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X
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence CHAPTER X
CLARA WHEN he was twenty-three years old, Paul sent
in a landscape to the winter exhibition at Nottingham Castle. Miss Jordan had taken a
good deal of interest in him, and invited him to her house, where he met other artists.
He was beginning to grow ambitious. One morning the postman came just as he was
washing in the scullery. Suddenly he heard a wild noise from his mother. Rushing into
the kitchen, he found her standing on the hearthrug wildly waving a letter and crying
"Hurrah!" as if she had gone mad. He was shocked and frightened.
"Why, mother!" he exclaimed. She flew to him, flung her arms round him
for a moment, then waved the letter, crying: "Hurrah, my boy! I knew we should do it!"
He was afraid of her—the small, severe woman with graying hair suddenly bursting out in
such frenzy. The postman came running back, afraid something had happened. They saw his
tipped cap over the short curtains. Mrs. Morel rushed to the door.
"His picture's got first prize, Fred," she cried, "and is sold for twenty guineas."
"My word, that's something like!" said the young postman, whom they had known all his
life. "And Major Moreton has bought it!" she cried.
"It looks like meanin' something, that does, Mrs. Morel," said the postman, his blue eyes
bright. He was glad to have brought such a lucky letter. Mrs. Morel went indoors and
sat down, trembling. Paul was afraid lest she might have misread the letter, and might
be disappointed after all. He scrutinised it once, twice. Yes, he became convinced it
was true. Then he sat down, his heart beating with joy.
"Mother!" he exclaimed. "Didn't I SAY we should do it!" she said,
pretending she was not crying. He took the kettle off the fire and mashed
the tea. "You didn't think, mother—" he began tentatively.
"No, my son—not so much—but I expected a good deal."
"But not so much," he said. "No—no—but I knew we should do it."
And then she recovered her composure, apparently at least. He sat with his shirt turned back,
showing his young throat almost like a girl's, and the towel in his hand, his hair sticking
up wet. "Twenty guineas, mother! That's just what
you wanted to buy Arthur out. Now you needn't borrow any. It'll just do."
"Indeed, I shan't take it all," she said. "But why?"
"Because I shan't." "Well—you have twelve pounds, I'll have
nine." They cavilled about sharing the twenty guineas.
She wanted to take only the five pounds she needed. He would not hear of it. So they got
over the stress of emotion by quarrelling. Morel came home at night from the pit, saying:
"They tell me Paul's got first prize for his picture, and sold it to Lord Henry Bentley
for fifty pound." "Oh, what stories people do tell!" she cried.
"Ha!" he answered. "I said I wor sure it wor a lie. But they said tha'd told Fred Hodgkisson."
"As if I would tell him such stuff!" "Ha!" assented the miner.
But he was disappointed nevertheless. "It's true he has got the first prize," said
Mrs. Morel. The miner sat heavily in his chair.
"Has he, beguy!" he exclaimed. He stared across the room fixedly.
"But as for fifty pounds—such nonsense!" She was silent awhile. "Major Moreton bought
it for twenty guineas, that's true." "Twenty guineas! Tha niver says!" exclaimed
Morel. "Yes, and it was worth it."
"Ay!" he said. "I don't misdoubt it. But twenty guineas for a bit of a paintin' as he knocked
off in an hour or two!" He was silent with conceit of his son. Mrs.
Morel sniffed, as if it were nothing. "And when does he handle th' money?" asked
the collier. "That I couldn't tell you. When the picture
is sent home, I suppose." There was silence. Morel stared at the sugar-basin
instead of eating his dinner. His black arm, with the hand all gnarled with work lay on
the table. His wife pretended not to see him rub the back of his hand across his eyes,
nor the smear in the coal-dust on his black face.
"Yes, an' that other lad 'ud 'a done as much if they hadna ha' killed 'im," he said quietly.
The thought of William went through Mrs. Morel like a cold blade. It left her feeling she
was tired, and wanted rest. Paul was invited to dinner at Mr. Jordan's.
Afterwards he said: "Mother, I want an evening suit."
"Yes, I was afraid you would," she said. She was glad. There was a moment or two of silence.
"There's that one of William's," she continued, "that I know cost four pounds ten and which
he'd only worn three times." "Should you like me to wear it, mother?" he
asked. "Yes. I think it would fit you—at least
the coat. The trousers would want shortening." He went upstairs and put on the coat and vest.
Coming down, he looked strange in a flannel collar and a flannel shirt-front, with an
evening coat and vest. It was rather large. "The tailor can make it right," she said,
smoothing her hand over his shoulder. "It's beautiful stuff. I never could find in my
heart to let your father wear the trousers, and very glad I am now."
And as she smoothed her hand over the silk collar she thought of her eldest son. But
this son was living enough inside the clothes. She passed her hand down his back to feel
him. He was alive and hers. The other was dead.
He went out to dinner several times in his evening suit that had been William's. Each
time his mother's heart was firm with pride and joy. He was started now. The studs she
and the children had bought for William were in his shirt-front; he wore one of William's
dress shirts. But he had an elegant figure. His face was rough, but warm-looking and rather
pleasing. He did not look particularly a gentleman, but she thought he looked quite a man.
He told her everything that took place, everything that was said. It was as if she had been there.
And he was dying to introduce her to these new friends who had dinner at seven-thirty
in the evening. "Go along with you!" she said. "What do they
want to know me for?" "They do!" he cried indignantly. "If they
want to know me—and they say they do—then they want to know you, because you are quite
as clever as I am." "Go along with you, child!" she laughed.
But she began to spare her hands. They, too, were work-gnarled now. The skin was shiny
with so much hot water, the knuckles rather swollen. But she began to be careful to keep
them out of soda. She regretted what they had been—so small and exquisite. And when
Annie insisted on her having more stylish blouses to suit her age, she submitted. She
even went so far as to allow a black velvet bow to be placed on her hair. Then she sniffed
in her sarcastic manner, and was sure she looked a sight. But she looked a lady, Paul
declared, as much as Mrs. Major Moreton, and far, far nicer. The family was coming on.
Only Morel remained unchanged, or rather, lapsed slowly.
Paul and his mother now had long discussions about life. Religion was fading into the background.
He had shovelled away an the beliefs that would hamper him, had cleared the ground,
and come more or less to the bedrock of belief that one should feel inside oneself for right
and wrong, and should have the patience to gradually realise one's God. Now life interested
him more. "You know," he said to his mother, "I don't
want to belong to the well-to-do middle class. I like my common people best. I belong to
the common people." "But if anyone else said so, my son, wouldn't
you be in a tear. YOU know you consider yourself equal to any gentleman."
"In myself," he answered, "not in my class or my education or my manners. But in myself
I am." "Very well, then. Then why talk about the
common people?" "Because—the difference between people isn't
in their class, but in themselves. Only from the middle classes one gets ideas, and from
the common people—life itself, warmth. You feel their hates and loves."
"It's all very well, my boy. But, then, why don't you go and talk to your father's pals?"
"But they're rather different." "Not at all. They're the common people. After
all, whom do you mix with now—among the common people? Those that exchange ideas,
like the middle classes. The rest don't interest you."
"But—there's the life—" "I don't believe there's a jot more life from
Miriam than you could get from any educated girl—say Miss Moreton. It is YOU who are
snobbish about class." She frankly WANTED him to climb into the middle
classes, a thing not very difficult, she knew. And she wanted him in the end to marry a lady.
Now she began to combat him in his restless fretting. He still kept up his connection
with Miriam, could neither break free nor go the whole length of engagement. And this
indecision seemed to bleed him of his energy. Moreover, his mother suspected him of an unrecognised
leaning towards Clara, and, since the latter was a married woman, she wished he would fall
in love with one of the girls in a better station of life. But he was stupid, and would
refuse to love or even to admire a girl much, just because she was his social superior.
"My boy," said his mother to him, "all your cleverness, your breaking away from old things,
and taking life in your own hands, doesn't seem to bring you much happiness."
"What is happiness!" he cried. "It's nothing to me! How AM I to be happy?"
The plump question disturbed her. "That's for you to judge, my lad. But if you
could meet some GOOD woman who would MAKE you happy—and you began to think of settling
your life—when you have the means—so that you could work without all this fretting—it
would be much better for you." He frowned. His mother caught him on the raw
of his wound of Miriam. He pushed the tumbled hair off his forehead, his eyes full of pain
and fire. "You mean easy, mother," he cried. "That's
a woman's whole doctrine for life—ease of soul and physical comfort. And I do despise
it." "Oh, do you!" replied his mother. "And do
you call yours a divine discontent?" "Yes. I don't care about its divinity. But
damn your happiness! So long as life's full, it doesn't matter whether it's happy or not.
I'm afraid your happiness would bore me." "You never give it a chance," she said. Then
suddenly all her passion of grief over him broke out. "But it does matter!" she cried.
"And you OUGHT to be happy, you ought to try to be happy, to live to be happy. How could
I bear to think your life wouldn't be a happy one!"
"Your own's been bad enough, mater, but it hasn't left you so much worse off than the
folk who've been happier. I reckon you've done well. And I am the same. Aren't I well
enough off?" "You're not, my son. Battle—battle—and
suffer. It's about all you do, as far as I can see."
"But why not, my dear? I tell you it's the best—"
"It isn't. And one OUGHT to be happy, one OUGHT."
By this time Mrs. Morel was trembling violently. Struggles of this kind often took place between
her and her son, when she seemed to fight for his very life against his own will to
die. He took her in his arms. She was ill and pitiful.
"Never mind, Little," he murmured. "So long as you don't feel life's paltry and a miserable
business, the rest doesn't matter, happiness or unhappiness."
She pressed him to her. "But I want you to be happy," she said pathetically.
"Eh, my dear—say rather you want me to live." Mrs. Morel felt as if her heart would break
for him. At this rate she knew he would not live. He had that poignant carelessness about
himself, his own suffering, his own life, which is a form of slow suicide. It almost
broke her heart. With all the passion of her strong nature she hated Miriam for having
in this subtle way undermined his joy. It did not matter to her that Miriam could not
help it. Miriam did it, and she hated her. She wished so much he would fall in love with
a girl equal to be his mate—educated and strong. But he would not look at anybody above
him in station. He seemed to like Mrs. Dawes. At any rate that feeling was wholesome. His
mother prayed and prayed for him, that he might not be wasted. That was all her prayer—not
for his soul or his righteousness, but that he might not be wasted. And while he slept,
for hours and hours she thought and prayed for him.
He drifted away from Miriam imperceptibly, without knowing he was going. Arthur only
left the army to be married. The baby was born six months after his wedding. Mrs. Morel
got him a job under the firm again, at twenty-one shillings a week. She furnished for him, with
the help of Beatrice's mother, a little cottage of two rooms. He was caught now. It did not
matter how he kicked and struggled, he was fast. For a time he chafed, was irritable
with his young wife, who loved him; he went almost distracted when the baby, which was
delicate, cried or gave trouble. He grumbled for hours to his mother. She only said: "Well,
my lad, you did it yourself, now you must make the best of it." And then the grit came
out in him. He buckled to work, undertook his responsibilities, acknowledged that he
belonged to his wife and child, and did make a good best of it. He had never been very
closely inbound into the family. Now he was gone altogether.
The months went slowly along. Paul had more or less got into connection with the Socialist,
Suffragette, Unitarian people in Nottingham, owing to his acquaintance with Clara. One
day a friend of his and of Clara's, in Bestwood, asked him to take a message to Mrs. Dawes.
He went in the evening across Sneinton Market to Bluebell Hill. He found the house in a
mean little street paved with granite cobbles and having causeways of dark blue, grooved
bricks. The front door went up a step from off this rough pavement, where the feet of
the passersby rasped and clattered. The brown paint on the door was so old that the naked
wood showed between the rents. He stood on the street below and knocked. There came a
heavy footstep; a large, stout woman of about sixty towered above him. He looked up at her
from the pavement. She had a rather severe face.
She admitted him into the parlour, which opened on to the street. It was a small, stuffy,
defunct room, of mahogany, and deathly enlargements of photographs of departed people done in
carbon. Mrs. Radford left him. She was stately, almost martial. In a moment Clara appeared.
She flushed deeply, and he was covered with confusion. It seemed as if she did not like
being discovered in her home circumstances. "I thought it couldn't be your voice," she
said. But she might as well be hung for a sheep
as for a lamb. She invited him out of the mausoleum of a parlour into the kitchen.
That was a little, darkish room too, but it was smothered in white lace. The mother had
seated herself again by the cupboard, and was drawing thread from a vast web of lace.
A clump of fluff and ravelled cotton was at her right hand, a heap of three-quarter-inch
lace lay on her left, whilst in front of her was the mountain of lace web, piling the hearthrug.
Threads of curly cotton, pulled out from between the lengths of lace, strewed over the fender
and the fireplace. Paul dared not go forward, for fear of treading on piles of white stuff.
On the table was a jenny for carding the lace. There was a pack of brown cardboard squares,
a pack of cards of lace, a little box of pins, and on the sofa lay a heap of drawn lace.
The room was all lace, and it was so dark and warm that the white, snowy stuff seemed
the more distinct. "If you're coming in you won't have to mind
the work," said Mrs. Radford. "I know we're about blocked up. But sit you down."
Clara, much embarrassed, gave him a chair against the wall opposite the white heaps.
Then she herself took her place on the sofa, shamedly.
"Will you drink a bottle of stout?" Mrs. Radford asked. "Clara, get him a bottle of stout."
He protested, but Mrs. Radford insisted. "You look as if you could do with it," she
said. "Haven't you never any more colour than that?"
"It's only a thick skin I've got that doesn't show the blood through," he answered.
