The Garden Party and Other Stories - Katherine Mansfield [65]
But if it had been cold in the cabin, on deck it was like ice. The sun was not up yet, but the stars were dim, and the cold pale sky was the same colour as the cold pale sea. On the land a white mist rose and fell. Now they could see quite plainly dark bush. Even the shapes of the umbrella ferns4 showed, and those strange silvery withered trees that are like skeletons… Now they could see the landing-stage and some little houses, pale too, clustered together, like shells on the lid of a box. The other passengers tramped up and down, but more slowly than they had the night before, and they looked gloomy.
And now the landing-stage came out to meet them. Slowly it swam towards the Picton boat, and a man holding a coil of more, and a cart with a small drooping horse and another man sitting on the step, came too.
‘It’s Mr Penreddy, Fenella, come for us,’ said grandma. She sounded pleased. Her white waxen cheeks were blue with cold, her chin trembled, and she had to keep wiping her eyes and her little pink nose.
‘You’ve got my…’
‘Yes, grandma.’ Fenella showed it to her.
The rope came flying through the air, and ‘smack’ it fell on to the deck. The gangway was lowered. Again Fenella followed her grandma on to the wharf over to the little cart, and a moment later they were bowling away. The hooves of the little horse drummed over the wooden piles, then sank softly into the sandy road. Not a soul was to be seen; there was not even a feather of smoke. The mist rose and fell, and the sea still sounded asleep as slowly it urned on the beach.
‘I seen Mr Crane yestiddy,’ said Mr Penreddy. ‘He looked himself then. Missus knocked him up a batch of scones last week.’
And now the little horse pulled up before one of the shell-like houses. They got down. Fenella put her hand on the gate, and the big, trembling dew-drops soaked through her glove-tips. Up a little path of round white pebbles they went, with drenched sleeping flowers on either side. Grandma’s delicate white picotees were so heavy with dew that they were fallen, but their sweet smell was part of the cold morning. The blinds were down in the little house; they mounted the steps on to the veranda. A pair of old bluchers5 was on one side of the door, and a large red watering-can on the other.
‘Tut! tut! Your grandpa,’ said grandma. She turned the handle. Not a sound. She called, ‘Walter!’ And immediately a deep voice that sounded half stifled called hack, ‘Is that you, Mary?’
‘Wait, dear,’ said grandma. ‘Go in there.’ She pushed Fenella gently into a small dusky sitting-room.
On the table a white cat, that had been folded up like a camel, rose, stretched itself, yawned, and then sprang on to the tips of its toes. Fenella buried one cold little hand in the white, warm fur, and smiled timidly while she stroked and listened to grandma’s gentle voice and the rolling tones of grardpa.
A door creaked. ‘Come in, dear.’ The old woman beckoned, Fenella followed. There, lying to one side of an immense bed, lay grandpa. Just his head with a white tuft, and his rosy face and long silver beard showed over the quil$$$. He was like a very old wide-awake bird.
‘Well, my girl!’ said grandpa. ‘Give us a kiss!’ Fenella kissed him. ‘Ugh!’ said grandpa. ‘Her little nose is as cold as a button. What’s that she’s holding? Her grandma’s umbrella?’
Fenella smiled again, and crooked the swan neck over the bed-rail. Above the bed there was a big text in a deep-black frame:
Lost! One Golden Hour
Set with Sixty Diamond Minutes.
No Reward Is Offered
For It Is GONE FOR EVER!
‘Yer grandma painted that,’ said grandpa. And he ruffled his white tuft and looked at Fenella so merrily she almost thought he winked at her.
Miss Brill
Although it was so brilliantly fine – the blue sky powdered with gold