第 40 页

and she was utterly alone with him, utterly alone in another

world, everything, everything foreign, even he foreign to her.

Then came the real marriage, passion came to her, and she became

his slave, he was her lord, her lord. She was the girl-bride,

the slave, she kissed his feet, she had thought it an honour to

touch his body, to unfasten his boots. For two years, she had

gone on as his slave, crouching at his feet, embracing his

knees.

Children had come, he had followed his ideas. She was there

for him, just to keep him in condition. She was to him one of

the baser or material conditions necessary for his welfare in

prosecuting his ideas, of nationalism, of liberty, of

science.

But gradually, at twenty-three, twenty-four, she began to

realize that she too might consider these ideas. By his

acceptance of her self-subordination, he exhausted the feeling

in her. There were those of his associates who would discuss the

ideas with her, though he did not wish to do so himself. She

adventured into the minds of other men. His, then, was not the

only male mind! She did not exist, then, just as his attribute!

She began to perceive the attention of other men. An excitement

came over her. She remembered now the men who had paid her

court, when she was married, in Warsaw.

Then the rebellion broke out, and she was inspired too. She

would go as a nurse at her husband's side. He worked like a

lion, he wore his life out. And she followed him helplessly. But

she disbelieved in him. He was so separate, he ignored so much.

He counted too much on himself. His work, his ideas,--did

nothing else matter?

Then the children were dead, and for her, everything became

remote. He became remote. She saw him, she saw him go white when

he heard the news, then frown, as if he thought, "Why

have they died now, when I have no time to grieve?"

"He has no time to grieve," she had said, in her remote,

awful soul. "He has no time. It is so important, what he does!

He is then so self-important, this half-frenzied man! Nothing

matters, but this work of rebellion! He has not time to grieve,

nor to think of his children! He had not time even to beget

them, really."

She had let him go on alone. But, in the chaos, she had

worked by his side again. And out of the chaos, she had fled

with him to London.

He was a broken, cold man. He had no affection for her, nor

for anyone. He had failed in his work, so everything had failed.

He stiffened, and died.

She could not subscribe. He had failed, everything had

failed, yet behind the failure was the unyielding passion of

life. The individual effort might fail, but not the human joy.

She belonged to the human joy.

He died and went his way, but not before there was another

child. And this little Ursula was his grandchild. She was glad

of it. For she still honoured him, though he had been

mistaken.

She, Lydia Brangwen, was sorry for him now. He was

dead--he had scarcely lived. He had never known her. He had

lain with her, but he had never known her. He had never received

what she could give him. He had gone away from her empty. So, he

had never lived. So, he had died and passed away. Yet there had

been strength and power in him.

She could scarcely forgive him that he had never lived. If it

were not for Anna, and for this little Ursula, who had his

brows, there would be no more left of him than of a broken

vessel thrown away, and just remembered.

Tom Brangwen had served her. He had come to her, and taken

from her. He had died and gone his way into death. But he had

made himself immortal in his knowledge with her. So she had her

place here, in life, and in immortality. For he had taken his

knowledge of her into death, so that she had her place in death.

"In my father's house are many mansions."

She loved both her husbands. To one she had been a naked

little girl-bride, running to serve him. The other she loved out

of fulfilment, because he was good and had given her being,

because he had served her honourably, and become her man, one

with her.

She was established in this stretch of life, she had come to

herself. During her first marriage, she had not existed, except

through him, he was the substance and she the shadow running at

his feet. She was very glad she had come to her own self. She

was grateful to Brangwen. She reached out to him in gratitude,

into death.

In her heart she felt a vague tenderness and pity for her

first husband, who had been her lord. He was so wrong when he

died. She could not bear it, that he had never lived, never

really become himself. And he had been her lord! Strange, it all

had been! Why had he been her lord? He seemed now so far off, so

without bearing on her.

"Which did you, grandmother?"

"What?"

"Like best."

