He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally.
'Well,' he said, 'she's had everything that's right for a girl to
have--as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.' 'I'm sure she has,' said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop. The
father was becoming exasperated. There was something naturally irritant
to him in Birkin's mere presence.
'And I don't want to see her going back on it all,' he said, in a
clanging voice.
'Why?' said Birkin.
This monosyllable exploded in Brangwen's brain like a shot.
'Why! I don't believe in your new-fangled ways and new-fangled
ideas--in and out like a frog in a gallipot. It would never do for me.' Birkin watched him with steady emotionless eyes. The radical antagnoism
in the two men was rousing.
'Yes, but are my ways and ideas new-fangled?' asked Birkin.
'Are they?' Brangwen caught himself up. 'I'm not speaking of you in
particular,' he said. 'What I mean is that my children have been
brought up to think and do according to the religion I was brought up
in myself, and I don't want to see them going away from THAT.' There was a dangerous pause.
'And beyond that--?' asked Birkin.
The father hesitated, he was in a nasty position.
'Eh? What do you mean? All I want to say is that my daughter'--he
tailed off into silence, overcome by futility. He knew that in some way
he was off the track.
'Of course,' said Birkin, 'I don't want to hurt anybody or influence
anybody. Ursula does exactly as she pleases.' There was a complete silence, because of the utter failure in mutual
understanding. Birkin felt bored. Her father was not a coherent human
being, he was a roomful of old echoes. The eyes of the younger man
rested on the face of the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkin
looking at him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger and
humiliation and sense of inferiority in strength.
'And as for beliefs, that's one thing,' he said. 'But I'd rather see my
daughters dead tomorrow than that they should be at the beck and call
of the first man that likes to come and whistle for them.' A queer painful light came into Birkin's eyes.
'As to that,' he said, 'I only know that it's much more likely that
it's I who am at the beck and call of the woman, than she at mine.' Again there was a pause. The father was somewhat bewildered.
'I know,' he said, 'she'll please herself--she always has done. I've
done my best for them, but that doesn't matter. They've got themselves
to please, and if they can help it they'll please nobody BUT
themselves. But she's a right to consider her mother, and me as well--' Brangwen was thinking his own thoughts.