THE UNPUBLISHED MAUNSCRIPTS OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 3, Issue 3, 1 November 1970, Page 128

THE UNPUBLISHED MAUNSCRIPTS OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD

Margaret Scott

Part II

Notebook i (described in the Record of March 1970) contains all of the Juliet material as well as a number of shorter pieces, six of which are given here, and the last few of which will appear in Part 111 of this series. These six were written concurrently with Juliet, between May and October 1906, when Katherine Mansfield had been away from New Zealand for over three years. With one exception they have New Zealand settings, and ‘The Tale of the Three’ is perhaps an embryo which eventually matured in several directions into the best of the New Zealand stories.

The only one to achieve any kind of completeness, ‘Summer Idylle’, is also the one with the most contrived New Zealand setting, employing a tui in the bush, sprays of manuka, a Maori or part-Maori girl, a European girl with a Maori name, ferns, rata, kumaras. In the extant manuscripts this is KM’s earliest sustained attempt to capture the ‘idyllic’ flavour of her New Zealand childhood. It is interesting for other reasons too. Marina, although a name she used for herself in ‘An Attempt’, is here the name she gives to the Maori girl (who is probably based on ‘Maata’, KM’s friend Martha Grace), while Hinemoa seems to be KM herself. (The Hinemoa of Maori legend was forced, for lack of canoes, to swim to an island to join her lover.) Yet Marina and Hinemoa can also both be seen as projections of the uneasy personality of KM’s adolescence. At the age of 17 she was both imperious and frightened, cruel and suffering, graceful and clumsy, sophisticated and naive, dark and fair. It may be significant that ‘Summer Idylle’ is the most difficult to decipher of all the manuscripts. To the uninitiated it looks like the seismological chart of an unstable region. I was fortunate in being able to work on this piece with Mr Owen Leeming who had already tackled it independently. By correspondence we made successive contributions until we reached a transcription which seems to be final, in spite of the persistent intractability of a few words and phrases. Katherine Mansfield’s self-destructive impulses are explicit in her juvenilia. One is scarcely surprised in ‘What You Please’ to find the heroine with an irreparably damaged hand, after such earlier sentences as ‘l’ll love anything that really comes fiercely’ and ‘She wished that there were great thorns on the bushes to tear her hands.’ And, as in Juliet, one is struck by the coincidence of later reality echoing early imagined situations. In ‘What You Please’ her brother Leslie’s misadventure with explosives and her own consequent suffering are a nasty reminder of Leslie’s actual fate and what followed.

Editorial principles employed in this series were outlined in Part I, but I omitted to say there that although I have supplied some necessary punctuation I have in no case supplied an exclamation mark. Quite aside from my conviction that no editor has the right to alter the emotional impact of his author’s work, there is the fact that the significance of KM’s own rare and specific use of the exclamation mark should not be obscured by editorial intervention. Two of these pieces lacked titles and these I have supplied within square brackets to facilitate reference. I am grateful to Mrs Middleton Murry for copyright permission to publish in the Turnbull Library Record all the unpublished manuscripts which will appear in this series.

Chapter 1. An Attempt Marina stood at the scullery door and called ‘Pat, Pat.’ The sun streamed over the courtyard, the pincushion flowers stood limply and thirstily against the wall of the feedroom. ‘Pat, Pat’ she called. ‘Here Miss Marina’ shouted a voice from the woodshed. ‘Pat, I want to go riding.’ ‘Daisy’s in the paddock. The sheep skin I’ll bring yer in a minute.’ ‘Pat, I want to go now.’ She put her handkerchief over her head and walked over to the woodshed. ‘Phew, it’s hot,’ she said, shaking back her long braid of hair. ‘l’ll be a mass of freckles by the time I come back.’ Pat put down the tomahawk and regarded her seriously. ‘Wait for two hours, Miss Marina.’ But the girl shook her head. ‘No, I’m off to see Franky Anderson, and it will be cooler in the bush.’ Pat took up his big hat and together they walked across the yard, through the great white gates, down the road and into the paddock. Under the wattle trees Daisy regarded them seriously. ‘I feel a bit of a devil to take her’ Marina murmured. ‘Pat, make it alright with the family if they kick up a shindy. I’m so dead sick of them all I must go off’ She laid her hand caressingly against the arm of his old blue shirt. ‘Done, Miss Marina’ said Pat, and he stood in the paddock and watched her mount and ride straddle-legs out of sight. Riding was almost as natural as walking to Marina. She held herself very loosely and far back from the waist, like a native riding - and fear had never entered into her thoughts. ‘I like riding down this road with the sun hurting me’ she mused. ‘l’ll love anything that really comes fiercely - it makes me feel so “fighting”, and that’s what I like. I wish I hadn’t quarrelled with Mother and Father again. That’s a distinct bore - especially as it’s only a week to my birthday.’ (PP2S-27)

