The Hours by Cunningham Michael

Author:Cunningham, Michael [Cunningham, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Virginia - Influence, Literary Criticism, Woolf, Fiction
ISBN: 9780312305062
Publisher: MacMillan
Published: 2002-10-22T07:00:00+00:00

Mrs. Woolf

She is reading proofs with Leonard and Ralph when Lottie announces that Mrs. Bell and the children have arrived.

“That can’t be,” Virginia says. “It’s not two-thirty yet. They’re coming at four.”

“They’re here, ma’am,” says Lottie in her slightly numbed tone. “Mrs. Bell has gone straight into the parlor.”

Marjorie glances up from the parcel of books she’s been wrapping in twine (she, unlike Ralph, will compliantly wrap parcels and sort type, which is a blessing and a disappointment). She says, “Is it two-thirty already? I’d hoped to have these off by now.” Virginia does not wince, not visibly, at the sound of Marjorie’s voice.

Leonard says sternly to Virginia, “I can’t stop working. I will make my contracted appearance at four o’clock, and if Vanessa chooses to remain that long, I’ll see her then.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll attend to Vanessa,” Virginia says, and as she stands she’s aware of her disheveled housedress, the lank disorder of her hair. It’s only my sister, she thinks, but still, after all this time, after everything that’s happened, she wants to inspire in Vanessa a certain surprised admiration. Still she wants her sister to think, “The goat’s really looking rather well, isn’t she?”

Virginia is not looking particularly well, and there’s not much she can do about it, but at least by four o’clock she’d have fixed her hair and changed her dress. She follows Lottie upstairs, and as she passes the oval mirror that hangs in the foyer she is tempted, briefly, to look at her reflection. But she can’t. Squaring her shoulders, she enters the parlor. Vanessa will be her mirror, just as she’s always been. Vanessa is her ship, her strip of green coastline where bees hum among the grapes.

She kisses Vanessa, chastely, on the mouth.

“Darling,” says Virginia, holding her sister’s shoulders in her hands. “If I tell you I’m enchanted to see you now, I’m sure you can imagine how ecstatic I’d have been to see you at the hour you were actually expected.”

Vanessa laughs. Vanessa is firm of face, her skin a brilliant, scalded pink. Although she is three years older, she looks younger than Virginia, and both of them know it. If Virginia has the austere, parched beauty of a Giotto fresco, Vanessa is more like a figure sculpted in rosy marble by a skilled but minor artist of the late Baroque. She is a distinctly earthly and even decorative figure, all billows and scrolls, her face and body rendered in an affectionate, slightly sentimentalized attempt to depict a state of human abundance so lavish it edges over into the ethereal.

“Forgive me,” Vanessa says. “We got finished in London earlier than I’d ever imagined we would, and our only other choice was to drive in circles around Richmond until four o’clock.”

“And what have you done with the children?” Virginia asks.

“They’ve gone around to the garden. Quentin found a dying bird in the road, and they seem to believe it needs to be in the garden.”

“I’m sure their old Aunt Virginia is no competition for that.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.