CHAPTER XVIII.
RABBIT
Gudrun knew that it was a critical thing for her to go to Shortlands.She knew it was equivalent to accepting Gerald Crich as a lover. Andthough she hung back, disliking the condition, yet she knew she wouldgo on. She equivocated. She said to herself, in torment recalling theblow and the kiss, 'after all, what is it? What is a kiss? What even isa blow? It is an instant, vanished at once. I can go to Shortlands justfor a time, before I go away, if only to see what it is like.' For shehad an insatiable curiosity to see and to know everything.
She also wanted to know what Winifred was really like. Having heard thechild calling from the steamer in the night, she felt some mysteriousconnection with her.
Gudrun talked with the father in the library. Then he sent for hisdaughter. She came accompanied by Mademoiselle.
'Winnie, this is Miss Brangwen, who will be so kind as to help you withyour drawing and making models of your animals,' said the father.
The child looked at Gudrun for a moment with interest, before she cameforward and with face averted offered her hand. There was a completeSANG FROID and indifference under Winifred's childish reserve, acertain irresponsible callousness.
'How do you do?' said the child, not lifting her face.
'How do you do?' said Gudrun.
Then Winifred stood aside, and Gudrun was introduced to Mademoiselle.
'You have a fine day for your walk,' said Mademoiselle, in a brightmanner.
'QUITE fine,' said Gudrun.
Winifred was watching from her distance. She was as if amused, butrather unsure as yet what this new person was like. She saw so many newpersons, and so few who became real to her. Mademoiselle was of nocount whatever, the child merely put up with her, calmly and easily,accepting her little authority with faint scorn, compliant out ofchildish arrogance of indifference.
'Well, Winifred,' said the father, 'aren't you glad Miss Brangwen hascome? She makes animals and birds in wood and in clay, that the peoplein London write about in the papers, praising them to the skies.'
Winifred smiled slightly.
'Who told you, Daddie?' she asked.
'Who told me? Hermione told me, and Rupert Birkin.'
'Do you know them?' Winifred asked of Gudrun, turning to her with faintchallenge.
'Yes,' said Gudrun.
Winifred readjusted herself a little. She had been ready to acceptGudrun as a sort of servant. Now she saw it was on terms of friendshipthey were intended to meet. She was rather glad. She had so many halfinferiors, whom she tolerated with perfect good-humour.
Gudrun was very calm. She also did not take these things veryseriously. A new occasion was mostly spectacular to her. However,Winifred was a detached, ironic child, she would never attach herself.Gudrun liked her and was intrigued by her. The first meetings went offwith a certain humiliating clumsiness. Neither Winifred nor herinstructress had any social grace.
Soon, however, they met in a kind of make-belief world. Winifred didnot notice human beings unless they were like herself, playful andslightly mocking. She would accept nothing but the world of amusement,and the serious people of her life were the animals she had for pets.On those she lavished, almost ironically, her affection and hercompanionship. To the rest of the human scheme she submitted with afaint bored indifference.
She had a pekinese dog called Looloo, which she loved.
'Let us draw Looloo,' said Gudrun, 'and see if we can get hisLooliness, shall we?'
'Darling!' cried Winifred, rushing to the dog, that sat withcontemplative sadness on the hearth, and kissing its bulging brow.'Darling one, will you be drawn? Shall its mummy draw its portrait?'Then she chuckled gleefully, and turning to Gudrun, said: 'Oh let's!'
They proceeded to get pencils and paper, and were ready.
'Beautifullest,' cried Winifred, hugging the dog, 'sit still while itsmummy draws its beautiful portrait.' The dog looked up at her withgrievous resignation in its large, prominent eyes. She kissed itfervently, and said: 'I wonder what mine will be like. It's sure to beawful.'
As she sketched she chuckled to herself, and cried out at times:
'Oh darling, you're so beautiful!'
