The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf Contents CHAPTER I. CHAPTER II. CHAPTER III. CHAPTER IV. CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER IX. CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVIII. CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. CHAPTER XXVI. CHAPTER XXVII. CHAPTER I As the streets that lead from the Strand to the Embankment are very narrow, it is better not to walk down them arm-in-arm. If you persist, lawyersâ clerks will have to make flying leaps into the mud; young lady typists will have to fidget behind you. In the streets of London where beauty goes unregarded, eccentricity must pay the penalty, and it is better not to be very tall, to wear a long blue cloak, or to beat the air with your left hand. One afternoon in the beginning of October when the traffic was becoming brisk a tall man strode along the edge of the pavement with a lady on his arm. Angry glances struck upon their backs. The small, agitated figuresâfor in comparison with this couple most people looked smallâdecorated with fountain pens, and burdened with despatch-boxes, had appointments to keep, and drew a weekly salary, so that there was some reason for the unfriendly stare which was bestowed upon Mr. Ambroseâs height and upon Mrs. Ambroseâs cloak. But some enchantment had put both man and woman beyond the reach of malice and unpopularity. In his case one might guess from the moving lips that it was thought; and in hers from the eyes fixed stonily straight in front of her at a level above the eyes of most that it was sorrow. It was only by scorning all she met that she kept herself from tears, and the friction of people brushing past her was evidently painful. After watching the traffic on the Embankment for a minute or two with a stoical gaze she twitched her husbandâs sleeve, and they crossed between the swift discharge of motor cars. When they were safe on the further side, she gently withdrew her arm from his, allowing her mouth at the same time to relax, to tremble; then tears rolled down, and leaning her elbows on the balustrade, she shielded her face from the curious. Mr. Ambrose attempted consolation; he patted her shoulder; but she showed no signs of admitting him, and feeling it awkward to stand beside a grief that was greater than his, he crossed his arms behind him, and took a turn along the pavement. The embankment juts out in angles here and there, like pulpits; instead of preachers, however, small boys occupy them, dangling string, dropping pebbles, or launching wads of paper for a cruise. With their sharp eye for eccentricity, they were inclined to think Mr. Ambrose awful; but the quickest witted cried âBluebeard!â as he passed. In case they should proceed to tease his wife, Mr. Ambrose flourished his stick at them, upon which they decided that he was grotesque merely, and four instead of one cried âBluebeard!â in chorus. Although Mrs. Ambrose stood quite still, much longer than is natural, the little boys let her be. Some one is always looking into the river near Waterloo Bridge; a couple will stand there talking for half an hour on a fine afternoon; most people, walking for pleasure, contemplate for three minutes; when, having compared the occasion with other occasions, or made some sentence, they pass on. Sometimes the flats and churches and hotels of Westminster are like the outlines of Constantinople in a mist; sometimes the river is an opulent purple, sometimes mud-coloured, sometimes sparkling blue like the sea. It is always worth while to look down and see what is happening. But this lady looked neither up nor down; the only thing she had seen, since she stood there, was a circular iridescent patch slowly floating past with a straw in the middle of it. The straw and the patch swam again and again behind the tremulous medium of a great welling tear, and the tear rose and fell and dropped into the river. Then there struck close upon her earsâ Lars Porsena of Clusium By the nine Gods he sworeâ and then more faintly, as if the speaker had passed her on his walkâ That the Great House of Tarquin Should suffer wrong no more. Yes, she knew she must go back to all that, but at present she must weep. Screening her face she sobbed more steadily than she had yet done, her shoulders rising and falling with great regularity. It was this figure that her husband saw when, having reached the polished Sphinx, having entangled himself with a man selling picture postcards, he turned; the stanza instantly stopped. He came up to her, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said, âDearest.â His voice was supplicating. But she shut her face away from him, as much as to say, âYou canât possibly understand.â As he did not leave her, however, she had to wipe her eyes, and to raise them to the level of the factory chimneys on the other bank. She saw also the arches of Waterloo Bridge and the carts moving across them, like the line of animals in a shooting gallery. They were seen blankly, but to see anything was of course to end her weeping and begin to walk. âI would rather walk,â she said, her husband having hailed a cab already occupied by two city men. The fixity of her mood was broken by the action of walking. The shooting motor cars, more like spiders in the moon than terrestrial objects, the thundering drays, the jingling hansoms, and little black broughams, made her think of the world she lived in. Somewhere up there above the pinnacles where the smoke rose in a pointed hill, her children were now asking for her, and getting a soothing reply. As for the mass of streets, squares, and public buildings which parted them, she only felt at this moment how little London had done to make her love it, although thirty of her forty years had been spent in a