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"'I
have taken the King's shilling, but perhaps if you came for me they would
let me go back with you. I was
a fool when I did it. I don't
want to be in the army. My dear
mother, I am nothing but a trouble to you.
But if you get me out of this, I promise I will have more sense and
consideration. . . .'"
Mrs.
Morel sat down in her rocking-chair.
"Well,
NOW," she cried, "let him stop!"
"Yes,"
said Paul, "let him stop."
There
was silence. The mother sat
with her hands folded in her apron, her face set, thinking.
"If
I'm not SICK!" she cried suddenly.
"Sick!"
"Now,"
said Paul, beginning to frown, "you're not going to worry your soul out
about this, do you hear."
"I
suppose I'm to take it as a blessing," she flashed, turning on her son.
"You're
not going to mount it up to a tragedy, so there," he retorted.
"The
FOOL!--the young fool!" she cried.
"He'll
look well in uniform," said Paul irritatingly.
His
mother turned on him like a fury.
"Oh,
will he!" she cried. "Not
in my eyes!"
"He
should get in a cavalry regiment; he'll have the time of his life, and will
look an awful swell."
"Swell!--SWELL!--a
mighty swell idea indeed!--a common soldier!"
"Well,"
said Paul, "what am I but a common clerk?"
"A
good deal, my boy!" cried his mother, stung.
"What?"
"At
any rate, a MAN, and not a thing in a red coat."
"I
shouldn't mind being in a red coat--or dark blue, that would suit me
better--if they didn't boss me about too much."
But
his mother had ceased to listen.
"Just
as he was getting on, or might have been getting on, at his job--a young
nuisance--here he goes and ruins himself for life. What good will he be, do you think, after THIS?"
"It
may lick him into shape beautifully," said Paul.
"Lick
him into shape!--lick what marrow there WAS out of his bones.
A SOLDIER!--a common SOLDIER!--nothing but a body that makes
movements when it hears a shout! It's a fine thing!"
"I
can't understand why it upsets you," said Paul.
"No,
perhaps you can't. But I understand"; and she sat back in her chair,
her chin in one hand, holding her elbow with the other, brimmed up with
wrath and chagrin.
"And
shall you go to Derby?" asked Paul.
"Yes."
"It's
no good."
"I'll
see for myself."
"And
why on earth don't you let him stop. It's
just what he wants."
"Of
course," cried the mother, "YOU know what he wants!"
She
got ready and went by the first train to Derby, where she saw her son and
the sergeant. It was, however,
no good.
When
Morel was having his dinner in the evening, she said suddenly:
"I've
had to go to Derby to-day."
The
miner turned up his eyes, showing the whites in his black face.
"Has
ter, lass. What took thee
there?"
"That
Arthur!"
"Oh--an'
what's agate now?"
"He's
only enlisted."
Morel
put down his knife and leaned back in his chair.
"Nay,"
he said, "that he niver 'as!"
"And
is going down to Aldershot tomorrow."
"Well!"
exclaimed the miner. "That's
a winder." He considered
it a moment, said "H'm!" and proceeded with his dinner.
Suddenly his face contracted with wrath.
"I hope he may never set foot i' my house again," he said.
"The
idea!" cried Mrs. Morel. "Saying
such a thing!"
"I
do," repeated Morel. "A
fool as runs away for a soldier, let 'im look after 'issen; I s'll do no
more for 'im."
"A
fat sight you have done as it is," she said.
And
Morel was almost ashamed to go to his public-house that evening.
"Well,
did you go?" said Paul to his mother when he came home.
"I
did."
"And
could you see him?"
"Yes."
"And
what did he say?"
"He
blubbered when I came away."
"H'm!"
"And
so did I, so you needn't 'h'm'!"
Mrs.
Morel fretted after her son. She
knew he would not like the army. He
did not. The discipline was
intolerable to him.
"But
the doctor," she said with some pride to Paul, "said he was
perfectly proportioned--almost exactly; all his measurements were correct.
He IS good-looking, you know."
"He's
awfully nice-looking. But he doesn't fetch the girls like William, does
he?"
"No;
it's a different character. He's
a good deal like his father, irresponsible."
To
console his mother, Paul did not go much to Willey Farm at this time.
And in the autumn exhibition of students' work in the Castle he had
two studies, a landscape in water-colour and a still life in oil, both of
which had first-prize awards. He
was highly excited.
"What
do you think I've got for my pictures, mother?" he asked, coming home
one evening. She saw by his
eyes he was glad. Her face
flushed.
"Now,
how should I know, my boy!"
"A
first prize for those glass jars---"
"H'm!"
"And
a first prize for that sketch up at Willey Farm."
"Both
first?"
"Yes."
"H'm!"
There
was a rosy, bright look about her, though she said nothing.
"It's
nice," he said, "isn't it?"
"It
is."
"Why
don't you praise me up to the skies?"
She
laughed.
"I
should have the trouble of dragging you down again," she said.
But
she was full of joy, nevertheless. William
had brought her his sporting trophies. She kept them still, and she did not forgive his death.
Arthur was handsome--at least, a good specimen--and warm and
generous, and probably would do well in the end.
But Paul was going to distinguish himself.
She had a great belief in him, the more because he was unaware of his
own powers. There was so much
to come out of him. Life for
her was rich with promise. She
was to see herself fulfilled. Not
for nothing had been her struggle.
Several
times during the exhibition Mrs. Morel went to the Castle unknown to Paul.
She wandered down the long room looking at the other exhibits.
Yes, they were good. But
they had not in them a certain something which she demanded for her
satisfaction. Some made her
jealous, they were so good. She
looked at them a long time trying to find fault with them.
Then suddenly she had a shock that made her heart beat. There hung Paul's picture!
She knew it as if it were printed on her heart.
"Name--Paul
Morel--First Prize."
It
looked so strange, there in public, on the walls of the Castle gallery,
where in her lifetime she had seen so many pictures.
And she glanced round to see if anyone had noticed her again in front
of the same sketch.
But
she felt a proud woman. When
she met well-dressed ladies going home to the Park, she thought to herself:
"Yes,
you look very well--but I wonder if YOUR son has two first prizes in the
Castle."
And
she walked on, as proud a little woman as any in Nottingham.
And Paul felt he had done something for her, if only a trifle.
All his work was hers.
One
day, as he was going up Castle Gate, he met Miriam. He had seen her on the Sunday, and had not expected to meet
her in town. She was walking
with a rather striking woman, blonde, with a sullen expression, and a
defiant carriage. It was
strange how Miriam, in her bowed, meditative bearing, looked dwarfed beside
this woman with the handsome shoulders.
Miriam watched Paul searchingly.
His gaze was on the stranger, who ignored him.
The girl saw his masculine spirit rear its head.
"Hello!"
he said, "you didn't tell me you were coming to town."
"No,"
replied Miriam, half apologetically. "I
drove in to Cattle Market with father."
He
looked at her companion.
"I've
told you about Mrs. Dawes," said Miriam huskily; she was nervous.
"Clara, do you know Paul?"
"I
think I've seen him before," replied Mrs. Dawes indifferently, as she
shook hands with him. She had
scornful grey eyes, a skin like white honey, and a full mouth, with a
slightly lifted upper lip that did not know whether it was raised in scorn
of all men or out of eagerness to be kissed, but which believed the former.
She carried her head back, as if she had drawn away in contempt,
perhaps from men also. She wore
a large, dowdy hat of black beaver, and a sort of slightly affected simple
dress that made her look rather sack-like.
She was evidently poor, and had not much taste.
Miriam usually looked nice.
"Where
have you seen me?" Paul
asked of the woman.
She
looked at him as if she would not trouble to answer. Then:
"Walking
with Louie Travers," she said.
Louie
was one of the "Spiral" girls.
"Why,
do you know her?" he asked.
She
did not answer. He turned to
Miriam.
"Where
are you going?" he asked.
"To
the Castle."
"What
train are you going home by?"
"I
am driving with father. I wish
you could come too. What time
are you free?"
"You
know not till eight to-night, damn it!"
And
directly the two women moved on.
Paul
remembered that Clara Dawes was the daughter of an old friend of Mrs.
