Chapter XIX
But Hewet need not have increased his torments by imagining that Hirstwas still talking to Rachel. The party very soon broke up, the Flushingsgoing in one direction, Hirst in another, and Rachel remaining in thehall, pulling the illustrated papers about, turning from one to another,her movements expressing the unformed restless desire in her mind.She did not know whether to go or to stay, though Mrs. Flushing hadcommanded her to appear at tea. The hall was empty, save for MissWillett who was playing scales with her fingers upon a sheet of sacredmusic, and the Carters, an opulent couple who disliked the girl, becauseher shoe laces were untied, and she did not look sufficiently cheery,which by some indirect process of thought led them to think that shewould not like them. Rachel certainly would not have liked them, ifshe had seen them, for the excellent reason that Mr. Carter waxed hismoustache, and Mrs. Carter wore bracelets, and they were evidently thekind of people who would not like her; but she was too much absorbed byher own restlessness to think or to look.
She was turning over the slippery pages of an American magazine, whenthe hall door swung, a wedge of light fell upon the floor, and a smallwhite figure upon whom the light seemed focussed, made straight acrossthe room to her.
"What! You here?" Evelyn exclaimed. "Just caught a glimpse of you atlunch; but you wouldn't condescend to look at _me_."
It was part of Evelyn's character that in spite of many snubs which shereceived or imagined, she never gave up the pursuit of people she wantedto know, and in the long run generally succeeded in knowing them andeven in making them like her.
She looked round her. "I hate this place. I hate these people," shesaid. "I wish you'd come up to my room with me. I do want to talk toyou."
As Rachel had no wish to go or to stay, Evelyn took her by the wrist anddrew her out of the hall and up the stairs. As they went upstairstwo steps at a time, Evelyn, who still kept hold of Rachel's hand,ejaculated broken sentences about not caring a hang what people said."Why should one, if one knows one's right? And let 'em all go to blazes!Them's my opinions!"
She was in a state of great excitement, and the muscles of her arms weretwitching nervously. It was evident that she was only waiting for thedoor to shut to tell Rachel all about it. Indeed, directly they wereinside her room, she sat on the end of the bed and said, "I suppose youthink I'm mad?"
Rachel was not in the mood to think clearly about any one's state ofmind. She was however in the mood to say straight out whatever occurredto her without fear of the consequences.
"Somebody's proposed to you," she remarked.
"How on earth did you guess that?" Evelyn exclaimed, some pleasuremingling with her surprise. "Do as I look as if I'd just had aproposal?"
"You look as if you had them every day," Rachel replied.
"But I don't suppose I've had more than you've had," Evelyn laughedrather insincerely.
"I've never had one."
"But you will--lots--it's the easiest thing in the world--But that'snot what's happened this afternoon exactly. It's--Oh, it's a muddle, adetestable, horrible, disgusting muddle!"
She went to the wash-stand and began sponging her cheeks with coldwater; for they were burning hot. Still sponging them and tremblingslightly she turned and explained in the high pitched voice of nervousexcitement: "Alfred Perrott says I've promised to marry him, and I say Inever did. Sinclair says he'll shoot himself if I don't marry him, andI say, 'Well, shoot yourself!' But of course he doesn't--they never do.And Sinclair got hold of me this afternoon and began bothering me togive an answer, and accusing me of flirting with Alfred Perrott, andtold me I'd no heart, and was merely a Siren, oh, and quantities ofpleasant things like that. So at last I said to him, 'Well, Sinclair,you've said enough now. You can just let me go.' And then he caught meand kissed me--the disgusting brute--I can still feel his nasty hairyface just there--as if he'd any right to, after what he'd said!"
She sponged a spot on her left cheek energetically.
"I've never met a man that was fit to compare with a woman!" she cried;"they've no dignity, they've no courage, they've nothing but theirbeastly passions and their brute strength! Would any woman havebehaved like that--if a man had said he didn't want her? We've too muchself-respect; we're infinitely finer than they are."
She walked about the room, dabbing her wet cheeks with a towel. Tearswere now running down with the drops of cold water.
"It makes me angry," she explained, drying her eyes.
Rachel sat watching her. She did not think of Evelyn's position sheonly thought that the world was full or people in torment.
"There's only one man here I really like," Evelyn continued; "TerenceHewet. One feels as if one could trust him."
At these words Rachel suffered an indescribable chill; her heart seemedto be pressed together by cold hands.
