Ursula stood and listened, her heart hard and cold. She was
so much upset, that she felt almost mad. Something in her
tempted her to turn on the headmaster and tell him to stop,
about the miserable pens. But she did not. She could not.
After every session, morning and evening, she had the pens
counted. Still they were missing. And pencils and india-rubbers
disappeared. She kept the class staying behind, till the things
were found. But as soon as Mr. Harby had gone out of the room,
the boys began to jump about and shout, and at last they bolted
in a body from the school.
This was drawing near a crisis. She could not tell Mr. Harby
because, while he would punish the class, he would make her the
cause of the punishment, and her class would pay her back with
disobedience and derision. Already there was a deadly hostility
grown up between her and the children. After keeping in the
class, at evening, to finish some work, she would find boys
dodging behind her, calling after her: "Brangwen,
Brangwen--Proud-acre."
When she went into Ilkeston of a Saturday morning with
Gudrun, she heard again the voices yelling after her: "Brangwen, Brangwen."
She pretended to take no notice, but she coloured with shame
at being held up to derision in the public street. She, Ursula
Brangwen of Cossethay, could not escape from the Standard Five
teacher which she was. In vain she went out to buy ribbon for
her hat. They called after her, the boys she tried to teach.
And one evening, as she went from the edge of the town into
the country, stones came flying at her. Then the passion of
shame and anger surpassed her. She walked on unheeding, beside
herself. Because of the darkness she could not see who were
those that threw. But she did not want to know.
Only in her soul a change took place. Never more, and never
more would she give herself as individual to her class. Never
would she, Ursula Brangwen, the girl she was, the person she
was, come into contact with those boys. She would be Standard
Five teacher, as far away personally from her class as if she
had never set foot in St. Philip's school. She would just
obliterate them all, and keep herself apart, take them as
scholars only.
So her face grew more and more shut, and over her flayed,
exposed soul of a young girl who had gone open and warm to give
herself to the children, there set a hard, insentient thing,
that worked mechanically according to a system imposed.
It seemed she scarcely saw her class the next day. She could
only feel her will, and what she would have of this class which
she must grasp into subjection. It was no good, any more, to
appeal, to play upon the better feelings of the class. Her
swift-working soul realized this.