Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

  Voices interrupted. People passed the stable yard, talking.

  “It’s a good day, some say, the day we are stripped naked. Others, it’s the end of the day. They see the Inn and the Inn’s keeper. But none speaks with a single voice. None with a voice free from the old vibrations. Always I hear corrupt murmurs; the chink of gold and metal. Mad music. . . .”

  More voices sounded. The audience was streaming back to the terrace. She roused herself. She encouraged herself. “On little donkey, patiently stumble. Hear not the frantic cries of the leaders who in that they seek to lead desert us. Nor the chatter of china faces glazed and hard. Hear rather the shepherd, coughing by the farmyard wall; the withered tree that sighs when the Rider gallops; the brawl in the barrack room when they stripped her naked; or the cry which in London when I thrust the window open someone cries . . .” She had come out on to the path that led past the greenhouse. The door was kicked open. Out came Mrs. Manresa and Giles. Unseen, Isa followed them across the lawns to the front row of seats.

  The chuff, chuff, chuff of the machine in the bushes had stopped. In obedience to Miss La Trobe’s command, another tune had been put on the gramophone. Number Ten. London street cries it was called. “A Pot Pourri.”

  “Lavender, sweet lavender, who’ll buy my sweet lavender” the tune trilled and tinkled, ineffectively shepherding the audience. Some ignored it. Some still wandered. Others stopped, but stood upright. Some, like Colonel and Mrs. Mayhew, who had never left their seats, brooded over the blurred carbon sheet which had been issued for their information.

  “The Nineteenth Century.” Colonel Mayhew did not dispute the producer’s right to skip two hundred years in less than fifteen minutes. But the choice of scenes baffled him.

  “Why leave out the British Army? What’s history without the Army, eh?” he mused. Inclining her head, Mrs. Mayhew protested after all one mustn’t ask too much. Besides, very likely there would be a Grand Ensemble, round the Union Jack, to end with. Meanwhile, there was the view. They looked at the view.

  “Sweet lavender . . . sweet lavender. . . .” Humming the tune old Mrs. Lynn Jones (of the Mount) pushed a chair forward. “Here Etty,” she said, and plumped down, with Etty Springett, with whom, since both were widows now, she shared a house.

  “I remember . . .” she nodded in time to the tune, “You remember too — how they used to cry it down the streets.” They remembered — the curtains blowing, and the men crying: “All a blowing, all a growing,” as they came with geraniums, sweet william, in pots, down the street.

  “A harp, I remember, and a hansom and a growler. So quiet the street was then. Two for a hansom, was it? One for a growler? And Ellen, in cap and apron, whistling in the street? D’you remember? And the runners, my dear, who followed, all the way from the station, if one had a box.”

  The tune changed. “Any old iron, any old iron to sell?” “D’you remember? That was what the men shouted in the fog. Seven Dials they came from. Men with red handkerchiefs. Garotters, did they call them? You couldn’t walk — O, dear me, no — home from the play. Regent Street. Piccadilly. Hyde Park Corner. The loose women . . . And everywhere loaves of bread in the gutter. The Irish you know round Covent Garden . . . Coming back from a Ball, past the clock at Hyde Park Corner, d’you remember the feel of white gloves? . . . My father remembered the old Duke in the Park. Two fingers like that — he’d touch his hat . . . I’ve got my mother’s album. A lake and two lovers. She’d copied out Byron, I suppose, in what was called then the Italian hand. . . .”

  “What’s that? ‘Knocked ’em in the Old Kent Road.’ I remember the bootboy whistled it. O, my dear, the servants . . . Old Ellen . . . Sixteen pound a year wages . . . And the cans of hot water! And the crinolines! And the stays! D’you remember the Crystal Palace, and the fireworks, and how Mira’s slipper got lost in the mud?”

  “That’s young Mrs. Giles . . . I remember her mother. She died in India . . . We wore, I suppose, a great many petticoats then. Unhygienic? I dare say . . . Well, look at my daughter. To the right, just behind you. Forty, but slim as a wand. Each flat has its refrigerator . . . It took my mother half the morning to order dinner. . . . We were eleven. Counting servants, eighteen in family. . . . Now they simply ring up the Stores . . . That’s Giles coming, with Mrs. Manresa. She’s a type I don’t myself fancy. I may be wrong . . . And Colonel Mayhew, as spruce as ever . . . And Mr. Cobbet of Cobbs Corner, there, under the Monkey Puzzle Tree. One don’t see him often . . . That’s what’s so nice — it brings people together. These days, when we’re all so busy, that’s what one wants . . . The programme? Have you got it? Let’s see what comes next . . . The Nineteenth Century . . . Look, there’s the chorus, the villagers, coming on now, between the trees. First, there’s a prologue. . . .”

