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He
went back to her. Something in
her, when he looked at her, brought the tears almost to his eyes.
One day he stood behind her as she sang.
Annie was playing a song on the piano.
As Miriam sang her mouth seemed hopeless.
She sang like a nun singing to heaven.
It reminded him so much of the mouth and eyes of one who sings beside
a Botticelli Madonna, so spiritual. Again,
hot as steel, came up the pain in him.
Why must he ask her for the other thing?
Why was there his blood battling with her?
If only he could have been always gentle, tender with her, breathing
with her the atmosphere of reverie and religious dreams, he would give his
right hand. It was not fair to
hurt her. There seemed an
eternal maidenhood about her; and when he thought of her mother, he saw the
great brown eyes of a maiden who was nearly scared and shocked out of her
virgin maidenhood, but not quite, in spite of her seven children.
They had been born almost leaving her out of count, not of her, but
upon her. So she could never
let them go, because she never had possessed them.
Mrs.
Morel saw him going again frequently to Miriam, and was astonished.
He said nothing to his mother. He
did not explain nor excuse himself. If
he came home late, and she reproached him, he frowned and turned on her in
an overbearing way:
"I
shall come home when I like," he said; "I am old enough."
"Must
she keep you till this time?"
"It
is I who stay," he answered.
"And
she lets you? But very
well," she said.
And
she went to bed, leaving the door unlocked for him; but she lay listening
until he came, often long after. It
was a great bitterness to her that he had gone back to Miriam.
She recognised, however, the uselessness of any further interference.
He went to Willey Farm as a man now, not as a youth.
She had no right over him. There
was a coldness between him and her. He
hardly told her anything. Discarded,
she waited on him, cooked for him still, and loved to slave for him; but her
face closed again like a mask. There
was nothing for her to do now but the housework; for all the rest he had
gone to Miriam. She could not
forgive him. Miriam killed the
joy and the warmth in him. He
had been such a jolly lad, and full of the warmest affection; now he grew
colder, more and more irritable and gloomy.
It reminded her of William; but Paul was worse.
He did things with more intensity, and more realisation of what he
was about. His mother knew how
he was suffering for want of a woman, and she saw him going to Miriam. If he had made up his mind, nothing on earth would alter him.
Mrs. Morel was tired. She
began to give up at last; she had finished.
She was in the way.
He
went on determinedly. He
realised more or less what his mother felt.
It only hardened his soul. He
made himself callous towards her; but it was like being callous to his own
health. It undermined him
quickly; yet he persisted.
He
lay back in the rocking-chair at Willey Farm one evening.
He had been talking to Miriam for some weeks, but had not come to the
point. Now he said suddenly:
"I
am twenty-four, almost."
She
had been brooding. She looked
up at him suddenly in surprise.
"Yes.
What makes you say it?"
There
was something in the charged atmosphere that she dreaded.
"Sir
Thomas More says one can marry at twenty-four."
She
laughed quaintly, saying:
"Does
it need Sir Thomas More's sanction?"
"No;
but one ought to marry about then."
"Ay,"
she answered broodingly; and she waited.
"I
can't marry you," he continued slowly, "not now, because we've no
money, and they depend on me at home."
She
sat half-guessing what was coming.
"But
I want to marry now---"
"You
want to marry?" she repeated.
"A
woman--you know what I mean."
She
was silent.
"Now,
at last, I must," he said.
"Ay,"
she answered.
"And
you love me?"
She
laughed bitterly.
"Why
are you ashamed of it," he answered.
"You wouldn't be ashamed before your God, why are you before
people?"
"Nay,"
she answered deeply, "I am not ashamed."
"You
are," he replied bitterly; "and it's my fault.
But you know I can't help being--as I am--don't you?"
"I
know you can't help it," she replied.
"I
love you an awful lot--then there is something short."
"Where?"
she answered, looking at him.
"Oh,
in me! It is I who ought to be
ashamed--like a spiritual cripple. And
I am ashamed. It is misery.
Why is it?"
"I
don't know," replied Miriam.
"And
I don't know," he repeated. "Don't
you think we have been too fierce in our what they call purity?