[Mail Day] On waking next morning Kathie slipped out of bed, ran over to the window, shook her hair back from her face, and leaned out. ‘Good morning sea, sky, trees, earth, blessed little island’ she said, ‘for today the Mail comes in.’ She sat on the window sill, her eyes half closed, a smile playing over her face, and thought How many years I have waited. How the days have begun and ended, the long days, and never a word about him, and the life here flowed on, and now it is Mail Day.’ ‘O, Expectation, Expectation’ she cried aloud, her voice eager and high, and every pulse in her body beating with excitement. ‘I feel [as] though my heart has run up a big flag and it’s blowing inside me.’ She dressed very slowly. ‘My old green linen’ she said, pulling it out joyfully. ‘Souvenir d’Angleterre. I shall write an Orchestral Fantasie on that.’ Two roses for the front of her blouse. She ran out into the garden - her heart suffocated her. She wished that there were great thorns on the bushes to tear her hands. ‘I want a big physical sensation’ she said, and then she ran back to her room and looked at herself in the long glass. The same Kathie of so long ago - but yet not the same. (PP32-33)

What You Please And another night was over, and another day came. Kathie lay still and watched the light creep into her room, slowly and mournfully. ‘lf the sun shone I should go mad’ she thought. ‘Thank God that it is raining.’ Suddenly she buried her face in the pillows. ‘O God, O God, O God’ she cried, and then ‘No, you damned old hypocrite, I won’t shout at you.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Dear Mr Death, would you kindly send round a sheet this morning as there is a large parcel awaiting your convenience.’ Then she lay with her face towards the window, and cried - hopelessly, madly. Long shudders passed through her. She grew icy cold - only her left hand under its bandages seemed to burn into her like a white hot iron. ‘I shall go mad, mad, mad’ she moaned. ‘Hear me somebody. Is the whole place dead? Listen - damn you all - I’m ruined - and there the devils lie in their beds and dream and say “Never mind dear, you can always write.” O the simpering brainless idiots. I shall commit suicide.’

She went through the whole scene again. The light in Leslie’s eyes, the way his little hands had trembled when he showed her the great beautiful packet - all bought for two shillings, and most of them “double bangers”. How they two had crept round to the dining [room] window and looked in and seen all the dull quiet faces, and had to put

their handkerchiefs into their mouths to stop all the laughter. How he had climbed up the fire escape ladder and into her bedroom, and come down with the box of matches in his mouth so he could hold on with both hands, and she had said ‘Good Rover - fetch it, drop it, boy.’ She seemed to hear again his little agitated staccato voice. ‘You hold this big one in your hand, and then light it, and throw it away.’ And she had held the big one and lighted a match. A great noise came. God, my hand’ she said - and fell into the great Dark. Then there came the long long days, and the little voice always telling her to hold it in her hand. And at last the Doctor had told her that a very sad thing had happened - and she had said dear dear - couldn’t he sew on five nice neat little crackers instead of the fingers, and she could live at the North Pole and be quite safe. He had left the room and closed the door loudly behind him. ‘Bring five hooks’ she called, and lay still and laughed. Kathie thought of it all quietly, calmly now. ‘I am well now’ she thought - ‘if there is anything to be well for. I suppose they want to keep me here as long as possible because they don’t know what is to happen next.’ Suddenly she flung back the covers and slipped out of bed. She felt as though she was walking on needles, and slowly, carefully, she dragged herself over to the dressingtable. Then she looked at her reflection in the mirror above. A long thin face, lines of suffering deeply engraved by the Artist Pain, an extraordinary pallor in her cheeks and lips. ‘That is Kathie’ she said hoarsely, ‘Kathie’, and then suddenly realised the illness was over. Now she was looking back. ‘The fact that I have done this proves that it is over’ she said. She looked curiously at her bandaged hand and then suddenly bent her head, and kissed it. Then she crept back to bed, and when her Mother came, opening the door very softly and just poking her head in, Kathie said ‘Good morning. Can I see the paper?’, and Mother, almost unbelieving, rushed into the girls’ room and told them, and the three of them clung together and then went in to see her.