Leivers. Miriam had sought her
out because she had once been Spiral overseer at Jordan's, and because her
husband, Baxter Dawes, was smith for the factory, making the irons for
cripple instruments, and so on. Through
her Miriam felt she got into direct contact with Jordan's, and could
estimate better Paul's position. But
Mrs. Dawes was separated from her husband, and had taken up Women's Rights. She was supposed to be clever.
It interested Paul.
Baxter
Dawes he knew and disliked. The
smith was a man of thirty-one or thirty-two. He came occasionally through
Paul's corner--a big, well-set man, also striking to look at, and handsome.
There was a peculiar similarity between himself and his wife.
He had the same white skin, with a clear, golden tinge.
His hair was of soft brown, his moustache was golden.
And he had a similar defiance in his bearing and manner.
But then came the difference. His
eyes, dark brown and quick-shifting, were dissolute.
They protruded very slightly, and his eyelids hung over them in a way
that was half hate. His mouth,
too, was sensual. His whole
manner was of cowed defiance, as if he were ready to knock anybody down who
disapproved of him--perhaps because he really disapproved of himself.
From
the first day he had hated Paul. Finding
the lad's impersonal, deliberate gaze of an artist on his face, he got into
a fury.
"What
are yer lookin' at?" he sneered, bullying.
The
boy glanced away. But the smith
used to stand behind the counter and talk to Mr. Pappleworth. His speech was dirty, with a kind of rottenness.
Again he found the youth with his cool, critical gaze fixed on his
face. The smith started round
as if he had been stung.
"What'r
yer lookin' at, three hap'orth o' pap?" he snarled.
The
boy shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"Why
yer---!" shouted Dawes.
"Leave
him alone," said Mr. Pappleworth, in that insinuating voice which
means, "He's only one of your good little sops who can't help it."
Since
that time the boy used to look at the man every time he came through with
the same curious criticism, glancing away before he met the smith's eye.
It made Dawes furious. They
hated each other in silence.
Clara
Dawes had no children. When she
had left her husband the home had been broken up, and she had gone to live
with her mother. Dawes lodged
with his sister. In the same
house was a sister-in-law, and somehow Paul knew that this girl, Louie
Travers, was now Dawes's woman. She
was a handsome, insolent hussy, who mocked at the youth, and yet flushed if
he walked along to the station with her as she went home.
The
next time he went to see Miriam it was Saturday evening.
She had a fire in the parlour, and was waiting for him.
The others, except her father and mother and the young children, had
gone out, so the two had the parlour together.
It was a long, low, warm room. There
were three of Paul's small sketches on the wall, and his photo was on the
mantelpiece. On the table and
on the high old rosewood piano were bowls of coloured leaves.
He sat in the armchair, she crouched on the hearthrug near his feet.
The glow was warm on her handsome, pensive face as she kneeled there
like a devotee.
"What
did you think of Mrs. Dawes?" she asked quietly.
"She
doesn't look very amiable," he replied.
"No,
but don't you think she's a fine woman?" she said, in a deep tone,
"Yes--in
stature. But without a grain of
taste. I like her for some
things. IS she
disagreeable?"
"I
don't think so. I think she's
dissatisfied."
"What
with?"
"Well--how
would you like to be tied for life to a man like that?"
"Why
did she marry him, then, if she was to have revulsions so soon?"
"Ay,
why did she!" repeated Miriam bitterly.
"And
I should have thought she had enough fight in her to match him," he
said.
Miriam
bowed her head.
"Ay?"
she queried satirically. "What
makes you think so?"
"Look
at her mouth--made for passion--and the very setback of her throat---"
He threw his head back in Clara's defiant manner.
Miriam
bowed a little lower.
"Yes,"
she said.
There
was a silence for some moments, while he thought of Clara.
"And
what were the things you liked about her?" she asked.
"I
don't know--her skin and the texture of her--and her--I don't know--there's
a sort of fierceness somewhere in her.
I appreciate her as an artist, that's all."
"Yes."
He
wondered why Miriam crouched there brooding in that strange way.
It irritated him.
"You
don't really like her, do you?" he asked the girl.
She
looked at him with her great, dazzled dark eyes.
"I
do," she said.
"You
don't--you can't--not really."
"Then
what?" she asked slowly.
"Eh,
I don't know--perhaps you like her because she's got a grudge against
men."
That
was more probably one of his own reasons for liking Mrs. Dawes, but this did
not occur to him. They were
silent. There had come into his
forehead a knitting of the brows which was becoming habitual with him,
particularly when he was with Miriam. She
longed to smooth it away, and she was afraid of it.
It seemed the stamp of a man who was not her man in Paul Morel.
There
were some crimson berries among the leaves in the bowl.
He reached over and pulled out a bunch.
"If
you put red berries in your hair," he said, "why would you look
like some witch or priestess, and never like a reveller?"
She
laughed with a naked, painful sound.
"I
don't know," she said.
His
vigorous warm hands were playing excitedly with the berries.
"Why
can't you laugh?" he said. "You
never laugh laughter. You only
laugh when something is odd or incongruous, and then it almost seems to hurt
you."
She
bowed her head as if he were scolding her.
"I
wish you could laugh at me just for one minute--just for one minute.
I feel as if it would set something free."
"But"--and
she looked up at him with eyes frightened and struggling--"I do laugh
at you--I DO."
"Never!
There's always a kind of intensity.
When you laugh I could always cry; it seems as if it shows up your
suffering. Oh, you make me knit
the brows of my very soul and cogitate."
Slowly
she shook her head despairingly.
"I'm
sure I don't want to," she said.
"I'm
so damned spiritual with YOU always!" he cried.
She
remained silent, thinking, "Then why don't you be otherwise."
But he saw her crouching, brooding figure, and it seemed to tear him
in two.
"But,
there, it's autumn," he said, "and everybody feels like a
disembodied spirit then."
There
was still another silence. This
peculiar sadness between them thrilled her soul. He seemed so beautiful with his eyes gone dark, and looking
as if they were deep as the deepest well.
"You
make me so spiritual!" he lamented.
"And I don't want to be spiritual."
She
took her finger from her mouth with a little pop, and looked up at him
almost challenging. But still
her soul was naked in her great dark eyes, and there was the same yearning
appeal upon her. If he could
have kissed her in abstract purity he would have done so.
But he could not kiss her thus--and she seemed to leave no other way.
And she yearned to him.
He
gave a brief laugh.
"Well,"
he said, "get that French and we'll do some--some Verlaine."
"Yes,"
she said in a deep tone, almost of resignation. And she rose and got the books.
And her rather red, nervous hands looked so pitiful, he was mad to
comfort her and kiss her. But
then be dared not--or could not. There
was something prevented him. His
kisses were wrong for her. They
continued the reading till ten o'clock, when they went into the kitchen, and
Paul was natural and jolly again with the father and mother.
His eyes were dark and shining; there was a kind of fascination about
him.
When
he went into the barn for his bicycle he found the front wheel punctured.
"Fetch
me a drop of water in a bowl," he said to her. "I shall be late, and then I s'll catch it."
He
lighted the hurricane lamp, took off his coat, turned up the bicycle, and
set speedily to work. Miriam
came with the bowl of water and stood close to him, watching. She loved to see his hands doing things.
He was slim and vigorous, with a kind of easiness even in his most
hasty movements. And busy at
his work he seemed to forget her. She loved him absorbedly.
She wanted to run her hands down his sides. She always wanted to embrace him, so long as he did not want
her.
"There!"
he said, rising suddenly. "Now,
could you have done it quicker?"
"No!"
she laughed.
He
straightened himself. His back
was towards her. She put her
two hands on his sides, and ran them quickly down.
"You
are so FINE!" she said.
He
laughed, hating her voice, but his blood roused to a wave of flame by her
hands. She did not seem to
realise HIM in all this. He
might have been an object. She
never realised the male he was.
He
lighted his bicycle-lamp, bounced the machine on the barn floor to see that
the tyres were sound, and buttoned his coat.
"That's
all right!" he said.
She
was trying the brakes, that she knew were broken.
"Did
you have them mended?" she asked.
"No!"
"But
why didn't you?"
"The
back one goes on a bit."