"Why?" she asked. "Why can you trust him?"
"I don't know," said Evelyn. "Don't you have feelings about people?Feelings you're absolutely certain are right? I had a long talk withTerence the other night. I felt we were really friends after that.There's something of a woman in him--" She paused as though she werethinking of very intimate things that Terence had told her, so at leastRachel interpreted her gaze.
She tried to force herself to say, "Has to be proposed to you?" but thequestion was too tremendous, and in another moment Evelyn was sayingthat the finest men were like women, and women were nobler than men--forexample, one couldn't imagine a woman like Lillah Harrison thinking amean thing or having anything base about her.
"How I'd like you to know her!" she exclaimed.
She was becoming much calmer, and her cheeks were now quite dry. Hereyes had regained their usual expression of keen vitality, and sheseemed to have forgotten Alfred and Sinclair and her emotion. "Lillahruns a home for inebriate women in the Deptford Road," she continued."She started it, managed it, did everything off her own bat, and it'snow the biggest of its kind in England. You can't think what those womenare like--and their homes. But she goes among them at all hours of theday and night. I've often been with her. . . . That's what's the matterwith us. . . . We don't _do_ things. What do you _do_?" she demanded,looking at Rachel with a slightly ironical smile. Rachel had scarcelylistened to any of this, and her expression was vacant and unhappy. Shehad conceived an equal dislike for Lillah Harrison and her work in theDeptford Road, and for Evelyn M. and her profusion of love affairs.
"I play," she said with an affection of stolid composure.
"That's about it!" Evelyn laughed. "We none of us do anything but play.And that's why women like Lillah Harrison, who's worth twenty of you andme, have to work themselves to the bone. But I'm tired of playing," shewent on, lying flat on the bed, and raising her arms above her head.Thus stretched out, she looked more diminutive than ever.
"I'm going to do something. I've got a splendid idea. Look here, youmust join. I'm sure you've got any amount of stuff in you, though youlook--well, as if you'd lived all your life in a garden." She sat up,and began to explain with animation. "I belong to a club in London. Itmeets every Saturday, so it's called the Saturday Club. We're supposedto talk about art, but I'm sick of talking about art--what's the goodof it? With all kinds of real things going on round one? It isn't as ifthey'd got anything to say about art, either. So what I'm going to tell'em is that we've talked enough about art, and we'd better talk aboutlife for a change. Questions that really matter to people's lives, theWhite Slave Traffic, Women Suffrage, the Insurance Bill, and so on. Andwhen we've made up our mind what we want to do we could form ourselvesinto a society for doing it. . . . I'm certain that if people likeourselves were to take things in hand instead of leaving it to policemenand magistrates, we could put a stop to--prostitution"--she lowered hervoice at the ugly word--"in six months. My idea is that men and womenought to join in these matters. We ought to go into Piccadilly and stopone of these poor wretches and say: 'Now, look here, I'm no better thanyou are, and I don't pretend to be any better, but you're doing what youknow to be beast
ly, and I won't have you doing beastly things, becausewe're all the same under our skins, and if you do a beastly thing itdoes matter to me.' That's what Mr. Bax was saying this morning,and it's true, though you clever people--you're clever too, aren'tyou?--don't believe it."
When Evelyn began talking--it was a fact she often regretted--herthoughts came so quickly that she never had any time to listen to otherpeople's thoughts. She continued without more pause than was needed fortaking breath.
"I don't see why the Saturday club people shouldn't do a really greatwork in that way," she went on. "Of course it would want organisation,some one to give their life to it, but I'm ready to do that. My notion'sto think of the human beings first and let the abstract ideas take careof themselves. What's wrong with Lillah--if there is anything wrong--isthat she thinks of Temperance first and the women afterwards. Nowthere's one thing I'll say to my credit," she continued; "I'm notintellectual or artistic or anything of that sort, but I'm jolly human."She slipped off the bed and sat on the floor, looking up at Rachel. Shesearched up into her face as if she were trying to read what kind ofcharacter was concealed behind the face. She put her hand on Rachel'sknee.
"It _is_ being human that counts, isn't it?" she continued. "Being real,whatever Mr. Hirst may say. Are you real?"
Rachel felt much as Terence had felt that Evelyn was too close to her,and that there was something exciting in this closeness, although it wasalso disagreeable. She was spared the need of finding an answer to thequestion, for Evelyn proceeded, "Do you _believe_ in anything?"
