Sons and Lovers
sometimes he was mad; things weren’t there, things were there. It made
him pant. Sometimes he stood before the bar of the public-house where
he called for a drink. Everything suddenly stood back away from him. He
saw the face of the barmaid, the gobbling drinkers, his own glass on
the slopped, mahogany board, in the distance. There was something
between him and them. He could not get into touch. He did not want
them; he did not want his drink. Turning abruptly, he went out. On the
threshold he stood and looked at the lighted street. But he was not of
it or in it. Something separated him. Everything went on there below
those lamps, shut away from him. He could not get at them. He felt he
couldn’t touch the lamp-posts, not if he reached. Where could he go?
There was nowhere to go, neither back into the inn, or forward
anywhere. He felt stifled. There was nowhere for him. The stress grew
inside him; he felt he should smash.
“I mustn’t,” he said; and, turning blindly, he went in and drank.
Sometimes the drink did him good; sometimes it made him worse. He ran
down the road. For ever restless, he went here, there, everywhere. He
determined to work. But when he had made six strokes, he loathed the
pencil violently, got up, and went away, hurried off to a club where he
could play cards or billiards, to a place where he could flirt with a
barmaid who was no more to him than the brass pump-handle she drew.
He was very thin and lantern-jawed. He dared not meet his own eyes in
the mirror; he never looked at himself. He wanted to get away from
himself, but there was nothing to get hold of. In despair he thought of
Miriam. Perhaps—perhaps—?
Then, happening to go into the Unitarian Church one Sunday evening,
when they stood up to sing the second hymn he saw her before him. The
light glistened on her lower lip as she sang. She looked as if she had
got something, at any rate: some hope in heaven, if not in earth. Her
comfort and her life seemed in the after-world. A warm, strong feeling
for her came up. She seemed to yearn, as she sang, for the mystery and
comfort. He put his hope in her. He longed for the sermon to be over,
to speak to her.
The throng carried her out just before him. He could nearly touch her.
She did not know he was there. He saw the brown, humble nape of her
neck under its black curls. He would leave himself to her. She was
better and bigger than he. He would depend on her.
She went wandering, in her blind way, through the little throngs of
people outside the church. She always looked so lost and out of place
among people. He went forward and put his hand on her arm. She started
violently. Her great brown eyes dilated in fear, then went questioning
at the sight of him. He shrank slightly from her.
“I didn’t know—” she faltered.
“Nor I,” he said.
He looked away. His sudden, flaring hope sank again.
“What are you doing in town?” he asked.
“I’m staying at Cousin Anne’s.”
“Ha! For long?”
“No; only till to-morrow.”
“Must you go straight home?”
She looked at him, then hid her face under her hat-brim.
“No,” she said—“no; it’s not necessary.”
He turned away, and she went with him. They threaded through the throng
of church people. The organ was still sounding in St. Mary’s. Dark
figures came through the lighted doors; people were coming down the
steps. The large coloured windows glowed up in the night. The church
was like a great lantern suspended. They went down Hollow Stone, and he
took the car for the Bridges.
“You will just have supper with me,” he said: “then I’ll bring you
back.”
“Very well,” she replied, low and husky.
They scarcely spoke while they were on the car. The Trent ran dark and
full under the bridge. Away towards Colwick all was black night. He
lived down Holme Road, on the naked edge of the town, facing across the
river meadows towards Sneinton Hermitage and the steep scrap of Colwick
Wood. The floods were out. The silent water and the darkness spread
away on their left. Almost afraid, they hurried along by the houses.
Supper was laid. He swung the curtain over the window. There was a bowl
of freesias and scarlet anemones on the table. She bent to them. Still
touching them with her finger-tips, she looked up at him, saying:
“Aren’t they beautiful?”
“Yes,” he said. “What will you drink—coffee?”
“I should like it,” she said.
“Then excuse me a moment.”
He went out to the kitchen.
Miriam took off her things and looked round. It was a bare, severe
room. Her photo, Clara’s, Annie’s, were on the wall. She looked on the
drawing-board to see what he was doing. There were only a few
meaningless lines. She looked to see what books he was reading.
Evidently just an ordinary novel. The letters in the rack she saw were
from Annie, Arthur, and from some man or other she did not know.
Everything he had touched, everything that was in the least personal to
him, she examined with lingering absorption. He had been gone from her
for so long, she wanted to rediscover him, his position, what he was
now. But there was not much in the room to help her. It only made her
feel rather sad, it was so hard and comfortless.
She was curiously examining a sketch-book when he returned with the
coffee.
“There’s nothing new in it,” he said, “and nothing very interesting.”
He put down the tray, and went to look over her shoulder. She turned
the pages slowly, intent on examining everything.
“H’m!” he said, as she paused at a sketch. “I’d forgotten that. It’s
not bad, is it?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t quite understand it.”
He took the book from her and went through it. Again he made a curious
sound of surprise and pleasure.
“There’s some not bad stuff in there,” he said.
“Not at all bad,” she answered gravely.
He felt again her interest in his work. Or was it for himself? Why was
she always most interested in him as he appeared in his work?
