Her feeling during the last years became ever more anxious, as she detected signs of failing health in her mother, and could not contrive in any way to give her the rest which of all things she needed. Her silence with her stepfather almost gave way now and then to sharp and open remonstrance; for he never seemed to see, what was so plain to her eye, the innumerable things that his wife did, or how terribly she was worn. Then, in the spring of 1895 Stella was driven abroad, and half-way through the journey she became convinced by sign of handwriting or phrase, that her mother lay ill at home. She appealed to Vanessa, who could only send an answer dictated by her mother. Slight illness had indeed attacked her, but with the strange and ghastly fantasy of one who plays a part to the end, she would insist that the truth should not yet be told. Stella came home with a consciousness like that of some tormented dumb animal, that she had been deceived; and found her mother in bed, with the chill which was to end ten days later, in her death.
The shock to Stella was complete; she began, by sheer pure beauty of character, to do all that she could for everyone; but almost automatically. The future held nothing for her; the present was, I suppose, with a stepfather whom she barely knew, and four children who needed care and could as yet help her little, constantly painful. She was only just twenty-six, and in a moment she had to relinquish not only the chief source of all her life, but also the peculiar ways in which she best enjoyed her gifts. Indeed whoever she had been the position must have been painfully hard, but with her great distrust of her own powers, and her dread of books in particular, her task was terribly painful and almost bewildering. But still, had it not been for this desolation, laying her whole nature bare, and bidding it put forth its powers in entire loneliness, could she ever have shown herself as noble and as true as she was? All that she became in the future was firmly grounded, her own achievement; no one ever again was to serve her for prop; never again, perhaps, did she care for anyone as she had cared for her mother. That, whatever gain is to be set beside it, was the permanent loss.
Directly your grandmother was dead, Stella inherited all the duties that she had discharged; and like some creaking old waggon, pitifully rusted, and yet filled with stirring young creatures, our family once more toiled painfully along the way.
Chapter Three
Your grandmother’s position in the family was such that her death not only removed the central figure from our eyes, but brought about such a shifting of relationships that life for a long time seemed incredibly strange. Your grandfather in his natural but surely unwise desire to do for us all that your grandmother had done, began to teach us our lessons; and gave up half his morning to us; a sacrifice indeed but that did not make his mood the easier. Then George, on the full tide of emotion, insisted upon a closer and more mature friendship with us; Gerald even became for the time serious and sentimental; and round this centre of profound emotion circled a number of friends, suddenly become conscious of a desire to take part in our lives, and of their right to have the depth of their own feelings recognized. Stella herself, almost stunned though she was at the moment, was never driven from her calm attitude of infinite consideration for others, of silence with respect to her own feelings; but this very calmness seemed to suffer, indifferently, a number of trials, and in particular to admit of quite unqualified self-surrender to your grandfather’s needs. Any comfort, whatever its nature, that came to hand, she offered him to stay his anguish; all her day was at his service, she exerted herself as I have said, to find people to visit him, to help her in some of her innumerable minute plans for his welfare. It is easy to see now that where she failed for the time was in proper discrimination. Her own disbelief in herself, and her long season of dependence made her incapable of trusting her own clear instincts in the matter. Her stepfather was the charge bequeathed her by her mother. She gave indiscriminately, conscious that she had not the best of all to give; and your grandfather who would doubtless have understood a clear statement of the position, took all that she offered him failing this as his right. But one of the consequences was that for some time life seemed to us in a chronic state of confusion. We were quite naturally unhappy; feeling a definite need, unbearably keen at moments, which was never to be satisfied. But that was recognizable pain, and the sharp pang grew to be almost welcome in the midst of the sultry and opaque life which was not felt, had nothing real in it, and yet swam about us, and choked us and blinded us. All these tears and groans, reproaches and protestations of affection, high talk of duty and work and living for others, were doubtless what we should feel if we felt properly, and yet we had but a dull sense of gloom which could not honestly be referred to the dead; unfortunately it did not quicken our feeling for the living; but hideous as it was, obscured both living and dead; and for long did unpardonable mischief by substituting for the shape of a true and most vivid mother, nothing better than an unlovable phantom.
That summer, after some hot months in London, we spent in Freshwater; and the heat there in the low bay, brimming as it seemed with soft vapours, and luxuriant with lush plants, mixes, like smoke, with other memories of hot rooms and silence, and an atmosphere all choked with too luxuriant feelings, so that one had at times a physical need of ruthless barbarism and fresh air. Stella herself looked like the white flower of some teeming hot-house, for a change had come over her that seemed terribly symbolical. Never did anyone look so pale. And yet unexpected as it might seem, but still was most natural, the first impulse to set us free came from your grandfather; it came and went again. On a walk perhaps he would suddenly brush aside all our curiously conventional relationships, and show us for a minute an inspiriting vision of free life, bathed in an impersonal light. There were numbers of things to be learnt, books to be read, and success and happiness were to be attained there without disloyalty. Indeed it seemed possible at these moments, to continue the old life but in a more significant way, using as he told us, our sorrow to quicken the feeling that remained. But such exaltations doubtless depended for their endurance upon a closer relationship than age made possible. We were too young, and for sympathy that required less effort, he had to turn to others, whose difference of blood and temperament, made it harder for them to recognize as we did — by glimpses — his most urgent need. Beautiful was he at such moments; simple and eager as a child; and exquisitely alive to all affection; exquisitely tender. We would have helped him then if we could, given him all we had, and felt it little beside his need — but the moment passed.
