第 22 页

then leave the door on th' latch. It's only half-past. They'll

have three fires burning, an' lamps lighted, an' Emma will ha'

warmed th' bed wi' th' warmin' pan. So I s'd think they'll be

all right."

The party was much quieter. They talked of the young

couple.

"She said she didn't want a servant in," said Tom Brangwen.

"The house isn't big enough, she'd always have the creature

under her nose. Emma'll do what is wanted of her, an' they'll be

to themselves."

"It's best," said Lizzie, "you're more free."

The party talked on slowly. Brangwen looked at his watch.

"Let's go an' give 'em a carol," he said. "We s'll find th'

fiddles at the 'Cock an' Robin'."

"Ay, come on," said Frank.

Alfred rose in silence. The brother-in-law and one of Will's

brothers rose also.

The five men went out. The night was flashing with stars.

Sirius blazed like a signal at the side of the hill, Orion,

stately and magnificent, was sloping along.

Tom walked with his brother, Alfred. The men's heels rang on

the ground.

"It's a fine night," said Tom.

"Ay," said Alfred.

"Nice to get out."

"Ay."

The brothers walked close together, the bond of blood strong

between them. Tom always felt very much the junior to

Alfred.

"It's a long while since you left home," he said.

"Ay," said Alfred. "I thought I was getting a bit

oldish--but I'm not. It's the things you've got as gets

worn out, it's not you yourself."

"Why, what's worn out?"

"Most folks as I've anything to do with--as has anything

to do with me. They all break down. You've got to go on by

yourself, if it's only to perdition. There's nobody going

alongside even there."

Tom Brangwen meditated this.

"Maybe you was never broken in," he said.

"No, I never was," said Alfred proudly.

And Tom felt his elder brother despised him a little. He

winced under it.

"Everybody's got a way of their own," he said, stubbornly.

"It's only a dog as hasn't. An' them as can't take what they

give an' give what they take, they must go by themselves, or get

a dog as'll follow 'em."

"They can do without the dog," said his brother. And again

Tom Brangwen was humble, thinking his brother was bigger than

himself. But if he was, he was. And if it were finer to go

alone, it was: he did not want to go for all that.

They went over the field, where a thin, keen wind blew round

the ball of the hill, in the starlight. They came to the stile,

and to the side of Anna's house. The lights were out, only on

the blinds of the rooms downstairs, and of a bedroom upstairs,

firelight flickered.

"We'd better leave 'em alone," said Alfred Brangwen.

"Nay, nay," said Tom. "We'll carol 'em, for th' last

time."

And in a quarter of an hour's time, eleven silent, rather

tipsy men scrambled over the wall, and into the garden by the

yew trees, outside the windows where faint firelight glowered on

the blinds. There came a shrill sound, two violins and a piccolo

shrilling on the frosty air.

"In the fields with their flocks abiding." A commotion of

men's voices broke out singing in ragged unison.

Anna Brangwen had started up, listening, when the music

began. She was afraid.

"It's the wake," he whispered.

She remained tense, her heart beating heavily, possessed with

strange, strong fear. Then there came the burst of men's

singing, rather uneven. She strained still, listening.

"It's Dad," she said, in a low voice. They were silent,

listening.

"And my father," he said.

She listened still. But she was sure. She sank down again

into bed, into his arms. He held her very close, kissing her.

The hymn rambled on outside, all the men singing their best,

having forgotten everything else under the spell of the fiddles

and the tune. The firelight glowed against the darkness in the

room. Anna could hear her father singing with gusto.

"Aren't they silly," she whispered.

And they crept closer, closer together, hearts beating to one

another. And even as the hymn rolled on, they ceased to hear

it.

CHAPTER VI

ANNA VICTRIX

Will Brangwen had some weeks of holiday after his marriage,

so the two took their honeymoon in full hands, alone in their

cottage together.

And to him, as the days went by, it was as if the heavens had

fallen, and he were sitting with her among the ruins, in a new

world, everybody else buried, themselves two blissful survivors,

with everything to squander as they would. At first, he could

not get rid of a culpable sense of licence on his part. Wasn't

there some duty outside, calling him and he did not come?

It was all very well at night, when the doors were locked and

the darkness drawn round the two of them. Then they were the

only inhabitants of the visible earth, the rest were under the

flood. And being alone in the world, they were a law unto

themselves, they could enjoy and squander and waste like

conscienceless gods.

But in the morning, as the carts clanked by, and children

shouted down the lane; as the hucksters came calling their

wares, and the church clock struck eleven, and he and she had

not got up yet, even to breakfast, he could not help feeling

guilty, as if he were committing a breach of the

law--ashamed that he was not up and doing.

"Doing what?" she asked. "What is there to do? You will only

lounge about."

Still, even lounging about was respectable. One was at least

in connection with the world, then. Whereas now, lying so still

and peacefully, while the daylight came obscurely through the

drawn blind, one was severed from the world, one shut oneself

off in tacit denial of the world. And he was troubled.

But it was so sweet and satisfying lying there talking

desultorily with her. It was sweeter than sunshine, and not so

evanescent. It was even irritating the way the church-clock kept

on chiming: there seemed no space between the hours, just a

moment, golden and still, whilst she traced his features with

her finger-tips, utterly careless and happy, and he loved her to

do it.

But he was strange and unused. So suddenly, everything that

had been before was shed away and gone. One day, he was a

bachelor, living with the world. The next day, he was with her,

as remote from the world as if the two of them were buried like

a seed in darkness. Suddenly, like a chestnut falling out of a

burr, he was shed naked and glistening on to a soft, fecund

earth, leaving behind him the hard rind of worldly knowledge and

experience. He heard it in the huckster's cries, the noise of

carts, the calling of children. And it was all like the hard,

shed rind, discarded. Inside, in the softness and stillness of

the room, was the naked kernel, that palpitated in silent

activity, absorbed in reality.

