Chapter IX

by Virginia Woolf

　　Katharine disliked telling her mother about Cyril's misbehavior quiteas much as her father did, and for much the same reasons. They bothshrank, nervously, as people fear the report of a gun on the stage,from all that would have to be said on this occasion. Katharine,moreover, was unable to decide what she thought of Cyril'smisbehavior. As usual, she saw something which her father and motherdid not see, and the effect of that something was to suspend Cyril'sbehavior in her mind without any qualification at all. They wouldthink whether it was good or bad; to her it was merely a thing thathad happened.When Katharine reached the study, Mrs. Hilbery had already dipped herpen in the ink."Katharine," she said, lifting it in the air, "I've just made out sucha queer, strange thing about your grandfather. I'm three years and sixmonths older than he was when he died. I couldn't very well have beenhis mother, but I might have been his elder sister, and that seems tome such a pleasant fancy. I'm going to start quite fresh this morning,and get a lot done."She began her sentence, at any rate, and Katharine sat down at her owntable, untied the bundle of old letters upon which she was working,smoothed them out absent-mindedly, and began to decipher the fadedscript. In a minute she looked across at her mother, to judge hermood. Peace and happiness had relaxed every muscle in her face; herlips were parted very slightly, and her breath came in smooth,controlled inspirations like those of a child who is surroundingitself with a building of bricks, and increasing in ecstasy as eachbrick is placed in position. So Mrs. Hilbery was raising round her theskies and trees of the past with every stroke of her pen, andrecalling the voices of the dead. Quiet as the room was, andundisturbed by the sounds of the present moment, Katharine could fancythat here was a deep pool of past time, and that she and her motherwere bathed in the light of sixty years ago. What could the presentgive, she wondered, to compare with the rich crowd of gifts bestowedby the past? Here was a Thursday morning in process of manufacture;each second was minted fresh by the clock upon the mantelpiece. Shestrained her ears and could just hear, far off, the hoot of amotor-car and the rush of wheels coming nearer and dying away again,and the voices of men crying old iron and vegetables in one of thepoorer streets at the back of the house. Rooms, of course, accumulatetheir suggestions, and any room in which one has been used to carry onany particular occupation gives off memories of moods, of ideas, ofpostures that have been seen in it; so that to attempt any differentkind of work there is almost impossible.Katharine was unconsciously affected, each time she entered hermother's room, by all these influences, which had had their birthyears ago, when she was a child, and had something sweet and solemnabout them, and connected themselves with early memories of thecavernous glooms and sonorous echoes of the Abbey where hergrandfather lay buried. All the books and pictures, even the chairsand tables, had belonged to him, or had reference to him; even thechina dogs on the mantelpiece and the little shepherdesses with theirsheep had been bought by him for a penny a piece from a man who usedto stand with a tray of toys in Kensington High Street, as Katharinehad often heard her mother tell. Often she had sat in this room, withher mind fixed so firmly on those vanished figures that she couldalmost see the muscles round their eyes and lips, and had given toeach his own voice, with its tricks of accent, and his coat and hiscravat. Often she had seemed to herself to be moving among them, aninvisible ghost among the living, better acquainted with them thanwith her own friends, because she knew their secrets and possessed adivine foreknowledge of their destiny. They had been so unhappy, suchmuddlers, so wrong-headed, it seemed to her. She could have told themwhat to do, and what not to do. It was a melancholy fact that theywould pay no heed to her, and were bound to come to grief in their ownantiquated way. Their behavior was often grotesquely irrational; theirconventions monstrously absurd; and yet, as she brooded upon them, shefelt so closely attached to them that it was useless to try to passjudgment upon them. She very nearly lost consciousness that she was aseparate being, with a future of her own. On a morning of slightdepression, such as this, she would try to find some sort of clue tothe muddle which their old letters presented; some reason which seemedto make it worth while to them; some aim which they kept steadily inview--but she was interrupted.Mrs. Hilbery had risen from her table, and was standing looking out ofthe window at a string of barges swimming up the river.Katharine