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She
came downstairs nervously. She
was wearing a new net blouse that she thought became her. It had a high collar with a tiny ruff, reminding her of Mary,
Queen of Scots, and making her, she thought, look wonderfully a woman, and
dignified. At twenty she was
full-breasted and luxuriously formed. Her
face was still like a soft rich mask, unchangeable.
But her eyes, once lifted, were wonderful.
She was afraid of him. He
would notice her new blouse.
He,
being in a hard, ironical mood, was entertaining the family to a description
of a service given in the Primitive Methodist Chapel, conducted by one of
the well-known preachers of the sect. He
sat at the head of the table, his mobile face, with the eyes that could be
so beautiful, shining with tenderness or dancing with laughter, now taking
on one expression and then another, in imitation of various people he was
mocking. His mockery always
hurt her; it was too near the reality.
He was too clever and cruel. She
felt that when his eyes were like this, hard with mocking hate, he would
spare neither himself nor anybody else.
But Mrs. Leivers was wiping her eyes with laughter, and Mr. Leivers,
just awake from his Sunday nap, was rubbing his head in amusement.
The three brothers sat with ruffled, sleepy appearance in their
shirt-sleeves, giving a guffaw from time to time.
The whole family loved a "take-off" more than anything.
He
took no notice of Miriam. Later,
she saw him remark her new blouse, saw that the artist approved, but it won
from him not a spark of warmth. She
was nervous, could hardly reach the teacups from the shelves.
When
the men went out to milk, she ventured to address him personally.
"You
were late," she said.
"Was
I?" he answered.
There
was silence for a while.
"Was
it rough riding?" she asked.
"I
didn't notice it." She
continued quickly to lay the table. When
she had finished---
"Tea
won't be for a few minutes. Will
you come and look at the daffodils?" she said.
He
rose without answering. They
went out into the back garden under the budding damson-trees. The hills and the sky were clean and cold.
Everything looked washed, rather hard.
Miriam glanced at Paul. He
was pale and impassive. It
seemed cruel to her that his eyes and brows, which she loved, could look so
hurting.
"Has
the wind made you tired?" she asked.
She detected an underneath feeling of weariness about him.
"No,
I think not," he answered.
"It
must be rough on the road--the wood moans so."
"You
can see by the clouds it's a south-west wind; that helps me here."
"You
see, I don't cycle, so I don't understand," she murmured.
"Is
there need to cycle to know that!" he said.
She
thought his sarcasms were unnecessary.
They went forward in silence. Round
the wild, tussocky lawn at the back of the house was a thorn hedge, under
which daffodils were craning forward from among their sheaves of grey-green
blades. The cheeks of the
flowers were greenish with cold. But
still some had burst, and their gold ruffled and glowed.
Miriam went on her knees before one cluster, took a wild-looking
daffodil between her hands, turned up its face of gold to her, and bowed
down, caressing it with her mouth and cheeks and brow.
He stood aside, with his hands in his pockets, watching her.
One after another she turned up to him the faces of the yellow,
bursten flowers appealingly, fondling them lavishly all the while.
"Aren't
they magnificent?" she murmured.
"Magnificent!
It's a bit thick--they're pretty!"
She
bowed again to her flowers at his censure of her praise.
He watched her crouching, sipping the flowers with fervid kisses.
"Why
must you always be fondling things?" he said irritably.
"But
I love to touch them," she replied, hurt.
"Can
you never like things without clutching them as if you wanted to pull the
heart out of them? Why don't
you have a bit more restraint, or reserve, or something?"
She
looked up at him full of pain, then continued slowly to stroke her lips
against a ruffled flower. Their
scent, as she smelled it, was so much kinder than he; it almost made her
cry.
"You
wheedle the soul out of things," he said.
"I would never wheedle--at any rate, I'd go straight."
He
scarcely knew what he was saying. These
things came from him mechanically. She
looked at him. His body seemed
one weapon, firm and hard against her.
"You're
always begging things to love you," he said, "as if you were a
beggar for love. Even the
flowers, you have to fawn on them---"
Rhythmically,
Miriam was swaying and stroking the flower with her mouth, inhaling the
scent which ever after made her shudder as it came to her nostrils.
"You
don't want to love--your eternal and abnormal craving is to be loved.
You aren't positive, you're negative.
You absorb, absorb, as if you must fill yourself up with love,
because you've got a shortage somewhere."
She
was stunned by his cruelty, and did not hear.
He had not the faintest notion of what he was saying.
It was as if his fretted, tortured soul, run hot by thwarted passion,
jetted off these sayings like sparks from electricity.
She did not grasp anything he said.
She only sat crouched beneath his cruelty and his hatred of her.
She never realised in a flash. Over
everything she brooded and brooded.
After
tea he stayed with Edgar and the brothers, taking no notice of Miriam.
She, extremely unhappy on this looked-for holiday, waited for him.
And at last he yielded and came to her.
She was determined to track this mood of his to its origin. She counted it not much more than a mood.
"Shall
we go through the wood a little way?" she asked him, knowing he never
refused a direct request.
They
went down to the warren. On the
middle path they passed a trap, a narrow horseshoe hedge of small
fir-boughs, baited with the guts of a rabbit.
Paul glanced at it frowning. She
caught his eye.
"Isn't
it dreadful?" she asked.
"I
don't know! Is it worse than a
weasel with its teeth in a rabbit's throat?
One weasel or many rabbits? One
or the other must go!"
He
was taking the bitterness of life badly.
She was rather sorry for him.
"We
will go back to the house," he said.
"I don't want to walk out."
They
went past the lilac-tree, whose bronze leaf-buds were coming unfastened.
Just a fragment remained of the haystack, a monument squared and
brown, like a pillar of stone. There was a little bed of hay from the last cutting.
"Let
us sit here a minute," said Miriam.
He
sat down against his will, resting his back against the hard wall of hay.
They faced the amphitheatre of round hills that glowed with sunset,
tiny white farms standing out, the meadows golden, the woods dark and yet
luminous, tree-tops folded over tree-tops, distinct in the distance.
The evening had cleared, and the east was tender with a magenta flush
under which the land lay still and rich.
"Isn't
it beautiful?" she pleaded.
But
he only scowled. He would
rather have had it ugly just then.
At
that moment a big bull-terrier came rushing up, open-mouthed, pranced his
two paws on the youth's shoulders, licking his face. Paul drew back, laughing.
Bill was a great relief to him.
He pushed the dog aside, but it came leaping back.
"Get
out," said the lad, "or I'll dot thee one."
But
the dog was not to be pushed away. So
Paul had a little battle with the creature, pitching poor Bill away from
him, who, however, only floundered tumultuously back again, wild with joy.
The two fought together, the man laughing grudgingly, the dog
grinning all over. Miriam
watched them. There was
something pathetic about the man. He
wanted so badly to love, to be tender.
The rough way he bowled the dog over was really loving.
Bill got up, panting with happiness, his brown eyes rolling in his
white face, and lumbered back again. He
adored Paul. The lad frowned.
"Bill,
I've had enough o' thee," he said.
But
the dog only stood with two heavy paws, that quivered with love, upon his
thigh, and flickered a red tongue at him.
He drew back.
"No,"
he said--"no--I've had enough."
And
in a minute the dog trotted off happily, to vary the fun.
He
remained staring miserably across at the hills, whose still beauty he
begrudged. He wanted to go and
cycle with Edgar. Yet he had
not the courage to leave Miriam.
"Why
are you sad?" she asked humbly.
"I'm
not sad; why should I be," he answered.
"I'm only normal."
She
wondered why he always claimed to be normal when he was disagreeable.
"But
what is the matter?" she pleaded, coaxing him soothingly.
"Nothing!"
"Nay!"
she murmured.
He
picked up a stick and began to stab the earth with it.
"You'd
far better not talk," he said.
"But
I wish to know---" she replied.
He
laughed resentfully.
"You
always do," he said.
"It's
not fair to me," she murmured.
He
thrust, thrust, thrust at the ground with the pointed stick, digging up
little clods of earth as if he were in a fever of irritation.
She gently and firmly laid her band on his wrist.
"Don't!"
she said. "Put it
away."
He
flung the stick into the currant-bushes, and leaned back.
Now he was bottled up.
"What
is it?" she pleaded softly.
He
lay perfectly still, only his eyes alive, and they full of torment.
"You
know," he said at length, rather wearily--"you know--we'd better
break off."
It
was what she dreaded. Swiftly
everything seemed to darken before her eyes.
"Why!"
she murmured. "What has
happened?"
"Nothing
has happened. We only realise
where we are. It's no
good---"
She
waited in silence, sadly, patiently. It
was no good being impatient with him. At
any rate, he would tell her now what ailed him.
