“Hi!” he cried as the cab passed the gates; and drove one hand through the trap-door in the roof. He leant out and a paper was thrust up at him.
“Parnell!” he exclaimed, as he fumbled for his glasses. “Dead, by Jove!”
The cab trotted on. He read the news two or three times over. He’s dead, he said, taking off his glasses. A shock of something like relief, of something that had a tinge of triumph in it, went through him as he leant back in the corner. Well, he said to himself, he’s dead — that unscrupulous adventurer — that agitator who had done all the mischief, that man . . . Some feeling connected with his own daughter here formed in him; he could not say exactly what, but it made him frown. Anyhow he’s dead now, he thought. How had he died? Had he killed himself? It wouldn’t be surprising. . . . Anyhow he was dead and that was an end of it. He sat holding the paper crumpled in one hand, the flower wrapped in tissue paper in the other, as the cab drove down Whitehall. . . . One could respect him, he thought, as the cab passed the House of Commons, which was more than could be said for some of the other fellows . . . and there’d been a lot of nonsense talked about the divorce case. He looked out. The cab was driving near a certain street where he used to stop and look about him years ago. He turned and glanced down a street to the right. But a man in public life can’t afford to do those things, he thought. He gave a little nod as the cab passed on. And now she’s written to ask me for money, he thought. The other chap had turned out, as he knew he would, a bad egg. She’d lost all her looks, he was thinking; she had grown very stout. Well, he could afford to be generous. He put on his glasses again and read the City news.
It would make no difference, Parnell’s death, coming now, he thought. Had he lived, had the scandal died down — he looked up. The cab was going the long way round as usual. “Left!” he shouted, “Left!” as the driver, as they always did, took the wrong turning.
In the rather dark basement at Browne Street, the Italian manservant was reading the paper in his shirt sleeves, when the housemaid waltzed in carrying a hat.
“Look what she’s given me!” she cried. To atone for the mess in the drawing-room, Lady Pargiter had given her a hat. “Ain’t I stylish?” she said, pausing in front of the glass with the great Italian hat that looked as if it were made of spun glass on one side of her head. And Antonio had to drop his paper and catch her round the waist from sheer gallantry, since she was no beauty, and her action was merely a parody of what he remembered in the hill towns of Tuscany. But a cab stopped in front of the railings; two legs stood still there, and he must detach himself, put on his jacket and go upstairs to answer the bell.
He takes his time, the Colonel thought, as he stood on the door-step waiting. The shock of the death had been absorbed almost; it still swept round in his system; but did not prevent him from thinking, as he stood there, that they had had the bricks re-pointed; but how had they money to spare, with the three boys to educate, and the two little girls? Eugénie was a clever woman of course; but he wished she would get a parlourmaid instead of these Italian dagoes who always seemed to be swallowing macaroni. Here the door opened, and as he went upstairs he thought he heard, from somewhere in the background, a shout of laughter.
He liked Eugénie’s drawing-room, he thought, as he stood there waiting. It was very untidy. There was a litter of shavings from something that was being unpacked on the floor. They had been to Italy, he remembered. A looking-glass stood on the table. It was probably one of the things she had picked up there: the sort of thing that people did pick up in Italy; an old glass, covered with spots. He straightened his tie in front of it.
But I prefer a glass in which one can see oneself, he thought, turning away. There was the piano open; and the tea — he smiled — with the cup half full as usual; and branches stuck about the room, branches of withering red and yellow leaves. She liked flowers. He was glad he had remembered to bring her his usual gift. He held the flower wrapped in tissue paper in front of him. But why was the room so full of smoke? A gust blew in. Both windows in the back room were open, and the smoke was blowing in from the garden. Were they burning weeds, he wondered? He walked to the window and looked out. Yes, there they were — Eugénie and the two little girls. There was a bonfire. As he looked, Magdalena, the little girl who was his favourite, tossed a whole armful of dead leaves. She jerked them as high as she could, and the fire blazed up. A great fan of red flame flung out.