And again chuckling, she rushed to embrace the dog, in penitence, as ifshe were doing him some subtle injury. He sat all the time with theresignation and fretfulness of ages on his dark velvety face. She drewslowly, with a wicked concentration in her eyes, her head on one side,an intense stillness over her. She was as if working the spell of someenchantment. Suddenly she had finished. She looked at the dog, and thenat her drawing, and then cried, with real grief for the dog, and at thesame time with a wicked exultation:
'My beautiful, why did they?'
She took her paper to the dog, and held it under his nose. He turnedhis head aside as in chagrin and mortification, and she impulsivelykissed his velvety bulging forehead.
''s a Loolie, 's a little Loozie! Look at his portrait, darling, lookat his portrait, that his mother has done of him.' She looked at herpaper and chuckled. Then, kissing the dog once more, she rose and camegravely to Gudrun, offering her the paper.
It was a grotesque little diagram of a grotesque little animal, sowicked and so comical, a slow smile came over Gudrun's face,unconsciously. And at her side Winifred chuckled with glee, and said:
'It isn't like him, is it? He's much lovelier than that. He's SObeautiful-mmm, Looloo, my sweet darling.' And she flew off to embracethe chagrined little dog. He looked up at her with reproachful,saturnine eyes, vanquished in his extreme agedness of being. Then sheflew back to her drawing, and chuckled with satisfaction.
'It isn't like him, is it?' she said to Gudrun.
'Yes, it's very like him,' Gudrun replied.
The child treasured her drawing, carried it about with her, and showedit, with a silent embarrassment, to everybody.
'Look,' she said, thrusting the paper into her father's hand.
'Why that's Looloo!' he exclaimed. And he looked down in surprise,hearing the almost inhuman chuckle of the child at his side.
Gerald was away from home when Gudrun first came to Shortlands. But thefirst morning he came back he watched for her. It was a sunny, softmorning, and he lingered in the garden paths, looking at the flowersthat had come out during his absence. He was clean and fit as ever,shaven, his fair hair scrupulously parted at the side, bright in thesunshine, his short, fair moustache closely clipped, his eyes withtheir humorous kind twinkle, which was so deceptive. He was dressed inblack, his clothes sat well on his well-nourished body. Yet as helingered before the flower-beds in the morning sunshine, there was acertain isolation, a fear about him, as of something wanting.
Gudrun came up quickly, unseen. She was dressed in blue, with woollenyellow stockings, like the Bluecoat boys. He glanced up in surprise.Her stockings always disconcerted him, the pale-yellow stockings andthe heavy heavy black shoes. Winifred, who had been playing about thegarden with Mademoiselle and the dogs, came flitting towards Gudrun.The child wore a dress of black-and-white stripes. Her hair was rathershort, cut round and hanging level in her neck.
'We're going to do Bismarck, aren't we?' she said, linking her handthrough Gudrun's arm.
'Yes, we're going to do Bismarck. Do you want to?'
'Oh yes-oh I do! I want most awfully to do Bismarck. He looks SOsplendid this morning, so FIERCE. He's almost as big as a lion.' Andthe child chuckled sardonically at her own hyperbole. 'He's a realking, he really is.'
'Bon jour, Mademoiselle,' said the little French governess, wavering upwith a slight bow, a bow of the sort that Gudrun loathed, insolent.
'Winifred veut tant faire le portrait de Bismarck-! Oh, mais toute lamatinee-”We will do Bismarck this morning!”-Bismarck, Bismarck,toujours Bismarck! C'est un lapin, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?'
'Oui, c'est un grand lapin blanc et noir. Vous ne l'avez pas vu?' saidGudrun in her good, but rather heavy French.
'Non, mademoiselle, Winifred n'a jamais voulu me le faire voir. Tant defois je le lui ai demande, ”Qu'est ce donc que ce Bismarck, Winifred?”Mais elle n'a pas voulu me le dire. Son Bismarck, c'etait un mystere.'
'Oui, c'est un mystere, vraiment un mystere! Miss Brangwen, say thatBismarck is a mystery,' cried Winifred.
