Chapter V
She was not able to follow up her observations, however, or to come toany conclusion, for by one of those accidents which are liable to happenat 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 lashwere descending. She who had been a broad-backed dray-horse, upon whosehind-quarters pierrots might waltz, became a colt in a field. The platesslanted away from the knives, and Mrs. Dalloway's face blanched fora second as she helped herself and saw the potatoes roll this way andthat. Willoughby, of course, extolled the virtues of his ship,and quoted what had been said of her by experts and distinguishedpassengers, for he loved his own possessions. Still, dinner was uneasy,and directly the ladies were alone Clarissa owned that she would bebetter 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, eatingvaliantly at each; but at the third, certain glazed asparagus swimmingin oil finally conquered him.
"That beats me," he said, and withdrew.
"Now we are alone once more," remarked William Pepper, looking round thetable; but no one was ready to engage him in talk, and the meal ended insilence.
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; theyshouted across tables. They wore fur coats; and Helen was never seenwithout a bandanna on her head. For comfort they retreated to theircabins, where with tightly wedged feet they let the ship bounce andtumble. Their sensations were the sensations of potatoes in a sack on agalloping horse. The world outside was merely a violent grey tumult.For two days they had a perfect rest from their old emotions. Rachel hadjust enough consciousness to suppose herself a donkey on the summit of amoor in a hail-storm, with its coat blown into furrows; then she becamea 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 dissipatedappearance. "Awful!" she gasped. Her lips were white inside.
Planting her feet wide, Helen contrived to pour champagne into a tumblerwith a tooth-brush in it.
"Champagne," she said.
"There's a tooth-brush in it," murmured Clarissa, and smiled; it mighthave been the contortion of one weeping. She drank.
"Disgusting," she whispered, indicating the basins. Relics of humourstill 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 acrossher. Between the spasms of the storm, Helen made the curtain fast, shookthe pillows, stretched the bed-clothes, and smoothed the hot nostrilsand forehead with cold scent.
"You _are_ good!" Clarissa gasped. "Horrid mess!"
She was trying to apologise for white underclothes fallen and scatteredon the floor. For one second she opened a single eye, and saw that theroom was tidy.
"That's nice," she gasped.
Helen left her; far, far away she knew that she felt a kind of likingfor Mrs. Dalloway. She could not help respecting her spirit andher desire, even in the throes of sickness, for a tidy bedroom. Herpetticoats, however, rose above her knees.
Quite suddenly the storm relaxed its grasp. It happened at tea; theexpected paroxysm of the blast gave out just as it reached its climaxand dwindled away, and the ship instead of taking the usual plungewent steadily. The monotonous order of plunging and rising, roaring andrelaxing, was interfered with, and every one at table looked up andfelt something loosen within them. The strain was slackened and humanfeelings began to peep again, as they do when daylight shows at the endof a tunnel.
"Try a turn with me," Ridley called across to Rachel.
"Foolish!" cried Helen, but they went stumbling up the ladder. Chokedby the wind their spirits rose with a rush, for on the skirts of all thegrey tumult was a misty spot of gold. Instantly the world dropped intoshape; they were no longer atoms flying in the void, but people ridinga 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 hadbeen unmoored also, once more attached itself to the old beliefs.
Having scrambled twice round the ship and received many sound cuffs fromthe wind, they saw a sailor's face positively shine golden. They looked,and beheld a complete yellow circle of sun; next minute it was traversedby sailing stands of cloud, and then completely hidden. By breakfastthe next morning, however, the sky was swept clean, the waves, althoughsteep, were blue, and after their view of the strange under-world,inhabited by phantoms, people began to live among tea-pots and loaves ofbread with greater zest than ever.
Richard and Clarissa, however, still remained on the borderland. She didnot attempt to sit up; her husband stood on his feet, contemplated hiswaistcoat and trousers, shook his head, and then lay down again. Theinside of his brain was still rising and falling like the sea on thestage. At four o'clock he woke from sleep and saw the sunlight make avivid angle across the red plush curtains and the grey tweed trousers.The ordinary world outside slid into his mind, and by the time he wasdressed he was an English gentleman again.
He stood beside his wife. She pulled him down to her by the lapel of hiscoat, kissed him, and held him fast for a minute.
"Go and get a breath of air, Dick," she said. "You look quite washedout. . . . How nice you smell! . . . And be polite to that woman. Shewas so kind to me."
Thereupon Mrs. Dalloway turned to the cool side of her pillow, terriblyflattened but still invincible.
Richard found Helen talking to her brother-in-law, over two dishes ofyellow cake and smooth bread and butter.
"You look very ill!" she exclaimed on seeing him. "Come and have sometea."
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 awfultime of it. You came in and fed her with champagne. Were you among thesaved 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 thehearty 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-butterstage." He handed him the plate.
"Now, I should advise a hearty tea, then a brisk walk on deck; and bydinner-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 onsomething."
"Yes," said Helen, "he's always been like that."
