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

was in strange contrast to her

father’s pomposity and to William’s military rigidity. He had not once

raised his eyes. Katharine’s glance, on the other hand, ranged past

the two gentlemen, along the books, over the tables, towards the door.

She was paying the least possible attention, it seemed, to what was

happening. Her father looked at her with a sudden clouding and

troubling of his expression. Somehow his faith in her stability and

sense was queerly shaken. He no longer felt that he could ultimately

entrust her with the whole conduct of her own affairs after a

superficial show of directing them. He felt, for the first time in

many years, responsible for her.

 

“Look here, we must get to the bottom of this,” he said, dropping his

formal manner and addressing Rodney as if Katharine were not present.

“You’ve had some difference of opinion, eh? Take my word for it, most

people go through this sort of thing when they’re engaged. I’ve seen

more trouble come from long engagements than from any other form of

human folly. Take my advice and put the whole matter out of your

minds—both of you. I prescribe a complete abstinence from emotion.

Visit some cheerful seaside resort, Rodney.”

 

He was struck by William’s appearance, which seemed to him to indicate

profound feeling resolutely held in check. No doubt, he reflected,

Katharine had been very trying, unconsciously trying, and had driven

him to take up a position which was none of his willing. Mr. Hilbery

certainly did not overrate William’s sufferings. No minutes in his

life had hitherto extorted from him such intensity of anguish. He was

now facing the consequences of his insanity. He must confess himself

entirely and fundamentally other than Mr. Hilbery thought him.

Everything was against him. Even the Sunday evening and the fire and

the tranquil library scene were against him. Mr. Hilbery’s appeal to

him as a man of the world was terribly against him. He was no longer a

man of any world that Mr. Hilbery cared to recognize. But some power

compelled him, as it had compelled him to come downstairs, to make his

stand here and now, alone and unhelped by any one, without prospect of

reward. He fumbled with various phrases; and then jerked out:

 

“I love Cassandra.”

 

Mr. Hilbery’s face turned a curious dull purple. He looked at his

daughter. He nodded his head, as if to convey his silent command to

her to leave the room; but either she did not notice it or preferred

not to obey.

 

“You have the impudence—” Mr. Hilbery began, in a dull, low voice

that he himself had never heard before, when there was a scuffling and

exclaiming in the hall, and Cassandra, who appeared to be insisting

against some dissuasion on the part of another, burst into the room.

 

“Uncle Trevor,” she exclaimed, “I insist upon telling you the truth!”

She flung herself between Rodney and her uncle, as if she sought to

intercept their blows. As her uncle stood perfectly still, looking

very large and imposing, and as nobody spoke, she shrank back a

little, and looked first at Katharine and then at Rodney. “You must

know the truth,” she said, a little lamely.

 

“You have the impudence to tell me this in Katharine’s presence?” Mr.

Hilbery continued, speaking with complete disregard of Cassandra’s

interruption.

 

“I am aware, quite aware—” Rodney’s words, which were broken in

sense, spoken after a pause, and with his eyes upon the ground,

nevertheless expressed an astonishing amount of resolution. “I am

quite aware what you must think of me,” he brought out, looking Mr.

Hilbery directly in the eyes for the first time.

 

“I could express my views on the subject more fully if we were alone,”

Mr. Hilbery returned.

 

“But you forget me,” said Katharine. She moved a little towards

Rodney, and her movement seemed to testify mutely to her respect for

him, and her alliance with him. “I think William has behaved perfectly

rightly, and, after all, it is I who am concerned—I and Cassandra.”

 

Cassandra, too, gave an indescribably slight movement which seemed to

draw the three of them into alliance together. Katharine’s tone and

glance made Mr. Hilbery once more feel completely at a loss, and in

addition, painfully and angrily obsolete; but in spite of an awful

inner hollowness he was outwardly composed.

 

“Cassandra and Rodney have a perfect right to settle their own affairs

according to their own wishes; but I see no reason why they should do

so either in my room or in my house… . I wish to be quite clear on

this point, however; you are no longer engaged to Rodney.”

 

He paused, and his pause seemed to signify that he was extremely

thankful for his daughter’s deliverance.

 

Cassandra turned to Katharine, who drew her breath as if to speak and

checked herself; Rodney, too, seemed to await some movement on her

part; her father glanced at her as if he half anticipated some further

revelation. She remained perfectly silent. In the silence they heard

distinctly steps descending the staircase, and Katharine went straight

to the door.

 

“Wait,” Mr. Hilbery commanded. “I wish to speak to you—alone,” he

added.

 

She paused, holding the door ajar.

 

“I’ll come back,” she said, and as she spoke she opened the door and

went out. They could hear her immediately speak to some one outside,

though the words were inaudible.

 

Mr. Hilbery was left confronting the guilty couple, who remained

standing as if they did not accept their dismissal, and the

disappearance of Katharine had brought some change into the situation.

So, in his secret heart, Mr. Hilbery felt that it had, for he could

not explain his daughter’s behavior to his own satisfaction.

