Gektor Manro - The Complete Short Stories of Saki

I did it I should have known better. I persuaded Reginald to go to the McKillops garden-party against his will.

We all make mistakes occasionally. They know youre here, and theyll think it so funny if you dont go. And I want particularly to be in with Mrs McKillop just now.

I know, you want one of her smoke Persian kittens as a prospective wife for Wumples or a husband, is it? (Reginald has a magnificent scorn for details, other than sartorial.) And I am expected to undergo social martyrdom to suit the connubial exigencies

Reginald, its nothing of the kind, only Im sure Mrs McKillop would be pleased if I brought you. Young men of your brilliant attractions are rather at a premium at her garden-parties.

Should be at a premium in heaven, remarked Reginald complacently.

There will be very few of you there, if that is what you mean. But seriously, there wont be any great strain upon your powers of endurance; I promise you that you shant have to play croquet, or talk to the Archdeacons wife, or do anything that is likely to bring on physical prostration. You can just wear your sweetest clothes and a moderately amiable expression, and eat chocolate-creams with the appetite of a blas parrot. Nothing more is demanded of you.

Reginald shut his eyes. There will be the exhaustingly up-to-date young women who will ask me if I have seen San Toy; a less progressive grade who will yearn to hear about the Diamond Jubilee the historic event, not the horse. With a little encouragement, they will inquire if I saw the Allies march into Paris. Why are women so fond of raking up the past? Theyre as bad as tailors, who invariably remember what you owe them for a suit long after youve ceased to wear it.

Ill order lunch for one oclock; that will give you two and a half hours to dress in.

Reginald puckered his brow into a tortured frown, and I knew that my point was gained. He was debating what tie would go with which waistcoat.

Even then I had my misgivings.

During the drive to the McKillops Reginald was possessed with a great peace, which was not wholly to be accounted for by the fact that he had inveigled his feet into shoes a size too small for them. I misgave more than ever, and having once launched Reginald on to the McKillops lawn, I established him near a seductive dish of marrons glacs and as far from the Archdeacons wife as possible; as I drifted away to a diplomatic distance I heard with painful distinctness the eldest Mawkby girl asking him if he had seen San Toy.

It must have been ten minutes later, not more, and I had been having quite an enjoyable chat with my hostess, and had promised to lend her The Eternal City and my recipe for rabbit mayonnaise, and was just about to offer a kind home for her third Persian kitten, when I perceived, out of the corner of my eye, that Reginald was not where I had left him, and that the marrons glacs were untasted. At the same moment I became aware that old Colonel Mendoza was essaying to tell his classic story of how he introduced golf into India, and that Reginald was in dangerous proximity. There are occasions when Reginald is caviare to the Colonel.

When I was at Poona in 76

My dear Colonel, purred Reginald, fancy admitting such a thing! Such a give-away for ones age! I wouldnt admit being on this planet in 76. (Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-two.)

The Colonel went to the colour of a fig that has attained great ripeness, and Reginald, ignoring my efforts to intercept him, glided away to another part of the lawn. I found him a few minutes later happily engaged in teaching the youngest Rampage boy the approved theory of mixing absinthe, within full earshot of his mother. Mrs Rampage occupies a prominent place in local Temperance movements.

As soon as I had broken up this unpromising tte--tte and settled Reginald where he could watch the croquet players losing their tempers, I wandered off to find my hostess and renew the kitten negotiations at the point where they had been interrupted. I did not succeed in running her down at once, and eventually it was Mrs McKillop who sought me out, and her conversation was not of kittens.

Your cousin is discussing Zaza with the Archdeacons wife; at least, he is discussing, she is ordering her carriage.

She spoke in the dry, staccato tone of one who repeats a French exercise, and I knew that as far as Millie McKillop was concerned, Wumples was devoted to a lifelong celibacy.

If you dont mind, I said hurriedly, I think wed like our carriage ordered too, and I made a forced march in the direction of the croquet ground.

I found every one talking nervously and feverishly of the weather and the war in South Africa, except Reginald, who was reclining in a comfortable chair with the dreamy, far-away look that a volcano might wear just after it had desolated entire villages. The Archdeacons wife was buttoning up her gloves with a concentrated deliberation that was fearful to behold. I shall have to treble my subscription to her Cheerful Sunday Evenings Fund before I dare set foot in her house again.

At that particular moment the croquet players finished their game, which had been going on without a symptom of finality during the whole afternoon. Why, I ask, should it have stopped precisely when a counter-attraction was so necessary? Every one seemed to drift towards the area of disturbance, of which the chairs of the Archdeacons wife and Reginald formed the storm-centre. Conversation flagged, and there settled upon the company that expectant hush that precedes the dawn when your neighbours dont happen to keep poultry.

What did the Caspian Sea? asked Reginald, with appalling suddenness.

There were symptoms of a stampede. The Archdeacons wife looked at me. Kipling or some one has described somewhere the look a foundered camel gives when the caravan moves on and leaves it to its fate. The peptonised reproach in the good ladys eyes brought the passage vividly to my mind.

I played my last card.

Reginald, its getting late, and a sea-mist is coming on. I knew that the elaborate curl over his right eyebrow was not guaranteed to survive a sea-mist.

Never, never again, will I take you to a garden-party. NeverYou behaved abominablyWhat did the Caspian see?

A shade of genuine regret for misused opportunities passed over Reginalds face.

After all, he said, I believe an apricot tie would have gone better with the lilac waistcoat.

I wish it to be distinctly understood (said Reginald) that I dont want a George, Prince of Wales Prayer-book as a Christmas present. The fact cannot be too widely known.

There ought (he continued) to be technical education classes on the science of present-giving. No one seems to have the faintest notion of what any one else wants, and the prevalent ideas on the subject are not creditable to a civilised community.

There is, for instance, the female relative in the country who knows a tie is always useful, and sends you some spotted horror that you could only wear in secret or in Tottenham Court Road. It might have been useful had she kept it to tie up currant bushes with, when it would have served the double purpose of supporting the branches and frightening away the birds for it is an admitted fact that the ordinary tomtit of commerce has a sounder sthetic taste than the average female relative in the country.

Then there are aunts. They are always a difficult class to deal with in the matter of presents. The trouble is that one never catches them really young enough. By the time one has educated them to an appreciation of the fact that one does not wear red woollen mittens in the West End, they die, or quarrel with the family, or do something equally inconsiderate. That is why the supply of trained aunts is always so precarious.