ROBERT DAVIES STOOD in the Dalloways’ hall looking all about him and thinking: This is Richard’s house, the home he shares with his wife. I am in their house. Inside Richard’s house, where I have never been—though he has been in my house countless times. In Richard’s house at last. It was a fold into which he longed to tuck himself
So Robert Davies stood in the hall taking everything in and looking, he was sure, like a scared, matted cat dragged in from some back alley. For it hadn’t worked out quite as he had planned (first off, he had lost his nerve: he simply had to put Wilde out of his mind). But also.... Well, Mrs. Dalloway was not in, the butler said; and that was according to plan. But then upon asking to see Mr. Dalloway, to go up to him himself, the butler—Wilkins he believed the fellow had said his name was—had looked at him, had glanced him over (with an inscrutable eye, so Robbie thought, though perhaps deservedly so); and then he had said no (begging his pardon), he thought not; that he thought he should get the master himself; that his master would prefer that. Then he had asked his name, the butler had. And Robbie just stood there; stunned. He hadn’t planned for this. But he couldn’t very well say “Robert Davies” could he? For that would have been like sky-writing it all over London from an aeroplane. And so he had said “Mr. Faber.” Richard would know it was him. But how would Richard react? he wondered. Would he be furious? Or would he melt (as Robbie needed him to), would Richard melt then and there (thus proving it had been the right thing to do); would he be glad? So Robbie was wondering when....
The front door opened. The telephone rang. Big Ben sounded the hour—one, two, three.... All was confusion, riot, to both parties now standing in the hall. When he had first heard the latch on the door, Robbie thought that surely it must be Mrs. Dalloway come home, and he knew she would know, would know him, who he was, the very instant she saw him (though they had never met); for women were like that—they had intuition. And he had nowhere to hide. She would know who he was, and there would be a terrible scene, and Richard would come down and say that that was it; that it was over.
How strange it is (Elizabeth Dalloway thought), returning to one’s home after a long absence—only to find a stranger standing alone in one’s front hall, for she did not recognise this man at all. She thought back; she tried to place him—a friend of her mother’s? Of her father’s? A friend of the family?
Robbie relaxed somewhat when he saw the young girl come in through the door and close it behind her. He guessed she must be the one child; the daughter, he couldn’t recall the name.
“Hello,” she said, smiling politely (if also warily, Robbie thought. Warily and awkwardly).
But before he could respond, there was a small dog, a fox-terrier, he thought. “Grizzle!” Elizabeth exclaimed. Her beloved Grizzle—dancing all about her; jumping up on her legs; licking at the hand she reached down to him. She picked him up.
“I’m here to see your father,” Robbie offered, thinking that he should say something to try put the girl at ease.
But she did not reply, preoccupied as she was with her dog. She merely smiled, nodded, then returned her attention to the dog (now he was licking her face) and advanced further into the house, further than he was allowed to go.
What was taking Richard so long? he wondered, continuing to look about (he would memorise it; every inch of it. Then later he would write it all down in his notebook). There was the telephone on the hall table. A telephone pad for messages (and a message very carefully printed out). A wire sat beside it unopened. And this?—a square card set atop an envelope. Ivory-coloured; embossed with night-black ink. What was it? Some sort of an invitation? He picked it up. He read:Mr. and Mrs. Richard Dalloway
invite you to celebrate their
30th wedding anniversary
28 June, 1927
9.30 P.M.
Entrance, King’s Cross Station
How his heart raced! Then Elizabeth returned to the hall (he put his hands behind his back; he looked up at the ceiling, feigning casualness; he tried to calm himself). She stood there. She looked at him. She smiled again, then took off her coat and hat, and hung them on the rack (he slipped the invitation into his jacket pocket). It was awkward. She was awkward. You would think she might at least introduce herself
The dog saved him again. There he came, running in circles about her legs; barking in little yaps.
“I’m Elizabeth,” she held out her hand. “Elizabeth Dalloway.” But oh how she hated this, this having to extend one’s hand and say who one was. She would much prefer to be left alone in the country.