Clara, ashamed and chagrined, brought him a bottle of stout and a glass. He poured out
some of the black stuff. "Well," he said, lifting the glass, "here's
health!" "And thank you," said Mrs. Radford.
He took a drink of stout. "And light yourself a cigarette, so long as
you don't set the house on fire," said Mrs. Radford.
"Thank you," he replied. "Nay, you needn't thank me," she answered.
"I s'll be glad to smell a bit of smoke in th' 'ouse again. A house o' women is as dead
as a house wi' no fire, to my thinkin'. I'm not a spider as likes a corner to myself.
I like a man about, if he's only something to snap at."
Clara began to work. Her jenny spun with a subdued buzz; the white lace hopped from between
her fingers on to the card. It was filled; she snipped off the length, and pinned the
end down to the banded lace. Then she put a new card in her jenny. Paul watched her.
She sat square and magnificent. Her throat and arms were bare. The blood still mantled
below her ears; she bent her head in shame of her humility. Her face was set on her work.
Her arms were creamy and full of life beside the white lace; her large, well-kept hands
worked with a balanced movement, as if nothing would hurry them. He, not knowing, watched
her all the time. He saw the arch of her neck from the shoulder, as she bent her head; he
saw the coil of dun hair; he watched her moving, gleaming arms.
"I've heard a bit about you from Clara," continued the mother. "You're in Jordan's, aren't you?"
She drew her lace unceasing. "Yes."
"Ay, well, and I can remember when Thomas Jordan used to ask ME for one of my toffies."
"Did he?" laughed Paul. "And did he get it?" "Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't—which
was latterly. For he's the sort that takes all and gives naught, he is—or used to be."
"I think he's very decent," said Paul. "Yes; well, I'm glad to hear it."
Mrs. Radford looked across at him steadily. There was something determined about her that
he liked. Her face was falling loose, but her eyes were calm, and there was something
strong in her that made it seem she was not old; merely her wrinkles and loose cheeks
were an anachronism. She had the strength and sang-froid of a woman in the prime of
life. She continued drawing the lace with slow, dignified movements. The big web came
up inevitably over her apron; the length of lace fell away at her side. Her arms were
finely shapen, but glossy and yellow as old ivory. They had not the peculiar dull gleam
that made Clara's so fascinating to him. "And you've been going with Miriam Leivers?"
the mother asked him. "Well—" he answered.
"Yes, she's a nice girl," she continued. "She's very nice, but she's a bit too much above
this world to suit my fancy." "She is a bit like that," he agreed.
"She'll never be satisfied till she's got wings and can fly over everybody's head, she
won't," she said. Clara broke in, and he told her his message.
She spoke humbly to him. He had surprised her in her drudgery. To have her humble made
him feel as if he were lifting his head in expectation.
"Do you like jennying?" he asked. "What can a woman do!" she replied bitterly.
"Is it sweated?" "More or less. Isn't ALL woman's work? That's
another trick the men have played, since we force ourselves into the labour market."
"Now then, you shut up about the men," said her mother. "If the women wasn't fools, the
men wouldn't be bad uns, that's what I say. No man was ever that bad wi' me but what he
got it back again. Not but what they're a lousy lot, there's no denying it."
"But they're all right really, aren't they?" he asked.
"Well, they're a bit different from women," she answered.
"Would you care to be back at Jordan's?" he asked Clara.
"I don't think so," she replied. "Yes, she would!" cried her mother; "thank
her stars if she could get back. Don't you listen to her. She's for ever on that 'igh
horse of hers, an' it's back's that thin an' starved it'll cut her in two one of these
days." Clara suffered badly from her mother. Paul
felt as if his eyes were coming very wide open. Wasn't he to take Clara's fulminations
so seriously, after all? She spun steadily at her work. He experienced a thrill of joy,
thinking she might need his help. She seemed denied and deprived of so much. And her arm
moved mechanically, that should never have been subdued to a mechanism, and her head
was bowed to the lace, that never should have been bowed. She seemed to be stranded there
among the refuse that life has thrown away, doing her jennying. It was a bitter thing
to her to be put aside by life, as if it had no use for her. No wonder she protested.
She came with him to the door. He stood below in the mean street, looking up at her. So
fine she was in her stature and her bearing, she reminded him of Juno dethroned. As she
stood in the doorway, she winced from the street, from her surroundings.
"And you will go with Mrs. Hodgkisson to Hucknall?" He was talking quite meaninglessly, only watching
her. Her grey eyes at last met his. They looked dumb with humiliation, pleading with a kind
of captive misery. He was shaken and at a loss. He had thought her high and mighty.
When he left her, he wanted to run. He went to the station in a sort of dream, and was
at home without realising he had moved out of her street.
He had an idea that Susan, the overseer of the Spiral girls, was about to be married.
He asked her the next day. "I say, Susan, I heard a whisper of your getting
married. What about it?" Susan flushed red.
"Who's been talking to you?" she replied. "Nobody. I merely heard a whisper that you
WERE thinking—" "Well, I am, though you needn't tell anybody.
What's more, I wish I wasn't!" "Nay, Susan, you won't make me believe that."
"Shan't I? You CAN believe it, though. I'd rather stop here a thousand times."
Paul was perturbed. "Why, Susan?"
The girl's colour was high, and her eyes flashed. "That's why!"
"And must you?" For answer, she looked at him. There was about
him a candour and gentleness which made the women trust him. He understood.
"Ah, I'm sorry," he said. Tears came to her eyes.
"But you'll see it'll turn out all right. You'll make the best of it," he continued
rather wistfully. "There's nothing else for it."
"Yea, there's making the worst of it. Try and make it all right."
He soon made occasion to call again on Clara. "Would you," he said, "care to come back to
Jordan's?" She put down her work, laid her beautiful
arms on the table, and looked at him for some moments without answering. Gradually the flush
mounted her cheek. "Why?" she asked.
Paul felt rather awkward. "Well, because Susan is thinking of leaving,"
he said. Clara went on with her jennying. The white
lace leaped in little jumps and bounds on to the card. He waited for her. Without raising
her head, she said at last, in a peculiar low voice:
"Have you said anything about it?" "Except to you, not a word."
There was again a long silence. "I will apply when the advertisement is out,"
she said. "You will apply before that. I will let you
know exactly when." She went on spinning her little machine, and
did not contradict him. Clara came to Jordan's. Some of the older
hands, *** among them, remembered her earlier rule, and cordially disliked the memory. Clara
had always been "ikey", reserved, and superior. She had never mixed with the girls as one
of themselves. If she had occasion to find fault, she did it coolly and with perfect
politeness, which the defaulter felt to be a bigger insult than crassness. Towards ***,
the poor, overstrung hunchback, Clara was unfailingly compassionate and gentle, as a
result of which *** shed more bitter tears than ever the rough tongues of the other overseers
had caused her. There was something in Clara that Paul disliked,
and much that piqued him. If she were about, he always watched her strong throat or her
neck, upon which the blonde hair grew low and fluffy. There was a fine down, almost
invisible, upon the skin of her face and arms, and when once he had perceived it, he saw
it always. When he was at his work, painting in the afternoon,
she would come and stand near to him, perfectly motionless. Then he felt her, though she neither
spoke nor touched him. Although she stood a yard away he felt as if he were in contact
with her. Then he could paint no more. He flung down the brushes, and turned to talk
to her. Sometimes she praised his work; sometimes
she was critical and cold. "You are affected in that piece," she would
say; and, as there was an element of truth in her condemnation, his blood boiled with
anger. Again: "What of this?" he would ask enthusiastically.
"H'm!" She made a small doubtful sound. "It doesn't interest me much."
"Because you don't understand it," he retorted. "Then why ask me about it?"
"Because I thought you would understand." She would shrug her shoulders in scorn of
his work. She maddened him. He was furious. Then he abused her, and went into passionate
exposition of his stuff. This amused and stimulated her. But she never owned that she had been
wrong. During the ten years that she had belonged
to the women's movement she had acquired a fair amount of education, and, having had
some of Miriam's passion to be instructed, had taught herself French, and could read
in that language with a struggle. She considered herself as a woman apart, and particularly
apart, from her class. The girls in the Spiral department were all of good homes. It was
a small, special industry, and had a certain distinction. There was an air of refinement
in both rooms. But Clara was aloof also from her fellow-workers.
None of these things, however, did she reveal to Paul. She was not the one to give herself
away. There was a sense of mystery about her. She was so reserved, he felt she had much
to reserve. Her history was open on the surface, but its inner meaning was hidden from everybody.
It was exciting. And then sometimes he caught her looking at him from under her brows with
an almost furtive, sullen scrutiny, which made him move quickly. Often she met his eyes.
But then her own were, as it were, covered over, revealing nothing. She gave him a little,
lenient smile. She was to him extraordinarily provocative, because of the knowledge she
seemed to possess, and gathered fruit of experience he could not attain.
One day he picked up a copy of _Lettres de mon Moulin_ from her work-bench.
"You read French, do you?" he cried. Clara glanced round negligently. She was making
an elastic stocking of heliotrope silk, turning the Spiral machine with slow, balanced regularity,
occasionally bending down to see her work or to adjust the needles; then her magnificent
neck, with its down and fine pencils of hair, shone white against the lavender, lustrous
silk. She turned a few more rounds, and stopped. "What did you say?" she asked, smiling sweetly.
Paul's eyes glittered at her insolent indifference to him.
"I did not know you read French," he said, very polite.
"Did you not?" she replied, with a faint, sarcastic smile.
"Rotten swank!" he said, but scarcely loud enough to be heard.
He shut his mouth angrily as he watched her. She seemed to scorn the work she mechanically
produced; yet the hose she made were as nearly perfect as possible.
"You don't like Spiral work," he said. "Oh, well, all work is work," she answered,
as if she knew all about it. He marvelled at her coldness. He had to do
everything hotly. She must be something special. "What would you prefer to do?" he asked.
She laughed at him indulgently, as she said: "There is so little likelihood of my ever
being given a choice, that I haven't wasted time considering."
"Pah!" he said, contemptuous on his side now. "You only say that because you're too proud
to own up what you want and can't get." "You know me very well," she replied coldly.
"I know you think you're terrific great shakes, and that you live under the eternal insult
of working in a factory." He was very angry and very rude. She merely
turned away from him in disdain. He walked whistling down the room, flirted and laughed
with Hilda. Later on he said to himself:
"What was I so impudent to Clara for?" He was rather annoyed with himself, at the same
time glad. "Serve her right; she stinks with silent pride," he said to himself angrily.
End of Part 1 of Chapter 10 Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
Chapter 10, Part 2 In the afternoon he came down. There was a
certain weight on his heart which he wanted to remove. He thought to do it by offering
her chocolates. "Have one?" he said. "I bought a handful to
sweeten me up." To his great relief, she accepted. He sat
on the work-bench beside her machine, twisting a piece of silk round his finger. She loved
him for his quick, unexpected movements, like a young animal. His feet swung as he pondered.
The sweets lay strewn on the bench. She bent over her machine, grinding rhythmically, then
stooping to see the stocking that hung beneath, pulled down by the weight. He watched the
handsome crouching of her back, and the apron-strings curling on the floor.
"There is always about you," he said, "a sort of waiting. Whatever I see you doing, you're
not really there: you are waiting—like Penelope when she did her weaving." He could not help
a spurt of wickedness. "I'll call you Penelope," he said.
"Would it make any difference?" she said, carefully removing one of her needles.
"That doesn't matter, so long as it pleases me. Here, I say, you seem to forget I'm your
boss. It just occurs to me." "And what does that mean?" she asked coolly.
"It means I've got a right to boss you." "Is there anything you want to complain about?"
"Oh, I say, you needn't be nasty," he said angrily.
"I don't know what you want," she said, continuing her task.
"I want you to treat me nicely and respectfully." "Call you 'sir', perhaps?" she asked quietly.
"Yes, call me 'sir'. I should love it." "Then I wish you would go upstairs, sir."
His mouth closed, and a frown came on his face. He jumped suddenly down.
"You're too blessed superior for anything," he said.
And he went away to the other girls. He felt he was being angrier than he had any need
to be. In fact, he doubted slightly that he was showing off. But if he were, then he would.
Clara heard him laughing, in a way she hated, with the girls down the next room.
When at evening he went through the department after the girls had gone, he saw his chocolates
lying untouched in front of Clara's machine. He left them. In the morning they were still
there, and Clara was at work. Later on Minnie, a little brunette they called ***, called
to him: "Hey, haven't you got a chocolate for anybody?"
"Sorry, ***," he replied. "I meant to have offered them; then I went and forgot 'em."
"I think you did," she answered. "I'll bring you some this afternoon. You don't
want them after they've been lying about, do you?"
"Oh, I'm not particular," smiled ***. "Oh no," he said. "They'll be dusty."
He went up to Clara's bench. "Sorry I left these things littering about,"
he said. She flushed scarlet. He gathered them together
in his fist. "They'll be dirty now," he said. "You should
have taken them. I wonder why you didn't. I meant to have told you I wanted you to."
He flung them out of the window into the yard below. He just glanced at her. She winced
from his eyes. In the afternoon he brought another packet.
"Will you take some?" he said, offering them first to Clara. "These are fresh."
She accepted one, and put it on to the bench. "Oh, take several—for luck," he said.
She took a couple more, and put them on the bench also. Then she turned in confusion to
her work. He went on up the room. "Here you are, ***," he said. "Don't be
greedy!" "Are they all for her?" cried the others,
rushing up. "Of course they're not," he said.
The girls clamoured round. *** drew back from her mates.
"Come out!" she cried. "I can have first pick, can't I, Paul?"
"Be nice with 'em," he said, and went away. "You ARE a dear," the girls cried.
