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
engaged, but instead of being in the least romantic or exciting, that
was as dull as everything else; it annoyed him, too, to think that they
were in love. He drew close to Helen and began to tell her how
uncomfortable his night had been, lying on the deck, sometimes too hot,
sometimes too cold, and the stars so bright that he couldn’t get to
sleep. He had lain awake all night thinking, and when it was light
enough to see, he had written twenty lines of his poem on God, and the
awful thing was that he’d practically proved the fact that God did not
exist. He did not see that he was teasing her, and he went on to wonder
what would happen if God did exist—“an old gentleman in a beard and a
long blue dressing gown, extremely testy and disagreeable as he’s bound
to be? Can you suggest a rhyme? God, rod, sod—all used; any others?”
Although he spoke much as usual, Helen could have seen, had she looked,
that he was also impatient and disturbed. But she was not called upon
to answer, for Mr. Flushing now exclaimed “There!” They looked at the
hut on the bank, a desolate place with a large rent in the roof, and
the ground round it yellow, scarred with fires and scattered with rusty
open tins.
“Did they find his dead body there?” Mrs. Flushing exclaimed, leaning
forward in her eagerness to see the spot where the explorer had died.
“They found his body and his skins and a notebook,” her husband
replied. But the boat had soon carried them on and left the place
behind.
It was so hot that they scarcely moved, except now to change a foot,
or, again, to strike a match. Their eyes, concentrated upon the bank,
were full of the same green reflections, and their lips were slightly
pressed together as though the sights they were passing gave rise to
thoughts, save that Hirst’s lips moved intermittently as half
consciously he sought rhymes for God. Whatever the thoughts of the
others, no one said anything for a considerable space. They had grown
so accustomed to the wall of trees on either side that they looked up
with a start when the light suddenly widened out and the trees came to
an end.
“It almost reminds one of an English park,” said Mr. Flushing.
Indeed no change could have been greater. On both banks of the river
lay an open lawn-like space, grass covered and planted, for the
gentleness and order of the place suggested human care, with graceful
trees on the top of little mounds. As far as they could gaze, this lawn
rose and sank with the undulating motion of an old English park. The
change of scene naturally suggested a change of position, grateful to
most of them. They rose and leant over the rail.
“It might be Arundel or Windsor,” Mr. Flushing continued, “if you cut
down that bush with the yellow flowers; and, by Jove, look!”
Rows of brown backs paused for a moment and then leapt with a motion as
if they were springing over waves out of sight. For a moment no one of
them could believe that they had really seen live animals in the open—a
herd of wild deer, and the sight aroused a childlike excitement in
them, dissipating their gloom.
“I’ve never in my life seen anything bigger than a hare!” Hirst
exclaimed with genuine excitement. “What an ass I was not to bring my
Kodak!”
Soon afterwards the launch came gradually to a standstill, and the
captain explained to Mr. Flushing that it would be pleasant for the
passengers if they now went for a stroll on shore; if they chose to
return within an hour, he would take them on to the village; if they
chose to walk—it was only a mile or two farther on—he would meet them
at the landing-place.
The matter being settled, they were once more put on shore: the
sailors, producing raisins and tobacco, leant upon the rail and watched
the six English, whose coats and dresses looked so strange upon the
green, wander off. A joke that was by no means proper set them all
laughing, and then they turned round and lay at their ease upon the
deck.
Directly they landed, Terence and Rachel drew together slightly in
advance of the others.
“Thank God!” Terence exclaimed, drawing a long breath. “At last we’re
alone.”
“And if we keep ahead we can talk,” said Rachel.
Nevertheless, although their position some yards in advance of the
others made it possible for them to say anything they chose, they were
both silent.
“You love me?” Terence asked at length, breaking the silence painfully.
To speak or to be silent was equally an effort, for when they were
silent they were keenly conscious of each other’s presence, and yet
words were either too trivial or too large.
She murmured inarticulately, ending, “And you?”
“Yes, yes,” he replied; but there were so many things to be said, and
now that they were alone it seemed necessary to bring themselves still
more near, and to surmount a barrier which had grown up since they had
last spoken. It was difficult, frightening even, oddly embarrassing. At
one moment he was clear-sighted, and, at the next, confused.
