The Rainbow

Her cousin took out his pocket-handkerchief. He seemed to be

drifted absorbed into the sermon. He put his handkerchief to his

face. Then something dropped on to his knee. There lay the bit

of flowering currant! He was looking down at it in real

astonishment. A wild snort of laughter came from Anna. Everybody

heard: it was torture. He had shut the crumpled flower in his

hand and was looking up again with the same absorbed attention

to the sermon. Another snort of laughter from Anna. Fred nudged

her remindingly.

Her cousin sat motionless. Somehow he was aware that his face

was red. She could feel him. His hand, closed over the flower,

remained quite still, pretending to be normal. Another wild

struggle in Anna's breast, and the snort of laughter. She bent

forward shaking with laughter. It was now no joke. Fred was

nudge-nudging at her. She nudged him back fiercely. Then another

vicious spasm of laughter seized her. She tried to ward it off

in a little cough. The cough ended in a suppressed whoop. She

wanted to die. And the closed hand crept away to the pocket.

Whilst she sat in taut suspense, the laughter rushed back at

her, knowing he was fumbling in his pocket to shove the flower

away.

In the end, she felt weak, exhausted and thoroughly

depressed. A blankness of wincing depression came over her. She

hated the presence of the other people. Her face became quite

haughty. She was unaware of her cousin any more.

When the collection arrived with the last hymn, her cousin

was again singing resoundingly. And still it amused her. In

spite of the shameful exhibition she had made of herself, it

amused her still. She listened to it in a spell of amusement.

And the bag was thrust in front of her, and her sixpence was

mingled in the folds of her glove. In her haste to get it out,

it flipped away and went twinkling in the next pew. She stood

and giggled. She could not help it: she laughed outright, a

figure of shame.

"What were you laughing about, our Anna?" asked Fred, the

moment they were out of the church.

"Oh, I couldn't help it," she said, in her careless,

half-mocking fashion. "I don't know why Cousin Will's

singing set me off."

"What was there in my singing to make you laugh?" he

asked.

"It was so loud," she said.

They did not look at each other, but they both laughed again,

both reddening.

"What were you snorting and laughing for, our Anna?" asked

Tom, the elder brother, at the dinner table, his hazel eyes

bright with joy. "Everybody stopped to look at you." Tom was in

the choir.

She was aware of Will's eyes shining steadily upon her,

waiting for her to speak.

"It was Cousin Will's singing," she said.