The Rainbow

Tilly took gently hold of the child's skirts. Anna snatched

back her dress, and cried, in a little hysteria: "No, you're not to undress me--I want my

mother,"--and her child's face was running with grief and

tears, her body shaken.

"Oh, but let Tilly undress you. Let Tilly undress you, who

loves you, don't be wilful to-night. Mother's poorly, she

doesn't want you to cry."

The child sobbed distractedly, she could not hear.

"I want--my--mother," she wept.

"When you're undressed, you s'll go up to see your

mother--when you're undressed, pet, when you've let Tilly

undress you, when you're a little jewel in your nightie, love.

Oh, don't you cry, don't you--"

Brangwen sat stiff in his chair. He felt his brain going

tighter. He crossed over the room, aware only of the maddening

sobbing.

"Don't make a noise," he said.

And a new fear shook the child from the sound of his voice.

She cried mechanically, her eyes looking watchful through her

tears, in terror, alert to what might happen.

"I want--my--mother," quavered the sobbing, blind

voice.

A shiver of irritation went over the man's limbs. It was the

utter, persistent unreason, the maddening blindness of the voice

and the crying.

"You must come and be undressed," he said, in a quiet voice

that was thin with anger.

And he reached his hand and grasped her. He felt her body

catch in a convulsive sob. But he too was blind, and intent,

irritated into mechanical action. He began to unfasten her

little apron. She would have shrunk from him, but could not. So

her small body remained in his grasp, while he fumbled at the

little buttons and tapes, unthinking, intent, unaware of

anything but the irritation of her. Her body was held taut and

resistant, he pushed off the little dress and the petticoats,

revealing the white arms. She kept stiff, overpowered, violated,

he went on with his task. And all the while she sobbed,

choking: "I want my mother."

He was unheedingly silent, his face stiff. The child was now

incapable of understanding, she had become a little, mechanical

thing of fixed will. She wept, her body convulsed, her voice

repeating the same cry.

"Eh, dear o' me!" cried Tilly, becoming distracted herself.

Brangwen, slow, clumsy, blind, intent, got off all the little

garments, and stood the child naked in its shift upon the

sofa.

"Where's her nightie?" he asked.

Tilly brought it, and he put it on her. Anna did not move her

limbs to his desire. He had to push them into place. She stood,

with fixed, blind will, resistant, a small, convulsed,

unchangeable thing weeping ever and repeating the same phrase.

He lifted one foot after the other, pulled off slippers and

socks. She was ready.

"Do you want a drink?" he asked.