Don't you think that to be so much afraid and averse is a sort of
dirtiness?"
She
looked at him with startled dark eyes.
"You
recoiled away from anything of the sort, and I took the motion from you, and
recoiled also, perhaps worse."
There
was silence in the room for some time.
"Yes,"
she said, "it is so."
"There
is between us," he said, "all these years of intimacy.
I feel naked enough before you.
Do you understand?"
"I
think so," she answered.
"And
you love me?"
She
laughed.
"Don't
be bitter," he pleaded.
She
looked at him and was sorry for him; his eyes were dark with torture.
She was sorry for him; it was worse for him to have this deflated
love than for herself, who could never be properly mated.
He was restless, for ever urging forward and trying to find a way
out. He might do as he liked,
and have what he liked of her.
"Nay,"
she said softly, "I am not bitter."
She
felt she could bear anything for him; she would suffer for him.
She put her hand on his knee as he leaned forward in his chair.
He took it and kissed it; but it hurt to do so.
He felt he was putting himself aside.
He sat there sacrificed to her purity, which felt more like nullity.
How could he kiss her hand passionately, when it would drive her
away, and leave nothing but pain? Yet
slowly he drew her to him and kissed her.
They
knew each other too well to pretend anything.
As she kissed him, she watched his eyes; they were staring across the
room, with a peculiar dark blaze in them that fascinated her.
He was perfectly still. She
could feel his heart throbbing heavily in his breast.
"What
are you thinking about?" she asked.
The
blaze in his eyes shuddered, became uncertain.
"I
was thinking, all the while, I love you.
I have been obstinate."
She
sank her head on his breast.
"Yes,"
she answered.
"That's
all," he said, and his voice seemed sure, and his mouth was kissing her
throat.
Then
she raised her head and looked into his eyes with her full gaze of love.
The blaze struggled, seemed to try to get away from her, and then was
quenched. He turned his head
quickly aside. It was a moment
of anguish.
"Kiss
me," she whispered.
He
shut his eyes, and kissed her, and his arms folded her closer and closer.
When
she walked home with him over the fields, he said:
"I
am glad I came back to you. I
feel so simple with you--as if there was nothing to hide. We will be happy?"
"Yes,"
she murmured, and the tears came to her eyes.
"Some
sort of perversity in our souls," he said, "makes us not want, get
away from, the very thing we want. We
have to fight against that."
"Yes,"
she said, and she felt stunned.
As
she stood under the drooping-thorn tree, in the darkness by the roadside, he
kissed her, and his fingers wandered over her face. In the darkness, where he could not see her but only feel
her, his passion flooded him. He
clasped her very close.
"Sometime
you will have me?" he murmured, hiding his face on her shoulder.
It was so difficult.
"Not
now," she said.
His
hopes and his heart sunk. A
dreariness came over him.
"No,"
he said.
His
clasp of her slackened.
"I
love to feel your arm THERE!" she said, pressing his arm against her
back, where it went round her waist. "It
rests me so."
He
tightened the pressure of his arm upon the small of her back to rest her.
"We
belong to each other," he said.
"Yes."
"Then
why shouldn't we belong to each other altogether?"
"But---" she faltered.
"I
know it's a lot to ask," he said; "but there's not much risk for
you really--not in the Gretchen way. You
can trust me there?"
"Oh,
I can trust you." The
answer came quick and strong. "It's
not that--it's not that at all--but---"
"What?"
She
hid her face in his neck with a little cry of misery.
"I
don't know!" she cried.
She
seemed slightly hysterical, but with a sort of horror.
His heart died in him.
"You
don't think it ugly?" he asked.
"No,
not now. You have TAUGHT me it
isn't."
"You
are afraid?"
She
calmed herself hastily.
"Yes,
I am only afraid," she said.
He
kissed her tenderly.
"Never
mind," he said. "You
should please yourself."
Suddenly
she gripped his arms round her, and clenched her body stiff.
"You
SHALL have me," she said, through her shut teeth.
His
heart beat up again like fire. He
folded her close, and his mouth was on her throat. She could not bear it. She
drew away. He disengaged her.
"Won't
you be late?" she asked gently.
He
sighed, scarcely hearing what she said.
