“How did you come here? We saw Gudrun too.”
“I came to look at the pond,” said Ursula, “and I found Mr. Birkin there.”
“Did you? This is quite a Brangwen land, isn’t it!”
“I’m afraid I hoped so,” said Ursula. “I ran here for refuge, when I saw you down the lake, just putting off.”
“Did you! And now we’ve run you to earth.”
Hermione’s eyelids lifted with an uncanny movement, amused but overwrought. She had always her strange, rapt look, unnatural and irresponsible.
“I was going on,” said Ursula. “Mr. Birkin wanted me to see the rooms. Isn’t it delightful to live here? It is perfect.”
“Yes,” said Hermione, abstractedly. Then she turned right away from Ursula, ceased to know her existence.
“How do you feel, Rupert?” she sang in a new, affectionate tone, to Birkin.
“Very well,” he replied.
“Were you quite comfortable?” The curious, sinister, rapt look was on Hermione’s face, she shrugged her bosom in a convulsed movement, and seemed like one half in a trance.
“Quite comfortable,” he replied.
There was a long pause, whilst Hermione looked at him for a long time, from under her heavy, drugged eyelids.
“And you think you’ll be happy here?” she said at last.
“I’m sure I shall.”
“I’m sure I shall do anything for him as I can,” said the labourer’s wife. “And I’m sure our master will; so I hope he’ll find himself comfortable.”
Hermione turned and looked at her slowly.
“Thank you so much,” she said, and then she turned completely away again. She recovered her position, and lifting her face towards him, and addressing him exclusively, she said:
“Have you measured the rooms?”
“No,” he said, “I’ve been mending the punt.”
“Shall we do it now?” she said slowly, balanced and dispassionate.
“Have you got a tape measure, Mrs. Salmon?” he said, turning to the woman.
“Yes sir, I think I can find one,” replied the woman, bustling immediately to a basket. “This is the only one I’ve got, if it will do.”
Hermione took it, though it was offered to him.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “It will do very nicely. Thank you so much.” Then she turned to Birkin, saying with a little gay movement: “Shall we do it now, Rupert?”
“What about the others, they’ll be bored,” he said reluctantly.
“Do you mind?” said Hermione, turning to Ursula and Gerald vaguely.
“Not in the least,” they replied.
“Which room shall we do first?” she said, turning again to Birkin, with the same gaiety, now she was going to do something with him.
“We’ll take them as they come,” he said.
“Should I be getting your teas ready, while you do that?” said the labourer’s wife, also gay because she had something to do.
“Would you?” said Hermione, turning to her with the curious motion of intimacy that seemed to envelop the woman, draw her almost to Hermione’s breast, and which left the others standing apart. “I should be so glad. Where shall we have it?”
“Where would you like it? Shall it be in here, or out on the grass?”
“Where shall we have tea?” sang Hermione to the company at large.
“On the bank by the pond. And we’ll carry the things up, if you’ll just get them ready, Mrs. Salmon,” said Birkin.
“All right,” said the pleased woman.
The party moved down the passage into the front room. It was empty, but clean and sunny. There was a window looking on to the tangled front garden.
“This is the dining-room,” said Hermione. “We’ll measure it this way, Rupert—you go down there—”
“Can’t I do it for you,” said Gerald, coming to take the end of the tape.
“No, thank you,” cried Hermione, stooping to the ground in her bluish, brilliant foulard. It was a great joy to her to do things, and to have the ordering of the job, with Birkin. He obeyed her subduedly. Ursula and Gerald looked on. It was a peculiarity of Hermione’s, that at every moment, she had one intimate, and turned all the rest of those present into onlookers. This raised her into a state of triumph.
They measured and discussed in the dining-room, and Hermione decided what the floor coverings must be. It sent her into a strange, convulsed anger, to be thwarted. Birkin always let her have her way, for the moment.
Then they moved across, through the hall, to the other front room, that was a little smaller than the first.
“This is the study,” said Hermione. “Rupert, I have a rug that I want you to have for here. Will you let me give it to you? Do—I want to give it you.”
“What is it like?” he asked ungraciously.
“You haven’t seen it. It is chiefly rose red, then blue, a metallic, mid-blue, and a very soft dark blue. I think you would like it. Do you think you would?”
“It sounds very nice,” he replied. “What is it? Oriental? With a pile?”
“Yes. Persian! It is made of camel’s hair, silky. I think it is called Bergamos—twelve feet by seven—. Do you think it will do?”
“It would do,” he said. “But why should you give me an expensive rug? I can manage perfectly well with my old Oxford Turkish.”
“But may I give it to you? Do let me.”
“How much did it cost?”
She looked at him, and said:
“I don’t remember. It was quite cheap.”
He looked at her, his face set.
“I don’t want to take it, Hermione,” he said.
“Do let me give it to the rooms,” she said, going up to him and putting her hand on his arm lightly, pleadingly. “I shall be so disappointed.”
“You know I don’t want you to give me things,” he repeated helplessly.
“I don’t want to give you things,” she said teasingly. “But will you have this?”
“All right,” he said, defeated, and she triumphed.
They went upstairs. There were two bedrooms to correspond with the rooms downstairs. One of them was half furnished, and Birkin had evidently slept there. Hermione went round the room carefully, taking in every detail, as if absorbing the evidence of his presence, in all the inanimate things. She felt the bed and examined the coverings.
“Are you sure
