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At the Bay
by
“Mercy on us,” said Mrs. Harry Kember, “what a little beauty you are!”
“Don’t!” said Beryl softly; but, drawing off one stocking and then the other, she felt a little beauty.
“My dear–why not?” said Mrs. Harry Kember, stamping on her own petticoat. Really–her underclothes! A pair of blue cotton knickers and a linen bodice that reminded one somehow of a pillow-case…”And you don’t wear stays, do you?” She touched Beryl’s waist, and Beryl sprang away with a small affected cry. Then “Never!” she said firmly.
“Lucky little creature,” sighed Mrs. Kember, unfastening her own.
Beryl turned her back and began the complicated movements of some one who is trying to take off her clothes and to pull on her bathing-dress all at one and the same time.
“Oh, my dear–don’t mind me,” said Mrs. Harry Kember. “Why be shy? I shan’t eat you. I shan’t be shocked like those other ninnies.” And she gave her strange neighing laugh and grimaced at the other women.
But Beryl was shy. She never undressed in front of anybody. Was that silly? Mrs. Harry Kember made her feel it was silly, even something to be ashamed of. Why be shy indeed! She glanced quickly at her friend standing so boldly in her torn chemise and lighting a fresh cigarette; and a quick, bold, evil feeling started up in her breast. Laughing recklessly, she drew on the limp, sandy-feeling bathing-dress that was not quite dry and fastened the twisted buttons.
“That’s better,” said Mrs. Harry Kember. They began to go down the beach together. “Really, it’s a sin for you to wear clothes, my dear. Somebody’s got to tell you some day.”
The water was quite warm. It was that marvellous transparent blue, flecked with silver, but the sand at the bottom looked gold; when you kicked with your toes there rose a little puff of gold-dust. Now the waves just reached her breast. Beryl stood, her arms outstretched, gazing out, and as each wave came she gave the slightest little jump, so that it seemed it was the wave which lifted her so gently.
“I believe in pretty girls having a good time,” said Mrs. Harry Kember. “Why not? Don’t you make a mistake, my dear. Enjoy yourself.” And suddenly she turned turtle, disappeared, and swam away quickly, quickly, like a rat. Then she flicked round and began swimming back. She was going to say something else. Beryl felt that she was being poisoned by this cold woman, but she longed to hear. But oh, how strange, how horrible! As Mrs. Harry Kember came up close she looked, in her black waterproof bathing-cap, with her sleepy face lifted above the water, just her chin touching, like a horrible caricature of her husband.
VI
In a steamer chair, under a manuka tree that grew in the middle of the front grass patch, Linda Burnell dreamed the morning away. She did nothing. She looked up at the dark, close, dry leaves of the manuka, at the chinks of blue between, and now and again a tiny yellowish flower dropped on her. Pretty–yes, if you held one of those flowers on the palm of your hand and looked at it closely, it was an exquisite small thing. Each pale yellow petal shone as if each was the careful work of a loving hand. The tiny tongue in the centre gave it the shape of a bell. And when you turned it over the outside was a deep bronze colour. But as soon as they flowered, they fell and were scattered. You brushed them off your frock as you talked; the horrid little things got caught in one’s hair. Why, then, flower at all? Who takes the trouble–or the joy–to make all these things that are wasted, wasted…It was uncanny.