"Tenpence," he answered. He went past Clara without speaking. She felt
the three chocolate creams would burn her if she touched them. It needed all her courage
to slip them into the pocket of her apron. The girls loved him and were afraid of him.
He was so nice while he was nice, but if he were offended, so distant, treating them as
if they scarcely existed, or not more than the bobbins of thread. And then, if they were
impudent, he said quietly: "Do you mind going on with your work," and stood and watched.
When he celebrated his twenty-third birthday, the house was in trouble. Arthur was just
going to be married. His mother was not well. His father, getting an old man, and lame from
his accidents, was given a paltry, poor job. Miriam was an eternal reproach. He felt he
owed himself to her, yet could not give himself. The house, moreover, needed his support. He
was pulled in all directions. He was not glad it was his birthday. It made him bitter.
He got to work at eight o'clock. Most of the clerks had not turned up. The girls were not
due till 8.30. As he was changing his coat, he heard a voice behind him say:
"Paul, Paul, I want you." It was ***, the hunchback, standing at the
top of her stairs, her face radiant with a secret. Paul looked at her in astonishment.
"I want you," she said. He stood, at a loss.
"Come on," she coaxed. "Come before you begin on the letters."
He went down the half-dozen steps into her dry, narrow, "finishing-off" room. *** walked
before him: her black bodice was short—the waist was under her armpits—and her green-black
cashmere skirt seemed very long, as she strode with big strides before the young man, himself
so graceful. She went to her seat at the narrow end of the room, where the window opened on
to chimney-pots. Paul watched her thin hands and her flat red wrists as she excitedly twitched
her white apron, which was spread on the bench in front of her. She hesitated.
"You didn't think we'd forgot you?" she asked, reproachful.
"Why?" he asked. He had forgotten his birthday himself.
"'Why,' he says! 'Why!' Why, look here!" She pointed to the calendar, and he saw, surrounding
the big black number "21", hundreds of little crosses in black-lead.
"Oh, kisses for my birthday," he laughed. "How did you know?"
"Yes, you want to know, don't you?" *** mocked, hugely delighted. "There's one from
everybody—except Lady Clara—and two from some. But I shan't tell you how many I put."
"Oh, I know, you're spooney," he said. "There you ARE mistaken!" she cried, indignant.
"I could never be so soft." Her voice was strong and contralto.
"You always pretend to be such a hard-hearted ***," he laughed. "And you know you're as
sentimental—" "I'd rather be called sentimental than frozen
meat," *** blurted. Paul knew she referred to Clara, and he smiled.
"Do you say such nasty things about me?" he laughed.
"No, my duck," the hunchback woman answered, lavishly tender. She was thirty-nine. "No,
my duck, because you don't think yourself a fine figure in marble and us nothing but
dirt. I'm as good as you, aren't I, Paul?" and the question delighted her.
"Why, we're not better than one another, are we?" he replied.
"But I'm as good as you, aren't I, Paul?" she persisted daringly.
"Of course you are. If it comes to goodness, you're better."
She was rather afraid of the situation. She might get hysterical.
"I thought I'd get here before the others—won't they say I'm deep! Now shut your eyes—"
she said. "And open your mouth, and see what God sends
you," he continued, suiting action to words, and expecting a piece of chocolate. He heard
the rustle of the apron, and a faint clink of metal. "I'm going to look," he said.
He opened his eyes. ***, her long cheeks flushed, her blue eyes shining, was gazing
at him. There was a little bundle of paint-tubes on the bench before him. He turned pale.
"No, ***," he said quickly. "From us all," she answered hastily.
"No, but—" "Are they the right sort?" she asked, rocking
herself with delight. "Jove! they're the best in the catalogue."
"But they're the right sorts?" she cried. "They're off the little list I'd made to get
when my ship came in." He bit his lip. *** was overcome with emotion. She must
turn the conversation. "They was all on thorns to do it; they all
paid their shares, all except the Queen of Sheba."
The Queen of Sheba was Clara. "And wouldn't she join?" Paul asked.
"She didn't get the chance; we never told her; we wasn't going to have HER bossing THIS
show. We didn't WANT her to join." Paul laughed at the woman. He was much moved.
At last he must go. She was very close to him. Suddenly she flung her arms round his
neck and kissed him vehemently. "I can give you a kiss to-day," she said apologetically.
"You've looked so white, it's made my heart ache."
Paul kissed her, and left her. Her arms were so pitifully thin that his heart ached also.
That day he met Clara as he ran downstairs to wash his hands at dinner-time.
"You have stayed to dinner!" he exclaimed. It was unusual for her.
"Yes; and I seem to have dined on old surgical-appliance stock. I MUST go out now, or I shall feel
stale india-rubber right through." She lingered. He instantly caught at her wish.
"You are going anywhere?" he asked. They went together up to the Castle. Outdoors
she dressed very plainly, down to ugliness; indoors she always looked nice. She walked
with hesitating steps alongside Paul, bowing and turning away from him. Dowdy in dress,
and drooping, she showed to great disadvantage. He could scarcely recognise her strong form,
that seemed to slumber with power. She appeared almost insignificant, drowning her stature
in her stoop, as she shrank from the public gaze.
The Castle grounds were very green and fresh. Climbing the precipitous ascent, he laughed
and chattered, but she was silent, seeming to brood over something. There was scarcely
time to go inside the squat, square building that crowns the bluff of rock. They leaned
upon the wall where the cliff runs sheer down to the Park. Below them, in their holes in
the sandstone, pigeons preened themselves and cooed softly. Away down upon the boulevard
at the foot of the rock, tiny trees stood in their own pools of shadow, and tiny people
went scurrying about in almost ludicrous importance. "You feel as if you could scoop up the folk
like tadpoles, and have a handful of them," he said.
She laughed, answering: "Yes; it is not necessary to get far off in
order to see us proportionately. The trees are much more significant."
"Bulk only," he said. She laughed cynically.
Away beyond the boulevard the thin stripes of the metals showed upon the railway-track,
whose margin was crowded with little stacks of timber, beside which smoking toy engines
fussed. Then the silver string of the canal lay at random among the black heaps. Beyond,
the dwellings, very dense on the river flat, looked like black, poisonous herbage, in thick
rows and crowded beds, stretching right away, broken now and then by taller plants, right
to where the river glistened in a hieroglyph across the country. The steep scarp cliffs
across the river looked puny. Great stretches of country darkened with trees and faintly
brightened with corn-land, spread towards the haze, where the hills rose blue beyond
grey. "It is comforting," said Mrs. Dawes, "to think
the town goes no farther. It is only a LITTLE sore upon the country yet."
"A little scab," Paul said. She shivered. She loathed the town. Looking
drearily across at the country which was forbidden her, her impassive face, pale and hostile,
she reminded Paul of one of the bitter, remorseful angels.
"But the town's all right," he said; "it's only temporary. This is the crude, clumsy
make-shift we've practised on, till we find out what the idea is. The town will come all
right." The pigeons in the pockets of rock, among
the perched bushes, cooed comfortably. To the left the large church of St. Mary rose
into space, to keep close company with the Castle, above the heaped rubble of the town.
Mrs. Dawes smiled brightly as she looked across the country.
"I feel better," she said. "Thank you," he replied. "Great compliment!"
"Oh, my brother!" she laughed. "H'm! that's snatching back with the left
hand what you gave with the right, and no mistake," he said.
She laughed in amusement at him. "But what was the matter with you?" he asked.
"I know you were brooding something special. I can see the stamp of it on your face yet."
"I think I will not tell you," she said. "All right, hug it," he answered.
She flushed and bit her lip. "No," she said, "it was the girls."
"What about 'em?" Paul asked. "They have been plotting something for a week
now, and to-day they seem particularly full of it. All alike; they insult me with their
secrecy." "Do they?" he asked in concern.
"I should not mind," she went on, in the metallic, angry tone, "if they did not thrust it into
my face—the fact that they have a secret." "Just like women," said he.
"It is hateful, their mean gloating," she said intensely.
Paul was silent. He knew what the girls gloated over. He was sorry to be the cause of this
new dissension. "They can have all the secrets in the world,"
she went on, brooding bitterly; "but they might refrain from glorying in them, and making
me feel more out of it than ever. It is—it is almost unbearable."
Paul thought for a few minutes. He was much perturbed.
"I will tell you what it's all about," he said, pale and nervous. "It's my birthday,
and they've bought me a fine lot of paints, all the girls. They're jealous of you"—he
felt her stiffen coldly at the word 'jealous'—"merely because I sometimes bring you a book," he
added slowly. "But, you see, it's only a trifle. Don't bother about it, will you—because"—he
laughed quickly—"well, what would they say if they saw us here now, in spite of their
victory?" She was angry with him for his clumsy reference
to their present intimacy. It was almost insolent of him. Yet he was so quiet, she forgave him,
although it cost her an effort. Their two hands lay on the rough stone parapet
of the Castle wall. He had inherited from his mother a fineness of mould, so that his
hands were small and vigorous. Hers were large, to match her large limbs, but white and powerful
looking. As Paul looked at them he knew her. "She is wanting somebody to take her hands—for
all she is so contemptuous of us," he said to himself. And she saw nothing but his two
hands, so warm and alive, which seemed to live for her. He was brooding now, staring
out over the country from under sullen brows. The little, interesting diversity of shapes
had vanished from the scene; all that remained was a vast, dark matrix of sorrow and tragedy,
the same in all the houses and the river-flats and the people and the birds; they were only
shapen differently. And now that the forms seemed to have melted away, there remained
the mass from which all the landscape was composed, a dark mass of struggle and pain.
The factory, the girls, his mother, the large, uplifted church, the thicket of the town,
merged into one atmosphere—dark, brooding, and sorrowful, every bit.
"Is that two o'clock striking?" Mrs. Dawes said in surprise.
Paul started, and everything sprang into form, regained its individuality, its forgetfulness,
and its cheerfulness. They hurried back to work.
When he was in the rush of preparing for the night's post, examining the work up from ***'s
room, which smelt of ironing, the evening postman came in.
"'Mr. Paul Morel,'" he said, smiling, handing Paul a package. "A lady's handwriting! Don't
let the girls see it." The postman, himself a favourite, was pleased
to make fun of the girls' affection for Paul. It was a volume of verse with a brief note:
"You will allow me to send you this, and so spare me my isolation. I also sympathise and
wish you well.—C.D." Paul flushed hot. "Good Lord! Mrs. Dawes. She can't afford it.
Good Lord, who ever'd have thought it!" He was suddenly intensely moved. He was filled
with the warmth of her. In the glow he could almost feel her as if she were present—her
arms, her shoulders, her ***, see them, feel them, almost contain them.
This move on the part of Clara brought them into closer intimacy. The other girls noticed
that when Paul met Mrs. Dawes his eyes lifted and gave that peculiar bright greeting which
they could interpret. Knowing he was unaware, Clara made no sign, save that occasionally
she turned aside her face from him when he came upon her.
They walked out together very often at dinner-time; it was quite open, quite frank. Everybody
seemed to feel that he was quite unaware of the state of his own feeling, and that nothing
was wrong. He talked to her now with some of the old fervour with which he had talked
to Miriam, but he cared less about the talk; he did not bother about his conclusions.
One day in October they went out to Lambley for tea. Suddenly they came to a halt on top
of the hill. He climbed and sat on a gate, she sat on the stile. The afternoon was perfectly
still, with a dim haze, and yellow sheaves glowing through. They were quiet.
"How old were you when you married?" he asked quietly.
"Twenty-two." Her voice was subdued, almost submissive.
She would tell him now. "It is eight years ago?"
"Yes." "And when did you leave him?"
"Three years ago." "Five years! Did you love him when you married
him?" She was silent for some time; then she said
slowly: "I thought I did—more or less. I didn't
think much about it. And he wanted me. I was very prudish then."
"And you sort of walked into it without thinking?" "Yes. I seemed to have been asleep nearly
all my life." "_Somnambule_? But—when did you wake up?"
"I don't know that I ever did, or ever have—since I was a child."
"You went to sleep as you grew to be a woman? How ***! And he didn't wake you?"
"No; he never got there," she replied, in a monotone.
The brown birds dashed over the hedges where the rose-hips stood naked and scarlet.
"Got where?" he asked. "At me. He never really mattered to me."
The afternoon was so gently warm and dim. Red roofs of the cottages burned among the
blue haze. He loved the day. He could feel, but he could not understand, what Clara was
saying. "But why did you leave him? Was he horrid
to you?" She shuddered lightly.
"He—he sort of degraded me. He wanted to bully me because he hadn't got me. And then
I felt as if I wanted to run, as if I was fastened and bound up. And he seemed dirty."
"I see." He did not at all see.
"And was he always dirty?" he asked. "A bit," she replied slowly. "And then he
seemed as if he couldn't get AT me, really. And then he got brutal—he WAS brutal!"
"And why did you leave him finally?" "Because—because he was unfaithful to me—"
They were both silent for some time. Her hand lay on the gate-post as she balanced. He put
his own over it. His heart beat quickly. "But did you—were you ever—did you ever
give him a chance?" "Chance? How?"
"To come near to you." "I married him—and I was willing—"
They both strove to keep their voices steady. "I believe he loves you," he said.
"It looks like it," she replied. He wanted to take his hand away, and could
not. She saved him by removing her own. After a silence, he began again:
"Did you leave him out of count all along?" "He left me," she said.
"And I suppose he couldn't MAKE himself mean everything to you?"