"We
agreed on friendship," he went on in a dull, monotonous voice.
"How often HAVE we agreed for friendship!
And yet--it neither stops there, nor gets anywhere else."
He
was silent again. She brooded.
What did he mean? He was so wearying. There
was something he would not yield. Yet
she must be patient with him.
"I
can only give friendship--it's all I'm capable of--it's a flaw in my
make-up. The thing overbalances
to one side--I hate a toppling balance.
Let us have done."
There
was warmth of fury in his last phrases.
He meant she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted.
It was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was so
deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge.
Perhaps she was deficient. Like
an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her always back.
If it were so, she would do without him.
She would never let herself want him.
She would merely see.
"But
what has happened?" she said.
"Nothing--it's
all in myself--it only comes out just now.
We're always like this towards Easter-time."
He
grovelled so helplessly, she pitied him.
At least she never floundered in such a pitiable way.
After all, it was he who was chiefly humiliated.
"What
do you want?" she asked him.
"Why--I
mustn't come often--that's all. Why
should I monopolise you when I'm not--- You see, I'm deficient in something
with regard to you---"
He
was telling her he did not love her, and so ought to leave her a chance with
another man. How foolish and
blind and shamefully clumsy he was! What
were other men to her! What
were men to her at all! But he,
ah! she loved his soul. Was HE
deficient in something? Perhaps
he was.
"But
I don't understand," she said huskily.
"Yesterday---"
The
night was turning jangled and hateful to him as the twilight faded.
And she bowed under her suffering.
"I
know," he cried, "you never will!
You'll never believe that I can't--can't physically, any more than I
can fly up like a skylark---"
"What?"
she murmured. Now she dreaded.
"Love
you."
He
hated her bitterly at that moment because he made her suffer.
Love her! She knew he
loved her. He really belonged
to her. This about not loving
her, physically, bodily, was a mere perversity on his part, because he knew
she loved him. He was stupid
like a child. He belonged to
her. His soul wanted her.
She guessed somebody had been influencing him.
She felt upon him the hardness, the foreignness of another influence.
"What
have they been saying at home?" she asked.
"It's
not that," he answered.
And
then she knew it was. She
despised them for their commonness, his people.
They did not know what things were really worth.
He
and she talked very little more that night.
After all he left her to cycle with Edgar.
He
had come back to his mother. Hers
was the strongest tie in his life. When
he thought round, Miriam shrank away. There
was a vague, unreal feel about her. And nobody else mattered.
There was one place in the world that stood solid and did not melt
into unreality: the place where
his mother was. Everybody else
could grow shadowy, almost non-existent to him, but she could not.
It was as if the pivot and pole of his life, from which he could not
escape, was his mother.
And
in the same way she waited for him. In
him was established her life now. After
all, the life beyond offered very little to Mrs. Morel.
She saw that our chance for DOING is here, and doing counted with
her. Paul was going to prove
that she had been right; he was going to make a man whom nothing should
shift off his feet; he was going to alter the face of the earth in some way
which mattered. Wherever he
went she felt her soul went with him. Whatever
he did she felt her soul stood by him, ready, as it were, to hand him his
tools. She could not bear it
when he was with Miriam. William
was dead. She would fight to
keep Paul.
And
he came back to her. And in his
soul was a feeling of the satisfaction of self-sacrifice because he was
faithful to her. She loved him
first; he loved her first. And
yet it was not enough. His new
young life, so strong and imperious, was urged towards something else.
It made him mad with restlessness.
She saw this, and wished bitterly that Miriam had been a woman who
could take this new life of his, and leave her the roots.
He fought against his mother almost as he fought against Miriam.
It
was a week before he went again to Willey Farm. Miriam had suffered a great deal, and was afraid to see him
again. Was she now to endure
the ignominy of his abandoning her? That
would only be superficial and temporary.
He would come back. She
held the keys to his soul. But
meanwhile, how he would torture her with his battle against her.
She shrank from it.
However,
the Sunday after Easter he came to tea.
Mrs. Leivers was glad to see him.
She gathered something was fretting him, that he found things hard.
He seemed to drift to her for comfort.
And she was good to him. She
did him that great kindness of treating him almost with reverence.
He
met her with the young children in the front garden.
"I'm
glad you've come," said the mother, looking at him with her great
appealing brown eyes. "It
is such a sunny day. I was just
going down the fields for the first time this year."
He
felt she would like him to come. That
soothed him. They went, talking
simply, he gentle and humble. He
could have wept with gratitude that she was deferential to him. He was feeling humiliated.
At
the bottom of the Mow Close they found a thrush's nest.
"Shall
I show you the eggs?" he said.
"Do!"
replied Mrs. Leivers. "They
seem SUCH a sign of spring, and so hopeful."
He
put aside the thorns, and took out the eggs, holding them in the palm of his
hand.
"They
are quite hot--I think we frightened her off them," he said.
"Ay,
poor thing!" said Mrs. Leivers.
Miriam
could not help touching the eggs, and his hand which, it seemed to her,
cradled them so well.
"Isn't
it a strange warmth!" she murmured, to get near him.
"Blood
heat," he answered.
She
watched him putting them back, his body pressed against the hedge, his arm
reaching slowly through the thorns, his hand folded carefully over the eggs.
He was concentrated on the act.
Seeing him so, she loved him; he seemed so simple and sufficient to
himself. And she could not get
to him.
After
tea she stood hesitating at the bookshelf.
He took "Tartarin de Tarascon". Again they sat on the bank of hay at the foot of the stack.
He read a couple of pages, but without any heart for it.
Again the dog came racing up to repeat the fun of the other day.
He shoved his muzzle in the man's chest. Paul fingered his ear for a moment. Then he pushed him away.
"Go
away, Bill," he said. "I
don't want you."
Bill
slunk off, and Miriam wondered and dreaded what was coming.
There was a silence about the youth that made her still with
apprehension. It was not his
furies, but his quiet resolutions that she feared.
Turning
his face a little to one side, so that she could not see him, he began,
speaking slowly and painfully:
"Do
you think--if I didn't come up so much--you might get to like somebody
else--another man?"
So
this was what he was still harping on.
"But
I don't know any other men. Why
do you ask?" she replied, in a low tone that should have been a
reproach to him.
"Why,"
he blurted, "because they say I've no right to come up like
this--without we mean to marry---"
Miriam
was indignant at anybody's forcing the issues between them.
She had been furious with her own father for suggesting to Paul,
laughingly, that he knew why he came so much.
"Who
says?" she asked, wondering if her people had anything to do with it.
They had not.
"Mother--and
the others. They say at this
rate everybody will consider me engaged, and I ought to consider myself so,
because it's not fair to you. And
I've tried to find out--and I don't think I love you as a man ought to love
his wife. What do you think
about it?"
Miriam
bowed her head moodily. She was
angry at having this struggle. People
should leave him and her alone.
"I
don't know," she murmured.
"Do
you think we love each other enough to marry?" he asked definitely.
It made her tremble.
"No,"
she answered truthfully. "I
don't think so--we're too young."
"I
thought perhaps," he went on miserably, "that you, with your
intensity in things, might have given me more--than I could ever make up to
you. And even now--if you think
it better--we'll be engaged."
Now
Miriam wanted to cry. And she
was angry, too. He was always
such a child for people to do as they liked with.
"No,
I don't think so," she said firmly.
He
pondered a minute.
"You
see," he said, "with me--I don't think one person would ever
monopolize me--be everything to me--I think never."
This
she did not consider.
"No,"
she murmured. Then, after a
pause, she looked at him, and her dark eyes flashed.
"This
is your mother," she said. "I
know she never liked me."
"No,
no, it isn't," he said hastily. "It
was for your sake she spoke this time.
She only said, if I was going on, I ought to consider myself
engaged." There was a
silence. "And if I ask you
to come down any time, you won't stop away, will you?"
She
did not answer. By this time
she was very angry.
"Well,
what shall we do?" she said shortly.
"I suppose I'd better drop French.
I was just beginning to get on with it.
But I suppose I can go on alone."
"I
don't see that we need," he said.
"I can give you a French lesson, surely."
"Well--and
there are Sunday nights. I
shan't stop coming to chapel, because I enjoy it, and it's all the social
life I get. But you've no need
to come home with me. I can go
alone."
"All
right," he answered, rather taken aback.
"But if I ask Edgar, he'll always come with us, and then they
can say nothing."
There
was silence. After all, then,
she would not lose much. For
all their talk down at his home there would not be much difference. She wished they would mind their own business.
"And
you won't think about it, and let it trouble you, will you?" he asked.
"Oh
no," replied Miriam, without looking at him.
