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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sons and Lovers, by David Herbert Lawrence
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sons and Lovers
+
+Author: David Herbert Lawrence
+
+Last Updated: January 3, 2009
+Release Date: January 16, 2006 [EBook #217]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SONS AND LOVERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Alan Charles Veeck, Jr. and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+SONS AND LOVERS
+
+D. H. LAWRENCE
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     PART I
+     1.   The Early Married Life of the Morels
+     2.   The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle
+     3.   The Casting Off of Morel--The Taking on of William
+     4.   The Young Life of Paul
+     5.   Paul Launches into Life
+     6.   Death in the Family
+
+     PART II
+
+     7.   Lad-and-Girl Love
+     8.   Strife in Love
+     9.   Defeat of Miriam
+     10.  Clara
+     11.  The Test on Miriam
+     12.  Passion
+     13.  Baxter Dawes
+     14.  The Release
+     15.  Derelict
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS
+
+"THE BOTTOMS" succeeded to "Hell Row". Hell Row was a block of thatched,
+bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There
+lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away.
+The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small
+mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded
+wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these
+same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, the
+few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth,
+making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and
+the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs
+here and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers,
+straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.
+
+Then, some sixty years ago, a sudden change took place, gin-pits were
+elbowed aside by the large mines of the financiers. The coal and iron
+field of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was discovered. Carston, Waite
+and Co. appeared. Amid tremendous excitement, Lord Palmerston formally
+opened the company's first mine at Spinney Park, on the edge of Sherwood
+Forest.
+
+About this time the notorious Hell Row, which through growing old had
+acquired an evil reputation, was burned down, and much dirt was cleansed
+away.
+
+Carston, Waite & Co. found they had struck on a good thing, so, down the
+valleys of the brooks from Selby and Nuttall, new mines were sunk, until
+soon there were six pits working. From Nuttall, high up on the sandstone
+among the woods, the railway ran, past the ruined priory of the
+Carthusians and past Robin Hood's Well, down to Spinney Park, then on to
+Minton, a large mine among corn-fields; from Minton across the farmlands
+of the valleyside to Bunker's Hill, branching off there, and running
+north to Beggarlee and Selby, that looks over at Crich and the hills of
+Derbyshire: six mines like black studs on the countryside, linked by a
+loop of fine chain, the railway.
+
+To accommodate the regiments of miners, Carston, Waite and Co. built the
+Squares, great quadrangles of dwellings on the hillside of Bestwood,
+and then, in the brook valley, on the site of Hell Row, they erected the
+Bottoms.
+
+The Bottoms consisted of six blocks of miners' dwellings, two rows
+of three, like the dots on a blank-six domino, and twelve houses in a
+block. This double row of dwellings sat at the foot of the rather sharp
+slope from Bestwood, and looked out, from the attic windows at least, on
+the slow climb of the valley towards Selby.
+
+The houses themselves were substantial and very decent. One could walk
+all round, seeing little front gardens with auriculas and saxifrage in
+the shadow of the bottom block, sweet-williams and pinks in the sunny
+top block; seeing neat front windows, little porches, little privet
+hedges, and dormer windows for the attics. But that was outside; that
+was the view on to the uninhabited parlours of all the colliers' wives.
+The dwelling-room, the kitchen, was at the back of the house, facing
+inward between the blocks, looking at a scrubby back garden, and then at
+the ash-pits. And between the rows, between the long lines of ash-pits,
+went the alley, where the children played and the women gossiped and the
+men smoked. So, the actual conditions of living in the Bottoms, that
+was so well built and that looked so nice, were quite unsavoury because
+people must live in the kitchen, and the kitchens opened on to that
+nasty alley of ash-pits.
+
+Mrs. Morel was not anxious to move into the Bottoms, which was already
+twelve years old and on the downward path, when she descended to it from
+Bestwood. But it was the best she could do. Moreover, she had an end
+house in one of the top blocks, and thus had only one neighbour; on
+the other side an extra strip of garden. And, having an end house, she
+enjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other women of the "between"
+houses, because her rent was five shillings and sixpence instead of
+five shillings a week. But this superiority in station was not much
+consolation to Mrs. Morel.
+
+She was thirty-one years old, and had been married eight years. A rather
+small woman, of delicate mould but resolute bearing, she shrank a little
+from the first contact with the Bottoms women. She came down in the
+July, and in the September expected her third baby.
+
+Her husband was a miner. They had only been in their new home three
+weeks when the wakes, or fair, began. Morel, she knew, was sure to make
+a holiday of it. He went off early on the Monday morning, the day of
+the fair. The two children were highly excited. William, a boy of seven,
+fled off immediately after breakfast, to prowl round the wakes ground,
+leaving Annie, who was only five, to whine all morning to go also. Mrs.
+Morel did her work. She scarcely knew her neighbours yet, and knew no
+one with whom to trust the little girl. So she promised to take her to
+the wakes after dinner.
+
+William appeared at half-past twelve. He was a very active lad,
+fair-haired, freckled, with a touch of the Dane or Norwegian about him.
+
+"Can I have my dinner, mother?" he cried, rushing in with his cap on.
+"'Cause it begins at half-past one, the man says so."
+
+"You can have your dinner as soon as it's done," replied the mother.
+
+"Isn't it done?" he cried, his blue eyes staring at her in indignation.
+"Then I'm goin' be-out it."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the sort. It will be done in five minutes. It is
+only half-past twelve."
+
+"They'll be beginnin'," the boy half cried, half shouted.
+
+"You won't die if they do," said the mother. "Besides, it's only
+half-past twelve, so you've a full hour."
+
+The lad began hastily to lay the table, and directly the three sat down.
+They were eating batter-pudding and jam, when the boy jumped off his
+chair and stood perfectly stiff. Some distance away could be heard the
+first small braying of a merry-go-round, and the tooting of a horn. His
+face quivered as he looked at his mother.
+
+"I told you!" he said, running to the dresser for his cap.
+
+"Take your pudding in your hand--and it's only five past one, so you
+were wrong--you haven't got your twopence," cried the mother in a
+breath.
+
+The boy came back, bitterly disappointed, for his twopence, then went
+off without a word.
+
+"I want to go, I want to go," said Annie, beginning to cry.
+
+"Well, and you shall go, whining, wizzening little stick!" said the
+mother. And later in the afternoon she trudged up the hill under the
+tall hedge with her child. The hay was gathered from the fields, and
+cattle were turned on to the eddish. It was warm, peaceful.
+
+Mrs. Morel did not like the wakes. There were two sets of horses, one
+going by steam, one pulled round by a pony; three organs were grinding,
+and there came odd cracks of pistol-shots, fearful screeching of the
+cocoanut man's rattle, shouts of the Aunt Sally man, screeches from the
+peep-show lady. The mother perceived her son gazing enraptured outside
+the Lion Wallace booth, at the pictures of this famous lion that had
+killed a negro and maimed for life two white men. She left him alone,
+and went to get Annie a spin of toffee. Presently the lad stood in front
+of her, wildly excited.
+
+"You never said you was coming--isn't the' a lot of things?--that lion's
+killed three men--I've spent my tuppence--an' look here."
+
+He pulled from his pocket two egg-cups, with pink moss-roses on them.
+
+"I got these from that stall where y'ave ter get them marbles in
+them holes. An' I got these two in two goes-'aepenny a go-they've got
+moss-roses on, look here. I wanted these."
+
+She knew he wanted them for her.
+
+"H'm!" she said, pleased. "They ARE pretty!"
+
+"Shall you carry 'em, 'cause I'm frightened o' breakin' 'em?"
+
+He was tipful of excitement now she had come, led her about the ground,
+showed her everything. Then, at the peep-show, she explained the
+pictures, in a sort of story, to which he listened as if spellbound. He
+would not leave her. All the time he stuck close to her, bristling with
+a small boy's pride of her. For no other woman looked such a lady as she
+did, in her little black bonnet and her cloak. She smiled when she saw
+women she knew. When she was tired she said to her son:
+
+"Well, are you coming now, or later?"
+
+"Are you goin' a'ready?" he cried, his face full of reproach.
+
+"Already? It is past four, I know."
+
+"What are you goin' a'ready for?" he lamented.
+
+"You needn't come if you don't want," she said.
+
+And she went slowly away with her little girl, whilst her son stood
+watching her, cut to the heart to let her go, and yet unable to leave
+the wakes. As she crossed the open ground in front of the Moon and Stars
+she heard men shouting, and smelled the beer, and hurried a little,
+thinking her husband was probably in the bar.
+
+At about half-past six her son came home, tired now, rather pale, and
+somewhat wretched. He was miserable, though he did not know it, because
+he had let her go alone. Since she had gone, he had not enjoyed his
+wakes.
+
+"Has my dad been?" he asked.
+
+"No," said the mother.
+
+"He's helping to wait at the Moon and Stars. I seed him through that
+black tin stuff wi' holes in, on the window, wi' his sleeves rolled up."
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed the mother shortly. "He's got no money. An' he'll be
+satisfied if he gets his 'lowance, whether they give him more or not."
+
+When the light was fading, and Mrs. Morel could see no more to sew, she
+rose and went to the door. Everywhere was the sound of excitement, the
+restlessness of the holiday, that at last infected her. She went
+out into the side garden. Women were coming home from the wakes, the
+children hugging a white lamb with green legs, or a wooden horse.
+Occasionally a man lurched past, almost as full as he could carry.
+Sometimes a good husband came along with his family, peacefully. But
+usually the women and children were alone. The stay-at-home mothers
+stood gossiping at the corners of the alley, as the twilight sank,
+folding their arms under their white aprons.
+
+Mrs. Morel was alone, but she was used to it. Her son and her little
+girl slept upstairs; so, it seemed, her home was there behind her,
+fixed and stable. But she felt wretched with the coming child. The world
+seemed a dreary place, where nothing else would happen for her--at
+least until William grew up. But for herself, nothing but this dreary
+endurance--till the children grew up. And the children! She could not
+afford to have this third. She did not want it. The father was serving
+beer in a public house, swilling himself drunk. She despised him, and
+was tied to him. This coming child was too much for her. If it were not
+for William and Annie, she was sick of it, the struggle with poverty and
+ugliness and meanness.
+
+She went into the front garden, feeling too heavy to take herself out,
+yet unable to stay indoors. The heat suffocated her. And looking ahead,
+the prospect of her life made her feel as if she were buried alive.
+
+The front garden was a small square with a privet hedge. There she
+stood, trying to soothe herself with the scent of flowers and the
+fading, beautiful evening. Opposite her small gate was the stile that
+led uphill, under the tall hedge between the burning glow of the cut
+pastures. The sky overhead throbbed and pulsed with light. The glow sank
+quickly off the field; the earth and the hedges smoked dusk. As it grew
+dark, a ruddy glare came out on the hilltop, and out of the glare the
+diminished commotion of the fair.
+
+Sometimes, down the trough of darkness formed by the path under the
+hedges, men came lurching home. One young man lapsed into a run down
+the steep bit that ended the hill, and went with a crash into the stile.
+Mrs. Morel shuddered. He picked himself up, swearing viciously, rather
+pathetically, as if he thought the stile had wanted to hurt him.
+
+She went indoors, wondering if things were never going to alter. She was
+beginning by now to realise that they would not. She seemed so far
+away from her girlhood, she wondered if it were the same person walking
+heavily up the back garden at the Bottoms as had run so lightly up the
+breakwater at Sheerness ten years before.
+
+"What have I to do with it?" she said to herself. "What have I to do
+with all this? Even the child I am going to have! It doesn't seem as if
+I were taken into account."
+
+Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes
+one's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were
+slurred over.
+
+"I wait," Mrs. Morel said to herself--"I wait, and what I wait for can
+never come."
+
+Then she straightened the kitchen, lit the lamp, mended the fire, looked
+out the washing for the next day, and put it to soak. After which
+she sat down to her sewing. Through the long hours her needle flashed
+regularly through the stuff. Occasionally she sighed, moving to relieve
+herself. And all the time she was thinking how to make the most of what
+she had, for the children's sakes.
+
+At half-past eleven her husband came. His cheeks were very red and
+very shiny above his black moustache. His head nodded slightly. He was
+pleased with himself.
+
+"Oh! Oh! waitin' for me, lass? I've bin 'elpin' Anthony, an' what's
+think he's gen me? Nowt b'r a lousy hae'f-crown, an' that's ivry
+penny--"
+
+"He thinks you've made the rest up in beer," she said shortly.
+
+"An' I 'aven't--that I 'aven't. You b'lieve me, I've 'ad very little
+this day, I have an' all." His voice went tender. "Here, an' I browt
+thee a bit o' brandysnap, an' a cocoanut for th' children." He laid the
+gingerbread and the cocoanut, a hairy object, on the table. "Nay, tha
+niver said thankyer for nowt i' thy life, did ter?"
+
+As a compromise, she picked up the cocoanut and shook it, to see if it
+had any milk.
+
+"It's a good 'un, you may back yer life o' that. I got it fra' Bill
+Hodgkisson. 'Bill,' I says, 'tha non wants them three nuts, does ter?
+Arena ter for gi'ein' me one for my bit of a lad an' wench?' 'I ham,
+Walter, my lad,' 'e says; 'ta'e which on 'em ter's a mind.' An' so I
+took one, an' thanked 'im. I didn't like ter shake it afore 'is eyes,
+but 'e says, 'Tha'd better ma'e sure it's a good un, Walt.' An' so, yer
+see, I knowed it was. He's a nice chap, is Bill Hodgkisson, e's a nice
+chap!"
+
+"A man will part with anything so long as he's drunk, and you're drunk
+along with him," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Eh, tha mucky little 'ussy, who's drunk, I sh'd like ter know?" said
+Morel. He was extraordinarily pleased with himself, because of his day's
+helping to wait in the Moon and Stars. He chattered on.
+
+Mrs. Morel, very tired, and sick of his babble, went to bed as quickly
+as possible, while he raked the fire.
+
+Mrs. Morel came of a good old burgher family, famous independents
+who had fought with Colonel Hutchinson, and who remained stout
+Congregationalists. Her grandfather had gone bankrupt in the lace-market
+at a time when so many lace-manufacturers were ruined in Nottingham. Her
+father, George Coppard, was an engineer--a large, handsome, haughty
+man, proud of his fair skin and blue eyes, but more proud still of his
+integrity. Gertrude resembled her mother in her small build. But her
+temper, proud and unyielding, she had from the Coppards.
+
+George Coppard was bitterly galled by his own poverty. He became foreman
+of the engineers in the dockyard at Sheerness. Mrs. Morel--Gertrude--was
+the second daughter. She favoured her mother, loved her mother best of
+all; but she had the Coppards' clear, defiant blue eyes and their broad
+brow. She remembered to have hated her father's overbearing manner
+towards her gentle, humorous, kindly-souled mother. She remembered
+running over the breakwater at Sheerness and finding the boat. She
+remembered to have been petted and flattered by all the men when she had
+gone to the dockyard, for she was a delicate, rather proud child. She
+remembered the funny old mistress, whose assistant she had become, whom
+she had loved to help in the private school. And she still had the Bible
+that John Field had given her. She used to walk home from chapel
+with John Field when she was nineteen. He was the son of a well-to-do
+tradesman, had been to college in London, and was to devote himself to
+business.
+
+She could always recall in detail a September Sunday afternoon, when
+they had sat under the vine at the back of her father's house. The sun
+came through the chinks of the vine-leaves and made beautiful patterns,
+like a lace scarf, falling on her and on him. Some of the leaves were
+clean yellow, like yellow flat flowers.
+
+"Now sit still," he had cried. "Now your hair, I don't know what it IS
+like! It's as bright as copper and gold, as red as burnt copper, and
+it has gold threads where the sun shines on it. Fancy their saying it's
+brown. Your mother calls it mouse-colour."
+
+She had met his brilliant eyes, but her clear face scarcely showed the
+elation which rose within her.
+
+"But you say you don't like business," she pursued.
+
+"I don't. I hate it!" he cried hotly.
+
+"And you would like to go into the ministry," she half implored.
+
+"I should. I should love it, if I thought I could make a first-rate
+preacher."
+
+"Then why don't you--why DON'T you?" Her voice rang with defiance. "If I
+were a man, nothing would stop me."
+
+She held her head erect. He was rather timid before her.
+
+"But my father's so stiff-necked. He means to put me into the business,
+and I know he'll do it."
+
+"But if you're a MAN?" she had cried.
+
+"Being a man isn't everything," he replied, frowning with puzzled
+helplessness.
+
+Now, as she moved about her work at the Bottoms, with some experience of
+what being a man meant, she knew that it was NOT everything.
+
+At twenty, owing to her health, she had left Sheerness. Her father had
+retired home to Nottingham. John Field's father had been ruined; the
+son had gone as a teacher in Norwood. She did not hear of him until, two
+years later, she made determined inquiry. He had married his landlady, a
+woman of forty, a widow with property.
+
+And still Mrs. Morel preserved John Field's Bible. She did not now
+believe him to be--Well, she understood pretty well what he might or
+might not have been. So she preserved his Bible, and kept his memory
+intact in her heart, for her own sake. To her dying day, for thirty-five
+years, she did not speak of him.
+
+When she was twenty-three years old, she met, at a Christmas party, a
+young man from the Erewash Valley. Morel was then twenty-seven years
+old. He was well set-up, erect, and very smart. He had wavy black hair
+that shone again, and a vigorous black beard that had never been shaved.
+His cheeks were ruddy, and his red, moist mouth was noticeable because
+he laughed so often and so heartily. He had that rare thing, a rich,
+ringing laugh. Gertrude Coppard had watched him, fascinated. He was
+so full of colour and animation, his voice ran so easily into comic
+grotesque, he was so ready and so pleasant with everybody. Her own
+father had a rich fund of humour, but it was satiric. This man's was
+different: soft, non-intellectual, warm, a kind of gambolling.
+
+She herself was opposite. She had a curious, receptive mind which found
+much pleasure and amusement in listening to other folk. She was clever
+in leading folk to talk. She loved ideas, and was considered very
+intellectual. What she liked most of all was an argument on religion or
+philosophy or politics with some educated man. This she did not often
+enjoy. So she always had people tell her about themselves, finding her
+pleasure so.
+
+In her person she was rather small and delicate, with a large brow, and
+dropping bunches of brown silk curls. Her blue eyes were very straight,
+honest, and searching. She had the beautiful hands of the Coppards.
+Her dress was always subdued. She wore dark blue silk, with a peculiar
+silver chain of silver scallops. This, and a heavy brooch of twisted
+gold, was her only ornament. She was still perfectly intact, deeply
+religious, and full of beautiful candour.
+
+Walter Morel seemed melted away before her. She was to the miner that
+thing of mystery and fascination, a lady. When she spoke to him, it was
+with a southern pronunciation and a purity of English which thrilled
+him to hear. She watched him. He danced well, as if it were natural and
+joyous in him to dance. His grandfather was a French refugee who had
+married an English barmaid--if it had been a marriage. Gertrude Coppard
+watched the young miner as he danced, a certain subtle exultation like
+glamour in his movement, and his face the flower of his body, ruddy,
+with tumbled black hair, and laughing alike whatever partner he bowed
+above. She thought him rather wonderful, never having met anyone like
+him. Her father was to her the type of all men. And George Coppard,
+proud in his bearing, handsome, and rather bitter; who preferred
+theology in reading, and who drew near in sympathy only to one man, the
+Apostle Paul; who was harsh in government, and in familiarity ironic;
+who ignored all sensuous pleasure:--he was very different from the
+miner. Gertrude herself was rather contemptuous of dancing; she had not
+the slightest inclination towards that accomplishment, and had never
+learned even a Roger de Coverley. She was puritan, like her father,
+high-minded, and really stern. Therefore the dusky, golden softness of
+this man's sensuous flame of life, that flowed off his flesh like the
+flame from a candle, not baffled and gripped into incandescence by
+thought and spirit as her life was, seemed to her something wonderful,
+beyond her.
+
+He came and bowed above her. A warmth radiated through her as if she had
+drunk wine.
+
+"Now do come and have this one wi' me," he said caressively. "It's easy,
+you know. I'm pining to see you dance."
+
+She had told him before she could not dance. She glanced at his humility
+and smiled. Her smile was very beautiful. It moved the man so that he
+forgot everything.
+
+"No, I won't dance," she said softly. Her words came clean and ringing.
+
+Not knowing what he was doing--he often did the right thing by
+instinct--he sat beside her, inclining reverentially.
+
+"But you mustn't miss your dance," she reproved.
+
+
+"Nay, I don't want to dance that--it's not one as I care about."
+
+"Yet you invited me to it."
+
+He laughed very heartily at this.
+
+"I never thought o' that. Tha'rt not long in taking the curl out of me."
+
+It was her turn to laugh quickly.
+
+"You don't look as if you'd come much uncurled," she said.
+
+"I'm like a pig's tail, I curl because I canna help it," he laughed,
+rather boisterously.
+
+"And you are a miner!" she exclaimed in surprise.
+
+"Yes. I went down when I was ten."
+
+She looked at him in wondering dismay.
+
+"When you were ten! And wasn't it very hard?" she asked.
+
+"You soon get used to it. You live like th' mice, an' you pop out at
+night to see what's going on."
+
+"It makes me feel blind," she frowned.
+
+"Like a moudiwarp!" he laughed. "Yi, an' there's some chaps as does
+go round like moudiwarps." He thrust his face forward in the blind,
+snout-like way of a mole, seeming to sniff and peer for direction. "They
+dun though!" he protested naively. "Tha niver seed such a way they get
+in. But tha mun let me ta'e thee down some time, an' tha can see for
+thysen."
+
+She looked at him, startled. This was a new tract of life suddenly
+opened before her. She realised the life of the miners, hundreds of them
+toiling below earth and coming up at evening. He seemed to her noble. He
+risked his life daily, and with gaiety. She looked at him, with a touch
+of appeal in her pure humility.
+
+"Shouldn't ter like it?" he asked tenderly. "'Appen not, it 'ud dirty
+thee."
+
+She had never been "thee'd" and "thou'd" before.
+
+The next Christmas they were married, and for three months she was
+perfectly happy: for six months she was very happy.
+
+He had signed the pledge, and wore the blue ribbon of a tee-totaller: he
+was nothing if not showy. They lived, she thought, in his own house.
+It was small, but convenient enough, and quite nicely furnished,
+with solid, worthy stuff that suited her honest soul. The women, her
+neighbours, were rather foreign to her, and Morel's mother and sisters
+were apt to sneer at her ladylike ways. But she could perfectly well
+live by herself, so long as she had her husband close.
+
+Sometimes, when she herself wearied of love-talk, she tried to open her
+heart seriously to him. She saw him listen deferentially, but without
+understanding. This killed her efforts at a finer intimacy, and she had
+flashes of fear. Sometimes he was restless of an evening: it was not
+enough for him just to be near her, she realised. She was glad when he
+set himself to little jobs.
+
+He was a remarkably handy man--could make or mend anything. So she would
+say:
+
+"I do like that coal-rake of your mother's--it is small and natty."
+
+"Does ter, my wench? Well, I made that, so I can make thee one!"
+
+"What! why, it's a steel one!"
+
+"An' what if it is! Tha s'lt ha'e one very similar, if not exactly
+same."
+
+She did not mind the mess, nor the hammering and noise. He was busy and
+happy.
+
+But in the seventh month, when she was brushing his Sunday coat, she
+felt papers in the breast pocket, and, seized with a sudden curiosity,
+took them out to read. He very rarely wore the frock-coat he was married
+in: and it had not occurred to her before to feel curious concerning the
+papers. They were the bills of the household furniture, still unpaid.
+
+"Look here," she said at night, after he was washed and had had his
+dinner. "I found these in the pocket of your wedding-coat. Haven't you
+settled the bills yet?"
+
+"No. I haven't had a chance."
+
+"But you told me all was paid. I had better go into Nottingham on
+Saturday and settle them. I don't like sitting on another man's chairs
+and eating from an unpaid table."
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"I can have your bank-book, can't I?"
+
+"Tha can ha'e it, for what good it'll be to thee."
+
+"I thought--" she began. He had told her he had a good bit of money left
+over. But she realised it was no use asking questions. She sat rigid
+with bitterness and indignation.
+
+The next day she went down to see his mother.
+
+"Didn't you buy the furniture for Walter?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, I did," tartly retorted the elder woman.
+
+"And how much did he give you to pay for it?"
+
+The elder woman was stung with fine indignation.
+
+"Eighty pound, if you're so keen on knowin'," she replied.
+
+"Eighty pounds! But there are forty-two pounds still owing!"
+
+"I can't help that."
+
+"But where has it all gone?"
+
+"You'll find all the papers, I think, if you look--beside ten pound as
+he owed me, an' six pound as the wedding cost down here."
+
+"Six pounds!" echoed Gertrude Morel. It seemed to her monstrous that,
+after her own father had paid so heavily for her wedding, six pounds
+more should have been squandered in eating and drinking at Walter's
+parents' house, at his expense.
+
+"And how much has he sunk in his houses?" she asked.
+
+"His houses--which houses?"
+
+Gertrude Morel went white to the lips. He had told her the house he
+lived in, and the next one, was his own.
+
+"I thought the house we live in--" she began.
+
+"They're my houses, those two," said the mother-in-law. "And not clear
+either. It's as much as I can do to keep the mortgage interest paid."
+
+Gertrude sat white and silent. She was her father now.
+
+"Then we ought to be paying you rent," she said coldly.
+
+"Walter is paying me rent," replied the mother.
+
+"And what rent?" asked Gertrude.
+
+"Six and six a week," retorted the mother.
+
+It was more than the house was worth. Gertrude held her head erect,
+looked straight before her.
+
+"It is lucky to be you," said the elder woman, bitingly, "to have a
+husband as takes all the worry of the money, and leaves you a free
+hand."
+
+The young wife was silent.
+
+She said very little to her husband, but her manner had changed towards
+him. Something in her proud, honourable soul had crystallised out hard
+as rock.
+
+When October came in, she thought only of Christmas. Two years ago, at
+Christmas, she had met him. Last Christmas she had married him. This
+Christmas she would bear him a child.
+
+"You don't dance yourself, do you, missis?" asked her nearest neighbour,
+in October, when there was great talk of opening a dancing-class over
+the Brick and Tile Inn at Bestwood.
+
+"No--I never had the least inclination to," Mrs. Morel replied.
+
+"Fancy! An' how funny as you should ha' married your Mester. You know
+he's quite a famous one for dancing."
+
+"I didn't know he was famous," laughed Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Yea, he is though! Why, he ran that dancing-class in the Miners' Arms
+club-room for over five year."
+
+"Did he?"
+
+"Yes, he did." The other woman was defiant. "An' it was thronged
+every Tuesday, and Thursday, an' Sat'day--an' there WAS carryin's-on,
+accordin' to all accounts."
+
+This kind of thing was gall and bitterness to Mrs. Morel, and she had
+a fair share of it. The women did not spare her, at first; for she was
+superior, though she could not help it.
+
+He began to be rather late in coming home.
+
+"They're working very late now, aren't they?" she said to her
+washer-woman.
+
+"No later than they allers do, I don't think. But they stop to have
+their pint at Ellen's, an' they get talkin', an' there you are! Dinner
+stone cold--an' it serves 'em right."
+
+"But Mr. Morel does not take any drink."
+
+The woman dropped the clothes, looked at Mrs. Morel, then went on with
+her work, saying nothing.
+
+Gertrude Morel was very ill when the boy was born. Morel was good to
+her, as good as gold. But she felt very lonely, miles away from her own
+people. She felt lonely with him now, and his presence only made it more
+intense.
+
+The boy was small and frail at first, but he came on quickly. He was
+a beautiful child, with dark gold ringlets, and dark-blue eyes which
+changed gradually to a clear grey. His mother loved him passionately.
+He came just when her own bitterness of disillusion was hardest to bear;
+when her faith in life was shaken, and her soul felt dreary and lonely.
+She made much of the child, and the father was jealous.
+
+At last Mrs. Morel despised her husband. She turned to the child; she
+turned from the father. He had begun to neglect her; the novelty of his
+own home was gone. He had no grit, she said bitterly to herself. What
+he felt just at the minute, that was all to him. He could not abide by
+anything. There was nothing at the back of all his show.
+
+There began a battle between the husband and wife--a fearful, bloody
+battle that ended only with the death of one. She fought to make him
+undertake his own responsibilities, to make him fulfill his obligations.
+But he was too different from her. His nature was purely sensuous, and
+she strove to make him moral, religious. She tried to force him to face
+things. He could not endure it--it drove him out of his mind.
+
+While the baby was still tiny, the father's temper had become so
+irritable that it was not to be trusted. The child had only to give a
+little trouble when the man began to bully. A little more, and the hard
+hands of the collier hit the baby. Then Mrs. Morel loathed her husband,
+loathed him for days; and he went out and drank; and she cared very
+little what he did. Only, on his return, she scathed him with her
+satire.
+
+The estrangement between them caused him, knowingly or unknowingly,
+grossly to offend her where he would not have done.
+
+William was only one year old, and his mother was proud of him, he was
+so pretty. She was not well off now, but her sisters kept the boy in
+clothes. Then, with his little white hat curled with an ostrich feather,
+and his white coat, he was a joy to her, the twining wisps of hair
+clustering round his head. Mrs. Morel lay listening, one Sunday morning,
+to the chatter of the father and child downstairs. Then she dozed off.
+When she came downstairs, a great fire glowed in the grate, the room was
+hot, the breakfast was roughly laid, and seated in his armchair, against
+the chimney-piece, sat Morel, rather timid; and standing between
+his legs, the child--cropped like a sheep, with such an odd round
+poll--looking wondering at her; and on a newspaper spread out upon
+the hearthrug, a myriad of crescent-shaped curls, like the petals of a
+marigold scattered in the reddening firelight.
+
+Mrs. Morel stood still. It was her first baby. She went very white, and
+was unable to speak.
+
+"What dost think o' 'im?" Morel laughed uneasily.
+
+She gripped her two fists, lifted them, and came forward. Morel shrank
+back.
+
+"I could kill you, I could!" she said. She choked with rage, her two
+fists uplifted.
+
+"Yer non want ter make a wench on 'im," Morel said, in a frightened
+tone, bending his head to shield his eyes from hers. His attempt at
+laughter had vanished.
+
+The mother looked down at the jagged, close-clipped head of her child.
+She put her hands on his hair, and stroked and fondled his head.
+
+"Oh--my boy!" she faltered. Her lip trembled, her face broke, and,
+snatching up the child, she buried her face in his shoulder and cried
+painfully. She was one of those women who cannot cry; whom it hurts as
+it hurts a man. It was like ripping something out of her, her sobbing.
+
+Morel sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands gripped together till
+the knuckles were white. He gazed in the fire, feeling almost stunned,
+as if he could not breathe.
