into the casserole, anxious to pay himself this little tribute, for he
had only to come to London and he met everybody at once; but greedy,
one of the greediest men she had ever known, Milly Brush thought, who
observed men with unflinching rectitude, and was capable of everlasting
devotion, to her own sex in particular, being knobbed, scraped,
angular, and entirely without feminine charm.
“D’you know who’s in town?” said Lady Bruton suddenly bethinking her.
“Our old friend, Peter Walsh.”
They all smiled. Peter Walsh! And Mr. Dalloway was genuinely glad,
Milly Brush thought; and Mr. Whitbread thought only of his chicken.
Peter Walsh! All three, Lady Bruton, Hugh Whitbread, and Richard
Dalloway, remembered the same thing--how passionately Peter had been
in love; been rejected; gone to India; come a cropper; made a mess of
things; and Richard Dalloway had a very great liking for the dear old
fellow too. Milly Brush saw that; saw a depth in the brown of his eyes;
saw him hesitate; consider; which interested her, as Mr. Dalloway
always interested her, for what was he thinking, she wondered, about
Peter Walsh?
That Peter Walsh had been in love with Clarissa; that he would go back
directly after lunch and find Clarissa; that he would tell her, in so
many words, that he loved her. Yes, he would say that.
Milly Brush once might almost have fallen in love with these silences;
and Mr. Dalloway was always so dependable; such a gentleman too. Now,
being forty, Lady Bruton had only to nod, or turn her head a little
abruptly, and Milly Brush took the signal, however deeply she might
be sunk in these reflections of a detached spirit, of an uncorrupted
soul whom life could not bamboozle, because life had not offered her
a trinket of the slightest value; not a curl, smile, lip, cheek,
nose; nothing whatever; Lady Bruton had only to nod, and Perkins was
instructed to quicken the coffee.
“Yes; Peter Walsh has come back,” said Lady Bruton. It was vaguely
flattering to them all. He had come back, battered, unsuccessful, to
their secure shores. But to help him, they reflected, was impossible;
there was some flaw in his character. Hugh Whitbread said one might
of course mention his name to So-and-so. He wrinkled lugubriously,
consequentially, at the thought of the letters he would write to the
heads of Government offices about “my old friend, Peter Walsh,” and
so on. But it wouldn’t lead to anything--not to anything permanent,
because of his character.
“In trouble with some woman,” said Lady Bruton. They had all guessed
that _that_ was at the bottom of it.
“However,” said Lady Bruton, anxious to leave the subject, “we shall
hear the whole story from Peter himself.”
(The coffee was very slow in coming.)
“The address?” murmured Hugh Whitbread; and there was at once a ripple
in the grey tide of service which washed round Lady Bruton day in, day
out, collecting, intercepting, enveloping her in a fine tissue which
broke concussions, mitigated interruptions, and spread round the house
in Brook Street a fine net where things lodged and were picked out
accurately, instantly, by grey-haired Perkins, who had been with Lady
Bruton these thirty years and now wrote down the address; handed it to
Mr. Whitbread, who took out his pocket-book, raised his eyebrows, and
slipping it in among documents of the highest importance, said that he
would get Evelyn to ask him to lunch.
(They were waiting to bring the coffee until Mr. Whitbread had
finished.)
Hugh was very slow, Lady Bruton thought. He was getting fat, she
noticed. Richard always kept himself in the pink of condition. She
was getting impatient; the whole of her being was setting positively,
undeniably, domineeringly brushing aside all this unnecessary trifling
(Peter Walsh and his affairs) upon that subject which engaged her
attention, and not merely her attention, but that fibre which was
the ramrod of her soul, that essential part of her without which
Millicent Bruton would not have been Millicent Bruton; that project
for emigrating young people of both sexes born of respectable parents
and setting them up with a fair prospect of doing well in Canada. She
exaggerated. She had perhaps lost her sense of proportion. Emigration
was not to others the obvious remedy, the sublime conception. It was
not to them (not to Hugh, or Richard, or even to devoted Miss Brush)
the liberator of the pent egotism, which a strong martial woman, well
nourished, well descended, of direct impulses, downright feelings, and
little introspective power (broad and simple--why could not every one
be broad and simple? she asked) feels rise within her, once youth is
past, and must eject upon some object--it may be Emigration, it may be
Emancipation; but whatever it be, this object round which the essence
of her soul is daily secreted, becomes inevitably prismatic, lustrous,
half looking-glass, half precious stone; now carefully hidden in case
people should sneer at it; now proudly displayed. Emigration had
become, in short, largely Lady Bruton.
