The Garden Party | Page 3

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This etext was prepared by Sue Asscher

The Garden Party
by
Katherine Mansfield
CONTENTS
1. At the Bay

2. The Garden Party
3. The Daughters of the Late Colonel
4. Mr. and Mrs. Dove
5. The Young Girl
6. Life of Ma Parker
7. Marriage a la Mode
8. The Voyage
9. Miss Brill
10. Her First Ball
11. The Singing Lesson
12. The Stranger
13. Bank Holiday
14. An Ideal Family
15. The Lady's-Maid

1. AT THE BAY.
Chapter 1.
I.
Very early morning. The sun was not yet risen, and the whole of
Crescent Bay was hidden under a white sea-mist. The big bush-covered
hills at the back were smothered. You could not see where they ended
and the paddocks and bungalows began. The sandy road was gone and

the paddocks and bungalows the other side of it; there were no white
dunes covered with reddish grass beyond them; there was nothing to
mark which was beach and where was the sea. A heavy dew had fallen.
The grass was blue. Big drops hung on the bushes and just did not fall;
the silvery, fluffy toi-toi was limp on its long stalks, and all the
marigolds and the pinks in the bungalow gardens were bowed to the
earth with wetness. Drenched were the cold fuchsias, round pearls of
dew lay on the flat nasturtium leaves. It looked as though the sea had
beaten up softly in the darkness, as though one immense wave had
come rippling, rippling--how far? Perhaps if you had waked up in the
middle of the night you might have seen a big fish flicking in at the
window and gone again...
Ah-Aah! sounded the sleepy sea. And from the bush there came the
sound of little streams flowing, quickly, lightly, slipping between the
smooth stones, gushing into ferny basins and out again; and there was
the splashing of big drops on large leaves, and something else--what
was it?--a faint stirring and shaking, the snapping of a twig and then
such silence that it seemed some one was listening.
Round the corner of Crescent Bay, between the piled-up masses of
broken rock, a flock of sheep came pattering. They were huddled
together, a small, tossing, woolly mass, and their thin, stick-like legs
trotted along quickly as if the cold and the quiet had frightened them.
Behind them an old sheep-dog, his soaking paws covered with sand,
ran along with his nose to the ground, but carelessly, as if thinking of
something else. And then in the rocky gateway the shepherd himself
appeared. He was a lean, upright old man, in a frieze coat that was
covered with a web of tiny drops, velvet trousers tied under the knee,
and a wide-awake with a folded blue handkerchief round the brim. One
hand was crammed into his belt, the other grasped a beautifully smooth
yellow stick. And as he walked, taking his time, he kept up a very soft
light whistling, an airy, far-away fluting that sounded mournful and
tender. The old dog cut an ancient caper or two and then drew up sharp,
ashamed of his levity, and walked a few dignified paces by his master's
side. The sheep ran forward in little pattering rushes; they began to
bleat, and ghostly flocks and herds answered them from under the sea.

"Baa! Baaa!" For a time they seemed to be always on the same piece of
ground. There ahead was stretched the sandy road with shallow puddles;
the same soaking bushes showed on either side and the same shadowy
palings. Then something immense came into view; an enormous shock-
haired giant with his arms stretched out. It was the big gum-tree outside
Mrs. Stubbs' shop, and as they passed by there was a strong whiff