He
was silent. She thought him
unstable. He had no fixity of
purpose, no anchor of righteousness that held him.
"Because,"
he continued, "a man gets across his bicycle--and goes to work--and
does all sorts of things. But a
woman broods."
"No,
I shan't bother," said Miriam. And
she meant it.
It
had gone rather chilly. They
went indoors.
"How
white Paul looks!" Mrs.
Leivers exclaimed. "Miriam,
you shouldn't have let him sit out of doors.
Do you think you've taken cold, Paul?"
"Oh,
no!" he laughed.
But
he felt done up. It wore him
out, the conflict in himself. Miriam
pitied him now. But quite
early, before nine o'clock, he rose to go.
"You're
not going home, are you?" asked Mrs. Leivers anxiously.
"Yes,"
he replied. "I said I'd be
early." He was very
awkward.
"But
this IS early," said Mrs. Leivers.
Miriam
sat in the rocking-chair, and did not speak.
He hesitated, expecting her to rise and go with him to the barn as
usual for his bicycle. She
remained as she was. He was at
a loss.
"Well--good-night,
all!" he faltered.
She
spoke her good-night along with all the others. But as he went past the window he looked in.
She saw him pale, his brows knit slightly in a way that had become
constant with him, his eyes dark with pain.
She
rose and went to the doorway to wave good-bye to him as he passed through
the gate. He rode slowly under
the pine-trees, feeling a cur and a miserable wretch. His bicycle went tilting down the hills at random.
He thought it would be a relief to break one's neck.
Two
days later he sent her up a book and a little note, urging her to read and
be busy.
At
this time he gave all his friendship to Edgar.
He loved the family so much, he loved the farm so much; it was the
dearest place on earth to him. His
home was not so lovable. It was
his mother. But then he would
have been just as happy with his mother anywhere.
Whereas Willey Farm he loved passionately.
He loved the little pokey kitchen, where men's boots tramped, and the
dog slept with one eye open for fear of being trodden on; where the lamp
hung over the table at night, and everything was so silent.
He loved Miriam's long, low parlour, with its atmosphere of romance,
its flowers, its books, its high rosewood piano.
He loved the gardens and the buildings that stood with their scarlet
roofs on the naked edges of the fields, crept towards the wood as if for
cosiness, the wild country scooping down a valley and up the uncultured
hills of the other side. Only
to be there was an exhilaration and a joy to him.
He loved Mrs. Leivers, with her unworldliness and her quaint
cynicism; he loved Mr. Leivers, so warm and young and lovable; he loved
Edgar, who lit up when he came, and the boys and the children and Bill--even
the sow Circe and the Indian game-cock called Tippoo.
All this besides Miriam. He
could not give it up.
So
he went as often, but he was usually with Edgar. Only all the family, including the father, joined in charades
and games at evening. And
later, Miriam drew them together, and they read Macbeth out of penny books,
taking parts. It was great
excitement. Miriam was glad,
and Mrs. Leivers was glad, and Mr. Leivers enjoyed it.
Then they all learned songs together from tonic sol-fa, singing in a
circle round the fire. But now
Paul was very rarely alone with Miriam.
She waited. When she and
Edgar and he walked home together from chapel or from the literary society
in Bestwood, she knew his talk, so passionate and so unorthodox nowadays,
was for her. She did envy
Edgar, however, his cycling with Paul, his Friday nights, his days working
in the fields. For her Friday
nights and her French lessons were gone.
She was nearly always alone, walking, pondering in the wood, reading,
studying, dreaming, waiting. And
he wrote to her frequently.
One
Sunday evening they attained to their old rare harmony.
Edgar had stayed to Communion--he wondered what it was like--with
Mrs. Morel. So Paul came on
alone with Miriam to his home. He
was more or less under her spell again. As usual, they were discussing the sermon.
He was setting now full sail towards Agnosticism, but such a
religious Agnosticism that Miriam did not suffer so badly.
They were at the Renan Vie de Jesus stage.
Miriam was the threshing-floor on which he threshed out all his
beliefs. While he trampled his
ideas upon her soul, the truth came out for him.
She alone was his threshing-floor.
She alone helped him towards realization.
Almost impassive, she submitted to his argument and expounding. And
somehow, because of her, he gradually realized where he was wrong. And what
he realized, she realized. She
felt he could not do without her.
They
came to the silent house. He
took the key out of the scullery window, and they entered. All the time he went on with his discussion.
He lit the gas, mended the fire, and brought her some cakes from the
pantry. She sat on the sofa,
quietly, with a plate on her knee. She wore a large white hat with some pinkish flowers.
It was a cheap hat, but he liked it.
Her face beneath was still and pensive, golden-brown and ruddy.
Always her ears were hid in her short curls.
She watched him.
She
liked him on Sundays. Then he
wore a dark suit that showed the lithe movement of his body. There was a clean, clear-cut look about him.
He went on with his thinking to her.
Suddenly he reached for a Bible.
Miriam liked the way he reached up--so sharp, straight to the mark.
He turned the pages quickly, and read her a chapter of St. John.
As he sat in the armchair reading, intent, his voice only thinking,
she felt as if he were using her unconsciously as a man uses his tools at
some work he is bent on. She
loved it. And the wistfulness
of his voice was like a reaching to something, and it was as if she were
what he reached with. She sat
back on the sofa away from him, and yet feeling herself the very instrument
his hand grasped. It gave her
great pleasure.
Then
he began to falter and to get self-conscious.
And when he came to the verse, "A woman, when she is in travail,
hath sorrow because her hour is come", he missed it out.
Miriam had felt him growing uncomfortable.
She shrank when the well-known words did not follow.
He went on reading, but she did not hear.
A grief and shame made her bend her head. Six months ago he would have read it simply.
Now there was a scotch in his running with her.
Now she felt there was really something hostile between them,
something of which they were ashamed.
She
ate her cake mechanically. He
tried to go on with his argument, but could not get back the right note.
Soon Edgar came in. Mrs.
Morel had gone to her friends'. The
three set off to Willey Farm.
Miriam
brooded over his split with her. There
was something else he wanted. He
could not be satisfied; he could give her no peace.
There was between them now always a ground for strife. She wanted to
prove him. She believed that
his chief need in life was herself. If
she could prove it, both to herself and to him, the rest might go; she could
simply trust to the future.
So
in May she asked him to come to Willey Farm and meet Mrs. Dawes.
There was something he hankered after.
She saw him, whenever they spoke of Clara Dawes, rouse and get
slightly angry. He said he did
not like her. Yet he was keen
to know about her. Well, he
should put himself to the test. She
believed that there were in him desires for higher things, and desires for
lower, and that the desire for the higher would conquer.
At any rate, he should try. She
forgot that her "higher" and "lower" were arbitrary.
He
was rather excited at the idea of meeting Clara at Willey Farm.
Mrs. Dawes came for the day. Her
heavy, dun-coloured hair was coiled on top of her head.
She wore a white blouse and navy skirt, and somehow, wherever she
was, seemed to make things look paltry and insignificant.
When she was in the room, the kitchen seemed too small and mean
altogether. Miriam's beautiful
twilighty parlour looked stiff and stupid.
All the Leivers were eclipsed like candles.
They found her rather hard to put up with.
Yet she was perfectly amiable, but indifferent, and rather hard.
Paul
did not come till afternoon. He
was early. As he swung off his
bicycle, Miriam saw him look round at the house eagerly. He would be disappointed if the visitor had not come.
Miriam went out to meet him, bowing her head because of the sunshine.
Nasturtiums were coming out crimson under the cool green shadow of
their leaves. The girl stood,
dark-haired, glad to see him.
"Hasn't
Clara come?" he asked.
"Yes,"
replied Miriam in her musical tone. "She's
reading."
He
wheeled his bicycle into the barn. He
had put on a handsome tie, of which he was rather proud, and socks to match.
"She
came this morning?" he asked.
"Yes,"
replied Miriam, as she walked at his side.
"You said you'd bring me that letter from the man at Liberty's.
Have you remembered?"
"Oh,
dash, no!" he said. "But
nag at me till you get it."
"I
don't like to nag at you."
"Do
it whether or not. And is she
any more agreeable?" he continued.
"You
know I always think she is quite agreeable."
He
was silent. Evidently his
eagerness to be early to-day had been the newcomer.
Miriam already began to suffer.
They went together towards the house.
He took the clips off his trousers, but was too lazy to brush the
dust from his shoes, in spite of the socks and tie.
Clara
sat in the cool parlour reading. He
saw the nape of her white neck, and the fine hair lifted from it.
She rose, looking at him indifferently.