But she had to write. And one letter to the _Times_, she used to say
to Miss Brush, cost her more than to organise an expedition to South
Africa (which she had done in the war). After a morning’s battle
beginning, tearing up, beginning again, she used to feel the futility
of her own womanhood as she felt it on no other occasion, and would
turn gratefully to the thought of Hugh Whitbread who possessed--no one
could doubt it--the art of writing letters to the _Times_.
A being so differently constituted from herself, with such a command
of language; able to put things as editors like them put; had passions
which one could not call simply greed. Lady Bruton often suspended
judgement upon men in deference to the mysterious accord in which
they, but no woman, stood to the laws of the universe; knew how to put
things; knew what was said; so that if Richard advised her, and Hugh
wrote for her, she was sure of being somehow right. So she let Hugh eat
his soufflé; asked after poor Evelyn; waited until they were smoking,
and then said,
“Milly, would you fetch the papers?”
And Miss Brush went out, came back; laid papers on the table; and Hugh
produced his fountain pen; his silver fountain pen, which had done
twenty years’ service, he said, unscrewing the cap. It was still in
perfect order; he had shown it to the makers; there was no reason,
they said, why it should ever wear out; which was somehow to Hugh’s
credit, and to the credit of the sentiments which his pen expressed (so
Richard Dalloway felt) as Hugh began carefully writing capital letters
with rings round them in the margin, and thus marvellously reduced
Lady Bruton’s tangles to sense, to grammar such as the editor of the
_Times_, Lady Bruton felt, watching the marvellous transformation,
must respect. Hugh was slow. Hugh was pertinacious. Richard said one
must take risks. Hugh proposed modifications in deference to people’s
feelings, which, he said rather tartly when Richard laughed, “had to
be considered,” and read out “how, therefore, we are of opinion that
the times are ripe ... the superfluous youth of our ever-increasing
population ... what we owe to the dead ...” which Richard thought
all stuffing and bunkum, but no harm in it, of course, and Hugh went
on drafting sentiments in alphabetical order of the highest nobility,
brushing the cigar ash from his waistcoat, and summing up now and then
the progress they had made until, finally, he read out the draft of a
letter which Lady Bruton felt certain was a masterpiece. Could her own
meaning sound like that?
Hugh could not guarantee that the editor would put it in; but he would
be meeting somebody at luncheon.
Whereupon Lady Bruton, who seldom did a graceful thing, stuffed all
Hugh’s carnations into the front of her dress, and flinging her hands
out called him “My Prime Minister!” What she would have done without
them both she did not know. They rose. And Richard Dalloway strolled
off as usual to have a look at the General’s portrait, because he
meant, whenever he had a moment of leisure, to write a history of Lady
Bruton’s family.
And Millicent Bruton was very proud of her family. But they could
wait, they could wait, she said, looking at the picture; meaning that
her family, of military men, administrators, admirals, had been men
of action, who had done their duty; and Richard’s first duty was to
his country, but it was a fine face, she said; and all the papers were
ready for Richard down at Aldmixton whenever the time came; the Labour
Government she meant. “Ah, the news from India!” she cried.
And then, as they stood in the hall taking yellow gloves from the bowl
on the malachite table and Hugh was offering Miss Brush with quite
unnecessary courtesy some discarded ticket or other compliment, which
she loathed from the depths of her heart and blushed brick red, Richard
turned to Lady Bruton, with his hat in his hand, and said,
“We shall see you at our party to-night?” whereupon Lady Bruton resumed
the magnificence which letter-writing had shattered. She might come; or
she might not come. Clarissa had wonderful energy. Parties terrified
Lady Bruton. But then, she was getting old. So she intimated, standing
at her doorway; handsome; very erect; while her chow stretched behind
her, and Miss Brush disappeared into the background with her hands full
of papers.
