The Rainbow

"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."