 CHAPTER IV When Anna was nine years old, Branguine sent her to the Dame's school in Kasate. There she went, flipping and dancing in her inconsequential fashion, doing very much as she liked, disconcerting old Miss Coates by her indifference to respectability and by her lack of reverence. Anna only laughed at Miss Coates, liked her and patronized her in superb childish fashion. The girl was at once shy and wild. She had a curious contempt for ordinary people, a benevolent superiority. She was very shy and tortured with misery when people did not like her. On the other hand, she cared very little for anybody save her mother, whom she still rather resentfully worshiped, and her father whom she loved and patronized, but upon whom she depended. These two, her mother and father, held her still in fee, but she was free of other people, towards whom on the whole she took the benevolent attitude. She deeply hated ugliness or intrusion or arrogance, however. As a child she was as proud and shadowy as a tiger and as aloof. She could confer favors, but save from her mother and father, she could receive none. She hated people who came too near to her, like a wild thing she wanted her distance. She mistrusted intimacy. In Kasate and Elkston she was always an alien. She had plenty of acquaintances but no friends. Very few people whom she met were significant to her. They seemed part of a herd, undistinguished. She did not take people very seriously. She had two brothers, Tom, dark-haired, small, volatile, whom she was intimately related to but whom she never mingled with, and Fred, fair and responsive whom she adored but did not consider as a real separate thing. She was too much the center of her own universe, too little aware of anything outside. The first person she met who affected her as a real living person whom she regarded as having definite existence was Baron Skrebenski, her mother's friend. He also was a Polish exile who had taken orders and had received from Mr. Gladstone a small country living in Yorkshire. When Anna was about ten years old she went with her mother to spend a few days with the Baron Skrebenski. He was very unhappy in his red brick vicarage. He was vicar of a country church, a living worth a little over two hundred pounds a year, but he had a large parish containing several collieries with a new, raw, heathen population. He went to the north of England expecting homage from the common people, for he was an aristocrat. He was roughly even cruelly received, but he never understood it. He remained a fiery aristocrat, only he had to learn to avoid his parishioners. Anna was very much impressed by him. He was a smallish man with a rugged, rather crumpled face, and blue eyes set very deep and glowing. His wife was a tall, thin woman of noble Polish family, mad with pride. He still spoke broken English, for he had kept very close to his wife, both of them forlorn in their strange, inhospitable country, but they always spoke in Polish together. He was disappointed with Mrs. Brangwyn's soft, natural English, very disappointed that her child spoke no Polish. Anna loved to watch him. She liked the big, new, rambling vicarage, desolate and stark on its hill. It was so exposed, so bleak and bold after the marsh. The Baron talked endlessly in Polish to Mrs. Brangwyn. He made furious gestures with his hands. His blue eyes were full of fire. And to Anna there was a significance about his sharp, flinging movements. Something in her responded to his extravagance and his exuberant manner. She thought him a very wonderful person. She was shy of him. She liked him to talk to her. She felt a sense of freedom near him. She never could tell how she knew it, but she did know that he was a knight of Malta. She could never remember whether she had seen his star or cross of his order or not, but it flashed in her mind like a symbol. He, at any rate, represented to the child the real world, where kings and lords and princes moved and fulfilled their shining lives, whilst queens and ladies and princesses upheld the noble order. She had recognized the Baron Skrebenski as a real person. He had had some regard for her. But when she did not see him any more, he faded and became a memory. But as a memory he was always alive to her. Anna became a tall, awkward girl. Her eyes were still very dark and quick, but they had grown careless. They had lost their watchful, hostile look. Her fierce, spun hair turned brown. It grew heavier and was tied back. She was sent to a young lady's school in Nottingham. And at this period she was absorbed in becoming a young lady. She was intelligent enough but not interested in learning. At first she thought all the girls at school very ladylike and wonderful, and she wanted to be like them. She came to a speedy disillusion. They galled and maddened her. They were petty and mean. After the loose, generous atmosphere of her home, where little things did not count, she was always uneasy in the world that would snap and bite at every trifle. A quick change came over her. She mistrusted herself. She mistrusted the outer world. She did not want to go on. She did not want to go out into it. She wanted to go no further. What do I care about that lot of girls, she would say to her father contemptuously? They are nobody. The trouble was that the girls would not accept Anna at her measure. They would have her according to themselves or not at all. So she was confused, seduced. She became as they were for a time, and then in revulsion she hated them furiously. Why don't you ask some of your girls here, her father would say? They're not coming here, she cried. And why not? They're bagatelles, she said, using one of her mother's rare phrases. Bagatelles or billiards, it makes no matter. They're nice young lasses enough. And Anna was not to be won over. She had a curious shrinking from commonplace people, and particularly from the young lady of her day. She would not go into company because of the ill at ease feeling other people brought upon her. And she never could decide whether it were her fault or theirs. She half respected these other people, and continuous disillusion maddened her. She wanted to respect them. Still she thought the people she did not know were wonderful. Those she knew seemed always to be limiting her, tying her up in little falsities that irritated her beyond bearing. She would rather stay at home and avoid the rest of the world, leaving it a losery. For at the march life had indeed a certain freedom and largeness. There was no fret about money, no mean little precedence, nor care for what other people thought. Because neither Mrs. Brangwin nor Brangwin could be sensible of any judgment passed on them from outside. Their lives were too separate. So Anna was only easy at home, where the common sense and the supreme relation between her parents produced a freer standard of being than she could find outside. Where, outside the march, could she find the tolerant dignity she had been brought up in? Her parents stood undiminished and unaware of criticism. The people she met outside seemed to begrudge her her very existence. They seemed to want to belittle her also. She was exceedingly reluctant to go amongst them. She depended upon her mother and her father. And yet she wanted to go out. At school or in the world she was usually at fault. She felt usually that she ought to be slinking in disgrace. She never felt quite sure in herself whether she were wrong or whether the others were wrong. She had not done her lessons. Well, she did not see any reason why she should do her lessons if she did not want to. Was there some occult reason why she should? Were these people, school mistresses, representatives of some mystic rite, some high or good? They seemed to think so themselves. But she could not for her life see why a woman should bully and insult her because she did not know thirty lines of as you like it. After all, what did it matter if she knew them or not? Nothing could persuade her that it was of the slightest importance. Because she despised inwardly the coarsely working nature of the mistress. Therefore she was always at outs with authority. From constant telling she came almost to believe in her own badness, her own intrinsic inferiority. She felt that she ought always to be in a state of slinking disgrace if she fulfilled what was expected of her. But she rebelled. She never really believed in her own badness. At the bottom of her heart she despised the other people who carped and were loud over trifles. She despised them and wanted revenge on them. She hated them whilst they had power over her. Still she kept an ideal, a free proud lady absolved from the petty ties existing beyond petty considerations. She would see such ladies in pictures. Alexandra, Princess of Wales, was one of her models. This lady was proud and royal and stepped indifferently over all small mean desires, so thought Anna in her heart. And the girl did up her hair high under a little slanting hat. Her skirts were fashionably bunched up. She wore an elegant skin-fitting coat. Her father was delighted. Anna was very proud in her bearing, too, naturally indifferent to smaller bonds to satisfy Elkston, which would have light to put her down. But Branglund was having no such thing. If she chose to be royal, royal she should be. He stood like a rock between her and the world. After the fashion of his family he grew stout and handsome. His blue eyes were full of light, twinkling and sensitive. His manner was deliberate but hearty, warm. His capacity for living his own life without attention from his neighbors made them respect him. They would run to do anything for him. He did not consider them but was open-handed towards them, so they made profit of their willingness. He liked people so long as they remained in the background. Mrs. Branglund went on in her own way, following her own devices. She had her husband, her two sons, and Anna. These staked out and marked her horizon. The other people were outsiders. Inside her own world her life passed along like a dream for her. It lapsed and she lived within its laps, active and always pleased, intent. She scarcely noticed the outer things at all. What was outside was outside, nonexistent. She did not mind if the boys fought, so long as it was out of her presence. But if they fought when she was by, she was angry and they were afraid of her. She did not care if they broke a window of a railway carriage or sold their watches to have a revel at the goose fair. Branglund was perhaps angry over these things. To the mother they were insignificant. It was odd little things that offended her. She was furious if the boys hung around the slaughter-house. She was displeased when the school reports were bad. It did not matter how many sins her boys were accused of, so long as they were not stupid or inferior. If they seemed to brook insults she hated them, and it was only a certain gauchery, agauchiness on Anna's part that irritated her against the girl. Certain forms of clumsiness, grossness, made the mother's eyes glow with curious rage. Otherwise she was pleased, indifferent. Pursuing her splendid lady ideal, Anna became a lofty demoiselle of sixteen, plagued by family shortcomings. She was very sensitive to her father. She knew if he had been drinking, were he ever so little affected, and she could not bear it. He flushed when he drank. The veins stood out on his temples. There was a twinkling cavalier boisterousness in his eye. His manner was jovially overbearing and