The Garden Party

And after all the weather was ideal. They could not have had a more perfect day for a garden party if they had ordered it. Windless, warm, the sky without a cloud; only a haze of gold over the blue, as there is sometimes in early summer. The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them until the grass seemed to shine. As for the roses, they had come out in hundreds overnight, as if they understood that roses are the only flowers that impress people at garden parties.

Breakfast was not over before the men came to put up the marquee. "Where do you want it, miss?" Laura, still holding a piece of bread and butter, was sent out to decide, because she was the artistic one. She felt shy about her bread and butter, and tried to look severe like her mother, but it was no use — she liked these workmen enormously. How very nice they were, and how beautifully they smiled. One of them bent down and pinched a sprig of lavender and held it to his nose. Why couldn't she have workmen for friends rather than the silly boys she danced with on Sunday nights? It's all the fault, she decided, of these absurd class distinctions. And she took a big bite of her bread and butter as she stared at the little drawing, feeling just like a work-girl.

Inside, the house was in an uproar of happy fuss. The florist's man arrived with trays of pink lilies — "enough for a wedding," said her mother, "I ordered them all." Jose the butterfly tried the piano and sang "This Life is Wee-ary" with a brilliant, dreadfully sad smile that turned to a beaming one the moment the song was finished. Sandwiches were counted, cream puffs came from the baker's, and the sun poured through the open doors. Laura thought that a day like this only happens once or twice in a life, and that she was extraordinarily lucky to be alive in the middle of it.

Just after lunch the news came in with the tradesman. There had been an accident in the lane below the garden — a carter thrown from his horse at the corner, his head struck, killed instantly. He lived in one of the little cottages just under the Sheridans' hill: a young man, a wife, five children. "But my dear child, use your common sense," said Jose, when Laura said the party must be stopped at once. "We can't possibly cancel a garden party. Nobody expects us to. Don't be so extravagant." "Stop the garden party? My dear Laura, don't be so absurd," said her mother, laughing. "People like that don't expect sacrifices from us. And it's not very sympathetic to spoil everybody's enjoyment as you're doing now."

Laura tried once more — the band, she said, the band would be heard from their gate. And then her mother did something clever. She took the big black hat trimmed with gold daisies and set it on her daughter's head. "My child! The hat is yours. It's made for you. It's much too young for me. I have never seen you look such a picture. Look at yourself!" And she held up her hand-mirror. Laura looked — and there was a charming girl in a black hat with gold daisies and a long black velvet ribbon. Never had she imagined she could look like that. Is mother right? she thought. And now she hoped her mother was right. Am I being extravagant? Perhaps it was extravagant. Just for a moment she had another glimpse of that poor woman and those little children, and the body being carried into the house. But it all seemed blurred, unreal, like a picture in the newspaper. I'll remember it again after the party's over, she decided.

And the party was a triumph. The band played, the guests came in a stream, the lilies were admired, the sandwiches vanished. "Darling Laura, how well you look!" "What a becoming hat, child!" "Laura, you look quite Spanish. I've never seen you look so striking." And Laura, glowing, answered softly, "Have you had tea? Won't you have an ice? The passion-fruit ices really are rather special." She ran to her father, laughing, and everything was gorgeous, and then it was over, and the marquee men were pulling down the poles, and the family sat among the crumbs eating the last sandwiches. That was when her father said, "Terrible affair, that accident. Fellow was married too. Lived just below in the lane. Leaves a wife and half a dozen kids, they say."

Then Mrs Sheridan had one of her brilliant ideas. "Laura, take this basket down to that poor creature. All those sandwiches and cakes will only be wasted, and she'll have a wretched week with the funeral. Take it just as you are." Laura hesitated: the basket, the leftovers of a party, carried to a house where a man lay dead? But she was given no time to think, and a minute later she was going down the hill in her party frock and the black hat, past the gate, into the lane where the cottages stood in deep shadow though the sky was still gold. She wished she had put a coat over her dress. How her frock shone. And the big hat with the velvet ribbon — if only it was another hat!

People stood in their doorways and watched her pass; some pointed. It was a mistake to have come, she knew it now; should she turn back? Too late. A woman met her at the gate, smiling strangely: "Are you Mrs Sheridan's daughter? Come in, please, miss." Laura wanted only to leave the basket and go, but she was drawn through the passage into a low kitchen where the dead man's wife sat by the fire, her face swollen and red, her eyes swollen too. She did not seem to understand why Laura was there. "It's all right, my dear," said the other woman. "I'll thank the young lady." And before Laura could stop her, she opened a door and said, "You'd like a look at 'im, wouldn't you?"

Laura was in the room where the young man lay. He was wonderfully, deeply asleep, far from garden parties and baskets and lace frocks. What did marquees and bands matter to him? He was given up to his dream. Happy… happy… All is well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content. But all the same you had to cry, and she couldn't go out of the room without saying something to him. Laura gave a loud childish sob. "Forgive my hat," she stammered. And this time she didn't wait for the woman. She found her way out of the door, down the path, past all those dark people. At the corner of the lane she met her brother Laurie, who had come to find her. "Was it awful?" "No," sobbed Laura. "It was simply marvellous. But Laurie —" She stopped, she looked at her brother. "Isn't life," she stammered, "isn't life —" But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood. "Isn't it, darling?" said Laurie.