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Bliss and Other Stories
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The white duck did not look as if it had ever had a head when Alice placed it in front of Stanley Burnell that night. It lay, in beautifully basted resignation, on a blue dish—its legs tied together with a piece of string and a wreath of little balls of stuffing round it.
It was hard to say which of the two, Alice or the duck, looked the better basted ; they were both such a rich colour and they both had the same air of gloss and strain. But Alice was fiery red and the duck a Spanish mahogany.
Burnell ran his eye along the edge of the carving knife. He prided himself very much upon his carving, upon making a first-class job of it. He hated seeing 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 cutting delicate shaves of cold beef, little wads of mutton, just the right thickness, and in dividing a chicken or a duck with nice precision. . . . .
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" Is this the first of the home products ? " he asked, knowing perfectly well that it was.
" Yes, the butcher did not come. We have found out that he only calls twice a week."
But there was no need to apologise. It was a superb bird. It wasn't meat at all, but a kind of very superior jelly. " My father would say," said Burnell, " this must have been one 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 some more, Beryl ? You and I are the only ones in this house with a real feeling for food. I'm perfectly willing to state, in a court of law, if necessary, that I love good food."
Tea was served in the drawing-room, and Beryl, who for some reason had been very charming to Stanley ever since he came home, suggested a game of crib. They sat at a little table near one of the open windows. Mrs. Fairfield disappeared, and Linda lay in a rocking-chair, her arms above her head, rocking to and fro.
" You don't want the light—do you, Linda ? " said Beryl. She moved the tall lamp so that she sat under its soft light.
How remote they looked, those two, from where Linda sat and rocked. The green table, the polished cards, Stanley's big hands and Beryl's tiny ones, all seemed to be part of one mysterious movement. Stanley himself, big and solid, in his dark suit, took
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his ease, and Beryl tossed her bright head and pouted. Round her throat she wore an unfamiliar velvet ribbon. It changed her, somehow—altered the shape of her face—but it was charming, Linda decided. The room smelled of lilies ; there were two big jars of arums in the fire-place.
" Fifteen two—fifteen four—and a pair is six and a run of three is nine," said Stanley, so deliberately, he might have been counting sheep.
" I've nothing but two pairs," said Beryl, exaggerating her woe because she knew how he loved winning.
The cribbage pegs were like two little people going up the road together, turning round the sharp corner, and coming down the road again. They were pursuing each other. They did not so much want to get ahead as to keep near enough to talk—to keep near, perhaps that was all.
But no, there was always one who was impatient and hopped away as the other came up, and would not listen. Perhaps the white peg was frightened of the red one, or perhaps he was cruel and would not give the red one a chance to speak. . . .
In the front of her dress Beryl wore a bunch of pansies, and once when the little pegs were side by side, she bent over and the pansies dropped out and covered them.
" What a shame," said she, picking up the pansies. " Just as they had a chance to fly into each other's arms."
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" Farewell, my girl," laughed Stanley, and away the red peg hopped.
The drawing-room was long and narrow with glass doors that gave on to the verandah. It had a cream paper with a pattern of gilt roses, and the furniture, which had belonged to old Mrs. Fairfield, was dark and plain. 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 of a small saucer, with a centre like an astonished eye fringed in black. But the room was not finished yet. Stanley had set his heart on a Chesterfield and two decent chairs. Linda liked it best as it was. . . .
Two big moths flew in through the window and round and round the circle of lamplight.
" Fly away before it is too late. Fly out again."
Round and round they flew; they seemed to bring the silence and the moonlight in with them on their silent wings. . . .
" I've two kings," said Stanley. " Any good ? "
" Quite good," said Beryl.
Linda stopped rocking and got up. Stanley looked across. " Anything the matter, darling ? "
" No, nothing. I'm going to find mother."
She went out of the room and standing at the foot of the stairs she called, but her mother's voice answered her from the verandah.
The moon that Lottie and Kezia had seen from
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the storeman's wagon was full, and the house, the garden, the old woman and Linda—all were bathed in dazzling light.
