CHAPTER 11. CARPETING

He set off down the bank, and she went unwillingly with him. Yet she

would not have stayed away, either.

'We know each other well, you and I, already,' he said. She did not

answer.

In the large darkish kitchen of the mill, the labourer's wife was talking

shrilly to Hermione and Gerald, who stood, he in white and she in a

glistening bluish foulard, strangely luminous in the dusk of the room;

whilst from the cages on the walls, a dozen or more canaries sang at the

top of their voices. The cages were all placed round a small square

window at the back, where the sunshine came in, a beautiful beam,

filtering through green leaves of a tree. The voice of Mrs Salmon shrilled

against the noise of the birds, which rose ever more wild and

triumphant, and the woman's voice went up and up against them, and

the birds replied with wild animation.

'Here's Rupert!' shouted Gerald in the midst of the din. He was suffering

badly, being very sensitive in the ear.

'O-o-h them birds, they won't let you speak—!' shrilled the labourer's

wife in disgust. 'I'll cover them up.'

And she darted here and there, throwing a duster, an apron, a towel, a

table-cloth over the cages of the birds.

'Now will you stop it, and let a body speak for your row,' she said, still in

a voice that was too high.

The party watched her. Soon the cages were covered, they had a strange

funereal look. But from under the towels odd defiant trills and bubblings

still shook out.

'Oh, they won't go on,' said Mrs Salmon reassuringly. 'They'll go to sleep

now.'

'Really,' said Hermione, politely.'They will,' said Gerald. 'They will go to sleep automatically, now the

impression of evening is produced.'

'Are they so easily deceived?' cried Ursula.

'Oh, yes,' replied Gerald. 'Don't you know the story of Fabre, who, when

he was a boy, put a hen's head under her wing, and she straight away

went to sleep? It's quite true.'

'And did that make him a naturalist?' asked Birkin.

'Probably,' said Gerald.

Meanwhile Ursula was peeping under one of the cloths. There sat the

canary in a corner, bunched and fluffed up for sleep.

'How ridiculous!' she cried. 'It really thinks the night has come! How

absurd! Really, how can one have any respect for a creature that is so

easily taken in!'

'Yes,' sang Hermione, coming also to look. She put her hand on Ursula's

arm and chuckled a low laugh. 'Yes, doesn't he look comical?' she

chuckled. 'Like a stupid husband.'

Then, with her hand still on Ursula's arm, she drew her away, saying, in

her mild sing-song:

'How did you come here? We saw Gudrun too.'

'I came to look at the pond,' said Ursula, 'and I found Mr Birkin there.'

'Did you? This is quite a Brangwen land, isn't it!'

'I'm afraid I hoped so,' said Ursula. 'I ran here for refuge, when I saw you

down the lake, just putting off.'

'Did you! And now we've run you to earth.'

Hermione's eyelids lifted with an uncanny movement, amused but

overwrought. She had always her strange, rapt look, unnatural and

irresponsible.

'I was going on,' said Ursula. 'Mr Birkin wanted me to see the rooms.

Isn't it delightful to live here? It is perfect.'

'Yes,' said Hermione, abstractedly. Then she turned right away from

Ursula, ceased to know her existence.

'How do you feel, Rupert?' she sang in a new, affectionate tone, to Birkin.

'Very well,' he replied.

'Were you quite comfortable?' The curious, sinister, rapt look was on

Hermione's face, she shrugged her bosom in a convulsed movement, and

seemed like one half in a trance.

'Quite comfortable,' he replied.

There was a long pause, whilst Hermione looked at him for a long time,

from under her heavy, drugged eyelids.

'And you think you'll be happy here?' she said at last.

'I'm sure I shall.'

'I'm sure I shall do anything for him as I can,' said the labourer's wife.

'And I'm sure our master will; so I HOPE he'll find himself comfortable.'

Hermione turned and looked at her slowly.

'Thank you so much,' she said, and then she turned completely away

again. She recovered her position, and lifting her face towards him, and

addressing him exclusively, she said:

'Have you measured the rooms?'

'No,' he said, 'I've been mending the punt.'

'Shall we do it now?' she said slowly, balanced and dispassionate.

'Have you got a tape measure, Mrs Salmon?' he said, turning to the

woman.

'Yes sir, I think I can find one,' replied the woman, bustling immediately

to a basket. 'This is the only one I've got, if it will do.'

Hermione took it, though it was offered to him.