"I liked them both. I married the first when I was quite a

girl. Then I loved your grandfather when I was a woman. There is

a difference."

They were silent for a time.

"Did you cry when my first grandfather died?" the child

asked.

Lydia Brangwen rocked herself on the bed, thinking aloud.

"When we came to England, he hardly ever spoke, he was too

much concerned to take any notice of anybody. He grew thinner

and thinner, till his cheeks were hollow and his mouth stuck

out. He wasn't handsome any more. I knew he couldn't bear being

beaten, I thought everything was lost in the world. Only I had

your mother a baby, it was no use my dying.

"He looked at me with his black eyes, almost as if he hated

me, when he was ill, and said, 'It only wanted this. It only

wanted that I should leave you and a young child to starve in

this London.' I told him we should not starve. But I was young,

and foolish, and frightened, which he knew.

"He was bitter, and he never gave way. He lay beating his

brains, to see what he could do. 'I don't know what you will

do,' he said. 'I am no good, I am a failure from beginning to

end. I cannot even provide for my wife and child!'

"But you see, it was not for him to provide for us. My life

went on, though his stopped, and I married your grandfather.

"I ought to have known, I ought to have been able to say to

him: 'Don't be so bitter, don't die because this has failed. You

are not the beginning and the end.' But I was too young, he had

never let me become myself, I thought he was truly the beginning

and the end. So I let him take all upon himself. Yet all did not

depend on him. Life must go on, and I must marry your

grandfather, and have your Uncle Tom, and your Uncle Fred. We

cannot take so much upon ourselves."

The child's heart beat fast as she listened to these things.

She could not understand, but she seemed to feel far-off things.

It gave her a deep, joyous thrill, to know she hailed from far

off, from Poland, and that dark-bearded impressive man. Strange,

her antecedents were, and she felt fate on either side of her

terrible.

Almost every day, Ursula saw her grandmother, and every time,

they talked together. Till the grandmother's sayings and

stories, told in the complete hush of the Marsh bedroom,

accumulated with mystic significance, and became a sort of Bible

to the child.

And Ursula asked her deepest childish questions of her

grandmother.

"Will somebody love me, grandmother?"

"Many people love you, child. We all love you."

"But when I am grown up, will somebody love me?"

"Yes, some man will love you, child, because it's your

nature. And I hope it will be somebody who will love you for

what you are, and not for what he wants of you. But we have a

right to what we want."

Ursula was frightened, hearing these things. Her heart sank,

she felt she had no ground under her feet. She clung to her

grandmother. Here was peace and security. Here, from her

grandmother's peaceful room, the door opened on to the greater

space, the past, which was so big, that all it contained seemed

tiny, loves and births and deaths, tiny units and features

within a vast horizon. That was a great relief, to know the tiny

importance of the individual, within the great past.

CHAPTER X

THE WIDENING CIRCLE

It was very burdensome to Ursula, that she was the eldest of

the family. By the time she was eleven, she had to take to

school Gudrun and Theresa and Catherine. The boy, William,

always called Billy, so that he should not be confused with his

father, was a lovable, rather delicate child of three, so he

stayed at home as yet. There was another baby girl, called

Cassandra.

The children went for a time to the little church school just

near the Marsh. It was the only place within reach, and being so

small, Mrs. Brangwen felt safe in sending her children there,

though the village boys did nickname Ursula "Urtler", and Gudrun

"Good-runner", and Theresa "Tea-pot".

Gudrun and Ursula were co-mates. The second child, with her

long, sleepy body and her endless chain of fancies, would have

nothing to do with realities. She was not for them, she was for

her own fancies. Ursula was the one for realities. So Gudrun

left all such to her elder sister, and trusted in her

implicitly, indifferently. Ursula had a great tenderness for her

co-mate sister.

It was no good trying to make Gudrun responsible. She floated

along like a fish in the sea, perfect within the medium of her

own difference and being. Other existence did not trouble her.

Only she believed in Ursula, and trusted to Ursula.