She waited, wishing he would go.
At last he kissed her quickly and climbed the fence.
Looking round he saw the pale blotch of her face down in the darkness
under the hanging tree. There was no more of her but this pale blotch.
"Good-bye!"
she called softly. She had no
body, only a voice and a dim face. He
turned away and ran down the road, his fists clenched; and when he came to
the wall over the lake he leaned there, almost stunned, looking up the black
water.
Miriam
plunged home over the meadows. She
was not afraid of people, what they might say; but she dreaded the issue
with him. Yes, she would let
him have her if he insisted; and then, when she thought of it afterwards,
her heart went down. He would
be disappointed, he would find no satisfaction, and then he would go away.
Yet he was so insistent; and over this, which did not seem so
all-important to her, was their love to break down.
After all, he was only like other men, seeking his satisfaction.
Oh, but there was something more in him, something deeper!
She could trust to it, in spite of all desires.
He said that possession was a great moment in life.
All strong emotions concentrated there.
Perhaps it was so. There
was something divine in it; then she would submit, religiously, to the
sacrifice. He should have her. And
at the thought her whole body clenched itself involuntarily, hard, as if
against something; but Life forced her through this gate of suffering, too,
and she would submit. At any
rate, it would give him what he wanted, which was her deepest wish. She brooded and brooded and brooded herself towards accepting
him.
He
courted her now like a lover. Often,
when he grew hot, she put his face from her, held it between her hands, and
looked in his eyes. He could
not meet her gaze. Her dark
eyes, full of love, earnest and searching, made him turn away.
Not for an instant would she let him forget. Back again he had to torture himself into a sense of his
responsibility and hers. Never
any relaxing, never any leaving
himself to the great hunger and impersonality of passion; he must be brought
back to a deliberate, reflective creature.
As if from a swoon of passion she caged him back to the littleness,
the personal relationship. He
could not bear it. "Leave
me alone--leave me alone!" he wanted to cry; but she wanted him to look
at her with eyes full of love. His
eyes, full of the dark, impersonal fire of desire, did not belong to her.
There
was a great crop of cherries at the farm.
The trees at the back of the house, very large and tall, hung thick
with scarlet and crimson drops, under the dark leaves. Paul and Edgar were gathering the fruit one evening.
It had been a hot day, and now the clouds were rolling in the sky,
dark and warm. Paul combed high
in the tree, above the scarlet roofs of the buildings.
The wind, moaning steadily, made the whole tree rock with a subtle,
thrilling motion that stirred the blood.
The young man, perched insecurely in the slender branches, rocked
till he felt slightly drunk, reached down the boughs, where the scarlet
beady cherries hung thick underneath, and tore off handful after handful of
the sleek, cool-fleshed fruit. Cherries touched his ears and his neck as he stretched
forward, their chill finger-tips sending a flash down his blood.
All shades of red, from a golden vermilion to a rich crimson, glowed
and met his eyes under a darkness of leaves.
The
sun, going down, suddenly caught the broken clouds. Immense piles of gold flared out in the south-east, heaped in
soft, glowing yellow right up the sky.
The world, till now dusk and grey, reflected the gold glow,
astonished. Everywhere the
trees, and the grass, and the far-off water, seemed roused from the twilight
and shining.
Miriam
came out wondering.
"Oh!"
Paul heard her mellow voice call, "isn't it wonderful?"
He
looked down. There was a faint
gold glimmer on her face, that looked very soft, turned up to him.
"How
high you are!" she said.
Beside
her, on the rhubarb leaves, were four dead birds, thieves that had been
shot. Paul saw some cherry
stones hanging quite bleached, like skeletons, picked clear of flesh.
He looked down again to Miriam.
"Clouds
are on fire," he said.
"Beautiful!"
she cried.
She
seemed so small, so soft, so tender, down there. He threw a handful of cherries at her. She was startled and frightened.
He laughed with a low, chuckling sound, and pelted her.
She ran for shelter, picking up some cherries.
Two fine red pairs she hung over her ears; then she looked up again.
"Haven't
you got enough?" she asked.
"Nearly.
It is like being on a ship up here."
"And
how long will you stay?"