She wondered why - what could have happened? Then she crept out of bed and ran to the head of the stairs. Leslie sat there whistling and plaiting a piece of flax. At the sight of her he stopped and uttered an exclamation. ‘Dear little chappie’ she said, ‘fly and bring me a paper - just for a secret don’t tell a soul darling.’ He slid down the bannister and in a moment he was back, the paper inside his sailor blouse. Kathie sat down in her armchair. It was a difficult matter to manage a newspaper with one hand. She had to 1 lay it on the table. Bah! “Wool rising’’, “Fashionable wedding”, “Trouble in Russia”. Surely all this was very harmless. She turned over the page. “Visit of Prominent Musician. Recital tonight at Town Hall. Interview by our Special Correspondent”

- and then the name flared out, and she understood. The paper lay at her feet now. ‘I shall go to that concert’ she said. She felt not the slightest emotion or surprise. She only wanted to lay her plans carefully . . . but no inspiration came. At lunch time Chaddie brought in her tray. ‘We’re all going over to the Hutt this afternoon till tomorrow’ she said. ‘You won’t mind being here, just with the Cook, as you’re so much better. Dick has asked us all and the Governor is going to be there.’ When they had all gone it was already six o’clock. The Recital commenced at eight. She rang the bell, and when the maid appeared she motioned her to a chair. ‘Now please listen’ she [said] authoritatively. ‘Look what lies on the table.’ Ten sovereigns were 2 (PP34-43)

The Tale of the Three 3 Vera Margaret, Charlotte Mary and K.M. were cleaning out the doll’s house. There were three dippers of water on the floor, three little pieces of real monkey brand, 4 and in their hand they held three little rags -of various degrees of dirtiness. They were being systematic thorough little souls and their cheeks were flaming, their hands aching with the exertion. ‘lt’s the chimleys’ said K.M., polishing these articles with tremendous verve. ‘All the dust seems to fly into them.’ ‘On them’ corrected C.M. in her careful cool little voice. ‘They haven’t got any regular insides you know.’ Vera Margaret was working at the windows, trying to clean the little square of glass without washing away the thin red line of paint which was the dividing line between the bottom and top panes. ‘How pleased all the family will be’ she said, ‘to find everything so fresh and neat.’ Outside the nursery window the rain was falling in torrents. They peeked through and saw the long wet garden, the paddocks, and, far away the bush-covered hills were hardly to be seen . . . Early in the morning when they had been allowed to put some sacking over their heads and run across the courtyard into the feedroom to see Pat and get the clean boots, he had called the day a “Southerly busted” and they knew that meant “ a big wetness and then a blow” as K.M. graphically described it. (pp44~46)

[London] 5 Away behind the line of the dark houses there is a sound like the call of the sea after a storm - passionate, solemn, strong. I am leaning far far out of the window in the warm still night air. Down below in the Mews the little lamp is singing a quiet song ... it is the one glow of light in all

this darkness. Men swilling the carriages with pails of water, their sudden sharp exclamations, their hoarse shouting, the faint thin cry of a very young child, and every quarter of an hour, the chiming of the bell from the church close by are the only sounds . . . impersonal, vague, intensely agitating.