mocking, and it angered her. When she heard his loud, roaring boisterous mockery, an anger of resentment filled her. She was quick to forestall him the moment he came in. "'You look a sight you do, red in the face,' she cried. "'I might look worse if I was green,' he answered, boozing in Elkston. "'And what's wrong with Elson?' She flounced away. He watched her with amused twinkling eyes. Yet in spite of himself said that she flouted him. They were a curious family, a law to themselves, separate from the world, isolated, a small republic set in invisible bounds. The mother was quite indifferent to Elkston and Cacete, to any claims made on her from outside. She was very shy of any outsider, exceedingly courteous, winning even. But the moment the visitor had gone she laughed and dismissed him. He did not exist. It had been all a game to her. She was still a foreigner unsure of her ground. But alone with her own children and husband at the marsh she was mistress of a little native land that lacked nothing. She had some beliefs somewhere never defined. She had been brought up a Roman Catholic. She had gone to the Church of England for protection. The outward form was a matter of indifference to her. Yet she had some fundamental religion. It was as if she worshipped God as a mystery, never seeking in the least to define what he was. And inside her the subtle sense of the great absolute wherein she had her being was very strong. The English dogma never reached her. The language was too foreign. Through it all she felt the great separator who held life in his hands, gleaming, imminent, terrible, the great mystery immediate beyond all telling. She shone and gleamed to the mystery whom she knew through all her senses. She glanced with strange mystic superstitions that never found expression in the English language, never mounted to thought in English. But so she lived within a potent, sensuous belief that included her family and contained her destiny. To this she had reduced her husband. He existed with her entirely indifferent to the general values of the world. Her very ways, the very mark of her eyebrows, were symbols and indication to him. There on the farm with her he lived through a mystery of life and death and creation, strange profound ecstasies and incommunicable satisfactions of which the rest of the world knew nothing, which made the pair of them apart and respected in the English village, for they were also well to do. But Anna was only half safe within her mother's unthinking knowledge. She had a mother of pearl rosary that had been her own father's. What it meant to her, she could never say. But the string of moonlight and silver, when she had it between her fingers, filled her with strange passion. She learned at school a little Latin. She learned an ave Maria and a pattern Oster. She learned how to say her rosary. But that was no good. Ave Maria. Gracia plena. Tomolus chicum benedicta tu in muliarbus at benedictus flutus ventris tu Jesus ave Maria sancta Maria or a pro nobis peccatoribus nunc and in haremortus nostre. Amen. It was not right somehow. What these words meant when translated was not the same as the pale rosary meant. There was a discrepancy, a false hood. It irritated her to say. Tomolus chicum or benedicta tu in muliarbus. She loves the mystic words ave Maria sancta Maria. She was moved by benedictus flutus ventris tu Jesus and by nunc and in haremortus nostre. But none of it was quite real. It was not satisfactory somehow. She avoided her rosary because moving her with curious passion as it did it meant only these not very significant things. She put it away. It was her instinct to put all these things away. It was her instinct to avoid thinking, to avoid it, to save herself. She was seventeen, touchy, full of spirits and very moody, quick to flush and always uneasy, uncertain. For some reason or other she turned more to her father. She felt almost flashes of hatred for her mother. Her mother's dark muzzle and curiously insidious ways, her mother's utter surety and confidence, her strange satisfaction even triumph, her mother's way of laughing at things and her mother's silent overriding of vexatious propositions. Most of all her mother's triumphant power maddened the girl. She became sudden and incalculable. Often she stood at the window looking out as if she wanted to go. Sometimes she went. She mixed with people. But always she came home in anger as if she were diminished, belittled, almost degraded. There was over the house a kind of dark silence and intensity in which passion worked its inevitable conclusions. There was in the house a sort of richness, a deep inarticulate interchange which made other places seem thin and unsatisfying. Brangwen could sit silent, smoking in his chair, the mother could move about in her quiet insidious way, and the sense of the two presences was powerful, sustaining. The whole intercourse was wordless, intense, and close. But Anna was uneasy. She wanted to get away. Yet wherever she went there came upon her that feeling of thinness as if she were made smaller, belittled. She hastened home. There she raged and interrupted the strong, settled interchange. Sometimes her mother turned on her with a fierce destructive anger in which was no pity or consideration, and Anna shrank, afraid. She went to her father. He would still listen to the spoken word which fell sterile on the unheating mother. Sometimes Anna talked to her father. She tried to discuss people. She wanted to know what was meant. But her father became uneasy. He did not want to have things dragged into consciousness. Only out of consideration for her he listened. And there was a kind of bristling rousedness in the room. The cat got up and stretching itself went uneasily to the door. Mrs. Brangwen was silent. She seemed ominous. Anna could not go on with her fault-finding, her criticism, her expression of dissatisfactions. She felt even her father against her. He had a strong, dark bond with her mother, a potent intimacy that existed inarticulate and wild, following its own course, and savage if interrupted, uncovered. Nevertheless, Brangwen was uneasy about the girl. The whole house continued to be disturbed. She had a pathetic baffled appeal. She was hostile to her parents even whilst she lived entirely with them within their spell. Many ways she tried to escape. She became an assiduous churchgoer, but the language meant nothing to her. It seemed false. She hated to hear things expressed, put into words. Whilst the religious feelings were inside her, they were passionately moving. In the mouth of the clergyman they were false, indecent. She tried to read, but again the tedium and the sense of the falsity of the spoken word put her off. She went to stay with girlfriends. At first she thought it splendid, but then the inner boredom came on. It seemed to her all nothingness, and she felt always belittled, as if never, never could she stretch her length and stride her stride. Her mind reverted often to the torture cell of a certain bishop of France in which the victim could neither stand nor lie stretched out, never. Not that she thought of herself in any connection with this. But often there came into her mind the wonder how the cell was built, and she could feel the horror of the crampedness as something very real. She was, however, only eighteen when a letter came from Mrs. Alfred Brangwen in Nottingham, saying that her son William was coming to Elkston to take a place as junior draftsman, scarcely more than apprentice in a lace factory. He was twenty years old and would the Marsh Brangwins be friendly with him? Tom Brangwen at once wrote, offering the young man a home at the Marsh. This was not accepted, but the Nottingham Brangwins expressed gratitude. There had never been much love lost between the Nottingham Brangwins and the Marsh. Indeed, Mrs. Alfred, having inherited three thousand pounds and having occasion to be dissatisfied with her husband, held a loop from all the Brangwins whatsoever. She affected, however, some esteem of Mrs. Tom, as she called the Polish woman, saying that at any rate she was a lady. Anna Brangwen was faintly excited at the news of her cousin Will's coming to Elkston. She knew plenty of young men, but they had never become real to her. She had seen in this young gallant a nose she liked, in that a pleasant mustache, in the other a nice way of wearing clothes, in one a ridiculous fringe of hair, in another a comical way of talking. There were objects of amusement and faint wonder to her, rather than real beings, the young men. The only man she knew was her father, and, as he was something large, looming, a kind of godhead, he embraced all manhood for her, and other men were just incidental. She remembered her cousin Will. He had town clothes and was thin with a very curious head, black as jet, with hair like sleek thin fur. It was a curious head. It reminded her she knew not of what, of some animal, some mysterious animal that lived in the darkness under the leaves and never came out, but which lived vividly, swift and intense. She always thought of him with that black, keen, blind head, and she considered him odd. He appeared at the marsh one Sunday morning, a rather long, thin youth with a bright face and a curious self-possession among his shyness, a native unawareness of what other people might be since he was himself. When Anna came downstairs in her Sunday clothes ready for church, he rose and greeted her conventionally, shaking hands. His manners were better than hers. She flushed. She noticed that he now had a thick fledge on his upper lip, a black finely-shapened line marking his wide mouth. It rather repelled her. It reminded her of the thin, fine fur of his hair. She was aware of something strange in him. His voice had rather high upper notes, and very resonant middle notes. It was queer. She wondered why he did it, but he sat very naturally in the marsh living-room. He had some uncouthness, some natural self-possession of the Brangwins that made him at home there. Anna was rather troubled by the strangely intimate affectionate way her father had towards this young man. He seemed gentle towards him. He put himself aside in order to fill out the young man. This irritated Anna. Father, she said abruptly, give me some collection. What collection, asked Brangwin? Don't be ridiculous, she cried, flushing. Nay, he said, what collection's this? You know it's the first Sunday of the month. Anna stood confused. Why was he doing this? Why was he making her conspicuous before this stranger? I want some collection, she reasserted. So the says, he replied indifferently, looking at her, then turning again to his nephew. She went forward and thrust her hand into his breeches' pocket. He smoked steadily, making no resistance, talking to his nephew. Her hand groped about in his pocket, and then drew out his leather purse. Her color was bright in her clear cheeks, her eyes shone, Brangwin's eyes were twinkling. The nephew sat sheepishly. Anna, in her finery, sat down and slid all the money into her lap. There was silver and gold. The youth could not help watching her. She was bent over the heap of money fingering the different coins. I have a good mind to take half a sovereign, she said, and she looked up with glowing dark eyes. She met the light brown eyes of her cousin, close and intent upon her. She was startled. She laughed quickly and turned to her father. I have a good mind to take half a sovereign, our dad, she said. Yes, nimble fingers said her father, you