The Voyage Out
modern books, books in shiny yellow covers, books with a great deal of
gilding on the back, which were tokens in her aunt’s eyes of harsh
wrangling and disputes about facts which had no such importance as the
moderns claimed for them. But she did not interfere. Rachel read what
she chose, reading with the curious literalness of one to whom written
sentences are unfamiliar, and handling words as though they were made
of wood, separately of great importance, and possessed of shapes like
tables or chairs. In this way she came to conclusions, which had to be
remodelled according to the adventures of the day, and were indeed
recast as liberally as any one could desire, leaving always a small
grain of belief behind them.
Ibsen was succeeded by a novel such as Mrs. Ambrose detested, whose
purpose was to distribute the guilt of a woman’s downfall upon the
right shoulders; a purpose which was achieved, if the reader’s
discomfort were any proof of it. She threw the book down, looked out of
the window, turned away from the window, and relapsed into an
arm-chair.
The morning was hot, and the exercise of reading left her mind
contracting and expanding like the main-spring of a clock, and the
small noises of midday, which one can ascribe to no definite cause, in
a regular rhythm. It was all very real, very big, very impersonal, and
after a moment or two she began to raise her first finger and to let it
fall on the arm of her chair so as to bring back to herself some
consciousness of her own existence. She was next overcome by the
unspeakable queerness of the fact that she should be sitting in an
arm-chair, in the morning, in the middle of the world. Who were the
people moving in the house—moving things from one place to another? And
life, what was that? It was only a light passing over the surface and
vanishing, as in time she would vanish, though the furniture in the
room would remain. Her dissolution became so complete that she could
not raise her finger any more, and sat perfectly still, listening and
looking always at the same spot. It became stranger and stranger. She
was overcome with awe that things should exist at all. . . . She forgot
that she had any fingers to raise. . . . The things that existed were
so immense and so desolate. . . . She continued to be conscious of
these vast masses of substance for a long stretch of time, the clock
still ticking in the midst of the universal silence.
“Come in,” she said mechanically, for a string in her brain seemed to
be pulled by a persistent knocking at the door. With great slowness the
door opened and a tall human being came towards her, holding out her
arm and saying:
“What am I to say to this?”
The utter absurdity of a woman coming into a room with a piece of paper
in her hand amazed Rachel.
“I don’t know what to answer, or who Terence Hewet is,” Helen
continued, in the toneless voice of a ghost. She put a paper before
Rachel on which were written the incredible words:
DEAR MRS. AMBROSE—I am getting up a picnic for next Friday, when we
propose to start at eleven-thirty if the weather is fine, and to make
the ascent of Monte Rosa. It will take some time, but the view should
be magnificent. It would give me great pleasure if you and Miss Vinrace
would consent to be of the party.—Yours sincerely,
TERENCE HEWET
Rachel read the words aloud to make herself believe in them. For the
same reason she put her hand on Helen’s shoulder.
“Books—books—books,” said Helen, in her absent-minded way. “More new
books—I wonder what you find in them. . . .”
For the second time Rachel read the letter, but to herself. This time,
instead of seeming vague as ghosts, each word was astonishingly
prominent; they came out as the tops of mountains come through a mist.
_Friday_—_eleven-thirty_—_Miss Vinrace_. The blood began to run in her
veins; she felt her eyes brighten.
“We must go,” she said, rather surprising Helen by her decision. “We
must certainly go”—such was the relief of finding that things still
happened, and indeed they appeared the brighter for the mist
surrounding them.
“Monte Rosa—that’s the mountain over there, isn’t it?” said Helen; “but
Hewet—who’s he? One of the young men Ridley met, I suppose. Shall I say
yes, then? It may be dreadfully dull.”
She took the letter back and went, for the messenger was waiting for
her answer.
The party which had been suggested a few nights ago in Mr. Hirst’s
bedroom had taken shape and was the source of great satisfaction to Mr.
Hewet, who had seldom used his practical abilities, and was pleased to
find them equal to the strain. His invitations had been universally
accepted, which was the more encouraging as they had been issued
against Hirst’s advice to people who were very dull, not at all suited
to each other, and sure not to come.
“Undoubtedly,” he said, as he twirled and untwirled a note signed Helen
Ambrose, “the gifts needed to make a great commander have been absurdly
overrated. About half the intellectual effort which is needed to review
a book of modern poetry has enabled me to get together seven or eight
people, of opposite sexes, at the same spot at the same hour on the
same day. What else is generalship, Hirst? What more did Wellington do
on the field of Waterloo? It’s like counting the number of pebbles of a
path, tedious but not difficult.”
He was sitting in his bedroom, one leg over the arm of the chair, and
Hirst was writing a letter opposite. Hirst was quick to point out that
all the difficulties remained.
“For instance, here are two women you’ve never seen. Suppose one of
them suffers from mountain-sickness, as my sister does, and the other—”
“Oh, the women are for you,” Hewet interrupted. “I asked them solely
for your benefit. What you want, Hirst, you know, is the society of
young women of your own age. You don’t know how to get on with women,
which is a great defect, considering that half the world consists of
women.”
Hirst groaned that he was quite aware of that.
