CHAPTER 14. WATER PARTY

Every year Mr Crich gave a more or less public water-party on the lake.

There was a little pleasure-launch on Willey Water and several rowing

boats, and guests could take tea either in the marquee that was set up in

the grounds of the house, or they could picnic in the shade of the great

walnut tree at the boat-house by the lake. This year the staff of the

Grammar-School was invited, along with the chief officials of the firm.

Gerald and the younger Criches did not care for this party, but it had

become customary now, and it pleased the father, as being the only

occasion when he could gather some people of the district together in

festivity with him. For he loved to give pleasures to his dependents and

to those poorer than himself. But his children preferred the company of

their own equals in wealth. They hated their inferiors' humility or

gratitude or awkwardness.

Nevertheless they were willing to attend at this festival, as they had done

almost since they were children, the more so, as they all felt a little guilty

now, and unwilling to thwart their father any more, since he was so ill in

health. Therefore, quite cheerfully Laura prepared to take her mother's

place as hostess, and Gerald assumed responsibility for the amusements

on the water.

Birkin had written to Ursula saying he expected to see her at the party,

and Gudrun, although she scorned the patronage of the Criches, would

nevertheless accompany her mother and father if the weather were fine.

The day came blue and full of sunshine, with little wafts of wind. The

sisters both wore dresses of white crepe, and hats of soft grass. But

Gudrun had a sash of brilliant black and pink and yellow colour wound

broadly round her waist, and she had pink silk stockings, and black and

pink and yellow decoration on the brim of her hat, weighing it down a

little. She carried also a yellow silk coat over her arm, so that she looked

remarkable, like a painting from the Salon. Her appearance was a sore

trial to her father, who said angrily:

'Don't you think you might as well get yourself up for a Christmas

cracker, an'ha' done with it?'

But Gudrun looked handsome and brilliant, and she wore her clothes in

pure defiance. When people stared at her, and giggled after her, she

made a point of saying loudly, to Ursula:

'Regarde, regarde ces gens-la! Ne sont-ils pas des hiboux incroyables?'

And with the words of French in her mouth, she would look over her

shoulder at the giggling party.

'No, really, it's impossible!' Ursula would reply distinctly. And so the two

girls took it out of their universal enemy. But their father became more

and more enraged.

Ursula was all snowy white, save that her hat was pink, and entirely

without trimming, and her shoes were dark red, and she carried an

orange-coloured coat. And in this guise they were walking all the way to

Shortlands, their father and mother going in front.

They were laughing at their mother, who, dressed in a summer material

of black and purple stripes, and wearing a hat of purple straw, was

setting forth with much more of the shyness and trepidation of a young

girl than her daughters ever felt, walking demurely beside her husband,

who, as usual, looked rather crumpled in his best suit, as if he were the

father of a young family and had been holding the baby whilst his wife

got dressed.

'Look at the young couple in front,' said Gudrun calmly. Ursula looked at

her mother and father, and was suddenly seized with uncontrollable

laughter. The two girls stood in the road and laughed till the tears ran

down their faces, as they caught sight again of the shy, unworldly couple

of their parents going on ahead.

'We are roaring at you, mother,' called Ursula, helplessly following after

her parents.

Mrs Brangwen turned round with a slightly puzzled, exasperated look.

'Oh indeed!' she said. 'What is there so very funny about ME, I should

like to know?'

She could not understand that there could be anything amiss with her

appearance. She had a perfect calm sufficiency, an easy indifference to

any criticism whatsoever, as if she were beyond it. Her clothes werealways rather odd, and as a rule slip-shod, yet she wore them with a

perfect ease and satisfaction. Whatever she had on, so long as she was

barely tidy, she was right, beyond remark; such an aristocrat she was by

instinct.

'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,' 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.

Birkin was the good angel. He came smiling to them with his affected

social grace, that somehow was never QUITE right. But he took off his

hat and smiled at them with a real smile in his eyes, so that Brangwen

cried out heartily in relief:

'How do you do? You're better, are you?'

'Yes, I'm better. How do you do, Mrs Brangwen? I know Gudrun and

Ursula very well.'

His eyes smiled full of natural warmth. He had a soft, flattering manner

with women, particularly with women who were not young.

'Yes,' said Mrs Brangwen, cool but yet gratified. 'I have heard them speak

of you often enough.'

He laughed. Gudrun looked aside, feeling she was being belittled. People

were standing about in groups, some women were sitting in the shade of

the walnut tree, with cups of tea in their hands, a waiter in evening dress

was hurrying round, some girls were simpering with parasols, some

young men, who had just come in from rowing, were sitting cross-legged

on the grass, coatless, their shirt-sleeves rolled up in manly fashion, their

hands resting on their white flannel trousers, their gaudy ties floating

about, as they laughed and tried to be witty with the young damsels.

'Why,' thought Gudrun churlishly, 'don't they have the manners to put

their coats on, and not to assume such intimacy in their appearance.'

She abhorred the ordinary young man, with his hair plastered back, and

his easy-going chumminess.

Hermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing

an enormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and

balancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking,

astonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great cream-

coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her, her

thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and pale,

and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her.

'Doesn't she look WEIRD!' Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her.

And she could have killed them.

'How do you do!' sang Hermione, coming up very kindly, and glancing

slowly over Gudrun's father and mother. It was a trying moment,

exasperating for Gudrun. Hermione was really so strongly entrenched in

her class superiority, she could come up and know people out of simple

curiosity, as if they were creatures on exhibition. Gudrun would do the

same herself. But she resented being in the position when somebody

might do it to her.

Hermione, very remarkable, and distinguishing the Brangwens very

much, led them along to where Laura Crich stood receiving the guests.

'This is Mrs Brangwen,' sang Hermione, and Laura, who wore a stiff

embroidered linen dress, shook hands and said she was glad to see her.

Then Gerald came up, dressed in white, with a black and brown blazer,

and looking handsome. He too was introduced to the Brangwen parents,

and immediately he spoke to Mrs Brangwen as if she were a lady, and to

Brangwen as if he were NOT a gentleman. Gerlad was so obvious in his

demeanour. He had to shake hands with his left hand, because he had

hurt his right, and carried it, bandaged up, in the pocket of his jacket.

Gudrun was VERY thankful that none of her party asked him what was

the matter with the hand.

