She could scarcely forgive him that he had never lived. If it
were not for Anna, and for this little Ursula, who had his
brows, there would be no more left of him than of a broken
vessel thrown away, and just remembered.
Tom Brangwen had served her. He had come to her, and taken
from her. He had died and gone his way into death. But he had
made himself immortal in his knowledge with her. So she had her
place here, in life, and in immortality. For he had taken his
knowledge of her into death, so that she had her place in death.
"In my father's house are many mansions."
She loved both her husbands. To one she had been a naked
little girl-bride, running to serve him. The other she loved out
of fulfilment, because he was good and had given her being,
because he had served her honourably, and become her man, one
with her.
She was established in this stretch of life, she had come to
herself. During her first marriage, she had not existed, except
through him, he was the substance and she the shadow running at
his feet. She was very glad she had come to her own self. She
was grateful to Brangwen. She reached out to him in gratitude,
into death.
In her heart she felt a vague tenderness and pity for her
first husband, who had been her lord. He was so wrong when he
died. She could not bear it, that he had never lived, never
really become himself. And he had been her lord! Strange, it all
had been! Why had he been her lord? He seemed now so far off, so
without bearing on her.
"Which did you, grandmother?"
"What?"
"Like best."
"I liked them both. I married the first when I was quite a
girl. Then I loved your grandfather when I was a woman. There is
a difference."
They were silent for a time.
"Did you cry when my first grandfather died?" the child
asked.
Lydia Brangwen rocked herself on the bed, thinking aloud.
"When we came to England, he hardly ever spoke, he was too
much concerned to take any notice of anybody. He grew thinner
and thinner, till his cheeks were hollow and his mouth stuck
out. He wasn't handsome any more. I knew he couldn't bear being
beaten, I thought everything was lost in the world. Only I had
your mother a baby, it was no use my dying.
"He looked at me with his black eyes, almost as if he hated
me, when he was ill, and said, 'It only wanted this. It only
wanted that I should leave you and a young child to starve in
this London.' I told him we should not starve. But I was young,
and foolish, and frightened, which he knew.