take what's your own. Are you coming, our Anna? asked her brother from the door. She suddenly chilled to normal, forgetting both her father and her cousin. Yes, I'm ready, she said, taking six pence from the heap of money and sliding the rest back into the purse which she laid on the table. Give it here, said her father. Hastily she thrust the purse into his pocket and was going out. You'd better go, lad, hadn't you? Said the father to the nephew. Will Brangwin rose uncertainly. He had golden brown, quick, steady eyes like a bird, like a hawk, which cannot look afraid. Your cousin will o' come with you, said the father. Anna glanced at the strange youth again. She felt him waiting there for her to notice him. He was hovering on the edge of her consciousness, ready to come in. She did not want to look at him. She was antagonistic to him. She waited without speaking. Her cousin took his hat and joined her. It was summer outside. Her brother Fred was plucking a sprig of flowery current to put in his coat, from the bush at the angle of the house. She took no notice. Her cousin followed just behind her. They were on the high road. She was aware of a strangeness in her being. It made her uncertain. She caught sight of the flowering current in her brother's buttonhole. Oh, our Fred, she cried, don't wear that stuff to go to church. Fred looked down protectively at the pink adornment on his breast. Why, I like it, he said. Then you're the only one who does, I'm sure, she said. And she turned to her cousin. Do you like the smell of it? She asked. He was there beside her, tall and uncouth and yet self-possessed. It excited her. I can't say whether I do or not, she replied. Give it here, Fred. Don't have it smelling in church. She said to the little boy, her page. Her fair, small brother handed her the flower dutifully. She sniffed it and gave it without a word to her cousin for his judgment. He smelled the dangling flower curiously. It's a funny smell, he said. And suddenly she laughed, and a quick light came on all their faces. There was a blithe trip in the small boy's walk. The bells were ringing. They were going up the summery hill in their Sunday clothes. Anna was very fine in a silk frock of brown and white stripes, tight along the arms in the body, bunched up very elegantly behind the skirt. There was something of the Cavalier about Will Brangwin, and he was well dressed. He walked along with a sprig of current blossom dangling between his fingers, and none of them spoke. The sun shone brightly on little showers of buttercup down the bank. In the fields the fool's parsley was foamy, held very high and proud above a number of flowers that flitted in the greenish twilight of the mowing grass below. They reached the church. Fred led the way to the pew, followed by the cousin, then Anna. She felt very conspicuous and important. Somehow this young man gave her away to other people. He stood aside and let her pass to her place, then sat next to her. It was a curious sensation to sit next to him. The color came streaming from the painted window above her. It led on the dark wood of the pew, on the stone worn aisle, on the pillar behind her cousin and on her cousin's hands, as they lay on his knees. She sat amid illumination, illumination and luminous shadow all around her, her soul very bright. She sat, without knowing it, conscious of the hands and motionless knees of her cousin. Something strange had entered into her world, something entirely strange and unlike what she knew. She was curiously elated. She sat in a glowing world of unreality, very delightful. A brooding light, like laughter, was in her eyes. She was aware of a strange influence entering into her which she enjoyed. It was a dark and richening influence she had not known before. She did not think of her cousin, but she was startled when his hands moved. She wished he would not say the responses so plainly. It diverted her from her vague enjoyment. Why would he obtrude and draw notice to himself? It was bad taste. But she went on all right till the hymn came. He stood up beside her to sing, and that pleased her. Then suddenly, at the very first word, his voice came strong and overriding, filling the church. He was singing the tenor. Her soul opened in amazement. His voice filled the church. It rang out like a trumpet, and rang out again. She started to giggle over her hymn-book. But he went on, perfectly steady. Up and down rang his voice, going its own way. She was helplessly shocked into laughter. Between moments of dead silence in herself she shook with laughter. On came the laughter, seized her and shook her till the tears were in her eyes. She was amazed and rather enjoyed it. And still the hymn rolled on, and still she laughed. She bent over her hymn-book crimson with confusion, but still her side shook with laughter. She pretended to cough. She pretended to have a crumb in her throat. Fred was gazing up at her with clear blue eyes. She was recovering herself, and then a slur in the strong blind voice at her side brought it all on again in a gust of mad laughter. She bent down to prayer in cold reproof of herself. And yet, as she knelt, little eddies of giggling went through her. The very sight of his knees on the praying cushion sent the little shock of laughter over her. She gathered herself together and sat with prim pure face, white and pink and cold as a Christmas rose. Her hands and her silk gloves folded on her lap. Her dark eyes all vague, abstracted in a sort of dream, oblivious of everything. The sermon rolled on vaguely in a tide of pregnant peace. Her cousin took out his pocket handkerchief. He seemed to be drifted absorbed into the sermon. He put his handkerchief to his face, then something dropped onto his knee. There lay the bit of flowering current. He was looking down at it in real astonishment. A wild snort of laughter came from Anna. Everybody heard. It was torture. He had shut the crumpled flower in his hand and was looking up again with the same absorbed attention to the sermon. Another snort of laughter from Anna. Fred nudged her, remindingly. Her cousin sat motionless. Somehow he was aware that his face was red. She could feel him. His hand closed over the flower, remained quite still, pretending to be normal. Another wild struggle in Anna's breast and the snort of laughter. She bent forward, shaking with laughter. It was now no joke. Fred was nudged nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She wanted to die, and the closed hand crept away to the pocket. Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower away. In the end she felt weak, exhausted, and thoroughly depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more. When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin was again singing resoundingly, and still it amused her. In spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement, and the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out, it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood and giggled. She could not help it. She laughed outright, a figure of shame. What were you laughing about, our Anna, asked Fred the moment they were out of the church? Oh, I couldn't help it, she said in her careless half mocking fashion. I don't know why cousin Will's singing set me off. What was there in my singing to make you laugh, he asked. It was so loud, she said. They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again, both reddening. What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna, asked Tom, the elder brother at the dinner table, his hazel eyes bright with joy? Everybody stopped to look at you. Tom was in the choir. She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her, waiting for her to speak. It was cousin Will's singing, she said, at which her cousin burst into a suppressed, chuckling laugh, suddenly showing all his small, regular, rather sharp teeth and just as quickly closing his mouth again. Has he got such a remarkable voice on him then, asked Brangwyn? No, it's not that, said Anna. Only it tickled me. I couldn't tell you why. And again a ripple of laughter went down the table. Will Brangwyn thrust forward his dark face, his eyes dancing, and said, I'm in the choir of St. Nicholas. Oh, you go to church then, said Brangwyn. Mother does, father doesn't, replied the youth. It was the little things, his movement, the funny tones of his voice that showed up big to Anna. The matter of fact things, he said, were absurd in contrast. The things her father said seemed meaningless and neutral. During the afternoon they sat in the parlor that smelled of geranium, and they ate cherries and talked. Will Brangwyn was called on to give himself forth, and soon he was drawn out. He was interested in churches, in church architecture. The influence of Ruskin had stimulated him to a pleasure in the medieval forms. His talk was fragmentary, he was only half articulate, but listening to him as he spoke of church after church, of nave and chancel and transept, of wood screen and font, of hatchet carving and molding and tracery, speaking always with close passion of particular things, particular places. There gathered in her heart a pregnant hush of churches, a mystery, a ponderous significance of bowed stone, a dim colored light through which something took place obscurity, passing into darkness, a high delighted framework of the mystic screen and beyond. In the furthest beyond, the altar. It was a very real experience, she was carried away, and the land seemed to be covered with a vast mystic church, reserved in gloom, thrilled with an unknown presence. Almost it hurt her to look out of the window and see the lilacs towering in the vivid sunshine. Or was this the jeweled glass? He talked of Gothic and Renaissance and perpendicular and early English and Norman. The words thrilled her. Have you been to Southwell, he said? I was there at twelve o'clock at midday, eating my lunch in the churchyard, and the bells played a hymn. A. It's a fine minster, Southwell. Heavy. It's got heavy round arches, rather low on thick pillars. It's grand the way those arches travel forward. There is a sedalia as well, pretty, but I like the main body of the church in that north porch. He was very much excited and filled with himself that afternoon. A flame kindled round him, making his experience passionate and glowing, burningly real. His uncle listened with twinkling eyes, half moved. His aunt bent forward, her dark face half moved, but held by other knowledge. Anna went with him. He returned to his lodging at night, treading quick. His eyes glittering, and his face shining darkly as if he came from some passionate, vital tryst. The glow remained in him. The fire burned. His heart was fierce like a sun. He enjoyed his unknown life and his own self, and he was ready to go back to the marsh. Without knowing it, Anna was wanting him to come. In him she had escaped. In him the bounds of her experience were transgressed. He was the hole in the wall beyond which the sunshine blazed on an outside world. He came, sometimes not often, but sometimes talking again. There recurred the strange, remote reality which carried everything before it. Sometimes he talked of his father, whom he hated with a hatred that was burningly close to love, of his mother whom he loved with a love that was keenly close to hatred, or to revolt. His sentences were clumsy. He was only half articulate, but he had the wonderful voice that could bring its vibration through the girl's soul, transport her into his feeling. Sometimes his voice was hot and declamatory. Sometimes it had a strange twanging, almost cat-like sound. Sometimes it hesitated, puzzled. Sometimes there was the break of a little laugh. Anna was taken by him. She loved the running flame that coursed through her as she listened to him, and his mother and his father became to her two separate people in her life. