The Voyage Out
“And it takes that to get back,” said Rachel. She raised herself very
slowly. When she was standing up she stretched her arms and drew a deep
breath, half a sigh, half a yawn. She appeared to be very tired. Her
cheeks were white. “Which way?” she asked.
“There,” said Terence.
They began to walk back down the mossy path again. The sighing and
creaking continued far overhead, and the jarring cries of animals. The
butterflies were circling still in the patches of yellow sunlight. At
first Terence was certain of his way, but as they walked he became
doubtful. They had to stop to consider, and then to return and start
once more, for although he was certain of the direction of the river he
was not certain of striking the point where they had left the others.
Rachel followed him, stopping where he stopped, turning where he
turned, ignorant of the way, ignorant why he stopped or why he turned.
“I don’t want to be late,” he said, “because—” He put a flower into her
hand and her fingers closed upon it quietly. “We’re so late—so late—so
horribly late,” he repeated as if he were talking in his sleep.
“Ah—this is right. We turn here.”
They found themselves again in the broad path, like the drive in the
English forest, where they had started when they left the others. They
walked on in silence as people walking in their sleep, and were oddly
conscious now and again of the mass of their bodies. Then Rachel
exclaimed suddenly, “Helen!”
In the sunny space at the edge of the forest they saw Helen still
sitting on the tree-trunk, her dress showing very white in the sun,
with Hirst still propped on his elbow by her side. They stopped
instinctively. At the sight of other people they could not go on. They
stood hand in hand for a minute or two in silence. They could not bear
to face other people.
“But we must go on,” Rachel insisted at last, in the curious dull tone
of voice in which they had both been speaking, and with a great effort
they forced themselves to cover the short distance which lay between
them and the pair sitting on the tree-trunk.
As they approached, Helen turned round and looked at them. She looked
at them for some time without speaking, and when they were close to her
she said quietly:
“Did you meet Mr. Flushing? He has gone to find you. He thought you
must be lost, though I told him you weren’t lost.”
Hirst half turned round and threw his head back so that he looked at
the branches crossing themselves in the air above him.
“Well, was it worth the effort?” he enquired dreamily.
Hewet sat down on the grass by his side and began to fan himself.
Rachel had balanced herself near Helen on the end of the tree trunk.
“Very hot,” she said.
“You look exhausted anyhow,” said Hirst.
“It’s fearfully close in those trees,” Helen remarked, picking up her
book and shaking it free from the dried blades of grass which had
fallen between the leaves. Then they were all silent, looking at the
river swirling past in front of them between the trunks of the trees
until Mr. Flushing interrupted them. He broke out of the trees a
hundred yards to the left, exclaiming sharply:
“Ah, so you found the way after all. But it’s late—much later than we
arranged, Hewet.”
He was slightly annoyed, and in his capacity as leader of the
expedition, inclined to be dictatorial. He spoke quickly, using
curiously sharp, meaningless words.
“Being late wouldn’t matter normally, of course,” he said, “but when
it’s a question of keeping the men up to time—”
He gathered them together and made them come down to the river-bank,
where the boat was waiting to row them out to the steamer.
The heat of the day was going down, and over their cups of tea the
Flushings tended to become communicative. It seemed to Terence as he
listened to them talking, that existence now went on in two different
layers. Here were the Flushings talking, talking somewhere high up in
the air above him, and he and Rachel had dropped to the bottom of the
world together. But with something of a child’s directness, Mrs.
Flushing had also the instinct which leads a child to suspect what its
elders wish to keep hidden. She fixed Terence with her vivid blue eyes
and addressed herself to him in particular. What would he do, she
wanted to know, if the boat ran upon a rock and sank.
“Would you care for anythin’ but savin’ yourself? Should I? No, no,”
she laughed, “not one scrap—don’t tell me. There’s only two creatures
the ordinary woman cares about,” she continued, “her child and her dog;
and I don’t believe it’s even two with men. One reads a lot about
love—that’s why poetry’s so dull. But what happens in real life, eh? It
ain’t love!” she cried.
Terence murmured something unintelligible. Mr. Flushing, however, had
recovered his urbanity. He was smoking a cigarette, and he now answered
his wife.
“You must always remember, Alice,” he said, “that your upbringing was
very unnatural—unusual, I should say. They had no mother,” he
explained, dropping something of the formality of his tone; “and a
father—he was a very delightful man, I’ve no doubt, but he cared only
for racehorses and Greek statues. Tell them about the bath, Alice.”
“In the stable-yard,” said Mrs. Flushing. “Covered with ice in winter.
We had to get in; if we didn’t, we were whipped. The strong ones
lived—the others died. What you call survival of the fittest—a most
excellent plan, I daresay, if you’ve thirteen children!”
“And all this going on in the heart of England, in the nineteenth
century!” Mr. Flushing exclaimed, turning to Helen.
“I’d treat my children just the same if I had any,” said Mrs. Flushing.
