The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Page 18

  ‘For the trumpet shwee! — all shwee! — ound …’

  But had Saint Paul, thought the Reverend Mr Amwood, foreseen these funeral countenances, blankly unconvinced, glumly polite, amid this funeral incense of dying flowers and mothballs? And with which mourners had Mr Kedge, thriftily complying with the petrol restrictions, ordained that he should ride to the cemetery? Saint Paul, in watchings often, in fastings often, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft, had not been required to take over, in his old age, the duty of an industrial parish, under a most energetic and uncongenial Bishop, and on a heavy clay soil.

  ‘Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.’

  The coffin was lifted and carried from the church. Mr Kedge approached the clergyman.

  ‘Well!’ exclaimed Freda. ‘If those Blackbones aren’t taking the parson with them! What next? I’ve a good mind to fetch him out again.’

  ‘Do let be, Freda,’ said Mrs Mullen. ‘And try to remember that this is a funeral, not a remnant sale.’

  ‘Always did fight like cats, those two,’ whispered Gwennie to her daughter.

  It was a long way to the cemetery, and they drove in silence, except once, when Lottie Mullen, driven to speak her thought aloud, said heavily: ‘What’s the use?’ Then they looked at her enquiringly; but as each left it to the other to take up the question, no one answered.

  The cemetery lay on the outskirts of the town, rising above the sad slow river, the countless identical ridges of slate-roofed artisan dwellings, the factories and warehouses. It was a newish cemetery, the farther half of it lay unused, the trees planted by the Town Council still had a youthful tender look. So many of the graves had bunches of daffodils on them that the cemetery appeared to be twinkling with daffodils and responding with yellow flashes to the April sunlight. Two other funerals were taking place. They seemed very small and unimportant among the expanse of completed graves.

  Shining, too, in the April sunlight the coffin on its six black legs proceeded like some queer quadruped, turning first right, then left, as though unerringly nosing out its lair. The newly-dug clay, heaped up, was yellow and shiny like the coffin, the walls of the grave had an ochreous glister. The gravedigger was standing a little aloofly behind a neighbouring headstone.

  Up shuffled Dodger, his boots creaking. His face was pinched, his few locks of grey hair lifted in the wind. Not long for this world, thought Mrs Mullen. No wonder he’s having a good look. Raising his eyes from the open grave Dodger’s glance met hers. Still vibrating to thoughts of mortality she tried to convey by her expression that the past was being overlooked. Dodger blinked once or twice, and turned away.

  Up here above the town the wind was blowing quite briskly. White clouds raced over the blue, the daffodils wagged, the clergyman’s surplice rustled as he stood waiting while the bearers lifted the wreaths from the coffin, and the mourners took their places. Freda was having trouble with her hat. Once it almost blew off, and Mr Kedge sprang forward, noiseless as a shadow, to retrieve it.

  How tiresome Freda was, always a fidget, always coming to bits just like her own parcels. And there was that girl Ramona, looking at her so sarcastically, and Mary Blackbone ostentatiously not noticing. Why must such unpleasantness mar the funeral, just at the most solemn moment, too? But the outdoor part of a funeral usually went wrong, at Hilda’s funeral George had had a fit, at George’s funeral the wasps were something chronic. If only that clergyman would begin!

  He began. Under the heavy rhythm of the burial sentences everything subsided into order and a dreamy majesty, except his own surplice, in which the wind now made a most extraordinary drumming and fluster. Suddenly the grave-digger jumped out from behind his headstone, waving his arms, and shouting:

  ‘Look up there! Look out!’

  His voice ripped through the ceremony. They looked. He was pointing to the sky. There, just coming out of a cloud, was something like an enormous pale bird with beating wings. Dangling from it, as the mouse dangles from the claws of the white owl, was a dark object. Now that they looked the noise of the beating parachute, the drumming and flustering, seemed overwhelmingly loud. The noise grew louder, the thing came lower.

  Reg seized Alan, and dropped him into the grave. Then he grabbed Cathie, and dropped her in beside the child.

  ‘Jump in, jump in! It’s a landmine coming down.’

