SONS AND LOVERS by D. H. LAWRENCE

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 fagged 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. Cocks 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 bosom, 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."
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 hard on 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 feet 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 prostitute,
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 queer 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 bosom 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 breasts 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.
But she let herself be helped over the stile, and she
walked in silence with him over the first dark field. It was
the way to Nottingham and to the station, she knew. He seemed
to be looking about. They came out on a bare hilltop where stood
the dark figure of the ruined windmill. There he halted.
They stood together high up in the darkness, looking at the lights
scattered on the night before them, handfuls of glittering points,
villages lying high and low on the dark, here and there.
"Like treading among the stars," he said, with a quaky laugh.
Then he took her in his arms, and held her fast. She moved
aside her mouth to ask, dogged and low:
"What time is it?"
"It doesn't matter," he pleaded thickly.
"Yes it does--yes! I must go!"
"It's early yet," he said.
"What time is it?" she insisted.
All round lay the black night, speckled and spangled with lights.
"I don't know."
She put her hand on his chest, feeling for his watch.
He felt the joints fuse into fire. She groped in his waistcoat pocket,
while he stood panting. In the darkness she could see the round,
pale face of the watch, but not the figures. She stooped over it.
He was panting till he could take her in his arms again.
"I can't see," she said.
"Then don't bother."
"Yes; I'm going!" she said, turning away.
"Wait! I'll look!" But he could not see. "I'll strike
a match."
He secretly hoped it was too late to catch the train.
She saw the glowing lantern of his hands as he cradled the light:
then his face lit up, his eyes fixed on the watch. Instantly all was
dark again. All was black before her eyes; only a glowing match was
red near her feet. Where was he?
"What is it?" she asked, afraid.
"You can't do it," his voice answered out of the darkness.
There was a pause. She felt in his power. She had heard
the ring in his voice. It frightened her.
"What time is it?" she asked, quiet, definite, hopeless.
"Two minutes to nine," he replied, telling the truth with
a struggle.
"And can I get from here to the station in fourteen minutes?"
"No. At any rate---"
She could distinguish his dark form again a yard or so away.
She wanted to escape.
"But can't I do it?" she pleaded.
"If you hurry," he said brusquely. "But you could easily
walk it, Clara; it's only seven miles to the tram. I'll come
with you."
"No; I want to catch the train."
"But why?"
"I do--I want to catch the train."
Suddenly his voice altered.
"Very well," he said, dry and hard. "Come along, then."
And he plunged ahead into the darkness. She ran after him,
wanting to cry. Now he was hard and cruel to her. She ran over
the rough, dark fields behind him, out of breath, ready to drop.
But the double row of lights at the station drew nearer. Suddenly:
"There she is!" he cried, breaking into a run.
There was a faint rattling noise. Away to the right the train,
like a luminous caterpillar, was threading across the night.
The rattling ceased.
"She's over the viaduct. You'll just do it."
Clara ran, quite out of breath, and fell at last into the train.
The whistle blew. He was gone. Gone!--and she was in a carriage
full of people. She felt the cruelty of it.
He turned round and plunged home. Before he knew where
he was he was in the kitchen at home. He was very pale.
His eyes were dark and dangerous-looking, as if he were drunk.
His mother looked at him.
"Well, I must say your boots are in a nice state!" she said.
He looked at his feet. Then he took off his overcoat.
His mother wondered if he were drunk.
"She caught the train then?" she said.
"Yes."
"I hope HER feet weren't so filthy. Where on earth you dragged
her I don't know!"
He was silent and motionless for some time.
"Did you like her?" he asked grudgingly at last.
"Yes, I liked her. But you'll tire of her, my son; you know
you will."
He did not answer. She noticed how he laboured in his breathing.
"Have you been running?" she asked.
"We had to run for the train."
"You'll go and knock yourself up. You'd better drink hot milk."
It was as good a stimulant as he could have, but he refused
and went to bed. There he lay face down on the counterpane,
and shed tears of rage and pain. There was a physical pain
that made him bite his lips till they bled, and the chaos inside
him left him unable to think, almost to feel.
"This is how she serves me, is it?" he said in his heart,
over and over, pressing his face in the quilt. And he hated her.
Again he went over the scene, and again he hated her.
The next day there was a new aloofness about him. Clara was
very gentle, almost loving. But he treated her distantly,
with a touch of contempt. She sighed, continuing to be gentle.
He came round.
One evening of that week Sarah Bernhardt was at the Theatre Royal
in Nottingham, giving "La Dame aux Camelias". Paul wanted to see
this old and famous actress, and he asked Clara to accompany him.
He told his mother to leave the key in the window for him.
"Shall I book seats?" he asked of Clara.
"Yes. And put on an evening suit, will you? I've never seen
you in it."
"But, good Lord, Clara! Think of ME in evening suit
at the theatre!" he remonstrated.
"Would you rather not?" she asked.
"I will if you WANT me to; but I s'll feel a fool."
She laughed at him.
"Then feel a fool for my sake, once, won't you?"
The request made his blood flush up.
"I suppose I s'll have to."
"What are you taking a suitcase for?" his mother asked.
He blushed furiously.
"Clara asked me," he said.
"And what seats are you going in?"
"Circle--three-and-six each!"
"Well, I'm sure!" exclaimed his mother sarcastically.
"It's only once in the bluest of blue moons," he said.
He dressed at Jordan's, put on an overcoat and a cap, and met
Clara in a cafe. She was with one of her suffragette friends.
She wore an old long coat, which did not suit her, and had a little wrap
over her head, which he hated. The three went to the theatre together.
Clara took off her coat on the stairs, and he discovered she
was in a sort of semi-evening dress, that left her arms and neck
and part of her breast bare. Her hair was done fashionably.
The dress, a simple thing of green crape, suited her. She looked
quite grand, he thought. He could see her figure inside the frock,
as if that were wrapped closely round her. The firmness and the
softness of her upright body could almost be felt as he looked at her.
He clenched his fists.
And he was to sit all the evening beside her beautiful naked arm,
watching the strong throat rise from the strong chest, watching the
breasts under the green stuff, the curve of her limbs in the tight dress.
Something in him hated her again for submitting him to this torture
of nearness. And he loved her as she balanced her head and stared
straight in front of her, pouting, wistful, immobile, as if she
yielded herself to her fate because it was too strong for her.
She could not help herself; she was in the grip of something
bigger than herself. A kind of eternal look about her, as if she
were a wistful sphinx, made it necessary for him to kiss her.
He dropped his programme, and crouched down on the floor to get it,
so that he could kiss her hand and wrist. Her beauty was a torture
to him. She sat immobile. Only, when the lights went down,
she sank a little against him, and he caressed her hand and arm
with his fingers. He could smell her faint perfume. All the time
his blood kept sweeping up in great white-hot waves that killed his
consciousness momentarily.
The drama continued. He saw it all in the distance, going on
somewhere; he did not know where, but it seemed far away inside him.
He was Clara's white heavy arms, her throat, her moving bosom.
That seemed to be himself. Then away somewhere the play went on,
and he was identified with that also. There was no himself.
The grey and black eyes of Clara, her bosom coming
down on him, her arm that he held gripped between his hands,
were all that existed. Then he felt himself small and helpless,
her towering in her force above him.
Only the intervals, when the lights came up, hurt him expressibly.
He wanted to run anywhere, so long as it would be dark again.
In a maze, he wandered out for a drink. Then the lights were out,
and the strange, insane reality of Clara and the drama took hold of
him again.
The play went on. But he was obsessed by the desire to
kiss the tiny blue vein that nestled in the bend of her arm.
He could feel it. His whole face seemed suspended till he had
put his lips there. It must be done. And the other people!
At last he bent quickly forward and touched it with his lips.
His moustache brushed the sensitive flesh. Clara shivered, drew away
her arm.
When all was over, the lights up, the people clapping,
he came to himself and looked at his watch. His train was gone.
"I s'll have to walk home!" he said.
Clara looked at him.
"It is too late?" she asked.
He nodded. Then he helped her on with her coat.
"I love you! You look beautiful in that dress," he murmured
over her shoulder, among the throng of bustling people.
She remained quiet. Together they went out of the theatre.
He saw the cabs waiting, the people passing. It seemed he met
a pair of brown eyes which hated him. But he did not know.
He and Clara turned away, mechanically taking the direction to
the station.
The train had gone. He would have to walk the ten miles home.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "I shall enjoy it."
"Won't you," she said, flushing, "come home for the night?
I can sleep with mother."
He looked at her. Their eyes met.
"What will your mother say?" he asked.
"She won't mind."
"You're sure?"
"Quite! "
"SHALL I come?"
"If you will."
"Very well."
And they turned away. At the first stopping-place they took
the car. The wind blew fresh in their faces. The town was dark;
the tram tipped in its haste. He sat with her hand fast in his.
"Will your mother be gone to bed?" he asked.
"She may be. I hope not."
They hurried along the silent, dark little street, the only
people out of doors. Clara quickly entered the house. He hesitated.
He leaped up the step and was in the room. Her mother appeared
in the inner doorway, large and hostile.
"Who have you got there?" she asked.
"It's Mr. Morel; he has missed his train. I thought we might
put him up for the night, and save him a ten-mile walk."
"H'm," exclaimed Mrs. Radford. "That's your lookout!
If you've invited him, he's very welcome as far as I'm concerned.
YOU keep the house!"
"If you don't like me, I'll go away again," he said.
"Nay, nay, you needn't! Come along in! I dunno what you'll
think of the supper I'd got her."
It was a little dish of chip potatoes and a piece of bacon.
The table was roughly laid for one.
"You can have some more bacon," continued Mrs. Radford.
"More chips you can't have."
"It's a shame to bother you," he said.
"Oh, don't you be apologetic! It doesn't DO wi' me! You treated her
to the theatre, didn't you?" There was a sarcasm in the last question.
"Well?" laughed Paul uncomfortably.
"Well, and what's an inch of bacon! Take your coat off."
The big, straight-standing woman was trying to estimate
the situation. She moved about the cupboard. Clara took his coat.
The room was very warm and cosy in the lamplight.
"My sirs!" exclaimed Mrs. Radford; "but you two's a pair
of bright beauties, I must say! What's all that get-up for?"
"I believe we don't know," he said, feeling a victim.
"There isn't room in THIS house for two such bobby-dazzlers, if
you fly your kites THAT high!" she rallied them. It was a nasty thrust.
He in his dinner jacket, and Clara in her green dress
and bare arms, were confused. They felt they must shelter
each other in that little kitchen.
"And look at THAT blossom! " continued Mrs. Radford,
pointing to Clara. "What does she reckon she did it for?"
Paul looked at Clara. She was rosy; her neck was warm
with blushes. There was a moment of silence.
"You like to see it, don't you?" he asked.
The mother had them in her power. All the time his heart
was beating hard, and he was tight with anxiety. But he would
fight her.
"Me like to see it!" exclaimed the old woman. "What should I
like to see her make a fool of herself for?"
"I've seen people look bigger fools," he said. Clara was
under his protection now.
"Oh, ay! and when was that?" came the sarcastic rejoinder.
"When they made frights of themselves," he answered.
Mrs. Radford, large and threatening, stood suspended
on the hearthrug, holding her fork.
"They're fools either road," she answered at length,
turning to the Dutch oven.
"No," he said, fighting stoutly. "Folk ought to look as well
as they can."
"And do you call THAT looking nice!" cried the mother,
pointing a scornful fork at Clara. "That--that looks as if it
wasn't properly dressed!"
"I believe you're jealous that you can't swank as well,"
he said laughing.
"Me! I could have worn evening dress with anybody, if I'd
wanted to!" came the scornful answer.
"And why didn't you want to?" he asked pertinently. "Or DID
you wear it?"
There was a long pause. Mrs. Radford readjusted the bacon
in the Dutch oven. His heart beat fast, for fear he had offended her.
"Me!" she exclaimed at last. "No, I didn't! And when I was
in service, I knew as soon as one of the maids came out in bare
shoulders what sort SHE was, going to her sixpenny hop!"
"Were you too good to go to a sixpenny hop?" he said.
Clara sat with bowed head. His eyes were dark and glittering.
Mrs. Radford took the Dutch oven from the fire, and stood near him,
putting bits of bacon on his plate.
"THERE'S a nice crozzly bit!" she said.
"Don't give me the best!" he said.
"SHE'S got what SHE wants," was the answer.
There was a sort of scornful forbearance in the woman's tone
that made Paul know she was mollified.
"But DO have some!" he said to Clara.
She looked up at him with her grey eyes, humiliated and lonely.
"No thanks!" she said.
"Why won't you?" he answered carelessly.
The blood was beating up like fire in his veins. Mrs. Radford
sat down again, large and impressive and aloof. He left Clara
altogether to attend to the mother.
"They say Sarah Bernhardt's fifty," he said.
"Fifty! She's turned sixty!" came the scornful answer.
"Well," he said, "you'd never think it! She made me want
to howl even now."
"I should like to see myself howling at THAT bad old baggage!"
said Mrs. Radford. "It's time she began to think herself a grandmother,
not a shrieking catamaran---"
He laughed.
"A catamaran is a boat the Malays use," he said.
"And it's a word as I use," she retorted.
"My mother does sometimes, and it's no good my telling her,"
he said.
"I s'd think she boxes your ears," said Mrs. Radford,
good-humouredly.
"She'd like to, and she says she will, so I give her a little
stool to stand on."
"That's the worst of my mother," said Clara. "She never wants
a stool for anything."
"But she often can't touch THAT lady with a long prop,"
retorted Mrs. Radford to Paul.
"I s'd think she doesn't want touching with a prop," he laughed.
"I shouldn't."
"It might do the pair of you good to give you a crack
on the head with one," said the mother, laughing suddenly.
"Why are you so vindictive towards me?" he said. "I've not
stolen anything from you."
"No; I'll watch that," laughed the older woman.
Soon the supper was finished. Mrs. Radford sat guard in her
chair. Paul lit a cigarette. Clara went upstairs, returning with
a sleeping-suit, which she spread on the fender to air.
"Why, I'd forgot all about THEM!" said Mrs. Radford.
"Where have they sprung from?"
"Out of my drawer."
"H'm! You bought 'em for Baxter, an' he wouldn't wear 'em,
would he?"--laughing. "Said he reckoned to do wi'out trousers i'
bed." She turned confidentially to Paul, saying: "He couldn't
BEAR 'em, them pyjama things."
The young man sat making rings of smoke.
"Well, it's everyone to his taste," he laughed.
Then followed a little discussion of the merits of pyjamas.
"My mother loves me in them," he said. "She says I'm a pierrot."
"I can imagine they'd suit you," said Mrs. Radford.
After a while he glanced at the little clock that was ticking
on the mantelpiece. It was half-past twelve.
"It is funny," he said, "but it takes hours to settle down
to sleep after the theatre."
"It's about time you did," said Mrs. Radford, clearing the table.
"Are YOU tired?" he asked of Clara.
"Not the least bit," she answered, avoiding his eyes.
"Shall we have a game at cribbage?" he said.
"I've forgotten it."
"Well, I'll teach you again. May we play crib, Mrs. Radford?"
he asked.
"You'll please yourselves," she said; "but it's pretty late."
"A game or so will make us sleepy," he answered.
Clara brought the cards, and sat spinning her wedding-ring whilst
he shuffled them. Mrs. Radford was washing up in the scullery.
As it grew later Paul felt the situation getting more and more tense.
"Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and two's eight---!"
The clock struck one. Still the game continued. Mrs. Radford
had done all the little jobs preparatory to going to bed,
had locked the door and filled the kettle. Still Paul went on
dealing and counting. He was obsessed by Clara's arms and throat.
He believed he could see where the division was just beginning
for her breasts. He could not leave her. She watched his hands,
and felt her joints melt as they moved quickly. She was so near;
it was almost as if he touched her, and yet not quite. His mettle was
roused. He hated Mrs. Radford. She sat on, nearly dropping asleep,
but determined and obstinate in her chair. Paul glanced at her, then at
Clara. She met his eyes, that were angry, mocking, and hard as steel.
Her own answered him in shame. He knew SHE, at any rate, was
of his mind. He played on.
At last Mrs. Radford roused herself stiffly, and said:
"Isn't it nigh on time you two was thinking o' bed?"
Paul played on without answering. He hated her sufficiently
to murder her.
"Half a minute," he said.
The elder woman rose and sailed stubbornly into the scullery,
returning with his candle, which she put on the mantelpiece.
Then she sat down again. The hatred of her went so hot
down his veins, he dropped his cards.
"We'll stop, then," he said, but his voice was still a challenge.
Clara saw his mouth shut hard. Again he glanced at her.
It seemed like an agreement. She bent over the cards, coughing,
to clear her throat.
"Well, I'm glad you've finished," said Mrs. Radford.
"Here, take your things"--she thrust the warm suit in his hand--"and
this is your candle. Your room's over this; there's only two,
so you can't go far wrong. Well, good-night. I hope you'll rest well."
"I'm sure I shall; I always do," he said.
"Yes; and so you ought at your age," she replied.
He bade good-night to Clara, and went. The twisting stairs
of white, scrubbed wood creaked and clanged at every step.
He went doggedly. The two doors faced each other. He went in his room,
pushed the door to, without fastening the latch.
It was a small room with a large bed. Some of Clara's
hair-pins were on the dressing-table--her hair-brush. Her clothes
and some skirts hung under a cloth in a corner. There was actually
a pair of stockings over a chair. He explored the room.
Two books of his own were there on the shelf. He undressed,
folded his suit, and sat on the bed, listening. Then he blew
out the candle, lay down, and in two minutes was almost asleep.
Then click!--he was wide awake and writhing in torment. It was as if,
when he had nearly got to sleep, something had bitten him suddenly
and sent him mad. He sat up and looked at the room in the darkness,
his feet doubled under him, perfectly motionless, listening. He heard
a cat somewhere away outside; then the heavy, poised tread
of the mother; then Clara's distinct voice:
"Will you unfasten my dress?"
There was silence for some time. At last the mother said:
"Now then! aren't you coming up?"
"No, not yet," replied the daughter calmly.
"Oh, very well then! If it's not late enough, stop a bit longer.
Only you needn't come waking me up when I've got to sleep."
"I shan't be long," said Clara.
Immediately afterwards Paul heard the mother slowly mounting
the stairs. The candlelight flashed through the cracks in his door.
Her dress brushed the door, and his heart jumped. Then it was dark,
and he heard the clatter of her latch. She was very leisurely indeed
in her preparations for sleep. After a long time it was quite still.
He sat strung up on the bed, shivering slightly. His door was
an inch open. As Clara came upstairs, he would intercept her.
He waited. All was dead silence. The clock struck two. Then he
heard a slight scrape of the fender downstairs. Now he could not
help himself. His shivering was uncontrollable. He felt he must go
or die.
He stepped off the bed, and stood a moment, shuddering.
Then he went straight to the door. He tried to step lightly.
The first stair cracked like a shot. He listened. The old woman
stirred in her bed. The staircase was dark. There was a slit
of light under the stair-foot door, which opened into the kitchen.
He stood a moment. Then he went on, mechanically. Every step creaked,
and his back was creeping, lest the old woman's door should open
behind him up above. He fumbled with the door at the bottom.
The latch opened with a loud clack. He went through into the kitchen,
and shut the door noisily behind him. The old woman daren't
come now.