"This is a great undertaking of his," Richard continued. "It's abusiness that won't stop with ships, I should say. We shall see himin Parliament, or I'm much mistaken. He's the kind of man we want inParliament--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 oneis to one's body in this world. D'you know, I can never work without akettle on the hob. As often as not I don't drink tea, but I must feelthat 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 politiciansmust make up our minds to that at the outset. We've got to burn t
hecandle at both ends, or--"
"You've cooked your goose!" said Helen brightly.
"We can't make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose," he protested. "MayI ask how you've spent your time? Reading--philosophy?" (He saw theblack book.) "Metaphysics and fishing!" he exclaimed. "If I had to liveagain I believe I should devote myself to one or the other." He beganturning the pages.
"'Good, then, is indefinable,'" he read out. "How jolly to think that'sgoing on still! 'So far as I know there is only one ethical writer,Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated thisfact.' That's just the kind of thing we used to talk about when we wereboys. I can remember arguing until five in the morning with Duffy--nowSecretary for India--pacing round and round those cloisters until wedecided 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 inlife. Nothing's been quite so vivid since. It's the philosophers, it'sthe scholars," he continued, "they're the people who pass the torch,who keep the light burning by which we live. Being a politician doesn'tnecessarily blind one to that, Mrs. Ambrose."
"No. Why should it?" said Helen. "But can you remember if your wifetakes sugar?"
She lifted the tray and went off with it to Mrs. Dalloway.
Richard twisted a muffler twice round his throat and struggled up ondeck. His body, which had grown white and tender in a dark room, tingledall over in the fresh air. He felt himself a man undoubtedly in theprime of life. Pride glowed in his eye as he let the wind buffet himand stood firm. With his head slightly lowered he sheered round corners,strode uphill, and met the blast. There was a collision. For a secondhe 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 tospeak. She drove open the door of her room and stepped into its calm. Inorder to speak to her, it was necessary that Richard should follow. Theystood in a whirlpool of wind; papers began flying round in circles, thedoor crashed to, and they tumbled, laughing, into chairs. Richard satupon Bach.
"My word! What a tempest!" he exclaimed.
"Fine, isn't it?" said Rachel. Certainly the struggle and wind had givenher 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? Howjolly!" "There--sit there," she commanded. Cowper slid once more.
"How jolly to meet again," said Richard. "It seems an age. _Cowper'sLetters_? . . . Bach? . . . _Wuthering Heights_? . . . Is this whereyou meditate on the world, and then come out and pose poor politicianswith questions? In the intervals of sea-sickness I've thought a lot ofour talk. I assure you, you made me think."
"I made you think! But why?"
"What solitary icebergs we are, Miss Vinrace! How little we cancommunicate! There are lots of things I should like to tell youabout--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. Thisreticence--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. Ofcourse you are! Good God! When I think of the age we live in, withits opportunities and possibilities, the mass of things to be done andenjoyed--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 hisfingers across his eyes.
"How strange to be a woman! A young and beautiful woman," he continuedsententiously, "has the whole world at her feet. That's true, MissVinrace. You have an inestimable power--for good or for evil. Whatcouldn't you do--" he broke off.
"What?" asked Rachel.
"You have beauty," he said. The ship lurched. Rachel fell slightlyforward. Richard took her in his arms and kissed her. Holding her tight,he kissed her passionately, so that she felt the hardness of his bodyand the roughness of his cheek printed upon hers. She fell back in herchair, with tremendous beats of the heart, each of which sent blackwaves across her eyes. He clasped his forehead in his hands.
"You tempt me," he said. The tone of his voice was terrifying. He seemedchoked in fright. They were both trembling. Rachel stood up and went.Her head was cold, her knees shaking, and the physical pain of theemotion was so great that she could only keep herself moving abovethe great leaps of her heart. She leant upon the rail of the ship, andgradually 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 ofthe waves they seemed singularly detached and unconcerned.
"You're peaceful," she said. She became peaceful too, at the sametime possessed with a strange exultation. Life seemed to hold infinitepossibilities she had never guessed at. She leant upon the rail andlooked over the troubled grey waters, where the sunlight was fitfullyscattered upon the crests of the waves, until she was cold andabsolutely 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 inordinary life, so that they did not like to look at each other. Richardslid his eyes over her uneasily once, and never looked at her again.Formal platitudes were manufactured with effort, but Willoughby waskindled.
"Beef for Mr. Dalloway!" he shouted. "Come now--after that walk you'reat the beef stage, Dalloway!"
Wonderful masculine stories followed about Bright and Disraeli andcoalition governments, wonderful stories which made the people at thedinner-table seem featureless and small. After dinner, sitting alonewith Rachel under the great swinging lamp, Helen was struck by herpallor. It once more occurred to her that there was something strange inthe 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 havebeen very tired for she fell asleep at once, but after an hour or two ofdreamless sleep, she dreamt. She dreamt that she was walking down a longtunnel, which grew so narrow by degrees that she could touch the dampbricks 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 sliddown. Still and cold as death she lay, not daring to move, until shebroke 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. Shefelt herself pursued, so that she got up and actually locked her door.A voice moaned for her; eyes desired her. All night long barbarian menharassed the ship; they came scuffling down the passages, and stopped tosnuffle at her door. She could not sleep again.