"While
the sunset lasts."
She
went to the fence and sat there, watching the gold clouds fall to pieces,
and go in immense, rose-coloured ruin towards the darkness.
Gold flamed to scarlet, like pain in its intense brightness.
Then the scarlet sank to rose, and rose to crimson, and quickly the
passion went out of the sky. All
the world was dark grey. Paul
scrambled quickly down with his basket, tearing his shirt-sleeve as he did
so.
"They
are lovely," said Miriam, fingering the cherries.
"I've
torn my sleeve," he answered.
She
took the three-cornered rip, saying:
"I
shall have to mend it." It
was near the shoulder. She put
her fingers through the tear. "How
warm!" she said.
He
laughed. There was a new,
strange note in his voice, one that made her pant.
"Shall
we stay out?" he said.
"Won't
it rain?" she asked.
"No,
let us walk a little way."
They
went down the fields and into the thick plantation of trees and pines.
"Shall
we go in among the trees?" he asked.
"Do
you want to?"
"Yes."
It
was very dark among the firs, and the sharp spines pricked her face.
She was afraid. Paul was silent and strange.
"I
like the darkness," he said. "I
wish it were thicker--good, thick darkness."
He
seemed to be almost unaware of her as a person: she was only to him then a woman. She was afraid.
He
stood against a pine-tree trunk and took her in his arms.
She relinquished herself to him, but it was a sacrifice in which she
felt something of horror. This thick-voiced, oblivious man was a stranger to her.
Later
it began to rain. The
pine-trees smelled very strong. Paul
lay with his head on the ground, on the dead pine needles, listening to the
sharp hiss of the rain--a steady, keen noise.
His heart was down, very heavy.
Now he realised that she had not been with him all the time, that her
soul had stood apart, in a sort of horror.
He was physically at rest, but no more.
Very dreary at heart, very sad, and very tender, his fingers wandered
over her face pitifully. Now
again she loved him deeply. He
was tender and beautiful.
"The
rain!" he said.
"Yes--is
it coming on you?"
She
put her hands over him, on his hair, on his shoulders, to feel if the
raindrops fell on him. She
loved him dearly. He, as he lay
with his face on the dead pine-leaves, felt extraordinarily quiet.
He did not mind if the raindrops came on him: he would have lain and got wet through: he felt as if nothing mattered, as if his living were smeared
away into the beyond, near and quite lovable.
This strange, gentle reaching-out to death was new to him.
"We
must go," said Miriam.
"Yes,"
he answered, but did not move.
To
him now, life seemed a shadow, day a white shadow; night, and death, and
stillness, and inaction, this seemed like BEING. To be alive, to be urgent and insistent--that was NOT-TO-BE.
The highest of all was to melt out into the darkness and sway there,
identified with the great Being.
"The
rain is coming in on us," said Miriam.
He
rose, and assisted her.
"It
is a pity," he said.
"What?"
"To
have to go. I feel so
still."
"Still!"
she repeated.
"Stiller
than I have ever been in my life."
He
was walking with his hand in hers. She
pressed his fingers, feeling a slight fear.
Now he seemed beyond her; she had a fear lest she should lose him.
"The
fir-trees are like presences on the darkness:
each one only a presence."
She
was afraid, and said nothing.
"A
sort of hush: the whole night
wondering and asleep: I suppose
that's what we do in death--sleep in wonder."
She
had been afraid before of the brute in him:
now of the mystic. She
trod beside him in silence. The
rain fell with a heavy "Hush!" on the trees.
At last they gained the cartshed.
"Let
us stay here awhile," he said.
There
was a sound of rain everywhere, smothering everything.
"I
feel so strange and still," he said; "along with everything."
"Ay,"
she answered patiently.
He
seemed again unaware of her, though he held her hand close.
"To
be rid of our individuality, which is our will, which is our effort--to live
effortless, a kind of curious sleep--that is very beautiful, I think; that
is our after-life--our immortality."
"Yes?"
"Yes--and
very beautiful to have."
"You
don't usually say that."
"No."
In
a while they went indoors. Everybody
looked at them curiously. He
still kept the quiet, heavy look in his eyes, the stillness in his voice.