street. She knew how to read the people who were passing her; there were the rich who were running to and from each othersâ houses at this hour; there were the bigoted workers driving in a straight line to their offices; there were the poor who were unhappy and rightly malignant. Already, though there was sunlight in the haze, tattered old men and women were nodding off to sleep upon the seats. When one gave up seeing the beauty that clothed things, this was the skeleton beneath. A fine rain now made her still more dismal; vans with the odd names of those engaged in odd industriesâSprules, Manufacturer of Saw-dust; Grabb, to whom no piece of waste paper comes amissâfell flat as a bad joke; bold lovers, sheltered behind one cloak, seemed to her sordid, past their passion; the flower women, a contented company, whose talk is always worth hearing, were sodden hags; the red, yellow, and blue flowers, whose heads were pressed together, would not blaze. Moreover, her husband walking with a quick rhythmic stride, jerking his free hand occasionally, was either a Viking or a stricken Nelson; the sea-gulls had changed his note. âRidley, shall we drive? Shall we drive, Ridley?â Mrs. Ambrose had to speak sharply; by this time he was far away. The cab, by trotting steadily along the same road, soon withdrew them from the West End, and plunged them into London. It appeared that this was a great manufacturing place, where the people were engaged in making things, as though the West End, with its electric lamps, its vast plate-glass windows all shining yellow, its carefully-finished houses, and tiny live figures trotting on the pavement, or bowled along on wheels in the road, was the finished work. It appeared to her a very small bit of work for such an enormous factory to have made. For some reason it appeared to her as a small golden tassel on the edge of a vast black cloak. Observing that they passed no other hansom cab, but only vans and waggons, and that not one of the thousand men and women she saw was either a gentleman or a lady, Mrs. Ambrose understood that after all it is the ordinary thing to be poor, and that London is the city of innumerable poor people. Startled by this discovery and seeing herself pacing a circle all the days of her life round Picadilly Circus she was greatly relieved to pass a building put up by the London County Council for Night Schools. âLord, how gloomy it is!â her husband groaned. âPoor creatures!â What with the misery for her children, the poor, and the rain, her mind was like a wound exposed to dry in the air. At this point the cab stopped, for it was in danger of being crushed like an egg-shell. The wide Embankment which had had room for cannonballs and squadrons, had now shrunk to a cobbled lane steaming with smells of malt and oil and blocked by waggons. While her husband read the placards pasted on the brick announcing the hours at which certain ships would sail for Scotland, Mrs. Ambrose did her best to find information. From a world exclusively occupied in feeding waggons with sacks, half obliterated too in a fine yellow fog, they got neither help nor attention. It seemed a miracle when an old man approached, guessed their condition, and proposed to row them out to their ship in the little boat which he kept moored at the bottom of a flight of steps. With some hesitation they trusted themselves to him, took their places, and were soon waving up and down upon the water, London having shrunk to two lines of buildings on either side of them, square buildings and oblong buildings placed in rows like a childâs avenue of bricks. The river, which had a certain amount of troubled yellow light in it, ran with great force; bulky barges floated down swiftly escorted by tugs; police boats shot past everything; the wind went with the current. The open rowing-boat in which they sat bobbed and curtseyed across the line of traffic. In mid-stream the old man stayed his hands upon the oars, and as the water rushed past them, remarked that once he had taken many passengers across, where now he took scarcely any. He seemed to recall an age when his boat, moored among rushes, carried delicate feet across to lawns at Rotherhithe. âThey want bridges now,â he said, indicating the monstrous outline of the Tower Bridge. Mournfully Helen regarded him, who was putting water between her and her children. Mournfully she gazed at the ship they were approaching; anchored in the middle of the stream they could dimly read her nameâ_Euphrosyne_. Very dimly in the falling dusk they could see the lines of the rigging, the masts and the dark flag which the breeze blew out squarely behind. As the little boat sidled up to the steamer, and the old man shipped his oars, he remarked once more pointing above, that ships all the world over flew that flag the day they sailed. In the minds of both the passengers the blue flag appeared a sinister token, and this the moment for presentiments, but nevertheless they rose, gathered their things together, and climbed on deck. Down in the saloon of her fatherâs ship, Miss Rachel Vinrace, aged twenty-four, stood waiting her uncle and aunt nervously. To begin with, though nearly related, she scarcely remembered them; to go on with, they were elderly people, and finally, as her fatherâs daughter she must be in some sort prepared to entertain them. She looked forward to seeing them as civilised people generally look forward to the first sight of civilised people, as though they were of the nature of an approaching physical discomfortâa tight shoe or a draughty window. She was already unnaturally braced to receive them. As she occupied herself in laying forks severely straight by the side of knives, she heard a manâs voice saying gloomily: âOn a dark night one would fall down these stairs head foremost,â to which a womanâs voice added, âAnd be killed.