such a frost that nipped in the bud one of the beautiful moments of her life. She went about heavy and tremulous with her secret, wanting to touch him, oh, most delicately, and see his face, dark and sensitive, attend to her news. She waited and waited for him to become gentle and still towards her. But he was always harsh and he bullied her.
So that the buds shrivelled from her confidence, she was chilled. She went down to the Marsh.
“Well,” said her father, looking at her and seeing her at the first glance, “what’s amiss wi’ you now?”
The tears came at the touch of his careful love.
“Nothing,” she said.
“Can’t you hit it off, you two?” he said.
“He’s so obstinate,” she quivered; but her soul was obdurate itself.
“Ay, an’ I know another who’s all that,” said her father.
She was silent.
“You don’t want to make yourselves miserable,” said her father; “all about nowt.”
“He isn’t miserable,” she said.
“I’ll back my life, if you can do nowt else, you can make him as miserable as a dog. You’d be a dab hand at that, my lass.”
“I do nothing to make him miserable,” she retorted.
“Oh no-oh no! A packet o’ butterscotch, you are.”
She laughed a little.
“You mustn’t think I want him to be miserable,” she cried. “I don’t.”
“We quite readily believe it,” retorted Brangwen. “Neither do you intend him to be hopping for joy like a fish in a pond.”
This made her think. She was rather surprised to find that she did not intend her husband to be hopping for joy like a fish in a pond.
Her mother came, and they all sat down to tea, talking casually.
“Remember, child,” said her mother, “that everything is not waiting for your hand just to take or leave. You mustn’t expect it. Between two people, the love itself is the important thing, and that is neither you nor him. It is a third thing you must create. You mustn’t expect it to be just your way.”
“Ha-nor do I. If I did I should soon find my mistake out. If I put my hand out to take anything, my hand is very soon bitten, I can tell you.”
“Then you must mind where you put your hand,” said her father.
Anna was rather indignant that they took the tragedy of her young married life with such equanimity.
“You love the man right enough,” said her father, wrinkling his forehead in distress. “That’s all as counts.”
“I do love him, more shame to him,” she cried. “I want to tell him-I’ve been waiting for four days now to tell him ——” her face began to quiver, the tears came. Her parents watched her in silence. She did not go on.
“Tell him what?” said her father.
“That we’re going to have an infant,” she sobbed, “and he’s never, never let me, not once, every time I’ve come to him, he’s been horrid to me, and I wanted to tell him, I did. And he won’t let me-he’s cruel to me.”
She sobbed as if her heart would break. Her mother went and comforted her, put her arms round her, and held her close. Her father sat with a queer, wrinkled brow, and was rather paler than usual. His heart went tense with hatred of his son-in-law.
So that, when the tale was sobbed out, and comfort administered and tea sipped, and something like calm restored to the little circle, the thought of Will Brangwen’s entry was not pleasantly entertained.
Tilly was set to watch out for him as he passed by on his way home. The little party at table heard the woman’s servant’s shrill call:
“You’ve got to come in, Will. Anna’s here.”
After a few moments, the youth entered.
“Are you stopping?” he asked in his hard, harsh voice.
He seemed like a blade of destruction standing there. She quivered to tears.
“Sit you down,” said Tom Brangwen, “an’ take a bit off your length.”
Will Brangwen sat down. He felt something strange in the atmosphere. He was dark browed, but his eyes had the keen, intent, sharp look, as if he could only see in the distance; which was a beauty in him, and which made Anna so angry.
“Why does he always deny me?” she said to herself. “Why is it nothing to him, what I am?”
And Tom Brangwen, blue-eyed and warm, sat in opposition to the youth.
“How long are you stopping?” the young husband asked his wife.
“Not very long,” she said.
“Get your tea, lad,” said Tom Brangwen. “Are you itchin’ to be off the moment you enter?”
They talked of trivial things. Through the open door the level rays of sunset poured in, shining on the floor. A grey hen appeared stepping swiftly in the doorway, pecking, and the light through her comb and her wattles made an oriflamme tossed here and there, as she went, her grey body was like a ghost.
Anna, watching, threw scraps of bread, and she felt the child flame within her. She seemed to remember again forgotten, burning, far-off things.
“Where was I born, mother?” she asked.
“In London.”
“And was my father”-she spoke of him as if he were merely a strange name: she could never connect herself with him-“was he dark?”
“He had dark-brown hair and dark eyes and a fresh colouring. He went bald, rather bald, when he was quite young,” replied her mother, also as if telling a tale which was just old imagination.
“Was he good-looking?”
“Yes-he was very good-looking-rather small. I have never seen an Englishman who looked like him.”
“Why?”
“He was”-the mother made a quick, running movement with her hands-“his figure was alive and changing-it was never fixed. He was not in the least steady-like a running stream.”
It flashed over the youth-Anna too was like a running stream. Instantly he was in love with her again.
Tom Brangwen was frightened. His heart always filled with fear, fear of the unknown, when he heard his women speak of their bygone men as of strangers they had known in passing and had taken leave of again.
In the room, there came a silence and a singleness over all their hearts. They were separate people with separate
