第 39 页

farmer. The children were sent away to the Vicarage, the dead

body lay on the parlour floor, Anna quickly began to undress

him, laid his fob and seals in a wet heap on the table. Her

husband and the woman helped her. They cleared and washed the

body, and laid it on the bed.

There, it looked still and grand. He was perfectly calm in

death, and, now he was laid in line, inviolable, unapproachable.

To Anna, he was the majesty of the inaccessible male, the

majesty of death. It made her still and awe-stricken, almost

glad.

Lydia Brangwen, the mother, also came and saw the impressive,

inviolable body of the dead man. She went pale, seeing death. He

was beyond change or knowledge, absolute, laid in line with the

infinite. What had she to do with him? He was a majestic

Abstraction, made visible now for a moment, inviolate, absolute.

And who could lay claim to him, who could speak of him, of the

him who was revealed in the stripped moment of transit from life

into death? Neither the living nor the dead could claim him, he

was both the one and the other, inviolable, inaccessibly

himself.

"I shared life with you, I belong in my own way to eternity,"

said Lydia Brangwen, her heart cold, knowing her own

singleness.

"I did not know you in life. You are beyond me, supreme now

in death," said Anna Brangwen, awe-stricken, almost glad.

It was the sons who could not bear it. Fred Brangwen went

about with a set, blanched face and shut hands, his heart full

of hatred and rage for what had been done to his father,

bleeding also with desire to have his father again, to see him,

to hear him again. He could not bear it.

Tom Brangwen only arrived on the day of the funeral. He was

quiet and controlled as ever. He kissed his mother, who was

still dark-faced, inscrutable, he shook hands with his brother

without looking at him, he saw the great coffin with its black

handles. He even read the name-plate, "Tom Brangwen, of the

Marsh Farm. Born ----. Died ----."

The good-looking, still face of the young man crinkled up for

a moment in a terrible grimace, then resumed its stillness. The

coffin was carried round to the church, the funeral bell tanged

at intervals, the mourners carried their wreaths of white

flowers. The mother, the Polish woman, went with dark, abstract

face, on her son's arm. He was good-looking as ever, his face

perfectly motionless and somehow pleasant. Fred walked with

Anna, she strange and winsome, he with a face like wood, stiff,

unyielding.

Only afterwards Ursula, flitting between the currant bushes

down the garden, saw her Uncle Tom standing in his black

clothes, erect and fashionable, but his fists lifted, and his

face distorted, his lips curled back from his teeth in a

horrible grin, like an animal which grimaces with torment,

whilst his body panted quick, like a panting dog's. He was

facing the open distance, panting, and holding still, then

panting rapidly again, but his face never changing from its

almost bestial look of torture, the teeth all showing, the nose

wrinkled up, the eyes, unseeing, fixed.

Terrified, Ursula slipped away. And when her Uncle Tom was in

the house again, grave and very quiet, so that he seemed almost

to affect gravity, to pretend grief, she watched his still,

handsome face, imagining it again in its distortion. But she saw

the nose was rather thick, rather Russian, under its transparent

skin, she remembered the teeth under the carefully cut moustache

were small and sharp and spaced. She could see him, in all his

elegant demeanour, bestial, almost corrupt. And she was

frightened. She never forgot to look for the bestial,

frightening side of him, after this.

He said "Good-bye" to his mother and went away at once.

Ursula almost shrank from his kiss, now. She wanted it,

nevertheless, and the little revulsion as well.

At the funeral, and after the funeral, Will Brangwen was

madly in love with his wife. The death had shaken him. But death

and all seemed to gather in him into a mad, over-whelming

passion for his wife. She seemed so strange and winsome. He was

almost beside himself with desire for her.

And she took him, she seemed ready for him, she wanted

him.

The grandmother stayed a while at the Yew Cottage, till the

Marsh was restored. Then she returned to her own rooms, quiet,

and it seemed, wanting nothing. Fred threw himself into the work

of restoring the farm. That his father was killed there, seemed

to make it only the more intimate and the more inevitably his

own place.

