Chapter IX
An hour passed, and the downstairs rooms at the hotel grew dim andwere almost deserted, while the little box-like squares above them werebrilliantly irradiated. Some forty or fifty people were going to bed.The thump of jugs set down on the floor above could be heard and theclink of china, for there was not as thick a partition between the roomsas one might wish, so Miss Allan, the elderly lady who had been playingbridge, determined, giving the wall a smart rap with her knuckles. Itwas only matchboard, she decided, run up to make many little rooms ofone large one. Her grey petticoats slipped to the ground, and, stooping,she folded her clothes with neat, if not loving fingers, screwed herhair into a plait, wound her father's great gold watch, and opened thecomplete works of Wordsworth. She was reading the "Prelude," partlybecause she always read the "Prelude" abroad, and partly becauseshe was engaged in writing a short _Primer_ _of_ _English__Literature_--_Beowulf_ _to_ _Swinburne_--which would have a paragraphon Wordsworth. She was deep in the fifth book, stopping indeed to pencila note, when a pair of boots dropped, one after another, on the floorabove her. She looked up and speculated. Whose boots were they, shewondered. She then became aware of a swishing sound next door--a woman,clearly, putting away her dress. It was succeeded by a gentle tappingsound, such as that which accompanies hair-dressing. It was verydifficult to keep her attention fixed upon the "Prelude." Was it SusanWarrington tapping? She forced herself, however, to read to the end ofthe book, when she placed a mark between the pages, sighed contentedly,and then turned out the light.
Very different was the room through the wall, though as like in shapeas one egg-box is like another. As Miss Allan read her book, SusanWarrington was brushing her hair. Ages have consecrated this hour,and the most majestic of all domestic actions, to talk of love betweenwomen; but Miss Warrington being alone could not talk; she could onlylook with extreme solicitude at her own face in the glass. She turnedher head from side to side, tossing heavy locks now this way now that;and then withdrew a pace or two, and considered herself seriously.
"I'm nice-looking," she determined. "Not pretty--possibly," she drewherself up a little. "Yes--most people would say I was handsome."
She was really wondering what Arthur Venning would say she was. Herfeeling about him was decidedly queer. She would not admit to herselfthat she was in love with him or that she wanted to marry him, yet shespent every minute when she was alone in wondering what he thought ofher, and in comparing what they had done to-day with what they had donethe day before.
"He didn't ask me to play, but he certainly followed me into the hall,"she meditated, summing up the evening. She was thirty years of age,and owing to the number of her sisters and the seclusion of life in acountry parsonage had as yet had no proposal of marriage. The hour ofconfidences was often a sad one, and she had been known to jump intobed, treating her hair unkindly, feeling herself overlooked by life incomparison with others. She was a big, well-made woman, the red lyingupon her cheeks in patches that were too well defined, but her seriousanxiety gave her a kind of beauty.
She was just about to pull back the bed-clothes when she exclaimed, "Oh,but I'm forgetting," and went to her writing-table. A brown volume laythere stamped with the figure of the year. She proceeded to write in thesquare ugly hand of a mature child, as she wrote daily year after year,keeping the diaries, though she seldom looked at them.
"A.M.--Talked to Mrs. H. Elliot about country neighbours. She knows theManns; also the Selby-Carroways. How small the world is! Like her. Reada chapter of _Miss_ _Appleby's_ _Adventure_ to Aunt E. P.M.--Playedlawn-tennis with Mr. Perrott and Evelyn M. Don't _like_ Mr. P. Have afeeling that he is not 'quite,' though clever certainly. Beat them. Daysplendid, view wonderful. One gets used to no trees, though much toobare at first. Cards after dinner. Aunt E. cheerful, though twingy, shesays. Mem.: _ask_ _about_ _damp_ _sheets_."
She knelt in prayer, and then lay down in bed, tucking the blanketscomfortably about her, and in a few minutes her breathing showed thatshe was asleep. With its profoundly peaceful sighs and hesitations itresembled that of a cow standing up to its knees all night through inthe long grass.
A glance into the next room revealed little more than a nose, prominentabove the sheets. Growing accustomed to the darkness, for the windowswere open and showed grey squares with splinters of starlight, one coulddistinguish a lean form, terribly like the body of a dead person, thebody indeed of William Pepper, asleep too. Thirty-six, thirty-seven,thirty-eight--here were three Portuguese men of business, asleeppresumably, since a snore came with the regularity of a great tickingclock. Thirty-nine was a corner room, at the end of the passage, butlate though it was--"One" struck gently downstairs--a line of lightunder the door showed that some one was still awake.
