Sons and Lovers
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 æsthetics. 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 hussy, 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.
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