And Lady Bruton went ponderously, majestically, up to her room, lay,
one arm extended, on the sofa. She sighed, she snored, not that she
was asleep, only drowsy and heavy, drowsy and heavy, like a field of
clover in the sunshine this hot June day, with the bees going round
and about and the yellow butterflies. Always she went back to those
fields down in Devonshire, where she had jumped the brooks on Patty,
her pony, with Mortimer and Tom, her brothers. And there were the dogs;
there were the rats; there were her father and mother on the lawn
under the trees, with the tea-things out, and the beds of dahlias, the
hollyhocks, the pampas grass; and they, little wretches, always up to
some mischief! stealing back through the shrubbery, so as not to be
seen, all bedraggled from some roguery. What old nurse used to say
about her frocks!
Ah dear, she remembered--it was Wednesday in Brook Street. Those kind
good fellows, Richard Dalloway, Hugh Whitbread, had gone this hot day
through the streets whose growl came up to her lying on the sofa. Power
was hers, position, income. She had lived in the forefront of her time.
She had had good friends; known the ablest men of her day. Murmuring
London flowed up to her, and her hand, lying on the sofa back, curled
upon some imaginary baton such as her grandfathers might have held,
holding which she seemed, drowsy and heavy, to be commanding battalions
marching to Canada, and those good fellows walking across London, that
territory of theirs, that little bit of carpet, Mayfair.
And they went further and further from her, being attached to her by a
thin thread (since they had lunched with her) which would stretch and
stretch, get thinner and thinner as they walked across London; as if
one’s friends were attached to one’s body, after lunching with them, by
a thin thread, which (as she dozed there) became hazy with the sound of
bells, striking the hour or ringing to service, as a single spider’s
thread is blotted with rain-drops, and, burdened, sags down. So she
slept.
And Richard Dalloway and Hugh Whitbread hesitated at the corner of
Conduit Street at the very moment that Millicent Bruton, lying on the
sofa, let the thread snap; snored. Contrary winds buffeted at the
street corner. They looked in at a shop window; they did not wish to
buy or to talk but to part, only with contrary winds buffeting the
street corner, with some sort of lapse in the tides of the body, two
forces meeting in a swirl, morning and afternoon, they paused. Some
newspaper placard went up in the air, gallantly, like a kite at first,
then paused, swooped, fluttered; and a lady’s veil hung. Yellow
awnings trembled. The speed of the morning traffic slackened, and
single carts rattled carelessly down half-empty streets. In Norfolk,
of which Richard Dalloway was half thinking, a soft warm wind blew
back the petals; confused the waters; ruffled the flowering grasses.
Haymakers, who had pitched beneath hedges to sleep away the morning
toil, parted curtains of green blades; moved trembling globes of cow
parsley to see the sky; the blue, the steadfast, the blazing summer sky.
Aware that he was looking at a silver two-handled Jacobean mug,
and that Hugh Whitbread admired condescendingly with airs of
connoisseurship a Spanish necklace which he thought of asking the price
of in case Evelyn might like it--still Richard was torpid; could not
think or move. Life had thrown up this wreckage; shop windows full of
coloured paste, and one stood stark with the lethargy of the old, stiff
with the rigidity of the old, looking in. Evelyn Whitbread might like
to buy this Spanish necklace--so she might. Yawn he must. Hugh was
going into the shop.
“Right you are!” said Richard, following.
Goodness knows he didn’t want to go buying necklaces with Hugh. But
there are tides in the body. Morning meets afternoon. Borne like a
frail shallop on deep, deep floods, Lady Bruton’s great-grandfather
and his memoir and his campaigns in North America were whelmed and
sunk. And Millicent Bruton too. She went under. Richard didn’t care a
straw what became of Emigration; about that letter, whether the editor
put it in or not. The necklace hung stretched between Hugh’s admirable
fingers. Let him give it to a girl, if he must buy jewels--any girl,
any girl in the street. For the worthlessness of this life did strike
Richard pretty forcibly--buying necklaces for Evelyn. If he’d had a boy
he’d have said, Work, work. But he had his Elizabeth; he adored his
Elizabeth.
“I should like to see Mr. Dubonnet,” said Hugh in his curt worldly way.
It appeared that this Dubonnet had the measurements of Mrs. Whitbread’s
neck, or, more strangely still, knew her views upon Spanish jewellery
and the extent of her possessions in that line (which Hugh could not
remember). All of which seemed to Richard Dalloway awfully odd. For
he never gave Clarissa presents, except a bracelet two or three years
ago, which had not been a success. She never wore it. It pained him
to remember that she never wore it. And as a single spider’s thread
after wavering here and there attaches itself to the point of a leaf,
so Richard’s mind, recovering from its lethargy, set now on his wife,
Clarissa, whom Peter Walsh had loved so passionately; and Richard had
had a sudden vision of her there at luncheon; of himself and Clarissa;
of their life together; and he drew the tray of old jewels towards him,
and taking up first this brooch then that ring, “How much is that?” he
asked, but doubted his own taste. He wanted to open the drawing-room
door and come in holding out something; a present for Clarissa. Only
what? But Hugh was on his legs again. He was unspeakably pompous.
