Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [29]
He affected to be quite ordinary, perfectly and marvellously commonplace. And he did it so well, taking the tone of his surroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his circumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ordinary commonplaceness that usually propitiated his onlookers for the moment, disarmed them from attacking his singleness.
Now he spoke quite easily and pleasantly to Mr. Crich, as they walked along the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope: but always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease.
“I’m sorry we are so late,” he was saying. “We couldn’t find a button-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots. But you were to the moment.”
“We are usually to time,” said Mr. Crich.
“And I’m always late,” said Birkin. “But to-day I was really punctual, only accidently not so. I’m sorry.”
The two men were gone, there was nothing more to see, for the time. Ursula was left thinking about Birkin. He piqued her, attracted her, and annoyed her.
She wanted to know him more. She had spoken with him once or twice, but only in his official capacity as inspector. She thought he seemed to acknowledge some kinship between her and him, a natural, tacit understanding, a using of the same language. But there had been no time for the understanding to develop. And something kept her from him, as well as attracted her to him. There was a certain hostility, a hidden ultimate reserve in him, cold and inaccessible.
Yet she wanted to know him.
“What do you think of Rupert Birkin?” she asked, a little reluctantly, of Gudrun. She did not want to discuss him.
“What do I think of Rupert Birkin?” repeated Gudrun. “I think he’s attractive—decidedly attractive. What I can’t stand about him is his way with other people—his way of treating any little fool as if she were his greatest consideration. One feels so awfully sold, oneself.”
“Why does he do it?” said Ursula.
“Because he has no real critical faculty—of people, at all events,” said Gudrun. “I tell you, he treats any little fool as he treats me or you—and it’s such an insult.”
“Oh, it is,” said Ursula. “One must discriminate.”
“One must discriminate,” repeated Gudrun. “But he’s a wonderful chap, in other respects—a marvellous personality. But you can’t trust him.”
“Yes,” said Ursula vaguely. She was always forced to assent to Gudrun’s pronouncements, even when she was not in accord altogether.
The sisters sat silent, waiting for the wedding party to come out. Gudrun was impatient of talk. She wanted to think about Gerald Crich. She wanted to see if the strong feeling she had got from him was real. She wanted to have herself ready.
Inside the church, the wedding was going on. Hermione Roddice was thinking only of Birkin. He stood near her. She seemed to gravitate physically towards him. She wanted to stand touching him. She could hardly be sure he was near her, if she did not touch him. Yet she stood subjected through the wedding service.
She had suffered so bitterly when he did not come, that still she was dazed. Still she was gnawed as by a neuralgia, tormented by his potential absence from her. She had awaited him in a faint delirium of nervous torture. As she stood bearing herself pensively, the rapt look on her face, that seemed spiritual, like the angels, but which came from torture, gave her a certain poignancy that tore his heart with pity. He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost demoniacal ecstatic. Feeling him looking, she lifted her face and sought his eyes, her own beautiful grey eyes flaring him a great signal. But he avoided her look, she sank her head in torment and shame, the gnawing at her heart going on. And he too was tortured with shame, and ultimate dislike, and with acute pity for her, because he did not want to meet her eyes, he did not want to receive her flare of recognition.
The bride and bridegroom were married, the party went into the vestry. Hermione crowded involuntarily up against Birkin, to touch him. And he endured it.
Outside, Gudrun and Ursula listened for their father