“Yes,” he said, taking her hand and clearing his throat. “Mr. Faber,” he said, and immediately thought that he should have used a Christian name as well. “Fff... Frank Faber,” he added. “Here to see your father (oh, he had said that already, hadn’t he?) The butler’s gone for him.”
Now both of them looked up the stairs, and it was there that their minds met—for both were hoping for the same thing, for Richard Dalloway to appear, then, there, on the staircase. Robbie wondered if this Elizabeth could detect his nervousness. Then she left the room again, and he too decided to seize the opportunity to take leave (Richard would know he had been there; that it had been him. For this was too much. It had been a mistake).
He quickly opened the door, quietly closed it behind him, and hurriedly made his way along the front path, walking in the direction of Victoria.
Now that he had escaped; now that the danger was over, he could think again. Oh, but it was too painful to think. He had been in Richard’s house, had seen something of Richard’s life with his wife and daughter, this Elizabeth. It was a life he was excluded from, peripheral to. Richard is a “we,” he thought now. A “we”—sanctioned by marriage, by society. When he looks around his house (Robbie thought), his wife reflects him back; or Elizabeth does; or the servants. But when I (disparate I) look around my house, no one is there: even the looking-glass is empty. It was awful.
He had made a terrible mistake, going to Richard’s, he saw that now. Not for Richard so much, but for himself, was it a mistake; for it had shaken him to the core. He was tempted to take out his notebook right then and there; it was his impulse, but he resisted. There wasn’t time. He had to get away. And besides, what would he write? (He imagined the notes, upon which he would later expound: “Dean’s Yard. The Dalloways’. Thoughts of Wilde. Plan foiled. Elizabeth. The invitation.”) And here he reached into his pocket and took out the square, ivory-coloured card. Reading it again made his heart beat too fast; made it flutter. Thirty years! He hadn’t known, hadn’t even considered it. Which only served to remind him, to make him confront this fact: there was a whole side of Richard’s life, and indeed of Richard himself that he did not know.
ISN’T THAT THE GENTLEMAN I saw this morning in Russell Square ? Clarissa Dalloway asked herself walking through Dean’s Yard. That handsome man, so pale and thin, sitting alone on the bench? She was almost certain that it was. Odd, a city as big as London, and yet it happened to her all the time—seeing people—men, women, even children—seeing people she did not know more than once in the course of a single day (so that one almost felt that one—somehow—knew them). Perhaps it was because she was out and about so much? But oh, he looked horrible, distraught, poor thing—dragging himself along like that. So then she had been right—he had lost his wife, to divorce or death (most probably the latter); yes, she was sure he was a widower, just come from the Abbey. Poor man (she thought). Poor, poor man. But this made her want to rush home even faster; to see Richard again; to see Elizabeth; to be safe in their home. Safe!
RICHARD DALLOWAY SAT UP at last. He stood. He bent over and picked up the spray of violets (he would have Lucy clean up the dirt) and set them down again, on the windowsill. Then he looked out the window—the rain had stopped. That was good for the party, he supposed. Even if it didn’t clear, there not being rain would be a plus for the party. He would go down now, descend into the basement, and inspect the preparations; h
e would ring King’s Cross Station—for Edith had provided him with a check-list of things he should do on the very day of the party.
DECIDING THAT NEITHER her mother nor her father was at home (which, she thought, was indeed odd), Elizabeth walked through the French doors out into the back yard with Grizzle in tow. There it was—the same small, city garden she had known all her life: the brick wall; the tree; the lawn chairs—the Dalloways’ little patch of nature against this grey, grimy backdrop—the city (she peered over the brick wall). How her father had stood it all these years she could not say. By going to Fellstree as often as possible, she supposed. There was scarcely enough room for a small dog like Grizzle, she thought, let alone a whole family (not to mention, Elizabeth thought, horses and dogs and cats and rabbits).
CLARISSA DALLOWAY ARRIVED HOME visibly shaken. She opened the door, entered the hall, paused and stood in the threshold for a moment with the door still open. There! She was safe; safe in her own home. But it was a lie, she was not safe; she knew it. Safety was a lie. No one was safe.
