Night and Day

V >> Virginia Woolf >> Night and Day

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No sooner had he heard the young people come in and go upstairs than
he sent a maid to tell Miss Katharine that he wished to speak to her
in the study. She was slipping furs loosely onto the floor in the
drawing-room in front of the fire. They were all gathered round,
reluctant to part. The message from her father surprised Katharine,
and the others caught from her look, as she turned to go, a vague
sense of apprehension.

Mr. Hilbery was reassured by the sight of her. He congratulated
himself, he prided himself, upon possessing a daughter who had a sense
of responsibility and an understanding of life profound beyond her
years. Moreover, she was looking to-day unusual; he had come to take
her beauty for granted; now he remembered it and was surprised by it.
He thought instinctively that he had interrupted some happy hour of
hers with Rodney, and apologized.

"I'm sorry to bother you, my dear. I heard you come in, and thought
I'd better make myself disagreeable at once--as it seems,
unfortunately, that fathers are expected to make themselves
disagreeable. Now, your Aunt Celia has been to see me; your Aunt Celia
has taken it into her head apparently that you and Cassandra have
been--let us say a little foolish. This going about together--these
pleasant little parties--there's been some kind of misunderstanding. I
told her I saw no harm in it, but I should just like to hear from
yourself. Has Cassandra been left a little too much in the company of
Mr. Denham?"

Katharine did not reply at once, and Mr. Hilbery tapped the coal
encouragingly with the poker. Then she said, without embarrassment or
apology:

"I don't see why I should answer Aunt Celia's questions. I've told her
already that I won't."

Mr. Hilbery was relieved and secretly amused at the thought of the
interview, although he could not license such irreverence outwardly.

"Very good. Then you authorize me to tell her that she's been
mistaken, and there was nothing but a little fun in it? You've no
doubt, Katharine, in your own mind? Cassandra is in our charge, and I
don't intend that people should gossip about her. I suggest that you
should be a little more careful in future. Invite me to your next
entertainment."

She did not respond, as he had hoped, with any affectionate or
humorous reply. She meditated, pondering something or other, and he
reflected that even his Katharine did not differ from other women in
the capacity to let things be. Or had she something to say?

"Have you a guilty conscience?" he inquired lightly. "Tell me,
Katharine," he said more seriously, struck by something in the
expression of her eyes.

"I've been meaning to tell you for some time," she said, "I'm not
going to marry William."

"You're not going--!" he exclaimed, dropping the poker in his immense
surprise. "Why? When? Explain yourself, Katharine."

"Oh, some time ago--a week, perhaps more." Katharine spoke hurriedly
and indifferently, as if the matter could no longer concern any one.

"But may I ask--why have I not been told of this--what do you mean by
it?"

"We don't wish to be married--that's all."

"This is William's wish as well as yours?"

"Oh, yes. We agree perfectly."

Mr. Hilbery had seldom felt more completely at a loss. He thought that
Katharine was treating the matter with curious unconcern; she scarcely
seemed aware of the gravity of what she was saying; he did not
understand the position at all. But his desire to smooth everything
over comfortably came to his relief. No doubt there was some quarrel,
some whimsey on the part of William, who, though a good fellow, was a
little exacting sometimes--something that a woman could put right. But
though he inclined to take the easiest view of his responsibilities,
he cared too much for this daughter to let things be.

"I confess I find great difficulty in following you. I should like to
hear William's side of the story," he said irritably. "I think he
ought to have spoken to me in the first instance."

"I wouldn't let him," said Katharine. "I know it must seem to you very
strange," she added. "But I assure you, if you'd wait a little--until
mother comes back."