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. For some weeks the youth came frequently, and was received gladly by them all. He sat amongst them, his dark face glowing and eagerness and a touch of derisiveness on his wide mouth, something grinning and twisted, his eyes always shining like a bird's, utterly without depth. There was no getting hold of the fellow, Branglund irritably thought. He was like a grinning young Tom cat that came when he thought he would and without cognizance of the other person. At first the youth had looked towards Tom Branglund when he talked, and then he looked towards his aunt for her appreciation, valuing it more than his uncles. And then he turned to Anna, because from her he got what he wanted, which was not in the elder people. So that the two young people, from being always attendant on the elder, began to draw apart and establish a separate kingdom. Sometimes Tom Branglund was irritated. His nephew irritated him. The lad seemed to him too special, self-contained. His nature was fierce enough, but too much abstracted, like a separate thing, like a cat's nature. A cat could lie perfectly peacefully on the hearth rug whilst its master or mistress writhed in agony a yard away. It had nothing to do with other people's affairs. What did the lad really care about anything save his own instinctive affairs? Branglund was irritated. Nevertheless he liked and respected his nephew. Mrs. Branglund was irritated by Anna, who was suddenly changed under the influence of the youth. The mother liked the boy. He was not quite an outsider. But she did not like her daughter to be so much under the spell. So that gradually the two young people drew apart, escaped from the elders to create a new thing by themselves. He worked in the garden to propitiate his uncle. He talked to churches to propitiate his aunt. He followed Anna like a shadow. Like a long, persistent, unswerving black shadow, he went after the girl. It irritated Branglund exceedingly. It exasperated him beyond bearing to see the lit up grin, the cat grin, as he called it, on his nephew's face. And Anna had a new reserve, a new independence. Suddenly she began to act independently of her parents. To live beyond them. Her mother had flashes of anger. But the courtship went on. Anna would find occasion to go shopping in Elkston that evening. She always returned with her cousin. He walking with his head over her shoulder, a little bit behind her, like the devil looking over Lincoln, as Branglund noted angrily, and yet with satisfaction. To his own wonder, Will Branglund found himself in an electric state of passion. To his wonder he had stopped her at the gate as they came home from Elkston one night and had kissed her, blocking her way and kissing her whilst he felt as if some blower struck at him in the dark. And when they went indoors he was acutely angry that her parents looked up scrutinizingly at him and her. What right had they there? Why should they look up? Let them remove themselves or look elsewhere. And the youth went home with the stars in heaven whirling fiercely about the blackness of his head, and his heart fierce, insistent, but fierce as if he felt something walking him. He wanted to smash through something. A spell was cast over her, and how uneasy her parents were as she went about the house unnoticing, not noticing them, moving in a spell as if she were invisible to them. She was invisible to them. It made them angry, yet they had to submit. She went about absorbed, obscured for a while. Over him too the darkness of obscurity settled. He seemed to be hidden in a tense electric darkness in which his soul, his life, was intensely active, but without his aid or attention. His mind was obscured. He worked swiftly and mechanically, and he produced some beautiful things. His favorite work was wood carving. The first thing he made for her was a butter stamper. In it he carved a mythological bird, a phoenix, something like an eagle, rising on symmetrical wings from a circle of very beautiful flickering flames that rose upwards from the rim of the cup. Anna thought nothing of the gift on the evening when he gave it to her. In the morning, however, when the butter was made, she fetched his seal in place of the old wooden stamper of oak leaves and acorns. She was curiously excited to see how it would turn out. Strange, the uncouth bird molded there in the cup like hollow, with curious thick waverings running inwards from a smooth rim. She pressed another mold. Strange to lift the stamp and see that eagle-beaked bird raising its breast to her. She loved creating it over and over again, and every time she looked it seemed a new thing come to life. Every piece of butter became this strange vital emblem. She showed it to her mother and father. That is beautiful, said her mother, a little light coming on to her face. Beautiful, exclaimed the father, puzzled, fretted. Why, what sort of a bird does he call it? And this was the question put by the customers during the next weeks. What sort of a bird do you call that as you've got on th' butter? When he came in the evening, she took him into the dairy to show him. Do you like it? He asked in his loud, vibrating voice that always sounded strange, re-echoing in the dark places of her being. They very rarely touched each other. They liked to be alone together, near to each other, but there was still a distance between them. In the cool dairy the candle-light lit on the large white surfaces of the cream-pans. He turned his head sharply. It was so cool and remote in there, so remote. His mouth was open and a little strained laugh. She stood with her head bent, turned aside. He wanted to go near to her. He had kissed her once. Again his eye rested on the round blocks of butter where the emblematic bird lifted its breast from the shadow cast by the candle flame. What was restraining him? Her breast was near him, his head lifted like an eagle's. She did not move. Suddenly, with an incredibly quick, delicate movement, he put his arms round her and drew her to him. It was quick, cleanly done, like a bird that swoops and sinks closer. He was kissing her throat. She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were dark and flowing with fire. His eyes were hard and bright with a fierce purpose and gladness like a hawk's. She felt him flying into the dark space of her flames, like a brand, like a gleaming hawk. They had looked at each other and seen each other strange, yet near, very near, like a hawk, stooping, swooping, dropping into a flame of darkness. So she took the candle and they went back to the kitchen. They went on in this way for some time, always coming together. But rarely touching. Very seldom did they kiss. And then, often, it was merely a touch of the lips, a sign. But her eyes began to awaken with a constant fire. She paused often in the midst of her transit as if to recollect something, or to discover something. And his face became somber, intent. He did not really hear what was said to him. One evening in August he came when it was raining. He came in with his jacket collar turned up, his jacket buttoned close, his face wet. And he looked so slim and definite, coming out of the chill rain, she was suddenly blinded with love for him. Yet he sat and talked with her father and mother, meaninglessly, whilst her blood seethed to anguish in her. She wanted to touch him now, only to touch him. There was the queer, abstract look on her silvery, radiant face that maddened her father. Her dark eyes were hidden, but she raised them to the youth. And they were dark with a flare that made him quail for a moment. She went into the second kitchen and took a lantern. Her father watched her as she returned. Come with me, Will, she said to her cousin. I want to see if I put the brick over where that rat comes in. You've no need to do that, retorted her father. She took no notice. The youth was between the two wills. The color mounted into the father's face. His blue eyes stared. The girl stood near the door, her head held slightly back, like an indication that the youth must come. He rose in his silent, intent way and was gone with her. The blood swelled in Brangwyn's forehead veins. It was raining. The light of the lantern flashed on the cobbled path in the bottom of the wall. She came to a small ladder and climbed up. He reached her the lantern and followed. Up there in the fowl loft, the birds sat in fat bunches on the perches, the red combs shining like fire. Bright sharp eyes opened. There was a sharp crock of expostulation as one of the hens shifted over. The cock sat watching, his yellow neck feathers bright as glass. Anna went across the dirty floor. Brangwyn crouched in the loft, watching. The light was soft under the red naked tiles. The girl crouched in a corner. There was another explosive bustle of a hen springing from her perch. Anna came back, stooping under the perches. He was waiting for her near the door. Suddenly she had her arms round him, was clinging close to him, cleaving her body against his crying in a whispering, whimpering sound. Will, I love you. I love you, Will. I love you. It sounded as if it were tearing her. He was not even very much surprised. He held her in his arms and his bones melted. He leaned back against the wall. The door of the loft was open. Outside the rain slanted by in fine, steely, mysterious haste emerging out of the gulf of darkness. He held her in his arms and he and she together seemed to be swinging in big swooping oscillations. The two of them clasped together up in the darkness. Outside the open door of the loft in which they stood beyond them and below them was darkness with a traveling veil of rain. I love you, Will. I love you, she moaned. I love you, Will. He held her as though they were one and was silent. In the house Tom Brangwin waited a while. Then he got up and went out. He went down the yard. He saw the curious, misty shaft coming from the loft door. He scarcely knew it was the light in the rain. He went on till the illumination fell on him dimly. Then, looking up through the blur, he saw the youth and the girl together. The youth with his back against the wall. His head sunk over the head of the girl. The elder man saw them blurred through the rain but lit up. They thought themselves so buried in the night. He even saw the lighted dryness of the loft behind and shadows and bunches of roosting fowls. Up in the night strange shadows cast from the lantern on the floor. And a black gloom of anger and a tenderness of selfie-facement fought in his heart. She did not understand what she was doing. She betrayed herself. She was a child, a mere child. She did not know how much of herself she was squandering. And he was blackly and furiously miserable. Was he then an old man that he should be giving her away in marriage? Was he old? He was not old. He was younger than that young thoughtless fellow in whose arms she lay. Who knew her? He or that blind-headed youth. To whom did she belong, if not to himself? He thought again of the child he had carried out at night into the barn whilst his wife was in labor with the young Tom. He remembered the