Meanwhile much hang-dog fury in the Pillinses' hearts, much
virtue in the Brangwen girls', particularly in Theresa's. And
the feud continued, with periods of extraordinary amity, when
Ursula was Clem Phillips's sweetheart, and Gudrun was Walter's,
and Theresa was Billy's, and even the tiny Katie had to be Eddie
Ant'ny's sweetheart. There was the closest union. At every
possible moment the little gang of Brangwens and Phillipses flew
together. Yet neither Ursula nor Gudrun would have any real
intimacy with the Phillips boys. It was a sort of fiction to
them, this alliance and this dubbing of sweethearts.
Again Mrs. Brangwen rose up.
"Ursula, I will not have you raking the roads with
lads, so I tell you. Now stop it, and the rest will stop
it."
How Ursula hated always to represent the little
Brangwen club. She could never be herself, no, she was always
Ursula-Gudrun-Theresa-Catherine--and later even Billy was
added on to her. Moreover, she did not want the Phillipses
either. She was out of taste with them.
However, the Brangwen-Pillins coalition readily broke down,
owing to the unfair superiority of the Brangwens. The Brangwens
were rich. They had free access to the Marsh Farm. The school
teachers were almost respectful to the girls, the vicar spoke to
them on equal terms. The Brangwen girls presumed, they tossed
their heads.
"You're not ivrybody, Urtler Brangwin, ugly-mug," said
Clem Phillips, his face going very red.
"I'm better than you, for all that," retorted Urtler.
"You think you are--wi' a face like
that--Ugly Mug,--Urtler Brangwin," he began to jeer,
trying to set all the others in cry against her. Then there was
hostility again. How she hated their jeering. She became
cold against the Phillipses. Ursula was very proud in her
family. The Brangwen girls had all a curious blind dignity, even
a kind of nobility in their bearing. By some result of breed and
upbringing, they seemed to rush along their own lives without
caring that they existed to other people. Never from the start
did it occur to Ursula that other people might hold a low
opinion of her. She thought that whosoever knew her, knew she
was enough and accepted her as such. She thought it was a world
of people like herself. She suffered bitterly if she were forced
to have a low opinion of any person, and she never forgave that
person.
This was maddening to many little people. All their lives,
the Brangwens were meeting folk who tried to pull them down to
make them seem little. Curiously, the mother was aware of what
would happen, and was always ready to give her children the
advantage of the move.
When Ursula was twelve, and the common school and the
companionship of the village children, niggardly and begrudging,
was beginning to affect her, Anna sent her with Gudrun to the
Grammar School in Nottingham. This was a great release for
Ursula. She had a passionate craving to escape from the
belittling circumstances of life, the little jealousies, the
little differences, the little meannesses. It was a torture to
her that the Phillipses were poorer and meaner than herself,
that they used mean little reservations, took petty little
advantages. She wanted to be with her equals: but not by
diminishing herself. She did want Clem Phillips to be her
equal. But by some puzzling, painful fate or other, when he was
really there with her, he produced in her a tight feeling in the
head. She wanted to beat her forehead, to escape.