This strange sense of cruelty and ugliness always imminent,
ready to seize hold upon her this feeling of the grudging power
of the mob lying in wait for her, who was the exception, formed
one of the deepest influences of her life. Wherever she was, at
school, among friends, in the street, in the train, she
instinctively abated herself, made herself smaller, feigned to
be less than she was, for fear that her undiscovered self should
be seen, pounced upon, attacked by brutish resentment of the
commonplace, the average Self.
She was fairly safe at school, now. She knew how to take her
place there, and how much of herself to reserve. But she was
free only on Sundays. When she was but a girl of fourteen, she
began to feel a resentment growing against her in her own home.
She knew she was the disturbing influence there. But as yet, on
Sundays, she was free, really free, free to be herself, without
fear or misgiving.
Even at its stormiest, Sunday was a blessed day. Ursula woke
to it with a feeling of immense relief. She wondered why her
heart was so light. Then she remembered it was Sunday. A
gladness seemed to burst out around her, a feeling of great
freedom. The whole world was for twenty-four hours revoked, put
back. Only the Sunday world existed.
She loved the very confusion of the household. It was lucky
if the children slept till seven o'clock. Usually, soon after
six, a chirp was heard, a voice, an excited chirrup began,
announcing the creation of a new day, there was a thudding of
quick little feet, and the children were up and about,
scampering in their shirts, with pink legs and glistening,
flossy hair all clean from the Saturday's night bathing, their
souls excited by their bodies' cleanliness.
As the house began to teem with rushing, half-naked clean
children, one of the parents rose, either the mother, easy and
slatternly, with her thick, dark hair loosely coiled and
slipping over one ear, or the father, warm and comfortable, with
ruffled black hair and shirt unbuttoned at the neck.
Then the girls upstairs heard the continual: "Now then, Billy, what are you up to?" in the father's
strong, vibrating voice: or the mother's dignified: "I have said, Cassie, I will not have it."
It was amazing how the father's voice could ring out like a
gong, without his being in the least moved, and how the mother
could speak like a queen holding an audience, though her blouse
was sticking out all round and her hair was not fastened up and
the children were yelling a pandemonium.
Gradually breakfast was produced, and the elder girls came
down into the babel, whilst half-naked children flitted round
like the wrong ends of cherubs, as Gudrun said, watching the
bare little legs and the chubby tails appearing and
disappearing.