'Bismarck, is a mystery, Bismarck, c'est un mystere, der Bismarck, erist ein Wunder,' said Gudrun, in mocking incantation.
'Ja, er ist ein Wunder,' repeated Winifred, with odd seriousness, underwhich lay a wicked chuckle.
'Ist er auch ein Wunder?' came the slightly insolent sneering ofMademoiselle.
'Doch!' said Winifred briefly, indifferent.
'Doch ist er nicht ein Konig. Beesmarck, he was not a king, Winifred,as you have said. He was only-il n'etait que chancelier.'
'Qu'est ce qu'un chancelier?' said Winifred, with slightly contemptuousindifference.
'A chancelier is a chancellor, and a chancellor is, I believe, a sortof judge,' said Gerald coming up and shaking hands with Gudrun. 'You'llhave made a song of Bismarck soon,' said he.
Mademoiselle waited, and discreetly made her inclination, and hergreeting.
'So they wouldn't let you see Bismarck, Mademoiselle?' he said.
'Non, Monsieur.'
'Ay, very mean of them. What are you going to do to him, Miss Brangwen?I want him sent to the kitchen and cooked.'
'Oh no,' cried Winifred.
'We're going to draw him,' said Gudrun.
'Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,' he said, being purposelyfatuous.
'Oh no,' cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling.
Gudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up andsmiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met inknowledge.
'How do you like Shortlands?' he asked.
'Oh, very much,' she said, with nonchalance.
'Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?'
He led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, andthe governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veinedsalpiglossis flowers.
'Aren't they wonderful?' she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strangehow her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressedhis nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitelyfine and delicate-touching finger-tips. It filled him with ease to seeher. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers,looked into his.
'What are they?' she asked.
'Sort of petunia, I suppose,' he answered. 'I don't really know them.'
'They are quite strangers to me,' she said.
They stood together in a false intimacy, a nervous contact. And he wasin love with her.
She was aware of Mademoiselle standing near, like a little Frenchbeetle, observant and calculating. She moved away with Winifred, sayingthey would go to find Bismarck.
Gerald watched them go, looking all the while at the soft, full, stillbody of Gudrun, in its silky cashmere. How silky and rich and soft herbody must be. An excess of appreciation came over his mind, she was theall-desirable, the all-beautiful. He wanted only to come to her,nothing more. He was only this, this being that should come to her, andbe given to her.
At the same time he was finely and acutely aware of Mademoiselle'sneat, brittle finality of form. She was like some elegant beetle withthin ankles, perched on her high heels, her glossy black dressperfectly correct, her dark hair done high and admirably. How repulsiveher completeness and her finality was! He loathed her.
Yet he did admire her. She was perfectly correct. And it did ratherannoy him, that Gudrun came dressed in startling colours, like a macaw,when the family was in mourning. Like a macaw she was! He watched thelingering way she took her feet from the ground. And her ankles werepale yellow, and her dress a deep blue. Yet it pleased him. It pleasedhim very much. He felt the challenge in her very attire-she challengedthe whole world. And he smiled as to the note of a trumpet.
Gudrun and Winifred went through the house to the back, where were thestables and the out-buildings. Everywhere was still and deserted. MrCrich had gone out for a short drive, the stableman had just led roundGerald's horse. The two girls went to the hutch that stood in a corner,and looked at the great black-and-white rabbit.
'Isn't he beautiful! Oh, do look at him listening! Doesn't he looksilly!' she laughed quickly, then added 'Oh, do let's do him listening,do let us, he listens with so much of himself;-don't you darlingBismarck?'
'Can we take him out?' said Gudrun.
'He's very strong. He really is extremely strong.' She looked atGudrun, her head on one side, in odd calculating mistrust.
'But we'll try, shall we?'
'Yes, if you like. But he's a fearful kicker!'
They took the key to unlock the door. The rabbit exploded in a wildrush round the hutch.