watched her. Suddenly Mrs. Hilbery turned abruptly, andexclaimed:"I really believe I'm bewitched! I only want three sentences, you see,something quite straightforward and commonplace, and I can't find'em."She began to pace up and down the room, snatching up her duster; butshe was too much annoyed to find any relief, as yet, in polishing thebacks of books."Besides," she said, giving the sheet she had written to Katharine, "Idon't believe this'll do. Did your grandfather ever visit theHebrides, Katharine?" She looked in a strangely beseeching way at herdaughter. "My mind got running on the Hebrides, and I couldn't helpwriting a little description of them. Perhaps it would do at thebeginning of a chapter. Chapters often begin quite differently fromthe way they go on, you know." Katharine read what her mother hadwritten. She might have been a schoolmaster criticizing a child'sessay. Her face gave Mrs. Hilbery, who watched it anxiously, no groundfor hope."It's very beautiful," she stated, "but, you see, mother, we ought togo from point to point--""Oh, I know," Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. "And that's just what I can'tdo. Things keep coming into my head. It isn't that I don't knoweverything and feel everything (who did know him, if I didn't?), but Ican't put it down, you see. There's a kind of blind spot," she said,touching her forehead, "there. And when I can't sleep o' nights, Ifancy I shall die without having done it."From exultation she had passed to the depths of depression which theimagination of her death aroused. The depression communicated itselfto Katharine. How impotent they were, fiddling about all day long withpapers! And the clock was striking eleven and nothing done! Shewatched her mother, now rummaging in a great brass-bound box whichstood by her table, but she did not go to her help. Of course,Katharine reflected, her mother had now lost some paper, and theywould waste the rest of the morning looking for it. She cast her eyesdown in irritation, and read again her mother's musical sentencesabout the silver gulls, and the roots of little pink flowers washed bypellucid streams, and the blue mists of hyacinths, until she wasstruck by her mother's silence. She raised her eyes. Mrs. Hilbery hademptied a portfolio containing old photographs over her table, and waslooking from one to another."Surely, Katharine," she said, "the men were far handsomer in thosedays than they are now, in spite of their odious whiskers? Look at oldJohn Graham, in his white waistcoat--look at Uncle Harley. That'sPeter the manservant, I suppose. Uncle John brought him back fromIndia."Katharine looked at her mother, but did not stir or answer. She hadsuddenly become very angry, with a rage which their relationship madesilent, and therefore doubly powerful and critical. She felt all theunfairness of the claim which her mother tacitly made to her time andsympathy, and what Mrs. Hilbery took, Katharine thought bitterly, shewasted. Then, in a flash, she remembered that she had still to tellher about Cyril's misbehavior. Her anger immediately dissipateditself; it broke like some wave that has gathered itself high abovethe rest; the waters were resumed into the sea again, and Katharinefelt once more full of peace and solicitude, and anxious only that hermother should be protected from pain. She crossed the roominstinctively, and sat on the arm of her mother's chair. Mrs. Hilberyleant her head against her daughter's body."What is nobler," she mused, turning over the photographs, "than to bea woman to whom every one turns, in sorrow or difficulty? How have theyoung women of your generation improved upon that, Katharine? I cansee them now, sweeping over the lawns at Melbury House, in theirflounces and furbelows, so calm and stately and imperial (and themonkey and the little black dwarf following behind), as if nothingmattered in the world but to be beautiful and kind. But they did morethan we do, I sometimes think. They were, and that's better thandoing. They seem to me like ships, like majestic ships, holding ontheir way, not shoving or pushing, not fretted by little things, as weare, but taking their way, like ships with white sails."Katharine tried to interrupt this discourse, but the opportunity didnot come, and she could not forbear to turn over the pages of thealbum in which the old photographs were stored. The faces of these menand women shone forth wonderfully after the hubbub of living faces,and seemed, as her mother had said, to wear a marvelous dignity andcalm, as if they had ruled their kingdoms justly and deserved greatlove. Some were of almost incredible beauty, others were ugly enoughin a forcible way, but none were dull or bored or insignificant. Thesuperb stiff folds of the crinolines suited the women; the cloaks andhats of