To shake hands she lifted her arm straight, in a manner that seemed
at once to keep him at a distance, and yet to fling something to him.
He noticed how her breasts swelled inside her blouse, and how her
shoulder curved handsomely under the thin muslin at the top of her arm.
"You
have chosen a fine day," he said.
"It
happens so," she said.
"Yes,"
he said; "I am glad."
She
sat down, not thanking him for his politeness.
"What
have you been doing all morning?" asked Paul of Miriam.
"Well,
you see," said Miriam, coughing huskily, "Clara only came with
father--and so--she's not been here very long."
Clara
sat leaning on the table, holding aloof.
He noticed her hands were large, but well kept.
And the skin on them seemed almost coarse, opaque, and white, with
fine golden hairs. She did not
mind if he observed her hands. She intended to scorn him.
Her heavy arm lay negligently on the table. Her mouth was closed as if she were offended, and she kept
her face slightly averted.
"You
were at Margaret Bonford's meeting the other evening," he said to her.
Miriam
did not know this courteous Paul. Clara
glanced at him.
"Yes,"
she said.
"Why,"
asked Miriam, "how do you know?"
"I
went in for a few minutes before the train came," he answered.
Clara
turned away again rather disdainfully.
"I
think she's a lovable little woman," said Paul.
"Margaret
Bonford!" exclaimed Clara. "She's
a great deal cleverer than most men."
"Well,
I didn't say she wasn't," he said, deprecating. "She's lovable for all that."
"And,
of course, that is all that matters," said Clara witheringly.
He
rubbed his head, rather perplexed, rather annoyed.
"I
suppose it matters more than her cleverness," he said; "which,
after all, would never get her to heaven."
"It's
not heaven she wants to get--it's her fair share on earth," retorted
Clara. She spoke as if he were
responsible for some deprivation which Miss Bonford suffered.
"Well,"
he said, "I thought she was warm, and awfully nice--only too frail.
I wished she was sitting comfortably in peace---"
"'Darning
her husband's stockings,'" said Clara scathingly.
"I'm
sure she wouldn't mind darning even my stockings," he said.
"And I'm sure she'd do them well.
Just as I wouldn't mind blacking her boots if she wanted me to."
But
Clara refused to answer this sally of his.
He talked to Miriam for a little while.
The other woman held aloof.
"Well,"
he said, "I think I'll go and see Edgar.
Is he on the land?"
"I
believe," said Miriam, "he's gone for a load of coal.
He should be back directly."
"Then,"
he said, "I'll go and meet him."
Miriam
dared not propose anything for the three of them. He rose and left them.
On
the top road, where the gorse was out, he saw Edgar walking lazily beside
the mare, who nodded her white-starred forehead as she dragged the clanking
load of coal. The young
farmer's face lighted up as he saw his friend.
Edgar was good-looking, with dark, warm eyes.
His clothes were old and rather disreputable, and he walked with
considerable pride.
"Hello!"
he said, seeing Paul bareheaded. "Where
are you going?"
"Came
to meet you. Can't stand
'Nevermore.'"
Edgar's
teeth flashed in a laugh of amusement.
"Who
is 'Nevermore'?" he asked.
"The
lady--Mrs. Dawes--it ought to be Mrs. The Raven that quothed
'Nevermore.'" Edgar
laughed with glee.
"Don't
you like her?" he asked.
"Not
a fat lot," said Paul. "Why,
do you?"
"No!"
The answer came with a deep ring of conviction. "No!" Edgar pursed up his lips.
"I can't say she's much in my line."
He mused a little. Then:
"But why do you call her 'Nevermore'?" he asked.
"Well,"
said Paul, "if she looks at a man she says haughtily 'Nevermore,' and
if she looks at herself in the looking-glass she says disdainfully
'Nevermore,' and if she thinks back she says it in disgust, and if she looks
forward she says it cynically."
Edgar
considered this speech, failed to make much out of it, and said, laughing:
"You
think she's a man-hater?"
"SHE
thinks she is," replied Paul.
"But
you don't think so?"
"No,"
replied Paul.
"Wasn't
she nice with you, then?"
"Could
you imagine her NICE with anybody?" asked the young man.
Edgar
laughed. Together they unloaded
the coal in the yard. Paul was
rather self-conscious, because he knew Clara could see if she looked out of
the window. She didn't look.
On
Saturday afternoons the horses were brushed down and groomed.
Paul and Edgar worked together, sneezing with the dust that came from
the pelts of Jimmy and Flower.
"Do
you know a new song to teach me?" said Edgar.
He
continued to work all the time. The
back of his neck was sun-red when he bent down, and his fingers that held
the brush were thick. Paul
watched him sometimes.
"'Mary
Morrison'?" suggested the younger.
Edgar
agreed. He had a good tenor
voice, and he loved to learn all the songs his friend could teach him, so
that he could sing whilst he was carting.
Paul had a very indifferent baritone voice, but a good ear. However, he sang softly, for fear of Clara.
Edgar repeated the line in a clear tenor.
At times they both broke off to sneeze, and first one, then the
other, abused his horse.
Miriam
was impatient of men. It took
so little to amuse them--even Paul. She
thought it anomalous in him that he could be so thoroughly absorbed in a
triviality.
It
was tea-time when they had finished.
"What
song was that?" asked Miriam.
Edgar
told her. The conversation
turned to singing.
"We
have such jolly times," Miriam said to Clara.
Mrs.
Dawes ate her meal in a slow, dignified way.
Whenever the men were present she grew distant.
"Do
you like singing?" Miriam
asked her.
"If
it is good," she said.
Paul,
of course, coloured.
"You
mean if it is high-class and trained?" he said.
"I
think a voice needs training before the singing is anything," she said.
"You
might as well insist on having people's voices trained before you allowed
them to talk," he replied. "Really,
people sing for their own pleasure, as a rule."
"And
it may be for other people's discomfort."
"Then
the other people should have flaps to their ears," he replied.
The
boys laughed. There was a
silence. He flushed deeply, and
ate in silence.
After
tea, when all the men had gone but Paul, Mrs. Leivers said to Clara:
"And
you find life happier now?"
"Infinitely."
"And
you are satisfied?"
"So
long as I can be free and independent."
"And
you don't MISS anything in your life?" asked Mrs. Leivers gently.
"I've
put all that behind me."
Paul
had been feeling uncomfortable during this discourse. He got up.
"You'll
find you're always tumbling over the things you've put behind you," he
said. Then he took his
departure to the cowsheds. He
felt he had been witty, and his manly pride was high.
He whistled as he went down the brick track.
Miriam
came for him a little later to know if he would go with Clara and her for a
walk. They set off down to
Strelley Mill Farm. As they
were going beside the brook, on the Willey Water side, looking through the
brake at the edge of the wood, where pink campions glowed under a few
sunbeams, they saw, beyond the tree-trunks and the thin hazel bushes, a man
leading a great bay horse through the gullies.
The big red beast seemed to dance romantically through that dimness
of green hazel drift, away there where the air was shadowy, as if it were in
the past, among the fading bluebells that might have bloomed for Deidre or
Iseult.
The
three stood charmed.
"What
a treat to be a knight," he said, "and to have a pavilion
here."
"And
to have us shut up safely?" replied Clara.
"Yes,"
he answered, "singing with your maids at your broidery.
I would carry your banner of white and green and heliotrope.
I would have 'W.S.P.U.' emblazoned on my shield, beneath a woman
rampant."
"I
have no doubt," said Clara, "that you would much rather fight for
a woman than let her fight for herself."
"I
would. When she fights for
herself she seems like a dog before a looking-glass, gone into a mad fury
with its own shadow."
"And
YOU are the looking-glass?" she asked, with a curl of the lip.
"Or
the shadow," he replied.
"I
am afraid," she said, "that you are too clever."
"Well,
I leave it to you to be GOOD," he retorted, laughing.
"Be good, sweet maid, and just let ME be clever."
But
Clara wearied of his flippancy. Suddenly,
looking at her, he saw that the upward lifting of her face was misery and
not scorn. His heart grew
tender for everybody. He turned
and was gentle with Miriam, whom he had neglected till then.
At
the wood's edge they met Limb, a thin, swarthy man of forty, tenant of
Strelley Mill, which he ran as a cattle-raising farm.
He held the halter of the powerful stallion indifferently, as if he
were tired. The three stood to
let him pass over the stepping-stones of the first brook.
Paul admired that so large an animal should walk on such springy
toes, with an endless excess of vigour.
Limb pulled up before them.
"Tell
your father, Miss Leivers," he said, in a peculiar piping voice,
"that his young beas'es 'as broke that bottom fence three days an'
runnin'."
"Which?"
asked Miriam, tremulous.