Every word sounded quite distinctly in Terence’s ears; but what were
they saying, and who were they talking to, and who were they, these
fantastic people, detached somewhere high up in the air? Now that they
had drunk their tea, they rose and leant over the bow of the boat. The
sun was going down, and the water was dark and crimson. The river had
widened again, and they were passing a little island set like a dark
wedge in the middle of the stream. Two great white birds with red
lights on them stood there on stilt-like legs, and the beach of the
island was unmarked, save by the skeleton print of birds’ feet. The
branches of the trees on the bank looked more twisted and angular than
ever, and the green of the leaves was lurid and splashed with gold.
Then Hirst began to talk, leaning over the bow.
“It makes one awfully queer, don’t you find?” he complained. “These
trees get on one’s nerves—it’s all so crazy. God’s undoubtedly mad.
What sane person could have conceived a wilderness like this, and
peopled it with apes and alligators? I should go mad if I lived
here—raving mad.”
Terence attempted to answer him, but Mrs. Ambrose replied instead. She
bade him look at the way things massed themselves—look at the amazing
colours, look at the shapes of the trees. She seemed to be protecting
Terence from the approach of the others.
“Yes,” said Mr. Flushing. “And in my opinion,” he continued, “the
absence of population to which Hirst objects is precisely the
significant touch. You must admit, Hirst, that a little Italian town
even would vulgarise the whole scene, would detract from the
vastness—the sense of elemental grandeur.” He swept his hands towards
the forest, and paused for a moment, looking at the great green mass,
which was now falling silent. “I own it makes us seem pretty small—us,
not them.” He nodded his head at a sailor who leant over the side
spitting into the river. “And that, I think, is what my wife feels, the
essential superiority of the peasant—” Under cover of Mr. Flushing’s
words, which continued now gently reasoning with St. John and
persuading him, Terence drew Rachel to the side, pointing ostensibly to
a great gnarled tree-trunk which had fallen and lay half in the water.
He wished, at any rate, to be near her, but he found that he could say
nothing. They could hear Mr. Flushing flowing on, now about his wife,
now about art, now about the future of the country, little meaningless
words floating high in air. As it was becoming cold he began to pace
the deck with Hirst. Fragments of their talk came out distinctly as
they passed—art, emotion, truth, reality.
“Is it true, or is it a dream?” Rachel murmured, when they had passed.
“It’s true, it’s true,” he replied.
But the breeze freshened, and there was a general desire for movement.
When the party rearranged themselves under cover of rugs and cloaks,
Terence and Rachel were at opposite ends of the circle, and could not
speak to each other. But as the dark descended, the words of the others
seemed to curl up and vanish as the ashes of burnt paper, and left them
sitting perfectly silent at the bottom of the world. Occasional starts
of exquisite joy ran through them, and then they were peaceful again.
CHAPTER XXI
Thanks to Mr. Flushing’s discipline, the right stages of the river were
reached at the right hours, and when next morning after breakfast the
chairs were again drawn out in a semicircle in the bow, the launch was
within a few miles of the native camp which was the limit of the
journey. Mr. Flushing, as he sat down, advised them to keep their eyes
fixed on the left bank, where they would soon pass a clearing, and in
that clearing, was a hut where Mackenzie, the famous explorer, had died
of fever some ten years ago, almost within reach of
civilisation—Mackenzie, he repeated, the man who went farther inland
than any one’s been yet. Their eyes turned that way obediently. The
eyes of Rachel saw nothing. Yellow and green shapes did, it is true,
pass before them, but she only knew that one was large and another
small; she did not know that they were trees. These directions to look
here and there irritated her, as interruptions irritate a person
absorbed in thought, although she was not thinking of anything. She was
annoyed with all that was said, and with the aimless movements of
people’s bodies, because they seemed to interfere with her and to
prevent her from speaking to Terence. Very soon Helen saw her staring
moodily at a coil of rope, and making no effort to listen. Mr. Flushing
and St. John were engaged in more or less continuous conversation about
the future of the country from a political point of view, and the
degree to which it had been explored; the others, with their legs
stretched out, or chins poised on the hands, gazed in silence.
Mrs. Ambrose looked and listened obediently enough, but inwardly she
was prey to an uneasy mood not readily to be ascribed to any one cause.
Looking on shore as Mr. Flushing bade her, she thought the country very
beautiful, but also sultry and alarming. She did not like to feel
herself the victim of unclassified emotions, and certainly as the
launch slipped on and on, in the hot morning sun, she felt herself
unreasonably moved. Whether the unfamiliarity of the forest was the
cause of it, or something less definite, she could not determine. Her
mind left the scene and occupied itself with anxieties for Ridley, for
her children, for far-off things, such as old age and poverty and
death. Hirst, too, was depressed. He had been looking forward to this
expedition as to a holiday, for, once away from the hotel, surely
wonderful things would happen, instead of which nothing happened, and
here they were as uncomfortable, as restrained, as self-conscious as
ever. That, of course, was what came of looking forward to anything;
one was always disappointed. He blamed Wilfrid Flushing, who was so
well dressed and so formal; he blamed Hewet and Rachel. Why didn’t they
talk? He looked at them sitting silent and self-absorbed, and the sight
annoyed him. He supposed that they were engaged, or about to become