Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [165]
“I’ll tell him—but I’m afraid that’s a gentleman puppy, Miss Winifred.”
“Oh no!” There was the sound of a car. “There’s Rupert!” cried the child, and she ran to the gate.
Birkin, driving his car, pulled up outside the lodge gate.
“We’re ready!” cried Winifred. “I want to sit in front with you, Rupert. May I?”
“I’m afraid you’ll fidget about and fall out,” he said.
“No I won’t. I do want to sit in front next to you. It makes my feet so lovely and warm, from the engines.”
Birkin helped her up, amused at sending Gerald to sit by Gudrun in the body of the car.
“Have you any news, Rupert?” Gerald called, as they rushed along the lanes.
“News?” exclaimed Birkin.
“Yes.” Gerald looked at Gudrun, who sat by his side, and he said, his eyes narrowly laughing, “I want to know whether I ought to congratulate him, but I can’t get anything definite out of him.”
Gudrun flushed deeply.
“Congratulate him on what?” she asked.
“There was some mention of an engagement—at least, he said something to me about it.”
Gudrun flushed darkly.
“You mean with Ursula?” she said, in challenge.
“Yes. That is so, isn’t it?”
“I don’t think there’s any engagement,” said Gudrun, coldly.
“That so? Still no developments, Rupert?” he called.
“Where? Matrimonial? No.”
“How’s that?” called Gudrun.
Birkin glanced quickly round. There was irritation in his eyes also.
“Why?” he replied. “What do you think of it, Gudrun?”
“Oh,” she cried, determined to fling her stone also into the pool, since they had begun, “I don’t think she wants an engagement. Naturally, she’s a bird that prefers the bush.” Gudrun’s voice was clear and gong-like. It reminded Rupert of her father’s, so strong and vibrant.
“And I,” said Birkin, his face playful but yet determined, “I want a binding contract, and am not keen on love, particularly free love.”
They were both amused. Why this public avowal? Gerald seemed suspended a moment, in amusement.
“Love isn’t good enough for you?”1 he called.
“No!” shouted Birkin.
“Ha, well that’s being over-refined,” said Gerald, and the car ran through the mud.
“What’s the matter really?” said Gerald, turning to Gudrun.
This was an assumption of a sort of intimacy that irritated Gudrun almost like an affront. It seemed to her that Gerald was deliberately insulting her, and infringing on the decent privacy of them all.
“What is it?” she said, in her high, repellant voice. “Don’t ask me!—I know nothing about ultimate marriage, I assure you: or even penultimate.”
“Only the ordinary unwarrantable brand!” replied Gerald. “Just so—same here. I am no expert on marriage, and degrees of ultimate-ness. It seems to be a bee that buzzes loudly in Rupert’s bonnet.”
“Exactly! But that is his trouble, exactly! Instead of wanting a woman for herself, he wants his ideas fulfilled. Which, when it comes to actual practice, is not good enough.”
“Oh, no. Best go slap for what’s womanly in woman, like a bull at a gate.” Then he seemed to glimmer in himself. “You think love is the ticket, do you?” he asked.
“Certainly, while it lasts—you only can’t insist on permanency,” came Gudrun’s voice, strident above the noise.
“Marriage or no marriage, ultimate or penultimate or just so-so?—take the love as you find it.”
“As you please, or as you don’t please,” she echoed. “Marriage is a social arrangement, I take it, and has nothing to do with the question of love.”
His eyes were flickering on her all the time. She felt as if he were kissing her freely and malevolently. It made the colour burn in her cheeks, but her heart was quite firm and unfailing.
“You think Rupert is off his head a bit?” Gerald asked.
Her eyes flashed with acknowledgment.
“As regards a woman, yes,” she said, “I do. There is such a thing as two people being in love for the whole of their lives—perhaps. But marriage is neither here nor there, even then. If they are in love, well and good. If not—why break eggs about it!”
“Yes,” said Gerald. “That’s how it strikes me. But what about Rupert?