The
great horse breathed heavily, shifting round its red flanks, and looking
suspiciously with its wonderful big eyes upwards from under its lowered head
and falling mane.
"Come
along a bit," replied Limb, "an' I'll show you."
The
man and the stallion went forward. It
danced sideways, shaking its white fetlocks and looking frightened, as it
felt itself in the brook.
"No
hanky-pankyin'," said the man affectionately to the beast.
It
went up the bank in little leaps, then splashed finely through the second
brook. Clara, walking with a
kind of sulky abandon, watched it half-fascinated, half-contemptuous.
Limb stopped and pointed to the fence under some willows.
"There,
you see where they got through," he said.
"My man's druv 'em back three times."
"Yes,"
answered Miriam, colouring as if she were at fault.
"Are
you comin' in?" asked the man.
"No,
thanks; but we should like to go by the pond."
"Well,
just as you've a mind," he said.
The
horse gave little whinneys of pleasure at being so near home.
"He
is glad to be back," said Clara, who was interested in the creature.
"Yes--'e's
been a tidy step to-day."
They
went through the gate, and saw approaching them from the big farmhouse a
smallish, dark, excitable-looking woman of about thirty-five. Her hair was
touched with grey, her dark eyes looked wild.
She walked with her hands behind her back. Her brother went forward.
As it saw her, the big bay stallion whinneyed again.
She came up excitedly.
"Are
you home again, my boy!" she said tenderly to the horse, not to the
man. The great beast shifted
round to her, ducking his head. She
smuggled into his mouth the wrinkled yellow apple she had been hiding behind
her back, then she kissed him near the eyes.
He gave a big sigh of pleasure.
She held his head in her arms against her breast.
"Isn't
he splendid!" said Miriam to her.
Miss
Limb looked up. Her dark eyes
glanced straight at Paul.
"Oh,
good-evening, Miss Leivers," she said.
"It's ages since you've been down."
Miriam
introduced her friends.
"Your
horse IS a fine fellow!" said Clara.
"Isn't
he!" Again she kissed him.
"As loving as any
man!"
"More
loving than most men, I should think," replied Clara.
"He's
a nice boy!" cried the woman, again embracing the horse.
Clara,
fascinated by the big beast, went up to stroke his neck.
"He's
quite gentle," said Miss Limb. "Don't
you think big fellows are?"
"He's
a beauty!" replied Clara.
She
wanted to look in his eyes. She
wanted him to look at her.
"It's
a pity he can't talk," she said.
"Oh,
but he can--all but," replied the other woman.
Then
her brother moved on with the horse.
"Are
you coming in? DO come in,
Mr.--I didn't catch it."
"Morel,"
said Miriam. "No, we won't
come in, but we should like to go by the mill-pond."
"Yes--yes,
do. Do you fish, Mr.
Morel?"
"No,"
said Paul.
"Because
if you do you might come and fish any time," said Miss Limb.
"We scarcely see a soul from week's end to week's end.
I should be thankful."
"What
fish are there in the pond?" he asked.
They
went through the front garden, over the sluice, and up the steep bank to the
pond, which lay in shadow, with its two wooded islets.
Paul walked with Miss Limb.
"I
shouldn't mind swimming here," he said.
"Do,"
she replied. "Come when
you like. My brother will be
awfully pleased to talk with you. He
is so quiet, because there is no one to talk to.
Do come and swim."
Clara
came up.
"It's
a fine depth," she said, "and so clear."
"Yes,"
said Miss Limb.
"Do
you swim?" said Paul. "Miss
Limb was just saying we could come when we liked."
"Of
course there's the farm-hands," said Miss Limb.
They
talked a few moments, then went on up the wild hill, leaving the lonely,
haggard-eyed woman on the bank.
The
hillside was all ripe with sunshine. It
was wild and tussocky, given over to rabbits.
The three walked in silence. Then:
"She
makes me feel uncomfortable," said Paul.
"You
mean Miss Limb?" asked Miriam. "Yes."
"What's
a matter with her? Is she going
dotty with being too lonely?"
"Yes,"
said Miriam. "It's not the
right sort of life for her. I
think it's cruel to bury her there. I
really ought to go and see her more. But--she
upsets me."
"She
makes me feel sorry for her--yes, and she bothers me," he said.
"I
suppose," blurted Clara suddenly, "she wants a man."
The
other two were silent for a few moments.
"But
it's the loneliness sends her cracked," said Paul.
Clara
did not answer, but strode on uphill. She
was walking with her hand hanging, her legs swinging as she kicked through
the dead thistles and the tussocky grass, her arms hanging loose.
Rather than walking, her handsome body seemed to be blundering up the
hill. A hot wave went over
Paul. He was curious about her.
Perhaps life had been cruel to her.
He forgot Miriam, who was walking beside him talking to him.
She glanced at him, finding he did not answer her.
His eyes were fixed ahead on Clara.
"Do
you still think she is disagreeable?" she asked.
He
did not notice that the question was sudden.
It ran with his thoughts.
"Something's
the matter with her," he said.
"Yes,"
answered Miriam.
They
found at the top of the hill a hidden wild field, two sides of which were
backed by the wood, the other sides by high loose hedges of hawthorn and
elder bushes. Between these
overgrown bushes were gaps that the cattle might have walked through had
there been any cattle now. There
the turf was smooth as velveteen, padded and holed by the rabbits.
The field itself was coarse, and crowded with tall, big cowslips that
had never been cut. Clusters of
strong flowers rose everywhere above the coarse tussocks of bent.
It was like a roadstead crowded with tan, fairy shipping.
"Ah!"
cried Miriam, and she looked at Paul, her dark eyes dilating.
He smiled. Together they
enjoyed the field of flowers. Clara, a little way off, was looking at the cowslips
disconsolately. Paul and Miriam
stayed close together, talking in subdued tones.
He kneeled on one knee, quickly gathering the best blossoms, moving
from tuft to tuft restlessly, talking softly all the time.
Miriam plucked the flowers lovingly, lingering over them.
He always seemed to her too quick and almost scientific. Yet his
bunches had a natural beauty more than hers. He loved them, but as if they
were his and he had a right to them. She had more reverence for them:
they held something she had not.
The
flowers were very fresh and sweet. He
wanted to drink them. As he
gathered them, he ate the little yellow trumpets.
Clara was still wandering about disconsolately.
Going towards her, he said:
"Why
don't you get some?"
"I
don't believe in it. They look
better growing."
"But
you'd like some?"
"They
want to be left."
"I
don't believe they do."
"I
don't want the corpses of flowers about me," she said.
"That's
a stiff, artificial notion," he said.
"They don't die any quicker in water than on their roots.
And besides, they LOOK nice in a bowl--they look jolly.
And you only call a thing a corpse because it looks
corpse-like."
"Whether
it is one or not?" she argued.
"It
isn't one to me. A dead flower
isn't a corpse of a flower."
Clara
now ignored him.
"And
even so--what right have you to pull them?" she asked.
"Because
I like them, and want them--and there's plenty of them."
"And
that is sufficient?"
"Yes.
Why not? I'm sure they'd
smell nice in your room in Nottingham."
"And
I should have the pleasure of watching them die."
"But
then--it does not matter if they do die."
Whereupon
he left her, and went stooping over the clumps of tangled flowers which
thickly sprinkled the field like pale, luminous foam-clots. Miriam had come close. Clara
was kneeling, breathing some scent from the cowslips.
"I
think," said Miriam, "if you treat them with reverence you don't
do them any harm. It is the
spirit you pluck them in that matters."
"Yes,"
he said. "But no, you get
'em because you want 'em, and that's all."
He held out his bunch.
Miriam
was silent. He picked some
more.
"Look
at these!" he continued; "sturdy and lusty like little trees and
like boys with fat legs."
Clara's
hat lay on the grass not far off. She
was kneeling, bending forward still to smell the flowers.
Her neck gave him a sharp pang, such a beautiful thing, yet not proud
of itself just now. Her breasts swung slightly in her blouse.
The arching curve of her back was beautiful and strong; she wore no
stays. Suddenly, without
knowing, he was scattering a handful of cowslips over her hair and neck,
saying:
"Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,
If the Lord won't have you the devil must."
The
chill flowers fell on her neck. She
looked up at him, with almost pitiful, scared grey eyes, wondering what he
was doing. Flowers fell on her
face, and she shut her eyes.
Suddenly,
standing there above her, he felt awkward.
"I
thought you wanted a funeral," he said, ill at ease.
Clara
laughed strangely, and rose, picking the cowslips from her hair.
She took up her hat and pinned it on.
One flower had remained tangled in her hair.
He saw, but would not tell her.
He gathered up the flowers he had sprinkled over her.