+
+Presently she came to an end, soothed the child and cleared away the
+breakfast-table. She left the newspaper, littered with curls, spread
+upon the hearthrug. At last her husband gathered it up and put it at
+the back of the fire. She went about her work with closed mouth and very
+quiet. Morel was subdued. He crept about wretchedly, and his meals were
+a misery that day. She spoke to him civilly, and never alluded to what
+he had done. But he felt something final had happened.
+
+Afterwards she said she had been silly, that the boy's hair would have
+had to be cut, sooner or later. In the end, she even brought herself to
+say to her husband it was just as well he had played barber when he
+did. But she knew, and Morel knew, that that act had caused something
+momentous to take place in her soul. She remembered the scene all her
+life, as one in which she had suffered the most intensely.
+
+This act of masculine clumsiness was the spear through the side of her
+love for Morel. Before, while she had striven against him bitterly, she
+had fretted after him, as if he had gone astray from her. Now she ceased
+to fret for his love: he was an outsider to her. This made life much
+more bearable.
+
+Nevertheless, she still continued to strive with him. She still had her
+high moral sense, inherited from generations of Puritans. It was now a
+religious instinct, and she was almost a fanatic with him, because
+she loved him, or had loved him. If he sinned, she tortured him. If he
+drank, and lied, was often a poltroon, sometimes a knave, she wielded
+the lash unmercifully.
+
+The pity was, she was too much his opposite. She could not be content
+with the little he might be; she would have him the much that he ought
+to be. So, in seeking to make him nobler than he could be, she destroyed
+him. She injured and hurt and scarred herself, but she lost none of her
+worth. She also had the children.
+
+He drank rather heavily, though not more than many miners, and always
+beer, so that whilst his health was affected, it was never injured.
+The week-end was his chief carouse. He sat in the Miners' Arms until
+turning-out time every Friday, every Saturday, and every Sunday evening.
+On Monday and Tuesday he had to get up and reluctantly leave towards ten
+o'clock. Sometimes he stayed at home on Wednesday and Thursday evenings,
+or was only out for an hour. He practically never had to miss work owing
+to his drinking.
+
+But although he was very steady at work, his wages fell off. He was
+blab-mouthed, a tongue-wagger. Authority was hateful to him, therefore
+he could only abuse the pit-managers. He would say, in the Palmerston:
+
+"Th' gaffer come down to our stall this morning, an' 'e says, 'You know,
+Walter, this 'ere'll not do. What about these props?' An' I says to him,
+'Why, what art talkin' about? What d'st mean about th' props?' 'It'll
+never do, this 'ere,' 'e says. 'You'll be havin' th' roof in, one o'
+these days.' An' I says, 'Tha'd better stan' on a bit o' clunch, then,
+an' hold it up wi' thy 'ead.' So 'e wor that mad, 'e cossed an' 'e
+swore, an' t'other chaps they did laugh." Morel was a good mimic. He
+imitated the manager's fat, squeaky voice, with its attempt at good
+English.
+
+"'I shan't have it, Walter. Who knows more about it, me or you?' So
+I says, 'I've niver fun out how much tha' knows, Alfred. It'll 'appen
+carry thee ter bed an' back."'
+
+So Morel would go on to the amusement of his boon companions. And some
+of this would be true. The pit-manager was not an educated man. He had
+been a boy along with Morel, so that, while the two disliked each other,
+they more or less took each other for granted. But Alfred Charlesworth
+did not forgive the butty these public-house sayings. Consequently,
+although Morel was a good miner, sometimes earning as much as five
+pounds a week when he married, he came gradually to have worse and worse
+stalls, where the coal was thin, and hard to get, and unprofitable.
+
+Also, in summer, the pits are slack. Often, on bright sunny mornings,
+the men are seen trooping home again at ten, eleven, or twelve o'clock.
+No empty trucks stand at the pit-mouth. The women on the hillside look
+across as they shake the hearthrug against the fence, and count the
+wagons the engine is taking along the line up the valley. And the
+children, as they come from school at dinner-time, looking down the
+fields and seeing the wheels on the headstocks standing, say:
+
+"Minton's knocked off. My dad'll be at home."
+
+And there is a sort of shadow over all, women and children and men,
+because money will be short at the end of the week.
+
+Morel was supposed to give his wife thirty shillings a week, to
+provide everything--rent, food, clothes, clubs, insurance, doctors.
+Occasionally, if he were flush, he gave her thirty-five. But these
+occasions by no means balanced those when he gave her twenty-five. In
+winter, with a decent stall, the miner might earn fifty or fifty-five
+shillings a week. Then he was happy. On Friday night, Saturday, and
+Sunday, he spent royally, getting rid of his sovereign or thereabouts.
+And out of so much, he scarcely spared the children an extra penny or
+bought them a pound of apples. It all went in drink. In the bad times,
+matters were more worrying, but he was not so often drunk, so that Mrs.
+Morel used to say:
+
+"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be short, for when he's flush, there
+isn't a minute of peace."
+
+If he earned forty shillings he kept ten; from thirty-five he kept five;
+from thirty-two he kept four; from twenty-eight he kept three; from
+twenty-four he kept two; from twenty he kept one-and-six; from eighteen
+he kept a shilling; from sixteen he kept sixpence. He never saved a
+penny, and he gave his wife no opportunity of saving; instead, she had
+occasionally to pay his debts; not public-house debts, for those never
+were passed on to the women, but debts when he had bought a canary, or a
+fancy walking-stick.
+
+At the wakes time Morel was working badly, and Mrs. Morel was trying
+to save against her confinement. So it galled her bitterly to think
+he should be out taking his pleasure and spending money, whilst she
+remained at home, harassed. There were two days' holiday. On the Tuesday
+morning Morel rose early. He was in good spirits. Quite early, before
+six o'clock, she heard him whistling away to himself downstairs. He
+had a pleasant way of whistling, lively and musical. He nearly always
+whistled hymns. He had been a choir-boy with a beautiful voice, and had
+taken solos in Southwell cathedral. His morning whistling alone betrayed
+it.
+
+His wife lay listening to him tinkering away in the garden, his
+whistling ringing out as he sawed and hammered away. It always gave
+her a sense of warmth and peace to hear him thus as she lay in bed, the
+children not yet awake, in the bright early morning, happy in his man's
+fashion.
+
+At nine o'clock, while the children with bare legs and feet were sitting
+playing on the sofa, and the mother was washing up, he came in from his
+carpentry, his sleeves rolled up, his waistcoat hanging open. He was
+still a good-looking man, with black, wavy hair, and a large black
+moustache. His face was perhaps too much inflamed, and there was about
+him a look almost of peevishness. But now he was jolly. He went straight
+to the sink where his wife was washing up.
+
+"What, are thee there!" he said boisterously. "Sluthe off an' let me
+wesh mysen."
+
+"You may wait till I've finished," said his wife.
+
+"Oh, mun I? An' what if I shonna?"
+
+This good-humoured threat amused Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Then you can go and wash yourself in the soft-water tub."
+
+"Ha! I can' an' a', tha mucky little 'ussy."
+
+With which he stood watching her a moment, then went away to wait for
+her.
+
+When he chose he could still make himself again a real gallant. Usually
+he preferred to go out with a scarf round his neck. Now, however, he
+made a toilet. There seemed so much gusto in the way he puffed and
+swilled as he washed himself, so much alacrity with which he hurried to
+the mirror in the kitchen, and, bending because it was too low for him,
+scrupulously parted his wet black hair, that it irritated Mrs. Morel. He
+put on a turn-down collar, a black bow, and wore his Sunday tail-coat.
+As such, he looked spruce, and what his clothes would not do, his
+instinct for making the most of his good looks would.
+
+At half-past nine Jerry Purdy came to call for his pal. Jerry was
+Morel's bosom friend, and Mrs. Morel disliked him. He was a tall,
+thin man, with a rather foxy face, the kind of face that seems to lack
+eyelashes. He walked with a stiff, brittle dignity, as if his head were
+on a wooden spring. His nature was cold and shrewd. Generous where he
+intended to be generous, he seemed to be very fond of Morel, and more or
+less to take charge of him.
+
+Mrs. Morel hated him. She had known his wife, who had died of
+consumption, and who had, at the end, conceived such a violent dislike
+of her husband, that if he came into her room it caused her haemorrhage.
+None of which Jerry had seemed to mind. And now his eldest daughter,
+a girl of fifteen, kept a poor house for him, and looked after the two
+younger children.
+
+"A mean, wizzen-hearted stick!" Mrs. Morel said of him.
+
+"I've never known Jerry mean in MY life," protested Morel. "A
+opener-handed and more freer chap you couldn't find anywhere, accordin'
+to my knowledge."
+
+"Open-handed to you," retorted Mrs. Morel. "But his fist is shut tight
+enough to his children, poor things."
+
+"Poor things! And what for are they poor things, I should like to know."
+
+But Mrs. Morel would not be appeased on Jerry's score.
+
+The subject of argument was seen, craning his thin neck over the
+scullery curtain. He caught Mrs. Morel's eye.
+
+"Mornin', missis! Mester in?"
+
+"Yes--he is."
+
+Jerry entered unasked, and stood by the kitchen doorway. He was not
+invited to sit down, but stood there, coolly asserting the rights of men
+and husbands.
+
+"A nice day," he said to Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Yes.
+
+"Grand out this morning--grand for a walk."
+
+"Do you mean YOU'RE going for a walk?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. We mean walkin' to Nottingham," he replied.
+
+"H'm!"
+
+The two men greeted each other, both glad: Jerry, however, full of
+assurance, Morel rather subdued, afraid to seem too jubilant in presence
+of his wife. But he laced his boots quickly, with spirit. They were
+going for a ten-mile walk across the fields to Nottingham. Climbing the
+hillside from the Bottoms, they mounted gaily into the morning. At the
+Moon and Stars they had their first drink, then on to the Old Spot. Then
+a long five miles of drought to carry them into Bulwell to a glorious
+pint of bitter. But they stayed in a field with some haymakers whose
+gallon bottle was full, so that, when they came in sight of the city,
+Morel was sleepy. The town spread upwards before them, smoking vaguely
+in the midday glare, fridging the crest away to the south with spires
+and factory bulks and chimneys. In the last field Morel lay down under
+an oak tree and slept soundly for over an hour. When he rose to go
+forward he felt queer.
+
+The two had dinner in the Meadows, with Jerry's sister, then repaired
+to the Punch Bowl, where they mixed in the excitement of pigeon-racing.
+Morel never in his life played cards, considering them as having some
+occult, malevolent power--"the devil's pictures," he called them! But
+he was a master of skittles and of dominoes. He took a challenge from
+a Newark man, on skittles. All the men in the old, long bar took sides,
+betting either one way or the other. Morel took off his coat. Jerry held
+the hat containing the money. The men at the tables watched. Some
+stood with their mugs in their hands. Morel felt his big wooden ball
+carefully, then launched it. He played havoc among the nine-pins, and
+won half a crown, which restored him to solvency.
+
+By seven o'clock the two were in good condition. They caught the 7.30
+train home.
+
+In the afternoon the Bottoms was intolerable. Every inhabitant remaining
+was out of doors. The women, in twos and threes, bareheaded and in white
+aprons, gossiped in the alley between the blocks. Men, having a rest
+between drinks, sat on their heels and talked. The place smelled stale;
+the slate roofs glistered in the arid heat.
+
+Mrs. Morel took the little girl down to the brook in the meadows, which
+were not more than two hundred yards away. The water ran quickly over
+stones and broken pots. Mother and child leaned on the rail of the old
+sheep-bridge, watching. Up at the dipping-hole, at the other end of the
+meadow, Mrs. Morel could see the naked forms of boys flashing round the
+deep yellow water, or an occasional bright figure dart glittering over
+the blackish stagnant meadow. She knew William was at the dipping-hole,
+and it was the dread of her life lest he should get drowned. Annie
+played under the tall old hedge, picking up alder cones, that she called
+currants. The child required much attention, and the flies were teasing.
+
+The children were put to bed at seven o'clock. Then she worked awhile.
+
+When Walter Morel and Jerry arrived at Bestwood they felt a load off
+their minds; a railway journey no longer impended, so they could put the
+finishing touches to a glorious day. They entered the Nelson with the
+satisfaction of returned travellers.
+
+The next day was a work-day, and the thought of it put a damper on the
+men's spirits. Most of them, moreover, had spent their money. Some were
+already rolling dismally home, to sleep in preparation for the morrow.
+Mrs. Morel, listening to their mournful singing, went indoors. Nine
+o'clock passed, and ten, and still "the pair" had not returned. On a
+doorstep somewhere a man was singing loudly, in a drawl: "Lead, kindly
+Light." Mrs. Morel was always indignant with the drunken men that they
+must sing that hymn when they got maudlin.
+
+"As if 'Genevieve' weren't good enough," she said.
+
+The kitchen was full of the scent of boiled herbs and hops. On the hob a
+large black saucepan steamed slowly. Mrs. Morel took a panchion, a great
+bowl of thick red earth, streamed a heap of white sugar into the bottom,
+and then, straining herself to the weight, was pouring in the liquor.
+
+Just then Morel came in. He had been very jolly in the Nelson, but
+coming home had grown irritable. He had not quite got over the feeling
+of irritability and pain, after having slept on the ground when he was
+so hot; and a bad conscience afflicted him as he neared the house.
+He did not know he was angry. But when the garden gate resisted his
+attempts to open it, he kicked it and broke the latch. He entered just
+as Mrs. Morel was pouring the infusion of herbs out of the saucepan.
+Swaying slightly, he lurched against the table. The boiling liquor
+pitched. Mrs. Morel started back.
+
+"Good gracious," she cried, "coming home in his drunkenness!"
+
+"Comin' home in his what?" he snarled, his hat over his eye.
+
+Suddenly her blood rose in a jet.
+
+"Say you're NOT drunk!" she flashed.
+
+She had put down her saucepan, and was stirring the sugar into the
+beer. He dropped his two hands heavily on the table, and thrust his face
+forwards at her.
+
+"'Say you're not drunk,'" he repeated. "Why, nobody but a nasty little
+bitch like you 'ud 'ave such a thought."
+
+He thrust his face forward at her.
+
+"There's money to bezzle with, if there's money for nothing else."
+
+"I've not spent a two-shillin' bit this day," he said.
+
+"You don't get as drunk as a lord on nothing," she replied. "And,"
+she cried, flashing into sudden fury, "if you've been sponging on your
+beloved Jerry, why, let him look after his children, for they need it."
+
+"It's a lie, it's a lie. Shut your face, woman."
+
+They were now at battle-pitch. Each forgot everything save the hatred of
+the other and the battle between them. She was fiery and furious as he.
+They went on till he called her a liar.
+
+"No," she cried, starting up, scarce able to breathe. "Don't call me
+that--you, the most despicable liar that ever walked in shoe-leather."
+She forced the last words out of suffocated lungs.
+
+"You're a liar!" he yelled, banging the table with his fist. "You're a
+liar, you're a liar."
+
+She stiffened herself, with clenched fists.
+
+"The house is filthy with you," she cried.
+
+"Then get out on it--it's mine. Get out on it!" he shouted. "It's me as
+brings th' money whoam, not thee. It's my house, not thine. Then ger out
+on't--ger out on't!"
+
+"And I would," she cried, suddenly shaken into tears of impotence. "Ah,
+wouldn't I, wouldn't I have gone long ago, but for those children. Ay,
+haven't I repented not going years ago, when I'd only the one"--suddenly
+drying into rage. "Do you think it's for YOU I stop--do you think I'd
+stop one minute for YOU?"
+
+"Go, then," he shouted, beside himself. "Go!"
+
+"No!" She faced round. "No," she cried loudly, "you shan't have it ALL
+your own way; you shan't do ALL you like. I've got those children to see
+to. My word," she laughed, "I should look well to leave them to you."
+
+"Go," he cried thickly, lifting his fist. He was afraid of her. "Go!"
+
+"I should be only too glad. I should laugh, laugh, my lord, if I could
+get away from you," she replied.
+
+He came up to her, his red face, with its bloodshot eyes, thrust
+forward, and gripped her arms. She cried in fear of him, struggled to be
+free. Coming slightly to himself, panting, he pushed her roughly to the
+outer door, and thrust her forth, slotting the bolt behind her with a
+bang. Then he went back into the kitchen, dropped into his armchair, his
+head, bursting full of blood, sinking between his knees. Thus he dipped
+gradually into a stupor, from exhaustion and intoxication.
+
+The moon was high and magnificent in the August night. Mrs. Morel,
+seared with passion, shivered to find herself out there in a great white
+light, that fell cold on her, and gave a shock to her inflamed soul.
+She stood for a few moments helplessly staring at the glistening great
+rhubarb leaves near the door. Then she got the air into her breast. She
+walked down the garden path, trembling in every limb, while the child
+boiled within her. For a while she could not control her consciousness;
+mechanically she went over the last scene, then over it again, certain
+phrases, certain moments coming each time like a brand red-hot down on
+her soul; and each time she enacted again the past hour, each time the
+brand came down at the same points, till the mark was burnt in, and the
+pain burnt out, and at last she came to herself. She must have been half
+an hour in this delirious condition. Then the presence of the night came
+again to her. She glanced round in fear. She had wandered to the side
+garden, where she was walking up and down the path beside the currant
+bushes under the long wall. The garden was a narrow strip, bounded from
+the road, that cut transversely between the blocks, by a thick thorn
+hedge.
+
+She hurried out of the side garden to the front, where she could stand
+as if in an immense gulf of white light, the moon streaming high in face
+of her, the moonlight standing up from the hills in front, and filling
+the valley where the Bottoms crouched, almost blindingly. There, panting
+and half weeping in reaction from the stress, she murmured to herself
+over and over again: "The nuisance! the nuisance!"
+
+She became aware of something about her. With an effort she roused
+herself to see what it was that penetrated her consciousness. The tall
+white lilies were reeling in the moonlight, and the air was charged with
+their perfume, as with a presence. Mrs. Morel gasped slightly in fear.
+She touched the big, pallid flowers on their petals, then shivered.
+They seemed to be stretching in the moonlight. She put her hand into
+one white bin: the gold scarcely showed on her fingers by moonlight. She
+bent down to look at the binful of yellow pollen; but it only appeared
+dusky. Then she drank a deep draught of the scent. It almost made her
+dizzy.
+
+Mrs. Morel leaned on the garden gate, looking out, and she lost herself
+awhile. She did not know what she thought. Except for a slight feeling
+of sickness, and her consciousness in the child, herself melted out like
+scent into the shiny, pale air. After a time the child, too, melted with
+her in the mixing-pot of moonlight, and she rested with the hills and
+lilies and houses, all swum together in a kind of swoon.
+
+When she came to herself she was tired for sleep. Languidly she looked
+about her; the clumps of white phlox seemed like bushes spread with
+linen; a moth ricochetted over them, and right across the garden.
+Following it with her eye roused her. A few whiffs of the raw, strong
+scent of phlox invigorated her. She passed along the path, hesitating at
+the white rose-bush. It smelled sweet and simple. She touched the white
+ruffles of the roses. Their fresh scent and cool, soft leaves reminded
+her of the morning-time and sunshine. She was very fond of them. But she
+was tired, and wanted to sleep. In the mysterious out-of-doors she felt
+forlorn.
+
+There was no noise anywhere. Evidently the children had not been
+wakened, or had gone to sleep again. A train, three miles away,
+roared across the valley. The night was very large, and very strange,
+stretching its hoary distances infinitely. And out of the silver-grey
+fog of darkness came sounds vague and hoarse: a corncrake not far off,
+sound of a train like a sigh, and distant shouts of men.
+
+Her quietened heart beginning to beat quickly again, she hurried down
+the side garden to the back of the house. Softly she lifted the latch;
+the door was still bolted, and hard against her. She rapped gently,
+waited, then rapped again. She must not rouse the children, nor the
+neighbours. He must be asleep, and he would not wake easily. Her heart
+began to burn to be indoors. She clung to the door-handle. Now it was
+cold; she would take a chill, and in her present condition!
+
+Putting her apron over her head and her arms, she hurried again to the
+side garden, to the window of the kitchen. Leaning on the sill, she
+could just see, under the blind, her husband's arms spread out on the
+table, and his black head on the board. He was sleeping with his face
+lying on the table. Something in his attitude made her feel tired of
+things. The lamp was burning smokily; she could tell by the copper
+colour of the light. She tapped at the window more and more noisily.
+Almost it seemed as if the glass would break. Still he did not wake up.
+
+After vain efforts, she began to shiver, partly from contact with the
+stone, and from exhaustion. Fearful always for the unborn child, she
+wondered what she could do for warmth. She went down to the coal-house,
+where there was an old hearthrug she had carried out for the rag-man the
+day before. This she wrapped over her shoulders. It was warm, if grimy.
+Then she walked up and down the garden path, peeping every now and then
+under the blind, knocking, and telling herself that in the end the very
+strain of his position must wake him.
+
+At last, after about an hour, she rapped long and low at the window.
+Gradually the sound penetrated to him. When, in despair, she had ceased
+to tap, she saw him stir, then lift his face blindly. The labouring of
+his heart hurt him into consciousness. She rapped imperatively at the
+window. He started awake. Instantly she saw his fists set and his
+eyes glare. He had not a grain of physical fear. If it had been
+twenty burglars, he would have gone blindly for them. He glared round,
+bewildered, but prepared to fight.
+
+"Open the door, Walter," she said coldly.
+
+His hands relaxed. It dawned on him what he had done. His head dropped,
+sullen and dogged. She saw him hurry to the door, heard the bolt chock.
+He tried the latch. It opened--and there stood the silver-grey night,
+fearful to him, after the tawny light of the lamp. He hurried back.
+
+When Mrs. Morel entered, she saw him almost running through the door
+to the stairs. He had ripped his collar off his neck in his haste to
+be gone ere she came in, and there it lay with bursten button-holes. It
+made her angry.
+
+She warmed and soothed herself. In her weariness forgetting everything,
+she moved about at the little tasks that remained to be done, set his
+breakfast, rinsed his pit-bottle, put his pit-clothes on the hearth
+to warm, set his pit-boots beside them, put him out a clean scarf and
+snap-bag and two apples, raked the fire, and went to bed. He was already
+dead asleep. His narrow black eyebrows were drawn up in a sort of
+peevish misery into his forehead while his cheeks' down-strokes, and his
+sulky mouth, seemed to be saying: "I don't care who you are nor what you
+are, I SHALL have my own way."
+
+Mrs. Morel knew him too well to look at him. As she unfastened her
+brooch at the mirror, she smiled faintly to see her face all smeared
+with the yellow dust of lilies. She brushed it off, and at last lay
+down. For some time her mind continued snapping and jetting sparks,
+but she was asleep before her husband awoke from the first sleep of his
+drunkenness.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE BIRTH OF PAUL, AND ANOTHER BATTLE
+
+AFTER such a scene as the last, Walter Morel was for some days abashed
+and ashamed, but he soon regained his old bullying indifference. Yet
+there was a slight shrinking, a diminishing in his assurance. Physically
+even, he shrank, and his fine full presence waned. He never grew in the
+least stout, so that, as he sank from his erect, assertive bearing, his
+physique seemed to contract along with his pride and moral strength.
+
+But now he realised how hard it was for his wife to drag about at her
+work, and, his sympathy quickened by penitence, hastened forward with
+his help. He came straight home from the pit, and stayed in at evening
+till Friday, and then he could not remain at home. But he was back again
+by ten o'clock, almost quite sober.
+
+He always made his own breakfast. Being a man who rose early and had
+plenty of time he did not, as some miners do, drag his wife out of bed
+at six o'clock. At five, sometimes earlier, he woke, got straight out of
+bed, and went downstairs. When she could not sleep, his wife lay waiting
+for this time, as for a period of peace. The only real rest seemed to be
+when he was out of the house.
+
+He went downstairs in his shirt and then struggled into his
+pit-trousers, which were left on the hearth to warm all night. There
+was always a fire, because Mrs. Morel raked. And the first sound in
+the house was the bang, bang of the poker against the raker, as Morel
+smashed the remainder of the coal to make the kettle, which was filled
+and left on the hob, finally boil. His cup and knife and fork, all he
+wanted except just the food, was laid ready on the table on a newspaper.
+Then he got his breakfast, made the tea, packed the bottom of the doors
+with rugs to shut out the draught, piled a big fire, and sat down to an
+hour of joy. He toasted his bacon on a fork and caught the drops of fat
+on his bread; then he put the rasher on his thick slice of bread, and
+cut off chunks with a clasp-knife, poured his tea into his saucer,
+and was happy. With his family about, meals were never so pleasant. He
+loathed a fork: it is a modern introduction which has still scarcely
+reached common people. What Morel preferred was a clasp-knife. Then, in
+solitude, he ate and drank, often sitting, in cold weather, on a little
+stool with his back to the warm chimney-piece, his food on the fender,
+his cup on the hearth. And then he read the last night's newspaper--what
+of it he could--spelling it over laboriously. He preferred to keep the
+blinds down and the candle lit even when it was daylight; it was the
+habit of the mine.
+
+At a quarter to six he rose, cut two thick slices of bread and butter,
+and put them in the white calico snap-bag. He filled his tin bottle with
+tea. Cold tea without milk or sugar was the drink he preferred for the
+pit. Then he pulled off his shirt, and put on his pit-singlet, a vest
+of thick flannel cut low round the neck, and with short sleeves like a
+chemise.
+
+Then he went upstairs to his wife with a cup of tea because she was ill,
+and because it occurred to him.
+
+"I've brought thee a cup o' tea, lass," he said.
+
+"Well, you needn't, for you know I don't like it," she replied.
+
+"Drink it up; it'll pop thee off to sleep again."
+
+She accepted the tea. It pleased him to see her take it and sip it.
+
+"I'll back my life there's no sugar in," she said.
+
+"Yi--there's one big 'un," he replied, injured.
+
+"It's a wonder," she said, sipping again.
+
+She had a winsome face when her hair was loose. He loved her to grumble
+at him in this manner. He looked at her again, and went, without any
+sort of leave-taking. He never took more than two slices of bread and
+butter to eat in the pit, so an apple or an orange was a treat to him.
+He always liked it when she put one out for him. He tied a scarf round
+his neck, put on his great, heavy boots, his coat, with the big pocket,
+that carried his snap-bag and his bottle of tea, and went forth into
+the fresh morning air, closing, without locking, the door behind him. He
+loved the early morning, and the walk across the fields. So he appeared
+at the pit-top, often with a stalk from the hedge between his teeth,
+which he chewed all day to keep his mouth moist, down the mine, feeling
+quite as happy as when he was in the field.
+
+Later, when the time for the baby grew nearer, he would bustle round
+in his slovenly fashion, poking out the ashes, rubbing the fireplace,
+sweeping the house before he went to work. Then, feeling very
+self-righteous, he went upstairs.
+
+"Now I'm cleaned up for thee: tha's no 'casions ter stir a peg all day,
+but sit and read thy books."
+
+Which made her laugh, in spite of her indignation.
+
+"And the dinner cooks itself?" she answered.
+
+"Eh, I know nowt about th' dinner."
+
+"You'd know if there weren't any."
+
+"Ay, 'appen so," he answered, departing.
+
+When she got downstairs, she would find the house tidy, but dirty. She
+could not rest until she had thoroughly cleaned; so she went down to the
+ash-pit with her dustpan. Mrs. Kirk, spying her, would contrive to have
+to go to her own coal-place at that minute. Then, across the wooden
+fence, she would call:
+
+"So you keep wagging on, then?"
+
+"Ay," answered Mrs. Morel deprecatingly. "There's nothing else for it."
+
+"Have you seen Hose?" called a very small woman from across the road. It
+was Mrs. Anthony, a black-haired, strange little body, who always wore a
+brown velvet dress, tight fitting.
+
+"I haven't," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Eh, I wish he'd come. I've got a copperful of clothes, an' I'm sure I
+heered his bell."
+
+"Hark! He's at the end."
+
+The two women looked down the alley. At the end of the Bottoms a
+man stood in a sort of old-fashioned trap, bending over bundles of
+cream-coloured stuff; while a cluster of women held up their arms to
+him, some with bundles. Mrs. Anthony herself had a heap of creamy,
+undyed stockings hanging over her arm.
+
+"I've done ten dozen this week," she said proudly to Mrs. Morel.
+
+"T-t-t!" went the other. "I don't know how you can find time."
+
+"Eh!" said Mrs. Anthony. "You can find time if you make time."
+
+"I don't know how you do it," said Mrs. Morel. "And how much shall you
+get for those many?"
+
+"Tuppence-ha'penny a dozen," replied the other.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Morel. "I'd starve before I'd sit down and seam
+twenty-four stockings for twopence ha'penny."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Anthony. "You can rip along with 'em."
+
+Hose was coming along, ringing his bell. Women were waiting at the
+yard-ends with their seamed stockings hanging over their arms. The
+man, a common fellow, made jokes with them, tried to swindle them, and
+bullied them. Mrs. Morel went up her yard disdainfully.
+
+It was an understood thing that if one woman wanted her neighbour, she
+should put the poker in the fire and bang at the back of the fireplace,
+which, as the fires were back to back, would make a great noise in the
+adjoining house. One morning Mrs. Kirk, mixing a pudding, nearly started
+out of her skin as she heard the thud, thud, in her grate. With her
+hands all floury, she rushed to the fence.
+
+"Did you knock, Mrs. Morel?"
+
+"If you wouldn't mind, Mrs. Kirk."
+
+Mrs. Kirk climbed on to her copper, got over the wall on to Mrs. Morel's
+copper, and ran in to her neighbour.
+
+"Eh, dear, how are you feeling?" she cried in concern.
+
+"You might fetch Mrs. Bower," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+Mrs. Kirk went into the yard, lifted up her strong, shrill voice, and
+called:
+
+"Ag-gie--Ag-gie!"
+
+The sound was heard from one end of the Bottoms to the other. At last
+Aggie came running up, and was sent for Mrs. Bower, whilst Mrs. Kirk
+left her pudding and stayed with her neighbour.
+
+Mrs. Morel went to bed. Mrs. Kirk had Annie and William for dinner. Mrs.
+Bower, fat and waddling, bossed the house.
+
+"Hash some cold meat up for the master's dinner, and make him an
+apple-charlotte pudding," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"He may go without pudding this day," said Mrs. Bower.
+
+Morel was not as a rule one of the first to appear at the bottom of the
+pit, ready to come up. Some men were there before four o'clock, when the
+whistle blew loose-all; but Morel, whose stall, a poor one, was at this
+time about a mile and a half away from the bottom, worked usually till
+the first mate stopped, then he finished also. This day, however, the
+miner was sick of the work. At two o'clock he looked at his watch, by
+the light of the green candle--he was in a safe working--and again at
+half-past two. He was hewing at a piece of rock that was in the way for
+the next day's work. As he sat on his heels, or kneeled, giving hard
+blows with his pick, "Uszza--uszza!" he went.