But Hewet’s complacency was a little chilled as he walked with Hirst to
the place where a general meeting had been appointed. He wondered why
on earth he had asked these people, and what one really expected to get
from bunching human beings up together.
“Cows,” he reflected, “draw together in a field; ships in a calm; and
we’re just the same when we’ve nothing else to do. But why do we do
it?—is it to prevent ourselves from seeing to the bottom of things” (he
stopped by a stream and began stirring it with his walking-stick and
clouding the water with mud), “making cities and mountains and whole
universes out of nothing, or do we really love each other, or do we, on
the other hand, live in a state of perpetual uncertainty, knowing
nothing, leaping from moment to moment as from world to world?—which
is, on the whole, the view _I_ incline to.”
He jumped over the stream; Hirst went round and joined him, remarking
that he had long ceased to look for the reason of any human action.
Half a mile further, they came to a group of plane trees and the
salmon-pink farmhouse standing by the stream which had been chosen as
meeting-place. It was a shady spot, lying conveniently just where the
hill sprung out from the flat. Between the thin stems of the plane
trees the young men could see little knots of donkeys pasturing, and a
tall woman rubbing the nose of one of them, while another woman was
kneeling by the stream lapping water out of her palms.
As they entered the shady place, Helen looked up and then held out her
hand.
“I must introduce myself,” she said. “I am Mrs. Ambrose.”
Having shaken hands, she said, “That’s my niece.”
Rachel approached awkwardly. She held out her hand, but withdrew it.
“It’s all wet,” she said.
Scarcely had they spoken, when the first carriage drew up.
The donkeys were quickly jerked into attention, and the second carriage
arrived. By degrees the grove filled with people—the Elliots, the
Thornburys, Mr. Venning and Susan, Miss Allan, Evelyn Murgatroyd, and
Mr. Perrott. Mr. Hirst acted the part of hoarse energetic sheep-dog. By
means of a few words of caustic Latin he had the animals marshalled,
and by inclining a sharp shoulder he lifted the ladies. “What Hewet
fails to understand,” he remarked, “is that we must break the back of
the ascent before midday.” He was assisting a young lady, by name
Evelyn Murgatroyd, as he spoke. She rose light as a bubble to her seat.
With a feather drooping from a broad-brimmed hat, in white from top to
toe, she looked like a gallant lady of the time of Charles the First
leading royalist troops into action.
“Ride with me,” she commanded; and, as soon as Hirst had swung himself
across a mule, the two started, leading the cavalcade.
“You’re not to call me Miss Murgatroyd. I hate it,” she said. “My
name’s Evelyn. What’s yours?”
“St. John,” he said.
“I like that,” said Evelyn. “And what’s your friend’s name?”
“His initials being R. S. T., we call him Monk,” said Hirst.
“Oh, you’re all too clever,” she said. “Which way? Pick me a branch.
Let’s canter.”
She gave her donkey a sharp cut with a switch and started forward. The
full and romantic career of Evelyn Murgatroyd is best hit off by her
own words, “Call me Evelyn and I’ll call you St. John.” She said that
on very slight provocation—her surname was enough—but although a great
many young men had answered her already with considerable spirit she
went on saying it and making choice of none. But her donkey stumbled to
a jog-trot, and she had to ride in advance alone, for the path when it
began to ascend one of the spines of the hill became narrow and
scattered with stones. The cavalcade wound on like a jointed
caterpillar, tufted with the white parasols of the ladies, and the
panama hats of the gentlemen. At one point where the ground rose
sharply, Evelyn M. jumped off, threw her reins to the native boy, and
adjured St. John Hirst to dismount too. Their example was followed by
those who felt the need of stretching.
“I don’t see any need to get off,” said Miss Allan to Mrs. Elliot just
behind her, “considering the difficulty I had getting on.”
“These little donkeys stand anything, _n’est-ce pas_?” Mrs. Elliot
addressed the guide, who obligingly bowed his head.
“Flowers,” said Helen, stooping to pick the lovely little bright
flowers which grew separately here and there. “You pinch their leaves
and then they smell,” she said, laying one on Miss Allan’s knee.
“Haven’t we met before?” asked Miss Allan, looking at her.
“I was taking it for granted,” Helen laughed, for in the confusion of
meeting they had not been introduced.
“How sensible!” chirped Mrs. Elliot. “That’s just what one would always
like—only unfortunately it’s not possible.”
“Not possible?” said Helen. “Everything’s possible. Who knows what
mayn’t happen before night-fall?” she continued, mocking the poor
lady’s timidity, who depended so implicitly upon one thing following
another that the mere glimpse of a world where dinner could be
disregarded, or the table moved one inch from its accustomed place,
filled her with fears for her own stability.
Higher and higher they went, becoming separated from the world. The
world, when they turned to look back, flattened itself out, and was
marked with squares of thin green and grey.
“Towns are very small,” Rachel remarked, obscuring the whole of Santa
Marina and its suburbs with one hand. The sea filled in all the angles
of the coast smoothly, breaking in a white frill, and here and there
ships were set firmly in the blue. The sea was stained with purple and
green blots, and there was a glittering line upon the rim where it met
the sky. The air was very clear and silent save for the sharp noise of