The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence Read Free Book Online

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 naive, 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.
    "Her father hasn't been dead long, then?" he asked.
    "She was one year when he died."
    "Three years?"
    "Yes, three years that he is dead-yes."
    Curiously quiet she was, almost abstracted, answering these questions. She looked at him again, with some maidenhood opening in her eyes. He felt he could not move, neither towards her nor away from her. Something about her presence hurt him, till he was almost rigid before her. He saw the girl's wondering look rise in her eyes.
    Tilly handed her the butter and she rose.
    "Thank you very much," she said. "How much is it?"
    "We'll make th' vicar a present of it," he said. "It'll do for me goin' to church."
    "It 'ud look better of you if you went to church and took th' money for your