The Voyage Out (43 page)

A bird gave a wild laugh, a monkey chuckled a malicious question, and, as fire fades in the hot sunshine, his words flickered and went out.

By degrees as the river narrowed, and the high sandbanks fell to level ground thickly grown with trees, the sounds of the forest could be heard. It echoed like a hall. There were sudden cries; and then long spaces of silence, such as there are in a cathedral when a boy’s voice has ceased and the echo of it still seems to haunt about the remote places of the roof. Once Mr. Flushing rose and spoke to a sailor, and even announced that some time after luncheon the steamer would stop, and they could walk a little way through the forest.

“There are tracks all through the trees there,” he explained. “We’re no distance from civilisation yet.”

He scrutinised his wife’s painting. Too polite to praise it openly, he contented himself with cutting off one half of the picture with one hand, and giving a flourish in the air with the other.

“God!” Hirst exclaimed, staring straight ahead. “Don’t you think it’s amazingly beautiful?”

“Beautiful?” Helen enquired. It seemed a strange little word, and Hirst and herself both so small that she forgot to answer him.

Hewet felt that he must speak.

“That’s where the Elizabethans got their style,” he mused, staring into the profusion of leaves and blossoms and prodigious fruits.

“Shakespeare? I hate Shakespeare!” Mrs. Flushing exclaimed; and Wilfred returned admiringly, “I believe you’re the only person who dares to say that, Alice.” But Mrs. Flushing went on painting.
She did not appear to attach much value to her husband’s compliment, and painted steadily, sometimes muttering a half-audible word or groan.

The morning was now very hot.

“Look at Hirst!” Mr. Flushing whispered. His sheet of paper had slipped on to the deck, his head lay back, and he drew a long snoring breath.

Terence picked up the sheet of paper and spread it out before Rachel. It was a continuation of the poem on God which he had begun in the chapel, and it was so indecent that Rachel did not understand half of it although she saw that it was indecent. Hewet began to fill in words where Hirst had left spaces, but he soon ceased; his pencil rolled on deck. Gradually they approached nearer and nearer to the bank on the right-hand side, so that the light which covered them became definitely green, falling through a shade of green leaves, and Mrs. Flushing set aside her sketch and stared ahead of her in silence. Hirst woke up; they were then called to luncheon, and while they ate it, the steamer came to a standstill a little way out from the bank. The boat which was towed behind them was brought to the side, and the ladies were helped into it.

For protection against boredom, Helen put a book of memoirs beneath her arm, and Mrs. Flushing her paint-box, and, thus equipped, they allowed themselves to be set on shore on the verge of the forest.

They had not strolled more than a few hundred yards along the track which ran parallel with the river before Helen professed to find it unbearably hot. The river breeze had ceased, and a hot steamy atmosphere, thick with scents, came from the forest.

“I shall sit down here,” she announced, pointing to the trunk of a tree which had fallen long ago and was now laced across and across by creepers and thong-like brambles. She seated herself, opened her parasol, and looked at the river which was barred by the stems of trees. She turned her back to the trees which disappeared in black shadow behind her.

“I quite agree,” said Mrs. Flushing, and proceeded to undo her paint-box. Her husband strolled about to select an interesting point
of view for her. Hirst cleared a space on the ground by Helen’s side, and seated himself with great deliberation, as if he did not mean to move until he had talked to her for a long time. Terence and Rachel were left standing by themselves without occupation. Terence saw that the time had come as it was fated to come, but although he realised this he was completely calm and master of himself. He chose to stand for a few moments talking to Helen, and persuading her to leave her seat. Rachel joined him too in advising her to come with them.

“Of all the people I’ve ever met,” he said, “you’re the least adventurous. You might be sitting on green chairs in Hyde Park. Are you going to sit there the whole afternoon? Aren’t you going to walk?”

“Oh, no,” said Helen, “one’s only got to use one’s eye. There’s everything here—everything,” she repeated in a drowsy tone of voice. “What will you gain by walking?”