"But
it's not safe."
"I
can use my toe."
"I
wish you'd had them mended," she murmured.
"Don't
worry--come to tea tomorrow, with Edgar."
"Shall
we?"
"Do--about
four. I'll come to meet
you."
"Very
well."
She
was pleased. They went across
the dark yard to the gate. Looking
across, he saw through the uncurtained window of the kitchen the heads of
Mr. and Mrs. Leivers in the warm glow.
It looked very cosy. The
road, with pine trees, was quite black in front.
"Till
tomorrow," he said, jumping on his bicycle.
"You'll
take care, won't you?" she pleaded.
"Yes."
His
voice already came out of the darkness.
She stood a moment watching the light from his lamp race into
obscurity along the ground. She
turned very slowly indoors. Orion
was wheeling up over the wood, his dog twinkling after him, half smothered.
For the rest the world was full of darkness, and silent, save for the
breathing of cattle in their stalls. She
prayed earnestly for his safety that night.
When he left her, she often lay in anxiety, wondering if he had got
home safely.
He
dropped down the hills on his bicycle.
The roads were greasy, so he had to let it go. He felt a pleasure as the machine plunged over the second,
steeper drop in the hill. "Here
goes!" he said. It was
risky, because of the curve in the darkness at the bottom, and because of
the brewers' waggons with drunken waggoners asleep.
His bicycle seemed to fall beneath him, and he loved it.
Recklessness is almost a man's revenge on his woman.
He feels he is not valued, so he will risk destroying himself to
deprive her altogether.
The
stars on the lake seemed to leap like grasshoppers, silver upon the
blackness, as he spun past. Then
there was the long climb home.
"See,
mother!" he said, as he threw her the berries and leaves on to the
table.
"H'm!"
she said, glancing at them, then away again.
She sat reading, alone, as she always did.
"Aren't
they pretty?"
"Yes."
He
knew she was cross with him. After
a few minutes he said:
"Edgar
and Miriam are coming to tea tomorrow."
She
did not answer.
"You
don't mind?"
Still
she did not answer.
"Do
you?" he asked.
"You
know whether I mind or not."
"I
don't see why you should. I
have plenty of meals there."
"You
do."
"Then
why do you begrudge them tea?"
"I
begrudge whom tea?"
"What
are you so horrid for?"
"Oh,
say no more! You've asked her
to tea, it's quite sufficient. She'll
come."
He
was very angry with his mother. He
knew it was merely Miriam she objected to.
He flung off his boots and went to bed.
Paul
went to meet his friends the next afternoon.
He was glad to see them coming.
They arrived home at about four o'clock. Everywhere was clean and
still for Sunday afternoon. Mrs.
Morel sat in her black dress and black apron.
She rose to meet the visitors. With
Edgar she was cordial, but with Miriam cold and rather grudging.
Yet Paul thought the girl looked so nice in her brown cashmere frock.
He
helped his mother to get the tea ready.
Miriam would have gladly proffered, but was afraid.
He was rather proud of his home.
There was about it now, he thought, a certain distinction.
The chairs were only wooden, and the sofa was old.
But the hearthrug and cushions were cosy; the pictures were prints in
good taste; there was a simplicity in everything, and plenty of books.
He was never ashamed in the least of his home, nor was Miriam of
hers, because both were what they should be, and warm.
And then he was proud of the table; the china was pretty, the cloth
was fine. It did not matter that the spoons were not silver nor the
knives ivory-handled; everything looked nice.
Mrs. Morel had managed wonderfully while her children were growing
up, so that nothing was out of place.
Miriam
talked books a little. That was
her unfailing topic. But Mrs.
Morel was not cordial, and turned soon to Edgar.
At
first Edgar and Miriam used to go into Mrs. Morel's pew.
Morel never went to chapel, preferring the public-house.
Mrs. Morel, like a little champion, sat at the head of her pew, Paul
at the other end; and at first Miriam sat next to him.
Then the chapel was like home. It
was a pretty place, with dark pews and slim, elegant pillars, and flowers.
And the same people had sat in the same places ever since he was a
boy. It was wonderfully sweet
and soothing to sit there for an hour and a half, next to Miriam, and near
to his mother, uniting his two loves under the spell of the place of
worship. Then he felt warm and
happy and religious at once. And
after chapel he walked home with Miriam, whilst Mrs. Morel spent the rest of
the evening with her old friend, Mrs. Burns.
He was keenly alive on his walks on Sunday nights with Edgar and
Miriam. He never went past the
pits at night, by the lighted lamp-house, the tall black headstocks and
lines of trucks, past the fans spinning slowly like shadows, without the
feeling of Miriam returning to him, keen and almost unbearable.
She
did not very long occupy the Morels' pew.
Her father took one for themselves once more. It was under the little gallery, opposite the Morels'.
When Paul and his mother came in the chapel the Leivers's pew was
always empty. He was anxious
for fear she would not come: it
was so far, and there were so many rainy Sundays.
Then, often very late indeed, she came in, with her long stride, her
head bowed, her face hidden under her bat of dark green velvet.
Her face, as she sat opposite, was always in shadow.
But it gave him a very keen feeling, as if all his soul stirred
within him, to see her there. It
was not the same glow, happiness, and pride, that he felt in having his
mother in charge: something
more wonderful, less human, and tinged to intensity by a pain, as if there
were something he could not get to.
At
this time he was beginning to question the orthodox creed.
He was twenty-one, and she was twenty.
She was beginning to dread the spring:
he became so wild, and hurt her so much.
All the way he went cruelly smashing her beliefs.
Edgar enjoyed it. He was
by nature critical and rather dispassionate.
But Miriam suffered exquisite pain, as, with an intellect like a
knife, the man she loved examined her religion in which she lived and moved
and had her being. But he did
not spare her. He was cruel. And when they went alone he was even more fierce, as if he
would kill her soul. He bled
her beliefs till she almost lost consciousness.
"She
exults--she exults as she carries him off from me," Mrs. Morel cried in
her heart when Paul had gone. "She's
not like an ordinary woman, who can leave me my share in him.
She wants to absorb him. She
wants to draw him out and absorb him till there is nothing left of him, even
for himself. He will never be a man on his own feet--she will suck him
up." So the mother sat,
and battled and brooded bitterly.
And
he, coming home from his walks with Miriam, was wild with torture.
He walked biting his lips and with clenched fists, going at a great
rate. Then, brought up against
a stile, he stood for some minutes, and did not move.
There was a great hollow of darkness fronting him, and on the black
upslopes patches of tiny lights, and in the lowest trough of the night, a
flare of the pit. It was all weird and dreadful.
Why was he torn so, almost bewildered, and unable to move?
Why did his mother sit at home and suffer?
He knew she suffered badly. But
why should she? And why did he
hate Miriam, and feel so cruel towards her, at the thought of his mother. If Miriam caused his mother suffering, then he hated her--and
he easily hated her. Why did
she make him feel as if he were uncertain of himself, insecure, an
indefinite thing, as if he had not sufficient sheathing to prevent the night
and the space breaking into him? How
he hated her! And then, what a
rush of tenderness and humility!
Suddenly
he plunged on again, running home. His
mother saw on him the marks of some agony, and she said nothing.
But he had to make her talk to him.
Then she was angry with him for going so far with Miriam.
"Why
don't you like her, mother?" he cried in despair.
"I
don't know, my boy," she replied piteously. "I'm sure I've tried to like her. I've tried and tried, but I can't--I can't!"
And
he felt dreary and hopeless between the two.
Spring
was the worst time. He was
changeable, and intense and cruel. So
he decided to stay away from her. Then
came the hours when he knew Miriam was expecting him.
His mother watched him growing restless. He could not go on with his work. He could do nothing. It
was as if something were drawing his soul out towards Willey Farm.
Then he put on his hat and went, saying nothing.
And his mother knew he was gone.
And as soon as he was on the way he sighed with relief.
And when he was with her he was cruel again.
One
day in March he lay on the bank of Nethermere, with Miriam sitting beside
him. It was a glistening,
white-and-blue day. Big clouds,
so brilliant, went by overhead, while shadows stole along on the water.
The clear spaces in the sky were of clean, cold blue.