â As she spoke the last words the woman stood in the doorway. Tall, large-eyed, draped in purple shawls, Mrs. Ambrose was romantic and beautiful; not perhaps sympathetic, for her eyes looked straight and considered what they saw. Her face was much warmer than a Greek face; on the other hand it was much bolder than the face of the usual pretty Englishwoman. âOh, Rachel, how dâyou do,â she said, shaking hands. âHow are you, dear,â said Mr. Ambrose, inclining his forehead to be kissed. His niece instinctively liked his thin angular body, and the big head with its sweeping features, and the acute, innocent eyes. âTell Mr. Pepper,â Rachel bade the servant. Husband and wife then sat down on one side of the table, with their niece opposite to them. âMy father told me to begin,â she explained. âHe is very busy with the men. . . . You know Mr. Pepper?â A little man who was bent as some trees are by a gale on one side of them had slipped in. Nodding to Mr. Ambrose, he shook hands with Helen. âDraughts,â he said, erecting the collar of his coat. âYou are still rheumatic?â asked Helen. Her voice was low and seductive, though she spoke absently enough, the sight of town and river being still present to her mind. âOnce rheumatic, always rheumatic, I fear,â he replied. âTo some extent it depends on the weather, though not so much as people are apt to think.â âOne does not die of it, at any rate,â said Helen. âAs a general ruleâno,â said Mr. Pepper. âSoup, Uncle Ridley?â asked Rachel. âThank you, dear,â he said, and, as he held his plate out, sighed audibly, âAh! sheâs not like her mother.â Helen was just too late in thumping her tumbler on the table to prevent Rachel from hearing, and from blushing scarlet with embarrassment. âThe way servants treat flowers!â she said hastily. She drew a green vase with a crinkled lip towards her, and began pulling out the tight little chrysanthemums, which she laid on the table-cloth, arranging them fastidiously side by side. There was a pause. âYou knew Jenkinson, didnât you, Ambrose?â asked Mr. Pepper across the table. âJenkinson of Peterhouse?â âHeâs dead,â said Mr. Pepper. âAh, dear!âI knew himâages ago,â said Ridley. âHe was the hero of the punt accident, you remember? A queer card. Married a young woman out of a tobacconistâs, and lived in the Fensânever heard what became of him.â âDrinkâdrugs,â said Mr. Pepper with sinister conciseness. âHe left a commentary. Hopeless muddle, Iâm told.â âThe man had really great abilities,â said Ridley. âHis introduction to Jellaby holds its own still,â went on Mr. Pepper, âwhich is surprising, seeing how text-books change.â âThere was a theory about the planets, wasnât there?â asked Ridley. âA screw loose somewhere, no doubt of it,â said Mr. Pepper, shaking his head. Now a tremor ran through the table, and a light outside swerved. At the same time an electric bell rang sharply again and again. âWeâre off,â said Ridley. A slight but perceptible wave seemed to roll beneath the floor; then it sank; then another came, more perceptible. Lights slid right across the uncurtained window. The ship gave a loud melancholy moan. âWeâre off!â said Mr. Pepper. Other ships, as sad as she, answered her outside on the river. The chuckling and hissing of water could be plainly heard, and the ship heaved so that the steward bringing plates had to balance himself as he drew the curtain. There was a pause. âJenkinson of Catsâdâyou still keep up with him?â asked Ambrose. âAs much as one ever does,â said Mr. Pepper. âWe meet annually. This year he has had the misfortune to lose his wife, which made it painful, of course.â âVery painful,â Ridley agreed. âThereâs an unmarried daughter who keeps house for him, I believe, but itâs never the same, not at his age.â Both gentlemen nodded sagely as they carved their apples. âThere was a book, wasnât there?â Ridley enquired. âThere _was_ a book, but there never _will_ be a book,â said Mr. Pepper with such fierceness that both ladies looked up at him. âThere never will be a book, because some one else has written it for him,â said Mr. Pepper with considerable acidity. âThatâs what comes of putting things off, and collecting fossils, and sticking Norman arches on oneâs pigsties.â âI confess I sympathise,â said Ridley with a melancholy sigh. âI have a weakness for people who canât begin.â â. . . The accumulations of a lifetime wasted,â continued Mr. pepper. âHe had accumulations enough to fill a barn.â âItâs a vice that some of us escape,â said Ridley. âOur friend Miles has another work out to-day.â Mr. Pepper gave an acid little laugh. âAccording to my calculations,â he said, âhe has produced two volumes and a half annually, which, allowing for time spent in the cradle and so forth, shows a commendable industry.â âYes, the old Masterâs saying of him has been pretty well realised,â said Ridley. âA way they had,â said Mr. Pepper. âYou know the Bruce collection?ânot for publication, of course.â âI should suppose not,â said Ridley significantly. âFor a Divine he wasâremarkably free.â âThe Pump in Nevilleâs Row, for example?â enquired Mr. Pepper. âPrecisely,â said Ambrose. Each of the ladies, being after the fashion of their sex, highly trained in promoting menâs talk without listening to it, could thinkâabout the education of children, about the use of fog sirens in an operaâwithout betraying herself. Only it struck Helen that Rachel was perhaps too still for a hostess, and that she might have done something with her hands. âPerhapsâ?