Then he stood, arrested. Clara was kneeling on a pile of white
underclothing on the hearthrug, her back towards him, warming herself.
She did not look round, but sat crouching on her heels, and her
rounded beautiful back was towards him, and her face was hidden.
She was warming her body at the fire for consolation. The glow
was rosy on one side, the shadow was dark and warm on the other.
Her arms hung slack.
He shuddered violently, clenching his teeth and fists hard
to keep control. Then he went forward to her. He put one hand
on her shoulder, the fingers of the other hand under her chin to
raise her face. A convulsed shiver ran through her, once, twice,
at his touch. She kept her head bent.
"Sorry!" he murmured, realising that his hands were very cold.
Then she looked up at him, frightened, like a thing that is
afraid of death.
"My hands are so cold," he murmured.
"I like it," she whispered, closing her eyes.
The breath of her words were on his mouth. Her arms clasped
his knees. The cord of his sleeping-suit dangled against her and made
her shiver. As the warmth went into him, his shuddering became less.
At length, unable to stand so any more, he raised her, and she
buried her head on his shoulder. His hands went over her slowly
with an infinite tenderness of caress. She clung close to him,
trying to hide herself against him. He clasped her very fast.
Then at last she looked at him, mute, imploring, looking to see if she
must be ashamed.
His eyes were dark, very deep, and very quiet. It was as if her
beauty and his taking it hurt him, made him sorrowful. He looked at
her with a little pain, and was afraid. He was so humble before her.
She kissed him fervently on the eyes, first one, then the other,
and she folded herself to him. She gave herself. He held her fast.
It was a moment intense almost to agony.
She stood letting him adore her and tremble with joy of her.
It healed her hurt pride. It healed her; it made her glad. It made
her feel erect and proud again. Her pride had been wounded inside her.
She had been cheapened. Now she radiated with joy and pride again.
It was her restoration and her recognition.
Then he looked at her, his face radiant. They laughed to
each other, and he strained her to his chest. The seconds ticked off,
the minutes passed, and still the two stood clasped rigid together,
mouth to mouth, like a statue in one block.
But again his fingers went seeking over her, restless,
wandering, dissatisfied. The hot blood came up wave upon wave.
She laid her head on his shoulder.
"Come you to my room," he murmured.
She looked at him and shook her head, her mouth pouting
disconsolately, her eyes heavy with passion. He watched her fixedly.
"Yes!" he said.
Again she shook her head.
"Why not?" he asked.
She looked at him still heavily, sorrowfully, and again she
shook her head. His eyes hardened, and he gave way.
When, later on, he was back in bed, he wondered why she had
refused to come to him openly, so that her mother would know.
At any rate, then things would have been definite. And she could
have stayed with him the night, without having to go, as she was,
to her mother's bed. It was strange, and he could not understand it.
And then almost immediately he fell asleep.
He awoke in the morning with someone speaking to him.
Opening his eyes, he saw Mrs. Radford, big and stately, looking down
on him. She held a cup of tea in her hand.
"Do you think you're going to sleep till Doomsday?" she said.
He laughed at once.
"It ought only to be about five o'clock," he said.
"Well," she answered, "it's half-past seven, whether or not.
Here, I've brought you a cup of tea."
He rubbed his face, pushed the tumbled hair off his forehead,
and roused himself.
"What's it so late for!" he grumbled.
He resented being wakened. It amused her. She saw his neck
in the flannel sleeping-jacket, as white and round as a girl's. He
rubbed his hair crossly.
"It's no good your scratching your head," she said.
"It won't make it no earlier. Here, an' how long d'you think I'm
going to stand waiting wi' this here cup?"
"Oh, dash the cup!" he said.
"You should go to bed earlier," said the woman.
He looked up at her, laughing with impudence.
"I went to bed before YOU did," he said.
"Yes, my Guyney, you did!" she exclaimed.
"Fancy," he said, stirring his tea, "having tea brought to bed
to me! My mother'll think I'm ruined for life."
"Don't she never do it?" asked Mrs. Radford.
"She'd as leave think of flying."
"Ah, I always spoilt my lot! That's why they've turned out
such bad uns," said the elderly woman.
"You'd only Clara," he said. "And Mr. Radford's in heaven.
So I suppose there's only you left to be the bad un."
"I'm not bad; I'm only soft," she said, as she went out
of the bedroom. "I'm only a fool, I am!"
Clara was very quiet at breakfast, but she had a sort of air
of proprietorship over him that pleased him infinitely. Mrs. Radford
was evidently fond of him. He began to talk of his painting.
"What's the good," exclaimed the mother, "of your whittling
and worrying and twistin' and too-in' at that painting of yours?
What GOOD does it do you, I should like to know? You'd better
be enjoyin' yourself."
"Oh, but," exclaimed Paul, "I made over thirty guineas last year."
"Did you! Well, that's a consideration, but it's nothing
to the time you put in."
"And I've got four pounds owing. A man said he'd give me five
pounds if I'd paint him and his missis and the dog and the cottage.
And I went and put the fowls in instead of the dog, and he was waxy,
so I had to knock a quid off. I was sick of it, and I didn't like
the dog. I made a picture of it. What shall I do when he pays me
the four pounds?"
"Nay! you know your own uses for your money," said Mrs. Radford.
"But I'm going to bust this four pounds. Should we go
to the seaside for a day or two?"
"Who?"
"You and Clara and me."
"What, on your money!" she exclaimed, half-wrathful.
"Why not?"
"YOU wouldn't be long in breaking your neck at a hurdle race!"
she said.
"So long as I get a good run for my money! Will you?"
"Nay; you may settle that atween you."
"And you're willing?" he asked, amazed and rejoicing.
"You'll do as you like," said Mrs. Radford, "whether I'm
willing or not."
CHAPTER XIII
BAXTER DAWES
SOON after Paul had been to the theatre with Clara, he was drinking
in the Punch Bowl with some friends of his when Dawes came in.
Clara's husband was growing stout; his eyelids were getting slack
over his brown eyes; he was losing his healthy firmness of flesh.
He was very evidently on the downward track. Having quarrelled
with his sister, he had gone into cheap lodgings. His mistress
had left him for a man who would marry her. He had been in prison
one night for fighting when he was drunk, and there was a shady
betting episode in which he was concerned.
Paul and he were confirmed enemies, and yet there was between
them that peculiar feeling of intimacy, as if they were secretly
near to each other, which sometimes exists between two people,
although they never speak to one another. Paul often thought of
Baxter Dawes, often wanted to get at him and be friends with him.
He knew that Dawes often thought about him, and that the man was
drawn to him by some bond or other. And yet the two never looked
at each other save in hostility.
Since he was a superior employee at Jordan's, it was the thing
for Paul to offer Dawes a drink.
"What'll you have?" he asked of him.
"Nowt wi' a bleeder like you!" replied the man.
Paul turned away with a slight disdainful movement of the shoulders,
very irritating.
"The aristocracy," he continued, "is really a military institution.
Take Germany, now. She's got thousands of aristocrats whose only
means of existence is the army. They're deadly poor, and life's
deadly slow. So they hope for a war. They look for war as a chance
of getting on. Till there's a war they are idle good-for-nothings.
When there's a war, they are leaders and commanders. There you are,
then--they WANT war!"
He was not a favourite debater in the public-house, being too
quick and overbearing. He irritated the older men by his assertive
manner, and his cocksureness. They listened in silence, and were
not sorry when he finished.
Dawes interrupted the young man's flow of eloquence by asking,
in a loud sneer:
"Did you learn all that at th' theatre th' other night?"
Paul looked at him; their eyes met. Then he knew Dawes had
seen him coming out of the theatre with Clara.
"Why, what about th' theatre?" asked one of Paul's associates,
glad to get a dig at the young fellow, and sniffing something tasty.
"Oh, him in a bob-tailed evening suit, on the lardy-da!"
sneered Dawes, jerking his head contemptuously at Paul.
"That's comin' it strong," said the mutual friend.
"Tart an' all?"
"Tart, begod!" said Dawes.
"Go on; let's have it!" cried the mutual friend.
"You've got it," said Dawes, "an' I reckon Morelly had it an' all."
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" said the mutual friend. "An' was it
a proper tart?"
"Tart, God blimey--yes!"
"How do you know?"
"Oh," said Dawes, "I reckon he spent th' night---"
There was a good deal of laughter at Paul's expense.
"But who WAS she? D'you know her?" asked the mutual friend.
"I should SHAY SHO," said Dawes.
This brought another burst of laughter.
"Then spit it out," said the mutual friend.
Dawes shook his head, and took a gulp of beer.
"It's a wonder he hasn't let on himself," he said.
"He'll be braggin' of it in a bit."
"Come on, Paul," said the friend; "it's no good. You might
just as well own up."
"Own up what? That I happened to take a friend to the theatre?"
"Oh well, if it was all right, tell us who she was, lad,"
said the friend.
"She WAS all right," said Dawes.
Paul was furious. Dawes wiped his golden moustache with
his fingers, sneering.
"Strike me---! One o' that sort?" said the mutual friend.
"Paul, boy, I'm surprised at you. And do you know her, Baxter?"
"Just a bit, like!"
He winked at the other men.
"Oh well," said Paul, "I'll be going!"
The mutual friend laid a detaining hand on his shoulder.
"Nay," he said, "you don't get off as easy as that, my lad.
We've got to have a full account of this business."
"Then get it from Dawes!" he said.
"You shouldn't funk your own deeds, man," remonstrated the friend.
Then Dawes made a remark which caused Paul to throw half
a glass of beer in his face.
"Oh, Mr. Morel!" cried the barmaid, and she rang the bell
for the "chucker-out".
Dawes spat and rushed for the young man. At that minute
a brawny fellow with his shirt-sleeves rolled up and his trousers
tight over his haunches intervened.
"Now, then!" he said, pushing his chest in front of Dawes.
"Come out!" cried Dawes.
Paul was leaning, white and quivering, against the brass rail
of the bar. He hated Dawes, wished something could exterminate
him at that minute; and at the same time, seeing the wet hair on
the man's forehead, he thought he looked pathetic. He did not move.
"Come out, you ---," said Dawes.
"That's enough, Dawes," cried the barmaid.
"Come on," said the "chucker-out", with kindly insistence,
"you'd better be getting on."
And, by making Dawes edge away from his own close proximity,
he worked him to the door.
"THAT'S the little sod as started it!" cried Dawes,
half-cowed, pointing to Paul Morel.
"Why, what a story, Mr. Dawes!" said the barmaid. "You know
it was you all the time."
Still the "chucker-out" kept thrusting his chest forward at him,
still he kept edging back, until he was in the doorway and on the
steps outside; then he turned round.
"All right," he said, nodding straight at his rival.
Paul had a curious sensation of pity, almost of affection,
mingled with violent hate, for the man. The coloured door swung to;
there was silence in the bar.
"Serve, him, jolly well right!" said the barmaid.
"But it's a nasty thing to get a glass of beer in your eyes,"
said the mutual friend.
"I tell you I was glad he did," said the barmaid. "Will you
have another, Mr. Morel?"
She held up Paul's glass questioningly. He nodded.
"He's a man as doesn't care for anything, is Baxter Dawes,"
said one.
"Pooh! is he?" said the barmaid. "He's a loud-mouthed one,
he is, and they're never much good. Give me a pleasant-spoken chap,
if you want a devil!"
"Well, Paul, my lad," said the friend, "you'll have to take
care of yourself now for a while."
"You won't have to give him a chance over you, that's all,"
said the barmaid.
"Can you box?" asked a friend.
"Not a bit," he answered, still very white.
"I might give you a turn or two," said the friend.
"Thanks, I haven't time."
And presently he took his departure.
"Go along with him, Mr. Jenkinson," whispered the barmaid,
tipping Mr. Jenkinson the wink.
The man nodded, took his hat, said: "Good-night all!"
very heartily, and followed Paul, calling:
"Half a minute, old man. You an' me's going the same road,
I believe."
"Mr. Morel doesn't like it," said the barmaid. "You'll see,
we shan't have him in much more. I'm sorry; he's good company.
And Baxter Dawes wants locking up, that's what he wants."
Paul would have died rather than his mother should get
to know of this affair. He suffered tortures of humiliation
and self-consciousness. There was now a good deal of his life
of which necessarily he could not speak to his mother. He had
a life apart from her--his sexual life. The rest she still kept.
But he felt he had to conceal something from her, and it irked him.
There was a certain silence between them, and he felt he had,
in that silence, to defend himself against her; he felt condemned
by her. Then sometimes he hated her, and pulled at her bondage.
His life wanted to free itself of her. It was like a circle where life
turned back on itself, and got no farther. She bore him, loved him,
kept him, and his love turned back into her, so that he could not
be free to go forward with his own life, really love another woman.
At this period, unknowingly, he resisted his mother's influence.
He did not tell her things; there was a distance between them.
Clara was happy, almost sure of him. She felt she had at last
got him for herself; and then again came the uncertainty. He told
her jestingly of the affair with her husband. Her colour came up,
her grey eyes flashed.
"That's him to a 'T'," she cried--"like a navvy! He's not fit
for mixing with decent folk."
"Yet you married him," he said.
It made her furious that he reminded her.
"I did!" she cried. "But how was I to know?"
"I think he might have been rather nice," he said.
"You think I made him what he is!" she exclaimed.
"Oh no! he made himself. But there's something about him---"
Clara looked at her lover closely. There was something in him
she hated, a sort of detached criticism of herself, a coldness
which made her woman's soul harden against him.
"And what are you going to do?" she asked.
"How?"
"About Baxter."
"There's nothing to do, is there?" he replied.
"You can fight him if you have to, I suppose?" she said.
"No; I haven't the least sense of the 'fist'. It's funny.
With most men there's the instinct to clench the fist and hit.
It's not so with me. I should want a knife or a pistol or something
to fight with."
"Then you'd better carry something," she said.
"Nay," he laughed; "I'm not daggeroso."
"But he'll do something to you. You don't know him."
"All right," he said, "we'll see."
"And you'll let him?"
"Perhaps, if I can't help it."
"And if he kills you?" she said.
"I should be sorry, for his sake and mine."
Clara was silent for a moment.
"You DO make me angry!" she exclaimed.
"That's nothing afresh," he laughed.
"But why are you so silly? You don't know him."
"And don't want."
"Yes, but you're not going to let a man do as he likes with you?"
"What must I do?" he replied, laughing.
"I should carry a revolver," she said. "I'm sure he's dangerous."
"I might blow my fingers off," he said.
"No; but won't you?" she pleaded.
"No."
"Not anything?"
"No."
"And you'll leave him to---?"
"Yes."
"You are a fool!"
"Fact!"
She set her teeth with anger.
"I could SHAKE you!" she cried, trembling with passion.
"Why?"
"Let a man like HIM do as he likes with you."
"You can go back to him if he triumphs," he said.
"Do you want me to hate you?" she asked.
"Well, I only tell you," he said.
"And YOU say you LOVE me!" she exclaimed, low and indignant.
"Ought I to slay him to please you?" he said. "But if I did,
see what a hold he'd have over me."
"Do you think I'm a fool!" she exclaimed.
"Not at all. But you don't understand me, my dear."
There was a pause between them.
"But you ought NOT to expose yourself," she pleaded.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"'The man in righteousness arrayed,
The pure and blameless liver,
Needs not the keen Toledo blade,
Nor venom-freighted quiver,'"
he quoted.
She looked at him searchingly.
"I wish I could understand you," she said.
"There's simply nothing to understand," he laughed.
She bowed her head, brooding.
He did not see Dawes for several days; then one morning as he
ran upstairs from the Spiral room he almost collided with the burly
metal-worker.
"What the---!" cried the smith.
"Sorry!" said Paul, and passed on.
"SORRY!" sneered Dawes.
Paul whistled lightly, "Put Me among the Girls".
"I'll stop your whistle, my jockey!" he said.
The other took no notice.
"You're goin' to answer for that job of the other night."
Paul went to his desk in his corner, and turned over the leaves
of the ledger.
"Go and tell Fanny I want order 097, quick!" he said to his boy.
Dawes stood in the doorway, tall and threatening, looking at
the top of the young man's head.
"Six and five's eleven and seven's one-and-six," Paul added aloud.
"An' you hear, do you!" said Dawes.
"FIVE AND NINEPENCE!" He wrote a figure. "What's that?"
he said.
"I'm going to show you what it is," said the smith.
The other went on adding the figures aloud.
"Yer crawlin' little ---, yer daresn't face me proper!"
Paul quickly snatched the heavy ruler. Dawes started.
The young man ruled some lines in his ledger. The elder man
was infuriated.
"But wait till I light on you, no matter where it is,
I'll settle your hash for a bit, yer little swine!"
"All right," said Paul.
At that the smith started heavily from the doorway. Just then
a whistle piped shrilly. Paul went to the speaking-tube.
"Yes!" he said, and he listened. "Er--yes!" He listened,
then he laughed. "I'll come down directly. I've got a visitor
just now."
Dawes knew from his tone that he had been speaking to Clara.
He stepped forward.
"Yer little devil!" he said. "I'll visitor you, inside of
two minutes! Think I'm goin' to have YOU whipperty-snappin' round?"
The other clerks in the warehouse looked up. Paul's office-boy
appeared, holding some white article.
"Fanny says you could have had it last night if you'd let
her know," he said.
"All right," answered Paul, looking at the stocking.
"Get it off." Dawes stood frustrated, helpless with rage.
Morel turned round.
"Excuse me a minute," he said to Dawes, and he would have
run downstairs.
"By God, I'll stop your gallop!" shouted the smith, seizing him
by the arm. He turned quickly.
"Hey! Hey!" cried the office-boy, alarmed.
Thomas Jordan started out of his little glass office, and came
running down the room.
"What's a-matter, what's a-matter?" he said, in his old man's
sharp voice.
"I'm just goin' ter settle this little ---, that's all,"
said Dawes desperately.
"What do you mean?" snapped Thomas Jordan.
"What I say," said Dawes, but he hung fire.
Morel was leaning against the counter, ashamed, half-grinning.
"What's it all about?" snapped Thomas Jordan.
"Couldn't say," said Paul, shaking his head and shrugging
his shoulders.
"Couldn't yer, couldn't yer!" cried Dawes, thrusting forward
his handsome, furious face, and squaring his fist.
"Have you finished?" cried the old man, strutting. "Get off
about your business, and don't come here tipsy in the morning."
Dawes turned his big frame slowly upon him.
"Tipsy!" he said. "Who's tipsy? I'm no more tipsy than
YOU are!"
"We've heard that song before," snapped the old man. "Now you
get off, and don't be long about it. Comin' HERE with your rowdying."
The smith looked down contemptuously on his employer.
His hands, large, and grimy, and yet well shaped for his labour,
worked restlessly. Paul remembered they were the hands of Clara's
husband, and a flash of hate went through him.
"Get out before you're turned out!" snapped Thomas Jordan.
"Why, who'll turn me out?" said Dawes, beginning to sneer.
Mr. Jordan started, marched up to the smith, waving him off,
thrusting his stout little figure at the man, saying:
"Get off my premises--get off!"
He seized and twitched Dawes's arm.
"Come off!" said the smith, and with a jerk of the elbow he
sent the little manufacturer staggering backwards.
Before anyone could help him, Thomas Jordan had collided
with the flimsy spring-door. It had given way, and let him crash
down the half-dozen steps into Fanny's room. There was a second
of amazement; then men and girls were running. Dawes stood a moment
looking bitterly on the scene, then he took his departure.
