Sons and Lovers
This she did not consider.
“No,” she murmured. Then, after a pause, she looked at him, and her
dark eyes flashed.
“This is your mother,” she said. “I know she never liked me.”
“No, no, it isn’t,” he said hastily. “It was for your sake she spoke
this time. She only said, if I was going on, I ought to consider myself
engaged.” There was a silence. “And if I ask you to come down any time,
you won’t stop away, will you?”
She did not answer. By this time she was very angry.
“Well, what shall we do?” she said shortly. “I suppose I’d better drop
French. I was just beginning to get on with it. But I suppose I can go
on alone.”
“I don’t see that we need,” he said. “I can give you a French lesson,
surely.”
“Well—and there are Sunday nights. I shan’t stop coming to chapel,
because I enjoy it, and it’s all the social life I get. But you’ve no
need to come home with me. I can go alone.”
“All right,” he answered, rather taken aback. “But if I ask Edgar,
he’ll always come with us, and then they can say nothing.”
There was silence. After all, then, she would not lose much. For all
their talk down at his home there would not be much difference. She
wished they would mind their own business.
“And you won’t think about it, and let it trouble you, will you?” he
asked.
“Oh no,” replied Miriam, without looking at him.
He was silent. She thought him unstable. He had no fixity of purpose,
no anchor of righteousness that held him.
“Because,” he continued, “a man gets across his bicycle—and goes to
work—and does all sorts of things. But a woman broods.”
“No, I shan’t bother,” said Miriam. And she meant it.
It had gone rather chilly. They went indoors.
“How white Paul looks!” Mrs. Leivers exclaimed. “Miriam, you shouldn’t
have let him sit out of doors. Do you think you’ve taken cold, Paul?”
“Oh, no!” he laughed.
But he felt done up. It wore him out, the conflict in himself. Miriam
pitied him now. But quite early, before nine o’clock, he rose to go.
“You’re not going home, are you?” asked Mrs. Leivers anxiously.
“Yes,” he replied. “I said I’d be early.” He was very awkward.
“But this _is_ early,” said Mrs. Leivers.
Miriam sat in the rocking-chair, and did not speak. He hesitated,
expecting her to rise and go with him to the barn as usual for his
bicycle. She remained as she was. He was at a loss.
“Well—good-night, all!” he faltered.
She spoke her good-night along with all the others. But as he went past
the window he looked in. She saw him pale, his brows knit slightly in a
way that had become constant with him, his eyes dark with pain.
She rose and went to the doorway to wave good-bye to him as he passed
through the gate. He rode slowly under the pine-trees, feeling a cur
and a miserable wretch. His bicycle went tilting down the hills at
random. He thought it would be a relief to break one’s neck.
Two days later he sent her up a book and a little note, urging her to
read and be busy.
At this time he gave all his friendship to Edgar. He loved the family
so much, he loved the farm so much; it was the dearest place on earth
to him. His home was not so lovable. It was his mother. But then he
would have been just as happy with his mother anywhere. Whereas Willey
Farm he loved passionately. He loved the little pokey kitchen, where
men’s boots tramped, and the dog slept with one eye open for fear of
being trodden on; where the lamp hung over the table at night, and
everything was so silent. He loved Miriam’s long, low parlour, with its
atmosphere of romance, its flowers, its books, its high rosewood piano.
He loved the gardens and the buildings that stood with their scarlet
roofs on the naked edges of the fields, crept towards the wood as if
for cosiness, the wild country scooping down a valley and up the
uncultured hills of the other side. Only to be there was an
exhilaration and a joy to him. He loved Mrs. Leivers, with her
unworldliness and her quaint cynicism; he loved Mr. Leivers, so warm
and young and lovable; he loved Edgar, who lit up when he came, and the
boys and the children and Bill—even the sow Circe and the Indian
game-cock called Tippoo. All this besides Miriam. He could not give it
up.
So he went as often, but he was usually with Edgar. Only all the
family, including the father, joined in charades and games at evening.
And later, Miriam drew them together, and they read _Macbeth_ out of
penny books, taking parts. It was great excitement. Miriam was glad,
and Mrs. Leivers was glad, and Mr. Leivers enjoyed it. Then they all
learned songs together from tonic sol-fa, singing in a circle round the
fire. But now Paul was very rarely alone with Miriam. She waited. When
she and Edgar and he walked home together from chapel or from the
literary society in Bestwood, she knew his talk, so passionate and so
unorthodox nowadays, was for her. She did envy Edgar, however, his
cycling with Paul, his Friday nights, his days working in the fields.
For her Friday nights and her French lessons were gone. She was nearly
always alone, walking, pondering in the wood, reading, studying,
dreaming, waiting. And he wrote to her frequently.
One Sunday evening they attained to their old rare harmony. Edgar had
stayed to Communion—he wondered what it was like—with Mrs. Morel. So
Paul came on alone with Miriam to his home. He was more or less under
her spell again. As usual, they were discussing the sermon. He was
setting now full sail towards Agnosticism, but such a religious
Agnosticism that Miriam did not suffer so badly. They were at the Renan
_Vie de Jésus_ stage. Miriam was the threshing-floor on which he
threshed out all his beliefs. While he trampled his ideas upon her
soul, the truth came out for him. She alone was his threshing-floor.
