Excepting Mrs. Pentherby

"Excepting Mrs. Pentherby" is a short story by Hector Hugh Munro, commonly known by his pen name Saki. The tale revolves around the social dynamics and eccentricities of the British upper class. It features a gathering of characters who engage in witty banter and reveal their quirks and foibles through their interactions. The story is marked by Saki's trademark satirical humor, highlighting themes of individuality and social pretense. The character of Mrs. Pentherby serves as a focal point for the unfolding drama, as her presence evokes both intrigue and critique among the other guests. Overall, the narrative explores the absurdities of societal norms with sharp observations and clever dialogue.

• Short story

								
It was Reggie Bruttle's own idea for converting what had threatened to be
an albino elephant into a beast of burden that should help him along the
stony road of his finances.  "The Limes," which had come to him by
inheritance without any accompanying provision for its upkeep, was one of
those pretentious, unaccommodating mansions which none but a man of
wealth could afford to live in, and which not one wealthy man in a
hundred would choose on its merits.  It might easily languish in the
estate market for years, set round with noticeboards proclaiming it, in
the eyes of a sceptical world, to be an eminently desirable residence.

Reggie's scheme was to turn it into the headquarters of a prolonged
country-house party, in session during the months from October till the
end of March--a party consisting of young or youngish people of both
sexes, too poor to be able to do much hunting or shooting on a serious
scale, but keen on getting their fill of golf, bridge, dancing, and
occasional theatre-going.  No one was to be on the footing of a paying
guest, but every one was to rank as a paying host; a committee would look
after the catering and expenditure, and an informal sub-committee would
make itself useful in helping forward the amusement side of the scheme.

As it was only an experiment, there was to be a general agreement on the
part of those involved in it to be as lenient and mutually helpful to one
another as possible.  Already a promising nucleus, including one or two
young married couples, had been got together, and the thing seemed to be
fairly launched.

"With good management and a little unobtrusive hard work, I think the
thing ought to be a success," said Reggie, and Reggie was one of those
people who are painstaking first and optimistic afterwards.

"There is one rock on which you will unfailingly come to grief, manage
you never so wisely," said Major Dagberry, cheerfully; "the women will
quarrel.  Mind you," continued this prophet of disaster, "I don't say
that some of the men won't quarrel too, probably they will; but the women
are bound to.  You can't prevent it; it's in the nature of the sex.  The
hand that rocks the cradle rocks the world, in a volcanic sense.  A woman
will endure discomforts, and make sacrifices, and go without things to an
heroic extent, but the one luxury she will not go without is her
quarrels.  No matter where she may be, or how transient her appearance on
a scene, she will instal her feminine feuds as assuredly as a Frenchman
would concoct soup in the waste of the Arctic regions.  At the
commencement of a sea voyage, before the male traveller knows half a
dozen of his fellow passengers by sight, the average woman will have
started a couple of enmities, and laid in material for one or two
more--provided, of course, that there are sufficient women aboard to
permit quarrelling in the plural.  If there's no one else she will
quarrel with the stewardess.  This experiment of yours is to run for six
months; in less than five weeks there will be war to the knife declaring
itself in half a dozen different directions."

"Oh, come, there are only eight women in the party; they won't pick
quarrels quite so soon as that," protested Reggie.

"They won't all originate quarrels, perhaps," conceded the Major, "but
they will all take sides, and just as Christmas is upon you, with its
conventions of peace and good will, you will find yourself in for a
glacial epoch of cold, unforgiving hostility, with an occasional Etna
flare of open warfare.  You can't help it, old boy; but, at any rate, you
can't say you were not warned."

The first five weeks of the venture falsified Major Dagberry's prediction
and justified Reggie's optimism.  There were, of course, occasional small
bickerings, and the existence of certain jealousies might be detected
below the surface of everyday intercourse; but, on the whole, the women-
folk got on remarkably well together.  There was, however, a notable
exception.  It had not taken five weeks for Mrs. Pentherby to get herself
cordially disliked by the members of her own sex; five days had been
amply sufficient.  Most of the women declared that they had detested her
the moment they set eyes on her; but that was probably an afterthought.

With the menfolk she got on well enough, without being of the type of
woman who can only bask in male society; neither was she lacking in the
general qualities which make an individual useful and desirable as a
member of a co-operative community.  She did not try to "get the better
of" her fellow-hosts by snatching little advantages or cleverly evading
her just contributions; she was not inclined to be boring or snobbish in
the way of personal reminiscence.  She played a fair game of bridge, and
her card-room manners were irreproachable.  But wherever she came in
contact with her own sex the light of battle kindled at once; her talent
of arousing animosity seemed to border on positive genius.

Whether the object of her attentions was thick-skinned or sensitive,
quick-tempered or good-natured, Mrs. Pentherby managed to achieve the
same effect.  She exposed little weaknesses, she prodded sore places, she
snubbed enthusiasms, she was generally right in a matter of argument, or,
if wrong, she somehow contrived to make her adversary appear foolish and
opinionated.  She did, and said, horrible things in a matter-of-fact
innocent way, and she did, and said, matter-of-fact innocent things in a
horrible way.  In short, the unanimous feminine verdict on her was that
she was objectionable.

There was no question of taking sides, as the Major had anticipated; in
fact, dislike of Mrs. Pentherby was almost a bond of union between the
other women, and more than one threatening disagreement had been rapidly
dissipated by her obvious and malicious attempts to inflame and extend
it; and the most irritating thing about her was her successful assumption
of unruffled composure at moments when the tempers of her adversaries
were with difficulty kept under control.  She made her most scathing
remarks in the tone of a tube conductor announcing that the next station
is Brompton Road--the measured, listless tone of one who knows he is
right, but is utterly indifferent to the fact that he proclaims.

On one occasion Mrs. Val Gwepton, who was not blessed with the most
reposeful of temperaments, fairly let herself go, and gave Mrs. Pentherby
a vivid and truthful resume of her opinion of her.  The object of this
unpent storm of accumulated animosity waited patiently for a lull, and
then remarked quietly to the angry little woman--

"And now, my dear Mrs. Gwepton, let me tell you something that I've been
wanting to say for the last two or three minutes, only you wouldn't given
me a chance; you've got a hairpin dropping out on the left side.  You
thin-haired women always find it difficult to keep your hairpins in."

"What can one do with a woman like that?" Mrs. Val demanded afterwards of

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