Thomas Jordan was shaken and braised, not otherwise hurt.
He was, however, beside himself with rage. He dismissed Dawes from
his employment, and summoned him for assault.
At the trial Paul Morel had to give evidence. Asked how
the trouble began, he said:
"Dawes took occasion to insult Mrs. Dawes and me because I
accompanied her to the theatre one evening; then I threw some beer
at him, and he wanted his revenge."
"Cherchez la femme!" smiled the magistrate.
The case was dismissed after the magistrate had told Dawes he
thought him a skunk.
"You gave the case away," snapped Mr. Jordan to Paul.
"I don't think I did," replied the latter. "Besides, you
didn't really want a conviction, did you?"
"What do you think I took the case up for?"
"Well," said Paul, "I'm sorry if I said the wrong thing."
Clara was also very angry.
"Why need MY name have been dragged in?" she said.
"Better speak it openly than leave it to be whispered."
"There was no need for anything at all," she declared.
"We are none the poorer," he said indifferently.
"YOU may not be," she said.
"And you?" he asked.
"I need never have been mentioned."
"I'm sorry," he said; but he did not sound sorry.
He told himself easily: "She will come round." And she did.
He told his mother about the fall of Mr. Jordan and the trial
of Dawes. Mrs. Morel watched him closely.
"And what do you think of it all?" she asked him.
"I think he's a fool," he said.
But he was very uncomfortable, nevertheless.
"Have you ever considered where it will end?" his mother said.
"No," he answered; "things work out of themselves."
"They do, in a way one doesn't like, as a rule," said his mother.
"And then one has to put up with them," he said.
"You'll find you're not as good at 'putting up' as you imagine,"
she said.
He went on working rapidly at his design.
"Do you ever ask HER opinion?" she said at length.
"What of?"
"Of you, and the whole thing."
"I don't care what her opinion of me is. She's fearfully
in love with me, but it's not very deep."
"But quite as deep as your feeling for her."
He looked up at his mother curiously.
"Yes," he said. "You know, mother, I think there must be
something the matter with me, that I CAN'T love. When she's there,
as a rule, I DO love her. Sometimes, when I see her just as THE WOMAN,
I love her, mother; but then, when she talks and criticises,
I often don't listen to her."
"Yet she's as much sense as Miriam."
"Perhaps; and I love her better than Miriam. But WHY don't
they hold me?"
The last question was almost a lamentation. His mother
turned away her face, sat looking across the room, very quiet,
grave, with something of renunciation.
"But you wouldn't want to marry Clara?" she said.
"No; at first perhaps I would. But why--why don't I want to marry
her or anybody? I feel sometimes as if I wronged my women, mother."
"How wronged them, my son?"
"I don't know."
He went on painting rather despairingly; he had touched
the quick of the trouble.
"And as for wanting to marry," said his mother, "there's plenty
of time yet."
"But no, mother. I even love Clara, and I did Miriam; but to GIVE
myself to them in marriage I couldn't. I couldn't belong to them.
They seem to want ME, and I can't ever give it them."
"You haven't met the right woman."
"And I never shall meet the right woman while you live,"
he said.
She was very quiet. Now she began to feel again tired,
as if she were done.
"We'll see, my son," she answered.
The feeling that things were going in a circle made him mad.
Clara was, indeed, passionately in love with him, and he with her,
as far as passion went. In the daytime he forgot her a good deal.
She was working in the same building, but he was not aware of it.
He was busy, and her existence was of no matter to him. But all the
time she was in her Spiral room she had a sense that he was upstairs,
a physical sense of his person in the same building. Every second
she expected him to come through the door, and when he came it
was a shock to her. But he was often short and offhand with her.
He gave her his directions in an official manner, keeping her at bay.
With what wits she had left she listened to him. She dared not
misunderstand or fail to remember, but it was a cruelty to her.
She wanted to touch his chest. She knew exactly how his breast was
shapen under the waistcoat, and she wanted to touch it. It maddened
her to hear his mechanical voice giving orders about the work.
She wanted to break through the sham of it, smash the trivial coating
of business which covered him with hardness, get at the man again;
but she was afraid, and before she could feel one touch of his warmth he
was gone, and she ached again.
He knew that she was dreary every evening she did not see him,
so he gave her a good deal of his time. The days were often
a misery to her, but the evenings and the nights were usually
a bliss to them both. Then they were silent. For hours they
sat together, or walked together in the dark, and talked only
a few, almost meaningless words. But he had her hand in his,
and her bosom left its warmth in his chest, making him feel whole.
One evening they were walking down by the canal,
and something was troubling him. She knew she had not got him.
All the time he whistled softly and persistently to himself.
She listened, feeling she could learn more from his whistling than
from his speech. It was a sad dissatisfied tune--a tune that made
her feel he would not stay with her. She walked on in silence.
When they came to the swing bridge he sat down on the great pole,
looking at the stars in the water. He was a long way from her.
She had been thinking.
"Will you always stay at Jordan's?" she asked.
"No," he answered without reflecting. "No; I s'll leave
Nottingham and go abroad--soon."
"Go abroad! What for?"
"I dunno! I feel restless."
"But what shall you do?"
"I shall have to get some steady designing work, and some sort
of sale for my pictures first," he said. "I am gradually making
my way. I know I am."
"And when do you think you'll go?"
"I don't know. I shall hardly go for long, while there's
my mother."
"You couldn't leave her?"
"Not for long."
She looked at the stars in the black water. They lay very
white and staring. It was an agony to know he would leave her,
but it was almost an agony to have him near her.
"And if you made a nice lot of money, what would you do?"
she asked.
"Go somewhere in a pretty house near London with my mother."
"I see."
There was a long pause.
"I could still come and see you," he said. "I don't know.
Don't ask me what I should do; I don't know."
There was a silence. The stars shuddered and broke upon
the water. There came a breath of wind. He went suddenly to her,
and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Don't ask me anything about the future," he said miserably.
"I don't know anything. Be with me now, will you, no matter what
it is?"
And she took him in her arms. After all, she was a married woman,
and she had no right even to what he gave her. He needed her badly.
She had him in her arms, and he was miserable. With her warmth she
folded him over, consoled him, loved him. She would let the moment
stand for itself.
After a moment he lifted his head as if he wanted to speak.
"Clara," he said, struggling.
She caught him passionately to her, pressed his head down on her
breast with her hand. She could not bear the suffering in his voice.
She was afraid in her soul. He might have anything of her--anything;
but she did not want to KNOW. She felt she could not bear it.
She wanted him to be soothed upon her--soothed. She stood clasping him
and caressing him, and he was something unknown to her--something
almost uncanny. She wanted to soothe him into forgetfulness.
And soon the struggle went down in his soul, and he forgot.
But then Clara was not there for him, only a woman, warm, something he
loved and almost worshipped, there in the dark. But it was not Clara,
and she submitted to him. The naked hunger and inevitability
of his loving her, something strong and blind and ruthless
in its primitiveness, made the hour almost terrible to her.
She knew how stark and alone he was, and she felt it was great
that he came to her; and she took him simply because his need was
bigger either than her or him, and her soul was still within her.
She did this for him in his need, even if he left her, for she
loved him.
All the while the peewits were screaming in the field.
When he came to, he wondered what was near his eyes, curving and
strong with life in the dark, and what voice it was speaking.
Then he realised it was the grass, and the peewit was calling.
The warmth was Clara's breathing heaving. He lifted his head,
and looked into her eyes. They were dark and shining and strange,
life wild at the source staring into his life, stranger to him,
yet meeting him; and he put his face down on her throat, afraid.
What was she? A strong, strange, wild life, that breathed with his
in the darkness through this hour. It was all so much bigger than
themselves that he was hushed. They had met, and included in their
meeting the thrust of the manifold grass stems, the cry of the peewit,
the wheel of the stars.
When they stood up they saw other lovers stealing down the
opposite hedge. It seemed natural they were there; the night
contained them.
And after such an evening they both were very still, having known
the immensity of passion. They felt small, half-afraid, childish
and wondering, like Adam and Eve when they lost their innocence
and realised the magnificence of the power which drove
them out of Paradise and across the great night and the great day
of humanity. It was for each of them an initiation and a satisfaction.
To know their own nothingness, to know the tremendous living flood
which carried them always, gave them rest within themselves.
If so great a magnificent power could overwhelm them, identify them
altogether with itself, so that they knew they were only grains in
the tremendous heave that lifted every grass blade its little height,
and every tree, and living thing, then why fret about themselves?
They could let themselves be carried by life, and they felt a sort
of peace each in the other. There was a verification which they had
had together. Nothing could nullify it, nothing could take it away;
it was almost their belief in life.
But Clara was not satisfied. Something great was there,
she knew; something great enveloped her. But it did not keep her.
In the morning it was not the same. They had KNOWN, but she
could not keep the moment. She wanted it again; she wanted
something permanent. She had not realised fully. She thought
it was he whom she wanted. He was not safe to her. This that
had been between them might never be again; he might leave her.
She had not got him; she was not satisfied. She had been there,
but she had not gripped the--the something--she knew not what--which she
was mad to have.
In the morning he had considerable peace, and was happy
in himself. It seemed almost as if he had known the baptism of
fire in passion, and it left him at rest. But it was not Clara.
It was something that happened because of her, but it was not her.
They were scarcely any nearer each other. It was as if they had been
blind agents of a great force.
When she saw him that day at the factory her heart melted like
a drop of fire. It was his body, his brows. The drop of fire grew
more intense in her breast; she must hold him. But he, very quiet,
very subdued this morning, went on giving his instruction. She followed
him into the dark, ugly basement, and lifted her arms to him.
He kissed her, and the intensity of passion began to burn him again.
Somebody was at the door. He ran upstairs; she returned to her room,
moving as if in a trance.
After that the fire slowly went down. He felt more and more that
his experience had been impersonal, and not Clara. He loved her.
There was a big tenderness, as after a strong emotion they
had known together; but it was not she who could keep his soul steady.
He had wanted her to be something she could not be.
And she was mad with desire of him. She could not see
him without touching him. In the factory, as he talked to her
about Spiral hose, she ran her hand secretly along his side.
She followed him out into the basement for a quick kiss; her eyes,
always mute and yearning, full of unrestrained passion, she kept
fixed on his. He was afraid of her, lest she should too flagrantly
give herself away before the other girls. She invariably waited
for him at dinnertime for him to embrace her before she went.
He felt as if she were helpless, almost a burden to him, and it
irritated him.
"But what do you always want to be kissing and embracing for?"
he said. "Surely there's a time for everything."
She looked up at him, and the hate came into her eyes.
"DO I always want to be kissing you?" she said.
"Always, even if I come to ask you about the work. I don't
want anything to do with love when I'm at work. Work's work---"
"And what is love?" she asked. "Has it to have special hours?"
"Yes; out of work hours."
"And you'll regulate it according to Mr. Jordan's closing time?"
"Yes; and according to the freedom from business of any sort."
"It is only to exist in spare time?"
"That's all, and not always then--not the kissing sort of love."
"And that's all you think of it?"
"It's quite enough."
"I'm glad you think so."
And she was cold to him for some time--she hated him; and while
she was cold and contemptuous, he was uneasy till she had forgiven
him again. But when they started afresh they were not any nearer.
He kept her because he never satisfied her.
In the spring they went together to the seaside. They had rooms
at a little cottage near Theddlethorpe, and lived as man and wife.
Mrs. Radford sometimes went with them.
It was known in Nottingham that Paul Morel and Mrs. Dawes
were going together, but as nothing was very obvious, and Clara
always a solitary person, and he seemed so simple and innocent,
it did not make much difference.
He loved the Lincolnshire coast, and she loved the sea.
In the early morning they often went out together to bathe.
The grey of the dawn, the far, desolate reaches of the fenland
smitten with winter, the sea-meadows rank with herbage, were stark
enough to rejoice his soul. As they stepped on to the highroad from
their plank bridge, and looked round at the endless monotony of levels,
the land a little darker than the sky, the sea sounding small beyond
the sandhills, his heart filled strong with the sweeping relentlessness
of life. She loved him then. He was solitary and strong, and his eyes
had a beautiful light.
They shuddered with cold; then he raced her down the road to
the green turf bridge. She could run well. Her colour soon came,
her throat was bare, her eyes shone. He loved her for being so
luxuriously heavy, and yet so quick. Himself was light; she went
with a beautiful rush. They grew warm, and walked hand in hand.
A flush came into the sky, the wan moon, half-way down
the west, sank into insignificance. On the shadowy land things
began to take life, plants with great leaves became distinct.
They came through a pass in the big, cold sandhills on to the beach.
The long waste of foreshore lay moaning under the dawn and the sea;
the ocean was a flat dark strip with a white edge. Over the gloomy
sea the sky grew red. Quickly the fire spread among the clouds
and scattered them. Crimson burned to orange, orange to dull gold,
and in a golden glitter the sun came up, dribbling fierily over the
waves in little splashes, as if someone had gone along and the light
had spilled from her pail as she walked.
The breakers ran down the shore in long, hoarse strokes.
Tiny seagulls, like specks of spray, wheeled above the line of surf.
Their crying seemed larger than they. Far away the coast reached out,
and melted into the morning, the tussocky sandhills seemed to sink
to a level with the beach. Mablethorpe was tiny on their right.
They had alone the space of all this level shore, the sea, and the
upcoming sun, the faint noise of the waters, the sharp crying of
the gulls.
They had a warm hollow in the sandhills where the wind did
not come. He stood looking out to sea.
"It's very fine," he said.
"Now don't get sentimental," she said.
It irritated her to see him standing gazing at the sea, like a
solitary and poetic person. He laughed. She quickly undressed.
"There are some fine waves this morning," she said triumphantly.
She was a better swimmer than he; he stood idly watching her.
"Aren't you coming?" she said.
"In a minute," he answered.
She was white and velvet skinned, with heavy shoulders.
A little wind, coming from the sea, blew across her body and ruffled
her hair.
The morning was of a lovely limpid gold colour. Veils of shadow
seemed to be drifting away on the north and the south. Clara stood
shrinking slightly from the touch of the wind, twisting her hair.
The sea-grass rose behind the white stripped woman. She glanced
at the sea, then looked at him. He was watching her with dark eyes
which she loved and could not understand. She hugged her breasts
between her arms, cringing, laughing:
"Oo, it will be so cold!" she said.
He bent forward and kissed her, held her suddenly close,
and kissed her again. She stood waiting. He looked into her eyes,
then away at the pale sands.
"Go, then!" he said quietly.
She flung her arms round his neck, drew him against her,
kissed him passionately, and went, saying:
"But you'll come in?"
"In a minute."
She went plodding heavily over the sand that was soft as velvet.
He, on the sandhills, watched the great pale coast envelop her.
She grew smaller, lost proportion, seemed only like a large white
bird toiling forward.
"Not much more than a big white pebble on the beach, not much
more than a clot of foam being blown and rolled over the sand,"
he said to himself.
She seemed to move very slowly across the vast sounding shore.
As he watched, he lost her. She was dazzled out of sight by
the sunshine. Again he saw her, the merest white speck moving
against the white, muttering sea-edge.
"Look how little she is!" he said to himself. "She's lost like
a grain of sand in the beach--just a concentrated speck blown along,
a tiny white foam-bubble, almost nothing among the morning.
Why does she absorb me?"
The morning was altogether uninterrupted: she was gone in
the water. Far and wide the beach, the sandhills with their blue marrain,
the shining water, glowed together in immense, unbroken solitude.
"What is she, after all?" he said to himself. "Here's the
seacoast morning, big and permanent and beautiful; there is she,
fretting, always unsatisfied, and temporary as a bubble of foam.
What does she mean to me, after all? She represents something,
like a bubble of foam represents the sea. But what is she?
It's not her I care for."
Then, startled by his own unconscious thoughts, that seemed
to speak so distinctly that all the morning could hear, he undressed
and ran quickly down the sands. She was watching for him. Her arm
flashed up to him, she heaved on a wave, subsided, her shoulders
in a pool of liquid silver. He jumped through the breakers,
and in a moment her hand was on his shoulder.
He was a poor swimmer, and could not stay long in the water.
She played round him in triumph, sporting with her superiority,
which he begrudged her. The sunshine stood deep and fine on the water.
They laughed in the sea for a minute or two, then raced each other back
to the sandhills.
When they were drying themselves, panting heavily,
he watched her laughing, breathless face, her bright shoulders,
her breasts that swayed and made him frightened as she rubbed them,
and he thought again:
"But she is magnificent, and even bigger than the morning
and the sea. Is she---? Is she---"
She, seeing his dark eyes fixed on her, broke off from her
drying with a laugh.
"What are you looking at?" she said.
"You," he answered, laughing.
Her eyes met his, and in a moment he was kissing
her white "goose-fleshed" shoulder, and thinking:
"What is she? What is she?"
She loved him in the morning. There was something detached,
hard, and elemental about his kisses then, as if he were only
conscious of his own will, not in the least of her and her wanting him.
Later in the day he went out sketching.
"You," he said to her, "go with your mother to Sutton.
I am so dull."
She stood and looked at him. He knew she wanted to come
with him, but he preferred to be alone. She made him feel imprisoned
when she was there, as if he could not get a free deep breath,
as if there were something on top of him. She felt his desire
to be free of her.
In the evening he came back to her. They walked down the shore
in the darkness, then sat for a while in the shelter of the sandhills.
"It seems," she said, as they stared over the darkness of the sea,
where no light was to be seen--"it seemed as if you only loved me
at night--as if you didn't love me in the daytime."
He ran the cold sand through his fingers, feeling guilty
under the accusation.
"The night is free to you," he replied. "In the daytime I
want to be by myself."
"But why?" she said. "Why, even now, when we are on this
short holiday?"
"I don't know. Love-making stifles me in the daytime."
"But it needn't be always love-making," she said.
"It always is," he answered, "when you and I are together."
She sat feeling very bitter.
"Do you ever want to marry me?" he asked curiously.
"Do you me?" she replied.
"Yes, yes; I should like us to have children," he answered slowly.
She sat with her head bent, fingering the sand.
"But you don't really want a divorce from Baxter, do you?"
he said.
It was some minutes before she replied.
"No," she said, very deliberately; "I don't think I do."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Do you feel as if you belonged to him?"
"No; I don't think so."
"What, then?"
"I think he belongs to me," she replied.
He was silent for some minutes, listening to the wind blowing
over the hoarse, dark sea.
"And you never really intended to belong to ME?" he said.
"Yes, I do belong to you," she answered.
"No," he said; "because you don't want to be divorced."
It was a knot they could not untie, so they left it, took what
they could get, and what they could not attain they ignored.
"I consider you treated Baxter rottenly," he said another time.
He half-expected Clara to answer him, as his mother would:
"You consider your own affairs, and don't know so much about
other people's." But she took him seriously, almost to his own surprise.
"Why?" she said.
"I suppose you thought he was a lily of the valley, and so
you put him in an appropriate pot, and tended him according.
You made up your mind he was a lily of the valley and it was no
good his being a cow-parsnip. You wouldn't have it."
"I certainly never imagined him a lily of the valley."
"You imagined him something he wasn't. That's just what a woman is.
She thinks she knows what's good for a man, and she's going to see
he gets it; and no matter if he's starving, he may sit and whistle
for what he needs, while she's got him, and is giving him what's
good for him."
