Bliss
Mansfield
.. 

  Although Bertha Young was thirty she still had
moments like this when she wanted to run instead of
walk, to take dancing steps on and off the pavement, to bowl a
hoop, to throw something up in the air and catch it again, or
to stand still and laugh at -- nothing -- at nothing, simply.
  What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner
of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling
of bliss -- absolute bliss! -- as though you'd suddenly swallowed
a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your
bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle,
into every finger and toe?...
  Oh, is there no way you can express it without being "drunk
and disorderly"? How idiotic civilisation is. Why be given
a body if you have to keep it shut up in a case like a rare, rare
fiddle?
  "No, that about the fiddle is not quite what I mean," she
thought, running up the steps and feeling in her bag for the
key -- she'd forgotten it, as usual -- and rattling the letter-box.
"It's not what I mean, because -- Thank you, Mary" -- she
went into the hall. "Is nurse back?"
  "Yes,M'm."
  "And has the fruit come?"
  "Yes, M'm. Everything's come."
  "Bring the fruit up to the dining-room, will you? I'll
arrange it before I go upstairs."
  It was dusky in the dining-room and quite chilly. But all
the same Bertha threw off her coat; she could not bear the
tight clasp of it another moment, and the cold air fell on her
arms.
.. 

  But in her bosom there was still that bright glowing place --
that shower of little sparks coming from it. It was almost
unbearable. She hardly dared breathe for fear of fanning it
higher, and yet she breathed deeply, deeply. She hardly dared
to look into the cold mirror -- but she did look, and it gave her
back a woman, radiant, with smiling, trembling lips, with big,
dark eyes and an air of listening, waiting for something...
divine to happen...that she knew must happen...infallibly.
  Mary brought in the fruit on a tray and with it a glass bowl,
and a blue dish, very lovely, with a strange sheen on it as
though it had been dipped in milk.
  "Shall I turn on the light, M'm?"
  "No, thank you. I can see quite well."
  There were tangerines and apples stained with strawberry
pink. Some yellow pears, smooth as silk, some white grapes
covered with a silver bloom and a big cluster of purple ones.
These last she had bought to tone in with the new dining-room
carpet. Yes, that did sound rather far-fetched and absurd, but
it was really why she had bought them. She had thought in
the shop: "I must have some purple ones to bring the carpet
up to the table." And it seemed quite sense at the time.
  When she had finished with them and had made two pyramids
of these bright round shapes, she stood away from the table
to get the effect -- and it really was most curious. For the dark
table seemed to melt into the dusky light and the glass dish and
the blue bowl to float in the air. This, of course, in her present
mood, was so incredibly beautiful...She began to laugh.
  "No, no. I'm getting hysterical." And she seized her bag
and coat and ran upstairs to the nursery.
  Nurse sat at a low table giving Little B her supper after her
bath. The baby had on a white flannel gown and a blue woollen
jacket, and her dark, fine hair was brushed up into a funny little
peak. She looked up when she saw her mother and began to
jump.
  "Now, my lovey, eat it up like a good girl," said nurse,
setting her lips in a way that Bertha knew, and that meant she
had come into the nursery at another wrong moment.
.. 

  "Has she been good, Nanny?"
  "She's been a little sweet all the afternoon," whispered
Nanny. "We went to the park and I sat down on a chair and
took her out of the pram and a big dog came along and put its
head on my knee and she cluched its ear, tugged it. Oh, you
should have seen her."
  Bertha wanted to ask if it wasn't rather dangerous to let her
clutch at a strange dog's ear. But she did not dare to. She
stood watching them, her hands by her side, like a poor little
girl in front of the rich little girl with the doll.
  The baby looked up at her again, stared, and then smiled so
charmingly that Bertha couldn't help crying:
  "Oh, Nanny, do let me finish giving her her supper while
you put the bath things away."
  "Well, M'm, she oughtn't to be changed hands while she's
eating," said Nanny, still whispering. "It unsettles her; it's
very likely to upset her."
  How absurd it was. Why have a baby if it has to be kept --
not in a case like a rare, rare fiddle -- but in another woman's
arms?  "Oh, I must!" said she.
  Very offended, Nanny handed her over.
  "Now, don't excite her after her supper. You know you do,
M'm. And I have such a time with her after!"
  Thank heaven! Nanny went out of the room with the bath
towels.
  "Now I've got you to myself, my little precious," said
Bertha, as the baby leaned against her.
  She ate delightfully, holding up her lips for the spoon and
then waving her hands. Sometimes she wouldn't let the spoon
go; and sometimes, just as Bertha had filled it, she waved it
away to the four winds.
  When the soup was finished Bertha turned round to the fire.
  "You're nice -- you're very nice." said she, kissing her warm
baby. "I'm fond of you. I like you."
  And, indeed, she loved Little B so much -- her neck as she
bent forward, her exquisite toes as they shone transparent in the
firelight -- that all her feeling of bliss came back again, and again
she didn't know how to express it -- what to do with it.
.. 

