Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [97]
“You look so stately, like a country Baroness,” said Ursula, laughing with a little tenderness at her mother’s naive puzzled air.
“Just like a country Baroness!” chimed in Gudrun. Now the mother’s natural hauteur became self-conscious, and the girls shrieked again.
“Go home, you pair of idiots, great giggling idiots!” cried the father inflamed with irritation.
“Mm-m-er!” booed Ursula, pulling a face at his crossness.
The yellow lights danced in his eyes, he leaned forward in real rage.
“Don’t be so silly as to take any notice of the great gabies,”be said Mrs. Brangwen, turning on her way.
“I’ll see if I’m going to be followed by a pair of giggling yelling jackanapes—” he cried vengefully.
The girls stood still, laughing helplessly at his fury, upon the path beside the hedge.
“Why you’re as silly as they are, to take any notice,” said Mrs. Brangwen also becoming angry now he was really enraged.
“There are some people coming, father,” cried Ursula, with mocking warning. He glanced round quickly, and went on to join his wife, walking stiff with rage. And the girls followed, weak with laughter.
When the people had passed by, Brangwen cried in a loud, stupid voice:
“I’m going back home if there’s any more of this. I’m damned if I’m going to be made a fool of in this fashion, in the public road.”
He was really out of temper. At the sound of his blind, vindictive voice, the laughter suddenly left the girls, and their hearts contracted with contempt. They hated his words “in the public road.” What did they care for the public road? But Gudrun was conciliatory.
“But we weren’t laughing to hurt you,” she cried, with an uncouth gentleness which made her parents uncomfortable. “We were laughing because we’re fond of you.”
“We’ll walk on in front, if they are so touchy,” said Ursula, angry. And in this wise they arrived at Willey Water. The lake was blue and fair, the meadows sloped down in sunshine on one side, the thick dark woods dropped steeply on the other. The little pleasure-launch was fussing out from the shore, twanging its music, crowded with people, flapping its paddles. Near the boat-house was a throng of gaily-dressed persons, small in the distance. And on the high-road, some of the common people were standing along the hedge, looking at the festivity beyond, enviously, like souls not admitted to paradise.
“My eye!” said Gudrun, sotto voce, looking at the motley of guests, “there’s a pretty crowd if you like! Imagine yourself in the midst of that, my dear.”
Gudrun’s apprehensive horror of people in the mass unnerved Ursula. “It looks rather awful,” she said anxiously.
“And imagine what they’ll be like—imagine!” said Gudrun, still in that unnerving, subdued voice. Yet she advanced determinedly.
“I suppose we can get away from them,” said Ursula anxiously.
“We’re in a pretty fix if we can’t,” said Gudrun. Her extreme ironic loathing and apprehension was very trying to Ursula.
“We needn’t stay,” she said.
“I certainly shan’t stay five minutes among that little lot,” said Gudrun. They advanced nearer, till they saw policemen at the gates.
“Policemen to keep you in, too!” said Gudrun. “My word, this is a beautiful affair.”
“We’d better look after father and mother,” said Ursula anxiously.
“Mother’s perfectly capable of getting through this little celebration,” said Gudrun with some contempt.
But Ursula knew that her father felt uncouth and angry and unhappy, so she was far from her ease. They waited outside the gate till their parents came up. The tall, thin man in his crumpled clothes, was unnerved and irritable as a boy, finding himself on the brink of this social function. He did not feel a gentleman, he did not feel anything except pure exasperation.
Ursula took her place at his side, they gave their tickets to the policeman, and passed in on to the grass, four abreast; the tall, hot, ruddy-dark man with his narrow boyish brow drawn with irritation, the fresh-faced, easy woman, perfectly collected though her hair was slipping on one side, then Gudrun, her eyes round and dark and staring, her full soft face impassive, almost sulky, so that she seemed to be backing away in antagonism even whilst she was advancing; and then Ursula, with the odd, brilliant, dazzled look on her face, that always came when she was in some false situation.