Paul lay on his back in the old grass, looking up.
He could not bear to look at Miriam.
She seemed to want him, and he resisted.
He resisted all the time. He
wanted now to give her passion and tenderness, and he could not.
He felt that she wanted the soul out of his body, and not him.
All his strength and energy she drew into herself through some
channel which united them. She did not want to meet him, so that there were two of them,
man and woman together. She
wanted to draw all of him into her. It
urged him to an intensity like madness, which fascinated him, as drug-taking
might.
He
was discussing Michael Angelo. It
felt to her as if she were fingering the very quivering tissue, the very
protoplasm of life, as she heard him. It
gave her deepest satisfaction. And
in the end it frightened her. There
he lay in the white intensity of his search, and his voice gradually filled
her with fear, so level it was, almost inhuman, as if in a trance.
"Don't
talk any more," she pleaded softly, laying her hand on his forehead.
He
lay quite still, almost unable to move.
His body was somewhere discarded.
"Why
not? Are you tired?"
"Yes,
and it wears you out."
He
laughed shortly, realising.
"Yet
you always make me like it," he said.
"I
don't wish to," she said, very low.
"Not
when you've gone too far, and you feel you can't bear it.
But your unconscious self always asks it of me.
And I suppose I want it."
He
went on, in his dead fashion:
"If
only you could want ME, and not want what I can reel off for you! "
"I!"
she cried bitterly--"I! Why,
when would you let me take you?"
"Then
it's my fault," he said, and, gathering himself together, he got up and
began to talk trivialities. He
felt insubstantial. In a vague
way he hated her for it. And he
knew he was as much to blame himself. This,
however, did not prevent his hating her.
One
evening about this time he had walked along the home road with her.
They stood by the pasture leading down to the wood, unable to part.
As the stars came out the clouds closed.
They had glimpses of their own constellation, Orion, towards the
west. His jewels glimmered for
a moment, his dog ran low, struggling with difficulty through the spume of
cloud.
Orion
was for them chief in significance among the constellations.
They had gazed at him in their strange, surcharged hours of feeling,
until they seemed themselves to live in every one of his stars.
This evening Paul had been moody and perverse.
Orion had seemed just an ordinary constellation to him.
He had fought against his glamour and fascination.
Miriam was watching her lover's mood carefully.
But he said nothing that gave him away, till the moment came to part,
when he stood frowning gloomily at the gathered clouds, behind which the
great constellation must be striding still.
There
was to be a little party at his house the next day, at which she was to
attend.
"I
shan't come and meet you," he said.
"Oh,
very well; it's not very nice out," she replied slowly.
"It's
not that--only they don't like me to. They
say I care more for you than for them. And you understand, don't you?
You know it's only friendship."
Miriam
was astonished and hurt for him. It
had cost him an effort. She
left him, wanting to spare him any further humiliation.
A fine rain blew in her face as she walked along the road.
She was hurt deep down; and she despised him for being blown about by
any wind of authority. And in her heart of hearts, unconsciously, she felt that he
was trying to get away from her. This
she would never have acknowledged. She
pitied him.
At
this time Paul became an important factor in Jordan's warehouse.
Mr. Pappleworth left to set up a business of his own, and Paul
remained with Mr. Jordan as Spiral overseer.
His wages were to be raised to thirty shillings at the year-end, if
things went well.
Still
on Friday night Miriam often came down for her French lesson.
Paul did not go so frequently to Willey Farm, and she grieved at the
thought of her education's coming to end; moreover, they both loved to be
together, in spite of discords. So they read Balzac, and did compositions, and felt highly
cultured.
Friday
night was reckoning night for the miners.
Morel "reckoned"--shared up the money of the stall--either
in the New Inn at Bretty or in his own house, according as his fellow-butties
wished. Barker had turned a
non-drinker, so now the men reckoned at Morel's house.
Annie,
who had been teaching away, was at home again.
She was still a tomboy; and she was engaged to be married.
Paul was studying design.
Morel
was always in good spirits on Friday evening, unless the week's earnings
were small. He bustled
immediately after his dinner, prepared to get washed.
It was decorum for the women to absent themselves while the men
reckoned. Women were not
supposed to spy into such a masculine privacy as the butties' reckoning, nor
were they to know the exact amount of the week's earnings.
So, whilst her father was spluttering in the scullery, Annie went out
to spend an hour with a neighbour. Mrs.
Morel attended to her baking.
"Shut
that doo-er!" bawled Morel furiously.
Annie
banged it behind her, and was gone.
"If
tha oppens it again while I'm weshin' me, I'll ma'e thy jaw rattle," he
threatened from the midst of his soap-suds. Paul and the mother frowned to hear him.
Presently
he came running out of the scullery, with the soapy water dripping from him,
dithering with cold.
"Oh,
my sirs!" he said. "Wheer's
my towel?"
It
was hung on a chair to warm before the fire, otherwise he would have bullied
and blustered. He squatted on
his heels before the hot baking-fire to dry himself.
"F-ff-f!"
he went, pretending to shudder with cold.
"Goodness,
man, don't be such a kid!" said Mrs. Morel. "It's NOT cold."
"Thee
strip thysen stark nak'd to wesh thy flesh i' that scullery," said the
miner, as he rubbed his hair; "nowt b'r a ice-'ouse!"
"And
I shouldn't make that fuss," replied his wife.
"No,
tha'd drop down stiff, as dead as a door-knob, wi' thy nesh sides."
"Why
is a door-knob deader than anything else?" asked Paul, curious.
"Eh,
I dunno; that's what they say," replied his father.
"But there's that much draught i' yon scullery, as it blows
through your ribs like through a five-barred gate."
"It
would have some difficulty in blowing through yours," said Mrs. Morel.
Morel
looked down ruefully at his sides.
"Me!"
he exclaimed. "I'm nowt
b'r a skinned rabbit. My bones
fair juts out on me."
"I
should like to know where," retorted his wife.
"Iv'ry-wheer!
I'm nobbut a sack o' faggots."
Mrs.
Morel laughed. He had still a
wonderfully young body, muscular, without any fat. His skin was smooth and clear.
It might have been the body of a man of twenty-eight, except that
there were, perhaps, too many blue scars, like tattoo-marks, where the
coal-dust remained under the skin, and that his chest was too hairy.
But he put his hand on his side ruefully.
It was his fixed belief that, because be did not get fat, he was as
thin as a starved rat. Paul
looked at his father's thick, brownish hands all scarred, with broken nails,
rubbing the fine smoothness of his sides, and the incongruity struck him.
It seemed strange they were the same flesh.
"I
suppose," he said to his father, "you had a good figure
once."
"Eh!"
exclaimed the miner, glancing round, startled and timid, like a child.
"He
had," exclaimed Mrs. Morel, "if he didn't hurtle himself up as if
he was trying to get in the smallest space he could."
"Me!"
exclaimed Morel--"me a good figure!
I wor niver much more n'r a skeleton."
"Man!"
cried his wife, "don't be such a pulamiter!"
"'Strewth!"
he said. "Tha's niver
knowed me but what I looked as if I wor goin' off in a rapid decline."
She
sat and laughed.
"You've
had a constitution like iron," she said; "and never a man had a
better start, if it was body that counted.
You should have seen him as a young man," she cried suddenly to
Paul, drawing herself up to imitate her husband's once handsome bearing.
Morel
watched her shyly. He saw again
the passion she had had for him. It
blazed upon her for a moment. He
was shy, rather scared, and humble. Yet
again he felt his old glow. And
then immediately he felt the ruin he had made during these years.
He wanted to bustle about, to run away from it.
"Gi'e
my back a bit of a wesh," he asked her.
His
wife brought a well-soaped flannel and clapped it on his shoulders.
He gave a jump.
"Eh,
tha mucky little 'ussy!" he cried.
"Cowd as death!"
"You
ought to have been a salamander," she laughed, washing his back.
It was very rarely she would do anything so personal for him.
The children did those things.
"The
next world won't be half hot enough for you," she added.
"No,"
he said; "tha'lt see as it's draughty for me."
But
she had finished. She wiped him
in a desultory fashion, and went upstairs, returning immediately with his
shifting-trousers. When he was dried he struggled into his shirt.