  "You're wanted on the telephone," said Nanny, coming
back in triumph and seizing h_e_r_ Little B.
  Down she flew. It was Harry.
  "Oh, is that you, Ber? Look here. I'll be late. I'll take a
taxi and come along as quickly as I can, but get dinner put back
ten minutes -- will you? All right?"
  "Yes, perfectly. Oh, Harry!"
  "Yes?"
  What had she to say? She'd nothing to say. She only
wanted to get in touch with him for a moment. She couldn't
absurdly cry: "Hasn't it been a divine day!"
  "What is it?" rapped out the little voice.
  "Nothing. E_n_t_e_n_d_u_," said Bertha, and hung up the receiver,
thinking how much more than idiotic civilisation was.
  They had people coming to dinner. The Norman Knights
 -- a very sound couple -- he was about to start a theatre, and
she was awfully keen on interior decoration, a young man,
Eddie Waren, who had just published a little book of poems
and whom everybody was asking to dine, and a "find" of
Bertha's called Pearl Fulton. What Miss Fulton did, Bertha
didn't know. They had met at the club and Bertha had fallen
in love with her, as she always did fall in love with beautiful
women who had something strange about them.
  The provoking thing was that, though they had been about
together and met a number of times and really talked, Bertha
couldn't make her out. Up to a certain point Miss Fulton was
rarely, wonderfully frank, but the certain point was there, and
beyond she would not go.
  Was there anything beyond it? Harry said "No." Voted
her dullish, and "cold like all blonde women, with a touch, perhaps,
of anaemia of the brain." But Bertha wouldn't agree with
him; not yet, at any rate.
  "No, the way she has of sitting with her head a little on one
side, and smiling, has something behind it, Harry, and I must
find out what that something is."
  "Most likely it's a good stomach," answered Harry.
.. 

  He made a point of catching Bertha's heels with replies of that
kind..."liver frozen, my dear girl," or "pure flatulence," or
"kidney disease,"...and so on. For some strange reason
Bertha liked this, and almost admired it in him very much.
  She went into the drawing-room and lighted the fire; then,
picking up the cushions, one by one, that Mary had disposed so
carefully, she threw them back on to the chairs and the couches.
That made all the difference; the room came alive at once. As
she was about to throw the last one she surprised herself by
suddenly hugging it to her, passionately, passionately. But it
did not put out the fire in her bosom. Oh, on the contrary!
  The windows of the drawing-room opened on to a balcony
overlooking the garden. At the far end, against the wall, there
was a tall, slender pear tree in fullest, richest bloom; it stood
perfect, as though becalmed against the jade-green sky. Bertha
couldn't help feeling, even from this distance, that it had not a
single bud or a faded petal. Down below, in the garden beds,
the red and yellow tulips, heavy with flowers, seemed to lean
upon the dusk. A grey cat, dragging its belly, crept across the
lawn, and a black one, its shadow, trailed after. The sight of
them, so intent and so quick, gave Bertha a curious shiver.
  "What creepy things cats are!" she stammered, and she turned
away from the window and began walking up and down....
  How strong the jonquils smelled in the warm room. Too
strong? Oh, no. And yet, as though overcome, she flung
down on a couch and pressed her hands to her eyes.
  "I'm too happy -- too happy!" she murmured.
  And she seemed to see on her eyelids the lovely pear tree with
its wide open blossoms as a symbol of her own life.
  Really -- really -- she had everything. She was young. Harry
and she were as much in love as ever, and they got on together
splendidly and were really good pals. She had an adorable
baby. They didn't have to worry about money. They had
this absolutely satisfactory house and garden. And friends --
modern, thrilling friends, writers and painters and poets or
people keen on social questions -- just the kind of friends they
wanted. And then there were books, and there was music, and
she had found a wonderful little dressmaker, and they were
.. 

