Domestic fiction; Family -- England -- Midlands -- Fiction; Midlands (England) -- Fiction
“To Ursula Brangwen, with best wishes for her future, and in warm
memory of the time she spent in St. Philip’s School,” was written in
the headmaster’s neat, scrupulous handwriting. She could see the
careful hand holding the pen, the thick fingers with tufts of black
hair on the back of each one.
He had signed, all the teachers had signed. She liked having all their
signatures. She felt she loved them all. They were her fellow-workers.
She carried away from the school a pride she could never lose. She had
her place as comrade and sharer in the work of the school, her fellow
teachers had signed to her, as one of them. And she was one of all
workers, she had put in her tiny brick to the fabric man was building,
she had qualified herself as co-builder.
Then the day for the home removal came. Ursula rose early, to pack up
the remaining goods. The carts arrived, lent by her uncle at the Marsh,
in the lull between hay and corn harvest. The goods roped in the cart,
Ursula mounted her bicycle and sped away to Beldover.
The house was hers. She entered its clean-scrubbed silence. The
dining-room had been covered with a thick rush matting, hard and of the
beautiful, luminous, clean colour of sun-dried reeds. The walls were
pale grey, the doors were darker grey. Ursula admired it very much, as
the sun came through the large windows, streaming in.
She flung open doors and windows to the sunshine. Flowers were bright
and shining round the small lawn, which stood above the road, looking
over the raw field opposite, which would later be built upon. No one
came. So she wandered down the garden at the back of the wall. The
eight bells of the church rang the hour. She could hear the many sounds
of the town about her.
At last, the cart was seen coming round the corner, familiar furniture
piled undignified on top, Tom, her brother, and Theresa, marching on
foot beside the mass, proud of having walked ten miles or more, from
the tram terminus. Ursula poured out beer, and the men drank thirstily,
by the door. A second cart was coming. Her father appeared on his motor
bicycle. There was the staggering transport of furniture up the steps
to the little lawn, where it was deposited all pell-mell in the
sunshine, very queer and discomforting.
Brangwen was a pleasant man to work with, cheerful and easy. Ursula
loved deciding him where the heavy things should stand. She watched
anxiously the struggle up the steps and through the doorways. Then the
big things were in, the carts set off again. Ursula and her father
worked away carrying in all the light things that remained upon the
lawn, and putting them in place. Dinner time came. They ate bread and
cheese in the kitchen.
“Well, we’re getting on,” said Brangwen, cheerfully.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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