+
+"Shall ter finish, Sorry?" cried Barker, his fellow butty.
+
+"Finish? Niver while the world stands!" growled Morel.
+
+And he went on striking. He was tired.
+
+"It's a heart-breaking job," said Barker.
+
+But Morel was too exasperated, at the end of his tether, to answer.
+Still he struck and hacked with all his might.
+
+"Tha might as well leave it, Walter," said Barker. "It'll do to-morrow,
+without thee hackin' thy guts out."
+
+"I'll lay no b---- finger on this to-morrow, Isr'el!" cried Morel.
+
+"Oh, well, if tha wunna, somebody else'll ha'e to," said Israel.
+
+Then Morel continued to strike.
+
+"Hey-up there--LOOSE-A'!" cried the men, leaving the next stall.
+
+Morel continued to strike.
+
+"Tha'll happen catch me up," said Barker, departing.
+
+When he had gone, Morel, left alone, felt savage. He had not finished
+his job. He had overworked himself into a frenzy. Rising, wet with
+sweat, he threw his tool down, pulled on his coat, blew out his candle,
+took his lamp, and went. Down the main road the lights of the other men
+went swinging. There was a hollow sound of many voices. It was a long,
+heavy tramp underground.
+
+He sat at the bottom of the pit, where the great drops of water fell
+plash. Many colliers were waiting their turns to go up, talking noisily.
+Morel gave his answers short and disagreeable.
+
+"It's rainin', Sorry," said old Giles, who had had the news from the
+top.
+
+Morel found one comfort. He had his old umbrella, which he loved, in the
+lamp cabin. At last he took his stand on the chair, and was at the top
+in a moment. Then he handed in his lamp and got his umbrella, which he
+had bought at an auction for one-and-six. He stood on the edge of
+the pit-bank for a moment, looking out over the fields; grey rain was
+falling. The trucks stood full of wet, bright coal. Water ran down the
+sides of the waggons, over the white "C.W. and Co.". Colliers, walking
+indifferent to the rain, were streaming down the line and up the field,
+a grey, dismal host. Morel put up his umbrella, and took pleasure from
+the peppering of the drops thereon.
+
+All along the road to Bestwood the miners tramped, wet and grey and
+dirty, but their red mouths talking with animation. Morel also walked
+with a gang, but he said nothing. He frowned peevishly as he went. Many
+men passed into the Prince of Wales or into Ellen's. Morel, feeling
+sufficiently disagreeable to resist temptation, trudged along under
+the dripping trees that overhung the park wall, and down the mud of
+Greenhill Lane.
+
+Mrs. Morel lay in bed, listening to the rain, and the feet of the
+colliers from Minton, their voices, and the bang, bang of the gates as
+they went through the stile up the field.
+
+"There's some herb beer behind the pantry door," she said. "Th'
+master'll want a drink, if he doesn't stop."
+
+But he was late, so she concluded he had called for a drink, since it
+was raining. What did he care about the child or her?
+
+She was very ill when her children were born.
+
+"What is it?" she asked, feeling sick to death.
+
+"A boy."
+
+And she took consolation in that. The thought of being the mother of men
+was warming to her heart. She looked at the child. It had blue eyes,
+and a lot of fair hair, and was bonny. Her love came up hot, in spite of
+everything. She had it in bed with her.
+
+Morel, thinking nothing, dragged his way up the garden path, wearily
+and angrily. He closed his umbrella, and stood it in the sink; then he
+sluthered his heavy boots into the kitchen. Mrs. Bower appeared in the
+inner doorway.
+
+"Well," she said, "she's about as bad as she can be. It's a boy childt."
+
+The miner grunted, put his empty snap-bag and his tin bottle on the
+dresser, went back into the scullery and hung up his coat, then came and
+dropped into his chair.
+
+"Han yer got a drink?" he asked.
+
+The woman went into the pantry. There was heard the pop of a cork. She
+set the mug, with a little, disgusted rap, on the table before Morel. He
+drank, gasped, wiped his big moustache on the end of his scarf, drank,
+gasped, and lay back in his chair. The woman would not speak to him
+again. She set his dinner before him, and went upstairs.
+
+"Was that the master?" asked Mrs. Morel.
+
+"I've gave him his dinner," replied Mrs. Bower.
+
+After he had sat with his arms on the table--he resented the fact that
+Mrs. Bower put no cloth on for him, and gave him a little plate, instead
+of a full-sized dinner-plate--he began to eat. The fact that his wife
+was ill, that he had another boy, was nothing to him at that moment.
+He was too tired; he wanted his dinner; he wanted to sit with his arms
+lying on the board; he did not like having Mrs. Bower about. The fire
+was too small to please him.
+
+After he had finished his meal, he sat for twenty minutes; then he
+stoked up a big fire. Then, in his stockinged feet, he went reluctantly
+upstairs. It was a struggle to face his wife at this moment, and he was
+tired. His face was black, and smeared with sweat. His singlet had
+dried again, soaking the dirt in. He had a dirty woollen scarf round his
+throat. So he stood at the foot of the bed.
+
+"Well, how are ter, then?" he asked.
+
+"I s'll be all right," she answered.
+
+"H'm!"
+
+He stood at a loss what to say next. He was tired, and this bother was
+rather a nuisance to him, and he didn't quite know where he was.
+
+"A lad, tha says," he stammered.
+
+She turned down the sheet and showed the child.
+
+"Bless him!" he murmured. Which made her laugh, because he blessed by
+rote--pretending paternal emotion, which he did not feel just then.
+
+"Go now," she said.
+
+"I will, my lass," he answered, turning away.
+
+Dismissed, he wanted to kiss her, but he dared not. She half wanted
+him to kiss her, but could not bring herself to give any sign. She only
+breathed freely when he was gone out of the room again, leaving behind
+him a faint smell of pit-dirt.
+
+Mrs. Morel had a visit every day from the Congregational clergyman. Mr.
+Heaton was young, and very poor. His wife had died at the birth of his
+first baby, so he remained alone in the manse. He was a Bachelor of Arts
+of Cambridge, very shy, and no preacher. Mrs. Morel was fond of him, and
+he depended on her. For hours he talked to her, when she was well. He
+became the god-parent of the child.
+
+Occasionally the minister stayed to tea with Mrs. Morel. Then she laid
+the cloth early, got out her best cups, with a little green rim, and
+hoped Morel would not come too soon; indeed, if he stayed for a pint,
+she would not mind this day. She had always two dinners to cook, because
+she believed children should have their chief meal at midday, whereas
+Morel needed his at five o'clock. So Mr. Heaton would hold the baby,
+whilst Mrs. Morel beat up a batter-pudding or peeled the potatoes, and
+he, watching her all the time, would discuss his next sermon. His ideas
+were quaint and fantastic. She brought him judiciously to earth. It was
+a discussion of the wedding at Cana.
+
+"When He changed the water into wine at Cana," he said, "that is a
+symbol that the ordinary life, even the blood, of the married husband
+and wife, which had before been uninspired, like water, became filled
+with the Spirit, and was as wine, because, when love enters, the whole
+spiritual constitution of a man changes, is filled with the Holy Ghost,
+and almost his form is altered."
+
+Mrs. Morel thought to herself:
+
+"Yes, poor fellow, his young wife is dead; that is why he makes his love
+into the Holy Ghost."
+
+They were halfway down their first cup of tea when they heard the
+sluther of pit-boots.
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Morel, in spite of herself.
+
+The minister looked rather scared. Morel entered. He was feeling rather
+savage. He nodded a "How d'yer do" to the clergyman, who rose to shake
+hands with him.
+
+"Nay," said Morel, showing his hand, "look thee at it! Tha niver
+wants ter shake hands wi' a hand like that, does ter? There's too much
+pick-haft and shovel-dirt on it."
+
+The minister flushed with confusion, and sat down again. Mrs. Morel
+rose, carried out the steaming saucepan. Morel took off his coat,
+dragged his armchair to table, and sat down heavily.
+
+"Are you tired?" asked the clergyman.
+
+"Tired? I ham that," replied Morel. "YOU don't know what it is to be
+tired, as I'M tired."
+
+"No," replied the clergyman.
+
+"Why, look yer 'ere," said the miner, showing the shoulders of his
+singlet. "It's a bit dry now, but it's wet as a clout with sweat even
+yet. Feel it."
+
+"Goodness!" cried Mrs. Morel. "Mr. Heaton doesn't want to feel your
+nasty singlet."
+
+The clergyman put out his hand gingerly.
+
+"No, perhaps he doesn't," said Morel; "but it's all come out of me,
+whether or not. An' iv'ry day alike my singlet's wringin' wet. 'Aven't
+you got a drink, Missis, for a man when he comes home barkled up from
+the pit?"
+
+"You know you drank all the beer," said Mrs. Morel, pouring out his tea.
+
+"An' was there no more to be got?" Turning to the clergyman--"A man gets
+that caked up wi' th' dust, you know,--that clogged up down a coal-mine,
+he NEEDS a drink when he comes home."
+
+"I am sure he does," said the clergyman.
+
+"But it's ten to one if there's owt for him."
+
+"There's water--and there's tea," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Water! It's not water as'll clear his throat."
+
+He poured out a saucerful of tea, blew it, and sucked it up through his
+great black moustache, sighing afterwards. Then he poured out another
+saucerful, and stood his cup on the table.
+
+"My cloth!" said Mrs. Morel, putting it on a plate.
+
+"A man as comes home as I do 's too tired to care about cloths," said
+Morel.
+
+"Pity!" exclaimed his wife, sarcastically.
+
+The room was full of the smell of meat and vegetables and pit-clothes.
+
+He leaned over to the minister, his great moustache thrust forward, his
+mouth very red in his black face.
+
+"Mr. Heaton," he said, "a man as has been down the black hole all day,
+dingin' away at a coal-face, yi, a sight harder than that wall--"
+
+"Needn't make a moan of it," put in Mrs. Morel.
+
+She hated her husband because, whenever he had an audience, he whined
+and played for sympathy. William, sitting nursing the baby, hated him,
+with a boy's hatred for false sentiment, and for the stupid treatment of
+his mother. Annie had never liked him; she merely avoided him.
+
+When the minister had gone, Mrs. Morel looked at her cloth.
+
+"A fine mess!" she said.
+
+"Dos't think I'm goin' to sit wi' my arms danglin', cos tha's got a
+parson for tea wi' thee?" he bawled.
+
+They were both angry, but she said nothing. The baby began to cry, and
+Mrs. Morel, picking up a saucepan from the hearth, accidentally knocked
+Annie on the head, whereupon the girl began to whine, and Morel to shout
+at her. In the midst of this pandemonium, William looked up at the big
+glazed text over the mantelpiece and read distinctly:
+
+"God Bless Our Home!"
+
+Whereupon Mrs. Morel, trying to soothe the baby, jumped up, rushed at
+him, boxed his ears, saying:
+
+"What are YOU putting in for?"
+
+And then she sat down and laughed, till tears ran over her cheeks, while
+William kicked the stool he had been sitting on, and Morel growled:
+
+"I canna see what there is so much to laugh at."
+
+One evening, directly after the parson's visit, feeling unable to bear
+herself after another display from her husband, she took Annie and the
+baby and went out. Morel had kicked William, and the mother would never
+forgive him.
+
+She went over the sheep-bridge and across a corner of the meadow to the
+cricket-ground. The meadows seemed one space of ripe, evening light,
+whispering with the distant mill-race. She sat on a seat under the
+alders in the cricket-ground, and fronted the evening. Before her, level
+and solid, spread the big green cricket-field, like the bed of a sea of
+light. Children played in the bluish shadow of the pavilion. Many rooks,
+high up, came cawing home across the softly-woven sky. They stooped in
+a long curve down into the golden glow, concentrating, cawing, wheeling,
+like black flakes on a slow vortex, over a tree clump that made a dark
+boss among the pasture.
+
+A few gentlemen were practising, and Mrs. Morel could hear the chock
+of the ball, and the voices of men suddenly roused; could see the white
+forms of men shifting silently over the green, upon which already the
+under shadows were smouldering. Away at the grange, one side of the
+haystacks was lit up, the other sides blue-grey. A waggon of sheaves
+rocked small across the melting yellow light.
+
+The sun was going down. Every open evening, the hills of Derbyshire were
+blazed over with red sunset. Mrs. Morel watched the sun sink from the
+glistening sky, leaving a soft flower-blue overhead, while the western
+space went red, as if all the fire had swum down there, leaving the
+bell cast flawless blue. The mountain-ash berries across the field stood
+fierily out from the dark leaves, for a moment. A few shocks of corn in
+a corner of the fallow stood up as if alive; she imagined them bowing;
+perhaps her son would be a Joseph. In the east, a mirrored sunset
+floated pink opposite the west's scarlet. The big haystacks on the
+hillside, that butted into the glare, went cold.
+
+With Mrs. Morel it was one of those still moments when the small frets
+vanish, and the beauty of things stands out, and she had the peace and
+the strength to see herself. Now and again, a swallow cut close to her.
+Now and again, Annie came up with a handful of alder-currants. The baby
+was restless on his mother's knee, clambering with his hands at the
+light.
+
+Mrs. Morel looked down at him. She had dreaded this baby like a
+catastrophe, because of her feeling for her husband. And now she felt
+strangely towards the infant. Her heart was heavy because of the child,
+almost as if it were unhealthy, or malformed. Yet it seemed quite well.
+But she noticed the peculiar knitting of the baby's brows, and the
+peculiar heaviness of its eyes, as if it were trying to understand
+something that was pain. She felt, when she looked at her child's dark,
+brooding pupils, as if a burden were on her heart.
+
+"He looks as if he was thinking about something--quite sorrowful," said
+Mrs. Kirk.
+
+Suddenly, looking at him, the heavy feeling at the mother's heart melted
+into passionate grief. She bowed over him, and a few tears shook swiftly
+out of her very heart. The baby lifted his fingers.
+
+"My lamb!" she cried softly.
+
+And at that moment she felt, in some far inner place of her soul, that
+she and her husband were guilty.
+
+The baby was looking up at her. It had blue eyes like her own, but its
+look was heavy, steady, as if it had realised something that had stunned
+some point of its soul.
+
+In her arms lay the delicate baby. Its deep blue eyes, always looking up
+at her unblinking, seemed to draw her innermost thoughts out of her. She
+no longer loved her husband; she had not wanted this child to come, and
+there it lay in her arms and pulled at her heart. She felt as if the
+navel string that had connected its frail little body with hers had not
+been broken. A wave of hot love went over her to the infant. She held it
+close to her face and breast. With all her force, with all her soul she
+would make up to it for having brought it into the world unloved. She
+would love it all the more now it was here; carry it in her love. Its
+clear, knowing eyes gave her pain and fear. Did it know all about her?
+When it lay under her heart, had it been listening then? Was there a
+reproach in the look? She felt the marrow melt in her bones, with fear
+and pain.
+
+Once more she was aware of the sun lying red on the rim of the hill
+opposite. She suddenly held up the child in her hands.
+
+"Look!" she said. "Look, my pretty!"
+
+She thrust the infant forward to the crimson, throbbing sun, almost with
+relief. She saw him lift his little fist. Then she put him to her bosom
+again, ashamed almost of her impulse to give him back again whence he
+came.
+
+"If he lives," she thought to herself, "what will become of him--what
+will he be?"
+
+Her heart was anxious.
+
+"I will call him Paul," she said suddenly; she knew not why.
+
+After a while she went home. A fine shadow was flung over the deep green
+meadow, darkening all.
+
+As she expected, she found the house empty. But Morel was home by ten
+o'clock, and that day, at least, ended peacefully.
+
+Walter Morel was, at this time, exceedingly irritable. His work seemed
+to exhaust him. When he came home he did not speak civilly to anybody.
+If the fire were rather low he bullied about that; he grumbled about his
+dinner; if the children made a chatter he shouted at them in a way that
+made their mother's blood boil, and made them hate him.
+
+On the Friday, he was not home by eleven o'clock. The baby was unwell,
+and was restless, crying if he were put down. Mrs. Morel, tired to
+death, and still weak, was scarcely under control.
+
+"I wish the nuisance would come," she said wearily to herself.
+
+The child at last sank down to sleep in her arms. She was too tired to
+carry him to the cradle.
+
+"But I'll say nothing, whatever time he comes," she said. "It only works
+me up; I won't say anything. But I know if he does anything it'll make
+my blood boil," she added to herself.
+
+She sighed, hearing him coming, as if it were something she could not
+bear. He, taking his revenge, was nearly drunk. She kept her head
+bent over the child as he entered, not wishing to see him. But it
+went through her like a flash of hot fire when, in passing, he lurched
+against the dresser, setting the tins rattling, and clutched at the
+white pot knobs for support. He hung up his hat and coat, then returned,
+stood glowering from a distance at her, as she sat bowed over the child.
+
+"Is there nothing to eat in the house?" he asked, insolently, as if to a
+servant. In certain stages of his intoxication he affected the
+clipped, mincing speech of the towns. Mrs. Morel hated him most in this
+condition.
+
+"You know what there is in the house," she said, so coldly, it sounded
+impersonal.
+
+He stood and glared at her without moving a muscle.
+
+"I asked a civil question, and I expect a civil answer," he said
+affectedly.
+
+"And you got it," she said, still ignoring him.
+
+He glowered again. Then he came unsteadily forward. He leaned on the
+table with one hand, and with the other jerked at the table drawer to
+get a knife to cut bread. The drawer stuck because he pulled sideways.
+In a temper he dragged it, so that it flew out bodily, and spoons,
+forks, knives, a hundred metallic things, splashed with a clatter and a
+clang upon the brick floor. The baby gave a little convulsed start.
+
+"What are you doing, clumsy, drunken fool?" the mother cried.
+
+"Then tha should get the flamin' thing thysen. Tha should get up, like
+other women have to, an' wait on a man."
+
+"Wait on you--wait on you?" she cried. "Yes, I see myself."
+
+"Yis, an' I'll learn thee tha's got to. Wait on ME, yes tha sh'lt wait
+on me--"
+
+"Never, milord. I'd wait on a dog at the door first."
+
+"What--what?"
+
+He was trying to fit in the drawer. At her last speech he turned round.
+His face was crimson, his eyes bloodshot. He stared at her one silent
+second in threat.
+
+"P-h!" she went quickly, in contempt.
+
+He jerked at the drawer in his excitement. It fell, cut sharply on his
+shin, and on the reflex he flung it at her.
+
+One of the corners caught her brow as the shallow drawer crashed into
+the fireplace. She swayed, almost fell stunned from her chair. To her
+very soul she was sick; she clasped the child tightly to her bosom. A
+few moments elapsed; then, with an effort, she brought herself to.
+The baby was crying plaintively. Her left brow was bleeding rather
+profusely. As she glanced down at the child, her brain reeling, some
+drops of blood soaked into its white shawl; but the baby was at least
+not hurt. She balanced her head to keep equilibrium, so that the blood
+ran into her eye.
+
+Walter Morel remained as he had stood, leaning on the table with one
+hand, looking blank. When he was sufficiently sure of his balance,
+he went across to her, swayed, caught hold of the back of her
+rocking-chair, almost tipping her out; then leaning forward over her,
+and swaying as he spoke, he said, in a tone of wondering concern:
+
+"Did it catch thee?"
+
+He swayed again, as if he would pitch on to the child. With the
+catastrophe he had lost all balance.
+
+"Go away," she said, struggling to keep her presence of mind.
+
+He hiccoughed. "Let's--let's look at it," he said, hiccoughing again.
+
+"Go away!" she cried.
+
+"Lemme--lemme look at it, lass."
+
+She smelled him of drink, felt the unequal pull of his swaying grasp on
+the back of her rocking-chair.
+
+"Go away," she said, and weakly she pushed him off.
+
+He stood, uncertain in balance, gazing upon her. Summoning all her
+strength she rose, the baby on one arm. By a cruel effort of will,
+moving as if in sleep, she went across to the scullery, where she bathed
+her eye for a minute in cold water; but she was too dizzy. Afraid lest
+she should swoon, she returned to her rocking-chair, trembling in every
+fibre. By instinct, she kept the baby clasped.
+
+Morel, bothered, had succeeded in pushing the drawer back into its
+cavity, and was on his knees, groping, with numb paws, for the scattered
+spoons.
+
+Her brow was still bleeding. Presently Morel got up and came craning his
+neck towards her.
+
+"What has it done to thee, lass?" he asked, in a very wretched, humble
+tone.
+
+"You can see what it's done," she answered.
+
+He stood, bending forward, supported on his hands, which grasped his
+legs just above the knee. He peered to look at the wound. She drew away
+from the thrust of his face with its great moustache, averting her
+own face as much as possible. As he looked at her, who was cold and
+impassive as stone, with mouth shut tight, he sickened with feebleness
+and hopelessness of spirit. He was turning drearily away, when he saw
+a drop of blood fall from the averted wound into the baby's fragile,
+glistening hair. Fascinated, he watched the heavy dark drop hang in
+the glistening cloud, and pull down the gossamer. Another drop fell. It
+would soak through to the baby's scalp. He watched, fascinated, feeling
+it soak in; then, finally, his manhood broke.
+
+"What of this child?" was all his wife said to him. But her low, intense
+tones brought his head lower. She softened: "Get me some wadding out of
+the middle drawer," she said.
+
+He stumbled away very obediently, presently returning with a pad, which
+she singed before the fire, then put on her forehead, as she sat with
+the baby on her lap.
+
+"Now that clean pit-scarf."
+
+Again he rummaged and fumbled in the drawer, returning presently with a
+red, narrow scarf. She took it, and with trembling fingers proceeded to
+bind it round her head.
+
+"Let me tie it for thee," he said humbly.
+
+"I can do it myself," she replied. When it was done she went upstairs,
+telling him to rake the fire and lock the door.
+
+In the morning Mrs. Morel said:
+
+"I knocked against the latch of the coal-place, when I was getting a
+raker in the dark, because the candle blew out." Her two small children
+looked up at her with wide, dismayed eyes. They said nothing, but their
+parted lips seemed to express the unconscious tragedy they felt.
+
+Walter Morel lay in bed next day until nearly dinner-time. He did not
+think of the previous evening's work. He scarcely thought of anything,
+but he would not think of that. He lay and suffered like a sulking dog.
+He had hurt himself most; and he was the more damaged because he would
+never say a word to her, or express his sorrow. He tried to wriggle out
+of it. "It was her own fault," he said to himself. Nothing, however,
+could prevent his inner consciousness inflicting on him the punishment
+which ate into his spirit like rust, and which he could only alleviate
+by drinking.
+
+He felt as if he had not the initiative to get up, or to say a word, or
+to move, but could only lie like a log. Moreover, he had himself violent
+pains in the head. It was Saturday. Towards noon he rose, cut himself
+food in the pantry, ate it with his head dropped, then pulled on his
+boots, and went out, to return at three o'clock slightly tipsy and
+relieved; then once more straight to bed. He rose again at six in the
+evening, had tea and went straight out.
+
+Sunday was the same: bed till noon, the Palmerston Arms till 2.30,
+dinner, and bed; scarcely a word spoken. When Mrs. Morel went upstairs,
+towards four o'clock, to put on her Sunday dress, he was fast asleep.
+She would have felt sorry for him, if he had once said, "Wife, I'm
+sorry." But no; he insisted to himself it was her fault. And so he
+broke himself. So she merely left him alone. There was this deadlock of
+passion between them, and she was stronger.
+
+The family began tea. Sunday was the only day when all sat down to meals
+together.
+
+"Isn't my father going to get up?" asked William.
+
+"Let him lie," the mother replied.
+
+There was a feeling of misery over all the house. The children breathed
+the air that was poisoned, and they felt dreary. They were rather
+disconsolate, did not know what to do, what to play at.
+
+Immediately Morel woke he got straight out of bed. That was
+characteristic of him all his life. He was all for activity. The
+prostrated inactivity of two mornings was stifling him.
+
+It was near six o'clock when he got down. This time he entered without
+hesitation, his wincing sensitiveness having hardened again. He did not
+care any longer what the family thought or felt.
+
+The tea-things were on the table. William was reading aloud from "The
+Child's Own", Annie listening and asking eternally "why?" Both children
+hushed into silence as they heard the approaching thud of their father's
+stockinged feet, and shrank as he entered. Yet he was usually indulgent
+to them.
+
+Morel made the meal alone, brutally. He ate and drank more noisily than
+he had need. No one spoke to him. The family life withdrew, shrank
+away, and became hushed as he entered. But he cared no longer about his
+alienation.
+
+Immediately he had finished tea he rose with alacrity to go out. It was
+this alacrity, this haste to be gone, which so sickened Mrs. Morel. As
+she heard him sousing heartily in cold water, heard the eager scratch
+of the steel comb on the side of the bowl, as he wetted his hair, she
+closed her eyes in disgust. As he bent over, lacing his boots, there
+was a certain vulgar gusto in his movement that divided him from the
+reserved, watchful rest of the family. He always ran away from the
+battle with himself. Even in his own heart's privacy, he excused
+himself, saying, "If she hadn't said so-and-so, it would never have
+happened. She asked for what she's got." The children waited in
+restraint during his preparations. When he had gone, they sighed with
+relief.
+
+He closed the door behind him, and was glad. It was a rainy evening. The
+Palmerston would be the cosier. He hastened forward in anticipation. All
+the slate roofs of the Bottoms shone black with wet. The roads, always
+dark with coal-dust, were full of blackish mud. He hastened along. The
+Palmerston windows were steamed over. The passage was paddled with wet
+feet. But the air was warm, if foul, and full of the sound of voices and
+the smell of beer and smoke.
+
+"What shollt ha'e, Walter?" cried a voice, as soon as Morel appeared in
+the doorway.
+
+"Oh, Jim, my lad, wheriver has thee sprung frae?"
+
+The men made a seat for him, and took him in warmly. He was glad. In a
+minute or two they had thawed all responsibility out of him, all shame,
+all trouble, and he was clear as a bell for a jolly night.
+
+On the Wednesday following, Morel was penniless. He dreaded his wife.
+Having hurt her, he hated her. He did not know what to do with
+himself that evening, having not even twopence with which to go to the
+Palmerston, and being already rather deeply in debt. So, while his wife
+was down the garden with the child, he hunted in the top drawer of
+the dresser where she kept her purse, found it, and looked inside. It
+contained a half-crown, two halfpennies, and a sixpence. So he took the
+sixpence, put the purse carefully back, and went out.
+
+The next day, when she wanted to pay the greengrocer, she looked in the
+purse for her sixpence, and her heart sank to her shoes. Then she sat
+down and thought: "WAS there a sixpence? I hadn't spent it, had I? And I
+hadn't left it anywhere else?"
+
+She was much put about. She hunted round everywhere for it. And, as she
+sought, the conviction came into her heart that her husband had taken
+it. What she had in her purse was all the money she possessed. But that
+he should sneak it from her thus was unbearable. He had done so twice
+before. The first time she had not accused him, and at the week-end he
+had put the shilling again into her purse. So that was how she had known
+he had taken it. The second time he had not paid back.
+
+This time she felt it was too much. When he had had his dinner--he came
+home early that day--she said to him coldly:
+
+"Did you take sixpence out of my purse last night?"
+
+"Me!" he said, looking up in an offended way. "No, I didna! I niver
+clapped eyes on your purse."
+
+But she could detect the lie.
+
+"Why, you know you did," she said quietly.
+
+"I tell you I didna," he shouted. "Yer at me again, are yer? I've had
+about enough on't."
+
+"So you filch sixpence out of my purse while I'm taking the clothes in."
+
+"I'll may yer pay for this," he said, pushing back his chair in
+desperation. He bustled and got washed, then went determinedly upstairs.
+Presently he came down dressed, and with a big bundle in a blue-checked,
+enormous handkerchief.
+
+"And now," he said, "you'll see me again when you do."
+
+"It'll be before I want to," she replied; and at that he marched out
+of the house with his bundle. She sat trembling slightly, but her heart
+brimming with contempt. What would she do if he went to some other
+pit, obtained work, and got in with another woman? But she knew him too
+well--he couldn't. She was dead sure of him. Nevertheless her heart was
+gnawed inside her.
+
+"Where's my dad?" said William, coming in from school.
+
+"He says he's run away," replied the mother.
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"Eh, I don't know. He's taken a bundle in the blue handkerchief, and
+says he's not coming back."
+
+"What shall we do?" cried the boy.
+
+"Eh, never trouble, he won't go far."
+
+"But if he doesn't come back," wailed Annie.
+
+And she and William retired to the sofa and wept. Mrs. Morel sat and
+laughed.
+
+"You pair of gabeys!" she exclaimed. "You'll see him before the night's
+out."
+
+But the children were not to be consoled. Twilight came on. Mrs. Morel
+grew anxious from very weariness. One part of her said it would be a
+relief to see the last of him; another part fretted because of keeping
+the children; and inside her, as yet, she could not quite let him go. At
+the bottom, she knew very well he could NOT go.
+
+When she went down to the coal-place at the end of the garden, however,
+she felt something behind the door. So she looked. And there in the dark
+lay the big blue bundle. She sat on a piece of coal and laughed. Every
+time she saw it, so fat and yet so ignominious, slunk into its corner in
+the dark, with its ends flopping like dejected ears from the knots, she
+laughed again. She was relieved.
+
+Mrs. Morel sat waiting. He had not any money, she knew, so if he stopped
+he was running up a bill. She was very tired of him--tired to death. He
+had not even the courage to carry his bundle beyond the yard-end.
+
+As she meditated, at about nine o'clock, he opened the door and came in,
+slinking, and yet sulky. She said not a word. He took off his coat, and
+slunk to his armchair, where he began to take off his boots.
+
+"You'd better fetch your bundle before you take your boots off," she
+said quietly.
+
+"You may thank your stars I've come back to-night," he said, looking up
+from under his dropped head, sulkily, trying to be impressive.
+
+"Why, where should you have gone? You daren't even get your parcel
+through the yard-end," she said.
+
+He looked such a fool she was not even angry with him. He continued to
+take his boots off and prepare for bed.
+
+"I don't know what's in your blue handkerchief," she said. "But if you
+leave it the children shall fetch it in the morning."
+
+Whereupon he got up and went out of the house, returning presently and
+crossing the kitchen with averted face, hurrying upstairs. As Mrs. Morel
+saw him slink quickly through the inner doorway, holding his bundle, she
+laughed to herself: but her heart was bitter, because she had loved him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE CASTING OFF OF MOREL--THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM
+
+DURING the next week Morel's temper was almost unbearable. Like all
+miners, he was a great lover of medicines, which, strangely enough, he
+would often pay for himself.
+
+"You mun get me a drop o' laxy vitral," he said. "It's a winder as we
+canna ha'e a sup i' th' 'ouse."
