The Voyage Out
it says. A very respectable elderly pair, having inspected the long
tables of newspapers, did not think it worth their while to read more
than the headlines.
“The debate on the fifteenth should have reached us by now,” Mrs.
Thornbury murmured. Mr. Thornbury, who was beautifully clean and had
red rubbed into his handsome worn face like traces of paint on a
weather-beaten wooden figure, looked over his glasses and saw that Miss
Allan had _The Times_.
The couple therefore sat themselves down in arm-chairs and waited.
“Ah, there’s Mr. Hewet,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “Mr. Hewet,” she
continued, “do come and sit by us. I was telling my husband how much
you reminded me of a dear old friend of mine—Mary Umpleby. She was a
most delightful woman, I assure you. She grew roses. We used to stay
with her in the old days.”
“No young man likes to have it said that he resembles an elderly
spinster,” said Mr. Thornbury.
“On the contrary,” said Mr. Hewet, “I always think it a compliment to
remind people of some one else. But Miss Umpleby—why did she grow
roses?”
“Ah, poor thing,” said Mrs. Thornbury, “that’s a long story. She had
gone through dreadful sorrows. At one time I think she would have lost
her senses if it hadn’t been for her garden. The soil was very much
against her—a blessing in disguise; she had to be up at dawn—out in all
weathers. And then there are creatures that eat roses. But she
triumphed. She always did. She was a brave soul.” She sighed deeply but
at the same time with resignation.
“I did not realise that I was monopolising the paper,” said Miss Allan,
coming up to them.
“We were so anxious to read about the debate,” said Mrs. Thornbury,
accepting it on behalf of her husband.
“One doesn’t realise how interesting a debate can be until one has sons
in the navy. My interests are equally balanced, though; I have sons in
the army too; and one son who makes speeches at the Union—my baby!”
“Hirst would know him, I expect,” said Hewet.
“Mr. Hirst has such an interesting face,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “But I
feel one ought to be very clever to talk to him. Well, William?” she
enquired, for Mr. Thornbury grunted.
“They’re making a mess of it,” said Mr. Thornbury. He had reached the
second column of the report, a spasmodic column, for the Irish members
had been brawling three weeks ago at Westminster over a question of
naval efficiency. After a disturbed paragraph or two, the column of
print once more ran smoothly.
“You have read it?” Mrs. Thornbury asked Miss Allan.
“No, I am ashamed to say I have only read about the discoveries in
Crete,” said Miss Allan.
“Oh, but I would give so much to realise the ancient world!” cried Mrs.
Thornbury. “Now that we old people are alone,—we’re on our second
honeymoon,—I am really going to put myself to school again. After all
we are _founded_ on the past, aren’t we, Mr. Hewet? My soldier son says
that there is still a great deal to be learnt from Hannibal. One ought
to know so much more than one does. Somehow when I read the paper, I
begin with the debates first, and, before I’ve done, the door always
opens—we’re a very large party at home—and so one never does think
enough about the ancients and all they’ve done for us. But _you_ begin
at the beginning, Miss Allan.”
“When I think of the Greeks I think of them as naked black men,” said
Miss Allan, “which is quite incorrect, I’m sure.”
“And you, Mr. Hirst?” said Mrs. Thornbury, perceiving that the gaunt
young man was near. “I’m sure you read everything.”
“I confine myself to cricket and crime,” said Hirst. “The worst of
coming from the upper classes,” he continued, “is that one’s friends
are never killed in railway accidents.”
Mr. Thornbury threw down the paper, and emphatically dropped his
eyeglasses. The sheets fell in the middle of the group, and were eyed
by them all.
“It’s not gone well?” asked his wife solicitously.
Hewet picked up one sheet and read, “A lady was walking yesterday in
the streets of Westminster when she perceived a cat in the window of a
deserted house. The famished animal—”
“I shall be out of it anyway,” Mr. Thornbury interrupted peevishly.
“Cats are often forgotten,” Miss Allan remarked.
“Remember, William, the Prime Minister has reserved his answer,” said
Mrs. Thornbury.
“At the age of eighty, Mr. Joshua Harris of Eeles Park, Brondesbury,
has had a son,” said Hirst.
“. . . The famished animal, which had been noticed by workmen for some
days, was rescued, but—by Jove! it bit the man’s hand to pieces!”
“Wild with hunger, I suppose,” commented Miss Allan.
“You’re all neglecting the chief advantage of being abroad,” said Mr.
Hughling Elliot, who had joined the group. “You might read your news in
French, which is equivalent to reading no news at all.”
Mr. Elliot had a profound knowledge of Coptic, which he concealed as
far as possible, and quoted French phrases so exquisitely that it was
hard to believe that he could also speak the ordinary tongue. He had an
immense respect for the French.
“Coming?” he asked the two young men. “We ought to start before it’s
really hot.”
“I beg of you not to walk in the heat, Hugh,” his wife pleaded, giving
him an angular parcel enclosing half a chicken and some raisins.
“Hewet will be our barometer,” said Mr. Elliot. “He will melt before I
shall.” Indeed, if so much as a drop had melted off his spare ribs, the
bones would have lain bare. The ladies were left alone now, surrounding
_The Times_ which lay upon the floor. Miss Allan looked at her father’s
watch.
“Ten minutes to eleven,” she observed.
“Work?” asked Mrs. Thornbury.
“Work,” replied Miss Allan.
