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.