It is at this hour and in this loneliness that London stretches out eager hands towards me, and in her eyes is the light of Knowledge. ‘O in my streets’ she whispers, ‘there is the passing of many feet, there are lines of flaming lights, there are cafes full of men and women, there is the intoxicating madness of Night Music. O the great glamour of Darkness, a tremendous Anticipation, and over all, the sound of laughter, half joyous, half fearful, dying away in a strange shudder of satisfaction, and then swelling out once more. The men and women in the cafes hear it - they look at each other suddenly, swiftly, searchingly . . . then the lights seem stronger, the Night Music throbs yet more loudly. Out of the theatres a great crowd streams into the street - there is the penetrating rhythm of the hansom cabs. Convention has long since sought her bed - with blinds down, with curtains drawn she is sleeping and dreaming. Do you not hear the quick beat of my heart? Do you not feel the hot rush of the blood through my veins? Your hand can pluck away the thin veil, your eyes can feast upon my shameless beauties. In my streets there is the answer to all your searchings and longings. Prove yourself. Permeate your senses with the heavy perfume of Night. Let nothing remain hidden. Who knows but that in the exploration of my mysteries you may find the answer to your Questionings?’

I lean out of the window - the dark houses stare at me and above them a great sweep of sky. Where it meets the houses there is a strange lightness... a suggestion ... a promise .. . Silence. Now in the Mews below the cry of the child is silent, the chime of the bell seems less frequent - but away beyond the line of dark houses there is the sound like the call of the sea after a storm - it is assuming gigantic, terrible proportions. Nearer and nearer it comes... a vast uncontrollable burst of sound that springs consciously or unconsciously from the soul of every being. Yet, it is one and the same as the faint, thin cry of the very young child - the great chorale of Life . . . The sobbing for the moon. It is the old old cry for the Moon that rises forever into the great Vastness. (PP46-51)

Summer Idylle. 1906. A slow tranquil surrender of the Night Spirits, a knowledge that her body was refreshed and cool and light, a great breath from the sea that

skimmed through the window and kissed her laughingly - and her awakening was complete. She slipped out of bed and ran over to the window and looked out. The sea shone with such an intense splendour, danced, leapt up, cried aloud, ran along the line of white beach so daintily, drew back so shyly, and then flung itself onto the warm whiteness with so complete an abandon that she clapped her hands like a child, pulled the blinds high in every window and fdled the room with brightness. She looked up at the sun - it could not be more than four o’clock and away in the bush a tui called. Suddenly she grew serious, frowned, and then smiled ironically. ‘l’d forgotten she existed’ she laughed, opening the door. She peered into the passage - the sun was not there, and the whole house was very quiet.

lii Marina’s room the scent of the manuka was heavy and soothing. The floor was strewn with blossoms. Great sprays stood in every corner, and in the fireplace and even over the bed. Marina lay straight and still in her bed, her hands clasped over her head, her lips slightly parted. A faint thin colour like the petal of a dull rose leaf shone in the dusk of her skin. Hinemoa 6 bent over her with a curious feeling of pleasure, intermingled with a sensation which she did not analyse. It came upon her if she had used too much perfume, if she had drunk wine that was too heavy and sweet, laid her hand on velvet that was too soft and smooth. Marina was wrapped in the darkness of her hair. Hinemoa took it up in her hands and drew it away from her brow and face and shoulders. ‘Marina, Marina’ she called, and Marina opened her eyes and said ‘ls it day?’ and then sat up and took Hinemoa’s face in her hands, and kissed her just between her eyebrows. ‘O come quick, come quick’, cried Hinemoa. ‘Your room is hot with this manuka and I want to bathe.’ ‘I come now,’ Marina answered, and suddenly she seized a great spray of manuka and threw it full in Hinemoa’s face and the blossoms fell into her hair. ‘Snow Maiden, Snow Maiden’ she said laughing. ‘Look at your hair. It is holding the blossoms in its curls.’ But Hinemoa fdled her hands with manuka and they ran laughing out of the house and down to the shore.

And the [sea] was before them. They stretched out their arms and ran in without speaking, and then swam swiftly and strongly towards an island that lay like a great emerald embedded in the heart of a gigantic amethyst. Hinemoa fell back a little to see Marina. She loved to watch her complete harmony. It increased her enjoyment. ‘You are just where you ought to be’ she said, raising her voice. ‘But I like not that’ said Hinemoa shaking back her hair. ‘I like not congruity. It is because you are so utterly the foreign element . . . you see?’ 7

They reached the island and lay on a long smooth ledge of brown rock and rested. Above them the fern trees rose, and among the fern trees a rata rose like a pillar of flame. ‘See the hanging beautiful arms of

the fern trees’ laughed Hinemoa. ‘Not arms, not arms. All other trees have arms saving the rata, with his tongues of flame, but the fern trees have beautiful green hair. See, Hinemoa, it is hair, and, know you not, should a warrior venture through the bush in the night, they seize him and wrap him round in their hair and in the morning he is dead. They are cruel even as I might wish to be to thee, little Hinemoa.’ She looked at Hinemoa with half-shut eyes, her upper lip drawn back, showing her teeth, but Hinemoa caught her hand. ‘Don’t be the same’ 1 she pleaded.