"He tried to bully me into it." But the conversation had got them both out
of their depth. Suddenly Paul jumped down. "Come on," he said. "Let's go and get some
tea." They found a cottage, where they sat in the
cold parlour. She poured out his tea. She was very quiet. He felt she had withdrawn
again from him. After tea, she stared broodingly into her tea-cup, twisting her wedding ring
all the time. In her abstraction she took the ring off her finger, stood it up, and
spun it upon the table. The gold became a diaphanous, glittering globe. It fell, and
the ring was quivering upon the table. She spun it again and again. Paul watched, fascinated.
But she was a married woman, and he believed in simple friendship. And he considered that
he was perfectly honourable with regard to her. It was only a friendship between man
and woman, such as any civilised persons might have.
He was like so many young men of his own age. Sex had become so complicated in him that
he would have denied that he ever could want Clara or Miriam or any woman whom he knew.
Sex desire was a sort of detached thing, that did not belong to a woman. He loved Miriam
with his soul. He grew warm at the thought of Clara, he battled with her, he knew the
curves of her breast and shoulders as if they had been moulded inside him; and yet he did
not positively desire her. He would have denied it for ever. He believed himself really bound
to Miriam. If ever he should marry, some time in the far future, it would be his duty to
marry Miriam. That he gave Clara to understand, and she said nothing, but left him to his
courses. He came to her, Mrs. Dawes, whenever he could. Then he wrote frequently to Miriam,
and visited the girl occasionally. So he went on through the winter; but he seemed not so
fretted. His mother was easier about him. She thought he was getting away from Miriam.
Miriam knew now how strong was the attraction of Clara for him; but still she was certain
that the best in him would triumph. His feeling for Mrs. Dawes—who, moreover, was a married
woman—was shallow and temporal, compared with his love for herself. He would come back
to her, she was sure; with some of his young freshness gone, perhaps, but cured of his
desire for the lesser things which other women than herself could give him. She could bear
all if he were inwardly true to her and must come back.
He saw none of the anomaly of his position. Miriam was his old friend, lover, and she
belonged to Bestwood and home and his youth. Clara was a newer friend, and she belonged
to Nottingham, to life, to the world. It seemed to him quite plain.
Mrs. Dawes and he had many periods of coolness, when they saw little of each other; but they
always came together again. "Were you horrid with Baxter Dawes?" he asked
her. It was a thing that seemed to trouble him.
"In what way?" "Oh, I don't know. But weren't you horrid
with him? Didn't you do something that knocked him to pieces?"
"What, pray?" "Making him feel as if he were nothing—I
know," Paul declared. "You are so clever, my friend," she said coolly.
The conversation broke off there. But it made her cool with him for some time.
She very rarely saw Miriam now. The friendship between the two women was not broken off,
but considerably weakened. "Will you come in to the concert on Sunday
afternoon?" Clara asked him just after Christmas. "I promised to go up to Willey Farm," he replied.
"Oh, very well." "You don't mind, do you?" he asked.
"Why should I?" she answered. Which almost annoyed him.
"You know," he said, "Miriam and I have been a lot to each other ever since I was sixteen—that's
seven years now." "It's a long time," Clara replied.
"Yes; but somehow she—it doesn't go right—" "How?" asked Clara.
"She seems to draw me and draw me, and she wouldn't leave a single hair of me free to
fall out and blow away—she'd keep it." "But you like to be kept."
"No," he said, "I don't. I wish it could be normal, give and take—like me and you. I
want a woman to keep me, but not in her pocket." "But if you love her, it couldn't be normal,
like me and you." "Yes; I should love her better then. She sort
of wants me so much that I can't give myself." "Wants you how?"
"Wants the soul out of my body. I can't help shrinking back from her."
"And yet you love her!" "No, I don't love her. I never even kiss her."
"Why not?" Clara asked. "I don't know."
"I suppose you're afraid," she said. "I'm not. Something in me shrinks from her
like hell—she's so good, when I'm not good." "How do you know what she is?"
"I do! I know she wants a sort of soul union." "But how do you know what she wants?"
"I've been with her for seven years." "And you haven't found out the very first
thing about her." "What's that?"
"That she doesn't want any of your soul communion. That's your own imagination. She wants you."
He pondered over this. Perhaps he was wrong. "But she seems—" he began.
"You've never tried," she answered. End of Chapter
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence CHAPTER XI
THE TEST ON MIRIAM WITH the spring came again the old madness
and battle. Now he knew he would have to go to Miriam. But what was his reluctance? He
told himself it was only a sort of overstrong virginity in her and him which neither could
break through. He might have married her; but his circumstances at home made it difficult,
and, moreover, he did not want to marry. Marriage was for life, and because they had become
close companions, he and she, he did not see that it should inevitably follow they should
be man and wife. He did not feel that he wanted marriage with Miriam. He wished he did. He
would have given his head to have felt a joyous desire to marry her and to have her. Then
why couldn't he bring it off? There was some obstacle; and what was the obstacle? It lay
in the physical bondage. He shrank from the physical contact. But why? With her he felt
bound up inside himself. He could not go out to her. Something struggled in him, but he
could not get to her. Why? She loved him. Clara said she even wanted him; then why couldn't
he go to her, make love to her, kiss her? Why, when she put her arm in his, timidly,
as they walked, did he feel he would burst forth in brutality and recoil? He owed himself
to her; he wanted to belong to her. Perhaps the recoil and the shrinking from her was
love in its first fierce modesty. He had no aversion for her. No, it was the opposite;
it was a strong desire battling with a still stronger shyness and virginity. It seemed
as if virginity were a positive force, which fought and won in both of them. And with her
he felt it so hard to overcome; yet he was nearest to her, and with her alone could he
deliberately break through. And he owed himself to her. Then, if they could get things right,
they could marry; but he would not marry unless he could feel strong in the joy of it—never.
He could not have faced his mother. It seemed to him that to sacrifice himself in a marriage
he did not want would be degrading, and would undo all his life, make it a nullity. He would
try what he COULD do. And he had a great tenderness for Miriam.
Always, she was sad, dreaming her religion; and he was nearly a religion to her. He could
not bear to fail her. It would all come right if they tried.
He looked round. A good many of the nicest men he knew were like himself, bound in by
their own virginity, which they could not break out of. They were so sensitive to their
women that they would go without them for ever rather than do them a hurt, an injustice.
Being the sons of mothers whose husbands had blundered rather brutally through their feminine
sanctities, they were themselves too diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves
than incur any reproach from a woman; for a woman was like their mother, and they were
full of the sense of their mother. They preferred themselves to suffer the misery of celibacy,
rather than risk the other person. 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 ***
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."
End of Part 1 of Chapter 11
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence Chapter 11, Part 2
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
warmth of one's feelings for a woman till they have run away with one.
He began to give more time to his men friends. There was Jessop, at the art school; Swain,
who was chemistry demonstrator at the university; Newton, who was a teacher; besides Edgar and
Miriam's younger brothers. Pleading work, he sketched and studied with Jessop. He called
in the university for Swain, and the two went "down town" together. Having come home in
the train with Newton, he called and had a game of billiards with him in the Moon and
Stars. If he gave to Miriam the excuse of his men friends, he felt quite justified.
His mother began to be relieved. He always told her where he had been.
During the summer Clara wore sometimes a dress of soft cotton stuff with loose sleeves. When
she lifted her hands, her sleeves fell back, and her beautiful strong arms shone out.
"Half a minute," he cried. "Hold your arm still."
He made sketches of her hand and arm, and the drawings contained some of the fascination
the real thing had for him. Miriam, who always went scrupulously through his books and papers,
saw the drawings. "I think Clara has such beautiful arms," he
said. "Yes! When did you draw them?"
"On Tuesday, in the work-room. You know, I've got a corner where I can work. Often I can
do every single thing they need in the department, before dinner. Then I work for myself in the
afternoon, and just see to things at night." "Yes," she said, turning the leaves of his
sketch-book. Frequently he hated Miriam. He hated her as
she bent forward and pored over his things. He hated her way of patiently casting him
up, as if he were an endless psychological account. When he was with her, he hated her
for having got him, and yet not got him, and he tortured her. She took all and gave nothing,
he said. At least, she gave no living warmth. She was never alive, and giving off life.
Looking for her was like looking for something which did not exist. She was only his conscience,
not his mate. He hated her violently, and was more cruel to her. They dragged on till
the next summer. He saw more and more of Clara. At last he spoke. He had been sitting working
at home one evening. There was between him and his mother a peculiar condition of people
frankly finding fault with each other. Mrs. Morel was strong on her feet again. He was
not going to stick to Miriam. Very well; then she would stand aloof till he said something.
It had been coming a long time, this bursting of the storm in him, when he would come back
to her. This evening there was between them a peculiar condition of suspense. He worked
feverishly and mechanically, so that he could escape from himself. It grew late. Through
the open door, stealthily, came the scent of madonna lilies, almost as if it were prowling
abroad. Suddenly he got up and went out of doors.
The beauty of the night made him want to shout. A half-moon, dusky gold, was sinking behind
the black sycamore at the end of the garden, making the sky dull purple with its glow.
Nearer, a dim white fence of lilies went across the garden, and the air all round seemed to
stir with scent, as if it were alive. He went across the bed of pinks, whose keen perfume
came sharply across the rocking, heavy scent of the lilies, and stood alongside the white
barrier of flowers. They flagged all loose, as if they were panting. The scent made him
drunk. He went down to the field to watch the moon sink under.
A corncrake in the hay-close called insistently. The moon slid quite quickly downwards, growing
more flushed. Behind him the great flowers leaned as if they were calling. And then,
like a shock, he caught another perfume, something raw and coarse. Hunting round, he found the
purple iris, touched their fleshy throats and their dark, grasping hands. At any rate,
he had found something. They stood stiff in the darkness. Their scent was brutal. The
moon was melting down upon the crest of the hill. It was gone; all was dark. The corncrake
called still. Breaking off a pink, he suddenly went indoors.
"Come, my boy," said his mother. "I'm sure it's time you went to bed."
He stood with the pink against his lips. "I shall break off with Miriam, mother," he
answered calmly. She looked up at him over her spectacles.
He was staring back at her, unswerving. She met his eyes for a moment, then took off her
glasses. He was white. The male was up in him, dominant. She did not want to see him
too clearly. "But I thought—" she began.
"Well," he answered, "I don't love her. I don't want to marry her—so I shall have
done." "But," exclaimed his mother, amazed, "I thought
lately you had made up your mind to have her, and so I said nothing."
"I had—I wanted to—but now I don't want. It's no good. I shall break off on Sunday.
I ought to, oughtn't I?" "You know best. You know I said so long ago."
"I can't help that now. I shall break off on Sunday."
"Well," said his mother, "I think it will be best. But lately I decided you had made
up your mind to have her, so I said nothing, and should have said nothing. But I say as
I have always said, I DON'T think she is suited to you."
"On Sunday I break off," he said, smelling the pink. He put the flower in his mouth.
Unthinking, he bared his teeth, closed them on the blossom slowly, and had a mouthful
of petals. These he spat into the fire, kissed his mother, and went to bed.
On Sunday he went up to the farm in the early afternoon. He had written Miriam that they
would walk over the fields to Hucknall. His mother was very tender with him. He said nothing.
But she saw the effort it was costing. The peculiar set look on his face stilled her.
"Never mind, my son," she said. "You will be so much better when it is all over."
Paul glanced swiftly at his mother in surprise and resentment. He did not want sympathy.
Miriam met him at the lane-end. She was wearing a new dress of figured muslin that had short
sleeves. Those short sleeves, and Miriam's brown-skinned arms beneath them—such pitiful,
resigned arms—gave him so much pain that they helped to make him cruel. She had made
herself look so beautiful and fresh for him. She seemed to blossom for him alone. Every
time he looked at her—a mature young woman now, and beautiful in her new dress—it hurt
so much that his heart seemed almost to be bursting with the restraint he put on it.
But he had decided, and it was irrevocable. On the hills they sat down, and he lay with
his head in her lap, whilst she fingered his hair. She knew that "he was not there," as
she put it. Often, when she had him with her, she looked for him, and could not find him.
But this afternoon she was not prepared. It was nearly five o'clock when he told her.
They were sitting on the bank of a stream, where the lip of turf hung over a hollow bank
of yellow earth, and he was hacking away with a stick, as he did when he was perturbed and
cruel. "I have been thinking," he said, "we ought
to break off." "Why?" she cried in surprise.
"Because it's no good going on." "Why is it no good?"
"It isn't. I don't want to marry. I don't want ever to marry. And if we're not going
to marry, it's no good going on." "But why do you say this now?"
"Because I've made up my mind." "And what about these last months, and the
things you told me then?" "I can't help it! I don't want to go on."
"You don't want any more of me?" "I want us to break off—you be free of me,
I free of you." "And what about these last months?"
"I don't know. I've not told you anything but what I thought was true."
"Then why are you different now?" "I'm not—I'm the same—only I know it's
no good going on." "You haven't told me why it's no good."
"Because I don't want to go on—and I don't want to marry."
"How many times have you offered to marry me, and I wouldn't?"
"I know; but I want us to break off." There was silence for a moment or two, while
he dug viciously at the earth. She bent her head, pondering. He was an unreasonable child.
He was like an infant which, when it has drunk its fill, throws away and smashes the cup.
She looked at him, feeling she could get hold of him and WRING some consistency out of him.
But she was helpless. Then she cried: "I have said you were only fourteen—you
are only FOUR!" He still dug at the earth viciously. He heard.
"You are a child of four," she repeated in her anger.
He did not answer, but said in his heart: "All right; if I'm a child of four, what do
you want me for? I don't want another mother." But he said nothing to her, and there was
silence. "And have you told your people?" she asked.
"I have told my mother." There was another long interval of silence.
"Then what do you WANT?" she asked. "Why, I want us to separate. We have lived
on each other all these years; now let us stop. I will go my own way without you, and
you will go your way without me. You will have an independent life of your own then."