“Now I’m going to begin at the beginning,” he said resolutely. “I’m
going to tell you what I ought to have told you before. In the first
place, I’ve never been in love with other women, but I’ve had other
women. Then I’ve great faults. I’m very lazy, I’m moody—” He persisted,
in spite of her exclamation, “You’ve got to know the worst of me. I’m
lustful. I’m overcome by a sense of futility—incompetence. I ought
never to have asked you to marry me, I expect. I’m a bit of a snob; I’m
ambitious—”
“Oh, our faults!” she cried. “What do they matter?” Then she demanded,
“Am I in love—is this being in love—are we to marry each other?”
Overcome by the charm of her voice and her presence, he exclaimed, “Oh,
you’re free, Rachel. To you, time will make no difference, or marriage
or—”
The voices of the others behind them kept floating, now farther, now
nearer, and Mrs. Flushing’s laugh rose clearly by itself.
“Marriage?” Rachel repeated.
The shouts were renewed behind, warning them that they were bearing too
far to the left. Improving their course, he continued, “Yes, marriage.”
The feeling that they could not be united until she knew all about him
made him again endeavour to explain.
“All that’s been bad in me, the things I’ve put up with—the second
best—”
She murmured, considered her own life, but could not describe how it
looked to her now.
“And the loneliness!” he continued. A vision of walking with her
through the streets of London came before his eyes. “We will go for
walks together,” he said. The simplicity of the idea relieved them, and
for the first time they laughed. They would have liked had they dared
to take each other by the hand, but the consciousness of eyes fixed on
them from behind had not yet deserted them.
“Books, people, sights—Mrs. Nutt, Greeley, Hutchinson,” Hewet murmured.
With every word the mist which had enveloped them, making them seem
unreal to each other, since the previous afternoon melted a little
further, and their contact became more and more natural. Up through the
sultry southern landscape they saw the world they knew appear clearer
and more vividly than it had ever appeared before. As upon that
occasion at the hotel when she had sat in the window, the world once
more arranged itself beneath her gaze very vividly and in its true
proportions. She glanced curiously at Terence from time to time,
observing his grey coat and his purple tie; observing the man with whom
she was to spend the rest of her life.
After one of these glances she murmured, “Yes, I’m in love. There’s no
doubt; I’m in love with you.”
Nevertheless, they remained uncomfortably apart; drawn so close
together, as she spoke, that there seemed no division between them, and
the next moment separate and far away again. Feeling this painfully,
she exclaimed, “It will be a fight.”
But as she looked at him she perceived from the shape of his eyes, the
lines about his mouth, and other peculiarities that he pleased her, and
she added:
“Where I want to fight, you have compassion. You’re finer than I am;
you’re much finer.”
He returned her glance and smiled, perceiving, much as she had done,
the very small individual things about her which made her delightful to
him. She was his for ever. This barrier being surmounted, innumerable
delights lay before them both.
“I’m not finer,” he answered. “I’m only older, lazier; a man, not a
woman.”
“A man,” she repeated, and a curious sense of possession coming over
her, it struck her that she might now touch him; she put out her hand
and lightly touched his cheek. His fingers followed where hers had
been, and the touch of his hand upon his face brought back the
overpowering sense of unreality. This body of his was unreal; the whole
world was unreal.
“What’s happened?” he began. “Why did I ask you to marry me? How did it
happen?”
“Did you ask me to marry you?” she wondered. They faded far away from
each other, and neither of them could remember what had been said.
“We sat upon the ground,” he recollected.
“We sat upon the ground,” she confirmed him. The recollection of
sitting upon the ground, such as it was, seemed to unite them again,
and they walked on in silence, their minds sometimes working with
difficulty and sometimes ceasing to work, their eyes alone perceiving
the things round them. Now he would attempt again to tell her his
faults, and why he loved her; and she would describe what she had felt
at this time or at that time, and together they would interpret her
feeling. So beautiful was the sound of their voices that by degrees
they scarcely listened to the words they framed. Long silences came
between their words, which were no longer silences of struggle and
confusion but refreshing silences, in which trivial thoughts moved
easily. They began to speak naturally of ordinary things, of the
flowers and the trees, how they grew there so red, like garden flowers
at home, and there bent and crooked like the arm of a twisted old man.