In order to put an end to the scrutiny of these bright blue eyes, and torelieve her own physical restlessness, Rachel pushed back her chair andexclaimed, "In everything!" and began to finger different objects, thebooks on the table, the photographs, the freshly leaved plant with thestiff bristles, which stood in a large earthenware pot in the window.
"I believe in the bed, in the photographs, in the pot, in the balcony,in the sun, in Mrs. Flushing," she remarked, still speaking recklessly,with something at the back of her mind forcing her to say the thingsthat one usually does not say. "But I don't believe in God, I don'tbelieve in Mr. Bax, I don't believe in the hospital nurse. I don'tbelieve--" She took up a photograph and, looking at it, did not finishher sentence.
"That's my mother," said Evelyn, who remained sitting on the floorbinding her knees together with her arms, and watching Rachel curiously.
Rachel considered the portrait. "Well, I don't much believe in her," sheremarked after a time in a low tone of voice.
Mrs. Murgatroyd looked indeed as if the life had been crushed out ofher; she knelt on a chair, gazing piteously from behind the body of aPomeranian dog which she clasped to her cheek, as if for protection.
"And that's my dad," said Evelyn, for there were two photographs in oneframe. The second photograph represented a handsome soldier with highregular features and a heavy black moustache; his hand rested on thehilt of his sword; there was a decided likeness between him and Evelyn.
"And it's because of them," said Evelyn, "that I'm going to help theother women. You've heard about me, I suppose? They weren't married, yousee; I'm not anybody in particular. I'm not a bit ashamed of it. Theyloved each other anyhow, and that's more than most people can say oftheir parents."
Rachel sat down on the bed, with the two pictures in her hands, andcompared them--the man and the woman who had, so Evelyn said, lovedeach other. That fact interested her more than the campaign on behalf ofunfortunate women which Evelyn was once more beginning to describe. Shelooked again from one to the other.
"What d'you think it's like," she asked, as Evelyn paused for a minute,"being in love?"
"Have you never been in love?" Evelyn asked. "Oh no--one's only got tolook at you to see that," she added. She considered. "I really was inlove once," she said. She fell into reflection, her eyes losingtheir bright vitality and approaching something like an expression oftenderness. "It was heavenly!--while it lasted. The worst of it is itdon't last, not with me. That's the bother."
She went on to consider the difficulty with Alfred and Sinclair aboutwhich she had pretended to ask Rachel's advice. But she did not wantadvice; she wanted intimacy. When she looked at Rachel, who was stilllooking at the photographs on the bed, she could not help seeing thatRachel was not thinking about her. What was she thinking about, then?Evelyn was tormented by the little spark of life in her which was alwaystrying to work through to other people, and was always being rebuffed.Falling silent she looked at her visitor, her shoes, her stockings, thecombs in her hair, all the details of her dress in short, as though byseizing every detail she might get closer to the life within.
Rachel at last put down the photographs, walked to the window andremarked, "It's odd. People talk as much about love as they do aboutreligion."
"I wish you'd sit down and talk," said Evelyn impatiently.
Instead Rachel opened the window, which was made in two long panes, andlooked down into the garden below.
"That's where we got lost the first night," she said. "It must have beenin those bushes."
"They kill hens down there," said Evelyn. "They cut their heads off witha knife--disgusting! But tell me--what--"
"I'd like to explore the hotel," Rachel interrupted. She drew her headin and looked at Evelyn, who still sat on the floor.
"It's just like other hotels," said Evelyn.
That might be, although every room and passage and chair in the placehad a character of its own in Rachel's eyes; but she could not bringherself to stay in one place any longer. She moved slowly towards thedoor.
"What is it you want?" said Evelyn. "You make me feel as if you werealways thinking of something you don't say. . . . Do say it!"
But Rachel made no response to this invitation either. She stopped withher fingers on the handle of the door, as if she remembered that somesort of pronouncement was due from her.