Oh, but what was the source of this sudden, profound unhappiness? she wondered. She reviewed the day; no, nothing until—that was it. It was that man; the widower (she thought, closing the door). He had got her thinking about losing Richard; about death; about dying. So Richard would die, and she would be left alone, alone for years and years, until she herself died. And then the days would mount, the sun would go on shining or not shining, the grass would grow over her, life would continue without a thought for her, and it would all have been for—what? (She took off her hat and gloves and set them on the hall table.)
Ah, there was Elizabeth’s hat and coat. But where was she? Clarissa called for her, “Elizabeth!” her voice breaking somewhat hysterically, for there was Elizabeth, and there would be Elizabeth, and surely her daughter wouldn’t let that happen to her—left alone and then forgotten (though she knew Elizabeth preferred her father).
She took off her coat and hung it on the rack, then lifted Elizabeth’s coat (for it had been hung carelessly), shook it out, and ran one hand down the length of it as she held it out with the other. She replaced it next to her own. “Elizabeth!” (She heard a door; someone was descending the stairs.) She looked down at the table for messages: Ellie Henderson had called, wanting to come to the party (the nerve, Clarissa thought). And a wire—(oh dear, who has died?). She opened the wire slowly, with a sense of dread. It was—Peter Walsh! (Had she seen right?) Yes, Peter Walsh, in India, offering his congratulations. Which plunged her immediately back to that summer at Bourton amidst the cauliflowers in the moonlight.
But then the door bell rang. She opened it. It was the man from Mulberry’s, he said, delivering the flowers ordered by a—he looked at the card in his hand—a Mr. Dalloway. Clarissa nodded, smiling and taking in all of the flowers with her eyes—delphiniums, carnations, sweet peas, roses, peonies, irises, lilac, lilies of the valley... and there were more in the van, he said. She had been amused that Richard had wanted to buy the flowers himself But now, as she stood there, she felt completely overwhelmed: tears filled her eyes and the pale colours of the flowers ran together; nor could she distinguish among the scents. Richard was dead, and she was alone—alone for years; then dead herself and the grass would grow. But Elizabeth would remember her. And Peter Walsh, in India with his Daisy, remembered her; he had wired to congratulate them; but there was that summer at Bourton when she had chosen Richard and she and Peter quarrelled. (The young man from Mulberry’s brought in the rest of the flowers, deposited them—in their vases—on the floor, between Clarissa and the front door.) And then, there was Elizabeth, come in from the back yard; Elizabeth and Grizzle. And there was Richard, her Richard, still alive, descending the stairs.
There was Clarissa. (“Hello, darling,” he called to her.) And there were the flowers behind her. (Efficacy, Richard Dalloway thought: that was what he liked—that he should walk to Mulberry’s in the morning, order flowers to be delivered, and that very afternoon—there they were.) He paused on the landing, from which vantage point his wife appeared enveloped by, indeed almost a part of, the flowers he had bought for her that morning.
“Let me look at you,” he said, thinking that Lucy and Miss Pym had been right—pale colours for Clarissa. For there she was.
“AND THERE—there at last, finally, was the poor thing’s heart!” Elizabeth was saying to her father and mother as Lucy brought in the tea. They were sitting in the drawing room. The polished silver tea service now sat on the marble-topped table—shining in the artificial light. A spray of pale, pink carnations in a small, crystal vase enhanced the far corner of the table. Opposite them, on the wall, was the Sir Joshua Reynolds picture of the little girl wearing a muff.
But she didn’t think the dissection of animals an appropriate subject for tea, Mrs. Dalloway told her daughter as she poured; but then immediately she knew it had been the wrong thing to say, a mistake, that it would separate Elizabeth from her—and that was all she needed. So in a flash she put down the tea-pot and picked up Grizzle, covered his ears, and added with a smile—as if this was what she had meant all the time: “For you might frighten poor Grizzle.” Elizabeth laughed, her mouth open, her small eyes larger than usual, full of surprise. And Richard looked at her, laughing too, his eyes blazing. It had worked.
That was his Clarissa, Richard Dalloway thought (still laughing)—fresh: captivating. She understood.