+
+So Mrs. Morel bought him elixir of vitriol, his favourite first
+medicine. And he made himself a jug of wormwood tea. He had hanging in
+the attic great bunches of dried herbs: wormwood, rue, horehound, elder
+flowers, parsley-purt, marshmallow, hyssop, dandelion, and centaury.
+Usually there was a jug of one or other decoction standing on the hob,
+from which he drank largely.
+
+"Grand!" he said, smacking his lips after wormwood. "Grand!" And he
+exhorted the children to try.
+
+"It's better than any of your tea or your cocoa stews," he vowed. But
+they were not to be tempted.
+
+This time, however, neither pills nor vitriol nor all his herbs would
+shift the "nasty peens in his head". He was sickening for an attack of
+an inflammation of the brain. He had never been well since his sleeping
+on the ground when he went with Jerry to Nottingham. Since then he had
+drunk and stormed. Now he fell seriously ill, and Mrs. Morel had him
+to nurse. He was one of the worst patients imaginable. But, in spite of
+all, and putting aside the fact that he was breadwinner, she never
+quite wanted him to die. Still there was one part of her wanted him for
+herself.
+
+The neighbours were very good to her: occasionally some had the children
+in to meals, occasionally some would do the downstairs work for her, one
+would mind the baby for a day. But it was a great drag, nevertheless.
+It was not every day the neighbours helped. Then she had nursing of baby
+and husband, cleaning and cooking, everything to do. She was quite worn
+out, but she did what was wanted of her.
+
+And the money was just sufficient. She had seventeen shillings a week
+from clubs, and every Friday Barker and the other butty put by a portion
+of the stall's profits for Morel's wife. And the neighbours made broths,
+and gave eggs, and such invalids' trifles. If they had not helped her so
+generously in those times, Mrs. Morel would never have pulled through,
+without incurring debts that would have dragged her down.
+
+The weeks passed. Morel, almost against hope, grew better. He had a fine
+constitution, so that, once on the mend, he went straight forward to
+recovery. Soon he was pottering about downstairs. During his illness his
+wife had spoilt him a little. Now he wanted her to continue. He often
+put his band to his head, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and
+shammed pains he did not feel. But there was no deceiving her. At first
+she merely smiled to herself. Then she scolded him sharply.
+
+"Goodness, man, don't be so lachrymose."
+
+That wounded him slightly, but still he continued to feign sickness.
+
+"I wouldn't be such a mardy baby," said the wife shortly.
+
+Then he was indignant, and cursed under his breath, like a boy. He was
+forced to resume a normal tone, and to cease to whine.
+
+Nevertheless, there was a state of peace in the house for some time.
+Mrs. Morel was more tolerant of him, and he, depending on her almost
+like a child, was rather happy. Neither knew that she was more tolerant
+because she loved him less. Up till this time, in spite of all, he had
+been her husband and her man. She had felt that, more or less, what he
+did to himself he did to her. Her living depended on him. There were
+many, many stages in the ebbing of her love for him, but it was always
+ebbing.
+
+Now, with the birth of this third baby, her self no longer set towards
+him, helplessly, but was like a tide that scarcely rose, standing off
+from him. After this she scarcely desired him. And, standing more aloof
+from him, not feeling him so much part of herself, but merely part of
+her circumstances, she did not mind so much what he did, could leave him
+alone.
+
+There was the halt, the wistfulness about the ensuing year, which
+is like autumn in a man's life. His wife was casting him off, half
+regretfully, but relentlessly; casting him off and turning now for love
+and life to the children. Henceforward he was more or less a husk. And
+he himself acquiesced, as so many men do, yielding their place to their
+children.
+
+During his recuperation, when it was really over between them, both made
+an effort to come back somewhat to the old relationship of the first
+months of their marriage. He sat at home and, when the children were in
+bed, and she was sewing--she did all her sewing by hand, made all shirts
+and children's clothing--he would read to her from the newspaper, slowly
+pronouncing and delivering the words like a man pitching quoits. Often
+she hurried him on, giving him a phrase in anticipation. And then he
+took her words humbly.
+
+The silences between them were peculiar. There would be the swift,
+slight "cluck" of her needle, the sharp "pop" of his lips as he let out
+the smoke, the warmth, the sizzle on the bars as he spat in the fire.
+Then her thoughts turned to William. Already he was getting a big boy.
+Already he was top of the class, and the master said he was the smartest
+lad in the school. She saw him a man, young, full of vigour, making the
+world glow again for her.
+
+And Morel sitting there, quite alone, and having nothing to think about,
+would be feeling vaguely uncomfortable. His soul would reach out in its
+blind way to her and find her gone. He felt a sort of emptiness, almost
+like a vacuum in his soul. He was unsettled and restless. Soon he could
+not live in that atmosphere, and he affected his wife. Both felt an
+oppression on their breathing when they were left together for some
+time. Then he went to bed and she settled down to enjoy herself alone,
+working, thinking, living.
+
+Meanwhile another infant was coming, fruit of this little peace and
+tenderness between the separating parents. Paul was seventeen months old
+when the new baby was born. He was then a plump, pale child, quiet, with
+heavy blue eyes, and still the peculiar slight knitting of the brows.
+The last child was also a boy, fair and bonny. Mrs. Morel was sorry when
+she knew she was with child, both for economic reasons and because she
+did not love her husband; but not for the sake of the infant.
+
+They called the baby Arthur. He was very pretty, with a mop of gold
+curls, and he loved his father from the first. Mrs. Morel was glad this
+child loved the father. Hearing the miner's footsteps, the baby would
+put up his arms and crow. And if Morel were in a good temper, he called
+back immediately, in his hearty, mellow voice:
+
+"What then, my beauty? I sh'll come to thee in a minute."
+
+And as soon as he had taken off his pit-coat, Mrs. Morel would put an
+apron round the child, and give him to his father.
+
+"What a sight the lad looks!" she would exclaim sometimes, taking back
+the baby, that was smutted on the face from his father's kisses and
+play. Then Morel laughed joyfully.
+
+"He's a little collier, bless his bit o' mutton!" he exclaimed.
+
+And these were the happy moments of her life now, when the children
+included the father in her heart.
+
+Meanwhile William grew bigger and stronger and more active, while Paul,
+always rather delicate and quiet, got slimmer, and trotted after his
+mother like her shadow. He was usually active and interested, but
+sometimes he would have fits of depression. Then the mother would find
+the boy of three or four crying on the sofa.
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked, and got no answer.
+
+"What's the matter?" she insisted, getting cross.
+
+"I don't know," sobbed the child.
+
+So she tried to reason him out of it, or to amuse him, but without
+effect. It made her feel beside herself. Then the father, always
+impatient, would jump from his chair and shout:
+
+"If he doesn't stop, I'll smack him till he does."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the sort," said the mother coldly. And then she
+carried the child into the yard, plumped him into his little chair, and
+said: "Now cry there, Misery!"
+
+And then a butterfly on the rhubarb-leaves perhaps caught his eye, or
+at last he cried himself to sleep. These fits were not often, but they
+caused a shadow in Mrs. Morel's heart, and her treatment of Paul was
+different from that of the other children.
+
+Suddenly one morning as she was looking down the alley of the Bottoms
+for the barm-man, she heard a voice calling her. It was the thin little
+Mrs. Anthony in brown velvet.
+
+"Here, Mrs. Morel, I want to tell you about your Willie."
+
+"Oh, do you?" replied Mrs. Morel. "Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"A lad as gets 'old of another an' rips his clothes off'n 'is back,"
+Mrs. Anthony said, "wants showing something."
+
+"Your Alfred's as old as my William," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"'Appen 'e is, but that doesn't give him a right to get hold of the
+boy's collar, an' fair rip it clean off his back."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Morel, "I don't thrash my children, and even if I did,
+I should want to hear their side of the tale."
+
+"They'd happen be a bit better if they did get a good hiding," retorted
+Mrs. Anthony. "When it comes ter rippin' a lad's clean collar off'n 'is
+back a-purpose--"
+
+"I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Make me a liar!" shouted Mrs. Anthony.
+
+Mrs. Morel moved away and closed her gate. Her hand trembled as she held
+her mug of barm.
+
+"But I s'll let your mester know," Mrs. Anthony cried after her.
+
+At dinner-time, when William had finished his meal and wanted to be off
+again--he was then eleven years old--his mother said to him:
+
+"What did you tear Alfred Anthony's collar for?"
+
+"When did I tear his collar?"
+
+"I don't know when, but his mother says you did."
+
+"Why--it was yesterday--an' it was torn a'ready."
+
+"But you tore it more."
+
+"Well, I'd got a cobbler as 'ad licked seventeen--an' Alfy Ant'ny 'e
+says:
+
+     'Adam an' Eve an' pinch-me,
+     Went down to a river to bade.
+     Adam an' Eve got drownded,
+     Who do yer think got saved?'
+
+An' so I says: 'Oh, Pinch-YOU,' an' so I pinched 'im, an' 'e was mad,
+an' so he snatched my cobbler an' run off with it. An' so I run after
+'im, an' when I was gettin' hold of 'im, 'e dodged, an' it ripped 'is
+collar. But I got my cobbler--"
+
+He pulled from his pocket a black old horse-chestnut hanging on a
+string. This old cobbler had "cobbled"--hit and smashed--seventeen other
+cobblers on similar strings. So the boy was proud of his veteran.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Morel, "you know you've got no right to rip his
+collar."
+
+"Well, our mother!" he answered. "I never meant tr'a done it--an' it was
+on'y an old indirrubber collar as was torn a'ready."
+
+"Next time," said his mother, "YOU be more careful. I shouldn't like it
+if you came home with your collar torn off."
+
+"I don't care, our mother; I never did it a-purpose."
+
+The boy was rather miserable at being reprimanded.
+
+"No--well, you be more careful."
+
+William fled away, glad to be exonerated. And Mrs. Morel, who hated any
+bother with the neighbours, thought she would explain to Mrs. Anthony,
+and the business would be over.
+
+But that evening Morel came in from the pit looking very sour. He stood
+in the kitchen and glared round, but did not speak for some minutes.
+Then:
+
+"Wheer's that Willy?" he asked.
+
+"What do you want HIM for?" asked Mrs. Morel, who had guessed.
+
+"I'll let 'im know when I get him," said Morel, banging his pit-bottle
+on to the dresser.
+
+"I suppose Mrs. Anthony's got hold of you and been yarning to you about
+Alfy's collar," said Mrs. Morel, rather sneering.
+
+"Niver mind who's got hold of me," said Morel. "When I get hold of 'IM
+I'll make his bones rattle."
+
+"It's a poor tale," said Mrs. Morel, "that you're so ready to side
+with any snipey vixen who likes to come telling tales against your own
+children."
+
+"I'll learn 'im!" said Morel. "It none matters to me whose lad 'e is;
+'e's none goin' rippin' an' tearin' about just as he's a mind."
+
+"'Ripping and tearing about!'" repeated Mrs. Morel. "He was running
+after that Alfy, who'd taken his cobbler, and he accidentally got hold
+of his collar, because the other dodged--as an Anthony would."
+
+"I know!" shouted Morel threateningly.
+
+"You would, before you're told," replied his wife bitingly.
+
+"Niver you mind," stormed Morel. "I know my business."
+
+"That's more than doubtful," said Mrs. Morel, "supposing some
+loud-mouthed creature had been getting you to thrash your own children."
+
+"I know," repeated Morel.
+
+And he said no more, but sat and nursed his bad temper. Suddenly William
+ran in, saying:
+
+"Can I have my tea, mother?"
+
+"Tha can ha'e more than that!" shouted Morel.
+
+"Hold your noise, man," said Mrs. Morel; "and don't look so ridiculous."
+
+"He'll look ridiculous before I've done wi' him!" shouted Morel, rising
+from his chair and glaring at his son.
+
+William, who was a tall lad for his years, but very sensitive, had gone
+pale, and was looking in a sort of horror at his father.
+
+"Go out!" Mrs. Morel commanded her son.
+
+William had not the wit to move. Suddenly Morel clenched his fist, and
+crouched.
+
+"I'll GI'E him 'go out'!" he shouted like an insane thing.
+
+"What!" cried Mrs. Morel, panting with rage. "You shall not touch him
+for HER telling, you shall not!"
+
+"Shonna I?" shouted Morel. "Shonna I?"
+
+And, glaring at the boy, he ran forward. Mrs. Morel sprang in between
+them, with her fist lifted.
+
+"Don't you DARE!" she cried.
+
+"What!" he shouted, baffled for the moment. "What!"
+
+She spun round to her son.
+
+"GO out of the house!" she commanded him in fury.
+
+The boy, as if hypnotised by her, turned suddenly and was gone. Morel
+rushed to the door, but was too late. He returned, pale under his
+pit-dirt with fury. But now his wife was fully roused.
+
+"Only dare!" she said in a loud, ringing voice. "Only dare, milord, to
+lay a finger on that child! You'll regret it for ever."
+
+He was afraid of her. In a towering rage, he sat down.
+
+When the children were old enough to be left, Mrs. Morel joined
+the Women's Guild. It was a little club of women attached to the
+Co-operative Wholesale Society, which met on Monday night in the long
+room over the grocery shop of the Bestwood "Co-op". The women were
+supposed to discuss the benefits to be derived from co-operation, and
+other social questions. Sometimes Mrs. Morel read a paper. It seemed
+queer to the children to see their mother, who was always busy about
+the house, sitting writing in her rapid fashion, thinking, referring
+to books, and writing again. They felt for her on such occasions the
+deepest respect.
+
+But they loved the Guild. It was the only thing to which they did not
+grudge their mother--and that partly because she enjoyed it, partly
+because of the treats they derived from it. The Guild was called by some
+hostile husbands, who found their wives getting too independent, the
+"clat-fart" shop--that is, the gossip-shop. It is true, from off
+the basis of the Guild, the women could look at their homes, at the
+conditions of their own lives, and find fault. So the colliers found
+their women had a new standard of their own, rather disconcerting. And
+also, Mrs. Morel always had a lot of news on Monday nights, so that the
+children liked William to be in when their mother came home, because she
+told him things.
+
+Then, when the lad was thirteen, she got him a job in the "Co-op."
+office. He was a very clever boy, frank, with rather rough features and
+real viking blue eyes.
+
+"What dost want ter ma'e a stool-harsed Jack on 'im for?" said Morel.
+"All he'll do is to wear his britches behind out an' earn nowt. What's
+'e startin' wi'?"
+
+"It doesn't matter what he's starting with," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"It wouldna! Put 'im i' th' pit we me, an' 'ell earn a easy ten shillin'
+a wik from th' start. But six shillin' wearin' his truck-end out on a
+stool's better than ten shillin' i' th' pit wi'me, I know."
+
+"He is NOT going in the pit," said Mrs. Morel, "and there's an end of
+it."
+
+"It wor good enough for me, but it's non good enough for 'im."
+
+"If your mother put you in the pit at twelve, it's no reason why I
+should do the same with my lad."
+
+"Twelve! It wor a sight afore that!"
+
+"Whenever it was," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+She was very proud of her son. He went to the night school, and learned
+shorthand, so that by the time he was sixteen he was the best shorthand
+clerk and book-keeper on the place, except one. Then he taught in the
+night schools. But he was so fiery that only his good-nature and his
+size protected him.
+
+All the things that men do--the decent things--William did. He could
+run like the wind. When he was twelve he won a first prize in a race;
+an inkstand of glass, shaped like an anvil. It stood proudly on the
+dresser, and gave Mrs. Morel a keen pleasure. The boy only ran for her.
+He flew home with his anvil, breathless, with a "Look, mother!" That was
+the first real tribute to herself. She took it like a queen.
+
+"How pretty!" she exclaimed.
+
+Then he began to get ambitious. He gave all his money to his mother.
+When he earned fourteen shillings a week, she gave him back two for
+himself, and, as he never drank, he felt himself rich. He went about
+with the bourgeois of Bestwood. The townlet contained nothing higher
+than the clergyman. Then came the bank manager, then the doctors, then
+the tradespeople, and after that the hosts of colliers. Willam began
+to consort with the sons of the chemist, the schoolmaster, and
+the tradesmen. He played billiards in the Mechanics' Hall. Also he
+danced--this in spite of his mother. All the life that Bestwood offered
+he enjoyed, from the sixpenny-hops down Church Street, to sports and
+billiards.
+
+Paul was treated to dazzling descriptions of all kinds of flower-like
+ladies, most of whom lived like cut blooms in William's heart for a
+brief fortnight.
+
+Occasionally some flame would come in pursuit of her errant swain. Mrs.
+Morel would find a strange girl at the door, and immediately she sniffed
+the air.
+
+"Is Mr. Morel in?" the damsel would ask appealingly.
+
+"My husband is at home," Mrs. Morel replied.
+
+"I--I mean YOUNG Mr. Morel," repeated the maiden painfully.
+
+"Which one? There are several."
+
+Whereupon much blushing and stammering from the fair one.
+
+"I--I met Mr. Morel--at Ripley," she explained.
+
+"Oh--at a dance!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't approve of the girls my son meets at dances. And he is NOT at
+home."
+
+Then he came home angry with his mother for having turned the girl away
+so rudely. He was a careless, yet eager-looking fellow, who walked with
+long strides, sometimes frowning, often with his cap pushed jollily to
+the back of his head. Now he came in frowning. He threw his cap on to
+the sofa, and took his strong jaw in his hand, and glared down at
+his mother. She was small, with her hair taken straight back from her
+forehead. She had a quiet air of authority, and yet of rare warmth.
+Knowing her son was angry, she trembled inwardly.
+
+"Did a lady call for me yesterday, mother?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know about a lady. There was a girl came."
+
+"And why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Because I forgot, simply."
+
+He fumed a little.
+
+"A good-looking girl--seemed a lady?"
+
+"I didn't look at her."
+
+"Big brown eyes?"
+
+"I did NOT look. And tell your girls, my son, that when they're running
+after you, they're not to come and ask your mother for you. Tell them
+that--brazen baggages you meet at dancing-classes."
+
+"I'm sure she was a nice girl."
+
+"And I'm sure she wasn't."
+
+There ended the altercation. Over the dancing there was a great strife
+between the mother and the son. The grievance reached its height when
+William said he was going to Hucknall Torkard--considered a low town--to
+a fancy-dress ball. He was to be a Highlander. There was a dress he
+could hire, which one of his friends had had, and which fitted him
+perfectly. The Highland suit came home. Mrs. Morel received it coldly
+and would not unpack it.
+
+"My suit come?" cried William.
+
+"There's a parcel in the front room."
+
+He rushed in and cut the string.
+
+"How do you fancy your son in this!" he said, enraptured, showing her
+the suit.
+
+"You know I don't want to fancy you in it."
+
+On the evening of the dance, when he had come home to dress, Mrs. Morel
+put on her coat and bonnet.
+
+"Aren't you going to stop and see me, mother?" he asked.
+
+"No; I don't want to see you," she replied.
+
+She was rather pale, and her face was closed and hard. She was afraid of
+her son's going the same way as his father. He hesitated a moment, and
+his heart stood still with anxiety. Then he caught sight of the Highland
+bonnet with its ribbons. He picked it up gleefully, forgetting her. She
+went out.
+
+When he was nineteen he suddenly left the Co-op. office and got a
+situation in Nottingham. In his new place he had thirty shillings a week
+instead of eighteen. This was indeed a rise. His mother and his father
+were brimmed up with pride. Everybody praised William. It seemed he was
+going to get on rapidly. Mrs. Morel hoped, with his aid, to help her
+younger sons. Annie was now studying to be a teacher. Paul, also very
+clever, was getting on well, having lessons in French and German from
+his godfather, the clergyman who was still a friend to Mrs. Morel.
+Arthur, a spoilt and very good-looking boy, was at the Board school, but
+there was talk of his trying to get a scholarship for the High School in
+Nottingham.
+
+William remained a year at his new post in Nottingham. He was studying
+hard, and growing serious. Something seemed to be fretting him. Still
+he went out to the dances and the river parties. He did not drink. The
+children were all rabid teetotallers. He came home very late at night,
+and sat yet longer studying. His mother implored him to take more care,
+to do one thing or another.
+
+"Dance, if you want to dance, my son; but don't think you can work in
+the office, and then amuse yourself, and THEN study on top of all. You
+can't; the human frame won't stand it. Do one thing or the other--amuse
+yourself or learn Latin; but don't try to do both."
+
+Then he got a place in London, at a hundred and twenty a year. This
+seemed a fabulous sum. His mother doubted almost whether to rejoice or
+to grieve.
+
+"They want me in Lime Street on Monday week, mother," he cried, his
+eyes blazing as he read the letter. Mrs. Morel felt everything go silent
+inside her. He read the letter: "'And will you reply by Thursday whether
+you accept. Yours faithfully--' They want me, mother, at a hundred and
+twenty a year, and don't even ask to see me. Didn't I tell you I could
+do it! Think of me in London! And I can give you twenty pounds a year,
+mater. We s'll all be rolling in money."
+
+"We shall, my son," she answered sadly.
+
+It never occurred to him that she might be more hurt at his going
+away than glad of his success. Indeed, as the days drew near for his
+departure, her heart began to close and grow dreary with despair. She
+loved him so much! More than that, she hoped in him so much. Almost she
+lived by him. She liked to do things for him: she liked to put a cup for
+his tea and to iron his collars, of which he was so proud. It was a joy
+to her to have him proud of his collars. There was no laundry. So she
+used to rub away at them with her little convex iron, to polish them,
+till they shone from the sheer pressure of her arm. Now she would not do
+it for him. Now he was going away. She felt almost as if he were going
+as well out of her heart. He did not seem to leave her inhabited with
+himself. That was the grief and the pain to her. He took nearly all
+himself away.
+
+A few days before his departure--he was just twenty--he burned his
+love-letters. They had hung on a file at the top of the kitchen
+cupboard. From some of them he had read extracts to his mother. Some
+of them she had taken the trouble to read herself. But most were too
+trivial.
+
+Now, on the Saturday morning he said:
+
+"Come on, Postle, let's go through my letters, and you can have the
+birds and flowers."
+
+Mrs. Morel had done her Saturday's work on the Friday, because he was
+having a last day's holiday. She was making him a rice cake, which
+he loved, to take with him. He was scarcely conscious that she was so
+miserable.
+
+He took the first letter off the file. It was mauve-tinted, and had
+purple and green thistles. William sniffed the page.
+
+"Nice scent! Smell."
+
+And he thrust the sheet under Paul's nose.
+
+"Um!" said Paul, breathing in. "What d'you call it? Smell, mother."
+
+His mother ducked her small, fine nose down to the paper.
+
+"I don't want to smell their rubbish," she said, sniffing.
+
+"This girl's father," said William, "is as rich as Croesus. He owns
+property without end. She calls me Lafayette, because I know French.
+'You will see, I've forgiven you'--I like HER forgiving me. 'I told
+mother about you this morning, and she will have much pleasure if you
+come to tea on Sunday, but she will have to get father's consent also. I
+sincerely hope he will agree. I will let you know how it transpires. If,
+however, you--'"
+
+"'Let you know how it' what?" interrupted Mrs. Morel.
+
+"'Transpires'--oh yes!"
+
+"'Transpires!'" repeated Mrs. Morel mockingly. "I thought she was so
+well educated!"
+
+William felt slightly uncomfortable, and abandoned this maiden, giving
+Paul the corner with the thistles. He continued to read extracts from
+his letters, some of which amused his mother, some of which saddened her
+and made her anxious for him.
+
+"My lad," she said, "they're very wise. They know they've only got to
+flatter your vanity, and you press up to them like a dog that has its
+head scratched."
+
+"Well, they can't go on scratching for ever," he replied. "And when
+they've done, I trot away."
+
+"But one day you'll find a string round your neck that you can't pull
+off," she answered.
+
+"Not me! I'm equal to any of 'em, mater, they needn't flatter
+themselves."
+
+"You flatter YOURSELF," she said quietly.
+
+Soon there was a heap of twisted black pages, all that remained of the
+file of scented letters, except that Paul had thirty or forty pretty
+tickets from the corners of the notepaper--swallows and forget-me-nots
+and ivy sprays. And William went to London, to start a new life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE YOUNG LIFE OF PAUL
+
+PAUL would be built like his mother, slightly and rather small. His fair
+hair went reddish, and then dark brown; his eyes were grey. He was a
+pale, quiet child, with eyes that seemed to listen, and with a full,
+dropping underlip.
+
+As a rule he seemed old for his years. He was so conscious of what other
+people felt, particularly his mother. When she fretted he understood,
+and could have no peace. His soul seemed always attentive to her.
+
+As he grew older he became stronger. William was too far removed from
+him to accept him as a companion. So the smaller boy belonged at first
+almost entirely to Annie. She was a tomboy and a "flybie-skybie", as her
+mother called her. But she was intensely fond of her second brother. So
+Paul was towed round at the heels of Annie, sharing her game. She raced
+wildly at lerky with the other young wild-cats of the Bottoms. And
+always Paul flew beside her, living her share of the game, having as
+yet no part of his own. He was quiet and not noticeable. But his sister
+adored him. He always seemed to care for things if she wanted him to.
+
+She had a big doll of which she was fearfully proud, though not so fond.
+So she laid the doll on the sofa, and covered it with an antimacassar,
+to sleep. Then she forgot it. Meantime Paul must practise jumping off
+the sofa arm. So he jumped crash into the face of the hidden doll.
+Annie rushed up, uttered a loud wail, and sat down to weep a dirge. Paul
+remained quite still.
+
+"You couldn't tell it was there, mother; you couldn't tell it was
+there," he repeated over and over. So long as Annie wept for the doll
+he sat helpless with misery. Her grief wore itself out. She forgave
+her brother--he was so much upset. But a day or two afterwards she was
+shocked.
+
+"Let's make a sacrifice of Arabella," he said. "Let's burn her."
+
+She was horrified, yet rather fascinated. She wanted to see what the boy
+would do. He made an altar of bricks, pulled some of the shavings out of
+Arabella's body, put the waxen fragments into the hollow face, poured
+on a little paraffin, and set the whole thing alight. He watched with
+wicked satisfaction the drops of wax melt off the broken forehead of
+Arabella, and drop like sweat into the flame. So long as the stupid big
+doll burned he rejoiced in silence. At the end be poked among the embers
+with a stick, fished out the arms and legs, all blackened, and smashed
+them under stones.
+
+"That's the sacrifice of Missis Arabella," he said. "An' I'm glad
+there's nothing left of her."
+
+Which disturbed Annie inwardly, although she could say nothing. He
+seemed to hate the doll so intensely, because he had broken it.
+
+All the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarly against their
+father, along with their mother. Morel continued to bully and to drink.
+He had periods, months at a time, when he made the whole life of the
+family a misery. Paul never forgot coming home from the Band of Hope
+one Monday evening and finding his mother with her eye swollen and
+discoloured, his father standing on the hearthrug, feet astride, his
+head down, and William, just home from work, glaring at his father.
+There was a silence as the young children entered, but none of the
+elders looked round.
+
+William was white to the lips, and his fists were clenched. He waited
+until the children were silent, watching with children's rage and hate;
+then he said:
+
+"You coward, you daren't do it when I was in."
+
+But Morel's blood was up. He swung round on his son. William was bigger,
+but Morel was hard-muscled, and mad with fury.
+
+"Dossn't I?" he shouted. "Dossn't I? Ha'e much more o' thy chelp, my
+young jockey, an' I'll rattle my fist about thee. Ay, an' I sholl that,
+dost see?"
+
+Morel crouched at the knees and showed his fist in an ugly, almost
+beast-like fashion. William was white with rage.
+
+"Will yer?" he said, quiet and intense. "It 'ud be the last time,
+though."
+
+Morel danced a little nearer, crouching, drawing back his fist to
+strike. William put his fists ready. A light came into his blue eyes,
+almost like a laugh. He watched his father. Another word, and the men
+would have begun to fight. Paul hoped they would. The three children sat
+pale on the sofa.
+
+"Stop it, both of you," cried Mrs. Morel in a hard voice. "We've had
+enough for ONE night. And YOU," she said, turning on to her husband,
+"look at your children!"
+
+Morel glanced at the sofa.
+
+"Look at the children, you nasty little bitch!" he sneered. "Why, what
+have I done to the children, I should like to know? But they're like
+yourself; you've put 'em up to your own tricks and nasty ways--you've
+learned 'em in it, you 'ave."
+
+She refused to answer him. No one spoke. After a while he threw his
+boots under the table and went to bed.
+
+"Why didn't you let me have a go at him?" said William, when his father
+was upstairs. "I could easily have beaten him."
+
+"A nice thing--your own father," she replied.
+
+"'FATHER!'" repeated William. "Call HIM MY father!"
+
+"Well, he is--and so--"
+
+"But why don't you let me settle him? I could do, easily."
+
+"The idea!" she cried. "It hasn't come to THAT yet."
+
+"No," he said, "it's come to worse. Look at yourself. WHY didn't you let
+me give it him?"
+
+"Because I couldn't bear it, so never think of it," she cried quickly.
+
+And the children went to bed, miserably.
+
+When William was growing up, the family moved from the Bottoms to a
+house on the brow of the hill, commanding a view of the valley, which
+spread out like a convex cockle-shell, or a clamp-shell, before it. In
+front of the house was a huge old ash-tree. The west wind, sweeping from
+Derbyshire, caught the houses with full force, and the tree shrieked
+again. Morel liked it.
+
+"It's music," he said. "It sends me to sleep."
+
+But Paul and Arthur and Annie hated it. To Paul it became almost a
+demoniacal noise. The winter of their first year in the new house their
+father was very bad. The children played in the street, on the brim of
+the wide, dark valley, until eight o'clock. Then they went to bed. Their
+mother sat sewing below. Having such a great space in front of the house
+gave the children a feeling of night, of vastness, and of terror. This
+terror came in from the shrieking of the tree and the anguish of the
+home discord. Often Paul would wake up, after he had been asleep a long
+time, aware of thuds downstairs. Instantly he was wide awake. Then he
+heard the booming shouts of his father, come home nearly drunk, then the
+sharp replies of his mother, then the bang, bang of his father's fist on
+the table, and the nasty snarling shout as the man's voice got higher.
+And then the whole was drowned in a piercing medley of shrieks and
+cries from the great, wind-swept ash-tree. The children lay silent in
+suspense, waiting for a lull in the wind to hear what their father was
+doing. He might hit their mother again. There was a feeling of horror,
+a kind of bristling in the darkness, and a sense of blood. They lay with
+their hearts in the grip of an intense anguish. The wind came through
+the tree fiercer and fiercer. All the chords of the great harp hummed,
+whistled, and shrieked. And then came the horror of the sudden silence,
+silence everywhere, outside and downstairs. What was it? Was it a
+silence of blood? What had he done?