At
the edge of the wood the bluebells had flowed over into the field and stood
there like flood-water. But
they were fading now. Clara
strayed up to them. He wandered
after her. The bluebells
pleased him.
"Look
how they've come out of the wood!" he said.
Then
she turned with a flash of warmth and of gratitude.
"Yes,"
she smiled.
His
blood beat up.
"It
makes me think of the wild men of the woods, how terrified they would be
when they got breast to breast with the open space."
"Do
you think they were?" she asked.
"I
wonder which was more frightened among old tribes--those bursting out of
their darkness of woods upon all the space of light, or those from the open
tiptoeing into the forests."
"I
should think the second," she answered.
"Yes,
you DO feel like one of the open space sort, trying to force yourself into
the dark, don't you?"
"How
should I know?" she answered queerly.
The
conversation ended there.
The
evening was deepening over the earth. Already
the valley was full of shadow. One
tiny square of light stood opposite at Crossleigh Bank Farm.
Brightness was swimming on the tops of the hills.
Miriam came up slowly, her face in her big, loose bunch of flowers,
walking ankle-deep through the scattered froth of the cowslips.
Beyond her the trees were coming into shape, all shadow.
"Shall
we go?" she asked.
And
the three turned away. They
were all silent. Going down the
path they could see the light of home right across, and on the ridge of the
hill a thin dark outline with little lights, where the colliery village
touched the sky.
"It
has been nice, hasn't it?" he asked.
Miriam
murmured assent. Clara was
silent.
"Don't
you think so?" he persisted.
But
she walked with her head up, and still did not answer.
He could tell by the way she moved, as if she didn't care, that she
suffered.
At
this time Paul took his mother to Lincoln.
She was bright and enthusiastic as ever, but as he sat opposite her
in the railway carriage, she seemed to look frail. He had a momentary sensation as if she were slipping away
from him. Then he wanted to get
hold of her, to fasten her, almost to chain her.
He felt he must keep hold of her with his hand.
They
drew near to the city. Both
were at the window looking for the cathedral.
"There
she is, mother!" he cried.
They
saw the great cathedral lying couchant above the plain.
"Ah!"
she exclaimed. "So she
is!"
He
looked at his mother. Her blue
eyes were watching the cathedral quietly.
She seemed again to be beyond him.
Something in the eternal repose of the uplifted cathedral, blue and
noble against the sky, was reflected in her, something of the fatality.
What was, WAS. With all his young will he could not alter it.
He saw her face, the skin still fresh and pink and downy, but
crow's-feet near her eyes, her eyelids steady, sinking a little, her mouth
always closed with disillusion; and there was on her the same eternal look,
as if she knew fate at last. He
beat against it with all the strength of his soul.
"Look,
mother, how big she is above the town!
Think, there are streets and streets below her!
She looks bigger than the city altogether."
"So
she does!" exclaimed his mother, breaking bright into life again.
But he had seen her sitting, looking steady out of the window at the
cathedral, her face and eyes fixed, reflecting the relentlessness of life.
And the crow's-feet near her eyes, and her mouth shut so hard, made
him feel he would go mad.
They
ate a meal that she considered wildly extravagant.
"Don't
imagine I like it," she said, as she ate her cutlet.
"I DON'T like it, I really don't!
Just THINK of your money wasted!"
"You
never mind my money," he said. "You
forget I'm a fellow taking his girl for an outing."
And
he bought her some blue violets.
"Stop
it at once, sir!" she commanded. "How
can I do it?"
"You've
got nothing to do. Stand
still!"
And
in the middle of High Street he stuck the flowers in her coat.
"An
old thing like me!" she said, sniffing.
"You
see," he said, "I want people to think we're awful swells.
So look ikey."
"I'll
jowl your head," she laughed.
"Strut!"
he commanded. "Be a
fantail pigeon."
It
took him an hour to get her through the street. She stood above Glory Hole, she stood before Stone Bow, she
stood everywhere, and exclaimed.
A
man came up, took off his hat, and bowed to her.
"Can
I show you the town, madam?"
"No,
thank you," she answered. "I've
got my son."
Then
Paul was cross with her for not answering with more dignity.
"You
go away with you!" she exclaimed.
"Ha! that's the Jew's House.
Now, do you remember that lecture, Paul--?"
But
she could scarcely climb the cathedral hill.
He did not notice. Then
suddenly he found her unable to speak.
He took her into a little public-house, where she rested.
"It's
nothing," she said. "My
heart is only a bit old; one must expect it."
He
did not answer, but looked at her. Again
his heart was crushed in a hot grip. He wanted to cry, he wanted to smash things in fury.
They
set off again, pace by pace, so slowly.
And every step seemed like a weight on his chest.
He felt as if his heart would burst.
At last they came to the top. She
stood enchanted, looking at the castle gate, looking at the cathedral front.
She had quite forgotten herself.
"Now
THIS is better than I thought it could be!" she cried.
But
he hated it. Everywhere he
followed her, brooding. They
sat together in the cathedral. They
attended a little service in the choir.
She was timid.
"I
suppose it is open to anybody?" she asked him.
"Yes,"
he replied. "Do you think
they'd have the damned cheek to send us away."
"Well,
I'm sure," she exclaimed, "they would if they heard your
language."
Her
face seemed to shine again with joy and peace during the service.
And all the time he was wanting to rage and smash things and cry.
Afterwards,
when they were leaning over the wall, looking at the town below, he blurted
suddenly:
"Why
can't a man have a YOUNG mother? What
is she old for?"
"Well,"
his mother laughed, "she can scarcely help it."
"And
why wasn't I the oldest son? Look--they
say the young ones have the advantage--but look, THEY had the young mother.
You should have had me for your eldest son."
"I
didn't arrange it," she remonstrated.
"Come to consider, you're as much to blame as me."
He
turned on her, white, his eyes furious.
"What
are you old for!" he said, mad with his impotence.
"WHY can't you walk? WHY
can't you come with me to places?"
"At
one time," she replied, "I could have run up that hill a good deal
better than you."
"What's
the good of that to ME?" he cried, hitting his fist on the wall.
Then he became plaintive. "It's
too bad of you to be ill. Little,
it is--"
"Ill!"
she cried. "I'm a bit old,
and you'll have to put up with it, that's all."
They
were quiet. But it was as much
as they could bear. They got
jolly again over tea. As they
sat by Brayford, watching the boats, he told her about Clara.
His mother asked him innumerable questions.
"Then
who does she live with?"
"With
her mother, on Bluebell Hill."
"And
have they enough to keep them?"
"I
don't think so. I think they do
lace work."
"And
wherein lies her charm, my boy?"
"I
don't know that she's charming, mother.
But she's nice. And she
seems straight, you know--not a bit deep, not a bit."
"But
she's a good deal older than you."
"She's
thirty, I'm going on twenty-three."
"You
haven't told me what you like her for."
"Because
I don't know--a sort of defiant way she's got--a sort of angry way."
Mrs.
Morel considered. She would
have been glad now for her son to fall in love with some woman who
would--she did not know what. But
he fretted so, got so furious suddenly, and again was melancholic.
She wished he knew some nice woman-- She did not know what she
wished, but left it vague. At
any rate, she was not hostile to the idea of Clara.
Annie,
too, was getting married. Leonard
had gone away to work in Birmingham. One
week-end when he was home she had said to him:
"You
don't look very well, my lad."
"I
dunno," he said. "I
feel anyhow or nohow, ma."
He
called her "ma" already in his boyish fashion.
"Are
you sure they're good lodgings?" she asked.
"Yes--yes.
Only--it's a winder when you have to pour your own tea out--an'
nobody to grouse if you team it in your saucer and sup it up.
It somehow takes a' the taste out of it."
Mrs.
Morel laughed.
"And
so it knocks you up?" she said.
"I
dunno. I want to get
married," he blurted, twisting his fingers and looking down at his
boots. There was a silence.
"But,"
she exclaimed, "I thought you said you'd wait another year."
"Yes,
I did say so," he replied stubbornly.
Again
she considered.
"And
you know," she said, "Annie's a bit of a spendthrift.
She's saved no more than eleven pounds.
And I know, lad, you haven't had much chance."
He
coloured up to the ears.
"I've
got thirty-three quid," he said.
"It
doesn't go far," she answered.
He
said nothing, but twisted his fingers.
"And
you know," she said, "I've nothing---"
"I
didn't want, ma!" he cried, very red, suffering and remonstrating.
"No,
my lad, I know. I was only
wishing I had. And take away
five pounds for the wedding and things--it leaves twenty-nine pounds. You won't do much on that."
He
twisted still, impotent, stubborn, not looking up.
