Daphne
Mansfield

  I had been in Port Willin six months when I decided to
give a one-man show. Not that I was particularly keen,
but little Field, the picture-shop man, had just started a gallery
and he wanted me -- begged me, rather -- to kick off for him.
He was a decent little chap; I hadn't the heart to refuse. And
besides, as it happened, I had a good deal of stuff that I felt
it would be rather fun to palm off on any one who was fool
enough to buy it. So with these high aims I had the cards
printed, the pictures framed in plain white frames, and God
knows how many cups and saucers ordered for the Private View.
  What was I doing in Port Willin? Oh well -- why not? I'll


own it does sound an unlikely spot, but when you are an impermanent
movable, as I am, it's just those unlikely spots that
have a trick of holding you. I arrived, intending to stay a
week and go on to Fiji. But I had letters to one or two people,
and the morning of my arrival, hanging over the side of the
ship while we were waiting in the stream, with nothing on earth
to do but stare, I took an extraordinary fancy to the shape -- to
the look of the place.
  It's a small town, you know, planted at the edge of a fine
deep harbour like a lake. Behind it,on either side, there are
hills. The houses are built of light painted wood. They have
iron roofs coloured red. And there are big dark plumy trees
massed together, breaking up those light shapes, giving a depth
-- warmth -- making a composition of it well worth looking
at....Well, we needn't go into that -- But it had me that
fine morning. And the first days after my arrival, walking, or
driving out in one of the big swinging, rocking cabs, I took an
equal fancy to the people.
  Not to quite all of them. The men left me cold. Yes, I
must say, colonial men are not the brightest specimens. But
I never struck a place where the average female attractiveness
was so high. You can't help noticing it, for a peculiarity
of Port Willin is the number of its teashops and the vast quantity
of tea absorbed by its inhabitants. Not tea only -- sandwiches,
cream cakes, ices, fruit salad with fresh pine-apples. From
eleven o'clock in the morning you meet with couples and
groups of girls and young married women hurrying off to
their first tea. It was a real eleven o'clock function. Even the
business men knocked off and went to a cafe\. And the same
thing happened in the afternoon. From four until half-past six
the streets were gay as a garden. Which reminds me, it was
early spring when I arrived and the town smelled of moist
earth and the first flowers. In fact, wherever one went one got
a strong whiff, like the whiff of violets in a wood, which was
enough in itself to make one feel like lingering....


  There was a theatre too, a big bare building plastered over
with red and blue bills which gave it an oriental look in that
blue air, and a touring company was playing "San Toy." I
went my first evening. I found it, for some reason, fearfully
exciting. The inside smelled of gas, of glue and burnt paper.
Whistling draughts cut along the corridors -- a strong wind
among the orchestra kept the palms trembling, and now and
again the curtain blew out and there was a glimpse of a pair of
large feet walking rapidly away. But what women! What
girls in muslin dresses with velvet sashes and little caps edged
with swansdown! In the interval long ripples of laughter
sounded from the stalls, from the dress-circle. And I leaned
against a pillar that looked as though it was made of wedding-cake
icing -- and fell in love with whole rows at a time....
  Then I presented my letters, I was asked out to dine, and I
met these charmers in their own homes. That decided it. They
were something I had never known before -- so gay, so friendly,
so impressed with the idea of one's being an artist! It was
rather like finding oneself in the playground of an extremely
attractive girl's school.
  I painted the Premier's daughter, a dark beauty, against a
tree hung with long, bell-like flowers as white as wax. I painted
a girl with a pigtail curled up on a white sofa playing with a
pale-red fan...and a little blonde in a black jacket with pearl
grey gloves....I painted like fury.
  I'm fond of women. As a matter of fact I'm a great deal
more at my ease with women than I am with men. Because I've
cultivated them, I suppose. You see, it's like this with me. I've
always had enough money to live on, and the consequence is
I have never had to mix with people more than I wished. And
I've equally always had -- well, I suppose you might call it -- a
passion for painting. Painting is far and away the most important
thing in life -- as I see it. But -- my work's my own
affair. It's the separate compartment which is me. No strangers
allowed in. I haven't the smallest desire to explain what it is


