Sons and Lovers
negligently on the table. Her mouth was closed as if she were offended,
and she kept her face slightly averted.
“You were at Margaret Bonford’s meeting the other evening,” he said to
her.
Miriam did not know this courteous Paul. Clara glanced at him.
“Yes,” she said.
“Why,” asked Miriam, “how do you know?”
“I went in for a few minutes before the train came,” he answered.
Clara turned away again rather disdainfully.
“I think she’s a lovable little woman,” said Paul.
“Margaret Bonford!” exclaimed Clara. “She’s a great deal cleverer than
most men.”
“Well, I didn’t say she wasn’t,” he said, deprecating. “She’s lovable
for all that.”
“And, of course, that is all that matters,” said Clara witheringly.
He rubbed his head, rather perplexed, rather annoyed.
“I suppose it matters more than her cleverness,” he said; “which, after
all, would never get her to heaven.”
“It’s not heaven she wants to get—it’s her fair share on earth,”
retorted Clara. She spoke as if he were responsible for some
deprivation which Miss Bonford suffered.
“Well,” he said, “I thought she was warm, and awfully nice—only too
frail. I wished she was sitting comfortably in peace—”
“‘Darning her husband’s stockings,’” said Clara scathingly.
“I’m sure she wouldn’t mind darning even my stockings,” he said. “And
I’m sure she’d do them well. Just as I wouldn’t mind blacking her boots
if she wanted me to.”
But Clara refused to answer this sally of his. He talked to Miriam for
a little while. The other woman held aloof.
“Well,” he said, “I think I’ll go and see Edgar. Is he on the land?”
“I believe,” said Miriam, “he’s gone for a load of coal. He should be
back directly.”
“Then,” he said, “I’ll go and meet him.”
Miriam dared not propose anything for the three of them. He rose and
left them.
On the top road, where the gorse was out, he saw Edgar walking lazily
beside the mare, who nodded her white-starred forehead as she dragged
the clanking load of coal. The young farmer’s face lighted up as he saw
his friend. Edgar was good-looking, with dark, warm eyes. His clothes
were old and rather disreputable, and he walked with considerable
pride.
“Hello!” he said, seeing Paul bareheaded. “Where are you going?”
“Came to meet you. Can’t stand ‘Nevermore.’”
Edgar’s teeth flashed in a laugh of amusement.
“Who is ‘Nevermore’?” he asked.
“The lady—Mrs. Dawes—it ought to be Mrs. The Raven that quothed
‘Nevermore.’”
Edgar laughed with glee.
“Don’t you like her?” he asked.
“Not a fat lot,” said Paul. “Why, do you?”
“No!” The answer came with a deep ring of conviction. “No!” Edgar
pursed up his lips. “I can’t say she’s much in my line.” He mused a
little. Then: “But why do you call her ‘Nevermore’?” he asked.
“Well,” said Paul, “if she looks at a man she says haughtily
‘Nevermore,’ and if she looks at herself in the looking-glass she says
disdainfully ‘Nevermore,’ and if she thinks back she says it in
disgust, and if she looks forward she says it cynically.”
Edgar considered this speech, failed to make much out of it, and said,
laughing:
“You think she’s a man-hater?”
“_She_ thinks she is,” replied Paul.
“But you don’t think so?”
“No,” replied Paul.
“Wasn’t she nice with you, then?”
“Could you imagine her _nice_ with anybody?” asked the young man.
Edgar laughed. Together they unloaded the coal in the yard. Paul was
rather self-conscious, because he knew Clara could see if she looked
out of the window. She didn’t look.
On Saturday afternoons the horses were brushed down and groomed. Paul
and Edgar worked together, sneezing with the dust that came from the
pelts of Jimmy and Flower.
“Do you know a new song to teach me?” said Edgar.
He continued to work all the time. The back of his neck was sun-red
when he bent down, and his fingers that held the brush were thick. Paul
watched him sometimes.
“‘Mary Morrison’?” suggested the younger.
Edgar agreed. He had a good tenor voice, and he loved to learn all the
songs his friend could teach him, so that he could sing whilst he was
carting. Paul had a very indifferent baritone voice, but a good ear.
However, he sang softly, for fear of Clara. Edgar repeated the line in
a clear tenor. At times they both broke off to sneeze, and first one,
then the other, abused his horse.
Miriam was impatient of men. It took so little to amuse them—even Paul.
She thought it anomalous in him that he could be so thoroughly absorbed
in a triviality.
It was tea-time when they had finished.
“What song was that?” asked Miriam.
Edgar told her. The conversation turned to singing.
“We have such jolly times,” Miriam said to Clara.
Mrs. Dawes ate her meal in a slow, dignified way. Whenever the men were
present she grew distant.
“Do you like singing?” Miriam asked her.
“If it is good,” she said.
Paul, of course, coloured.
“You mean if it is high-class and trained?” he said.
“I think a voice needs training before the singing is anything,” she
said.
“You might as well insist on having people’s voices trained before you
allowed them to talk,” he replied. “Really, people sing for their own
pleasure, as a rule.”
“And it may be for other people’s discomfort.”
“Then the other people should have flaps to their ears,” he replied.
The boys laughed. There was a silence. He flushed deeply, and ate in
silence.
After tea, when all the men had gone but Paul, Mrs. Leivers said to
Clara:
“And you find life happier now?”
“Infinitely.”
“And you are satisfied?”
“So long as I can be free and independent.”
“And you don’t _miss_ anything in your life?” asked Mrs. Leivers
gently.
“I’ve put all that behind me.”
Paul had been feeling uncomfortable during this discourse. He got up.
