The Aloe by Katherine Mansfield Page A

first time she comes to see us at our new house we sit hitting one another over the head –” The door handle rattled and turned. Kezia looked tragically in. “Isn’t it ever going to be tea time” – she asked – “No, never!” said Linda “Your Mother doesn’t care Kezia whether you ever set eyes upon her again. She doesn’t care if you starve. You are all going to be sent to a Home for Waifs and Strays to-morrow.” “Don’t tease” said Mrs Fairfield. “She believes every word.” And she said to Kezia, “I’m coming darling. Run upstairs to the bathroom and wash your face your hands and your knees.”
    On the way home with her children Mrs Trout began an entirely new “novel”. It was night. Richard was out somewhere (He always was on these occasions.) She was sitting in the drawing room by candlelight playing over “Solveig’s Song” when Stanley Burnell appeared – hatless – pale – at first he could not speak. “Stanley tell me what is it” . . . and she put her hands on his shoulders. “Linda has gone!” he said hoarsely. Even Mrs Trout’s imagination could not question this flight. She had to accept it very quickly and pass on. “She never cared,” said Stanley – “God knows I did all I could – but she wasn’t happy I knew she wasn’t happy.”
    “Mum” said Rags “which would you rather be if you had to a duck or a fowl – I’d rather be a fowl, much rather.”
    The white duck did not look as if it had ever had a head when Alice placed it in front of Stanley Burnell that evening. It lay, in beautifully basted resignation, on the 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 stain – Alice a peony 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 after they’d done with it. Now he did, he really took it seriously – he really took a pride in cutting delicate shaves of beef, little slices of mutton just the right thickness in his dividing a chicken or a duck with nice precision – so that it could appear a second time and still look a decent member of society. “Is this one of the home products” he asked, knowing perfectly well that it was. “Yes dear, the butcher didn’t come; we have discovered that he only comes three times a week.” But there wasn’t any need to apologise for it; it was a superb bird – it wasn’t meat at all, it was a kind of very superior jelly. “Father would say” said Burnell “that this was one of those birds whose mother must have 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. Beryl you and I are the only people in this house with a real feeling for food – I am perfectly willing to state in a court of law, if the necessity arises that I love good food” – Tea was served in the drawing room after dinner and Beryl who for some reason had been very charming to Stanley ever since he came home suggested he and she should play a game of crib. They sat down at a little table near one of the open windows. Mrs Fairfield had gone upstairs 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 and she moved the tall lamp to her side, so that she sat under its soft light. How remote they looked those two – from where Linda watched and rocked – The green table, the bright polished cards, Stanley’s big hands and Beryl’s tiny white ones, moving the tapping red and white pegs along