â she said at length, upon which they rose and left, vaguely to the surprise of the gentlemen, who had either thought them attentive or had forgotten their presence. âAh, one could tell strange stories of the old days,â they heard Ridley say, as he sank into his chair again. Glancing back, at the doorway, they saw Mr. Pepper as though he had suddenly loosened his clothes, and had become a vivacious and malicious old ape. Winding veils round their heads, the women walked on deck. They were now moving steadily down the river, passing the dark shapes of ships at anchor, and London was a swarm of lights with a pale yellow canopy drooping above it. There were the lights of the great theatres, the lights of the long streets, lights that indicated huge squares of domestic comfort, lights that hung high in air. No darkness would ever settle upon those lamps, as no darkness had settled upon them for hundreds of years. It seemed dreadful that the town should blaze for ever in the same spot; dreadful at least to people going away to adventure upon the sea, and beholding it as a circumscribed mound, eternally burnt, eternally scarred. From the deck of the ship the great city appeared a crouched and cowardly figure, a sedentary miser. Leaning over the rail, side by side, Helen said, âWonât you be cold?â Rachel replied, âNo. . . . How beautiful!â she added a moment later. Very little was visibleâa few masts, a shadow of land here, a line of brilliant windows there. They tried to make head against the wind. âIt blowsâit blows!â gasped Rachel, the words rammed down her throat. Struggling by her side, Helen was suddenly overcome by the spirit of movement, and pushed along with her skirts wrapping themselves round her knees, and both arms to her hair. But slowly the intoxication of movement died down, and the wind became rough and chilly. They looked through a chink in the blind and saw that long cigars were being smoked in the dining-room; they saw Mr. Ambrose throw himself violently against the back of his chair, while Mr. Pepper crinkled his cheeks as though they had been cut in wood. The ghost of a roar of laughter came out to them, and was drowned at once in the wind. In the dry yellow-lighted room Mr. Pepper and Mr. Ambrose were oblivious of all tumult; they were in Cambridge, and it was probably about the year 1875. âTheyâre old friends,â said Helen, smiling at the sight. âNow, is there a room for us to sit in?â Rachel opened a door. âItâs more like a landing than a room,â she said. Indeed it had nothing of the shut stationary character of a room on shore. A table was rooted in the middle, and seats were stuck to the sides. Happily the tropical suns had bleached the tapestries to a faded blue-green colour, and the mirror with its frame of shells, the work of the stewardâs love, when the time hung heavy in the southern seas, was quaint rather than ugly. Twisted shells with red lips like unicornâs horns ornamented the mantelpiece, which was draped by a pall of purple plush from which depended a certain number of balls. Two windows opened on to the deck, and the light beating through them when the ship was roasted on the Amazons had turned the prints on the opposite wall to a faint yellow colour, so that âThe Coliseumâ was scarcely to be distinguished from Queen Alexandra playing with her Spaniels. A pair of wicker arm-chairs by the fireside invited one to warm oneâs hands at a grate full of gilt shavings; a great lamp swung above the tableâthe kind of lamp which makes the light of civilisation across dark fields to one walking in the country. âItâs odd that every one should be an old friend of Mr. Pepperâs,â Rachel started nervously, for the situation was difficult, the room cold, and Helen curiously silent. âI suppose you take him for granted?â said her aunt. âHeâs like this,â said Rachel, lighting on a fossilised fish in a basin, and displaying it. âI expect youâre too severe,â Helen remarked. Rachel immediately tried to qualify what she had said against her belief. âI donât really know him,â she said, and took refuge in facts, believing that elderly people really like them better than feelings. She produced what she knew of William Pepper. She told Helen that he always called on Sundays when they were at home; he knew about a great many thingsâabout mathematics, history, Greek, zoology, economics, and the Icelandic Sagas. He had turned Persian poetry into English prose, and English prose into Greek iambics; he was an authority upon coins; andâone other thingâoh yes, she thought it was vehicular traffic. He was here either to get things out of the sea, or to write upon the probable course of Odysseus, for Greek after all was his hobby. âIâve got all his pamphlets,â she said. âLittle pamphlets. Little yellow books.â It did not appear that she had read them. âHas he ever been in love?â asked Helen, who had chosen a seat. This was unexpectedly to the point. âHis heartâs a piece of old shoe leather,â Rachel declared, dropping the fish. But when questioned she had to own that she had never asked him. âI shall ask him,â said Helen. âThe last time I saw you, you were buying a piano,â she continued. âDo you rememberâthe piano, the room in the attic, and the great plants with the prickles?â âYes, and my aunts said the piano would come through the floor, but at their age one wouldnât mind being killed in the night?â she enquired. âI heard from Aunt Bessie not long ago,â Helen stated. âShe is afraid that you will spoil your arms if you insist upon so much practising.â âThe muscles of the forearmâand then one wonât marry?