Page:The Garden Party (Mansfield).djvu/115

Rh Their cold lips quivered at the greenish brims. Josephine curved her small red hands round the cup; Constantia sat up and blew on the wavy steam, making it flutter from one side to the other.

“Speaking of Benny,” said Josephine.

And though Benny hadn’t been mentioned Constantia immediately looked as though he had.

“He'll expect us to send him something of father’s, of course. But it’s so difficult to know what to send to Ceylon.”

“You mean things get unstuck so on the voyage,” murmured Constantia.

“No, lost,” said Josephine sharply. “You know there’s no post. Only runners.”

Both paused to watch a black man in white linen drawers running through the pale fields for dear life, with a large brown-paper parcel in his hands. Josephine’s black man was tiny; he scurried along glistening like an ant. But there was something blind and tireless about Constantia’s tall, thin fellow, which made him, she decided, a very unpleasant person indeed. . . . On the veranda, dressed all in white and wearing a cork helmet, stood Benny. His right hand shook up and down, as father’s did when he was impatient. And behind him, not in the least interested, sat Hilda, the unknown sister-in-law. She swung in a cane rocker and flicked over the leaves of the Tatler. 111