Very gently and quietly, almost as if it were the blood singing in her
veins, or the water of the stream running over stones, Rachel became
conscious of a new feeling within her. She wondered for a moment what
it was, and then said to herself, with a little surprise at recognising
in her own person so famous a thing:
“This is happiness, I suppose.” And aloud to Terence she spoke, “This
is happiness.”
On the heels of her words he answered, “This is happiness,” upon which
they guessed that the feeling had sprung in both of them the same time.
They began therefore to describe how this felt and that felt, how like
it was and yet how different; for they were very different.
Voices crying behind them never reached through the waters in which
they were now sunk. The repetition of Hewet’s name in short, dissevered
syllables was to them the crack of a dry branch or the laughter of a
bird. The grasses and breezes sounding and murmuring all round them,
they never noticed that the swishing of the grasses grew louder and
louder, and did not cease with the lapse of the breeze. A hand dropped
abrupt as iron on Rachel’s shoulder; it might have been a bolt from
heaven. She fell beneath it, and the grass whipped across her eyes and
filled her mouth and ears. Through the waving stems she saw a figure,
large and shapeless against the sky. Helen was upon her. Rolled this
way and that, now seeing only forests of green, and now the high blue
heaven; she was speechless and almost without sense. At last she lay
still, all the grasses shaken round her and before her by her panting.
Over her loomed two great heads, the heads of a man and woman, of
Terence and Helen.
Both were flushed, both laughing, and the lips were moving; they came
together and kissed in the air above her. Broken fragments of speech
came down to her on the ground. She thought she heard them speak of
love and then of marriage. Raising herself and sitting up, she too
realised Helen’s soft body, the strong and hospitable arms, and
happiness swelling and breaking in one vast wave. When this fell away,
and the grasses once more lay low, and the sky became horizontal, and
the earth rolled out flat on each side, and the trees stood upright,
she was the first to perceive a little row of human figures standing
patiently in the distance. For the moment she could not remember who
they were.
“Who are they?” she asked, and then recollected.
Falling into line behind Mr. Flushing, they were careful to leave at
least three yards’ distance between the toe of his boot and the rim of
her skirt.
He led them across a stretch of green by the river-bank and then
through a grove of trees, and bade them remark the signs of human
habitation, the blackened grass, the charred tree-stumps, and there,
through the trees, strange wooden nests, drawn together in an arch
where the trees drew apart, the village which was the goal of their
journey.
Stepping cautiously, they observed the women, who were squatting on the
ground in triangular shapes, moving their hands, either plaiting straw
or in kneading something in bowls. But when they had looked for a
moment undiscovered, they were seen, and Mr. Flushing, advancing into
the centre of the clearing, was engaged in talk with a lean majestic
man, whose bones and hollows at once made the shapes of the
Englishman’s body appear ugly and unnatural. The women took no notice
of the strangers, except that their hands paused for a moment and their
long narrow eyes slid round and fixed upon them with the motionless
inexpressive gaze of those removed from each other far far beyond the
plunge of speech. Their hands moved again, but the stare continued. It
followed them as they walked, as they peered into the huts where they
could distinguish guns leaning in the corner, and bowls upon the floor,
and stacks of rushes; in the dusk the solemn eyes of babies regarded
them, and old women stared out too. As they sauntered about, the stare
followed them, passing over their legs, their bodies, their heads,
curiously not without hostility, like the crawl of a winter fly. As she
drew apart her shawl and uncovered her breast to the lips of her baby,
the eyes of a woman never left their faces, although they moved
uneasily under her stare, and finally turned away, rather than stand
there looking at her any longer. When sweetmeats were offered them,
they put out great red hands to take them, and felt themselves treading
cumbrously like tight-coated soldiers among these soft instinctive
people. But soon the life of the village took no notice of them; they
had become absorbed in it. The women’s hands became busy again with the
straw; their eyes dropped. If they moved, it was to fetch something
from the hut, or to catch a straying child, or to cross the space with
a jar balanced on their heads; if they spoke, it was to cry some harsh
unintelligible cry. Voices rose when a child was beaten, and fell
again; voices rose in song, which slid up a little way and down a
little way, and settled again upon the same low and melancholy note.
