Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

by Virginia Woolf

  She, too, was going to her work — she turned her watch on her wrist without looking at it. After the Committee, Duffus; after Duffus, Dickson. Then lunch; and the Law Courts . . . then lunch and the Law Courts at two-thirty, she repeated. The bus trundled along the Bayswater Road. The streets were becoming poorer and poorer.

  Perhaps I oughtn’t to have given the job to Duffus, she said to herself — she was thinking of Peter Street where she had built houses; the roof was leaking again; there was a bad smell in the sink. But here the omnibus stopped; people got in and out; the omnibus went on again — but it’s better to give the work to a small man, she thought, looking at the huge plate-glass windows of one of the large shops, instead of going to one of those big firms. There were always small shops side by side with big shops. It puzzled her. How did the small shops manage to make a living? she wondered. But if Duffus, she began — here the omnibus stopped; she looked up; she rose “ — if Duffus thinks he can bully me,” she said as she went down the steps, “he’ll find he’s mistaken.”

  She walked quickly up the cinder path to the galvanised iron shed in which the meeting took place. She was late; there they were already. It was her first meeting since the holidays, and they all smiled at her. Judd even took his toothpick out of his mouth — a sign of recognition that flattered her. Here we all are again, she thought, taking her place and laying her papers on the table.

  But she meant “them”, not herself. She did not exist; she was not anybody at all. But there they all were — Brocket, Cufnell, Miss Sims, Ramsden, Major Porter and Mrs Lazenby. The Major preaching organisation; Miss Sims (ex-mill hand) scenting condescension; Mrs Lazenby, offering to write to her cousin Sir John, upon which Judd, the retired shopkeeper, snubbed her. She smiled as she took her seat. Miriam Parrish was reading letters. But why starve yourself, Eleanor asked as she listened. She was thinner than ever.

  She looked round the room as the letters were read. There had been a dance. Festoons of red and yellow paper were slung across the ceiling. The coloured picture of the Princess of Wales had loops of yellow roses at the corners; a sea-green ribbon across her breast, a round yellow dog on her lap, and pearls slung and knotted over her shoulders. She wore an air of serenity, of indifference; a queer comment upon their divisions, Eleanor thought; something that the Lazenbys worshipped; that Miss Sims derided; that Judd looked at cocking his eyebrows, picking his teeth. If he had had a son, he had told her, he would have sent him to the Varsity. But she recalled herself. Major Porter had turned to her.

  “Now, Miss Pargiter,” he said, drawing her in, because they were both of the same social standing, “you haven’t given us your opinion.”

  She pulled herself together and gave him her opinion. She had an opinion — a very definite opinion. She cleared her throat and began.

  The smoke blowing through Peter Street had condensed, between the narrowness of the houses, into a fine grey veil. But the houses on either side were clearly visible. Save for two in the middle of the street, they were all precisely the same — yellow-grey boxes with slate tents on top. Nothing whatever was happening; a few children were playing in the street, two cats turned something over in the gutter with their paws. Yet a woman leaning out of the windows searched this way, that way, up and down the street as if she were raking every cranny for something to feed on. Her eyes, rapacious, greedy, like the eyes of a bird of prey, were also sulky and sleepy, as if they had nothing to feed their hunger upon. Nothing happened — nothing whatever. Still she gazed up and down with her indolent dissatisfied stare. Then a trap turned the corner. She watched it. It stopped in front of the houses opposite which, since the sills were green, and there was a plaque with a sunflower stamped on it over the door, were different from the others. A little man in a tweed cap got out and rapped at the door. It was opened by a woman who was about to have a baby. She shook her head; looked up and down the street; then shut the door. The man waited. The horse stood patiently with the reins drooping and its head bent. Another woman appeared at the window, with a white many-chinned face, and an under lip that stood out like a ledge. Leaning out of the window side by side the two women watched the man. He was bandy-legged; he was smoking. They passed some remark about him together. He walked up and down as if he were waiting for somebody. Now he threw away his cigarette. They watched him. What would he do next? Was he going to give his horse a feed? But here a tall woman wearing a coat and skirt of grey tweed came round the corner hastily; and the little man turned and touched his cap.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Eleanor called out, and Duffus touched his cap with the friendly smile that always pleased her.