"And what are you doing?" she asked.
"I'm thinking what tune I shall whistle," he laughed.
And instead of boxing his ears, she considered him in earnest.
"You think I want to give you what's good for you?" she asked.
"I hope so; but love should give a sense of freedom,
not of prison. Miriam made me feel tied up like a donkey to a stake.
I must feed on her patch, and nowhere else. It's sickening!"
"And would YOU let a WOMAN do as she likes?"
"Yes; I'll see that she likes to love me. If she doesn't--well,
I don't hold her."
"If you were as wonderful as you say---," replied Clara.
"I should be the marvel I am," he laughed.
There was a silence in which they hated each other,
though they laughed.
"Love's a dog in a manger," he said.
"And which of us is the dog?" she asked.
"Oh well, you, of course."
So there went on a battle between them. She knew she never fully
had him. Some part, big and vital in him, she had no hold over;
nor did she ever try to get it, or even to realise what it was.
And he knew in some way that she held herself still as Mrs. Dawes.
She did not love Dawes, never had loved him; but she believed he
loved her, at least depended on her. She felt a certain surety
about him that she never felt with Paul Morel. Her passion
for the young man had filled her soul, given her a certain
satisfaction, eased her of her self-mistrust, her doubt.
Whatever else she was, she was inwardly assured. It was almost
as if she had gained HERSELF, and stood now distinct and complete.
She had received her confirmation; but she never believed that her
life belonged to Paul Morel, nor his to her. They would separate
in the end, and the rest of her life would be an ache after him.
But at any rate, she knew now, she was sure of herself. And the
same could almost be said of him. Together they had received
the baptism of life, each through the other; but now their missions
were separate. Where he wanted to go she could not come with him.
They would have to part sooner or later. Even if they married,
and were faithful to each other, still he would have to leave her,
go on alone, and she would only have to attend to him when he
came home. But it was not possible. Each wanted a mate to go side
by side with.
Clara had gone to live with her mother upon Mapperley Plains.
One evening, as Paul and she were walking along Woodborough Road,
they met Dawes. Morel knew something about the bearing of the
man approaching, but he was absorbed in his thinking at the moment,
so that only his artist's eye watched the form of the stranger.
Then he suddenly turned to Clara with a laugh, and put his hand on
her shoulder, saying, laughing:
"But we walk side by side, and yet I'm in London arguing
with an imaginary Orpen; and where are you?"
At that instant Dawes passed, almost touching Morel.
The young man glanced, saw the dark brown eyes burning, full of hate
and yet tired.
"Who was that?" he asked of Clara.
"It was Baxter," she replied.
Paul took his hand from her shoulder and glanced round;
then he saw again distinctly the man's form as it approached him.
Dawes still walked erect, with his fine shoulders flung back, and his
face lifted; but there was a furtive look in his eyes that gave
one the impression he was trying to get unnoticed past every person
he met, glancing suspiciously to see what they thought of him.
And his hands seemed to be wanting to hide. He wore old clothes,
the trousers were torn at the knee, and the handkerchief tied round
his throat was dirty; but his cap was still defiantly over one eye.
As she saw him, Clara felt guilty. There was a tiredness and despair
on his face that made her hate him, because it hurt her.
"He looks shady," said Paul.
But the note of pity in his voice reproached her, and made
her feel hard.
"His true commonness comes out," she answered.
"Do you hate him?" he asked.
"You talk," she said, "about the cruelty of women; I wish you
knew the cruelty of men in their brute force. They simply don't
know that the woman exists."
"Don't I?" he said.
"No," she answered.
"Don't I know you exist?"
"About ME you know nothing," she said bitterly--"about ME!"
"No more than Baxter knew?" he asked.
"Perhaps not as much."
He felt puzzled, and helpless, and angry. There she walked
unknown to him, though they had been through such experience together.
"But you know ME pretty well," he said.
She did not answer.
"Did you know Baxter as well as you know me?" he asked.
"He wouldn't let me," she said.
"And I have let you know me?"
"It's what men WON'T let you do. They won't let you get
really near to them," she said.
"And haven't I let you?"
"Yes," she answered slowly; "but you've never come near to me.
You can't come out of yourself, you can't. Baxter could do that better
than you."
He walked on pondering. He was angry with her for prefering
Baxter to him.
"You begin to value Baxter now you've not got him," he said.
"No; I can only see where he was different from you."
But he felt she had a grudge against him.
One evening, as they were coming home over the fields,
she startled him by asking:
"Do you think it's worth it--the--the sex part?"
"The act of loving, itself?"
"Yes; is it worth anything to you?"
"But how can you separate it?" he said. "It's the culmination
of everything. All our intimacy culminates then."
"Not for me," she said.
He was silent. A flash of hate for her came up. After all,
she was dissatisfied with him, even there, where he thought they
fulfilled each other. But he believed her too implicitly.
"I feel," she continued slowly, "as if I hadn't got you,
as if all of you weren't there, and as if it weren't ME you were taking---"
"Who, then?"
"Something just for yourself. It has been fine, so that I
daren't think of it. But is it ME you want, or is it IT?"
He again felt guilty. Did he leave Clara out of count,
and take simply women? But he thought that was splitting a hair.
"When I had Baxter, actually had him, then I DID feel as if I
had all of him," she said.
"And it was better?" he asked.
"Yes, yes; it was more whole. I don't say you haven't given
me more than he ever gave me."
"Or could give you."
"Yes, perhaps; but you've never given me yourself."
He knitted his brows angrily.
"If I start to make love to you," he said, "I just go like
a leaf down the wind."
"And leave me out of count," she said.
"And then is it nothing to you?" he asked, almost rigid
with chagrin.
"It's something; and sometimes you have carried me away--right
away--I know--and--I reverence you for it--but---"
"Don't 'but' me," he said, kissing her quickly, as a fire ran
through him.
She submitted, and was silent.
It was true as he said. As a rule, when he started love-making,
the emotion was strong enough to carry with it everything--reason, soul,
blood--in a great sweep, like the Trent carries bodily its back-swirls
and intertwinings, noiselessly. Gradually the little criticisms,
the little sensations, were lost, thought also went, everything borne
along in one flood. He became, not a man with a mind, but a
great instinct. His hands were like creatures, living; his limbs,
his body, were all life and consciousness, subject to no will of his,
but living in themselves. Just as he was, so it seemed the vigorous,
wintry stars were strong also with life. He and they struck with
the same pulse of fire, and the same joy of strength which held
the bracken-frond stiff near his eyes held his own body firm.
It was as if he, and the stars, and the dark herbage, and Clara
were licked up in an immense tongue of flame, which tore onwards
and upwards. Everything rushed along in living beside him;
everything was still, perfect in itself, along with him.
This wonderful stillness in each thing in itself, while it was being
borne along in a very ecstasy of living, seemed the highest point
of bliss.
And Clara knew this held him to her, so she trusted altogether
to the passion. It, however, failed her very often. They did
not often reach again the height of that once when the peewits
had called. Gradually, some mechanical effort spoilt their loving,
or, when they had splendid moments, they had them separately,
and not so satisfactorily. So often he seemed merely to be running
on alone; often they realised it had been a failure, not what they
had wanted. He left her, knowing THAT evening had only made
a little split between them. Their loving grew more mechanical,
without the marvellous glamour. Gradually they began to introduce
novelties, to get back some of the feeling of satisfaction.
They would be very near, almost dangerously near to the river,
so that the black water ran not far from his face, and it gave
a little thrill; or they loved sometimes in a little hollow below
the fence of the path where people were passing occasionally,
on the edge of the town, and they heard footsteps coming, almost felt
the vibration of the tread, and they heard what the passersby
said--strange little things that were never intended to be heard.
And afterwards each of them was rather ashamed, and these things
caused a distance between the two of them. He began to despise her
a little, as if she had merited it!
One night he left her to go to Daybrook Station over the fields.
It was very dark, with an attempt at snow, although the spring
was so far advanced. Morel had not much time; he plunged forward.
The town ceases almost abruptly on the edge of a steep hollow; there the
houses with their yellow lights stand up against the darkness. He went
over the stile, and dropped quickly into the hollow of the fields.
Under the orchard one warm window shone in Swineshead Farm.
Paul glanced round. Behind, the houses stood on the brim of the dip,
black against the sky, like wild beasts glaring curiously with
yellow eyes down into the darkness. It was the town that seemed
savage and uncouth, glaring on the clouds at the back of him.
Some creature stirred under the willows of the farm pond. It was too
dark to distinguish anything.
He was close up to the next stile before he saw a dark shape
leaning against it. The man moved aside.
"Good-evening!" he said.
"Good-evening!" Morel answered, not noticing.
"Paul Morel?" said the man.
Then he knew it was Dawes. The man stopped his way.
"I've got yer, have I?" he said awkwardly.
"I shall miss my train," said Paul.
He could see nothing of Dawes's face. The man's teeth seemed
to chatter as he talked.
"You're going to get it from me now," said Dawes.
Morel attempted to move forward; the other man stepped in front
of him.
"Are yer goin' to take that top-coat off," he said, "or are
you goin' to lie down to it?"
Paul was afraid the man was mad.
"But," he said, "I don't know how to fight."
"All right, then," answered Dawes, and before the younger man
knew where he was, he was staggering backwards from a blow across
the face.
The whole night went black. He tore off his overcoat and coat,
dodging a blow, and flung the garments over Dawes. The latter
swore savagely. Morel, in his shirt-sleeves, was now alert and
furious. He felt his whole body unsheath itself like a claw.
He could not fight, so he would use his wits. The other man became
more distinct to him; he could see particularly the shirt-breast.
Dawes stumbled over Paul's coats, then came rushing forward.
The young man's mouth was bleeding. It was the other man's mouth
he was dying to get at, and the desire was anguish in its strength.
He stepped quickly through the stile, and as Dawes was coming through
after him, like a flash he got a blow in over the other's mouth.
He shivered with pleasure. Dawes advanced slowly, spitting. Paul
was afraid; he moved round to get to the stile again. Suddenly, from
out of nowhere, came a great blow against his ear, that sent him
falling helpless backwards. He heard Dawes's heavy panting,
like a wild beast's, then came a kick on the knee, giving him
such agony that he got up and, quite blind, leapt clean under his
enemy's guard. He felt blows and kicks, but they did not hurt.
He hung on to the bigger man like a wild cat, till at last Dawes fell
with a crash, losing his presence of mind. Paul went down with him.
Pure instinct brought his hands to the man's neck, and before Dawes,
in frenzy and agony, could wrench him free, he had got his fists
twisted in the scarf and his knuckles dug in the throat of the
other man. He was a pure instinct, without reason or feeling.
His body, hard and wonderful in itself, cleaved against the
struggling body of the other man; not a muscle in him relaxed.
He was quite unconscious, only his body had taken upon itself to kill
this other man. For himself, he had neither feeling nor reason.
He lay pressed hard against his adversary, his body adjusting itself
to its one pure purpose of choking the other man, resisting exactly
at the right moment, with exactly the right amount of strength,
the struggles of the other, silent, intent, unchanging, gradually
pressing its knuckles deeper, feeling the struggles of the other
body become wilder and more frenzied. Tighter and tighter grew
his body, like a screw that is gradually increasing in pressure,
till something breaks.
Then suddenly he relaxed, full of wonder and misgiving.
Dawes had been yielding. Morel felt his body flame with pain,
as he realised what he was doing; he was all bewildered.
Dawes's struggles suddenly renewed themselves in a furious spasm.
Paul's hands were wrenched, torn out of the scarf in which they
were knotted, and he was flung away, helpless. He heard the horrid
sound of the other's gasping, but he lay stunned; then, still dazed,
he felt the blows of the other's feet, and lost consciousness.
Dawes, grunting with pain like a beast, was kicking the prostrate
body of his rival. Suddenly the whistle of the train shrieked
two fields away. He turned round and glared suspiciously.
What was coming? He saw the lights of the train draw across his vision.
It seemed to him people were approaching. He made off across the
field into Nottingham, and dimly in his consciousness as he went,
he felt on his foot the place where his boot had knocked against
one of the lad's bones. The knock seemed to re-echo inside him;
he hurried to get away from it.
Morel gradually came to himself. He knew where he was and
what had happened, but he did not want to move. He lay still,
with tiny bits of snow tickling his face. It was pleasant
to lie quite, quite still. The time passed. It was the bits
of snow that kept rousing him when he did not want to be roused.
At last his will clicked into action.
"I mustn't lie here," he said; "it's silly."
But still he did not move.
"I said I was going to get up," he repeated. "Why don't I?"
And still it was some time before he had sufficiently pulled
himself together to stir; then gradually he got up. Pain made him
sick and dazed, but his brain was clear. Reeling, he groped for
his coats and got them on, buttoning his overcoat up to his ears.
It was some time before he found his cap. He did not know whether his
face was still bleeding. Walking blindly, every step making him sick
with pain, he went back to the pond and washed his face and hands.
The icy water hurt, but helped to bring him back to himself.
He crawled back up the hill to the tram. He wanted to get to his
mother--he must get to his mother--that was his blind intention.
He covered his face as much as he could, and struggled sickly along.
Continually the ground seemed to fall away from him as he walked,
and he felt himself dropping with a sickening feeling into space; so,
like a nightmare, he got through with the journey home.
Everybody was in bed. He looked at himself. His face was
discoloured and smeared with blood, almost like a dead man's face.
He washed it, and went to bed. The night went by in delirium.
In the morning he found his mother looking at him. Her blue eyes--they
were all he wanted to see. She was there; he was in her hands.
"It's not much, mother," he said. "It was Baxter Dawes."
"Tell me where it hurts you," she said quietly.
"I don't know--my shoulder. Say it was a bicycle accident, mother."
He could not move his arm. Presently Minnie, the little servant,
came upstairs with some tea.
"Your mother's nearly frightened me out of my wits--fainted away,"
she said.
He felt he could not bear it. His mother nursed him; he told
her about it.
"And now I should have done with them all," she said quietly.
"I will, mother."
She covered him up.
"And don't think about it," she said--"only try to go to sleep.
The doctor won't be here till eleven."
He had a dislocated shoulder, and the second day acute bronchitis
set in. His mother was pale as death now, and very thin. She would
sit and look at him, then away into space. There was something
between them that neither dared mention. Clara came to see him.
Afterwards he said to his mother:
"She makes me tired, mother."
"Yes; I wish she wouldn't come," Mrs. Morel replied.
Another day Miriam came, but she seemed almost like a stranger
to him.
"You know, I don't care about them, mother," he said.
"I'm afraid you don't, my son," she replied sadly.
It was given out everywhere that it was a bicycle accident.
Soon he was able to go to work again, but now there was a constant
sickness and gnawing at his heart. He went to Clara, but there seemed,
as it were, nobody there. He could not work. He and his mother
seemed almost to avoid each other. There was some secret between
them which they could not bear. He was not aware of it. He only
knew that his life seemed unbalanced, as if it were going to smash
into pieces.
Clara did not know what was the matter with him.
She realised that he seemed unaware of her. Even when he came
to her he seemed unaware of her; always he was somewhere else.
She felt she was clutching for him, and he was somewhere else.
It tortured her, and so she tortured him. For a month at a time
she kept him at arm's length. He almost hated her, and was driven
to her in spite of himself. He went mostly into the company of men,
was always at the George or the White Horse. His mother was ill,
distant, quiet, shadowy. He was terrified of something; he dared
not look at her. Her eyes seemed to grow darker, her face more waxen;
still she dragged about at her work.
At Whitsuntide he said he would go to Blackpool for four
days with his friend Newton. The latter was a big, jolly fellow,
with a touch of the bounder about him. Paul said his mother must go
to Sheffield to stay a week with Annie, who lived there. Perhaps the
change would do her good. Mrs. Morel was attending a woman's doctor
in Nottingham. He said her heart and her digestion were wrong.
She consented to go to Sheffield, though she did not want to;
but now she would do everything her son wished of her. Paul said
he would come for her on the fifth day, and stay also in Sheffield
till the holiday was up. It was agreed.
The two young men set off gaily for Blackpool. Mrs. Morel was
quite lively as Paul kissed her and left her. Once at the station,
he forgot everything. Four days were clear--not an anxiety,
not a thought. The two young men simply enjoyed themselves.
Paul was like another man. None of himself remained--no Clara,
no Miriam, no mother that fretted him. He wrote to them all,
and long letters to his mother; but they were jolly letters that
made her laugh. He was having a good time, as young fellows will
in a place like Blackpool. And underneath it all was a shadow
for her.
Paul was very gay, excited at the thought of staying with his
mother in Sheffield. Newton was to spend the day with them.
Their train was late. Joking, laughing, with their pipes between
their teeth, the young men swung their bags on to the tram-car. Paul
had bought his mother a little collar of real lace that he wanted
to see her wear, so that he could tease her about it.
Annie lived in a nice house, and had a little maid. Paul ran
gaily up the steps. He expected his mother laughing in the hall,
but it was Annie who opened to him. She seemed distant to him.
He stood a second in dismay. Annie let him kiss her cheek.
"Is my mother ill?" he said.
"Yes; she's not very well. Don't upset her."
"Is she in bed?"
"Yes."
And then the queer feeling went over him, as if all the sunshine
had gone out of him, and it was all shadow. He dropped the bag
and ran upstairs. Hesitating, he opened the door. His mother
sat up in bed, wearing a dressing-gown of old-rose colour.
She looked at him almost as if she were ashamed of herself,
pleading to him, humble. He saw the ashy look about her.
"Mother!" he said.
"I thought you were never coming," she answered gaily.
But he only fell on his knees at the bedside, and buried
his face in the bedclothes, crying in agony, and saying:
"Mother--mother--mother!"
She stroked his hair slowly with her thin hand.
"Don't cry," she said. "Don't cry--it's nothing."
But he felt as if his blood was melting into tears, and he
cried in terror and pain.
"Don't--don't cry," his mother faltered.
Slowly she stroked his hair. Shocked out of himself, he cried,
and the tears hurt in every fibre of his body. Suddenly he stopped,
but he dared not lift his face out of the bedclothes.
"You ARE late. Where have you been?" his mother asked.
"The train was late," he replied, muffled in the sheet.
"Yes; that miserable Central! Is Newton come?"
"Yes."
"I'm sure you must be hungry, and they've kept dinner waiting."
With a wrench he looked up at her.
"What is it, mother?" he asked brutally.
She averted her eyes as she answered:
"Only a bit of a tumour, my boy. You needn't trouble.
It's been there--the lump has--a long time."
Up came the tears again. His mind was clear and hard,
but his body was crying.
"Where?" he said.
She put her hand on her side.
"Here. But you know they can sweal a tumour away."
He stood feeling dazed and helpless, like a child. He thought
perhaps it was as she said. Yes; he reassured himself it was so.
But all the while his blood and his body knew definitely what it was.
He sat down on the bed, and took her hand. She had never had but the
one ring--her wedding-ring.
"When were you poorly?" he asked.
"It was yesterday it began," she answered submissively.
"Pains?"
"Yes; but not more than I've often had at home. I believe
Dr. Ansell is an alarmist."
"You ought not to have travelled alone," he said, to himself
more than to her.
"As if that had anything to do with it!" she answered quickly.
They were silent for a while.
"Now go and have your dinner," she said. "You MUST be hungry."
"Have you had yours?"
"Yes; a beautiful sole I had. Annie IS good to me."