"How late you are, Hugh!" a woman, lying in bed, said in a peevishbut solicitous voice. Her husband was brushing his teeth, and for somemoments did not answer.
"You should have gone to sleep," he replied. "I was talking toThornbury."
"But you know that I never can sleep when I'm waiting for you," shesaid.
To that he made no answer, but only remarked, "Well then, we'll turn outthe light." They were silent.
The faint but penetrating pulse of an electric bell could now be heardin the corridor. Old Mrs. Paley, having woken hungry but without herspectacles, was summoning her maid to find the biscuit-box. The maidhaving answered the bell, drearily respectful even at this hour thoughmuffled in a mackintosh, the passage was left in silence. Downstairs allwas empty and dark; but on the upper floor a light still burnt in theroom where the boots had dropped so heavily above Miss Allan's head.Here was the gentleman who, a few hours previously, in the shade of thecurtain, had seemed to consist entirely of legs. Deep in an arm-chair hewas reading the third volume of Gibbon's _History_ _of_ _the_ _Decline__and_ _Fall_ _of_ _Rome_ by candle-light. As he read he knocked the ashautomatically, now and again, from his cigarette and turned the page,while a whole procession of splendid sentences entered his capaciousbrow and went marching through his brain in order. It seemed likelythat this process might continue for an hour or more, until the entireregiment had shifted its quarters, had not the door opened, and theyoung man, who was inclined to be stout, come in with large naked feet.
"Oh, Hirst, what I forgot to say was--"
"Two minutes," said Hirst, raising his finger.
He safely stowed away the last words of the paragraph.
"What was it you forgot to say?" he asked.
"D'you think you _do_ make enough allowance for feelings?" asked Mr.Hewet. He had again forgotten what he had meant to say.
After intense contemplation of the immaculate Gibbon Mr. Hirst smiled atthe question of his friend. He laid aside his book and considered.
"I should call yours a singularly untidy mind," he observed. "Feelings?Aren't they just what we do allow for? We put love up there, and all therest somewhere down below." With his left hand he indicated the top of apyramid, and with his right the base.
"But you didn't get out of bed to tell me that," he added severely.
"I got out of bed," said Hewet vaguely, "merely to talk I suppose."
"Meanwhile I shall undress," said Hirst. When naked of all but hisshirt, and bent over the basin, Mr. Hirst no longer impressed one withthe majesty of his intellect, but with the pathos of his young yet uglybody, for he stooped, and he was so thin that there were dark linesbetween the different bones of his neck and shoulders.
"Women interest me," said Hewet, who, sitting on the bed with his chinresting on his knees, paid no attention to the undressing of Mr. Hirst.
"They're so stupid," said Hirst. "You're sitting on my pyjamas."
"I suppose they _are_ stupid?" Hewet wondered.
"There can't be two opinions about that, I imagine," said Hirst,hopping briskly across the room, "unless you're in love--that fat womanWarrington?" he enquired.
"Not one fat woman--all fat women," Hewet sighed.
"The women I saw to-night were not f
at," said Hirst, who was takingadvantage of Hewet's company to cut his toe-nails.
"Describe them," said Hewet.
"You know I can't describe things!" said Hirst. "They were much likeother women, I should think. They always are."
"No; that's where we differ," said Hewet. "I say everything's different.No two people are in the least the same. Take you and me now."
"So I used to think once," said Hirst. "But now they're all types. Don'ttake us,--take this hotel. You could draw circles round the whole lot ofthem, and they'd never stray outside."
("You can kill a hen by doing that"), Hewet murmured.
"Mr. Hughling Elliot, Mrs. Hughling Elliot, Miss Allan, Mr. and Mrs.Thornbury--one circle," Hirst continued. "Miss Warrington, Mr. ArthurVenning, Mr. Perrott, Evelyn M. another circle; then there are a wholelot of natives; finally ourselves."
"Are we all alone in our circle?" asked Hewet.
"Quite alone," said Hirst. "You try to get out, but you can't. You onlymake a mess of things by trying."
"I'm not a hen in a circle," said Hewet. "I'm a dove on a tree-top."
"I wonder if this is what they call an ingrowing toe-nail?" said Hirst,examining the big toe on his left foot.
"I flit from branch to branch," continued Hewet. "The world isprofoundly pleasant." He lay back on the bed, upon his arms.
