The Rainbow - D. H. Lawrence [15]
"Sluther up now," said Brangwen loudly after this silence had resolved itself out; and Tilly disappeared through the inner door.
"I am afraid that I should not come, so," said the stranger, looking at him enquiringly, as if referring to him for what it was usual to do.
He felt confused.
"How's that?" he said, trying to be genial and being only protective.
"Do you——?" she began deliberately. But she was not sure of her ground, and the conversation came to an end. Her eyes looked at him all the while, because she could not speak the language.
They stood facing each other. The dog walked away from her to him. He bent down to it.
"And how's your little girl?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you, she is very well," was the reply, a phrase of polite speech in a foreign language merely.
"Sit you down," he said.
And she sat in a chair, her slim arms, coming through the slits of her cloak, resting on her lap.
"You're not used to these parts," he said, still standing on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, coatless, looking with curious directness at the woman. Her self-possession pleased him and inspired him, set him curiously free. It seemed to him almost brutal to feel so master of himself and of the situation.
Her eyes rested on him for a moment, questioning, as she thought of the meaning of his speech.
"No," she said, understanding. "No—it is strange."
"You find it middlin' rough?" he said.
Her eyes waited on him, so that he should say it again.
"Our ways are rough to you," he repeated.
"Yes—yes, I understand. Yes, it is different, it is strange. But I was in Yorkshire——"
"Oh, well then," he said, "it's no worse here than what they are up there."
She did not quite understand. His protective manner, and his sureness, and his intimacy, puzzled her. What did he mean? If he was her equal, why did he behave so without formality?
"No——" she said, vaguely, her eyes resting on him.
She saw him fresh and naïve, uncouth, almost entirely beyond relationship with her. Yet he was good-looking, with his fair hair and blue eyes full of energy, and with his healthy body that seemed to take equality with her. She watched him steadily. He was difficult for her to understand, warm, uncouth, and confident as he was, sure on his feet as if he did not know what it was to be unsure. What then was it that gave him this curious stability?
She did not know. She wondered. She looked round the room he lived in. It had a close intimacy that fascinated and almost frightened her. The furniture was old and familiar as old people, the whole place seemed so kin to him, as if it partook of his being, that she was uneasy.
"It is already a long time that you have lived in this house—yes?" she asked.
"I've always lived here," he said.
"Yes—but your people—your family?"
"We've been here above two hundred years," he said. Her eyes were on him all the time, wide-open and trying to grasp him. He felt that he was there for her.
"It is your own place, the house, the farm——?"
"Yes," he said. He looked down at her and met her look. It disturbed her. She did not know him. He was a foreigner, they had nothing to do with each other. Yet his look disturbed her to knowledge of him. He was so strangely confident and direct.
"You live quite alone?"
"Yes—if you call it alone?"
She did not understand. It seemed unusual to her. What was the meaning of it?
And whenever her eyes, after watching him for some time, inevitably met his, she was aware of a heat beating up over her consciousness. She sat motionless and in conflict. Who was this strange man who was at once so near to her? What was happening to her? Something in his young, warm-twinkling eyes seemed to assume a right to her, to speak to her, to extend her his protection. But how? Why did he speak to her? Why were his eyes so certain, so full of light and confident, waiting for no permission nor signal?
Tilly returned with a large leaf and found the two silent. At once he felt it incumbent on him to speak, now the serving-woman had come back.
"How old is your little girl?" he asked.
"Four years," she replied.