the gentlemen seemed full of character. Once more Katharinefelt the serene air all round her, and seemed far off to hear thesolemn beating of the sea upon the shore. But she knew that she mustjoin the present on to this past.Mrs. Hilbery was rambling on, from story to story."That's Janie Mannering," she said, pointing to a superb, white-haireddame, whose satin robes seemed strung with pearls. "I must have toldyou how she found her cook drunk under the kitchen table when theEmpress was coming to dinner, and tucked up her velvet sleeves (shealways dressed like an Empress herself), cooked the whole meal, andappeared in the drawing-room as if she'd been sleeping on a bank ofroses all day. She could do anything with her hands--they all could--make a cottage or embroider a petticoat."And that's Queenie Colquhoun," she went on, turning the pages, "whotook her coffin out with her to Jamaica, packed with lovely shawls andbonnets, because you couldn't get coffins in Jamaica, and she had ahorror of dying there (as she did), and being devoured by the whiteants. And there's Sabine, the loveliest of them all; ah! it was like astar rising when she came into the room. And that's Miriam, in hercoachman's cloak, with all the little capes on, and she wore greattop-boots underneath. You young people may say you're unconventional,but you're nothing compared with her."Turning the page, she came upon the picture of a very masculine,handsome lady, whose head the photographer had adorned with animperial crown."Ah, you wretch!" Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed, "what a wicked old despotyou were, in your day! How we all bowed down before you! 'Maggie,' sheused to say, 'if it hadn't been for me, where would you be now?' Andit was true; she brought them together, you know. She said to myfather, 'Marry her,' and he did; and she said to poor little Clara,'Fall down and worship him,' and she did; but she got up again, ofcourse. What else could one expect? She was a mere child--eighteen--and half dead with fright, too. But that old tyrant never repented.She used to say that she had given them three perfect months, and noone had a right to more; and I sometimes think, Katharine, that'strue, you know. It's more than most of us have, only we have topretend, which was a thing neither of them could ever do. I fancy,"Mrs. Hilbery mused, "that there was a kind of sincerity in those daysbetween men and women which, with all your outspokenness, you haven'tgot."Katharine again tried to interrupt. But Mrs. Hilbery had beengathering impetus from her recollections, and was now in high spirits."They must have been good friends at heart," she resumed, "because sheused to sing his songs. Ah, how did it go?" and Mrs. Hilbery, who hada very sweet voice, trolled out a famous lyric of her father's whichhad been set to an absurdly and charmingly sentimental air by someearly Victorian composer."It's the vitality of them!" she concluded, striking her fist againstthe table. "That's what we haven't got! We're virtuous, we're earnest,we go to meetings, we pay the poor their wages, but we don't live asthey lived. As often as not, my father wasn't in bed three nights outof the seven, but always fresh as paint in the morning. I hear himnow, come singing up the stairs to the nursery, and tossing the loaffor breakfast on his sword-stick, and then off we went for a day'spleasuring--Richmond, Hampton Court, the Surrey Hills. Why shouldn'twe go, Katharine? It's going to be a fine day."At this moment, just as Mrs. Hilbery was examining the weather fromthe window, there was a knock at the door. A slight, elderly lady camein, and was saluted by Katharine, with very evident dismay, as "AuntCelia!" She was dismayed because she guessed why Aunt Celia had come.It was certainly in order to discuss the case of Cyril and the womanwho was not his wife, and owing to her procrastination Mrs. Hilberywas quite unprepared. Who could be more unprepared? Here she was,suggesting that all three of them should go on a jaunt to Blackfriarsto inspect the site of Shakespeare's theater, for the weather washardly settled enough for the country.To this proposal Mrs. Milvain listened with a patient smile, whichindicated that for many years she had accepted such eccentricities inher sister-in-law with bland philosophy. Katharine took up herposition at some distance, standing with her foot on the fender, asthough by so doing she could get a better view of the matter. But, inspite of her aunt's presence, how unreal the whole question of Cyriland his morality appeared! The difficulty, it now seemed, was not tobreak the news gently to Mrs. Hilbery, but to make her understand it.How was one to lasso her mind, and tether it to this minute,unimportant spot? A matter-of-fact statement seemed best."I think Aunt Celia has