Then, ruddy and shiny, with hair on end, and his flannelette shirt
hanging over his pit-trousers, he stood warming the garments he was going to
put on. He turned them, he
pulled them inside out, he scorched them.
"Goodness,
man!" cried Mrs. Morel, "get dressed!"
"Should
thee like to clap thysen into britches as cowd as a tub o' water?" he
said.
At
last he took off his pit-trousers and donned decent black.
He did all this on the hearthrug, as he would have done if Annie and
her familiar friends had been present.
Mrs.
Morel turned the bread in the oven. Then
from the red earthenware panchion of dough that stood in a corner she took
another handful of paste, worked it to the proper shape, and dropped it into
a tin. As she was doing so
Barker knocked and entered. He
was a quiet, compact little man, who looked as if he would go through a
stone wall. His black hair was
cropped short, his head was bony. Like
most miners, he was pale, but healthy and taut.
"Evenin',
missis," he nodded to Mrs. Morel, and he seated himself with a sigh.
"Good-evening,"
she replied cordially.
"Tha's
made thy heels crack," said Morel.
"I
dunno as I have," said Barker.
He
sat, as the men always did in Morel's kitchen, effacing himself rather.
"How's
missis?" she asked of him.
He
had told her some time back:
"We're
expectin' us third just now, you see."
"Well,"
he answered, rubbing his head, "she keeps pretty middlin', I
think."
"Let's
see--when?" asked Mrs. Morel.
"Well,
I shouldn't be surprised any time now."
"Ah!
And she's kept fairly?"
"Yes,
tidy."
"That's
a blessing, for she's none too strong."
"No.
An' I've done another silly trick."
"What's
that?"
Mrs.
Morel knew Barker wouldn't do anything very silly.
"I'm
come be-out th' market-bag."
"You
can have mine."
"Nay,
you'll be wantin' that yourself."
"I
shan't. I take a string bag always."
She
saw the determined little collier buying in the week's groceries and meat on
the Friday nights, and she admired him.
"Barker's little, but he's ten times the man you are," she
said to her husband.
Just
then Wesson entered. He was
thin, rather frail-looking, with a boyish ingenuousness and a slightly
foolish smile, despite his seven children.
But his wife was a passionate woman.
"I
see you've kested me," he said, smiling rather vapidly.
"Yes,"
replied Barker.
The
newcomer took off his cap and his big woollen muffler.
His nose was pointed and red.
"I'm
afraid you're cold, Mr. Wesson," said Mrs. Morel.
"It's
a bit nippy," he replied.
"Then
come to the fire."
"Nay,
I s'll do where I am."
Both
colliers sat away back. They
could not be induced to come on to the hearth.
The hearth is sacred to the family.
"Go
thy ways i' th' armchair," cried Morel cheerily.
"Nay,
thank yer; I'm very nicely here."
"Yes,
come, of course," insisted Mrs. Morel.
He
rose and went awkwardly. He sat
in Morel's armchair awkwardly. It
was too great a familiarity. But
the fire made him blissfully happy.
"And
how's that chest of yours?" demanded Mrs. Morel.
He
smiled again, with his blue eyes rather sunny.
"Oh,
it's very middlin'," he said.
"Wi'
a rattle in it like a kettle-drum," said Barker shortly.
"T-t-t-t!"
went Mrs. Morel rapidly with her tongue.
"Did you have that flannel singlet made?"
"Not
yet," he smiled.
"Then,
why didn't you?" she cried.
"It'll
come," he smiled.
"Ah,
an' Doomsday!" exclaimed Barker.
Barker
and Morel were both impatient of Wesson.
But, then, they were both as hard as nails, physically.
When
Morel was nearly ready he pushed the bag of money to Paul.
"Count
it, boy," he asked humbly.
Paul
impatiently turned from his books and pencil, tipped the bag upside down on
the table. There was a
five-pound bag of silver, sovereigns and loose money.
He counted quickly, referred to the checks--the written papers giving
amount of coal--put the money in order.
Then Barker glanced at the checks.
Mrs.
Morel went upstairs, and the three men came to table. Morel, as master of the house, sat in his armchair, with his
back to the hot fire. The two
butties had cooler seats. None
of them counted the money.
"What
did we say Simpson's was?" asked Morel; and the butties cavilled for a
minute over the dayman's earnings. Then
the amount was put aside.
"An'
Bill Naylor's?"
This
money also was taken from the pack.
Then,
because Wesson lived in one of the company's houses, and his rent had been
deducted, Morel and Barker took four-and-six each. And because Morel's coals had come, and the leading was
stopped, Barker and Wesson took four shillings each.
Then it was plain sailing. Morel
gave each of them a sovereign till there were no more sovereigns; each half
a crown till there were no more half-crowns; each a shilling till there were
no more shillings. If there was
anything at the end that wouldn't split, Morel took it and stood drinks.
Then
the three men rose and went. Morel
scuttled out of the house before his wife came down. She heard the door close, and descended.
She looked hastily at the bread in the oven.
Then, glancing on the table, she saw her money lying.
Paul had been working all the time.
But now he felt his mother counting the week's money, and her wrath
rising,
"T-t-t-t-t!"
went her tongue.
He
frowned. He could not work when
she was cross. She counted
again.
"A
measly twenty-five shillings!" she exclaimed. "How much was the cheque?"
"Ten
pounds eleven," said Paul irritably.
He dreaded what was coming.
"And
he gives me a scrattlin' twenty-five, an' his club this week!
But I know him. He thinks because YOU'RE earning he needn't keep the house
any longer. No, all he has to
do with his money is to guttle it. But
I'll show him!"
"Oh,
mother, don't!" cried Paul.
"Don't
what, I should like to know?" she exclaimed.
"Don't
carry on again. I can't
work."
She
went very quiet.
"Yes,
it's all very well," she said; "but how do you think I'm going to
manage?"
"Well,
it won't make it any better to whittle about it."
"I
should like to know what you'd do if you had it to put up with."
"It
won't be long. You can have my
money. Let him go to
hell."
He
went back to his work, and she tied her bonnet-strings grimly.
When she was fretted he could not bear it.
But now he began to insist on her recognizing him.
"The
two loaves at the top," she said, "will be done in twenty minutes.
Don't forget them."
"All
right," he answered; and she went to market.
He
remained alone working. But his
usual intense concentration became unsettled.
He listened for the yard-gate. At
a quarter-past seven came a low knock, and Miriam entered.
"All
alone?" she said.
"Yes."
As
if at home, she took off her tam-o'-shanter and her long coat, hanging them
up. It gave him a thrill.
This might be their own house, his and hers.
Then she came back and peered over his work.
"What
is it?" she asked.
"Still
design, for decorating stuffs, and for embroidery."
She
bent short-sightedly over the drawings.
It
irritated him that she peered so into everything that was his, searching him
out. He went into the parlour
and returned with a bundle of brownish linen.
Carefully unfolding it, he spread it on the floor.
It proved to be a curtain or portiere, beautifully stencilled with a
design on roses.
"Ah,
how beautiful!" she cried.
The
spread cloth, with its wonderful reddish roses and dark green stems, all so
simple, and somehow so wicked-looking, lay at her feet.
She went on her knees before it, her dark curls dropping.
He saw her crouched voluptuously before his work, and his heart beat
quickly. Suddenly she looked up
at him.
"Why
does it seem cruel?" she asked.
"What?"
"There
seems a feeling of cruelty about it," she said.
"It's
jolly good, whether or not," he replied, folding up his work with a
lover's hands.
She
rose slowly, pondering.
"And
what will you do with it?" she asked.
"Send
it to Liberty's. I did it for
my mother, but I think she'd rather have the money."
"Yes,"
said Miriam. He had spoken with
a touch of bitterness, and Miriam sympathised.
Money would have been nothing to HER.
He
took the cloth back into the parlour. When
he returned he threw to Miriam a smaller piece.
It was a cushion-cover with the same design.
"I
did that for you," he said.
She
fingered the work with trembling hands, and did not speak.
He became embarrassed.
"By
Jove, the bread!" he cried.