going abroad in the summer, and their new cook made the most
superb omelettes...
    "I'm absurd. Absurd!" She sat up; but she felt quite
dizzy, quite drunk. It must have been the spring.
  Yes, it was the spring. Now she was so tired she could not
drag herself upstairs to dress.
  A white dress, a string of jade beads, green shoes and stockings.
It wasn't intentional. She had thought of this scheme
hours before she stood at the drawing-room window.
  Her petals rustled softly into the hall, and she kissed Mrs.
Norman Knight, who was taking off the most amusing orange
coat with a procession of black monkeys round the hem and
up the fronts.
  "...Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy --
so utterly without a sense of humour! My dear,it's only by a
fluke that I am here at all -- Norman being the protective fluke.
For my darling monkeys so upset the train that it rose to a man
and simply ate me with its eyes. Didn't laugh -- wasn't amused
 -- that I should have loved. No, just stared -- and bored me
through and through."
  "But the cream of it was," said Norman, pressing a large
tortoiseshell- rimmed monocle into his eye, "you don't mind me
telling this, Face, do you?" (In their home and among their
friends they called each other Face and Mug.) "The cream of
it was when she, being full fed, turned to the woman beside her
and said: 'Haven't you ever seen a monkey before?"
  "Oh, yes!" Mrs. Norman Knight joined in the laughter.
"Wasn't that too absolutely creamy?"
  And a funnier thing still was that now her coat was off she
did look like a very intelligent monkey -- who had even made
that yellow silk dress out of scraped banana skins. And her
amber ear-rings: they were like little dangling nuts.
  "This is a sad, sad fall!" said Mug, pausing in front of
Little B's perambulator. "When the perambulator comes
into the hall -- " and he waved the rest of the quotation
away.

  The bell rang. It was lean, pale Eddie Warren (as usual) in
a state of acute distress.
  "It i_s_ the right house, i_s_n_'_t_ it?" he pleaded.
.. 

  "Oh, I think so -- I hope so," said Bertha brightly.
  "I have had such a dr_e_a_d_f_u_l_ experience with a taxi-man; he
was m_o_s_t_ sinister. I couldn't get him to s_t_o_p_. The m_o_r_e_ I knocked
and called the f_a_s_t_e_r_ he went. And i_n_ the moonlight this b_i_z_a_r_r_e_
figure with the f_l_a_t_t_e_n_e_d_ head c_r_o_u_c_h_i_n_g_ over the
lit-tle wheel..."
  He shuddered, taking off an immense white silk scarf. Bertha
noticed that his socks were white, too -- most charming.
  "But how dreadful!" she cried.
  "Yes, it really was," said Eddie, following her into the
drawing-room. "I saw myself dr_i_v_i_n_g_ through Eternity in a
ti_m_e_l_e_s_s_ taxi."
  He knew the Norman Knights. In fact, he was going to
write a play for N. K. when the theatre scheme came off.
  "Well, Warren, how's the play?" said Norman Knight,
dropping his monocle and giving his eye a moment in which to
rise to the surface before it was screwed down again.
  And Mrs. Norman Knight: "Oh, Mr. Warren, what happy
socks?"
  "I a_m_ so glad you like them," said he, staring at his feet.
"They seem to have got so m_u_c_h_ whiter since the moon rose."
And he turned his lean sorrowful young face to Bertha. "There
i_s_ a moon, you know."
  She wanted to cry: "I am sure there is -- often -- often!"
  He really was a most attractive person. But so was Face,
crouched before the fire in her banana skins, and so was Mug,
smoking a cigarette and saying as he flicked the ash: "Why
doth the bridegroom tarry?"
  "There he is, now."
  Bang went the front door open and shut. Harry shouted:
"Hullo, you people. Down in five minutes." And they heard
him swarm up the stairs. Bertha couldn't help smiling; she
knew how he loved doing things at high pressure. What,
after all, did an extra five minutes matter? But he would pretend
to himself that they mattered beyond measure. And then
he would make a great point of coming into the drawing-room,
extravagantly cool and collected.
  Harry had such a zest for life. Oh, how she appreciated it in
him. And his passion for fighting -- for seeking in everything
that came up against him another test of his power and of his
courage -- that, too,
.. 

