“Dear Miss Clyde,” wrote Mrs. Granville, “it will be so nice to meet
you again after all these years. You can imagine my surprise when I
found that the house Mr. Granville has taken for the summer is the old
Richmond place, which I remember so well from long ago. Twenty-one
years, isn’t it? It hasn’t changed a bit, but everything seems so much
smaller, even the ocean somehow. The house has been shut up a long
time, since the summer the Richmonds went away. We want you to join our
Family Picnic, which is always an amusing affair. Mr. Granville admires
your work so much, I did not realize until recently that you must be
the same person I knew as a child. There are other artists here too,
the Island has become quite a summer camp for painters, the woods are
full of them, painting away merrily. I am sorry this is so late, but
just send us a wire saying you can come....”
She paused to reread the letter, and changed “so nice,” in the first
line, to “nice.” She changed “twenty-one” to “nearly twenty.” She
crossed out “painting away merrily.” How do I know whether they’re
merry? she asked herself. Then she noticed that the word “summer” was
used three times. She changed one of them to “year.” No, that made
three “years.” Put “for the vacation” instead of “for the summer.” Now
the letter must be copied again.
Why on earth George wanted her to invite the Clyde creature when things
were complicated enough already ... she had never cared much for her
even as a child ... to have outsiders here for the Picnic when they had
only just got the old house in running order, and Lizzie was overworked
in the kitchen, and expenses terrific anyhow ... George thought Miss
Clyde might be the right person to do the pictures for the booklet he
was writing for the railroad company. Always thinking of his business
first and her convenience afterward. Business was something to be
attended to in offices, not to be mixed up with your home life. Never
try to make social friends of your business acquaintances, how many
times had she told George that?
Damn the Picnic, damn the Picnic, damn the Picnic!
Of course she had only brought down one sheet of paper; now she must
go up again for more. The dining table was the single place in the
house she could write a letter. If she halted in the bedroom, in a
moment Nounou was at the door with endless this that and the other
about the children. If she sat down on the porch, Lizzie could see her
from the pantry window and would come at once with stentorian palaver.
Why couldn’t a cook do what she was told, not argue about it? In the
little sitting room George had spread out his business papers; anyhow,
she couldn’t bear him near her when she wanted to write. And in the
garden it was too hot. A bumblebee was bumping and grumbling against
the pane. If you took a cloth and held him, to put him outdoors, his
deep warm hum would rise to a piercing scream of anger. She felt like
that. If any one touched her....
The bee was fussing up and down the window, the one with red and blue
and orange panes. She remembered that window from childhood visits to
the Richmonds. When you looked through the orange glass, the purest sky
turned a leaden green, dull with menace; the clear northern sunlight
became a poisoned tropic glare. And the blue panes made everything
a crazy cold moonscape, with strange grape-juice colours underneath
the leaves. It reminded her of George’s favourite remark, in moments
of stress, that women’s conduct is entirely physiological. Ponderous
pedantry! Vulgar too. Physiology, a hateful word. Suddenly she felt
an immense pity for all women ... even Miss Clyde. She went up to the
bedroom to get another sheet of paper.
George had actually moved the bureau at last, so that the light fell
justly on the mirror. Yes, the pale green dress was pretty. Like
lettuce and mayonnaise, George had said, admiring the frail yellow
collar. It brought out the clear blue of the eyes, like sluiced
pebbles. She was almost amazed (looking closely) to see how clear they
were, after so many angers, so much--physiology. One can be candid in
solitude. Thirty-four. What was that story she had read, which said
that a woman is at her most irresistible at thirty-five? Mother had
sent it to her, in a magazine, and had written in the margin _True of
my Phyllis_. She laughed. What a merciless comedy life is. Ten years
before, Mother would have marked in the same way any story that said
_twenty_-five. Was there no such thing as truth? Blessed Mother, who
knew that woman must be flattered. A pity that story hadn’t been in a
book instead of a magazine. Books carry more authority.... But books,
pooh! Who had ever written a book that told the innermost truth? Thank
God, in her secret heroic self she was aware of joy and disgust, but
she kept them private. Truth is about other people, not about me. A
woman doesn’t bear and rear three children ... bring them into the
world, a comelier phrase ... and cohabit with a queer fish like George
without knowing what life amounts to. And how enviable she was: young,
pretty, slender, with three such adorable kiddies.
“I don’t care, there won’t be any one at the Picnic prettier. I was
made to be happy and I’m going to be.”
She hummed a little tune. “Jesus lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom
fly.” George was vulgar, but he was amusing. When the beetle buzzed
down inside her blouse at the beach supper, tickling and crawling so
far that she had to go into the bushes to take him out, George said
“That must have been the bosom-fly you’re always singing about.”
Sometimes it seemed as though the world was made for the vulgar people,
there are always so many ridiculous embarrassments lying in wait for
the sensitive. When the wind blew, her skirts always went higher than
any one else’s. She would wear the new pink camisole at the Picnic,
that fitted very snugly ... still, a thing like that bosom-fly would
hardly happen twice. George always wanted to take jam and sardines on a
picnic; sticky stuff that attracts the bees and ants. Fortunately we’re
all wearing knickers nowadays.... Poor old blundering, affectionate,
and maddening George. Still it was something to have married a man with
brains. There were so many, so much more attractive, she could have
had, as Mother (dear loyal Mother) often reminded her. It’s a good
thing people don’t know what mothers and married daughters talk about.