The steam launch was fussing in, all its music jingling, people calling

excitedly from on board. Gerald went to see to the debarkation, Birkinwas getting tea for Mrs Brangwen, Brangwen had joined a Grammar-

School group, Hermione was sitting down by their mother, the girls went

to the landing-stage to watch the launch come in.

She hooted and tooted gaily, then her paddles were silent, the ropes were

thrown ashore, she drifted in with a little bump. Immediately the

passengers crowded excitedly to come ashore.

'Wait a minute, wait a minute,' shouted Gerald in sharp command.

They must wait till the boat was tight on the ropes, till the small gangway

was put out. Then they streamed ashore, clamouring as if they had come

from America.

'Oh it's SO nice!' the young girls were crying. 'It's quite lovely.'

The waiters from on board ran out to the boat-house with baskets, the

captain lounged on the little bridge. Seeing all safe, Gerald came to

Gudrun and Ursula.

'You wouldn't care to go on board for the next trip, and have tea there?'

he asked.

'No thanks,' said Gudrun coldly.

'You don't care for the water?'

'For the water? Yes, I like it very much.'

He looked at her, his eyes searching.

'You don't care for going on a launch, then?'

She was slow in answering, and then she spoke slowly.

'No,' she said. 'I can't say that I do.' Her colour was high, she seemed

angry about something.

'Un peu trop de monde,' said Ursula, explaining.

'Eh? TROP DE MONDE!' He laughed shortly. 'Yes there's a fair number

of 'em.'

Gudrun turned on him brilliantly.'Have you ever been from Westminster Bridge to Richmond on one of

the Thames steamers?' she cried.

'No,' he said, 'I can't say I have.'

'Well, it's one of the most VILE experiences I've ever had.' She spoke

rapidly and excitedly, the colour high in her cheeks. 'There was

absolutely nowhere to sit down, nowhere, a man just above sang "Rocked

in the Cradle of the Deep" the WHOLE way; he was blind and he had a

small organ, one of those portable organs, and he expected money; so

you can imagine what THAT was like; there came a constant smell of

luncheon from below, and puffs of hot oily machinery; the journey took

hours and hours and hours; and for miles, literally for miles, dreadful

boys ran with us on the shore, in that AWFUL Thames mud, going in UP

TO THE WAIST—they had their trousers turned back, and they went up

to their hips in that indescribable Thames mud, their faces always turned

to us, and screaming, exactly like carrion creatures, screaming "'Ere y'are

sir, 'ere y'are sir, 'ere y'are sir," exactly like some foul carrion objects,

perfectly obscene; and paterfamilias on board, laughing when the boys

went right down in that awful mud, occasionally throwing them a

ha'penny. And if you'd seen the intent look on the faces of these boys,

and the way they darted in the filth when a coin was flung—really, no

vulture or jackal could dream of approaching them, for foulness. I

NEVER would go on a pleasure boat again—never.'

Gerald watched her all the time she spoke, his eyes glittering with faint

rousedness. It was not so much what she said; it was she herself who

roused him, roused him with a small, vivid pricking.

'Of course,' he said, 'every civilised body is bound to have its vermin.'

'Why?' cried Ursula. 'I don't have vermin.'

'And it's not that—it's the QUALITY of the whole thing—paterfamilias

laughing and thinking it sport, and throwing the ha'pennies, and

materfamilias spreading her fat little knees and eating, continually

eating—' replied Gudrun.

'Yes,' said Ursula. 'It isn't the boys so much who are vermin; it's the

people themselves, the whole body politic, as you call it.

Gerald laughed.

'Never mind,' he said. 'You shan't go on the launch.'

Gudrun flushed quickly at his rebuke.

There were a few moments of silence. Gerald, like a sentinel, was

watching the people who were going on to the boat. He was very good-

looking and self-contained, but his air of soldierly alertness was rather

irritating.

'Will you have tea here then, or go across to the house, where there's a

tent on the lawn?' he asked.

'Can't we have a rowing boat, and get out?' asked Ursula, who was always

rushing in too fast.

'To get out?' smiled Gerald.

'You see,' cried Gudrun, flushing at Ursula's outspoken rudeness, 'we

don't know the people, we are almost COMPLETE strangers here.'

'Oh, I can soon set you up with a few acquaintances,' he said easily.

Gudrun looked at him, to see if it were ill-meant. Then she smiled at him.

'Ah,' she said, 'you know what we mean. Can't we go up there, and

explore that coast?' She pointed to a grove on the hillock of the meadow-

side, near the shore half way down the lake. 'That looks perfectly lovely.

We might even bathe. Isn't it beautiful in this light. Really, it's like one of

the reaches of the Nile—as one imagines the Nile.'

Gerald smiled at her factitious enthusiasm for the distant spot.

'You're sure it's far enough off?' he asked ironically, adding at once: 'Yes,

you might go there, if we could get a boat. They seem to be all out.'

He looked round the lake and counted the rowing boats on its surface.

'How lovely it would be!' cried Ursula wistfully.

'And don't you want tea?' he said.

'Oh,' said Gudrun, 'we could just drink a cup, and be off.'

He looked from one to the other, smiling. He was somewhat offended—

yet sporting.

'Can you manage a boat pretty well?' he asked.

'Yes,' replied Gudrun, coldly, 'pretty well.'

'Oh yes,' cried Ursula. 'We can both of us row like water-spiders.'

'You can? There's light little canoe of mine, that I didn't take out for fear

somebody should drown themselves. Do you think you'd be safe in that?'

'Oh perfectly,' said Gudrun.

'What an angel!' cried Ursula.

'Don't, for MY sake, have an accident—because I'm responsible for the

water.'

'Sure,' pledged Gudrun.

'Besides, we can both swim quite well,' said Ursula.

'Well—then I'll get them to put you up a tea-basket, and you can picnic

all to yourselves,—that's the idea, isn't it?'

'How fearfully good! How frightfully nice if you could!' cried Gudrun

warmly, her colour flushing up again. It made the blood stir in his veins,

the subtle way she turned to him and infused her gratitude into his body.

'Where's Birkin?' he said, his eyes twinkling. 'He might help me to get it

down.'

'But what about your hand? Isn't it hurt?' asked Gudrun, rather muted,

as if avoiding the intimacy. This was the first time the hurt had been

mentioned. The curious way she skirted round the subject sent a new,

subtle caress through his veins. He took his hand out of his pocket. It

was bandaged. He looked at it, then put it in his pocket again. Gudrun

quivered at the sight of the wrapped up paw.

