Domestic fiction; Family -- England -- Midlands -- Fiction; Midlands (England) -- Fiction
She made dreams of the new place she would live in, where stately
cultured people of high feeling would be friends with her, and she
would live with the noble in the land, moving to a large freedom of
feeling. She dreamed of a rich, proud, simple girl-friend, who had
never known Mr. Harby and his like, nor ever had a note in her voice of
bondaged contempt and fear, as Maggie had.
And she gave herself to all that she loved in Cossethay, passionately,
because she was going away now. She wandered about to her favourite
spots. There was a place where she went trespassing to find the
snowdrops that grew wild. It was evening and the winter-darkened
meadows were full of mystery. When she came to the woods an oak tree
had been newly chopped down in the dell. Pale drops of flowers
glimmered many under the hazels, and by the sharp, golden splinters of
wood that were splashed about, the grey-green blades of snowdrop leaves
pricked unheeding, the drooping still little flowers were without heed.
Ursula picked some lovingly, in an ecstasy. The golden chips of wood
shone yellow like sunlight, the snowdrops in the twilight were like the
first stars of night. And she, alone amongst them, was wildly happy to
have found her way into such a glimmering dusk, to the intimate little
flowers, and the splash of wood chips like sunshine over the twilight
of the ground. She sat down on the felled tree and remained awhile
remote.
Going home, she left the purplish dark of the trees for the open lane,
where the puddles shone long and jewel-like in the ruts, the land about
her was darkened, and the sky a jewel overhead. Oh, how amazing it was
to her! It was almost too much. She wanted to run, and sing, and cry
out for very wildness and poignancy, but she could not run and sing and
cry out in such a way as to cry out the deep things in her heart, so
she was still, and almost sad with loneliness.
At Easter she went again to Maggie’s home, for a few days. She was,
however shy and fugitive. She saw Anthony, how suggestive he was to
look on, and how his eyes had a sort of supplicating light, that was
rather beautiful. She looked at him, and she looked again, for him to
become real to her. But it was her own self that was occupied
elsewhere. She seemed to have some other being.
And she turned to spring and the opening buds. There was a large pear
tree by a wall, and it was full, thronged with tiny, grey-green buds,
myriads. She stood before it arrested with delight, and a realization
went deep into her heart. There was so great a host in array behind the
cloud of pale, dim green, so much to come forth—so much sunshine to
pour down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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