Chapter VII

by Virginia Woolf

　　And little Augustus Pelham said to me, 'It's the younger generationknocking at the door,' and I said to him, 'Oh, but the youngergeneration comes in without knocking, Mr. Pelham.' Such a feeblelittle joke, wasn't it, but down it went into his notebook all thesame.""Let us congratulate ourselves that we shall be in the grave beforethat work is published," said Mr. Hilbery.The elderly couple were waiting for the dinner-bell to ring and fortheir daughter to come into the room. Their arm-chairs were drawn upon either side of the fire, and each sat in the same slightly crouchedposition, looking into the coals, with the expressions of people whohave had their share of experiences and wait, rather passively, forsomething to happen. Mr. Hilbery now gave all his attention to a pieceof coal which had fallen out of the grate, and to selecting afavorable position for it among the lumps that were burning already.Mrs. Hilbery watched him in silence, and the smile changed on her lipsas if her mind still played with the events of the afternoon.When Mr. Hilbery had accomplished his task, he resumed his crouchingposition again, and began to toy with the little green stone attachedto his watch-chain. His deep, oval-shaped eyes were fixed upon theflames, but behind the superficial glaze seemed to brood an observantand whimsical spirit, which kept the brown of the eye still unusuallyvivid. But a look of indolence, the result of skepticism or of a tastetoo fastidious to be satisfied by the prizes and conclusions so easilywithin his grasp, lent him an expression almost of melancholy. Aftersitting thus for a time, he seemed to reach some point in his thinkingwhich demonstrated its futility, upon which he sighed and stretchedhis hand for a book lying on the table by his side.Directly the door opened he closed the book, and the eyes of fatherand mother both rested on Katharine as she came towards them. Thesight seemed at once to give them a motive which they had not hadbefore. To them she appeared, as she walked towards them in her lightevening dress, extremely young, and the sight of her refreshed them,were it only because her youth and ignorance made their knowledge ofthe world of some value."The only excuse for you, Katharine, is that dinner is still laterthan you are," said Mr. Hilbery, putting down his spectacles."I don't mind her being late when the result is so charming," saidMrs. Hilbery, looking with pride at her daughter. "Still, I don't knowthat I like your being out so late, Katharine," she continued. "Youtook a cab, I hope?"Here dinner was announced, and Mr. Hilbery formally led his wifedownstairs on his arm. They were all dressed for dinner, and, indeed,the prettiness of the dinner-table merited that compliment. There wasno cloth upon the table, and the china made regular circles of deepblue upon the shining brown wood. In the middle there was a bowl oftawny red and yellow chrysanthemums, and one of pure white, so freshthat the narrow petals were curved backwards into a firm white ball.From the surrounding walls the heads of three famous Victorian writerssurveyed this entertainment, and slips of paper pasted beneath themtestified in the great man's own handwriting that he was yourssincerely or affectionately or for ever. The father and daughter wouldhave been quite content, apparently, to eat their dinner in silence,or with a few cryptic remarks expressed in a shorthand which could notbe understood by the servants. But silence depressed Mrs. Hilbery, andfar from minding the presence of maids, she would often addressherself to them, and was never altogether unconscious of theirapproval or disapproval of her remarks. In the first place she calledthem to witness that the room was darker than usual, and had all thelights turned on."That's more cheerful," she exclaimed. "D'you know, Katharine, thatridiculous goose came to tea with me? Oh, how I wanted you! He triedto make epigrams all the time, and I got so nervous, expecting them,you know, that I spilt the tea--and he made an epigram about that!""Which ridiculous goose?" Katharine asked her father."Only one of my geese, happily, makes epigrams--Augustus Pelham, ofcourse," said Mrs. Hilbery."I'm not sorry that I was out," said Katharine."Poor Augustus!" Mrs. Hilbery exclaimed. "But we're all too hard onhim. Remember how devoted he is to his tiresome old mother.""That's only because she is his mother. Any one connected withhimself--""No, no, Katharine--that's too bad. That's--what's the word I mean,Trevor, something long and Latin--the sort of word you and Katharineknow--"Mr. Hilbery suggested "cynical.""Well, that'll do. I don't believe in sending girls to college, but Ishould teach them that sort of thing. It makes one feel so dignified,bringing out these little allusions, and passing on gracefully to thenext topic. But I don't know what's come over me--I actually had toask Augustus the name of the lady Hamlet was in love with, as you wereout, Katharine, and