"I could never die while there was a tree," she said
passionately, sententiously, standing before a great ash in
worship.
It was the people who, somehow, walked as an upright menace
to her. Her life at this time was unformed, palpitating,
essentially shrinking from all touch. She gave something to
other people, but she was never herself, since she had no self.
She was not afraid nor ashamed before trees, and birds, and the
sky. But she shrank violently from people, ashamed she was not
as they were, fixed, emphatic, but a wavering, undefined
sensibility only, without form or being.
Gudrun was at this time a great comfort and shield to her.
The younger girl was a lithe, farouche animal, who
mistrusted all approach, and would have none of the petty
secrecies and jealousies of schoolgirl intimacy. She would have
no truck with the tame cats, nice or not, because she believed
that they were all only untamed cats with a nasty, untrustworthy
habit of tameness.
This was a great stand-back for Ursula, who suffered agonies
when she thought a person disliked her, no matter how much she
despised that other person. How could anyone dislike her, Ursula
Brangwen? The question terrified her and was unanswerable. She
sought refuge in Gudrun's natural, proud indifference.
It had been discovered that Gudrun had a talent for drawing.
This solved the problem of the girl's indifference to all study.
It was said of her, "She can draw marvellously."
Suddenly Ursula found a queer awareness existed between
herself and her class-mistress, Miss Inger. The latter was a
rather beautiful woman of twenty-eight, a fearless-seeming,
clean type of modern girl whose very independence betrays her
sorrow. She was clever, and expert in what she did, accurate,
quick, commanding.
To Ursula she had always given pleasure, because of her
clear, decided, yet graceful appearance. She carried her head
high, a little thrown back, and Ursula thought there was a look
of nobility in the way she twisted her smooth brown hair upon
her head. She always wore clean, attractive, well-fitting
blouses, and a well-made skirt. Everything about her was so
well-ordered, betraying a fine, clear spirit, that it was a
pleasure to sit in her class.
Her voice was just as ringing and clear, and with unwavering,
finely-touched modulation. Her eyes were blue, clear, proud, she
gave one altogether the sense of a fine-mettled, scrupulously
groomed person, and of an unyielding mind. Yet there was an
infinite poignancy about her, a great pathos in her lonely,
proudly closed mouth.
It was after Skrebensky had gone that there sprang up between
the mistress and the girl that strange awareness, then the
unspoken intimacy that sometimes connects two people who may
never even make each other's acquaintance. Before, they had
always been good friends, in the undistinguished way of the
class-room, with the professional relationship of mistress and
scholar always present. Now, however, another thing came to
pass. When they were in the room together, they were aware of
each other, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Winifred
Inger felt a hot delight in the lessons when Ursula was present,
Ursula felt her whole life begin when Miss Inger came into the
room. Then, with the beloved, subtly-intimate teacher present,
the girl sat as within the rays of some enrichening sun, whose
intoxicating heat poured straight into her veins.