â âShe didnât put it quite like that,â replied Mrs. Ambrose. âOh, noâof course she wouldnât,â said Rachel with a sigh. Helen looked at her. Her face was weak rather than decided, saved from insipidity by the large enquiring eyes; denied beauty, now that she was sheltered indoors, by the lack of colour and definite outline. Moreover, a hesitation in speaking, or rather a tendency to use the wrong words, made her seem more than normally incompetent for her years. Mrs. Ambrose, who had been speaking much at random, now reflected that she certainly did not look forward to the intimacy of three or four weeks on board ship which was threatened. Women of her own age usually boring her, she supposed that girls would be worse. She glanced at Rachel again. Yes! how clear it was that she would be vacillating, emotional, and when you said something to her it would make no more lasting impression than the stroke of a stick upon water. There was nothing to take hold of in girlsânothing hard, permanent, satisfactory. Did Willoughby say three weeks, or did he say four? She tried to remember. At this point, however, the door opened and a tall burly man entered the room, came forward and shook Helenâs hand with an emotional kind of heartiness, Willoughby himself, Rachelâs father, Helenâs brother-in-law. As a great deal of flesh would have been needed to make a fat man of him, his frame being so large, he was not fat; his face was a large framework too, looking, by the smallness of the features and the glow in the hollow of the cheek, more fitted to withstand assaults of the weather than to express sentiments and emotions, or to respond to them in others. âIt is a great pleasure that you have come,â he said, âfor both of us.â Rachel murmured in obedience to her fatherâs glance. âWeâll do our best to make you comfortable. And Ridley. We think it an honour to have charge of him. Pepperâll have some one to contradict himâwhich I darenât do. You find this child grown, donât you? A young woman, eh?â Still holding Helenâs hand he drew his arm round Rachelâs shoulder, thus making them come uncomfortably close, but Helen forbore to look. âYou think she does us credit?â he asked. âOh yes,â said Helen. âBecause we expect great things of her,â he continued, squeezing his daughterâs arm and releasing her. âBut about you now.â They sat down side by side on the little sofa. âDid you leave the children well? Theyâll be ready for school, I suppose. Do they take after you or Ambrose? Theyâve got good heads on their shoulders, Iâll be bound?â At this Helen immediately brightened more than she had yet done, and explained that her son was six and her daughter ten. Everybody said that her boy was like her and her girl like Ridley. As for brains, they were quick brats, she thought, and modestly she ventured on a little story about her son,âhow left alone for a minute he had taken the pat of butter in his fingers, run across the room with it, and put it on the fireâmerely for the fun of the thing, a feeling which she could understand. âAnd you had to show the young rascal that these tricks wouldnât do, eh?â âA child of six? I donât think they matter.â âIâm an old-fashioned father.â âNonsense, Willoughby; Rachel knows better.â Much as Willoughby would doubtless have liked his daughter to praise him she did not; her eyes were unreflecting as water, her fingers still toying with the fossilised fish, her mind absent. The elder people went on to speak of arrangements that could be made for Ridleyâs comfortâa table placed where he couldnât help looking at the sea, far from boilers, at the same time sheltered from the view of people passing. Unless he made this a holiday, when his books were all packed, he would have no holiday whatever; for out at Santa Marina Helen knew, by experience, that he would work all day; his boxes, she said, were packed with books. âLeave it to meâleave it to me!â said Willoughby, obviously intending to do much more than she asked of him. But Ridley and Mr. Pepper were heard fumbling at the door. âHow are you, Vinrace?â said Ridley, extending a limp hand as he came in, as though the meeting were melancholy to both, but on the whole more so to him. Willoughby preserved his heartiness, tempered by respect. For the moment nothing was said. âWe looked in and saw you laughing,â Helen remarked. âMr. Pepper had just told a very good story.â âPish. None of the stories were good,â said her husband peevishly. âStill a severe judge, Ridley?â enquired Mr. Vinrace. âWe bored you so that you left,â said Ridley, speaking directly to his wife. As this was quite true Helen did not attempt to deny it, and her next remark, âBut didnât they improve after weâd gone?â was unfortunate, for her husband answered with a droop of his shoulders, âIf possible they got worse.â The situation was now one of considerable discomfort for every one concerned, as was proved by a long interval of constraint and silence. Mr. Pepper, indeed, created a diversion of a kind by leaping on to his seat, both feet tucked under him, with the action of a spinster who detects a mouse, as the draught struck at his ankles. Drawn up there, sucking at his cigar, with his arms encircling his knees, he looked like the image of Buddha, and from this elevation began a discourse, addressed to nobody, for nobody had called for it, upon the unplumbed depths of ocean. He professed himself surprised to learn that although Mr. Vinrace possessed ten ships, regularly plying between London and Buenos Aires, not one of them was bidden to investigate the great white monsters of the lower waters. âNo, no,â laughed Willoughby, âthe monsters of the earth are too many for me!â Rachel was heard to sigh, âPoor little goats!â âIf it werenât for the goats thereâd be no music, my dear; music depends upon goats,â said her father rather sharply, and Mr. Pepper went on to describe the white, hairless, blind monsters lying curled on the ridges of sand at the bottom of the sea, which would explode if you brought them to the surface, their sides bursting asunder and scattering entrails to the winds when released from pressure, with considerable detail and with such show of knowledge, that Ridley was disgusted, and begged him to stop. From all this Helen drew her own conclusions, which were gloomy enough. Pepper was a bore; Rachel was an unlicked girl, no doubt prolific of confidences, the very first of which would be: âYou see, I donât get on with my father.