第 52 页

nine months hence, tiny, folded up, and left there waiting, a

flash of triumph and love went over her.

"I could never die while there was a tree," she said

passionately, sententiously, standing before a great ash in

worship.

It was the people who, somehow, walked as an upright menace

to her. Her life at this time was unformed, palpitating,

essentially shrinking from all touch. She gave something to

other people, but she was never herself, since she had no self.

She was not afraid nor ashamed before trees, and birds, and the

sky. But she shrank violently from people, ashamed she was not

as they were, fixed, emphatic, but a wavering, undefined

sensibility only, without form or being.

Gudrun was at this time a great comfort and shield to her.

The younger girl was a lithe, farouche animal, who

mistrusted all approach, and would have none of the petty

secrecies and jealousies of schoolgirl intimacy. She would have

no truck with the tame cats, nice or not, because she believed

that they were all only untamed cats with a nasty, untrustworthy

habit of tameness.

This was a great stand-back for Ursula, who suffered agonies

when she thought a person disliked her, no matter how much she

despised that other person. How could anyone dislike her, Ursula

Brangwen? The question terrified her and was unanswerable. She

sought refuge in Gudrun's natural, proud indifference.

It had been discovered that Gudrun had a talent for drawing.

This solved the problem of the girl's indifference to all study.

It was said of her, "She can draw marvellously."

Suddenly Ursula found a queer awareness existed between

herself and her class-mistress, Miss Inger. The latter was a

rather beautiful woman of twenty-eight, a fearless-seeming,

clean type of modern girl whose very independence betrays her

sorrow. She was clever, and expert in what she did, accurate,

quick, commanding.

To Ursula she had always given pleasure, because of her

clear, decided, yet graceful appearance. She carried her head

high, a little thrown back, and Ursula thought there was a look

of nobility in the way she twisted her smooth brown hair upon

her head. She always wore clean, attractive, well-fitting

blouses, and a well-made skirt. Everything about her was so

well-ordered, betraying a fine, clear spirit, that it was a

pleasure to sit in her class.

Her voice was just as ringing and clear, and with unwavering,

finely-touched modulation. Her eyes were blue, clear, proud, she

gave one altogether the sense of a fine-mettled, scrupulously

groomed person, and of an unyielding mind. Yet there was an

infinite poignancy about her, a great pathos in her lonely,

proudly closed mouth.

It was after Skrebensky had gone that there sprang up between

the mistress and the girl that strange awareness, then the

unspoken intimacy that sometimes connects two people who may

never even make each other's acquaintance. Before, they had

always been good friends, in the undistinguished way of the

class-room, with the professional relationship of mistress and

scholar always present. Now, however, another thing came to

pass. When they were in the room together, they were aware of

each other, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Winifred

Inger felt a hot delight in the lessons when Ursula was present,

Ursula felt her whole life begin when Miss Inger came into the

room. Then, with the beloved, subtly-intimate teacher present,

the girl sat as within the rays of some enrichening sun, whose

intoxicating heat poured straight into her veins.

The state of bliss, when Miss Inger was present, was supreme

in the girl, but always eager, eager. As she went home, Ursula

dreamed of the schoolmistress, made infinite dreams of things

she could give her, of how she might make the elder woman adore

her.

Miss Inger was a Bachelor of Arts, who had studied at

Newnham. She was a clergyman's daughter, of good family. But

what Ursula adored so much was her fine, upright, athletic

bearing, and her indomitably proud nature. She was proud and

free as a man, yet exquisite as a woman.

The girl's heart burned in her breast as she set off for

school in the morning. So eager was her breast, so glad her

feet, to travel towards the beloved. Ah, Miss Inger, how

straight and fine was her back, how strong her loins, how calm

and free her limbs!

Ursula craved ceaselessly to know if Miss Inger cared for

her. As yet no definite sign had been passed between the two.

Yet surely, surely Miss Inger loved her too, was fond of her,

liked her at least more than the rest of the scholars in the

class. Yet she was never certain. It might be that Miss Inger

cared nothing for her. And yet, and yet, with blazing heart,

Ursula felt that if only she could speak to her, touch her, she

would know.

