Turning, they passed down the high-road, that went between high banks
towards the church. There, in the lowest bend of the road, low under
the trees, stood a little group of expectant people, waiting to see the
wedding. The daughter of the chief mine-owner of the district, Thomas
Crich, was getting married to a naval officer.
'Let us go back,' said Gudrun, swerving away. 'There are all those
people.' And she hung wavering in the road.
'Never mind them,' said Ursula, 'they're all right. They all know me,
they don't matter.' 'But must we go through them?' asked Gudrun.
'They're quite all right, really,' said Ursula, going forward. And
together the two sisters approached the group of uneasy, watchful
common people. They were chiefly women, colliers' wives of the more
shiftless sort. They had watchful, underworld faces.
The two sisters held themselves tense, and went straight towards the
gate. The women made way for them, but barely sufficient, as if
grudging to yield ground. The sisters passed in silence through the
stone gateway and up the steps, on the red carpet, a policeman
estimating their progress.
'What price the stockings!' said a voice at the back of Gudrun. A
sudden fierce anger swept over the girl, violent and murderous. She
would have liked them all annihilated, cleared away, so that the world
was left clear for her. How she hated walking up the churchyard path,
along the red carpet, continuing in motion, in their sight.
'I won't go into the church,' she said suddenly, with such final
decision that Ursula immediately halted, turned round, and branched off
up a small side path which led to the little private gate of the
Grammar School, whose grounds adjoined those of the church.
Just inside the gate of the school shrubbery, outside the churchyard,
Ursula sat down for a moment on the low stone wall under the laurel
bushes, to rest. Behind her, the large red building of the school rose
up peacefully, the windows all open for the holiday. Over the shrubs,
before her, were the pale roofs and tower of the old church. The
sisters were hidden by the foliage.
Gudrun sat down in silence. Her mouth was shut close, her face averted.
She was regretting bitterly that she had ever come back. Ursula looked
at her, and thought how amazingly beautiful she was, flushed with
discomfiture. But she caused a constraint over Ursula's nature, a
certain weariness. Ursula wished to be alone, freed from the tightness,
the enclosure of Gudrun's presence.
'Are we going to stay here?' asked Gudrun.
'I was only resting a minute,' said Ursula, getting up as if rebuked.
'We will stand in the corner by the fives-court, we shall see
everything from there.' For the moment, the sunshine fell brightly into the churchyard, there
was a vague scent of sap and of spring, perhaps of violets from off the
graves. Some white daisies were out, bright as angels. In the air, the
unfolding leaves of a copper-beech were blood-red.