"I wonder if it's really nice to be as vague as you are?" asked Hirst,looking at him. "It's the lack of continuity--that's what's so odd boutyou," he went on. "At the age of twenty-seven, which is nearly thirty,you seem to have drawn no conclusions. A party of old women excites youstill as though you were three."
Hewet contemplated the angular young man who was neatly brushing therims of his toe-nails into the fire-place in silence for a moment.
"I respect you, Hirst," he remarked.
"I envy you--some things," said Hirst. "One: your capacity for notthinking; two: people like you better than they like me. Women like you,I suppose."
"I wonder whether that isn't really what matters most?" said Hewet.Lying now flat on the bed he waved his hand in vague circles above him.
"Of course it is," said Hirst. "But that's not the difficulty. Thedifficulty is, isn't it, to find an appropriate object?"
"There are no female hens in your circle?" asked Hewet.
"Not the ghost of one," said Hirst.
Although they had known each other for three years Hirst had never yetheard the true story of Hewet's loves. In general conversation it wastaken for granted that they were many, but in private the subject wasallowed to lapse. The fact that he had money enough to do no work, andthat he had left Cambridge after two terms owing to a difference withthe authorities, and had then travelled and drifted, made his lifestrange at many points where his friends' lives were much of a piece.
"I don't see your circles--I don't see them," Hewet continued. "I see athing like a teetotum spinning in and out--knocking into things--dashingfrom side to side--collecting numbers--more and more and more, till thewhole place is thick with them. Round and round they go--out there, overthe rim--out of sight."
His fingers showed that the waltzing teetotums had spun over the edge ofthe counterpane and fallen off the bed into infinity.
"Could you contemplate three weeks alone in this hotel?" asked Hirst,after a moment's pause.
Hewet proceeded to think.
"The truth of it is that one never is alone, and one never is incompany," he concluded.
"Meaning?" said Hirst.
"Meaning? Oh, something about bubbles--auras--what d'you call 'em? Youcan't see my bubble; I can't see yours; all we see of each other is aspeck, like the wick in the middle of that flame. The flame goes aboutwith us everywhere; it's not ourselves exactly, but what we feel; theworld is short, or people mainly; all kinds of people."
"A nice streaky bubble yours must be!" said Hirst.
"And supposing my bubble could run into some one else's bubble--"
"And they both burst?" put in Hirst.
"Then--then--then--" pondered Hewet, as if to himself, "it would be ane-nor-mous world," he said, stretching his arms to their full width, asthough even so they could hardly clasp the billowy universe, for when hewas with Hirst he always felt unusually sanguine and vague.
"I don't think you altogether as foolish as I used to, Hewet," saidHirst. "You don't know what you mean but you try to say it."
"But aren't you enjoying yourself here?" asked Hewet.
"On the whole--yes," said Hirst. "I like observing people. I likelooking at things. This country is amazingly beautiful. Did you noticehow the top of the mountain turned yellow to-night? Really we must takeour lunch and spend the day out. You're getting disgustingly fat." Hepointed at the calf of Hewet's bare leg.
"We'll get up an expedition," said Hewet energetically. "We'll ask theentire hotel. We'll hire donkeys and--"
"Oh, Lord!" said Hirst, "do shut it! I can see Miss Warrington and MissAllan and Mrs. Elliot and the rest squatting on the stones and quacking,'How jolly!'"
"We'll ask Venning and Perrott and Miss Murgatroyd--every one we can layhands on," went on Hewet. "What's the name of the little old grasshopperwith the eyeglasses? Pepper?--Pepper shall lead us."
"Thank God, you'll never get the donkeys," said Hirst.
"I must make a note of that," said Hewet, slowly dropping his feet tothe floor. "Hirst escorts Miss Warrington Pepper advances alone on awhite ass; provisions equally distributed--or shall we hire a mule? Thematrons--there's Mrs. Paley, by Jove!--share a carriage."
"That's where you'll go wrong," said Hirst. "Putting virgins amongmatrons."
"How long should you think that an expedition like that would take,Hirst?" asked Hewet.
"From twelve to sixteen hours I would say," said Hirst. "The timeusually occupied by a first confinement."
"It will need considerable organisation," said Hewet. He was now paddingsoftly round the room, and stopped to stir the books on the table. Theylay heaped one upon another.
"We shall want some poets too," he remarked. "Not Gibbon no; d'youhappen to have _Modern_ _Love_ or _John_ _Donne_? You see, I contemplatepauses when people get tired of looking at the view, and then it wouldbe nice to read something rather difficult aloud."