“That’s dangerous!” he called out.
Eugénie pulled the children back. They were dancing with excitement. The other little girl, Sara, ducked under her mother’s arm, seized another armful of leaves and flung them again. A great fan of red flame flung out. Then the Italian servant came and mentioned his name. He tapped on the window. Eugénie turned and saw him. She held the children back with one hand and raised the other in welcome.
“Stay where you are!” she cried. “We’re coming!”
A cloud of smoke blew straight at him; it made his eyes water, and he turned and sat down in the chair by the sofa. In another second she came, hurrying towards him with both her hands stretched out. He rose and took them.
“We’re having a bonfire,” she said. Her eyes were glowing; her hair was looping down. “That’s why I’m all so blown-about,” she added, putting her hand to her head. She was untidy, but extremely handsome all the same, Abel thought. A fine large woman, growing ample, he noted as she shook hands; but it suited her. He admired that type more than the pink-and-white pretty Englishwoman. The flesh flowed over her like warm yellow wax; she had great dark eyes like a foreigner, and a nose with a ripple in it. He held out his camellia; his customary gift. She made a little exclamation as she took the flower from the tissue paper and sat down.
“How very good of you!” she said, and held it for a moment in front of her, and then did what he had often seen her do with a flower — put the stalk between her lips. Her movements charmed him as usual.
“Having a bonfire for the birthday?” he asked. . . . “No, no, no,” he protested, “I don’t want tea.”
She had taken her cup, and sipped the cold tea that was left in it. As he watched her, some memory of the East came back to him; so women sat in hot countries in their doorways in the sun. But it was very cold at the moment with the window open and the smoke blowing in. He still had his newspaper in his hand; he laid it on the table.
“Seen the news?” he asked.
She put down her cup and slightly opened her large dark eyes. Immense reserves of emotion seemed to dwell in them. As she waited for him to speak, she raised her hand as if in expectation.
“Parnell,” said Abel briefly. “He’s dead.”
“Dead?” Eugénie echoed him. She let her hand fall dramatically.
“Yes. At Brighton. Yesterday.”
“Parnell is dead!” she repeated.
“So they say,” said the Colonel. Her emotion always made him feel more matter-of-fact; but he liked it. She took up the paper.
“Poor thing!” she exclaimed, letting it fall.
“Poor thing?” he repeated. Her eyes were full of tears. He was puzzled. Did she mean Kitty O’Shea? He hadn’t thought of her.
“She ruined his career for him,” he said with a little snort.
“Ah, but how she must have loved him!” she murmured.
She drew her hand over her eyes. The Colonel was silent for a moment. Her emotion seemed to him out of all proportion to its object; but it was genuine. He liked it.
“Yes,” he said, rather stiffly. “Yes, I suppose so.” Eugénie picked up the flower again and held it, twirling it. She was oddly absentminded now and then, but he always felt at his ease with her. His body relaxed. He felt relieved of some obstruction in her presence.
“How people suffer! . . .” she murmured, looking at the flower. “How they suffer, Abel!” she said. She turned and looked straight at him.
A great gust of smoke blew in from the other room.
“You don’t mind the draugh
t?” he asked, looking at the window. She did not answer at once; she was twirling her flower. Then she roused herself and smiled.
“Yes, yes. Shut it!” she said with a wave of her hand. He went and shut the window. When he turned round, she had got up and was standing at the looking-glass, arranging her hair.
“We’ve had a bonfire for Maggie’s birthday,” she murmured, looking at herself in the Venetian glass that was covered with spots. “That’s why, that’s why—” she smoothed her hair and fixed the camellia in her dress. “I’m so very—”
She put her head a little on one side as if to observe the effect of the flower in her dress. The Colonel sat down and waited. He glanced at his paper.
“They seem to be hushing things up,” he said.
“You don’t mean—” Eugénie was beginning; but here the door opened and the children came in. Maggie, the elder, came first; the other little girl, Sara, hung back behind her.