Heaven knows what he mayn't put down about me inhis diary.""I wish," Katharine started, with great impetuosity, and checkedherself. Her mother always stirred her to feel and think quickly, andthen she remembered that her father was there, listening withattention."What is it you wish?" he asked, as she paused.He often surprised her, thus, into telling him what she had not meantto tell him; and then they argued, while Mrs. Hilbery went on with herown thoughts."I wish mother wasn't famous. I was out at tea, and they would talk tome about poetry.""Thinking you must be poetical, I see--and aren't you?""Who's been talking to you about poetry, Katharine?" Mrs. Hilberydemanded, and Katharine was committed to giving her parents an accountof her visit to the Suffrage office."They have an office at the top of one of the old houses in RussellSquare. I never saw such queer-looking people. And the man discoveredI was related to the poet, and talked to me about poetry. Even MaryDatchet seems different in that atmosphere.""Yes, the office atmosphere is very bad for the soul," said Mr.Hilbery."I don't remember any offices in Russell Square in the old days, whenMamma lived there," Mrs. Hilbery mused, "and I can't fancy turning oneof those noble great rooms into a stuffy little Suffrage office.Still, if the clerks read poetry there must be something nice aboutthem.""No, because they don't read it as we read it," Katharine insisted."But it's nice to think of them reading your grandfather, and notfilling up those dreadful little forms all day long," Mrs. Hilberypersisted, her notion of office life being derived from some chanceview of a scene behind the counter at her bank, as she slipped thesovereigns into her purse."At any rate, they haven't made a convert of Katharine, which was whatI was afraid of," Mr. Hilbery remarked."Oh no," said Katharine very decidedly, "I wouldn't work with them foranything.""It's curious," Mr. Hilbery continued, agreeing with his daughter,"how the sight of one's fellow-enthusiasts always chokes one off. Theyshow up the faults of one's cause so much more plainly than one'santagonists. One can be enthusiastic in one's study, but directly onecomes into touch with the people who agree with one, all the glamorgoes. So I've always found," and he proceeded to tell them, as hepeeled his apple, how he committed himself once, in his youthful days,to make a speech at a political meeting, and went there ablaze withenthusiasm for the ideals of his own side; but while his leadersspoke, he became gradually converted to the other way of thinking, ifthinking it could be called, and had to feign illness in order toavoid making a fool of himself--an experience which had sickened himof public meetings.Katharine listened and felt as she generally did when her father, andto some extent her mother, described their feelings, that she quiteunderstood and agreed with them, but, at the same time, saw somethingwhich they did not see, and always felt some disappointment when theyfell short of her vision, as they always did. The plates succeededeach other swiftly and noiselessly in front of her, and the table wasdecked for dessert, and as the talk murmured on in familiar grooves,she sat there, rather like a judge, listening to her parents, who did,indeed, feel it very pleasant when they made her laugh.Daily life in a house where there are young and old is full of curiouslittle ceremonies and pieties, which are discharged quite punctually,though the meaning of them is obscure, and a mystery has come to broodover them which lends even a superstitious charm to their performance.Such was the nightly ceremony of the cigar and the glass of port,which were placed on the right hand and on the left hand of Mr.Hilbery, and simultaneously Mrs. Hilbery and Katharine left the room.All the years they had lived together they had never seen Mr. Hilberysmoke his cigar or drink his port, and they would have felt itunseemly if, by chance, they had surprised him as he sat there. Theseshort, but clearly marked, periods of separation between the sexeswere always used for an intimate postscript to what had been said atdinner, the sense of being women together coming out most stronglywhen the male sex was, as if by some religious rite, secluded from thefemale. Katharine knew by heart the sort of mood that possessed her asshe walked upstairs to the drawing-room, her mother's arm in hers; andshe could anticipate the pleasure with which, when she had turned onthe lights, they both regarded the drawing-room, fresh swept and setin order for the last section of the day, with the red parrotsswinging on the chintz curtains, and the arm-chairs warming in theblaze. Mrs. Hilbery stood over the fire, with one foot on the fender,and her skirts slightly raised."Oh, Katharine," she exclaimed, "how you've made me think of Mamma andthe old days in Russell Square! I can see the chandeliers, and thegreen silk of the piano, and Mamma sitting in her cashmere shawl bythe window, singing