They sat down to supper.
“By the way,” he said, “didn’t I hear something about your earning your
own living?”
“Yes,” she replied, bowing her dark head over her cup. “And what of
it?”
“I’m merely going to the farming college at Broughton for three months,
and I shall probably be kept on as a teacher there.”
“I say—that sounds all right for you! You always wanted to be
independent.”
“Yes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I only knew last week.”
“But I heard a month ago,” he said.
“Yes; but nothing was settled then.”
“I should have thought,” he said, “you’d have told me you were trying.”
She ate her food in the deliberate, constrained way, almost as if she
recoiled a little from doing anything so publicly, that he knew so
well.
“I suppose you’re glad,” he said.
“Very glad.”
“Yes—it will be something.”
He was rather disappointed.
“I think it will be a great deal,” she said, almost haughtily,
resentfully.
He laughed shortly.
“Why do you think it won’t?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t think it won’t be a great deal. Only you’ll find earning
your own living isn’t everything.”
“No,” she said, swallowing with difficulty; “I don’t suppose it is.”
“I suppose work _can_ be nearly everything to a man,” he said, “though
it isn’t to me. But a woman only works with a part of herself. The real
and vital part is covered up.”
“But a man can give _all_ himself to work?” she asked.
“Yes, practically.”
“And a woman only the unimportant part of herself?”
“That’s it.”
She looked up at him, and her eyes dilated with anger.
“Then,” she said, “if it’s true, it’s a great shame.”
“It is. But I don’t know everything,” he answered.
After supper they drew up to the fire. He swung her a chair facing him,
and they sat down. She was wearing a dress of dark claret colour, that
suited her dark complexion and her large features. Still, the curls
were fine and free, but her face was much older, the brown throat much
thinner. She seemed old to him, older than Clara. Her bloom of youth
had quickly gone. A sort of stiffness, almost of woodenness, had come
upon her. She meditated a little while, then looked at him.
“And how are things with you?” she asked.
“About all right,” he answered.
She looked at him, waiting.
“Nay,” she said, very low.
Her brown, nervous hands were clasped over her knee. They had still the
lack of confidence or repose, the almost hysterical look. He winced as
he saw them. Then he laughed mirthlessly. She put her fingers between
her lips. His slim, black, tortured body lay quite still in the chair.
She suddenly took her finger from her mouth and looked at him.
“And you have broken off with Clara?”
“Yes.”
His body lay like an abandoned thing, strewn in the chair.
“You know,” she said, “I think we ought to be married.”
He opened his eyes for the first time since many months, and attended
to her with respect.
“Why?” he said.
“See,” she said, “how you waste yourself! You might be ill, you might
die, and I never know—be no more then than if I had never known you.”
“And if we married?” he asked.
“At any rate, I could prevent you wasting yourself and being a prey to
other women—like—like Clara.”
“A prey?” he repeated, smiling.
She bowed her head in silence. He lay feeling his despair come up
again.
“I’m not sure,” he said slowly, “that marriage would be much good.”
“I only think of you,” she replied.
“I know you do. But—you love me so much, you want to put me in your
pocket. And I should die there smothered.”
She bent her head, put her fingers between her lips, while the
bitterness surged up in her heart.
“And what will you do otherwise?” she asked.
“I don’t know—go on, I suppose. Perhaps I shall soon go abroad.”
The despairing doggedness in his tone made her go on her knees on the
rug before the fire, very near to him. There she crouched as if she
were crushed by something, and could not raise her head. His hands lay
quite inert on the arms of his chair. She was aware of them. She felt
that now he lay at her mercy. If she could rise, take him, put her arms
round him, and say, “You are mine,” then he would leave himself to her.
But dare she? She could easily sacrifice herself. But dare she assert
herself? She was aware of his dark-clothed, slender body, that seemed
one stroke of life, sprawled in the chair close to her. But no; she
dared not put her arms round it, take it up, and say, “It is mine, this
body. Leave it to me.” And she wanted to. It called to all her woman’s
instinct. But she crouched, and dared not. She was afraid he would not
let her. She was afraid it was too much. It lay there, his body,
abandoned. She knew she ought to take it up and claim it, and claim
every right to it. But—could she do it? Her impotence before him,
before the strong demand of some unknown thing in him, was her
extremity. Her hands fluttered; she half-lifted her head. Her eyes,
shuddering, appealing, gone, almost distracted, pleaded to him
suddenly. His heart caught with pity. He took her hands, drew her to
him, and comforted her.
“Will you have me, to marry me?” he said very low.
Oh, why did not he take her? Her very soul belonged to him. Why would
he not take what was his? She had borne so long the cruelty of
belonging to him and not being claimed by him. Now he was straining her
again. It was too much for her. She drew back her head, held his face
between her hands, and looked him in the eyes. No, he was hard. He
wanted something else. She pleaded to him with all her love not to make
it _her_ choice. She could not cope with it, with him, she knew not
with what. But it strained her till she felt she would break.
“Do you want it?” she asked, very gravely.
“Not much,” he replied, with pain.
She turned her face aside; then, raising herself with dignity, she took