"Mrs. Paley _will_ enjoy herself," said Hirst.
"Mrs. Paley will enjoy it certainly," said Hewet. "It's one of thesaddest things I know--the way elderly ladies cease to read poetry. Andyet how appropriate this is:
I speak as one who plumbs Life's dim profound, One who at length can sound Clear views and certain.
But--after love what comes? A scene that lours, A few sad vacant hours, And then, the Curtain.
I daresay Mrs. Paley is the only one of us who can really understandthat."
"We'll ask her," said Hirst. "Please, Hewet, if you must go to bed, drawmy curtain. Few things distress me more than the moonlight."
Hewet retreated, pressing the poems of Thomas Hardy beneath his arm,and in their beds next door to each other both the young men were soonasleep.
Between the extinction of Hewet's candle and the rising of a duskySpanish boy who was the first to survey the desolation of the hotel inthe early morning, a few hours of silence intervened. One could almosthear a hundred people breathing deeply, and however wakeful and restlessit would have been hard to escape sleep in the middle of so much sleep.Looking out of the windows, there was only darkness to be seen. All overthe shadowed half of the world people lay prone, and a few flickeringlights in empty streets marked the places where their cities werebuilt. Red and yellow omnibuses were crowding each other in Piccadilly;sumptuous women were rocking at a standstill; but here in the darknessan owl flitted from tree to tree, and when the breeze lifted thebranches the moon flashed as if it were a torch. Until all people shouldawake again the houseless animals were abroad, the tigers and the stags,and the elephants coming down in the darkness to drink at pools. Thewind at night blowing over the hills and woods was pur
er and fresherthan the wind by day, and the earth, robbed of detail, more mysteriousthan the earth coloured and divided by roads and fields. For six hoursthis profound beauty existed, and then as the east grew whiter andwhiter the ground swam to the surface, the roads were revealed, thesmoke rose and the people stirred, and the sun shone upon the windowsof the hotel at Santa Marina until they were uncurtained, and the gongblaring all through the house gave notice of breakfast.
Directly breakfast was over, the ladies as usual circled vaguely,picking up papers and putting them down again, about the hall.
"And what are you going to do to-day?" asked Mrs. Elliot drifting upagainst Miss Warrington.
Mrs. Elliot, the wife of Hughling the Oxford Don, was a short woman,whose expression was habitually plaintive. Her eyes moved from thing tothing as though they never found anything sufficiently pleasant to restupon for any length of time.
"I'm going to try to get Aunt Emma out into the town," said Susan."She's not seen a thing yet."
"I call it so spirited of her at her age," said Mrs. Elliot, "coming allthis way from her own fireside."
"Yes, we always tell her she'll die on board ship," Susan replied. "Shewas born on one," she added.
"In the old days," said Mrs. Elliot, "a great many people were. I alwayspity the poor women so! We've got a lot to complain of!" She shook herhead. Her eyes wandered about the table, and she remarked irrelevantly,"The poor little Queen of Holland! Newspaper reporters practically, onemay say, at her bedroom door!"
"Were you talking of the Queen of Holland?" said the pleasant voice ofMiss Allan, who was searching for the thick pages of _The_ _Times_ amonga litter of thin foreign sheets.
"I always envy any one who lives in such an excessively flat country,"she remarked.
"How very strange!" said Mrs. Elliot. "I find a flat country sodepressing."
"I'm afraid you can't be very happy here then, Miss Allan," said Susan.
"On the contrary," said Miss Allan, "I am exceedingly fond ofmountains." Perceiving _The_ _Times_ at some distance, she moved off tosecure it.
"Well, I must find my husband," said Mrs. Elliot, fidgeting away.
"And I must go to my aunt," said Miss Warrington, and taking up theduties of the day they moved away.
Whether the flimsiness of foreign sheets and the coarseness of theirtype is any proof of frivolity and ignorance, there is no doubt thatEnglish people scarce consider news read there as news, any more than aprogramme bought from a man in the street inspires confidence in what itsays. A very respectable elderly pair, having inspected the long tablesof newspapers, did not think it worth their while to read more than theheadlines.
"The debate on the fifteenth should have reached us by now," Mrs.Thornbury murmured. Mr. Thornbury, who was beautifully clean and hadred rubbed into his handsome worn face like traces of paint on aweather-beaten wooden figure, looked over his glasses and saw that MissAllan had _The_ _Times_.