The summer term came, and with it the swimming class. Miss

Inger was to take the swimming class. Then Ursula trembled and

was dazed with passion. Her hopes were soon to be realized. She

would see Miss Inger in her bathing dress.

The day came. In the great bath the water was glimmering pale

emerald green, a lovely, glimmering mass of colour within the

whitish marble-like confines. Overhead the light fell softly and

the great green body of pure water moved under it as someone

dived from the side.

Ursula, trembling, hardly able to contain herself, pulled off

her clothes, put on her tight bathing-suit, and opened the door

of her cabin. Two girls were in the water. The mistress had not

appeared. She waited. A door opened. Miss Inger came out,

dressed in a rust-red tunic like a Greek girl's, tied round the

waist, and a red silk handkerchief round her head. How lovely

she looked! Her knees were so white and strong and proud, and

she was firm-bodied as Diana. She walked simply to the side of

the bath, and with a negligent movement, flung herself in. For a

moment Ursula watched the white, smooth, strong shoulders, and

the easy arms swimming. Then she too dived into the water.

Now, ah now, she was swimming in the same water with her dear

mistress. The girl moved her limbs voluptuously, and swam by

herself, deliciously, yet with a craving of unsatisfaction. She

wanted to touch the other, to touch her, to feel her.

"I will race you, Ursula," came the well-modulated voice.

Ursula started violently. She turned to see the warm,

unfolded face of her mistress looking at her, to her. She was

acknowledged. Laughing her own beautiful, startled laugh, she

began to swim. The mistress was just ahead, swimming with easy

strokes. Ursula could see the head put back, the water

flickering upon the white shoulders, the strong legs kicking

shadowily. And she swam blinded with passion. Ah, the beauty of

the firm, white, cool flesh! Ah, the wonderful firm limbs. Ah,

if she did not so despise her own thin, dusky fragment of a

body, if only she too were fearless and capable.

She swam on eagerly, not wanting to win, only wanting to be

near her mistress, to swim in a race with her. They neared the

end of the bath, the deep end. Miss Inger touched the pipe,

swung herself round, and caught Ursula round the waist in the

water, and held her for a moment.

"I won," said Miss Inger, laughing.

There was a moment of suspense. Ursula's heart was beating so

fast, she clung to the rail, and could not move. Her dilated,

warm, unfolded, glowing face turned to the mistress, as if to

her very sun.

"Good-bye," said Miss Inger, and she swam away to the other

pupils, taking professional interest in them.

Ursula was dazed. She could still feel the touch of the

mistress's body against her own--only this, only this. The

rest of the swimming time passed like a trance. When the call

was given to leave the water, Miss Inger walked down the bath

towards Ursula. Her rust-red, thin tunic was clinging to her,

the whole body was defined, firm and magnificent, as it seemed

to the girl.

"I enjoyed our race, Ursula, did you?" said Miss Inger.

The girl could only laugh with revealed, open, glowing

face.

The love was now tacitly confessed. But it was some time

before any further progress was made. Ursula continued in

suspense, in inflamed bliss.

Then one day, when she was alone, the mistress came near to

her, and touching her cheek with her fingers, said with some

difficulty.

"Would you like to come to tea with me on Saturday,

Ursula?"

The girl flushed all gratitude.

"We'll go to a lovely little bungalow on the Soar, shall we?

I stay the week-ends there sometimes."

Ursula was beside herself. She could not endure till the

Saturday came, her thoughts burned up like a fire. If only it

were Saturday, if only it were Saturday.

Then Saturday came, and she set out. Miss Inger met her in

Sawley, and they walked about three miles to the bungalow. It

was a moist, warm cloudy day.

The bungalow was a tiny, two-roomed shanty set on a steep

bank. Everything in it was exquisite. In delicious privacy, the

two girls made tea, and then they talked. Ursula need not be

home till about ten o'clock.