'Oh I can manage with one hand. The canoe is as light as a feather,' he

said. 'There's Rupert!—Rupert!'

Birkin turned from his social duties and came towards them.

'What have you done to it?' asked Ursula, who had been aching to put the

question for the last half hour.

'To my hand?' said Gerald. 'I trapped it in some machinery.'

'Ugh!' said Ursula. 'And did it hurt much?'

'Yes,' he said. 'It did at the time. It's getting better now. It crushed the

fingers.'

'Oh,' cried Ursula, as if in pain, 'I hate people who hurt themselves. I can

FEEL it.' And she shook her hand.

'What do you want?' said Birkin.

The two men carried down the slim brown boat, and set it on the water.

'You're quite sure you'll be safe in it?' Gerald asked.

'Quite sure,' said Gudrun. 'I wouldn't be so mean as to take it, if there

was the slightest doubt. But I've had a canoe at Arundel, and I assure you

I'm perfectly safe.'

So saying, having given her word like a man, she and Ursula entered the

frail craft, and pushed gently off. The two men stood watching them.

Gudrun was paddling. She knew the men were watching her, and it made

her slow and rather clumsy. The colour flew in her face like a flag.

'Thanks awfully,' she called back to him, from the water, as the boat slid

away. 'It's lovely—like sitting in a leaf.'

He laughed at the fancy. Her voice was shrill and strange, calling from

the distance. He watched her as she paddled away. There was something

childlike about her, trustful and deferential, like a child. He watched her

all the while, as she rowed. And to Gudrun it was a real delight, in make-

belief, to be the childlike, clinging woman to the man who stood there on

the quay, so good-looking and efficient in his white clothes, and

moreover the most important man she knew at the moment. She did not

take any notice of the wavering, indistinct, lambent Birkin, who stood at

his side. One figure at a time occupied the field of her attention.

The boat rustled lightly along the water. They passed the bathers whose

striped tents stood between the willows of the meadow's edge, and drewalong the open shore, past the meadows that sloped golden in the light of

the already late afternoon. Other boats were stealing under the wooded

shore opposite, they could hear people's laughter and voices. But Gudrun

rowed on towards the clump of trees that balanced perfect in the

distance, in the golden light.

The sisters found a little place where a tiny stream flowed into the lake,

with reeds and flowery marsh of pink willow herb, and a gravelly bank to

the side. Here they ran delicately ashore, with their frail boat, the two

girls took off their shoes and stockings and went through the water's

edge to the grass. The tiny ripples of the lake were warm and clear, they

lifted their boat on to the bank, and looked round with joy. They were

quite alone in a forsaken little stream-mouth, and on the knoll just

behind was the clump of trees.

'We will bathe just for a moment,' said Ursula, 'and then we'll have tea.'

They looked round. Nobody could notice them, or could come up in time

to see them. In less than a minute Ursula had thrown off her clothes and

had slipped naked into the water, and was swimming out. Quickly,

Gudrun joined her. They swam silently and blissfully for a few minutes,

circling round their little stream-mouth. Then they slipped ashore and

ran into the grove again, like nymphs.

'How lovely it is to be free,' said Ursula, running swiftly here and there

between the tree trunks, quite naked, her hair blowing loose. The grove

was of beech-trees, big and splendid, a steel-grey scaffolding of trunks

and boughs, with level sprays of strong green here and there, whilst

through the northern side the distance glimmered open as through a

window.

When they had run and danced themselves dry, the girls quickly dressed

and sat down to the fragrant tea. They sat on the northern side of the

grove, in the yellow sunshine facing the slope of the grassy hill, alone in a

little wild world of their own. The tea was hot and aromatic, there were

delicious little sandwiches of cucumber and of caviare, and winy cakes.

'Are you happy, Prune?' cried Ursula in delight, looking at her sister.

'Ursula, I'm perfectly happy,' replied Gudrun gravely, looking at the

westering sun'So am I.'

When they were together, doing the things they enjoyed, the two sisters

were quite complete in a perfect world of their own. And this was one of

the perfect moments of freedom and delight, such as children alone

know, when all seems a perfect and blissful adventure.

When they had finished tea, the two girls sat on, silent and serene. Then

Ursula, who had a beautiful strong voice, began to sing to herself, softly:

'Annchen von Tharau.' Gudrun listened, as she sat beneath the trees, and

the yearning came into her heart. Ursula seemed so peaceful and

sufficient unto herself, sitting there unconsciously crooning her song,

strong and unquestioned at the centre of her own universe. And Gudrun

felt herself outside. Always this desolating, agonised feeling, that she was

outside of life, an onlooker, whilst Ursula was a partaker, caused Gudrun

to suffer from a sense of her own negation, and made her, that she must

always demand the other to be aware of her, to be in connection with

her.

'Do you mind if I do Dalcroze to that tune, Hurtler?' she asked in a

curious muted tone, scarce moving her lips.

'What did you say?' asked Ursula, looking up in peaceful surprise.

'Will you sing while I do Dalcroze?' said Gudrun, suffering at having to

repeat herself.

Ursula thought a moment, gathering her straying wits together.

'While you do—?' she asked vaguely.

'Dalcroze movements,' said Gudrun, suffering tortures of self-

consciousness, even because of her sister.

'Oh Dalcroze! I couldn't catch the name. DO—I should love to see you,'

cried Ursula, with childish surprised brightness. 'What shall I sing?'

'Sing anything you like, and I'll take the rhythm from it.'

But Ursula could not for her life think of anything to sing. However, she

suddenly began, in a laughing, teasing voice:

'My love—is a high-born lady—'

Gudrun, looking as if some invisible chain weighed on her hands and

feet, began slowly to dance in the eurythmic manner, pulsing and

fluttering rhythmically with her feet, making slower, regular gestures

with her hands and arms, now spreading her arms wide, now raising

them above her head, now flinging them softly apart, and lifting her face,

her feet all the time beating and running to the measure of the song, as if

it were some strange incantation, her white, rapt form drifting here and

there in a strange impulsive rhapsody, seeming to be lifted on a breeze of

incantation, shuddering with strange little runs. Ursula sat on the grass,

her mouth open in her singing, her eyes laughing as if she thought it was

a great joke, but a yellow light flashing up in them, as she caught some of

the unconscious ritualistic suggestion of the complex shuddering and

waving and drifting of her sister's white form, that was clutched in pure,

mindless, tossing rhythm, and a will set powerful in a kind of hypnotic

influence.

