pg28948 [86]
It began well, but it ended always in war between them, till they were both driven almost to madness. He said, she did not respect him. She laughed in hollow scorn of this. For her it was enough that she loved him.
"Respect what?" she asked.
But he always answered the wrong thing. And though she cudgelled her brains, she could not come at it.
"Why don't you go on with your wood-carving?" she said. "Why don't you finish your Adam and Eve?"
But she did not care for the Adam and Eve, and he never put another stroke to it. She jeered at the Eve, saying, "She is like a little marionette. Why is she so small? You've made Adam as big as God, and Eve like a doll."
"It is impudence to say that Woman was made out of Man's body," she continued, "when every man is born of woman. What impudence men have, what arrogance!"
In a rage one day, after trying to work on the board, and failing, so that his belly was a flame of nausea, he chopped up the whole panel and put it on the fire. She did not know. He went about for some days very quiet and subdued after it.
"Where is the Adam and Eve board?" she asked him.
"Burnt."
She looked at him.
"But your carving?"
"I burned it."
"When?"
She did not believe him.
"On Friday night."
"When I was at the Marsh?"
"Yes."
She said no more.
Then, when he had gone to work, she wept for a whole day, and was much chastened in spirit. So that a new, fragile flame of love came out of the ashes of this last pain.
Directly, it occurred to her that she was with child. There was a great trembling of wonder and anticipation through her soul. She wanted a child. Not that she loved babies so much, though she was touched by all young things. But she wanted to bear children. And a certain hunger in her heart wanted to unite her husband with herself, in a child.
She wanted a son. She felt, a son would be everything. She wanted to tell her husband. But it was such a trembling, intimate thing to tell him, and he was at this time hard and unresponsive. So that she went away and wept. It was such a waste of a beautiful opportunity, such a frost that nipped in the bud one of the beautiful moments of her life. She went about heavy and tremulous with her secret, wanting to touch him, oh, most delicately, and see his face, dark and sensitive, attend to her news. She waited and waited for him to become gentle and still towards her. But he was always harsh and he bullied her.
So that the buds shrivelled from her confidence, she was chilled. She went down to the Marsh.
"Well," said her father, looking at her and seeing her at the first glance, "what's amiss wi' you now?"
The tears came at the touch of his careful love.
"Nothing," she said.
"Can't you hit it off, you two?" he said.
"He's so obstinate," she quivered; but her soul was obdurate itself.
"Ay, an' I know another who's all that," said her father.
She was silent.
"You don't want to make yourselves miserable," said her father; "all about nowt."
"He isn't miserable," she said.
"I'll back my life, if you can do nowt else, you can make him as miserable as a dog. You'd be a dab hand at that, my lass."
"I do nothing to make him miserable," she retorted.
"Oh no—oh no! A packet o' butterscotch, you are."
She laughed a little.
"You mustn't think I want him to be miserable," she cried. "I don't."
"We quite readily believe it," retorted Brangwen. "Neither do you intend him to be hopping for joy like a fish in a pond."
This made her think. She was rather surprised to find that she did not intend her husband to be hopping for joy like a fish in a pond.
Her mother came, and they all sat down to tea, talking casually.
"Remember, child," said her mother, "that everything is not waiting for your hand just to take or leave. You mustn't expect it. Between two people, the love itself is the important thing, and that is neither you nor him. It is a third thing you must create. You mustn't expect it to be just your way."
"Ha-nor do I. If I did I should soon find my mistake out. If I put my hand out to