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

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“You are not going to say these things to Cassandra,” said Katharine

suddenly. “You’ve said them to me; that’s enough.”

 

Katharine spoke so low and with such restraint that Mrs. Milvain had

to strain to catch her words, and when she heard them she was dazed by

them.

 

“I’ve made you angry! I knew I should!” she exclaimed. She quivered,

and a kind of sob shook her; but even to have made Katharine angry was

some relief, and allowed her to feel some of the agreeable sensations

of martyrdom.

 

“Yes,” said Katharine, standing up, “I’m so angry that I don’t want to

say anything more. I think you’d better go, Aunt Celia. We don’t

understand each other.”

 

At these words Mrs. Milvain looked for a moment terribly apprehensive;

she glanced at her niece’s face, but read no pity there, whereupon she

folded her hands upon a black velvet bag which she carried in an

attitude that was almost one of prayer. Whatever divinity she prayed

to, if pray she did, at any rate she recovered her dignity in a

singular way and faced her niece.

 

“Married love,” she said slowly and with emphasis upon every word, “is

the most sacred of all loves. The love of husband and wife is the most

holy we know. That is the lesson Mamma’s children learnt from her;

that is what they can never forget. I have tried to speak as she would

have wished her daughter to speak. You are her grandchild.”

 

Katharine seemed to judge this defence upon its merits, and then to

convict it of falsity.

 

“I don’t see that there is any excuse for your behavior,” she said.

 

At these words Mrs. Milvain rose and stood for a moment beside her

niece. She had never met with such treatment before, and she did not

know with what weapons to break down the terrible wall of resistance

offered her by one who, by virtue of youth and beauty and sex, should

have been all tears and supplications. But Mrs. Milvain herself was

obstinate; upon a matter of this kind she could not admit that she was

either beaten or mistaken. She beheld herself the champion of married

love in its purity and supremacy; what her niece stood for she was

quite unable to say, but she was filled with the gravest suspicions.

The old woman and the young woman stood side by side in unbroken

silence. Mrs. Milvain could not make up her mind to withdraw while her

principles trembled in the balance and her curiosity remained

unappeased. She ransacked her mind for some question that should force

Katharine to enlighten her, but the supply was limited, the choice

difficult, and while she hesitated the door opened and William Rodney

came in. He carried in his hand an enormous and splendid bunch of

white and purple flowers, and, either not seeing Mrs. Milvain, or

disregarding her, he advanced straight to Katharine, and presented the

flowers with the words:

 

“These are for you, Katharine.”

 

Katharine took them with a glance that Mrs. Milvain did not fail to

intercept. But with all her experience, she did not know what to make

of it. She watched anxiously for further illumination. William greeted

her without obvious sign of guilt, and, explaining that he had a

holiday, both he and Katharine seemed to take it for granted that his

holiday should be celebrated with flowers and spent in Cheyne Walk. A

pause followed; that, too, was natural; and Mrs. Milvain began to feel

that she laid herself open to a charge of selfishness if she stayed.

The mere presence of a young man had altered her disposition

curiously, and filled her with a desire for a scene which should end

in an emotional forgiveness. She would have given much to clasp both

nephew and niece in her arms. But she could not flatter herself that

any hope of the customary exaltation remained.

 

“I must go,” she said, and she was conscious of an extreme flatness of

spirit.

 

Neither of them said anything to stop her. William politely escorted

her downstairs, and somehow, amongst her protests and embarrassments,

Mrs. Milvain forgot to say good-bye to Katharine. She departed,

murmuring words about masses of flowers and a drawing-room always

beautiful even in the depths of winter.

 

William came back to Katharine; he found her standing where he had

left her.

 

“I’ve come to be forgiven,” he said. “Our quarrel was perfectly

hateful to me. I’ve not slept all night. You’re not angry with me, are

you, Katharine?”

 

She could not bring herself to answer him until she had rid her mind

of the impression that her aunt had made on her. It seemed to her that

the very flowers were contaminated, and Cassandra’s pocket-handkerchief, for Mrs. Milvain had used them for evidence in her

investigations.

 

“She’s been spying upon us,” she said, “following us about London,

overhearing what people are saying—”

 

“Mrs. Milvain?” Rodney exclaimed. “What has she told you?”

 

His air of open confidence entirely vanished.

 

“Oh, people are saying that you’re in love with Cassandra, and that

you don’t care for me.”

 

“They have seen us?” he asked.

 

“Everything we’ve done for a fortnight has been seen.”

 

“I told you that would happen!” he exclaimed.

 

He walked to the window in evident perturbation. Katharine was too

indignant to attend to him. She was swept away by the force of her own

anger. Clasping Rodney’s flowers, she stood upright and motionless.

 

Rodney turned away from the window.

 

“It’s all been a mistake,” he said. “I blame myself for it. I should

have known better. I let you persuade me in a moment of madness. I beg

you to forget my insanity, Katharine.”

 

“She wished even to persecute Cassandra!” Katharine burst out, not

listening to him. “She threatened to speak to her. She’s capable of

it—she’s capable of anything!”