  One after another the mourners got into the grave. The mutes came to the edge, hesitated, seemed inclined to follow. Mr Kedge, with a recalling gesture, pointed them to some bushes. Remembering their position they retired there, and lay down. The clergyman still remained standing. Mr Kedge touched his elbow, pointed to the grave. The clergyman, on such an occasion, would rank as one of the family. But Mr Amwood shook his head. The parachute came lower, reeling and billowing. It seemed to fill the whole sky. Pursing his lips, Mr Kedge lay down also.

  There seemed to be no end to the waiting. Away in the town an engine blew off steam, and one could hear the birds singing. Meanwhile Mr Amwood had knelt down at the graveside and was whistling through the commendatory prayer for the dying. Dodger, pressed close and bony to Lottie Mullen, commented in her ear:

  ‘Bit previous, isn’t he, giving us all up for lost like that?’

  His pale wrinkled face was lit with an expression of indomitable craft and assurance.

  ‘Amen,’ said Mr Amwood rapidly, snatched out his teeth, and cast himself down face forward.

  There was a crash that swelled into a long roar. The mourners in the grave were thrown pell-mell against each other. The breath of life seemed to be dragged out of them, they gasped and choked. The air became darkened by a cloud of dust, in which dead leaves, pebbles, twigs, daffodils, clods of earth, shreds of stuff and paper, fragments of wood and stone and metal, were suspended. Glancing into the spattered darkness Mrs Mullen saw two funeral wreaths, her own and Gwennie’s, rise up, hang twirling, and fall dishevelled into the grave.

  At last, into this darkened air, they saw Mr Amwood erect himself, tall and ghostly-white, saying:

  ‘You may come out now.’

  Aided by shoves from Fred and Reg they scrambled out, and looked around. The coffin was lying on its side. Near it was a large fragment of marble, lettered Also Emma, and Mr Kedge was holding a bloodstained handkerchief to his ear, and saying it was a near go. Everything was covered with dust and rubble. At the western end of the cemetery a column of dust was still boiling up, and beneath it some small figures were scurrying to and fro.

  The funeral proceeded. The coffin was lowered into the grave, earth was scattered on it, and the last prayers were said. Walking rather unsteadily the party turned away. It was then that Dodger went up to Mrs Mullen, remarking affably:

  ‘Hullo, Lot. Looked as though we might be spending the night here, didn’t it?’

  She gave him an unmoving full-face glare, and walked on.

  ‘Well,’ said Gwennie, walking beside her. ‘I’ll tell you this. I’ll be more than thankful to sit down. I never heard any aeroplane, did you?’

  Providential, Mrs Mullen was thinking. Providential. If it hadn’t been for that landmine, like as not I’d still be forgiving Dodger. And leaving him my best tea-set, I dare say, to show bygones were bygones. And all just because of coming over so soft in church, giving way to the funeral, and thinking Poor old Dodger! That’s what funerals do, if one’s not on one’s guard. And Dodger as ready to get round me as a terrier round a rat.

  ‘I heard one thing,’ she said, ‘and that’s what Dodger Blackbone said to me in the grave. All those Blackbones tumbling in without so much as a by-your-leave, and Mr Kedge and that poor old parson left to perish on the brink. Trust Dodger! Trust him to find a safe place to start blaspheming in! Dodger by name, and Dodger by nature.’

  ‘What did Dodger say?’

  ‘I could no more bring myself to forgive it,�
�� said Lottie Mullen, ‘than I could bring myself to repeat it. Not if it was my dying hour.’

  She strode on firmly towards the cemetery gates.

  W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

  Winter Cruise

  Captain Erdmann knew Miss Reid very little till the Friedrich Weber reached Haiti. She came on board at Plymouth, but by then he had taken on a number of passengers, French, Belgian, and Haitian, many of whom had travelled with him before, and she was placed at the chief engineer’s table. The Friedrich Weber was a freighter sailing regularly from Hamburg to Cartagena on the Colombian coast and on the way touching at a number of islands in the West Indies. She carried phosphates and cement from Germany and took back coffee and timber; but her owners, the Brothers Weber, were always willing to send her out of her route if a cargo of any sort made it worth their while. The Friedrich Weber was prepared to take cattle, mules, potatoes, or anything else that offered the chance of earning an honest penny. She carried passengers. There were six cabins on the upper deck and six below. The accommodation was not luxurious, but the food was good, plain, and abundant, and the fares were cheap. The round trip took nine weeks and was not costing Miss Reid more than forty-five pounds. She looked forward not only to seeing many interesting places, with historical associations, but also to acquiring a great deal of information that would enrich her mind.

