Night and Day, Virginia Woolf [10 ebook reader txt] 📗

CHAPTER XXI

Mary walked to the nearest station and reached home in an incredibly

short space of time, just so much, indeed, as was needed for the

intelligent understanding of the news of the world as the “Westminster

Gazette” reported it. Within a few minutes of opening her door, she

was in trim for a hard evening’s work. She unlocked a drawer and took

out a manuscript, which consisted of a very few pages, entitled, in a

forcible hand, “Some Aspects of the Democratic State.” The aspects

dwindled out in a cries-cross of blotted lines in the very middle of a

sentence, and suggested that the author had been interrupted, or

convinced of the futility of proceeding, with her pen in the

air… . Oh, yes, Ralph had come in at that point. She scored that

sheet very effectively, and, choosing a fresh one, began at a great

rate with a generalization upon the structure of human society, which

was a good deal bolder than her custom. Ralph had told her once that

she couldn’t write English, which accounted for those frequent blots

and insertions; but she put all that behind her, and drove ahead with

such words as came her way, until she had accomplished half a page of

generalization and might legitimately draw breath. Directly her hand

stopped her brain stopped too, and she began to listen. A paper-boy

shouted down the street; an omnibus ceased and lurched on again with

the heave of duty once more shouldered; the dullness of the sounds

suggested that a fog had risen since her return, if, indeed, a fog has

power to deaden sound, of which fact, she could not be sure at the

present moment. It was the sort of fact Ralph Denham knew. At any

rate, it was no concern of hers, and she was about to dip a pen when

her ear was caught by the sound of a step upon the stone staircase.

She followed it past Mr. Chippen’s chambers; past Mr. Gibson’s; past

Mr. Turner’s; after which it became her sound. A postman, a

washerwoman, a circular, a bill—she presented herself with each of

these perfectly natural possibilities; but, to her surprise, her mind

rejected each one of them impatiently, even apprehensively. The step

became slow, as it was apt to do at the end of the steep climb, and

Mary, listening for the regular sound, was filled with an intolerable

nervousness. Leaning against the table, she felt the knock of her

heart push her body perceptibly backwards and forwards—a state of

nerves astonishing and reprehensible in a stable woman. Grotesque

fancies took shape. Alone, at the top of the house, an unknown person

approaching nearer and nearer—how could she escape? There was no way

of escape. She did not even know whether that oblong mark on the

ceiling was a trap-door to the roof or not. And if she got on to the

roof—well, there was a drop of sixty feet or so on to the pavement.

But she sat perfectly still, and when the knock sounded, she got up

directly and opened the door without hesitation. She saw a tall figure

outside, with something ominous to her eyes in the look of it.

 

“What do you want?” she said, not recognizing the face in the fitful

light of the staircase.

 

“Mary? I’m Katharine Hilbery!”

 

Mary’s self-possession returned almost excessively, and her welcome

was decidedly cold, as if she must recoup herself for this ridiculous

waste of emotion. She moved her green-shaded lamp to another table,

and covered “Some Aspects of the Democratic State” with a sheet of

blotting-paper.

 

“Why can’t they leave me alone?” she thought bitterly, connecting

Katharine and Ralph in a conspiracy to take from her even this hour of

solitary study, even this poor little defence against the world. And,

as she smoothed down the sheet of blotting-paper over the manuscript,

she braced herself to resist Katharine, whose presence struck her, not

merely by its force, as usual, but as something in the nature of a

menace.

 

“You’re working?” said Katharine, with hesitation, perceiving that she

was not welcome.

 

“Nothing that matters,” Mary replied, drawing forward the best of the

chairs and poking the fire.

 

“I didn’t know you had to work after you had left the office,” said

Katharine, in a tone which gave the impression that she was thinking

of something else, as was, indeed, the case.

 

She had been paying calls with her mother, and in between the calls

Mrs. Hilbery had rushed into shops and bought pillow-cases and

blotting-books on no perceptible method for the furnishing of

Katharine’s house. Katharine had a sense of impedimenta accumulating

on all sides of her. She had left her at length, and had come on to

keep an engagement to dine with Rodney at his rooms. But she did not

mean to get to him before seven o’clock, and so had plenty of time to

walk all the way from Bond Street to the Temple if she wished it. The

flow of faces streaming on either side of her had hypnotized her into

a mood of profound despondency, to which her expectation of an evening

alone with Rodney contributed. They were very good friends again,

better friends, they both said, than ever before. So far as she was

concerned this was true. There were many more things in him than she

had guessed until emotion brought them forth—strength, affection,

sympathy. And she thought of them and looked at the faces passing, and

thought how much alike they were, and how distant, nobody feeling

anything as she felt nothing, and distance, she thought, lay

inevitably between the closest, and their intimacy was the worst

presence of all. For, “Oh dear,” she thought, looking into a

tobacconist’s window, “I don’t care for any of them, and I don’t care

for William, and people say this is the thing that matters most, and I

can’t see what they mean by it.”