The couple therefore sat themselves down in arm-chairs and waited.
"Ah, there's Mr. Hewet," said Mrs. Thornbury. "Mr. Hewet," shecontinued, "do come and sit by us. I was telling my husband how much youreminded me of a dear old friend of mine--Mary Umpleby. She was a mostdelightful woman, I assure you. She grew roses. We used to stay with herin the old days."
"No young man likes to have it said that he resembles an elderlyspinster," said Mr. Thornbury.
"On the contrary," said Mr. Hewet, "I always think it a complimentto remind people of some one else. But Miss Umpleby--why did she growroses?"
"Ah, poor thing," said Mrs. Thornbury, "that's a long story. She hadgone through dreadful sorrows. At one time I think she would have losther senses if it hadn't been for her garden. The soil was very muchagainst her--a blessing in disguise; she had to be up at dawn--outin all weathers. And then there are creatures that eat roses. But shetriumphed. She always did. She was a brave soul." She sighed deeply butat the same time with resignation.
"I did not realise that I was monopolising the paper," said Miss Allan,coming up to them.
"We were so anxious to read about the debate," said Mrs. Thornbury,accepting it on behalf of her husband.
"One doesn't realise how interesting a debate can be until one has sonsin the navy. My interests are equally balanced, though; I have sons inthe army too; and one son who makes speeches at the Union--my baby!"
"Hirst would know him, I expect," said Hewet.
"Mr. Hirst has such an interesting face," said Mrs. Thornbury. "But Ifeel one ought to be very clever to talk to him. Well, William?" sheenquired, for Mr. Thornbury grunted.
"They're making a mess of it," said Mr. Thornbury. He had reached thesecond column of the report, a spasmodic column, for the Irish membershad been brawling three weeks ago at Westminster over a question ofnaval efficiency. After a disturbed paragraph or two, the column ofprint once more ran smoothly.
"You have read it?" Mrs. Thornbury asked Miss Allan.
"No, I am ashamed to say I have only read about the discoveries inCrete," said Miss Allan.
"Oh, but I would give so much to realise the ancient world!" criedMrs. Thornbury. "Now that we old people are alone,--we're on our secondhoneymoon,--I am really going to put myself to school again. After allwe are _founded_ on the past, aren't we, Mr. Hewet? My soldier son saysthat there is still a great deal to be learnt from Hannibal. One oughtto know so much more than one does. Somehow when I read the paper, Ibegin with the debates first, and, before I've done, the door alwaysopens--we're a very large party at home--and so one never does thinkenough about the ancients and all they've done for us. But _you_ beginat the beginning, Miss Allan."
"When I think of the Greeks I think of them as naked black men," saidMiss Allan, "which is quite incorrect, I'm sure."
"And you, Mr. Hirst?" said Mrs. Thornbury, perceiving that the gauntyoung man was near. "I'm sure you read everything."
"I confine myself to cricket and crime," said Hirst. "The worst ofcoming from the upper classes," he continued, "is that one's friends arenever killed in railway accidents."
Mr. Thornbury threw down the paper, and emphatically dropped hiseyeglasses. The sheets fell in the middle of the group, and were eyed bythem all.
"It's not gone well?" asked his wife solicitously.
Hewet picked up one sheet and read, "A lady was walking yesterday inthe streets of Westminster when she perceived a cat in the window of adeserted house. The famished animal--"
"I shall be out of it anyway," Mr. Thornbury interrupted peevishly.
"Cats are often forgotten," Miss Allan remarked.
"Remember, William, the Prime Minister has reserved his answer," saidMrs. Thornbury.
"At the age of eighty, Mr. Joshua Harris of Eeles Park, Brondesbury, hashad a son," said Hirst.
". . . The famished animal, which had been noticed by workmen for somedays, was rescued, but--by Jove! it bit the man's hand to pieces!"
"Wild with hunger, I suppose," commented Miss Allan.
"You're all neglecting the chief advantage of being abroad," said Mr.Hughling Elliot, who had joined the group. "You might read your news inFrench, which is equivalent to reading no news at all."
Mr. Elliot had a profound knowledge of Coptic, which he concealed as faras possible, and quoted French phrases so exquisitely that it was hardto believe that he could also speak the ordinary tongue. He had animmense respect for the French.
"Coming?" he asked the two young men. "We ought to start before it'sreally hot."
"I beg of you not to walk in the heat, Hugh," his wife pleaded, givinghim an angular parcel enclosing half a chicken and some raisins.