"I suppose you'll marry one of them," she said, and then turned thehandle and shut the door behind her. She walked slowly down the passage,running her hand along the wall beside her. She did not think which wayshe was going, and therefore walked down a passage which only led to awindow and a balcony. She looked down at the kitchen premises, the wrongside of the hotel life, which was cut off from the right side by a mazeof small bushes. The ground was bare, old tins were scattered about, andthe bushes wore towels and aprons upon their heads to dry. Every now andthen a waiter came out in a white apron and threw rubbish on to aheap. Two large women in cotton dresses were sitting on a bench withblood-smeared tin trays in front of them and yellow bodies acrosstheir knees. They were plucking the birds, and talking as they plucked.Suddenly a chicken came floundering, half flying, half running into thespace, pursued by a third woman whose age could hardly be under eighty.Although wizened and unsteady on her legs she kept up the chase, eggedon by the laughter of the others; her face was expressive of furiousrage, and as she ran she swore in Spanish. Frightened by hand-clappinghere, a napkin there, the bird ran this way and that in sharp angles,and finally fluttered straight at the old woman, who opened her scantygrey skirts to enclose it, dropped upon it in a bundle, and then holdingit out cut its head off with an expression of vindictive energy andtriumph combined. The blood and the ugly wriggling fascinated Rachel, sothat although she knew that some one had come up behind and was standingbeside her, she did not turn round until the old woman had settled downon the bench beside the others. Then she looked up sharply, because ofthe ugliness of what she had seen. It was Miss Allan who stood besideher.
"Not a pretty sight," said Miss Allan, "although I daresay it's reallymore humane than our method. . . . I don't believe you've ever been inmy room," she added, and turned away as if she meant Rachel to followher. Rachel followed, for it seemed possible that each new person mightremove the mystery which burdened her.
The bedrooms at the hotel were all on the same pattern, save that somewere larger and some smaller; they had a floor of dark red tiles;they had a high bed, draped in mosquito
curtains; they had each awriting-table and a dressing-table, and a couple of arm-chairs. Butdirectly a box was unpacked the rooms became very different, so thatMiss Allan's room was very unlike Evelyn's room. There were no variouslycoloured hatpins on her dressing-table; no scent-bottles; no narrowcurved pairs of scissors; no great variety of shoes and boots; no silkpetticoats lying on the chairs. The room was extremely neat. Thereseemed to be two pairs of everything. The writing-table, however,was piled with manuscript, and a table was drawn out to stand by thearm-chair on which were two separate heaps of dark library books, inwhich there were many slips of paper sticking out at different degreesof thickness. Miss Allan had asked Rachel to come in out of kindness,thinking that she was waiting about with nothing to do. Moreover, sheliked young women, for she had taught many of them, and having receivedso much hospitality from the Ambroses she was glad to be able to repaya minute part of it. She looked about accordingly for something toshow her. The room did not provide much entertainment. She touchedher manuscript. "Age of Chaucer; Age of Elizabeth; Age of Dryden,"she reflected; "I'm glad there aren't many more ages. I'm still in themiddle of the eighteenth century. Won't you sit down, Miss Vinrace? Thechair, though small, is firm. . . . Euphues. The germ of the Englishnovel," she continued, glancing at another page. "Is that the kind ofthing that interests you?"
She looked at Rachel with great kindness and simplicity, as thoughshe would do her utmost to provide anything she wished to have. Thisexpression had a remarkable charm in a face otherwise much lined withcare and thought.
"Oh no, it's music with you, isn't it?" she continued, recollecting,"and I generally find that they don't go together. Sometimes of coursewe have prodigies--" She was looking about her for something and now sawa jar on the mantelpiece which she reached down and gave to Rachel. "Ifyou put your finger into this jar you may be able to extract a piece ofpreserved ginger. Are you a prodigy?"
But the ginger was deep and could not be reached.
"Don't bother," she said, as Miss Allan looked about for some otherimplement. "I daresay I shouldn't like preserved ginger."
"You've never tried?" enquired Miss Allan. "Then I consider that it isyour duty to try now. Why, you may add a new pleasure to life, and asyou are still young--" She wondered whether a button-hook would do. "Imake it a rule to try everything," she said. "Don't you think itwould be very annoying if you tasted ginger for the first time on yourdeath-bed, and found you never liked anything so much? I should beso exceedingly annoyed that I think I should get well on that accountalone."
She was now successful, and a lump of ginger emerged on the end of thebutton-hook. While she went to wipe the button-hook, Rachel bit theginger and at once cried, "I must spit it out!"
"Are you sure you have really tasted it?" Miss Allan demanded.
For answer Rachel threw it out of the window.
"An experience anyhow," said Miss Allan calmly. "Let me see--I havenothing else to offer you, unless you would like to taste this." A smallcupboard hung above her bed, and she took out of it a slim elegant jarfilled with a bright green fluid.