+
+The children lay and breathed the darkness. And then, at last, they
+heard their father throw down his boots and tramp upstairs in his
+stockinged feet. Still they listened. Then at last, if the wind allowed,
+they heard the water of the tap drumming into the kettle, which their
+mother was filling for morning, and they could go to sleep in peace.
+
+So they were happy in the morning--happy, very happy playing, dancing at
+night round the lonely lamp-post in the midst of the darkness. But they
+had one tight place of anxiety in their hearts, one darkness in their
+eyes, which showed all their lives.
+
+Paul hated his father. As a boy he had a fervent private religion.
+
+"Make him stop drinking," he prayed every night. "Lord, let my father
+die," he prayed very often. "Let him not be killed at pit," he prayed
+when, after tea, the father did not come home from work.
+
+That was another time when the family suffered intensely. The children
+came from school and had their teas. On the hob the big black saucepan
+was simmering, the stew-jar was in the oven, ready for Morel's dinner.
+He was expected at five o'clock. But for months he would stop and drink
+every night on his way from work.
+
+In the winter nights, when it was cold, and grew dark early, Mrs. Morel
+would put a brass candlestick on the table, light a tallow candle to
+save the gas. The children finished their bread-and-butter, or dripping,
+and were ready to go out to play. But if Morel had not come they
+faltered. The sense of his sitting in all his pit-dirt, drinking, after
+a long day's work, not coming home and eating and washing, but sitting,
+getting drunk, on an empty stomach, made Mrs. Morel unable to bear
+herself. From her the feeling was transmitted to the other children. She
+never suffered alone any more: the children suffered with her.
+
+Paul went out to play with the rest. Down in the great trough of
+twilight, tiny clusters of lights burned where the pits were. A few last
+colliers straggled up the dim field path. The lamplighter came along. No
+more colliers came. Darkness shut down over the valley; work was done.
+It was night.
+
+Then Paul ran anxiously into the kitchen. The one candle still burned on
+the table, the big fire glowed red. Mrs. Morel sat alone. On the hob
+the saucepan steamed; the dinner-plate lay waiting on the table. All
+the room was full of the sense of waiting, waiting for the man who was
+sitting in his pit-dirt, dinnerless, some mile away from home, across
+the darkness, drinking himself drunk. Paul stood in the doorway.
+
+"Has my dad come?" he asked.
+
+"You can see he hasn't," said Mrs. Morel, cross with the futility of the
+question.
+
+Then the boy dawdled about near his mother. They shared the same
+anxiety. Presently Mrs. Morel went out and strained the potatoes.
+
+"They're ruined and black," she said; "but what do I care?"
+
+Not many words were spoken. Paul almost hated his mother for suffering
+because his father did not come home from work.
+
+"What do you bother yourself for?" he said. "If he wants to stop and get
+drunk, why don't you let him?"
+
+"Let him!" flashed Mrs. Morel. "You may well say 'let him'."
+
+She knew that the man who stops on the way home from work is on a quick
+way to ruining himself and his home. The children were yet young, and
+depended on the breadwinner. William gave her the sense of relief,
+providing her at last with someone to turn to if Morel failed. But the
+tense atmosphere of the room on these waiting evenings was the same.
+
+The minutes ticked away. At six o'clock still the cloth lay on the
+table, still the dinner stood waiting, still the same sense of anxiety
+and expectation in the room. The boy could not stand it any longer. He
+could not go out and play. So he ran in to Mrs. Inger, next door but
+one, for her to talk to him. She had no children. Her husband was good
+to her but was in a shop, and came home late. So, when she saw the lad
+at the door, she called:
+
+"Come in, Paul."
+
+The two sat talking for some time, when suddenly the boy rose, saying:
+
+"Well, I'll be going and seeing if my mother wants an errand doing."
+
+He pretended to be perfectly cheerful, and did not tell his friend what
+ailed him. Then he ran indoors.
+
+Morel at these times came in churlish and hateful.
+
+"This is a nice time to come home," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Wha's it matter to yo' what time I come whoam?" he shouted.
+
+And everybody in the house was still, because he was dangerous. He ate
+his food in the most brutal manner possible, and, when he had done,
+pushed all the pots in a heap away from him, to lay his arms on the
+table. Then he went to sleep.
+
+Paul hated his father so. The collier's small, mean head, with its black
+hair slightly soiled with grey, lay on the bare arms, and the face,
+dirty and inflamed, with a fleshy nose and thin, paltry brows, was
+turned sideways, asleep with beer and weariness and nasty temper. If
+anyone entered suddenly, or a noise were made, the man looked up and
+shouted:
+
+"I'll lay my fist about thy y'ead, I'm tellin' thee, if tha doesna stop
+that clatter! Dost hear?"
+
+And the two last words, shouted in a bullying fashion, usually at Annie,
+made the family writhe with hate of the man.
+
+He was shut out from all family affairs. No one told him anything.
+The children, alone with their mother, told her all about the day's
+happenings, everything. Nothing had really taken place in them until it
+was told to their mother. But as soon as the father came in, everything
+stopped. He was like the scotch in the smooth, happy machinery of the
+home. And he was always aware of this fall of silence on his entry,
+the shutting off of life, the unwelcome. But now it was gone too far to
+alter.
+
+He would dearly have liked the children to talk to him, but they could
+not. Sometimes Mrs. Morel would say:
+
+"You ought to tell your father."
+
+Paul won a prize in a competition in a child's paper. Everybody was
+highly jubilant.
+
+"Now you'd better tell your father when he comes in," said Mrs. Morel.
+"You know how be carries on and says he's never told anything."
+
+"All right," said Paul. But he would almost rather have forfeited the
+prize than have to tell his father.
+
+"I've won a prize in a competition, dad," he said. Morel turned round to
+him.
+
+"Have you, my boy? What sort of a competition?"
+
+"Oh, nothing--about famous women."
+
+"And how much is the prize, then, as you've got?"
+
+"It's a book."
+
+"Oh, indeed!"
+
+"About birds."
+
+"Hm--hm!"
+
+And that was all. Conversation was impossible between the father and any
+other member of the family. He was an outsider. He had denied the God in
+him.
+
+The only times when he entered again into the life of his own people
+was when he worked, and was happy at work. Sometimes, in the evening, he
+cobbled the boots or mended the kettle or his pit-bottle. Then he always
+wanted several attendants, and the children enjoyed it. They united with
+him in the work, in the actual doing of something, when he was his real
+self again.
+
+He was a good workman, dexterous, and one who, when he was in a good
+humour, always sang. He had whole periods, months, almost years, of
+friction and nasty temper. Then sometimes he was jolly again. It was
+nice to see him run with a piece of red-hot iron into the scullery,
+crying:
+
+"Out of my road--out of my road!"
+
+Then he hammered the soft, red-glowing stuff on his iron goose, and made
+the shape he wanted. Or he sat absorbed for a moment, soldering. Then
+the children watched with joy as the metal sank suddenly molten, and was
+shoved about against the nose of the soldering-iron, while the room was
+full of a scent of burnt resin and hot tin, and Morel was silent and
+intent for a minute. He always sang when he mended boots because of the
+jolly sound of hammering. And he was rather happy when he sat putting
+great patches on his moleskin pit trousers, which he would often do,
+considering them too dirty, and the stuff too hard, for his wife to
+mend.
+
+But the best time for the young children was when he made fuses. Morel
+fetched a sheaf of long sound wheat-straws from the attic. These he
+cleaned with his hand, till each one gleamed like a stalk of gold, after
+which he cut the straws into lengths of about six inches, leaving, if he
+could, a notch at the bottom of each piece. He always had a beautifully
+sharp knife that could cut a straw clean without hurting it. Then he set
+in the middle of the table a heap of gunpowder, a little pile of black
+grains upon the white-scrubbed board. He made and trimmed the straws
+while Paul and Annie rifled and plugged them. Paul loved to see the
+black grains trickle down a crack in his palm into the mouth of the
+straw, peppering jollily downwards till the straw was full. Then he
+bunged up the mouth with a bit of soap--which he got on his thumb-nail
+from a pat in a saucer--and the straw was finished.
+
+"Look, dad!" he said.
+
+"That's right, my beauty," replied Morel, who was peculiarly lavish of
+endearments to his second son. Paul popped the fuse into the powder-tin,
+ready for the morning, when Morel would take it to the pit, and use it
+to fire a shot that would blast the coal down.
+
+Meantime Arthur, still fond of his father, would lean on the arm of
+Morel's chair and say:
+
+"Tell us about down pit, daddy."
+
+This Morel loved to do.
+
+"Well, there's one little 'oss--we call 'im Taffy," he would begin. "An'
+he's a fawce 'un!"
+
+Morel had a warm way of telling a story. He made one feel Taffy's
+cunning.
+
+"He's a brown 'un," he would answer, "an' not very high. Well, he comes
+i' th' stall wi' a rattle, an' then yo' 'ear 'im sneeze.
+
+"'Ello, Taff,' you say, 'what art sneezin' for? Bin ta'ein' some snuff?'
+
+"An' 'e sneezes again. Then he slives up an' shoves 'is 'ead on yer,
+that cadin'.
+
+"'What's want, Taff?' yo' say."
+
+"And what does he?" Arthur always asked.
+
+"He wants a bit o' bacca, my duckie."
+
+This story of Taffy would go on interminably, and everybody loved it.
+
+Or sometimes it was a new tale.
+
+"An' what dost think, my darlin'? When I went to put my coat on at
+snap-time, what should go runnin' up my arm but a mouse.
+
+"'Hey up, theer!' I shouts.
+
+"An' I wor just in time ter get 'im by th' tail."
+
+"And did you kill it?"
+
+"I did, for they're a nuisance. The place is fair snied wi' 'em."
+
+"An' what do they live on?"
+
+"The corn as the 'osses drops--an' they'll get in your pocket an' eat
+your snap, if you'll let 'em--no matter where yo' hing your coat--the
+slivin', nibblin' little nuisances, for they are."
+
+These happy evenings could not take place unless Morel had some job
+to do. And then he always went to bed very early, often before the
+children. There was nothing remaining for him to stay up for, when he
+had finished tinkering, and had skimmed the headlines of the newspaper.
+
+And the children felt secure when their father was in bed. They lay and
+talked softly a while. Then they started as the lights went suddenly
+sprawling over the ceiling from the lamps that swung in the hands of the
+colliers tramping by outside, going to take the nine o'clock shift. They
+listened to the voices of the men, imagined them dipping down into the
+dark valley. Sometimes they went to the window and watched the three
+or four lamps growing tinier and tinier, swaying down the fields in the
+darkness. Then it was a joy to rush back to bed and cuddle closely in
+the warmth.
+
+Paul was rather a delicate boy, subject to bronchitis. The others were
+all quite strong; so this was another reason for his mother's difference
+in feeling for him. One day he came home at dinner-time feeling ill. But
+it was not a family to make any fuss.
+
+"What's the matter with YOU?" his mother asked sharply.
+
+"Nothing," he replied.
+
+But he ate no dinner.
+
+"If you eat no dinner, you're not going to school," she said.
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+"That's why."
+
+So after dinner he lay down on the sofa, on the warm chintz cushions the
+children loved. Then he fell into a kind of doze. That afternoon Mrs.
+Morel was ironing. She listened to the small, restless noise the boy
+made in his throat as she worked. Again rose in her heart the old,
+almost weary feeling towards him. She had never expected him to live.
+And yet he had a great vitality in his young body. Perhaps it would have
+been a little relief to her if he had died. She always felt a mixture of
+anguish in her love for him.
+
+He, in his semi-conscious sleep, was vaguely aware of the clatter of the
+iron on the iron-stand, of the faint thud, thud on the ironing-board.
+Once roused, he opened his eyes to see his mother standing on the
+hearthrug with the hot iron near her cheek, listening, as it were, to
+the heat. Her still face, with the mouth closed tight from suffering and
+disillusion and self-denial, and her nose the smallest bit on one side,
+and her blue eyes so young, quick, and warm, made his heart contract
+with love. When she was quiet, so, she looked brave and rich with life,
+but as if she had been done out of her rights. It hurt the boy keenly,
+this feeling about her that she had never had her life's fulfilment:
+and his own incapability to make up to her hurt him with a sense of
+impotence, yet made him patiently dogged inside. It was his childish
+aim.
+
+She spat on the iron, and a little ball of spit bounded, raced off the
+dark, glossy surface. Then, kneeling, she rubbed the iron on the sack
+lining of the hearthrug vigorously. She was warm in the ruddy firelight.
+Paul loved the way she crouched and put her head on one side. Her
+movements were light and quick. It was always a pleasure to watch her.
+Nothing she ever did, no movement she ever made, could have been found
+fault with by her children. The room was warm and full of the scent of
+hot linen. Later on the clergyman came and talked softly with her.
+
+Paul was laid up with an attack of bronchitis. He did not mind much.
+What happened happened, and it was no good kicking against the pricks.
+He loved the evenings, after eight o'clock, when the light was put out,
+and he could watch the fire-flames spring over the darkness of the walls
+and ceiling; could watch huge shadows waving and tossing, till the room
+seemed full of men who battled silently.
+
+On retiring to bed, the father would come into the sickroom. He was
+always very gentle if anyone were ill. But he disturbed the atmosphere
+for the boy.
+
+"Are ter asleep, my darlin'?" Morel asked softly.
+
+"No; is my mother comin'?"
+
+"She's just finishin' foldin' the clothes. Do you want anything?" Morel
+rarely "thee'd" his son.
+
+"I don't want nothing. But how long will she be?"
+
+"Not long, my duckie."
+
+The father waited undecidedly on the hearthrug for a moment or two. He
+felt his son did not want him. Then he went to the top of the stairs and
+said to his wife:
+
+"This childt's axin' for thee; how long art goin' to be?"
+
+"Until I've finished, good gracious! Tell him to go to sleep."
+
+"She says you're to go to sleep," the father repeated gently to Paul.
+
+"Well, I want HER to come," insisted the boy.
+
+"He says he can't go off till you come," Morel called downstairs.
+
+"Eh, dear! I shan't be long. And do stop shouting downstairs. There's
+the other children--"
+
+Then Morel came again and crouched before the bedroom fire. He loved a
+fire dearly.
+
+"She says she won't be long," he said.
+
+He loitered about indefinitely. The boy began to get feverish with
+irritation. His father's presence seemed to aggravate all his sick
+impatience. At last Morel, after having stood looking at his son awhile,
+said softly:
+
+"Good-night, my darling."
+
+"Good-night," Paul replied, turning round in relief to be alone.
+
+Paul loved to sleep with his mother. Sleep is still most perfect, in
+spite of hygienists, when it is shared with a beloved. The warmth, the
+security and peace of soul, the utter comfort from the touch of the
+other, knits the sleep, so that it takes the body and soul completely in
+its healing. Paul lay against her and slept, and got better; whilst she,
+always a bad sleeper, fell later on into a profound sleep that seemed to
+give her faith.
+
+In convalescence he would sit up in bed, see the fluffy horses feeding
+at the troughs in the field, scattering their hay on the trodden yellow
+snow; watch the miners troop home--small, black figures trailing slowly
+in gangs across the white field. Then the night came up in dark blue
+vapour from the snow.
+
+In convalescence everything was wonderful. The snowflakes, suddenly
+arriving on the window-pane, clung there a moment like swallows,
+then were gone, and a drop of water was crawling down the glass. The
+snowflakes whirled round the corner of the house, like pigeons dashing
+by. Away across the valley the little black train crawled doubtfully
+over the great whiteness.
+
+While they were so poor, the children were delighted if they could do
+anything to help economically. Annie and Paul and Arthur went out early
+in the morning, in summer, looking for mushrooms, hunting through the
+wet grass, from which the larks were rising, for the white-skinned,
+wonderful naked bodies crouched secretly in the green. And if they got
+half a pound they felt exceedingly happy: there was the joy of finding
+something, the joy of accepting something straight from the hand of
+Nature, and the joy of contributing to the family exchequer.
+
+But the most important harvest, after gleaning for frumenty, was the
+blackberries. Mrs. Morel must buy fruit for puddings on the Saturdays;
+also she liked blackberries. So Paul and Arthur scoured the coppices and
+woods and old quarries, so long as a blackberry was to be found, every
+week-end going on their search. In that region of mining villages
+blackberries became a comparative rarity. But Paul hunted far and wide.
+He loved being out in the country, among the bushes. But he also could
+not bear to go home to his mother empty. That, he felt, would disappoint
+her, and he would have died rather.
+
+"Good gracious!" she would exclaim as the lads came in, late, and tired
+to death, and hungry, "wherever have you been?"
+
+"Well," replied Paul, "there wasn't any, so we went over Misk Hills. And
+look here, our mother!"
+
+She peeped into the basket.
+
+"Now, those are fine ones!" she exclaimed.
+
+"And there's over two pounds--isn't there over two pounds"?
+
+She tried the basket.
+
+"Yes," she answered doubtfully.
+
+Then Paul fished out a little spray. He always brought her one spray,
+the best he could find.
+
+"Pretty!" she said, in a curious tone, of a woman accepting a
+love-token.
+
+The boy walked all day, went miles and miles, rather than own himself
+beaten and come home to her empty-handed. She never realised this,
+whilst he was young. She was a woman who waited for her children to grow
+up. And William occupied her chiefly.
+
+But when William went to Nottingham, and was not so much at home, the
+mother made a companion of Paul. The latter was unconsciously jealous of
+his brother, and William was jealous of him. At the same time, they were
+good friends.
+
+Mrs. Morel's intimacy with her second son was more subtle and fine,
+perhaps not so passionate as with her eldest. It was the rule that Paul
+should fetch the money on Friday afternoons. The colliers of the five
+pits were paid on Fridays, but not individually. All the earnings of
+each stall were put down to the chief butty, as contractor, and he
+divided the wages again, either in the public-house or in his own home.
+So that the children could fetch the money, school closed early on
+Friday afternoons. Each of the Morel children--William, then Annie,
+then Paul--had fetched the money on Friday afternoons, until they went
+themselves to work. Paul used to set off at half-past three, with a
+little calico bag in his pocket. Down all the paths, women, girls,
+children, and men were seen trooping to the offices.
+
+These offices were quite handsome: a new, red-brick building, almost
+like a mansion, standing in its own grounds at the end of Greenhill
+Lane. The waiting-room was the hall, a long, bare room paved with blue
+brick, and having a seat all round, against the wall. Here sat the
+colliers in their pit-dirt. They had come up early. The women and
+children usually loitered about on the red gravel paths. Paul always
+examined the grass border, and the big grass bank, because in it grew
+tiny pansies and tiny forget-me-nots. There was a sound of many voices.
+The women had on their Sunday hats. The girls chattered loudly. Little
+dogs ran here and there. The green shrubs were silent all around.
+
+Then from inside came the cry "Spinney Park--Spinney Park." All the folk
+for Spinney Park trooped inside. When it was time for Bretty to be paid,
+Paul went in among the crowd. The pay-room was quite small. A counter
+went across, dividing it into half. Behind the counter stood two
+men--Mr. Braithwaite and his clerk, Mr. Winterbottom. Mr. Braithwaite
+was large, somewhat of the stern patriarch in appearance, having a
+rather thin white beard. He was usually muffled in an enormous silk
+neckerchief, and right up to the hot summer a huge fire burned in the
+open grate. No window was open. Sometimes in winter the air scorched the
+throats of the people, coming in from the freshness. Mr. Winterbottom
+was rather small and fat, and very bald. He made remarks that were not
+witty, whilst his chief launched forth patriarchal admonitions against
+the colliers.
+
+The room was crowded with miners in their pit-dirt, men who had been
+home and changed, and women, and one or two children, and usually a dog.
+Paul was quite small, so it was often his fate to be jammed behind the
+legs of the men, near the fire which scorched him. He knew the order of
+the names--they went according to stall number.
+
+"Holliday," came the ringing voice of Mr. Braithwaite. Then Mrs.
+Holliday stepped silently forward, was paid, drew aside.
+
+"Bower--John Bower."
+
+A boy stepped to the counter. Mr. Braithwaite, large and irascible,
+glowered at him over his spectacles.
+
+"John Bower!" he repeated.
+
+"It's me," said the boy.
+
+"Why, you used to 'ave a different nose than that," said glossy Mr.
+Winterbottom, peering over the counter. The people tittered, thinking of
+John Bower senior.
+
+"How is it your father's not come!" said Mr. Braithwaite, in a large and
+magisterial voice.
+
+"He's badly," piped the boy.
+
+"You should tell him to keep off the drink," pronounced the great
+cashier.
+
+"An' niver mind if he puts his foot through yer," said a mocking voice
+from behind.
+
+All the men laughed. The large and important cashier looked down at his
+next sheet.
+
+"Fred Pilkington!" he called, quite indifferent.
+
+Mr. Braithwaite was an important shareholder in the firm.
+
+Paul knew his turn was next but one, and his heart began to beat. He was
+pushed against the chimney-piece. His calves were burning. But he did
+not hope to get through the wall of men.
+
+"Walter Morel!" came the ringing voice.
+
+"Here!" piped Paul, small and inadequate.
+
+"Morel--Walter Morel!" the cashier repeated, his finger and thumb on the
+invoice, ready to pass on.
+
+Paul was suffering convulsions of self-consciousness, and could not
+or would not shout. The backs of the men obliterated him. Then Mr.
+Winterbottom came to the rescue.
+
+"He's here. Where is he? Morel's lad?"
+
+The fat, red, bald little man peered round with keen eyes. He pointed at
+the fireplace. The colliers looked round, moved aside, and disclosed the
+boy.
+
+"Here he is!" said Mr. Winterbottom.
+
+Paul went to the counter.
+
+"Seventeen pounds eleven and fivepence. Why don't you shout up when
+you're called?" said Mr. Braithwaite. He banged on to the invoice a
+five-pound bag of silver, then in a delicate and pretty movement, picked
+up a little ten-pound column of gold, and plumped it beside the silver.
+The gold slid in a bright stream over the paper. The cashier finished
+counting off the money; the boy dragged the whole down the counter to
+Mr. Winterbottom, to whom the stoppages for rent and tools must be paid.
+Here he suffered again.
+
+"Sixteen an' six," said Mr. Winterbottom.
+
+The lad was too much upset to count. He pushed forward some loose silver
+and half a sovereign.
+
+"How much do you think you've given me?" asked Mr. Winterbottom.
+
+The boy looked at him, but said nothing. He had not the faintest notion.
+
+"Haven't you got a tongue in your head?"
+
+Paul bit his lip, and pushed forward some more silver.
+
+"Don't they teach you to count at the Board-school?" he asked.
+
+"Nowt but algibbra an' French," said a collier.
+
+"An' cheek an' impidence," said another.
+
+Paul was keeping someone waiting. With trembling fingers he got his
+money into the bag and slid out. He suffered the tortures of the damned
+on these occasions.
+
+His relief, when he got outside, and was walking along the Mansfield
+Road, was infinite. On the park wall the mosses were green. There were
+some gold and some white fowls pecking under the apple trees of an
+orchard. The colliers were walking home in a stream. The boy went near
+the wall, self-consciously. He knew many of the men, but could not
+recognise them in their dirt. And this was a new torture to him.
+
+When he got down to the New Inn, at Bretty, his father was not yet come.
+Mrs. Wharmby, the landlady, knew him. His grandmother, Morel's mother,
+had been Mrs. Wharmby's friend.
+
+"Your father's not come yet," said the landlady, in the peculiar
+half-scornful, half-patronising voice of a woman who talks chiefly to
+grown men. "Sit you down."
+
+Paul sat down on the edge of the bench in the bar. Some colliers were
+"reckoning"--sharing out their money--in a corner; others came in. They
+all glanced at the boy without speaking. At last Morel came; brisk, and
+with something of an air, even in his blackness.
+
+"Hello!" he said rather tenderly to his son. "Have you bested me? Shall
+you have a drink of something?"
+
+Paul and all the children were bred up fierce anti-alcoholists, and he
+would have suffered more in drinking a lemonade before all the men than
+in having a tooth drawn.
+
+The landlady looked at him _de haut en bas_, rather pitying, and at
+the same time, resenting his clear, fierce morality. Paul went home,
+glowering. He entered the house silently. Friday was baking day, and
+there was usually a hot bun. His mother put it before him.
+
+Suddenly he turned on her in a fury, his eyes flashing:
+
+"I'm NOT going to the office any more," he said.
+
+"Why, what's the matter?" his mother asked in surprise. His sudden rages
+rather amused her.
+
+"I'm NOT going any more," he declared.
+
+"Oh, very well, tell your father so."
+
+He chewed his bun as if he hated it.
+
+"I'm not--I'm not going to fetch the money."
+
+"Then one of Carlin's children can go; they'd be glad enough of the
+sixpence," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+This sixpence was Paul's only income. It mostly went in buying birthday
+presents; but it WAS an income, and he treasured it. But--
+
+"They can have it, then!" he said. "I don't want it."
+
+"Oh, very well," said his mother. "But you needn't bully ME about it."
+
+"They're hateful, and common, and hateful, they are, and I'm not going
+any more. Mr. Braithwaite drops his 'h's', an' Mr. Winterbottom says
+'You was'."
+
+"And is that why you won't go any more?" smiled Mrs. Morel.
+
+The boy was silent for some time. His face was pale, his eyes dark and
+furious. His mother moved about at her work, taking no notice of him.
+
+"They always stan' in front of me, so's I can't get out," he said.
+
+"Well, my lad, you've only to ASK them," she replied.
+
+"An' then Alfred Winterbottom says, 'What do they teach you at the
+Board-school?'"
+
+"They never taught HIM much," said Mrs. Morel, "that is a fact--neither
+manners nor wit--and his cunning he was born with."
+
+So, in her own way, she soothed him. His ridiculous hypersensitiveness
+made her heart ache. And sometimes the fury in his eyes roused her, made
+her sleeping soul lift up its head a moment, surprised.
+
+"What was the cheque?" she asked.
+
+"Seventeen pounds eleven and fivepence, and sixteen and six stoppages,"
+replied the boy. "It's a good week; and only five shillings stoppages
+for my father."
+
+So she was able to calculate how much her husband had earned, and could
+call him to account if he gave her short money. Morel always kept to
+himself the secret of the week's amount.
+
+Friday was the baking night and market night. It was the rule that Paul
+should stay at home and bake. He loved to stop in and draw or read; he
+was very fond of drawing. Annie always "gallivanted" on Friday nights;
+Arthur was enjoying himself as usual. So the boy remained alone.
+
+Mrs. Morel loved her marketing. In the tiny market-place on the top
+of the hill, where four roads, from Nottingham and Derby, Ilkeston
+and Mansfield, meet, many stalls were erected. Brakes ran in from
+surrounding villages. The market-place was full of women, the streets
+packed with men. It was amazing to see so many men everywhere in the
+streets. Mrs. Morel usually quarrelled with her lace woman, sympathised
+with her fruit man--who was a gabey, but his wife was a bad 'un--laughed
+with the fish man--who was a scamp but so droll--put the linoleum man
+in his place, was cold with the odd-wares man, and only went to the
+crockery man when she was driven--or drawn by the cornflowers on a
+little dish; then she was coldly polite.
+
+"I wondered how much that little dish was," she said.
+
+"Sevenpence to you."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+She put the dish down and walked away; but she could not leave the
+market-place without it. Again she went by where the pots lay coldly on
+the floor, and she glanced at the dish furtively, pretending not to.
+
+She was a little woman, in a bonnet and a black costume. Her bonnet was
+in its third year; it was a great grievance to Annie.
+
+"Mother!" the girl implored, "don't wear that nubbly little bonnet."
+
+"Then what else shall I wear," replied the mother tartly. "And I'm sure
+it's right enough."
+
+It had started with a tip; then had had flowers; now was reduced to
+black lace and a bit of jet.
+
+"It looks rather come down," said Paul. "Couldn't you give it a
+pick-me-up?"
+
+"I'll jowl your head for impudence," said Mrs. Morel, and she tied the
+strings of the black bonnet valiantly under her chin.
+
+She glanced at the dish again. Both she and her enemy, the pot man,
+had an uncomfortable feeling, as if there were something between them.
+Suddenly he shouted:
+
+"Do you want it for fivepence?"
+
+She started. Her heart hardened; but then she stooped and took up her
+dish.
+
+"I'll have it," she said.
+
+"Yer'll do me the favour, like?" he said. "Yer'd better spit in it, like
+yer do when y'ave something give yer."
+
+Mrs. Morel paid him the fivepence in a cold manner.
+
+"I don't see you give it me," she said. "You wouldn't let me have it for
+fivepence if you didn't want to."
+
+"In this flamin', scrattlin' place you may count yerself lucky if you
+can give your things away," he growled.
+
+"Yes; there are bad times, and good," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+But she had forgiven the pot man. They were friends. She dare now finger
+his pots. So she was happy.
+
+Paul was waiting for her. He loved her home-coming. She was always her
+best so--triumphant, tired, laden with parcels, feeling rich in spirit.
+He heard her quick, light step in the entry and looked up from his
+drawing.
+
+"Oh!" she sighed, smiling at him from the doorway.
+
+"My word, you ARE loaded!" he exclaimed, putting down his brush.
+
+"I am!" she gasped. "That brazen Annie said she'd meet me. SUCH a
+weight!"
+
+She dropped her string bag and her packages on the table.
+
+"Is the bread done?" she asked, going to the oven.
+
+"The last one is soaking," he replied. "You needn't look, I've not
+forgotten it."
+
+"Oh, that pot man!" she said, closing the oven door. "You know what a
+wretch I've said he was? Well, I don't think he's quite so bad."
+
+"Don't you?"
+
+The boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black bonnet.
+
+"No. I think he can't make any money--well, it's everybody's cry alike
+nowadays--and it makes him disagreeable."
+
+"It would ME," said Paul.
+
+"Well, one can't wonder at it. And he let me have--how much do you think
+he let me have THIS for?"
+
+She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it
+with joy.
+
+"Show me!" said Paul.
+
+The two stood together gloating over the dish.
+
+"I LOVE cornflowers on things," said Paul.
+
+"Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me--"
+
+"One and three," said Paul.
+
+"Fivepence!"
+
+"It's not enough, mother."
+
+"No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I'd been
+extravagant, I couldn't afford any more. And he needn't have let me have
+it if he hadn't wanted to."
+
+"No, he needn't, need he," said Paul, and the two comforted each other
+from the fear of having robbed the pot man.
+
+"We c'n have stewed fruit in it," said Paul.
+
+"Or custard, or a jelly," said his mother.
+
+"Or radishes and lettuce," said he.
+
+"Don't forget that bread," she said, her voice bright with glee.
+
+Paul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.
+
+"It's done," he said, giving it to her.
+
+She tapped it also.
+
+"Yes," she replied, going to unpack her bag. "Oh, and I'm a wicked,
+extravagant woman. I know I s'll come to want."
