Night and Day by Virginia Woolf (websites to read books for free .TXT) đź“–
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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,
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