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

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.