+
+He hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance. She
+unfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of pansies
+and of crimson daisies.
+
+"Four penn'orth!" she moaned.
+
+"How CHEAP!" he cried.
+
+"Yes, but I couldn't afford it THIS week of all weeks."
+
+"But lovely!" he cried.
+
+"Aren't they!" she exclaimed, giving way to pure joy. "Paul, look at
+this yellow one, isn't it--and a face just like an old man!"
+
+"Just!" cried Paul, stooping to sniff. "And smells that nice! But he's a
+bit splashed."
+
+He ran in the scullery, came back with the flannel, and carefully washed
+the pansy.
+
+"NOW look at him now he's wet!" he said.
+
+"Yes!" she exclaimed, brimful of satisfaction.
+
+The children of Scargill Street felt quite select. At the end where
+the Morels lived there were not many young things. So the few were more
+united. Boys and girls played together, the girls joining in the fights
+and the rough games, the boys taking part in the dancing games and rings
+and make-belief of the girls.
+
+Annie and Paul and Arthur loved the winter evenings, when it was not
+wet. They stayed indoors till the colliers were all gone home, till it
+was thick dark, and the street would be deserted. Then they tied their
+scarves round their necks, for they scorned overcoats, as all the
+colliers' children did, and went out. The entry was very dark, and at
+the end the whole great night opened out, in a hollow, with a little
+tangle of lights below where Minton pit lay, and another far away
+opposite for Selby. The farthest tiny lights seemed to stretch out the
+darkness for ever. The children looked anxiously down the road at the
+one lamp-post, which stood at the end of the field path. If the little,
+luminous space were deserted, the two boys felt genuine desolation. They
+stood with their hands in their pockets under the lamp, turning their
+backs on the night, quite miserable, watching the dark houses. Suddenly
+a pinafore under a short coat was seen, and a long-legged girl came
+flying up.
+
+"Where's Billy Pillins an' your Annie an' Eddie Dakin?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+But it did not matter so much--there were three now. They set up a game
+round the lamp-post, till the others rushed up, yelling. Then the play
+went fast and furious.
+
+There was only this one lamp-post. Behind was the great scoop of
+darkness, as if all the night were there. In front, another wide, dark
+way opened over the hill brow. Occasionally somebody came out of this
+way and went into the field down the path. In a dozen yards the night
+had swallowed them. The children played on.
+
+They were brought exceedingly close together owing to their isolation.
+If a quarrel took place, the whole play was spoilt. Arthur was very
+touchy, and Billy Pillins--really Philips--was worse. Then Paul had to
+side with Arthur, and on Paul's side went Alice, while Billy Pillins
+always had Emmie Limb and Eddie Dakin to back him up. Then the six would
+fight, hate with a fury of hatred, and flee home in terror. Paul never
+forgot, after one of these fierce internecine fights, seeing a big red
+moon lift itself up, slowly, between the waste road over the hilltop,
+steadily, like a great bird. And he thought of the Bible, that the moon
+should be turned to blood. And the next day he made haste to be friends
+with Billy Pillins. And then the wild, intense games went on again under
+the lamp-post, surrounded by so much darkness. Mrs. Morel, going into
+her parlour, would hear the children singing away:
+
+     "My shoes are made of Spanish leather,
+     My socks are made of silk;
+     I wear a ring on every finger,
+     I wash myself in milk."
+
+They sounded so perfectly absorbed in the game as their voices came
+out of the night, that they had the feel of wild creatures singing.
+It stirred the mother; and she understood when they came in at eight
+o'clock, ruddy, with brilliant eyes, and quick, passionate speech.
+
+They all loved the Scargill Street house for its openness, for the great
+scallop of the world it had in view. On summer evenings the women would
+stand against the field fence, gossiping, facing the west, watching the
+sunsets flare quickly out, till the Derbyshire hills ridged across the
+crimson far away, like the black crest of a newt.
+
+In this summer season the pits never turned full time, particularly the
+soft coal. Mrs. Dakin, who lived next door to Mrs. Morel, going to the
+field fence to shake her hearthrug, would spy men coming slowly up the
+hill. She saw at once they were colliers. Then she waited, a tall, thin,
+shrew-faced woman, standing on the hill brow, almost like a menace to
+the poor colliers who were toiling up. It was only eleven o'clock. From
+the far-off wooded hills the haze that hangs like fine black crape at
+the back of a summer morning had not yet dissipated. The first man came
+to the stile. "Chock-chock!" went the gate under his thrust.
+
+"What, han' yer knocked off?" cried Mrs. Dakin.
+
+"We han, missis."
+
+"It's a pity as they letn yer goo," she said sarcastically.
+
+"It is that," replied the man.
+
+"Nay, you know you're flig to come up again," she said.
+
+And the man went on. Mrs. Dakin, going up her yard, spied Mrs. Morel
+taking the ashes to the ash-pit.
+
+"I reckon Minton's knocked off, missis," she cried.
+
+"Isn't it sickenin!" exclaimed Mrs. Morel in wrath.
+
+"Ha! But I'n just seed Jont Hutchby."
+
+"They might as well have saved their shoe-leather," said Mrs. Morel. And
+both women went indoors disgusted.
+
+The colliers, their faces scarcely blackened, were trooping home again.
+Morel hated to go back. He loved the sunny morning. But he had gone to
+pit to work, and to be sent home again spoilt his temper.
+
+"Good gracious, at this time!" exclaimed his wife, as he entered.
+
+"Can I help it, woman?" he shouted.
+
+"And I've not done half enough dinner."
+
+"Then I'll eat my bit o' snap as I took with me," he bawled
+pathetically. He felt ignominious and sore.
+
+And the children, coming home from school, would wonder to see their
+father eating with his dinner the two thick slices of rather dry and
+dirty bread-and-butter that had been to pit and back.
+
+"What's my dad eating his snap for now?" asked Arthur.
+
+"I should ha'e it holled at me if I didna," snorted Morel.
+
+"What a story!" exclaimed his wife.
+
+"An' is it goin' to be wasted?" said Morel. "I'm not such a extravagant
+mortal as you lot, with your waste. If I drop a bit of bread at pit, in
+all the dust an' dirt, I pick it up an' eat it."
+
+"The mice would eat it," said Paul. "It wouldn't be wasted."
+
+"Good bread-an'-butter's not for mice, either," said Morel. "Dirty or
+not dirty, I'd eat it rather than it should be wasted."
+
+"You might leave it for the mice and pay for it out of your next pint,"
+said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Oh, might I?" he exclaimed.
+
+They were very poor that autumn. William had just gone away to London,
+and his mother missed his money. He sent ten shillings once or twice,
+but he had many things to pay for at first. His letters came regularly
+once a week. He wrote a good deal to his mother, telling her all his
+life, how he made friends, and was exchanging lessons with a Frenchman,
+how he enjoyed London. His mother felt again he was remaining to her
+just as when he was at home. She wrote to him every week her direct,
+rather witty letters. All day long, as she cleaned the house, she
+thought of him. He was in London: he would do well. Almost, he was like
+her knight who wore HER favour in the battle.
+
+He was coming at Christmas for five days. There had never been such
+preparations. Paul and Arthur scoured the land for holly and evergreens.
+Annie made the pretty paper hoops in the old-fashioned way. And there
+was unheard-of extravagance in the larder. Mrs. Morel made a big and
+magnificent cake. Then, feeling queenly, she showed Paul how to blanch
+almonds. He skinned the long nuts reverently, counting them all, to see
+not one was lost. It was said that eggs whisked better in a cold place.
+So the boy stood in the scullery, where the temperature was nearly at
+freezing-point, and whisked and whisked, and flew in excitement to his
+mother as the white of egg grew stiffer and more snowy.
+
+"Just look, mother! Isn't it lovely?"
+
+And he balanced a bit on his nose, then blew it in the air.
+
+"Now, don't waste it," said the mother.
+
+Everybody was mad with excitement. William was coming on Christmas Eve.
+Mrs. Morel surveyed her pantry. There was a big plum cake, and a rice
+cake, jam tarts, lemon tarts, and mince-pies--two enormous dishes. She
+was finishing cooking--Spanish tarts and cheese-cakes. Everywhere was
+decorated. The kissing bunch of berried holly hung with bright and
+glittering things, spun slowly over Mrs. Morel's head as she trimmed her
+little tarts in the kitchen. A great fire roared. There was a scent of
+cooked pastry. He was due at seven o'clock, but he would be late. The
+three children had gone to meet him. She was alone. But at a quarter to
+seven Morel came in again. Neither wife nor husband spoke. He sat in his
+armchair, quite awkward with excitement, and she quietly went on with
+her baking. Only by the careful way in which she did things could it be
+told how much moved she was. The clock ticked on.
+
+"What time dost say he's coming?" Morel asked for the fifth time.
+
+"The train gets in at half-past six," she replied emphatically.
+
+"Then he'll be here at ten past seven."
+
+"Eh, bless you, it'll be hours late on the Midland," she said
+indifferently. But she hoped, by expecting him late, to bring him early.
+Morel went down the entry to look for him. Then he came back.
+
+"Goodness, man!" she said. "You're like an ill-sitting hen."
+
+"Hadna you better be gettin' him summat t' eat ready?" asked the father.
+
+"There's plenty of time," she answered.
+
+"There's not so much as I can see on," he answered, turning crossly in
+his chair. She began to clear her table. The kettle was singing. They
+waited and waited.
+
+Meantime the three children were on the platform at Sethley Bridge,
+on the Midland main line, two miles from home. They waited one hour.
+A train came--he was not there. Down the line the red and green lights
+shone. It was very dark and very cold.
+
+"Ask him if the London train's come," said Paul to Annie, when they saw
+a man in a tip cap.
+
+"I'm not," said Annie. "You be quiet--he might send us off."
+
+But Paul was dying for the man to know they were expecting someone by
+the London train: it sounded so grand. Yet he was much too much scared
+of broaching any man, let alone one in a peaked cap, to dare to ask. The
+three children could scarcely go into the waiting-room for fear of being
+sent away, and for fear something should happen whilst they were off the
+platform. Still they waited in the dark and cold.
+
+"It's an hour an' a half late," said Arthur pathetically.
+
+"Well," said Annie, "it's Christmas Eve."
+
+They all grew silent. He wasn't coming. They looked down the darkness
+of the railway. There was London! It seemed the utter-most of distance.
+They thought anything might happen if one came from London. They were
+all too troubled to talk. Cold, and unhappy, and silent, they huddled
+together on the platform.
+
+At last, after more than two hours, they saw the lights of an engine
+peering round, away down the darkness. A porter ran out. The children
+drew back with beating hearts. A great train, bound for Manchester, drew
+up. Two doors opened, and from one of them, William. They flew to him.
+He handed parcels to them cheerily, and immediately began to explain
+that this great train had stopped for HIS sake at such a small station
+as Sethley Bridge: it was not booked to stop.
+
+Meanwhile the parents were getting anxious. The table was set, the chop
+was cooked, everything was ready. Mrs. Morel put on her black apron.
+She was wearing her best dress. Then she sat, pretending to read. The
+minutes were a torture to her.
+
+"H'm!" said Morel. "It's an hour an' a ha'ef."
+
+"And those children waiting!" she said.
+
+"Th' train canna ha' come in yet," he said.
+
+"I tell you, on Christmas Eve they're HOURS wrong."
+
+They were both a bit cross with each other, so gnawed with anxiety. The
+ash tree moaned outside in a cold, raw wind. And all that space of night
+from London home! Mrs. Morel suffered. The slight click of the works
+inside the clock irritated her. It was getting so late; it was getting
+unbearable.
+
+At last there was a sound of voices, and a footstep in the entry.
+
+"Ha's here!" cried Morel, jumping up.
+
+Then he stood back. The mother ran a few steps towards the door and
+waited. There was a rush and a patter of feet, the door burst open.
+William was there. He dropped his Gladstone bag and took his mother in
+his arms.
+
+"Mater!" he said.
+
+"My boy!" she cried.
+
+And for two seconds, no longer, she clasped him and kissed him. Then she
+withdrew and said, trying to be quite normal:
+
+"But how late you are!"
+
+"Aren't I!" he cried, turning to his father. "Well, dad!"
+
+The two men shook hands.
+
+"Well, my lad!"
+
+Morel's eyes were wet.
+
+"We thought tha'd niver be commin'," he said.
+
+"Oh, I'd come!" exclaimed William.
+
+Then the son turned round to his mother.
+
+"But you look well," she said proudly, laughing.
+
+"Well!" he exclaimed. "I should think so--coming home!"
+
+He was a fine fellow, big, straight, and fearless-looking. He looked
+round at the evergreens and the kissing bunch, and the little tarts that
+lay in their tins on the hearth.
+
+"By jove! mother, it's not different!" he said, as if in relief.
+
+Everybody was still for a second. Then he suddenly sprang forward,
+picked a tart from the hearth, and pushed it whole into his mouth.
+
+"Well, did iver you see such a parish oven!" the father exclaimed.
+
+He had brought them endless presents. Every penny he had he had spent
+on them. There was a sense of luxury overflowing in the house. For his
+mother there was an umbrella with gold on the pale handle. She kept
+it to her dying day, and would have lost anything rather than that.
+Everybody had something gorgeous, and besides, there were pounds of
+unknown sweets: Turkish delight, crystallised pineapple, and such-like
+things which, the children thought, only the splendour of London could
+provide. And Paul boasted of these sweets among his friends.
+
+"Real pineapple, cut off in slices, and then turned into crystal--fair
+grand!"
+
+Everybody was mad with happiness in the family. Home was home, and they
+loved it with a passion of love, whatever the suffering had been. There
+were parties, there were rejoicings. People came in to see William, to
+see what difference London had made to him. And they all found him "such
+a gentleman, and SUCH a fine fellow, my word"!
+
+When he went away again the children retired to various places to weep
+alone. Morel went to bed in misery, and Mrs. Morel felt as if she were
+numbed by some drug, as if her feelings were paralysed. She loved him
+passionately.
+
+He was in the office of a lawyer connected with a large shipping firm,
+and at the midsummer his chief offered him a trip in the Mediterranean
+on one of the boats, for quite a small cost. Mrs. Morel wrote: "Go, go,
+my boy. You may never have a chance again, and I should love to think of
+you cruising there in the Mediterranean almost better than to have you
+at home." But William came home for his fortnight's holiday. Not even
+the Mediterranean, which pulled at all his young man's desire to travel,
+and at his poor man's wonder at the glamorous south, could take him away
+when he might come home. That compensated his mother for much.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PAUL LAUNCHES INTO LIFE
+
+MOREL was rather a heedless man, careless of danger. So he had endless
+accidents. Now, when Mrs. Morel heard the rattle of an empty coal-cart
+cease at her entry-end, she ran into the parlour to look, expecting
+almost to see her husband seated in the waggon, his face grey under his
+dirt, his body limp and sick with some hurt or other. If it were he, she
+would run out to help.
+
+About a year after William went to London, and just after Paul had left
+school, before he got work, Mrs. Morel was upstairs and her son was
+painting in the kitchen--he was very clever with his brush--when there
+came a knock at the door. Crossly he put down his brush to go. At the
+same moment his mother opened a window upstairs and looked down.
+
+A pit-lad in his dirt stood on the threshold.
+
+"Is this Walter Morel's?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Morel. "What is it?"
+
+But she had guessed already.
+
+"Your mester's got hurt," he said.
+
+"Eh, dear me!" she exclaimed. "It's a wonder if he hadn't, lad. And
+what's he done this time?"
+
+"I don't know for sure, but it's 'is leg somewhere. They ta'ein' 'im ter
+th' 'ospital."
+
+"Good gracious me!" she exclaimed. "Eh, dear, what a one he is! There's
+not five minutes of peace, I'll be hanged if there is! His thumb's
+nearly better, and now--Did you see him?"
+
+"I seed him at th' bottom. An' I seed 'em bring 'im up in a tub, an'
+'e wor in a dead faint. But he shouted like anythink when Doctor Fraser
+examined him i' th' lamp cabin--an' cossed an' swore, an' said as 'e wor
+goin' to be ta'en whoam--'e worn't goin' ter th' 'ospital."
+
+The boy faltered to an end.
+
+"He WOULD want to come home, so that I can have all the bother. Thank
+you, my lad. Eh, dear, if I'm not sick--sick and surfeited, I am!"
+
+She came downstairs. Paul had mechanically resumed his painting.
+
+"And it must be pretty bad if they've taken him to the hospital," she
+went on. "But what a CARELESS creature he is! OTHER men don't have all
+these accidents. Yes, he WOULD want to put all the burden on me. Eh,
+dear, just as we WERE getting easy a bit at last. Put those things away,
+there's no time to be painting now. What time is there a train? I know I
+s'll have to go trailing to Keston. I s'll have to leave that bedroom."
+
+"I can finish it," said Paul.
+
+"You needn't. I shall catch the seven o'clock back, I should think. Oh,
+my blessed heart, the fuss and commotion he'll make! And those granite
+setts at Tinder Hill--he might well call them kidney pebbles--they'll
+jolt him almost to bits. I wonder why they can't mend them, the state
+they're in, an' all the men as go across in that ambulance. You'd think
+they'd have a hospital here. The men bought the ground, and, my sirs,
+there'd be accidents enough to keep it going. But no, they must trail
+them ten miles in a slow ambulance to Nottingham. It's a crying shame!
+Oh, and the fuss he'll make! I know he will! I wonder who's with him.
+Barker, I s'd think. Poor beggar, he'll wish himself anywhere rather.
+But he'll look after him, I know. Now there's no telling how long he'll
+be stuck in that hospital--and WON'T he hate it! But if it's only his
+leg it's not so bad."
+
+All the time she was getting ready. Hurriedly taking off her bodice, she
+crouched at the boiler while the water ran slowly into her lading-can.
+
+"I wish this boiler was at the bottom of the sea!" she exclaimed,
+wriggling the handle impatiently. She had very handsome, strong arms,
+rather surprising on a smallish woman.
+
+Paul cleared away, put on the kettle, and set the table.
+
+"There isn't a train till four-twenty," he said. "You've time enough."
+
+"Oh no, I haven't!" she cried, blinking at him over the towel as she
+wiped her face.
+
+"Yes, you have. You must drink a cup of tea at any rate. Should I come
+with you to Keston?"
+
+"Come with me? What for, I should like to know? Now, what have I to take
+him? Eh, dear! His clean shirt--and it's a blessing it IS clean. But it
+had better be aired. And stockings--he won't want them--and a towel, I
+suppose; and handkerchiefs. Now what else?"
+
+"A comb, a knife and fork and spoon," said Paul. His father had been in
+the hospital before.
+
+"Goodness knows what sort of state his feet were in," continued Mrs.
+Morel, as she combed her long brown hair, that was fine as silk, and
+was touched now with grey. "He's very particular to wash himself to the
+waist, but below he thinks doesn't matter. But there, I suppose they see
+plenty like it."
+
+Paul had laid the table. He cut his mother one or two pieces of very
+thin bread and butter.
+
+"Here you are," he said, putting her cup of tea in her place.
+
+"I can't be bothered!" she exclaimed crossly.
+
+"Well, you've got to, so there, now it's put out ready," he insisted.
+
+So she sat down and sipped her tea, and ate a little, in silence. She
+was thinking.
+
+In a few minutes she was gone, to walk the two and a half miles to
+Keston Station. All the things she was taking him she had in her bulging
+string bag. Paul watched her go up the road between the hedges--a
+little, quick-stepping figure, and his heart ached for her, that she was
+thrust forward again into pain and trouble. And she, tripping so quickly
+in her anxiety, felt at the back of her her son's heart waiting on her,
+felt him bearing what part of the burden he could, even supporting her.
+And when she was at the hospital, she thought: "It WILL upset that lad
+when I tell him how bad it is. I'd better be careful." And when she was
+trudging home again, she felt he was coming to share her burden.
+
+"Is it bad?" asked Paul, as soon as she entered the house.
+
+"It's bad enough," she replied.
+
+"What?"
+
+She sighed and sat down, undoing her bonnet-strings. Her son watched her
+face as it was lifted, and her small, work-hardened hands fingering at
+the bow under her chin.
+
+"Well," she answered, "it's not really dangerous, but the nurse says
+it's a dreadful smash. You see, a great piece of rock fell on his
+leg--here--and it's a compound fracture. There are pieces of bone
+sticking through--"
+
+"Ugh--how horrid!" exclaimed the children.
+
+"And," she continued, "of course he says he's going to die--it wouldn't
+be him if he didn't. 'I'm done for, my lass!' he said, looking at me.
+'Don't be so silly,' I said to him. 'You're not going to die of a broken
+leg, however badly it's smashed.' 'I s'll niver come out of 'ere but in
+a wooden box,' he groaned. 'Well,' I said, 'if you want them to carry
+you into the garden in a wooden box, when you're better, I've no doubt
+they will.' 'If we think it's good for him,' said the Sister. She's an
+awfully nice Sister, but rather strict."
+
+Mrs. Morel took off her bonnet. The children waited in silence.
+
+"Of course, he IS bad," she continued, "and he will be. It's a great
+shock, and he's lost a lot of blood; and, of course, it IS a very
+dangerous smash. It's not at all sure that it will mend so easily. And
+then there's the fever and the mortification--if it took bad ways he'd
+quickly be gone. But there, he's a clean-blooded man, with wonderful
+healing flesh, and so I see no reason why it SHOULD take bad ways. Of
+course there's a wound--"
+
+She was pale now with emotion and anxiety. The three children realised
+that it was very bad for their father, and the house was silent,
+anxious.
+
+"But he always gets better," said Paul after a while.
+
+"That's what I tell him," said the mother.
+
+Everybody moved about in silence.
+
+"And he really looked nearly done for," she said. "But the Sister says
+that is the pain."
+
+Annie took away her mother's coat and bonnet.
+
+"And he looked at me when I came away! I said: 'I s'll have to go now,
+Walter, because of the train--and the children.' And he looked at me. It
+seems hard."
+
+Paul took up his brush again and went on painting. Arthur went outside
+for some coal. Annie sat looking dismal. And Mrs. Morel, in her little
+rocking-chair that her husband had made for her when the first baby was
+coming, remained motionless, brooding. She was grieved, and bitterly
+sorry for the man who was hurt so much. But still, in her heart of
+hearts, where the love should have burned, there was a blank. Now, when
+all her woman's pity was roused to its full extent, when she would have
+slaved herself to death to nurse him and to save him, when she would
+have taken the pain herself, if she could, somewhere far away inside
+her, she felt indifferent to him and to his suffering. It hurt her
+most of all, this failure to love him, even when he roused her strong
+emotions. She brooded a while.
+
+"And there," she said suddenly, "when I'd got halfway to Keston, I found
+I'd come out in my working boots--and LOOK at them." They were an old
+pair of Paul's, brown and rubbed through at the toes. "I didn't know
+what to do with myself, for shame," she added.
+
+In the morning, when Annie and Arthur were at school, Mrs. Morel talked
+again to her son, who was helping her with her housework.
+
+"I found Barker at the hospital. He did look bad, poor little fellow!
+'Well,' I said to him, 'what sort of a journey did you have with him?'
+'Dunna ax me, missis!' he said. 'Ay,' I said, 'I know what he'd be.'
+'But it WOR bad for him, Mrs. Morel, it WOR that!' he said. 'I know,' I
+said. 'At ivry jolt I thought my 'eart would ha' flown clean out o' my
+mouth,' he said. 'An' the scream 'e gives sometimes! Missis, not for a
+fortune would I go through wi' it again.' 'I can quite understand it,'
+I said. 'It's a nasty job, though,' he said, 'an' one as'll be a long
+while afore it's right again.' 'I'm afraid it will,' I said. I like Mr.
+Barker--I DO like him. There's something so manly about him."
+
+Paul resumed his task silently.
+
+"And of course," Mrs. Morel continued, "for a man like your father,
+the hospital IS hard. He CAN'T understand rules and regulations. And he
+won't let anybody else touch him, not if he can help it. When he smashed
+the muscles of his thigh, and it had to be dressed four times a day,
+WOULD he let anybody but me or his mother do it? He wouldn't. So, of
+course, he'll suffer in there with the nurses. And I didn't like leaving
+him. I'm sure, when I kissed him an' came away, it seemed a shame."
+
+So she talked to her son, almost as if she were thinking aloud to him,
+and he took it in as best he could, by sharing her trouble to lighten
+it. And in the end she shared almost everything with him without
+knowing.
+
+Morel had a very bad time. For a week he was in a critical condition.
+Then he began to mend. And then, knowing he was going to get better, the
+whole family sighed with relief, and proceeded to live happily.
+
+They were not badly off whilst Morel was in the hospital. There were
+fourteen shillings a week from the pit, ten shillings from the sick
+club, and five shillings from the Disability Fund; and then every week
+the butties had something for Mrs. Morel--five or seven shillings--so
+that she was quite well to do. And whilst Morel was progressing
+favourably in the hospital, the family was extraordinarily happy and
+peaceful. On Saturdays and Wednesdays Mrs. Morel went to Nottingham to
+see her husband. Then she always brought back some little thing: a small
+tube of paints for Paul, or some thick paper; a couple of postcards for
+Annie, that the whole family rejoiced over for days before the girl was
+allowed to send them away; or a fret-saw for Arthur, or a bit of pretty
+wood. She described her adventures into the big shops with joy. Soon the
+folk in the picture-shop knew her, and knew about Paul. The girl in
+the book-shop took a keen interest in her. Mrs. Morel was full of
+information when she got home from Nottingham. The three sat round till
+bed-time, listening, putting in, arguing. Then Paul often raked the
+fire.
+
+"I'm the man in the house now," he used to say to his mother with joy.
+They learned how perfectly peaceful the home could be. And they
+almost regretted--though none of them would have owned to such
+callousness--that their father was soon coming back.
+
+Paul was now fourteen, and was looking for work. He was a rather small
+and rather finely-made boy, with dark brown hair and light blue eyes.
+His face had already lost its youthful chubbiness, and was becoming
+somewhat like William's--rough-featured, almost rugged--and it was
+extraordinarily mobile. Usually he looked as if he saw things, was full
+of life, and warm; then his smile, like his mother's, came suddenly and
+was very lovable; and then, when there was any clog in his soul's quick
+running, his face went stupid and ugly. He was the sort of boy that
+becomes a clown and a lout as soon as he is not understood, or feels
+himself held cheap; and, again, is adorable at the first touch of
+warmth.
+
+He suffered very much from the first contact with anything. When he was
+seven, the starting school had been a nightmare and a torture to him.
+But afterwards he liked it. And now that he felt he had to go out into
+life, he went through agonies of shrinking self-consciousness. He was
+quite a clever painter for a boy of his years, and he knew some French
+and German and mathematics that Mr. Heaton had taught him. But nothing
+he had was of any commercial value. He was not strong enough for heavy
+manual work, his mother said. He did not care for making things with his
+hands, preferred racing about, or making excursions into the country, or
+reading, or painting.
+
+"What do you want to be?" his mother asked.
+
+"Anything."
+
+"That is no answer," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+But it was quite truthfully the only answer he could give. His ambition,
+as far as this world's gear went, was quietly to earn his thirty or
+thirty-five shillings a week somewhere near home, and then, when his
+father died, have a cottage with his mother, paint and go out as he
+liked, and live happy ever after. That was his programme as far as doing
+things went. But he was proud within himself, measuring people against
+himself, and placing them, inexorably. And he thought that PERHAPS he
+might also make a painter, the real thing. But that he left alone.
+
+"Then," said his mother, "you must look in the paper for the
+advertisements."
+
+He looked at her. It seemed to him a bitter humiliation and an anguish
+to go through. But he said nothing. When he got up in the morning, his
+whole being was knotted up over this one thought:
+
+"I've got to go and look for advertisements for a job."
+
+It stood in front of the morning, that thought, killing all joy and even
+life, for him. His heart felt like a tight knot.
+
+And then, at ten o'clock, he set off. He was supposed to be a queer,
+quiet child. Going up the sunny street of the little town, he felt as
+if all the folk he met said to themselves: "He's going to the Co-op.
+reading-room to look in the papers for a place. He can't get a job. I
+suppose he's living on his mother." Then he crept up the stone stairs
+behind the drapery shop at the Co-op., and peeped in the reading-room.
+Usually one or two men were there, either old, useless fellows, or
+colliers "on the club". So he entered, full of shrinking and suffering
+when they looked up, seated himself at the table, and pretended to scan
+the news. He knew they would think: "What does a lad of thirteen want in
+a reading-room with a newspaper?" and he suffered.
+
+Then he looked wistfully out of the window. Already he was a prisoner
+of industrialism. Large sunflowers stared over the old red wall of the
+garden opposite, looking in their jolly way down on the women who
+were hurrying with something for dinner. The valley was full of corn,
+brightening in the sun. Two collieries, among the fields, waved their
+small white plumes of steam. Far off on the hills were the woods of
+Annesley, dark and fascinating. Already his heart went down. He was
+being taken into bondage. His freedom in the beloved home valley was
+going now.
+
+The brewers' waggons came rolling up from Keston with enormous barrels,
+four a side, like beans in a burst bean-pod. The waggoner, throned
+aloft, rolling massively in his seat, was not so much below Paul's eye.
+The man's hair, on his small, bullet head, was bleached almost white by
+the sun, and on his thick red arms, rocking idly on his sack apron, the
+white hairs glistened. His red face shone and was almost asleep with
+sunshine. The horses, handsome and brown, went on by themselves, looking
+by far the masters of the show.
+
+Paul wished he were stupid. "I wish," he thought to himself, "I was fat
+like him, and like a dog in the sun. I wish I was a pig and a brewer's
+waggoner."
+
+Then, the room being at last empty, he would hastily copy an
+advertisement on a scrap of paper, then another, and slip out in immense
+relief. His mother would scan over his copies.
+
+"Yes," she said, "you may try."
+
+William had written out a letter of application, couched in admirable
+business language, which Paul copied, with variations. The boy's
+handwriting was execrable, so that William, who did all things well, got
+into a fever of impatience.
+
+The elder brother was becoming quite swanky. In London he found that he
+could associate with men far above his Bestwood friends in station. Some
+of the clerks in the office had studied for the law, and were more or
+less going through a kind of apprenticeship. William always made friends
+among men wherever he went, he was so jolly. Therefore he was soon
+visiting and staying in houses of men who, in Bestwood, would have
+looked down on the unapproachable bank manager, and would merely have
+called indifferently on the Rector. So he began to fancy himself as a
+great gun. He was, indeed, rather surprised at the ease with which he
+became a gentleman.