“What a fine creature she is!” murmured Mrs. Thornbury, as the square
figure in its manly coat withdrew.
“And I’m sure she has a hard life,” sighed Mrs. Elliot.
“Oh, it _is_ a hard life,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “Unmarried
women—earning their livings—it’s the hardest life of all.”
“Yet she seems pretty cheerful,” said Mrs. Elliot.
“It must be very interesting,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “I envy her her
knowledge.”
“But that isn’t what women want,” said Mrs. Elliot.
“I’m afraid it’s all a great many can hope to have,” sighed Mrs.
Thornbury. “I believe that there are more of us than ever now. Sir
Harley Lethbridge was telling me only the other day how difficult it is
to find boys for the navy—partly because of their teeth, it is true.
And I have heard young women talk quite openly of—”
“Dreadful, dreadful!” exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. “The crown, as one may
call it, of a woman’s life. I, who know what it is to be childless—”
she sighed and ceased.
“But we must not be hard,” said Mrs. Thornbury. “The conditions are so
much changed since I was a young woman.”
“Surely _maternity_ does not change,” said Mrs. Elliot.
“In some ways we can learn a great deal from the young,” said Mrs.
Thornbury. “I learn so much from my own daughters.”
“I believe that Hughling really doesn’t mind,” said Mrs. Elliot. “But
then he has his work.”
“Women without children can do so much for the children of others,”
observed Mrs. Thornbury gently.
“I sketch a great deal,” said Mrs. Elliot, “but that isn’t really an
occupation. It’s so disconcerting to find girls just beginning doing
better than one does oneself! And nature’s difficult—very difficult!”
“Are there not institutions—clubs—that you could help?” asked Mrs.
Thornbury.
“They are so exhausting,” said Mrs. Elliot. “I look strong, because of
my colour; but I’m not; the youngest of eleven never is.”
“If the mother is careful before,” said Mrs. Thornbury judicially,
“there is no reason why the size of the family should make any
difference. And there is no training like the training that brothers
and sisters give each other. I am sure of that. I have seen it with my
own children. My eldest boy Ralph, for instance—”
But Mrs. Elliot was inattentive to the elder lady’s experience, and her
eyes wandered about the hall.
“My mother had two miscarriages, I know,” she said suddenly. “The first
because she met one of those great dancing bears—they shouldn’t be
allowed; the other—it was a horrid story—our cook had a child and there
was a dinner party. So I put my dyspepsia down to that.”
“And a miscarriage is so much worse than a confinement,” Mrs. Thornbury
murmured absentmindedly, adjusting her spectacles and picking up _The
Times_. Mrs. Elliot rose and fluttered away.
When she had heard what one of the million voices speaking in the paper
had to say, and noticed that a cousin of hers had married a clergyman
at Minehead—ignoring the drunken women, the golden animals of Crete,
the movements of battalions, the dinners, the reforms, the fires, the
indignant, the learned and benevolent, Mrs. Thornbury went upstairs to
write a letter for the mail.
The paper lay directly beneath the clock, the two together seeming to
represent stability in a changing world. Mr. Perrott passed through;
Mr. Venning poised for a second on the edge of a table. Mrs. Paley was
wheeled past. Susan followed. Mr. Venning strolled after her.
Portuguese military families, their clothes suggesting late rising in
untidy bedrooms, trailed across, attended by confidential nurses
carrying noisy children. As midday drew on, and the sun beat straight
upon the roof, an eddy of great flies droned in a circle; iced drinks
were served under the palms; the long blinds were pulled down with a
shriek, turning all the light yellow. The clock now had a silent hall
to tick in, and an audience of four or five somnolent merchants. By
degrees white figures with shady hats came in at the door, admitting a
wedge of the hot summer day, and shutting it out again. After resting
in the dimness for a minute, they went upstairs. Simultaneously, the
clock wheezed one, and the gong sounded, beginning softly, working
itself into a frenzy, and ceasing. There was a pause. Then all those
who had gone upstairs came down; cripples came, planting both feet on
the same step lest they should slip; prim little girls came, holding
the nurse’s finger; fat old men came still buttoning waistcoats. The
gong had been sounded in the garden, and by degrees recumbent figures
rose and strolled in to eat, since the time had come for them to feed
again. There were pools and bars of shade in the garden even at midday,
where two or three visitors could lie working or talking at their ease.
Owing to the heat of the day, luncheon was generally a silent meal,
when people observed their neighbors and took stock of any new faces
there might be, hazarding guesses as to who they were and what they
did. Mrs. Paley, although well over seventy and crippled in the legs,
enjoyed her food and the peculiarities of her fellow-beings. She was
seated at a small table with Susan.
“I shouldn’t like to say what _she_ is!” she chuckled, surveying a tall
woman dressed conspicuously in white, with paint in the hollows of her
cheeks, who was always late, and always attended by a shabby female
follower, at which remark Susan blushed, and wondered why her aunt said
such things.
Lunch went on methodically, until each of the seven courses was left in
fragments and the fruit was merely a toy, to be peeled and sliced as a
child destroys a daisy, petal by petal. The food served as an
extinguisher upon any faint flame of the human spirit that might
survive the midday heat, but Susan sat in her room afterwards, turning
over and over the delightful fact that Mr. Venning had come to her in
the garden, and had sat there quite half an hour while she read aloud
to her aunt. Men and women sought different corners where they could
lie unobserved, and from two to four it might be said without
exaggeration that the hotel was inhabited by bodies without souls.