'My love is a high-born lady—She is-s-s—rather dark than shady—' rang

out Ursula's laughing, satiric song, and quicker, fiercer went Gudrun in

the dance, stamping as if she were trying to throw off some bond,

flinging her hands suddenly and stamping again, then rushing with face

uplifted and throat full and beautiful, and eyes half closed, sightless. The

sun was low and yellow, sinking down, and in the sky floated a thin,

ineffectual moon.

Ursula was quite absorbed in her song, when suddenly Gudrun stopped

and said mildly, ironically:

'Ursula!'

'Yes?' said Ursula, opening her eyes out of the trance.

Gudrun was standing still and pointing, a mocking smile on her face,

towards the side.

'Ugh!' cried Ursula in sudden panic, starting to her feet.

'They're quite all right,' rang out Gudrun's sardonic voice.

On the left stood a little cluster of Highland cattle, vividly coloured and

fleecy in the evening light, their horns branching into the sky, pushing

forward their muzzles inquisitively, to know what it was all about. Theireyes glittered through their tangle of hair, their naked nostrils were full

of shadow.

'Won't they do anything?' cried Ursula in fear.

Gudrun, who was usually frightened of cattle, now shook her head in a

queer, half-doubtful, half-sardonic motion, a faint smile round her

mouth.

'Don't they look charming, Ursula?' cried Gudrun, in a high, strident

voice, something like the scream of a seagull.

'Charming,' cried Ursula in trepidation. 'But won't they do anything to

us?'

Again Gudrun looked back at her sister with an enigmatic smile, and

shook her head.

'I'm sure they won't,' she said, as if she had to convince herself also, and

yet, as if she were confident of some secret power in herself, and had to

put it to the test. 'Sit down and sing again,' she called in her high,

strident voice.

'I'm frightened,' cried Ursula, in a pathetic voice, watching the group of

sturdy short cattle, that stood with their knees planted, and watched with

their dark, wicked eyes, through the matted fringe of their hair.

Nevertheless, she sank down again, in her former posture.

'They are quite safe,' came Gudrun's high call. 'Sing something, you've

only to sing something.'

It was evident she had a strange passion to dance before the sturdy,

handsome cattle.

Ursula began to sing, in a false quavering voice:

'Way down in Tennessee—'

She sounded purely anxious. Nevertheless, Gudrun, with her arms

outspread and her face uplifted, went in a strange palpitating dance

towards the cattle, lifting her body towards them as if in a spell, her feet

pulsing as if in some little frenzy of unconscious sensation, her arms, her

wrists, her hands stretching and heaving and falling and reaching andreaching and falling, her breasts lifted and shaken towards the cattle, her

throat exposed as in some voluptuous ecstasy towards them, whilst she

drifted imperceptibly nearer, an uncanny white figure, towards them,

carried away in its own rapt trance, ebbing in strange fluctuations upon

the cattle, that waited, and ducked their heads a little in sudden

contraction from her, watching all the time as if hypnotised, their bare

horns branching in the clear light, as the white figure of the woman

ebbed upon them, in the slow, hypnotising convulsion of the dance. She

could feel them just in front of her, it was as if she had the electric pulse

from their breasts running into her hands. Soon she would touch them,

actually touch them. A terrible shiver of fear and pleasure went through

her. And all the while, Ursula, spell-bound, kept up her high-pitched

thin, irrelevant song, which pierced the fading evening like an

incantation.

Gudrun could hear the cattle breathing heavily with helpless fear and

fascination. Oh, they were brave little beasts, these wild Scotch bullocks,

wild and fleecy. Suddenly one of them snorted, ducked its head, and

backed.

'Hue! Hi-eee!' came a sudden loud shout from the edge of the grove. The

cattle broke and fell back quite spontaneously, went running up the hill,

their fleece waving like fire to their motion. Gudrun stood suspended out

on the grass, Ursula rose to her feet.

It was Gerald and Birkin come to find them, and Gerald had cried out to

frighten off the cattle.

'What do you think you're doing?' he now called, in a high, wondering

vexed tone.

'Why have you come?' came back Gudrun's strident cry of anger.

'What do you think you were doing?' Gerald repeated, auto-matically.

'We were doing eurythmics,' laughed Ursula, in a shaken voice.

Gudrun stood aloof looking at them with large dark eyes of resentment,

suspended for a few moments. Then she walked away up the hill, after

the cattle, which had gathered in a little, spell-bound cluster higher up. 'Where are you going?' Gerald called after her. And he followed her up

the hill-side. The sun had gone behind the hill, and shadows were

clinging to the earth, the sky above was full of travelling light.

'A poor song for a dance,' said Birkin to Ursula, standing before her with

a sardonic, flickering laugh on his face. And in another second, he was

singing softly to himself, and dancing a grotesque step-dance in front of

her, his limbs and body shaking loose, his face flickering palely, a

constant thing, whilst his feet beat a rapid mocking tattoo, and his body

seemed to hang all loose and quaking in between, like a shadow.

'I think we've all gone mad,' she said, laughing rather frightened.

'Pity we aren't madder,' he answered, as he kept up the incessant shaking

dance. Then suddenly he leaned up to her and kissed her fingers lightly,

putting his face to hers and looking into her eyes with a pale grin. She

stepped back, affronted.

'Offended—?' he asked ironically, suddenly going quite still and reserved

again. 'I thought you liked the light fantastic.'

'Not like that,' she said, confused and bewildered, almost affronted. Yet

somewhere inside her she was fascinated by the sight of his loose,

vibrating body, perfectly abandoned to its own dropping and swinging,

and by the pallid, sardonic-smiling face above. Yet automatically she

stiffened herself away, and disapproved. It seemed almost an obscenity,

in a man who talked as a rule so very seriously.

'Why not like that?' he mocked. And immediately he dropped again into

the incredibly rapid, slack-waggling dance, watching her malevolently.

And moving in the rapid, stationary dance, he came a little nearer, and

reached forward with an incredibly mocking, satiric gleam on his face,

and would have kissed her again, had she not started back.

'No, don't!' she cried, really afraid.

'Cordelia after all,' he said satirically. She was stung, as if this were an

insult. She knew he intended it as such, and it bewildered her.

