The Rainbow

This strange sense of cruelty and ugliness always imminent,

ready to seize hold upon her this feeling of the grudging power

of the mob lying in wait for her, who was the exception, formed

one of the deepest influences of her life. Wherever she was, at

school, among friends, in the street, in the train, she

instinctively abated herself, made herself smaller, feigned to

be less than she was, for fear that her undiscovered self should

be seen, pounced upon, attacked by brutish resentment of the

commonplace, the average Self.

She was fairly safe at school, now. She knew how to take her

place there, and how much of herself to reserve. But she was

free only on Sundays. When she was but a girl of fourteen, she

began to feel a resentment growing against her in her own home.

She knew she was the disturbing influence there. But as yet, on

Sundays, she was free, really free, free to be herself, without

fear or misgiving.

Even at its stormiest, Sunday was a blessed day. Ursula woke

to it with a feeling of immense relief. She wondered why her

heart was so light. Then she remembered it was Sunday. A

gladness seemed to burst out around her, a feeling of great

freedom. The whole world was for twenty-four hours revoked, put

back. Only the Sunday world existed.

She loved the very confusion of the household. It was lucky

if the children slept till seven o'clock. Usually, soon after

six, a chirp was heard, a voice, an excited chirrup began,

announcing the creation of a new day, there was a thudding of

quick little feet, and the children were up and about,

scampering in their shirts, with pink legs and glistening,

flossy hair all clean from the Saturday's night bathing, their

souls excited by their bodies' cleanliness.

As the house began to teem with rushing, half-naked clean

children, one of the parents rose, either the mother, easy and

slatternly, with her thick, dark hair loosely coiled and

slipping over one ear, or the father, warm and comfortable, with

ruffled black hair and shirt unbuttoned at the neck.

Then the girls upstairs heard the continual: "Now then, Billy, what are you up to?" in the father's

strong, vibrating voice: or the mother's dignified: "I have said, Cassie, I will not have it."

It was amazing how the father's voice could ring out like a

gong, without his being in the least moved, and how the mother

could speak like a queen holding an audience, though her blouse

was sticking out all round and her hair was not fastened up and

the children were yelling a pandemonium.

Gradually breakfast was produced, and the elder girls came

down into the babel, whilst half-naked children flitted round

like the wrong ends of cherubs, as Gudrun said, watching the

bare little legs and the chubby tails appearing and

disappearing.