"But
do you really want to get married?" she asked. "Do you feel as if you ought?"
He
gave her one straight look from his blue eyes.
"Yes,"
he said.
"Then,"
she replied, "we must all do the best we can for it, lad."
The
next time he looked up there were tears in his eyes.
"I
don't want Annie to feel handicapped," he said, struggling.
"My
lad," she said, "you're steady--you've got a decent place.
If a man had NEEDED me I'd have married him on his last week's wages.
She may find it a bit hard to start humbly.
Young girls ARE like that. They
look forward to the fine home they think they'll have.
But I had expensive furniture. It's
not everything."
So
the wedding took place almost immediately.
Arthur came home, and was splendid in uniform. Annie looked nice in a dove-grey dress that she could take
for Sundays. Morel called her a
fool for getting married, and was cool with his son-in-law. Mrs. Morel had white tips in her bonnet, and some white on
her blouse, and was teased by both her sons for fancying herself so grand.
Leonard was jolly and cordial, and felt a fearful fool.
Paul could not quite see what Annie wanted to get married for.
He was fond of her, and she of him.
Still, he hoped rather lugubriously that it would turn out all right.
Arthur was astonishingly handsome in his scarlet and yellow, and he
knew it well, but was secretly ashamed of the uniform.
Annie cried her eyes up in the kitchen, on leaving her mother.
Mrs. Morel cried a little, then patted her on the back and said:
"But
don't cry, child, he'll be good to you."
Morel
stamped and said she was a fool to go and tie herself up.
Leonard looked white and overwrought.
Mrs. Morel said to him:
"I
s'll trust her to you, my lad, and hold you responsible for her."
"You
can," he said, nearly dead with the ordeal. And it was all over.
When
Morel and Arthur were in bed, Paul sat talking, as he often did, with his
mother.
"You're
not sorry she's married, mother, are you?" he asked.
"I'm
not sorry she's married--but--it seems strange that she should go from me.
It even seems to me hard that she can prefer to go with her Leonard.
That's how mothers are--I know it's silly."
"And
shall you be miserable about her?"
"When
I think of my own wedding day," his mother answered, "I can only
hope her life will be different."
"But
you can trust him to be good to her?"
"Yes,
yes. They say he's not good
enough for her. But I say if a
man is GENUINE, as he is, and a girl is fond of him--then--it should be all
right. He's as good as
she."
"So
you don't mind?"
"I
would NEVER have let a daughter of mine marry a man I didn't FEEL to be
genuine through and through. And
yet, there's a gap now she's gone."
They
were both miserable, and wanted her back again. It seemed to Paul his mother looked lonely, in her new black
silk blouse with its bit of white trimming.
"At
any rate, mother, I s'll never marry," he said.
"Ay,
they all say that, my lad. You've
not met the one yet. Only wait
a year or two."
"But
I shan't marry, mother. I shall
live with you, and we'll have a servant."
"Ay,
my lad, it's easy to talk. We'll
see when the time comes."
"What
time? I'm nearly
twenty-three."
"Yes,
you're not one that would marry young.
But in three years' time---"
"I
shall be with you just the same."
"We'll
see, my boy, we'll see."
"But
you don't want me to marry?"
"I
shouldn't like to think of you going through your life without anybody to
care for you and do--no."
"And
you think I ought to marry?"
"Sooner
or later every man ought."
"But
you'd rather it were later."
"It
would be hard--and very hard. It's
as they say:
"'A son's my son till he takes him a wife,
But my daughter's my daughter the whole of her life.'"
"And
you think I'd let a wife take me from you?"
"Well,
you wouldn't ask her to marry your mother as well as you," Mrs. Morel
smiled.
"She
could do what she liked; she wouldn't have to interfere."
"She
wouldn't--till she'd got you--and then you'd see."
"I
never will see. I'll never
marry while I've got you--I won't."
"But
I shouldn't like to leave you with nobody, my boy," she cried.
"You're
not going to leave me. What are
you? Fifty-three!
I'll give you till seventy-five. There you are, I'm fat and
forty-four. Then I'll marry a staid body.
See!"
His
mother sat and laughed.
"Go
to bed," she said--"go to bed."
"And
we'll have a pretty house, you and me, and a servant, and it'll be just all
right. I s'll perhaps be rich
with my painting."
"Will
you go to bed!"
"And
then you s'll have a pony-carriage. See
yourself--a little Queen Victoria trotting round."
"I
tell you to go to bed," she laughed.
He
kissed her and went. His plans
for the future were always the same.
Mrs.
Morel sat brooding--about her daughter, about Paul, about Arthur.
She fretted at losing Annie. The
family was very closely bound. And
she felt she MUST live now, to be with her children.
Life was so rich for her. Paul
wanted her, and so did Arthur. Arthur
never knew how deeply he loved her. He
was a creature of the moment. Never
yet had he been forced to realise himself.
The army had disciplined his body, but not his soul.
He was in perfect health and very handsome. His dark, vigorous hair sat close to his smallish head.
There was something childish about his nose, something almost girlish
about his dark blue eyes. But he had the fun red mouth of a man under his brown
moustache, and his jaw was strong. It
was his father's mouth; it was the nose and eyes of her own mother's
people--good-looking, weak-principled folk.
Mrs. Morel was anxious about him.
Once he had really run the rig he was safe. But how far would he go?
The
army had not really done him any good.
He resented bitterly the authority of the officers.
He hated having to obey as if he were an animal.
But he had too much sense to kick.
So he turned his attention to getting the best out of it.
He could sing, he was a boon-companion.
Often he got into scrapes, but they were the manly scrapes that are
easily condoned. So he made a
good time out of it, whilst his self-respect was in suppression.
He trusted to his good looks and handsome figure, his refinement, his
decent education to get him most of what he wanted, and he was not
disappointed. Yet he was
restless. Something seemed to
gnaw him inside. He was never
still, he was never alone. With
his mother he was rather humble. Paul
he admired and loved and despised slightly.
And Paul admired and loved and despised him slightly.
Mrs.
Morel had had a few pounds left to her by her father, and she decided to buy
her son out of the army. He was
wild with joy. Now he was like
a lad taking a holiday.
He
had always been fond of Beatrice Wyld, and during his furlough he picked up
with her again. She was
stronger and better in health. The
two often went long walks together, Arthur taking her arm in soldier's
fashion, rather stiffly. And
she came to play the piano whilst he sang.
Then Arthur would unhook his tunic collar.
He grew flushed, his eyes were bright, he sang in a manly tenor.
Afterwards they sat together on the sofa.
He seemed to flaunt his body: she
was aware of him so--the strong chest, the sides, the thighs in their
close-fitting trousers.
He
liked to lapse into the dialect when he talked to her.
She would sometimes smoke with him.
Occasionally she would only take a few whiffs at his cigarette.
"Nay,"
he said to her one evening, when she reached for his cigarette.
"Nay, tha doesna. I'll
gi'e thee a smoke kiss if ter's a mind."
"I
wanted a whiff, no kiss at all," she answered.
"Well,
an' tha s'lt ha'e a whiff," he said, "along wi' t' kiss."
"I
want a draw at thy fag," she cried, snatching for the cigarette between
his lips.
He
was sitting with his shoulder touching her.
She was small and quick as lightning.
He just escaped.
"I'll
gi'e thee a smoke kiss," he said.
"Tha'rt
a knivey nuisance, Arty Morel," she said, sitting back.
"Ha'e
a smoke kiss?"
The
soldier leaned forward to her, smiling.
His face was near hers.
"Shonna!"
she replied, turning away her head.
He
took a draw at his cigarette, and pursed up his mouth, and put his lips
close to her. His dark-brown
cropped moustache stood out like a brush.
She looked at the puckered crimson lips, then suddenly snatched the
cigarette from his fingers and darted away.
He, leaping after her, seized the comb from her back hair.
She turned, threw the cigarette at him.
He picked it up, put it in his mouth, and sat down.
"Nuisance!"
she cried. "Give me my
comb!"
She
was afraid that her hair, specially done for him, would come down.
She stood with her hands to her head.
He hid the comb between his knees.
"I've
non got it," he said.
The
cigarette trembled between his lips with laughter as he spoke.
"Liar!"
she said.
"'S
true as I'm here!" he laughed, showing his hands.
"You
brazen imp!" she exclaimed, rushing and scuffling for the comb, which
he had under his knees. As she
wrestled with him, pulling at his smooth, tight-covered knees, he laughed
till he lay back on the sofa shaking with laughter.
The cigarette fell from his mouth almost singeing his throat.
Under his delicate tan the blood flushed up, and he laughed till his
blue eyes were blinded, his throat swollen almost to choking.
