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"Let's go into the garden, out by the back way," suggested Laura. "I want to see how the men are getting on with the marquee. They're such awfully nice men."
But the back door was blocked by Cook, Sadie, Godber's man and Hans.
Something had happened.
Laura and Jose have just finished eating the decadent cream puffs in the kitchen and are moving from the house back into the garden. Both the house and garden represent the girls’ sheltered, protected lives. They are places of life and activity. Yet the servants block the girls from going to the garden. Godber’s delivery man has brought not just cream puffs but also news of Mr. Scott’s death. The servants blocking of the back door seems protective of the girls, as if they want to keep the dark news from them. But they also block the girls from going to the garden, so full of life.
The road gleamed white, and down below in the hollow the little cottages were in deep shade. How quiet it seemed after the afternoon. Here she was going down the hill to somewhere where a man lay dead, and she couldn't realize it. Why couldn't she? She stopped a minute. And it seemed to her that kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, the smell of crushed grass were somehow inside her.
Laura is going from her house on the hill down to the Scotts’ house below. The gleaming white road represents life. The deep shade and quiet of the hollow represent death. She is moving from the land of life to the land of death. She cannot “realize” the transition because she carries within her the life from her home and the party. The “kisses, voices, tinkling spoons, laughter, the smell of crushed grass” all represent the happy, active life of the garden party.
There lay a young man, fast asleep — sleeping so soundly, so deeply, that he was far, far away from them both. Oh, so remote, so peaceful. He was dreaming. Never wake him up again. His head was sunk in the pillow, his eyes were closed; they were blind under the closed eyelids. He was given up to his dream. What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful. While they were laughing and while the band was playing, this marvel had come to the lane. Happy . . . happy . . . All is well, said that sleeping face. This is just as it should be. I am content.
This paragraph summarizes Laura’s thoughts and feelings on meeting death in the form of Mr. Scott’s body. Instead of seeing tragedy, she sees beauty and wonder. Mr. Scott seems to sleep and dream. Being “given up to his dream,” Mr. Scott is free from life’s troubles. The “garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks” represent both life and the class distinctions which have so troubled Laura since she heard of the accident. In death, life and class no longer matter. Laura’s epiphany is that life and death are both wonderful and beautiful. Mansfield presents a strange contrast, though, by comparing the lively party to Scott’s death.
