldn’t be nice enough to Isabel. One by one they put their arms round Isabel’s waist and walked her off. They had something to whisper to her, a secret. ‘Isabel’s my friend.’

Only the little Kelveys moved away forgotten; there was nothing more for them to hear.

Days passed, and as more children saw the doll’s house, the fame of it spread. It became the one subject, the rage. The one question was, ‘Have you seen Burnells’ doll’s house? Oh, ain’t it lovely!’ ‘Haven’t you seen it? Oh, I say!’

Even the dinner hour was given up to talking about it. The little girls sat under the pines eating their thick mutton sandwiches and big slabs of johnny cake spread with butter. While always, as near as they could get, sat the Kelveys, our Else holding on to Lil, listening too, while they chewed their jam sandwiches out of a newspaper soaked with large red blobs.

‘Mother,’ said Kezia, ‘can’t I ask the Kelveys just once?’

‘Certainly not, Kezia.’

‘But why not?’

‘Run away, Kezia; you know quite well why not.’

At last everybody had seen it except them. On that day the subject rather flagged. It was the dinner hour. The children stood together under the pine trees, and suddenly, as they looked at the Kelveys eating out of their paper, always by themselves, always listening, they wanted to be horrid to them. Emmie Cole started the whisper.

‘Lil Kelvey’s going to be a servant when she grows up.’

‘O-oh, how awful!’ said Isabel Burnell, and she made eyes at Emmie.

Emmie swallowed in a very meaning way and nodded to Isabel as she’d seen her mother do on those occasions.

‘It’s true – it’s true – it’s true,’ she said.

Then Lena Logan’s little eyes snapped. ‘Shall I ask her?’ she whispered.

‘Bet you don’t,’ said Jessie May.

‘Pooh, I’m not frightened,’ said Lena. Suddenly she gave a little squeal and danced in front of the other girls. ‘Watch! Watch me! Watch me now!’ said Lena. And sliding, gliding, dragging one foot, giggling behind her hand, Lena went over to the Kelveys.

Lil looked up from her dinner. She wrapped the rest quickly away. Our Else stopped chewing. What was coming now?

‘Is it true you’re going to be a servant when you grow up, Lil Kelvey?’ shrilled Lena.

Dead silence. But instead of answering, Lil only gave her silly, shamefaced smile. She didn’t seem to mind the question at all. What a sell for Lena! The girls began to titter.

Lena couldn’t stand that. She put her hands on her hips; she shot forward. ‘Yah, yer father’s in prison!’ she hissed spitefully.

This was such a marvellous thing to have said that the little girls rushed away in a body, deeply, deeply excited, wild with joy. Someone found a long rope, and they began skipping. And never did they skip so high, run in and out so fast, or do such daring things as on that morning.

In the afternoon Pat called for the Burnell children with the buggy and they drove home. There were visitors. Isabel and Lottie, who liked visitors, went upstairs to change their pinafores. But Kezia thieved out at the back. Nobody was about; she began to swing on the big white gates of the courtyard. Presently, looking along the road, she saw two little dots. They grew bigger, they were coming towards her. Now she could see that one was in front and one close behind. Now she could see that they were the Kelveys. Kezia stopped swinging. She slipped off the gate as if she was going to run away. Then she hesitated. The Kelveys came nearer, and beside them walked their shadows, very long, stretching right across the road with their heads in the buttercups. Kezia clambered back on the gate; she had made up her mind; she swung out.

‘Hullo,’ she said to the passing Kelveys.

They were so astounded that they stopped. Lil gave her silly smile. Our Else stared.

‘You can come and see our doll’s house if you want to,’ said Kezia, and she dragged one toe on the ground. But at that Lil turned red and shook her head quickly.

‘Why not?’ asked Kezia.

Lil gasped, then she said, ‘Your ma told our ma you wasn’t to speak to us.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Kezia. She didn’t know what to reply. ‘It doesn’t matter. You can come and see our doll’s house all the same. Come on. Nobody’s looking.’

But Lil shook her head still harder.

‘Don’t you want to?’ asked Kezia.

Suddenly there was a twitch, a tug at Lil’s skirt. She turned round. Our Else was looking at her with big, imploring eyes; she was frowning; she wanted to go. For a moment Lil looked at our Else very doubtfully. But then our Else twitched her skirt again. She started forward. Kezia led the way. Like two little stray cats they followed across the courtyard to where the doll’s house stood.

‘There it is,’ said Kezia.

There was a pause. Lil breathed loudly, almost snorted; our Else was still as stone.

‘I’ll open it for you,’ said Kezia kindly. She undid the hook and they looked inside.

‘There’s the drawing-room and the dining-room, and that’s the – ’

‘Kezia!’

Oh, what a start they gave!

‘Kezia!’

It was Aunt Beryl’s voice. They turned round. At the back door stood Aunt Beryl, staring as if she couldn’t believe what she saw.