"Hewet will be our barometer," said Mr. Elliot. "He will melt before Ishall." Indeed, if so much as a drop had melted off his spare ribs, thebones would have lain bare. The ladies were left alone now, surrounding_The_ _Times_ which lay upon the floor. Miss Allan looked at herfather's watch.
"Ten minutes to eleven," she observed.
"Work?" asked Mrs. Thornbury.
/> "Work," replied Miss Allan.
"What a fine creature she is!" murmured Mrs. Thornbury, as the squarefigure in its manly coat withdrew.
"And I'm sure she has a hard life," sighed Mrs. Elliot.
"Oh, it _is_ a hard life," said Mrs. Thornbury. "Unmarriedwomen--earning their livings--it's the hardest life of all."
"Yet she seems pretty cheerful," said Mrs. Elliot.
"It must be very interesting," said Mrs. Thornbury. "I envy her herknowledge."
"But that isn't what women want," said Mrs. Elliot.
"I'm afraid it's all a great many can hope to have," sighed Mrs.Thornbury. "I believe that there are more of us than ever now. SirHarley Lethbridge was telling me only the other day how difficult it isto find boys for the navy--partly because of their teeth, it is true.And I have heard young women talk quite openly of--"
"Dreadful, dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. "The crown, as one may callit, of a woman's life. I, who know what it is to be childless--" shesighed and ceased.
"But we must not be hard," said Mrs. Thornbury. "The conditions are somuch changed since I was a young woman."
"Surely _maternity_ does not change," said Mrs. Elliot.
"In some ways we can learn a great deal from the young," said Mrs.Thornbury. "I learn so much from my own daughters."
"I believe that Hughling really doesn't mind," said Mrs. Elliot. "Butthen he has his work."
"Women without children can do so much for the children of others,"observed Mrs. Thornbury gently.
"I sketch a great deal," said Mrs. Elliot, "but that isn't really anoccupation. It's so disconcerting to find girls just beginning doingbetter than one does oneself! And nature's difficult--very difficult!"
"Are there not institutions--clubs--that you could help?" asked Mrs.Thornbury.
"They are so exhausting," said Mrs. Elliot. "I look strong, because ofmy colour; but I'm not; the youngest of eleven never is."
"If the mother is careful before," said Mrs. Thornbury judicially,"there is no reason why the size of the family should make anydifference. And there is no training like the training that brothers andsisters give each other. I am sure of that. I have seen it with my ownchildren. My eldest boy Ralph, for instance--"
But Mrs. Elliot was inattentive to the elder lady's experience, and hereyes wandered about the hall.
"My mother had two miscarriages, I know," she said suddenly. "The firstbecause she met one of those great dancing bears--they shouldn't beallowed; the other--it was a horrid story--our cook had a child andthere was a dinner party. So I put my dyspepsia down to that."
"And a miscarriage is so much worse than a confinement," Mrs. Thornburymurmured absentmindedly, adjusting her spectacles and picking up _The__Times_. Mrs. Elliot rose and fluttered away.
When she had heard what one of the million voices speaking in the paperhad to say, and noticed that a cousin of hers had married a clergyman atMinehead--ignoring the drunken women, the golden animals of Crete,the movements of battalions, the dinners, the reforms, the fires, theindignant, the learned and benevolent, Mrs. Thornbury went upstairs towrite a letter for the mail.
The paper lay directly beneath the clock, the two together seeming torepresent stability in a changing world. Mr. Perrott passed through;Mr. Venning poised for a second on the edge of a table. Mrs. Paley waswheeled past. Susan followed. Mr. Venning strolled after her. Portuguesemilitary families, their clothes suggesting late rising in untidybedrooms, trailed across, attended by confidential nurses carrying noisychildren. As midday drew on, and the sun beat straight upon the roof,an eddy of great flies droned in a circle; iced drinks were served underthe palms; the long blinds were pulled down with a shriek, turning allthe light yellow. The clock now had a silent hall to tick in, and anaudience of four or five somnolent merchants. By degrees white figureswith shady hats came in at the door, admitting a wedge of the hot summerday, and shutting it out again. After resting in the dimness for aminute, they went upstairs. Simultaneously, the clock wheezed one, andthe gong sounded, beginning softly, working itself into a frenzy, andceasing. There was a pause. Then all those who had gone upstairs camedown; cripples came, planting both feet on the same step lest theyshould slip; prim little girls came, holding the nurse's finger; fat oldmen came still buttoning waistcoats. The gong had been sounded in thegarden, and by degrees recumbent figures rose and strolled in to eat,since the time had come for them to feed again. There were pools andbars of shade in the garden even at midday, where two or three visitorscould lie working or talking at their ease.
