"We don't live with you," she said, thrusting forward
her little head at him. "You--you're--you're a
bomakle."
"A what?" he shouted.
Her voice wavered--but it came.
"A bomakle."
"Ay, an' you're a comakle."
She meditated. Then she hissed forwards her head.
"I'm not."
"Not what?"
"A comakle."
"No more am I a bomakle."
He was really cross.
Other times she would say: "My mother doesn't live here."
"Oh, ay?"
"I want her to go away."
"Then want's your portion," he replied laconically.
So they drew nearer together. He would take her with him when
he went out in the trap. The horse ready at the gate, he came
noisily into the house, which seemed quiet and peaceful till he
appeared to set everything awake.
"Now then, Topsy, pop into thy bonnet."
The child drew herself up, resenting the indignity of the
address.
"I can't fasten my bonnet myself," she said haughtily.
"Not man enough yet," he said, tying the ribbons under her
chin with clumsy fingers.
She held up her face to him. Her little bright-red lips moved
as he fumbled under her chin.
"You talk--nonsents," she said, re-echoing one of his
phrases.
"That face shouts for th' pump," he said, and taking
out a big red handkerchief, that smelled of strong tobacco,
began wiping round her mouth.
"Is Kitty waiting for me?" she asked.
"Ay," he said. "Let's finish wiping your face--it'll
pass wi' a cat-lick."
She submitted prettily. Then, when he let her go, she began
to skip, with a curious flicking up of one leg behind her.
"Now my young buck-rabbit," he said. "Slippy!"
She came and was shaken into her coat, and the two set off.
She sat very close beside him in the gig, tucked tightly,
feeling his big body sway, against her, very splendid. She loved
the rocking of the gig, when his big, live body swayed upon her,
against her. She laughed, a poignant little shrill laugh, and
her black eyes glowed.
She was curiously hard, and then passionately tenderhearted.
Her mother was ill, the child stole about on tip-toe in the
bedroom for hours, being nurse, and doing the thing thoughtfully
and diligently. Another day, her mother was unhappy. Anna would
stand with her legs apart, glowering, balancing on the sides of
her slippers. She laughed when the goslings wriggled in Tilly's
hand, as the pellets of food were rammed down their throats with
a skewer, she laughed nervously. She was hard and imperious with
the animals, squandering no love, running about amongst them
like a cruel mistress.
Summer came, and hay-harvest, Anna was a brown elfish mite
dancing about. Tilly always marvelled over her, more than she
loved her.
But always in the child was some anxious connection with the
mother. So long as Mrs. Brangwen was all right, the little girl
played about and took very little notice of her. But
corn-harvest went by, the autumn drew on, and the mother, the
later months of her pregnancy beginning, was strange and
detached, Brangwen began to knit his brows, the old, unhealthy
uneasiness, the unskinned susceptibility came on the child
again. If she went to the fields with her father, then, instead
of playing about carelessly, it was: "I want to go home."