Ursula, for her part, lay on an ice-cold bed under a clammy eiderdown, trying to console herself with hot tea, and thinking that she had never felt so miserable in her life. Her only consolation was that she had got Murchison's cigarettes.
The cold-blooded cynicism of his proposition had been a terrible shock to her. And yet, could she justly deny that the proposition which had been put before him was just as cold-blooded? She was surprised to find how greatly Murchison's defection had shaken her; for she had come to rely on him far more than she had realized. The reliability of Murchison had become a kind of article of faith with her; for all her reluctance towards him, she had come to look upon him as a form of fire insurance which would prevent the worst from ever befalling her. It seemed as if her world had collapsed about her ears. Murchison's integrity, her brother's insight and knowledge - both had been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and if these two men failed her, where had she to look for security? Was there any good faith in the world? She did not question her brother's good faith, but the fact that he could have been so deceived in his judgment of a man as he had been in Murchison made her feel that she could never rely on him again.
But the thing that amazed her most was her reaction in the face of Murchison's treatment of her. She ought to have snubbed him soundly and told her brother that he must choose between them. If Murchison stayed, she went. And yet here she was, meekly accepting his insults and wondering what she could do to propitiate him and put things right, and telling herself that if anything could justify such behaviour towards a woman, it was the treatment Murchison had received at her hands.
Outwardly, of course, she had been civil enough, except for that terrible faux pas, which had been quite unintentional, and which was not really nearly as bad as it must have sounded in Murchison's ears. But on the inner planes she knew that she had committed magical sin in taking all that Murchison had to give and giving back to him nothing. That was just plain vampirism, and nothing else.
She felt sure that the upheaval in Murchison was due to some check in the workings of the mysterious power that they had set in motion when she had played the part of the earth in spring and he had played the part of the life-giving sun. The old rites were potent, whether the forces they stirred were cosmic or subconscious. She had given herself up to draw out the magnetism latent in him, and had drawn the whole man to her. She herself had felt new life and hope flow into her, but there had been no return flow on the circuit; there had been no new hope for Murchison in his thwarted life. In spite of all that her brother kept on telling her, she had felt in her heart that there would be no building of the uncouth Murchison into the fabric of her sophisticated existence; there was no place in it for him. She had agreed in her heart when he had said that he would be used as scaffolding, and pulled down and carted away when he had served his purpose. She admitted frankly to herself that if she had really believed what her brother had told her concerning the relationship that would build up between them if the magic worked, she would never have permitted the attempt to be made.
It had never occurred to her before to consider what would be the effect of all these experiments on Murchison, till his words gave her the key. ‘You are a very attractive woman, and I am a very lonely man.’ What must it have meant to that man to have heard her words, ‘I shall have to take Murchison, Alick?’
How far were his reactions to be attributed to hurt vanity, and how far to a much deeper wound? it was difficult to think of pique and petty spite in connection with Murchison. She did not think she had been far out when she had flung at him the taunt of an inferiority complex. How could a man of his calibre, placed in his circumstances, have escaped it? She thought of the Oxen of the Sun bowing their mighty necks to the peasant's yoke. Murchison was a tremendous force. She realized that more clearly at each contact she had with him.
And she had also begun to realize and appreciate another characteristic that distinguished Murchison - he was extra-ordinarily unselfish. He had been quite willing to let her use him as scaffolding, giving her the most sacred thing a man had to give a woman, and then, when she had had all she needed from him, quietly to withdraw. ‘Greater love hath no man than this.’
Ursula felt bitterly grieved with herself that she had not realized the nobility of Murchison. She had trodden under foot something very sacred and very rare. There were few men who could or would have done what Murchison had done. And because she had not met him half-way and taken up her share of the task to which they had set their hands, it proved too much for him, and he had gone down under it. She had not given herself to Murchison, and he felt it, even if he did not understand it, and it was this that was upsetting him. If there had been a return flow of magnetism from her to him, how wonderful would have been their relationship by now. She sat up miserably, hugging her knees and thinking of it. Her brother was right, this could be a very big thing; but was it spoilt beyond repair by her snobbery and folly? She made up her mind that next time Murchison approached her he should have no cause to complain of her lack of response. The kiss in the barn had taken her by surprise and she had been too startled and upset for any response to be possible; but next time he kissed her she determined there should be a flow and return that should seal their union, and the Mass of the Winged Bull would begin.
She wondered whether the hotel people would tolerate it if she sent for him to come up to her room and talk to her, and concluded that as they were highly respectable, chapel-going Welsh they probably wouldn't. She snuggled down under the eiderdown that the warmth of her body was gradually airing, and had almost dropped off to sleep after all the alarums and excursions, when a knock at the door announced the chambermaid with a note. She tore it open, wondering who in the world was writing to her. It was on the hotel stationery, and addressed her as dear Miss Brangwyn, and was written in a sprawling schoolboy hand that exactly matched Murchison's whole personality.
‘Your brother has just been through on the phone to me in answer to my message. I told him of the trouble we had with Fouldes following us around’ - (‘But you didn't tell him about the trouble you have had with me,’ thought Ursula, ‘or you wouldn't be at such pains to make it clear that it was only the trouble with Frank you have told him about, so I think you are ashamed of yourself.’) -‘And he says that we are not to return to the farm, but to wait here for him, and he will bring your things down by car from the hotel, and we are to return to London by the night mail.’ And he was hers faithfully, Edward Murchison.
Ursula was very much relieved. She had dreaded the return to the farm under Mrs Davies’ sharp eyes. The farm, too, was full of painful memories now. She would far sooner be back with Murchison in the flat. She decided that the best way to handle Murchison in his upheaved condition was to leave him until he cooled down, and then ask her brother to stage another rite of the earth in spring, and she would send across to Murchison such a return flow of magnetism that all barriers would go down between them. Meanwhile, her attitude should just be quietly friendly, refusing to take offence.
She decided that it might be as well to give Murchison an opportunity to apologize if he wanted to, for she had judged from his expression of horror after he had kissed her that he had wakened up to the enormity of his behaviour, so she arose and put on her frock and went down to the lounge of the little hotel. Murchison was not there, but through a half-open door she caught a glimpse of him playing a game of billiards with a stranger, so her scheme went astray. and she had no word with Murchison till her brother appeared in a hired car loaded up with luggage which Mrs Davies must have done wonders to get packed in so short a time. Murchison, summoned from his game by the sound of his employer's voice in the hall, presented a wooden countenance and refused to meet Ursula's eyes.
They got a first-class carriage to themselves on the Holyhead express. Ursula, who had a very genuine headache by now, refused dinner, and they left her lying at full length on a seat, with a pillow under her head and a rug over her and her face to the wall, like Ahab.
‘I say, sir,’ said Murchison as soon as he was seated in the dining-car with his employer. ‘We've had the hell of a row, Miss Brangwyn and I.’
Brangwyn raised his eyebrows. ‘What's it all about, Murchison?’
‘Dashed if I know, sir. I suddenly exploded, without any provocation whatever. In fact, she had the patience of Job with me. I think I've put my foot in it properly.’
Brangwyn smiled. ‘It won't do my lady sister any harm to have a good rowing occasionally. In fact, it is what she needs.’
‘I don't know about that, sir. What I did was pretty unpardonable.’
Then a commercial traveller joined them, and insisted on entering into the conversation, so further confidences were impossible, and Murchison ate his dinner in a miserable silence while Brangwyn coped with a loquacious son of Erin travelling in bacon.