She could hear a gentle thudding on the floor above; Maggie and Renny were settling the children into their beds again, she supposed. There was a little squeak, like a sleepy bird chirping in its nest. It was very private and peaceful after the guns. But here the others came in.
“Did they mind it?” she said, sitting up, “ — the children?”
“No,” said Maggie. “They slept through it.”
“But they may have dreamt,” said Sara, pulling up a chair. Nobody spoke. It was very quiet. The clocks that used to boom out the hour in Westminster were silent.
Maggie took the poker and struck the wood blocks. The sparks went volleying up the chimney in a shower of gold eyes.
“How that makes me . . .” Eleanor began.
She stopped.
“Yes?” said Nicholas.
“. . . think of my childhood,” she added.
She was thinking of Morris and herself, and old Pippy; but had she told them nobody would know what she meant. They were silent. Suddenly a clear flute-like note rang out in the street below.
“What’s that?” said Maggie. She started; she looked at the window; she half rose.
“The bugles,” said Renny, putting out his hand to stop her.
The bugles blew again beneath the window. Then they heard them further down the street; then further away still down the next street. Almost directly the hooting of cars began again, and the rushing of wheels as if the traffic had been released and the usual night life of London had begun again.
“It’s over,” said Maggie. She lay back in her chair; she looked very tired for a moment. Then she pulled a basket towards her and began to darn a sock.
“I’m glad I’m alive,” said Eleanor. “Is that wrong, Renny?” she asked. She wanted him to speak. It seemed to her that he hoarded immense supplies of emotion that he could not express. He did not answer. He was leaning on his elbow, smoking a cigar and looking into the fire.
“I have spent the evening sitting in a coal cellar while other people try to kill each other above my head,” he said suddenly. Then he stretched out and took up a paper.
“Renny, Renny, Renny,” said Nicholas, as if he were expostulating with a naughty child. He went on reading. The rush of wheels and the hooting of motor cars had run themselves into one continuous sound.
As Renny was reading and Maggie was darning there was silence in the room. Eleanor watched the fire run along veins of tar and blaze and sink.
“What are you thinking, Eleanor?” Nicholas interrupted her. He calls me Eleanor, she thought; that’s right.
“About the new world . . .” she said aloud. “D’you think we’re going to improve?” she asked.
“Yes, yes,” he said, nodding his head.
He spoke quietly as if he did not wish to rouse Renny who was reading, or Maggie who was darning, or Sara who was lying back in her chair half asleep. They seemed to be talking, privately, together.
“But how. . .” she began, “ — how can we improve ourselves . . . live more. . .” — she dropped her voice as if she were afraid of waking sleepers—”. . . live more naturally . . . better . . . How can we?”
“It is only a question,” he said — he stopped. He drew himself close to her— “of learning. The soul . . .” Again he stopped.
“Yes — the soul?” she prompted him.
“The soul — the whole being,” he explained. He hollowed his hands as if to enclose a circle. “It wishes to expand; to adventure; to form — new combinations?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, as if to assure him that his words were right.
“Whereas now,” — he drew himself together; put his feet together; he looked like an old lady who is afraid of mice— “this is how we live, screwed up into one hard little, tight little — knot?”
“Knot, knot — yes, that’s right,” she nodded.
“Each is his own little cubicle; each with his own cross or holy book; each with his fire, his wife . . .”
“Darning socks,” Maggie interrupted.
Eleanor started. She had seemed to be looking into the future. But they had been overheard. Their privacy was ended.
Renny threw down his paper. “It’s all damned rot!” he said. Whether he referred to the paper, or to what they were saying, Eleanor did not know. But talk in private was impossible.
“Why d’you buy them then?” she said, pointing to the papers.
“To light fires with,” said Renny.
Maggie laughed and threw down the sock she was mending. “There!” she exclaimed. “Mended. . . .”
Again they sat silent, looking at the fire. Eleanor wished that he would go on talking — the man she called Nicholas. When, she wanted to ask him, when will this new world come? When shall we be free? When shall we live adventurously, wholly, not like cripples in a cave? He seemed to have released something in her; she felt not only a new space of time, but new powers, something unknown within her. She watched his cigarette moving up and down. Then Maggie took the poker and struck the wood and again a shower of red-eyed sparks went volleying up the chimney. We shall be free, we shall be free, Eleanor thought.
“And what have you been thinking all this time?” said Nicholas, laying his hand on Sara’s knee. She started. “Or have you been asleep?” he added.
“I heard what you were saying,” she said.
“What were we saying?” he asked.
“The soul flying upwards like sparks up the chimney,” she said. The sparks were flying up the chimney.
“Not such a bad shot,” said Nicholas.
“Because people always say the same thing,” she laughed. She roused herself and sat up. “There’s Maggie — she says nothing. There’s Renny — he says ‘What damned rot!’ Eleanor says ‘That’s just what I was thinking.’ . . . And Nicholas, Nicholas,” — she patted him on the knee— “who ought to be in prison, says, ‘Oh, my dear friends, let us improve the soul!’”
“Ought to be in prison?” said Eleanor, looking at him.