“You’ll be hot and disagreeable by tea-time, we shall be cool and sweet,” put in Hirst. Into his eyes as he looked up at them had come yellow and green reflections from the sky and the branches, robbing them of their intentness, and he seemed to think what he did not say. It was thus taken for granted by them both that Terence and Rachel proposed to walk into the woods together; with one look at each other they turned away.

“Good-bye!” cried Rachel.

“Good-bye. Beware of snakes,” Hirst replied. He settled himself still more comfortably under the shade of the fallen tree and Helen’s figure. As they went, Mr. Flushing called after them, “We must start in an hour. Hewet, please remember that. An hour.”

Whether made by man, or for some reason preserved by nature, there was a wide pathway striking through the forest at right angles to the river. It resembled a drive in an English forest, save that tropical bushes with their sword-like leaves grew at the side, and the ground was covered with an unmarked springy moss instead of grass, starred with little yellow flowers. As they passed into the depths of the forest the light grew dimmer, and the noises of the ordinary world were replaced by those creaking and sighing sounds
which suggest to the traveller in a forest that he is walking at the bottom of the sea. The path narrowed and turned; it was hedged in by dense creepers which knotted tree to tree, and burst here and there into star-shaped crimson blossoms. The sighing and creaking up above were broken every now and then by the jarring cry of some startled animal. The atmosphere was close and the air came at them in languid puffs of scent. The vast green light was broken here and there by a round of pure yellow sunlight which fell through some gap in the immense umbrella of green above, and in these yellow spaces crimson and black butterflies were circling and settling. Terence and Rachel hardly spoke.

Not only did the silence weigh upon them, but they were both unable to frame any thoughts. There was something between them which had to be spoken of. One of them had to begin, but which of them was it to be? Then Hewet picked up a red fruit and threw it as high as he could. When it dropped, he would speak. They heard the flapping of great wings; they heard the fruit go pattering through the leaves and eventually fall with a thud. The silence was again profound.

“Does this frighten you?” Terence asked when the sound of the fruit falling had completely died away.

“No,” she answered. “I like it.”

She repeated “I like it.” She was walking fast, and holding herself more erect than usual. There was another pause.

“You like being with me?” Terence asked.

“Yes, with you,” she replied.

He was silent for a moment. Silence seemed to have fallen upon the world.

“That is what I have felt ever since I knew you,” he replied. “We are happy together.” He did not seem to be speaking, or she to be hearing.

“Very happy,” she answered.

They continued to walk for some time in silence. Their steps unconsciously quickened.

“We love each other,” Terence said.

“We love each other,” she repeated.

The silence was then broken by their voices which joined in tones of strange unfamiliar sound which formed no words. Faster and faster they walked; simultaneously they stopped, clasped each other in their arms, then, releasing themselves, dropped to the earth. They sat side by side. Sounds stood out from the background making a bridge across their silence; they heard the swish of the trees and some beast croaking in a remote world.

“We love each other,” Terence repeated, searching into her face. Their faces were both very pale and quiet, and they said nothing. He was afraid to kiss her again. By degrees she drew close to him, and rested against him. In this position they sat for some time. She said “Terence” once; he answered “Rachel.”

“Terrible—terrible,” she murmured after another pause, but in saying this she was thinking as much of the persistent churning of the water as of her own feeling. On and on it went in the distance, the senseless and cruel churning of the water. She observed that the tears were running down Terence’s cheeks.

The next movement was on his part. A very long time seemed to have passed. He took out his watch.

“Flushing said an hour. We’ve been gone more than half an hour.”

“And it takes that to get back,” said Rachel. She raised herself very slowly. When she was standing up she stretched her arms and drew a deep breath, half a sigh, half a yawn. She appeared to be very tired. Her cheeks were white. “Which way?” she asked.

“There,” said Terence.

They began to walk back down the mossy path again. The sighing and creaking continued far overhead, and the jarring cries of animals. The butterflies were circling still in the patches of yellow sunlight. At first Terence was certain of his way, but as they walked he became doubtful. They had to stop to consider, and then to return and start once more, for although he was certain of the direction of the river he was not certain of striking the point where they had left the others. Rachel followed him, stopping where he stopped, turning where he turned, ignorant of the way, ignorant why he stopped or why he turned.