Instinctively, they all left him alone.
About
this time Miriam's grandmother, who lived in a tiny cottage in Woodlinton,
fell ill, and the girl was sent to keep house.
It was a beautiful little place.
The cottage had a big garden in front, with red brick walls, against
which the plum trees were nailed. At
the back another garden was separated from the fields by a tall old hedge.
It was very pretty. Miriam
had not much to do, so she found time for her beloved reading, and for
writing little introspective pieces which interested her.
At
the holiday-time her grandmother, being better, was driven to Derby to stay
with her daughter for a day or two. She
was a crotchety old lady, and might return the second day or the third; so
Miriam stayed alone in the cottage, which also pleased her.
Paul
used often to cycle over, and they had as a rule peaceful and happy times.
He did not embarrass her much; but then on the Monday of the holiday
he was to spend a whole day with her.
It
was perfect weather. He left
his mother, telling her where he was going.
She would be alone all the day.
It cast a shadow over him; but he had three days that were all his
own, when he was going to do as he liked.
It was sweet to rush through the morning lanes on his bicycle.
He
got to the cottage at about eleven o'clock.
Miriam was busy preparing dinner.
She looked so perfectly in keeping with the little kitchen, ruddy and
busy. He kissed her and sat
down to watch. The room was
small and cosy. The sofa was
covered all over with a sort of linen in squares of red and pale blue, old,
much washed, but pretty. There
was a stuffed owl in a case over a corner cupboard.
The sunlight came through the leaves of the scented geraniums in the
window. She was cooking a
chicken in his honour. It was
their cottage for the day, and they were man and wife.
He beat the eggs for her and peeled the potatoes.
He thought she gave a feeling of home almost like his mother; and no
one could look more beautiful, with her tumbled curls, when she was flushed
from the fire.
The
dinner was a great success. Like
a young husband, he carved. They
talked all the time with unflagging zest.
Then he wiped the dishes she had washed, and they went out down the
fields. There was a bright
little brook that ran into a bog at the foot of a very steep bank.
Here they wandered, picking still a few marsh-marigolds and many big
blue forget-me-nots. Then she
sat on the bank with her hands full of flowers, mostly golden water-blobs.
As she put her face down into the marigolds, it was all overcast with a
yellow shine.
"Your
face is bright," he said, "like a transfiguration."
She
looked at him, questioning. He
laughed pleadingly to her, laying his hands on hers.
Then he kissed her fingers, then her face.
The
world was all steeped in sunshine, and quite still, yet not asleep, but
quivering with a kind of expectancy.
"I
have never seen anything more beautiful than this," he said.
He held her hand fast all the time.
"And
the water singing to itself as it runs--do you love it?"
She looked at him full of love.
His eyes were very dark, very bright.
"Don't
you think it's a great day?" he asked.
She
murmured her assent. She WAS
happy, and he saw it.
"And
our day--just between us," he said.
They
lingered a little while. Then
they stood up upon the sweet thyme, and he looked down at her simply.
"Will
you come?" he asked.
They
went back to the house, hand in hand, in silence. The chickens came scampering down the path to her.
He locked the door, and they had the little house to themselves.
He
never forgot seeing her as she lay on the bed, when he was unfastening his
collar. First he saw only her
beauty, and was blind with it. She
had the most beautiful body he had ever imagined.
He stood unable to move or speak, looking at her, his face
half-smiling with wonder. And
then he wanted her, but as he went forward to her, her hands lifted in a
little pleading movement, and he looked at her face, and stopped.
Her big brown eyes were watching him, still and resigned and loving;
she lay as if she had given herself up to sacrifice:
there was her body for him; but the look at the back of her eyes,
like a creature awaiting immolation, arrested him, and all his blood fell
back.
"You
are sure you want me?" he asked, as if a cold shadow had come over him.
"Yes,
quite sure."
She
was very quiet, very calm. She
only realised that she was doing something for him.
He could hardly bear it. She
lay to be sacrificed for him because she loved him so much.
And he had to sacrifice her. For
a second, he wished he were sexless or dead.
Then he shut his eyes again to her, and his blood beat back again.