Really, after dealing here for thirty-five years he was not going to
be put off by a mere boy who did not know his business. For Dubonnet,
it seemed, was out, and Hugh would not buy anything until Mr. Dubonnet
chose to be in; at which the youth flushed and bowed his correct
little bow. It was all perfectly correct. And yet Richard couldn’t
have said that to save his life! Why these people stood that damned
insolence he could not conceive. Hugh was becoming an intolerable ass.
Richard Dalloway could not stand more than an hour of his society.
And, flicking his bowler hat by way of farewell, Richard turned at
the corner of Conduit Street eager, yes, very eager, to travel that
spider’s thread of attachment between himself and Clarissa; he would
go straight to her, in Westminster.
But he wanted to come in holding something. Flowers? Yes, flowers,
since he did not trust his taste in gold; any number of flowers,
roses, orchids, to celebrate what was, reckoning things as you will,
an event; this feeling about her when they spoke of Peter Walsh at
luncheon; and they never spoke of it; not for years had they spoken of
it; which, he thought, grasping his red and white roses together (a
vast bunch in tissue paper), is the greatest mistake in the world. The
time comes when it can’t be said; one’s too shy to say it, he thought,
pocketing his sixpence or two of change, setting off with his great
bunch held against his body to Westminster to say straight out in so
many words (whatever she might think of him), holding out his flowers,
“I love you.” Why not? Really it was a miracle thinking of the war, and
thousands of poor chaps, with all their lives before them, shovelled
together, already half forgotten; it was a miracle. Here he was walking
across London to say to Clarissa in so many words that he loved her.
Which one never does say, he thought. Partly one’s lazy; partly one’s
shy. And Clarissa--it was difficult to think of her; except in starts,
as at luncheon, when he saw her quite distinctly; their whole life.
He stopped at the crossing; and repeated--being simple by nature, and
undebauched, because he had tramped, and shot; being pertinacious and
dogged, having championed the down-trodden and followed his instincts
in the House of Commons; being preserved in his simplicity yet at the
same time grown rather speechless, rather stiff--he repeated that it
was a miracle that he should have married Clarissa; a miracle--his
life had been a miracle, he thought; hesitating to cross. But it did
make his blood boil to see little creatures of five or six crossing
Piccadilly alone. The police ought to have stopped the traffic at once.
He had no illusions about the London police. Indeed, he was collecting
evidence of their malpractices; and those costermongers, not allowed
to stand their barrows in the streets; and prostitutes, good Lord, the
fault wasn’t in them, nor in young men either, but in our detestable
social system and so forth; all of which he considered, could be seen
considering, grey, dogged, dapper, clean, as he walked across the Park
to tell his wife that he loved her.
For he would say it in so many words, when he came into the room.
Because it is a thousand pities never to say what one feels, he
thought, crossing the Green Park and observing with pleasure how in
the shade of the trees whole families, poor families, were sprawling;
children kicking up their legs; sucking milk; paper bags thrown about,
which could easily be picked up (if people objected) by one of those
fat gentlemen in livery; for he was of opinion that every park, and
every square, during the summer months should be open to children (the
grass of the park flushed and faded, lighting up the poor mothers of
Westminster and their crawling babies, as if a yellow lamp were moved
beneath). But what could be done for female vagrants like that poor
creature, stretched on her elbow (as if she had flung herself on the
earth, rid of all ties, to observe curiously, to speculate boldly,
to consider the whys and the wherefores, impudent, loose-lipped,
humorous), he did not know. Bearing his flowers like a weapon, Richard
Dalloway approached her; intent he passed her; still there was time
for a spark between them--she laughed at the sight of him, he smiled
good-humouredly, considering the problem of the female vagrant; not
that they would ever speak. But he would tell Clarissa that he loved
her, in so many words. He had, once upon a time, been jealous of Peter
Walsh; jealous of him and Clarissa. But she had often said to him that
she had been right not to marry Peter Walsh; which, knowing Clarissa,
was obviously true; she wanted support. Not that she was weak; but she
wanted support.