"Creme de Menthe," she said. "Liqueur, you know. It looks as if I drank,doesn't it? As a matter of fact it goes to prove what an exceptionallyabstemious person I am. I've had that jar for six-and-twenty years,"she added, looking at it with pride, as she tipped it over, and fromthe height of the liquid it could be seen that the bottle was stilluntouched.
"Twenty-six years?" Rachel exclaimed.
Miss Allan was gratified, for she had meant Rachel to be surprised.
"When I went to Dresden six-and-twenty years ago," she said, "a certainfriend of mine announced her intention of making me a present. Shethought that in the event of shipwreck or accident a stimulant mightbe useful. However, as I had no occasion for it, I gave it back on myreturn. On the eve of any foreign journey the same bottle always makesits appearance, with the same note; on my return in safety it is alwayshanded back. I consider it a kind of charm against accidents. Though Iwas once detained twenty-four hours by an accident to the train in frontof me, I have never met with any accident myself. Yes," she continued,now addressing the bottle, "we have seen many climes and cupboardstogether, have we not? I intend one of these days to have a silver labelmade with an inscription. It is a gentleman, as you may observe, and hisname is Oliver. . . . I do not think I could forgive you, Miss Vinrace,if you broke my Oliver," she said, firmly taking the bottle out ofRachel's hands and replacing it in the cupboard.
Rachel was swinging the bottle by the neck. She was interested by MissAllan to the point of forgetting the bottle.
"Well," she exclaimed, "I do think that odd; to have had a friend fortwenty-six years, and a bottle, and--to have made all those journeys."
"Not at all; I call it the reverse of odd," Miss Allan replied. "Ialways consider myself the most ordinary person I know. It's ratherdistinguished to be as ordinary as I am. I forget--are you a prodigy, ordid you say you were not a prodigy?"
She smiled at Rachel very kindly. She seemed to have known andexperienced so much, as she moved cumbrously about the room, that surelythere must be balm for all anguish in her words, could one induce her tohave recourse to them. But Miss Allan, who was now locking the cupboarddoor, showed no signs of breaking the reticence which had snowed herunder for years. An uncomfortable sensation kept Rachel silent; on theone hand, she wished to whirl high and strike a spark out of the coolpink flesh; on the other she perceived there was nothing to be done butto drift past each other in silence.
"I'm not a prodigy. I find it very difficult to say what I mean--" sheobserved at length.
"It's a matter of temperament, I believe," Miss Allan helped her. "Thereare some people who have no difficulty; for myself I find there are agreat many things I simply cannot say. But then I consider myself veryslow. One of my colleagues now, knows whether she likes you or not--letme see, how does she do it?--by the way you say good-morning atbreakfast. It is sometimes a matter of years before I can make up mymind. But most young people seem to find it easy?"
"Oh no," said Rachel. "It's hard!"
Miss Allan looked at Rachel quietly, saying nothing; she suspected thatthere were difficulties of some kind. Then she put her hand to the backof her head, and discovered that one of the grey coils of hair had comeloose.
"I must ask you to be so kind as to excuse me," she said, rising, "ifI do my hair. I have never yet found a satisfactory type of hairpin.I must change my dress, too, for the matter of that; and I should beparticularly glad of your assistance, because there is a tiresome set ofhooks which I _can_ fasten for myself, but it takes from ten to fifteenminutes; whereas with your help--"
She slipped off her coat and skirt and blouse, and stood doing her hairbefore the glass, a massive homely figure, her petticoat being so shortthat she stood on a pair of thick slate-grey legs.
"People say youth is pleasant; I myself find middle age far pleasanter,"she remarked, removing hair pins and combs, and taking up her brush.When it fell loose her hair only came down to her neck.
"When one was young," she continued, "things could seem so very seriousif one was made that way. . . . And now my dress."
In a wonderfully short space of time her hair had been reformed in itsusual loops. The upper half of her body now became dark green with blackstripes on it; the skirt, however, needed hooking at various angles, andRachel had to kneel on the floor, fitting the eyes to the hooks.
"Our Miss Johnson used to find life very unsatisfactory, I remember,"Miss Allan continued. She turned her back to the light. "And then shetook to breeding guinea-pigs for their spots, and became absorbed inthat. I have just heard that the yellow guinea-pig has had a black baby.We had a bet of sixpence on about it. She will be very triumphant."
The skirt was fastened. She looked at herself in the glass with thecurious stiffening of her face generally caused by looking in the glass.