she understood. Even when it made him
just occasionally, to other people, who didn't know him well,
a little ridiculous perhaps...For there were moments when he
rushed into battle where no battle was....She talked and
laughed and positively forgot until he had come in (just as she
had imagined) that Pearl Fulton had not turned up.
  "I wonder if Miss Fulton has forgotten?"
   "I expect so," said Harry. "Is she on the 'phone?"
  "Ah! There's a taxi now." And Bertha smiled with that
little air of proprietorship that she always assumed while her
women finds were new and mysterious. "She lives in taxis."
  "She'll run to fat if she does," said Harry coolly, ringing the
bell for dinner. "Frightful danger for blonde women."
  "Harry -- don't," warned Bertha, laughing at him.
  Came another tiny moment, while they waited, laughing and
talking, just a trifle too much at their ease, a trifle too unaware.
And then Miss Fulton, all in silver, with a silver fillet binding her
pale blonde hair, came in smiling, her head a little on one side.
  "Am I late?"
  "No, not at all," said Bertha. "Come along." And she
took her arm and they moved into the dining-room.
  What was there in the touch of that cool arm that could fan
 -- fan -- start blazing -- blazing -- the fire of bliss that Bertha
did not know what to do with?
  Miss Fulton did not look at her; but then she seldom did
look at people directly. Her heavy eyelids lay upon her eyes
and the strange half-smile came and went upon her lips as
though she lived by listening rather than seeing. But Bertha
knew, suddenly, as if the longest, most intimate look had passed
between them -- as if they had said to each other: "You, too?"
 -- that Pearl Fulton, stirring the beautiful red soup in the grey
plate, was feeling just what she was feeling.
  And the others? Face and Mug, Eddie and Harry, their
spoons rising and falling -- dabbing their lips with their napkins,
crumbling bread, fiddling with the forks and glasses and talking.
  "I met her at the Alpha show -- the weirdest little person.
She'd not only cut off her hair, but she seemed to have taken a
dreadfully good
.. 

snip off her legs and arms and her neck and
her poor little nose as well."
  "Isn't she very l_i_e\_e_ with Michael Oat?"
  "The man who wrote L_o_v_e_ i_n_ Fa_l_s_e_ T_e_e_t_h_?"
  "He wants to write a play for me. One act. One man.
Decides to commit suicide. Gives all the reasons why he should
and why he shouldn't. And just as he has made up his mind
either to do it or not to do it -- curtain. Not half a bad idea."
  "What's he going to call it -- 'Stomach Trouble'?"
  "I th_i_n_k_ I've come across the s_a_m_e_ idea in a lit-tle French
review, qu_i_t_e_ unknown in England."
  No, they didn't share it. They were dears -- dears -- and she
loved having them there, at her table, and giving them delicious
food and wine. In fact, she longed to tell them how delightful
they were, and what a decorative group they made, how they
seemed to set one another off and how they reminded her of a
play by Tchekof!
  Harry was enjoying his dinner. It was part of his -- well,
not his nature, exactly, and certainly not his pose -- his -- something
or other -- to talk about food and to glory in his "shameless
passion for the white flesh of the lobster" and "the green
of pistachio ices -- green and cold like the eyelids of Egyptian
dancers."
  When he looked up at her and said: "Bertha, this is a very
admirable s_o_u_f_f_l_e\_!" she almost could have wept with child-like
pleasure.

