They had all their things very dainty, two odd and lovely little cups,
scarlet and solid gilt, and a little black jug with scarlet discs, and
the curious coffee-machine, whose spirit-flame flowed steadily, almost
invisibly. There was the effect of rather sinister richness, in which
Gerald at once escaped himself.
They all sat down, and Gudrun carefully poured out the coffee.
'Will you have milk?' she asked calmly, yet nervously poising the
little black jug with its big red dots. She was always so completely
controlled, yet so bitterly nervous.
'No, I won't,' he replied.
So, with a curious humility, she placed him the little cup of coffee,
and herself took the awkward tumbler. She seemed to want to serve him.
'Why don't you give me the glass--it is so clumsy for you,' he said. He
would much rather have had it, and seen her daintily served. But she
was silent, pleased with the disparity, with her self-abasement.
'You are quite EN MENAGE,' he said.
'Yes. We aren't really at home to visitors,' said Winifred.
'You're not? Then I'm an intruder?' For once he felt his conventional dress was out of place, he was an
outsider.
Gudrun was very quiet. She did not feel drawn to talk to him. At this
stage, silence was best--or mere light words. It was best to leave
serious things aside. So they talked gaily and lightly, till they heard
the man below lead out the horse, and call it to 'back-back!' into the
dog-cart that was to take Gudrun home. So she put on her things, and
shook hands with Gerald, without once meeting his eyes. And she was
gone.
The funeral was detestable. Afterwards, at the tea-table, the daughters
kept saying--'He was a good father to us--the best father in the
world'--or else--'We shan't easily find another man as good as father
was.' Gerald acquiesced in all this. It was the right conventional attitude,
and, as far as the world went, he believed in the conventions. He took
it as a matter of course. But Winifred hated everything, and hid in the
studio, and cried her heart out, and wished Gudrun would come.
Luckily everybody was going away. The Criches never stayed long at
home. By dinner-time, Gerald was left quite alone. Even Winifred was
carried off to London, for a few days with her sister Laura.
But when Gerald was really left alone, he could not bear it. One day
passed by, and another. And all the time he was like a man hung in
chains over the edge of an abyss. Struggle as he might, he could not
turn himself to the solid earth, he could not get footing. He was
suspended on the edge of a void, writhing. Whatever he thought of, was
the abyss--whether it were friends or strangers, or work or play, it
all showed him only the same bottomless void, in which his heart swung
perishing. There was no escape, there was nothing to grasp hold of. He
must writhe on the edge of the chasm, suspended in chains of invisible
physical life.