Section thirty. That was his old trick, opening a pocket knife, thought
Sallie, always opening and shutting a knife when he got excited. They had
been very, very intimate, she and Peter Walsh when he was in love
with Clarissa. And there was that dreadful, ridiculous scene over Richard Dollaway at
lunch she had called Richard Wickham, why not call Richard Wickham? Clarissa had
flared up, And indeed they had never seen each other since, she and
Clarissa, not more than half a dozen times, perhaps in the last ten
years. And Peter Walsh had gone off to India, and she had heard
vaguely that he had made an unhappy marriage, and she didn't know whether he
had any children, and she couldn't ask him, for he had changed.
He was rather shriveled looking, but kinder, she felt, and she had
a real affection for him, for he was connected with her youth, and
she still had a little Emily bronte he had given her. And he was
to write, surely in those days he was to write. Have you written?
She asked him, spreading her hand, her firm and shapely hand on
her in a way he recalled not a word, said Peter Walsh, and
she laughed. She was still attractive, still a personage, Sally Seaton.
But who was this rossiter? He wore two camellias on his wedding day.
That was all Peter knew of him. They have myriads of servants, miles
of conservatories. Clarissa wrote something like that. Sallie owned it, with a
shout of laughter. Yes, I have ten thousand a year, whether before
the tax was paid or after. She couldn't remember for her husband. Whom
you must meet, she said, whom you would like? She said,
did all that for her? And Sallie used to be in rags and tatters.
She had pawned her grandmother's ring, which Mary Antoinette had given her great
grandfather, to come to Burton. Oh, yes, Sallie remembered. She
had it still, a ruby ring which Mary Antoinette had given her great grandfather.
She never had a penny to her name in those days, and going
to Burton always meant some frightful pinch. But going to Burton had meant so
much to her, had kept her say. She believed so unhappy she had
been at home, But that was all a thing of the past. All
over now, she said, And mister Parry was dead, and Miss Parry
was still alive. Never had he had such a shock in his life,
said Peter. He had been quite certain she was dead, and the marriage
had been Sally supposed a success. And that very handsome, very self possessed
young woman was Elizabeth over there by the curtains and red. She was like
a poplar, She was like a river, She was like a hyacinth.
Willie Titkin was thinking, Oh, how much nicer to be in the country
and do what she liked. She could hear her poor dog howling. Elizabeth
was certain she was not a bit like Clarissa. Peter Walsh said, oh,
Clarissa, said Salie. What Sally felt was simply this. She had
owed Clarissa an enormous amount. They had been friends, not acquaintances, friends,
And she still saw Clarissa, all in white, going about the house
with her hands full of flowers to this day. Tobacco plants made her think
of Burton. But did Peter understand she lacked something lacked? What was it?
She had charm, she had extraordinary charm, but to be frank,
and she felt that Peter was an old friend, a real friend? Did
absence matter? Did distance matter? She had often wanted to write to him,
but torn it up, Yet felt he understood, for people understand without
things being said, as one realizes. Growing old and old, she was
had been that afternoon to see her sons at Eton where they had the mumps.
To be quite frank, then how could Clarissa have done it? Married
Richard Dollaway, a sportsman, a man who cared only for dogs. Literally,
when he came into the room he smelt of the stables, and then
all this She waved her hand. Hugh Whitbred. It was strolling past in
his white waistcoat, dim fat, blind, past everything he looked except self
esteem and comfort. He's I'm not going to recognize us, said Sallie.
And really she hadn't the courage. So that was Hugh, the admirable Hue.
And what does he do, she asked Peter? He blacked the King's
boots or counted bottles at Windsor. Peter told her. Peter kept his sharp
tongue still, but Sally must be frank. Peter said that kiss now hughes
on the lips, she assured him. In the smoking room one evening,
she went straight to Clarissa in rage. Hugh didn't do such things, Clarissa
said, the admirable hue Hugh's socks were, without exception, the most beautiful
she had ever seen, and now his evening dress perfect? And had he
children? Everybody in the room has six sons at eton, Peter told her,
except himself, he, thank god, had none, no sons,
no daughters, no wife. Well he didn't seem to mind, said Sallie.