  A great box, draped in red baize festooned with heavy gold tassels had been moved into the middle of the stage. There was a swish of dresses, a stir of chairs. The audience seated themselves, hastily, guiltily. Miss La Trobe’s eye was on them. She gave them ten seconds to settle their faces. Then she flicked her hand. A pompous march tune brayed. “Firm, elatant, bold and blatant,” etc. . . . And once more a huge symbolical figure emerged from the bushes. It was Budge the publican; but so disguised that even cronies who drank with him nightly failed to recognize him; and a little titter of enquiry as to his identity ran about among the villagers. He wore a long black many-caped cloak; waterproof; shiny; of the substance of a statue in Parliament Square; a helmet which suggested a policeman; a row of medals crossed his breast; and in his right hand he held extended a special constable’s baton (loaned by Mr. Willert of the Hall). It was his voice, husky and rusty, issuing from a thick black cotton-wool beard that gave him away.

  “Budge, Budge. That’s Mr. Budge,” the audience whispered.

  Budge extended his truncheon and spoke:

  It ain’t an easy job, directing the traffic at ‘Yde Park Corner. Buses and ‘ansom cabs. All a-clatter on the cobbles. Keep to the right, can’t you? Hi there, Stop!

  (He waved his truncheon)

  There she goes, the old party with the umbrella right under the ‘orse’s nose.

  (The truncheon pointed markedly at Mrs. Swithin)

  She raised her skinny hand as if in truth she had fluttered off the pavement on the impulse of the moment to the just rage of authority. Got her, Giles thought, taking sides with authority against his aunt.

  Fog or fine weather, I does my duty (Budge continued). At Piccadilly Circus; at ‘Yde Park Corner, directing the traffic of ‘Er Majesty’s Empire. The Shah of Persia; Sultan of Morocco; or it may be ‘Er Majesty in person; or Cook’s tourists; black men; white men; sailors, soldiers; crossing the ocean; to proclaim her Empire; all of ’em Obey the Rule of my truncheon.

  (He flourished it magnificently from right to left)

  But my job don’t end there. I take under my protection and direction the purity and security of all Her Majesty’s minions; in all parts of her dominions; insist that they obey the laws of God and Man.

  The laws of God and Man (he repeated and made as if to consult a Statute; engrossed on a sheet of parchment which with great deliberation he now produced from his trouser pocket)

  Go to Church on Sunday; on Monday, nine sharp, catch the City Bus. On Tuesday it may be, attend a meeting at the Mansion House for the redemption of the sinner; at dinner on Wednesday attend another — turtle soup. Some bother it may be in Ireland; Famine. Fenians. What not. On Thursday it’s the natives of Peru require protection and correction; we give ’em what’s due. But mark you, our rule don’t end there. It’s a Christian country, our Empire; under the White Queen Victoria. Over thought and religion; drink; dress; manners; marriage too, I wield my truncheon. Prosperity and respectability always go, as we know, ‘and in ‘and. The ruler of an Empire must keep his eye on the cot; spy too in the kitchen; drawing-room; library; wherever one or two, me and you, come together. Purity our watchword; prosperity and respectability. If not, why
, let ’em fester in . . .

  (He paused — no, he had not forgotten his words)

  Cripplegate; St. Giles’s; Whitechapel; the Minories. Let ’em sweat at the mines; cough at the looms; rightly endure their lot. That’s the price of Empire; that’s the white man’s burden. And, I can tell you, to direct the traffic orderly, at ‘Yde Park Corner, Piccadilly Circus, is a whole-time, white man’s job.

  He paused, eminent, dominant, glaring from his pedestal. A very fine figure of a man he was, everyone agreed, his truncheon extended; his waterproof pendant. It only wanted a shower of rain, a flight of pigeons round his head, and the pealing bells of St. Paul’s and the Abbey to transform him into the very spit and image of a Victorian constable; and to transport them to a foggy London afternoon, with the muffin bells ringing and the church bells pealing at the very height of Victorian prosperity.

  There was a pause. The voices of the pilgrims singing, as they wound in and out between the trees, could be heard; but the words were inaudible. The audience sat waiting.