The eldest child was very much fretted by her responsibility

for the other young ones. Especially Theresa, a sturdy,

bold-eyed thing, had a faculty for warfare.

"Our Ursula, Billy Pillins has lugged my hair."

"What did you say to him?"

"I said nothing."

Then the Brangwen girls were in for a feud with the

Pillinses, or Phillipses.

"You won't pull my hair again, Billy Pillins," said Theresa,

walking with her sisters, and looking superbly at the freckled,

red-haired boy.

"Why shan't I?" retorted Billy Pillins.

"You won't because you dursn't," said the tiresome

Theresa.

"You come here, then, Tea-pot, an' see if I dursna."

Up marched Tea-pot, and immediately Billy Pillins lugged her

black, snaky locks. In a rage she flew at him. Immediately in

rushed Ursula and Gudrun, and little Katie, in clashed the other

Phillipses, Clem and Walter, and Eddie Anthony. Then there was a

fray. The Brangwen girls were well-grown and stronger than many

boys. But for pinafores and long hair, they would have carried

easy victories. They went home, however, with hair lugged and

pinafores torn. It was a joy to the Phillips boys to rip the

pinafores of the Brangwen girls.

Then there was an outcry. Mrs. Brangwen would not have

it; no, she would not. All her innate dignity and

standoffishness rose up. Then there was the vicar lecturing the

school. "It was a sad thing that the boys of Cossethay could not

behave more like gentlemen to the girls of Cossethay. Indeed,

what kind of boy was it that should set upon a girl, and kick

her, and beat her, and tear her pinafore? That boy deserved

severe castigation, and the name of coward, for no boy

who was not a coward--etc., etc."

Meanwhile much hang-dog fury in the Pillinses' hearts, much

virtue in the Brangwen girls', particularly in Theresa's. And

the feud continued, with periods of extraordinary amity, when

Ursula was Clem Phillips's sweetheart, and Gudrun was Walter's,

and Theresa was Billy's, and even the tiny Katie had to be Eddie

Ant'ny's sweetheart. There was the closest union. At every

possible moment the little gang of Brangwens and Phillipses flew

together. Yet neither Ursula nor Gudrun would have any real

intimacy with the Phillips boys. It was a sort of fiction to

them, this alliance and this dubbing of sweethearts.

Again Mrs. Brangwen rose up.

"Ursula, I will not have you raking the roads with

lads, so I tell you. Now stop it, and the rest will stop

it."

How Ursula hated always to represent the little

Brangwen club. She could never be herself, no, she was always

Ursula-Gudrun-Theresa-Catherine--and later even Billy was

added on to her. Moreover, she did not want the Phillipses

either. She was out of taste with them.

However, the Brangwen-Pillins coalition readily broke down,

owing to the unfair superiority of the Brangwens. The Brangwens

were rich. They had free access to the Marsh Farm. The school

teachers were almost respectful to the girls, the vicar spoke to

them on equal terms. The Brangwen girls presumed, they tossed

their heads.

"You're not ivrybody, Urtler Brangwin, ugly-mug," said

Clem Phillips, his face going very red.

"I'm better than you, for all that," retorted Urtler.

"You think you are--wi' a face like

that--Ugly Mug,--Urtler Brangwin," he began to jeer,

trying to set all the others in cry against her. Then there was

hostility again. How she hated their jeering. She became

cold against the Phillipses. Ursula was very proud in her

family. The Brangwen girls had all a curious blind dignity, even

a kind of nobility in their bearing. By some result of breed and

upbringing, they seemed to rush along their own lives without

caring that they existed to other people. Never from the start

did it occur to Ursula that other people might hold a low

opinion of her. She thought that whosoever knew her, knew she

was enough and accepted her as such. She thought it was a world

of people like herself. She suffered bitterly if she were forced

to have a low opinion of any person, and she never forgave that

person.

This was maddening to many little people. All their lives,

the Brangwens were meeting folk who tried to pull them down to