And yet Mrs. Dalloway continued to watch her daughter: with her tea—how she held her cup; how she applied cream and jam to her scone. Elizabeth was awkward still. She was not young anymore but she was still awkward, much less mature than I was at her age. Why Lucy has more responsibility than Elizabeth, Mrs. Dalloway thought (but I must bite my tongue). Perhaps school would change that.
“You should see Lady Hosford’s cat, Elizabeth,” Clarissa said now, for she knew animals interested her daughter. “You remember Josephine, don’t you? Persian; all white?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Well, she’s grown so old and fat,” Clarissa laughed.
Like Lady Hosford herself, Elizabeth thought, for Lady Hosford was one of her mother’s friends (one of many) she did not much like. There was powder caked in the creases of Lady Hosford’s face. And she was always ordering her about—“Stand straight! Don’t slouch!”—that sort of thing. Or saying that in her day young girls did not do this or that. Or she would very coyly ask Elizabeth if she had met any “nice young men.” It was always something. Whereas she would much prefer to be left alone in the country.
“And how was the train ride in?” her father asked her now, reaching for a second scone.
“Long,” she groaned, with a tactlessness typical of the young; then added: “But the countryside was lovely; the grasses were of a green so keen and intense as I don’t think I’ve ever seen; it must be the rains. And of course the sight of all the horses and the cows grazing.”
“And how was your day, darling?” Mrs. Dalloway turned to her husband. “I was sorry that we didn’t meet up. Especially today.”
“Yes,” he answered, taking her hand. “I had been rather looking forward to it.” But, his day? Well, nothing much, he said: he had walked to Bond Street; bought the flowers (and yes, Miss Pym had been helpful). But here he paused and called for Lucy—a petite young woman of twenty-five with pale red hair and a rosy, button-like face (small eyes, nose, and mouth)—she had come to the Dalloways at age eighteen. She appeared at his side almost instantly. With an eye to his wife and daughter, he beckoned Lucy to lean close. He whispered in her ear: would she please go up to his room and fetch the books he had left on his dresser? “A surprise,” he explained. (And Lucy ran off and up the stairs to fetch his books, all the while thinking about her Paul; wondering when he might call again. He had taken her to the movies a fortnight ago, he had; they’d seen a Charlie Chaplin movie. How they’d laughed!)
After that he had felt suddenly tired, Mr. Dalloway continued, and had come home (and
Robbie had called, had come to their house, he thought; but he could not tell them that). And then he remembered: this was something, a detail he could relate: “At the tube station there was this poor chap, dressed rather oddly, selling violets. But instead of calling out ‘Violets! Violets!’ as they usually do, he was singing, oh, what was it? Something about a violet in its youth. Something like that, over and over again.”
“A violet in the youth of primy nature,” Clarissa said. “That’s Shakespeare.”
“Hamlet,” Elizabeth added.
The two women looked at one another and smiled. That they shared this knowledge (especially when Richard didn’t, so Clarissa Dalloway thought) must count for something.
“And then after all of that, especially our not meeting, I felt quite exhausted. So I came home and slept for an hour or two. And so I am now in prime condition for the party.”
Elizabeth leaned over her chair and held out a piece of her scone for Grizzle, who licked it with his pink tongue. Clarissa watched; watched Richard watching (though he said nothing). Yes, she thought, she and her daughter did share some things. And then she reminded both Elizabeth and Richard that they should take care to fill themselves since dinner wouldn’t be until sometime in the middle of the night.
But there was Lucy (she handed him the books). He held them close, in his lap, so that the others wouldn’t see; he turned them around and looked at their spines. Keynes was on the top—he set it aside. “But before returning home I went into Hatchards’ and bought something for you both. He handed Mrs. Woolfs new novel to Clarissa, and Elizabeth’s book (he had not even glanced at the title; he had taken the clerk’s word for it—for they knew him; respected him) to her.
Clarissa thanked him; she had seen it announced, she said, and had, of course, wanted it; for after Mrs. Woolfs previous book... (but hearing Elizabeth’s voice interrupted that thought).
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