“Hullo!” the Colonel exclaimed. “Here they are!” He turned round. He was very fond of children. “Many happy returns of the day to you, Maggie!” He felt in his pocket for the necklace that Crosby had done up in a cardboard box. Maggie came up to him to take it. Her hair had been brushed, and she was dressed in a stiff clean frock. She took the parcel and undid it; she held the blue-and-gold necklace dangling from her finger. For a moment the Colonel doubted whether she liked it. It looked a little garish as she held it dangling in her hand. And she was silent. Her mother at once supplied the words she should have spoken.
“How lovely, Maggie! How perfectly lovely!”
Maggie held the beads in her hand and said nothing.
“Thank Uncle Abel for the lovely necklace,” her mother prompted her.
“Thank you for the necklace, Uncle Abel,” said Maggie. She spoke directly and accurately, but the Colonel felt another twinge of doubt. A pang of disappointment out of all proportion to its object came over him. Her mother, however, fastened it round her neck. Then she turned away to her sister, who was peeping from behind a chair.
“Come, Sara,” said her mother. “Come and say how-d’you-do.”
She held out her hand partly to coax the little girl, partly, Abel guessed, in order to conceal the very slight deformity that always made him uncomfortable. She had been dropped when she was a baby; one shoulder was slightly higher than the other; it made him feel squeamish; he could not bear the least deformity in a child. It did not affect her spirits, however. She skipped up to him, whirling round on her toe, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Then she tugged at her sister’s frock, and they both rushed away into the back room laughing.
“They are going to admire your lovely present, Abel,” said Eugénie. “How you spoil them! — and me too,” she added, touching the camellia on her breast.
“I hope she liked it?” he asked. Eugénie did not answer him. She had taken up the cup of cold tea again and was sipping it in her indolent Southern manner.
“And now,” she said, leaning back comfortably, “tell me all your news.”
The Colonel, too, lay back in his chair. He pondered for a moment. What was his news? Nothing occurred to him on the spur of the moment. With Eugénie, too, he always wanted to make a little splash; she put a shine on things. While he hesitated, she began:
“We’ve been having a wonderful time in Venice! I took the children. That’s why we’re all so brown. We had rooms not on the Grand Canal — I hate the Grand Canal — but just off it. Two weeks of blazing sun; and the colours” — she hesitated— “marvellous!” she exclaimed, “marvellous!” She threw out her hand. She had gestures of extraordinary significance. That’s how she rigs things up, he thought. But he liked her for it.
He had not been to Venice for years.
“Any pleasant people there?” he asked.
“Not a soul,” she said. “Not a soul. No one except a dreadful Miss — . One of those women who make one ashamed of one’s country,” she said energetically.
“I know ‘em,” he chuckled.
“But coming back from the Lido in the evening,” she resumed, “with the clouds above and the water below — we had a balcony; we used to sit there.” She paused.
“Was Digby with you?” the Colonel asked.
“No, poor Digby. He took his holiday earlier, in August. He was up in Scotland with the Lasswades shooting. It does him good, you know.” There she goes, rigging thing’s up again, he thought.
But she resumed.
“Now tell me about the family. Martin and Eleanor, Hugh and Milly, Morris and . . .” She hesitated; he suspected that she had forgotten the name of Morris’ wife.
“Celia,” he said. He stopped. He wanted to tell her about Mira. But he told her about the family: Hugh and Milly; Morris and Celia. And Edward.
“They seem to think a lot of him at Oxford,” he said gruffly. He was very proud of Edward.
“And Delia?” said Eugénie. She glanced at the paper. The Colonel at once lost his affability. He looked glum and formidable, like an old bull with his head down, she thought.
“Perhaps it will bring her to her senses,” he said sternly. They were silent for a moment. There were shouts of laughter from the garden.
