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He was erect and complete, there was a strange stealth glistening through his amiable, almost happy appearance. Gudrun rose sharply and went away. She could not bear it. She wanted to be alone, to know this strange, sharp inoculation that had changed the whole temper of her blood. The Brangwens went home to Beldover, the wedding-party gathered at Shortlands, the Criches' home.
She could never tell why Beldover was so utterly different from London and the south, why one's whole feelings were different, why one seemed to live in another sphere. Now she realised that this was the world of powerful, underworld men who spent most of their time in the darkness.
'Only to Beldover. 'Ah! The elderly woman never looked at Gudrun, yet she seemed to take knowledge of her presence. 'You are inclined to take too much on yourself, Gerald, said the mother, pulling herself to her feet, with a little difficulty. 'Will you go, mother? he asked, politely. 'Yes, I'll go up again, she replied.
Since he had danced he was happy. But Gerald would talk to him. Gerald, in evening dress, sat on Birkin's bed when the other lay down, and must talk. 'Who are those two Brangwens? Gerald asked. 'They live in Beldover. 'In Beldover! Who are they then? 'Teachers in the Grammar School. There was a pause. 'They are! exclaimed Gerald at length. 'I thought I had seen them before.
And she loathed it, the sordid, too-familiar place! She was afraid at the depth of her feeling against the home, the milieu, the whole atmosphere and condition of this obsolete life. Her feeling frightened her. The two girls were soon walking swiftly down the main road of Beldover, a wide street, part shops, part dwelling-houses, utterly formless and sordid, without poverty.
She believed that love was EVERYTHING. Man must render himself up to her. He must be quaffed to the dregs by her. Let him be HER MAN utterly, and she in return would be his humble slave whether she wanted it or not. After the fiasco of the proposal, Birkin had hurried blindly away from Beldover, in a whirl of fury.
'I don't worship Loerke, but at any rate, he is a free individual. He is not stiff with conceit of his own maleness. He is not grinding dutifully at the old mills. Oh God, when I think of Gerald, and his work those offices at Beldover, and the mines it makes my heart sick. What HAVE I to do with it and him thinking he can be a lover to a woman!
She looked round. There was a boat with a gaudy Japanese parasol, and a man in white, rowing. The woman was Hermione, and the man was Gerald. She knew it instantly. And instantly she perished in the keen FRISSON of anticipation, an electric vibration in her veins, intense, much more intense than that which was always humming low in the atmosphere of Beldover.
'I don't suppose you will see very much more of Gudrun, at least. She is a restless bird, she'll be gone in a week or two, said Birkin. 'Where will she go? 'London, Paris, Rome heaven knows. I always expect her to sheer off to Damascus or San Francisco; she's a bird of paradise. God knows what she's got to do with Beldover. It goes by contraries, like dreams. Gerald pondered for a few moments.
Birkin watched the black-clothed form of the other man move out of the door, the bright head was gone, he turned over to sleep. In Beldover, there was both for Ursula and for Gudrun an interval. It seemed to Ursula as if Birkin had gone out of her for the time, he had lost his significance, he scarcely mattered in her world. She had her own friends, her own activities, her own life.
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