  “Tut-tut-tut,” Mrs. Lynn-Jones expostulated. “There were grand men among them . . .” Why she did not know, yet somehow she felt that a sneer had been aimed at her father; therefore at herself.

  Etty Springett tutted too. Yet, children did draw trucks in mines; there was the basement; yet Papa read Walter Scott aloud after dinner; and divorced ladies were not received at Court. How difficult to come to any conclusion! She wished they would hurry on with the next scene. She liked to leave a theatre knowing exactly what was meant. Of course this was only a village play. . . . They were setting another scene, round the red baize box. She read out from her programme:

  “The Picnic Party. About 1860. Scene: A Lake. Characters—”

  She stopped. A sheet had been spread on the Terrace. It was a lake apparently. Roughly painted ripples represented water. Those green stakes were bulrushes. Rather prettily, real swallows darted across the sheet.

  “Look, Minnie!” she exclaimed. “Those are real swallows!”

  “Hush, hush,” she was admonished. For the scene had begun. A young man in peg-top trousers and side whiskers carrying a spiked stick appeared by the lake.

  EDGAR T. . . . Let me help you, Miss Hardcastle! There!

  (he helps Miss Eleanor Hardcastle, a young lady in crinoline and mushroom hat to the top. They stand for a moment panting slightly, looking at the view.)

  ELEANOR. How small the Church looks down among the trees!

  EDGAR. . . . So this is Wanderer’s Well, the trysting-place.

  ELEANOR. . . . Please Mr. Thorold, finish what you were saying before the others come. You were saying, “Our aim in life . . .”

  EDGAR. . . . Should be to help our fellow men.

  ELEANOR (sighing deeply) How true — how profoundly true!

  EDGAR. . . . Why sigh, Miss Hardcastle? — You have nothing to reproach yourself with — you whose whole life is spent in the service of others. It was of myself that I was thinking. I am no longer young. At twenty-four the best days of life are over. My life has passed (he throws a pebble on to the lake) like a ripple in water.

  ELEANOR. Oh Mr, Thorold, you do not know me. I am not what I seem. I too —

  EDGAR. . . . Do not tell me, Miss Hardcastle — no, I cannot believe it — You have doubted?

  ELEANOR. Thank Heaven not that, not that . . . But safe and sheltered as I am, always at home, protected as you see me, as you think me. O what am I saying? But yes, I will speak the truth, before Mama comes. I too have longed to convert the heathen!

  EDGAR. . . . Miss Hardcastle . . . Eleanor . . . You tempt me! Dare I ask you? No — so young, so fair, so innocent. Think, I implore you, before you answer.

  ELEANOR. . . . I have thought — on my knees!

  EDGAR (taking a ring from his pocket) Then. . . . My mother with her last breath charged me to give this ring only to one to whom a lifetime in the African desert among the heathens would be —

  ELEANOR (taking the ring) Perfect happiness! But hist! (She slips the ring into her pocket) Here’s Mama! (They start asunder)

  (Enter Mrs. Hardcastle, a stout lady in black bombazine, upon a donkey, escorted by an elderly gentleman in a deer-stalker’s cap)

  MRS. H. . . . So you stole a march upon us, young people. There was a time, Sir John, when you and I were always first on top. Now . . .

  (He helps her to alight. Children, young men, young women, some carrying hampers, others butterfly nets, others spy-glasses, others tin botanical cases arrive. A rug is thrown by the lake and Mrs. H. and Sir John seat themselves on camp stools.)

  MRS. H. . . . Now who’ll fill the kettles? Who’ll gather the sticks? Alfred (to a small boy), don’t run about chasing butterflies or you’ll make yourself sick . . . Sir John and I will unpack the hampers, here where the grass is burnt, where we had the picnic last year.

  (The young people scatter off in different directions. Mrs. H. and Sir John begin to unpack the hamper)

