The Garden Party and Other Stories

A few moments later the back door of one of the bungalows opened, and a figure in a broad-striped bathing suit flung down the paddock, cleared the stile, rushed through the tussock grass into the hollow, staggered up the sandy hillock, and raced for dear life over the big porous stones, over the cold, wet pebbles, on to the hard sand that gleamed like oil.  Splish-Splosh!  Splish-Splosh!  The water bubbled round his legs as Stanley Burnell waded out exulting.  First man in as usual!  He’d beaten them all again.  And he swooped down to souse his head and neck.

“Hail, brother!  All hail, Thou Mighty One!” A velvety bass voice came booming over the water.

Great Scott!  Damnation take it!  Stanley lifted up to see a dark head bobbing far out and an arm lifted.  It was Jonathan Trout—­there before him!  “Glorious morning!” sang the voice.

“Yes, very fine!” said Stanley briefly.  Why the dickens didn’t the fellow stick to his part of the sea?  Why should he come barging over to this exact spot?  Stanley gave a kick, a lunge and struck out, swimming overarm.  But Jonathan was a match for him.  Up he came, his black hair sleek on his forehead, his short beard sleek.

“I had an extraordinary dream last night!” he shouted.

What was the matter with the man?  This mania for conversation irritated Stanley beyond words.  And it was always the same—­always some piffle about a dream he’d had, or some cranky idea he’d got hold of, or some rot he’d been reading.  Stanley turned over on his back and kicked with his legs till he was a living waterspout.  But even then…”I dreamed I was hanging over a terrifically high cliff, shouting to some one below.”  You would be! thought Stanley.  He could stick no more of it.  He stopped splashing.  “Look here, Trout,” he said, “I’m in rather a hurry this morning.”

“You’re what?” Jonathan was so surprised—­or pretended to be—­that he sank under the water, then reappeared again blowing.

“All I mean is,” said Stanley, “I’ve no time to—­to—­to fool about.  I want to get this over.  I’m in a hurry.  I’ve work to do this morning—­see?”

Jonathan was gone before Stanley had finished.  “Pass, friend!” said the bass voice gently, and he slid away through the water with scarcely a ripple…But curse the fellow!  He’d ruined Stanley’s bathe.  What an unpractical idiot the man was!  Stanley struck out to sea again, and then as quickly swam in again, and away he rushed up the beach.  He felt cheated.

Jonathan stayed a little longer in the water.  He floated, gently moving his hands like fins, and letting the sea rock his long, skinny body.  It was curious, but in spite of everything he was fond of Stanley Burnell.  True, he had a fiendish desire to tease him sometimes, to poke fun at him, but at bottom he was sorry for the fellow.  There was something pathetic in his determination to make a job of everything.  You couldn’t help feeling he’d be caught out one day, and then what an almighty cropper he’d come!  At that moment an immense wave lifted Jonathan, rode past him, and broke along the beach with a joyful sound.  What a beauty!  And now there came another.  That was the way to live—­carelessly, recklessly, spending oneself.  He got on to his feet and began to wade towards the shore, pressing his toes into the firm, wrinkled sand.  To take things easy, not to fight against the ebb and flow of life, but to give way to it—­that was what was needed.  It was this tension that was all wrong.  To live—­to live!  And the perfect morning, so fresh and fair, basking in the light, as though laughing at its own beauty, seemed to whisper, “Why not?”

But now he was out of the water Jonathan turned blue with cold.  He ached all over; it was as though some one was wringing the blood out of him.  And stalking up the beach, shivering, all his muscles tight, he too felt his bathe was spoilt.  He’d stayed in too long.