 

“Mrs. Milvain is not tactful, I know, but you exaggerate, Katharine.

People are talking about us. She was right to tell us. It only

confirms my own feeling—the position is monstrous.”

 

At length Katharine realized some part of what he meant.

 

“You don’t mean that this influences you, William?” she asked in

amazement.

 

“It does,” he said, flushing. “It’s intensely disagreeable to me. I

can’t endure that people should gossip about us. And then there’s your

cousin—Cassandra—” He paused in embarrassment.

 

“I came here this morning, Katharine,” he resumed, with a change of

voice, “to ask you to forget my folly, my bad temper, my inconceivable

behavior. I came, Katharine, to ask whether we can’t return to the

position we were in before this—this season of lunacy. Will you take

me back, Katharine, once more and for ever?”

 

No doubt her beauty, intensified by emotion and enhanced by the

flowers of bright color and strange shape which she carried wrought

upon Rodney, and had its share in bestowing upon her the old romance.

But a less noble passion worked in him, too; he was inflamed by

jealousy. His tentative offer of affection had been rudely and, as he

thought, completely repulsed by Cassandra on the preceding day.

Denham’s confession was in his mind. And ultimately, Katharine’s

dominion over him was of the sort that the fevers of the night cannot

exorcise.

 

“I was as much to blame as you were yesterday,” she said gently,

disregarding his question. “I confess, William, the sight of you and

Cassandra together made me jealous, and I couldn’t control myself. I

laughed at you, I know.”

 

“You jealous!” William exclaimed. “l assure you, Katharine, you’ve not

the slightest reason to be jealous. Cassandra dislikes me, so far as

she feels about me at all. I was foolish enough to try to explain the

nature of our relationship. I couldn’t resist telling her what I

supposed myself to feel for her. She refused to listen, very rightly.

But she left me in no doubt of her scorn.”

 

Katharine hesitated. She was confused, agitated, physically tired, and

had already to reckon with the violent feeling of dislike aroused by

her aunt which still vibrated through all the rest of her feelings.

She sank into a chair and dropped her flowers upon her lap.

 

“She charmed me,” Rodney continued. “I thought I loved her. But that’s

a thing of the past. It’s all over, Katharine. It was a dream—an

hallucination. We were both equally to blame, but no harm’s done if

you believe how truly I care for you. Say you believe me!”

 

He stood over her, as if in readiness to seize the first sign of her

assent. Precisely at that moment, owing, perhaps, to her vicissitudes

of feeling, all sense of love left her, as in a moment a mist lifts

from the earth. And when the mist departed a skeleton world and

blankness alone remained—a terrible prospect for the eyes of the

living to behold. He saw the look of terror in her face, and without

understanding its origin, took her hand in his. With the sense of

companionship returned a desire, like that of a child for shelter, to

accept what he had to offer her—and at that moment it seemed that he

offered her the only thing that could make it tolerable to live. She

let him press his lips to her cheek, and leant her head upon his arm.

It was the moment of his triumph. It was the only moment in which she

belonged to him and was dependent upon his protection.

 

“Yes, yes, yes,” he murmured, “you accept me, Katharine. You love me.”

 

For a moment she remained silent. He then heard her murmur:

 

“Cassandra loves you more than I do.”

 

“Cassandra?” he whispered.

 

“She loves you,” Katharine repeated. She raised herself and repeated

the sentence yet a third time. “She loves you.”

 

William slowly raised himself. He believed instinctively what

Katharine said, but what it meant to him he was unable to understand.

Could Cassandra love him? Could she have told Katharine that she loved

him? The desire to know the truth of this was urgent, unknown though

the consequences might be. The thrill of excitement associated with

the thought of Cassandra once more took possession of him. No longer

was it the excitement of anticipation and ignorance; it was the

excitement of something greater than a possibility, for now he knew

her and had measure of the sympathy between them. But who could give

him certainty? Could Katharine, Katharine who had lately lain in his

arms, Katharine herself the most admired of women? He looked at her,

with doubt, and with anxiety, but said nothing.

 

“Yes, yes,” she said, interpreting his wish for assurance, “it’s true.

I know what she feels for you.”

 

“She loves me?”

 

Katharine nodded.

 

“Ah, but who knows what I feel? How can I be sure of my feeling

myself? Ten minutes ago I asked you to marry me. I still wish it—I

don’t know what I wish—”

 

He clenched his hands and turned away. He suddenly faced her and

demanded: “Tell me what you feel for Denham.”

 

“For Ralph Denham?” she asked. “Yes!” she exclaimed, as if she had

found the answer to some momentarily perplexing question. “You’re

jealous of me, William; but you’re not in love with me. I’m jealous of

you. Therefore, for both our sakes, I say, speak to Cassandra at

once.”

 

He tried to compose himself. He walked up and down the room; he paused

at the window and surveyed the flowers strewn upon the floor.

Meanwhile his desire to have Katharine’s assurance confirmed became so

insistent that he could no longer deny the overmastering strength of

his feeling for Cassandra.

 

“You’re right,” he exclaimed,