The talk was led, by a kind of spell, to love. Miss Inger was

telling Ursula of a friend, how she had died in childbirth, and

what she had suffered; then she told of a prostitute, and of

some of her experiences with men.

As they talked thus, on the little verandah of the bungalow,

the night fell, there was a little warm rain.

"It is really stifling," said Miss Inger.

They watched a train, whose lights were pale in the lingering

twilight, rushing across the distance.

"It will thunder," said Ursula.

The electric suspense continued, the darkness sank, they were

eclipsed.

"I think I shall go and bathe," said Miss Inger, out of the

cloud-black darkness.

"At night?" said Ursula.

"It is best at night. Will you come?"

"I should like to."

"It is quite safe--the grounds are private. We had

better undress in the bungalow, for fear of the rain, then run

down."

Shyly, stiffly, Ursula went into the bungalow, and began to

remove her clothes. The lamp was turned low, she stood in the

shadow. By another chair Winifred Inger was undressing.

Soon the naked, shadowy figure of the elder girl came to the

younger.

"Are you ready?" she said.

"One moment."

Ursula could hardly speak. The other naked woman stood by,

stood near, silent. Ursula was ready.

They ventured out into the darkness, feeling the soft air of

night upon their skins.

"I can't see the path," said Ursula.

"It is here," said the voice, and the wavering, pallid figure

was beside her, a hand grasping her arm. And the elder held the

younger close against her, close, as they went down, and by the

side of the water, she put her arms round her, and kissed her.

And she lifted her in her arms, close, saying, softly:

"I shall carry you into the water."

[Ursula lay still in her mistress's arms, her forehead against the

beloved, maddening breast.

"I shall put you in," said Winifred.

But Ursula twined her body about her mistress.]

After awhile the rain came down on their flushed, hot limbs,

startling, delicious. A sudden, ice-cold shower burst in a great

weight upon them. They stood up to it with pleasure. Ursula

received the stream of it upon her breasts and her limbs. It

made her cold, and a deep, bottomless silence welled up in her,

as if bottomless darkness were returning upon her.

So the heat vanished away, she was chilled, as if from a

waking up. She ran indoors, a chill, non-existent thing, wanting

to get away. She wanted the light, the presence of other people,

the external connection with the many. Above all she wanted to

lose herself among natural surroundings.

She took her leave of her mistress and returned home. She was

glad to be on the station with a crowd of Saturday-night people,

glad to sit in the lighted, crowded railway carriage. Only she

did not want to meet anybody she knew. She did not want to talk.

She was alone, immune.

All this stir and seethe of lights and people was but the

rim, the shores of a great inner darkness and void. She wanted

very much to be on the seething, partially illuminated shore,

for within her was the void reality of dark space.

For a time Miss Inger, her mistress, was gone; she was only a

dark void, and Ursula was free as a shade walking in an

underworld of extinction, of oblivion. Ursula was glad, with a

kind of motionless, lifeless gladness, that her mistress was

extinct, gone out of her.

In the morning, however, the love was there again, burning,

burning. She remembered yesterday, and she wanted more, always

more. She wanted to be with her mistress. All separation from

her mistress was a restriction from living. Why could she not go

to her to-day, to-day? Why must she pace about revoked at

Cossethay whilst her mistress was elsewhere? She sat down and

wrote a burning, passionate love-letter: she could not help

it.

The two women became intimate. Their lives seemed suddenly to

fuse into one, inseparable. Ursula went to Winifred's lodging,

she spent there her only living hours. Winifred was very fond of

water,--of swimming, of rowing. She belonged to various

athletic clubs. Many delicious afternoons the two girls spent in

a light boat on the river, Winifred always rowing. Indeed,

Winifred seemed to delight in having Ursula in her charge, in

giving things to the girl, in filling and enrichening her

life.

So that Ursula developed rapidly during the few months of her

intimacy with her mistress. Winifred had had a scientific

education. She had known many clever people. She wanted to bring

Ursula to her own position of thought.

They took religion and rid it of its dogmas, its falsehoods.

Winifred humanized it all. Gradually it dawned upon Ursula that

all the religion she knew was but a particular clothing to a