Her near presence, however, had a calming and reassuring
effect upon his agitation, and he was conscious only
of an implicit trust that, somehow, he was safe with her,
that she would see him through, find out what it was
that he wanted, and procure it for him.
“I wish to do whatever you tell me to do,” he said. “I
put myself entirely in your hands, Katharine.”
“You must try to tell me what you feel,” she said.
“My dear, I feel a thousand things every second. I don’t
know, I’m sure, what I feel. That afternoon on the heath—
it was then—then—” He broke off; he did not tell her
what had happened then. “Your ghastly good sense, as
usual, has convinced me—for the moment—but what the
truth is, Heaven only knows!” he exclaimed.
“Isn’t it the truth that you are, or might be, in love
with Cassandra?” she said gently.
William bowed his head. After a moment’s silence he
murmured:
“I believe you’re right, Katharine.”
She sighed, involuntarily. She had been hoping all this
time, with an intensity that increased second by second
against the current of her words, that it would not in the
end come to this. After a moment of surprising anguish,
she summoned her courage to tell him how she wished
only that she might help him, and had framed the first
words of her speech when a knock, terrific and startling
251
Night and Day
to people in their overwrought condition, sounded upon
the door.
“Katharine, I worship you,” he urged, half in a whisper.
“Yes,” she replied, withdrawing with a little shiver, “but
you must open the door.”
CHAPTER XXIII
When Ralph Denham entered the room and saw Katharine
seated with her back to him, he was conscious of a change
in the grade of the atmosphere such as a traveler meets
with sometimes upon the roads, particularly after sunset,
when, without warning, he runs from clammy chill to a
hoard of unspent warmth in which the sweetness of hay
and beanfield is cherished, as if the sun still shone although
the moon is up. He hesitated; he shuddered; he
walked elaborately to the window and laid aside his coat.
He balanced his stick most carefully against the folds of
the curtain. Thus occupied with his own sensations and
preparations, he had little time to observe what either of
the other two was feeling. Such symptoms of agitation
as he might perceive (and they had left their tokens in
brightness of eye and pallor of cheeks) seemed to him
well befitting the actors in so great a drama as that of
Katharine Hilbery’s daily life. Beauty and passion were
the breath of her being, he thought.
She scarcely noticed his presence, or only as it forced
252
Virginia Woolf
her to adopt a manner of composure, which she was certainly
far from feeling. William, however, was even more
agitated than she was, and her first instalment of promised
help took the form of some commonplace upon the
age of the building or the architect’s name, which gave
him an excuse to fumble in a drawer for certain designs,
which he laid upon the table between the three of them.
Which of the three followed the designs most carefully
it would be difficult to tell, but it is certain that not one
of the three found for the moment anything to say. Years
of training in a drawing-room came at length to Katharine’s
help, and she said something suitable, at the same moment
withdrawing her hand from the table because she
perceived that it trembled. William agreed effusively;
Denham corroborated him, speaking in rather high-pitched
tones; they thrust aside the plans, and drew nearer to the
fireplace.
“I’d rather live here than anywhere in the whole of London,”
said Denham.
(“And I’ve got nowhere to live”) Katharine thought, as
she agreed aloud.
“You could get rooms here, no doubt, if you wanted
to,” Rodney replied.
“But I’m just leaving London for good—I’ve taken that
cottage I was telling you about.” The announcement
seemed to convey very little to either of his hearers.
“Indeed?—that’s sad… . You must give me your address.
But you won’t cut yourself off altogether, surely—”
“You’ll be moving, too, I suppose,” Denham remarked.
William showed such visible signs of floundering that
Katharine collected herself and asked:
“Where is the cottage you’ve taken?”
In answering her, Denham turned and looked at her. As
their eyes met, she realized for the first time that she
was talking to Ralph Denham, and she remembered, without
recalling any details, that she had been speaking of
him quite lately, and that she had reason to think ill of
him. What Mary had said she could not remember, but
she felt that there was a mass of knowledge in her mind
which she had not had time to examine—knowledge now
lying on the far side of a gulf. But her agitation flashed
the queerest lights upon her past. She must get through
253
Night and Day
the matter in hand, and then think it out in quiet. She
bent her mind to follow what Ralph was saying. He was
telling her that he had taken a cottage in Norfolk, and
she was saying that she knew, or did not know, that particular
neighborhood. But after a moment’s attention her
mind flew to Rodney, and she had an unusual, indeed
unprecedented, sense that they were in touch and shared
each other’s thoughts. If only Ralph were not there, she
would at once give way to her desire to take William’s
hand, then to bend his head upon her shoulder, for this
was what she wanted to do more than anything at the
moment, unless, indeed, she wished more than anything
to be alone—yes, that was what she wanted. She was
sick to death of these discussions; she shivered at the
effort to reveal her feelings. She had forgotten to answer.
William was speaking now.
“But what will you find to do in the country?” she asked
at random, striking into a conversation which she had
only half heard, in such a way as to make both Rodney
and Denham look at her with a little surprise. But directly
she took up the conversation, it was William’s turn
to fall silent. He at once forgot to listen to what they
were saying, although he interposed nervously at intervals,
“Yes, yes, yes.” As the minutes passed, Ralph’s presence
became more and more intolerable to him, since
there was so much that he must say to Katharine; the
moment he could not talk to her, terrible doubts, unanswerable
questions accumulated, which he must lay before
Katharine, for she alone could help him now. Unless
he could see her alone, it would be impossible for him
ever to sleep, or to know what he had said in a moment
of madness, which was not altogether mad, or was it
mad? He nodded his head, and said, nervously, “Yes, yes,”
and looked at Katharine, and thought how beautiful she
looked; there was no one in the world that he admired
more. There was an emotion in her face which lent it an
expression he had never seen there. Then, as he was turning
over means by which he could speak to her alone, she
rose, and he was taken by surprise, for he had counted on
the fact that she would outstay Denham. His only chance,
then, of saying something to her in private, was to take
her downstairs and walk with her to the street. While he
254
Virginia Woolf
hesitated, however, overcome with the difficulty of putting
one simple thought into words when all his thoughts
were scattered about, and all were too strong for utterance,
he was struck silent by something that was still
more unexpected. Denham got up from his chair, looked
at Katharine, and said:
“I’m going, too. Shall we go together?”