As for Buckingham Palace (like an old prima donna facing the audience
all in white) you can’t deny it a certain dignity, he considered, nor
despise what does, after all, stand to millions of people (a little
crowd was waiting at the gate to see the King drive out) for a symbol,
absurd though it is; a child with a box of bricks could have done
better, he thought; looking at the memorial to Queen Victoria (whom he
could remember in her horn spectacles driving through Kensington), its
white mound, its billowing motherliness; but he liked being ruled by
the descendant of Horsa; he liked continuity; and the sense of handing
on the traditions of the past. It was a great age in which to have
lived. Indeed, his own life was a miracle; let him make no mistake
about it; here he was, in the prime of life, walking to his house in
Westminster to tell Clarissa that he loved her. Happiness is this he
thought.
It is this, he said, as he entered Dean’s Yard. Big Ben was beginning
to strike, first the warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable.
Lunch parties waste the entire afternoon, he thought, approaching his
door.
The sound of Big Ben flooded Clarissa’s drawing-room, where she sat,
ever so annoyed, at her writing-table; worried; annoyed. It was
perfectly true that she had not asked Ellie Henderson to her party; but
she had done it on purpose. Now Mrs. Marsham wrote “she had told Ellie
Henderson she would ask Clarissa--Ellie so much wanted to come.”
But why should she invite all the dull women in London to her
parties? Why should Mrs. Marsham interfere? And there was Elizabeth
closeted all this time with Doris Kilman. Anything more nauseating
she could not conceive. Prayer at this hour with that woman. And the
sound of the bell flooded the room with its melancholy wave; which
receded, and gathered itself together to fall once more, when she
heard, distractingly, something fumbling, something scratching at the
door. Who at this hour? Three, good Heavens! Three already! For with
overpowering directness and dignity the clock struck three; and she
heard nothing else; but the door handle slipped round and in came
Richard! What a surprise! In came Richard, holding out flowers. She
had failed him, once at Constantinople; and Lady Bruton, whose lunch
parties were said to be extraordinarily amusing, had not asked her. He
was holding out flowers--roses, red and white roses. (But he could not
bring himself to say he loved her; not in so many words.)
But how lovely, she said, taking his flowers. She understood; she
understood without his speaking; his Clarissa. She put them in vases on
the mantelpiece. How lovely they looked! she said. And was it amusing,
she asked? Had Lady Bruton asked after her? Peter Walsh was back. Mrs.
Marsham had written. Must she ask Ellie Henderson? That woman Kilman
was upstairs.
“But let us sit down for five minutes,” said Richard.
It all looked so empty. All the chairs were against the wall. What had
they been doing? Oh, it was for the party; no, he had not forgotten,
the party. Peter Walsh was back. Oh yes; she had had him. And he was
going to get a divorce; and he was in love with some woman out there.
And he hadn’t changed in the slightest. There she was, mending her
dress....
“Thinking of Bourton,” she said.
“Hugh was at lunch,” said Richard. She had met him too! Well, he was
getting absolutely intolerable. Buying Evelyn necklaces; fatter than
ever; an intolerable ass.
“And it came over me ‘I might have married you,’” she said, thinking
of Peter sitting there in his little bow-tie; with that knife, opening
it, shutting it. “Just as he always was, you know.”
They were talking about him at lunch, said Richard. (But he could
not tell her he loved her. He held her hand. Happiness is this, he
thought.) They had been writing a letter to the _Times_ for Millicent
Bruton. That was about all Hugh was fit for.
“And our dear Miss Kilman?” he asked. Clarissa thought the roses
absolutely lovely; first bunched together; now of their own accord
starting apart.
“Kilman arrives just as we’ve done lunch,” she said. “Elizabeth turns
pink. They shut themselves up. I suppose they’re praying.”
Lord! He didn’t like it; but these things pass over if you let them.
“In a mackintosh with an umbrella,” said Clarissa.
He had not said “I love you”; but he held her hand. Happiness is this,
is this, he thought.
“But why should I ask all the dull women in London to my parties?” said
Clarissa. And if Mrs. Marsham gave a party, did _she_ invite her guests?
“Poor Ellie Henderson,” said Richard--it was a very odd thing how much
Clarissa minded about her parties, he thought.