He stood beside his wife. She pulled him down to her by the lapel of his coat, kissed him, and held him fast for a minute.
“Go and get a breath of air, Dick,” she said. “You look quite washed out.… How nice you smell!… And be polite to that woman. She was so kind to me.”
Thereupon Mrs. Dalloway turned to the cool side of her pillow, terribly flattened but still invincible.
Richard found Helen talking to her brother-in-law, over two dishes of yellow cake and smooth bread and butter.
“You look very ill!” she exclaimed on seeing him. “Come and have some tea.”
He remarked that the hands that moved about the cups were beautiful.
“I hear you’ve been very good to my wife,” he said. “She’s had an awful time of it. You came in and fed her with champagne. Were you among the saved yourself?”
“I? Oh, I haven’t been sick for twenty years—sea-sick, I mean.”
“There are three stages of convalescence, I always say,” broke in the hearty voice of Willoughby. “The milk stage, the bread-and-butter stage, and the roast-beef stage. I should say you were at the bread-and-butter stage.” He handed him the plate.
“Now, I should advise a hearty tea, then a brisk walk on deck; and by dinner-time you’ll be clamouring for beef, eh?” He went off laughing, excusing himself on the score of business.
“What a splendid fellow he is!” said Richard. “Always keen on something.”
“Yes,” said Helen, “he’s always been like that.”
“This is a great undertaking of his,” Richard continued. “It’s a business that won’t stop with ships, I should say. We shall see him in Parliament, or I’m much mistaken. He’s the kind of man we want in Parliament—the man who has done things.”
But Helen was not much interested in her brother-in-law.
“I expect your head’s aching, isn’t it?” she asked, pouring a fresh cup.
“Well, it is,” said Richard. “It’s humiliating to find what a slave one is to one’s body in this world. D’you know, I can never work without a kettle on the hob. As often as not I don’t drink tea, but I must feel that I can if I want to.”
“That’s very bad for you,” said Helen.
“It shortens one’s life; but I’m afraid, Mrs. Ambrose, we politicians must make up our minds to that at the outset. We’ve got to burn the candle at both ends, or—”
“You’ve cooked your goose!” said Helen brightly.
“We can’t make you take us seriously, Mrs. Ambrose,” he protested. “May I ask how you’ve spent your time? Reading—philosophy?” (He saw the black book.) “Metaphysics and fishing!” he exclaimed. “If I had to live again I believe I should devote myself to one or the other.” He began turning the pages.
“‘Good, then, is indefinable,’” he read out. “How jolly to think that’s going on still! ‘So far as I know there is only one ethical writer, Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has clearly recognised and stated this fact.’ That’s just the kind of thing we used to talk about when we were boys. I can remember arguing until five in the morning with Duffy—now Secretary for India—pacing round and round those cloisters until we decided it was too late to go to bed, and we went for a ride instead. Whether we ever came to any conclusion—that’s another matter. Still, it’s the arguing that counts. It’s things like that that stand out in life. Nothing’s been quite so vivid since. It’s the philosophers, it’s the scholars,” he continued, “they’re the people who pass the torch, who keep the light burning by which we live. Being a politician doesn’t necessarily blind one to that, Mrs. Ambrose.”
“No. Why should it?” said Helen. “But can you remember if your wife takes sugar?”
She lifted the tray and went off with it to Mrs. Dalloway.
Richard twisted a muffler twice round his throat and struggled up on deck. His body, which had grown white and tender in a dark room, tingled all over in the fresh air. He felt himself a man undoubtedly in the prime of life. Pride glowed in his eye as he let the wind buffet him and stood firm. With his head slightly lowered he sheered round corners, strode uphill, and met the blast. There was a collision. For a second he could not see what the body was he had run into. “Sorry.” “Sorry.” It was Rachel who apologised. They both laughed, too much blown about to speak. She drove open the door of her room and stepped into its calm. In order to speak to her, it was necessary that Richard should follow. They stood in a whirlpool of wind; papers began flying round in circles, the door crashed to, and they tumbled, laughing, into chairs. Richard sat upon Bach.
“My word! What a tempest!” he exclaimed.
“Fine, isn’t it?” said Rachel. Certainly the struggle and wind had given her a decision she lacked; red was in her cheeks, and her hair was down.
“Oh, what fun!” he cried. “What am I sitting on? Is this your room? How jolly!”
“There—sit there,” she commanded.
Cowper slid once more.
“How jolly to meet again,” said Richard. “It seems an age. Cowper’s Letters?… Bach?… Wuthering Heights?… Is this where you meditate on the world, and then come out and pose poor politicians with questions? In the intervals of sea-sickness I’ve thought a lot of our talk. I assure you, you made me think.”
“I made you think! But why?”
“What solitary icebergs we are, Miss Vinrace! How little we can communicate! There are lots of things I should like to tell you about—to hear your opinion of. Have you ever read Burke?”
“Burke?” she repeated. “Who was Burke?”
“No? Well, then I shall make a point of sending you a copy. The Speechon the French Revolution—The AmericanRebellion? Which shall it be, I wonder?” He noted something in his pocket-book. “And then you must write and tell me what you think of it. This reticence—this isolation—that’s what’s the matter with modern life! Now, tell me about yourself. What are your interests and occupations? I should imagine that you were a person with very strong interests. Of course you are! Good God! When I think of the age we live in, with its opportunities and possibilities, the mass of things to be done and enjoyed—why haven’t we ten lives instead of one? But about yourself?”
“You see, I’m a woman,” said Rachel.
“I know—I know,” said Richard, throwing his head back, and drawing his fingers across his eyes.
“How strange to be a woman! A young and beautiful woman,” he continued sententiously, “has the whole world at her feet. That’s true, Miss Vinrace. You have an inestimable power—for good or for evil. What couldn’t you do—” he broke off.
“What?” asked Rachel.
“You have beauty,” he said. The ship lurched. Rachel fell slightly forward. Richard took her in his arms and kissed her. Holding her tight, he kissed her passionately, so that she felt the hardness of his body and the roughness of his cheek printed upon hers. She fell back in her chair, with tremendous beats of the heart, each of which sent black waves across her eyes. He clasped his forehead in his hands.
“You tempt me,” he said. The tone of his voice was terrifying. He seemed choked in fright. They were both trembling. Rachel stood up and went. Her head was cold, her knees shaking, and the physical pain of the emotion was so great that she could only keep herself moving above the great