 

She looked desperately at the smooth-bowled pipes, and wondered—

should she walk on by the Strand or by the Embankment? It was not a

simple question, for it concerned not different streets so much as

different streams of thought. If she went by the Strand she would

force herself to think out the problem of the future, or some

mathematical problem; if she went by the river she would certainly

begin to think about things that didn’t exist—the forest, the ocean

beach, the leafy solitudes, the magnanimous hero. No, no, no! A

thousand times no!—it wouldn’t do; there was something repulsive in

such thoughts at present; she must take something else; she was out of

that mood at present. And then she thought of Mary; the thought gave

her confidence, even pleasure of a sad sort, as if the triumph of

Ralph and Mary proved that the fault of her failure lay with herself

and not with life. An indistinct idea that the sight of Mary might be

of help, combined with her natural trust in her, suggested a visit;

for, surely, her liking was of a kind that implied liking upon Mary’s

side also. After a moment’s hesitation she decided, although she

seldom acted upon impulse, to act upon this one, and turned down a

side street and found Mary’s door. But her reception was not

encouraging; clearly Mary didn’t want to see her, had no help to

impart, and the half-formed desire to confide in her was quenched

immediately. She was slightly amused at her own delusion, looked

rather absent-minded, and swung her gloves to and fro, as if doling

out the few minutes accurately before she could say good-by.

 

Those few minutes might very well be spent in asking for information

as to the exact position of the Suffrage Bill, or in expounding her

own very sensible view of the situation. But there was a tone in her

voice, or a shade in her opinions, or a swing of her gloves which

served to irritate Mary Datchet, whose manner became increasingly

direct, abrupt, and even antagonistic. She became conscious of a wish

to make Katharine realize the importance of this work, which she

discussed so coolly, as though she, too, had sacrificed what Mary

herself had sacrificed. The swinging of the gloves ceased, and

Katharine, after ten minutes, began to make movements preliminary to

departure. At the sight of this, Mary was aware—she was abnormally

aware of things to-night—of another very strong desire; Katharine was

not to be allowed to go, to disappear into the free, happy world of

irresponsible individuals. She must be made to realize—to feel.

 

“I don’t quite see,” she said, as if Katharine had challenged her

explicitly, “how, things being as they are, any one can help trying,

at least, to do something.”

 

“No. But how ARE things?”

 

Mary pressed her lips, and smiled ironically; she had Katharine at her

mercy; she could, if she liked, discharge upon her head wagon-loads of

revolting proof of the state of things ignored by the casual, the

amateur, the looker-on, the cynical observer of life at a distance.

And yet she hesitated. As usual, when she found herself in talk with

Katharine, she began to feel rapid alternations of opinion about her,

arrows of sensation striking strangely through the envelope of

personality, which shelters us so conveniently from our fellows. What

an egoist, how aloof she was! And yet, not in her words, perhaps, but

in her voice, in her face, in her attitude, there were signs of a soft

brooding spirit, of a sensibility unblunted and profound, playing over

her thoughts and deeds, and investing her manner with an habitual

gentleness. The arguments and phrases of Mr. Clacton fell flat against

such armor.

 

“You’ll be married, and you’ll have other things to think of,” she

said inconsequently, and with an accent of condescension. She was not

going to make Katharine understand in a second, as she would, all she

herself had learnt at the cost of such pain. No. Katharine was to be

happy; Katharine was to be ignorant; Mary was to keep this knowledge

of the impersonal life for herself. The thought of her morning’s

renunciation stung her conscience, and she tried to expand once more

into that impersonal condition which was so lofty and so painless. She

must check this desire to be an individual again, whose wishes were in

conflict with those of other people. She repented of her bitterness.

 

Katharine now renewed her signs of leave-taking; she had drawn on one

of her gloves, and looked about her as if in search of some trivial

saying to end with. Wasn’t there some picture, or clock, or chest of

drawers which might be singled out for notice? something peaceable and

friendly to end the uncomfortable interview? The green-shaded lamp

burnt in the corner, and illumined books and pens and blotting-paper.

The whole aspect of the place started another train of thought and

struck her as enviably free; in such a room one could work—one could

have a life of one’s own.

 

“I think you’re very lucky,” she observed. “I envy you, living alone

and having your own things”—and engaged in this exalted way, which

had no recognition or engagement-ring, she added in her own mind.

 

Mary’s lips parted slightly. She could not conceive in what respects

Katharine, who spoke sincerely, could envy her.

 

“I don’t think you’ve got any reason to envy me,” she said.

 

“Perhaps one always envies other people,” Katharine observed vaguely.