Carnation
Mansfield

  On those hot days Eve -- curious Eve -- always carried
a flower. She snuffed it and snuffed it, twirled it in
her fingers, laid it against her cheek, held it to her lips, tickled
Katie's neck with it, and ended, finally, by pulling it to pieces
and eating it, petal by petal.
  "Roses are delicious, my dear Katie," she would say, standing
in the dim cloak-room, with a strange decoration of flowery hats
on the hat pegs behind her -- "but carnations are simply devine!
They taste like -- like -- ah well!" And away her little thin
laugh flew, fluttering among those huge, strange flower heads
on the wall behind her. (But how cruel her little thin laugh
was! It had a long sharp beak and claws and two bead eyes,
thought fanciful Katie.)
  To-day it was a carnation. She brought a carnation to the
French class, a deep, deep red one, that looked as though it
had been dipped in wine and left in the dark to dry. She held
it on the desk before her, half shut her eyes and smiled.
  "Isn't it a darling?" said she. But --
  "U_n_ p_e_u_ d_e_ s_i_l_e_n_c_e_, s_'i_l_ v_o_u_s_
p_l_a_i4_t_," came from M. Hugo. Oh,
bother! It was too hot! Frightfully hot! Grilling simply!


     The two square windows of the French Room were open at
the bottom and the dark blinds drawn half-way down. Although
no air came in, the blind cord swung out and back and the blind
lifted. But really there was not a breath from the dazzle outside.
  Even the girls, in the dusky room, in their pale blouses, with
stiff butterfly-bow hair ribbons perched on their hair, seemed to
give off a warm, weak light, and M. Hugo's white waistcoat
gleamed like the belly of a shark.
  Some of the girls were very red in the face and some were
white. Vera Holland had pinned up her black curls a\_ l_a_ j_a_p_o_n_a_i_s_e_
with a penholder and a pink pencil; she looked charming.
Francie Owen pushed her sleeves nearly up to the shoulders,
and then she inked the little blue vein in her elbow, shut her
arm together, and then looked to see the mark it made; she
had a passion for inking herself; she always had a face drawn
on her thumb nail, with black, forked hair. Sylvia Mann took
off her collar and tie, took them off simply, and laid them on
the desk beside her, as calm as if she were going to wash her
hair in her bedroom at home. She h_a_d_ a nerve! Jennie Edwards
tore a leaf out of her notebook and wrote "Shall we ask old
Hugo-Wugo to give us a thrippenny vanilla on the way
home!!!" and passed it across to Connie Baker, who turned
absolutely purple and nearly burst out crying. All of them
lolled and gaped, staring at the round clock, which seemed to
have grown paler, too; the hands scarcely crawled.
  "U_n_ p_e_u_ d_e_ s_i_l_e_n_c_e_, s_'i_l_ v_o_u_s_
p_l_a_i4_t_," came from M. Hugo. He
held up a puffy hand. "Ladies, as it is so 'ot we will take no
more notes to-day, but I will read you" -- and he paused and
smiled a broad, gentle smile -- "a little French poetry."
  "Go -- od God!" moaned Francie Owen.
  M. Hugo's smile deepened. "Well, Mees Owen, you need
not attend. You can paint yourself. You can 'ave my red ink
as well as your black one."
  How well they knew the little blue book with red edges that
he tugged out of his coat-tail pocket! It had a green silk marker


embroidered in forget-me-nots. They often giggled at it when
he handed the book round. Poor old Hugo-Wugo! He adored
reading poetry. He would begin, softly and calmly, and then
gradually his voice would swell and vibrate and gather itself
together, then it would be pleading and imploring and entreating,
and then rising, rising triumphant, until it burst into light,
as it were, and then -- gradually again, it ebbed, it grew soft and
warm and calm and died down into nothingness.
  The great difficulty was, of course, if you felt at all feeble,
not to get the most awful fit of giggles. Not because it
was funny, really, but because it made you feel uncomfortable,
queer, silly, and somehow ashamed for old Hugo-Wugo. But
 -- oh dear -- if he was going to inflict it on them in this heat...!
  "Courage, my pet," said Eve, kissing the languid carnation.
    He began, and most of the girls fell forward, over the desks,
their heads on their arms, dead at the first shot. Only Eve and
Katie sat upright and still. Katie did not know enough French
to understand, but Eve sat listening, her eyebrows raised, her
eyes half veiled, and a smile that was like the shadow of her
cruel little laugh, like the wing shadows of that cruel little laugh
fluttering over her lips. She made a warm, white cup of her
fingers -- the carnation inside. Oh, the scent! It floated across
to Katie. It was too much. Katie turned away to the dazzling
light outside the window.
  Down below, she knew, there was a cobbled courtyard with
stable buildings round it. That was why the French Room
always smelled faintly of ammonia. It wasn't unpleasant; it was
even part of the French language for Katie -- something sharp
and vivid and -- and -- biting!
  Now she could hear a man clatter over the cobbles and the
jing-jang of the pails he carried. And now H_o_o_-h_o_r_-h_e_r_!
H_o_o_-h_o_r_-h_e_r_! as he worked the pump and a great gush of water
followed. Now he was flinging the water over something,
over the wheels of a carraige perhaps. And she saw the wheel,
propped up, clear of the ground, spinning round, flashing


scarlet and black, with great drops glancing off it. And all
the while he worked the man kept up a high, bold whistling that
skimmed over the noise of the water as a bird skims over the sea.
He went away -- he came back again leading a cluttering horse.
  H_o_o_-h_o_r_-h_e_r_! H_o_o_-h_o_r_-h_e_r_! came from the pump. Now he
dashed the water over the horse's legs and then swooped down
and began brushing.
  She s_a_w_ him simply -- in a faded shirt, his sleeves rolled up,
his chest bare, all splashed with water -- and as he whistled, loud
and free, and as he moved, swooping and bending, Hugo-Wugo's
voice began to warm, to deepen, to gather together,
to swing, to rise -- somehow or other to keep time with the
man outside (Oh, the scent of Eve's carnation!) until they
became one great rushing, rising, triumphant thing, bursting
into light, and then --
  The whole room broke into pieces.
  "Thank you, ladies," cried M. Hugo, bobbing at his high
desk, over the wreckage.
  And "Keep it, dearest," said Eve. "S_o_u_v_e_n_i_r_ t_e_n_d_r_e_," and
she popped the carnation down the front of Katie's blouse.