The Rainbow | Page 8

But now it tended to
cause tension. A strained light came into his eyes, he had a slight
knitting of the brows. His boisterous humour gave place to lowering
silences, and days passed by in a sort of suspense.
He did not know there was any difference in him, exactly; for the most
part he was filled with slow anger and resentment. But he knew he was
always thinking of women, or a woman, day in, day out, and that
infuriated him. He could not get free: and he was ashamed. He had one
or two sweethearts, starting with them in the hope of speedy
development. But when he had a nice girl, he found that he was
incapable of pushing the desired development. The very presence of the
girl beside him made it impossible. He could not think of her like that,
he could not think of her actual nakedness. She was a girl and he liked
her, and dreaded violently even the thought of uncovering her. He knew
that, in these last issues of nakedness, he did not exist to her nor she to
him. Again, if he had a loose girl, and things began to develop, she
offended him so deeply all the time, that he never knew whether he was
going to get away from her as quickly as possible, or whether he were
going to take her out of inflamed necessity. Again he learnt his lesson:
if he took her it was a paucity which he was forced to despise. He did
not despise himself nor the girl. But he despised the net result in him of
the experience-he despised it deeply and bitterly.
Then, when he was twenty-three, his mother died, and he was left at
home with Effie. His mother's death was another blow out of the dark.
He could not understand it, he knew it was no good his trying. One had
to submit to these unforeseen blows that come unawares and leave a
bruise that remains and hurts whenever it is touched. He began to be
afraid of all that which was up against him. He had loved his mother.
After this, Effie and he quarrelled fiercely. They meant a very great
deal to each other, but they were both under a strange, unnatural
tension. He stayed out of the house as much as possible. He got a
special corner for himself at the "Red Lion" at Cossethay, and became a

usual figure by the fire, a fresh, fair young fellow with heavy limbs and
head held back, mostly silent, though alert and attentive, very hearty in
his greeting of everybody he knew, shy of strangers. He teased all the
women, who liked him extremely, and he was very attentive to the talk
of the men, very respectful.
To drink made him quickly flush very red in the face, and brought out
the look of self-consciousness and unsureness, almost bewilderment, in
his blue eyes. When he came home in this state of tipsy confusion his
sister hated him and abused him, and he went off his head, like a mad
bull with rage.
He had still another turn with a light-o'-love. One Whitsuntide he went
a jaunt with two other young fellows, on horseback, to Matlock and
thence to Bakewell. Matlock was at that time just becoming a famous
beauty-spot, visited from Manchester and from the Staffordshire towns.
In the hotel where the young men took lunch, were two girls, and the
parties struck up a friendship.
The Miss who made up to Tom Brangwen, then twenty-four years old,
was a handsome, reckless girl neglected for an afternoon by the man
who had brought her out. She saw Brangwen and liked him, as all
women did, for his warmth and his generous nature, and for the innate
delicacy in him. But she saw he was one who would have to be brought
to the scratch. However, she was roused and unsatisfied and made
mischievous, so she dared anything. It would be an easy interlude,
restoring her pride.
She was a handsome girl with a bosom, and dark hair and blue eyes, a
girl full of easy laughter, flushed from the sun, inclined to wipe her
laughing face in a very natural and taking manner.
Brangwen was in a state of wonder. He treated her with his chaffing
deference, roused, but very unsure of himself, afraid to death of being
too forward, ashamed lest he might be thought backward, mad with
desire yet restrained by instinctive regard for women from making any
definite approach, feeling all the while that his attitude was ridiculous,
and flushing deep with confusion. She, however, became hard and

daring as he became confused, it amused her to see him come on.
"When must you get back?" she asked.
"I'm