 

“Uncle Trevor,” Cassandra exclaimed impulsively, “don’t be angry,

please. I couldn’t help it; I do beg you to forgive me.”

 

Her uncle still refused to acknowledge her identity, and still talked

over her head as if she did not exist.

 

“I suppose you have communicated with the Otways,” he said to Rodney

grimly.

 

“Uncle Trevor, we wanted to tell you,” Cassandra replied for him. “We

waited—” she looked appealingly at Rodney, who shook his head ever so

slightly.

 

“Yes? What were you waiting for?” her uncle asked sharply, looking at

her at last.

 

The words died on her lips. It was apparent that she was straining her

ears as if to catch some sound outside the room that would come to her

help. He received no answer. He listened, too.

 

“This is a most unpleasant business for all parties,” he concluded,

sinking into his chair again, hunching his shoulders and regarding the

flames. He seemed to speak to himself, and Rodney and Cassandra looked

at him in silence.

 

“Why don’t you sit down?” he said suddenly. He spoke gruffly, but the

force of his anger was evidently spent, or some preoccupation had

turned his mood to other regions. While Cassandra accepted his

invitation, Rodney remained standing.

 

“I think Cassandra can explain matters better in my absence,” he said,

and left the room, Mr. Hilbery giving his assent by a slight nod of

the head.

 

Meanwhile, in the dining-room next door, Denham and Katharine were

once more seated at the mahogany table. They seemed to be continuing a

conversation broken off in the middle, as if each remembered the

precise point at which they had been interrupted, and was eager to go

on as quickly as possible. Katharine, having interposed a short

account of the interview with her father, Denham made no comment, but

said:

 

“Anyhow, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see each other.”

 

“Or stay together. It’s only marriage that’s out of the question,”

Katharine replied.

 

“But if I find myself coming to want you more and more?”

 

“If our lapses come more and more often?”

 

He sighed impatiently, and said nothing for a moment.

 

“But at least,” he renewed, “we’ve established the fact that my lapses

are still in some odd way connected with you; yours have nothing to do

with me. Katharine,” he added, his assumption of reason broken up by

his agitation, “I assure you that we are in love—what other people

call love. Remember that night. We had no doubts whatever then. We

were absolutely happy for half an hour. You had no lapse until the day

after; I had no lapse until yesterday morning. We’ve been happy at

intervals all day until I—went off my head, and you, quite naturally,

were bored.”

 

“Ah,” she exclaimed, as if the subject chafed her, “I can’t make you

understand. It’s not boredom—I’m never bored. Reality—reality,” she

ejaculated, tapping her finger upon the table as if to emphasize and

perhaps explain her isolated utterance of this word. “I cease to be

real to you. It’s the faces in a storm again—the vision in a

hurricane. We come together for a moment and we part. It’s my fault,

too. I’m as bad as you are—worse, perhaps.”

 

They were trying to explain, not for the first time, as their weary

gestures and frequent interruptions showed, what in their common

language they had christened their “lapses”; a constant source of

distress to them, in the past few days, and the immediate reason why

Ralph was on his way to leave the house when Katharine, listening

anxiously, heard him and prevented him. What was the cause of these

lapses? Either because Katharine looked more beautiful, or more

strange, because she wore something different, or said something

unexpected, Ralph’s sense of her romance welled up and overcame him

either into silence or into inarticulate expressions, which Katharine,

with unintentional but invariable perversity, interrupted or

contradicted with some severity or assertion of prosaic fact. Then the

vision disappeared, and Ralph expressed vehemently in his turn the

conviction that he only loved her shadow and cared nothing for her

reality. If the lapse was on her side it took the form of gradual

detachment until she became completely absorbed in her own thoughts,

which carried her away with such intensity that she sharply resented

any recall to her companion’s side. It was useless to assert that

these trances were always originated by Ralph himself, however little

in their later stages they had to do with him. The fact remained that

she had no need of him and was very loath to be reminded of him. How,

then, could they be in love? The fragmentary nature of their

relationship was but too apparent.

 

Thus they sat depressed to silence at the dining-room table, oblivious

of everything, while Rodney paced the drawing-room overhead in such

agitation and exaltation of mind as he had never conceived possible,

and Cassandra remained alone with her uncle. Ralph, at length, rose

and walked gloomily to the window. He pressed close to the pane.

Outside were truth and freedom and the immensity only to be

apprehended by the mind in loneliness, and never communicated to

another. What worse sacrilege was there than to attempt to violate

what he perceived by seeking to impart it? Some movement behind him

made him reflect that Katharine had the power, if she chose, to be in

person what he dreamed of her spirit. He turned sharply to implore her

help, when again he was struck cold by her look of distance, her

expression of intentness upon some far object. As if conscious of his

look upon her she rose and came to him, standing close by his side,

and looking with him out into the dusky atmosphere. Their physical

closeness was to him a bitter enough comment upon the distance between

their minds. Yet distant as she was, her presence by his side

transformed the world. He saw himself performing wonderful deeds of

courage; saving the