" I have been looking at the aloe," said Mrs. Fairfield. " I believe it is going to flower this year. Look at the top there. Are those buds, or is it only an effect of light ?"
As they stood on the steps, the high grassy bank on which the aloe rested rose up like a wave, and the aloe seemed to ride upon it like a ship with the oars lifted. Bright moonlight hung upon the lifted oars like water, and on the green wave glittered the dew.
" Do you feel it, too," said Linda, and she spoke to her mother with the special voice that women use at night to each other as though they spoke in their sleep or from some hollow cave—" Don't you feel that it is coming towards us ? "
She dreamed that she was caught up out of the cold water into the ship with the lifted oars and the budding mast. Now the oars fell striking quickly, quickly. They rowed far away over the top of the garden trees, the paddocks and the dark bush beyond. Ah, she heard herself cry : " Faster ! Faster ! " to those who were rowing.
How much more real this dream was than that they should go back to the house where the sleeping children lay and where Stanley and Beryl played cribbage.
" I believe those are buds," said she. " Let us go
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down into the garden, mother. I like that aloe. I like it more than anything here. And I am sure I shall remember it long after I've forgotten all the other things."
She put her hand on her mother's arm and they walked down the steps, round the island and on to the main drive that led to the front gates.
Looking at it from below she could see the long sharp thorns that edged the aloe leaves, and at the sight of them her heart grew hard. . . . She particularly liked the long sharp thorns. . . . Nobody would dare to come near the ship or to follow after.
" Not even my Newfoundland dog," thought she, " that I'm so fond of in the daytime."
For she really was fond of him ; she loved and admired and respected him tremendously. Oh, better than anyone else in the world. She knew him through and through. He was the soul of truth and decency, and for all his practical experience he was awfully simple, easily pleased and easily hurt. . . .
If only he wouldn't jump at her so, and bark so loudly, and watch her with such eager, loving eyes. He was too strong for her ; she had always hated things that rush at her, from a child. There were times when he was frightening—really frightening. When she just had not screamed at the top of her voice: " You are killing me." And at those times she had longed to say the most coarse, hateful things....
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" You know I'm very delicate. You know as well as I do that my heart is affected, and the doctor has told you I may die any moment. I have had three great lumps of children already. . . ."
Yes, yes, it was true. Linda snatched her hand from mother's arm. For all her love and respect and admiration she hated him. And how tender he always was after times like those, how submissive, how thoughtful. He would do anything for her ; he longed to serve her. . . . Linda heard herself saying in a weak voice :
" Stanley, would you light a candle ? "
And she heard his joyful voice answer : " Of course I will, my darling." And he leapt out of bed as though he were going to leap at the moon for her.
It had never been so plain to her as it was at this moment. There were all her feelings for him, sharp and defined, one as true as the other. And there was this other, this hatred, just as real as the rest. She could have done her feelings up in little packets and given them to Stanley. She longed to hand him that last one, for a surprise. She could see his eyes as he opened that . . .
She hugged her folded arms and began to laugh silently. How absurd life was—it was laughable, simply laughable. And why this mania of hers to keep alive at all ? For it really was a mania, she thought, mocking and laughing.
" What am I guarding myself for so preciously ? I shall go on having children and Stanley will go on
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making money and the children and the gardens will grow bigger and bigger, with whole fleets of aloes in them for me to choose from."
She had been walking with her head bent, looking at nothing. Now she looked up and about her. They were standing by the red and white camellia trees. Beautiful were the rich dark leaves spangled with light and the round flowers that perch among them like red and white birds. Linda pulled a piece of verbena and crumpled it, and held her hands to her mother.
" Delicious," said the old woman. " Are you cold, child ? Are you trembling ? Yes, your hands are cold. We had better go back to the house."
" What have you been thinking about ? " said Linda. " Tell me."
" I haven't really been thinking of anything. I wondered as we passed the orchard what the fruit trees were like and whether we should be able to make much jam this autumn. There are splendid healthy currant bushes in the vegetable garden, I noticed them to-day. I should like to see those pantry shelves thoroughly well stocked with our own jam. . . .