The Voyage Out
them, but Mrs. Thornbury went up and stopped her.
“Thank you, Hughling’s better,” she replied, in answer to Mrs.
Thornbury’s enquiry, “but he’s not an easy patient. He wants to know
what his temperature is, and if I tell him he gets anxious, and if I
don’t tell him he suspects. You know what men are when they’re ill! And
of course there are none of the proper appliances, and, though he seems
very willing and anxious to help” (here she lowered her voice
mysteriously), “one can’t feel that Dr. Rodriguez is the same as a
proper doctor. If you would come and see him, Mr. Hewet,” she added, “I
know it would cheer him up—lying there in bed all day—and the flies—But
I must go and find Angelo—the food here—of course, with an invalid, one
wants things particularly nice.” And she hurried past them in search of
the head waiter. The worry of nursing her husband had fixed a plaintive
frown upon her forehead; she was pale and looked unhappy and more than
usually inefficient, and her eyes wandered more vaguely than ever from
point to point.
“Poor thing!” Mrs. Thornbury exclaimed. She told them that for some
days Hughling Elliot had been ill, and the only doctor available was
the brother of the proprietor, or so the proprietor said, whose right
to the title of doctor was not above suspicion.
“I know how wretched it is to be ill in a hotel,” Mrs. Thornbury
remarked, once more leading the way with Rachel to the garden. “I spent
six weeks on my honeymoon in having typhoid at Venice,” she continued.
“But even so, I look back upon them as some of the happiest weeks in my
life. Ah, yes,” she said, taking Rachel’s arm, “you think yourself
happy now, but it’s nothing to the happiness that comes afterwards. And
I assure you I could find it in my heart to envy you young people!
You’ve a much better time than we had, I may tell you. When I look back
upon it, I can hardly believe how things have changed. When we were
engaged I wasn’t allowed to go for walks with William alone—some one
had always to be in the room with us—I really believe I had to show my
parents all his letters!—though they were very fond of him too. Indeed,
I may say they looked upon him as their own son. It amuses me,” she
continued, “to think how strict they were to us, when I see how they
spoil their grand-children!”
The table was laid under the tree again, and taking her place before
the teacups, Mrs. Thornbury beckoned and nodded until she had collected
quite a number of people, Susan and Arthur and Mr. Pepper, who were
strolling about, waiting for the tournament to begin. A murmuring tree,
a river brimming in the moonlight, Terence’s words came back to Rachel
as she sat drinking the tea and listening to the words which flowed on
so lightly, so kindly, and with such silvery smoothness. This long life
and all these children had left her very smooth; they seemed to have
rubbed away the marks of individuality, and to have left only what was
old and maternal.
“And the things you young people are going to see!” Mrs. Thornbury
continued. She included them all in her forecast, she included them all
in her maternity, although the party comprised William Pepper and Miss
Allan, both of whom might have been supposed to have seen a fair share
of the panorama. “When I see how the world has changed in my lifetime,”
she went on, “I can set no limit to what may happen in the next fifty
years. Ah, no, Mr. Pepper, I don’t agree with you in the least,” she
laughed, interrupting his gloomy remark about things going steadily
from bad to worse. “I know I ought to feel that, but I don’t, I’m
afraid. They’re going to be much better people than we were. Surely
everything goes to prove that. All round me I see women, young women,
women with household cares of every sort, going out and doing things
that we should not have thought it possible to do.”
Mr. Pepper thought her sentimental and irrational like all old women,
but her manner of treating him as if he were a cross old baby baffled
him and charmed him, and he could only reply to her with a curious
grimace which was more a smile than a frown.
“And they remain women,” Mrs. Thornbury added. “They give a great deal
to their children.”
As she said this she smiled slightly in the direction of Susan and
Rachel. They did not like to be included in the same lot, but they both
smiled a little self-consciously, and Arthur and Terence glanced at
each other too. She made them feel that they were all in the same boat
together, and they looked at the women they were going to marry and
compared them. It was inexplicable how any one could wish to marry
Rachel, incredible that any one should be ready to spend his life with
Susan; but singular though the other’s taste must be, they bore each
other no ill-will on account of it; indeed, they liked each other
rather the better for the eccentricity of their choice.
“I really must congratulate you,” Susan remarked, as she leant across
the table for the jam.
There seemed to be no foundation for St. John’s gossip about Arthur and
Susan. Sunburnt and vigorous they sat side by side, with their racquets
across their knees, not saying much but smiling slightly all the time.
Through the thin white clothes which they wore, it was possible to see
the lines of their bodies and legs, the beautiful curves of their
muscles, his leanness and her flesh, and it was natural to think of the
firm-fleshed sturdy children that would be theirs. Their faces had too
little shape in them to be beautiful, but they had clear eyes and an
appearance of great health and power of endurance, for it seemed as if
the blood would never cease to run in his veins, or to lie deeply and
calmly in her cheeks. Their eyes at the present moment were brighter
than usual, and wore the peculiar expression of pleasure and
self-confidence which is seen in the eyes of athletes, for they had
been playing tennis, and they were both first-rate at the game.