‘How dare you ask the little Kelveys into the courtyard!’ said her cold, furious voice. ‘You know as well as I do, you’re not allowed to talk to them. Run away, children, run away at once. And don’t come back again,’ said Aunt Beryl. And she stepped into the yard and shooed them out as if they were chickens.

‘Off you go immediately!’ she called, cold and proud.

They did not need telling twice. Burning with shame, shrinking together, Lil huddling along like her mother, our Else dazed, somehow they crossed the big courtyard and squeezed through the white gate.

‘Wicked, disobedient little girl!’ said Aunt Beryl bitterly to Kezia, and she slammed the doll’s house to.

The afternoon had been awful. A letter had come from Willie Brent, a terrifying, threatening letter, saying if she did not meet him that evening in Pulman’s Bush, he’d come to the front door and ask the reason why! But now that she had frightened those little rats of Kelveys and given Kezia a good scolding, her heart felt lighter. That ghastly pressure was gone. She went back to the house humming.

When the Kelveys were well out of sight of Burnells’, they sat down to rest on a big red drainpipe by the side of the road. Lil’s cheeks were still burning; she took off the hat with the quill and held it on her knee. Dreamily they looked over the hay paddocks, past the creek, to the group of wattles where Logan’s cows stood waiting to be milked. What were their thoughts?

Presently our Else nudged up close to her sister. But now she had forgotten the cross lady. She put out a finger and stroked her sister’s quill; she smiled her rare smile.

‘I seen the little lamp,’ she said softly.

Then both were silent once more.

Mini Modern Classics

RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA   Hell Screen

KINGSLEY AMIS   Dear Illusion

DONALD BARTHELME   Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby

SAMUEL BECKETT   The Expelled

SAUL BELLOW   Him With His Foot in His Mouth

JORGE LUIS BORGES   The Widow Ching – Pirate

PAUL BOWLES   The Delicate Prey

ITALO CALVINO   The Queen’s Necklace

ALBERT CAMUS   The Adulterous Woman

TRUMAN CAPOTE   Children on Their Birthdays

ANGELA CARTER   Bluebeard

RAYMOND CHANDLER   Killer in the Rain

EILEEN CHANG   Red Rose, White Rose

G. K. CHESTERTON   The Strange Crime of John Boulnois

JOSEPH CONRAD   Youth

ROBERT COOVER   Romance of the Thin Man and the Fat Lady

ISAK DINESEN [KAREN BLIXEN]   Babette’s Feast

MARGARET DRABBLE   The Gifts of War

HANS FALLADA   Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD   Babylon Revisited

IAN FLEMING   The Living Daylights

E. M. FORSTER   The Machine Stops

SHIRLEY JACKSON   The Tooth

HENRY JAMES   The Beast in the Jungle

M. R. JAMES   Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book

JAMES JOYCE   Two Gallants

FRANZ KAFKA   In the Penal Colony

RUDYARD KIPLING   ‘They’

D. H. LAWRENCE   Odour of Chrysanthemums

PRIMO LEVI   The Magic Paint

H. P. LOVECRAFT   The Colour Out of Space

MALCOLM LOWRY   Lunar Caustic

KATHERINE MANSFIELD   Bliss

CARSON MCCULLERS   Wunderkind

ROBERT MUSIL   Flypaper

VLADIMIR NABOKOV   Terra Incognita

R. K. NARAYAN   A Breath of Lucifer

FRANK O’CONNOR   The Cornet-Player Who Betrayed Ireland

DOROTHY PARKER   The Sexes

LUDMILLA PETRUSHEVSKAYA   Through the Wall

JEAN RHYS   La Grosse Fifi

SAKI   Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped

ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER   The Last Demon

WILLIAM TREVOR   The Mark-2 Wife

JOHN UPDIKE   Rich in Russia

H. G. WELLS   The Door in the Wall

EUDORA WELTY   Moon Lake

P. G. WODEHOUSE   The Crime Wave at Blandings

VIRGINIA WOOLF   The Lady in the Looking-Glass

STEFAN ZWEIG   Chess

a little history

Penguin Modern Classics were launched in 1961, and have been shaping the reading habits of generations ever since.

The list began with distinctive grey spines and evocative pictorial covers – a look that, after various incarnations, continues to influence their current design – and with books that are still considered landmark classics today.

Penguin Modern Classics have caused scandal and political change, inspired great films and broken down barriers, whether social, sexual or the boundaries of language itself. They remain the most provocative, groundbreaking, exciting and revolutionary works of the last 100 years (or so).

On the fiftieth anniversary of the Modern Classics, we’re publishing fifty Mini Modern Classics: the very best short fiction by writers ranging from Beckett to Conrad, Nabokov to Saki, Updike to Wodehouse. Though they don’t take long to read, they’ll stay with you long after you turn the final page.