'And you,' she cried in retort, 'why do you always take your soul in your

mouth, so frightfully full?''So that I can spit it out the more readily,' he said, pleased by his own

retort.

Gerald Crich, his face narrowing to an intent gleam, followed up the hill

with quick strides, straight after Gudrun. The cattle stood with their

noses together on the brow of a slope, watching the scene below, the men

in white hovering about the white forms of the women, watching above

all Gudrun, who was advancing slowly towards them. She stood a

moment, glancing back at Gerald, and then at the cattle.

Then in a sudden motion, she lifted her arms and rushed sheer upon the

long-horned bullocks, in shuddering irregular runs, pausing for a second

and looking at them, then lifting her hands and running forward with a

flash, till they ceased pawing the ground, and gave way, snorting with

terror, lifting their heads from the ground and flinging themselves away,

galloping off into the evening, becoming tiny in the distance, and still not

stopping.

Gudrun remained staring after them, with a mask-like defiant face.

'Why do you want to drive them mad?' asked Gerald, coming up with

her.

She took no notice of him, only averted her face from him. 'It's not safe,

you know,' he persisted. 'They're nasty, when they do turn.'

'Turn where? Turn away?' she mocked loudly.

'No,' he said, 'turn against you.'

'Turn against ME?' she mocked.

He could make nothing of this.

'Anyway, they gored one of the farmer's cows to death, the other day,' he

said.

'What do I care?' she said.

'I cared though,' he replied, 'seeing that they're my cattle.'

'How are they yours! You haven't swallowed them. Give me one of them

now,' she said, holding out her hand.'You know where they are,' he said, pointing over the hill. 'You can have

one if you'd like it sent to you later on.'

She looked at him inscrutably.

'You think I'm afraid of you and your cattle, don't you?' she asked.

His eyes narrowed dangerously. There was a faint domineering smile on

his face.

'Why should I think that?' he said.

She was watching him all the time with her dark, dilated, inchoate eyes.

She leaned forward and swung round her arm, catching him a light blow

on the face with the back of her hand.

'That's why,' she said, mocking.

And she felt in her soul an unconquerable desire for deep violence

against him. She shut off the fear and dismay that filled her conscious

mind. She wanted to do as she did, she was not going to be afraid.

He recoiled from the slight blow on his face. He became deadly pale, and

a dangerous flame darkened his eyes. For some seconds he could not

speak, his lungs were so suffused with blood, his heart stretched almost

to bursting with a great gush of ungovernable emotion. It was as if some

reservoir of black emotion had burst within him, and swamped him.

'You have struck the first blow,' he said at last, forcing the words from his

lungs, in a voice so soft and low, it sounded like a dream within her, not

spoken in the outer air.

'And I shall strike the last,' she retorted involuntarily, with confident

assurance. He was silent, he did not contradict her.

She stood negligently, staring away from him, into the distance. On the

edge of her consciousness the question was asking itself, automatically:

'Why ARE you behaving in this IMPOSSIBLE and ridiculous fashion.'

But she was sullen, she half shoved the question out of herself. She could

not get it clean away, so she felt self-conscious.

Gerald, very pale, was watching her closely. His eyes were lit up with

intent lights, absorbed and gleaming. She turned suddenly on him.'It's you who make me behave like this, you know,' she said, almost

suggestive.

'I? How?' he said.

But she turned away, and set off towards the lake. Below, on the water,

lanterns were coming alight, faint ghosts of warm flame floating in the

pallor of the first twilight. The earth was spread with darkness, like

lacquer, overhead was a pale sky, all primrose, and the lake was pale as

milk in one part. Away at the landing stage, tiniest points of coloured

rays were stringing themselves in the dusk. The launch was being

illuminated. All round, shadow was gathering from the trees.

Gerald, white like a presence in his summer clothes, was following down

the open grassy slope. Gudrun waited for him to come up. Then she

softly put out her hand and touched him, saying softly:

'Don't be angry with me.'

A flame flew over him, and he was unconscious. Yet he stammered:

'I'm not angry with you. I'm in love with you.'

His mind was gone, he grasped for sufficient mechanical control, to save

himself. She laughed a silvery little mockery, yet intolerably caressive.

'That's one way of putting it,' she said.

The terrible swooning burden on his mind, the awful swooning, the loss

of all his control, was too much for him. He grasped her arm in his one

hand, as if his hand were iron.

'It's all right, then, is it?' he said, holding her arrested.

She looked at the face with the fixed eyes, set before her, and her blood

ran cold.

'Yes, it's all right,' she said softly, as if drugged, her voice crooning and

witch-like.

He walked on beside her, a striding, mindless body. But he recovered a

little as he went. He suffered badly. He had killed his brother when a

boy, and was set apart, like Cain.They found Birkin and Ursula sitting together by the boats, talking and

laughing. Birkin had been teasing Ursula.

'Do you smell this little marsh?' he said, sniffing the air. He was very

sensitive to scents, and quick in understanding them.

'It's rather nice,' she said.

'No,' he replied, 'alarming.'

'Why alarming?' she laughed.

'It seethes and seethes, a river of darkness,' he said, 'putting forth lilies

and snakes, and the ignis fatuus, and rolling all the time onward. That's

what we never take into count—that it rolls onwards.'

'What does?'

'The other river, the black river. We always consider the silver river of

life, rolling on and quickening all the world to a brightness, on and on to

heaven, flowing into a bright eternal sea, a heaven of angels thronging.

But the other is our real reality—'

'But what other? I don't see any other,' said Ursula.

'It is your reality, nevertheless,' he said; 'that dark river of dissolution.

You see it rolls in us just as the other rolls—the black river of corruption.

And our flowers are of this—our sea-born Aphrodite, all our white

phosphorescent flowers of sensuous perfection, all our reality,

nowadays.'

'You mean that Aphrodite is really deathly?' asked Ursula.

'I mean she is the flowering mystery of the death-process, yes,' he

replied. 'When the stream of synthetic creation lapses, we find ourselves

part of the inverse process, the blood of destructive creation. Aphrodite

is born in the first spasm of universal dissolution—then the snakes and

swans and lotus—marsh-flowers—and Gudrun and Gerald—born in the

process of destructive creation.'

'And you and me—?' she asked.

'Probably,' he replied. 'In part, certainly. Whether we are that, in toto, I

don't yet know.''You mean we are flowers of dissolution—fleurs du mal? I don't feel as if I

were,' she protested.