There was in it some truth that, in spite of her bitterness, she could not help registering.
She knew she felt in a sort of bondage to him, which she hated because she could not
control it. She hated her love for him from the moment it grew too strong for her. And,
deep down, she had hated him because she loved him and he dominated her. She had resisted
his domination. She had fought to keep herself free of him in the last issue. And she was
free of him, even more than he of her. "And," he continued, "we shall always be more
or less each other's work. You have done a lot for me, I for you. Now let us start and
live by ourselves." "What do you want to do?" she asked.
"Nothing—only to be free," he answered. She, however, knew in her heart that Clara's
influence was over him to liberate him. But she said nothing.
"And what have I to tell my mother?" she asked. "I told my mother," he answered, "that I was
breaking off—clean and altogether." "I shall not tell them at home," she said.
Frowning, "You please yourself," he said. He knew he had landed her in a nasty hole,
and was leaving her in the lurch. It angered him.
"Tell them you wouldn't and won't marry me, and have broken off," he said. "It's true
enough." She bit her finger moodily. She thought over
their whole affair. She had known it would come to this; she had seen it all along. It
chimed with her bitter expectation. "Always—it has always been so!" she cried.
"It has been one long battle between us—you fighting away from me."
It came from her unawares, like a flash of lightning. The man's heart stood still. Was
this how she saw it? "But we've had SOME perfect hours, SOME perfect
times, when we were together!" he pleaded. "Never!" she cried; "never! It has always
been you fighting me off." "Not always—not at first!" he pleaded.
"Always, from the very beginning—always the same!"
She had finished, but she had done enough. He sat aghast. He had wanted to say: "It has
been good, but it is at an end." And she—she whose love he had believed in when he had
despised himself—denied that their love had ever been love. "He had always fought
away from her?" Then it had been monstrous. There had never been anything really between
them; all the time he had been imagining something where there was nothing. And she had known.
She had known so much, and had told him so little. She had known all the time. All the
time this was at the bottom of her! He sat silent in bitterness. At last the whole
affair appeared in a cynical aspect to him. She had really played with him, not he with
her. She had hidden all her condemnation from him, had flattered him, and despised him.
She despised him now. He grew intellectual and cruel.
"You ought to marry a man who worships you," he said; "then you could do as you liked with
him. Plenty of men will worship you, if you get on the private side of their natures.
You ought to marry one such. They would never fight you off."
"Thank you!" she said. "But don't advise me to marry someone else any more. You've done
it before." "Very well," he said; "I will say no more."
He sat still, feeling as if he had had a blow, instead of giving one. Their eight years of
friendship and love, THE eight years of his life, were nullified.
"When did you think of this?" she asked. "I thought definitely on Thursday night."
"I knew it was coming," she said. That pleased him bitterly. "Oh, very well!
If she knew then it doesn't come as a surprise to her," he thought.
"And have you said anything to Clara?" she asked.
"No; but I shall tell her now." There was a silence.
"Do you remember the things you said this time last year, in my grandmother's house—nay
last month even?" "Yes," he said; "I do! And I meant them! I
can't help that it's failed." "It has failed because you want something
else." "It would have failed whether or not. YOU
never believed in me." She laughed strangely.
He sat in silence. He was full of a feeling that she had deceived him. She had despised
him when he thought she worshipped him. She had let him say wrong things, and had not
contradicted him. She had let him fight alone. But it stuck in his throat that she had despised
him whilst he thought she worshipped him. She should have told him when she found fault
with him. She had not played fair. He hated her. All these years she had treated him as
if he were a hero, and thought of him secretly as an infant, a foolish child. Then why had
she left the foolish child to his folly? His heart was hard against her.
She sat full of bitterness. She had known—oh, well she had known! All the time he was away
from her she had summed him up, seen his littleness, his meanness, and his folly. Even she had
guarded her soul against him. She was not overthrown, not prostrated, not even much
hurt. She had known. Only why, as he sat there, had he still this strange dominance over her?
His very movements fascinated her as if she were hypnotised by him. Yet he was despicable,
false, inconsistent, and mean. Why this bondage for her? Why was it the movement of his arm
stirred her as nothing else in the world could? Why was she fastened to him? Why, even now,
if he looked at her and commanded her, would she have to obey? She would obey him in his
trifling commands. But once he was obeyed, then she had him in her power, she knew, to
lead him where she would. She was sure of herself. Only, this new influence! Ah, he
was not a man! He was a baby that cries for the newest toy. And all the attachment of
his soul would not keep him. Very well, he would have to go. But he would come back when
he had tired of his new sensation. He hacked at the earth till she was fretted
to death. She rose. He sat flinging lumps of earth in the stream.
"We will go and have tea here?" he asked. "Yes," she answered.
They chattered over irrelevant subjects during tea. He held forth on the love of ornament—the
cottage parlour moved him thereto—and its connection with aesthetics. She was cold and
quiet. As they walked home, she asked: "And we shall not see each other?"
"No—or rarely," he answered. "Nor write?" she asked, almost sarcastically.
"As you will," he answered. "We're not strangers—never should be, whatever happened. I will write
to you now and again. You please yourself." "I see!" she answered cuttingly.
But he was at that stage at which nothing else hurts. He had made a great cleavage in
his life. He had had a great shock when she had told him their love had been always a
conflict. Nothing more mattered. If it never had been much, there was no need to make a
fuss that it was ended. He left her at the lane-end. As she went home,
solitary, in her new frock, having her people to face at the other end, he stood still with
shame and pain in the highroad, thinking of the suffering he caused her.
In the reaction towards restoring his self-esteem, he went into the Willow Tree for a drink.
There were four girls who had been out for the day, drinking a modest glass of port.
They had some chocolates on the table. Paul sat near with his whisky. He noticed the girls
whispering and nudging. Presently one, a bonny dark ***, leaned to him and said:
"Have a chocolate?" The others laughed loudly at her impudence.
"All right," said Paul. "Give me a hard one—nut. I don't like creams."
"Here you are, then," said the girl; "here's an almond for you."
She held the sweet between her fingers. He opened his mouth. She popped it in, and blushed.
"You ARE nice!" he said. "Well," she answered, "we thought you looked
overcast, and they dared me offer you a chocolate." "I don't mind if I have another—another
sort," he said. And presently they were all laughing together.
It was nine o'clock when he got home, falling dark. He entered the house in silence. His
mother, who had been waiting, rose anxiously. "I told her," he said.
"I'm glad," replied the mother, with great relief.
He hung up his cap wearily. "I said we'd have done altogether," he said.
"That's right, my son," said the mother. "It's hard for her now, but best in the long run.
I know. You weren't suited for her." He laughed shakily as he sat down.
"I've had such a lark with some girls in a pub," he said.
His mother looked at him. He had forgotten Miriam now. He told her about the girls in
the Willow Tree. Mrs. Morel looked at him. It seemed unreal, his gaiety. At the back
of it was too much horror and misery. "Now have some supper," she said very gently.
Afterwards he said wistfully: "She never thought she'd have me, mother,
not from the first, and so she's not disappointed." "I'm afraid," said his mother, "she doesn't
give up hopes of you yet." "No," he said, "perhaps not."
"You'll find it's better to have done," she said.
"I don't know," he said desperately. "Well, leave her alone," replied his mother.
So he left her, and she was alone. Very few people cared for her, and she for very few
people. She remained alone with herself, waiting. End of Chapter
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence CHAPTER XII
PASSION HE was gradually making it possible to earn
a livelihood by his art. Liberty's had taken several of his painted designs on various
stuffs, and he could sell designs for embroideries, for altar-cloths, and similar things, in one
or two places. It was not very much he made at present, but he might extend it. He had
also made friends with the designer for a pottery firm, and was gaining some knowledge
of his new acquaintance's art. The applied arts interested him very much. At the same
time he laboured slowly at his pictures. He loved to paint large figures, full of light,
but not merely made up of lights and cast shadows, like the impressionists; rather definite
figures that had a certain luminous quality, like some of Michael Angelo's people. And
these he fitted into a landscape, in what he thought true proportion. He worked a great
deal from memory, using everybody he knew. He believed firmly in his work, that it was
good and valuable. In spite of fits of depression, shrinking, everything, he believed in his
work. He was twenty-four when he said his first
confident thing to his mother. "Mother," he said, "I s'll make a painter
that they'll attend to." She sniffed in her quaint fashion. It was
like a half-pleased shrug of the shoulders. "Very well, my boy, we'll see," she said.
"You shall see, my pigeon! You see if you're not swanky one of these days!"
"I'm quite content, my boy," she smiled. "But you'll have to alter. Look at you with
Minnie!" Minnie was the small servant, a girl of fourteen.
"And what about Minnie?" asked Mrs. Morel, with dignity.
"I heard her this morning: 'Eh, Mrs. Morel! I was going to do that,' when you went out
in the rain for some coal," he said. "That looks a lot like your being able to manage
servants!" "Well, it was only the child's niceness,"
said Mrs. Morel. "And you apologising to her: 'You can't do
two things at once, can you?'" "She WAS busy washing up," replied Mrs. Morel.
"And what did she say? 'It could easy have waited a bit. Now look how your feet paddle!'"
"Yes—brazen young baggage!" said Mrs. Morel, smiling.
He looked at his mother, laughing. She was quite warm and rosy again with love of him.
It seemed as if all the sunshine were on her for a moment. He continued his work gladly.
She seemed so well when she was happy that he forgot her grey hair.
And that year she went with him to the Isle of Wight for a holiday. It was too exciting
for them both, and too beautiful. Mrs. Morel was full of joy and wonder. But he would have
her walk with him more than she was able. She had a bad fainting bout. So grey her face
was, so blue her mouth! It was agony to him. He felt as if someone were pushing a knife
in his chest. Then she was better again, and he forgot. But the anxiety remained inside
him, like a wound that did not close. After leaving Miriam he went almost straight
to Clara. On the Monday following the day of the rupture he went down to the work-room.
She looked up at him and smiled. They had grown very intimate unawares. She saw a new
brightness about him. "Well, Queen of Sheba!" he said, laughing.
"But why?" she asked. "I think it suits you. You've got a new frock
on." She flushed, asking:
"And what of it?" "Suits you—awfully! I could design you a
dress." "How would it be?"
He stood in front of her, his eyes glittering as he expounded. He kept her eyes fixed with
his. Then suddenly he took hold of her. She half-started back. He drew the stuff of her
blouse tighter, smoothed it over her breast. "More SO!" he explained.
But they were both of them flaming with blushes, and immediately he ran away. He had touched
her. His whole body was quivering with the sensation.
There was already a sort of secret understanding between them. The next evening he went to
the cinematograph with her for a few minutes before train-time. As they sat, he saw her
hand lying near him. For some moments he dared not touch it. The pictures danced and dithered.
Then he took her hand in his. It was large and firm; it filled his grasp. He held it
fast. She neither moved nor made any sign. When they came out his train was due. He hesitated.
"Good-night," she said. He darted away across the road.
The next day he came again, talking to her. She was rather superior with him.
"Shall we go a walk on Monday?" he asked. She turned her face aside.
"Shall you tell Miriam?" she replied sarcastically. "I have broken off with her," he said.
"When?" "Last Sunday."
"You quarrelled?" "No! I had made up my mind. I told her quite
definitely I should consider myself free." Clara did not answer, and he returned to his
work. She was so quiet and so superb! On the Saturday evening he asked her to come
and drink coffee with him in a restaurant, meeting him after work was over. She came,
looking very reserved and very distant. He had three-quarters of an hour to train-time.
"We will walk a little while," he said. She agreed, and they went past the Castle
into the Park. He was afraid of her. She walked moodily at his side, with a kind of resentful,
reluctant, angry walk. He was afraid to take her hand.
"Which way shall we go?" he asked as they walked in darkness.
"I don't mind." "Then we'll go up the steps."
He suddenly turned round. They had passed the Park steps. She stood still in resentment
at his suddenly abandoning her. He looked for her. She stood aloof. He caught her suddenly
in his arms, held her strained for a moment, kissed her. Then he let her go.
"Come along," he said, penitent. She followed him. He took her hand and kissed
her finger-tips. They went in silence. When they came to the light, he let go her hand.
Neither spoke till they reached the station. Then they looked each other in the eyes.
"Good-night," she said. And he went for his train. His body acted
mechanically. People talked to him. He heard faint echoes answering them. He was in a delirium.
He felt that he would go mad if Monday did not come at once. On Monday he would see her
again. All himself was pitched there, ahead. Sunday intervened. He could not bear it. He
could not see her till Monday. And Sunday intervened—hour after hour of tension. He
wanted to beat his head against the door of the carriage. But he sat still. He drank some
whisky on the way home, but it only made it worse. His mother must not be upset, that
was all. He dissembled, and got quickly to bed. There he sat, dressed, with his chin
on his knees, staring out of the window at the far hill, with its few lights. He neither
thought nor slept, but sat perfectly still, staring. And when at last he was so cold that
he came to himself, he found his watch had stopped at half-past two. It was after three
o'clock. He was exhausted, but still there was the torment of knowing it was only Sunday
morning. He went to bed and slept. Then he cycled all day long, till he was *** out.
And he scarcely knew where he had been. But the day after was Monday. He slept till four
o'clock. Then he lay and thought. He was coming nearer to himself—he could see himself,
real, somewhere in front. She would go a walk with him in the afternoon. Afternoon! It seemed
years ahead. Slowly the hours crawled. His father got up;
he heard him pottering about. Then the miner set off to the pit, his heavy boots scraping
the yard. *** were still crowing. A cart went down the road. His mother got up. She
knocked the fire. Presently she called him softly. He answered as if he were asleep.