This appeal for delay was much to Mr. Hilbery's liking. But his
conscience would not suffer it. People were talking. He could not
endure that his daughter's conduct should be in any way considered
irregular. He wondered whether, in the circumstances, it would be
better to wire to his wife, to send for one of his sisters, to forbid
William the house, to pack Cassandra off home--for he was vaguely
conscious of responsibilities in her direction, too. His forehead was
becoming more and more wrinkled by the multiplicity of his anxieties,
which he was sorely tempted to ask Katharine to solve for him, when
the door opened and William Rodney appeared. This necessitated a
complete change, not only of manner, but of position also.

"Here's William," Katharine exclaimed, in a tone of relief. "I've told
father we're not engaged," she said to him. "I've explained that I
prevented you from telling him."

William's manner was marked by the utmost formality. He bowed very
slightly in the direction of Mr. Hilbery, and stood erect, holding one
lapel of his coat, and gazing into the center of the fire. He waited
for Mr. Hilbery to speak.

Mr. Hilbery also assumed an appearance of formidable dignity. He had
risen to his feet, and now bent the top part of his body slightly
forward.

"I should like your account of this affair, Rodney--if Katharine no
longer prevents you from speaking."

William waited two seconds at least.

"Our engagement is at an end," he said, with the utmost stiffness.

"Has this been arrived at by your joint desire?"

After a perceptible pause William bent his head, and Katharine said,
as if by an afterthought:

"Oh, yes."

Mr. Hilbery swayed to and fro, and moved his lips as if to utter
remarks which remained unspoken.

"I can only suggest that you should postpone any decision until the
effect of this misunderstanding has had time to wear off. You have now
known each other--" he began.

"There's been no misunderstanding," Katharine interposed. "Nothing at
all." She moved a few paces across the room, as if she intended to
leave them. Her preoccupied naturalness 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 drowning, rescuing the forlorn. Impatient with
this form of egotism, he could not shake off the conviction that
somehow life was wonderful, romantic, a master worth serving so long
as she stood there. He had no wish that she should speak; he did not
look at her or touch her; she was apparently deep in her own thoughts
and oblivious of his presence.

The door opened without their hearing the sound. Mr. Hilbery looked
round the room, and for a moment failed to discover the two figures in
the window. He started with displeasure when he saw them, and observed
them keenly before he appeared able to make up his mind to say
anything. He made a movement finally that warned them of his presence;
they turned instantly. Without speaking, he beckoned to Katharine to
come to him, and, keeping his eyes from the region of the room where
Denham stood, he shepherded her in front of him back to the study.
When Katharine was inside the room he shut the study door carefully
behind him as if to secure himself from something that he disliked.

"Now, Katharine," he said, taking up his stand in front of the fire,
"you will, perhaps, have the kindness to explain--" She remained
silent. "What inferences do you expect me to draw?" he said
sharply. . . . "You tell me that you are not engaged to Rodney; I see
you on what appear to be extremely intimate terms with another--with
Ralph Denham. What am I to conclude? Are you," he added, as she still
said nothing, "engaged to Ralph Denham?"

"No," she replied.

His sense of relief was great; he had been certain that her answer
would have confirmed his suspicions, but that anxiety being set at
rest, he was the more conscious of annoyance with her for her
behavior.

"Then all I can say is that you've very strange ideas of the proper
way to behave. . . . People have drawn certain conclusions, nor am I
surprised. . . . The more I think of it the more inexplicable I find
it," he went on, his anger rising as he spoke. "Why am I left in
ignorance of what is going on in my own house? Why am I left to hear
of these events for the first time from my sister? Most disagreeable--
most upsetting. How I'm to explain to your Uncle Francis--but I wash
my hands of it. Cassandra goes tomorrow. I forbid Rodney the house. As
for the other young man, the sooner he makes himself scarce the
better. After placing the most implicit trust in you, Katharine--" He
broke off, disquieted by the ominous silence with which his words were
received, and looked at his daughter with the curious doubt as to her
state of mind which he had felt before, for the first time, this
evening. He perceived once more that she was not attending to what he
said, but was listening, and for a moment he, too, listened for sounds
outside the room. His certainty that there was some understanding
between Denham and Katharine returned, but with a most unpleasant
suspicion that there was something illicit about it, as the whole
position between the young people seemed to him gravely illicit.

