Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [125]
She had a certain amount of money. She had come home partly to save, and now she had sold several pieces of work, she had been praised in various shows. She knew she could become quite the “go” if she went to London. But she knew London, she wanted something else. She had seventy pounds, of which nobody knew anything. She would move soon, as soon as she heard from her friends. Her nature, in spite of her apparent placidity and calm, was profoundly restless.
The sisters happened to call in a cottage in Willey Green to buy honey. Mrs. Kirk, a stout, pale, sharp-nosed woman, sly, honied, with something shrewish and cat-like beneath, asked the girls into her too-cosy, too-tidy kitchen. There was a cat-like comfort and cleanliness everywhere.
“Yes, Miss Brangwen,” she said, in her slightly whining, insinuating voice, “and how do you like being back in the old place, then?”
Gudrun, whom she addressed, hated her at once.
“I don’t care for it,” she replied abruptly.
“You don’t? Ay, well, I suppose you found a difference from London. You like life, and big, grand places. Some of us has to be content with Willey Green and Beldover. And what do you think of our Grammar School, as there’s so much talk about?”
“What do I think of it?” Gudrun looked round at her slowly. “Do you mean, do I think it’s a good school?”
“Yes. What is your opinion of it?”
“I do think it’s a good school.”
Gudrun was very cold and repelling. She knew the common people hated the school.
“Ay, you do, then! I’ve heard so much, one way and the other. It’s nice to know what those that’s in it feel. But opinions vary, don’t they? Mr. Crich up at Highclose is all for it. Ay, poor man, I’m afraid he’s not long for this world. He’s very poorly.”
“Is he worse?” asked Ursula.
“Eh, yes—since they lost Miss Diana. He’s gone off to a shadow. Poor man, he’s had a world of trouble.”
“Has he?” asked Gudrun, faintly ironic.
“He has, a world of trouble. And as nice and kind a gentleman as ever you could wish to meet. His children don’t take after him.”
“I suppose they take after their mother?” said Ursula.
“In many ways.” Mrs. Kirk lowered her voice a little. “She was a proud, haughty lady when she came into these parts—my word, she was that! She mustn’t be looked at, and it was worth your life to speak to her.” The woman made a dry, sly face.
“Did you know her when she was first married?”
“Yes, I knew her. I nursed three of her children. And proper little terrors they were, little fiends—that Gerald was a demon if ever there was one, a proper demon, ay, at six months old.” A curious malicious, sly tone came into the woman’s voice.
“Really,” said Gudrun.
“That wilful, masterful—he’d mastered one nurse at six months. Kick, and scream, and struggle like a demon. Many’s the time I’ve pinched his little bottom for him, when he was a child in arms. Ay, and he’d have been better if he’d had it pinched oftener. But she wouldn’t have them corrected—no-o, wouldn’t hear of it. I can remember the rows she had with Mr. Crich, my word. When he’d got worked up, properly worked up till he could stand no more, he’d lock the study door and whip them. But she paced up and down all the while like a tiger outside, like a tiger, with very murder in her face. She had a face that could look death. And when the door was opened, she’d go in with her hands lifted—‘What have you been doing to my children, you coward?’ She was like one out of her mind. I believe he was frightened of her; he had to be driven mad before he’d lift a finger. Didn’t the servants have a life of it! And didn’t we used to be thankful when one of them caught it. They were the torment of your life.”
“Really!” said Gudrun.
“In every possible way. If you wouldn’t let them smash their pots on the table, if you wouldn’t let them drag the kitten about with a string round its neck, if you wouldn’t give them whatever they asked for, every mortal thing—then there was a shine on, and their mother coming in asking—‘What’s the matter with him? What have you done to him? What is it, Darling?’ And then she’d turn on you as if she