â Willoughby, as usual, loved his business and built his Empire, and between them all she would be considerably bored. Being a woman of action, however, she rose, and said that for her part she was going to bed. At the door she glanced back instinctively at Rachel, expecting that as two of the same sex they would leave the room together. Rachel rose, looked vaguely into Helenâs face, and remarked with her slight stammer, âIâm going out to t-t-triumph in the wind.â Mrs. Ambroseâs worst suspicions were confirmed; she went down the passage lurching from side to side, and fending off the wall now with her right arm, now with her left; at each lurch she exclaimed emphatically, âDamn!â CHAPTER II Uncomfortable as the night, with its rocking movement, and salt smells, may have been, and in one case undoubtedly was, for Mr. Pepper had insufficient clothes upon his bed, the breakfast next morning wore a kind of beauty. The voyage had begun, and had begun happily with a soft blue sky, and a calm sea. The sense of untapped resources, things to say as yet unsaid, made the hour significant, so that in future years the entire journey perhaps would be represented by this one scene, with the sound of sirens hooting in the river the night before, somehow mixing in. The table was cheerful with apples and bread and eggs. Helen handed Willoughby the butter, and as she did so cast her eye on him and reflected, âAnd she married you, and she was happy, I suppose.â She went off on a familiar train of thought, leading on to all kinds of well-known reflections, from the old wonder, why Theresa had married Willoughby? âOf course, one sees all that,â she thought, meaning that one sees that he is big and burly, and has a great booming voice, and a fist and a will of his own; âbutââ here she slipped into a fine analysis of him which is best represented by one word, âsentimental,â by which she meant that he was never simple and honest about his feelings. For example, he seldom spoke of the dead, but kept anniversaries with singular pomp. She suspected him of nameless atrocities with regard to his daughter, as indeed she had always suspected him of bullying his wife. Naturally she fell to comparing her own fortunes with the fortunes of her friend, for Willoughbyâs wife had been perhaps the one woman Helen called friend, and this comparison often made the staple of their talk. Ridley was a scholar, and Willoughby was a man of business. Ridley was bringing out the third volume of Pindar when Willoughby was launching his first ship. They built a new factory the very year the commentary on Aristotleâwas it?âappeared at the University Press. âAnd Rachel,â she looked at her, meaning, no doubt, to decide the argument, which was otherwise too evenly balanced, by declaring that Rachel was not comparable to her own children. âShe really might be six years old,â was all she said, however, this judgment referring to the smooth unmarked outline of the girlâs face, and not condemning her otherwise, for if Rachel were ever to think, feel, laugh, or express herself, instead of dropping milk from a height as though to see what kind of drops it made, she might be interesting though never exactly pretty. She was like her mother, as the image in a pool on a still summerâs day is like the vivid flushed face that hangs over it. Meanwhile Helen herself was under examination, though not from either of her victims. Mr. Pepper considered her; and his meditations, carried on while he cut his toast into bars and neatly buttered them, took him through a considerable stretch of autobiography. One of his penetrating glances assured him that he was right last night in judging that Helen was beautiful. Blandly he passed her the jam. She was talking nonsense, but not worse nonsense than people usually do talk at breakfast, the cerebral circulation, as he knew to his cost, being apt to give trouble at that hour. He went on saying âNoâ to her, on principle, for he never yielded to a woman on account of her sex. And here, dropping his eyes to his plate, he became autobiographical. He had not married himself for the sufficient reason that he had never met a woman who commanded his respect. Condemned to pass the susceptible years of youth in a railway station in Bombay, he had seen only coloured women, military women, official women; and his ideal was a woman who could read Greek, if not Persian, was irreproachably fair in the face, and able to understand the small things he let fall while undressing. As it was he had contracted habits of which he was not in the least ashamed. Certain odd minutes every day went to learning things by heart; he never took a ticket without noting the number; he devoted January to Petronius, February to Catullus, March to the Etruscan vases perhaps; anyhow he had done good work in India, and there was nothing to regret in his life except the fundamental defects which no wise man regrets, when the present is still his. So concluding he looked up suddenly and smiled. Rachel caught his eye. âAnd now youâve chewed something thirty-seven times, I suppose?â she thought, but said politely aloud, âAre your legs troubling you to-day, Mr. Pepper?â âMy shoulder blades?