They talked a little while, then he went downstairs.
He was very white and strained. Newton sat in miserable sympathy.
After dinner he went into the scullery to help Annie to wash up.
The little maid had gone on an errand.
"Is it really a tumour?" he asked.
Annie began to cry again.
"The pain she had yesterday--I never saw anybody suffer like it!"
she cried. "Leonard ran like a madman for Dr. Ansell, and when she'd
got to bed she said to me: 'Annie, look at this lump on my side.
I wonder what it is?' And there I looked, and I thought I should
have dropped. Paul, as true as I'm here, it's a lump as big as my
double fist. I said: 'Good gracious, mother, whenever did that come?'
'Why, child,' she said, 'it's been there a long time.' I thought I
should have died, our Paul, I did. She's been having these pains
for months at home, and nobody looking after her."
The tears came to his eyes, then dried suddenly.
"But she's been attending the doctor in Nottingham--and she
never told me," he said.
"If I'd have been at home," said Annie, "I should have seen
for myself."
He felt like a man walking in unrealities. In the afternoon
he went to see the doctor. The latter was a shrewd, lovable man.
"But what is it?" he said.
The doctor looked at the young man, then knitted his fingers.
"It may be a large tumour which has formed in the membrane,"
he said slowly, "and which we MAY be able to make go away."
"Can't you operate?" asked Paul.
"Not there," replied the doctor.
"Are you sure?"
"QUITE!"
Paul meditated a while.
"Are you sure it's a tumour?" he asked. "Why did Dr. Jameson
in Nottingham never find out anything about it? She's been going
to him for weeks, and he's treated her for heart and indigestion."
"Mrs. Morel never told Dr. Jameson about the lump," said the doctor.
"And do you KNOW it's a tumour?"
"No, I am not sure."
"What else MIGHT it be? You asked my sister if there was
cancer in the family. Might it be cancer?"
"I don't know."
"And what shall you do?"
"I should like an examination, with Dr. Jameson."
"Then have one."
"You must arrange about that. His fee wouldn't be less than
ten guineas to come here from Nottingham."
"When would you like him to come?"
"I will call in this evening, and we will talk it over."
Paul went away, biting his lip.
His mother could come downstairs for tea, the doctor said.
Her son went upstairs to help her. She wore the old-rose dressing-gown
that Leonard had given Annie, and, with a little colour in her face,
was quite young again.
"But you look quite pretty in that," he said.
"Yes; they make me so fine, I hardly know myself," she answered.
But when she stood up to walk, the colour went. Paul helped her,
half-carrying her. At the top of the stairs she was gone. He lifted
her up and carried her quickly downstairs; laid her on the couch.
She was light and frail. Her face looked as if she were dead,
with blue lips shut tight. Her eyes opened--her blue, unfailing eyes--
and she looked at him pleadingly, almost wanting him to forgive her.
He held brandy to her lips, but her mouth would not open.
All the time she watched him lovingly. She was only sorry for him.
The tears ran down his face without ceasing, but not a muscle moved.
He was intent on getting a little brandy between her lips.
Soon she was able to swallow a teaspoonful. She lay back, so tired.
The tears continued to run down his face.
"But," she panted, "it'll go off. Don't cry!"
"I'm not doing," he said.
After a while she was better again. He was kneeling beside
the couch. They looked into each other's eyes.
"I don't want you to make a trouble of it," she said.
"No, mother. You'll have to be quite still, and then you'll
get better soon."
But he was white to the lips, and their eyes as they looked
at each other understood. Her eyes were so blue--such a wonderful
forget-me-not blue! He felt if only they had been of a different
colour he could have borne it better. His heart seemed to be
ripping slowly in his breast. He kneeled there, holding her hand,
and neither said anything. Then Annie came in.
"Are you all right?" she murmured timidly to her mother.
"Of course," said Mrs. Morel.
Paul sat down and told her about Blackpool. She was curious.
A day or two after, he went to see Dr. Jameson in Nottingham,
to arrange for a consultation. Paul had practically no money in
the world. But he could borrow.
His mother had been used to go to the public consultation on
Saturday morning, when she could see the doctor for only a nominal sum.
Her son went on the same day. The waiting-room was full of poor women,
who sat patiently on a bench around the wall. Paul thought of
his mother, in her little black costume, sitting waiting likewise.
The doctor was late. The women all looked rather frightened.
Paul asked the nurse in attendance if he could see the doctor
immediately he came. It was arranged so. The women sitting
patiently round the walls of the room eyed the young man curiously.
At last the doctor came. He was about forty,
good-looking, brown-skinned. His wife had died, and he,
who had loved her, had specialised on women's ailments.
Paul told his name and his mother's. The doctor did not remember.
"Number forty-six M.," said the nurse; and the doctor looked
up the case in his book.
"There is a big lump that may be a tumour," said Paul.
"But Dr. Ansell was going to write you a letter."
"Ah, yes!" replied the doctor, drawing the letter from
his pocket. He was very friendly, affable, busy, kind. He would
come to Sheffield the next day.
"What is your father?" he asked.
"He is a coal-miner," replied Paul.
"Not very well off, I suppose?"
"This--I see after this," said Paul.
"And you?" smiled the doctor.
"I am a clerk in Jordan's Appliance Factory."
The doctor smiled at him.
"Er--to go to Sheffield!" he said, putting the tips of his
fingers together, and smiling with his eyes. "Eight guineas?"
"Thank you!" said Paul, flushing and rising. "And you'll
come to-morrow?"
"To-morrow--Sunday? Yes! Can you tell me about what time there
is a train in the afternoon?"
"There is a Central gets in at four-fifteen."
"And will there be any way of getting up to the house?
Shall I have to walk?" The doctor smiled.
"There is the tram," said Paul; "the Western Park tram."
The doctor made a note of it.
"Thank you!" he said, and shook hands.
Then Paul went on home to see his father, who was left in
the charge of Minnie. Walter Morel was getting very grey now.
Paul found him digging in the garden. He had written him a letter.
He shook hands with his father.
"Hello, son! Tha has landed, then?" said the father.
"Yes," replied the son. "But I'm going back to-night."
"Are ter, beguy!" exclaimed the collier. "An' has ter eaten owt?"
"No."
"That's just like thee," said Morel. "Come thy ways in."
The father was afraid of the mention of his wife. The two
went indoors. Paul ate in silence; his father, with earthy hands,
and sleeves rolled up, sat in the arm-chair opposite and looked
at him.
"Well, an' how is she?" asked the miner at length, in a little voice.
"She can sit up; she can be carried down for tea," said Paul.
"That's a blessin'!" exclaimed Morel. "I hope we s'll soon
be havin' her whoam, then. An' what's that Nottingham doctor say?"
"He's going to-morrow to have an examination of her."
"Is he beguy! That's a tidy penny, I'm thinkin'!"
"Eight guineas."
"Eight guineas!" the miner spoke breathlessly. "Well, we mun
find it from somewhere."
"I can pay that," said Paul.
There was silence between them for some time.
"She says she hopes you're getting on all right with Minnie,"
Paul said.
"Yes, I'm all right, an' I wish as she was," answered Morel.
"But Minnie's a good little wench, bless 'er heart!" He sat
looking dismal.
"I s'll have to be going at half-past three," said Paul.
"It's a trapse for thee, lad! Eight guineas! An' when dost
think she'll be able to get as far as this?"
"We must see what the doctors say to-morrow," Paul said.
Morel sighed deeply. The house seemed strangely empty,
and Paul thought his father looked lost, forlorn, and old.
"You'll have to go and see her next week, father," he said.
"I hope she'll be a-whoam by that time," said Morel.
"If she's not," said Paul, "then you must come."
"I dunno wheer I s'll find th' money," said Morel.
"And I'll write to you what the doctor says," said Paul.
"But tha writes i' such a fashion, I canna ma'e it out,"
said Morel.
"Well, I'll write plain."
It was no good asking Morel to answer, for he could scarcely
do more than write his own name.
The doctor came. Leonard felt it his duty to meet him with a cab.
The examination did not take long. Annie, Arthur, Paul, and Leonard
were waiting in the parlour anxiously. The doctors came down.
Paul glanced at them. He had never had any hope, except when he had
deceived himself.
"It MAY be a tumour; we must wait and see," said Dr. Jameson.
"And if it is," said Annie, "can you sweal it away?"
"Probably," said the doctor.
Paul put eight sovereigns and half a sovereign on the table.
The doctor counted them, took a florin out of his purse, and put
that down.
"Thank you!" he said. "I'm sorry Mrs. Morel is so ill.
But we must see what we can do."
"There can't be an operation?" said Paul.
The doctor shook his head.
"No," he said; "and even if there could, her heart wouldn't
stand it."
"Is her heart risky?" asked Paul.
"Yes; you must be careful with her."
"Very risky?"
"No--er--no, no! Just take care."
And the doctor was gone.
Then Paul carried his mother downstairs. She lay simply,
like a child. But when he was on the stairs, she put her arms round
his neck, clinging.
"I'm so frightened of these beastly stairs," she said.
And he was frightened, too. He would let Leonard do it
another time. He felt he could not carry her.
"He thinks it's only a tumour!" cried Annie to her mother.
"And he can sweal it away."
"I KNEW he could," protested Mrs. Morel scornfully.
She pretended not to notice that Paul had gone out of the room.
He sat in the kitchen, smoking. Then he tried to brush some grey ash
off his coat. He looked again. It was one of his mother's grey hairs.
It was so long! He held it up, and it drifted into the chimney.
He let go. The long grey hair floated and was gone in the blackness
of the chimney.
The next day he kissed her before going back to work.
It was very early in the morning, and they were alone.
"You won't fret, my boy!" she said.
"No, mother."
"No; it would be silly. And take care of yourself."
"Yes," he answered. Then, after a while: "And I shall come
next Saturday, and shall bring my father?"
"I suppose he wants to come," she replied. "At any rate,
if he does you'll have to let him."
He kissed her again, and stroked the hair from her temples,
gently, tenderly, as if she were a lover.
"Shan't you be late?" she murmured.
"I'm going," he said, very low.
Still he sat a few minutes, stroking the brown and grey hair
from her temples.
"And you won't be any worse, mother?"
"No, my son."
"You promise me?"
"Yes; I won't be any worse."
He kissed her, held her in his arms for a moment, and was gone.
In the early sunny morning he ran to the station, crying all the way;
he did not know what for. And her blue eyes were wide and staring
as she thought of him.
In the afternoon he went a walk with Clara. They sat
in the little wood where bluebells were standing. He took her hand.
"You'll see," he said to Clara, "she'll never be better."
"Oh, you don't know!" replied the other.
"I do," he said.
She caught him impulsively to her breast.
"Try and forget it, dear," she said; "try and forget it."
"I will," he answered.
Her breast was there, warm for him; her hands were in his hair.
It was comforting, and he held his arms round her. But he did
not forget. He only talked to Clara of something else. And it
was always so. When she felt it coming, the agony, she cried
to him:
"Don't think of it, Paul! Don't think of it, my darling!"
And she pressed him to her breast, rocked him, soothed him
like a child. So he put the trouble aside for her sake, to take it
up again immediately he was alone. All the time, as he went about,
he cried mechanically. His mind and hands were busy. He cried,
he did not know why. It was his blood weeping. He was just as much
alone whether he was with Clara or with the men in the White Horse.
Just himself and this pressure inside him, that was all that existed.
He read sometimes. He had to keep his mind occupied. And Clara was a
way of occupying his mind.
On the Saturday Walter Morel went to Sheffield. He was
a forlorn figure, looking rather as if nobody owned him.
Paul ran upstairs.
"My father's come," he said, kissing his mother.
"Has he?" she answered wearily.
The old collier came rather frightened into the bedroom.
"How dun I find thee, lass?" he said, going forward and kissing
her in a hasty, timid fashion.
"Well, I'm middlin'," she replied.
"I see tha art," he said. He stood looking down on her.
Then he wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. Helpless, and as if
nobody owned him, he looked.
"Have you gone on all right?" asked the wife, rather wearily,
as if it were an effort to talk to him.
"Yis," he answered. "'Er's a bit behint-hand now and again, as
yer might expect."
"Does she have your dinner ready?" asked Mrs. Morel.
"Well, I've 'ad to shout at 'er once or twice," he said.
"And you MUST shout at her if she's not ready. She WILL leave
things to the last minute."
She gave him a few instructions. He sat looking at her as
if she were almost a stranger to him, before whom he was awkward
and humble, and also as if he had lost his presence of mind,
and wanted to run. This feeling that he wanted to run away,
that he was on thorns to be gone from so trying a situation, and yet
must linger because it looked better, made his presence so trying.
He put up his eyebrows for misery, and clenched his fists on his knees,
feeling so awkward in presence of big trouble.
Mrs. Morel did not change much. She stayed in Sheffield
for two months. If anything, at the end she was rather worse.
But she wanted to go home. Annie had her children. Mrs. Morel
wanted to go home. So they got a motor-car from Nottingham--for she
was too ill to go by train--and she was driven through the sunshine.
It was just August; everything was bright and warm. Under the blue
sky they could all see she was dying. Yet she was jollier than she
had been for weeks. They all laughed and talked.
"Annie," she exclaimed, "I saw a lizard dart on that rock!"
Her eyes were so quick; she was still so full of life.
Morel knew she was coming. He had the front door open.
Everybody was on tiptoe. Half the street turned out. They heard
the sound of the great motor-car. Mrs. Morel, smiling, drove home
down the street.
"And just look at them all come out to see me!" she said.
"But there, I suppose I should have done the same. How do you do,
Mrs. Mathews? How are you, Mrs. Harrison?"
They none of them could hear, but they saw her smile and nod.
And they all saw death on her face, they said. It was a great event
in the street.
Morel wanted to carry her indoors, but he was too old.
Arthur took her as if she were a child. They had set her a big,
deep chair by the hearth where her rocking-chair used to stand.
When she was unwrapped and seated, and had drunk a little brandy,
she looked round the room.
"Don't think I don't like your house, Annie," she said;
"but it's nice to be in my own home again."
And Morel answered huskily:
"It is, lass, it is."
And Minnie, the little quaint maid, said:
"An' we glad t' 'ave yer."
There was a lovely yellow ravel of sunflowers in the garden.
She looked out of the window.
"There are my sunflowers!" she said.
CHAPTER XIV
THE RELEASE
"By the way," said Dr. Ansell one evening when Morel was
in Sheffield, "we've got a man in the fever hospital here who comes
from Nottingham--Dawes. He doesn't seem to have many belongings
in this world."
"Baxter Dawes!" Paul exclaimed.
"That's the man--has been a fine fellow, physically, I should think.
Been in a bit of a mess lately. You know him?"
"He used to work at the place where I am."
"Did he? Do you know anything about him? He's just sulking,
or he'd be a lot better than he is by now."
"I don't know anything of his home circumstances, except that
he's separated from his wife and has been a bit down, I believe.
But tell him about me, will you? Tell him I'll come and see him."
The next time Morel saw the doctor he said:
"And what about Dawes?"
"I said to him," answered the other, "'Do you know a man from
Nottingham named Morel?' and he looked at me as if he'd jump at
my throat. So I said: 'I see you know the name; it's Paul Morel.'
Then I told him about your saying you would go and see him.
'What does he want?' he said, as if you were a policeman."
"And did he say he would see me?" asked Paul.
"He wouldn't say anything--good, bad or indifferent,"
replied the doctor.
"Why not?"
"That's what I want to know. There he lies and sulks, day in,
day out. Can't get a word of information out of him."
"Do you think I might go?" asked Paul.
"You might."
There was a feeling of connection between the rival men,
more than ever since they had fought. In a way Morel felt guilty
towards the other, and more or less responsible. And being in such
a state of soul himself, he felt an almost painful nearness to Dawes,
who was suffering and despairing, too. Besides, they had met
in a naked extremity of hate, and it was a bond. At any rate,
the elemental man in each had met.
He went down to the isolation hospital, with Dr. Ansell's card.
This sister, a healthy young Irishwoman, led him down the ward.
"A visitor to see you, Jim Crow," she said.
Dawes turned over suddenly with a startled grunt.
"Eh?"
"Caw!" she mocked. "He can only say 'Caw!' I have brought you
a gentleman to see you. Now say 'Thank you,' and show some manners."
Dawes looked swiftly with his dark, startled eyes beyond the sister
at Paul. His look was full of fear, mistrust, hate, and misery.
Morel met the swift, dark eyes, and hesitated. The two men were
afraid of the naked selves they had been.
"Dr. Ansell told me you were here," said Morel, holding out
his hand.
Dawes mechanically shook hands.
"So I thought I'd come in," continued Paul.
There was no answer. Dawes lay staring at the opposite wall.
"Say 'Caw!"' mocked the nurse. "Say 'Caw!' Jim Crow."
"He is getting on all right?" said Paul to her.
"Oh yes! He lies and imagines he's going to die," said the nurse,
"and it frightens every word out of his mouth."
"And you MUST have somebody to talk to," laughed Morel.
"That's it!" laughed the nurse. "Only two old men and a boy
who always cries. It is hard lines! Here am I dying to hear Jim
Crow's voice, and nothing but an odd 'Caw!' will he give!"
"So rough on you!" said Morel.
"Isn't it?" said the nurse.
"I suppose I am a godsend," he laughed.
"Oh, dropped straight from heaven!" laughed the nurse.
Presently she left the two men alone. Dawes was thinner,
and handsome again, but life seemed low in him. As the doctor said,
he was lying sulking, and would not move forward towards convalescence.
He seemed to grudge every beat of his heart.
"Have you had a bad time?" asked Paul.
Suddenly again Dawes looked at him.
"What are you doing in Sheffield?" he asked.
"My mother was taken ill at my sister's in Thurston Street.
What are you doing here?"
There was no answer.
"How long have you been in?" Morel asked.
"I couldn't say for sure," Dawes answered grudgingly.
He lay staring across at the wall opposite, as if trying to
believe Morel was not there. Paul felt his heart go hard and angry.
"Dr. Ansell told me you were here," he said coldly.
The other man did not answer.
"Typhoid's pretty bad, I know," Morel persisted.
Suddenly Dawes said:
"What did you come for?"
"Because Dr. Ansell said you didn't know anybody here.
Do you?"
"I know nobody nowhere," said Dawes.
"Well," said Paul, "it's because you don't choose to, then."
There was another silence.
"We s'll be taking my mother home as soon as we can,"
said Paul.
"What's a-matter with her?" asked Dawes, with a sick man's
interest in illness.
"She's got a cancer."
There was another silence.
"But we want to get her home," said Paul. "We s'll have to get
a motor-car."
Dawes lay thinking.
"Why don't you ask Thomas Jordan to lend you his?" said Dawes.
"It's not big enough," Morel answered.
Dawes blinked his dark eyes as he lay thinking.
"Then ask Jack Pilkington; he'd lend it you. You know him."
"I think I s'll hire one," said Paul.
"You're a fool if you do," said Dawes.
The sick man was gaunt and handsome again. Paul was sorry
for him because his eyes looked so tired.
"Did you get a job here?" he asked.
"I was only here a day or two before I was taken bad,"
Dawes replied.
"You want to get in a convalescent home," said Paul.
The other's face clouded again.
"I'm goin' in no convalescent home," he said.
"My father's been in the one at Seathorpe, an' he liked it.
Dr. Ansell would get you a recommend."
