Women in Love (Barnes & Noble Classics S - D. H. Lawrence [110]
Birkin looked away, and went to light Ursula’s second lantern. It had a pale ruddy sea-bottom, with black crabs and seaweed moving sinuously under a transparent sea, that passed into flamy ruddiness above.
“You’ve got the heavens above, and the waters under the earth,” said Birkin to her.
“Anything but the earth itself,” she laughed, watching his live hands that hovered to attend to the light.
“I’m dying to see what my second one is,” cried Gudrun, in a vibrating rather strident voice, that seemed to repel the others from her.
Birkin went and kindled it. It was of a lovely deep blue colour, with a red floor, and a great white cuttle-fish flowing in white soft streams all over it. The cuttle-fish had a face that stared straight from the heart of the light, very fixed and coldly intent.
“How truly terrifying!” exclaimed Gudrun, in a voice of horror. Gerald, at her side, gave a low laugh.
“But isn’t it really fearful!” she cried in dismay.
Again he laughed, and said:
“Change it with Ursula, for the crabs.”
Gudrun was silent for a moment.
“Ursula,” she said, “could you bear to have this fearful thing?”
“I think the colouring is lovely,” said Ursula.
“So do I,” said Gudrun. “But could you bear to have it swinging to your boat? Don’t you want to destroy it at once?”
“Oh no,” said Ursula. “I don’t want to destroy it.”
“Well do you mind having it instead of the crabs? Are you sure you don’t mind?”
Gudrun came forward to exchange lanterns.
“No,” said Ursula, yielding up the crabs and receiving the cuttlefish.
Yet she could not help feeling rather resentful at the way in which Gudrun and Gerald should assume a right over her, a precedence.
“Come then,” said Birkin. “I’ll put them on the boats.”
He and Ursula were moving away to the big boat.
“I suppose you’ll row me back, Rupert,” said Gerald, out of the pale shadow of the evening.
“Won’t you go with Gudrun in the canoe?” said Birkin. “It’ll be more interesting.”
There was a moment’s pause. Birkin and Ursula stood dimly, with their swinging lanterns, by the water’s edge. The world was all illusive.
“Is that all right?” said Gudrun to him.
“It’ll suit me very well,” he said. “But what about you, and the rowing? I don’t see why you should pull me.”
“Why not?” he said. “I can pull you as well as I could pull Ursula.”
By her tone he could tell she wanted to have him in the boat to herself, and that she was subtly gratified that she should have power over them both. He gave himself, in a strange, electric submission.
She handed him the lanterns, whilst she went to fix the cane at the end of the canoe. He followed after her, and stood with the lanterns dangling against his white-flannelled thighs, emphasising the shadow around.
“Kiss me before we go,” came his voice softly from out of the shadow above.
She stopped her work in real, momentary astonishment.
“But why?” she exclaimed, in pure surprise.
“Why?” he echoed, ironically.
And she looked at him fixedly for some moments. Then she leaned forward and kissed him, with a slow, luxurious kiss, lingering on the mouth. And then she took the lanterns from him, while he stood swooning with the perfect fire that burned in all his joints.
They lifted the canoe into the water, Gudrun took her place, and Gerald pushed off.
“Are you sure you don’t hurt your hand, doing that?” she asked, solicitous. “Because I could have done it perfectly.”
“I don’t hurt myself,” he said in a low, soft voice, that caressed her with inexpressible beauty.
And she watched him as he sat near her, very near to her, in the stern of the canoe, his legs coming towards hers, his feet touching hers. And she paddled softly, lingeringly, longing for him to say something meaningful to her. But he remained silent.
“You like this, do you?” she said, in a gentle, solicitous voice.
He laughed shortly.
“There is a space between us,” he said,