“Oh those children!” she exclaimed. She rose and went to the window. The Colonel followed her. The children had stolen back into the garden. The bonfire was burning fiercely. A clear pillar of flame rose in the middle of the garden. The little girls were laughing and shouting as they danced round it. A shabby old man, something like a decayed groom to look at, stood there with a rake in his hand. Eugénie flung up the window and cried out. But they went on dancing. The Colonel leant out too; they looked like wild creatures with their hair flying. He would have liked to go down and jump over the bonfire, but he was too old. The flames leapt high — clear gold, bright red.
“Bravo!” he cried, clapping his hands. “Bravo!”
“Little demons!” said Eugénie. She was as much excited as they were, he observed. She leant out of the window and cried to the old man with the rake:
“Make it blaze! Make it blaze!”
But the old man was raking out the fire. The sticks were scattered. The flames had sunk.
The old man pushed the children away.
“Well, that’s over,” said Eugénie, heaving a sigh. She turned. Someone had come into the room.
“Oh, Digby, I never heard you!” she exclaimed. Digby stood there with a case in his hands.
“Hullo, Digby!” said Abel, shaking hands.
“What’s all this smoke?” said Digby, looking round him.
He’s aged a bit, Abel thought. There he stood in his frock coat with the top buttons undone. His coat was a little threadbare; his hair was white on top. But he was very handsome; beside him the Colonel felt large, weather-beaten and rough. He was a little ashamed that he had been caught leaning out of the window clapping his hands. He looks older, he thought, as they stood side by side; yet he’s five years younger than I am. He was a distinguished man in his way; the top of his tree; a knight and all the rest of it. But he’s not as rich as I am, he remembered with satisfaction; for he had always been the failure of the two.
“You look so tired, Digby!” Eugénie exclaimed, sitting down. “He ought to take a real holiday,” she said, turning to Abel. “I wish you’d tell him so.” Digby brushed away a white thread that had stuck to his trousers. He coughed slightly. The room was full of smoke.
“What’s all this smoke for?” he asked his wife.
“We’ve been having a bonfire for Maggie’s birthday,” she said as if excusing herself.
“Oh yes,” he said. Abel was irritated; Maggie was his favourite; her father ought to have remembered her birthday.
“Yes,” said Eugénie, turning to Abel again, “he lets everybody else take a holiday, but he never takes one himself. And then, when he’s done a full day’s work at the office, he comes back with his bag full of papers—” She pointed at the bag.
“You shouldn’t wo
rk after dinner,” said Abel. “That’s a bad habit.” Digby did look a bit off-colour, he thought. Digby brushed aside this feminine effusiveness.
“Seen the news?” he said to his brother, indicating the paper.
“Yes. By Jove!” said Abel. He liked talking politics with his brother, though he slightly resented his official airs as if he could say more but must not. And then it’s all in the papers the day after, he thought. Still they always talked politics. Eugénie lying back in her corner always let them talk; she never interrupted. But at length she got up and began tidying the litter that had fallen from the packing-case. Digby stopped what he was saying and watched her. He was looking at the glass.
“Like it?” said Eugénie, with her hand on the frame.
“Yes,” said Digby; but there was a hint of criticism in his voice. “Quite a pretty one.”
“It’s only for my bedroom,” she said quickly. Digby watched her stuffing the bits of paper into the box.
“Remember,” he said, “we’re dining with the Chathams tonight.”
“I know.” She touched her hair again. “I shall have to make myself tidy,” she said. Who were “the Chathams?” Abel wondered. Bigwigs, mandarins, he supposed half contemptuously. They moved a great deal in that world. He took it as a hint that he should go. They had come to the end of what they had to say to each other — he and Digby. He still hoped, however, that he might talk with Eugénie alone.
“About this African business—” he began, bethinking him of another question — when the children came in; they had come to say good-night. Maggie was wearing his necklace and it looked very pretty, he thought, or was it she who looked so pretty? But their frocks, their clean blue and pink frocks, were crumpled; they were smudged with the sooty London leaves that they had been holding in their arms.
Complete Works of Virginia Woolf Page 214