  The agent had warned her that till the ship reached Port au Prince in Haiti she would have to share a cabin with another woman. Miss Reid did not mind that, she liked company, and when the steward told her that her companion was Madame Bollin she thought at once that it would be a very good opportunity to rub up her French. She was only very slightly disconcerted when she found that Madame Bollin was coal-black. She told herself that one had to accept the rough with the smooth and that it takes all sorts to make a world. Miss Reid was a good sailor, as indeed was only to be expected since her grandfather had been a naval officer, but after a couple of roughish days the weather was fine and in a very short while she knew all her fellow-passengers. She was a good mixer. That was one of the reasons why she had made a success of her business; she owned a tea room at a celebrated beauty spot in the west of England and she always had a smile and a pleasant word for every customer who came in; she closed down in the winter and for the last four years had taken a cruise. You met such interesting people, she said, and you always learnt something. It was true that the passengers on the Friedrich Weber weren’t of quite so good a class as those she had met the year before on her Mediterranean cruise, but Miss Reid was not a snob, and though the table manners of some of them shocked her somewhat, determined to look upon the bright side of things she decided to make the best of them. She was a great reader and she was glad, on looking at the ship’s library, to find that there were a lot of books by Phillips Oppenheim, Edgar Wallace, and Agatha Christie; but with so many people to talk to she had no time for reading and she made up her mind to leave them till the ship emptied herself at Haiti.

  ‘After all,’ she said, ‘human nature is more important than literature.’

  Miss Reid had always had the reputation of being a good talker and she flattered herself that not once during the many days they were at sea had she allowed the conversation at table to languish. She knew how to draw people out, and whenever a topic seemed to be exhausted she had a remark ready to revive it or another topic waiting on the tip of her tongue to set the conversation off again. Her friend Miss Prince, daughter of the late Vicar of Campden, who had come to see her off at Plymouth, for she lived there, had often said to her:

  ‘You know, Venetia, you have a mind like a man. You’re never at a loss for something to say.’

  ‘Well, I think if you’re interested in everyone, everyone will be interested in you,’ Miss Reid answered modestly. ‘Practice makes perfect, and I have the infinite capacity for taking pains which Dickens said was genius.’

  Miss Reid was not really called Venetia, her name was Alice, but disliking it she had, when still a girl, adopted the poetic name which she felt so much better suited to her personality.

  Miss Reid had a great many interesting talks with her fellow-passengers and she was really sorry when the ship at length reached Port au Prince and the last of them disembarked. The Friedrich Weber stopped two days there, during which she visited the town and the neighbourhood. When they sailed she was the only passenger. The ship was skirting the coast of the island stopping off at a variety of ports to discharge or to take on cargo.

  ‘I hope you will not feel embarrassed alone with so many men, Miss Reid,’ said the captain heartily as they sat down to midday dinner.

  She was placed on his right hand and at table besides sat the first mate, the chief engineer, and the doctor.

  ‘I’m a woman of the world, Captain. I always think if a lady is a lady gentlemen will be gentlemen.’

  ‘We’re only rough sailor men, madam, you mustn’t expect too much.’

  ‘Kind hearts are more than coronets and simple faith than Norman blood, Captain,’ answered Miss Reid.

