The Garden Party and Other Stories - Katherine Mansfield [64]
By the time Fenella had taken off her coat and skirt aid put on her flannel dressing-gown grandma was quite ready.
‘Must I take off my boots, grandma? They’re lace.’
Grandma gave them a moment’s deep consideration. ‘You’d feel a great deal more comfortable if you did, child,’ said she. She kissed Fenella. ‘Don’t forget to say your prayers. Our dear Lord is with us when we are at sea even more than when we are on dry land. And because I am an experienced traveller,’ said grandma briskly, ‘I shall take the upper berth.’
‘But, grandma, however will you get up there?’
Three little spider-like steps were all Fenella saw. The old woman gave a small silent laugh before she mounted them nimbly, and she peered over the high bunk at the astonished Fenella.
‘You didn’t think your grandma could do that, did your’ said she. And as she sank back Fenella heard her light laugh again.
The hard square of brown soap would not lather, and the water in the bottle was like a kind of blue jelly. How hard it was, too, to turn down those stiff sheets; you simply had to tear your way in. If everything had been different, Fenella might have got the giggles… At last she was inside, and while she lay there panting, there sounded from above a long, soft whispering, as though some one was gently, gently rustling among tissue paper to find something. It was grandma saying her prayers…
A long time passed. Then the stewardess came in; she trod softly and leaned her hand on grandma’s bunk.
‘We’re just entering the Straits,’ she said.
‘Oh!’
‘It’s a fine night, but we’re rather empty. We may pitch a little.’
And indeed at that moment the Picton boat rose and rose and hung in the air just long enough to give a shiver before she swung down again, and there was the sound of heavy water slapping against her sides. Fenella remembered she had left the swan-necked umbrella standing up on the little couch. I it fell over, would it break? But grandma remembered too, at the same time.
‘I wonder if you’d mind, stewardess, laying down my umbrella,’ she whispered.
‘Not at all, Mrs Crane.’ And the stewardess, coming back to grandma, breathed, ‘Your little granddaughter’s in such a beautiful sleep.’
‘God be praised for that!’ said grandma.
‘Poor little motherless mite!’ said the stewardess. And grandma was still telling the stewardess all about what happened when Fenella fell asleep.
But she hadn’t been asleep long enough to dream before she woke up again to see something waving in the air above her head. What was it? What could it be? It was a small grey foot. Now another joined it. They seemed to be feeling about for something: there came a sigh.
‘I’m awake, grandma,’ said Fenella.
‘Oh, dear, am I near the ladder?’ asked grandma. ‘I thought it was this end.’
‘No, grandma, it’s the other. I’ll put your foot on it. Are we there?’ asked Fenella.
‘In the harbour,’ said grandma. ‘We must get up, child. You’d better have a biscuit to steady yourself before you move.’
But Fenella had hopped out of her bunk. The lamp was still burning, but night was over, and it was cold. Peering through that round eye, she could see far off some rocks. Now they were scattered over with foam; now a gull flipped by; and now there came a long piece of real land.
‘It’s land, grandma,’ said Fenella, wonderingly, as though they had been at sea for weeks together. She hugged herself; she stood on one leg and rubbed it with the toes of the other foot; she was trembling. Oh, it had all been so sad lately. Was it going to