He looked younger, she thought, than any of them. But it
had been a silly thing to do in many ways, Peter said, to
marry like that a perfect goose she w was, he said, But he
said, we had a splendid time of it. But how could that be?
Sallie wondered, what did he mean? And how odd it was to
know him and yet not know a single thing that had happened to him.
And did he say it out of pride? Very likely, for after all,
it must be galling for him, though he was an oddity, a
sort of sprite, not at all an ordinary man. It must be lonely
at his age to have no home, nowhere to go to, But he
must stay with them for weeks and weeks of course he would, He would
love to stay with them. And that was how it came out. All
these years, the Dollaways had never been once. Time after time they had
asked them. Clarissa, for it was Clarissa, of course, would not
come, for said Sallie. Clarissa was at heart a snob. One had
to admit it, a snob, and it was that that was between them.
She was convinced. Clarissa thought she had married beneath her, her husband
being she was proud of it. A minus son. Every penny they had
he had earned as a little boy. Her voice trembled. He had carried
great sacks, and so she would go on. Peter felt hour after hour
the miner's son. People thought she had married beneath her, her five sons.
And what was the other thing? Plants Hydranger's syringes, very very rare
hibiscus lilies that never grow north of the Swear's Canal, But she with one
gardener, and a suburb near Manchester had beds of them, positively beds now
all that Clarissa had escaped on maternal as she was a snob? Was she?
Yes? In many ways? Where was she? All this time?
It was getting late yet, said Sally. When I heard Clarissa was giving
a party, I felt I couldn't not come, must see her again.
And I'm staying in Victoria Street, practically next door, so I just came
without an invitation. But she whispered, tell me, do who is this?
It was Missus Hillbury, looking for the door for how late it was
getting, and she murmured as the night grew Later, as people went,
one found old friend, quiet nooks and corners and the loveliest views. Did
they know? She asked? That they were surrounded by an enchanted garden,
lights and trees, and wonderful gleaming lakes into the sky, just a few
fairy lamps. Clarissa Dolaway had said, in the back garden. But she
was a magician. It was a park. And she didn't know their names,
But friends, she knew they were friends without names, songs without words
always the best. But there were so many doors, such unexpected places.
She could not find her way. Old Missus Hilbury, said Peter, But
who was that that lady standing by the curtain all the evening without speaking?
He knew her face connected her with Burton. Surely she used to cut up
underclothes at the large table in the window, Davidson. Was that her name?
Oh, that is Ellie Henderson, said Sallie. Clarissa was really very
hard on her. She was a cousin. Very poor. Clarissa was hard
on people. She was rather, said Peter. Yet said Sallie in her
emotional way, with rush of that enthusiasm which Peter used to love her for,
yet dreaded a little now so effusive she might become. How generous to
her friends Clarissa was, and what a rare quality one found it, And
how sometimes at night or on Christmas Day, when she counted up her blessings,
she put that friendship first. They were young, That was it.
Clarissa was pure hearted, that was it. Peter would think her sentimental.
So she was, for she had come to feel that it was the only
thing worth saying what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply
what one felt. But I do not know, said Peter Walsh, what
I feel, Poor Peter, thought Sally, Why did not Clarissa come and
talk to them? That was what he was longing for. She knew it
all the time. He was thinking only of Clarissa, and was fidgeting with
his knife. He had not found life simple, Peter said. His relations
with Clarissa had not been simple. It had spoilt his life, he said.
They had been so intimate, he and Sally's Seaton. It was absurd
not to say it. One could not be in love twice, he said,
And what could she say? Still, it is better to have loved.
But he would think her sentimental. He used to be so sharp.
He must come and stay with them in Manchester. That is all very true,
he said, all very true. He would love to come and stay
with them directly. He had done what he had to do in London,
and Clarissa had cared for him more than she had ever cared for Richard.