  “That’s all right, Miss Pargiter,” he said. She always hoped that he did not feel that she was the ordinary employer.

  “Now we’ll go over it,” she said. She hated the job, but it had to be done.

  The door was opened by Mrs Toms, the downstairs lodger.

  Oh dear, thought Eleanor, observing the slant of her apron, another baby coming, after all I told her.

  They went from room to room of the little house, Mrs Toms and Mrs Grove following after. There was a crack here; a stain there. Duffus had a foot-rule in his hand with which he tapped the plaster. The worst of it is, she thought, as she let Mrs Toms do the talking, that I can’t help liking him. It was his Welsh accent largely; he was a charming ruffian. He was as supple as an eel, she knew; but when he talked like that, in that sing-song, which reminded her of Welsh valleys. . . . But he had cheated her at every point. There was a hole you could poke your finger through in the plaster.

  “Look at that, Mr Duffus, there—” she said, stooping and poking her finger. He was licking his pencil. She loved going to his yard with him and seeing him size up planks and bricks; she loved his technical words for things, his little hard words.

  “Now we’ll go upstairs,” she said. He seemed to her like a fly struggling to haul itself up out of a saucer. It was touch and go with small employers like Duffus; they might haul themselves up and become the Judds of their day and send their sons to the Varsity; or on the other hand they might fall in and then — He had a wife and five children; she had seen them in the room behind the shop, playing with reels of cotton on the floor. And she always hoped that they would ask her in. . . . But here was the top floor where old Mrs Potter lay bedridden. She knocked; she called out in a loud cheerful voice, “May we come in?”

  There was no answer. The old woman was stone deaf; so in they went. There she was, as usual, doing nothing whatever, propped up in the corner of her bed.

  “I’ve brought Mr Duffus to look at your ceiling,” Eleanor shouted.

  The old woman looked up and began plucking with her hands like a large tousled ape. She looked at them wildly, suspiciously.

  “The ceiling, Mr Duffus,” said Eleanor. She pointed to a yellow stain on the ceiling. The house had only been built five years; and yet everything wanted repairing. Duffus threw open the window and leant out. Mrs Potter clutched hold of Eleanor’s hand, as if she suspected that they were going to hurt her.

  “We’ve come to look at your ceiling,” Eleanor repeated very loudly. But the words conveyed nothing. The old woman went off into a whining plaint; the words ran themselves together into a chant that was half plaint, half curse. If only the Lord would take her. Every night, she said, she implored Him to let her go. All her children were dead.

  “When I wake in the morning . . .” she began.

  “Yes, yes, Mrs Potter,” Eleanor tried to soothe her; but her hands were firmly grasped.

  “I pray Him to let me go,” Mrs Potter continued.

  “It’s the leaves in the gutter,” said Duffus, popping his head in again.

  “And the pain—” Mrs Potter stretched out her hands; they were knotted and grooved like the gnarled roots of a tree.

  “Yes, yes,” said Eleanor. “But there’s a leak; it’s not only the dead leaves,” she said to Duffus.

  Duffus put his head out again.

&nb
sp; “We’re going to make you more comfortable,” Eleanor shouted to the old woman. Now she was cringing and fawning; now she had pressed her hand to her lips.

  Duffus drew his head in again.

  “Have you found out what’s wrong?” Eleanor said to him sharply. He was entering something in his pocket-book. She longed to go. Mrs Potter was asking her to feel her shoulder. She felt her shoulder. Her hand was still grasped. There was medicine on the table; Miriam Parrish came every week. Why do we do it? she asked herself as Mrs Potter went on talking. Why do we force her to live? she asked, looking at the medicine on the table. She could stand it no longer. She withdrew her hand.

