Night and Day - Virginia Woolf (best novels for beginners txt) 📗

said Mary.

 

“Nonsense, Mary,” said Katharine, rather distractedly, taking her arm

and beginning to walk up the street in the direction of the main road.

“Let me see; we went to Kew, and we agreed to be friends. Yes, that’s

what happened.” Mary was silent, in the hope that Katharine would tell

her more. But Katharine said nothing.

 

“It’s not a question of friendship,” Mary exclaimed, her anger rising,

to her own surprise. “You know it’s not. How can it be? I’ve no right

to interfere—” She stopped. “Only I’d rather Ralph wasn’t hurt,” she

concluded.

 

“I think he seems able to take care of himself,” Katharine observed.

Without either of them wishing it, a feeling of hostility had risen

between them.

 

“Do you really think it’s worth it?” said Mary, after a pause.

 

“How can one tell?” Katharine asked.

 

“Have you ever cared for any one?” Mary demanded rashly and foolishly.

 

“I can’t wander about London discussing my feelings—Here’s a cab—no,

there’s some one in it.”

 

“We don’t want to quarrel,” said Mary.

 

“Ought I to have told him that I wouldn’t be his friend?” Katharine

asked. “Shall I tell him that? If so, what reason shall I give him?”

 

“Of course you can’t tell him that,” said Mary, controlling herself.

 

“I believe I shall, though,” said Katharine suddenly.

 

“I lost my temper, Katharine; I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

 

“The whole thing’s foolish,” said Katharine, peremptorily. “That’s

what I say. It’s not worth it.” She spoke with unnecessary vehemence,

but it was not directed against Mary Datchet. Their animosity had

completely disappeared, and upon both of them a cloud of difficulty

and darkness rested, obscuring the future, in which they had both to

find a way.

 

“No, no, it’s not worth it,” Katharine repeated. “Suppose, as you say,

it’s out of the question—this friendship; he falls in love with me. I

don’t want that. Still,” she added, “I believe you exaggerate; love’s

not everything; marriage itself is only one of the things—” They had

reached the main thoroughfare, and stood looking at the omnibuses and

passers-by, who seemed, for the moment, to illustrate what Katharine

had said of the diversity of human interests. For both of them it had

become one of those moments of extreme detachment, when it seems

unnecessary ever again to shoulder the burden of happiness and

self-assertive existence. Their neighbors were welcome to their

possessions.

 

“I don’t lay down any rules,”’ said Mary, recovering herself first, as

they turned after a long pause of this description. “All I say is that

you should know what you’re about—for certain; but,” she added, “I

expect you do.”

 

At the same time she was profoundly perplexed, not only by what she

knew of the arrangements for Katharine’s marriage, but by the

impression which she had of her, there on her arm, dark and

inscrutable.

 

They walked back again and reached the steps which led up to Mary’s

flat. Here they stopped and paused for a moment, saying nothing.

 

“You must go in,” said Katharine, rousing herself. “He’s waiting all

this time to go on with his reading.” She glanced up at the lighted

window near the top of the house, and they both looked at it and

waited for a moment. A flight of semicircular steps ran up to the

hall, and Mary slowly mounted the first two or three, and paused,

looking down upon Katharine.

 

“I think you underrate the value of that emotion,” she said slowly,

and a little awkwardly. She climbed another step and looked down once

more upon the figure that was only partly lit up, standing in the

street with a colorless face turned upwards. As Mary hesitated, a cab

came by and Katharine turned and stopped it, saying as she opened the

door:

 

“Remember, I want to belong to your society—remember,” she added,

having to raise her voice a little, and shutting the door upon the

rest of her words.

 

Mary mounted the stairs step by step, as if she had to lift her body

up an extremely steep ascent. She had had to wrench herself forcibly

away from Katharine, and every step vanquished her desire. She held on

grimly, encouraging herself as though she were actually making some

great physical effort in climbing a height. She was conscious that Mr.

Basnett, sitting at the top of the stairs with his documents, offered

her solid footing if she were capable of reaching it. The knowledge

gave her a faint sense of exaltation.

 

Mr. Basnett raised his eyes as she opened the door.

 

“I’ll go on where I left off,” he said. “Stop me if you want anything

explained.”

 

He had been re-reading the document, and making pencil notes in the

margin while he waited, and he went on again as if there had been no

interruption. Mary sat down among the flat cushions, lit another

cigarette, and listened with a frown upon her face.

 

Katharine leant back in the corner of the cab that carried her to

Chelsea, conscious of fatigue, and conscious, too, of the sober and

satisfactory nature of such industry as she had just witnessed. The

thought of it composed and calmed her. When she reached home she let

herself in as quietly as she could, in the hope that the household was

already gone to bed. But her excursion had occupied less time than she

thought, and she heard sounds of unmistakable liveliness upstairs. A

door opened, and she drew herself into a ground-floor room in case the

sound meant that Mr. Peyton were taking his leave. From where she

stood she could see the stairs, though she was herself invisible. Some

one was coming down the stairs, and now she saw that it was William

Rodney. He looked a little strange, as if he were walking in his

sleep; his lips moved as if he were acting some part to himself. He

came down very slowly, step by step, with one hand upon the banisters

to guide himself. She thought he looked as if he were in some mood of

high exaltation, which it made her uncomfortable to witness any longer

unseen. She stepped into the hall. He gave a great start upon seeing

her and stopped.

 

“Katharine!” he exclaimed. “You’ve been out?” he asked.

 

“Yes… . Are they still up?”

 

He did not answer, and walked into the ground-floor room through the

door which stood open.

 

“It’s been more wonderful than I can tell you,” he said, “I’m

incredibly happy—”

 

He was scarcely addressing her, and she said nothing. For a moment

they stood at opposite sides of a table saying nothing. Then he asked

her quickly, “But tell me, how did it seem to you? What did you think,

Katharine? Is there a chance that she likes me? Tell me, Katharine!”

 

Before she could answer a door opened on the landing above and

disturbed them. It disturbed William excessively. He started back,

walked rapidly into the hall, and said in a loud and ostentatiously

ordinary tone:

 

“Good night, Katharine. Go to bed now. I shall see you soon. I hope I

shall be able to come tomorrow.”

 

Next moment he was gone. She went upstairs and found Cassandra on the

landing. She held two or three books in her hand, and she was stooping

to look at others in a little bookcase. She said that she could never

tell which book she wanted to read in bed, poetry, biography, or

metaphysics.

 

“What do you read in bed, Katharine?” she asked, as they walked

upstairs side by side.

 

“Sometimes one thing—sometimes another,” said Katharine vaguely.

Cassandra looked at her.

 

“D’you know, you’re extraordinarily queer,” she said. “Every one seems

to me a little queer. Perhaps it’s the effect of London.”

 

“Is William queer, too?” Katharine asked.

 

“Well, I think he is a little,” Cassandra replied. “Queer, but very

fascinating. I shall read Milton to-night. It’s been one of the

happiest nights of my life, Katharine,” she added, looking with shy

devotion at her cousin’s beautiful face.