She became as restless as she had been before she sat down. She was no longer able to see the world as a town laid out beneath her. It was covered instead by a haze of feverish red mist. She had returned to the state in which she had been all day. Thinking was no escape. Physical movement was the only refuge, in and out of rooms, in and out of people’s minds, seeking she knew not what. Therefore she rose, pushed back the table, and went downstairs. She went out of the hall door, and, turning the corner of the hotel, found herself among the people whom she had seen from the window. But owing to the broad sunshine after shaded passages, and to the substance of living people after dreams, the group appeared with startling intensity, as though the dusty surface had been peeled off everything, leaving only the reality and the instant. It had the look of a vision printed on the dark at night. White and grey and purple figures were scattered on the green, round wicker tables, in the middle the flame of the tea-urn made the air waver like a faulty sheet of glass, a massive green tree stood over them as if it were a moving force held at rest. As she approached, she could hear Evelyn’s voice repeating monotonously, “Here then—here—good doggie, come here”; for a moment nothing seemed to happen; it all stood still, and then she realised that one of the figures was Helen Ambrose; and the dust again began to settle.
The group indeed had come together in a miscellaneous way; one tea-table joining to another tea-table, and deck-chairs serving to connect two groups. But even at a distance it could be seen that Mrs. Flushing, upright and imperious, dominated the party. She was talking vehemently to Helen across the table.
“Ten days under canvas,” she was saying. “No comforts. If you want comforts, don’t come. But I may tell you, if you don’t come you’ll regret it all your life. You say yes?”
At this moment Mrs. Flushing caught sight of Rachel.
“Ah, there’s your niece. She’s promised. You’re coming, aren’t you?” Having adopted the plan, she pursued it with the energy of a child.
Rachel took her part with eagerness.
“Of course I’m coming. So are you, Helen. And Mr. Pepper too.” As she sat she realised that she was surrounded by people she knew, but that Terence was not among them. From various angles people began saying what they thought of the proposed expedition. According to some it would be hot, but the nights would be cold; according to others, the difficulties would lie rather in getting a boat, and in speaking the language. Mrs. Flushing disposed of all objections, whether due to man or due to nature, by announcing that her husband would settle all that.
Meanwhile Mr. Flushing quietly explained to Helen that the expedition was really a simple matter; it took five days at the outside; and the place—a native village—was certainly well worth seeing before she returned to England. Helen murmured ambiguously, and did not commit herself to one answer rather than to another.
The tea-party, however, included too many different kinds of people for general conversation to flourish; and from Rachel’s point of view possessed the great advantage that it was quite unnecessary for her to talk. Over there Susan and Arthur were explaining to Mrs. Paley that an expedition had been proposed; and Mrs. Paley having grasped the fact, gave the advice of an old traveller that they should take nice canned vegetables, fur cloaks, and insect powder. She leant over to Mrs. Flushing and whispered something which from the twinkle in her eyes probably had reference to bugs. Then Helen was reciting “Toll for the Brave” to St. John Hirst, in order apparently to win a sixpence which lay upon the table; while Mr. Hughling Elliot imposed silence upon his section of the audience by his fascinating anecdote of Lord Curzon and the undergraduate’s bicycle. Mrs. Thornbury was trying to remember the name of a man who might have been another Garibaldi, and had written a book which they ought to read; and Mr. Thornbury recollected that he had a pair of binoculars at anybody’s service. Miss Allan meanwhile murmured with the curious intimacy which a spinster often achieves with dogs, to the fox-terrier which Evelyn had at last induced to come over to them. Little particles of dust or blossom fell on the plates now and then when the branches sighed above. Rachel seemed to see and hear a little of everything, much as a river feels the twigs that fall into it and sees the sky above, but her eyes were too vague for Evelyn’s liking. She came across, and sat on the ground at Rachel’s feet.
“Well?” she asked suddenly. “What are you thinking about?”
“Miss Warrington,” Rachel replied rashly, because she had to say something. She did indeed see Susan murmuring to Mrs. Elliot, while Arthur stared at her with complete confidence in his own love. Both Rachel and Evelyn then began to listen to what Susan was saying.
“There’s the ordering and the dogs and the garden, and the children coming to be taught,” her voice proceeded rhythmically as if checking the list, “and my tennis, and the village, and letters to write for father, and a thousand little things that don’t sound much; but I never have a moment to myself, and when I got to bed, I’m so sleepy I’m off before my head touches the pillow. Besides I like to be a great deal with my Aunts—I’m a great bore, aren’t I, Aunt Emma?” (she smiled at old Mrs. Paley, who with head slightly drooped was regarding the cake with speculative affection), “and father has to be very careful about chills in winter which means a great deal of running about, because he won’t look after himself, any more than you will, Arthur! So it all mounts up!”
Her voice mounted too, in a mild ecstasy of satisfaction with her life and her own nature. Rachel suddenly took a violent dislike to Susan, ignoring all that was kindly, modest, and even pathetic about her. She appeared insincere and cruel; she saw her grown stout and prolific, the kind blue eyes now shallow and watery, the bloom of the cheeks congealed to a network of dry red canals.
Helen turned to her. “Did you go to church?” she asked. She had won her sixpence and seemed making ready to go.
“Yes,” said Rachel. “For the last time,” she added.
In preparing to put on her gloves, Helen dropped one.
“You’re not going?” Evelyn asked, taking hold of one glove as if to keep them.
“It’s high time we went,” said Helen. “Don’t you see how silent every one’s getting—?”
A silence had fallen upon them all, caused partly by one of the accidents of talk, and partly because they saw some one approaching. Helen could not see who it was, but keeping her eyes fixed upon Rachel observed something which made her say to herself, “So it’s Hewet.” She drew on her gloves with a curious sense of the significance of the moment. Then she rose, for Mrs. Flushing had seen Hewet too, and was demanding information about rivers and boats which showed that the whole conversation would now come over again.
Rachel followed her, and they walked in silence down the avenue. In spite of what Helen had seen and understood, the feeling that was uppermost in her mind was now curiously perverse; if she went on this expedition, she would not be able to have a bath, the effort appeared to her to be great and disagreeable.
“It’s so unpleasant, being cooped up with people one hardly knows,” she remarked. “People who mind being seen naked.”
“You don’t mean to go?” Rachel asked.
The intensity with which this was spoken irritated Mrs. Ambrose.
“I don’t mean to go, and I don’t mean not to go,” she replied. She became more and more casual and indifferent.
“After all, I daresay we’ve seen all there is to be seen; and there’s the bother of getting there, and whatever they may say it’s bound to be vilely uncomfortable.”
For some time Rachel made no reply; but