“Because he loves,” Sara explained. She paused. “ — the other sex, the other sex, you see,” she said lightly, waving her hand in the way that was so like her mother’s.
For a second a sharp shiver of repugnance passed over Eleanor’s skin as if a knife had sliced it. Then she realised that it touched nothing of importance. The sharp shiver passed. Underneath was — what? She looked at Nicholas. He was watching her.
“Does that,” he said, hesitating a little, “make you dislike me, Eleanor?”
“Not in the least! Not in the least!” she exclaimed spontaneously. All the evening, off and on, she had been feeling about him; this, that, and the other; but now all the feelings came together and made one feeling, one whole — liking. “Not in the least,” she said again. He gave her a little bow. She returned it with a little bow. But the clock on the mantelpiece was striking. Renny was yawning. It was late. She got up. She went to the window and parted the curtains and looked out. All the houses were still curtained. The cold winter’s night was almost black. It was like looking into the hollow of a dark-blue stone. Here and there a star pierced the blue. She had a sense of immensity and peace — as if something had been consumed. . . .
“Shall I get you a cab?” Renny interrupted.
“No, I’ll walk,” she said, turning. “I like walking in London.”
“We will come with you,” said Nicholas. “Come, Sara,” he said. She was lying back in her chair swinging her foot up and down.
“But I don’t want to come,” she said, waving him away. “I want to stay; I want to talk; I want to sing — a hymn of praise — a song of thanksgiving. . . .”
“Here is your hat; here is your bag,” said Nicholas, giving them to her.
“Come,” he said, taking her by the shoulder and pushing her out of the room. “Come.”
Eleanor went up to say good-night to Maggie.
“I should like to stay too,” she said. “There are so many things I should like to talk about
—”
“But I want to go to bed — I want to go to bed,” Renny protested. He stood there with his hands stretched above his head, yawning.
Maggie rose. “So you shall,” she laughed at him.
“Don’t bother to come downstairs,” Eleanor protested as he opened the door for her. But he insisted. He is very rude and at the same time very polite, she thought, as she followed him down the stairs. A man who feels many different things, and all passionately, all at the same time, she thought. . . . But they had reached the hall. Nicholas and Sara were standing there.
“Cease to laugh at me for once, Sara,” Nicholas was saying as he put on his coat.
“And cease to lecture me,” she said, opening the front door.
Renny smiled at Eleanor as they stood for a moment by the perambulator.
“Educating themselves!” he said.
“Good-night,” she said, smiling as she shook hands. That is the man, she said to herself, with a sudden rush of conviction, as she came out into the frosty air, that I should like to have married. She recognised a feeling which she had never felt. But he’s twenty years younger than I am, she thought, and married to my cousin. For a moment she resented the passage of time and the accidents of life which had swept her away — from all that, she said to herself. And a scene came before her; Maggie and Renny sitting over the fire. A happy marriage, she thought, that’s what I was feeling all the time. A happy marriage. She looked up as she walked down the dark little street behind the others. A broad fan of light, like the sail of a windmill, was sweeping slowly across the sky. It seemed to take what she was feeling and to express it broadly and simply, as if another voice were speaking in another language. Then the light stopped and examined a fleecy patch of sky, a suspected spot.
The raid! she said to herself. I’d forgotten the raid!
The others had come to the crossing; there they stood.
“I’d forgotten the raid!” she said aloud as she came up with them. She was surprised; but it was true.
They were in Victoria Street. The street curved away, looking wider and darker than usual. Little figures were hurrying along the pavement; they emerged for a moment under a lamp, then vanished into darkness again. The street was very empty.
“Will the omnibuses be running as usual?” Eleanor asked as they stood there.
They looked round them. Nothing was coming along the street at the moment.
“I shall wait here,” said Eleanor.
“Then I shall go,” said Sara abruptly. “Goodnight!”
She waved her hand and walked away. Eleanor took it for granted that Nicholas would go with her.
“I shall wait here,” she repeated.
But he did not move. Sara had already vanished. Eleanor looked at him. Was he angry? Was he unhappy? She did not know. But here a great form loomed up through the darkness; its lights were shrouded with blue paint. Inside silent people sat huddled up; they looked cadaverous and unreal in the blue light. “Good-night,” she said, shaking hands with Nicholas. She looked back and saw him still standing on the pavement. He still held his hat in his hand. He looked tall, impressive and solitary standing there alone, while the searchlights wheeled across the sky.
The omnibus moved on. She found herself staring at an old man in the corner who was eating something out of a paper bag. He looked up and caught her staring at him.
“Like to see what I’ve got for supper, lady?” he said, cocking one eyebrow over his rheumy, twinkling old eyes. And he held out for her inspection a hunk of bread on which was laid a slice of cold meat or sausage.
1918
A veil of mist covered the November sky; a many folded veil, so fine-meshed that it made one density. It was not raining, but here and there the mist condensed on the surface into dampness and made pavements greasy. Here and there on a grass blade or on a hedge leaf a drop hung motionless. It was windless and calm. Sounds coming through the veil — the bleat of sheep, the croak of rooks — were deadened. The uproar of the traffic merged into one growl. Now and then as if a door opened and shut, or the veil parted and closed, the roar boomed and faded.