She alone helped him towards realisation. Almost impassive, she
submitted to his argument and expounding. And somehow, because of her,
he gradually realised where he was wrong. And what he realised, she
realised. She felt he could not do without her.
They came to the silent house. He took the key out of the scullery
window, and they entered. All the time he went on with his discussion.
He lit the gas, mended the fire, and brought her some cakes from the
pantry. She sat on the sofa, quietly, with a plate on her knee. She
wore a large white hat with some pinkish flowers. It was a cheap hat,
but he liked it. Her face beneath was still and pensive, golden-brown
and ruddy. Always her ears were hid in her short curls. She watched
him.
She liked him on Sundays. Then he wore a dark suit that showed the
lithe movement of his body. There was a clean, clear-cut look about
him. He went on with his thinking to her. Suddenly he reached for a
Bible. Miriam liked the way he reached up—so sharp, straight to the
mark. He turned the pages quickly, and read her a chapter of St. John.
As he sat in the armchair reading, intent, his voice only thinking, she
felt as if he were using her unconsciously as a man uses his tools at
some work he is bent on. She loved it. And the wistfulness of his voice
was like a reaching to something, and it was as if she were what he
reached with. She sat back on the sofa away from him, and yet feeling
herself the very instrument his hand grasped. It gave her great
pleasure.
Then he began to falter and to get self-conscious. And when he came to
the verse, “A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow because her
hour is come”, he missed it out. Miriam had felt him growing
uncomfortable. She shrank when the well-known words did not follow. He
went on reading, but she did not hear. A grief and shame made her bend
her head. Six months ago he would have read it simply. Now there was a
scotch in his running with her. Now she felt there was really something
hostile between them, something of which they were ashamed.
She ate her cake mechanically. He tried to go on with his argument, but
could not get back the right note. Soon Edgar came in. Mrs. Morel had
gone to her friends’. The three set off to Willey Farm.
Miriam brooded over his split with her. There was something else he
wanted. He could not be satisfied; he could give her no peace. There
was between them now always a ground for strife. She wanted to prove
him. She believed that his chief need in life was herself. If she could
prove it, both to herself and to him, the rest might go; she could
simply trust to the future.
So in May she asked him to come to Willey Farm and meet Mrs. Dawes.
There was something he hankered after. She saw him, whenever they spoke
of Clara Dawes, rouse and get slightly angry. He said he did not like
her. Yet he was keen to know about her. Well, he should put himself to
the test. She believed that there were in him desires for higher
things, and desires for lower, and that the desire for the higher would
conquer. At any rate, he should try. She forgot that her “higher” and
“lower” were arbitrary.
He was rather excited at the idea of meeting Clara at Willey Farm. Mrs.
Dawes came for the day. Her heavy, dun-coloured hair was coiled on top
of her head. She wore a white blouse and navy skirt, and somehow,
wherever she was, seemed to make things look paltry and insignificant.
When she was in the room, the kitchen seemed too small and mean
altogether. Miriam’s beautiful twilighty parlour looked stiff and
stupid. All the Leivers were eclipsed like candles. They found her
rather hard to put up with. Yet she was perfectly amiable, but
indifferent, and rather hard.
Paul did not come till afternoon. He was early. As he swung off his
bicycle, Miriam saw him look round at the house eagerly. He would be
disappointed if the visitor had not come. Miriam went out to meet him,
bowing her head because of the sunshine. Nasturtiums were coming out
crimson under the cool green shadow of their leaves. The girl stood,
dark-haired, glad to see him.
“Hasn’t Clara come?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Miriam in her musical tone. “She’s reading.”
He wheeled his bicycle into the barn. He had put on a handsome tie, of
which he was rather proud, and socks to match.
“She came this morning?” he asked.
“Yes,” replied Miriam, as she walked at his side. “You said you’d bring
me that letter from the man at Liberty’s. Have you remembered?”
“Oh, dash, no!” he said. “But nag at me till you get it.”
“I don’t like to nag at you.”
“Do it whether or not. And is she any more agreeable?” he continued.
“You know I always think she is quite agreeable.”
He was silent. Evidently his eagerness to be early to-day had been the
newcomer. Miriam already began to suffer. They went together towards
the house. He took the clips off his trousers, but was too lazy to
brush the dust from his shoes, in spite of the socks and tie.
Clara sat in the cool parlour reading. He saw the nape of her white
neck, and the fine hair lifted from it. She rose, looking at him
indifferently. To shake hands she lifted her arm straight, in a manner
that seemed at once to keep him at a distance, and yet to fling
something to him. He noticed how her breasts swelled inside her blouse,
and how her shoulder curved handsomely under the thin muslin at the top
of her arm.
“You have chosen a fine day,” he said.
“It happens so,” she said.
“Yes,” he said; “I am glad.”
She sat down, not thanking him for his politeness.
“What have you been doing all morning?” asked Paul of Miriam.
“Well, you see,” said Miriam, coughing huskily, “Clara only came with
father—and so—she’s not been here very long.”
Clara sat leaning on the table, holding aloof. He noticed her hands
were large, but well kept. And the skin on them seemed almost coarse,
opaque, and white, with fine golden hairs. She did not mind if he
observed her hands. She intended to scorn him. Her heavy arm lay