The Rainbow

"Fifty pounds a year," she said.

He was silent, his power taken out of his hand.

He had always hugged a secret pride in the fact that his

daughters need not go out to work. With his wife's money and his

own they had four hundred a year. They could draw on the capital

if need be later on. He was not afraid for his old age. His

daughters might be ladies.

Fifty pounds a year was a pound a week--which was enough

for her to live on independently.

"And what sort of a teacher do you think you'd make? You

haven't the patience of a Jack-gnat with your own brothers and

sisters, let alone with a class of children. And I thought you

didn't like dirty, board-school brats."

"They're not all dirty."

"You'd find they're not all clean."

There was silence in the workshop. The lamplight fell on the

burned silver bowl that lay between him, on mallet and furnace

and chisel. Brangwen stood with a queer, catlike light on his

face, almost like a smile. But it was no smile.

"Can I try?" she said.

"You can do what the deuce you like, and go where you

like."

Her face was fixed and expressionless and indifferent. It

always sent him to a pitch of frenzy to see it like that. He

kept perfectly still.

Cold, without any betrayal of feeling, she turned and left

the shed. He worked on, with all his nerves jangled. Then he had

to put down his tools and go into the house.

In a bitter tone of anger and contempt he told his wife.

Ursula was present. There was a brief altercation, closed by

Mrs. Brangwen's saying, in a tone of biting superiority and

indifference: "Let her find out what it's like. She'll soon have had

enough."

The matter was left there. But Ursula considered herself free

to act. For some days she made no move. She was reluctant to

take the cruel step of finding work, for she shrank with extreme

sensitiveness and shyness from new contact, new situations. Then

at length a sort of doggedness drove her. Her soul was full of

bitterness.

She went to the Free Library in Ilkeston, copied out

addresses from the Schoolmistress, and wrote for

application forms. After two days she rose early to meet the

postman. As she expected, there were three long envelopes.

Her heart beat painfully as she went up with them to her

bedroom. Her fingers trembled, she could hardly force herself to

look at the long, official forms she had to fill in. The whole

thing was so cruel, so impersonal. Yet it must be done.

"Name (surname first):..."

In a trembling hand she wrote, "Brangwen,--Ursula."

"Age and date of birth:..."

After a long time considering, she filled in that line.