till the little ragamuffin boys outside stopped tolisten. Papa sent me in with a bunch of violets while he waited roundthe corner. It must have been a summer evening. That was before thingswere hopeless. . . ."As she spoke an expression of regret, which must have come frequentlyto cause the lines which now grew deep round the lips and eyes,settled on her face. The poet's marriage had not been a happy one. Hehad left his wife, and after some years of a rather recklessexistence, she had died, before her time. This disaster had led togreat irregularities of education, and, indeed, Mrs. Hilbery might besaid to have escaped education altogether. But she had been herfather's companion at the season when he wrote the finest of hispoems. She had sat on his knee in taverns and other haunts of drunkenpoets, and it was for her sake, so people said, that he had curedhimself of his dissipation, and become the irreproachable literarycharacter that the world knows, whose inspiration had deserted him. AsMrs. Hilbery grew old she thought more and more of the past, and thisancient disaster seemed at times almost to prey upon her mind, as ifshe could not pass out of life herself without laying the ghost of herparent's sorrow to rest.Katharine wished to comfort her mother, but it was difficult to dothis satisfactorily when the facts themselves were so much of alegend. The house in Russell Square, for example, with its noblerooms, and the magnolia-tree in the garden, and the sweet-voicedpiano, and the sound of feet coming down the corridors, and otherproperties of size and romance--had they any existence? Yet why shouldMrs. Alardyce live all alone in this gigantic mansion, and, if she didnot live alone, with whom did she live? For its own sake, Katharinerather liked this tragic story, and would have been glad to hear thedetails of it, and to have been able to discuss them frankly. But thisit became less and less possible to do, for though Mrs. Hilbery wasconstantly reverting to the story, it was always in this tentative andrestless fashion, as though by a touch here and there she could setthings straight which had been crooked these sixty years. Perhaps,indeed, she no longer knew what the truth was."If they'd lived now," she concluded, "I feel it wouldn't havehappened. People aren't so set upon tragedy as they were then. If myfather had been able to go round the world, or if she'd had a restcure, everything would have come right. But what could I do? And thenthey had bad friends, both of them, who made mischief. Ah, Katharine,when you marry, be quite, quite sure that you love your husband!"The tears stood in Mrs. Hilbery's eyes.While comforting her, Katharine thought to herself, "Now this is whatMary Datchet and Mr. Denham don't understand. This is the sort ofposition I'm always getting into. How simple it must be to live asthey do!" for all the evening she had been comparing her home and herfather and mother with the Suffrage office and the people there."But, Katharine," Mrs. Hilbery continued, with one of her suddenchanges of mood, "though, Heaven knows, I don't want to see youmarried, surely if ever a man loved a woman, William loves you. Andit's a nice, rich-sounding name too--Katharine Rodney, which,unfortunately, doesn't mean that he's got any money, because hehasn't."The alteration of her name annoyed Katharine, and she observed, rathersharply, that she didn't want to marry any one."It's very dull that you can only marry one husband, certainly," Mrs.Hilbery reflected. "I always wish that you could marry everybody whowants to marry you. Perhaps they'll come to that in time, butmeanwhile I confess that dear William--" But here Mr. Hilbery came in,and the more solid part of the evening began. This consisted in thereading aloud by Katharine from some prose work or other, while hermother knitted scarves intermittently on a little circular frame, andher father read the newspaper, not so attentively but that he couldcomment humorously now and again upon the fortunes of the hero and theheroine. The Hilberys subscribed to a library, which delivered bookson Tuesdays and Fridays, and Katharine did her best to interest herparents in the works of living and highly respectable authors; butMrs. Hilbery was perturbed by the very look of the light, gold-wreathed volumes, and would make little faces as if she tastedsomething bitter as the reading went on; while Mr. Hilbery would treatthe moderns with a curious elaborate banter such as one might apply tothe antics of a promising child. So this evening, after five pages orso of one of these masters, Mrs. Hilbery protested that it was all tooclever and cheap and nasty for words."Please, Katharine, read us something real."Katharine had to go to the bookcase and choose a portly volume insleek, yellow calf, which had directly a sedative effect upon both herparents. But the delivery of the evening post broke in upon theperiods of Henry Fielding, and Katharine found that her letters neededall her attention.