"Am I in a fit state to encounter my fellow-beings?" she asked. "Iforget which way it is--but they find black
animals very rarely havecoloured babies--it may be the other way round. I have had it so oftenexplained to me that it is very stupid of me to have forgotten again."
She moved about the room acquiring small objects with quiet force,and fixing them about her--a locket, a watch and chain, a heavy goldbracelet, and the parti-coloured button of a suffrage society. Finally,completely equipped for Sunday tea, she stood before Rachel, and smiledat her kindly. She was not an impulsive woman, and her life had schooledher to restrain her tongue. At the same time, she was possessed of anamount of good-will towards others, and in particular towards the young,which often made her regret that speech was so difficult.
"Shall we descend?" she said.
She put one hand upon Rachel's shoulder, and stooping, picked up a pairof walking-shoes with the other, and placed them neatly side by sideoutside her door. As they walked down the passage they passed many pairsof boots and shoes, some black and some brown, all side by side, and alldifferent, even to the way in which they lay together.
"I always think that people are so like their boots," said Miss Allan."That is Mrs. Paley's--" but as she spoke the door opened, and Mrs.Paley rolled out in her chair, equipped also for tea.
She greeted Miss Allan and Rachel.
"I was just saying that people are so like their boots," said MissAllan. Mrs. Paley did not hear. She repeated it more loudly still. Mrs.Paley did not hear. She repeated it a third time. Mrs. Paley heard, butshe did not understand. She was apparently about to repeat it for thefourth time, when Rachel suddenly said something inarticulate, anddisappeared down the corridor. This misunderstanding, which involveda complete block in the passage, seemed to her unbearable. She walkedquickly and blindly in the opposite direction, and found herself at theend of a _cul_ _de_ _sac_. There was a window, and a table and a chairin the window, and upon the table stood a rusty inkstand, an ashtray, anold copy of a French newspaper, and a pen with a broken nib. Rachelsat down, as if to study the French newspaper, but a tear fell on theblurred French print, raising a soft blot. She lifted her head sharply,exclaiming aloud, "It's intolerable!" Looking out of the window witheyes that would have seen nothing even had they not been dazed by tears,she indulged herself at last in violent abuse of the entire day. It hadbeen miserable from start to finish; first, the service in the chapel;then luncheon then Evelyn; then Miss Allan; then old Mrs. Paleyblocking up the passage. All day long she had been tantalized and putoff. She had now reached one of those eminences, the result ofsome crisis, from which the world is finally displayed in itstrue proportions. She disliked the look of it immensely--churches,politicians, misfits, and huge impostures--men like Mr. Dalloway,men like Mr. Bax, Evelyn and her chatter, Mrs. Paley blocking up thepassage. Meanwhile the steady beat of her own pulse represented the hotcurrent of feeling that ran down beneath; beating, struggling, fretting.For the time, her own body was the source of all the life in the world,which tried to burst forth here--there--and was repressed now by Mr.Bax, now by Evelyn, now by the imposition of ponderous stupidity, theweight of the entire world. Thus tormented, she would twist her handstogether, for all things were wrong, all people stupid. Vaguely seeingthat there were people down in the garden beneath she represented themas aimless masses of matter, floating hither and thither, without aimexcept to impede her. What were they doing, those other people in theworld?
"Nobody knows," she said. The force of her rage was beginning to spenditself, and the vision of the world which had been so vivid became dim.
"It's a dream," she murmured. She considered the rusty inkstand,the pen, the ash-tray, and the old French newspaper. These small andworthless objects seemed to her to represent human lives.
"We're asleep and dreaming," she repeated. But the possibility which nowsuggested itself that one of the shapes might be the shape of Terenceroused her from her melancholy lethargy. She became as restless as shehad been before she sat down. She was no longer able to see the worldas a town laid out beneath her. It was covered instead by a haze offeverish red mist. She had returned to the state in which she had beenall day. Thinking was no escape. Physical movement was the only refuge,in and out of rooms, in and out of people's minds, seeking she knew notwhat. Therefore she rose, pushed back the table, and went downstairs.She went out of the hall door, and, turning the corner of the hotel,found herself among the people whom she had seen from the window. Butowing to the broad sunshine after shaded passages, and to the substanceof living people after dreams, the group appeared with startlingintensity, as though the dusty surface had been peeled off everything,leaving only the reality and the instant. It had the look of a visionprinted on the dark at night. White and grey and purple figures werescattered on the green, round wicker tables, in the middle the flame ofthe tea-urn made the air waver like a faulty sheet of glass, a massivegreen tree stood over them as if it were a moving force held at rest.As she approached, she could hear Evelyn's voice repeating monotonously,"Here then--here--good doggie, come here"; for a moment nothing seemedto happen; it all stood still, and then she realised that one of thefigures was Helen Ambrose; and the dust again began to settle.