â he asked, shifting them painfully. âBeauty has no effect upon uric acid that Iâm aware of,â he sighed, contemplating the round pane opposite, through which the sky and sea showed blue. At the same time he took a little parchment volume from his pocket and laid it on the table. As it was clear that he invited comment, Helen asked him the name of it. She got the name; but she got also a disquisition upon the proper method of making roads. Beginning with the Greeks, who had, he said, many difficulties to contend with, he continued with the Romans, passed to England and the right method, which speedily became the wrong method, and wound up with such a fury of denunciation directed against the road-makers of the present day in general, and the road-makers of Richmond Park in particular, where Mr. Pepper had the habit of cycling every morning before breakfast, that the spoons fairly jingled against the coffee cups, and the insides of at least four rolls mounted in a heap beside Mr. Pepperâs plate. âPebbles!â he concluded, viciously dropping another bread pellet upon the heap. âThe roads of England are mended with pebbles! âWith the first heavy rainfall,â Iâve told âem, âyour road will be a swamp.â Again and again my words have proved true. But dâyou suppose they listen to me when I tell âem so, when I point out the consequences, the consequences to the public purse, when I recommend âem to read Coryphaeus? No, Mrs. Ambrose, you will form no just opinion of the stupidity of mankind until you have sat upon a Borough Council!â The little man fixed her with a glance of ferocious energy. âI have had servants,â said Mrs. Ambrose, concentrating her gaze. âAt this moment I have a nurse. Sheâs a good woman as they go, but sheâs determined to make my children pray. So far, owing to great care on my part, they think of God as a kind of walrus; but now that my backâs turnedâRidley,â she demanded, swinging round upon her husband, âwhat shall we do if we find them saying the Lordâs Prayer when we get home again?â Ridley made the sound which is represented by âTush.â But Willoughby, whose discomfort as he listened was manifested by a slight movement rocking of his body, said awkwardly, âOh, surely, Helen, a little religion hurts nobody.â âI would rather my children told lies,â she replied, and while Willoughby was reflecting that his sister-in-law was even more eccentric than he remembered, pushed her chair back and swept upstairs. In a second they heard her calling back, âOh, look! Weâre out at sea!â They followed her on to the deck. All the smoke and the houses had disappeared, and the ship was out in a wide space of sea very fresh and clear though pale in the early light. They had left London sitting on its mud. A very thin line of shadow tapered on the horizon, scarcely thick enough to stand the burden of Paris, which nevertheless rested upon it. They were free of roads, free of mankind, and the same exhilaration at their freedom ran through them all. The ship was making her way steadily through small waves which slapped her and then fizzled like effervescing water, leaving a little border of bubbles and foam on either side. The colourless October sky above was thinly clouded as if by the trail of wood-fire smoke, and the air was wonderfully salt and brisk. Indeed it was too cold to stand still. Mrs. Ambrose drew her arm within her husbandâs, and as they moved off it could be seen from the way in which her sloping cheek turned up to his that she had something private to communicate. They went a few paces and Rachel saw them kiss. Down she looked into the depth of the sea. While it was slightly disturbed on the surface by the passage of the _Euphrosyne_, beneath it was green and dim, and it grew dimmer and dimmer until the sand at the bottom was only a pale blur. One could scarcely see the black ribs of wrecked ships, or the spiral towers made by the burrowings of great eels, or the smooth green-sided monsters who came by flickering this way and that. ââAnd, Rachel, if any one wants me, Iâm busy till one,â said her father, enforcing his words as he often did, when he spoke to his daughter, by a smart blow upon the shoulder. âUntil one,â he repeated. âAnd youâll find yourself some employment, eh? Scales, French, a little German, eh? Thereâs Mr. Pepper who knows more about separable verbs than any man in Europe, eh?â and he went off laughing. Rachel laughed, too, as indeed she had laughed ever since she could remember, without thinking it funny, but because she admired her father. But just as she was turning with a view perhaps to finding some employment, she was intercepted by a woman who was so broad and so thick that to be intercepted by her was inevitable. The discreet tentative way in which she moved, together with her sober black dress, showed that she belonged to the lower orders; nevertheless she took up a rock-like position, looking about her to see that no gentry were near before she delivered her message, which had reference to the state of the sheets, and was of the utmost gravity. âHow ever weâre to get through this voyage, Miss Rachel, I really canât tell,â she began with a shake of her head. âThereâs only just sheets enough to go round, and the masterâs has a rotten place you could put your fingers through. And the counterpanes. Did you notice the counterpanes? I thought to myself a poor person would have been ashamed of them. The one I gave Mr. Pepper was hardly fit to cover a dog. . . . No, Miss Rachel, they could _not_ be mended; theyâre only fit for dust sheets. Why, if one sewed oneâs finger to the bone, one would have oneâs work undone the next time they went to the laundry.â Her voice in its indignation wavered as if tears were near. There was nothing for it but to descend and inspect a large pile of linen heaped upon a table. Mrs. Chailey handled the sheets as if she knew each by name, character, and constitution. Some had yellow stains, others had places where the threads made long ladders; but to the ordinary eye they looked much as sheets usually do look, very chill, white, cold, and irreproachably clean. Suddenly Mrs. Chailey, turning from the subject of sheets, dismissing them entirely, clenched her fists on the top of them, and proclaimed, âAnd you couldnât ask a living creature to sit where I sit!