Virginia Woolf by Flush: a Biography

Author:Flush: a Biography
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-04-05T17:20:35+00:00

They were to inspire the most vivid passages in Aurora Leigh. But now the butler had opened the door, and she went upstairs to her room again.

Saturday was the fifth day of Flush’s imprisonment. Almost exhausted, almost hopeless, he lay panting in his dark corner of the teeming floor. Doors slammed and banged. Rough voices cried. Women screamed. Parrots chattered as they had chattered to widows in Maida Vale, but now evil old women merely cursed at them. Insects crawled in his fur, but he was too weak, too indifferent to shake his coat. All Flush’s past life and its many scenes— Reading, the greenhouse, Miss Mitford, Mr. Kenyon, the bookcases, the busts, the peasants on the blind—had faded like snowflakes dissolved in a cauldron. If he still held to hope, it was to something nameless and formless; the featureless face of someone he still called “Miss Barrett.” She still existed; all the rest of the world was gone; but she still existed, though such gulfs lay between them that it was impossible, almost, that she should reach him still. Darkness began to fall again, such darkness as seemed almost able to crush out his last hope—Miss Barrett.

In truth, the forces of Wimpole Street were still, even at this last moment, battling to keep Flush and Miss Barrett apart. On Saturday afternoon she lay and waited for Taylor to come, as the immensely fat woman had promised. At last he came, but he had not brought the dog. He sent up a message—Let Miss Barrett pay him six guineas on the spot, and he would go straight to Whitechapel and fetch the dog “on his word of honour.” What “the archfiend” Taylor’s word of honour might be worth, Miss Barrett could not say; but “there seemed no other way for it”; Flush’s life was at stake; she counted out the guineas and sent them down to Taylor in the passage. But as ill luck would have it, as Taylor waited in the passage among the umbrellas, the engravings, the pile carpet and other valuable objects, Alfred Barrett came in. The sight of the archfiend Taylor actually in the house made him lose his temper. He burst into a rage. He called him “a swindler, and a liar and a thief.” Thereupon Mr. Taylor cursed him back. What was far worse, he swore that “as he hoped to be saved, we should never see our dog again,” and rushed out of the house. Next morning, then, the blood-stained parcel would arrive.

Miss Barrett flung on her clothes again and rushed downstairs. Where was Wilson? Let her call a cab. She was going back to Shoreditch instantly. Her family came running to prevent her. It was getting dark. She was exhausted already. The adventure was risky enough for a man in health. For her it was madness. So they told her. Her brothers, her sisters, all came round her threatening her, dissuading her, “crying out against me for being ‘quite mad’ and obstinate and wilful—I was called as many names as Mr.

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