Evelyn had not spoken, but she had been looking from Susan to Rachel.
Well—they had both made up their minds very easily, they had done in a
very few weeks what it sometimes seemed to her that she would never be
able to do. Although they were so different, she thought that she could
see in each the same look of satisfaction and completion, the same
calmness of manner, and the same slowness of movement. It was that
slowness, that confidence, that content which she hated, she thought to
herself. They moved so slowly because they were not single but double,
and Susan was attached to Arthur, and Rachel to Terence, and for the
sake of this one man they had renounced all other men, and movement,
and the real things of life. Love was all very well, and those snug
domestic houses, with the kitchen below and the nursery above, which
were so secluded and self-contained, like little islands in the
torrents of the world; but the real things were surely the things that
happened, the causes, the wars, the ideals, which happened in the great
world outside, and went so independently of these women, turning so
quietly and beautifully towards the men. She looked at them sharply. Of
course they were happy and content, but there must be better things
than that. Surely one could get nearer to life, one could get more out
of life, one could enjoy more and feel more than they would ever do.
Rachel in particular looked so young—what could she know of life? She
became restless, and getting up, crossed over to sit beside Rachel. She
reminded her that she had promised to join her club.
“The bother is,” she went on, “that I mayn’t be able to start work
seriously till October. I’ve just had a letter from a friend of mine
whose brother is in business in Moscow. They want me to stay with them,
and as they’re in the thick of all the conspiracies and anarchists,
I’ve a good mind to stop on my way home. It sounds too thrilling.” She
wanted to make Rachel see how thrilling it was. “My friend knows a girl
of fifteen who’s been sent to Siberia for life merely because they
caught her addressing a letter to an anarchist. And the letter wasn’t
from her, either. I’d give all I have in the world to help on a
revolution against the Russian government, and it’s bound to come.”
She looked from Rachel to Terence. They were both a little touched by
the sight of her remembering how lately they had been listening to evil
words about her, and Terence asked her what her scheme was, and she
explained that she was going to found a club—a club for doing things,
really doing them. She became very animated, as she talked on and on,
for she professed herself certain that if once twenty people—no, ten
would be enough if they were keen—set about doing things instead of
talking about doing them, they could abolish almost every evil that
exists. It was brains that were needed. If only people with brains—of
course they would want a room, a nice room, in Bloomsbury preferably,
where they could meet once a week. . . .
As she talked Terence could see the traces of fading youth in her face,
the lines that were being drawn by talk and excitement round her mouth
and eyes, but he did not pity her; looking into those bright, rather
hard, and very courageous eyes, he saw that she did not pity herself,
or feel any desire to exchange her own life for the more refined and
orderly lives of people like himself and St. John, although, as the
years went by, the fight would become harder and harder. Perhaps,
though, she would settle down; perhaps, after all, she would marry
Perrott. While his mind was half occupied with what she was saying, he
thought of her probable destiny, the light clouds of tobacco smoke
serving to obscure his face from her eyes.
Terence smoked and Arthur smoked and Evelyn smoked, so that the air was
full of the mist and fragrance of good tobacco. In the intervals when
no one spoke, they heard far off the low murmur of the sea, as the
waves quietly broke and spread the beach with a film of water, and
withdrew to break again. The cool green light fell through the leaves
of the tree, and there were soft crescents and diamonds of sunshine
upon the plates and the tablecloth. Mrs. Thornbury, after watching them
all for a time in silence, began to ask Rachel kindly questions—When
did they all go back? Oh, they expected her father. She must want to
see her father—there would be a great deal to tell him, and (she looked
sympathetically at Terence) he would be so happy, she felt sure. Years
ago, she continued, it might have been ten or twenty years ago, she
remembered meeting Mr. Vinrace at a party, and, being so much struck by
his face, which was so unlike the ordinary face one sees at a party,
that she had asked who he was, and she was told that it was Mr.
Vinrace, and she had always remembered the name,—an uncommon name,—and
he had a lady with him, a very sweet-looking woman, but it was one of
those dreadful London crushes, where you don’t talk,—you only look at
each other,—and although she had shaken hands with Mr. Vinrace, she
didn’t think they had said anything. She sighed very slightly,
remembering the past.
Then she turned to Mr. Pepper, who had become very dependent on her, so
that he always chose a seat near her, and attended to what she was
saying, although he did not often make any remark of his own.
“You who know everything, Mr. Pepper,” she said, “tell us how did those
wonderful French ladies manage their salons? Did we ever do anything of
the same kind in England, or do you think that there is some reason why
we cannot do it in England?”
Mr. Pepper was pleased to explain very accurately why there has never
been an English salon. There were three reasons, and they were very
good ones, he said. As for himself, when he went to a party, as one was