“Dirty brute,” Crosby muttered as she hobbled along the asphalt path across Richmond Green. Her legs were paining her. It was not actually raining, but the great open space was full of mist; and there was nobody near, so that she could talk aloud.
“Dirty brute,” she muttered again. She had got into the habit of talking aloud. There was nobody in sight; the end of the path was lost in mist. It was very silent. Only the rooks gathered on the tree tops now and then let fall a queer little croak, and a leaf, spotted with black, fell to the ground. Her face twitched as she walked, as if her muscles had got into the habit of protesting, involuntarily, against the spites and obstacles that tormented her. She had aged greatly during the past four years. She looked so small and hunched that it seemed doubtful if she could make her way across the wide open space, shrouded in white mist. But she had to go to the High Street to do her shopping.
“The dirty brute,” she muttered again. She had had some words that morning with Mrs Burt about the Count’s bath. He spat in it, and Mrs Burt had told her to clean it.
“Count indeed — he’s no more Count than you are,” she continued. She was talking to Mrs Burt now. “I’m quite willing to oblige you,” she went on. Even out here, in the mist, where she was free to say what she liked, she adopted a conciliatory tone, because she knew that they wanted to be rid of her. She gesticulated with the hand that was not carrying the bag as she told Louisa that she was quite ready to oblige her. She hobbled on. “And I shouldn’t mind going either,” she added bitterly, but this was spoken to herself only. It was no pleasure to her to live in the house any more; but there was nowhere else for her to go; that the Burts knew very well.
“And I’m quite ready to oblige you,” she added aloud, as indeed she had said to Louisa herself. But the truth was that she was no longer able to work as she had done. Her legs pained her. It took all the strength out of her to do her own shopping, let alone to clean the bath. But it was all take-it-or-leave-it now. In the old days she would have sent the whole lot packing.
“Drabs . . . hussies,” she muttered. She was now addressing the red-haired servant girl who had flung out of the house yesterday without warning. She could easily get another job. It didn’t matter to her. So it was left to Crosby to clean the Count’s bath.
“Dirty brute, dirty brute,” she repeated; her pale-blue eyes glared impotently. She saw once more the blob of spittle that the Count had left on the side of his bath — the Belgian who called himself a Count. “I’ve been used to work for gentlefolk, not for dirty foreigners like you,” she told him as she hobbled.
The roar of traffic sounded louder as she approached the ghostly line of trees. She could see houses now beyond the trees. Her pale-blue eyes peered forward through the mist as she made her way towards the railings. Her eyes alone seemed to express an unconquerable determination; she was not going to give in; she was bent on surviving. The soft mist was slowly lifting. Leaves lay damp and purple on the asphalt path. The rooks croaked and shuffled on the tree tops. Now a dark line of railings emerged from the mist. The roar of traffic in the High Street sounded louder and louder. Crosby stopped and rested her bag on the railing before she went on to do battle with the crowd of shoppers in the High Street. She would have to shove and push, and be jostled this way and that; and her feet pained her. They didn’t mind if you bought or not, she thought; and often she was pushed out of her place by some bold-faced drab. She thought of the red-haired girl again, as she stood there, panting slightly, with her bag on the railing. Her legs pained her. Suddenly the long-drawn note of a siren floated out its melancholy wail of sound; then there was a dull explosion.
“Them guns again,” Crosby muttered, looking up at the pale-grey sky with peevish irritation. The rooks, scared by the gun-fire, rose and wheeled round the tree tops. Then there was another dull boom. A man on a ladder who was
painting the windows of one of the houses paused with his brush in his hand and looked round. A woman who was walking along carrying a loaf of bread that stuck half out of its paper wrapping stopped too. They both waited as if for something to happen. A topple of smoke drifted over and flopped down from the chimneys. The guns boomed again. The man on the ladder said something to the woman on the pavement. She nodded her head. Then he dipped his brush in the pot and went on painting. The woman walked on. Crosby pulled herself together and tottered across the road into the High Street. The guns went on booming and the sirens wailed. The war was over — so somebody told her as she took her place in the queue at the grocer’s shop. The guns went on booming and the sirens wailed.
PRESENT DAY
It was a summer evening; the sun was setting; the sky was blue still, but tinged with gold, as if a thin veil of gauze hung over it, and here and there in the gold-blue amplitude an island of cloud lay suspended. In the fields the trees stood majestically caparisoned, with their innumerable leaves gilt. Sheep and cows, pearl white and parti-coloured, lay recumbent or munched their way through the half transparent grass. An edge of light surrounded everything. A red-gold fume rose from the dust on the roads. Even the little red brick villas on the high roads had become porous, incandescent with light, and the flowers in cottage gardens, lilac and pink like cotton dresses, shone veined as if lit from within. Faces of people standing at cottage doors or padding along pavements showed the same red glow as they fronted the slowly sinking sun.
Complete Works of Virginia Woolf Page 230