Domestic fiction; Family -- England -- Midlands -- Fiction; Midlands (England) -- Fiction
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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