Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

When the sun shone, as it did with unusual brightness that Christmas

week, it revealed much that was faded and not altogether well-kept-up

in Stogdon House and its grounds. In truth, Sir Francis had retired

from service under the Government of India with a pension that was not

adequate, in his opinion, to his services, as it certainly was not

adequate to his ambitions. His career had not come up to his

expectations, and although he was a very fine, white-whiskered,

mahogany-colored old man to look at, and had laid down a very choice

cellar of good reading and good stories, you could not long remain

ignorant of the fact that some thunder-storm had soured them; he had a

grievance. This grievance dated back to the middle years of the last

century, when, owing to some official intrigue, his merits had been

passed over in a disgraceful manner in favor of another, his junior.

The rights and wrongs of the story, presuming that they had some

existence in fact, were no longer clearly known to his wife and

children; but this disappointment had played a very large part in

their lives, and had poisoned the life of Sir Francis much as a

disappointment in love is said to poison the whole life of a woman.

Long brooding on his failure, continual arrangement and rearrangement

of his deserts and rebuffs, had made Sir Francis much of an egoist,

and in his retirement his temper became increasingly difficult and

exacting.

His wife now offered so little resistance to his moods that she was

practically useless to him. He made his daughter Eleanor into his

chief confidante, and the prime of her life was being rapidly consumed

by her father. To her he dictated the memoirs which were to avenge his

memory, and she had to assure him constantly that his treatment had

been a disgrace. Already, at the age of thirty-five, her cheeks were

whitening as her mother’s had whitened, but for her there would be no

memories of Indian suns and Indian rivers, and clamor of children in a

nursery; she would have very little of substance to think about when

she sat, as Lady Otway now sat, knitting white wool, with her eyes

fixed almost perpetually upon the same embroidered bird upon the same

fire-screen. But then Lady Otway was one of the people for whom the

great make-believe game of English social life has been invented; she

spent most of her time in pretending to herself and her neighbors that

she was a dignified, important, much-occupied person, of considerable

social standing and sufficient wealth. In view of the actual state of

things this game needed a great deal of skill; and, perhaps, at the

age she had reached—she was over sixty—she played far more to

deceive herself than to deceive any one else. Moreover, the armor was

wearing thin; she forgot to keep up appearances more and more.

The worn patches in the carpets, and the pallor of the drawing-room,

where no chair or cover had been renewed for some years, were due not

only to the miserable pension, but to the wear and tear of twelve

children, eight of whom were sons. As often happens in these large

families, a distinct dividing-line could be traced, about half-way in

the succession, where the money for educational purposes had run

short, and the six younger children had grown up far more economically

than the elder. If the boys were clever, they won scholarships, and

went to school; if they were not clever, they took what the family

connection had to offer them. The girls accepted situations

occasionally, but there were always one or two at home, nursing sick

animals, tending silkworms, or playing the flute in their bedrooms.

The distinction between the elder children and the younger

corresponded almost to the distinction between a higher class and a

lower one, for with only a haphazard education and insufficient

allowances, the younger children had picked up accomplishments,

friends, and points of view which were not to be found within the

walls of a public school or of a Government office. Between the two

divisions there was considerable hostility, the elder trying to

patronize the younger, the younger refusing to respect the elder; but

one feeling united them and instantly closed any risk of a breach—

their common belief in the superiority of their own family to all

others. Henry was the eldest of the younger group, and their leader;

he bought strange books and joined odd societies; he went without a

tie for a whole year, and had six shirts made of black flannel. He had

long refused to take a seat either in a shipping office or in a

tea-merchant’s warehouse; and persisted, in spite of the disapproval

of uncles and aunts, in practicing both violin and piano, with the

result that he could not perform professionally upon either. Indeed,

for thirty-two years of life he had nothing more substantial to show

than a manuscript book containing the score of half an opera. In this

protest of his, Katharine had always given him her support, and as she

was generally held to be an extremely sensible person, who dressed too

well to be eccentric, he had found her support of some use. Indeed,

when she came down at Christmas she usually spent a great part of her

time in private conferences with Henry and with Cassandra, the

youngest girl, to whom the silkworms belonged. With the younger

section she had a great reputation for common sense, and for something

that they despised but inwardly respected and called knowledge of the

world—that is to say, of the way in which respectable elderly people,

going to their clubs and dining out with ministers, think and behave.

She had more than once played the part of ambassador between Lady

Otway and her children. That poor lady, for instance, consulted her

for advice when, one day, she opened Cassandra’s bedroom door on a

mission of discovery, and found the ceiling hung with mulberry-leaves,

the windows blocked with cages, and the tables stacked with home-made

machines for the manufacture of silk dresses.

“I wish you could help her to take an interest in something that other

people are interested in, Katharine,” she observed, rather

plaintively, detailing her grievances. “It’s all Henry’s doing, you

know, giving up her parties and taking to these nasty insects. It

doesn’t follow that if a man can do a thing a woman may too.”

The morning was sufficiently bright to make the chairs and sofas in

Lady Otway’s private sitting-room appear more than usually shabby, and

the gallant gentlemen, her brothers