Women in Love | Page 9

long, low old house, a sort of
manor farm, that spread along the top of a slope just beyond the narrow
little lake of Willey Water. Shortlands looked across a sloping meadow
that might be a park, because of the large, solitary trees that stood here
and there, across the water of the narrow lake, at the wooded hill that
successfully hid the colliery valley beyond, but did not quite hide the
rising smoke. Nevertheless, the scene was rural and picturesque, very
peaceful, and the house had a charm of its own.
It was crowded now with the family and the wedding guests. The father,
who was not well, withdrew to rest. Gerald was host. He stood in the
homely entrance hall, friendly and easy, attending to the men. He
seemed to take pleasure in his social functions, he smiled, and was
abundant in hospitality.
The women wandered about in a little confusion, chased hither and
thither by the three married daughters of the house. All the while there
could be heard the characteristic, imperious voice of one Crich woman
or another calling 'Helen, come here a minute,' 'Marjory, I want
you--here.' 'Oh, I say, Mrs Witham--.' There was a great rustling of
skirts, swift glimpses of smartly-dressed women, a child danced
through the hall and back again, a maidservant came and went
hurriedly.
Meanwhile the men stood in calm little groups, chatting, smoking,
pretending to pay no heed to the rustling animation of the women's
world. But they could not really talk, because of the glassy ravel of
women's excited, cold laughter and running voices. They waited,
uneasy, suspended, rather bored. But Gerald remained as if genial and
happy, unaware that he was waiting or unoccupied, knowing himself
the very pivot of the occasion.

Suddenly Mrs Crich came noiselessly into the room, peering about with
her strong, clear face. She was still wearing her hat, and her sac coat of
blue silk.
'What is it, mother?' said Gerald.
'Nothing, nothing!' she answered vaguely. And she went straight
towards Birkin, who was talking to a Crich brother-in-law.
'How do you do, Mr Birkin,' she said, in her low voice, that seemed to
take no count of her guests. She held out her hand to him.
'Oh Mrs Crich,' replied Birkin, in his readily-changing voice, 'I couldn't
come to you before.'
'I don't know half the people here,' she said, in her low voice. Her
son-in-law moved uneasily away.
'And you don't like strangers?' laughed Birkin. 'I myself can never see
why one should take account of people, just because they happen to be
in the room with one: why SHOULD I know they are there?'
'Why indeed, why indeed!' said Mrs Crich, in her low, tense voice.
'Except that they ARE there. I don't know people whom I find in the
house. The children introduce them to me--"Mother, this is Mr
So-and-so." I am no further. What has Mr So-and-so to do with his own
name?--and what have I to do with either him or his name?'
She looked up at Birkin. She startled him. He was flattered too that she
came to talk to him, for she took hardly any notice of anybody. He
looked down at her tense clear face, with its heavy features, but he was
afraid to look into her heavy-seeing blue eyes. He noticed instead how
her hair looped in slack, slovenly strands over her rather beautiful ears,
which were not quite clean. Neither was her neck perfectly clean. Even
in that he seemed to belong to her, rather than to the rest of the
company; though, he thought to himself, he was always well washed, at
any rate at the neck and ears.

He smiled faintly, thinking these things. Yet he was tense, feeling that
he and the elderly, estranged woman were conferring together like
traitors, like enemies within the camp of the other people. He
resembled a deer, that throws one ear back upon the trail behind, and
one ear forward, to know what is ahead.
'People don't really matter,' he said, rather unwilling to continue.
The mother looked up at him with sudden, dark interrogation, as if
doubting his sincerity.
'How do you mean, MATTER?' she asked sharply.
'Not many people are anything at all,' he answered, forced to go deeper
than he wanted to. 'They jingle and giggle. It would be much better if
they were just wiped out. Essentially, they don't exist, they aren't there.'
She watched him steadily while he spoke.
'But we didn't imagine them,' she said sharply.
'There's nothing to imagine, that's why they don't exist.'
'Well,' she said, 'I would hardly go as far as that. There they are,
whether they exist or no. It doesn't rest with me to decide on their
existence. I only know that