soft, warm weight of the little girl on his arm round his neck. Now she would say he was finished. She was going away to deny him, to leave an unendurable emptiness in him, a void that he could not bear. Almost he hated her. How dared she say he was old. He walked on in the rain sweating with pain, with the horror of being old, with the agony of having to relinquish what was life to him. Will Brangwin went home without having seen his uncle. He held his hot face to the rain and walked on in a trance. I love you, Will. I love you. The words repeated themselves endlessly. The veils had ripped and issued him naked into the endless space and he shuddered. The walls had thrust him out and given him a vast space to walk in. Wither through this darkness of infinite space was he walking blindly. Where, at the end of all the darkness, was God the Almighty still darkly seated, thrusting him on. I love you, Will. I love you. He trembled with fear as the words beaten his heart again and he dared not think of her face, of her eyes which shone and of her strange, transfigured face. The hand of the hidden Almighty, burning bright, had thrust out of the darkness and gripped him. He went on, subject and in fear. His heart gripped and burning from the touch. The days went by. They ran on dark-padded feet in silence. He went to see Anna, but again there had come a reserve between them. Tom Brangwen was gloomy, his blue eyes somber. Anna was strange and delivered up. Her face and its delicate coloring was mute, touched dumb and poignant. The mother bowed her head and moved in her own dark world that was pregnant again with fulfillment. Will Brangwen worked at his wood carving. It was a passion, a passion for him to have the chisel under his grip. Verily the passion of his heart lifted the fine bite of steel. He was carving, as he had always wanted, the creation of Eve. It was a panel in low relief for a church. Adam lay asleep as if suffering and God, a dim large figure, stooped towards him, stretching forward his unveiled hand. And Eve, a small, vivid, naked female shape, was issuing like a flame towards the hand of God from the torn side of Adam. Now Will Brangwen was working at the Eve. She was thin, a keen, unripe thing. With trembling passion, fine as the breath of air, he sent the chisel over her belly, her hard, unripe, small belly. She was a stiff little figure with sharp lines in the throes and torture and ecstasy of her creation. But he trembled as he touched her. He had not finished any of his figures. There was a bird on a bow overhead, lifting its wings for flight and a serpent breathing up to it. It was not finished yet. He trembled with passion, at last able to create the new, sharp body of his Eve. At the sides, at the far sides, at either end were two angels covering their faces with their wings. They were like trees. As he went to the marsh in the twilight, he felt that the angels with covered faces were standing back as he went by. The darkness was of their shadows in the covering of their faces. When he went through the canal bridge, the evening glowed in its last deep colors. The sky was dark blue. The stars glittered from afar, very remote and approaching above the darkening cluster of the farm, above the paths of crystal along the edge of the heavens. She waited for him like the glow of light, and as if his face were covered, and he dared not lift his face to look at her. Corn harvest came on. One evening they walked out through the farm buildings at nightfall. A large gold moon hung heavily to the gray horizon. Trees hovered tall, standing back in the dusk, waiting. Anna and the young man went on noiselessly by the hedge, along where the farm carts had made dark ruts in the grass. They came through a gate into a wide open field where still much light seemed to spread against their faces. In the undershadow, the sheaves lay on the ground where the reapers had left them. Many sheaves, like bodies, prostrate in shadowy bulk. Others were riding hazily in shocks, like ships in the haze of moonlight, and of dusk farther off. They did not want to turn back, yet whither were they to go towards the moon, for they were separate, single. We will put up some sheaves, said Anna, so they could remain there in the broad open place. They went across the stubble to where the long rows of upreared shocks ended. Curiously populous that part of the field looked where the shocks rowed erect. The rest was open and prostrate. The air was all hoary silver. She looked around her. Trees stood vaguely at their distance as if waiting like heralds for the signal to approach. In this space of vague crystal her heart seemed like a bell ringing. She was afraid lest the sound should be heard. You take this row, she said to the youth, and passing on she stooped in the next row of lying sheaves, grasping her hands in the tresses of the oats, lifting the heavy corn in either hand, carrying it as it hung heavily against her to the cleared space where she set the two sheaves sharply down, bringing them together with a faint, keen clash. Her two bulks stood leaning together. He was coming, walking shadowily with the gossamer dust carrying his two sheaves. She waited near by. He set his sheaves with a keen, faint clash next to her sheaves. They rode unsteadily. He tangled the tresses of corn. It hissed like a fountain. He looked up and laughed. Then she turned away towards the moon which seemed glowingly to uncover her bosom every time she faced it. He went to the vague emptiness of the field opposite, dutifully. They stooped, grasped the wet, soft hair of the corn, lifted the heavy bundles and returned. She was always first. She set down her sheaves making a penthouse with those others. He was coming shadowy across the stubble carrying his bundles. She turned away hearing only the sharp hiss of his mingling corn. She walked between the moon and his shadowy figure. She took her two new sheaves and walked towards him as he rose from stooping over the earth. He was coming out of the near distance. She set down her sheaves to make a new stook. They were unsure. Her hands fluttered. Yet she broke away and turned to the moon which laid bare her bosom so she felt as if her bosom were heaving and panting with moonlight. And he had to put up her two sheaves which had fallen down. He worked in silence. The rhythm of the work carried him away again as she was coming near. They worked together coming and going in a rhythm which carried their feet and their bodies in tune. She stooped. She lifted the burden of sheaves. She turned her face to the dimness where he was and went with her burden over the stubble. She hesitated, set down her sheaves. There was a swish and hiss of mingling oats. He was drawing near and she must turn again. And there was the flaring moon laying bare her bosom again making her drift and ebb like a wave. He worked steadily and grossed threading backwards and forwards like a shuttle across the strip of cleared stubble weaving the long line of riding shocks nearer and nearer to the shadowy trees threading his sheaves with hers. And always she was gone before he came. As he came she drew away. As he drew away she came. Were they never to meet? Gradually a low deep sounding will in him vibrated to her. Tried to set her in accord. Tried to bring her gradually to him to a meeting till they should be together till they should meet as the sheaves that swish together. And the work went on. The moon grew brighter, clearer. The corn glistened. He bent over the prostrate bundles. There was a hiss as the sheaves left the ground a trailing of heavy bodies against him a dazzle of moonlight on his eyes and then he was setting the corn together at the stook and she was coming near. He waited for her. He fumbled at the stook. She came but she stood back till he drew away. He saw her in shadow, a dark column and spoke to her and she answered. She saw the moonlight flash question on his face but there was a space between them and he went away. The work carried them rhythmic. Why was there always a space between them? Why were they apart? Why, as she came up from under the moon would she halt and stand off from him? Why was he held away from her? His will drummed persistently, darkly. It drowned everything else. Into the rhythm of his work there came a pulse and a steadied purpose. He stooped, he lifted the weight. He heaved it towards her setting it as in her under the moonlight space and he went back for more. Ever with increasing closeness he lifted the sheaves and swung riding to the center with them. Ever he drove her more nearly to the meeting. Ever he did his share and drew towards her, overtaking her. There was only the moving to and fro in the moonlight engrossed. The swinging in the silence that was marked only by the splash of sheaves and silence and a splash of sheaves and ever the splash of his sheaves broke swifter, beating up to hers and ever the splash of her sheaves recurred monotonously unchanging and ever the splash of his sheaves beat nearer till at last they met at the shock facing each other sheaves in hand and he was silvery with moonlight with a moonlit shadowy face that frightened her. She waited for him. Put yours down, she said. No, it's your turn. His voice was twanging and insistent. She said her sheaves against the shock. He saw her hands glisten among the spray of grain and he dropped his sheaves and he trembled as he took her in his arms. He had overtaken her and it was his privilege to kiss her. She was sweet and fresh with the night air and sweet with the scent of grain and the whole rhythm of him beat into his kisses and still he pursued her in his kisses and still she was not quite overcome. He wondered over the moonlight on her nose and upon her all the darkness within her all the night in his arms darkness and shine he possessed of it all all the night for him now to unfold to venture within all the mystery to be entered all the discovery to be made trembling with keen triumph his heart was white as a star as he drove his kisses nearer. My love, she called in a low voice from afar the low sound seemed to call to him the moon to him who was unaware. He stopped, quivered and listened. My love came again the low plaintive call like a bird unseen in the night. He was afraid his heart quivered and broke he was stopped. Anna, he said as if he answered her from a distance, unsure. My love and he drew near and she drew near. Anna he said in wonder and the birth pain of love. My love, she said, her voice growing rapturous and they kissed on the mouth in rapture and surprise long real kisses. The kiss lasted there among the moonlight. He kissed her again and she kissed him and again they were kissing together till something happened in him. He was strange. He wanted her. He wanted her exceedingly. She was something new. They stood there folded, suspended in the night and his whole being quivered with surprises from a blow. He wanted her and he wanted to tell her so but the shock was too great to him. He had never realized before. He trembled with irritation and unusedness. He did not know what to do. He held her more gently, much more gently. The conflict was gone by and he was glad and breathless and almost in tears but he knew he wanted her. Something fixed in him forever. He was hers and he was very glad and afraid. He did not know what to do as they stood there in the open moonlight field. He looked through her hair at the moon which seemed to swim liquid bright. She sighed and seemed to wake up then she kissed