Dawes lay thinking. It was evident he dared not face
the world again.
"The seaside would be all right just now," Morel said.
"Sun on those sandhills, and the waves not far out."
The other did not answer.
"By Gad!" Paul concluded, too miserable to bother much;
"it's all right when you know you're going to walk again, and swim!"
Dawes glanced at him quickly. The man's dark eyes were
afraid to meet any other eyes in the world. But the real misery
and helplessness in Paul's tone gave him a feeling of relief.
"Is she far gone?" he asked.
"She's going like wax," Paul answered; "but cheerful--lively!"
He bit his lip. After a minute he rose.
"Well, I'll be going," he said. "I'll leave you this half-crown."
"I don't want it," Dawes muttered.
Morel did not answer, but left the coin on the table.
"Well," he said, "I'll try and run in when I'm back in Sheffield.
Happen you might like to see my brother-in-law? He works in Pyecrofts."
"I don't know him," said Dawes.
"He's all right. Should I tell him to come? He might bring
you some papers to look at."
The other man did not answer. Paul went. The strong emotion
that Dawes aroused in him, repressed, made him shiver.
He did not tell his mother, but next day he spoke to Clara
about this interview. It was in the dinner-hour. The two did
not often go out together now, but this day he asked her to go
with him to the Castle grounds. There they sat while the scarlet
geraniums and the yellow calceolarias blazed in the sunlight.
She was now always rather protective, and rather resentful towards him.
"Did you know Baxter was in Sheffield Hospital with typhoid?"
he asked.
She looked at him with startled grey eyes, and her face went pale.
"No," she said, frightened.
"He's getting better. I went to see him yesterday--the doctor
told me."
Clara seemed stricken by the news.
"Is he very bad?" she asked guiltily.
"He has been. He's mending now."
"What did he say to you?"
"Oh, nothing! He seems to be sulking."
There was a distance between the two of them. He gave her
more information.
She went about shut up and silent. The next time they took
a walk together, she disengaged herself from his arm, and walked
at a distance from him. He was wanting her comfort badly.
"Won't you be nice with me?" he asked.
She did not answer.
"What's the matter?" he said, putting his arm across her shoulder.
"Don't!" she said, disengaging herself.
He left her alone, and returned to his own brooding.
"Is it Baxter that upsets you?" he asked at length.
"I HAVE been VILE to him!" she said.
"I've said many a time you haven't treated him well,"
he replied.
And there was a hostility between them. Each pursued his own
train of thought.
"I've treated him--no, I've treated him badly," she said.
"And now you treat ME badly. It serves me right."
"How do I treat you badly?" he said.
"It serves me right," she repeated. "I never considered him
worth having, and now you don't consider ME. But it serves me
right. He loved me a thousand times better than you ever did."
"He didn't!" protested Paul.
"He did! At any rate, he did respect me, and that's what you
don't do."
"It looked as if he respected you!" he said.
"He did! And I MADE him horrid--I know I did! You've taught
me that. And he loved me a thousand times better than ever you do."
"All right," said Paul.
He only wanted to be left alone now. He had his own trouble,
which was almost too much to bear. Clara only tormented him and made
him tired. He was not sorry when he left her.
She went on the first opportunity to Sheffield to see
her husband. The meeting was not a success. But she left him
roses and fruit and money. She wanted to make restitution.
It was not that she loved him. As she looked at him lying there
her heart did not warm with love. Only she wanted to humble
herself to him, to kneel before him. She wanted now to be
self-sacrificial. After all, she had failed to make Morel really
love her. She was morally frightened. She wanted to do penance.
So she kneeled to Dawes, and it gave him a subtle pleasure.
But the distance between them was still very great--too great.
It frightened the man. It almost pleased the woman. She liked
to feel she was serving him across an insuperable distance.
She was proud now.
Morel went to see Dawes once or twice. There was a sort of
friendship between the two men, who were all the while deadly rivals.
But they never mentioned the woman who was between them.
Mrs. Morel got gradually worse. At first they used to carry
her downstairs, sometimes even into the garden. She sat propped
in her chair, smiling, and so pretty. The gold wedding-ring shone
on her white hand; her hair was carefully brushed. And she watched
the tangled sunflowers dying, the chrysanthemums coming out,
and the dahlias.
Paul and she were afraid of each other. He knew, and she knew,
that she was dying. But they kept up a pretence of cheerfulness.
Every morning, when he got up, he went into her room in his pyjamas.
"Did you sleep, my dear?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered.
"Not very well?"
"Well, yes! "
Then he knew she had lain awake. He saw her hand under
the bedclothes, pressing the place on her side where the pain was.
"Has it been bad?" he asked.
"No. It hurt a bit, but nothing to mention."
And she sniffed in her old scornful way. As she lay she
looked like a girl. And all the while her blue eyes watched him.
But there were the dark pain-circles beneath that made him ache again.
"It's a sunny day," he said.
"It's a beautiful day."
"Do you think you'll be carried down?"
"I shall see."
Then he went away to get her breakfast. All day long he
was conscious of nothing but her. It was a long ache that made
him feverish. Then, when he got home in the early evening, he glanced
through the kitchen window. She was not there; she had not got up.
He ran straight upstairs and kissed her. He was almost afraid
to ask:
"Didn't you get up, pigeon?"
"No," she said. "it was that morphia; it made me tired."
"I think he gives you too much," he said.
"I think he does," she answered.
He sat down by the bed, miserably. She had a way of curling
and lying on her side, like a child. The grey and brown hair
was loose over her ear.
"Doesn't it tickle you?" he said, gently putting it back.
"It does," she replied.
His face was near hers. Her blue eyes smiled straight into his,
like a girl's--warm, laughing with tender love. It made him pant
with terror, agony, and love.
"You want your hair doing in a plait," he said. "Lie still."
And going behind her, he carefully loosened her hair,
brushed it out. It was like fine long silk of brown and grey.
Her head was snuggled between her shoulders. As he lightly
brushed and plaited her hair, he bit his lip and felt dazed.
It all seemed unreal, he could not understand it.
At night he often worked in her room, looking up from time
to time. And so often he found her blue eyes fixed on him.
And when their eyes met, she smiled. He worked away again mechanically,
producing good stuff without knowing what he was doing.
Sometimes he came in, very pale and still, with watchful,
sudden eyes, like a man who is drunk almost to death. They were
both afraid of the veils that were ripping between them.
Then she pretended to be better, chattered to him gaily,
made a great fuss over some scraps of news. For they had both come
to the condition when they had to make much of the trifles, lest they
should give in to the big thing, and their human independence would
go smash. They were afraid, so they made light of things and were gay.
Sometimes as she lay he knew she was thinking of the past.
Her mouth gradually shut hard in a line. She was holding herself rigid,
so that she might die without ever uttering the great cry that
was tearing from her. He never forgot that hard, utterly lonely
and stubborn clenching of her mouth, which persisted for weeks.
Sometimes, when it was lighter, she talked about her husband.
Now she hated him. She did not forgive him. She could not bear him
to be in the room. And a few things, the things that had been most
bitter to her, came up again so strongly that they broke from her,
and she told her son.
He felt as if his life were being destroyed, piece by piece,
within him. Often the tears came suddenly. He ran to the station,
the tear-drops falling on the pavement. Often he could not go
on with his work. The pen stopped writing. He sat staring,
quite unconscious. And when he came round again he felt sick,
and trembled in his limbs. He never questioned what it was.
His mind did not try to analyse or understand. He merely submitted,
and kept his eyes shut; let the thing go over him.
His mother did the same. She thought of the pain, of the
morphia, of the next day; hardly ever of the death. That was coming,
she knew. She had to submit to it. But she would never entreat it
or make friends with it. Blind, with her face shut hard and blind,
she was pushed towards the door. The days passed, the weeks,
the months.
Sometimes, in the sunny afternoons, she seemed almost happy.
"I try to think of the nice times--when we went to Mablethorpe,
and Robin Hood's Bay, and Shanklin," she said. "After all,
not everybody has seen those beautiful places. And wasn't it beautiful!
I try to think of that, not of the other things."
Then, again, for a whole evening she spoke not a word;
neither did he. They were together, rigid, stubborn, silent. He went
into his room at last to go to bed, and leaned against the doorway
as if paralysed, unable to go any farther. His consciousness went.
A furious storm, he knew not what, seemed to ravage inside him.
He stood leaning there, submitting, never questioning.
In the morning they were both normal again, though her face
was grey with the morphia, and her body felt like ash. But they were
bright again, nevertheless. Often, especially if Annie or Arthur
were at home, he neglected her. He did not see much of Clara.
Usually he was with men. He was quick and active and lively;
but when his friends saw him go white to the gills, his eyes dark
and glittering, they had a certain mistrust of him. Sometimes he
went to Clara, but she was almost cold to him.
"Take me!" he said simply.
Occasionally she would. But she was afraid. When he had
her then, there was something in it that made her shrink away from
him--something unnatural. She grew to dread him. He was so quiet,
yet so strange. She was afraid of the man who was not there with her,
whom she could feel behind this make-belief lover; somebody sinister,
that filled her with horror. She began to have a kind of horror
of him. It was almost as if he were a criminal. He wanted her--he
had her--and it made her feel as if death itself had her in its grip.
She lay in horror. There was no man there loving her. She almost
hated him. Then came little bouts of tenderness. But she dared not
pity him.
Dawes had come to Colonel Seely's Home near Nottingham.
There Paul visited him sometimes, Clara very occasionally.
Between the two men the friendship developed peculiarly.
Dawes, who mended very slowly and seemed very feeble,
seemed to leave himself in the hands of Morel.
In the beginning of November Clara reminded Paul that it
was her birthday.
"I'd nearly forgotten," he said.
"I'd thought quite," she replied.
"No. Shall we go to the seaside for the week-end?"
They went. It was cold and rather dismal. She waited for him
to be warm and tender with her, instead of which he seemed hardly
aware of her. He sat in the railway-carriage, looking out, and was
startled when she spoke to him. He was not definitely thinking.
Things seemed as if they did not exist. She went across to him.
"What is it dear?" she asked.
"Nothing!" he said. "Don't those windmill sails look monotonous?"
He sat holding her hand. He could not talk nor think.
It was a comfort, however, to sit holding her hand. She was
dissatisfied and miserable. He was not with her; she was nothing.
And in the evening they sat among the sandhills, looking at
the black, heavy sea.
"She will never give in," he said quietly.
Clara's heart sank.
"No," she replied.
"There are different ways of dying. My father's people
are frightened, and have to be hauled out of life into death
like cattle into a slaughter-house, pulled by the neck;
but my mother's people are pushed from behind, inch by inch.
They are stubborn people, and won't die."
"Yes," said Clara.
"And she won't die. She can't. Mr. Renshaw, the parson, was in
the other day. 'Think!' he said to her; 'you will have your mother
and father, and your sisters, and your son, in the Other Land.'
And she said: 'I have done without them for a long time, and CAN
do without them now. It is the living I want, not the dead.'
She wants to live even now."
"Oh, how horrible!" said Clara, too frightened to speak.
"And she looks at me, and she wants to stay with me," he went
on monotonously. "She's got such a will, it seems as if she would
never go--never!"
"Don't think of it!" cried Clara.
"And she was religious--she is religious now--but it is no good.
She simply won't give in. And do you know,
I said to her on Thursday: 'Mother, if I had to die, I'd die.
I'd WILL to die.' And she said to me, sharp: 'Do you think I
haven't? Do you think you can die when you like?'"
His voice ceased. He did not cry, only went on speaking
mo-notonously. Clara wanted to run. She looked round.
There was the black, re-echoing shore, the dark sky down on her.
She got up terrified. She wanted to be where there was light,
where there were other people. She wanted to be away from him.
He sat with his head dropped, not moving a muscle.
"And I don't want her to eat," he said, "and she knows it.
When I ask her: 'Shall you have anything' she's almost afraid to
say 'Yes.' 'I'll have a cup of Benger's,' she says. 'It'll only keep
your strength up,' I said to her. 'Yes'--and she almost cried--'but
there's such a gnawing when I eat nothing, I can't bear it.'
So I went and made her the food. It's the cancer that gnaws like
that at her. I wish she'd die!"
"Come!" said Clara roughly. "I'm going."
He followed her down the darkness of the sands. He did
not come to her. He seemed scarcely aware of her existence.
And she was afraid of him, and disliked him.
In the same acute daze they went back to Nottingham.
He was always busy, always doing something, always going from one
to the other of his friends.
On the Monday he went to see Baxter Dawes. Listless and pale,
the man rose to greet the other, clinging to his chair as he held
out his hand.
"You shouldn't get up," said Paul.
Dawes sat down heavily, eyeing Morel with a sort of suspicion.
"Don't you waste your time on me," he said, "if you've owt
better to do."
"I wanted to come," said Paul. "Here! I brought you some sweets."
The invalid put them aside.
"It's not been much of a week-end," said Morel.
"How's your mother?" asked the other.
"Hardly any different."
"I thought she was perhaps worse, being as you didn't come
on Sunday."
"I was at Skegness," said Paul. "I wanted a change."
The other looked at him with dark eyes. He seemed to be
waiting, not quite daring to ask, trusting to be told.
"I went with Clara," said Paul.
"I knew as much," said Dawes quietly.
"It was an old promise," said Paul.
"You have it your own way," said Dawes.
This was the first time Clara had been definitely mentioned
between them.
"Nay," said Morel slowly; "she's tired of me."
Again Dawes looked at him.
"Since August she's been getting tired of me," Morel repeated.
The two men were very quiet together. Paul suggested a game
of draughts. They played in silence.
"I s'll go abroad when my mother's dead," said Paul.
"Abroad!" repeated Dawes.
"Yes; I don't care what I do."
They continued the game. Dawes was winning.
"I s'll have to begin a new start of some sort," said Paul;
"and you as well, I suppose."
He took one of Dawes's pieces.
"I dunno where," said the other.
"Things have to happen," Morel said. "It's no good doing
anything--at least--no, I don't know. Give me some toffee."
The two men ate sweets, and began another game of draughts.
"What made that scar on your mouth?" asked Dawes.
Paul put his hand hastily to his lips, and looked over the garden.
"I had a bicycle accident," he said.
Dawes's hand trembled as he moved the piece.
"You shouldn't ha' laughed at me," he said, very low.
"When?"
"That night on Woodborough Road, when you and her passed
me--you with your hand on her shoulder."
"I never laughed at you," said Paul.
Dawes kept his fingers on the draught-piece.
"I never knew you were there till the very second when you passed,"
said Morel.
"It was that as did me," Dawes said, very low.
Paul took another sweet.
"I never laughed," he said, "except as I'm always laughing."
They finished the game.
That night Morel walked home from Nottingham, in order to have
something to do. The furnaces flared in a red blotch over Bulwell;
the black clouds were like a low ceiling. As he went along the ten
miles of highroad, he felt as if he were walking out of life,
between the black levels of the sky and the earth. But at the end
was only the sick-room. If he walked and walked for ever, there was
only that place to come to.
He was not tired when he got near home, or He did not know it.
Across the field he could see the red firelight leaping in her
bedroom window.
"When she's dead," he said to himself, "that fire will go out."
He took off his boots quietly and crept upstairs.
His mothers door was wide open, because she slept alone still.
The red firelight dashed its glow on the landing. Soft as a shadow,
he peeped in her doorway.
"Paul!" she murmured.
His heart seemed to break again. He went in and sat by the bed.
"How late you are!" she murmured.
"Not very," he said.
"Why, what time is it?" The murmur came plaintive and helpless.
"It's only just gone eleven."
That was not true; it was nearly one o'clock.
"Oh!" she said; "I thought it was later."
And he knew the unutterable misery of her nights that would
not go.
"Can't you sleep, my pigeon?" he said.
"No, I can't," she wailed.
"Never mind, Little!" He said crooning. "Never mind, my love.
I'll stop with you half an hour, my pigeon; then perhaps it will
be better."
And he sat by the bedside, slowly, rhythmically stroking her
brows with his finger-tips, stroking her eyes shut, soothing her,
holding her fingers in his free hand. They could hear the sleepers'
breathing in the other rooms.
"Now go to bed," she murmured, lying quite still under his
fingers and his love.
"Will you sleep?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so."
"You feel better, my Little, don't you?"
"Yes," she said, like a fretful, half-soothed child.
Still the days and the weeks went by. He hardly ever went to see
Clara now. But he wandered restlessly from one person to another
for some help, and there was none anywhere. Miriam had written
to him tenderly. He went to see her. Her heart was very sore
when she saw him, white, gaunt, with his eyes dark and bewildered.
Her pity came up, hurting her till she could not bear it.
"How is she?" she asked.
"The same--the same!" he said. "The doctor says she can't last,
but I know she will. She'll be here at Christmas."
Miriam shuddered. She drew him to her; she pressed him to her bosom;
she kissed him and kissed him. He submitted, but it was torture.
She could not kiss his agony. That remained alone and apart.
She kissed his face, and roused his blood, while his soul was apart
writhing with the agony of death. And she kissed him and fingered
his body, till at last, feeling he would go mad, he got away from her.
It was not what he wanted just then--not that. And she thought she
had soothed him and done him good.
December came, and some snow. He stayed at home all the while now.
They could not afford a nurse. Annie came to look after her mother;
the parish nurse, whom they loved, came in morning and evening.
Paul shared the nursing with Annie. Often, in the evenings,
when friends were in the kitchen with them, they all laughed together
and shook with laughter. It was reaction. Paul was so comical,
Annie was so quaint. The whole party laughed till they cried,
trying to subdue the sound. And Mrs. Morel, lying alone in the
darkness heard them, and among her bitterness was a feeling
of relief.
Then Paul would go upstairs gingerly, guiltily, to see if she
had heard.
"Shall I give you some milk?" he asked.
"A little," she replied plaintively.
And he would put some water with it, so that it should not
nourish her. Yet he loved her more than his own life.
She had morphia every night, and her heart got fitful.
Annie slept beside her. Paul would go in in the early morning,
when his sister got up. His mother was wasted and almost ashen
in the morning with the morphia. Darker and darker grew her eyes,
all pupil, with the torture. In the mornings the weariness and ache
were too much to bear. Yet she could not--would not--weep, or even
complain much.
"You slept a bit later this morning, little one," he would
say to her.
"Did I?" she answered, with fretful weariness.
"Yes; it's nearly eight o'clock."
He stood looking out of the window. The whole country
was bleak and pallid under the snow. Then he felt her pulse.
There was a strong stroke and a weak one, like a sound and its echo.
That was supposed to betoken the end. She let him feel her wrist,
knowing what he wanted.
Sometimes they looked in each other's eyes. Then they almost
seemed to make an agreement. It was almost as if he were agreeing
to die also. But she did not consent to die; she would not.
Her body was wasted to a fragment of ash. Her eyes were dark and
full of torture.
"Can't you give her something to put an end to it?" he asked
the doctor at last.
But the doctor shook his head.
"She can't last many days now, Mr. Morel," he said.
Paul went indoors.
"I can't bear it much longer; we shall all go mad," said Annie.
The two sat down to breakfast.
"Go and sit with her while we have breakfast, Minnie," said Annie.
But the girl was frightened.
Paul went through the country, through the woods, over the snow.
He saw the marks of rabbits and birds in the white snow.
He wandered miles and miles. A smoky red sunset came on slowly,
painfully, lingering. He thought she would die that day. There was
a donkey that came up to him over the snow by the wood's edge,
and put its head against him, and walked with him alongside.
