The Rose Garden. Maeve Brennan

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       Also by Maeve Brennan

      The Springs of Affection

       Stories of Dublin

      The Long-Winded Lady

       Notes from The New Yorker

      Copyright © 2000 by The Estate of Maeve Brennan

      Copyright © 1950, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1959, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1966, 1967, 1968 by Maeve Brennan

      The contents of this book were selected and arranged by Christopher Carduff of Counterpoint Press. Grateful acknowledgment is made to Houghton Mifflin Company for permission to reprint the preface (“A Daydream”) and “A Snowy Night on West Forty-ninth Street” from The Long-Winded Lady: Notes from The New Yorker. Copyright © 1998 by The Estate of Maeve Brennan.

      All rights reserved.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

       Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Brennan, Maeve.

      The rose garden : short stories / Maeve Brennan.—1st ed.

      p. cm.

      1. United States—Social life and customs—20th century—Fiction. 2. Ireland—Social life and customs—20th century—Fiction. 3. Country life—Ireland—Fiction. I. Title

      PS3552.R38 R6 2000

813’.54 21—dc21

99-045921

      Book design by David Bullen

      Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute z39–48 Standard

      COUNTERPOINT

      P.O. Box 65793

      Washington, D.C. 20035-5793

      Counterpoint is a member of the Perseus Books Group.

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

      e-book ISBN 978-1-61902-653-7

      Contents

Preface

The View from the Kitchen

The Anachronism

The Gentleman in the Pink-and-White Striped Shirt

The Joker

       The Stone Hot-Water Bottle

       The Divine Fireplace

       The Servants’ Dance

       The Bride

       The Holy Terror

       The Bohemians

       The Rose Garden

       The Beginning of a Long Story

       The Daughters

       A Snowy Night on West Forty-ninth Street

       I See You, Bianca

       The Door on West Tenth Street

       A Large Bee

       The Children Are Very Quiet When They Are Away

       In and Out of Never-Never Land

       The Children Are There, Trying Not to Laugh

       Note

Preface

      This is a daydream. I am lying in the sand just below the dunes on the beach in East Hampton, where I lived for several years. It is a warm, sunless day, with a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean. My eyes are closed. I like the beach, and the sand. There is a big Turkish towel between me and the sand, and I am quite alone. The cats and my dog, Bluebell, walked over here with me, but two of the cats dropped out at the walled rose garden a short distance back, and the four others are hiding in the long dune grass just above me. Bluebell is down by the water. She is a black Labrador retriever, and she swims and rolls in the water and watches for a sea gull to play with, but the gulls fly off shrieking with outrage at the sight of her. I won’t stay here much longer. In a few minutes, I’ll get up and start for home—a five-minute walk through dune and grass and between trees and across the wide, sloping lawn that leads to the big house where the walled rose garden is. I live at the foot of that lawn. I’ll just lie here a few more minutes and then I’ll go back.

      But I opened my eyes too suddenly, for no reason at all, and the beach at East Hampton has vanished, along with Bluebell and the cats, all of them dead for years now. The Turkish towel is in reality the nubbly white counterpane of the bed I am lying on, and the cool ocean breeze is being provided by the blessed air conditioner. It is ninety-three degrees outside—a terrible day in New York City. So much for my daydream of sand and sea and roses. The daydream was, after all, only a mild attack of homesickness. The reason it was a mild attack instead of a fierce one is that there are a number of places I am homesick for. East Hampton is only one of them.

       Maeve Brennan, 1976

The View from the Kitchen

      Herbert’s Retreat is a snug community of forty or so houses that cluster together on the east bank of the Hudson thirty miles above New York City. Some of the houses are small and some are middle-sized. No two are alike, and because they are separated by trees, hedges, wooden fences, or untidy vestiges of ancient woods, and because of the vagaries of the terrain, they all seem to be on different levels. Some of the houses certainly reach much higher into the air than others, because a few roofs can be glimpsed from the highway, and in wintertime, when the trees are bare, an occasional stretch of wall is disclosed to passing motorists, but otherwise the community is secluded. One characteristic all the houses have in common: They all eye the river. This does not mean that they all face the river. Some of them face vaguely toward the highway, as though they were not sure exactly where it was. Some face the private roadway, hardly more than a path, that strings them all together. Some face each other, while keeping their distance, and a few seem to stand sideways to everything. But in every house the residents have contrived and plotted and schemed and paid to bring the river as intimately as possible into their lives. The people with houses directly on the river are in luck, of course. The most any of them had to do was to knock out a side wall, widen a window, or build a porch. Those fortunate enough to have houses facing directly on the river had no problem, since the view was theirs for the taking. It is among the people with houses set back from the river that the competition for its favors is keenest. The tallest of