‘Now we dive’ said Marina, rising and walking to the edge of the rock. The water was here in shadow, deep green, slumbering. ‘Remember’ she said, turning to Hinemoa, ‘it is with the eyes open that you must fall - otherwise it is useless. Fall into the water and look right down, down. Those who have never dived do not know the sea. It is not ripples and foam you see. Try and sink as deeply as [you] can . . . with the eyes open, and then you will learn.’ Marina stood for a moment, poised like a beautiful statue, then she sprang down into the water. To Hinemoa it seemed a long time 1 of waiting, but at last Marina came up, and shook her head many times and cried out exultantly ‘Come. Come.’ A flood of excitement bounded to Hinemoa’s brain. She quivered suddenly, laughed again, and then descended. When she came up she caught Marina’s hands. ‘I am mad, mad’ she said. ‘Race me back, quickly, I shall drown myself.’

She started swimming. Marina said ‘little foolish one’ but Hinemoa swam on, her eyes wide with terror, her lips parted. She reached the shore, wrung out her braid, and ran back into the house, never pausing to see if Marina would follow. She shut and locked the door, ran over to the mirror and looked at her reflection. ‘What a fright you had, dear’ she whispered, and bent and kissed the pale wet face. She dressed slowly and gravely in a straight white gown, just like a child wears, 1 then she drew on her stockings and shoes. Her hair was still wet. She went to dry it on the verandah. Marina had dressed and prepared breakfast. She was standing in the sunshine, combing her hair and catching hold of a long straight piece and watching the light shining through it. ‘See how beautiful I am’ she cried as Hinemoa came up to her. ‘Come and eat, little one.’ ‘O I am hungry’ said Hinemoa going up to table. ‘Eggs and bread and honey and peaches, and what is in this dish, Marina?’ ‘Baked koumaras’ . . . Hinemoa sat down and peeled a peach and ate it with the juice running through her fingers. ‘ls it good?’ said Marina. ‘Very.’ ‘And you are not afraid any more?’ ‘No.’ ‘What was it like?’ ‘lt was like . . . like . . .’ ‘Yes?’ Hinemoa bent her head. ‘I have seen the look on your face’ Marina laughed. ‘Hinemoa, eat a koumara.’ ‘No, I don’t like them. They’re blue, 8 they’re too unnatural. Give me some bread.’ Marina handed her a piece, and then helped

herself to a koumara, which she ate delicately, looking at Hinemoa with a strange half-smile expanding over her face. ‘I eat it for that reason’ she said. ‘I eat it because it is blue.’ ‘Yes’ said Hinemoa, breaking the bread in her white fingers. (PPS 7-62)

NOTES l An uncertain reading. 2 The narrative breaks off here, though the same situation is explored further in another, longer piece to be published later in this series. 3 The original opening of this piece, crossed out, reads: ‘The first one was Vera Margaret. She was just 10 - a tall thin child with commonplace features, a great braid of light brown hair and a rapt, intensely good expression in her hazel eyes and eager...’ 4 Monkey Brand Bon Ami: the proprietary name of a white domestic cleaner in block form. S KM has crossed out this piece with a single stroke through each page. Its content is important, however, as also is the fact that it is more worked than most of the pieces in this notebook. 6 The spelling of this name (given by KM variously as ‘Hinemoa’, ‘Hinemoi’, and ‘Hinemoia’) I have standardized to ‘Hinemoa’. 7 ‘Hinemoa’ seems to have been written here instead of ‘Marina’, but this passage remains obscure. B The kumara (mis-spelt by KM) is the New Zealand sweet potato which often has a bluish tinge when cooked.