It was exhilarating at times to peer above our immature world, and fancy that the actual conflict of recognized human beings had already begun for us. In truth the change which declared itself when we were once more settled in London and gone about our tasks, was partly invigorating; for we tried to prove ourselves equal companions for Stella and our lives were much quickened by the chivalrous devotion she roused in us. It was chivalrous because she was too remote for real companionship, so that there was always a kind of chance in one’s offering; perhaps she would not perceive it; perhaps she would kindle rapture by a sudden recognition; her distance made such close moments exquisitely sweet. But alas, no such humble friendship however romantic, could give her the sense that we completely shared her thoughts; the nature of them made it hard for anyone to understand; and her sorrow was very lonely. Perhaps one would come into a room unexpectedly, and surprise her in tears, and, to one’s miserable confusion, she would hide them instantly, and speak ordinary words, as though she did not imagine that one could understand her suffering.
And this, as I think, was the time when your mother first came somewhat tentatively upon the scene, her age being then almost seventeen. Her qualities of honesty and wisdom were precisely those that Stella was then most inclined to appreciate, both because she was often bewildered by the eccentric storms in which your grandfather indulged, ascribed by her too simply to the greatness of his intellect, and also because she found in Vanessa both in nature and in person something like a reflection of her mother. Vanes
sa too might be treated almost as a confidante, the single person who did not need any kind of sacrifice to be made for her. And Stella felt also, no doubt, that curiously intimate pride which a woman feels when she sees womanly virtues beautifully expressed by another, the torch still worthily carried; and the pride was very tender in this case and mixed with much of a maternal joy. I do not know how far I shall be guilty of over-ingenuity if I discover another, though an unspoken, cause for the growth of natural sympathy with Vanessa. For two or three years now the one suitor who stood out above other suitors and was greatly liked by your grandmother and tolerated by Stella herself was John Waller Hills. He was then a lean, rather threadbare young man, who seemed to force his way by sheer determination and solid integrity; suggesting the figure of some tenacious wire-haired terrier, in whose obstinacy and strength of jaw there seemed, at a time when all the fates were against him, something honourable, which appealed to one’s half humorous sense of sport as even pathetic. He would come, Sunday after Sunday, and sit his hour out, worrying his speech as a terrier a bone; but sticking doggedly to the word, until at last he got it pronounced. His method was the same always. He knew what he wanted, and unless there occurred a sudden bursting of his stout skull and soft illimitable prospects opened on each side, which was incredible, there was little doubt that he would come by it — except indeed in this very instance. For, with so much that everyone could respect, and find admirable in his relations with others, there was yet very little that anyone seemed called on to love at first hand. It was natural to be indebted to him, for faithful services rendered over a score of years, and to requite him by a perpetual seat at the fireside, or a cover laid for him on Sundays, or the title of uncle to some one else’s children. But to disregard all these oblique services, and meet him face to face, as one capable of the supreme gift of all, needed as Stella found, prolonged consideration and repeated rejection. He satisfied so many requirements, but the sum of all he gave did not need love to reward it. After her mother’s death however, Stella became far less exacting, as indeed she lost interest in her fate, and had no contrast to oppose to it; Jack was persistent as ever, almost a natural if secondary part of oneself. No doubt he had a system plainly marked in front of him, arranged on paper in his little room in Ebury Street, and was simply following it out in detail. But that even had a kind of fascination for one so prone now to consider herself merely as the atmosphere that enclosed solid bodies. The long visits, when there were such long pauses, or spasmodic talk of indifferent matters, salmon fishing or Stevenson’s novels, had yet an undeniable glow, a conviction of meaning lying at the base of them, which made them remarkable, and wore, like some dull heat, into her mind. It made her realize herself, turning solid much that floated vague as mist around her as she went about her daily life. But it threatened to be destructive of the compact which she had made with her stepfather, upon which by this time he had come to depend. It was natural then that she should turn instinctively to Vanessa, for many unformulated reasons, and for this obvious one, that Vanessa alone could justify her action if, as it sometimes seemed possible, she consented to marry Jack in the end. And also your mother was sympathetic without words; she had a great respect for Mr Hills, and her respect was warmed and at the same time sanctioned by the knowledge which was common to us all of his devotion. Insensibly, Stella grew to depend upon Jack’s visits, for though she was sad to the point of despair, and physically tired, there was a pale flame in her which leapt at the prospect of an independent life, a life at least which depended upon one person only. For when some months had passed, and the first storm of distress was over, she found that she had completely pledged herself to her stepfather; he expected entire self-surrender on her part, and had decided apparently, and with sufficient reason, that she possessed one of those beautiful feminine natures which are quite without wishes of their own. She had to acquiesce, partly because it was easier to go on as she had begun, and partly because as she could not give him intellectual companionship she must give him the only thing she had. But Jack, with the shrewdness of a businessman who is in love, quickly saw how matters stood, and offered a very refreshing revolt. He considered Stella’s wishes and Stella’s health far more important than those of one whom he treated as an encyclopaedia who should be kept on the shelf, and must be humoured and tolerated in all his irrational desires if he chose to come downstairs. Stella would not have been human if she had not found this change of view a relief to her. Slowly then she admitted the thought of new life, and recognized that it was Jack and Jack only who inspired [it.]