There was a saying that the Brangwens always died a violent

death. To them all, except perhaps Tom, it seemed almost

natural. Yet Fred went about obstinate, his heart fixed. He

could never forgive the Unknown this murder of his father.

After the death of the father, the Marsh was very quiet. Mrs.

Brangwen was unsettled. She could not sit all the evening

peacefully, as she could before, and during the day she was

always rising to her feet and hesitating, as if she must go

somewhere, and were not quite sure whither.

She was seen loitering about the garden, in her little

woollen jacket. She was often driven out in the gig, sitting

beside her son and watching the countryside or the streets of

the town, with a childish, candid, uncanny face, as if it all

were strange to her.

The children, Ursula and Gudrun and Theresa went by the

garden gate on their way to school. The grandmother would have

them call in each time they passed, she would have them come to

the Marsh for dinner. She wanted children about her.

Of her sons, she was almost afraid. She could see the sombre

passion and desire and dissatisfaction in them, and she wanted

not to see it any more. Even Fred, with his blue eyes and his

heavy jaw, troubled her. There was no peace. He wanted

something, he wanted love, passion, and he could not find them.

But why must he trouble her? Why must he come to her with his

seething and suffering and dissatisfactions? She was too

old.

Tom was more restrained, reserved. He kept his body very

still. But he troubled her even more. She could not but see the

black depths of disintegration in his eyes, the sudden glance

upon her, as if she could save him, as if he would reveal

himself.

And how could age save youth? Youth must go to youth. Always

the storm! Could she not lie in peace, these years, in the

quiet, apart from life? No, always the swell must heave upon her

and break against the barriers. Always she must be embroiled in

the seethe and rage and passion, endless, endless, going on for

ever. And she wanted to draw away. She wanted at last her own

innocence and peace. She did not want her sons to force upon her

any more the old brutal story of desire and offerings and deep,

deep-hidden rage of unsatisfied men against women. She wanted to

be beyond it all, to know the peace and innocence of age.

She had never been a woman to work much. So that now she

would stand often at the garden-gate, watching the scant world

go by. And the sight of children pleased her, made her happy.

She had usually an apple or a few sweets in her pocket. She

liked children to smile at her.

She never went to her husband's grave. She spoke of him

simply, as if he were alive. Sometimes the tears would run down

her face, in helpless sadness. Then she recovered, and was

herself again, happy.

On wet days, she stayed in bed. Her bedroom was her city of

refuge, where she could lie down and muse and muse. Sometimes

Fred would read to her. But that did not mean much. She had so

many dreams to dream over, such an unsifted store. She wanted

time.

Her chief friend at this period was Ursula. The little girl

and the musing, fragile woman of sixty seemed to understand the

same language. At Cossethay all was activity and passion,

everything moved upon poles of passion. Then there were four

children younger than Ursula, a throng of babies, all the time

many lives beating against each other.

So that for the eldest child, the peace of the grandmother's

bedroom was exquisite. Here Ursula came as to a hushed,

paradisal land, here her own existence became simple and

exquisite to her as if she were a flower.

Always on Saturdays she came down to the Marsh, and always

clutching a little offering, either a little mat made of strips

of coloured, woven paper, or a tiny basket made in the

kindergarten lesson, or a little crayon drawing of a bird.

When she appeared in the doorway, Tilly, ancient but still in

authority, would crane her skinny neck to see who it was.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" she said. "I thought we should be

seein' you. My word, that's a bobby-dazzlin' posy you've

brought!"

It was curious how Tilly preserved the spirit of Tom

Brangwen, who was dead, in the Marsh. Ursula always connected

her with her grandfather.

This day the child had brought a tight little nosegay of

pinks, white ones, with a rim of pink ones. She was very proud

of it, and very shy because of her pride.

"Your gran'mother's in her bed. Wipe your shoes well if

you're goin' up, and don't go burstin' in on her like a

skyrocket. My word, but that's a fine posy! Did you do it all by

yourself, an' all?"

