Nevertheless Brangwen was uneasy about the girl, the whole
house continued to be disturbed. She had a pathetic, baffled
appeal. She was hostile to her parents, even whilst she lived
entirely with them, within their spell.
Many ways she tried, of escape. She became an assiduous
church-goer. But the language meant nothing to her: it
seemed false. She hated to hear things expressed, put into
words. Whilst the religious feelings were inside her they were
passionately moving. In the mouth of the clergyman, they were
false, indecent. She tried to read. But again the tedium and the
sense of the falsity of the spoken word put her off. She went to
stay with girl friends. At first she thought it splendid. But
then the inner boredom came on, it seemed to her all
nothingness. And she felt always belittled, as if never, never
could she stretch her length and stride her stride.
Her mind reverted often to the torture cell of a certain
Bishop of France, in which the victim could neither stand nor
lie stretched out, never. Not that she thought of herself in any
connection with this. But often there came into her mind the
wonder, how the cell was built, and she could feel the horror of
the crampedness, as something very real.
She was, however, only eighteen when a letter came from Mrs.
Alfred Brangwen, in Nottingham, saying that her son William was
coming to Ilkeston to take a place as junior draughtsman,
scarcely more than apprentice, in a lace factory. He was twenty
years old, and would the Marsh Brangwens be friendly with
him.
Tom Brangwen at once wrote offering the young man a home at
the Marsh. This was not accepted, but the Nottingham Brangwens
expressed gratitude.
There had never been much love lost between the Nottingham
Brangwens and the Marsh. Indeed, Mrs. Alfred, having inherited
three thousand pounds, and having occasion to be dissatisfied
with her husband, held aloof from all the Brangwens whatsoever.
She affected, however, some esteem of Mrs. Tom, as she called
the Polish woman, saying that at any rate she was a lady.
Anna Brangwen was faintly excited at the news of her Cousin
Will's coming to Ilkeston. She knew plenty of young men, but
they had never become real to her. She had seen in this young
gallant a nose she liked, in that a pleasant moustache, in the
other a nice way of wearing clothes, in one a ridiculous fringe
of hair, in another a comical way of talking. They were objects
of amusement and faint wonder to her, rather than real beings,
the young men.
The only man she knew was her father; and, as he was
something large, looming, a kind of Godhead, he embraced all
manhood for her, and other men were just incidental.
She remembered her cousin Will. He had town clothes and was
thin, with a very curious head, black as jet, with hair like
sleek, thin fur. It was a curious head: it reminded her she knew
not of what: of some animal, some mysterious animal that lived
in the darkness under the leaves and never came out, but which
lived vividly, swift and intense. She always thought of him with
that black, keen, blind head. And she considered him odd.