Section twenty one. How nice it must be, she said in the country,
struggling, as mister Whittaker had told her, with that violent grudge against
the world which had scorned her, sneered at her, cast her off,
beginning with this indignity, the infliction of her unlovable body, which people could
not bear to see. Do her hair as she might, Her forehead remained
like an egg, bald white. No clothes suited her. She might buy
anything, and for a woman, of course, that meant never meeting the
opposite sex. Never would she come first with any one. Sometimes, lately
it had seemed to her that except for Elizabeth, her food was all that
she lived for, her comforts, her dinner, her tea, her hot
water bottle at night. But one must fight, vanquish, have faith in
God. Mister Whittaker had said. She was there for a purpose, But
no one knew the agony, he said, pointing to the crucifix, that
God knew. But why should she have to suffer when other women, like
Clarissa Dollaway escaped. Knowledge comes through suffering, said mister Whittaker. She had
passed the pillar box, and Elizabeth had turned into the cool brown tobacco department
of the Army and Navy Stores. While she was still muttering to herself what
mister Whittaker had said about knowledge coming through suffering into the flesh. The flesh,
she muttered, what department did she want? Elizabeth interrupted her petticoats,
she said abruptly, and stalked straight on to the lift. Up they went.
Elizabeth guided her this way, and that guided her in her abstraction,
as if she had been a great child and on wieldy battleship. There were
the petticoats, brown, decorus, striped, frivolous, solid, flimsy,
And she chose in her abstraction portentously, and the girl serving thought her mad.
Elizabeth rather wandered as they did up the parcel what Miss Kilman was thinking.
They must have their tea, said Miss Kilman, rousing, collecting herself.
They had their tea. Elizabeth rather wondered whether Miss Kilman could be hungry.
It was her way of eating, eating with intensity, then looking again
and again at a plate of sugared cakes on the table next them. Then
when a lady and a child sat down and the child took the cake,
could Miss Kilman really mind it? Yes, Miss Kilman did mind it.
She had wanted that cake, the pink one. The pleasure of eating was
almost the only pure pleasure left her. And then to be baffled even in
that when people are happy, they have a reserve, she had told Elizabeth
upon which to draw. Whereas she was like a wheel without a tire,
She was fond of such metaphors, jolted by every pebble, so she would
say, staying on after the lessons, standing by the fireplace with her bag
of books, her satchel, she called it, on a Tuesday morning after
the lesson was over, and she talked too about the wall. After all,
there were people who did not think the English invariably right. There were
books, there were meetings, there were other points of view. Would Elizabeth
like to come with her to listen to so and so? A most extraordinary
looking old man. Then Miss Kilman took her to some church in Kensington,
and they had tea with a clergyman. She had lent her books, law,
medicine, politics. All professions are open to women of your generations,
said miss Kilmen. But for herself her career was absolutely ruined, and was
it her fault? Good gracious, said Elizabeth. No, And her mother
would come calling to say that a hamper had come from Burton, and would
miss Kilman like some flowers to Miss Kilmen. She was always very, very
nice, but Miss Kilman squashed the flowers all in a bunch and hadn't any
small talk, and what interested. Miss Kilman bored her mother, and Miss
Kilmen and she were terrible together, and Miss Kilmen swelled and looked very plain.
But then Miss Kilman was frightfully clever. Elizabeth had never thought about the
poor. They lived with everything they wanted. Her mother had breakfast in bed
every day. Lucy carried it up, and she liked old women because they
would die and being descended from some lord. But Miss Kilman said, one
of those Tuesday mornings, when the lesson was over, my grandfather kept an
oil and color shop in Kensington. Miss Kilman made one feel so small.
Miss Kilman took another cup of tea. Elizabeth, with her oriental bearing,
her inscrutable mystery, sat perfectly upright. No, she did not want anything
more. She looked for her gloves, her white gloves. They were under
the table. Ah, But she must not go. Miss Kilman could not
let her go, this youth that was so beautiful, this girl whom she
genuinely loved. Her large hand opened and shut on the table. But perhaps
it was a little flat somehow, Elizabeth felt, And really she would like
to go, But said miss Kilmen, I've not quite finished yet. Of
course, then Elizabeth would wait. But it was rather stuffy in here.
Are you going to the party to night? Miss Kilman said. Elizabeth supposed
she was going. Her mother wanted her to go. She must not let
parties absorb her, Miss Kilman said, fingering the last two inches of a
chocolate Claire. She did not much like parties, Elizabeth said. Miss Kilman
opened her mouth, slightly, projected her chin, and swallowed down the last
inches of the chocolate. Claire then wiped her fingers and washed the tea round
in her cup. She was about to split asunder. She felt. The
agony was so terrific. If she could grasp her, if she could clasp
her, if she could make her hers absolutely and forever, and then die,
that was all she wanted. But to sit here, unable to think
of anything to say, to see Elizabeth turning against her, to be felt
repulsive even by her. It was too much. She could not stand it.
The thick fingers curled inwards. I never go to parties, said miss
Kilmen, just to keep Elizabeth from going. People don't ask me to parties.
And she knew as she said it that it was this egotism that was
her undoing. Mister Whittaker had warned her, but she could not help it.