  Oh, why did she feel so tender towards the whole world
to-night? Everything was good -- was right. All that happened
seemed to fill again her brimming cup of bliss.
  And still, in the back of her mind, there was the pear tree.
It would be silver now, in the light of poor dear Eddie's moon,
silver as Miss Fulton, who sat there turning a tangerine in her
slender fingers that were so pale a light seemed to come from
them.
  What she simply couldn't make out -- what was miraculous
 -- was how she should have guessed Miss Fulton's mood so
exactly and so instantly. For she never doubted for a moment
that she was right, and yet what had she to go on? Less than
nothing.
  "I believe this does happen very, very rarely between women.
.. 

Never between men," thought Bertha. "But while I am making
the coffee in the drawing-room perhaps she will 'give a
sign."'
  What she meant by that she did not know, and what would
happen after that she could not imagine.
  While she thought like this she saw herself talking and
laughing. She had to talk because of her desire to laugh.
  "I must laugh or die."
  But when she noticed Face's funny little habit of tucking
something down the front of her bodice -- as if she kept a tiny,
secret hoard of nuts there, too -- Bertha had to dig her nails into
her hands -- so as not to laugh too much.
  It was over at last. And: "Come and see my new coffee
machine," said Bertha.
  "We only have a new coffe machine once a fortnight," said
Harry. Face took her arm this time; Miss Fulton bent her
head and followed after.
  The fire had died down in the drawing-room to a red, flickering
"nest of baby phoenixes," said Face.
  "Don't turn up the light for a moment. It is so lovely."

And down she crouched by the fire again. She was always
cold..."without her little red flannel jacket, of course," thought
Bertha.
  At that moment Miss Fulton "gave the sign."
  "Have you a garden?" said the cool, sleepy voice.
  This was so exquisite on her part that all Bertha could do
was to obey. She crossed the room, pulled the curtains apart,
and opened those long windows.
  "There!" she breathed.
  And the two women stood side by side looking at the slender,
flowering tree. Although it was so still it seemed, like the flame
of a candle, to stretch up, to point, to quiver in the bright air,
to grow taller and taller as they gazed -- almost to touch the
rim of the round, silver moon.
  How long did they stand there? Both, as it were, caught in
that circle of unearthly light, understanding each other perfectly,
creatures of another world, and wondering what they were to
do in this
.. 

one with all this blissful treasure that burned in their
bosoms and dropped, in silver flowers, from their hair and
hands?
  For ever -- for a moment? And did Miss Fulton murmur:
"Yes. Just t_h_a_t_." Or did Bertha dream it?
  Then the light was snapped on and Face made the coffee and
Harry said: "My dear Mrs. Knight, don't ask me about my
baby. I never see her. I shan't feel the slightest interest in her
until she has a lover," and Mug took his eye out of the
convervatory for a moment and then put it under glass again and
Eddie Warren drank his coffee and set down the cup with a face
of anguish as though he had drunk and seen the spider.
  "What I want to do is to give the young men a show. I
believe London is simply teeming with first-chop, unwritten
plays. What I want to say to 'em is: 'Here's the theatre. Fire
ahead."'
  "You know, my dear, I am going to decorate a room for the
Jacob Nathans. Oh, I am so tempted to do a fried-fish scheme,
with the backs of the chairs shaped like frying-pans and lovely
chip potatoes embroidered all over the curtains."
  "The trouble with our young writing men is that they are
still too romantic, You can't put out to sea without being seasick
and wanting a basin. Well, why won't they have the
courage of those basins?"
  "A d_r_e_a_d_f_u_l_ poem about a g_i_r_l_ who was v_i_o_l_a_t_e_d_ by a beggar
wi_t_h_o_u_t_ a nose in a lit-tle wood..."
  Miss Fulton sank into the lowest, deepest chair and Harry
handed round the cigarettes.
  From the way he stood in front of her shaking the silver box
and saying abruptly: "Egyptian? Turkish? Virginian?
They're all mixed up," Bertha realised that she not only bored
him; he really disliked her. And she decided from the way
Miss Fulton said: "No, thank you, I won't smoke," that she
felt it, too, and was hurt.
  "Oh, Harry, don't dislike her. You are quite wrong about
her. She's wonderful, wonderful. And, besides, how can you
feel so differently about someone who means so much to me.
I shall try to tell you when we are in bed to-night what has
been happening. What she and I have shared."
  At those words something strange and almost terrifying
.. 

