The Rainbow

During the first year of her marriage, before Ursula was

born, Anna Brangwen and her husband went to visit her mother's

friend, the Baron Skrebensky. The latter had kept a slight

connection with Anna's mother, and had always preserved some

officious interest in the young girl, because she was a pure

Pole.

When Baron Skrebensky was about forty years old, his wife

died, and left him raving, disconsolate. Lydia had visited him

then, taking Anna with her. It was when the girl was fourteen

years old. Since then she had not seen him. She remembered him

as a small sharp clergyman who cried and talked and terrified

her, whilst her mother was most strangely consoling, in a

foreign language.

The little Baron never quite approved of Anna, because she

spoke no Polish. Still, he considered himself in some way her

guardian, on Lensky's behalf, and he presented her with some

old, heavy Russian jewellery, the least valuable of his wife's

relics. Then he lapsed out of the Brangwen's life again, though

he lived only about thirty miles away.

Three years later came the startling news that he had married

a young English girl of good family. Everybody marvelled. Then

came a copy of "The History of the Parish of Briswell, by

Rudolph, Baron Skrebensky, Vicar of Briswell." It was a curious

book, incoherent, full of interesting exhumations. It was

dedicated: "To my wife, Millicent Maud Pearse, in whom I embrace

the generous spirit of England."

"If he embraces no more than the spirit of England," said Tom

Brangwen, "it's a bad look-out for him."

But paying a formal visit with his wife, he found the new

Baroness a little, creamy-skinned, insidious thing with

red-brown hair and a mouth that one must always watch, because

it curved back continually in an incomprehensible, strange laugh

that exposed her rather prominent teeth. She was not beautiful,

yet Tom Brangwen was immediately under her spell. She seemed to

snuggle like a kitten within his warmth, whilst she was at the

same time elusive and ironical, suggesting the fine steel of her

claws.

The Baron was almost dotingly courteous and attentive to her.

She, almost mockingly, yet quite happy, let him dote. Curious

little thing she was, she had the soft, creamy, elusive beauty

of a ferret. Tom Brangwen was quite at a loss, at her mercy, and

she laughed, a little breathlessly, as if tempted to cruelty.

She did put fine torments on the elderly Baron.

When some months later she bore a son, the Baron Skrebensky

was loud with delight.

Gradually she gathered a circle of acquaintances in the

county. For she was of good family, half Venetian, educated in

Dresden. The little foreign vicar attained to a social status

which almost satisfied his maddened pride.

Therefore the Brangwens were surprised when the invitation

came for Anna and her young husband to pay a visit to Briswell

vicarage. For the Skrebenskys were now moderately well off,

Millicent Skrebensky having some fortune of her own.