This shell of himself did well. He was walking to the station—another mile!
The train was near Nottingham. Would it stop before the tunnels? But it did not matter;
it would get there before dinner-time. He was at Jordan's. She would come in half an
hour. At any rate, she would be near. He had done the letters. She would be there. Perhaps
she had not come. He ran downstairs. Ah! he saw her through the glass door. Her shoulders
stooping a little to her work made him feel he could not go forward; he could not stand.
He went in. He was pale, nervous, awkward, and quite cold. Would she misunderstand him?
He could not write his real self with this shell.
"And this afternoon," he struggled to say. "You will come?"
"I think so," she replied, murmuring. He stood before her, unable to say a word.
She hid her face from him. Again came over him the feeling that he would lose consciousness.
He set his teeth and went upstairs. He had done everything correctly yet, and he would
do so. All the morning things seemed a long way off, as they do to a man under chloroform.
He himself seemed under a tight band of constraint. Then there was his other self, in the distance,
doing things, entering stuff in a ledger, and he watched that far-off him carefully
to see he made no mistake. But the ache and strain of it could not go
on much longer. He worked incessantly. Still it was only twelve o'clock. As if he had nailed
his clothing against the desk, he stood there and worked, forcing every stroke out of himself.
It was a quarter to one; he could clear away. Then he ran downstairs.
"You will meet me at the Fountain at two o'clock," he said.
"I can't be there till half-past." "Yes!" he said.
She saw his dark, mad eyes. "I will try at a quarter past."
And he had to be content. He went and got some dinner. All the time he was still under
chloroform, and every minute was stretched out indefinitely. He walked miles of streets.
Then he thought he would be late at the meeting-place. He was at the Fountain at five past two. The
torture of the next quarter of an hour was refined beyond expression. It was the anguish
of combining the living self with the shell. Then he saw her. She came! And he was there.
"You are late," he said. "Only five minutes," she answered.
"I'd never have done it to you," he laughed. She was in a dark blue costume. He looked
at her beautiful figure. "You want some flowers," he said, going to
the nearest florist's. She followed him in silence. He bought her
a bunch of scarlet, brick-red carnations. She put them in her coat, flushing.
"That's a fine colour!" he said. "I'd rather have had something softer," she
said. He laughed.
"Do you feel like a blot of vermilion walking down the street?" he said.
She hung her head, afraid of the people they met. He looked sideways at her as they walked.
There was a wonderful close down on her face near the ear that he wanted to touch. And
a certain heaviness, the heaviness of a very full ear of corn that dips slightly in the
wind, that there was about her, made his brain spin. He seemed to be spinning down the street,
everything going round. As they sat in the tramcar, she leaned her
heavy shoulder against him, and he took her hand. He felt himself coming round from the
anaesthetic, beginning to breathe. Her ear, half-hidden among her blonde hair, was near
to him. The temptation to kiss it was almost too great. But there were other people on
top of the car. It still remained to him to kiss it. After all, he was not himself, he
was some attribute of hers, like the sunshine that fell on her.
He looked quickly away. It had been raining. The big bluff of the Castle rock was streaked
with rain, as it reared above the flat of the town. They crossed the wide, black space
of the Midland Railway, and passed the cattle enclosure that stood out white. Then they
ran down sordid Wilford Road. She rocked slightly to the tram's motion,
and as she leaned against him, rocked upon him. He was a vigorous, slender man, with
exhaustless energy. His face was rough, with rough-hewn features, like the common people's;
but his eyes under the deep brows were so full of life that they fascinated her. They
seemed to dance, and yet they were still trembling on the finest balance of laughter. His mouth
the same was just going to spring into a laugh of triumph, yet did not. There was a sharp
suspense about him. She bit her lip moodily. His hand was hard clenched over hers.
They paid their two halfpennies at the turnstile and crossed the bridge. The Trent was very
full. It swept silent and insidious under the bridge, travelling in a soft body. There
had been a great deal of rain. On the river levels were flat gleams of flood water. The
sky was grey, with glisten of silver here and there. In Wilford churchyard the dahlias
were sodden with rain—wet black-crimson balls. No one was on the path that went along
the green river meadow, along the elm-tree colonnade.
There was the faintest haze over the silvery-dark water and the green meadow-bank, and the elm-trees
that were spangled with gold. The river slid by in a body, utterly silent and swift, intertwining
among itself like some subtle, complex creature. Clara walked moodily beside him.
"Why," she asked at length, in rather a jarring tone, "did you leave Miriam?"
He frowned. "Because I WANTED to leave her," he said.
"Why?" "Because I didn't want to go on with her.
And I didn't want to marry." She was silent for a moment. They picked their
way down the muddy path. Drops of water fell from the elm-trees.
"You didn't want to marry Miriam, or you didn't want to marry at all?" she asked.
"Both," he answered—"both!" They had to manoeuvre to get to the stile,
because of the pools of water. "And what did she say?" Clara asked.
"Miriam? She said I was a baby of four, and that I always HAD battled her off."
Clara pondered over this for a time. "But you have really been going with her for
some time?" she asked. "Yes."
"And now you don't want any more of her?" "No. I know it's no good."
She pondered again. "Don't you think you've treated her rather
badly?" she asked. "Yes; I ought to have dropped it years back.
But it would have been no good going on. Two wrongs don't make a right."
"How old ARE you?" Clara asked. "Twenty-five."
"And I am thirty," she said. "I know you are."
"I shall be thirty-one—or AM I thirty-one?" "I neither know nor care. What does it matter!"
They were at the entrance to the Grove. The wet, red track, already sticky with fallen
leaves, went up the steep bank between the grass. On either side stood the elm-trees
like pillars along a great aisle, arching over and making high up a roof from which
the dead leaves fell. All was empty and silent and wet. She stood on top of the stile, and
he held both her hands. Laughing, she looked down into his eyes. Then she leaped. Her breast
came against his; he held her, and covered her face with kisses.
They went on up the slippery, steep red path. Presently she released his hand and put it
round her waist. "You press the vein in my arm, holding it
so tightly," she said. They walked along. His finger-tips felt the
rocking of her breast. All was silent and deserted. On the left the red wet plough-land
showed through the doorways between the elm-boles and their branches. On the right, looking
down, they could see the tree-tops of elms growing far beneath them, hear occasionally
the gurgle of the river. Sometimes there below they caught glimpses of the full, soft-sliding
Trent, and of water-meadows dotted with small cattle.
"It has scarcely altered since little Kirke White used to come," he said.
But he was watching her throat below the ear, where the flush was fusing into the honey-white,
and her mouth that pouted disconsolate. She stirred against him as she walked, and his
body was like a taut string. Halfway up the big colonnade of elms, where
the Grove rose highest above the river, their forward movement faltered to an end. He led
her across to the grass, under the trees at the edge of the path. The cliff of red earth
sloped swiftly down, through trees and bushes, to the river that glimmered and was dark between
the foliage. The far-below water-meadows were very green. He and she stood leaning against
one another, silent, afraid, their bodies touching all along. There came a quick gurgle
from the river below. "Why," he asked at length, "did you hate Baxter
Dawes?" She turned to him with a splendid movement.
Her mouth was offered him, and her throat; her eyes were half-shut; her breast was tilted
as if it asked for him. He flashed with a small laugh, shut his eyes, and met her in
a long, whole kiss. Her mouth fused with his; their bodies were sealed and annealed. It
was some minutes before they withdrew. They were standing beside the public path.
"Will you go down to the river?" he asked. She looked at him, leaving herself in his
hands. He went over the brim of the declivity and began to climb down.
"It is slippery," he said. "Never mind," she replied.
The red clay went down almost sheer. He slid, went from one tuft of grass to the next, hanging
on to the bushes, making for a little platform at the foot of a tree. There he waited for
her, laughing with excitement. Her shoes were clogged with red earth. It was hard for her.
He frowned. At last he caught her hand, and she stood beside him. The cliff rose above
them and fell away below. Her colour was up, her eyes flashed. He looked at the big drop
below them. "It's risky," he said; "or messy, at any rate.
Shall we go back?" "Not for my sake," she said quickly.
"All right. You see, I can't help you; I should only hinder. Give me that little parcel and
your gloves. Your poor shoes!" They stood perched on the face of the declivity,
under the trees. "Well, I'll go again," he said.
Away he went, slipping, staggering, sliding to the next tree, into which he fell with
a slam that nearly shook the breath out of him. She came after cautiously, hanging on
to the twigs and grasses. So they descended, stage by stage, to the river's brink. There,
to his disgust, the flood had eaten away the path, and the red decline ran straight into
the water. He dug in his heels and brought himself up violently. The string of the parcel
broke with a snap; the brown parcel bounded down, leaped into the water, and sailed smoothly
away. He hung on to his tree. "Well, I'll be damned!" he cried crossly.
Then he laughed. She was coming perilously down.
"Mind!" he warned her. He stood with his back to the tree, waiting. "Come now," he called,
opening his arms. She let herself run. He caught her, and together
they stood watching the dark water scoop at the raw edge of the bank. The parcel had sailed
out of sight. "It doesn't matter," she said.
He held her close and kissed her. There was only room for their four feet.
"It's a swindle!" he said. "But there's a rut where a man has been, so if we go on I
guess we shall find the path again." The river slid and twined its great volume.
On the other bank cattle were feeding on the desolate flats. The cliff rose high above
Paul and Clara on their right hand. They stood against the tree in the watery silence.
"Let us try going forward," he said; and they struggled in the red clay along the groove
a man's nailed boots had made. They were hot and flushed. Their barkled shoes hung heavy
on their steps. At last they found the broken path. It was littered with rubble from the
water, but at any rate it was easier. They cleaned their boots with twigs. His heart
was beating thick and fast. Suddenly, coming on to the little level, he
saw two figures of men standing silent at the water's edge. His heart leaped. They were
fishing. He turned and put his hand up warningly to Clara. She hesitated, buttoned her coat.
The two went on together. The fishermen turned curiously to watch the
two intruders on their privacy and solitude. They had had a fire, but it was nearly out.
All kept perfectly still. The men turned again to their fishing, stood over the grey glinting
river like statues. Clara went with bowed head, flushing; he was laughing to himself.
Directly they passed out of sight behind the willows.
"Now they ought to be drowned," said Paul softly.
Clara did not answer. They toiled forward along a tiny path on the river's lip. Suddenly
it vanished. The bank was sheer red solid clay in front of them, sloping straight into
the river. He stood and cursed beneath his breath, setting his teeth.
"It's impossible!" said Clara. He stood erect, looking round. Just ahead
were two islets in the stream, covered with osiers. But they were unattainable. The cliff
came down like a sloping wall from far above their heads. Behind, not far back, were the
fishermen. Across the river the distant cattle fed silently in the desolate afternoon. He
cursed again deeply under his breath. He gazed up the great steep bank. Was there no hope
but to scale back to the public path? "Stop a minute," he said, and, digging his
heels sideways into the steep bank of red clay, he began nimbly to mount. He looked
across at every tree-foot. At last he found what he wanted. Two beech-trees side by side
on the hill held a little level on the upper face between their roots. It was littered
with damp leaves, but it would do. The fishermen were perhaps sufficiently out of sight. He
threw down his rainproof and waved to her to come.
She toiled to his side. Arriving there, she looked at him heavily, dumbly, and laid her
head on his shoulder. He held her fast as he looked round. They were safe enough from
all but the small, lonely cows over the river. He sunk his mouth on her throat, where he
felt her heavy pulse beat under his lips. Everything was perfectly still. There was
nothing in the afternoon but themselves. When she arose, he, looking on the ground
all the time, saw suddenly sprinkled on the black wet beech-roots many scarlet carnation
petals, like splashed drops of blood; and red, small splashes fell from her ***, streaming
down her dress to her feet. "Your flowers are smashed," he said.
She looked at him heavily as she put back her hair. Suddenly he put his finger-tips
on her cheek. "Why dost look so heavy?" he reproached her.
She smiled sadly, as if she felt alone in herself. He caressed her cheek with his fingers,
and kissed her. "Nay!" he said. "Never thee bother!"
She gripped his fingers tight, and laughed shakily. Then she dropped her hand. He put
the hair back from her brows, stroking her temples, kissing them lightly.
"But tha shouldna worrit!" he said softly, pleading.
"No, I don't worry!" she laughed tenderly and resigned.
"Yea, tha does! Dunna thee worrit," he implored, caressing.
"No!" she consoled him, kissing him. They had a stiff climb to get to the top again.
It took them a quarter of an hour. When he got on to the level grass, he threw off his
cap, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and sighed.
"Now we're back at the ordinary level," he said.
She sat down, panting, on the tussocky grass. Her cheeks were flushed pink. He kissed her,
and she gave way to joy. "And now I'll clean thy boots and make thee
fit for respectable folk," he said. He kneeled at her feet, worked away with a
stick and tufts of grass. She put her fingers in his hair, drew his head to her, and kissed
it. "What am I supposed to be doing," he said,
looking at her laughing; "cleaning shoes or dibbling with love? Answer me that!"
"Just whichever I please," she replied. "I'm your boot-boy for the time being, and
nothing else!" But they remained looking into each other's eyes and laughing. Then they
kissed with little nibbling kisses. "T-t-t-t!" he went with his tongue, like his
mother. "I tell you, nothing gets done when there's a woman about."
And he returned to his boot-cleaning, singing softly. She touched his thick hair, and he
kissed her fingers. He worked away at her shoes. At last they were quite presentable.
"There you are, you see!" he said. "Aren't I a great hand at restoring you to respectability?
Stand up! There, you look as irreproachable as Britannia herself!"