  MRS. H. . . . Last year poor dear Mr. Beach was with us. It was a blessed release. (She takes out a black-bordered handkerchief and wipes her eyes). Every year one of us is missing. That’s the ham . . . That’s the grouse . . . There in that packet are the game pasties . . . (She spreads the eatables on the grass) As I was saying poor dear Mr. Beach . . . I do hope the cream hasn’t curdled. Mr. Hardcastle is bringing the claret. I always leave that to him. Only when Mr. Hardcastle gets talking with Mr. Pigott about the Romans . . . last year they quite came to words. . . . But it’s nice for gentlemen to have a hobby, though they do gather the dust — those skulls and things. . . . But I was saying — poor dear Mr. Beach. . . . I wanted to ask you (she drops her voice) as a friend of the family, about the new clergyman — they can’t hear us, can they? No, they’re picking up sticks. . . . Last year, such a disappointment. Just got the things out . . . down came the rain. But I wanted to ask you, about the new clergyman, the one who’s come in place of dear Mr. Beach. I’m told the name’s Sibthorp. To be sure, I hope I’m right, for I had a cousin who married a girl of that name, and as a friend of the family, we don’t stand on ceremony . . . And when one has daughters — I’m sure I quite envy you, with only one daughter, Sir John, and I have four! So I was asking you to tell me in confidence, about this young — if that’s-his-name — Sibthorp, for I must tell you the day before yesterday our Mrs. Potts happened to say, as she passed the Rectory, bringing our laundry, they were unpacking the furniture; and what did she see on top of the wardrobe? A tea cosy! But of course she might be mistaken . . . But it occurred to me to ask you, as a friend of the family, in confidence, has Mr. Sibthorp a wife?

  Here a chorus composed of villagers in Victorian mantles, side whiskers and top hats sang in concert:

  O has Mr. Sibthorp a wife? O has Mr. Sibthorp a wife? That is the hornet, the bee in the bonnet, the screw in the cork and the drill; that whirling and twirling are for ever unfurling the folds of the motherly heart; for a mother must ask, if daughters she has, begot in the feathery billowy fourposter family bed, O did he unpack, with his prayer book and bands; his gown and his cane; his rod and his line; and the family album and gun; did he also display the connubial respectable tea-table token, a cosy with honeysuckle embossed. Has Mr. Sibthorp a wife? O has Mr. Sibthorp a wife?

  While the chorus was sung, the picnickers assembled. Corks popped. Grouse, ham, chickens were sliced. Lips munched. Glasses were drained. Nothing was heard but the chump of jaws and the chink of glasses.

  “They did eat,” Mrs. Lynn Jones whispered to Mrs. Springett. “That’s true. More than was good for them, I dare say.”

  MR. HARDCASTLE . . . (brushing flakes of meat from his whiskers) Now . . .

  “Now what?” whispered Mrs. Springett, anticipating further travesty.

  Now that we have gratified the inner man, let us gratify the desire of the spirit. I call upon one of the young ladies for a song.

  CHORUS OF YOUNG LADIES . . . O not me . . . not me . . . I really couldn’t . . . No, you
cruel thing, you know I’ve lost my voice . . . I can’t sing without the instrument . . . etc., etc.

  CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN. O bosh! Let’s have “The Last Rose of Summer.” Let’s have “I never loved a Dear Gazelle.”

  MRS. H. (authoritatively) Eleanor and Mildred will now sing “I’d be a Butterfly.”

  (Eleanor and Mildred rise obediently and sing a duet: “I’d be a Butterfly.”)

  MRS. H. Thank you very much, my dears. And now gentlemen, Our Country!

  (Arthur and Edgar sing “Rule Britannia.”)

  MRS. H. . . . Thank you very much. Mr. Hardcastle —

  MR. HARDCASTLE (rising to his feet, clasping his fossil) Let us pray.

  (the whole company rise to their feet)

  “This is too much, too much,” Mrs. Springett protested.

  MR. H. . . . Almighty God, giver of all good things, we thank Thee; for our food and drink; for the beauties of Nature; for the understanding with which Thou hast enlightened us (he fumbled with his fossil) And for thy great gift of Peace. Grant us to be thy servants on earth; grant us to spread the light of thy . . .

  Here the hindquarters of the donkey, represented by Albert the idiot, became active. Intentional was it, or accidental? “Look at the donkey! Look at the donkey!” A titter drowned Mr. Hardcastle’s prayer; and then he was heard saying:

  . . . a happy homecoming with bodies refreshed by thy bounty, and minds inspired by thy wisdom. Amen.

  Holding his fossil in front of him, Mr. Hardcastle marched off. The donkey was captured; hampers were loaded; and forming into a procession, the picnickers began to disappear over the hill.

  EDGAR (winding up the procession with Eleanor) To convert the heathen!

  ELEANOR. To help our fellow men!

  (The actors disappeared into the bushes.)

  BUDGE. . . . It’s time, gentlemen, time ladies, time to pack up and be gone. From where I stand, truncheon in hand, guarding respectability, and prosperity, and the purity of Victoria’s land, I see before me — (he pointed: there was Pointz Hall; the rooks cawing; the smoke rising)