Owing to the heat of the day, luncheon was generally a silent meal, whenpeople observed their neighbors and took stock of any new faces theremight be, hazarding guesses as to who they were and what they did. Mrs.Paley, although well over seventy and crippled in the legs, enjoyed herfood and the peculiarities of her fellow-beings. She was seated at asmall table with Susan.
"I shouldn't like to say what _she_ is!" she chuckled, surveying a tallwoman dressed conspicuously in white, with paint in the hollows of hercheeks, who was always late, and always attended by a shabby femalefollower, at which remark Susan blushed, and wondered why her aunt saidsuch things.
Lunch went on methodically, until each of the seven courses was left infragments and the fruit was merely a toy, to be peeled and sliced asa child destroys a daisy, petal by petal. The food served as anextinguisher upon any faint flame of the human spirit that might survivethe midday heat, but Susan sat in her room afterwards, turning over andover the delightful fact that Mr. Venning had come to her in the garden,and had sat there quite half an hour while she read aloud to her aunt.Men and women sought different corners where they could lie unobserved,and from two to four it might be said without exaggeration that thehotel was inhabited by bodies without souls. Disastrous would have beenthe result if a fire or a death had suddenly demanded something heroicof human nature, but tragedies come in the hungry hours. Towards fouro'clock the human spirit again began to lick the body, as a flame licksa black promontory of coal. Mrs. Paley felt it unseemly to open hertoothless jaw so widely, though there was no one near, and Mrs. Elliotsurveyed her found flushed face anxiously in the looking-glass.
Half an hour later, having removed the traces of sleep, they met eachother in the hall, and Mrs. Paley observed that she was going to haveher tea.
"You like your tea too, don't you?" she said, and invited Mrs. Elliot,whose husband was still out, to join her at a special table which shehad placed for her under a tree.
"A little silver goes a long way in this country," she chuckled.
She sent Susan back to fetch another cup.
"They have such excellent biscuits here," she said, contemplating aplateful. "Not sweet biscuits, which I don't like--dry biscuits . . .Have you been sketching?"
"Oh, I've done two or three little daubs," said Mrs. Elliot, speakingrather louder than usual. "But it's so difficult after Oxfordshire,where there are so many trees. The light's so strong here. Some peopleadmire it, I know, but I find it very fatiguing."
"I really don't need cooking, Susan," said Mrs. Paley, when her niecereturned. "I must trouble you to move me." Everything had to be moved.Finally the old lady was placed so that the light wavered over her,as though she were a fish in a net. Susan poured out tea, and was justremarking that they were having hot weather in Wiltshire too, when Mr.Venning asked whether he might join them.
"It's so nice to find a young man who doesn't despise tea," said Mrs.Paley, regaining her good humour. "One of my nephews the other day askedfor a glass of sherry--at five o'clock! I told him he could get it atthe public house round the corner, but not in my drawing room."
"I'd rather go without lunch than tea," said Mr. Venning. "That's notstrictly true. I want both."
Mr. Venning was a dark young man, about thirty-two years of age, veryslapdash and confident in his manner, although at this moment obviouslya little excited. His friend Mr. Perrott was a barrister, and as Mr.Perrott refused to go anywhere without Mr. Venning it was
necessary,when Mr. Perrott came to Santa Marina about a Company, for Mr. Venningto come too. He was a barrister also, but he loathed a profession whichkept him indoors over books, and directly his widowed mother died he wasgoing, so he confided to Susan, to take up flying seriously, and becomepartner in a large business for making aeroplanes. The talk rambled on.It dealt, of course, with the beauties and singularities of the place,the streets, the people, and the quantities of unowned yellow dogs.
"Don't you think it dreadfully cruel the way they treat dogs in thiscountry?" asked Mrs. Paley.
"I'd have 'em all shot," said Mr. Venning.
"Oh, but the darling puppies," said Susan.
"Jolly little chaps," said Mr. Venning. "Look here, you've got nothingto eat." A great wedge of cake was handed Susan on the point of atrembling knife. Her hand trembled too as she took it.
"I have such a dear dog at home," said Mrs. Elliot.
"My parrot can't stand dogs," said Mrs. Paley, with the air of onemaking a confidence. "I always suspect that he (or she) was teased by adog when I was abroad."