â Mrs. Chailey was expected to sit in a cabin which was large enough, but too near the boilers, so that after five minutes she could hear her heart âgo,â she complained, putting her hand above it, which was a state of things that Mrs. Vinrace, Rachelâs mother, would never have dreamt of inflictingâMrs. Vinrace, who knew every sheet in her house, and expected of every one the best they could do, but no more. It was the easiest thing in the world to grant another room, and the problem of sheets simultaneously and miraculously solved itself, the spots and ladders not being past cure after all, butâ âLies! Lies! Lies!â exclaimed the mistress indignantly, as she ran up on to the deck. âWhatâs the use of telling me lies?â In her anger that a woman of fifty should behave like a child and come cringing to a girl because she wanted to sit where she had not leave to sit, she did not think of the particular case, and, unpacking her music, soon forgot all about the old woman and her sheets. Mrs. Chailey folded her sheets, but her expression testified to flatness within. The world no longer cared about her, and a ship was not a home. When the lamps were lit yesterday, and the sailors went tumbling above her head, she had cried; she would cry this evening; she would cry to-morrow. It was not home. Meanwhile she arranged her ornaments in the room which she had won too easily. They were strange ornaments to bring on a sea voyageâchina pugs, tea-sets in miniature, cups stamped floridly with the arms of the city of Bristol, hair-pin boxes crusted with shamrock, antelopesâ heads in coloured plaster, together with a multitude of tiny photographs, representing downright workmen in their Sunday best, and women holding white babies. But there was one portrait in a gilt frame, for which a nail was needed, and before she sought it Mrs. Chailey put on her spectacles and read what was written on a slip of paper at the back: âThis picture of her mistress is given to Emma Chailey by Willoughby Vinrace in gratitude for thirty years of devoted service.â Tears obliterated the words and the head of the nail. âSo long as I can do something for your family,â she was saying, as she hammered at it, when a voice called melodiously in the passage: âMrs. Chailey! Mrs. Chailey!â Chailey instantly tidied her dress, composed her face, and opened the door. âIâm in a fix,â said Mrs. Ambrose, who was flushed and out of breath. âYou know what gentlemen are. The chairs too highâthe tables too lowâthereâs six inches between the floor and the door. What I wantâs a hammer, an old quilt, and have you such a thing as a kitchen table? Anyhow, between usââshe now flung open the door of her husbandâs sitting room, and revealed Ridley pacing up and down, his forehead all wrinkled, and the collar of his coat turned up. âItâs as though theyâd taken pains to torment me!â he cried, stopping dead. âDid I come on this voyage in order to catch rheumatism and pneumonia? Really one might have credited Vinrace with more sense. My dear,â Helen was on her knees under a table, âyou are only making yourself untidy, and we had much better recognise the fact that we are condemned to six weeks of unspeakable misery. To come at all was the height of folly, but now that we are here I suppose that I can face it like a man. My diseases of course will be increasedâI feel already worse than I did yesterday, but weâve only ourselves to thank, and the children happilyââ âMove! Move! Move!â cried Helen, chasing him from corner to corner with a chair as though he were an errant hen. âOut of the way, Ridley, and in half an hour youâll find it ready.â She turned him out of the room, and they could hear him groaning and swearing as he went along the passage. âI daresay he isnât very strong,â said Mrs. Chailey, looking at Mrs. Ambrose compassionately, as she helped to shift and carry. âItâs books,â sighed Helen, lifting an armful of sad volumes from the floor to the shelf. âGreek from morning to night. If ever Miss Rachel marries, Chailey, pray that she may marry a man who doesnât know his ABC.â The preliminary discomforts and harshnesses, which generally make the first days of a sea voyage so cheerless and trying to the temper, being somehow lived through, the succeeding days passed pleasantly enough. October was well advanced, but steadily burning with a warmth that made the early months of the summer appear very young and capricious. Great tracts of the earth lay now beneath the autumn sun, and the whole of England, from the bald moors to the Cornish rocks, was lit up from dawn to sunset, and showed in stretches of yellow, green, and purple. Under that illumination even the roofs of the great towns glittered. In thousands of small gardens, millions of dark-red flowers were blooming, until the old ladies who had tended them so carefully came down the paths with their scissors, snipped through their juicy stalks, and laid them upon cold stone ledges in the village church. Innumerable parties of picnickers coming home at sunset cried, âWas there ever such a day as this?â âItâs you,â the young men whispered; âOh, itâs you,â the young women replied. All old people and many sick people were drawn, were it only for a foot or two, into the open air, and prognosticated pleasant things about the course of the world. As for the confidences and expressions of love that were heard not only in cornfields but in lamplit rooms, where the windows opened on the garden, and men with cigars kissed women with grey hairs, they were not to be counted. Some said that the sky was an
{'title': 'The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}