I'm after -- or to hear other men. If people like my work I'm
pleased. If they don't -- well, if I was a shrugging person, I'd
shrug. This sounds arrogant. It isn't; I know my limitations.
But the truth about oneself always sounds arrogant, as no doubt
you've observed.
  But women -- well, I can only speak for myself -- I find the
presence of women, the consciousness of women, an absolute
necessity. I know they are considered a distraction, that the
very Big Pots seal themselves in their hives to keep away. All
I can say is work without women would be to me like dancing
without music or food without wine or a sailing boat without
a breeze. They just give me that...what is it? Stimulus is
not enough; inspiration is far too much. That -- well, if I
knew what it is, I should have solved a bigger problem than
my own! And problems aren't in my line.
  I expected a mob at my Private View, and I got it, too....
What I hadn't reckoned on was that there would be no men.
It was one thing to ask a painter fellow to knock you up something
to the tune of fifty guineas or so, but it was another
to make an ass of yourself staring. The Port Willin men would
as soon have gazed into shops. True, when you came to
Europe, you visited the galleries, but then you shop-gazed too.
It didn't matter what you did in Europe. You could walk
about for a week without being recognised.
  So there were little Field and I absolutely alone among all
the loveliness; it frightened him out of his life, but I didn't
mind, I thought it rather fun, especially as the sightseers didn't
hesitate to find my pictures amusing. I'm by no means an
out-and-out modern, as they say; people like violins and landscapes
of telegraph poles leave me cold. But Port Willin is
still trying to swallow Rossetti, and Hope by Watts is looked
upon as very advanced. It was natural my pictures should
surprise them. The fat old Lady Mayoress became quite
hysterical. She drew me over to one drawing; she patted my
arm with her fan.



  "I don't wonder you drew her slipping out," she gurgled.
"And how depressed she looks! The poor dear never could
have sat down in it. It's much too small. There ought to be
a little cake of Pears' Soap on the floor." And overcome by
her own joke, she flopped on the little double bench that ran
down the middle of the room, and even her fan seemed to
laugh.
  At that moment two girls passed in front of us. One I knew,
a big fair girl called May Pollock, pulled her companion by
the sleeve. "Daphne!" she said. "Daphne!" And the other
turned towards her, then towards us, smiled and was born,
christened part of my world from that moment.
  "Daphne!" Her quick, beautiful smile answered....
  Saturday morning was gloriously fine. When I woke up
and saw the sun streaming over the polished floor I felt like a
little boy who has been promised a picnic. It was all I could
do not to telephone Daphne. Was she feeling the same? It
seemed somehow such a terrific lark that we should be going
off together like this, just with a couple of rucksacks and our
bathing suits. I thought of other week-ends, the preparation,
the emotional tension, the amount of managing they'd needed.
But I couldn't really think of them; I couldn't be bothered,
they belonged to another life....
  It seemed to me suddenly so preposterous that two people
should be as happy as we were and not be happier. Here we
were, alone  miles away from everybody, free as air, and in love
with each other. I looked again at Daphne, at her slender
shoulders, her throat, her bosom, and passionately in love, I
decided with fervour: Wouldn't it be rather absurd, then, to
behave like a couple of children? Wouldn't she even, in spite
of all she had said, be disappointed if we did?...
  And I went off at a tremendous pace, not because I thought


she'd run after me, but I did think she might call, or I might
look round....
  It was one of those still, hushed days when the sea and the
sky seem to melt into one another, and it is long before the
moisture dries on the leaves and grasses.   One of those days
when the sea smells strong and there are gulls standing in a row
on the sand. The smoke from our wood fire hung in the air
and the smoke of my pipe mingled with it. I caught myself
staring at nothing. I felt dull and angry. I couldn't get over
the ridiculous affair. You see, my am_o_u_r__ p_r_o_p_r_e_ was wounded.
  Monday morning was grey, cloudy, one of those mornings
peculiar to the seaside when everything, the sea most of all,
seems exhausted and sullen. There had been a very high tide,
the road was wet -- on the beach there stood a long line of
sickly-looking gulls....
  When we got on board she sat down on one of the green
benches and, muttering something about a pipe, I walked
quickly away. It was intolerable that we should still be together
after what had happened. It was indecent. I only asked -- I
only longed for one thing -- to be free of this still, unsmiling
and pitiful -- that was the worst of it -- creature who had been
my playful Daphne.
  For answer I telephoned her at once and asked if I might
come and see her that evening. Her voice sounded grave.
unlike the voice I remembered, and she seemed to deliberate.
There was a long pause before she said. "Yes -- perhaps that
would be best."
  "Then I shall come at half-past six."
  "Very well."
  And we went into a room full of flowers and very large art
photographs of the Harbour by Night, A Misty Day, Moonrise
over the Water, and I know I wondered if she admired them.


  "Why did you send me that letter?"
  "Oh, but I had to," said Daphne. "I meant every word of it.
I only let you come to-night to...No, I know I shall disappoint
you. I'm wiser that you are for all your experience. I shan't
be able to live up to it. I'm not the person for you. Really
I'm not!"...