He
took the top loaves out, tapped them vigorously. They were done. He
put them on the hearth to cool. Then
he went to the scullery, wetted his hands, scooped the last white dough out
of the punchion, and dropped it in a baking-tin.
Miriam was still bent over her painted cloth. He stood rubbing the bits of dough from his hands.
"You
do like it?" he asked.
She
looked up at him, with her dark eyes one flame of love.
He laughed uncomfortably. Then
he began to talk about the design. There
was for him the most intense pleasure in talking about his work to Miriam.
All his passion, all his wild blood, went into this intercourse with
her, when he talked and conceived his work.
She brought forth to him his imaginations. She did not understand, any more than a woman understands
when she conceives a child in her womb.
But this was life for her and for him.
While
they were talking, a young woman of about twenty-two, small and pale,
hollow-eyed, yet with a relentless look about her, entered the room.
She was a friend at the Morel's.
"Take
your things off," said Paul.
"No,
I'm not stopping."
She
sat down in the armchair opposite Paul and Miriam, who were on the sofa.
Miriam moved a little farther from him.
The room was hot, with a scent of new bread.
Brown, crisp loaves stood on the hearth.
"I
shouldn't have expected to see you here to-night, Miriam Leivers," said
Beatrice wickedly.
"Why
not?" murmured Miriam huskily.
"Why,
let's look at your shoes."
Miriam
remained uncomfortably still.
"If
tha doesna tha durs'na," laughed Beatrice.
Miriam
put her feet from under her dress. Her
boots had that queer, irresolute, rather pathetic look about them, which
showed how self-conscious and self-mistrustful she was. And they were covered with mud.
"Glory!
You're a positive muck-heap," exclaimed Beatrice.
"Who cleans your boots?"
"I
clean them myself."
"Then
you wanted a job," said Beatrice.
"It would ha' taken a lot of men to ha' brought me down here
to-night. But love laughs at
sludge, doesn't it, 'Postle my duck?"
"Inter
alia," he said.
"Oh,
Lord! are you going to spout foreign languages? What does it mean, Miriam?"
There
was a fine sarcasm in the last question, but Miriam did not see it.
"'Among
other things,' I believe," she said humbly.
Beatrice
put her tongue between her teeth and laughed wickedly.
"'Among
other things,' 'Postle?" she repeated.
"Do you mean love laughs at mothers, and fathers, and sisters,
and brothers, and men friends, and lady friends, and even at the b'loved
himself?"
She
affected a great innocence.
"In
fact, it's one big smile," he replied.
"Up
its sleeve, 'Postle Morel--you believe me," she said; and she went off
into another burst of wicked, silent laughter.
Miriam
sat silent, withdrawn into herself. Every
one of Paul's friends delighted in taking sides against her, and he left her
in the lurch--seemed almost to have a sort of revenge upon her then.
"Are
you still at school?" asked Miriam of Beatrice.
"Yes."
"You've
not had your notice, then?"
"I
expect it at Easter."
"Isn't
it an awful shame, to turn you off merely because you didn't pass the
exam.?"
"I
don't know," said Beatrice coldly.
"Agatha
says you're as good as any teacher anywhere.
It seems to me ridiculous. I
wonder why you didn't pass."
"Short
of brains, eh, 'Postle?" said Beatrice briefly.
"Only
brains to bite with," replied Paul, laughing.
"Nuisance!"
she cried; and, springing from her seat, she rushed and boxed his ears.
She had beautiful small hands. He
held her wrists while she wrestled with him.
At last she broke free, and seized two handfuls of his thick, dark
brown hair, which she shook.
"Beat!"
he said, as he pulled his hair straight with his fingers.
"I hate you!"
She
laughed with glee.
"Mind!"
she said. "I want to sit
next to you."
"I'd
as lief be neighbours with a vixen," he said, nevertheless making place
for her between him and Miriam.
"Did
it ruffle his pretty hair, then!" she cried; and, with her hair-comb,
she combed him straight. "And
his nice little moustache!" she exclaimed.
She tilted his head back and combed his young moustache.
"It's a wicked moustache, 'Postle," she said.
"It's a red for danger. Have
you got any of those cigarettes?"
He
pulled his cigarette-case from his pocket.
Beatrice looked inside it.
"And
fancy me having Connie's last cig.," said Beatrice, putting the thing
between her teeth. He held a
lit match to her, and she puffed daintily.
"Thanks
so much, darling," she said mockingly.
It
gave her a wicked delight.
"Don't
you think he does it nicely, Miriam?" she asked.
"Oh,
very!" said Miriam.
He
took a cigarette for himself.
"Light,
old boy?" said Beatrice, tilting her cigarette at him.
He
bent forward to her to light his cigarette at hers. She was winking at him as he did so. Miriam saw his eyes trembling with mischief, and his full,
almost sensual, mouth quivering. He
was not himself, and she could not bear it.
As he was now, she had no connection with him; she might as well not
have existed. She saw the
cigarette dancing on his full red lips.
She hated his thick hair for being tumbled loose on his forehead.
"Sweet
boy!" said Beatrice, tipping up his chin and giving him a little kiss
on the cheek.
"I
s'll kiss thee back, Beat," he said.
"Tha
wunna!" she giggled, jumping up and going away. "Isn't he shameless, Miriam?"
"Quite,"
said Miriam. "By the way,
aren't you forgetting the bread?"
"By
Jove!" he cried, flinging open the oven door.
Out
puffed the bluish smoke and a smell of burned bread.
"Oh,
golly!" cried Beatrice, coming to his side. He crouched before the oven, she peered over his shoulder.
"This is what comes of the oblivion of love, my boy."
Paul
was ruefully removing the loaves. One
was burnt black on the hot side; another was hard as a brick.
"Poor
mater!" said Paul.
"You
want to grate it," said Beatrice.
"Fetch me the nutmeg-grater."
She
arranged the bread in the oven. He
brought the grater, and she grated the bread on to a newspaper on the table.
He set the doors open to blow away the smell of burned bread.
Beatrice grated away, puffing her cigarette, knocking the charcoal
off the poor loaf.
"My
word, Miriam! you're in for it this time," said Beatrice.
"I!"
exclaimed Miriam in amazement.
"You'd
better be gone when his mother comes in.
I know why King Alfred burned the cakes. Now I see it! 'Postle
would fix up a tale about his work making him forget, if he thought it would
wash. If that old woman had
come in a bit sooner, she'd have boxed the brazen thing's ears who made the
oblivion, instead of poor Alfred's."
She
giggled as she scraped the loaf. Even
Miriam laughed in spite of herself. Paul
mended the fire ruefully.
The
garden gate was heard to bang.
"Quick!"
cried Beatrice, giving Paul the scraped loaf.
"Wrap it up in a damp towel."
Paul
disappeared into the scullery. Beatrice
hastily blew her scrapings into the fire, and sat down innocently.
Annie came bursting in. She
was an abrupt, quite smart young woman.
She blinked in the strong light.
"Smell
of burning!" she exclaimed.
"It's
the cigarettes," replied Beatrice demurely.
"Where's
Paul?"
Leonard
had followed Annie. He had a
long comic face and blue eyes, very sad.
"I
suppose he's left you to settle it between you," he said.
He nodded sympathetically to Miriam, and became gently sarcastic to
Beatrice.
"No,"
said Beatrice, "he's gone off with number nine."
"I
just met number five inquiring for him," said Leonard.
"Yes--we're
going to share him up like Solomon's baby," said Beatrice.
Annie
laughed.
"Oh,
ay," said Leonard. "And
which bit should you have?"
"I
don't know," said Beatrice. "I'll
let all the others pick first."
"An'
you'd have the leavings, like?" said Leonard, twisting up a comic face.
Annie
was looking in the oven. Miriam
sat ignored. Paul entered.
"This
bread's a fine sight, our Paul," said Annie.
"Then
you should stop an' look after it," said Paul.
"You
mean YOU should do what you're reckoning to do," replied Annie.
"He
should, shouldn't he!" cried Beatrice.
"I
s'd think he'd got plenty on hand," said Leonard.
"You
had a nasty walk, didn't you, Miriam?" said Annie.
"Yes--but
I'd been in all week---"
"And
you wanted a bit of a change, like," insinuated Leonard kindly.