He was silent for a time.

'I don't feel as if we were, ALTOGETHER,' he replied. 'Some people are

pure flowers of dark corruption—lilies. But there ought to be some roses,

warm and flamy. You know Herakleitos says "a dry soul is best." I know

so well what that means. Do you?'

'I'm not sure,' Ursula replied. 'But what if people ARE all flowers of

dissolution—when they're flowers at all—what difference does it make?'

'No difference—and all the difference. Dissolution rolls on, just as

production does,' he said. 'It is a progressive process—and it ends in

universal nothing—the end of the world, if you like. But why isn't the end

of the world as good as the beginning?'

'I suppose it isn't,' said Ursula, rather angry.

'Oh yes, ultimately,' he said. 'It means a new cycle of creation after—but

not for us. If it is the end, then we are of the end—fleurs du mal if you

like. If we are fleurs du mal, we are not roses of happiness, and there you

are.'

'But I think I am,' said Ursula. 'I think I am a rose of happiness.'

'Ready-made?' he asked ironically.

'No—real,' she said, hurt.

'If we are the end, we are not the beginning,' he said.

'Yes we are,' she said. 'The beginning comes out of the end.'

'After it, not out of it. After us, not out of us.'

'You are a devil, you know, really,' she said. 'You want to destroy our

hope. You WANT US to be deathly.'

'No,' he said, 'I only want us to KNOW what we are.'

'Ha!' she cried in anger. 'You only want us to know death.'

'You're quite right,' said the soft voice of Gerald, out of the dusk behind.Birkin rose. Gerald and Gudrun came up. They all began to smoke, in the

moments of silence. One after another, Birkin lighted their cigarettes.

The match flickered in the twilight, and they were all smoking peacefully

by the water-side. The lake was dim, the light dying from off it, in the

midst of the dark land. The air all round was intangible, neither here nor

there, and there was an unreal noise of banjoes, or suchlike music.

As the golden swim of light overhead died out, the moon gained

brightness, and seemed to begin to smile forth her ascendancy. The dark

woods on the opposite shore melted into universal shadow. And amid

this universal under-shadow, there was a scattered intrusion of lights.

Far down the lake were fantastic pale strings of colour, like beads of wan

fire, green and red and yellow. The music came out in a little puff, as the

launch, all illuminated, veered into the great shadow, stirring her

outlines of half-living lights, puffing out her music in little drifts.

All were lighting up. Here and there, close against the faint water, and at

the far end of the lake, where the water lay milky in the last whiteness of

the sky, and there was no shadow, solitary, frail flames of lanterns

floated from the unseen boats. There was a sound of oars, and a boat

passed from the pallor into the darkness under the wood, where her

lanterns seemed to kindle into fire, hanging in ruddy lovely globes. And

again, in the lake, shadowy red gleams hovered in reflection about the

boat. Everywhere were these noiseless ruddy creatures of fire drifting

near the surface of the water, caught at by the rarest, scarce visible

reflections.

Birkin brought the lanterns from the bigger boat, and the four shadowy

white figures gathered round, to light them. Ursula held up the first,

Birkin lowered the light from the rosy, glowing cup of his hands, into the

depths of the lantern. It was kindled, and they all stood back to look at

the great blue moon of light that hung from Ursula's hand, casting a

strange gleam on her face. It flickered, and Birkin went bending over the

well of light. His face shone out like an apparition, so unconscious, and

again, something demoniacal. Ursula was dim and veiled, looming over

him.

'That is all right,' said his voice softly.She held up the lantern. It had a flight of storks streaming through a

turquoise sky of light, over a dark earth.

'This is beautiful,' she said.

'Lovely,' echoed Gudrun, who wanted to hold one also, and lift it up full

of beauty.

'Light one for me,' she said. Gerald stood by her, incapacitated. Birkin lit

the lantern she held up. Her heart beat with anxiety, to see how beautiful

it would be. It was primrose yellow, with tall straight flowers growing

darkly from their dark leaves, lifting their heads into the primrose day,

while butterflies hovered about them, in the pure clear light.

Gudrun gave a little cry of excitement, as if pierced with delight.

'Isn't it beautiful, oh, isn't it beautiful!'

Her soul was really pierced with beauty, she was translated beyond

herself. Gerald leaned near to her, into her zone of light, as if to see. He

came close to her, and stood touching her, looking with her at the

primrose-shining globe. And she turned her face to his, that was faintly

bright in the light of the lantern, and they stood together in one

luminous union, close together and ringed round with light, all the rest

excluded.

Birkin looked away, and went to light Ursula's second lantern. It had a

pale ruddy sea-bottom, with black crabs and sea-weed moving sinuously

under a transparent sea, that passed into flamy ruddiness above.

'You've got the heavens above, and the waters under the earth,' said

Birkin to her.

'Anything but the earth itself,' she laughed, watching his live hands that

hovered to attend to the light.

'I'm dying to see what my second one is,' cried Gudrun, in a vibrating

rather strident voice, that seemed to repel the others from her.

Birkin went and kindled it. It was of a lovely deep blue colour, with a red

floor, and a great white cuttle-fish flowing in white soft streams all over

it. The cuttle-fish had a face that stared straight from the heart of the

light, very fixed and coldly intent.'How truly terrifying!' exclaimed Gudrun, in a voice of horror. Gerald, at

her side, gave a low laugh.

'But isn't it really fearful!' she cried in dismay.

Again he laughed, and said:

'Change it with Ursula, for the crabs.'

Gudrun was silent for a moment.

'Ursula,' she said, 'could you bear to have this fearful thing?'

'I think the colouring is LOVELY,' said Ursula.

'So do I,' said Gudrun. 'But could you BEAR to have it swinging to your

boat? Don't you want to destroy it at ONCE?'

'Oh no,' said Ursula. 'I don't want to destroy it.'

'Well do you mind having it instead of the crabs? Are you sure you don't

mind?'

Gudrun came forward to exchange lanterns.

'No,' said Ursula, yielding up the crabs and receiving the cuttle-fish.

Yet she could not help feeling rather resentful at the way in which

Gudrun and Gerald should assume a right over her, a precedence.

'Come then,' said Birkin. 'I'll put them on the boats.'

He and Ursula were moving away to the big boat.

'I suppose you'll row me back, Rupert,' said Gerald, out of the pale

shadow of the evening.

