CHAPTER XXIII.
EXCURSE
Next day Birkin sought Ursula out. It happened to be the half-day at
the Grammar School. He appeared towards the end of the morning, and
asked her, would she drive with him in the afternoon. She consented. But her face was closed and unresponding, and his heart sank.
The afternoon was fine and dim. He was driving the motor-car, and she
sat beside him. But still her face was closed against him, unresponding. When she became like this, like a wall against him, his heart contracted.
His life now seemed so reduced, that he hardly cared any more. At
moments it seemed to him he did not care a straw whether Ursula or
Hermione or anybody else existed or did not exist. Why bother! Why
strive for a coherent, satisfied life? Why not drift on in a series of
accidents-like a picaresque novel? Why not? Why bother about human
relationships? Why take them seriously-male or female? Why form any
serious connections at all? Why not be casual, drifting along, taking
all for what it was worth?
And yet, still, he was damned and doomed to the old effort at serious
living.
'Look,' he said, 'what I bought.' The car was running along a broad
white road, between autumn trees.
He gave her a little bit of screwed-up paper. She took it and opened
it.
'How lovely,' she cried.
She examined the gift.
'How perfectly lovely!' she cried again. 'But why do you give them me?'
She put the question offensively.
His face flickered with bored irritation. He shrugged his shoulders
slightly.
'I wanted to,' he said, coolly.
'But why? Why should you?'
'Am I called on to find reasons?' he asked.
There was a silence, whilst she examined the rings that had been
screwed up in the paper.
'I think they are BEAUTIFUL,' she said, 'especially this. This is
wonderful-'
It was a round opal, red and fiery, set in a circle of tiny rubies.
'You like that best?' he said.
'I think I do.'
'I like the sapphire,' he said.
'This?'
It was a rose-shaped, beautiful sapphire, with small brilliants.
'Yes,' she said, 'it is lovely.' She held it in the light. 'Yes, perhaps it IS the best-'
'The blue-' he said.
'Yes, wonderful-'
He suddenly swung the car out of the way of a farm-cart. It tilted on
the bank. He was a careless driver, yet very quick. But Ursula was
frightened. There was always that something regardless in him which
terrified her. She suddenly felt he might kill her, by making some
dreadful accident with the motor-car. For a moment she was stony with
fear.
'Isn't it rather dangerous, the way you drive?' she asked him.
'No, it isn't dangerous,' he said. And then, after a pause: 'Don't you
like the yellow ring at all?'
It was a squarish topaz set in a frame of steel, or some other similar
mineral, finely wrought.
'Yes,' she said, 'I do like it. But why did you buy these rings?'
'I wanted them. They are second-hand.'
'You bought them for yourself?'
'No. Rings look wrong on my hands.'
'Why did you buy them then?'
'I bought them to give to you.'
'But why? Surely you ought to give them to Hermione! You belong to
her.'
He did not answer. She remained with the jewels shut in her hand. She
wanted to try them on her fingers, but something in her would not let
her. And moreover, she was afraid her hands were too large, she shrank
from the mortification of a failure to put them on any but her little
finger. They travelled in silence through the empty lanes.
Driving in a motor-car excited her, she forgot his presence even.
'Where are we?' she asked suddenly.
'Not far from Worksop.'
'And where are we going?'
'Anywhere.'
It was the answer she liked.
She opened her hand to look at the rings. They gave her SUCH pleasure, as they lay, the three circles, with their knotted jewels, entangled in her palm. She would have to try them on. She did so secretly, unwilling to let him see, so that he should not know her finger was too large for them. But he saw nevertheless. He always saw, if she wanted him not to. It was another of his hateful, watchful characteristics.
Only the opal, with its thin wire loop, would go on her ring finger. And she was superstitious. No, there was ill-portent enough, she would not accept this ring from him in pledge.