Night was falling, the bare trees drummed and whistled. The
vicar, he knew, would be in his study, the Polish woman in the
kitchen, a comfortable room, with her child. In the darkest of
twilight, he went through the gate and down the path where a few
daffodils stooped in the wind, and shattered crocuses made a
pale, colourless ravel.
There was a light streaming on to the bushes at the back from
the kitchen window. He began to hesitate. How could he do this?
Looking through the window, he saw her seated in the
rocking-chair with the child, already in its nightdress, sitting
on her knee. The fair head with its wild, fierce hair was
drooping towards the fire-warmth, which reflected on the bright
cheeks and clear skin of the child, who seemed to be musing,
almost like a grown-up person. The mother's face was dark and
still, and he saw, with a pang, that she was away back in the
life that had been. The child's hair gleamed like spun glass,
her face was illuminated till it seemed like wax lit up from the
inside. The wind boomed strongly. Mother and child sat
motionless, silent, the child staring with vacant dark eyes into
the fire, the mother looking into space. The little girl was
almost asleep. It was her will which kept her eyes so wide.
Suddenly she looked round, troubled, as the wind shook the
house, and Brangwen saw the small lips move. The mother began to
rock, he heard the slight crunch of the rockers of the chair.
Then he heard the low, monotonous murmur of a song in a foreign
language. Then a great burst of wind, the mother seemed to have
drifted away, the child's eyes were black and dilated. Brangwen
looked up at the clouds which packed in great, alarming haste
across the dark sky.
Then there came the child's high, complaining, yet imperative
voice: "Don't sing that stuff, mother; I don't want to hear it."
The singing died away.
"You will go to bed," said the mother.
He saw the clinging protest of the child, the unmoved
farawayness of the mother, the clinging, grasping effort of the
child. Then suddenly the clear childish challenge: "I want you to tell me a story."
The wind blew, the story began, the child nestled against the
mother, Brangwen waited outside, suspended, looking at the wild
waving of the trees in the wind and the gathering darkness. He
had his fate to follow, he lingered there at the threshold.
The child crouched distinct and motionless, curled in against
her mother, the eyes dark and unblinking among the keen wisps of
hair, like a curled-up animal asleep but for the eyes. The
mother sat as if in shadow, the story went on as if by itself.
Brangwen stood outside seeing the night fall. He did not notice
the passage of time. The hand that held the daffodils was fixed
and cold.