Virginia Woolf: The Voyage Out

14. Chapter XIV (continued)

The voice quickened, and the tone became conclusive rising slightly in pitch, as if these words were at the end of the chapter. Hewet drew back again into the shadow. There was a long silence. He could just hear chairs being moved inside. He had almost decided to go back, when suddenly two figures appeared at the window, not six feet from him.

"It was Maurice Fielding, of course, that your mother was engaged to," said Helen's voice. She spoke reflectively, looking out into the dark garden, and thinking evidently as much of the look of the night as of what she was saying.

"Mother?" said Rachel. Hewet's heart leapt, and he noticed the fact. Her voice, though low, was full of surprise.

"You didn't know that?" said Helen.

"I never knew there'd been any one else," said Rachel. She was clearly surprised, but all they said was said low and inexpressively, because they were speaking out into the cool dark night.

"More people were in love with her than with any one I've ever known," Helen stated. She had that power--she enjoyed things. She wasn't beautiful, but--I was thinking of her last night at the dance. She got on with every kind of person, and then she made it all so amazingly--funny."

It appeared that Helen was going back into the past, choosing her words deliberately, comparing Theresa with the people she had known since Theresa died.

"I don't know how she did it," she continued, and ceased, and there was a long pause, in which a little owl called first here, then there, as it moved from tree to tree in the garden.

"That's so like Aunt Lucy and Aunt Katie," said Rachel at last. "They always make out that she was very sad and very good."

"Then why, for goodness' sake, did they do nothing but criticize her when she was alive?" said Helen. Very gentle their voices sounded, as if they fell through the waves of the sea.