"Well,
you can't be stuck in the house for ever," Annie agreed.
She was quite amiable. Beatrice
pulled on her coat, and went out with Leonard and Annie.
She would meet her own boy.
"Don't
forget that bread, our Paul," cried Annie. "Good-night, Miriam.
I don't think it will rain."
When
they had all gone, Paul fetched the swathed loaf, unwrapped it, and surveyed
it sadly.
"It's
a mess!" he said.
"But,"
answered Miriam impatiently, "what is it, after all--twopence, ha'penny."
"Yes,
but--it's the mater's precious baking, and she'll take it to heart.
However, it's no good bothering."
He
took the loaf back into the scullery. There
was a little distance between him and Miriam.
He stood balanced opposite her for some moments considering, thinking
of his behaviour with Beatrice. He
felt guilty inside himself, and yet glad.
For some inscrutable reason it served Miriam right.
He was not going to repent. She
wondered what he was thinking of as he stood suspended.
His thick hair was tumbled over his forehead.
Why might she not push it back for him, and remove the marks of
Beatrice's comb? Why might she
not press his body with her two hands.
It looked so firm, and every whit living.
And he would let other girls, why not her?
Suddenly
he started into life. It made
her quiver almost with terror as he quickly pushed the hair off his forehead
and came towards her.
"Half-past
eight!" he said. "We'd
better buck up. Where's your
French?"
Miriam
shyly and rather bitterly produced her exercise-book. Every week she wrote
for him a sort of diary of her inner life, in her own French.
He had found this was the only way to get her to do compositions.
And her diary was mostly a love-letter.
He would read it now; she felt as if her soul's history were going to
be desecrated by him in his present mood.
He sat beside her. She
watched his hand, firm and warm, rigorously scoring her work.
He was reading only the French, ignoring her soul that was there.
But gradually his hand forgot its work.
He read in silence, motionless.
She quivered.
"'Ce
matin les oiseaux m'ont eveille,'" he read. "'Il faisait encore un crepuscule. Mais la petite fenetre de ma chambre etait bleme, et puis,
jaune, et tous les oiseaux du bois eclaterent dans un chanson vif et
resonnant. Toute l'aube
tressaillit. J'avais reve de
vous. Est-ce que vous voyez
aussi l'aube? Les oiseaux
m'eveillent presque tous les matins, et toujours il y a quelque chose de
terreur dans le cri des grives. Il
est si clair---'"
Miriam
sat tremulous, half ashamed. He
remained quite still, trying to understand.
He only knew she loved him. He
was afraid of her love for him. It
was too good for him, and he was inadequate.
His own love was at fault, not hers.
Ashamed, he corrected her work, humbly writing above her words.
"Look,"
he said quietly, "the past participle conjugated with avoir agrees with
the direct object when it precedes."
She
bent forward, trying to see and to understand.
Her free, fine curls tickled his face.
He started as if they had been red hot, shuddering.
He saw her peering forward at the page, her red lips parted
piteously, the black hair springing in fine strands across her tawny, ruddy
cheek. She was coloured like a
pomegranate for richness. His
breath came short as he watched her. Suddenly
she looked up at him. Her dark
eyes were naked with their love, afraid, and yearning.
His eyes, too, were dark, and they hurt her.
They seemed to master her. She
lost all her self-control, was exposed in fear.
And he knew, before he could kiss her, he must drive something out of
himself. And a touch of hate for her crept back again into his heart.
He returned to her exercise.
Suddenly
he flung down the pencil, and was at the oven in a leap, turning the bread.
For Miriam he was too quick. She
started violently, and it hurt her with real pain.
Even the way he crouched before the oven hurt her.
There seemed to be something cruel in it, something cruel in the
swift way he pitched the bread out of the tins, caught it up again.
If only he had been gentle in his movements she would have felt so
rich and warm. As it was, she
was hurt.
He
returned and finished the exercise.
"You've
done well this week," he said.
She
saw he was flattered by her diary. It
did not repay her entirely.
"You
really do blossom out sometimes," he said. "You ought to write poetry."
She
lifted her head with joy, then she shook it mistrustfully.
"I
don't trust myself," she said.
"You
should try!"
Again
she shook her head.
"Shall
we read, or is it too late?" he asked.
"It
is late--but we can read just a little," she pleaded.
She
was really getting now the food for her life during the next week.
He made her copy Baudelaire's "Le Balcon".
Then he read it for her. His
voice was soft and caressing, but growing almost brutal.
He had a way of lifting his lips and showing his teeth, passionately
and bitterly, when he was much moved. This
he did now. It made Miriam feel
as if he were trampling on her. She
dared not look at him, but sat with her head bowed.
She could not understand why he got into such a tumult and fury. It made her wretched. She
did not like Baudelaire, on the whole--nor Verlaine.
"Behold her singing in the field
Yon solitary highland lass."
That
nourished her heart. So did
"Fair Ines". And--
"It was a beauteous evening, calm and pure,
And breathing holy quiet like a nun."
These
were like herself. And there
was he, saying in his throat bitterly:
"Tu te rappelleras la beaute des caresses."
The
poem was finished; he took the bread out of the oven, arranging the burnt
loaves at the bottom of the panchion, the good ones at the top.
The desiccated loaf remained swathed up in the scullery.
"Mater
needn't know till morning," he said.
"It won't upset her so much then as at night."
Miriam
looked in the bookcase, saw what postcards and letters he had received, saw
what books were there. She took
one that had interested him. Then
he turned down the gas and they set off.
He did not trouble to lock the door.
He
was not home again until a quarter to eleven.
His mother was seated in the rocking-chair. Annie, with a rope of hair hanging down her back, remained
sitting on a low stool before the fire, her elbows on her knees, gloomily.
On the table stood the offending loaf unswathed.
Paul entered rather breathless.
No one spoke. His mother
was reading the little local newspaper.
He took off his coat, and went to sit down on the sofa.
His mother moved curtly aside to let him pass.
No one spoke. He was
very uncomfortable. For some
minutes he sat pretending to read a piece of paper he found on the table.
Then---
"I
forgot that bread, mother," he said.
There
was no answer from either woman.
"Well,"
he said, "it's only twopence ha'penny. I can pay you for that."
Being
angry, he put three pennies on the table and slid them towards his mother.
She turned away her head. Her
mouth was shut tightly.
"Yes,"
said Annie, "you don't know how badly my mother is!"
The
girl sat staring glumly into the fire.
"Why
is she badly?" asked Paul, in his overbearing way.
"Well!"
said Annie. "She could
scarcely get home."
He
looked closely at his mother. She
looked ill.
"WHY
could you scarcely get home?" he asked her, still sharply.
She would not answer.
"I
found her as white as a sheet sitting here," said Annie, with a
suggestion of tears in her voice.
"Well,
WHY?" insisted Paul. His
brows were knitting, his eyes dilating passionately.
"It
was enough to upset anybody," said Mrs. Morel, "hugging those
parcels--meat, and green-groceries, and a pair of curtains---"
"Well,
why DID you hug them; you needn't have done."
"Then
who would?"
"Let
Annie fetch the meat."
"Yes,
and I WOULD fetch the meat, but how was I to know. You were off with Miriam, instead of being in when my mother
came."
"And
what was the matter with you?" asked Paul of his mother.
"I
suppose it's my heart," she replied.
Certainly she looked bluish round the mouth.
"And
have you felt it before?"
"Yes--often
enough."
"Then
why haven't you told me?--and why haven't you seen a doctor?"
Mrs.
Morel shifted in her chair, angry with him for his hectoring.
"You'd
never notice anything," said Annie.
"You're too eager to be off with Miriam."
"Oh,
am I--and any worse than you with Leonard?"
"I
was in at a quarter to ten."
There
was silence in the room for a time.
"I
should have thought," said Mrs. Morel bitterly, "that she wouldn't
have occupied you so entirely as to burn a whole ovenful of bread."
"Beatrice
was here as well as she."
"Very
likely. But we know why the
bread is spoilt."
"Why?"
he flashed.
"Because
you were engrossed with Miriam," replied Mrs. Morel hotly.
"Oh,
very well--then it was NOT!" he replied angrily.