Seeking each other, Terence and Rachel drew together under a tree.
Peaceful, and even beautiful at first, the sight of the women, who had
given up looking at them, made them now feel very cold and melancholy.
“Well,” Terence sighed at length, “it makes us seem insignificant,
doesn’t it?”
Rachel agreed. So it would go on for ever and ever, she said, those
women sitting under the trees, the trees and the river. They turned
away and began to walk through the trees, leaning, without fear of
discovery, upon each other’s arms. They had not gone far before they
began to assure each other once more that they were in love, were
happy, were content; but why was it so painful being in love, why was
there so much pain in happiness?
The sight of the village indeed affected them all curiously though all
differently. St. John had left the others and was walking slowly down
to the river, absorbed in his own thoughts, which were bitter and
unhappy, for he felt himself alone; and Helen, standing by herself in
the sunny space among the native women, was exposed to presentiments of
disaster. The cries of the senseless beasts rang in her ears high and
low in the air, as they ran from tree-trunk to tree-top. How small the
little figures looked wandering through the trees! She became acutely
conscious of the little limbs, the thin veins, the delicate flesh of
men and women, which breaks so easily and lets the life escape compared
with these great trees and deep waters. A falling branch, a foot that
slips, and the earth has crushed them or the water drowned them. Thus
thinking, she kept her eyes anxiously fixed upon the lovers, as if by
doing so she could protect them from their fate. Turning, she found the
Flushings by her side.
They were talking about the things they had bought and arguing whether
they were really old, and whether there were not signs here and there
of European influence. Helen was appealed to. She was made to look at a
brooch, and then at a pair of ear-rings. But all the time she blamed
them for having come on this expedition, for having ventured too far
and exposed themselves. Then she roused herself and tried to talk, but
in a few moments she caught herself seeing a picture of a boat upset on
the river in England, at midday. It was morbid, she knew, to imagine
such things; nevertheless she sought out the figures of the others
between the trees, and whenever she saw them she kept her eyes fixed on
them, so that she might be able to protect them from disaster.
But when the sun went down and the steamer turned and began to steam
back towards civilisation, again her fears were calmed. In the
semi-darkness the chairs on deck and the people sitting in them were
angular shapes, the mouth being indicated by a tiny burning spot, and
the arm by the same spot moving up or down as the cigar or cigarette
was lifted to and from the lips. Words crossed the darkness, but, not
knowing where they fell, seemed to lack energy and substance. Deep
sighs proceeded regularly, although with some attempt at suppression,
from the large white mound which represented the person of Mrs.
Flushing. The day had been long and very hot, and now that all the
colours were blotted out the cool night air seemed to press soft
fingers upon the eyelids, sealing them down. Some philosophical remark
directed, apparently, at St. John Hirst missed its aim, and hung so
long suspended in the air until it was engulfed by a yawn, that it was
considered dead, and this gave the signal for stirring of legs and
murmurs about sleep. The white mound moved, finally lengthened itself
and disappeared, and after a few turns and paces St. John and Mr.
Flushing withdrew, leaving the three chairs still occupied by three
silent bodies. The light which came from a lamp high on the mast and a
sky pale with stars left them with shapes but without features; but
even in this darkness the withdrawal of the others made them feel each
other very near, for they were all thinking of the same thing. For some
time no one spoke, then Helen said with a sigh, “So you’re both very
happy?”
As if washed by the air her voice sounded more spiritual and softer
than usual. Voices at a little distance answered her, “Yes.”
Through the darkness she was looking at them both, and trying to
distinguish him. What was there for her to say? Rachel had passed
beyond her guardianship. A voice might reach her ears, but never again
would it carry as far as it had carried twenty-four hours ago.
Nevertheless, speech seemed to be due from her before she went to bed.
She wished to speak, but she felt strangely old and depressed.