+
+His mother was glad, he seemed so pleased. And his lodging in
+Walthamstow was so dreary. But now there seemed to come a kind of fever
+into the young man's letters. He was unsettled by all the change, he did
+not stand firm on his own feet, but seemed to spin rather giddily on the
+quick current of the new life. His mother was anxious for him. She could
+feel him losing himself. He had danced and gone to the theatre, boated
+on the river, been out with friends; and she knew he sat up afterwards
+in his cold bedroom grinding away at Latin, because he intended to get
+on in his office, and in the law as much as he could. He never sent his
+mother any money now. It was all taken, the little he had, for his own
+life. And she did not want any, except sometimes, when she was in a
+tight corner, and when ten shillings would have saved her much worry.
+She still dreamed of William, and of what he would do, with herself
+behind him. Never for a minute would she admit to herself how heavy and
+anxious her heart was because of him.
+
+Also he talked a good deal now of a girl he had met at a dance, a
+handsome brunette, quite young, and a lady, after whom the men were
+running thick and fast.
+
+"I wonder if you would run, my boy," his mother wrote to him, "unless
+you saw all the other men chasing her too. You feel safe enough and vain
+enough in a crowd. But take care, and see how you feel when you find
+yourself alone, and in triumph." William resented these things, and
+continued the chase. He had taken the girl on the river. "If you saw
+her, mother, you would know how I feel. Tall and elegant, with the
+clearest of clear, transparent olive complexions, hair as black as jet,
+and such grey eyes--bright, mocking, like lights on water at night. It
+is all very well to be a bit satirical till you see her. And she dresses
+as well as any woman in London. I tell you, your son doesn't half put
+his head up when she goes walking down Piccadilly with him."
+
+Mrs. Morel wondered, in her heart, if her son did not go walking down
+Piccadilly with an elegant figure and fine clothes, rather than with
+a woman who was near to him. But she congratulated him in her doubtful
+fashion. And, as she stood over the washing-tub, the mother brooded over
+her son. She saw him saddled with an elegant and expensive wife, earning
+little money, dragging along and getting draggled in some small, ugly
+house in a suburb. "But there," she told herself, "I am very likely
+a silly--meeting trouble halfway." Nevertheless, the load of anxiety
+scarcely ever left her heart, lest William should do the wrong thing by
+himself.
+
+Presently, Paul was bidden call upon Thomas Jordan, Manufacturer of
+Surgical Appliances, at 21, Spaniel Row, Nottingham. Mrs. Morel was all
+joy.
+
+"There, you see!" she cried, her eyes shining. "You've only written four
+letters, and the third is answered. You're lucky, my boy, as I always
+said you were."
+
+Paul looked at the picture of a wooden leg, adorned with elastic
+stockings and other appliances, that figured on Mr. Jordan's notepaper,
+and he felt alarmed. He had not known that elastic stockings existed.
+And he seemed to feel the business world, with its regulated system of
+values, and its impersonality, and he dreaded it. It seemed monstrous
+also that a business could be run on wooden legs.
+
+Mother and son set off together one Tuesday morning. It was August and
+blazing hot. Paul walked with something screwed up tight inside him.
+He would have suffered much physical pain rather than this unreasonable
+suffering at being exposed to strangers, to be accepted or rejected. Yet
+he chattered away with his mother. He would never have confessed to her
+how he suffered over these things, and she only partly guessed. She
+was gay, like a sweetheart. She stood in front of the ticket-office at
+Bestwood, and Paul watched her take from her purse the money for the
+tickets. As he saw her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the
+silver out of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of
+her.
+
+She was quite excited, and quite gay. He suffered because she WOULD talk
+aloud in presence of the other travellers.
+
+"Now look at that silly cow!" she said, "careering round as if it
+thought it was a circus."
+
+"It's most likely a bottfly," he said very low.
+
+"A what?" she asked brightly and unashamed.
+
+They thought a while. He was sensible all the time of having her
+opposite him. Suddenly their eyes met, and she smiled to him--a rare,
+intimate smile, beautiful with brightness and love. Then each looked out
+of the window.
+
+The sixteen slow miles of railway journey passed. The mother and son
+walked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers having an
+adventure together. In Carrington Street they stopped to hang over the
+parapet and look at the barges on the canal below.
+
+"It's just like Venice," he said, seeing the sunshine on the water that
+lay between high factory walls.
+
+"Perhaps," she answered, smiling.
+
+They enjoyed the shops immensely.
+
+"Now you see that blouse," she would say, "wouldn't that just suit our
+Annie? And for one-and-eleven-three. Isn't that cheap?"
+
+"And made of needlework as well," he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+They had plenty of time, so they did not hurry. The town was strange
+and delightful to them. But the boy was tied up inside in a knot of
+apprehension. He dreaded the interview with Thomas Jordan.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock by St. Peter's Church. They turned up a
+narrow street that led to the Castle. It was gloomy and old-fashioned,
+having low dark shops and dark green house doors with brass knockers,
+and yellow-ochred doorsteps projecting on to the pavement; then another
+old shop whose small window looked like a cunning, half-shut eye. Mother
+and son went cautiously, looking everywhere for "Thomas Jordan and
+Son". It was like hunting in some wild place. They were on tiptoe of
+excitement.
+
+Suddenly they spied a big, dark archway, in which were names of various
+firms, Thomas Jordan among them.
+
+"Here it is!" said Mrs. Morel. "But now WHERE is it?"
+
+They looked round. On one side was a queer, dark, cardboard factory, on
+the other a Commercial Hotel.
+
+"It's up the entry," said Paul.
+
+And they ventured under the archway, as into the jaws of the dragon.
+They emerged into a wide yard, like a well, with buildings all round. It
+was littered with straw and boxes, and cardboard. The sunshine actually
+caught one crate whose straw was streaming on to the yard like gold. But
+elsewhere the place was like a pit. There were several doors, and two
+flights of steps. Straight in front, on a dirty glass door at the top of
+a staircase, loomed the ominous words "Thomas Jordan and Son--Surgical
+Appliances." Mrs. Morel went first, her son followed her. Charles I
+mounted his scaffold with a lighter heart than had Paul Morel as he
+followed his mother up the dirty steps to the dirty door.
+
+She pushed open the door, and stood in pleased surprise. In front of her
+was a big warehouse, with creamy paper parcels everywhere, and clerks,
+with their shirt-sleeves rolled back, were going about in an at-home
+sort of way. The light was subdued, the glossy cream parcels seemed
+luminous, the counters were of dark brown wood. All was quiet and very
+homely. Mrs. Morel took two steps forward, then waited. Paul stood
+behind her. She had on her Sunday bonnet and a black veil; he wore a
+boy's broad white collar and a Norfolk suit.
+
+One of the clerks looked up. He was thin and tall, with a small face.
+His way of looking was alert. Then he glanced round to the other end of
+the room, where was a glass office. And then he came forward. He did
+not say anything, but leaned in a gentle, inquiring fashion towards Mrs.
+Morel.
+
+"Can I see Mr. Jordan?" she asked.
+
+"I'll fetch him," answered the young man.
+
+He went down to the glass office. A red-faced, white-whiskered old man
+looked up. He reminded Paul of a pomeranian dog. Then the same little
+man came up the room. He had short legs, was rather stout, and wore
+an alpaca jacket. So, with one ear up, as it were, he came stoutly and
+inquiringly down the room.
+
+"Good-morning!" he said, hesitating before Mrs. Morel, in doubt as to
+whether she were a customer or not.
+
+"Good-morning. I came with my son, Paul Morel. You asked him to call
+this morning."
+
+"Come this way," said Mr. Jordan, in a rather snappy little manner
+intended to be businesslike.
+
+They followed the manufacturer into a grubby little room, upholstered
+in black American leather, glossy with the rubbing of many customers.
+On the table was a pile of trusses, yellow wash-leather hoops tangled
+together. They looked new and living. Paul sniffed the odour of new
+wash-leather. He wondered what the things were. By this time he was so
+much stunned that he only noticed the outside things.
+
+"Sit down!" said Mr. Jordan, irritably pointing Mrs. Morel to a
+horse-hair chair. She sat on the edge in an uncertain fashion. Then the
+little old man fidgeted and found a paper.
+
+"Did you write this letter?" he snapped, thrusting what Paul recognised
+as his own notepaper in front of him.
+
+"Yes," he answered.
+
+At that moment he was occupied in two ways: first, in feeling guilty
+for telling a lie, since William had composed the letter; second, in
+wondering why his letter seemed so strange and different, in the fat,
+red hand of the man, from what it had been when it lay on the kitchen
+table. It was like part of himself, gone astray. He resented the way the
+man held it.
+
+"Where did you learn to write?" said the old man crossly.
+
+Paul merely looked at him shamedly, and did not answer.
+
+"He IS a bad writer," put in Mrs. Morel apologetically. Then she pushed
+up her veil. Paul hated her for not being prouder with this common
+little man, and he loved her face clear of the veil.
+
+"And you say you know French?" inquired the little man, still sharply.
+
+"Yes," said Paul.
+
+"What school did you go to?"
+
+"The Board-school."
+
+"And did you learn it there?"
+
+"No--I--" The boy went crimson and got no farther.
+
+"His godfather gave him lessons," said Mrs. Morel, half pleading and
+rather distant.
+
+Mr. Jordan hesitated. Then, in his irritable manner--he always seemed to
+keep his hands ready for action--he pulled another sheet of paper from
+his pocket, unfolded it. The paper made a crackling noise. He handed it
+to Paul.
+
+"Read that," he said.
+
+It was a note in French, in thin, flimsy foreign handwriting that the
+boy could not decipher. He stared blankly at the paper.
+
+"'Monsieur,'" he began; then he looked in great confusion at Mr. Jordan.
+"It's the--it's the--"
+
+He wanted to say "handwriting", but his wits would no longer work even
+sufficiently to supply him with the word. Feeling an utter fool, and
+hating Mr. Jordan, he turned desperately to the paper again.
+
+"'Sir,--Please send me'--er--er--I can't tell the--er--'two pairs--gris
+fil bas--grey thread stockings'--er--er--'sans--without'--er--I can't
+tell the words--er--'doigts--fingers'--er--I can't tell the--"
+
+He wanted to say "handwriting", but the word still refused to come.
+Seeing him stuck, Mr. Jordan snatched the paper from him.
+
+"'Please send by return two pairs grey thread stockings without TOES.'"
+
+"Well," flashed Paul, "'doigts' means 'fingers'--as well--as a rule--"
+
+The little man looked at him. He did not know whether "doigts" meant
+"fingers"; he knew that for all HIS purposes it meant "toes".
+
+"Fingers to stockings!" he snapped.
+
+"Well, it DOES mean fingers," the boy persisted.
+
+He hated the little man, who made such a clod of him. Mr. Jordan looked
+at the pale, stupid, defiant boy, then at the mother, who sat quiet and
+with that peculiar shut-off look of the poor who have to depend on the
+favour of others.
+
+"And when could he come?" he asked.
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Morel, "as soon as you wish. He has finished school
+now."
+
+"He would live in Bestwood?"
+
+"Yes; but he could be in--at the station--at quarter to eight."
+
+"H'm!"
+
+It ended by Paul's being engaged as junior spiral clerk at eight
+shillings a week. The boy did not open his mouth to say another word,
+after having insisted that "doigts" meant "fingers". He followed his
+mother down the stairs. She looked at him with her bright blue eyes full
+of love and joy.
+
+"I think you'll like it," she said.
+
+"'Doigts' does mean 'fingers', mother, and it was the writing. I
+couldn't read the writing."
+
+"Never mind, my boy. I'm sure he'll be all right, and you won't see much
+of him. Wasn't that first young fellow nice? I'm sure you'll like them."
+
+"But wasn't Mr. Jordan common, mother? Does he own it all?"
+
+"I suppose he was a workman who has got on," she said. "You mustn't mind
+people so much. They're not being disagreeable to YOU--it's their way.
+You always think people are meaning things for you. But they don't."
+
+It was very sunny. Over the big desolate space of the market-place the
+blue sky shimmered, and the granite cobbles of the paving glistened.
+Shops down the Long Row were deep in obscurity, and the shadow was full
+of colour. Just where the horse trams trundled across the market was a
+row of fruit stalls, with fruit blazing in the sun--apples and piles of
+reddish oranges, small green-gage plums and bananas. There was a warm
+scent of fruit as mother and son passed. Gradually his feeling of
+ignominy and of rage sank.
+
+"Where should we go for dinner?" asked the mother.
+
+It was felt to be a reckless extravagance. Paul had only been in an
+eating-house once or twice in his life, and then only to have a cup of
+tea and a bun. Most of the people of Bestwood considered that tea and
+bread-and-butter, and perhaps potted beef, was all they could afford to
+eat in Nottingham. Real cooked dinner was considered great extravagance.
+Paul felt rather guilty.
+
+They found a place that looked quite cheap. But when Mrs. Morel scanned
+the bill of fare, her heart was heavy, things were so dear. So she
+ordered kidney-pies and potatoes as the cheapest available dish.
+
+"We oughtn't to have come here, mother," said Paul.
+
+"Never mind," she said. "We won't come again."
+
+She insisted on his having a small currant tart, because he liked
+sweets.
+
+"I don't want it, mother," he pleaded.
+
+"Yes," she insisted; "you'll have it."
+
+And she looked round for the waitress. But the waitress was busy, and
+Mrs. Morel did not like to bother her then. So the mother and son waited
+for the girl's pleasure, whilst she flirted among the men.
+
+"Brazen hussy!" said Mrs. Morel to Paul. "Look now, she's taking that
+man HIS pudding, and he came long after us."
+
+"It doesn't matter, mother," said Paul.
+
+Mrs. Morel was angry. But she was too poor, and her orders were too
+meagre, so that she had not the courage to insist on her rights just
+then. They waited and waited.
+
+"Should we go, mother?" he said.
+
+Then Mrs. Morel stood up. The girl was passing near.
+
+"Will you bring one currant tart?" said Mrs. Morel clearly.
+
+The girl looked round insolently.
+
+"Directly," she said.
+
+"We have waited quite long enough," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+In a moment the girl came back with the tart. Mrs. Morel asked coldly
+for the bill. Paul wanted to sink through the floor. He marvelled at his
+mother's hardness. He knew that only years of battling had taught her to
+insist even so little on her rights. She shrank as much as he.
+
+"It's the last time I go THERE for anything!" she declared, when they
+were outside the place, thankful to be clear.
+
+"We'll go," she said, "and look at Keep's and Boot's, and one or two
+places, shall we?"
+
+They had discussions over the pictures, and Mrs. Morel wanted to buy
+him a little sable brush that he hankered after. But this indulgence he
+refused. He stood in front of milliners' shops and drapers' shops almost
+bored, but content for her to be interested. They wandered on.
+
+"Now, just look at those black grapes!" she said. "They make your mouth
+water. I've wanted some of those for years, but I s'll have to wait a
+bit before I get them."
+
+Then she rejoiced in the florists, standing in the doorway sniffing.
+
+"Oh! oh! Isn't it simply lovely!"
+
+Paul saw, in the darkness of the shop, an elegant young lady in black
+peering over the counter curiously.
+
+"They're looking at you," he said, trying to draw his mother away.
+
+"But what is it?" she exclaimed, refusing to be moved.
+
+"Stocks!" he answered, sniffing hastily. "Look, there's a tubful."
+
+"So there is--red and white. But really, I never knew stocks to smell
+like it!" And, to his great relief, she moved out of the doorway, but
+only to stand in front of the window.
+
+"Paul!" she cried to him, who was trying to get out of sight of the
+elegant young lady in black--the shop-girl. "Paul! Just look here!"
+
+He came reluctantly back.
+
+"Now, just look at that fuchsia!" she exclaimed, pointing.
+
+"H'm!" He made a curious, interested sound. "You'd think every second as
+the flowers was going to fall off, they hang so big an' heavy."
+
+"And such an abundance!" she cried.
+
+"And the way they drop downwards with their threads and knots!"
+
+"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Lovely!"
+
+"I wonder who'll buy it!" he said.
+
+"I wonder!" she answered. "Not us."
+
+"It would die in our parlour."
+
+"Yes, beastly cold, sunless hole; it kills every bit of a plant you put
+in, and the kitchen chokes them to death."
+
+They bought a few things, and set off towards the station. Looking up
+the canal, through the dark pass of the buildings, they saw the Castle
+on its bluff of brown, green-bushed rock, in a positive miracle of
+delicate sunshine.
+
+"Won't it be nice for me to come out at dinner-times?" said Paul. "I can
+go all round here and see everything. I s'll love it."
+
+"You will," assented his mother.
+
+He had spent a perfect afternoon with his mother. They arrived home in
+the mellow evening, happy, and glowing, and tired.
+
+In the morning he filled in the form for his season-ticket and took it
+to the station. When he got back, his mother was just beginning to wash
+the floor. He sat crouched up on the sofa.
+
+"He says it'll be here on Saturday," he said.
+
+"And how much will it be?"
+
+"About one pound eleven," he said.
+
+She went on washing her floor in silence.
+
+"Is it a lot?" he asked.
+
+"It's no more than I thought," she answered.
+
+"An' I s'll earn eight shillings a week," he said.
+
+She did not answer, but went on with her work. At last she said:
+
+"That William promised me, when he went to London, as he'd give me a
+pound a month. He has given me ten shillings--twice; and now I know
+he hasn't a farthing if I asked him. Not that I want it. Only just now
+you'd think he might be able to help with this ticket, which I'd never
+expected."
+
+"He earns a lot," said Paul.
+
+"He earns a hundred and thirty pounds. But they're all alike. They're
+large in promises, but it's precious little fulfilment you get."
+
+"He spends over fifty shillings a week on himself," said Paul.
+
+"And I keep this house on less than thirty," she replied; "and am
+supposed to find money for extras. But they don't care about helping
+you, once they've gone. He'd rather spend it on that dressed-up
+creature."
+
+"She should have her own money if she's so grand," said Paul.
+
+"She should, but she hasn't. I asked him. And I know he doesn't buy her
+a gold bangle for nothing. I wonder whoever bought ME a gold bangle."
+
+William was succeeding with his "Gipsy", as he called her. He asked the
+girl--her name was Louisa Lily Denys Western--for a photograph to send
+to his mother. The photo came--a handsome brunette, taken in profile,
+smirking slightly--and, it might be, quite naked, for on the photograph
+not a scrap of clothing was to be seen, only a naked bust.
+
+"Yes," wrote Mrs. Morel to her son, "the photograph of Louie is very
+striking, and I can see she must be attractive. But do you think, my
+boy, it was very good taste of a girl to give her young man that photo
+to send to his mother--the first? Certainly the shoulders are beautiful,
+as you say. But I hardly expected to see so much of them at the first
+view."
+
+Morel found the photograph standing on the chiffonier in the parlour. He
+came out with it between his thick thumb and finger.
+
+"Who dost reckon this is?" he asked of his wife.
+
+"It's the girl our William is going with," replied Mrs. Morel.
+
+"H'm! 'Er's a bright spark, from th' look on 'er, an' one as wunna do
+him owermuch good neither. Who is she?"
+
+"Her name is Louisa Lily Denys Western."
+
+"An' come again to-morrer!" exclaimed the miner. "An' is 'er an
+actress?"
+
+"She is not. She's supposed to be a lady."
+
+"I'll bet!" he exclaimed, still staring at the photo. "A lady, is she?
+An' how much does she reckon ter keep up this sort o' game on?"
+
+"On nothing. She lives with an old aunt, whom she hates, and takes what
+bit of money's given her."
+
+"H'm!" said Morel, laying down the photograph. "Then he's a fool to ha'
+ta'en up wi' such a one as that."
+
+"Dear Mater," William replied. "I'm sorry you didn't like the
+photograph. It never occurred to me when I sent it, that you mightn't
+think it decent. However, I told Gyp that it didn't quite suit your prim
+and proper notions, so she's going to send you another, that I hope
+will please you better. She's always being photographed; in fact, the
+photographers ask her if they may take her for nothing."
+
+Presently the new photograph came, with a little silly note from the
+girl. This time the young lady was seen in a black satin evening bodice,
+cut square, with little puff sleeves, and black lace hanging down her
+beautiful arms.
+
+"I wonder if she ever wears anything except evening clothes," said Mrs.
+Morel sarcastically. "I'm sure I ought to be impressed."
+
+"You are disagreeable, mother," said Paul. "I think the first one with
+bare shoulders is lovely."
+
+"Do you?" answered his mother. "Well, I don't."
+
+On the Monday morning the boy got up at six to start work. He had the
+season-ticket, which had cost such bitterness, in his waistcoat pocket.
+He loved it with its bars of yellow across. His mother packed his dinner
+in a small, shut-up basket, and he set off at a quarter to seven to
+catch the 7.15 train. Mrs. Morel came to the entry-end to see him off.
+
+It was a perfect morning. From the ash tree the slender green fruits
+that the children call "pigeons" were twinkling gaily down on a little
+breeze, into the front gardens of the houses. The valley was full of a
+lustrous dark haze, through which the ripe corn shimmered, and in which
+the steam from Minton pit melted swiftly. Puffs of wind came. Paul
+looked over the high woods of Aldersley, where the country gleamed, and
+home had never pulled at him so powerfully.
+
+"Good-morning, mother," he said, smiling, but feeling very unhappy.
+
+"Good-morning," she replied cheerfully and tenderly.
+
+She stood in her white apron on the open road, watching him as he
+crossed the field. He had a small, compact body that looked full of
+life. She felt, as she saw him trudging over the field, that where he
+determined to go he would get. She thought of William. He would have
+leaped the fence instead of going round the stile. He was away in
+London, doing well. Paul would be working in Nottingham. Now she had
+two sons in the world. She could think of two places, great centres of
+industry, and feel that she had put a man into each of them, that these
+men would work out what SHE wanted; they were derived from her, they
+were of her, and their works also would be hers. All the morning long
+she thought of Paul.
+
+At eight o'clock he climbed the dismal stairs of Jordan's Surgical
+Appliance Factory, and stood helplessly against the first great
+parcel-rack, waiting for somebody to pick him up. The place was still
+not awake. Over the counters were great dust sheets. Two men only had
+arrived, and were heard talking in a corner, as they took off their
+coats and rolled up their shirt-sleeves. It was ten past eight.
+Evidently there was no rush of punctuality. Paul listened to the voices
+of the two clerks. Then he heard someone cough, and saw in the office
+at the end of the room an old, decaying clerk, in a round smoking-cap of
+black velvet embroidered with red and green, opening letters. He waited
+and waited. One of the junior clerks went to the old man, greeted him
+cheerily and loudly. Evidently the old "chief" was deaf. Then the young
+fellow came striding importantly down to his counter. He spied Paul.
+
+"Hello!" he said. "You the new lad?"
+
+"Yes," said Paul.
+
+"H'm! What's your name?"
+
+"Paul Morel."
+
+"Paul Morel? All right, you come on round here."
+
+Paul followed him round the rectangle of counters. The room was second
+storey. It had a great hole in the middle of the floor, fenced as with a
+wall of counters, and down this wide shaft the lifts went, and the light
+for the bottom storey. Also there was a corresponding big, oblong hole
+in the ceiling, and one could see above, over the fence of the top
+floor, some machinery; and right away overhead was the glass roof, and
+all light for the three storeys came downwards, getting dimmer, so that
+it was always night on the ground floor and rather gloomy on the second
+floor. The factory was the top floor, the warehouse the second, the
+storehouse the ground floor. It was an insanitary, ancient place.
+
+Paul was led round to a very dark corner.
+
+"This is the 'Spiral' corner," said the clerk. "You're Spiral, with
+Pappleworth. He's your boss, but he's not come yet. He doesn't get here
+till half-past eight. So you can fetch the letters, if you like, from
+Mr. Melling down there."
+
+The young man pointed to the old clerk in the office.
+
+"All right," said Paul.
+
+"Here's a peg to hang your cap on. Here are your entry ledgers. Mr.
+Pappleworth won't be long."
+
+And the thin young man stalked away with long, busy strides over the
+hollow wooden floor.
+
+After a minute or two Paul went down and stood in the door of the glass
+office. The old clerk in the smoking-cap looked down over the rim of his
+spectacles.
+
+"Good-morning," he said, kindly and impressively. "You want the letters
+for the Spiral department, Thomas?"
+
+Paul resented being called "Thomas". But he took the letters and
+returned to his dark place, where the counter made an angle, where the
+great parcel-rack came to an end, and where there were three doors in
+the corner. He sat on a high stool and read the letters--those whose
+handwriting was not too difficult. They ran as follows:
+
+"Will you please send me at once a pair of lady's silk spiral
+thigh-hose, without feet, such as I had from you last year; length,
+thigh to knee, etc." Or, "Major Chamberlain wishes to repeat his
+previous order for a silk non-elastic suspensory bandage."
+
+Many of these letters, some of them in French or Norwegian, were a great
+puzzle to the boy. He sat on his stool nervously awaiting the arrival
+of his "boss". He suffered tortures of shyness when, at half-past eight,
+the factory girls for upstairs trooped past him.
+
+Mr. Pappleworth arrived, chewing a chlorodyne gum, at about twenty to
+nine, when all the other men were at work. He was a thin, sallow man
+with a red nose, quick, staccato, and smartly but stiffly dressed. He
+was about thirty-six years old. There was something rather "doggy",
+rather smart, rather 'cute and shrewd, and something warm, and something
+slightly contemptible about him.
+
+"You my new lad?" he said.
+
+Paul stood up and said he was.
+
+"Fetched the letters?"
+
+Mr. Pappleworth gave a chew to his gum.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Copied 'em?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, come on then, let's look slippy. Changed your coat?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You want to bring an old coat and leave it here." He pronounced the
+last words with the chlorodyne gum between his side teeth. He vanished
+into the darkness behind the great parcel-rack, reappeared coatless,
+turning up a smart striped shirt-cuff over a thin and hairy arm. Then
+he slipped into his coat. Paul noticed how thin he was, and that his
+trousers were in folds behind. He seized a stool, dragged it beside the
+boy's, and sat down.
+
+"Sit down," he said.
+
+Paul took a seat.
+
+Mr. Pappleworth was very close to him. The man seized the letters,
+snatched a long entry-book out of a rack in front of him, flung it open,
+seized a pen, and said:
+
+"Now look here. You want to copy these letters in here." He sniffed
+twice, gave a quick chew at his gum, stared fixedly at a letter,
+then went very still and absorbed, and wrote the entry rapidly, in a
+beautiful flourishing hand. He glanced quickly at Paul.
+
+"See that?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Think you can do it all right?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All right then, let's see you."
+
+He sprang off his stool. Paul took a pen. Mr. Pappleworth disappeared.
+Paul rather liked copying the letters, but he wrote slowly, laboriously,
+and exceedingly badly. He was doing the fourth letter, and feeling quite
+busy and happy, when Mr. Pappleworth reappeared.
+
+"Now then, how'r' yer getting on? Done 'em?"
+
+He leaned over the boy's shoulder, chewing, and smelling of chlorodyne.
+
+"Strike my bob, lad, but you're a beautiful writer!" he exclaimed
+satirically. "Ne'er mind, how many h'yer done? Only three! I'd 'a eaten
+'em. Get on, my lad, an' put numbers on 'em. Here, look! Get on!"
+
+Paul ground away at the letters, whilst Mr. Pappleworth fussed over
+various jobs. Suddenly the boy started as a shrill whistle sounded near
+his ear. Mr. Pappleworth came, took a plug out of a pipe, and said, in
+an amazingly cross and bossy voice:
+
+"Yes?"
+
+Paul heard a faint voice, like a woman's, out of the mouth of the tube.
+He gazed in wonder, never having seen a speaking-tube before.
+
+"Well," said Mr. Pappleworth disagreeably into the tube, "you'd better
+get some of your back work done, then."
+
+Again the woman's tiny voice was heard, sounding pretty and cross.
+
+"I've not time to stand here while you talk," said Mr. Pappleworth, and
+he pushed the plug into the tube.
+
+"Come, my lad," he said imploringly to Paul, "there's Polly crying out
+for them orders. Can't you buck up a bit? Here, come out!"
+
+He took the book, to Paul's immense chagrin, and began the copying
+himself. He worked quickly and well. This done, he seized some strips
+of long yellow paper, about three inches wide, and made out the day's
+orders for the work-girls.
+
+"You'd better watch me," he said to Paul, working all the while rapidly.
+Paul watched the weird little drawings of legs, and thighs, and ankles,
+with the strokes across and the numbers, and the few brief directions
+which his chief made upon the yellow paper. Then Mr. Pappleworth
+finished and jumped up.
+
+"Come on with me," he said, and the yellow papers flying in his hands,
+he dashed through a door and down some stairs, into the basement where
+the gas was burning. They crossed the cold, damp storeroom, then a
+long, dreary room with a long table on trestles, into a smaller, cosy
+apartment, not very high, which had been built on to the main building.
+In this room a small woman with a red serge blouse, and her black hair
+done on top of her head, was waiting like a proud little bantam.
+
+"Here y'are!" said Pappleworth.
+
+"I think it is 'here you are'!" exclaimed Polly. "The girls have been
+here nearly half an hour waiting. Just think of the time wasted!"
+
+"YOU think of getting your work done and not talking so much," said Mr.
+Pappleworth. "You could ha' been finishing off."
+
+"You know quite well we finished everything off on Saturday!" cried
+Pony, flying at him, her dark eyes flashing.
+
+"Tu-tu-tu-tu-terterter!" he mocked. "Here's your new lad. Don't ruin him
+as you did the last."
+
+"As we did the last!" repeated Polly. "Yes, WE do a lot of ruining, we
+do. My word, a lad would TAKE some ruining after he'd been with you."
+
+"It's time for work now, not for talk," said Mr. Pappleworth severely
+and coldly.
+
+"It was time for work some time back," said Polly, marching away with
+her head in the air. She was an erect little body of forty.
+
+In that room were two round spiral machines on the bench under the
+window. Through the inner doorway was another longer room, with six more
+machines. A little group of girls, nicely dressed in white aprons, stood
+talking together.
+
+"Have you nothing else to do but talk?" said Mr. Pappleworth.
+
+"Only wait for you," said one handsome girl, laughing.
+
+"Well, get on, get on," he said. "Come on, my lad. You'll know your road
+down here again."
+
+And Paul ran upstairs after his chief. He was given some checking
+and invoicing to do. He stood at the desk, labouring in his execrable
+handwriting. Presently Mr. Jordan came strutting down from the glass
+office and stood behind him, to the boy's great discomfort. Suddenly a
+red and fat finger was thrust on the form he was filling in.
+
+"MR. J. A. Bates, Esquire!" exclaimed the cross voice just behind his
+ear.
+
+Paul looked at "Mr. J. A. Bates, Esquire" in his own vile writing, and
+wondered what was the matter now.
+
+"Didn't they teach you any better THAN that while they were at it? If
+you put 'Mr.' you don't put Esquire'-a man can't be both at once."
+
+The boy regretted his too-much generosity in disposing of honours,
+hesitated, and with trembling fingers, scratched out the "Mr." Then all
+at once Mr. Jordan snatched away the invoice.
