The Bitterness of Ecstasy

A storm of industry raged on in the house. Ursula did not go
to college till October. So, with a distinct feeling of
responsibility, as if she must express herself in this house,
she laboured arranging, re-arranging, selecting, contriving.

She could use her father's ordinary tools, both for woodwork
and metal-work, so she hammered and tinkered. Her mother was
quite content to have the thing done. Brangwen was interested.
He had a ready belief in his daughter. He himself was at work
putting up his work-shed in the garden.

At last she had finished for the time being. The drawing-room
was big and empty. It had the good Wilton carpet, of which the
family was so proud, and the large couch and large chairs
covered with shiny chintz, and the piano, a little sculpture in
plaster that Brangwen had done, and not very much more. It was
too large and empty-feeling for the family to occupy very much.
Yet they liked to know it was there, large and empty.

The home was the dining-room. There the hard rush
floor-covering made the ground light, reflecting light upon the
bottom their hearts; in the window-bay was a broad, sunny seat,
the table was so solid one could not jostle it, and the chairs
so strong one could knock them over without hurting them. The
familiar organ that Brangwen had made stood on one side, looking
peculiarly small, the sideboard was comfortably reduced to
normal proportions. This was the family living-room.

Ursula had a bedroom to herself. It was really a servants'
bedroom, small and plain. Its window looked over the back garden
at other back gardens, some of them old and very nice, some of
them littered with packing-cases, then at the backs of the
houses whose fronts were the shops in High Street, or the
genteel homes of the under-manager or the chief cashier, facing
the chapel.