'Won't you go with Gudrun in the canoe?' said Birkin. 'It'll be more

interesting.'

There was a moment's pause. Birkin and Ursula stood dimly, with their

swinging lanterns, by the water's edge. The world was all illusive.

'Is that all right?' said Gudrun to him.'It'll suit ME very well,' he said. 'But what about you, and the rowing? I

don't see why you should pull me.'

'Why not?' she said. 'I can pull you as well as I could pull Ursula.'

By her tone he could tell she wanted to have him in the boat to herself,

and that she was subtly gratified that she should have power over them

both. He gave himself, in a strange, electric submission.

She handed him the lanterns, whilst she went to fix the cane at the end of

the canoe. He followed after her, and stood with the lanterns dangling

against his white-flannelled thighs, emphasising the shadow around.

'Kiss me before we go,' came his voice softly from out of the shadow

above.

She stopped her work in real, momentary astonishment.

'But why?' she exclaimed, in pure surprise.

'Why?' he echoed, ironically.

And she looked at him fixedly for some moments. Then she leaned

forward and kissed him, with a slow, luxurious kiss, lingering on the

mouth. And then she took the lanterns from him, while he stood

swooning with the perfect fire that burned in all his joints.

They lifted the canoe into the water, Gudrun took her place, and Gerald

pushed off.

'Are you sure you don't hurt your hand, doing that?' she asked, solicitous.

'Because I could have done it PERFECTLY.'

'I don't hurt myself,' he said in a low, soft voice, that caressed her with

inexpressible beauty.

And she watched him as he sat near her, very near to her, in the stern of

the canoe, his legs coming towards hers, his feet touching hers. And she

paddled softly, lingeringly, longing for him to say something meaningful

to her. But he remained silent.

'You like this, do you?' she said, in a gentle, solicitous voice.

He laughed shortly.'There is a space between us,' he said, in the same low, unconscious

voice, as if something were speaking out of him. And she was as if

magically aware of their being balanced in separation, in the boat. She

swooned with acute comprehension and pleasure.

'But I'm very near,' she said caressively, gaily.

'Yet distant, distant,' he said.

Again she was silent with pleasure, before she answered, speaking with a

reedy, thrilled voice:

'Yet we cannot very well change, whilst we are on the water.' She

caressed him subtly and strangely, having him completely at her mercy.

A dozen or more boats on the lake swung their rosy and moon-like

lanterns low on the water, that reflected as from a fire. In the distance,

the steamer twanged and thrummed and washed with her faintly-

splashing paddles, trailing her strings of coloured lights, and

occasionally lighting up the whole scene luridly with an effusion of

fireworks, Roman candles and sheafs of stars and other simple effects,

illuminating the surface of the water, and showing the boats creeping

round, low down. Then the lovely darkness fell again, the lanterns and

the little threaded lights glimmered softly, there was a muffled knocking

of oars and a waving of music.

Gudrun paddled almost imperceptibly. Gerald could see, not far ahead,

the rich blue and the rose globes of Ursula's lanterns swaying softly

cheek to cheek as Birkin rowed, and iridescent, evanescent gleams

chasing in the wake. He was aware, too, of his own delicately coloured

lights casting their softness behind him.

Gudrun rested her paddle and looked round. The canoe lifted with the

lightest ebbing of the water. Gerald's white knees were very near to her.

'Isn't it beautiful!' she said softly, as if reverently.

She looked at him, as he leaned back against the faint crystal of the

lantern-light. She could see his face, although it was a pure shadow. But

it was a piece of twilight. And her breast was keen with passion for him,

he was so beautiful in his male stillness and mystery. It was a certain

pure effluence of maleness, like an aroma from his softly, firmly mouldedcontours, a certain rich perfection of his presence, that touched her with

an ecstasy, a thrill of pure intoxication. She loved to look at him. For the

present she did not want to touch him, to know the further, satisfying

substance of his living body. He was purely intangible, yet so near. Her

hands lay on the paddle like slumber, she only wanted to see him, like a

crystal shadow, to feel his essential presence.

'Yes,' he said vaguely. 'It is very beautiful.'

He was listening to the faint near sounds, the dropping of water-drops

from the oar-blades, the slight drumming of the lanterns behind him, as

they rubbed against one another, the occasional rustling of Gudrun's full

skirt, an alien land noise. His mind was almost submerged, he was

almost transfused, lapsed out for the first time in his life, into the things

about him. For he always kept such a keen attentiveness, concentrated

and unyielding in himself. Now he had let go, imperceptibly he was

melting into oneness with the whole. It was like pure, perfect sleep, his

first great sleep of life. He had been so insistent, so guarded, all his life.

But here was sleep, and peace, and perfect lapsing out.

'Shall I row to the landing-stage?' asked Gudrun wistfully.

'Anywhere,' he answered. 'Let it drift.'

'Tell me then, if we are running into anything,' she replied, in that very

quiet, toneless voice of sheer intimacy.

'The lights will show,' he said.

So they drifted almost motionless, in silence. He wanted silence, pure

and whole. But she was uneasy yet for some word, for some assurance.

'Nobody will miss you?' she asked, anxious for some communication.

'Miss me?' he echoed. 'No! Why?'

'I wondered if anybody would be looking for you.'

'Why should they look for me?' And then he remembered his manners.

'But perhaps you want to get back,' he said, in a changed voice.

'No, I don't want to get back,' she replied. 'No, I assure you.'

'You're quite sure it's all right for you?''Perfectly all right.'

And again they were still. The launch twanged and hooted, somebody

was singing. Then as if the night smashed, suddenly there was a great

shout, a confusion of shouting, warring on the water, then the horrid

noise of paddles reversed and churned violently.

Gerald sat up, and Gudrun looked at him in fear.

'Somebody in the water,' he said, angrily, and desperately, looking keenly

across the dusk. 'Can you row up?'

'Where, to the launch?' asked Gudrun, in nervous panic.

'Yes.'

'You'll tell me if I don't steer straight,' she said, in nervous apprehension.

'You keep pretty level,' he said, and the canoe hastened forward.

The shouting and the noise continued, sounding horrid through the

dusk, over the surface of the water.

'Wasn't this BOUND to happen?' said Gudrun, with heavy hateful irony.

But he hardly heard, and she glanced over her shoulder to see her way.

