Back Aa

Sons and Lovers

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. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.