  “Good-bye, Mrs Potter,” she shouted. She was insincere; she was hearty. “We’re going to mend your ceiling,” she shouted. She shut the door. Mrs Groves waddled in advance of her to show her the sink in the scullery. A wisp of yellow hair hung down behind her dirty ears. If I had to do this every day of my life, Eleanor thought, as she followed them down into the scullery, I should become a bag of bones like Miriam; with a string of beads. . . . And what’s the use of that? she thought, stooping to smell the sink in the scullery.

  “Well, Duffus,” she said, facing him when the inspection was over, with the smell of drains still in her nose. “What d’you propose to do about it?”

  Her anger was rising; it was his fault largely. He had swindled her. But as she stood facing him and observed his little underfed body, and how his bow tie had worked up over his collar, she felt uncomfortable.

  He shuffled and squirmed; she felt that she was going to lose her temper.

  “If you can’t make a good job of it,” she said curtly, “I shall employ somebody else.” She adopted the tone of the Colonel’s daughter; the upper middle-class tone that she detested. She saw him turn sullen before her eyes. But she rubbed it in.

  “You ought to be ashamed of it,” she told him. He was impressed she could see. “Good morning,” she said briefly.

  The ingratiating smile was not produced for her benefit again, she observed. But you have to bully them or else they despise you, she thought as Mrs Toms let her out, and once more she observed the slant in her apron. A crowd of children stood round staring at Duffus’s pony. But none of them, she noticed, dared stroke the pony’s nose.

  She was late. She gave one look at the sunflower on the terra-cotta plaque. That symbol of her girlish sentiment amused her grimly. She had meant it to signify flowers, fields in the heart of London; but now it was cracked. She broke into her usual ambling trot. The movement seemed to break up the disagreeable crust; to jolt off the grasp of the old woman’s hand that was still on her shoulder. She ran; she dodged. Shopping women got in her way. She dashed into the road waving her hand among the carts and horses. The conductor saw her, curved his arm round her and hauled her up. She had caught her bus.

  She trod on the toe of a man in the corner, and pitched down between two elderly women. She was panting slightly; her hair was coming down; she was red with running. She cast a glance at her fellow-passengers. They all looked settled, elderly, as if their minds were made up. For some reason she always felt that she was the youngest person in an omnibus, but today, since she had won her scrap with Judd, she felt that she was grown up. The grey line of houses jolted up and down before her eyes as the omnibus trundled along the Bayswater Road. The shops were turning into houses; there were big houses and little houses; public houses and private houses. And here a church raised its filigree spire. Underneath were pipes, wires, drains. . . . Her lips began moving. She was talking to herself. There’s always a public house, a library and a church, she was muttering.

  The man on whose toe she had trodden sized her up; a well-known type; with a bag; philanthropic; well nourished; a spinster; a virgin; like all the women of her class, cold; her passions had never been touched; yet not unattractive. She was laughing. . . . Here she looked up and caught his eye. She had been talking aloud to herself in an omnibus. She must cure herself of the habit. She must wait till she brushed her teeth. But luckily the bus was stopping. She jumped out. She began to walk quickly up Melrose Place. She felt vigorous and young. She noticed everything freshly after Devonshire. She looked down the long many-pillared vista of Abercorn Terrace. The houses, with their pillars and their front gardens, all looked highly respectable; in every front room she seemed to see a parlourmaid’s arm sweep over the table, laying it for luncheon. In several rooms they were already sitting down to luncheon; she could see them between the tent-shaped opening made by the curtains. She would be late for her own luncheon, she thought as she ran up the front steps and fitted her latch-key in the door. Then, as if someone were speaking, words formed in her mind. “Something pretty, something to wear.” She stopped with her key in the lock. Maggie’s birthday; her father’s present; she had forgotten it. She paused. She turned, she ran down the steps again. She must go to Lamley’s.

