The Rainbow

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.