He
was distressed and wretched. Seizing
a paper, he began to read. Annie,
her blouse unfastened, her long ropes of hair twisted into a plait, went up
to bed, bidding him a very curt good-night.
Paul
sat pretending to read. He knew
his mother wanted to upbraid him. He
also wanted to know what had made her ill, for he was troubled.
So, instead of running away to bed, as he would have liked to do, he
sat and waited. There was a
tense silence. The clock ticked
loudly.
"You'd
better go to bed before your father comes in," said the mother harshly.
"And if you're going to have anything to eat, you'd better get
it."
"I
don't want anything."
It
was his mother's custom to bring him some trifle for supper on Friday night,
the night of luxury for the colliers. He
was too angry to go and find it in the pantry this night.
This insulted her.
"If
I WANTED you to go to Selby on Friday night, I can imagine the scene,"
said Mrs. Morel. "But
you're never too tired to go if SHE will come for you.
Nay, you neither want to eat nor drink then."
"I
can't let her go alone."
"Can't
you? And why does she
come?"
"Not
because I ask her."
"She
doesn't come without you want her---"
"Well,
what if I DO want her---" he replied.
"Why,
nothing, if it was sensible or reasonable.
But to go trapseing up there miles and miles in the mud, coming home
at midnight, and got to go to Nottingham in the morning---"
"If
I hadn't, you'd be just the same."
"Yes,
I should, because there's no sense in it.
Is she so fascinating that you must follow her all that way?"
Mrs. Morel was bitterly sarcastic.
She sat still, with averted face, stroking with a rhythmic, jerked
movement, the black sateen of her apron.
It was a movement that hurt Paul to see.
"I
do like her," he said, "but---"
"LIKE
her!" said Mrs. Morel, in the same biting tones. "It seems to me you like nothing and nobody else.
There's neither Annie, nor me, nor anyone now for you."
"What
nonsense, mother--you know I don't love her--I--I tell you I DON'T love
her--she doesn't even walk with my arm, because I don't want her to."
"Then
why do you fly to her so often?"
"I
DO like to talk to her--I never said I didn't.
But I DON'T love her."
"Is
there nobody else to talk to?"
"Not
about the things we talk of. There's
a lot of things that you're not interested in, that---"
"What
things?"
Mrs.
Morel was so intense that Paul began to pant.
"Why--painting--and
books. YOU don't care about
Herbert Spencer."
"No,"
was the sad reply. "And
YOU won't at my age."
"Well,
but I do now--and Miriam does---"
"And
how do you know," Mrs. Morel flashed defiantly, "that I shouldn't.
Do you ever try me!"
"But
you don't, mother, you know you don't care whether a picture's decorative or
not; you don't care what MANNER it is in."
"How
do you know I don't care? Do
you ever try me? Do you ever
talk to me about these things, to try?"
"But
it's not that that matters to you, mother, you know t's not."
"What
is it, then--what is it, then, that matters to me?" she flashed.
He knitted his brows with pain.
"You're
old, mother, and we're young."
He
only meant that the interests of HER age were not the interests of his.
But he realised the moment he had spoken that he had said the wrong
thing.
"Yes,
I know it well--I am old. And
therefore I may stand aside; I have nothing more to do with you.
You only want me to wait on you--the rest is for Miriam."
He
could not bear it. Instinctively
he realised that he was life to her. And,
after all, she was the chief thing to him, the only supreme thing.
"You
know it isn't, mother, you know it isn't!"
She
was moved to pity by his cry.
"It
looks a great deal like it," she said, half putting aside her despair.
"No,
mother--I really DON'T love her. I
talk to her, but I want to come home to you."
He
had taken off his collar and tie, and rose, bare-throated, to go to bed.
As he stooped to kiss his mother, she threw her arms round his neck,
hid her face on his shoulder, and cried, in a whimpering voice, so unlike
her own that he writhed in agony:
"I
can't bear it. I could let
another woman--but not her. She'd
leave me no room, not a bit of room---"
And
immediately he hated Miriam bitterly.
"And
I've never--you know, Paul--I've never had a husband--not really---"
He
stroked his mother's hair, and his mouth was on her throat.
"And
she exults so in taking you from me--she's not like ordinary girls."
"Well,
I don't love her, mother," he murmured, bowing his head and hiding his
eyes on her shoulder in misery. His
mother kissed him a long, fervent kiss.
"My
boy!" she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love.
Without
knowing, he gently stroked her face.
"There,"
said his mother, "now go to bed. You'll
be so tired in the morning." As she was speaking she heard her husband coming.
"There's your father--now go."
Suddenly she looked at him almost as if in fear.
"Perhaps I'm selfish. If
you want her, take her, my boy."
His
mother looked so strange, Paul kissed her, trembling.
"Ha--mother!"
he said softly.
Morel
came in, walking unevenly. His
hat was over one corner of his eye. He
balanced in the doorway.
"At
your mischief again?" he said venomously.
Mrs.
Morel's emotion turned into sudden hate of the drunkard who had come in thus
upon her.
"At
any rate, it is sober," she said.
"H'm--h'm!
h'm--h'm!" he sneered. He
went into the passage, hung up his hat and coat.
Then they heard him go down three steps to the pantry.
He returned with a piece of pork-pie in his fist.
It was what Mrs. Morel had bought for her son.
"Nor
was that bought for you. If you
can give me no more than twenty-five shillings, I'm sure I'm not going to
buy you pork-pie to stuff, after you've swilled a bellyful of beer."
"Wha-at--wha-at!"
snarled Morel, toppling in his balance.
"Wha-at--not for me?"
He looked at the piece of meat and crust, and suddenly, in a vicious
spurt of temper, flung it into the fire.
Paul
started to his feet.
"Waste
your own stuff!" he cried.
"What--what!"
suddenly shouted Morel, jumping up and clenching his fist.
"I'll show yer, yer young jockey!"
"All
right!" said Paul viciously, putting his head on one side.
"Show me!"
He
would at that moment dearly have loved to have a smack at something.
Morel was half crouching, fists up, ready to spring.
The young man stood, smiling with his lips.
"Ussha!"
hissed the father, swiping round with a great stroke just past his son's
face. He dared not, even though
so close, really touch the young man, but swerved an inch away.
"Right!"
said Paul, his eyes upon the side of his father's mouth, where in another
instant his fist would have hit. He
ached for that stroke. But he
heard a faint moan from behind. His
mother was deadly pale and dark at the mouth.
Morel was dancing up to deliver another blow.
"Father!"
said Paul, so that the word rang.
Morel
started, and stood at attention.
"Mother!"
moaned the boy. "Mother!"
She
began to struggle with herself. Her
open eyes watched him, although she could not move. Gradually she was coming to herself. He laid her down on the sofa, and ran upstairs for a little
whisky, which at last she could sip. The
tears were hopping down his face. As
he kneeled in front of her he did not cry, but the tears ran down his face
quickly. Morel, on the opposite
side of the room, sat with his elbows on his knees glaring across.
"What's
a-matter with 'er?" he asked.
"Faint!"
replied Paul.
"H'm!"
The
elderly man began to unlace his boots.
He stumbled off to bed. His
last fight was fought in that home.
Paul
kneeled there, stroking his mother's hand.
"Don't
be poorly, mother--don't be poorly!" he said time after time.
"It's
nothing, my boy," she murmured. At
last he rose, fetched in a large piece of coal, and raked the fire.
Then he cleared the room, put everything straight, laid the things
for breakfast, and brought his mother's candle.
"Can
you go to bed, mother?"
"Yes,
I'll come."
"Sleep
with Annie, mother, not with him."
"No.
I'll sleep in my own bed."
"Don't
sleep with him, mother."
"I'll
sleep in my own bed."
She
rose, and he turned out the gas, then followed her closely upstairs,
carrying her candle. On the
landing he kissed her close.
"Good-night,
mother."
"Good-night!"
she said.
He
pressed his face upon the pillow in a fury of misery. And yet, somewhere in his soul, he was at peace because he
still loved his mother best. It
was the bitter peace of resignation.
The
efforts of his father to conciliate him next day were a great humiliation to
him.
Everybody
tried to forget the scene.
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