'He scratches most awfully sometimes,' cried Winifred in excitement.'Oh do look at him, isn't he wonderful!' The rabbit tore round thehutch in a hurry. 'Bismarck!' cried the child, in rousing excitement.'How DREADFUL you are! You are beastly.' Winifred looked up at Gudrunwith some misgiving in her wild excitement. Gudrun smiled sardonicallywith her mouth. Winifred made a strange crooning noise of unaccountableexcitement. 'Now he's still!' she cried, seeing the rabbit settled downin a far corner of the hutch. 'Shall we take him now?' she whisperedexcitedly, mysteriously, looking up at Gudrun and edging very close.'Shall we get him now?-' she chuckled wickedly to herself.
They unlocked the door of the hutch. Gudrun thrust in her arm andseized the great, lusty rabbit as it crouched still, she grasped itslong ears. It set its four feet flat, and thrust back. There was a longscraping sound as it was hauled forward, and in another instant it wasin mid-air, lunging wildly, its body flying like a spring coiled andreleased, as it lashed out, suspended from the ears. Gudrun held theblack-and-white tempest at arms' length, averting her face. But therabbit was magically strong, it was all she could do to keep her grasp.She almost lost her presence of mind.
'Bismarck, Bismarck, you are behaving terribly,' said Winifred in arather frightened voice, 'Oh, do put him down, he's beastly.'
Gudrun stood for a moment astounded by the thunder-storm that hadsprung into being in her grip. Then her colour came up, a heavy ragecame over her like a cloud. She stood shaken as a house in a storm, andutterly overcome. Her heart was arrested with fury at the mindlessnessand the bestial stupidity of this struggle, her wrists were badlyscored by the claws of the beast, a heavy cruelty welled up in her.
Gerald came round as she was trying to capture the flying rabbit underher arm. He saw, with subtle recognition, her sullen passion ofcruelty.
'You should let one of the men do that for you,' he said hurrying up.
'Oh, he's SO horrid!' cried Winifred, almost frantic.
He held out his nervous, sinewy hand and took the rabbit by the ears,from Gudrun.
'It's most FEARFULLY strong,' she cried, in a high voice, like thecrying a seagull, strange and vindictive.
The rabbit made itself into a ball in the air, and lashed out, flingingitself into a bow. It really seemed demoniacal. Gudrun saw Gerald'sbody tighten, saw a sharp blindness come into his eyes.
'I know these beggars of old,' he said.
The long, demon-like beast lashed out again, spread on the air as if itwere flying, looking something like a dragon, then closing up again,inconceivably powerful and explosive. The man's body, strung to itsefforts, vibrated strongly. Then a sudden sharp, white-edged wrath cameup in him. Swift as lightning he drew back and brought his free handdown like a hawk on the neck of the rabbit. Simultaneously, there camethe unearthly abhorrent scream of a rabbit in the fear of death. Itmade one immense writhe, tore his wrists and his sleeves in a finalconvulsion, all its belly flashed white in a whirlwind of paws, andthen he had slung it round and had it under his arm, fast. It coweredand skulked. His face was gleaming with a smile.
'You wouldn't think there was all that force in a rabbit,' he said,looking at Gudrun. And he saw her eyes black as night in her pallidface, she looked almost unearthly. The scream of the rabbit, after theviolent tussle, seemed to have torn the veil of her consciousness. Helooked at her, and the whitish, electric gleam in his face intensified.
'I don't really like him,' Winifred was crooning. 'I don't care for himas I do for Loozie. He's hateful really.'
A smile twisted Gudrun's face, as she recovered. She knew she wasrevealed. 'Don't they make the most fearful noise when they scream?'she cried, the high note in her voice, like a sea-gull's cry.
'Abominable,' he said.
'He shouldn't be so silly when he has to be taken out,' Winifred wassaying, putting out her hand and touching the rabbit tentatively, as itskulked under his arm, motionless as if it were dead.
'He's not dead, is he Gerald?' she asked.
'No, he ought to be,' he said.