He put his arms round the donkey's neck, and stroked his cheeks
against his ears.
His mother, silent, was still alive, with her hard mouth
gripped grimly, her eyes of dark torture only living.
It was nearing Christmas; there was more snow. Annie and
he felt as if they could go on no more. Still her dark eyes
were alive. Morel, silent and frightened, obliterated himself.
Sometimes he would go into the sick-room and look at her.
Then he backed out, bewildered.
She kept her hold on life still. The miners had been out
on strike, and returned a fortnight or so before Christmas.
Minnie went upstairs with the feeding-cup. It was two days after
the men had been in.
"Have the men been saying their hands are sore, Minnie?"
she asked, in the faint, querulous voice that would not give in.
Minnie stood surprised.
"Not as I know of, Mrs. Morel," she answered.
"But I'll bet they are sore," said the dying woman, as she
moved her head with a sigh of weariness. "But, at any rate,
there'll be something to buy in with this week."
Not a thing did she let slip.
"Your father's pit things will want well airing, Annie," she said,
when the men were going back to work.
"Don't you bother about that, my dear," said Annie.
One night Annie and Paul were alone. Nurse was upstairs.
"She'll live over Christmas," said Annie. They were both full
of horror. "She won't," he replied grimly. "I s'll give her morphia."
"Which?" said Annie.
"All that came from Sheffield," said Paul.
"Ay--do!" said Annie.
The next day he was painting in the bedroom. She seemed
to be asleep. He stepped softly backwards and forwards at his
painting. Suddenly her small voice wailed:
"Don't walk about, Paul."
He looked round. Her eyes, like dark bubbles in her face,
were looking at him.
"No, my dear," he said gently. Another fibre seemed to snap
in his heart.
That evening he got all the morphia pills there were, and took
them downstairs. Carefully he crushed them to powder.
"What are you doing?" said Annie.
"I s'll put 'em in her night milk."
Then they both laughed together like two conspiring children.
On top of all their horror flicked this little sanity.
Nurse did not come that night to settle Mrs. Morel down.
Paul went up with the hot milk in a feeding-cup. It was nine
o'clock.
She was reared up in bed, and he put the feeding-cup between her
lips that he would have died to save from any hurt. She took a sip,
then put the spout of the cup away and looked at him with her dark,
wondering eyes. He looked at her.
"Oh, it IS bitter, Paul!" she said, making a little grimace.
"It's a new sleeping draught the doctor gave me for you," he said.
"He thought it would leave you in such a state in the morning."
"And I hope it won't," she said, like a child.
She drank some more of the milk.
"But it IS horrid!" she said.
He saw her frail fingers over the cup, her lips making
a little move.
"I know--I tasted it," he said. "But I'll give you some clean
milk afterwards."
"I think so," she said, and she went on with the draught.
She was obedient to him like a child. He wondered if she knew.
He saw her poor wasted throat moving as she drank with difficulty.
Then he ran downstairs for more milk. There were no grains in the bottom
of the cup.
"Has she had it?" whispered Annie.
"Yes--and she said it was bitter."
"Oh!" laughed Annie, putting her under lip between her teeth.
"And I told her it was a new draught. Where's that milk?"
They both went upstairs.
"I wonder why nurse didn't come to settle me down?"
complained the mother, like a child, wistfully.
"She said she was going to a concert, my love," replied Annie.
"Did she?"
They were silent a minute. Mrs. Morel gulped the little
clean milk.
"Annie, that draught WAS horrid!" she said plaintively.
"Was it, my love? Well, never mind."
The mother sighed again with weariness. Her pulse was
very irregular.
"Let US settle you down," said Annie. "Perhaps nurse will
be so late."
"Ay," said the mother--"try."
They turned the clothes back. Paul saw his mother LIke a girl
curled up in her flannel nightdress. Quickly they made one half
of the bed, moved her, made the other, straightened her nightgown
over her small feet, and covered her up.
"There," said Paul, stroking her softly. "There!--now you'll sleep."
"Yes," she said. "I didn't think you could do the bed so nicely,"
she added, almost gaily. Then she curled up, with her cheek
on her hand, her head snugged between her shoulders. Paul put
the long thin plait of grey hair over her shoulder and kissed her.
"You'll sleep, my love," he said.
"Yes," she answered trustfully. "Good-night."
They put out the light, and it was still.
Morel was in bed. Nurse did not come. Annie and Paul came
to look at her at about eleven. She seemed to be sleeping as usual
after her draught. Her mouth had come a bit open.
"Shall we sit up?" said Paul.
"I s'll lie with her as I always do," said Annie. "She might
wake up."
"All right. And call me if you see any difference."
"Yes."
They lingered before the bedroom fire, feeling the night big
and black and snowy outside, their two selves alone in the world.
At last he went into the next room and went to bed.
He slept almost immediately, but kept waking every now and again.
Then he went sound asleep. He started awake at Annie's whispered,
"Paul, Paul!" He saw his sister in her white nightdress, with her
long plait of hair down her back, standing in the darkness.
"Yes?" he whispered, sitting up.
"Come and look at her."
He slipped out of bed. A bud of gas was burning in the
sick chamber. His mother lay with her cheek on her hand, curled up
as she had gone to sleep. But her mouth had fallen open, and she
breathed with great, hoarse breaths, like snoring, and there were
long intervals between.
"She's going!" he whispered.
"Yes," said Annie.
"How long has she been like it?"
"I only just woke up."
Annie huddled into the dressing-gown, Paul wrapped himself
in a brown blanket. It was three o'clock. He mended the fire.
Then the two sat waiting. The great, snoring breath was taken--held
awhile--then given back. There was a space--a long space.
Then they started. The great, snoring breath was taken again.
He bent close down and looked at her.
"Isn't it awful!" whispered Annie.
He nodded. They sat down again helplessly. Again came the great,
snoring breath. Again they hung suspended. Again it was given back,
long and harsh. The sound, so irregular, at such wide intervals,
sounded through the house. Morel, in his room, slept on.
Paul and Annie sat crouched, huddled, motionless. The great snoring
sound began again--there was a painful pause while the breath was
held--back came the rasping breath. Minute after minute passed.
Paul looked at her again, bending low over her.
"She may last like this," he said.
They were both silent. He looked out of the window, and could
faintly discern the snow on the garden.
"You go to my bed," he said to Annie. "I'll sit up."
"No," she said, "I'll stop with you."
"I'd rather you didn't," he said.
At last Annie crept out of the room, and he was alone.
He hugged himself in his brown blanket, crouched in front of
his mother, watching. She looked dreadful, with the bottom jaw
fallen back. He watched. Sometimes he thought the great breath
would never begin again. He could not bear it--the waiting.
Then suddenly, startling him, came the great harsh sound.
He mended the fire again, noiselessly. She must not be disturbed.
The minutes went by. The night was going, breath by breath.
Each time the sound came he felt it wring him, till at last he could
not feel so much.
His father got up. Paul heard the miner drawing his
stockings on, yawning. Then Morel, in shirt and stockings, entered.
"Hush!" said Paul.
Morel stood watching. Then he looked at his son, helplessly,
and in horror.
"Had I better stop a-whoam?" he whispered.
"No. Go to work. She'll last through to-morrow."
"I don't think so."
"Yes. Go to work."
The miner looked at her again, in fear, and went obediently
out of the room. Paul saw the tape of his garters swinging against
his legs.
After another half-hour Paul went downstairs and drank a cup
of tea, then returned. Morel, dressed for the pit, came upstairs again.
"Am I to go?" he said.
"Yes."
And in a few minutes Paul heard his father's heavy steps go
thudding over the deadening snow. Miners called in the streets
as they tramped in gangs to work. The terrible, long-drawn breaths
continued--heave--heave--heave; then a long pause--then--ah-h-h-h-h!
as it came back. Far away over the snow sounded the hooters
of the ironworks. One after another they crowed and boomed,
some small and far away, some near, the blowers of the collieries
and the other works. Then there was silence. He mended the fire.
The great breaths broke the silence--she looked just the same.
He put back the blind and peered out. Still it was dark.
Perhaps there was a lighter tinge. Perhaps the snow was bluer.
He drew up the blind and got dressed. Then, shuddering, he drank
brandy from the bottle on the wash-stand. The snow WAS growing blue.
He heard a cart clanking down the street. Yes, it was seven o'clock,
and it was coming a little bit light. He heard some people calling.
The world was waking. A grey, deathly dawn crept over the snow.
Yes, he could see the houses. He put out the gas. It seemed
very dark. The breathing came still, but he was almost used to it.
He could see her. She was just the same. He wondered if he piled
heavy clothes on top of her it would stop. He looked at her.
That was not her--not her a bit. If he piled the blanket and heavy coats
on her---
Suddenly the door opened, and Annie entered. She looked
at him questioningly.
"Just the same," he said calmly.
They whispered together a minute, then he went downstairs
to get breakfast. It was twenty to eight. Soon Annie came down.
"Isn't it awful! Doesn't she look awful!" she whispered,
dazed with horror.
He nodded.
"If she looks like that!" said Annie.
"Drink some tea," he said.
They went upstairs again. Soon the neighbours came with their
frightened question:
"How is she?"
It went on just the same. She lay with her cheek in her hand,
her mouth fallen open, and the great, ghastly snores came and went.
At ten o'clock nurse came. She looked strange and woebegone.
"Nurse," cried Paul, "she'll last like this for days?"
"She can't, Mr. Morel," said nurse. "She can't."
There was a silence.
"Isn't it dreadful!" wailed the nurse. "Who would have thought
she could stand it? Go down now, Mr. Morel, go down."
At last, at about eleven o'clock, he went downstairs
and sat in the neighbour's house. Annie was downstairs also.
Nurse and Arthur were upstairs. Paul sat with his head in his hand.
Suddenly Annie came flying across the yard crying, half mad:
"Paul--Paul--she's gone!"
In a second he was back in his own house and upstairs.
She lay curled up and still, with her face on her hand, and nurse
was wiping her mouth. They all stood back. He kneeled down,
and put his face to hers and his arms round her:
"My love--my love--oh, my love!" he whispered again and again.
"My love--oh, my love!"
Then he heard the nurse behind him, crying, saying:
"She's better, Mr. Morel, she's better."
When he took his face up from his warm, dead mother he went
straight downstairs and began blacking his boots.
There was a good deal to do, letters to write, and so on.
The doctor came and glanced at her, and sighed.
"Ay--poor thing!" he said, then turned away. "Well, call
at the surgery about six for the certificate."
The father came home from work at about four o'clock. He
dragged silently into the house and sat down. Minnie bustled to
give him his dinner. Tired, he laid his black arms on the table.
There were swede turnips for his dinner, which he liked.
Paul wondered if he knew. It was some time, and nobody had spoken.
At last the son said:
"You noticed the blinds were down?"
Morel looked up.
"No," he said. "Why--has she gone?"
"Yes."
"When wor that?"
"About twelve this morning."
"H'm!"
The miner sat still for a moment, then began his dinner.
It was as if nothing had happened. He ate his turnips in silence.
Afterwards he washed and went upstairs to dress. The door of her room
was shut.
"Have you seen her?" Annie asked of him when he came down.
"No," he said.
In a little while he went out. Annie went away, and Paul
called on the undertaker, the clergyman, the doctor, the registrar.
It was a long business. He got back at nearly eight o'clock. The
undertaker was coming soon to measure for the coffin. The house
was empty except for her. He took a candle and went upstairs.
The room was cold, that had been warm for so long. Flowers,
bottles, plates, all sick-room litter was taken away; everything was
harsh and austere. She lay raised on the bed, the sweep of the sheet
from the raised feet was like a clean curve of snow, so silent.
She lay like a maiden asleep. With his candle in his hand, he bent
over her. She lay like a girl asleep and dreaming of her love.
The mouth was a little open as if wondering from the suffering,
but her face was young, her brow clear and white as if life had
never touched it. He looked again at the eyebrows, at the small,
winsome nose a bit on one side. She was young again. Only the hair
as it arched so beautifully from her temples was mixed with silver,
and the two simple plaits that lay on her shoulders were filigree
of silver and brown. She would wake up. She would lift her eyelids.
She was with him still. He bent and kissed her passionately.
But there was coldness against his mouth. He bit his
lips with horror. Looking at her, he felt he could never, never let
her go. No! He stroked the hair from her temples. That, too,
was cold. He saw the mouth so dumb and wondering at the hurt.
Then he crouched on the floor, whispering to her:
"Mother, mother!"
He was still with her when the undertakers came, young men
who had been to school with him. They touched her reverently,
and in a quiet, businesslike fashion. They did not look at her.
He watched jealously. He and Annie guarded her fiercely.
They would not let anybody come to see her, and the neighbours
were offended.
After a while Paul went out of the house, and played cards
at a friend's. It was midnight when he got back. His father rose
from the couch as he entered, saying in a plaintive way:
"I thought tha wor niver comin', lad."
"I didn't think you'd sit up," said Paul.
His father looked so forlorn. Morel had been a man without
fear--simply nothing frightened him. Paul realised with a start that
he had been afraid to go to bed, alone in the house with his dead.
He was sorry.
"I forgot you'd be alone, father," he said.
"Dost want owt to eat?" asked Morel.
"No."
"Sithee--I made thee a drop o' hot milk. Get it down thee;
it's cold enough for owt."
Paul drank it.
After a while Morel went to bed. He hurried past the closed door,
and left his own door open. Soon the son came upstairs also.
He went in to kiss her good-night, as usual. It was cold and dark.
He wished they had kept her fire burning. Still she dreamed her
young dream. But she would be cold.
"My dear!" he whispered. "My dear!"
And he did not kiss her, for fear she should be cold
and strange to him. It eased him she slept so beautifully.
He shut her door softly, not to wake her, and went to bed.
In the morning Morel summoned his courage, hearing Annie
downstairs and Paul coughing in the room across the landing.
He opened her door, and went into the darkened room. He saw the
white uplifted form in the twilight, but her he dared not see.
Bewildered, too frightened to possess any of his faculties, he got
out of the room again and left her. He never looked at her again.
He had not seen her for months, because he had not dared to look.
And she looked like his young wife again.
"Have you seen her?" Annie asked of him sharply after breakfast.
"Yes," he said.
"And don't you think she looks nice?"
"Yes."
He went out of the house soon after. And all the time
He seemed to be creeping aside to avoid it.
Paul went about from place to place, doing the business of
the death. He met Clara in Nottingham, and they had tea together
in a cafe, when they were quite jolly again. She was infinitely
relieved to find he did not take it tragically.
Later, when the relatives began to come for the funeral,
the affair became public, and the children became social beings.
They put themselves aside. They buried her in a furious storm
of rain and wind. The wet clay glistened, all the white flowers
were soaked. Annie gripped his arm and leaned forward.
Down below she saw a dark corner of William's coffin. The oak
box sank steadily. She was gone. The rain poured in the grave.
The procession of black, with its umbrellas glistening, turned away.
The cemetery was deserted under the drenching cold rain.
Paul went home and busied himself supplying the guests with drinks.
His father sat in the kitchen with Mrs. Morel's relatives,
"superior" people, and wept, and said what a good lass she'd been,
and how he'd tried to do everything he could for her--everything.
He had striven all his life to do what he could for her, and he'd
nothing to reproach himself with. She was gone, but he'd done
his best for her. He wiped his eyes with his white handkerchief.
He'd nothing to reproach himself for, he repeated. All his life he'd
done his best for her.
And that was how he tried to dismiss her. He never
thought of her personally. Everything deep in him he denied.
Paul hated his father for sitting sentimentalising over her.
He knew he would do it in the public-houses. For the real tragedy
went on in Morel in spite of himself. Sometimes, later, he came
down from his afternoon sleep, white and cowering.
"I HAVE been dreaming of thy mother," he said in a small voice.
"Have you, father? When I dream of her it's always just as she
was when she was well. I dream of her often, but it seems quite
nice and natural, as if nothing had altered."
But Morel crouched in front of the fire in terror.
The weeks passed half-real, not much pain, not much of anything,
perhaps a little relief, mostly a nuit blanche. Paul went restless
from place to place. For some months, since his mother had been worse,
he had not made love to Clara. She was, as it were, dumb to him,
rather distant. Dawes saw her very occasionally, but the two
could not get an inch across the great distance between them.
The three of them were drifting forward.
Dawes mended very slowly. He was in the convalescent home
at Skegness at Christmas, nearly well again. Paul went to the
seaside for a few days. His father was with Annie in Sheffield.
Dawes came to Paul's lodgings. His time in the home was up.
The two men, between whom was such a big reserve, seemed faithful
to each other. Dawes depended on Morel now. He knew Paul and Clara
had practically separated.
Two days after Christmas Paul was to go back to Nottingham.
The evening before he sat with Dawes smoking before the fire.
"You know Clara's coming down for the day to-morrow?"
he said.
The other man glanced at him.
"Yes, you told me," he replied.
Paul drank the remainder of his glass of whisky.
"I told the landlady your wife was coming," he said.
"Did you?" said Dawes, shrinking, but almost leaving himself
in the other's hands. He got up rather stiffly, and reached
for Morel's glass.
"Let me fill you up," he said.
Paul jumped up.
"You sit still," he said.
But Dawes, with rather shaky hand, continued to mix the drink.
"Say when," he said.
"Thanks!" replied the other. "But you've no business to get up."
"It does me good, lad," replied Dawes. "I begin to think
I'm right again, then."
"You are about right, you know."
"I am, certainly I am," said Dawes, nodding to him.
"And Len says he can get you on in Sheffield."
Dawes glanced at him again, with dark eyes that agreed with
everything the other would say, perhaps a trifle dominated by him.
"It's funny," said Paul, "starting again. I feel in a lot
bigger mess than you."
"In what way, lad?"
"I don't know. I don't know. It's as if I was in a tangled
sort of hole, rather dark and dreary, and no road anywhere."
"I know--I understand it," Dawes said, nodding. "But you'll
find it'll come all right."
He spoke caressingly.
"I suppose so," said Paul.
Dawes knocked his pipe in a hopeless fashion.
"You've not done for yourself like I have," he said.
Morel saw the wrist and the white hand of the other man
gripping the stem of the pipe and knocking out the ash, as if he
had given up.
"How old are you?" Paul asked.
"Thirty-nine," replied Dawes, glancing at him.
Those brown eyes, full of the consciousness of failure,
almost pleading for reassurance, for someone to re-establish the man
in himself, to warm him, to set him up firm again, troubled Paul.
"You'll just be in your prime," said Morel. "You don't look
as if much life had gone out of you."
The brown eyes of the other flashed suddenly.
"It hasn't," he said. "The go is there."
Paul looked up and laughed.
"We've both got plenty of life in us yet to make things fly,"
he said.
The eyes of the two men met. They exchanged one look.
Having recognised the stress of passion each in the other, they both
drank their whisky.
"Yes, begod!" said Dawes, breathless.
There was a pause.
"And I don't see," said Paul, "why you shouldn't go on where
you left off."
"What---" said Dawes, suggestively.
"Yes--fit your old home together again."
Dawes hid his face and shook his head.
"Couldn't be done," he said, and looked up with an ironic smile.
"Why? Because you don't want?"
"Perhaps."
They smoked in silence. Dawes showed his teeth as he bit
his pipe stem.
"You mean you don't want her?" asked Paul.