Then he sat up. Beatrice
was putting in her comb.
"Tha
tickled me, Beat," he said thickly.
Like
a flash her small white hand went out and smacked his face.
He started up, glaring at her. They
stared at each other. Slowly
the flush mounted her cheek, she dropped her eyes, then her head.
He sat down sulkily. She
went into the scullery to adjust her hair.
In private there she shed a few tears, she did not know what for.
When
she returned she was pursed up close. But
it was only a film over her fire. He,
with ruffled hair, was sulking upon the sofa.
She sat down opposite, in the armchair, and neither spoke.
The clock ticked in the silence like blows.
"You
are a little cat, Beat," he said at length, half apologetically.
"Well,
you shouldn't be brazen," she replied.
There
was again a long silence. He
whistled to himself like a man much agitated but defiant. Suddenly she went across to him and kissed him.
"Did
it, pore fing!" she mocked.
He
lifted his face, smiling curiously.
"Kiss?"
he invited her.
"Daren't
I?" she asked.
"Go
on!" he challenged, his mouth lifted to her.
Deliberately,
and with a peculiar quivering smile that seemed to overspread her whole
body, she put her mouth on his. Immediately
his arms folded round her. As
soon as the long kiss was finished she drew back her head from him, put her
delicate fingers on his neck, through the open collar.
Then she closed her eyes, giving herself up again in a kiss.
She
acted of her own free will. What
she would do she did, and made nobody responsible.
Paul
felt life changing around him. The
conditions of youth were gone. Now
it was a home of grown-up people. Annie
was a married woman, Arthur was following his own pleasure in a way unknown
to his folk. For so long they
had all lived at home, and gone out to pass their time.
But now, for Annie and Arthur, life lay outside their mother's house.
They came home for holiday and for rest.
So there was that strange, half-empty feeling about the house, as if
the birds had flown. Paul
became more and more unsettled. Annie
and Arthur had gone. He was
restless to follow. Yet home was for him beside his mother.
And still there was something else, something outside, something he
wanted.
He
grew more and more restless. Miriam
did not satisfy him. His old
mad desire to be with her grew weaker.
Sometimes he met Clara in Nottingham, sometimes he went to meetings
with her, sometimes he saw her at Willey Farm.
But on these last occasions the situation became strained.
There was a triangle of antagonism between Paul and Clara and Miriam.
With Clara he took on a smart, worldly, mocking tone very
antagonistic to Miriam. It did not matter what went before. She might be intimate and sad with him. Then as soon as Clara appeared, it all vanished, and he
played to the newcomer.
Miriam
had one beautiful evening with him in the hay.
He had been on the horse-rake, and having finished, came to help her
to put the hay in cocks. Then
he talked to her of his hopes and despairs, and his whole soul seemed to lie
bare before her. She felt as if
she watched the very quivering stuff of life in him.
The moon came out: they
walked home together: he seemed
to have come to her because he needed her so badly, and she listened to him,
gave him all her love and her faith. It
seemed to her he brought her the best of himself to keep, and that she would
guard it all her life. Nay, the
sky did not cherish the stars more surely and eternally than she would guard
the good in the soul of Paul Morel. She
went on home alone, feeling exalted, glad in her faith.
And
then, the next day, Clara came. They
were to have tea in the hayfield. Miriam
watched the evening drawing to gold and shadow.
And all the time Paul was sporting with Clara.
He made higher and higher heaps of hay that they were jumping over.
Miriam did not care for the game, and stood aside.
Edgar and Geoffrey and Maurice and Clara and Paul jumped.
Paul won, because he was light.
Clara's blood was roused. She
could run like an Amazon. Paul
loved the determined way she rushed at the hay-cock and leaped, landed on
the other side, her breasts shaken, her thick hair come undone.
"You
touched!" he cried. "You
touched!"
"No!"
she flashed, turning to Edgar. "I
didn't touch, did I? Wasn't I
clear?"
"I
couldn't say," laughed Edgar.
None
of them could say.
"But
you touched," said Paul. "You're
beaten."
"I
did NOT touch!" she cried.
"As
plain as anything," said Paul.
"Box
his ears for me!" she cried to Edgar.
"Nay,"
Edgar laughed. "I daren't.
You must do it yourself."
"And
nothing can alter the fact that you touched," laughed Paul.
She
was furious with him. Her
little triumph before these lads and men was gone.
She had forgotten herself in the game.
Now he was to humble her.
"I
think you are despicable!" she said.
And
again he laughed, in a way that tortured Miriam.
"And
I KNEW you couldn't jump that heap," he teased.
She
turned her back on him. Yet
everybody could see that the only person she listened to, or was conscious
of, was he, and he of her. It
pleased the men to see this battle between them.
But Miriam was tortured.
Paul
could choose the lesser in place of the higher, she saw.
He could be unfaithful to himself, unfaithful to the real, deep Paul
Morel. There was a danger of
his becoming frivolous, of his running after his satisfaction like any
Arthur, or like his father. It made Miriam bitter to think that he should throw away his
soul for this flippant traffic of triviality with Clara. She walked in bitterness and silence, while the other two
rallied each other, and Paul sported.
And
afterwards, he would not own it, but he was rather ashamed of himself, and
prostrated himself before Miriam. Then
again he rebelled.
"It's
not religious to be religious," he said.
"I reckon a crow is religious when it sails across the sky.
But it only does it because it feels itself carried to where it's
going, not because it thinks it is being eternal."
But
Miriam knew that one should be religious in everything, have God, whatever
God might be, present in everything.
"I
don't believe God knows such a lot about Himself," he cried.
"God doesn't KNOW things, He IS things. And I'm sure He's not
soulful."
And
then it seemed to her that Paul was arguing God on to his own side, because
he wanted his own way and his own pleasure.
There was a long battle between him and her. He was utterly unfaithful to her even in her own presence;
then he was ashamed, then repentant; then he hated her, and went off again.
Those were the ever-recurring conditions.
She
fretted him to the bottom of his soul.
There she remained--sad, pensive, a worshipper.
And he caused her sorrow. Half
the time he grieved for her, half the time he hated her.
She was his conscience; and he felt, somehow, he had got a conscience
that was too much for him. He
could not leave her, because in one way she did hold the best of him.
He could not stay with her because she did not take the rest of him,
which was three-quarters. So he chafed himself into rawness over her.
When
she was twenty-one he wrote her a letter which could only have been written
to her.
"May
I speak of our old, worn love, this last time.
It, too, is changing, is it not?
Say, has not the body of that love died, and left you its
invulnerable soul? You see, I
can give you a spirit love, I have given it you this long, long time; but
not embodied passion. See, you
are a nun. I have given you
what I would give a holy nun--as a mystic monk to a mystic nun.
Surely you esteem it best. Yet
you regret--no, have regretted--the other.
In all our relations no body enters.
I do not talk to you through the senses--rather through the spirit.
That is why we cannot love in the common sense.
Ours is not an everyday affection.
As yet we are mortal, and to live side by side with one another would
be dreadful, for somehow with you I cannot long be trivial, and, you know,
to be always beyond this mortal state would be to lose it.
If people marry, they must live together as affectionate humans, who
may be commonplace with each other without feeling awkward--not as two
souls. So I feel it.
"Ought
I to send this letter?--I doubt it. But
there--it is best to understand. Au
revoir."
Miriam
read this letter twice, after which she sealed it up.
A year later she broke the seal to show her mother the letter.
"You
are a nun--you are a nun." The
words went into her heart again and again.
Nothing he ever had said had gone into her so deeply, fixedly, like a
mortal wound.
She
answered him two days after the party.
"'Our
intimacy would have been all-beautiful but for one little mistake,'"
she quoted. "Was the
mistake mine?"
Almost
immediately he replied to her from Nottingham, sending her at the same time
a little "Omar Khayyam."
"I
am glad you answered; you are so calm and natural you put me to shame.
What a ranter I am! We
are often out of sympathy. But
in fundamentals we may always be together I think.
"I
must thank you for your sympathy with my painting and drawing.
Many a sketch is dedicated to you.
I do look forward to your criticisms, which, to my shame and glory,
are always grand appreciations. It
is a lovely joke, that. Au
revoir."
This
was the end of the first phase of Paul's love affair.
He was now about twenty-three years old, and, though still virgin,
the sex instinct that Miriam had over-refined for so long now grew
particularly strong. Often, as
he talked to Clara Dawes, came that thickening and quickening of his blood,
that peculiar concentration in the breast, as if something were alive there,
a new self or a new centre of consciousness, warning him that sooner or
later he would have to ask one woman or another.
But he belonged to Miriam. Of
that she was so fixedly sure that he allowed her right.
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