Page 484 - women-in-love

her hands.
Then there was the sound of the door softly opening.
Gerald started. He was chagrined. It was his starting that
really startled Gudrun. Then he went forward, with quick,
graceful, intentional courtesy.
‘Oh, mother!’ he said. ‘How nice of you to come down.
How are you?’
The elderly woman, loosely and bulkily wrapped in a
purple gown, came forward silently, slightly hulked, as usu-
al. Her son was at her side. He pushed her up a chair, saying
‘You know Miss Brangwen, don’t you?’
The mother glanced at Gudrun indifferently.
‘Yes,’ she said. Then she turned her wonderful, forget-
me-not blue eyes up to her son, as she slowly sat down in the
chair he had brought her.
‘I came to ask you about your father,’ she said, in her
rapid, scarcely-audible voice. ‘I didn’t know you had com-
pany.’
‘No? Didn’t Winifred tell you? Miss Brangwen stayed to
dinner, to make us a little more lively—‘
Mrs Crich turned slowly round to Gudrun, and looked at
her, but with unseeing eyes.
‘I’m afraid it would be no treat to her.’ Then she turned
again to her son. ‘Winifred tells me the doctor had some-
thing to say about your father. What is it?’
‘Only that the pulse is very weak—misses altogether a
good many times—so that he might not last the night out,’
Gerald replied.
Mrs Crich sat perfectly impassive, as if she had not

484 Women in Love