Sally was positive of that. No, no, no, said Peter.
Sally should not have said that she went too far. That good fellow.
There he was at the end of the room, holding forth the same as
ever. Dear Old Richard, who was he talking to? Sallie asked that
very distinguished looking man living in the wilds as she did. She had an
insatiable curiosity to know who people were. But Peter did not know. He
did not like his looks, he said, probably a cabinet minister. Of
them all, Richard seemed to him the best, he said, the most
disinterested. But what has he done? Sally asked? Public works? She
supposed, and were they happy together? Salie asked, She herself was extremely
happy, for she admitted she knew nothing about them, only jumped to conclusions
as one does. For what can one know even of the people one lives
with every day? She asked, are we not all prisoners? She had
read a wonderful play about a man who scratched on the wall of his cell,
and she had felt that was true of life. One scratched on the
wall, despairing of human relationships. People were so difficult. She often went
into her garden and got from her flowers a piece which men and women never
gave her. But no, he did not like cabbages. He preferred human
beings. Peter said, Indeed, the young are beautiful, Sallie said,
watching Elizabeth cross the room, How unlike Clarissa at her age, could he
make anything of her? She would not open her lips, not much,
Not yet. Peter admitted she was like a lily. Sallie said, a
lily by the side of a pool. But Peter did not agree that we
know nothing. We know everything, he said, at least he did.
But these two, Sallie whispered, these two coming now, and really she
must go if Clarissa did not come soon, This distinguished looking man and his
rather common looking wife, who had been talking to Richard. What could one
know about people like that? That they're damnable humbugs, said Peter, looking
at them casually. He made Sally laugh. But Sir William Bradshaw stopped at
the door to look at a picture. He looked in the corner for the
engraver's name. His wife looked too. Sir William Bradshaw was so interested in
art when one was young, said Peter. One was too much excited to
know people now that one was old, fifty two to be precise. Sallie
was fifty five in body, she said, but her heart was like a
girl's of twenty. Now that one was mature, then, said Peter,
one could watch, one could understand, and one did not lose the power
of feeling. He said, No, that is true, said Sallie.
She felt more deeply, more passionately every year it increased. He said,
alas, perhaps, but one should be glad of it. Went on increasing
in his experience. There was someone in India. He would like to tell
Sallie about her. He would like Sallie to know her. She was married,
he said, she had two small children. They must all come to
Manchester, said Sallie. He must promise before they left. There's Elizabeth,
he said. She feels not half what we feel. Not yet, but
said Sallie. Watching Elizabeth go to her father, one can see they are
devoted to each other. She could feel it by the way Elizabeth went to
her father. For her father had been looking at her as he stood talking
to the Bradshaws, and he had thought to himself, who is that lovely
girl? And suddenly he realized that it was his Elizabeth, and he had
not recognized her. She looked so lovely in her pink frock. Elizabeth had
felt him looking at her as she talked to Willie Titcomb, so she went
to him and they stood together. Now that the party was almost over,
looking at the people going, and the rooms getting emptier and emptier, with
things scattered on the floor. Even Ellie Henderson was going nearly last of all,
though no one had spoken to her, but she had wanted to see
everything to tell Edith and Richard and Elizabeth were rather glad it was over.
But Richard was proud of his daughter, and he had not meant to tell
her, but he could not help telling her. He had looked at her,
he said, and he had wondered who was that lovely girl? And
it was his daughter that did make her happy, But her poor dog was
howling. Richard has improved. You are right, said Sallie. I shall
go and talk to him. I shall say good night. What does the
brain matter, said lady Roster, getting up compared with the heart. I
will come, said Peter. But he sat on for a moment. What
is this terror? What is this ecstasy? He thought to himself. What
is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement? It is Clarissa, he said,
for there she was. The end end of section thirty read by Hannah
Dormer, London, twenty fourth of October twenty twenty one, and of Missus
Dollaway by Virginia Woolfe