The group indeed had come together in a miscellaneous way; one tea-tablejoining to another tea-table, and deck-chairs serving to connect twogroups. But even at a distance it could be seen that Mrs. Flushing,upright and imperious, dominated the party. She was talking vehementlyto Helen across the table.
"Ten days under canvas," she was saying. "No comforts. If you wantcomforts, don't come. But I may tell you, if you don't come you'llregret it all your life. You say yes?"
At this moment Mrs. Flushing caught sight of Rachel.
"Ah, there's your niece. She's promised. You're coming, aren't you?"Having adopted the plan, she pursued it with the energy of a child.
Rachel took her part with eagerness.
"Of course I'm coming. So are you, Helen. And Mr. Pepper too." As shesat she realised that she was surrounded by people she knew, but thatTerence was not among them. From various angles people began saying whatthey thought of the proposed expedition. According to some it would behot, but the nights would be cold; according to others, the difficultieswould lie rather in getting a boat, and in speaking the language.Mrs. Flushing disposed of all objections, whether due to man or due tonature, by announcing that her husband would settle all that.
Meanwhile Mr. Flushing quietly explained to Helen that the expeditionwas really a simple matter; it took five days at the outside; and theplace--a native village--was certainly well worth seeing before shereturned to England. Helen murmured ambiguously, and did not commitherself to one answer rather than to another.
The tea-party, however, included too many different kinds of peoplefor general conversation to flourish; and from Rachel's point of viewpossessed the great advantage that it was quite unnecessary for her totalk. Over there Susan and Arthur were explaining to Mrs. Paley that anexpedition had been proposed; and Mrs. Paley having grasped the fact,gave the advice of an old traveller that they should take nice cannedvegetables, fur cloaks, and insect powder. She leant over to Mrs.Flushing and whispered something which from the twinkle in her eyesprobably had reference to bugs. Then Helen was reciting "Toll for theBrave" to St. John Hirst, in order apparently to win a sixpence whichlay upon the table; while Mr. Hughling Elliot imposed silence upon hissection of the audience by his fascinating anecdote of Lord Curzon andthe undergraduate's bicycle. Mrs. Thornbury was trying to remember thename of a man who might have been another Garibaldi, and had written abook which they ought to read; and Mr. Thornbury recollected that he hada pair of binoculars at anybody's service. Miss Allan meanwhile murmuredwith the curious intimacy which a spinster often achieves with dogs, tothe fox-terrier which Evelyn had at last induced to come over to them.Little particles of dust or blossom fell on the plates now and then whenthe branches sighed above. Rachel seemed to see and hear a little ofeverything, much as a river feels the twigs that fall into it and seesthe sky above, but her eyes were too vague for Evelyn's liking. She cameacross, a
nd sat on the ground at Rachel's feet.
"Well?" she asked suddenly. "What are you thinking about?"
"Miss Warrington," Rachel replied rashly, because she had to saysomething. She did indeed see Susan murmuring to Mrs. Elliot, whileArthur stared at her with complete confidence in his own love. BothRachel and Evelyn then began to listen to what Susan was saying.
"There's the ordering and the dogs and the garden, and the childrencoming to be taught," her voice proceeded rhythmically as if checkingthe list, "and my tennis, and the village, and letters to write forfather, and a thousand little things that don't sound much; but I neverhave a moment to myself, and when I got to bed, I'm so sleepy I'm offbefore my head touches the pillow. Besides I like to be a great dealwith my Aunts--I'm a great bore, aren't I, Aunt Emma?" (she smiled atold Mrs. Paley, who with head slightly drooped was regarding the cakewith speculative affection), "and father has to be very careful aboutchills in winter which means a great deal of running about, becausehe won't look after himself, any more than you will, Arthur! So it allmounts up!"
