What happens in Chapter 27 of To the Lighthouse?
Mrs. McNab picks a handful of flowers to take home, reasoning that there's no harm in it since the family won’t be coming, and the house might be sold by Michaelmas. As she dusts, she notices the deteriorating condition of the place: mouldy books, crumbling plaster, a blocked rain-pipe, a ruined carpet, and rats scurrying in the attic. She opens cupboard drawers to find clothes left behind, including Mrs. Ramsay's old grey cloak, and reflects on the absence of Mrs. Ramsay, along with Mr. Andrew and Miss Prue, who died with her first baby. These losses loom over her, framed by wartime sorrow and rising prices. As Mrs. McNab runs her fingers over the cloak, she remembers Mrs. Ramsay kindly greeting her in the drive and asking the cook to save a plate of milk soup for her. Suddenly, a ghostly image of a lady in grey flits across the bedroom wall and over the dressing-table. Mrs. McNab struggles to recall the cook's name—was it Mildred? Marian?—and laments how things were better back then. Moving to the nursery, she finds dampness, more fallen plaster, and a mouldy beast's skull still hanging on the wall. Feeling overwhelmed, she declares that the work is too much for one woman, creaks and moans through the rooms, then locks the house, leaving it shut up and isolated.
Analysis
The chapter focuses almost entirely on Mrs. McNab, shifting the perspective from educated, introspective characters to a working-class woman whose thoughts move in short, repetitive rhythms — "too much for one woman, too much, too much" — mimicking physical exhaustion. This repetition serves both a structural and tonal purpose: the chapter revisits the image of Mrs. Ramsay "stooping over her flowers" in her grey cloak twice, with the second instance described as a hallucination ("faint and flickering, like a yellow beam or the circle at the end of a telescope") that glides across the bedroom wall. That simile — the yellowing, narrowing telescope circle — visually captures the fading of memory, creating a ghostly impression that feels both vivid and unstable.
The list of decay — blocked rain-pipes, mould, plaster, moths, rats, banging doors — builds detail by detail, giving the house an almost physical deterioration that mirrors Mrs. McNab's own creaking body ("her legs pained her"). In contrast to this physical ruin, the dressing-table drawers filled with handkerchiefs and ribbons, along with the brush and comb left out "as if she expected to come back tomorrow," convey abandonment in an intimate and almost cruel way.
The chapter strikes a balance between two tones: a matter-of-fact stoicism ("everyone had lost someone these years") and a sense of tenderness, as when Mrs. McNab touches the grey cloak and remembers Mrs. Ramsay's "pleasant way with her." The deaths of Mrs. Ramsay, Andrew, and Prue are relayed in a plain, gossipy manner — "they said" — which imparts an impersonal weight to them. The chapter concludes with a rhythm of short sentences and action verbs — "She creaked, she moaned. She banged the door" — leading to the final image of the house, shut, locked, and alone.
Key quotes from Chapter 27
“faint and flickering, like a yellow beam or the circle at the end of a telescope, a lady in a grey cloak, stooping over her flowers, went wandering over the bedroom wall”
Mrs. McNab's memory of Mrs. Ramsay materialises as a ghostly visual impression drifting across the bedroom surfaces as she dusts.
“There were boots and shoes; and a brush and comb left on the dressing-table, for all the world as if she expected to come back tomorrow.”
Mrs. McNab surveys the objects Mrs. Ramsay left behind in the bedroom, reflecting on the sudden nature of her death.
“She creaked, she moaned. She banged the door. She turned the key in the lock, and left the house shut up, locked, alone.”
The closing sentences of the chapter as Mrs. McNab finishes her work and departs, leaving the house empty.
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