She was not able to follow up her observations, however, or to come to
any conclusion, for by one of those accidents which are liable to
happen at sea, the whole course of their lives was now put out of
order.
Even at tea the floor rose beneath their feet and pitched too low
again, and at dinner the ship seemed to groan and strain as though a
lash were descending. She who had been a broad-backed dray-horse, upon
whose hind-quarters pierrots might waltz, became a colt in a field. The
plates slanted away from the knives, and Mrs. Dalloway’s face blanched
for a second as she helped herself and saw the potatoes roll this way
and that. Willoughby, of course, extolled the virtues of his ship, and
quoted what had been said of her by experts and distinguished
passengers, for he loved his own possessions. Still, dinner was uneasy,
and directly the ladies were alone Clarissa owned that she would be
better off in bed, and went, smiling bravely.
Next morning the storm was on them, and no politeness could ignore it.
Mrs. Dalloway stayed in her room. Richard faced three meals, eating
valiantly at each; but at the third, certain glazed asparagus swimming
in oil finally conquered him.
“That beats me,” he said, and withdrew.
“Now we are alone once more,” remarked William Pepper, looking round
the table; but no one was ready to engage him in talk, and the meal
ended in silence.
On the following day they met—but as flying leaves meet in the air.
Sick they were not; but the wind propelled them hastily into rooms,
violently downstairs. They passed each other gasping on deck; they
shouted across tables. They wore fur coats; and Helen was never seen
without a bandanna on her head. For comfort they retreated to their
cabins, where with tightly wedged feet they let the ship bounce and
tumble. Their sensations were the sensations of potatoes in a sack on a
galloping horse. The world outside was merely a violent grey tumult.
For two days they had a perfect rest from their old emotions. Rachel
had just enough consciousness to suppose herself a donkey on the summit
of a moor in a hail-storm, with its coat blown into furrows; then she
became a wizened tree, perpetually driven back by the salt Atlantic
gale.
Helen, on the other hand, staggered to Mrs. Dalloway’s door, knocked,
could not be heard for the slamming of doors and the battering of wind,
and entered.
There were basins, of course. Mrs. Dalloway lay half-raised on a
pillow, and did not open her eyes. Then she murmured, “Oh, Dick, is
that you?”
Helen shouted—for she was thrown against the washstand—“How are you?”
Clarissa opened one eye. It gave her an incredibly dissipated
appearance. “Awful!” she gasped. Her lips were white inside.
Planting her feet wide, Helen contrived to pour champagne into a
tumbler with a tooth-brush in it.
“Champagne,” she said.
“There’s a tooth-brush in it,” murmured Clarissa, and smiled; it might
have been the contortion of one weeping. She drank.
“Disgusting,” she whispered, indicating the basins. Relics of humour
still played over her face like moonshine.
“Want more?” Helen shouted. Speech was again beyond Clarissa’s reach.
The wind laid the ship shivering on her side. Pale agonies crossed Mrs.
Dalloway in waves. When the curtains flapped, grey lights puffed across
her. Between the spasms of the storm, Helen made the curtain fast,
shook the pillows, stretched the bed-clothes, and smoothed the hot
nostrils and forehead with cold scent.
“You _are_ good!” Clarissa gasped. “Horrid mess!”
She was trying to apologise for white underclothes fallen and scattered
on the floor. For one second she opened a single eye, and saw that the
room was tidy.
“That’s nice,” she gasped.
Helen left her; far, far away she knew that she felt a kind of liking
for Mrs. Dalloway. She could not help respecting her spirit and her
desire, even in the throes of sickness, for a tidy bedroom. Her
petticoats, however, rose above her knees.
Quite suddenly the storm relaxed its grasp. It happened at tea; the
expected paroxysm of the blast gave out just as it reached its climax
and dwindled away, and the ship instead of taking the usual plunge went
steadily. The monotonous order of plunging and rising, roaring and
relaxing, was interfered with, and every one at table looked up and
felt something loosen within them. The strain was slackened and human
feelings began to peep again, as they do when daylight shows at the end
of a tunnel.
“Try a turn with me,” Ridley called across to Rachel.
“Foolish!” cried Helen, but they went stumbling up the ladder. Choked
by the wind their spirits rose with a rush, for on the skirts of all
the grey tumult was a misty spot of gold. Instantly the world dropped
into shape; they were no longer atoms flying in the void, but people
riding a triumphant ship on the back of the sea. Wind and space were
banished; the world floated like an apple in a tub, and the mind of
man, which had been unmoored also, once more attached itself to the old
beliefs.
Having scrambled twice round the ship and received many sound cuffs
from the wind, they saw a sailor’s face positively shine golden. They
looked, and beheld a complete yellow circle of sun; next minute it was
traversed by sailing stands of cloud, and then completely hidden. By
breakfast the next morning, however, the sky was swept clean, the
waves, although steep, were blue, and after their view of the strange
under-world, inhabited by phantoms, people began to live among tea-pots
and loaves of bread with greater zest than ever.