But she had lapsed very far, into a kind of snowy numbness, nor could she waken at the first touch. He proposed to her in March (I think), almost a year after her mother’s death, and she refused him. The thought of the break, the havoc played with delicate webs just beginning to spin themselves across the abyss, may well have deterred her; and, when she came face to face with her love, and tried to yield herself to his passion, his honesty, all his canine qualities glowing with their utmost expressiveness, did she still find something in her left cold and meditative, reflecting, when all should have been consenting? She remembered what she had felt before. But the summer wore on, and she looked with comfort at Vanessa, and there were not wanting authoritative voices who declared that such a sacrifice, for they gave it the definite name, was cowardly and shortsighted too. For in years to come, they argued, her stepfather would draw his best comfort from her home. Jack meanwhile, was persistent, and patient; and she had to confess that she had accumulated a reckoning with him that was serious however she looked at it; he meant a great deal in her life. The summer wore on, nor did anyone, unless it were your mother, suspect the change in Stella’s mind; we depended on her as thoughtless men on some natural power; for it seemed to our judgement obvious enough that there must be someone always discharging the duties that Stella discharged. We had been lent a house at Hindhead, and one afternoon at the end of August, Jack came there, bicycling to some place in the neighbourhood. His visits were so often forced in this way that we suspected nothing more than the usual amount of restraint from his explosive ways, and much information about dogs and bicycles. His opinion on these matters stood very high with us. He stayed to dinner, and that also was characteristic of his method; but after dinner a strange lapse occurred in the usual etiquette. Stella left the room with him, to show him the garden or the moon, and decisively shut the door behind her. We had our business to attend to also, and followed them soon with a lantern, for we were then in the habit of catching moths after dinner. Once or twice we saw them, always hasting round a corner; once or twice we heard her skirts brushing, and once a sound of whispering. But the moon was very bright, and there were no moths; Stella and Jack had gone in, it seemed, and we returned to the drawing room. But father was alone, and he was unusually restless, turning his pages, crossing his legs, and looking again and again at the clock. Then he sent Adrian to bed; then me; then Nessa and Thoby; and still it was only ten, and still Stella and Jack stayed out! There was then a pause, and we sat together in Adrian’s room, cold, melancholy and strangely uncomfortable. Your Uncle Thoby discovered a tramp in the garden, who begged for food and Thoby sent him away with great eloquence, and we felt a little frightened, for it was no ordinary night, and ominous things were happening. Your grandfather was tramping the terrace, up and down, up and down; we were all awake, all expectant; and still nothing happened. At length, someone looking from the window, exclaimed, “Stella and Mr Hills are coming up the path together!” Were their arms locked? Did we know immediately all that we had not dared to guess? At any rate we ran to our rooms, and in a few minutes Stella came up herself, blushing the loveliest rose colour, and told us — how she was very happy.
The news was met, of course, by the usual outburst of clamorous voices which always threatens on such occasions to drown the single true utterance. Families at these moments touch their high, and perhaps also their low, watermarks. Your grandfather, I remember, sp
oke sharply to one whom he found in tears, for it should make us only happy, he said, that Stella should be happy; true words! But the moment after he was groaning to her that the blow was irreparable. Then George and Gerald, who lavished kisses and did their best to arrange that she and Jack should be left alone together, soon let her see that there would be difficulties if Jack came too much to the house. “It won’t do; men are like that”, she said once, without complaint; and Kitty Maxse, who had the reputation with us of profound knowledge and exquisite sympathy, an irresistible combination, confirmed her no doubt in her sad estimate of mankind. “It won’t do.”
Their engagement then was at the mercy of many forces from the outset; still there were some walks at Hindhead, a week spent together at Corby, and Jack found excuses for dining with us every night in London, and stayed on very late, till George came down and invoked the proprieties, or with some reason, insisted that Stella must rest. One thing seemed to survive all these vexations, and was miraculous to see; the exquisite tremor of life was once more alight in Stella; her eye shone, her pale cheeks glowed constantly with a faint rose. She laughed and had her tender jokes. Sometimes a fear came over her, possessed her; she had had her life; but then there was Jack to reason her out of her alarms, to kiss her, and show her a sane future, with many interests and much substance. She had come to stand by herself, with a painful footing upon real life, and her love now had as little of dependence in it as may be. He, it is true, had more wish to live than she had, but she took and gave with open eyes. It was beautiful; it was, once more, a flight of unfurled wings into the upper air.
Complete Works of Virginia Woolf Page 541
