The Voyage Out

"You're all neglecting the chief advantage of being abroad," said Mr. Hughling Elliot, who had joined the group. "You might read your news in French, which is equivalent to reading no news at all."

Mr. Elliot had a profound knowledge of Coptic, which he concealed as far as possible, and quoted French phrases so exquisitely that it was hard to believe that he could also speak the ordinary tongue. He had an immense respect for the French.

"Coming?" he asked the two young men. "We ought to start before it's really hot."

"I beg of you not to walk in the heat, Hugh," his wife pleaded, giving him an angular parcel enclosing half a chicken and some raisins.

"Hewet will be our barometer," said Mr. Elliot. "He will melt before I shall." Indeed, if so much as a drop had melted off his spare ribs, the bones would have lain bare. The ladies were left alone now, surrounding _The_ _Times_ which lay upon the floor. Miss Allan looked at her father's watch.

"Ten minutes to eleven," she observed.

"Work?" asked Mrs. Thornbury.

"Work," replied Miss Allan.

"What a fine creature she is!" murmured Mrs. Thornbury, as the square figure in its manly coat withdrew.

"And I'm sure she has a hard life," sighed Mrs. Elliot.

"Oh, it _is_ a hard life," said Mrs. Thornbury. "Unmarried women--earning their livings-it's the hardest life of all."

"Yet she seems pretty cheerful," said Mrs. Elliot.

"It must be very interesting," said Mrs. Thornbury. "I envy her her knowledge."

"But that isn't what women want," said Mrs. Elliot.

"I'm afraid it's all a great many can hope to have," sighed Mrs. Thornbury. "I believe that there are more of us than ever now. Sir Harley Lethbridge was telling me only the other day how difficult it is to find boys for the navy--partly because of their teeth, it is true. And I have heard young women talk quite openly of--"

"Dreadful, dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Elliot. "The crown, as one may call it, of a woman's life. I, who know what it is to be childless--" she sighed and ceased.

"But we must not be hard," said Mrs. Thornbury. "The conditions are so much changed since I was a young woman."

"Surely _maternity_ does not change," said Mrs. Elliot.

"In some ways we can learn a great deal from the young," said Mrs. Thornbury. "I learn so much from my own daughters."

"I believe that Hughling really doesn't mind," said Mrs. Elliot. "But then he has his work."

"Women without children can do so much for the children of others," observed Mrs. Thornbury gently.

"I sketch a great deal," said Mrs. Elliot, "but that isn't really an occupation. It's so disconcerting to find girls just beginning doing better than one does oneself! And nature's difficult--very difficult!"

"Are there not institutions--clubs--that you could help?" asked Mrs. Thornbury.

"They are so exhausting," said Mrs. Elliot. "I look strong, because of my colour; but I'm not; the youngest of eleven never is."

"If the mother is careful before," said Mrs. Thornbury judicially, "there is no reason why the size of the family should make any difference. And there is no training like the training that brothers and sisters give each other. I am sure of that. I have seen it with my own children. My eldest boy Ralph, for instance--"

But Mrs. Elliot was inattentive to the elder lady's experience, and her eyes wandered about the hall.

"My mother had two miscarriages, I know," she said suddenly. "The first because she met one of those great dancing bears--they shouldn't be allowed; the other--it was a horrid story--our cook had a child and there was a dinner party. So I put my dyspepsia down to that."

"And a miscarriage is so much worse than a confinement," Mrs. Thornbury murmured absentmindedly, adjusting her spectacles and picking up _The_ _Times_. Mrs. Elliot rose and fluttered away.

When she had heard what one of the million voices speaking in the paper had to say, and noticed that a cousin of hers had married a clergyman at Minehead--ignoring the drunken women, the golden animals of Crete, the movements of battalions, the dinners, the reforms, the fires, the indignant, the learned and benevolent, Mrs. Thornbury went upstairs to write a letter for the mail.