“You’ll find you’re always tumbling over the things you’ve put behind
you,” he said. Then he took his departure to the cowsheds. He felt he
had been witty, and his manly pride was high. He whistled as he went
down the brick track.
Miriam came for him a little later to know if he would go with Clara
and her for a walk. They set off down to Strelley Mill Farm. As they
were going beside the brook, on the Willey Water side, looking through
the brake at the edge of the wood, where pink campions glowed under a
few sunbeams, they saw, beyond the tree-trunks and the thin hazel
bushes, a man leading a great bay horse through the gullies. The big
red beast seemed to dance romantically through that dimness of green
hazel drift, away there where the air was shadowy, as if it were in the
past, among the fading bluebells that might have bloomed for Deidre or
Iseult.
The three stood charmed.
“What a treat to be a knight,” he said, “and to have a pavilion here.”
“And to have us shut up safely?” replied Clara.
“Yes,” he answered, “singing with your maids at your broidery. I would
carry your banner of white and green and heliotrope. I would have
‘W.S.P.U.’ emblazoned on my shield, beneath a woman rampant.”
“I have no doubt,” said Clara, “that you would much rather fight for a
woman than let her fight for herself.”
“I would. When she fights for herself she seems like a dog before a
looking-glass, gone into a mad fury with its own shadow.”
“And _you_ are the looking-glass?” she asked, with a curl of the lip.
“Or the shadow,” he replied.
“I am afraid,” she said, “that you are too clever.”
“Well, I leave it to you to be _good_,” he retorted, laughing. “Be
good, sweet maid, and just let _me_ be clever.”
But Clara wearied of his flippancy. Suddenly, looking at her, he saw
that the upward lifting of her face was misery and not scorn. His heart
grew tender for everybody. He turned and was gentle with Miriam, whom
he had neglected till then.
At the wood’s edge they met Limb, a thin, swarthy man of forty, tenant
of Strelley Mill, which he ran as a cattle-raising farm. He held the
halter of the powerful stallion indifferently, as if he were tired. The
three stood to let him pass over the stepping-stones of the first
brook. Paul admired that so large an animal should walk on such springy
toes, with an endless excess of vigour. Limb pulled up before them.
“Tell your father, Miss Leivers,” he said, in a peculiar piping voice,
“that his young beas’es ’as broke that bottom fence three days an’
runnin’.”
“Which?” asked Miriam, tremulous.
The great horse breathed heavily, shifting round its red flanks, and
looking suspiciously with its wonderful big eyes upwards from under its
lowered head and falling mane.
“Come along a bit,” replied Limb, “an’ I’ll show you.”
The man and the stallion went forward. It danced sideways, shaking its
white fetlocks and looking frightened, as it felt itself in the brook.
“No hanky-pankyin’,” said the man affectionately to the beast.
It went up the bank in little leaps, then splashed finely through the
second brook. Clara, walking with a kind of sulky abandon, watched it
half-fascinated, half-contemptuous. Limb stopped and pointed to the
fence under some willows.
“There, you see where they got through,” he said. “My man’s druv ’em
back three times.”
“Yes,” answered Miriam, colouring as if she were at fault.
“Are you comin’ in?” asked the man.
“No, thanks; but we should like to go by the pond.”
“Well, just as you’ve a mind,” he said.
The horse gave little whinneys of pleasure at being so near home.
“He is glad to be back,” said Clara, who was interested in the
creature.
“Yes—’e’s been a tidy step to-day.”
They went through the gate, and saw approaching them from the big
farmhouse a smallish, dark, excitable-looking woman of about
thirty-five. Her hair was touched with grey, her dark eyes looked wild.
She walked with her hands behind her back. Her brother went forward. As
it saw her, the big bay stallion whinneyed again. She came up
excitedly.
“Are you home again, my boy!” she said tenderly to the horse, not to
the man. The great beast shifted round to her, ducking his head. She
smuggled into his mouth the wrinkled yellow apple she had been hiding
behind her back, then she kissed him near the eyes. He gave a big sigh
of pleasure. She held his head in her arms against her breast.
“Isn’t he splendid!” said Miriam to her.
Miss Limb looked up. Her dark eyes glanced straight at Paul.
“Oh, good-evening, Miss Leivers,” she said. “It’s ages since you’ve
been down.”
Miriam introduced her friends.
“Your horse _is_ a fine fellow!” said Clara.
“Isn’t he!” Again she kissed him. “As loving as any man!”
“More loving than most men, I should think,” replied Clara.
“He’s a nice boy!” cried the woman, again embracing the horse.
Clara, fascinated by the big beast, went up to stroke his neck.
“He’s quite gentle,” said Miss Limb. “Don’t you think big fellows are?”
“He’s a beauty!” replied Clara.
She wanted to look in his eyes. She wanted him to look at her.
“It’s a pity he can’t talk,” she said.
“Oh, but he can—all but,” replied the other woman.
Then her brother moved on with the horse.
“Are you coming in? _Do_ come in, Mr.—I didn’t catch it.”
“Morel,” said Miriam. “No, we won’t come in, but we should like to go
by the mill-pond.”
“Yes—yes, do. Do you fish, Mr. Morel?”
“No,” said Paul.
“Because if you do you might come and fish any time,” said Miss Limb.
“We scarcely see a soul from week’s end to week’s end. I should be
thankful.”
“What fish are there in the pond?” he asked.
They went through the front garden, over the sluice, and up the steep
bank to the pond, which lay in shadow, with its two wooded islets. Paul
walked with Miss Limb.
“I shouldn’t mind swimming here,” he said.
“Do,” she replied. “Come when you like. My brother will be awfully
pleased to talk with you. He is so quiet, because there is no one to
talk to. Do come and swim.”