Her voice mounted too, in a mild ecstasy of satisfaction with her lifeand her own nature. Rachel suddenly took a violent dislike to Susan,ignoring all that was kindly, modest, and even pathetic about her. Sheappeared insincere and cruel; she saw her grown stout and prolific, thekind blue eyes now shallow and watery, the bloom of the cheeks congealedto a network of dry red canals.
Helen turned to her. "Did you go to church?" she asked. She had won hersixpence and seemed making ready to go.
"Yes," said Rachel. "For the last time," she added.
In preparing to put on her gloves, Helen dropped one.
"You're not going?" Evelyn asked, taking hold of one glove as if to keepthem.
"It's high time we went," said Helen. "Don't you see how silent everyone's getting--?"
A silence had fallen upon them all, caused partly by one of theaccidents of talk, and partly because they saw some one approaching.Helen could not see who it was, but keeping her eyes fixed upon Rachelobserved something which made her say to herself, "So it's Hewet."She drew on her gloves with a curious sense of the significance of themoment. Then she rose, for Mrs. Flushing had seen Hewet too, and wasdemanding information about rivers and boats which showed that the wholeconversation would now come over again.
Rachel followed her, and they walked in silence down the avenue. Inspite of what Helen had seen and understood, the feeling that wasuppermost in her mind was now curiously perverse; if she went on thisexpedition, she would not be able to have a bath, the effort appeared toher to be great and disagreeable.
"It's so unpleasant, being cooped up with people one hardly knows," sheremarked. "People who mind being seen naked."
"You don't mean to go?" Rachel asked.
The intensity with which this was spoken irritated Mrs. Ambrose.
"I don't mean to go, and I don't mean not to go," she replied. Shebecame more and more casual and indifferent.
"After all, I daresay we've seen all there is to be seen; and there'sthe bother of getting there, and whatever they may say it's bound to bevilely uncomfortable."
For some time Rachel made no reply; but every sentence Helen spokeincreased her bitterness. At last she broke out--
"Thank God, Helen, I'm not like you! I sometimes think you don't thinkor feel or care to do anything but exist! You're like Mr. Hirst. You seethat things are bad, and you pride yourself on saying so. It's whatyou call being honest; as a matter of fact it's being lazy, being dull,being nothing. You don't help; you put an end to things."
Helen smiled as if she rather enjoyed the attack.
"Well?" she enquired.
"It seems to me bad--that's all," Rachel replied.
"Quite likely," said Helen.
At any other time Rachel would probably have been silenced by her Aunt'scandour; but this afternoon she was not in the mood to be silenced byany one. A quarrel would be welcome.
"You're only half alive," she continued.
"Is that because I didn't accept Mr. Flushing's invitation?" Helenasked, "or do you always think that?"
At the moment it appeared to Rachel that she had always seen the samefaults in Helen, from the very first night on board the _Euphrosyne_, inspite of her beauty, in spite of her magnanimity and their love.
"Oh, it's only what's the matter with every one!" she exclaimed. "Noone feels--no one does anything but hurt. I tell you, Helen, the world'sbad. It's an agony, living, wanting--"
Here she tore a handful of leaves from a bush and crushed them tocontrol herself.
"The lives of these people," she tried to explain, the aimlessness, theway they live. "One goes from one to another, and it's all the same. Onenever gets what one wants out of any of them."
Her emotional state and her confusion would have made her an easy preyif Helen had wished to argue or had wished to draw confidences. Butinstead of talking she fell into a profound silence as they walked on.Aimless, trivial, meaningless, oh no--what she had seen at tea made itimpossible for her to believe that. The little jokes, the chatter, theinanities of the afternoon had shrivelled up before her eyes. Underneaththe likings and spites, the comings together and partings, great thingswere happening--terrible things, because they were so great. Her senseof safety was shaken, as if beneath twigs and dead leaves she had seenthe movement of a snake. It seemed to her that a moment's respitewas allowed, a moment's make-believe, and then again the profound andreasonless law asserted itself, moulding them all to its liking, makingand destroying.
She looked at Rachel walking beside her, still crushing the leaves inher fingers and absorbed in her own thoughts. She was in love, and shepitied her profoundly. But she roused herself from these thoughtsand apologised. "I'm very sorry," she said, "but if I'm dull, it's mynature, and it can't be helped." If it was a natural defect, however,she found an easy remedy, for she went on to say that she thought Mr.Flushing's scheme a very good one, only needing a little consideration,which it appeared she had given it by the time they reached home. Bythat time they had settled that if anything more was said, they wouldaccept the invitation.
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