The examination came, and then school was over. It was the
long vacation. Winifred Inger went away to London. Ursula was
left alone in Cossethay. A terrible, outcast, almost poisonous
despair possessed her. It was no use doing anything, or being
anything. She had no connection with other people. Her lot was
isolated and deadly. There was nothing for her anywhere, but
this black disintegration. Yet, within all the great attack of
disintegration upon her, she remained herself. It was the
terrible core of all her suffering, that she was always herself.
Never could she escape that: she could not put off being
herself.
She still adhered to Winifred Inger. But a sort of nausea was
coming over her. She loved her mistress. But a heavy, clogged
sense of deadness began to gather upon her, from the other
woman's contact. And sometimes she thought Winifred was ugly,
clayey. Her female hips seemed big and earthy, her ankles and
her arms were too thick. She wanted some fine intensity, instead
of this heavy cleaving of moist clay, that cleaves because it
has no life of its own.
Winifred still loved Ursula. She had a passion for the fine
flame of the girl, she served her endlessly, would have done
anything for her.
"Come with me to London," she pleaded to the girl. "I will
make it nice for you,--you shall do lots of things you will
enjoy."
"No," said Ursula, stubbornly and dully. "No, I don't want to
go to London, I want to be by myself."
Winifred knew what this meant. She knew that Ursula was
beginning to reject her. The fine, unquenchable flame of the
younger girl would consent no more to mingle with the perverted
life of the elder woman. Winifred knew it would come. But she
too was proud. At the bottom of her was a black pit of despair.
She knew perfectly well that Ursula would cast her off.
And that seemed like the end of her life. But she was too
hopeless to rage. Wisely, economizing what was left of Ursula's
love, she went away to London, leaving the beloved girl
alone.
And after a fortnight, Ursula's letters became tender again,
loving. Her Uncle Tom had invited her to go and stay with him.
He was managing a big, new colliery in Yorkshire. Would Winifred
come too?
For now Ursula was imagining marriage for Winifred. She
wanted her to marry her Uncle Tom. Winifred knew this. She said
she would come to Wiggiston. She would now let fate do as it
liked with her, since there was nothing remaining to be done.
Tom Brangwen also saw Ursula's intention. He too was at the end
of his desires. He had done the things he had wanted to. They
had all ended in a disintegrated lifelessness of soul, which he
hid under an utterly tolerant good-humour. He no longer cared
about anything on earth, neither man nor woman, nor God nor
humanity. He had come to a stability of nullification. He did
not care any more, neither about his body nor about his soul.
Only he would preserve intact his own life. Only the simple,
superficial fact of living persisted. He was still healthy. He
lived. Therefore he would fill each moment. That had always been
his creed. It was not instinctive easiness: it was the
inevitable outcome of his nature. When he was in the absolute
privacy of his own life, he did as he pleased, unscrupulous,
without any ulterior thought. He believed neither in good nor
evil. Each moment was like a separate little island, isolated
from time, and blank, unconditioned by time.