come to talk about Cyril, mother," she saidrather brutally. "Aunt Celia has discovered that Cyril is married. Hehas a wife and children.""No, he is not married," Mrs. Milvain interposed, in low tones,addressing herself to Mrs. Hilbery. "He has two children, and anotheron the way."Mrs. Hilbery looked from one to the other in bewilderment."We thought it better to wait until it was proved before we told you,"Katharine added."But I met Cyril only a fortnight ago at the National Gallery!" Mrs.Hilbery exclaimed. "I don't believe a word of it," and she tossed herhead with a smile on her lips at Mrs. Milvain, as though she couldquite understand her mistake, which was a very natural mistake, in thecase of a childless woman, whose husband was something very dull inthe Board of Trade."I didn't wish to believe it, Maggie," said Mrs. Milvain. "For a longtime I couldn't believe it. But now I've seen, and I have to believeit.""Katharine," Mrs. Hilbery demanded, "does your father know of this?"Katharine nodded."Cyril married!" Mrs. Hilbery repeated. "And never telling us a word,though we've had him in our house since he was a child--nobleWilliam's son! I can't believe my ears!"Feeling that the burden of proof was laid upon her, Mrs. Milvain nowproceeded with her story. She was elderly and fragile, but herchildlessness seemed always to impose these painful duties on her, andto revere the family, and to keep it in repair, had now become thechief object of her life. She told her story in a low, spasmodic, andsomewhat broken voice."I have suspected for some time that he was not happy. There were newlines on his face. So I went to his rooms, when I knew he was engagedat the poor men's college. He lectures there--Roman law, you know, orit may be Greek. The landlady said Mr. Alardyce only slept there aboutonce a fortnight now. He looked so ill, she said. She had seen himwith a young person. I suspected something directly. I went to hisroom, and there was an envelope on the mantelpiece, and a letter withan address in Seton Street, off the Kennington Road."Mrs. Hilbery fidgeted rather restlessly, and hummed fragments of hertune, as if to interrupt."I went to Seton Street," Aunt Celia continued firmly. "A very lowplace--lodging-houses, you know, with canaries in the window. Numberseven just like all the others. I rang, I knocked; no one came. I wentdown the area. I am certain I saw some one inside--children--a cradle.But no reply--no reply." She sighed, and looked straight in front ofher with a glazed expression in her half-veiled blue eyes."I stood in the street," she resumed, "in case I could catch a sightof one of them. It seemed a very long time. There were rough mensinging in the public-house round the corner. At last the door opened,and some one--it must have been the woman herself--came right past me.There was only the pillar-box between us.""And what did she look like?" Mrs. Hilbery demanded."One could see how the poor boy had been deluded," was all that Mrs.Milvain vouchsafed by way of description."Poor thing!" Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed."Poor Cyril!" Mrs. Milvain said, laying a slight emphasis upon Cyril."But they've got nothing to live upon," Mrs. Hilbery continued. "Ifhe'd come to us like a man," she went on, "and said, 'I've been afool,' one would have pitied him; one would have tried to help him.There's nothing so disgraceful after all-- But he's been going aboutall these years, pretending, letting one take it for granted, that hewas single. And the poor deserted little wife--""She is not his wife," Aunt Celia interrupted."I've never heard anything so detestable!" Mrs. Hilbery wound up,striking her fist on the arm of her chair. As she realized the factsshe became thoroughly disgusted, although, perhaps, she was more hurtby the concealment of the sin than by the sin itself. She lookedsplendidly roused and indignant; and Katharine felt an immense reliefand pride in her mother. It was plain that her indignation was verygenuine, and that her mind was as perfectly focused upon the facts asany one could wish--more so, by a long way, than Aunt Celia's mind,which seemed to be timidly circling, with a morbid pleasure, in theseunpleasant shades. She and her mother together would take thesituation in hand, visit Cyril, and see the whole thing through."We must realize Cyril's point of view first," she said, speakingdirectly to her mother, as if to a contemporary, but before the wordswere out of her mouth, there was more confusion outside, and CousinCaroline, Mrs. Hilbery's maiden cousin, entered the room. Although shewas by birth an Alardyce, and Aunt Celia a Hilbery, the complexitiesof the family relationship were such that each was at once first andsecond cousin to the other, and thus aunt and cousin to the culpritCyril, so that his