"You didn't get far this morning, Miss Warrington," said Mr. Venning.
"It was hot," she answered. Their conversation became private, owingto Mrs. Paley's deafness and the long sad history which Mrs. Elliot hadembarked upon of a wire-haired terrier, white with just one black spot,belonging to an uncle of hers, which had committed suicide. "Animals docommit suicide," she sighed, as if she asserted a painful fact.
"Couldn't we explore the town this evening?" Mr. Venning suggested.
"My aunt--" Susan began.
"You deserve a holiday," he said. "You're always doing things for otherpeople."
"But that's my life," she said, under cover of refilling the teapot.
"That's no one's life," he returned, "no young person's. You'll come?"
"I should like to come," she murmured.
At this moment Mrs. Elliot looked up and exclaimed, "Oh, Hugh! He'sbringing some one," she added.
"He would like some tea," said Mrs. Paley. "Susan, run and get somecups--there are the two young men."
"We're thirsting for tea," said Mr. Elliot. "You know Mr. Ambrose,Hilda? We met on the hill."
"He dragged me in," said Ridley, "or I should have been ashamed. I'mdusty and dirty and disagreeable." He pointed to his boots which werewhite with dust, while a dejected flower drooping in his buttonhole,like an exhausted animal over a gate, added to the effect of length anduntidiness. He was introduced to the others. Mr. Hewet and Mr. Hirstbrought chairs, and tea began again, Susan pouring cascades of waterfrom pot to pot, always cheerfully, and with the competence of long use.
"My wife's brother," Ridley explained to Hilda, whom he failed toremember, "has a house here, which he has lent us. I was sitting on arock thinking of nothing at all when Elliot started up like a fairy in apantomime."
"Our chicken got into the salt," Hewet said dolefully to Susan. "Nor isit true that bananas include moisture as well as sustenance."
Hirst was already drinking.
"We've been cursing you," said Ridley in answer to Mrs. Elliot's kindenquiries about his wife. "You tourists eat up all the eggs, Helentells me. That's an eye-sore too"--he nodded his head at the hotel."Disgusting luxury, I call it. We live with pigs in the drawing-room."
"The food is not at all what it ought to be, considering the price,"said Mrs. Paley seriously. "But unless one goes to a hotel where is oneto go to?"
"Stay at home," said Ridley. "I often wish I had! Everyone ought to stayat home. But, of course, they won't."
Mrs. Paley conceived a certain grudge against Ridley, who seemed to becriticising her habits after an acquaintance of five minutes.
"I believe in foreign travel myself," she stated, "if one knows one'snative land, which I think I can honestly say I do. I should not allowany one to travel until they had visited Kent and Dorsetshire--Kent forthe hops, and Dorsetshire for its old stone cottages. There is nothingto compare with them here."
"Yes--I always think that some people like the flat and other peoplelike the downs," said Mrs. Elliot rather vaguely.
Hirst, who had been eating and drinking without interruption, now lita cigarette, and observed, "Oh, but we're all agreed by this time thatnature's a mistake. She's either very ugly, appallingly uncomfortable,or absolutely terrifying. I don't know which alarms me most--a cow or atree. I once met a cow in a field by night. The creature looked at me.I assure you it turned my hair grey. It's a disgrace that the animalsshould be allowed to go at large."
"And what did the cow think of _him_?" Venning mumbled to Susan, whoimmediately decided in her own mind that Mr. Hirst was a dreadful youngman, and that although he had such an air of being clever he probablywasn't as clever as Arthur, in the ways that really matter.
"Wasn't it Wilde who discovered the fact that nature makes no allowancefor hip-bones?" enquired Hughling Elliot. He knew by this time exactlywhat scholarships and distinction Hirst enjoyed, and had formed a veryhigh opinion of his capacities.
But Hirst merely drew his lips together very tightly and made no reply.
Ridley conjectured that it was now permissible for him to take hisleave. Politeness required him to thank Mrs. Elliot for his tea, and toadd, with a wave of his hand, "You must come up and see us."
The wave included both Hirst and Hewet, and Hewet answered, "I shouldlike it immensely."
The party broke up, and Susan, who had never felt so happy in her life,was just about to start for her walk in the town with Arthur, when Mrs.Paley beckoned her back. She could not understand from the book howDouble Demon patience is played; and suggested that if they sat down andworked it out together it would fill up the time nicely before dinner.
The Voyage Out Page 9