'Yes, he ought!' cried the child, with a sudden flush of amusement. Andshe touched the rabbit with more confidence. 'His heart is beating SOfast. Isn't he funny? He really is.'
'Where do you want him?' asked Gerald.
'In the little green court,' she said.
Gudrun looked at Gerald with strange, darkened eyes, strained withunderworld knowledge, almost supplicating, like those of a creaturewhich is at his mercy, yet which is his ultimate victor. He did notknow what to say to her. He felt the mutual hellish recognition. And hefelt he ought to say something, to cover it. He had the power oflightning in his nerves, she seemed like a soft recipient of hismagical, hideous white fire. He was unconfident, he had qualms of fear.
'Did he hurt you?' he asked.
'No,' she said.
'He's an insensible beast,' he said, turning his face away.
They came to the little court, which was shut in by old red walls inwhose crevices wall-flowers were growing. The grass was soft and fineand old, a level floor carpeting the court, the sky was blue overhead.Gerald tossed the rabbit down. It crouched still and would not move.Gudrun watched it with faint horror.
'Why doesn't it move?' she cried.
'It's skulking,' he said.
She looked up at him, and a slight sinister smile contracted her whiteface.
'Isn't it a FOOL!' she cried. 'Isn't it a sickening FOOL?' Thevindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver. Glancing up athim, into his eyes, she revealed again the mocking, white-cruelrecognition. There was a league between them, abhorrent to them both.They were implicated with each other in abhorrent mysteries.
'How many scratches have you?' he asked, showing his hard forearm,white and hard and torn in red gashes.
'How really vile!' she cried, flushing with a sinister vision. 'Mine isnothing.'
She lifted her arm and showed a deep red score down the silken whiteflesh.
'What a devil!' he exclaimed. But it was as if he had had knowledge ofher in the long red rent of her forearm, so silken and soft. He did notwant to touch her. He would have to make himself touch her,deliberately. The long, shallow red rip seemed torn across his ownbrain, tearing the surface of his ultimate consciousness, lettingthrough the forever unconscious, unthinkable red ether of the beyond,the obscene beyond.
'It doesn't hurt you very much, does it?' he asked, solicitous.
'Not at all,' she cried.
And suddenly the rabbit, which had been crouching as if it were aflower, so still and soft, suddenly burst into life. Round and roundthe court it went, as if shot from a gun, round and round like a furrymeteorite, in a tense hard circle that seemed to bind their brains.They all stood in amazement, smiling uncannily, as if the rabbit wereobeying some unknown incantation. Round and round it flew, on the grassunder the old red walls like a storm.
And then quite suddenly it settled down, hobbled among the grass, andsat considering, its nose twitching like a bit of fluff in the wind.After having considered for a few minutes, a soft bunch with a black,open eye, which perhaps was looking at them, perhaps was not, ithobbled calmly forward and began to nibble the grass with that meanmotion of a rabbit's quick eating.
'It's mad,' said Gudrun. 'It is most decidedly mad.'
He laughed.
'The question is,' he said, 'what is madness? I don't suppose it israbbit-mad.'
'Don't you think it is?' she asked.
'No. That's what it is to be a rabbit.'
There was a queer, faint, obscene smile over his face. She looked athim and saw him, and knew that he was initiate as she was initiate.This thwarted her, and contravened her, for the moment.
'God be praised we aren't rabbits,' she said, in a high, shrill voice.
The smile intensified a little, on his face.
'Not rabbits?' he said, looking at her fixedly.
Slowly her face relaxed into a smile of obscene recognition.
'Ah Gerald,' she said, in a strong, slow, almost man-like way. '-Allthat, and more.' Her eyes looked up at him with shocking nonchalance.
He felt again as if she had torn him across the breast, dully, finally.He turned aside.
'Eat, eat my darling!' Winifred was softly conjuring the rabbit, andcreeping forward to touch it. It hobbled away from her. 'Let its motherstroke its fur then, darling, because it is so mysterious-'