That is the rock that life is founded upon: an alliance against the
rest of the world. Away off in the future, when her own daughters were
married, she would have _them_ to confide in. You must have _someone_
to whom you can say what you think. But which of the three? You can’t
confide in more than one. Three little girls, three darling little
girls, like dolls. Thank goodness there wasn’t a boy to grow up like
George: obstinate, greedy, always wanting to do the wrong thing ...
it was enough to break any woman’s spirit, trying to teach a man to
do things the way nice people do them. If George wanted to lead an
unconventional life, he ought to have been an artist, not gone in for
business.... And such a crazy kind of business, Publicity, now working
for one company, now for another, here there and everywhere, neither
flesh nor fowl nor good red income. A man ought to have a settled job,
with an office in some fixed place, so you always know where he is.
A country club is a good thing for a husband, too, where he can meet
the right sort of men (how handsome they are in those baggy breeches
and golf stockings), lawyers and a banker or two, influential men with
nice manners. You can always ’phone to the clubhouse and leave word;
or drive up in the coupé (it ought to be a coupé) and bring him home
to dinner. She could hear voices, voices of young pretty wives (not
too young, not quite as pretty): “Who is that in the green dress, with
the three little girls all dressed alike, aren’t they _cunning_!--Oh,
that’s Mrs. Granville, Mrs. George Granville, her husband’s in the
advertising business, he adores her.”
Where was the box of notepaper? The children must have been at it, the
top had been jammed on carelessly, split at one corner. Of all annoying
things, the worst is to have people pawing in your bureau; there isn’t
any key, of course. How can a woman be happy if she can’t even have
any privacy in her own bureau drawer? If George ever wants anything
he always comes rummaging here first of all. The other day it was the
little prayer book.--Why, George, what do you want with a prayer book?
I thought you were an atheist.--So I am, but I want to strengthen my
disbelief. I was beginning to weaken.--What a way to talk. George _is_
an atheist, but he believes in religion for other people: because it
makes them more unselfish, I dare say. Yet, in a queer way, George has
a pious streak. Perhaps he’s really more religious than I am.--The
only thing I have against God is that He’s a man ... not a man, but
... well, Masculine. How can He understand about the special troubles
of women? That must be the advantage of being a Catholic, you pray to
the Virgin. She can understand. But can She? After all, a Virgin ... I
_mustn’t_ let my mind run on like this, it’s revolting the things you
find yourself thinking.
From the bay window at the head of the stairs, over the garden and
the sweep of grassy hill, she could see the water. Along the curve of
shore, a thin crisp of foam edging the tawny sand. If she didn’t get
off that letter to Miss Clyde it would be too late for her to come to
the Picnic. The Brooks were coming this afternoon. It was Nounou’s
evening off, too. What perfect weather. This lovely world, this lovely
world. Oh, well, if George wanted the Picnic now, she might as well go
through with it.
As she went down, George was in the hall, lighting his pipe. He looked
very tall and ruddy and cheerful: almost handsome in his blue linen
shirt and flannel trousers. An eddy of smoke rose about his head. She
halted on the stairs.
“George! Don’t puff so much smoke. I want to see the top of your head
... I do believe it’s getting thin.”
“How pretty you look,” he said. “I like the green shift.”
He enjoyed calling things by wrong names, and the word _shift_ always
amused him. He found words entertaining, a habit that often annoyed
her. But this time she did not stop to correct him.
“You ought to wear a rubber cap when you go bathing. The salt water
gets your hair all sticky, and then the comb tears it out. I don’t mind
your being an atheist, but I’d hate you to be bald.”
He blew a spout of tobacco smoke up at her. It was extraordinarily
fragrant. Oh, well, she thought, he’s not a bad old thing. He’s
endurable.
“George.” She intended to say, “I love you.” But of their own accord
the words changed themselves before they escaped into voice.
“George, do you love me?”
He made his usual unsatisfactory reply. “Well, what do you think?” Of
course the proper answer is, “I _adore_ you.” She knew, by now, that he
never would make it; probably because he was aware she craved it.
“I’m writing Miss Clyde to come to the Picnic.”
He looked a little awkward.
“Needn’t do that, I wrote to her yesterday. I said you were busy and
wanted me to ask her.”
“Well, of all things----”
She curbed herself savagely. She _wouldn’t_ lose her temper. Damn,
damn, damn ... his damned impudence.
“When is she coming?”
“I don’t know yet. To-morrow morning, I dare say.”
“Well, then, we’ll have the Picnic to-morrow, get it over with.”
He began to say something, put out his hand, but she brushed fiercely
past him and ran into the dining room. She tore her letter into shreds,
together with the clean sheet she had brought down. The room was full
of a warm irritating buzz.
“George!” she cried angrily, with undeniable command. “Come here and
put out this damned bee!”