Richard and Clarissa, however, still remained on the borderland. She
did not attempt to sit up; her husband stood on his feet, contemplated
his waistcoat and trousers, shook his head, and then lay down again.
The inside of his brain was still rising and falling like the sea on
the stage. At four o’clock he woke from sleep and saw the sunlight make
a vivid angle across the red plush curtains and the grey tweed
trousers. The ordinary world outside slid into his mind, and by the
time he was dressed he was an English gentleman again.
He stood beside his wife. She pulled him down to her by the lapel of
his coat, kissed him, and held him fast for a minute.
“Go and get a breath of air, Dick,” she said. “You look quite washed
out. . . . How nice you smell! . . . And be polite to that woman. She
was so kind to me.”
Thereupon Mrs. Dalloway turned to the cool side of her pillow, terribly
flattened but still invincible.
Richard found Helen talking to her brother-in-law, over two dishes of
yellow cake and smooth bread and butter.
“You look very ill!” she exclaimed on seeing him. “Come and have some
tea.”
He remarked that the hands that moved about the cups were beautiful.
“I hear you’ve been very good to my wife,” he said. “She’s had an awful
time of it. You came in and fed her with champagne. Were you among the
saved yourself?”
“I? Oh, I haven’t been sick for twenty years—sea-sick, I mean.”
“There are three stages of convalescence, I always say,” broke in the
hearty voice of Willoughby. “The milk stage, the bread-and-butter
stage, and the roast-beef stage. I should say you were at the
bread-and-butter stage.” He handed him the plate.
“Now, I should advise a hearty tea, then a brisk walk on deck; and by
dinner-time you’ll be clamouring for beef, eh?” He went off laughing,
excusing himself on the score of business.
“What a splendid fellow he is!” said Richard. “Always keen on
something.”
“Yes,” said Helen, “he’s always been like that.”
“This is a great undertaking of his,” Richard continued. “It’s a
business that won’t stop with ships, I should say. We shall see him in
Parliament, or I’m much mistaken. He’s the kind of man we want in
Parliament—the man who has done things.”
But Helen was not much interested in her brother-in-law.
“I expect your head’s aching, isn’t it?” she asked, pouring a fresh
cup.
“Well, it is,” said Richard. “It’s humiliating to find what a slave one
is to one’s body in this world. D’you know, I can never work without a
kettle on the hob. As often as not I don’t drink tea, but I must feel
that I can if I want to.”
“That’s very bad for you,” said Helen.
“It shortens one’s life; but I’m afraid, Mrs. Ambrose, we politicians
must make up our minds to that at the outset. We’ve got to burn the
candle at both ends, or—”
“You’ve cooked your goose!” said Helen brightly.
“We can’t make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose,” he protested. “May
I ask how you’ve spent your time? Reading—philosophy?” (He saw the
black book.) “Metaphysics and fishing!” he exclaimed. “If I had to live
again I believe I should devote myself to one or the other.” He began
turning the pages.
“‘Good, then, is indefinable,’” he read out. “How jolly to think that’s
going on still! ‘So far as I know there is only one ethical writer,
Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this
fact.’ That’s just the kind of thing we used to talk about when we were
boys. I can remember arguing until five in the morning with Duffy—now
Secretary for India—pacing round and round those cloisters until we
decided it was too late to go to bed, and we went for a ride instead.
Whether we ever came to any conclusion—that’s another matter. Still,
it’s the arguing that counts. It’s things like that that stand out in
life. Nothing’s been quite so vivid since. It’s the philosophers, it’s
the scholars,” he continued, “they’re the people who pass the torch,
who keep the light burning by which we live. Being a politician doesn’t
necessarily blind one to that, Mrs. Ambrose.”
“No. Why should it?” said Helen. “But can you remember if your wife
takes sugar?”
She lifted the tray and went off with it to Mrs. Dalloway.
Richard twisted a muffler twice round his throat and struggled up on
deck. His body, which had grown white and tender in a dark room,
tingled all over in the fresh air. He felt himself a man undoubtedly in
the prime of life. Pride glowed in his eye as he let the wind buffet
him and stood firm. With his head slightly lowered he sheered round
corners, strode uphill, and met the blast. There was a collision. For a
second he could not see what the body was he had run into. “Sorry.”
“Sorry.” It was Rachel who apologised. They both laughed, too much
blown about to speak. She drove open the door of her room and stepped
into its calm. In order to speak to her, it was necessary that Richard
should follow. They stood in a whirlpool of wind; papers began flying
round in circles, the door crashed to, and they tumbled, laughing, into
chairs. Richard sat upon Bach.
“My word! What a tempest!” he exclaimed.
“Fine, isn’t it?” said Rachel. Certainly the struggle and wind had
given her a decision she lacked; red was in her cheeks, and her hair
was down.