misbehavior was almost as much Cousin Caroline'saffair as Aunt Celia's. Cousin Caroline was a lady of very imposingheight and circumference, but in spite of her size and her handsometrappings, there was something exposed and unsheltered in herexpression, as if for many summers her thin red skin and hooked noseand reduplication of chins, so much resembling the profile of acockatoo, had been bared to the weather; she was, indeed, a singlelady; but she had, it was the habit to say, "made a life for herself,"and was thus entitled to be heard with respect."This unhappy business," she began, out of breath as she was. "If thetrain had not gone out of the station just as I arrived, I should havebeen with you before. Celia has doubtless told you. You will agreewith me, Maggie. He must be made to marry her at once for the sake ofthe children--""But does he refuse to marry her?" Mrs. Hilbery inquired, with areturn of her bewilderment."He has written an absurd perverted letter, all quotations," CousinCaroline puffed. "He thinks he's doing a very fine thing, where weonly see the folly of it. . . . The girl's every bit as infatuated ashe is--for which I blame him.""She entangled him," Aunt Celia intervened, with a very curioussmoothness of intonation, which seemed to convey a vision of threadsweaving and interweaving a close, white mesh round their victim."It's no use going into the rights and wrongs of the affair now,Celia," said Cousin Caroline with some acerbity, for she believedherself the only practical one of the family, and regretted that,owing to the slowness of the kitchen clock, Mrs. Milvain had alreadyconfused poor dear Maggie with her own incomplete version of thefacts. "The mischief's done, and very ugly mischief too. Are we toallow the third child to be born out of wedlock? (I am sorry to haveto say these things before you, Katharine.) He will bear your name,Maggie--your father's name, remember.""But let us hope it will be a girl," said Mrs. Hilbery.Katharine, who had been looking at her mother constantly, while thechatter of tongues held sway, perceived that the look ofstraightforward indignation had already vanished; her mother wasevidently casting about in her mind for some method of escape, orbright spot, or sudden illumination which should show to thesatisfaction of everybody that all had happened, miraculously butincontestably, for the best."It's detestable--quite detestable!" she repeated, but in tones of nogreat assurance; and then her face lit up with a smile which,tentative at first, soon became almost assured. "Nowadays, peopledon't think so badly of these things as they used to do," she began."It will be horribly uncomfortable for them sometimes, but if they arebrave, clever children, as they will be, I dare say it'll makeremarkable people of them in the end. Robert Browning used to say thatevery great man has Jewish blood in him, and we must try to look at itin that light. And, after all, Cyril has acted on principle. One maydisagree with his principle, but, at least, one can respect it--likethe French Revolution, or Cromwell cutting the King's head off. Someof the most terrible things in history have been done on principle,"she concluded."I'm afraid I take a very different view of principle," CousinCaroline remarked tartly."Principle!" Aunt Celia repeated, with an air of deprecating such aword in such a connection. "I will go to-morrow and see him," sheadded."But why should you take these disagreeable things upon yourself,Celia?" Mrs. Hilbery interposed, and Cousin Caroline thereuponprotested with some further plan involving sacrifice of herself.Growing weary of it all, Katharine turned to the window, and stoodamong the folds of the curtain, pressing close to the window-pane, andgazing disconsolately at the river much in the attitude of a childdepressed by the meaningless talk of its elders. She was muchdisappointed in her mother--and in herself too. The little tug whichshe gave to the blind, letting it fly up to the top with a snap,signified her annoyance. She was very angry, and yet impotent to giveexpression to her anger, or know with whom she was angry. How theytalked and moralized and made up stories to suit their own version ofthe becoming, and secretly praised their own devotion and tact! No;they had their dwelling in a mist, she decided; hundreds of miles away--away from what? "Perhaps it would be better if I married William,"she thought suddenly, and the thought appeared to loom through themist like solid ground. She stood there, thinking of her own destiny,and the elder ladies talked on, until they had talked themselves intoa decision to ask the young woman to luncheon, and tell her, veryfriendlily, how such behavior appeared to women like themselves, whoknew the world. And then Mrs. Hilbery was struck by a better idea.