He cleaned his own boots a little, washed his hands in a puddle, and sang. They went
on into Clifton village. He was madly in love with her; every movement she made, every crease
in her garments, sent a hot flash through him and seemed adorable.
The old lady at whose house they had tea was roused into gaiety by them.
"I could wish you'd had something of a better day," she said, hovering round.
"Nay!" he laughed. "We've been saying how nice it is."
The old lady looked at him curiously. There was a peculiar glow and charm about him. His
eyes were dark and laughing. He rubbed his moustache with a glad movement.
"Have you been saying SO!" she exclaimed, a light rousing in her old eyes.
"Truly!" he laughed. "Then I'm sure the day's good enough," said
the old lady. She fussed about, and did not want to leave
them. "I don't know whether you'd like some radishes
as well," she said to Clara; "but I've got some in the garden—AND a cucumber."
Clara flushed. She looked very handsome. "I should like some radishes," she answered.
And the old lady pottered off gleefully. "If she knew!" said Clara quietly to him.
"Well, she doesn't know; and it shows we're nice in ourselves, at any rate. You look quite
enough to satisfy an archangel, and I'm sure I feel harmless—so—if it makes you look
nice, and makes folk happy when they have us, and makes us happy—why, we're not cheating
them out of much!" They went on with the meal. When they were
going away, the old lady came timidly with three tiny dahlias in full blow, neat as bees,
and speckled scarlet and white. She stood before Clara, pleased with herself, saying:
"I don't know whether—" and holding the flowers forward in her old hand.
"Oh, how pretty!" cried Clara, accepting the flowers.
"Shall she have them all?" asked Paul reproachfully of the old woman.
"Yes, she shall have them all," she replied, beaming with joy. "You have got enough for
your share." "Ah, but I shall ask her to give me one!"
he teased. "Then she does as she pleases," said the old
lady, smiling. And she bobbed a little curtsey of delight.
Clara was rather quiet and uncomfortable. As they walked along, he said:
"You don't feel criminal, do you?" She looked at him with startled grey eyes.
"Criminal!" she said. "No." "But you seem to feel you have done a wrong?"
"No," she said. "I only think, 'If they knew!'" "If they knew, they'd cease to understand.
As it is, they do understand, and they like it. What do they matter? Here, with only the
trees and me, you don't feel not the least bit wrong, do you?"
He took her by the arm, held her facing him, holding her eyes with his. Something fretted
him. "Not sinners, are we?" he said, with an uneasy
little frown. "No," she replied.
He kissed her, laughing. "You like your little bit of guiltiness, I
believe," he said. "I believe Eve enjoyed it, when she went cowering out of Paradise."
But there was a certain glow and quietness about her that made him glad. When he was
alone in the railway-carriage, he found himself tumultuously happy, and the people exceedingly
nice, and the night lovely, and everything good.
Mrs. Morel was sitting reading when he got home. Her health was not good now, and there
had come that ivory pallor into her face which he never noticed, and which afterwards he
never forgot. She did not mention her own ill-health to him. After all, she thought,
it was not much. "You are late!" she said, looking at him.
His eyes were shining; his face seemed to glow. He smiled to her.
"Yes; I've been down Clifton Grove with Clara." His mother looked at him again.
"But won't people talk?" she said. "Why? They know she's a suffragette, and so
on. And what if they do talk!" "Of course, there may be nothing wrong in
it," said his mother. "But you know what folks are, and if once she gets talked about—"
"Well, I can't help it. Their jaw isn't so almighty important, after all."
"I think you ought to consider HER." "So I DO! What can people say?—that we take
a walk together. I believe you're jealous." "You know I should be GLAD if she weren't
a married woman." "Well, my dear, she lives separate from her
husband, and talks on platforms; so she's already singled out from the sheep, and, as
far as I can see, hasn't much to lose. No; her life's nothing to her, so what's the worth
of nothing? She goes with me—it becomes something. Then she must pay—we both must
pay! Folk are so frightened of paying; they'd rather starve and die."
"Very well, my son. We'll see how it will end."
"Very well, my mother. I'll abide by the end." "We'll see!"
"And she's—she's AWFULLY nice, mother; she is really! You don't know!"
"That's not the same as marrying her." "It's perhaps better."
There was silence for a while. He wanted to ask his mother something, but was afraid.
"Should you like to know her?" He hesitated. "Yes," said Mrs. Morel coolly. "I should like
to know what she's like." "But she's nice, mother, she is! And not a
bit common!" "I never suggested she was."
"But you seem to think she's—not as good as—She's better than ninety-nine folk out
of a hundred, I tell you! She's BETTER, she is! She's fair, she's honest, she's straight!
There isn't anything underhand or superior about her. Don't be mean about her!"
Mrs. Morel flushed. "I am sure I am not mean about her. She may
be quite as you say, but—" "You don't approve," he finished.
"And do you expect me to?" she answered coldly. "Yes!—yes!—if you'd anything about you,
you'd be glad! Do you WANT to see her?" "I said I did."
"Then I'll bring her—shall I bring her here?" "You please yourself."
"Then I WILL bring her here—one Sunday—to tea. If you think a horrid thing about her,
I shan't forgive you." His mother laughed.
"As if it would make any difference!" she said. He knew he had won.
"Oh, but it feels so fine, when she's there! She's such a queen in her way."
End of Part 1 of Chapter 12
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence Chapter 12, Part 2
Passion Occasionally he still walked a little way
from chapel with Miriam and Edgar. He did not go up to the farm. She, however, was very
much the same with him, and he did not feel embarrassed in her presence. One evening she
was alone when he accompanied her. They began by talking books: it was their unfailing topic.
Mrs. Morel had said that his and Miriam's affair was like a fire fed on books—if there
were no more volumes it would die out. Miriam, for her part, boasted that she could read
him like a book, could place her finger any minute on the chapter and the line. He, easily
taken in, believed that Miriam knew more about him than anyone else. So it pleased him to
talk to her about himself, like the simplest egoist. Very soon the conversation drifted
to his own doings. It flattered him immensely that he was of such supreme interest.
"And what have you been doing lately?" "I—oh, not much! I made a sketch of Bestwood
from the garden, that is nearly right at last. It's the hundredth try."
So they went on. Then she said: "You've not been out, then, lately?"
"Yes; I went up Clifton Grove on Monday afternoon with Clara."
"It was not very nice weather," said Miriam, "was it?"
"But I wanted to go out, and it was all right. The Trent IS full."
"And did you go to Barton?" she asked. "No; we had tea in Clifton."
"DID you! That would be nice." "It was! The jolliest old woman! She gave
us several pompom dahlias, as pretty as you like."
Miriam bowed her head and brooded. He was quite unconscious of concealing anything from
her. "What made her give them you?" she asked.
He laughed. "Because she liked us—because we were jolly,
I should think." Miriam put her finger in her mouth.
"Were you late home?" she asked. At last he resented her tone.
"I caught the seven-thirty." "Ha!"
They walked on in silence, and he was angry. "And how IS Clara?" asked Miriam.
"Quite all right, I think." "That's good!" she said, with a tinge of irony.
"By the way, what of her husband? One never hears anything of him."
"He's got some other woman, and is also quite all right," he replied. "At least, so I think."
"I see—you don't know for certain. Don't you think a position like that is ***
a woman?" "Rottenly hard!"
"It's so unjust!" said Miriam. "The man does as he likes—"
"Then let the woman also," he said. "How can she? And if she does, look at her
position!" "What of it?"
"Why, it's impossible! You don't understand what a woman forfeits—"
"No, I don't. But if a woman's got nothing but her fair fame to feed on, why, it's thin
tack, and a donkey would die of it!" So she understood his moral attitude, at least,
and she knew he would act accordingly. She never asked him anything direct, but she
got to know enough. Another day, when he saw Miriam, the conversation
turned to marriage, then to Clara's marriage with Dawes.
"You see," he said, "she never knew the fearful importance of marriage. She thought it was
all in the day's march—it would have to come—and Dawes—well, a good many women
would have given their souls to get him; so why not him? Then she developed into the femme
incomprise, and treated him badly, I'll bet my boots."
"And she left him because he didn't understand her?"
"I suppose so. I suppose she had to. It isn't altogether a question of understanding; it's
a question of living. With him, she was only half-alive; the rest was dormant, deadened.
And the dormant woman was the femme incomprise, and she HAD to be awakened."
"And what about him." "I don't know. I rather think he loves her
as much as he can, but he's a fool." "It was something like your mother and father,"
said Miriam. "Yes; but my mother, I believe, got real joy
and satisfaction out of my father at first. I believe she had a passion for him; that's
why she stayed with him. After all, they were bound to each other."
"Yes," said Miriam. "That's what one MUST HAVE, I think," he continued—"the
real, real flame of feeling through another person—once, only once, if it only lasts
three months. See, my mother looks as if she'd HAD everything that was necessary for her
living and developing. There's not a tiny bit of feeling of sterility about her."
"No," said Miriam. "And with my father, at first, I'm sure she
had the real thing. She knows; she has been there. You can feel it about her, and about
him, and about hundreds of people you meet every day; and, once it has happened to you,
you can go on with anything and ripen." "What happened, exactly?" asked Miriam.
"It's so hard to say, but the something big and intense that changes you when you really
come together with somebody else. It almost seems to fertilise your soul and make it that
you can go on and mature." "And you think your mother had it with your
father?" "Yes; and at the bottom she feels grateful
to him for giving it her, even now, though they are miles apart."
"And you think Clara never had it?" "I'm sure."
Miriam pondered this. She saw what he was seeking—a sort of baptism of fire in passion,
it seemed to her. She realised that he would never be satisfied till he had it. Perhaps
it was essential to him, as to some men, to sow wild oats; and afterwards, when he was
satisfied, he would not rage with restlessness any more, but could settle down and give her
his life into her hands. Well, then, if he must go, let him go and have his fill—something
big and intense, he called it. At any rate, when he had got it, he would not want it—that
he said himself; he would want the other thing that she could give him. He would want to
be owned, so that he could work. It seemed to her a bitter thing that he must go, but
she could let him go into an inn for a glass of whisky, so she could let him go to Clara,
so long as it was something that would satisfy a need in him, and leave him free for herself
to possess. "Have you told your mother about Clara?" she
asked. She knew this would be a test of the seriousness
of his feeling for the other woman: she knew he was going to Clara for something vital,
not as a man goes for pleasure to a ***, if he told his mother.
"Yes," he said, "and she is coming to tea on Sunday."
"To your house?" "Yes; I want mater to see her."
"Ah!" There was a silence. Things had gone quicker
than she thought. She felt a sudden bitterness that he could leave her so soon and so entirely.
And was Clara to be accepted by his people, who had been so hostile to herself?
"I may call in as I go to chapel," she said. "It is a long time since I saw Clara."
"Very well," he said, astonished, and unconsciously angry.
On the Sunday afternoon he went to Keston to meet Clara at the station. As he stood
on the platform he was trying to examine in himself if he had a premonition.
"Do I FEEL as if she'd come?" he said to himself, and he tried to find out. His heart felt ***
and contracted. That seemed like foreboding. Then he HAD a foreboding she would not come!
Then she would not come, and instead of taking her over the fields home, as he had imagined,
he would have to go alone. The train was late; the afternoon would be wasted, and the evening.
He hated her for not coming. Why had she promised, then, if she could not keep her promise? Perhaps
she had missed her train—he himself was always missing trains—but that was no reason
why she should miss this particular one. He was angry with her; he was furious.
Suddenly he saw the train crawling, sneaking round the corner. Here, then, was the train,
but of course she had not come. The green engine hissed along the platform, the row
of brown carriages drew up, several doors opened. No; she had not come! No! Yes; ah,
there she was! She had a big black hat on! He was at her side in a moment.
"I thought you weren't coming," he said. She was laughing rather breathlessly as she
put out her hand to him; their eyes met. He took her quickly along the platform, talking
at a great rate to hide his feeling. She looked beautiful. In her hat were large silk roses,
coloured like tarnished gold. Her costume of dark cloth fitted so beautifully over her
breast and shoulders. His pride went up as he walked with her. He felt the station people,
who knew him, eyed her with awe and admiration. "I was sure you weren't coming," he laughed
shakily. She laughed in answer, almost with a little
cry. "And I wondered, when I was in the train,
WHATEVER I should do if you weren't there!" she said.
He caught her hand impulsively, and they went along the narrow twitchel. They took the road
into Nuttall and over the Reckoning House Farm. It was a blue, mild day. Everywhere
the brown leaves lay scattered; many scarlet hips stood upon the hedge beside the wood.
He gathered a few for her to wear. "Though, really," he said, as he fitted them
into the breast of her coat, "you ought to object to my getting them, because of the
birds. But they don't care much for rose-hips in this part, where they can get plenty of
stuff. You often find the berries going rotten in the springtime."
So he chattered, scarcely aware of what he said, only knowing he was putting berries
in the *** of her coat, while she stood patiently for him. And she watched his quick
hands, so full of life, and it seemed to her she had never SEEN anything before. Till now,
everything had been indistinct. They came near to the colliery. It stood quite
still and black among the corn-fields, its immense heap of slag seen rising almost from
the oats. "What a pity there is a coal-pit here where
it is so pretty!" said Clara. "Do you think so?" he answered. "You see,
I am so used to it I should miss it. No; and I like the pits here and there. I like the
rows of trucks, and the headstocks, and the steam in the daytime, and the lights at night.
When I was a boy, I always thought a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night
was a pit, with its steam, and its lights, and the burning bank,—and I thought the
Lord was always at the pit-top." As they drew near home she walked in silence,
and seemed to hang back. He pressed her fingers in his own. She flushed, but gave no response.
"Don't you want to come home?" he asked. "Yes, I want to come," she replied.