“Oh, what fun!” he cried. “What am I sitting on? Is this your room? How
jolly!” “There—sit there,” she commanded. Cowper slid once more.
“How jolly to meet again,” said Richard. “It seems an age. _Cowper’s
Letters_? . . . Bach? . . . _Wuthering Heights_? . . . Is this where
you meditate on the world, and then come out and pose poor politicians
with questions? In the intervals of sea-sickness I’ve thought a lot of
our talk. I assure you, you made me think.”
“I made you think! But why?”
“What solitary icebergs we are, Miss Vinrace! How little we can
communicate! There are lots of things I should like to tell you
about—to hear your opinion of. Have you ever read Burke?”
“Burke?” she repeated. “Who was Burke?”
“No? Well, then I shall make a point of sending you a copy. _The Speech
on the French Revolution_—_The American Rebellion_? Which shall it be,
I wonder?” He noted something in his pocket-book. “And then you must
write and tell me what you think of it. This reticence—this
isolation—that’s what’s the matter with modern life! Now, tell me about
yourself. What are your interests and occupations? I should imagine
that you were a person with very strong interests. Of course you are!
Good God! When I think of the age we live in, with its opportunities
and possibilities, the mass of things to be done and enjoyed—why
haven’t we ten lives instead of one? But about yourself?”
“You see, I’m a woman,” said Rachel.
“I know—I know,” said Richard, throwing his head back, and drawing his
fingers across his eyes.
“How strange to be a woman! A young and beautiful woman,” he continued
sententiously, “has the whole world at her feet. That’s true, Miss
Vinrace. You have an inestimable power—for good or for evil. What
couldn’t you do—” he broke off.
“What?” asked Rachel.
“You have beauty,” he said. The ship lurched. Rachel fell slightly
forward. Richard took her in his arms and kissed her. Holding her
tight, he kissed her passionately, so that she felt the hardness of his
body and the roughness of his cheek printed upon hers. She fell back in
her chair, with tremendous beats of the heart, each of which sent black
waves across her eyes. He clasped his forehead in his hands.
“You tempt me,” he said. The tone of his voice was terrifying. He
seemed choked in fright. They were both trembling. Rachel stood up and
went. Her head was cold, her knees shaking, and the physical pain of
the emotion was so great that she could only keep herself moving above
the great leaps of her heart. She leant upon the rail of the ship, and
gradually ceased to feel, for a chill of body and mind crept over her.
Far out between the waves little black and white sea-birds were riding.
Rising and falling with smooth and graceful movements in the hollows of
the waves they seemed singularly detached and unconcerned.
“You’re peaceful,” she said. She became peaceful too, at the same time
possessed with a strange exultation. Life seemed to hold infinite
possibilities she had never guessed at. She leant upon the rail and
looked over the troubled grey waters, where the sunlight was fitfully
scattered upon the crests of the waves, until she was cold and
absolutely calm again. Nevertheless something wonderful had happened.
At dinner, however, she did not feel exalted, but merely uncomfortable,
as if she and Richard had seen something together which is hidden in
ordinary life, so that they did not like to look at each other. Richard
slid his eyes over her uneasily once, and never looked at her again.
Formal platitudes were manufactured with effort, but Willoughby was
kindled.
“Beef for Mr. Dalloway!” he shouted. “Come now—after that walk you’re
at the beef stage, Dalloway!”
Wonderful masculine stories followed about Bright and Disraeli and
coalition governments, wonderful stories which made the people at the
dinner-table seem featureless and small. After dinner, sitting alone
with Rachel under the great swinging lamp, Helen was struck by her
pallor. It once more occurred to her that there was something strange
in the girl’s behaviour.
“You look tired. Are you tired?” she asked.
“Not tired,” said Rachel. “Oh, yes, I suppose I am tired.”
Helen advised bed, and she went, not seeing Richard again. She must
have been very tired for she fell asleep at once, but after an hour or
two of dreamless sleep, she dreamt. She dreamt that she was walking
down a long tunnel, which grew so narrow by degrees that she could
touch the damp bricks on either side. At length the tunnel opened and
became a vault; she found herself trapped in it, bricks meeting her
wherever she turned, alone with a little deformed man who squatted on
the floor gibbering, with long nails. His face was pitted and like the
face of an animal. The wall behind him oozed with damp, which collected
into drops and slid down. Still and cold as death she lay, not daring
to move, until she broke the agony by tossing herself across the bed,
and woke crying “Oh!”
Light showed her the familiar things: her clothes, fallen off the
chair; the water jug gleaming white; but the horror did not go at once.
She felt herself pursued, so that she got up and actually locked her
door. A voice moaned for her; eyes desired her. All night long
barbarian men harassed the ship; they came scuffling down the passages,
and stopped to snuffle at her door. She could not sleep again.