And
afterwards he loved her--loved her to the last fibre of his being.
He loved her. But he wanted, somehow, to cry. There was something he could not bear for her sake.
He stayed with her till quite late at night.
As he rode home he felt that he was finally initiated.
He was a youth no longer. But
why had he the dull pain in his soul? Why
did the thought of death, the after-life, seem so sweet and consoling?
He
spent the week with Miriam, and wore her out with his passion before it was
gone. He had always, almost
wilfully, to put her out of count, and act from the brute strength of his
own feelings. And he could not
do it often, and there remained afterwards always the sense of failure and
of death. If he were really
with her, he had to put aside himself and his desire.
If he would have her, he had to put her aside.
"When
I come to you," he asked her, his eyes dark with pain and shame,
"you don't really want me, do you?"
"Ah,
yes!" she replied quickly.
He
looked at her.
"Nay,"
he said.
She
began to tremble.
"You
see," she said, taking his face and shutting it out against her
shoulder--"you see--as we are--how can I get used to you?
It would come all right if we were married."
He
lifted her head, and looked at her.
"You
mean, now, it is always too much shock?"
"Yes--and---"
"You
are always clenched against me."
She
was trembling with agitation.
"You
see," she said, "I'm not used to the thought---"
"You
are lately," he said.
"But
all my life. Mother said to me:
'There is one thing in marriage that is always dreadful, but you have
to bear it.' And I believed
it."
"And
still believe it," he said.
"No!"
she cried hastily. "I
believe, as you do, that loving, even in THAT way, is the high-water mark of
living."
"That
doesn't alter the fact that you never want it."
"No,"
she said, taking his head in her arms and rocking in despair.
"Don't say so! You
don't understand." She
rocked with pain. "Don't I
want your children?"
"But
not me."
"How
can you say so? But we must be
married to have children---"
"Shall
we be married, then? I want you
to have my children."
He
kissed her hand reverently. She
pondered sadly, watching him.
"We
are too young," she said at length.
"Twenty-four
and twenty-three---"
"Not
yet," she pleaded, as she rocked herself in distress.
"When
you will," he said.
She
bowed her head gravely. The
tone of hopelessness in which he said these things grieved her deeply.
It had always been a failure between them.
Tacitly, she acquiesced in what he felt.
And
after a week of love he said to his mother suddenly one Sunday night, just
as they were going to bed:
"I
shan't go so much to Miriam's, mother."
She
was surprised, but she would not ask him anything.
"You
please yourself," she said.
So
he went to bed. But there was a
new quietness about him which she had wondered at.
She almost guessed. She
would leave him alone, however. Precipitation
might spoil things. She watched
him in his loneliness, wondering where he would end.
He was sick, and much too quiet for him. There was a perpetual little knitting of his brows, such as
she had seen when he was a small baby, and which had been gone for many
years. Now it was the same
again. And she could do nothing
for him. He had to go on alone,
make his own way.
He
continued faithful to Miriam. For
one day he had loved her utterly. But
it never came again. The sense
of failure grew stronger. At
first it was only a sadness. Then
he began to feel he could not go on. He
wanted to run, to go abroad, anything.
Gradually he ceased to ask her to have him.
Instead of drawing them together, it put them apart.
And then he realised, consciously, that it was no good.
It was useless trying: it
would never be a success between them.
For
some months he had seen very little of Clara.
They had occasionally walked out for half an hour at dinner-time.
But he always reserved himself for Miriam.
With Clara, however, his brow cleared, and he was gay again.
She treated him indulgently, as if he were a child. He thought he did not mind.
But deep below the surface it piqued him.
Sometimes
Miriam said:
"What
about Clara? I hear nothing of
her lately."
"I
walked with her about twenty minutes yesterday," he replied.
"And
what did she talk about?"
"I
don't know. I suppose I did all
the jawing--I usually do. I
think I was telling her about the strike, and how the women took it."
"Yes."
So
he gave the account of himself.
But
insidiously, without his knowing it, the warmth he felt for Clara drew him
away from Miriam, for whom he felt responsible, and to whom he felt he
belonged. He thought he was
being quite faithful to her. It
was not easy to estimate exactly the strength and | 
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