him again. Then she loosened herself away from his breast and hurt him with a chagrin. Why did she draw away from him but she held his hand. I want to go home she said looking at him in a way he could not understand. He held close to her hand. He was dazed and he could not move. He did not know how to move. She drew him away. He walked helplessly beside her holding her hand. She went with bent head. Suddenly he said as the simple solution stated itself to him we'll get married Anna. She was silent. We'll get married Anna shall we? She stopped in the field again and kissed him clinging to him passionately in a way he could not understand. He could not understand but he left it all now to marriage. That was the solution now fixed ahead. He wanted her. He wanted to be married to her. He wanted to have her all together as his own forever and he waited intent for the accomplishment. But there was all the while a slight tension of irritation. He spoke to his uncle and aunt that night. Uncle he said Anna and me think of getting married. O.A. said Brangwin but how you have no money said the mother. The youth went pale. He hated these words like a gleaming bright pebble something bright and inalterable. He did not think. He sat there in his hard brightness and did not speak. Have you mentioned it to your own mother asked Brangwin? No. I'll tell her on Saturday. You'll go and see her? Yes. There was a long pause. And what are you going to marry on your pound a week? Again the youth went pale and injured in him. I don't know, he said, looking at his uncle with his bright inhuman eyes like a hawk's. Brangwin stirred in hatred. It needs knowing, he said. I shall have the money later on, said the nephew. I will raise some now and pay it back then. O.A. and why this desperate hurry? She's a child of eighteen and you're a boy of twenty. You're neither of you of age to do as you like yet. Brangwin ducked his head and looked at his uncle with swift mistrustful eyes like a caged hawk. What does it matter how old she is and how old I am, he said? What's the difference between me now and when I'm thirty? A big difference, let us hope. But you have no experience. You have no experience and no money. Why do you want to marry without experience or money? asked the aunt. What experience do I want, aunt? And if Brangwin's heart had not been hard and intact with anger like a precious stone, he would have agreed. Will Brangwin went home strange and untouched. He felt he could not alter from what he was fixed upon. His will was set. To alter it he must be destroyed and he would not be destroyed. He had no money but he would get some from somewhere. It did not matter. He lay awake for many hours, soul crystallizing more inalterably than he went fast asleep. It was as if his soul had turned into a hard crystal. He might tremble and quiver and suffer. It did not alter. The next morning Tom Brangwin, inhuman with anger, spoke to Anna. What's this about wanting to get married, he said? She stood, paling a little, her dark eyes springing to the hostile, startled look of the savage thing that will defend itself but trembles with sensitiveness. I do, she said, out of her unconsciousness. His anger rose and he would have liked to break her. You do, you do, and what for, he sneered with contempt. The old childish agony, the blindness that could recognize nobody, the palpitating antagonism as of a raw, helpless, undefended thing came back on her. I do because I do, she cried in the shrill hysterical way of her childhood. You are not my father, my father is dead. You are not my father. She was still a stranger. She did not recognize him. The cold blade cut down deep into Brangwin's soul. It cut him off from her. And what if I'm not, he said. But he could not bear it. It had been so passionately dear to him. Her father, daddy, he went about for some days as if stunned. His wife was bemused. She did not understand. She only thought the marriage was impeded for want of money and position. There was a horrible silence in the house. Anna kept out of sight as much as possible. She could be for hours alone. Will Brangwin came back after stupid scenes at Nottingham. He too was pale and blank, but unchanging. His uncle hated him. He hated this youth who was so inhuman and obstinate. Nevertheless it was to Will Brangwin that the uncle, one evening, handed over the shares which he had transferred to Anna Lensky. They were for two thousand five hundred pounds. Will Brangwin looked at his uncle. It was a great deal of the marsh capital he had given away. The youth, however, was only colder and more fixed. He was abstract. Purely a fixed will. It was to Will Brangwin that the uncle, one evening, handed over the shares to Anna. After which she cried for a whole day sobbing her eyes out. And at night, when she had heard her mother go to bed, she slipped down and hung in the doorway. Her father sat in his heavy silence like a monument. He turned his head slowly. Daddy! She cried from the doorway and she ran to him, with her arms around him and her face against him. His body was so big and comfortable, but something hurt her head intolerably. She sobbed almost with hysteria. He was silent with his hand on her shoulder. His heart was bleak. He was not her father. That beloved image she had broken. Who was he then? A man put apart with those whose life has no more developments. He was isolated from her. There was a generation between them. He was old. He had died out from hot life. A great deal of ash was in his fire. Cold ash. He felt the inevitable coldness and in bitterness forgot the fire. He sat in his coldness of age and isolation. He had his own wife. And he blamed himself. He sneered at himself for this clinging to the young, wanting the young to belong to him. The child who clung to him wanted her child husband as was natural. And from him, she wanted help so that her life might be properly fitted out. But love she did not want. Why should there be love between them? Between the stout, middle-aged man and this child? How could there be anything between them but mere human willingness to help each other? He was her guardian. No more. She was like ice. His face cold and expressionless. She could not move him any more than a statue. She crept to bed and cried but she was going to be married to Will Brangwin. And then she need not bother any more. Brangwin went to bed with a hard cold heart and cursed himself. He looked at his wife. She was still his wife. Her dark hair was threaded with gray. Her face was beautiful in its gathering age. She was just fifty. How poignantly he saw her. And he wanted to cut out some of his own heart which was incontinent and demanded still to share the rapid life of youth. How he hated himself. His wife was so poignant and timely. She was still young and naive with some girls' freshness. But she did not want any more the fight, the battle, the control as he and his incontinence still did. Brangwin was so natural and he was ugly, unnatural in his inability to yield place. How hideous this greedy middle age which must stand in the way of life like a large demon. What was missing in his life that in his ravining soul he was not satisfied. He had had that friend at school his mother, his wife and Anna. What had he done? He had failed with his friend. He was not a poor son but he had known satisfaction with his wife. Let it be enough. He loathed himself for the state he was in over Anna. Yet he was not satisfied. It was agony to know it. Was his life nothing? Had he nothing to show, no work? He did not count his work. Anybody could have done it. What had he known but the long marital embrace with his wife? Curious that this was what his life was to. At any rate it was something, it was eternal. He would say so to anybody and be proud of it. He lay with his wife in his arms and she was still his fulfillment just the same as ever and that was the be-all and the end-all. Yes, and he was proud of it. But the bitterness underneath that there still remained an unsatisfied Tom Brangwin who suffered agony because a girl cared nothing for him. He loved his sons. He loved them also but it was the further, the creative life with the girl he wanted as well. Oh, and he was ashamed. He trampled himself to extinguish himself. What weariness! There was no peace. However old one grew. One was never right, never decent, never master of oneself. It was as if his hope had been in the girl. Anna quickly lapsed again into her love for the youth. Brangwin had fixed his marriage for the Saturday before Christmas and he waited for her in his bright, unquestioning fashion until then. He wanted her. She was his. He suspended his being till the day should come. The wedding day December the twenty-third had come into being for him as an absolute thing. He lived in it. He did not count the days but like a man who journeys in a ship he worked at his carving. He worked in his office. He came to see her. All was but a form of waiting without thought or question. She was much more alive. She wanted to enjoy courtship. He seemed to come and go like the wind without asking why or with her. But she wanted to enjoy his presence. For her he was the colonel of life. To touch him alone was bliss but for him he was a man of life. She existed as much when he was at his carving in his lodging in Ilkston as when she sat looking at him in the Marsh kitchen. In himself he knew her but his outward faculties seemed suspended. He did not see her with his eyes nor hear her with his voice. And yet he trembled sometimes into a kind of swoon holding her in his arms. They would stand sometimes folded together in the barn then to her as she felt his young tense figure with her hands the bliss was intolerable intolerable the sense that she possessed him. For his body was so keen and wonderful it was the only reality in her world. In her world there was this one tense vivid body of a man and then many other shadowy men all unreal. In him she touched the center of reality and they were together he and she at the heart of the secret how she clutched him to her his body the central body of all life out of the rock of his form the very fountain of life flowed. But to him she was a flame that consumed him the flame flowed up his limbs flowed through him till he was consumed till he existed only as an unconscious dark transit of flame deriving from her. Sometimes in the darkness a cow coughed there was in the darkness the slow sound of cudd chewing and it all seemed to flow round them and upon them as the hot blood flows through the womb leaving the unborn young. Sometimes when it was cold they stood to be lovers in the stables where the air was warm and sharp with ammonia and during these dark vigils he learned to know her her body against his they drew nearer and nearer together the kisses came more subtly close and fitting so when in the thick darkness a horse suddenly scrambled to its feet with a dull thunderous sound they listened as one person listening they knew as one person they were conscious of the horse Tom Brangwin had taken them a cottage at Cacete on a 21 years lease. Will Brangwin's eyes lit up as he saw it it was the cottage next to the church with dark yew trees very black old trees along the side of the house in the grassy front garden a red squarish cottage with a low slate roof and low windows it had a long dairy scullery a big flagged kitchen and a low parlor that went up one step from the kitchen there were whitewashed beams across the ceilings and odd corners with