Dawes stared up at the picture with a caustic expression
on his face.
"I hardly know," he said.
The smoke floated softly up.
"I believe she wants you," said Paul.
"Do you?" replied the other, soft, satirical, abstract.
"Yes. She never really hitched on to me--you were always there
in the background. That's why she wouldn't get a divorce."
Dawes continued to stare in a satirical fashion at the picture
over the mantelpiece.
"That's how women are with me," said Paul. "They want me
like mad, but they don't want to belong to me. And she BELONGED
to you all the time. I knew."
The triumphant male came up in Dawes. He showed his teeth
more distinctly.
"Perhaps I was a fool," he said.
"You were a big fool," said Morel.
"But perhaps even THEN you were a bigger fool," said Dawes.
There was a touch of triumph and malice in it.
"Do you think so?" said Paul.
They were silent for some time.
"At any rate, I'm clearing out to-morrow," said Morel.
"I see," answered Dawes.
Then they did not talk any more. The instinct to murder
each other had returned. They almost avoided each other.
They shared the same bedroom. When they retired Dawes
seemed abstract, thinking of something. He sat on the side
of the bed in his shirt, looking at his legs.
"Aren't you getting cold?" asked Morel.
"I was lookin' at these legs," replied the other.
"What's up with 'em? They look all right," replied Paul,
from his bed.
"They look all right. But there's some water in 'em yet."
"And what about it?"
"Come and look."
Paul reluctantly got out of bed and went to look at the rather
handsome legs of the other man that were covered with glistening,
dark gold hair.
"Look here," said Dawes, pointing to his shin. "Look at
the water under here."
"Where?" said Paul.
The man pressed in his finger-tips. They left little dents
that filled up slowly.
"It's nothing," said Paul.
"You feel," said Dawes.
Paul tried with his fingers. It made little dents.
"H'm!" he said.
"Rotten, isn't it?" said Dawes.
"Why? It's nothing much."
"You're not much of a man with water in your legs."
"I can't see as it makes any difference," said Morel.
"I've got a weak chest."
He returned to his own bed.
"I suppose the rest of me's all right," said Dawes, and he
put out the light.
In the morning it was raining. Morel packed his bag.
The sea was grey and shaggy and dismal. He seemed to be cutting
himself off from life more and more. It gave him a wicked pleasure
to do it.
The two men were at the station. Clara stepped out of the train,
and came along the platform, very erect and coldly composed.
She wore a long coat and a tweed hat. Both men hated her
for her composure. Paul shook hands with her at the barrier.
Dawes was leaning against the bookstall, watching. His black overcoat
was buttoned up to the chin because of the rain. He was pale,
with almost a touch of nobility in his quietness. He came forward,
limping slightly.
"You ought to look better than this," she said.
"Oh, I'm all right now."
The three stood at a loss. She kept the two men hesitating
near her.
"Shall we go to the lodging straight off," said Paul,
"or somewhere else?"
"We may as well go home," said Dawes.
Paul walked on the outside of the pavement, then Dawes, then Clara.
They made polite conversation. The sitting-room faced the sea,
whose tide, grey and shaggy, hissed not far off.
Morel swung up the big arm-chair.
"Sit down, Jack," he said.
"I don't want that chair," said Dawes.
"Sit down!" Morel repeated.
Clara took off her things and laid them on the couch. She had
a slight air of resentment. Lifting her hair with her fingers,
she sat down, rather aloof and composed. Paul ran downstairs
to speak to the landlady.
"I should think you're cold," said Dawes to his wife.
"Come nearer to the fire."
"Thank you, I'm quite warm," she answered.
She looked out of the window at the rain and at the sea.
"When are you going back?" she asked.
"Well, the rooms are taken until to-morrow, so he wants me
to stop. He's going back to-night."
"And then you're thinking of going to Sheffield?"
"Yes."
"Are you fit to start work?"
"I'm going to start."
"You've really got a place?"
"Yes--begin on Monday."
"You don't look fit."
"Why don't I?"
She looked again out of the window instead of answering.
"And have you got lodgings in Sheffield?"
"Yes."
Again she looked away out of the window. The panes were
blurred with streaming rain.
"And can you manage all right?" she asked.
"I s'd think so. I s'll have to!"
They were silent when Morel returned.
"I shall go by the four-twenty," he said as he entered.
Nobody answered.
"I wish you'd take your boots off," he said to Clara.
"There's a pair of slippers of mine."
"Thank you," she said. "They aren't wet."
He put the slippers near her feet. She left them there.
Morel sat down. Both the men seemed helpless, and each of them
had a rather hunted look. But Dawes now carried himself quietly,
seemed to yield himself, while Paul seemed to screw himself up.
Clara thought she had never seen him look so small and mean.
He was as if trying to get himself into the smallest possible compass.
And as he went about arranging, and as he sat talking, there seemed
something false about him and out of tune. Watching him unknown,
she said to herself there was no stability about him. He was fine
in his way, passionate, and able to give her drinks of pure life
when he was in one mood. And now he looked paltry and insignificant.
There was nothing stable about him. Her husband had more manly dignity.
At any rate HE did not waft about with any wind. There was something
evanescent about Morel, she thought, something shifting and false.
He would never make sure ground for any woman to stand on.
She despised him rather for his shrinking together, getting smaller.
Her husband at least was manly, and when he was beaten gave in.
But this other would never own to being beaten. He would shift round
and round, prowl, get smaller. She despised him. And yet she watched
him rather than Dawes, and it seemed as if their three fates lay in
his hands. She hated him for it.
She seemed to understand better now about men, and what they could
or would do. She was less afraid of them, more sure of herself.
That they were not the small egoists she had imagined them made
her more comfortable. She had learned a good deal--almost as much
as she wanted to learn. Her cup had been full. It was still as full
as she could carry. On the whole, she would not be sorry when he
was gone.
They had dinner, and sat eating nuts and drinking by the fire.
Not a serious word had been spoken. Yet Clara realised that Morel
was withdrawing from the circle, leaving her the option to stay
with her husband. It angered her. He was a mean fellow, after all,
to take what he wanted and then give her back. She did
not remember that she herself had had what she wanted,
and really, at the bottom of her heart, wished to be given back.
Paul felt crumpled up and lonely. His mother had really
supported his life. He had loved her; they two had, in fact,
faced the world together. Now she was gone, and for ever behind
him was the gap in life, the tear in the veil, through which his
life seemed to drift slowly, as if he were drawn towards death.
He wanted someone of their own free initiative to help him. The lesser
things he began to let go from him, for fear of this big thing,
the lapse towards death, following in the wake of his beloved.
Clara could not stand for him to hold on to. She wanted him,
but not to understand him. He felt she wanted the man on top,
not the real him that was in trouble. That would be too much trouble
to her; he dared not give it her. She could not cope with him.
It made him ashamed. So, secretly ashamed because he was in such
a mess, because his own hold on life was so unsure, because nobody
held him, feeling unsubstantial, shadowy, as if he did not count
for much in this concrete world, he drew himself together smaller
and smaller. He did not want to die; he would not give in.
But he was not afraid of death. If nobody would help, he would go
on alone.
Dawes had been driven to the extremity of life, until he
was afraid. He could go to the brink of death, he could lie on
the edge and look in. Then, cowed, afraid, he had to crawl back,
and like a beggar take what offered. There was a certain nobility
in it. As Clara saw, he owned himself beaten, and he wanted
to be taken back whether or not. That she could do for him.
It was three o'clock.
"I am going by the four-twenty," said Paul again to Clara.
"Are you coming then or later?"
"I don't know," she said.
"I'm meeting my father in Nottingham at seven-fifteen,"
he said.
"Then," she answered, "I'll come later."
Dawes jerked suddenly, as if he had been held on a strain.
He looked out over the sea, but he saw nothing.
"There are one or two books in the corner," said Morel.
"I've done with 'em."
At about four o'clock he went.
"I shall see you both later," he said, as he shook hands.
"I suppose so," said Dawes. "An' perhaps--one day--I s'll
be able to pay you back the money as---"
"I shall come for it, you'll see," laughed Paul. "I s'll
be on the rocks before I'm very much older."
"Ay--well---" said Dawes.
"Good-bye," he said to Clara.
"Good-bye," she said, giving him her hand. Then she glanced
at him for the last time, dumb and humble.
He was gone. Dawes and his wife sat down again.
"It's a nasty day for travelling," said the man.
"Yes," she answered.
They talked in a desultory fashion until it grew dark.
The landlady brought in the tea. Dawes drew up his chair to the
table without being invited, like a husband. Then he sat humbly
waiting for his cup. She served him as she would, like a wife,
not consulting his wish.
After tea, as it drew near to six o'clock, he went to the window.
All was dark outside. The sea was roaring.
"It's raining yet," he said.
"Is it?" she answered.
"You won't go to-night, shall you?" he said, hesitating.
She did not answer. He waited.
"I shouldn't go in this rain," he said.
"Do you WANT me to stay?" she asked.
His hand as he held the dark curtain trembled.
"Yes," he said.
He remained with his back to her. She rose and went slowly
to him. He let go the curtain, turned, hesitating, towards her.
She stood with her hands behind her back, looking up at him in a heavy,
inscrutable fashion.
"Do you want me, Baxter?" she asked.
His voice was hoarse as he answered:
"Do you want to come back to me?"
She made a moaning noise, lifted her arms, and put them round
his neck, drawing him to her. He hid his face on her shoulder,
holding her clasped.
"Take me back!" she whispered, ecstatic. "Take me back,
take me back!" And she put her fingers through his fine, thin dark hair,
as if she were only semi-conscious. He tightened his grasp on her.
"Do you want me again?" he murmured, broken.
CHAPTER XV
DERELICT
CLARA went with her husband to Sheffield, and Paul scarcely saw
her again. Walter Morel seemed to have let all the trouble go over him,
and there he was, crawling about on the mud of it, just the same.
There was scarcely any bond between father and son, save that each
felt he must not let the other go in any actual want. As there
was no one to keep on the home, and as they could neither of them
bear the emptiness of the house, Paul took lodgings in Nottingham,
and Morel went to live with a friendly family in Bestwood.
Everything seemed to have gone smash for the young man.
He could not paint. The picture he finished on the day of his
mother's death--one that satisfied him--was the last thing he did.
At work there was no Clara. When he came home he could not take up
his brushes again. There was nothing left.
So he was always in the town at one place or another,
drinking, knocking about with the men he knew. It really wearied him.
He talked to barmaids, to almost any woman, but there was that dark,
strained look in his eyes, as if he were hunting something.
Everything seemed so different, so unreal. There seemed
no reason why people should go along the street, and houses
pile up in the daylight. There seemed no reason why these
things should occupy the space, instead of leaving it empty.
His friends talked to him: he heard the sounds, and he answered.
But why there should be the noise of speech he could not understand.
He was most himself when he was alone, or working hard and
mechanically at the factory. In the latter case there was pure
forgetfulness, when he lapsed from consciousness. But it had to come
to an end. It hurt him so, that things had lost their reality.
The first snowdrops came. He saw the tiny drop-pearls among the
grey. They would have given him the liveliest emotion at one time.
Now they were there, but they did not seem to mean anything. In
a few moments they would cease to occupy that place, and just the
space would be, where they had been. Tall, brilliant tram-cars
ran along the street at night. It seemed almost a wonder they
should trouble to rustle backwards and forwards. "Why trouble
to go tilting down to Trent Bridges?" he asked of the big trams.
It seemed they just as well might NOT be as be.
The realest thing was the thick darkness at night. That seemed
to him whole and comprehensible and restful. He could leave himself
to it. Suddenly a piece of paper started near his feet and blew
along down the pavement. He stood still, rigid, with clenched fists,
a flame of agony going over him. And he saw again the sick-room,
his mother, her eyes. Unconsciously he had been with her,
in her company. The swift hop of the paper reminded him she was gone.
But he had been with her. He wanted everything to stand still,
so that he could be with her again.
The days passed, the weeks. But everything seemed to have fused,
gone into a conglomerated mass. He could not tell one day
from another, one week from another, hardly one place from another.
Nothing was distinct or distinguishable. Often he lost himself
for an hour at a time, could not remember what he had done.
One evening he came home late to his lodging. The fire was
burning low; everybody was in bed. He threw on some more coal,
glanced at the table, and decided he wanted no supper. Then he
sat down in the arm-chair. It was perfectly still. He did not
know anything, yet he saw the dim smoke wavering up the chimney.
Presently two mice came out, cautiously, nibbling the fallen crumbs.
He watched them as it were from a long way off. The church clock
struck two. Far away he could hear the sharp clinking of the trucks
on the railway. No, it was not they that were far away. They were
there in their places. But where was he himself?
The time passed. The two mice, careering wildly, scampered cheekily
over his slippers. He had not moved a muscle. He did not want
to move. He was not thinking of anything. It was easier so.
There was no wrench of knowing anything. Then, from time to time,
some other consciousness, working mechanically, flashed into
sharp phrases.
"What am I doing?"
And out of the semi-intoxicated trance came the answer:
"Destroying myself."
Then a dull, live feeling, gone in an instant, told him that it
was wrong. After a while, suddenly came the question:
"Why wrong?"
Again there was no answer, but a stroke of hot stubbornness
inside his chest resisted his own annihilation.
There was a sound of a heavy cart clanking down the road.
Suddenly the electric light went out; there was a bruising thud
in the penny-in-the-slot meter. He did not stir, but sat gazing
in front of him. Only the mice had scuttled, and the fire glowed red
in the dark room.
Then, quite mechanically and more distinctly, the conversation
began again inside him.
"She's dead. What was it all for--her struggle?"
That was his despair wanting to go after her.
"You're alive."
"She's not."
"She is--in you."
Suddenly he felt tired with the burden of it.
"You've got to keep alive for her sake," said his will in him.
Something felt sulky, as if it would not rouse.
"You've got to carry forward her living, and what she had done,
go on with it."
But he did not want to. He wanted to give up.
"But you can go on with your painting," said the will in him.
"Or else you can beget children. They both carry on her effort."
"Painting is not living."
"Then live."
"Marry whom?" came the sulky question.
"As best you can."
"Miriam?"
But he did not trust that.
He rose suddenly, went straight to bed. When he got inside
his bedroom and closed the door, he stood with clenched fist.
"Mater, my dear---" he began, with the whole force of his soul.
Then he stopped. He would not say it. He would not admit that he
wanted to die, to have done. He would not own that life
had beaten him, or that death had beaten him. Going straight to bed,
he slept at once, abandoning himself to the sleep.
So the weeks went on. Always alone, his soul oscillated,
first on the side of death, then on the side of life, doggedly.
The real agony was that he had nowhere to go, nothing to do,
nothing to say, and WAS nothing himself. Sometimes he ran down
the streets as if he were mad: 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 his head to her bosom, and rocked him softly. She was
not to have him, then! So she could comfort him. She put her
fingers through his hair. For her, the anguished sweetness of
self-sacrifice. For him, the hate and misery of another failure.
He could not bear it--that breast which was warm and which cradled
him without taking the burden of him. So much he wanted to rest
on her that the feint of rest only tortured him. He drew away.
"And without marriage we can do nothing?" he asked.
His mouth was lifted from his teeth with pain. She put her
little finger between her lips.
"No," she said, low and like the toll of a bell. "No, I think not."
It was the end then between them. She could not take him
and relieve him of the responsibility of himself. She could only
sacrifice herself to him--sacrifice herself every day, gladly.
And that he did not want. He wanted her to hold him and say,
with joy and authority: "Stop all this restlessness and beating
against death. You are mine for a mate." She had not the strength.
Or was it a mate she wanted? or did she want a Christ in him?
He felt, in leaving her, he was defrauding her of life.
But he knew that, in staying, stilling the inner, desperate man,
he was denying his own life. And he did not hope to give life to her
by denying his own.
She sat very quiet. He lit a cigarette. The smoke
went up from it, wavering. He was thinking of his mother,
and had forgotten Miriam. She suddenly looked at him.
Her bitterness came surging up. Her sacrifice, then, was useless.
He lay there aloof, careless about her. Suddenly she saw
again his lack of religion, his restless instability. He would
destroy himself like a perverse child. Well, then, he would!
"I think I must go," she said softly.
By her tone he knew she was despising him. He rose quietly.
"I'll come along with you," he answered.
She stood before the mirror pinning on her hat. How bitter,
how unutterably bitter, it made her that he rejected her sacrifice!
Life ahead looked dead, as if the glow were gone out. She bowed
her face over the flowers--the freesias so sweet and spring-like,
the scarlet anemones flaunting over the table. It was like him
to have those flowers.
He moved about the room with a certain sureness of touch,
swift and relentless and quiet. She knew she could not cope with him.
He would escape like a weasel out of her hands. Yet without him her
life would trail on lifeless. Brooding, she touched the flowers.
"Have them!" he said; and he took them out of the jar,
dripping as they were, and went quickly into the kitchen.
She waited for him, took the flowers, and they went out together,
he talking, she feeling dead.
She was going from him now. In her misery she leaned against him
as they sat on the car. He was unresponsive. Where would he go?
What would be the end of him? She could not bear it, the vacant
feeling where he should be. He was so foolish, so wasteful,
never at peace with himself. And now where would he go?
And what did he care that he wasted her? He had no religion;
it was all for the moment's attraction that he cared, nothing else,
nothing deeper. Well, she would wait and see how it turned
out with him. When he had had enough he would give in and come
to her.
He shook hands and left her at the door of her cousin's house.
When he turned away he felt the last hold for him had gone. The town,
as he sat upon the car, stretched away over the bay of railway, a
level fume of lights. Beyond the town the country, little smouldering
spots for more towns--the sea--the night--on and on! And he had no
place in it! Whatever spot he stood on, there he stood alone.
From his breast, from his mouth, sprang the endless space, and it
was there behind him, everywhere. The people hurrying along the
streets offered no obstruction to the void in which he found himself.
They were small shadows whose footsteps and voices could be heard,
but in each of them the same night, the same silence. He got off
the car. In the country all was dead still. Little stars shone high up;
little stars spread far away in the flood-waters, a firmament below.
Everywhere the vastness and terror of the immense night which is
roused and stirred for a brief while by the day, but which returns,
and will remain at last eternal, holding everything in its silence
and its living gloom. There was no Time, only Space. Who could say
his mother had lived and did not live? She had been in one place,
and was in another; that was all. And his soul could not leave her,
wherever she was. Now she was gone abroad into the night, and he
was with her still. They were together. But yet there was his body,
his chest, that leaned against the stile, his hands on the wooden bar.
They seemed something. Where was he?--one tiny upright speck of flesh,
less than an ear of wheat lost in the field. He could not bear it.
On every side the immense dark silence seemed pressing him, so tiny
a spark, into extinction, and yet, almost nothing, he could not
be extinct. Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out,
beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spinning
round for terror, and holding each other in embrace, there in a
darkness that outpassed them all, and left them tiny and daunted.
So much, and himself, infinitesimal, at the core a nothingness,
and yet not nothing.
"Mother!" he whispered--"mother!"
She was the only thing that held him up, himself, amid all this.
And she was gone, intermingled herself. He wanted her to touch him,
have him alongside with her.
But no, he would not give in. Turning sharply, he walked
towards the city's gold phosphorescence. His fists were shut,
his mouth set fast. He would not take that direction, to the
darkness, to follow her. He walked towards the faintly humming,
glowing town, quickly.
THE END