Tilly stealthily ushered her into the bedroom. The child

entered with a strange, dragging hesitation characteristic of

her when she was moved. Her grandmother was sitting up in bed,

wearing a little grey woollen jacket.

The child hesitated in silence near the bed, clutching the

nosegay in front of her. Her childish eyes were shining. The

grandmother's grey eyes shone with a similar light.

"How pretty!" she said. "How pretty you have made them! What

a darling little bunch."

Ursula, glowing, thrust them into her grandmother's hand,

saying, "I made them you."

"That is how the peasants tied them at home," said the

grandmother, pushing the pinks with her fingers, and smelling

them. "Just such tight little bunches! And they make wreaths for

their hair--they weave the stalks. Then they go round with

wreaths in their hair, and wearing their best aprons."

Ursula immediately imagined herself in this story-land.

"Did you used to have a wreath in your hair,

grandmother?"

"When I was a little girl, I had golden hair, something like

Katie's. Then I used to have a wreath of little blue flowers,

oh, so blue, that come when the snow is gone. Andrey, the

coachman, used to bring me the very first."

They talked, and then Tilly brought the tea-tray, set for

two. Ursula had a special green and gold cup kept for herself at

the Marsh. There was thin bread and butter, and cress for tea.

It was all special and wonderful. She ate very daintily, with

little fastidious bites.

"Why do you have two wedding-rings, grandmother?--Must

you?" asked the child, noticing her grandmother's ivory coloured

hand with blue veins, above the tray.

"If I had two husbands, child."

Ursula pondered a moment.

"Then you must wear both rings together?"

"Yes."

"Which was my grandfather's ring?"

The woman hesitated.

"This grandfather whom you knew? This was his ring, the red

one. The yellow one was your other grandfather's whom you never

knew."

Ursula looked interestedly at the two rings on the proffered

finger.

"Where did he buy it you?" she asked.

"This one? In Warsaw, I think."

"You didn't know my own grandfather then?"

"Not this grandfather."

Ursula pondered this fascinating intelligence.

"Did he have white whiskers as well?"

"No, his beard was dark. You have his brows, I think."

Ursula ceased and became self-conscious. She at once

identified herself with her Polish grandfather.

"And did he have brown eyes?"

"Yes, dark eyes. He was a clever man, as quick as a lion. He

was never still."

Lydia still resented Lensky. When she thought of him, she was

always younger than he, she was always twenty, or twenty-five,

and under his domination. He incorporated her in his ideas as if

she were not a person herself, as if she were just his

aide-de-camp, or part of his baggage, or one among his surgical

appliances. She still resented it. And he was always only

thirty: he had died when he was thirty-four. She did not feel

sorry for him. He was older than she. Yet she still ached in the

thought of those days.

"Did you like my first grandfather best?" asked Ursula.

"I liked them both," said the grandmother.

And, thinking, she became again Lensky's girl-bride. He was

of good family, of better family even than her own, for she was

half German. She was a young girl in a house of insecure

fortune. And he, an intellectual, a clever surgeon and

physician, had loved her. How she had looked up to him! She

remembered her first transports when he talked to her, the

important young man with the severe black beard. He had seemed

so wonderful, such an authority. After her own lax household,

his gravity and confident, hard authority seemed almost God-like

to her. For she had never known it in her life, all her

surroundings had been loose, lax, disordered, a welter.

"Miss Lydia, will you marry me?" he had said to her in

German, in his grave, yet tremulous voice. She had been afraid

of his dark eyes upon her. They did not see her, they were fixed

upon her. And he was hard, confident. She thrilled with the

excitement of it, and accepted. During the courtship, his kisses

were a wonder to her. She always thought about them, and

wondered over them. She never wanted to kiss him back. In her

idea, the man kissed, and the woman examined in her soul the

kisses she had received.

She had never quite recovered from her prostration of the

first days, or nights, of marriage. He had taken her to Vienna,