Gudrun was impatient of talk.
She wanted to think about Gerald Crich.
She wanted to see if the strong feeling she had got from him was real.
She wanted to have herself ready.
Inside the church, the wedding was going on.
Hermione Roddice was thinking only of Birkin.
He stood near her. She seemed to gravitate physically towards him.
She wanted to stand touching him. She could hardly be sure he was near her, if she did not touch him.
Yet she stood subjected through the wedding service.
She had suffered so bitterly when he did not come, that still she was dazed.
Still she was gnawed as by a neuralgia, tormented by his potential absence from her.
She had awaited him in a faint delirium of nervous torture.
As she stood bearing herself pensively, the rapt look on her face, that seemed spiritual, like the angels, but which came from torture, gave her a certain poignancy that tore his heart with pity.
He saw her bowed head, her rapt face, the face of an almost demoniacal ecstatic.
Feeling him looking, she lifted her face and sought his eyes, her own beautiful grey eyes flaring him a great signal.
But he avoided her look, she sank her head in torment and shame, the gnawing at her heart going on.
And he too was tortured with shame, and ultimate dislike, and with acute pity for her, because he did not want to meet her eyes, he did not want to receive her flare of recognition.
The bride and bridegroom were married, the party went into the vestry.
Hermione crowded involuntarily up against Birkin, to touch him.
And he endured it.
Outside, Gudrun and Ursula listened for their father's playing on the organ.
He would enjoy playing a wedding march.
Now the married pair were coming!
The bells were ringing, making the air shake.
Ursula wondered if the trees and the flowers could feel the vibration, and what they thought of it, this strange motion in the air.
The bride was quite demure on the arm of the bridegroom, who stared up into the sky before him, shutting and opening his eyes unconsciously, as if he were neither here nor there.
He looked rather comical, blinking and trying to be in the scene, when emotionally he was violated by his exposure to a crowd. He looked a typical naval officer, manly, and up to his duty.
Birkin came with Hermione.
She had a rapt, triumphant look, like the fallen angels restored, yet still subtly demoniacal, now she held Birkin by the arm.
And he was expressionless, neutralised, possessed by her as if it were his fate, without question.
Gerald Crich came, fair, good-looking, healthy, with a great reserve of energy.
He was erect and complete, there was a strange stealth glistening through his amiable, almost happy appearance.
Gudrun rose sharply and went away.
She could not bear it.
She wanted to be alone, to know this strange, sharp inoculation that had changed the whole temper of her blood.
Chapter 2 Shortlands
The Brangwens went home to Beldover, the wedding-party gathered at Shortlands, the Criches' home.
It was a long, low old house, a sort of manor farm, that spread along the top of a slope just beyond the narrow little lake of Willey Water.
Shortlands looked across a sloping meadow that might be a park, because of the large, solitary trees that stood here and there, across the water of the narrow lake, at the wooded hill that successfully hid the colliery valley beyond, but did not quite hide the rising smoke. Nevertheless, the scene was rural and picturesque, very peaceful, and the house had a charm of its own.
It was crowded now with the family and the wedding guests.
The father, who was not well, withdrew to rest.
Gerald was host.
He stood in the homely entrance hall, friendly and easy, attending to the men.
He seemed to take pleasure in his social functions, he smiled, and was abundant in hospitality.
The women wandered about in a little confusion, chased hither and thither by the three married daughters of the house.
All the while there could be heard the characteristic, imperious voice of one Crich woman or another calling
'Helen, come here a minute,'
'Marjory, I want you—here.'
'Oh, I say, Mrs Witham—.'
There was a great rustling of skirts, swift glimpses of smartly-dressed women, a child danced through the hall and back again, a maidservant came and went hurriedly.