"I'll speak to Denham," he said, on the impulse of his suspicion,
moving as if to go.

"I shall come with you," Katharine said instantly, starting forward.

"You will stay here," said her father.

"What are you going to say to him?" she asked.

"I suppose I may say what I like in my own house?" he returned.

"Then I go, too," she replied.

At these words, which seemed to imply a determination to go--to go for
ever, Mr. Hilbery returned to his position in front of the fire, and
began swaying slightly from side to side without for the moment making
any remark.

"I understood you to say that you were not engaged to him," he said at
length, fixing his eyes upon his daughter.

"We are not engaged," she said.

"It should be a matter of indifference to you, then, whether he comes
here or not--I will not have you listening to other things when I am
speaking to you!" he broke off angrily, perceiving a slight movement
on her part to one side. "Answer me frankly, what is your relationship
with this young man?"

"Nothing that I can explain to a third person," she said obstinately.

"I will have no more of these equivocations," he replied.

"I refuse to explain," she returned, and as she said it the front door
banged to. "There!" she exclaimed. "He is gone!" She flashed such a
look of fiery indignation at her father that he lost his self-control
for a moment.

"For God's sake, Katharine, control yourself!" he cried.

She looked for a moment like a wild animal caged in a civilized
dwelling-place. She glanced over the walls covered with books, as if
for a second she had forgotten the position of the door. Then she made
as if to go, but her father laid his hand upon her shoulder. He
compelled her to sit down.

"These emotions have been very upsetting, naturally," he said. His
manner had regained all its suavity, and he spoke with a soothing
assumption of paternal authority. "You've been placed in a very
difficult position, as I understand from Cassandra. Now let us come to
terms; we will leave these agitating questions in peace for the
present. Meanwhile, let us try to behave like civilized beings. Let us
read Sir Walter Scott. What d'you say to 'The Antiquary,' eh? Or 'The
Bride of Lammermoor'?"

He made his own choice, and before his daughter could protest or make
her escape, she found herself being turned by the agency of Sir Walter
Scott into a civilized human being.

Yet Mr. Hilbery had grave doubts, as he read, whether the process was
more than skin-deep. Civilization had been very profoundly and
unpleasantly overthrown that evening; the extent of the ruin was still
undetermined; he had lost his temper, a physical disaster not to be
matched for the space of ten years or so; and his own condition
urgently required soothing and renovating at the hands of the
classics. His house was in a state of revolution; he had a vision of
unpleasant encounters on the staircase; his meals would be poisoned
for days to come; was literature itself a specific against such
disagreeables? A note of hollowness was in his voice as he read.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Considering that Mr. Hilbery lived in a house which was accurately
numbered in order with its fellows, and that he filled up forms, paid
rent, and had seven more years of tenancy to run, he had an excuse for
laying down laws for the conduct of those who lived in his house, and
this excuse, though profoundly inadequate, he found useful during the
interregnum of civilization with which he now found himself faced. In
obedience to those laws, Rodney disappeared; Cassandra was dispatched
to catch the eleven-thirty on Monday morning; Denham was seen no more;
so that only Katharine, the lawful occupant of the upper rooms,
remained, and Mr. Hilbery thought himself competent to see that she
did nothing further to compromise herself. As he bade her good morning
next day he was aware that he knew nothing of what she was thinking,
but, as he reflected with some bitterness, even this was an advance
upon the ignorance of the previous mornings. He went to his study,
wrote, tore up, and wrote again a letter to his wife, asking her to
come back on account of domestic difficulties which he specified at
first, but in a later draft more discreetly left unspecified. Even if
she started the very moment that she got it, he reflected, she would
not be home till Tuesday night, and he counted lugubriously the number
of hours that he would have to spend in a position of detestable
authority alone with his daughter.

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