“I don’t want to be late,” he said, “because—” He put a flower into her hand and her fingers closed upon it quietly. “We’re so late—so late—so horribly late,” he repeated as if he were talking in his sleep. “Ah—this is right. We turn here.”

They found themselves again in the broad path, like the drive in an English forest, where they had started when they left the others. They walked on in silence as people walking in their sleep, and were oddly conscious now and again of the mass of their bodies. Then Rachel exclaimed suddenly, “Helen!”

In the sunny space at the edge of the forest they saw Helen still sitting on the tree-trunk, her dress showing very white in the sun, with Hirst still propped on his elbow by her side. They stopped instinctively. At the sight of other people they could not go on. They stood hand in hand for a minute or two in silence. They could not bear to face other people.

“But we must go on,” Rachel insisted at last, in the curious dull tone of voice in which they had both been speaking, and with a great effort they forced themselves to cover the short distance which lay between them and the pair sitting on the tree-trunk.

As they approached, Helen turned round and looked at them. She looked at them for some time without speaking, and when they were close to her she said quietly:

“Did you meet Mr. Flushing? He has gone to find you. He thought you must be lost, though I told him you weren’t lost.”

Hirst half turned round and threw his head back so that he looked at the branches crossing themselves in the air above him.

“Well, was it worth the effort?” he enquired dreamily.

Hewet sat down on the grass by his side and began to fan himself.

“Hot,” he said.

Rachel had balanced herself near Helen on the end of the tree-trunk.

“Very hot,” she said.

“You look exhausted anyhow,” said Hirst.

“It’s fearfully close in those trees,” Helen remarked, picking up her book and shaking it free from the dried blades of grass which had fallen between the leaves. Then they were all silent, looking at
the river swirling past in front of them between the trunks of the trees until Mr. Flushing interrupted them. He broke out of the trees a hundred yards to the left, exclaiming sharply:

“Ah, so you found the way after all. But it’s late—much later than we arranged, Hewet.”

He was slightly annoyed, and in his capacity as leader of the expedition, inclined to be dictatorial. He spoke quickly, using curiously sharp, meaningless words.

“Being late wouldn’t matter normally, of course,” he said, “but when it’s a question of keeping the men up to time—”

He gathered them together and made them come down to the river-bank, where the boat was waiting to row them out to the steamer.

The heat of the day was going down, and over their cups of tea the Flushings tended to become communicative. It seemed to Terence as he listened to them talking, that existence now went on in two different layers. Here were the Flushings talking, talking somewhere high up in the air above him, and he and Rachel had dropped to the bottom of the world together. But with something of a child’s directness, Mrs. Flushing had also the instinct which leads a child to suspect what its elders wish to keep hidden. She fixed Terence with her vivid blue eyes and addressed herself to him in particular. What would he do, she wanted to know, if the boat ran upon a rock and sank.

“Would you care for anythin’ but savin’ yourself? Should I? No, no,” she laughed, “not one scrap—don’t tell me. There’s only two creatures the ordinary woman cares about,” she continued, “her child and her dog; and I don’t believe it’s even two with men. One reads a lot about love—that’s why poetry’s so dull. But what happens in real life, eh? It ain’t love!” she cried.

Terence murmured something unintelligible. Mr. Flushing, however, had recovered his urbanity. He was smoking a cigarette, and he now answered his wife.

“You must always remember, Alice,” he said, “that your upbringing was very unnatural—unusual, I should say. They had no mother,” he explained, dropping something of the formality of his
tone; “and a father—he was a very delightful man, I’ve no doubt, but he cared only for racehorses and Greek statues. Tell them about the bath, Alice.”

“In the stable-yard,” said Mrs. Flushing. “Covered with ice in winter. We had to get in; if we didn’t, we were whipped. The strong ones lived—the others died. What you call the survival of the fittest—a most excellent plan, I daresay, if you’ve thirteen children!”