  Mrs Lamley, who had grown stout these last years, was masticating a mouthful of cold mutton in the back room when she saw Miss Eleanor through the glass door.

  “Good morning, Miss Eleanor,” she began, coming out.

  “Something pretty, something to wear,” Eleanor panted. She was looking very well — quite brown after her holiday, Mrs Lamley noticed.

  “For my niece — I mean cousin. Sir Digby’s little girl,” Eleanor brought out.

  Mrs Lamley deprecated the cheapness of her goods.

  There were toy boats; dolls; twopenny gold watches — but nothing nice enough for Sir Digby’s little girl. But Miss Eleanor was in a hurry.

  “There,” she said, pointing to a card of bead necklaces. “That’ll do.”

  It looked a little cheap, Mrs Lamley thought; reaching down a blue necklace with gold spots, but Miss Eleanor was in such a hurry that she wouldn’t even have it wrapped in brown paper.

  “I shall be late as it is, Mrs Lamley,” she said, with a genial wave of her hand; and off she ran.

  Mrs Lamley liked her. She always seemed so friendly. It was such a pity she didn’t marry — such a mistake to let the younger sister marry before the elder. But then she had the Colonel to look after, and he was getting on now, Mrs Lamley concluded, going back to her mutton in the back shop.

  “Miss Eleanor won’t be a minute,” said the Colonel as Crosby brought in the dishes. “Leave the covers on.” He stood with his back to the fireplace waiting for her. Yes, he thought, I don’t see why not. “I don’t see why not,” he repeated, looking at the dish-cover. Mira was on the scene again; the other fellow had turned out, as he knew he would, a bad egg. And what provision was he to make for Mira? What was he to do about it? It had struck him that he would like to put the whole thing before Eleanor. Why not after all? She’s not a child any longer, he thought; and he didn’t like this business of — of — shutting things up in drawers. But he felt some shyness at the thought of telling his own daughter.

  “Here she is,” he said abruptly to Crosby, who stood waiting mutely behind him.

  No, no, he said to himself with sudden conviction, as Eleanor came in. I can’t do it. For some reason when he saw her he realised that he could not tell her. And after all, he thought, seeing how bright-cheeked, how unconcerned she looked, she has her own life to live. A spasm of jealousy passed through him. She’s got her own affairs to think about, he thought as they sat down.

  She pushed a necklace across the table towards him.

  “Hullo, what’s that?” he said, looking at it blankly.

  “Maggie’s present, Papa,” she said. “The best I could do. . . . I’m afraid it’s rather cheap.”

  “Yes; that’ll do very nicely,” he said, glancing at it absentmindedly. “Just what she’ll like,” he added, shoving it to one side. He began to carve the chicken.

  She was very hungry; she was still rather breathless. She felt a little “spun round,” as she put it to herself. What did you spin things round on? she wondered, helping herself to bread sauce — a pivot? The scene had changed so often that
morning; and every scene required a different adjustment; bringing this to the front; sinking that to the depths. And now she felt nothing; hungry merely; merely a chicken-eater; blank. But as she ate, the sense of her father imposed itself. She liked his solidity, as he sat opposite her munching his chicken methodically. What had he been doing, she wondered. Taking shares out of one company and putting them in another? He roused himself.

  “Well, how was the Committee?” he asked. She told him, exaggerating her triumph with Judd.

  “That’s right. Stand up to ‘em, Nell. Don’t let yourself be sat on,” he said. He was proud of her in his own way; and she liked him to be proud of her. At the same time she did not mention Duffus and Rigby Cottages. He had no sympathy with people who were foolish about money, and she never got a penny interest: it all went on repairs. She turned the conversation to Morris and his case at the Law Courts. She looked at her watch again. Her sister-in-law Celia had told her to meet her at the Law Courts at two-thirty sharp.