The Rainbow

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.