The half-dark waters were sprinkled with lovely bubbles of swaying

lights, the launch did not look far off. She was rocking her lights in the

early night. Gudrun rowed as hard as she could. But now that it was a

serious matter, she seemed uncertain and clumsy in her stroke, it was

difficult to paddle swiftly. She glanced at his face. He was looking fixedly

into the darkness, very keen and alert and single in himself,

instrumental. Her heart sank, she seemed to die a death. 'Of course,' she

said to herself, 'nobody will be drowned. Of course they won't. It would

be too extravagant and sensational.' But her heart was cold, because of

his sharp impersonal face. It was as if he belonged naturally to dread and

catastrophe, as if he were himself again.

Then there came a child's voice, a girl's high, piercing shriek:

'Di—Di—Di—Di—Oh Di—Oh Di—Oh Di!'

The blood ran cold in Gudrun's veins.'It's Diana, is it,' muttered Gerald. 'The young monkey, she'd have to be

up to some of her tricks.'

And he glanced again at the paddle, the boat was not going quickly

enough for him. It made Gudrun almost helpless at the rowing, this

nervous stress. She kept up with all her might. Still the voices were

calling and answering.

'Where, where? There you are—that's it. Which? No—No-o-o. Damn it

all, here, HERE—' Boats were hurrying from all directions to the scene,

coloured lanterns could be seen waving close to the surface of the lake,

reflections swaying after them in uneven haste. The steamer hooted

again, for some unknown reason. Gudrun's boat was travelling quickly,

the lanterns were swinging behind Gerald.

And then again came the child's high, screaming voice, with a note of

weeping and impatience in it now:

'Di—Oh Di—Oh Di—Di—!'

It was a terrible sound, coming through the obscure air of the evening.

'You'd be better if you were in bed, Winnie,' Gerald muttered to himself.

He was stooping unlacing his shoes, pushing them off with the foot. Then

he threw his soft hat into the bottom of the boat.

'You can't go into the water with your hurt hand,' said Gudrun, panting,

in a low voice of horror.

'What? It won't hurt.'

He had struggled out of his jacket, and had dropped it between his feet.

He sat bare-headed, all in white now. He felt the belt at his waist. They

were nearing the launch, which stood still big above them, her myriad

lamps making lovely darts, and sinuous running tongues of ugly red and

green and yellow light on the lustrous dark water, under the shadow.

'Oh get her out! Oh Di, DARLING! Oh get her out! Oh Daddy, Oh

Daddy!' moaned the child's voice, in distraction. Somebody was in the

water, with a life belt. Two boats paddled near, their lanterns swinging

ineffectually, the boats nosing round.'Hi there—Rockley!—hi there!'

'Mr Gerald!' came the captain's terrified voice. 'Miss Diana's in the

water.'

'Anybody gone in for her?' came Gerald's sharp voice.

'Young Doctor Brindell, sir.'

'Where?'

'Can't see no signs of them, sir. Everybody's looking, but there's nothing

so far.'

There was a moment's ominous pause.

'Where did she go in?'

'I think—about where that boat is,' came the uncertain answer, 'that one

with red and green lights.'

'Row there,' said Gerald quietly to Gudrun.

'Get her out, Gerald, oh get her out,' the child's voice was crying

anxiously. He took no heed.

'Lean back that way,' said Gerald to Gudrun, as he stood up in the frail

boat. 'She won't upset.'

In another moment, he had dropped clean down, soft and plumb, into

the water. Gudrun was swaying violently in her boat, the agitated water

shook with transient lights, she realised that it was faintly moonlight,

and that he was gone. So it was possible to be gone. A terrible sense of

fatality robbed her of all feeling and thought. She knew he was gone out

of the world, there was merely the same world, and absence, his absence.

The night seemed large and vacuous. Lanterns swayed here and there,

people were talking in an undertone on the launch and in the boats. She

could hear Winifred moaning: 'OH DO FIND HER GERALD, DO FIND

HER,' and someone trying to comfort the child. Gudrun paddled

aimlessly here and there. The terrible, massive, cold, boundless surface

of the water terrified her beyond words. Would he never come back? She

felt she must jump into the water too, to know the horror also.

The bodies of the dead were not recovered till towards dawn. Diana had

her arms tight round the neck of the young man, choking him.

'She killed him,' said Gerald.

The moon sloped down the sky and sank at last. The lake was sunk to

quarter size, it had horrible raw banks of clay, that smelled of raw

rottenish water. Dawn roused faintly behind the eastern hill. The water

still boomed through the sluice.

As the birds were whistling for the first morning, and the hills at the back

of the desolate lake stood radiant with the new mists, there was a

straggling procession up to Shortlands, men bearing the bodies on a

stretcher, Gerald going beside them, the two grey-bearded fathers

following in silence. Indoors the family was all sitting up, waiting.

Somebody must go to tell the mother, in her room. The doctor in secret

struggled to bring back his son, till he himself was exhausted.

Over all the outlying district was a hush of dreadful excitement on that

Sunday morning. The colliery people felt as if this catastrophe had

happened directly to themselves, indeed they were more shocked and

frightened than if their own men had been killed. Such a tragedy in

Shortlands, the high home of the district! One of the young mistresses,

persisting in dancing on the cabin roof of the launch, wilful young

madam, drowned in the midst of the festival, with the young doctor!

Everywhere on the Sunday morning, the colliers wandered about,

discussing the calamity. At all the Sunday dinners of the people, there

seemed a strange presence. It was as if the angel of death were very near,

there was a sense of the supernatural in the air. The men had excited,

startled faces, the women looked solemn, some of them had been crying.

The children enjoyed the excitement at first. There was an intensity in

the air, almost magical. Did all enjoy it? Did all enjoy the thrill?

Gudrun had wild ideas of rushing to comfort Gerald. She was thinking all

the time of the perfect comforting, reassuring thing to say to him. She

was shocked and frightened, but she put that away, thinking of how she

should deport herself with Gerald: act her part. That was the real thrill:

how she should act her part.

Ursula was deeply and passionately in love with Birkin, and she was

capable of nothing. She was perfectly callous about all the talk of theaccident, but her estranged air looked like trouble. She merely sat by

herself, whenever she could, and longed to see him again. She wanted

him to come to the house,—she would not have it otherwise, he must

come at once. She was waiting for him. She stayed indoors all day,

waiting for him to knock at the door. Every minute, she glanced

automatically at the window. He would be there.