darted into Bertha's mind. And this something blind and smiling
whispered to her: "Soon these people will go. The house will
be quiet -- quiet. The lights will be out. And you and he
will be alone together in the dark room -- the warm bed..."
  She jumped up from her chair and ran over to the piano.
  "What a pity someone does not play!" she cried. "What a
pity somebody does not play."
  For the first time in her life Bertha Young desired her husband.
  Oh, she'd loved him -- she'd been in love with him, of course,
in every other way, but just not in that way. And equally, of
course, she'd understood that he was different. They'd discussed
it so often. It had worried her dreadfully at first to find
that she was so cold, but after a time it had not seemed to matter.
They were so frank with each other -- such good pals. That
was the best part of being modern.
  But now -- ardently! ardently! The word ached in her
ardent body! Was this what that feeling of bliss had been
leading up to? But then, then --
  "My dear," said Mrs. Norman Knight, "you know our
shame. We are the victims of time and train. We live in
Hampstead. It's been so nice."
  "I'll come with you into the hall," said Bertha. "I loved
having you. But you must not miss the last train. That's so
awful, isn't it?"
  "Have a whisky, Knight, before you go?" called Harry.
  "No, thanks, old chap."
  Bertha squeezed his hand for that as she shook it.
  "Good night, good-bye," she cried from the top step, feeling
that this self of hers was taking leave of them for ever.
  When she got back into the drawing-room the others were
on the move.
  "...Then you can come part of the way in my taxi."
 "I shall be s_o_thankful n_o_t_ to have to face a_n_o_t_h_e_r_ drive a_l_o_n_e_
after my dr_e_a_d_f_u_l_ experience."
  "You can get a taxi at the rank just at the end of the street.
You won't have to walk more than a few yards."
  "That's a comfort. I'll go and put on my coat."
  Miss Fulton moved towards the hall and Bertha was following
when Harry almost pushed past.
.. 

  "Let me help you."
  Bertha knew that he was repenting his rudeness -- she let him
go. What a boy he was in some ways -- so impulsive -- so --
simple.
  And Eddie and she were left by the fire.
  "I wo_n_d_e_r_ if you have seen Bilks' n_e_w_ poem called T_a_b_l_e_
d_'_H_o4_t_e_," said Eddie softly. "It's s_o_ wonderful. In the last
Anthology. Have you got a copy? I'd s_o_ like to s_h_o_w_ it to
you. It begins with an i_n_c_r_e_d_i_b_l_y_ beautiful line: 'Why must
it Always be Tomato Soup?"'
  "Yes," said Bertha. And she moved noiselessly to a table
opposite the drawing-room door and Eddie glided noiselessly
after her. She picked up the little book and gave it to him;
they had not made a sound.
  While he looked it up she turned her head towards the hall.
And she saw...Harry with Miss Fulton's coat in his arms and
Miss Fulton with her back turned to him and her head bent.
He tossed the coat away, put his hands on her shoulders and
turned her violently to him. His lips said: "I adore you," and
Miss Fulton laid her moonbeam fingers on his cheeks and smiled
her sleepy smile. Harry's nostrils quivered; his lips curled
back in a hideous grin while he whispered: "To-morrow," and
with her eyelids Miss Fulton said "Yes."
  "Here it is," said Eddie. "Why Must it Always be Tomato
Soup? It's so d_e_e_p_l_y_ true, don't you feel? Tomato Soup is so
d_r_e_a_d_f_u_l_l_y_ eternal."
  "If you prefer," said Harry's voice, very loud, from the hall,
"I can 'phone you a cab to come to the door."
  "Oh, no. It's not necessary," said Miss Fulton, and she
came up to Bertha and gave her the slender fingers to hold.
  "Good-bye. Thank you so much."
  "Good-bye," said Bertha.
  Miss Fulton held her hand a moment longer.
  "Your lovely pear tree!" she murmured.
  And then she was gone, with Eddie following, like the black
cat following the grey cat.
  "I'll shut up shop," said Harry, extravagantly cool and
collected.
  "Your lovely pear tree -- pear tree -- pear tree!"
.. 

  Bertha simply ran over to the long windows.
  "Oh, what is going to happen now?" she cried.
  But the pear tree was as lovely as ever and as full of flower
and as still.