cupboards looking out through the windows there was the grassy garden the procession of black yew trees down one side and along the other sides a red wall with ivy separating the place from the road and the churchyard the old little church with its small spire on a square tower seemed to be looking back at the cottage windows there will be no need to have a clock said Will Brangwin peeping out at the white clock face on the tower his neighbor at the back of the house was a garden adjoining the paddock a cow shed was standing for two cows pig coats and foul houses Will Brangwin was very happy Anna was glad to think of being mistress of her own place Tom Brangwin was now the fairy godfather he was never happy unless he was buying something Will Brangwin with his interest in all woodwork was getting the furniture he was left to buy tables and round stave chairs and the dressers quite ordinary stuff but such as was identified with his cottage Tom Brangwin with more particular thoughts spied out what he called handy little things for her he appeared with a set of newfangled cooking pans with a special sort of hanging lamp though the rooms were so low with candy little machines for grinding meat or mashing potatoes or whisking eggs Anna took a sharp interest in what he bought though she was not always pleased some of the little contrivances which he thought so candy left her doubtful nevertheless she was always expectant on market days a long thrill of anticipation he arrived with the first darkness the copper lamps of his cart glowing and she ran to the gate as he a dark burly figure up in the cart was bending over his parcels its cupboard love has bring you out so sharp he said his voice resounding in the cold darkness nevertheless he was excited when she taking one of the cart lamps poked and peered among the jumble of things he had brought pushing aside the oil or implements he had got for himself she dragged out a pair of small strong bellows registered them in her mind and then pulled uncertainly at something else it had a long handle and a piece of brown paper round the middle of it like a waistcoat what's this she said poking he stopped to look at her she went to the lamp light by the horse and stood there bent over the new thing while her hair was like bronze her apron white and cheerful her fingers plucked busily at the paper she dragged forth a little ringer with clean indio rubber rollers she examined it critically not knowing quite how it worked she looked up at him he stood a shadowy presence beyond the light how does it go she asked why it's for pulp and turnips he replied she looked at him his voice disturbed her don't be silly it's a little mangle she said how do you stand it though you screw it on the side of your wash tub he came and held it out to her oh yes she cried with one of her little skipping movements which still came when she was suddenly glad and without another thought she ran off into the house leaving him to untackle the horse and when he came into the scullery he found her there with the little ringer fixed on the dolly tub turning blissfully at the handle until he beside her exclaiming the word that's a natty little thing that'll save you lugging your inside out that's the latest contraption that is and Anna turned away at the handle with great gusto of possession then she let Tilly have a turn it fair runs by itself said Tilly turning on and on your clothes will nip out onto the line end of chapter four chapter five of the rainbow this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence chapter five Wedding at the Marsh it was a beautiful sunny day for the wedding a muddy earth but a bright sky they had three cabs and two big closed-in vehicles everybody crowded in the parlor in excitement until upstairs her father kept taking a nip of brandy he was handsome in his black coat and gray trousers his voice was hearty but troubled his wife came down in dark gray silk with lace and a touch of peacock blue in her bonnet her little body was very sure and definite Brangwyn was thankful she was there to sustain him among all these people the carriages the knotting-ham Mrs. Brangwyn in silk brocade stands in the doorway saying who must go with whom there's a great bustle the front door is opened and the wedding guests are walking down the garden path whilst those still waiting peer through the window and the little crowd at the gate gorps and stretches how funny such dressed-up people look in the winter sunshine they are gone another lot there begins to be more room Anna comes down blushing to be viewed in her white silk in her veil her mother-in-law surveys her objectively twitches the white train arranges the folds of the veil and asserts herself loud exclamations from the window that the bridegroom's carriage has just passed where's your hat father and your gloves cries the bride stamping her white slipper her eyes flashing through her veil he hunts round his hair is ruffled everybody has gone but the bride and her father he is ready his face very red and daunted till he dithers in the little porch waiting to open the door a waiting woman walks round Anna who asks am I all right she is ready she bridles herself and looks queenly she waves her hand sharply to her father come here he goes holding her bouquet like a shower stepping oh very graciously just a little impatient with her father for being so red in the face she sweeps slowly past the fluttering tilly and down the path there are her shouts at the gate and all her floating foamy whiteness passes slowly into the cab her father notices her slim ankle and foot as she steps up a child's foot his heart is hard with tenderness but she is in ecstasies with herself for making such a lovely spectacle all the way she sat flamboyant with bliss because it was also lovely she looked down solicitously at her bouquet white roses and lilies of the valley and tube roses and maiden hair fern very rich and cascade like her father sat bewildered with all this strangeness his heart was so full it felt hard and he couldn't think of anything the church was decorated for Christmas dark with evergreens cold and snowy with white flowers he went vaguely down to the altar how long was it since he had gone to be married himself he was not sure whether he was going to be married now or what he had come for he had a troubled notion that he had to do something or other he saw his wife's bonnet and wondered why she wasn't there with him they stood before the altar he was staring up at the east window that glowed intensely a sort of blue purple it was deep blue glowing and some crimson and little yellow flowers held fast in veins of shadow in a heavy web of darkness how it burned alive in radiance among its black web who giveth this woman to be married to this man he felt somebody touch him he started the words still re-echoed in his memory but were drawing off me he said hastily Anna bent her head and smiled in her veil how absurd he was Brangwen was staring away at the burning blue window at the back of the altar and wondering vaguely with pain if he ever should get old if he ever should feel arrived and established he was here at Anna's wedding well what right had he to feel responsible like a father he was still as unsure and unfixed as when he had married himself his wife and he with a pang of anguish he realized what uncertainties they both were he was a man of 45 45 in five more years 50 then 60 then 70 then it was finished my god and one still was so unestablished how did one grow old how could one become confident he wished he felt older why what difference was there as far as he felt matured and completed between him now and him at his own wedding he might be getting married over again he and his wife he felt himself tiny a little upright figure on a plane circled round with the immense roaring sky he and his wife two little upright figures walking across this plane whilst the heavens shimmered and roared about them when did one come to an end in which direction was it finished there was no end no finish only this roaring vast space did one never get old never die that was the clue he exalted strangely with torture he would go on with his wife he and she like two children camping in the planes what was sure but the endless sky but that was so sure so boundless still the royal blue color burned and blazed and sported itself in the web of darkness before him unwaringly rich and splendid how rich and splendid his own life was red and burning and blazing and sporting itself in the dark meshes of his body and his wife how she glowed and burned dark within her meshes always it was so unfinished and unformed there was a loud noise of the organ the whole party was trooping to the vestry there was a blotted scrawled book and that young girl putting back her veil in her vanity and laying her hand with the wedding ring self-consciously conspicuous and signing her name proudly because of the vain spectacle she made Anna Teresa Lensky Anna Teresa Lensky what a vain independent meek she was the bridegroom slender in his black swallowtail and gray trousers as a young solemn cat was writing seriously William Brangwin that looked more like it come and sign father cried the imperious young hussy Thomas Brangwin clumsy fist he said to himself as he signed then his brother a big sallow fellow with black side whiskers wrote Alfred Brangwin how many more Brangwins said Tom Brangwin ashamed of the two frequent recurrence when they were out again in the sunshine and he saw the frost hoary and blue among the long grass under the tombstones the holly berries overhead twinkling scarlet as the bells rang the yew trees hanging their black motionless ragged bows everything seemed like a vision the marriage party went across the graveyard to the wall mounted it by the little steps and descended oh a vain white peacock of a bride perching herself on the top of the wall and giving her hand to the bridegroom on the other side to be helped down the vanity of her white slim daintily stepping feet in her arched neck and the regal impudence with which she seemed to dismiss them all the others, parents and wedding guests as she went with her young husband in the cottage big fires were burning there were dozens of glasses on the table and holly and mistletoe hanging up the wedding party crowded in and Tom Brangwin becoming roisterous poured out drinks everybody must drink the bells were ringing away against the windows lift your glasses up shouted Tom Brangwin from the parlor lift your glasses up and drink to the hearth and home hearth and home and may they enjoy it night and day and may they enjoy it shouted Frank Brangwin in addition hammer and tongs and may they enjoy it Alfred Brangwin the Saturnine fill your glasses up and let's have it all over again shouted Tom Brangwin hearth and home and may you enjoy it there was a ragged shout of the company in response bed and blessing and may you enjoy it shouted Frank Brangwin there was a swelling chorus and answer coming and going and may you enjoy it shouted the Saturnine Alfred Brangwin and the men roaring by now boldly and the women said now there was a touch of scandal in the air then the party rolled off in the carriages full speed back to the marsh to a large meal of the high tea order which lasted for an hour and a half the bride and bridegroom sat at the head of the table very prim and shining both of them wordless whilst the company raged down the table the Brangwin men had brandy in their tea and were becoming