It did not occur to him that her position in his home would be rather a peculiar and
difficult one. To him it seemed just as if one of his men friends were going to be introduced
to his mother, only nicer. The Morels lived in a house in an ugly street
that ran down a steep hill. The street itself was hideous. The house was rather superior
to most. It was old, grimy, with a big bay window, and it was semi-detached; but it looked
gloomy. Then Paul opened the door to the garden, and all was different. The sunny afternoon
was there, like another land. By the path grew tansy and little trees. In front of the
window was a plot of sunny grass, with old lilacs round it. And away went the garden,
with heaps of dishevelled chrysanthemums in the sunshine, down to the sycamore-tree, and
the field, and beyond one looked over a few red-roofed cottages to the hills with all
the glow of the autumn afternoon. Mrs. Morel sat in her rocking-chair, wearing
her black silk blouse. Her grey-brown hair was taken smooth back from her brow and her
high temples; her face was rather pale. Clara, suffering, followed Paul into the kitchen.
Mrs. Morel rose. Clara thought her a lady, even rather stiff. The young woman was very
nervous. She had almost a wistful look, almost resigned.
"Mother—Clara," said Paul. Mrs. Morel held out her hand and smiled.
"He has told me a good deal about you," she said.
The blood flamed in Clara's cheek. "I hope you don't mind my coming," she faltered.
"I was pleased when he said he would bring you," replied Mrs. Morel.
Paul, watching, felt his heart contract with pain. His mother looked so small, and sallow,
and done-for beside the luxuriant Clara. "It's such a pretty day, mother!" he said.
"And we saw a jay." His mother looked at him; he had turned to
her. She thought what a man he seemed, in his dark, well-made clothes. He was pale and
detached-looking; it would be hard for any woman to keep him. Her heart glowed; then
she was sorry for Clara. "Perhaps you'll leave your things in the parlour,"
said Mrs. Morel nicely to the young woman. "Oh, thank you," she replied.
"Come on," said Paul, and he led the way into the little front room, with its old piano,
its mahogany furniture, its yellowing marble mantelpiece. A fire was burning; the place
was littered with books and drawing-boards. "I leave my things lying about," he said.
"It's so much easier." She loved his artist's paraphernalia, and
the books, and the photos of people. Soon he was telling her: this was William, this
was William's young lady in the evening dress, this was Annie and her husband, this was Arthur
and his wife and the baby. She felt as if she were being taken into the family. He showed
her photos, books, sketches, and they talked a little while. Then they returned to the
kitchen. Mrs. Morel put aside her book. Clara wore a blouse of fine silk chiffon, with narrow
black-and-white stripes; her hair was done simply, coiled on top of her head. She looked
rather stately and reserved. "You have gone to live down Sneinton Boulevard?"
said Mrs. Morel. "When I was a girl—girl, I say!—when I was a young woman WE lived
in Minerva Terrace." "Oh, did you!" said Clara. "I have a friend
in number 6." And the conversation had started. They talked
Nottingham and Nottingham people; it interested them both. Clara was still rather nervous;
Mrs. Morel was still somewhat on her dignity. She clipped her language very clear and precise.
But they were going to get on well together, Paul saw.
Mrs. Morel measured herself against the younger woman, and found herself easily stronger.
Clara was deferential. She knew Paul's surprising regard for his mother, and she had dreaded
the meeting, expecting someone rather hard and cold. She was surprised to find this little
interested woman chatting with such readiness; and then she felt, as she felt with Paul,
that she would not care to stand in Mrs. Morel's way. There was something so hard and certain
in his mother, as if she never had a misgiving in her life.
Presently Morel came down, ruffled and yawning, from his afternoon sleep. He scratched his
grizzled head, he plodded in his stocking feet, his waistcoat hung open over his shirt.
He seemed incongruous. "This is Mrs. Dawes, father," said Paul.
Then Morel pulled himself together. Clara saw Paul's manner of bowing and shaking hands.
"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed Morel. "I am very glad to see you—I am, I assure you. But
don't disturb yourself. No, no make yourself quite comfortable, and be very welcome."
Clara was astonished at this flood of hospitality from the old collier. He was so courteous,
so gallant! She thought him most delightful. "And may you have come far?" he asked.
"Only from Nottingham," she said. "From Nottingham! Then you have had a beautiful
day for your journey." Then he strayed into the scullery to wash
his hands and face, and from force of habit came on to the hearth with the towel to dry
himself. At tea Clara felt the refinement and sang-froid
of the household. Mrs. Morel was perfectly at her ease. The pouring out the tea and attending
to the people went on unconsciously, without interrupting her in her talk. There was a
lot of room at the oval table; the china of dark blue willow-pattern looked pretty on
the glossy cloth. There was a little bowl of small, yellow chrysanthemums. Clara felt
she completed the circle, and it was a pleasure to her. But she was rather afraid of the self-possession
of the Morels, father and all. She took their tone; there was a feeling of balance. It was
a cool, clear atmosphere, where everyone was himself, and in harmony. Clara enjoyed it,
but there was a fear deep at the bottom of her.
Paul cleared the table whilst his mother and Clara talked. Clara was conscious of his quick,
vigorous body as it came and went, seeming blown quickly by a wind at its work. It was
almost like the hither and thither of a leaf that comes unexpected. Most of herself went
with him. By the way she leaned forward, as if listening, Mrs. Morel could see she was
possessed elsewhere as she talked, and again the elder woman was sorry for her.
Having finished, he strolled down the garden, leaving the two women to talk. It was a hazy,
sunny afternoon, mild and soft. Clara glanced through the window after him as he loitered
among the chrysanthemums. She felt as if something almost tangible fastened her to him; yet he
seemed so easy in his graceful, indolent movement, so detached as he tied up the too-heavy flower
branches to their stakes, that she wanted to shriek in her helplessness.
Mrs. Morel rose. "You will let me help you wash up," said Clara.
"Eh, there are so few, it will only take a minute," said the other.
Clara, however, dried the tea-things, and was glad to be on such good terms with his
mother; but it was torture not to be able to follow him down the garden. At last she
allowed herself to go; she felt as if a rope were taken off her ankle.
The afternoon was golden over the hills of Derbyshire. He stood across in the other garden,
beside a bush of pale Michaelmas daisies, watching the last bees crawl into the hive.
Hearing her coming, he turned to her with an easy motion, saying:
"It's the end of the run with these chaps." Clara stood near him. Over the low red wall
in front was the country and the far-off hills, all golden dim.
At that moment Miriam was entering through the garden-door. She saw Clara go up to him,
saw him turn, and saw them come to rest together. Something in their perfect isolation together
made her know that it was accomplished between them, that they were, as she put it, married.
She walked very slowly down the cinder-track of the long garden.
Clara had pulled a button from a hollyhock spire, and was breaking it to get the seeds.
Above her bowed head the pink flowers stared, as if defending her. The last bees were falling
down to the hive. "Count your money," laughed Paul, as she broke
the flat seeds one by one from the roll of coin. She looked at him.
"I'm well off," she said, smiling. "How much? Pf!" He snapped his fingers. "Can
I turn them into gold?" "I'm afraid not," she laughed.
They looked into each other's eyes, laughing. At that moment they became aware of Miriam.
There was a click, and everything had altered. "Hello, Miriam!" he exclaimed. "You said you'd
come!" "Yes. Had you forgotten?"
She shook hands with Clara, saying: "It seems strange to see you here."
"Yes," replied the other; "it seems strange to be here."
There was a hesitation. "This is pretty, isn't it?" said Miriam.
"I like it very much," replied Clara. Then Miriam realised that Clara was accepted
as she had never been. "Have you come down alone?" asked Paul.
"Yes; I went to Agatha's to tea. We are going to chapel. I only called in for a moment to
see Clara." "You should have come in here to tea," he
said. Miriam laughed shortly, and Clara turned impatiently
aside. "Do you like the chrysanthemums?" he asked.
"Yes; they are very fine," replied Miriam. "Which sort do you like best?" he asked.
"I don't know. The bronze, I think." "I don't think you've seen all the sorts.
Come and look. Come and see which are YOUR favourites, Clara."
He led the two women back to his own garden, where the towsled bushes of flowers of all
colours stood raggedly along the path down to the field. The situation did not embarrass
him, to his knowledge. "Look, Miriam; these are the white ones that
came from your garden. They aren't so fine here, are they?"
"No," said Miriam. "But they're hardier. You're so sheltered;
things grow big and tender, and then die. These little yellow ones I like. Will you
have some?" While they were out there the bells began
to ring in the church, sounding loud across the town and the field. Miriam looked at the
tower, proud among the clustering roofs, and remembered the sketches he had brought her.
It had been different then, but he had not left her even yet. She asked him for a book
to read. He ran indoors. "What! is that Miriam?" asked his mother coldly.
"Yes; she said she'd call and see Clara." "You told her, then?" came the sarcastic answer.
"Yes; why shouldn't I?" "There's certainly no reason why you shouldn't,"
said Mrs. Morel, and she returned to her book. He winced from his mother's irony, frowned
irritably, thinking: "Why can't I do as I like?"
"You've not seen Mrs. Morel before?" Miriam was saying to Clara.
"No; but she's so nice!" "Yes," said Miriam, dropping her head; "in
some ways she's very fine." "I should think so."
"Had Paul told you much about her?" "He had talked a good deal."
"Ha!" There was silence until he returned with the
book. "When will you want it back?" Miriam asked.
"When you like," he answered. Clara turned to go indoors, whilst he accompanied
Miriam to the gate. "When will you come up to Willey Farm?" the
latter asked. "I couldn't say," replied Clara.
"Mother asked me to say she'd be pleased to see you any time, if you cared to come."
"Thank you; I should like to, but I can't say when."
"Oh, very well!" exclaimed Miriam rather bitterly, turning away.
She went down the path with her mouth to the flowers he had given her.
"You're sure you won't come in?" he said. "No, thanks."
"We are going to chapel." "Ah, I shall see you, then!" Miriam was very
bitter. "Yes."
They parted. He felt guilty towards her. She was bitter, and she scorned him. He still
belonged to herself, she believed; yet he could have Clara, take her home, sit with
her next his mother in chapel, give her the same hymn-book he had given herself years
before. She heard him running quickly indoors. But he did not go straight in. Halting on
the plot of grass, he heard his mother's voice, then Clara's answer:
"What I hate is the bloodhound quality in Miriam."
"Yes," said his mother quickly, "yes; DOESN'T it make you hate her, now!"
His heart went hot, and he was angry with them for talking about the girl. What right
had they to say that? Something in the speech itself stung him into a flame of hate against
Miriam. Then his own heart rebelled furiously at Clara's taking the liberty of speaking
so about Miriam. After all, the girl was the better woman of the two, he thought, if it
came to goodness. He went indoors. His mother looked excited. She was beating with her hand
rhythmically on the sofa-arm, as women do who are wearing out. He could never bear to
see the movement. There was a silence; then he began to talk.
In chapel Miriam saw him find the place in the hymn-book for Clara, in exactly the same
way as he used for herself. And during the sermon he could see the girl across the chapel,
her hat throwing a dark shadow over her face. What did she think, seeing Clara with him?
He did not stop to consider. He felt himself cruel towards Miriam.
After chapel he went over Pentrich with Clara. It was a dark autumn night. They had said
good-bye to Miriam, and his heart had smitten him as he left the girl alone. "But it serves
her right," he said inside himself, and it almost gave him pleasure to go off under her
eyes with this other handsome woman. There was a scent of damp leaves in the darkness.
Clara's hand lay warm and inert in his own as they walked. He was full of conflict. The
battle that raged inside him made him feel desperate.
Up Pentrich Hill Clara leaned against him as he went. He slid his arm round her waist.
Feeling the strong motion of her body under his arm as she walked, the tightness in his
chest because of Miriam relaxed, and the hot blood bathed him. He held her closer and closer.
Then: "You still keep on with Miriam," she said quietly.
"Only talk. There never WAS a great deal more than talk between us," he said bitterly.
"Your mother doesn't care for her," said Clara. "No, or I might have married her. But it's
all up really!" Suddenly his voice went passionate with hate.
"If I was with her now, we should be jawing about the 'Christian Mystery', or some such
tack. Thank God, I'm not!" They walked on in silence for some time.
"But you can't really give her up," said Clara. "I don't give her up, because there's nothing
to give," he said. "There is for her."
"I don't know why she and I shouldn't be friends as long as we live," he said. "But it'll only
be friends." Clara drew away from him, leaning away from
contact with him. "What are you drawing away for?" he asked.
She did not answer, but drew farther from him.
"Why do you want to walk alone?" he asked. Still there was no answer. She walked resentfully,
hanging her head. "Because I said I would be friends with Miriam!"
he exclaimed. She would not answer him anything.
"I tell you it's only words that go between us," he persisted, trying to take her again.
She resisted. Suddenly he strode across in front of her, barring her way.
"Damn it!" he said. "What do you want now?" "You'd better run after Miriam," mocked Clara.
The blood flamed up in him. He stood showing his teeth. She drooped sulkily. The lane was
dark, quite lonely. He suddenly caught her in his arms, stretched forward, and put his
mouth on her face in a kiss of rage. She turned frantically to avoid him. He held her fast.
Hard and relentless his mouth came for her. Her *** hurt against the wall of his chest.
Helpless, she went loose in his arms, and he kissed her, and kissed her.
He heard people coming down the hill. "Stand up! stand up!" he said thickly, gripping
her arm till it hurt. If he had let go, she would have sunk to the ground.
She sighed and walked dizzily beside him. They went on in silence.
"We will go over the fields," he said; and then she woke up.
End of Part 2 of Chapter 12