a shadow of Katherine Mansfield, but just a taste.

It was so brilliantly fine - a light breeze danced through the open window like the bounce of a bow on a viola's strings. Miss Brill felt that even the elements of the powder blue sky wanted to be inside enjoying the treats of her party. Spring was playing its song, and the leaves of the elm trees were swaying along with an exceptional rhythm. A distant crunch of gravel could be heard as Miss Brill sat on a wide sill under the arc of her family’s front window. There was a vehicle moving at an arduous pace along the drive, like the passing of winter’s time. Teasing thing!

Velvet fingers closed on Miss Brill’s forearm, she instinctively straightened her posture. They guided her, like a mapped object of the room, away from the window and into the embroidered cushioning of a high-backed chair. She could have been just another vase placed on a table top. But like the crystal that had been released from its cupboard and polished back into being, she was delighted with her position in the room. A soft avenue of light fell about her and accentuated the ivory and peach silhouette of her dress against the furniture’s mahogany hues.

Miss Brill wanted to watch the guests arrive and unfold themselves from their car-doored journeys. She imagined everyone arriving in the order that their enveloped acceptances had come in the post. There were far more guests than Miss Brill could remember the names of. That was because her mother had organised the party. Those that Miss Brill could remember grew in her mind from the handwritten letters she had seen. Miss Sophie Robert was a long and frail beauty with wide-eyed o’s. Mr and Mrs Oliver Landry were a plump and heavy-footed couple that were joined at every curve.

There had been no envelope from Mr Taylor. How strange it was to address him so formally! She knew he would be embarrassed by his letters. Miss Brill had seen his father tidying the hedges only this morning. He must have taken Mr Taylor’s word to Mrs Brill personally. Sneaky thing! Miss Brill had wanted to deliver the invitation in person too. Her mother’s eyes caught her like her velvet fingers. Miss Brill had got quite used to remaining indoors; her skin was now the purest pearl of white. But she was sure one stroll to Taylor’s cottage would do no harm. Mrs Brill forbid it.

Dee-eee-arr-Dee-arr-eee-Arr-arr-dee-eee. A double bass introduced its low sweet sound and gave the string quartet a platform to play their first melody – very pretty. Miss Brill knew the tune would be repeated later and she would move together with Mr Taylor like the dancing leaves on the elm trees. Oh, how she had practised! 

(to be continued...)