“D’you realise what you’re doing?” she demanded. “She’s young, you’re
both young; and marriage—” Here she ceased. They begged her, however,
to continue, with such earnestness in their voices, as if they only
craved advice, that she was led to add:
“Marriage! well, it’s not easy.”
“That’s what we want to know,” they answered, and she guessed that now
they were looking at each other.
“It depends on both of you,” she stated. Her face was turned towards
Terence, and although he could hardly see her, he believed that her
words really covered a genuine desire to know more about him. He raised
himself from his semi-recumbent position and proceeded to tell her what
she wanted to know. He spoke as lightly as he could in order to take
away her depression.
“I’m twenty-seven, and I’ve about seven hundred a year,” he began. “My
temper is good on the whole, and health excellent, though Hirst detects
a gouty tendency. Well, then, I think I’m very intelligent.” He paused
as if for confirmation.
Helen agreed.
“Though, unfortunately, rather lazy. I intend to allow Rachel to be a
fool if she wants to, and—Do you find me on the whole satisfactory in
other respects?” he asked shyly.
“Yes, I like what I know of you,” Helen replied. “But then—one knows so
little.”
“We shall live in London,” he continued, “and—” With one voice they
suddenly enquired whether she did not think them the happiest people
that she had ever known.
“Hush,” she checked them, “Mrs. Flushing, remember. She’s behind us.”
Then they fell silent, and Terence and Rachel felt instinctively that
their happiness had made her sad, and, while they were anxious to go on
talking about themselves, they did not like to.
“We’ve talked too much about ourselves,” Terence said. “Tell us—”
“Yes, tell us—” Rachel echoed. They were both in the mood to believe
that every one was capable of saying something very profound.
“What can I tell you?” Helen reflected, speaking more to herself in a
rambling style than as a prophetess delivering a message. She forced
herself to speak.
“After all, though I scold Rachel, I’m not much wiser myself. I’m
older, of course, I’m half-way through, and you’re just beginning. It’s
puzzling—sometimes, I think, disappointing; the great things aren’t as
great, perhaps, as one expects—but it’s interesting—Oh, yes, you’re
certain to find it interesting—And so it goes on,” they became
conscious here of the procession of dark trees into which, as far as
they could see, Helen was now looking, “and there are pleasures where
one doesn’t expect them (you must write to your father), and you’ll be
very happy, I’ve no doubt. But I must go to bed, and if you are
sensible you will follow in ten minutes, and so,” she rose and stood
before them, almost featureless and very large, “Good-night.” She
passed behind the curtain.
After sitting in silence for the greater part of the ten minutes she
allowed them, they rose and hung over the rail. Beneath them the smooth
black water slipped away very fast and silently. The spark of a
cigarette vanished behind them. “A beautiful voice,” Terence murmured.
Rachel assented. Helen had a beautiful voice.
After a silence she asked, looking up into the sky, “Are we on the deck
of a steamer on a river in South America? Am I Rachel, are you
Terence?”
The great black world lay round them. As they were drawn smoothly along
it seemed possessed of immense thickness and endurance. They could
discern pointed tree-tops and blunt rounded tree-tops. Raising their
eyes above the trees, they fixed them on the stars and the pale border
of sky above the trees. The little points of frosty light infinitely
far away drew their eyes and held them fixed, so that it seemed as if
they stayed a long time and fell a great distance when once more they
realised their hands grasping the rail and their separate bodies
standing side by side.
“You’d forgotten completely about me,” Terence reproached her, taking
her arm and beginning to pace the deck, “and I never forget you.”
“Oh, no,” she whispered, she had not forgotten, only the stars—the
night—the dark—
“You’re like a bird half asleep in its nest, Rachel. You’re asleep.
You’re talking in your sleep.”
Half asleep, and murmuring broken words, they stood in the angle made
by the bow of the boat. It slipped on down the river. Now a bell struck
on the bridge, and they heard the lapping of water as it rippled away
on either side, and once a bird startled in its sleep creaked, flew on
to the next tree, and was silent again. The darkness poured down
profusely, and left them with scarcely any feeling of life, except that
they were standing there together in the darkness.