Inside the room was a great steadiness, a core of living

eternity. Only far outside, at the rim, went on the noise and

the destruction. Here at the centre the great wheel was

motionless, centred upon itself. Here was a poised, unflawed

stillness that was beyond time, because it remained the same,

inexhaustible, unchanging, unexhausted.

As they lay close together, complete and beyond the touch of

time or change, it was as if they were at the very centre of all

the slow wheeling of space and the rapid agitation of life,

deep, deep inside them all, at the centre where there is utter

radiance, and eternal being, and the silence absorbed in praise:

the steady core of all movements, the unawakened sleep of all

wakefulness. They found themselves there, and they lay still, in

each other's arms; for their moment they were at the heart of

eternity, whilst time roared far off, for ever far off, towards

the rim.

Then gradually they were passed away from the supreme centre,

down the circles of praise and joy and gladness, further and

further out, towards the noise and the friction. But their

hearts had burned and were tempered by the inner reality, they

were unalterably glad.

Gradually they began to wake up, the noises outside became

more real. They understood and answered the call outside. They

counted the strokes of the bell. And when they counted midday,

they understood that it was midday, in the world, and for

themselves also.

It dawned upon her that she was hungry. She had been getting

hungrier for a lifetime. But even yet it was not sufficiently

real to rouse her. A long way off she could hear the words, "I

am dying of hunger." Yet she lay still, separate, at peace, and

the words were unuttered. There was still another lapse.

And then, quite calmly, even a little surprised, she was in

the present, and was saying:

"I am dying with hunger."

"So am I," he said calmly, as if it were of not the slightest

significance. And they relapsed into the warm, golden stillness.

And the minutes flowed unheeded past the window outside.

Then suddenly she stirred against him.

"My dear, I am dying of hunger," she said.

It was a slight pain to him to be brought to.

"We'll get up," he said, unmoving.

And she sank her head on to him again, and they lay still,

lapsing. Half consciously, he heard the clock chime the hour.

She did not hear.

"Do get up," she murmured at length, "and give me something

to eat."

"Yes," he said, and he put his arms round her, and she lay

with her face on him. They were faintly astonished that they did

not move. The minutes rustled louder at the window.

"Let me go then," he said.

She lifted her head from him, relinquishingly. With a little

breaking away, he moved out of bed, and was taking his clothes.

She stretched out her hand to him.

"You are so nice," she said, and he went back for a moment or

two.

Then actually he did slip into some clothes, and, looking

round quickly at her, was gone out of the room. She lay

translated again into a pale, clearer peace. As if she were a

spirit, she listened to the noise of him downstairs, as if she

were no longer of the material world.

It was half-past one. He looked at the silent kitchen,

untouched from last night, dim with the drawn blind. And he

hastened to draw up the blind, so people should know they were

not in bed any later. Well, it was his own house, it did not

matter. Hastily he put wood in the grate and made a fire. He

exulted in himself, like an adventurer on an undiscovered

island. The fire blazed up, he put on the kettle. How happy he

felt! How still and secluded the house was! There were only he

and she in the world.

But when he unbolted the door, and, half-dressed, looked out,

he felt furtive and guilty. The world was there, after all. And

he had felt so secure, as though this house were the Ark in the

flood, and all the rest was drowned. The world was there: and it

was afternoon. The morning had vanished and gone by, the day was

growing old. Where was the bright, fresh morning? He was

accused. Was the morning gone, and he had lain with blinds

drawn, let it pass by unnoticed?

He looked again round the chill, grey afternoon. And he

himself so soft and warm and glowing! There were two sprigs of

yellow jasmine in the saucer that covered the milk-jug. He

wondered who had been and left the sign. Taking the jug, he

hastily shut the door. Let the day and the daylight drop out,

let it go by unseen. He did not care. What did one day more or

less matter to him. It could fall into oblivion unspent if it

liked, this one course of daylight.

"Somebody has been and found the door locked," he said when

he went upstairs with the tray. He gave her the two sprigs of

jasmine. She laughed as she sat up in bed, childishly threading

the flowers in the breast of her nightdress. Her brown hair

stuck out like a nimbus, all fierce, round her softly glowing

face. Her dark eyes watched the tray eagerly.

"How good!" she cried, sniffing the cold air. "I'm glad you

did a lot." And she stretched out her hands eagerly for her

plate--"Come back to bed, quick--it's cold." She

rubbed her hands together sharply.

He [put off what little clothing he had on, and] sat beside her

in the bed.

"You look like a lion, with your mane sticking out, and your

nose pushed over your food," he said.

She tinkled with laughter, and gladly ate her breakfast.

The morning was sunk away unseen, the afternoon was steadily

going too, and he was letting it go. One bright transit of

daylight gone by unacknowledged! There was something unmanly,

recusant in it. He could not quite reconcile himself to the

fact. He felt he ought to get up, go out quickly into the

daylight, and work or spend himself energetically in the open

air of the afternoon, retrieving what was left to him of the

day.

But he did not go. Well, one might as well be hung for a

sheep as for a lamb. If he had lost this day of his life, he had

lost it. He gave it up. He was not going to count his losses.

She didn't care. She didn't care in the least.

Then why should he? Should he be behind her in recklessness and

independence? She was superb in her indifference. He wanted to

be like her.

She took her responsibilities lightly. When she spilled her

tea on the pillow, she rubbed it carelessly with a handkerchief,

and turned over the pillow. He would have felt guilty. She did

not. And it pleased him. It pleased him very much to see how

these things did not matter to her.

When the meal was over, she wiped her mouth on her