She had suffered so horribly. Why should they ask me, she said,
I'm plain, I'm unhappy. She knew it was idiotic, but it
was all those people passing people with parcels who despised her who made her say
it. However, she was Doris Kilman, she had her degree, She
was a woman who had made her way in the world. Her knowledge of
modern history was more than respectable. I don't pity myself, she said.
I pity She meant to say, your mother, but no she could not.
Not to Elizabeth, I pity other people, she said, more like
some dumb creature who has been brought up to a gate for an unknown purpose
and stands there, longing to gallop away. Elizabeth Dallaway sat silent. Was
Miss Kilman going to say anything more? Don't quite forget me, said Doris
Kilman, her voice quivered right away to the end of the field. The
dumb creature galloped in terror. The great hand opened and shut. Elizabeth turned
her head. The waitress came. One had to pay at the desk,
Elizabeth said, and went off, drawing out. So miss Kilman felt the
very entrails in her body, stretching them as she crossed the room, and
then with a final twist, bowing her head very politely, she went.
She had gone. Miss Kilman sat at the marble table among the ecclaires,
stricken once, twice thrice by shocks of suffering. She had gone. Missus
Dollaway had triumphed, Elizabeth had gone, Beauty had gone, youth had gone.
So she sat. She got up, blundered off among the little tables,
rocking slightly from side to side, and somebody came after her with her
petticoat, and she lost her way and was hemmed in by trunks specially prepared
for taking to India. Next, got among the accouchment sets and baby linen.
Through all the commodities of the world, perishable and permanent, hams,
drugs, flowers, stationary, variously smelling now sweet, now sour. She
lurched, saw herself thus lurching with her hat askew very red in the face
full length in a looking glass, and at last came out into the street.
The tower of Westminster Cathedral rose in front of her, the habitation of
God. In the midst of the traffic, there was the habitation of God.
Doggedly, she set off with her parcel to that other sanctuary, the
abbey, where, raising her hands in a tent before her face, she
sat beside those driven into shelter tu the variously assorted worshippers, now divested of
social rank, almost of sex, as they raised their hands before their faces,
But once they removed them instantly, reverent middle class english men and women,
some of them desirous of seeing the waxworks. But Miss Kilmen held her
tent before her face. Now she was deserted, Now rejoined, new worshippers
came in from the street to replace the strollers, And still as people gazed
round and shuffled past the tomb of the ear unknown warrior, still she barred
her eyes with her fingers and tried, in this double darkness, for the
light in the abbey was bodiless, to aspire above the vanities, the desires,
the commodities, to rid herself both of hatred and of love. Her
hands twitched, she seemed to struggle, yet to others God was accessible and
to the path to him smooth. Mister Fletcher retired of the treasury. Missus
Goreham, widow of the famous Casey, approached him simply, and, having
done their praying, leant back. Enjoyed the music the organ pealed sweetly,
and saw Miss Kilman at the end of the row, praying, praying,
and being still on the threshold of their underworld, thought of her sympathetically as
a soul haunting the same territory, a soul cut out of immaterial substance,
not a woman, a soul. But mister Fletcher had to go, He
had to pass her, and, being himself neat as a new pin,
could not help being a little distressed by the poor lady's disorder, her hair
down, her parcel on the floor. She did not at once let him
pass, but as he stood gazing about him at the white marbles, gray
window panes, and accumulated treasures, for he was extremely proud of the abbey,
her largeness, robustness, and power. As she sat there, shifting
her knees from time to time, it was so rough. The approach to
her God so tough her desires impressed him as they had impressed Missus Dollaway.
She could not get the thought of her out of her mind. That afternoon,
the Reverend Edward Whittaker and Elizabeth too, and Elizabeth waited in Victoria Street
for an omnibus. It was so nice to be out of doors, she
thought, perhaps she need not go home just yet. It was so nice
to be out in the air, so she would get on to an omnibus.
And already, even as she stood there in her very well cut clothes,
it was beginning. People were beginning to compare her to poplar trees,
early dawn, hyacinths, fawns, running water, and garden lilies. And
it made her life a burden to her, for she so much preferred being
left alone to do what she liked in the country, but they would compare
her to lilies, and she had to go to parties, and London was
so dreary compared with being alone in the country with her father and the dogs.
Buses swooped, settled were off gearish caravans glistening with red and yellow varnish.
But which should she get on too? She had no preferences. Of
course, she would not push her way. She inclined to be passive.
It was expression she needed. But her eyes were fine Chinese, oriental,
and as her mother said, with such nice shoulders and holding herself so straight,
she was always charming to look at, and lately in the evening,
especially when she was interested, for she never seemed excited. She looked almost
beautiful, very stately, very serene. What could she be thinking? Every
man fell in love with her, and she was really awfully bored, for
it was beginning. Her mother could see that the calm laments were beginning,
that she did not care more about it. For instance, for her clothes
sometimes worried Clarissa. But perhaps it was as well with all these puppies and
guinea pigs about having distemper, and it gave her a charm. And now
there was this odd friendship with miss Kilmen. Well thought Clarissa about three o'clock
in the morning, reading baron Marlbo, for she could not sleep. It
proves she has a heart. End of section twenty one, read by Hannah
Dormer, London, twenty sixth of September twenty twenty one.