unmanageable the Saturnine Alfred had glittering unseeing eyes and a strange fierce way of laughing that showed his teeth his wife glowered at him and jerked her head at him like a snake he was oblivious Frank Brangwin the butcher flushed in Florida and handsome roared echoes to his two brothers Tom Brangwin in his solid fashion was letting himself go at last these three brothers dominated the whole company Tom Brangwin wanted to make a speech for the first time in his life he must spread himself wordly marriage he began his eyes twinkling and yet quite profound for he was deeply serious and hugely amused at the same time marriage he said speaking in the slow full mouth way of the Brangwins is what we're made for let him talk said Alfred Brangwin slowly and inscrutably let him talk this is Alfred darted indignant eyes at her husband a man continued Tom Brangwin enjoys being a man for what purpose was he made a man if not to enjoy it that a true word said Frank Florida and likewise continued Tom Brangwin a woman enjoys being a woman at least we surmise she does oh don't you bother called the farmer's wife you may back your life they'd be surmising said Frank's wife now continued Tom Brangwin for a man to be a man it takes a woman it does that said a woman grimly and for a woman to be a woman it takes a man continued Tom Brangwin all speak up man chimed in a feminine voice therefore we have marriage continued Tom Brangwin hold hold said Alfred Brangwin don't run us off our legs and in dead silence the glasses were filled the bride and bride groom two children sat with intense shining faces at the head of the table abstracted there's no marriage in heaven went on Tom Brangwin but on earth there is marriage that's the difference between them said Alfred Brangwin mocking Alfred said Tom Brangwin keep your remarks till afterwards and then we'll thank you for them there's very little else on earth but marriage you can talk about making money or saving souls you can save your own soul seven times over and you may have a mint of money but your soul goes naan naan naan and it says there's something it must have in heaven there is no marriage but on earth there is marriage else heaven drops out and there's no bottom to it just hark you now said Frank's wife go on Thomas said Alfred sardonically if we've got to be angels went on Tom Brangwin haranguing the company at large and if there is no such thing as a man nor a woman amongst them then it seems to me as a married couple makes one angel it's the brandy said Alfred Brangwin wearily for said Tom Brangwin and the company was listening to the conundrum an angel can't be less than a human being and if it was only the soul of a man minus the man then it would be less than a human being decidedly said Alfred and a laugh went round the table but Tom Brangwin was inspired an angels got to be more than a human being he continued so I say an angel is the soul of man and woman in one they rise united at the judgment day as one angel praising the lord said Frank praising the lord repeated Tom and what about the women left over asked Alfred during the company was getting uneasy that I can't tell how do I know if there is anybody left over at the judgment day let that be what I say is when a man's soul and a woman's soul unites together that makes an angel I don't know about souls I know as one plus one makes three but he had the laugh to himself bodies and souls it's the same said Tom and what about your missus who was married before you knew her asked Alfred said on edge by this discourse that I can't tell you if I am to become an angel it'll be my married soul and not my single soul it'll not be the soul of me when I was a lad for I hadn't a soul as would make an angel then I can always remember said Frank's wife when our Harold was bad he did nothing but see an angel at the back of the looking glass look mother he said at that angel there isn't no angel my duck I said but he wouldn't have it I took the looking glass off in the dressing table but it made no difference he kept on saying it was there my word it did give me a turn I thought for sure as I lost him I can remember my mom's sister's husband my mother gave me a good hide once for saying I'd got an angel up my nose she seed me poking and she said what are you poking at your nose for give over there's an angel up but I said and she fetched me such a wipe but there was we used to call them thistle things angels as wafts about and I'd pushed one of these up my nose for some reason or other it's wonderful what children will get up their noses said Frank's wife I can remember our Hemi she shoved one of them bluebell things out of the middle of a bluebell what they call candles up her nose and oh we had some work I'd seen her sticking them on the end of her nose like but I never thought she'd be so soft as to shove it right up she was a gall of eight or more oh my word we got a crochet hook and I don't know what Tom Brangwin's mood of inspiration began to pass away he forgot all about it and was soon roaring and shouting with the rest outside the wake came singing the carols they were invited into the bursting house they had two fiddles and a piccolo there in the parlor they played carols and the whole company sang them at the top of its voice only the bride and bridegroom sat with shining eyes and strange bright faces and scarcely saying only with just moving lips the wake departed and the geysers came there was loud applause and shouting and excitement as the old mystery play of St. George in which every man present had acted as a boy proceeded with banging and thumping of club and dripping pan by jove I got a crack once when I was playing Bielzebub said Tom Brangwin his eyes full of water with laughing it knocked all the sense out of me as you'd crack an egg but I tell you when I come to I played old Johnny Roger with St. George I did that he was shaking with laughter another knock came at the door there was a hush it's the cab said somebody from the door walk in shouted Tom Brangwin and a red faced grinning man entered now you two get yourselves ready and off to blanket fair shouted Tom Brangwin strike a daisy but if you're not off you're linked a lightning you shan't go you're so sleep separate Anna rose silently and went to change her dress will Brangwin would have gone out but till he came with his hat and coat the youth was helped on well here's luck my boy shouted his father when the fats in the fire let it frizzle admonished his uncle Frank fair and softly does it fair and softly does it tried his aunt Frank's wife contrary you don't want to fall over yourself said his uncle by marriage you're not a bull at a gate let a man have his own road said Tom Brangwin testily don't be so free of your advice it's his wedding this time not yours he don't want many signposts said his father there's some roads a man has to be led and there's some roads a boss-eyed man can only follow with one eye shut but this road can't be lost by a blind man nor a boss-eyed man nor a cripple he's neither thank God don't you be so sure your walk and powers cried Frank's wife there's many a man gets no further than half way nor can't to save his life let him live forever well how do you know said Alfred it's plain enough in the looks of some retorted Lizzie his sister-in-law the youth stood with a faint half-hearing smile on his face he was tense and abstracted these things or anything scarcely touched him Anna came down in her daydress very elusive she kissed everybody men and women Will Brangwin shook hands with everybody kissed his mother who began to cry and the whole party went surging out to the cab the young couple were shut up last injunction shouted at them drive on shouted Tom Brangwin the cab rolled off they saw the light diminish under the ash trees then the whole party quietened went indoors they'll have three good fires burning said Tom Brangwin looking at his watch I told Emma to make him up at nine and then leave the door on the latch it's only half past they'll have three fires burning and lamps lighted and Emma will have warmed the bed with a warm and pan so I said think they'll be alright the party was much quieter they talked to the young couple she said she didn't want to serve it in said Tom Brangwin the house isn't big enough she'd always have the creature under her nose Emma'll do what is wanted of her and they'll be to themselves it's best said Lizzie you're more free the party talked on slowly Brangwin looked at his watch let's go and give him a carol he said we shall find the fiddles at the cock and robin hey come on said Frank Alfred rose in silence the brother-in-law and one of Will's brothers rose also the five men went out the night was flashing with stars serious blazed like a signal at the side of the hill Orion, stately and magnificent was sloping along Tom walked with his brother Alfred the men's heels rang on the ground it's a fine night said Tom hey said Alfred nice to get out hey the brothers walked close together the bond of blood strong between them Tom always felt very much the junior to Alfred it's a long while since you left home he said hey said Alfred I thought I was getting a bit oldish but I'm not it's the things you've got it's not you yourself why what's worn out most folks as I have anything to do with as has anything to do with me you all break down you've got to go on by yourself if it's only to perdition there's nobody going alongside even there Tom Brangwin meditated this maybe you was never broken in he said no I never was said Alfred proudly and Tom felt his elder brother despised him a little he went stunder it everybody's got a way of their own if they give and give what they take they must go by themselves or get a dog as they'll follow them they can do without the dog said his brother and again Tom Brangwin was humble thinking his brother was bigger than himself but if he was he was and if it were finer to go alone it was he did not want to go for all that they went over the field where a thin keen wind blew round the ball of the hill in the starlight they came to the style and to the side of Anna's house the lights were out only on the blinds of the rooms downstairs and of a bedroom upstairs firelight flickered we'd better leave them alone said Alfred Brangwin and in a quarter of an hour's time eleven silent rather tipsy men scrambled over the wall and into the garden by the yew trees outside the windows where faint firelight glowered on the blinds there came a shrill sound two violins and a piccolo shrilling on the frosty air in the fields with their flocks abiding a commotion of men's voices broke out singing and ragged unison Anna Brangwin had started up listening when the music began she was afraid it's the wake he whispered she remained tense her heart beating heavily possessed with strange strong fear there came the burst of men singing rather uneven she strained still listening it's dad, she said in a low voice they were silent listening and my father, he said she listened still but she was sure she sank down again into bed into his arms he held her very close kissing her the hymn rambled on outside all the men singing their best having forgotten everything else under the spell of the fiddles on the tune the firelight glowed against the darkness in the room Anna could hear her father singing with gusto aren't they silly she whispered and they crept closer closer together, hearts beating to one another and even as the hymn rolled on they ceased to hear it end of chapter 5