And before William could see any way of detaining him—
or would it be better to detain Katharine?—he had taken
his hat, stick, and was holding the door open for Katharine
to pass out. The most that William could do was to stand
at the head of the stairs and say good-night. He could
not offer to go with them. He could not insist that she
should stay. He watched her descend, rather slowly, owing
to the dusk of the staircase, and he had a last sight of
Denham’s head and of Katharine’s head near together,
against the panels, when suddenly a pang of acute jealousy
overcame him, and had he not remained conscious
of the slippers upon his feet, he would have run after
them or cried out. As it was he could not move from the
spot. At the turn of the staircase Katharine turned to
look back, trusting to this last glance to seal their compact
of good friendship. Instead of returning her silent
greeting, William grinned back at her a cold stare of sarcasm
or of rage.
She stopped dead for a moment, and then descended
slowly into the court. She looked to the right and to the
left, and once up into the sky. She was only conscious of
Denham as a block upon her thoughts. She measured the
distance that must be traversed before she would be alone.
But when they came to the Strand no cabs were to be
seen, and Denham broke the silence by saying:
“There seem to be no cabs. Shall we walk on a little?”
“Very well,” she agreed, paying no attention to him.
Aware of her preoccupation, or absorbed in his own
thoughts, Ralph said nothing further; and in silence they
walked some distance along the Strand. Ralph was doing
his best to put his thoughts into such order that one
came before the rest, and the determination that when
he spoke he should speak worthily, made him put off the
moment of speaking till he had found the exact words
and even the place that best suited him. The Strand was
255
Night and Day
too busy. There was too much risk, also, of finding an
empty cab. Without a word of explanation he turned to
the left, down one of the side streets leading to the river.
On no account must they part until something of the very
greatest importance had happened. He knew perfectly
well what he wished to say, and had arranged not only
the substance, but the order in which he was to say it.
Now, however, that he was alone with her, not only did
he find the difficulty of speaking almost insurmountable,
but he was aware that he was angry with her for thus
disturbing him, and casting, as it was so easy for a person
of her advantages to do, these phantoms and pitfalls
across his path. He was determined that he would question
her as severely as he would question himself; and
make them both, once and for all, either justify her dominance
or renounce it. But the longer they walked thus
alone, the more he was disturbed by the sense of her
actual presence. Her skirt blew; the feathers in her hat
waved; sometimes he saw her a step or two ahead of him,
or had to wait for her to catch him up.
The silence was prolonged, and at length drew her at
tention to him. First she was annoyed that there was no
cab to free her from his company; then she recalled vaguely
something that Mary had said to make her think ill of
him; she could not remember what, but the recollection,
combined with his masterful ways—why did he walk so
fast down this side street?—made her more and more
conscious of a person of marked, though disagreeable,
force by her side. She stopped and, looking round her for
a cab, sighted one in the distance. He was thus precipitated
into speech.
“Should you mind if we walked a little farther?” he asked.
“There’s something I want to say to you.”
“Very well,” she replied, guessing that his request had
something to do with Mary Datchet.
“It’s quieter by the river,” he said, and instantly he
crossed over. “I want to ask you merely this,” he began.
But he paused so long that she could see his head against
the sky; the slope of his thin cheek and his large, strong
nose were clearly marked against it. While he paused,
words that were quite different from those he intended
to use presented themselves.
256
Virginia Woolf
“I’ve made you my standard ever since I saw you. I’ve
dreamt about you; I’ve thought of nothing but you; you
represent to me the only reality in the world.”
His words, and the queer strained voice in which he
spoke them, made it appear as if he addressed some person
who was not the woman beside him, but some one
far away.
“And now things have come to such a pass that, unless
I can speak to you openly, I believe I shall go mad. I
think of you as the most beautiful, the truest thing in
the world,” he continued, filled with a sense of exaltation,
and feeling that he had no need now to choose his
words with pedantic accuracy, for what he wanted to say
was suddenly become plain to him.
“I see you everywhere, in the stars, in the river; to me
you’re everything that exists; the reality of everything.
Life, I tell you, would be impossible without you. And
now I want—”
She had heard him so far with a feeling that she had
dropped some material word which made sense of the
rest. She could hear no more of this unintelligible ram
bling without checking him. She felt that she was overhearing
what was meant for another.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “You’re saying things
that you don’t mean.”
“I mean every word I say,” he replied, emphatically. He
turned his head towards her. She recovered the words she
was searching for while he spoke. “Ralph Denham is in
love with you.” They came back to her in Mary Datchet’s
voice. Her anger blazed up in her.
“I saw Mary Datchet this afternoon,” she exclaimed.
He made a movement as if he were surprised or taken
aback, but answered in a moment:
“She told you that I had asked her to marry me, I suppose?”
“No!” Katharine exclaimed, in surprise.
“I did though. It was the day I saw you at Lincoln,” he
continued. “I had meant to ask her to marry me, and
then I looked out of the window and saw you. After that
I didn’t want to ask any one to marry me. But I did it; and
