Tilly took gently hold of the child's skirts. Anna snatched
back her dress, and cried, in a little hysteria: "No, you're not to undress me--I want my
mother,"--and her child's face was running with grief and
tears, her body shaken.
"Oh, but let Tilly undress you. Let Tilly undress you, who
loves you, don't be wilful to-night. Mother's poorly, she
doesn't want you to cry."
The child sobbed distractedly, she could not hear.
"I want--my--mother," she wept.
"When you're undressed, you s'll go up to see your
mother--when you're undressed, pet, when you've let Tilly
undress you, when you're a little jewel in your nightie, love.
Oh, don't you cry, don't you--"
Brangwen sat stiff in his chair. He felt his brain going
tighter. He crossed over the room, aware only of the maddening
sobbing.
"Don't make a noise," he said.
And a new fear shook the child from the sound of his voice.
She cried mechanically, her eyes looking watchful through her
tears, in terror, alert to what might happen.
"I want--my--mother," quavered the sobbing, blind
voice.
A shiver of irritation went over the man's limbs. It was the
utter, persistent unreason, the maddening blindness of the voice
and the crying.
"You must come and be undressed," he said, in a quiet voice
that was thin with anger.
And he reached his hand and grasped her. He felt her body
catch in a convulsive sob. But he too was blind, and intent,
irritated into mechanical action. He began to unfasten her
little apron. She would have shrunk from him, but could not. So
her small body remained in his grasp, while he fumbled at the
little buttons and tapes, unthinking, intent, unaware of
anything but the irritation of her. Her body was held taut and
resistant, he pushed off the little dress and the petticoats,
revealing the white arms. She kept stiff, overpowered, violated,
he went on with his task. And all the while she sobbed,
choking: "I want my mother."
He was unheedingly silent, his face stiff. The child was now
incapable of understanding, she had become a little, mechanical
thing of fixed will. She wept, her body convulsed, her voice
repeating the same cry.
"Eh, dear o' me!" cried Tilly, becoming distracted herself.
Brangwen, slow, clumsy, blind, intent, got off all the little
garments, and stood the child naked in its shift upon the
sofa.
"Where's her nightie?" he asked.
Tilly brought it, and he put it on her. Anna did not move her
limbs to his desire. He had to push them into place. She stood,
with fixed, blind will, resistant, a small, convulsed,
unchangeable thing weeping ever and repeating the same phrase.
He lifted one foot after the other, pulled off slippers and
socks. She was ready.
"Do you want a drink?" he asked.