  He was a short, thick-set man, with a clean-shaven head and a red, clean-shaven face. He wore a white stengah-shifter, but except at meal-times unbuttoned at the neck and showing his hairy chest. He was a jovial fellow. He could not speak without bellowing. Miss Reid thought him quite an eccentric, but she had a keen sense of humour and was prepared to make allowances for that. She took the conversation in hand. She had learnt a great deal about Haiti on the voyage out and more during the two days she had spent there, but she knew that men liked to talk rather than to listen, so she put them a number of questions to which she already knew the answers; oddly enough they didn’t. In the end she found herself obliged to give quite a little lecture, and before dinner was over, Mittag Essen they called it in their funny way, she had imparted to them a great deal of interesting information about the history and economic situation of the Republic, the problems that confronted it, and its prospects for the future. She talked rather slowly, in a refined voice, and her vocabulary was extensive.

  At nightfall they put in at a small port where they were to load three hundred bags of coffee, and the agent came on board. The captain asked him to stay to supper and ordered cocktails. As the steward brought them Miss Reid swam into the saloon. Her movements were deliberate, elegant, and self-assured. She always said that you could tell at once by the way she walked if a woman was a lady. The captain introduced the agent to her and she sat down.

  ‘What is that you men are drinking?’ she asked.

  ‘A cocktail. Will you have one, Miss Reid?’

  ‘I don’t mind if I do.’

  She drank it and the captain somewhat doubtfully asked her if she would have another.

  ‘Another? Well, just to be matey.’

  The agent, much whiter than some, but a good deal darker than many, was the son of a former minister of Haiti to the German court, and having lived for many years in Berlin spoke good German. It was indeed on this account that he had got a job with a German shipping firm. On the strength of this Miss Reid, during supper, told them all about a trip down the Rhine that she had once taken. Afterwards she and the agent, the skipper, the doctor, and the mate sat round a table and drank beer. Miss Reid made it her business to draw the agent out. The fact that they were loading coffee suggested to her that he would be interested in learning how they grew tea in Ceylon, yes, she had been to Ceylon on a cruise, and the fact that his father was a diplomat made it certain that he would be interested in the royal family of England. She had a very pleasant evening. When she at last retired to rest, for she would never have thought of saying she was going to bed, she said to herself:

  ‘There’s no doubt that travel is a great education.’

  It was really an experience to find herself alone with all those men. How they would laugh when she told them all about it when she got home! They would say that things like that only happened to Venetia. She smiled when she heard the captain on deck singing with that great boomi
ng voice of his. Germans were so musical. He had a funny way of strutting up and down on his short legs singing Wagner tunes to words of his own invention. It was Tannhäuser he was singing now (that lovely thing about the evening star) but knowing no German Miss Reid could only wonder what absurd words he was putting to it. It was as well.

  ‘Oh, what a bore that woman is, I shall certainly kill her if she goes on much longer.’ Then he broke into Siegfried’s martial strain. ‘She’s a bore, she’s a bore, she’s a bore. I shall throw her into the sea.’

  And that of course is what Miss Reid was. She was a crashing, she was a stupendous, she was an excruciating bore. She talked in a steady monotone, and it was no use to interrupt her because then she started again from the beginning. She had an insatiable thirst for information and no casual remark could be thrown across the table without her asking innumerable questions about it. She was a great dreamer and she narrated her dreams at intolerable length. There was no subject upon which she had not something prosy to say. She had a truism for every occasion. She hit on the commonplace like a hammer driving a nail into the wall. She plunged into the obvious like a clown in a circus jumping through a hoop. Silence did not abash her. Those poor men far away from their homes and the patter of little feet, and with Christmas coming on, no wonder they felt low; she redoubled her efforts to interest and amuse them. She was determined to bring a little gaiety into their dull lives. For that was the awful part of it: Miss Reid meant well. She was not only having a good time herself, but she was trying to give all of them a good time. She was convinced that they liked her as much as she liked them. She felt that she was doing her bit to make the party a success and she was naïvely happy to think that she was succeeding. She told them all about her friend Miss Price and how often she had said to her: Venetia, no one ever has a dull moment in your company. It was the captain’s duty to be polite to a passenger and however much he would have liked to tell her to hold her silly tongue he could not, but even if he had been free to say what he liked, he knew that he could not have brought himself to hurt her feelings. Nothing stemmed the torrent of her loquacity. It was as irresistible as a force of nature. Once, in desperation, they began talking German, but Miss Reid stopped this at once.