+
+"Make another! Are you going to send that to a gentleman?" And he tore
+up the blue form irritably.
+
+Paul, his ears red with shame, began again. Still Mr. Jordan watched.
+
+"I don't know what they DO teach in schools. You'll have to write better
+than that. Lads learn nothing nowadays, but how to recite poetry
+and play the fiddle. Have you seen his writing?" he asked of Mr.
+Pappleworth.
+
+"Yes; prime, isn't it?" replied Mr. Pappleworth indifferently.
+
+Mr. Jordan gave a little grunt, not unamiable. Paul divined that his
+master's bark was worse than his bite. Indeed, the little manufacturer,
+although he spoke bad English, was quite gentleman enough to leave his
+men alone and to take no notice of trifles. But he knew he did not
+look like the boss and owner of the show, so he had to play his role of
+proprietor at first, to put things on a right footing.
+
+"Let's see, WHAT'S your name?" asked Mr. Pappleworth of the boy.
+
+"Paul Morel."
+
+It is curious that children suffer so much at having to pronounce their
+own names.
+
+"Paul Morel, is it? All right, you Paul-Morel through them things there,
+and then--"
+
+Mr. Pappleworth subsided on to a stool, and began writing. A girl came
+up from out of a door just behind, put some newly-pressed elastic web
+appliances on the counter, and returned. Mr. Pappleworth picked up the
+whitey-blue knee-band, examined it, and its yellow order-paper quickly,
+and put it on one side. Next was a flesh-pink "leg". He went through
+the few things, wrote out a couple of orders, and called to Paul to
+accompany him. This time they went through the door whence the girl had
+emerged. There Paul found himself at the top of a little wooden flight
+of steps, and below him saw a room with windows round two sides, and at
+the farther end half a dozen girls sitting bending over the benches
+in the light from the window, sewing. They were singing together "Two
+Little Girls in Blue". Hearing the door opened, they all turned round,
+to see Mr. Pappleworth and Paul looking down on them from the far end of
+the room. They stopped singing.
+
+"Can't you make a bit less row?" said Mr. Pappleworth. "Folk'll think we
+keep cats."
+
+A hunchback woman on a high stool turned her long, rather heavy face
+towards Mr. Pappleworth, and said, in a contralto voice:
+
+"They're all tom-cats then."
+
+In vain Mr. Pappleworth tried to be impressive for Paul's benefit.
+He descended the steps into the finishing-off room, and went to the
+hunchback Fanny. She had such a short body on her high stool that her
+head, with its great bands of bright brown hair, seemed over large, as
+did her pale, heavy face. She wore a dress of green-black cashmere, and
+her wrists, coming out of the narrow cuffs, were thin and flat, as she
+put down her work nervously. He showed her something that was wrong with
+a knee-cap.
+
+"Well," she said, "you needn't come blaming it on to me. It's not my
+fault." Her colour mounted to her cheek.
+
+"I never said it WAS your fault. Will you do as I tell you?" replied Mr.
+Pappleworth shortly.
+
+"You don't say it's my fault, but you'd like to make out as it was," the
+hunchback woman cried, almost in tears. Then she snatched the knee-cap
+from her "boss", saying: "Yes, I'll do it for you, but you needn't be
+snappy."
+
+"Here's your new lad," said Mr. Pappleworth.
+
+Fanny turned, smiling very gently on Paul.
+
+"Oh!" she said.
+
+"Yes; don't make a softy of him between you."
+
+"It's not us as 'ud make a softy of him," she said indignantly.
+
+"Come on then, Paul," said Mr. Pappleworth.
+
+"Au revoy, Paul," said one of the girls.
+
+There was a titter of laughter. Paul went out, blushing deeply, not
+having spoken a word.
+
+The day was very long. All morning the work-people were coming to speak
+to Mr. Pappleworth. Paul was writing or learning to make up parcels,
+ready for the midday post. At one o'clock, or, rather, at a quarter to
+one, Mr. Pappleworth disappeared to catch his train: he lived in the
+suburbs. At one o'clock, Paul, feeling very lost, took his dinner-basket
+down into the stockroom in the basement, that had the long table on
+trestles, and ate his meal hurriedly, alone in that cellar of gloom and
+desolation. Then he went out of doors. The brightness and the freedom of
+the streets made him feel adventurous and happy. But at two o'clock
+he was back in the corner of the big room. Soon the work-girls went
+trooping past, making remarks. It was the commoner girls who worked
+upstairs at the heavy tasks of truss-making and the finishing of
+artificial limbs. He waited for Mr. Pappleworth, not knowing what to do,
+sitting scribbling on the yellow order-paper. Mr. Pappleworth came at
+twenty minutes to three. Then he sat and gossiped with Paul, treating
+the boy entirely as an equal, even in age.
+
+In the afternoon there was never very much to do, unless it were near
+the week-end, and the accounts had to be made up. At five o'clock all
+the men went down into the dungeon with the table on trestles, and there
+they had tea, eating bread-and-butter on the bare, dirty boards, talking
+with the same kind of ugly haste and slovenliness with which they ate
+their meal. And yet upstairs the atmosphere among them was always jolly
+and clear. The cellar and the trestles affected them.
+
+After tea, when all the gases were lighted, WORK went more briskly.
+There was the big evening post to get off. The hose came up warm and
+newly pressed from the workrooms. Paul had made out the invoices. Now he
+had the packing up and addressing to do, then he had to weigh his stock
+of parcels on the scales. Everywhere voices were calling weights, there
+was the chink of metal, the rapid snapping of string, the hurrying to
+old Mr. Melling for stamps. And at last the postman came with his sack,
+laughing and jolly. Then everything slacked off, and Paul took his
+dinner-basket and ran to the station to catch the eight-twenty train.
+The day in the factory was just twelve hours long.
+
+His mother sat waiting for him rather anxiously. He had to walk from
+Keston, so was not home until about twenty past nine. And he left the
+house before seven in the morning. Mrs. Morel was rather anxious about
+his health. But she herself had had to put up with so much that she
+expected her children to take the same odds. They must go through with
+what came. And Paul stayed at Jordan's, although all the time he was
+there his health suffered from the darkness and lack of air and the long
+hours.
+
+He came in pale and tired. His mother looked at him. She saw he was
+rather pleased, and her anxiety all went.
+
+"Well, and how was it?" she asked.
+
+"Ever so funny, mother," he replied. "You don't have to work a bit hard,
+and they're nice with you."
+
+"And did you get on all right?"
+
+"Yes: they only say my writing's bad. But Mr. Pappleworth--he's my
+man--said to Mr. Jordan I should be all right. I'm Spiral, mother; you
+must come and see. It's ever so nice."
+
+Soon he liked Jordan's. Mr. Pappleworth, who had a certain "saloon bar"
+flavour about him, was always natural, and treated him as if he had been
+a comrade. Sometimes the "Spiral boss" was irritable, and chewed more
+lozenges than ever. Even then, however, he was not offensive, but one
+of those people who hurt themselves by their own irritability more than
+they hurt other people.
+
+"Haven't you done that YET?" he would cry. "Go on, be a month of
+Sundays."
+
+Again, and Paul could understand him least then, he was jocular and in
+high spirits.
+
+"I'm going to bring my little Yorkshire terrier bitch tomorrow," he said
+jubilantly to Paul.
+
+"What's a Yorkshire terrier?"
+
+"DON'T know what a Yorkshire terrier is? DON'T KNOW A YORKSHIRE--" Mr.
+Pappleworth was aghast.
+
+"Is it a little silky one--colours of iron and rusty silver?"
+
+"THAT'S it, my lad. She's a gem. She's had five pounds' worth of pups
+already, and she's worth over seven pounds herself; and she doesn't
+weigh twenty ounces."
+
+The next day the bitch came. She was a shivering, miserable morsel. Paul
+did not care for her; she seemed so like a wet rag that would never
+dry. Then a man called for her, and began to make coarse jokes. But Mr.
+Pappleworth nodded his head in the direction of the boy, and the talk
+went on _sotto voce_.
+
+Mr. Jordan only made one more excursion to watch Paul, and then the only
+fault he found was seeing the boy lay his pen on the counter.
+
+"Put your pen in your ear, if you're going to be a clerk. Pen in your
+ear!" And one day he said to the lad: "Why don't you hold your shoulders
+straighter? Come down here," when he took him into the glass office and
+fitted him with special braces for keeping the shoulders square.
+
+But Paul liked the girls best. The men seemed common and rather dull.
+He liked them all, but they were uninteresting. Polly, the little brisk
+overseer downstairs, finding Paul eating in the cellar, asked him if she
+could cook him anything on her little stove. Next day his mother gave
+him a dish that could be heated up. He took it into the pleasant, clean
+room to Polly. And very soon it grew to be an established custom that he
+should have dinner with her. When he came in at eight in the morning he
+took his basket to her, and when he came down at one o'clock she had his
+dinner ready.
+
+He was not very tall, and pale, with thick chestnut hair, irregular
+features, and a wide, full mouth. She was like a small bird. He often
+called her a "robinet". Though naturally rather quiet, he would sit and
+chatter with her for hours telling her about his home. The girls all
+liked to hear him talk. They often gathered in a little circle while he
+sat on a bench, and held forth to them, laughing. Some of them regarded
+him as a curious little creature, so serious, yet so bright and jolly,
+and always so delicate in his way with them. They all liked him, and he
+adored them. Polly he felt he belonged to. Then Connie, with her mane of
+red hair, her face of apple-blossom, her murmuring voice, such a lady in
+her shabby black frock, appealed to his romantic side.
+
+"When you sit winding," he said, "it looks as if you were spinning at
+a spinning-wheel--it looks ever so nice. You remind me of Elaine in the
+'Idylls of the King'. I'd draw you if I could."
+
+And she glanced at him blushing shyly. And later on he had a sketch
+he prized very much: Connie sitting on the stool before the wheel, her
+flowing mane of red hair on her rusty black frock, her red mouth shut
+and serious, running the scarlet thread off the hank on to the reel.
+
+With Louie, handsome and brazen, who always seemed to thrust her hip at
+him, he usually joked.
+
+Emma was rather plain, rather old, and condescending. But to condescend
+to him made her happy, and he did not mind.
+
+"How do you put needles in?" he asked.
+
+"Go away and don't bother."
+
+"But I ought to know how to put needles in."
+
+She ground at her machine all the while steadily.
+
+"There are many things you ought to know," she replied.
+
+"Tell me, then, how to stick needles in the machine."
+
+"Oh, the boy, what a nuisance he is! Why, THIS is how you do it."
+
+He watched her attentively. Suddenly a whistle piped. Then Polly
+appeared, and said in a clear voice:
+
+"Mr. Pappleworth wants to know how much longer you're going to be down
+here playing with the girls, Paul."
+
+Paul flew upstairs, calling "Good-bye!" and Emma drew herself up.
+
+"It wasn't ME who wanted him to play with the machine," she said.
+
+As a rule, when all the girls came back at two o'clock, he ran upstairs
+to Fanny, the hunchback, in the finishing-off room. Mr. Pappleworth
+did not appear till twenty to three, and he often found his boy sitting
+beside Fanny, talking, or drawing, or singing with the girls.
+
+Often, after a minute's hesitation, Fanny would begin to sing. She had a
+fine contralto voice. Everybody joined in the chorus, and it went well.
+Paul was not at all embarrassed, after a while, sitting in the room with
+the half a dozen work-girls.
+
+At the end of the song Fanny would say:
+
+"I know you've been laughing at me."
+
+"Don't be so soft, Fanny!" cried one of the girls.
+
+Once there was mention of Connie's red hair.
+
+"Fanny's is better, to my fancy," said Emma.
+
+"You needn't try to make a fool of me," said Fanny, flushing deeply.
+
+"No, but she has, Paul; she's got beautiful hair."
+
+"It's a treat of a colour," said he. "That coldish colour like earth,
+and yet shiny. It's like bog-water."
+
+"Goodness me!" exclaimed one girl, laughing.
+
+"How I do but get criticised," said Fanny.
+
+"But you should see it down, Paul," cried Emma earnestly. "It's simply
+beautiful. Put it down for him, Fanny, if he wants something to paint."
+
+Fanny would not, and yet she wanted to.
+
+"Then I'll take it down myself," said the lad.
+
+"Well, you can if you like," said Fanny.
+
+And he carefully took the pins out of the knot, and the rush of hair, of
+uniform dark brown, slid over the humped back.
+
+"What a lovely lot!" he exclaimed.
+
+The girls watched. There was silence. The youth shook the hair loose
+from the coil.
+
+"It's splendid!" he said, smelling its perfume. "I'll bet it's worth
+pounds."
+
+"I'll leave it you when I die, Paul," said Fanny, half joking.
+
+"You look just like anybody else, sitting drying their hair," said one
+of the girls to the long-legged hunchback.
+
+Poor Fanny was morbidly sensitive, always imagining insults. Polly was
+curt and businesslike. The two departments were for ever at war, and
+Paul was always finding Fanny in tears. Then he was made the recipient
+of all her woes, and he had to plead her case with Polly.
+
+So the time went along happily enough. The factory had a homely feel.
+No one was rushed or driven. Paul always enjoyed it when the work got
+faster, towards post-time, and all the men united in labour. He liked to
+watch his fellow-clerks at work. The man was the work and the work was
+the man, one thing, for the time being. It was different with the girls.
+The real woman never seemed to be there at the task, but as if left out,
+waiting.
+
+From the train going home at night he used to watch the lights of the
+town, sprinkled thick on the hills, fusing together in a blaze in the
+valleys. He felt rich in life and happy. Drawing farther off, there was
+a patch of lights at Bulwell like myriad petals shaken to the ground
+from the shed stars; and beyond was the red glare of the furnaces,
+playing like hot breath on the clouds.
+
+He had to walk two and more miles from Keston home, up two long hills,
+down two short hills. He was often tired, and he counted the lamps
+climbing the hill above him, how many more to pass. And from the
+hilltop, on pitch-dark nights, he looked round on the villages five
+or six miles away, that shone like swarms of glittering living things,
+almost a heaven against his feet. Marlpool and Heanor scattered the
+far-off darkness with brilliance. And occasionally the black valley
+space between was traced, violated by a great train rushing south to
+London or north to Scotland. The trains roared by like projectiles level
+on the darkness, fuming and burning, making the valley clang with
+their passage. They were gone, and the lights of the towns and villages
+glittered in silence.
+
+And then he came to the corner at home, which faced the other side
+of the night. The ash-tree seemed a friend now. His mother rose with
+gladness as he entered. He put his eight shillings proudly on the table.
+
+"It'll help, mother?" he asked wistfully.
+
+"There's precious little left," she answered, "after your ticket and
+dinners and such are taken off."
+
+Then he told her the budget of the day. His life-story, like an Arabian
+Nights, was told night after night to his mother. It was almost as if it
+were her own life.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+DEATH IN THE FAMILY
+
+ARTHUR MOREL was growing up. He was a quick, careless, impulsive boy, a
+good deal like his father. He hated study, made a great moan if he had
+to work, and escaped as soon as possible to his sport again.
+
+In appearance he remained the flower of the family, being well made,
+graceful, and full of life. His dark brown hair and fresh colouring, and
+his exquisite dark blue eyes shaded with long lashes, together with his
+generous manner and fiery temper, made him a favourite. But as he grew
+older his temper became uncertain. He flew into rages over nothing,
+seemed unbearably raw and irritable.
+
+His mother, whom he loved, wearied of him sometimes. He thought only of
+himself. When he wanted amusement, all that stood in his way he
+hated, even if it were she. When he was in trouble he moaned to her
+ceaselessly.
+
+"Goodness, boy!" she said, when he groaned about a master who, he said,
+hated him, "if you don't like it, alter it, and if you can't alter it,
+put up with it."
+
+And his father, whom he had loved and who had worshipped him, he came
+to detest. As he grew older Morel fell into a slow ruin. His body, which
+had been beautiful in movement and in being, shrank, did not seem to
+ripen with the years, but to get mean and rather despicable. There came
+over him a look of meanness and of paltriness. And when the mean-looking
+elderly man bullied or ordered the boy about, Arthur was furious.
+Moreover, Morel's manners got worse and worse, his habits somewhat
+disgusting. When the children were growing up and in the crucial stage
+of adolescence, the father was like some ugly irritant to their souls.
+His manners in the house were the same as he used among the colliers
+down pit.
+
+"Dirty nuisance!" Arthur would cry, jumping up and going straight out
+of the house when his father disgusted him. And Morel persisted the more
+because his children hated it. He seemed to take a kind of satisfaction
+in disgusting them, and driving them nearly mad, while they were so
+irritably sensitive at the age of fourteen or fifteen. So that Arthur,
+who was growing up when his father was degenerate and elderly, hated him
+worst of all.
+
+Then, sometimes, the father would seem to feel the contemptuous hatred
+of his children.
+
+"There's not a man tries harder for his family!" he would shout. "He
+does his best for them, and then gets treated like a dog. But I'm not
+going to stand it, I tell you!"
+
+But for the threat and the fact that he did not try so hard as he
+imagined, they would have felt sorry. As it was, the battle now went on
+nearly all between father and children, he persisting in his dirty and
+disgusting ways, just to assert his independence. They loathed him.
+
+Arthur was so inflamed and irritable at last, that when he won a
+scholarship for the Grammar School in Nottingham, his mother decided
+to let him live in town, with one of her sisters, and only come home at
+week-ends.
+
+Annie was still a junior teacher in the Board-school, earning about four
+shillings a week. But soon she would have fifteen shillings, since she
+had passed her examination, and there would be financial peace in the
+house.
+
+Mrs. Morel clung now to Paul. He was quiet and not brilliant. But still
+he stuck to his painting, and still he stuck to his mother. Everything
+he did was for her. She waited for his coming home in the evening, and
+then she unburdened herself of all she had pondered, or of all that
+had occurred to her during the day. He sat and listened with his
+earnestness. The two shared lives.
+
+William was engaged now to his brunette, and had bought her an
+engagement ring that cost eight guineas. The children gasped at such a
+fabulous price.
+
+"Eight guineas!" said Morel. "More fool him! If he'd gen me some on't,
+it 'ud ha' looked better on 'im."
+
+"Given YOU some of it!" cried Mrs. Morel. "Why give YOU some of it!"
+
+She remembered HE had bought no engagement ring at all, and she
+preferred William, who was not mean, if he were foolish. But now the
+young man talked only of the dances to which he went with his betrothed,
+and the different resplendent clothes she wore; or he told his mother
+with glee how they went to the theatre like great swells.
+
+He wanted to bring the girl home. Mrs. Morel said she should come at the
+Christmas. This time William arrived with a lady, but with no presents.
+Mrs. Morel had prepared supper. Hearing footsteps, she rose and went to
+the door. William entered.
+
+"Hello, mother!" He kissed her hastily, then stood aside to present a
+tall, handsome girl, who was wearing a costume of fine black-and-white
+check, and furs.
+
+"Here's Gyp!"
+
+Miss Western held out her hand and showed her teeth in a small smile.
+
+"Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Morel!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I am afraid you will be hungry," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Oh no, we had dinner in the train. Have you got my gloves, Chubby?"
+
+William Morel, big and raw-boned, looked at her quickly.
+
+"How should I?" he said.
+
+"Then I've lost them. Don't be cross with me."
+
+A frown went over his face, but he said nothing. She glanced round
+the kitchen. It was small and curious to her, with its glittering
+kissing-bunch, its evergreens behind the pictures, its wooden chairs and
+little deal table. At that moment Morel came in.
+
+"Hello, dad!"
+
+"Hello, my son! Tha's let on me!"
+
+The two shook hands, and William presented the lady. She gave the same
+smile that showed her teeth.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Morel?"
+
+Morel bowed obsequiously.
+
+"I'm very well, and I hope so are you. You must make yourself very
+welcome."
+
+"Oh, thank you," she replied, rather amused.
+
+"You will like to go upstairs," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"If you don't mind; but not if it is any trouble to you."
+
+"It is no trouble. Annie will take you. Walter, carry up this box."
+
+"And don't be an hour dressing yourself up," said William to his
+betrothed.
+
+Annie took a brass candlestick, and, too shy almost to speak, preceded
+the young lady to the front bedroom, which Mr. and Mrs. Morel had
+vacated for her. It, too, was small and cold by candlelight. The
+colliers' wives only lit fires in bedrooms in case of extreme illness.
+
+"Shall I unstrap the box?" asked Annie.
+
+"Oh, thank you very much!"
+
+Annie played the part of maid, then went downstairs for hot water.
+
+"I think she's rather tired, mother," said William. "It's a beastly
+journey, and we had such a rush."
+
+"Is there anything I can give her?" asked Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Oh no, she'll be all right."
+
+But there was a chill in the atmosphere. After half an hour Miss Western
+came down, having put on a purplish-coloured dress, very fine for the
+collier's kitchen.
+
+"I told you you'd no need to change," said William to her.
+
+"Oh, Chubby!" Then she turned with that sweetish smile to Mrs. Morel.
+"Don't you think he's always grumbling, Mrs. Morel?"
+
+"Is he?" said Mrs. Morel. "That's not very nice of him."
+
+"It isn't, really!"
+
+"You are cold," said the mother. "Won't you come near the fire?"
+
+Morel jumped out of his armchair.
+
+"Come and sit you here!" he cried. "Come and sit you here!"
+
+"No, dad, keep your own chair. Sit on the sofa, Gyp," said William.
+
+"No, no!" cried Morel. "This cheer's warmest. Come and sit here, Miss
+Wesson."
+
+"Thank you so much," said the girl, seating herself in the collier's
+armchair, the place of honour. She shivered, feeling the warmth of the
+kitchen penetrate her.
+
+"Fetch me a hanky, Chubby dear!" she said, putting up her mouth to him,
+and using the same intimate tone as if they were alone; which made the
+rest of the family feel as if they ought not to be present. The young
+lady evidently did not realise them as people: they were creatures to
+her for the present. William winced.
+
+In such a household, in Streatham, Miss Western would have been a lady
+condescending to her inferiors. These people were to her, certainly
+clownish--in short, the working classes. How was she to adjust herself?
+
+"I'll go," said Annie.
+
+Miss Western took no notice, as if a servant had spoken. But when the
+girl came downstairs again with the handkerchief, she said: "Oh, thank
+you!" in a gracious way.
+
+She sat and talked about the dinner on the train, which had been so
+poor; about London, about dances. She was really very nervous, and
+chattered from fear. Morel sat all the time smoking his thick twist
+tobacco, watching her, and listening to her glib London speech, as he
+puffed. Mrs. Morel, dressed up in her best black silk blouse, answered
+quietly and rather briefly. The three children sat round in silence and
+admiration. Miss Western was the princess. Everything of the best was
+got out for her: the best cups, the best spoons, the best table cloth,
+the best coffee-jug. The children thought she must find it quite grand.
+She felt strange, not able to realise the people, not knowing how to
+treat them. William joked, and was slightly uncomfortable.
+
+At about ten o'clock he said to her:
+
+"Aren't you tired, Gyp?"
+
+"Rather, Chubby," she answered, at once in the intimate tones and
+putting her head slightly on one side.
+
+"I'll light her the candle, mother," he said.
+
+"Very well," replied the mother.
+
+Miss Western stood up, held out her hand to Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Good-night, Mrs. Morel," she said.
+
+Paul sat at the boiler, letting the water run from the tap into a stone
+beer-bottle. Annie swathed the bottle in an old flannel pit-singlet, and
+kissed her mother good-night. She was to share the room with the lady,
+because the house was full.
+
+"You wait a minute," said Mrs. Morel to Annie. And Annie sat nursing
+the hot-water bottle. Miss Western shook hands all round, to everybody's
+discomfort, and took her departure, preceded by William. In five minutes
+he was downstairs again. His heart was rather sore; he did not know why.
+He talked very little till everybody had gone to bed, but himself and
+his mother. Then he stood with his legs apart, in his old attitude on
+the hearthrug, and said hesitatingly:
+
+"Well, mother?"
+
+"Well, my son?"
+
+She sat in the rocking-chair, feeling somehow hurt and humiliated, for
+his sake.
+
+"Do you like her?"
+
+"Yes," came the slow answer.
+
+"She's shy yet, mother. She's not used to it. It's different from her
+aunt's house, you know."
+
+"Of course it is, my boy; and she must find it difficult."
+
+"She does." Then he frowned swiftly. "If only she wouldn't put on her
+BLESSED airs!"
+
+"It's only her first awkwardness, my boy. She'll be all right."
+
+"That's it, mother," he replied gratefully. But his brow was gloomy.
+"You know, she's not like you, mother. She's not serious, and she can't
+think."
+
+"She's young, my boy."
+
+"Yes; and she's had no sort of show. Her mother died when she was a
+child. Since then she's lived with her aunt, whom she can't bear. And
+her father was a rake. She's had no love."
+
+"No! Well, you must make up to her."
+
+"And so--you have to forgive her a lot of things."
+
+"WHAT do you have to forgive her, my boy?"
+
+"I dunno. When she seems shallow, you have to remember she's never had
+anybody to bring her deeper side out. And she's FEARFULLY fond of me."
+
+"Anybody can see that."
+
+"But you know, mother--she's--she's different from us. Those sort of
+people, like those she lives amongst, they don't seem to have the same
+principles."
+
+"You mustn't judge too hastily," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+But he seemed uneasy within himself.
+
+In the morning, however, he was up singing and larking round the house.
+
+"Hello!" he called, sitting on the stairs. "Are you getting up?"
+
+"Yes," her voice called faintly.
+
+"Merry Christmas!" he shouted to her.
+
+Her laugh, pretty and tinkling, was heard in the bedroom. She did not
+come down in half an hour.
+
+"Was she REALLY getting up when she said she was?" he asked of Annie.
+
+"Yes, she was," replied Annie.
+
+He waited a while, then went to the stairs again.
+
+"Happy New Year," he called.
+
+"Thank you, Chubby dear!" came the laughing voice, far away.
+
+"Buck up!" he implored.
+
+It was nearly an hour, and still he was waiting for her. Morel, who
+always rose before six, looked at the clock.
+
+"Well, it's a winder!" he exclaimed.
+
+The family had breakfasted, all but William. He went to the foot of the
+stairs.
+
+"Shall I have to send you an Easter egg up there?" he called, rather
+crossly. She only laughed. The family expected, after that time of
+preparation, something like magic. At last she came, looking very nice
+in a blouse and skirt.
+
+"Have you REALLY been all this time getting ready?" he asked.
+
+"Chubby dear! That question is not permitted, is it, Mrs. Morel?"
+
+She played the grand lady at first. When she went with William
+to chapel, he in his frock-coat and silk hat, she in her furs and
+London-made costume, Paul and Arthur and Annie expected everybody to bow
+to the ground in admiration. And Morel, standing in his Sunday suit
+at the end of the road, watching the gallant pair go, felt he was the
+father of princes and princesses.
+
+And yet she was not so grand. For a year now she had been a sort of
+secretary or clerk in a London office. But while she was with the Morels
+she queened it. She sat and let Annie or Paul wait on her as if they
+were her servants. She treated Mrs. Morel with a certain glibness and
+Morel with patronage. But after a day or so she began to change her
+tune.
+
+William always wanted Paul or Annie to go along with them on their
+walks. It was so much more interesting. And Paul really DID admire
+"Gipsy" wholeheartedly; in fact, his mother scarcely forgave the boy for
+the adulation with which he treated the girl.
+
+On the second day, when Lily said: "Oh, Annie, do you know where I left
+my muff?" William replied:
+
+"You know it is in your bedroom. Why do you ask Annie?"
+
+And Lily went upstairs with a cross, shut mouth. But it angered the
+young man that she made a servant of his sister.
+
+On the third evening William and Lily were sitting together in the
+parlour by the fire in the dark. At a quarter to eleven Mrs. Morel was
+heard raking the fire. William came out to the kitchen, followed by his
+beloved.
+
+"Is it as late as that, mother?" he said. She had been sitting alone.
+
+"It is not LATE, my boy, but it is as late as I usually sit up."
+
+"Won't you go to bed, then?" he asked.
+
+"And leave you two? No, my boy, I don't believe in it."
+
+"Can't you trust us, mother?"
+
+"Whether I can or not, I won't do it. You can stay till eleven if you
+like, and I can read."
+
+"Go to bed, Gyp," he said to his girl. "We won't keep mater waiting."
+
+"Annie has left the candle burning, Lily," said Mrs. Morel; "I think you
+will see."
+
+"Yes, thank you. Good-night, Mrs. Morel."
+
+William kissed his sweetheart at the foot of the stairs, and she went.
+He returned to the kitchen.
+
+"Can't you trust us, mother?" he repeated, rather offended.
+
+"My boy, I tell you I don't BELIEVE in leaving two young things like you
+alone downstairs when everyone else is in bed."
+
+And he was forced to take this answer. He kissed his mother good-night.
+
+At Easter he came over alone. And then he discussed his sweetheart
+endlessly with his mother.
+
+"You know, mother, when I'm away from her I don't care for her a bit. I
+shouldn't care if I never saw her again. But, then, when I'm with her in
+the evenings I am awfully fond of her."
+
+"It's a queer sort of love to marry on," said Mrs. Morel, "if she holds
+you no more than that!"
+
+"It IS funny!" he exclaimed. It worried and perplexed him. "But
+yet--there's so much between us now I couldn't give her up."
+
+"You know best," said Mrs. Morel. "But if it is as you say, I wouldn't
+call it LOVE--at any rate, it doesn't look much like it."
+
+"Oh, I don't know, mother. She's an orphan, and--"
+
+They never came to any sort of conclusion. He seemed puzzled and rather
+fretted. She was rather reserved. All his strength and money went
+in keeping this girl. He could scarcely afford to take his mother to
+Nottingham when he came over.
+
+Paul's wages had been raised at Christmas to ten shillings, to his great
+joy. He was quite happy at Jordan's, but his health suffered from the
+long hours and the confinement. His mother, to whom he became more and
+more significant, thought how to help.
+
+His half-day holiday was on Monday afternoon. On a Monday morning in
+May, as the two sat alone at breakfast, she said:
+
+"I think it will be a fine day."
+
+He looked up in surprise. This meant something.
+
+"You know Mr. Leivers has gone to live on a new farm. Well, he asked me
+last week if I wouldn't go and see Mrs. Leivers, and I promised to bring
+you on Monday if it's fine. Shall we go?"
+
+"I say, little woman, how lovely!" he cried. "And we'll go this
+afternoon?"
+
+Paul hurried off to the station jubilant. Down Derby Road was a
+cherry-tree that glistened. The old brick wall by the Statutes ground
+burned scarlet, spring was a very flame of green. And the steep swoop
+of highroad lay, in its cool morning dust, splendid with patterns of
+sunshine and shadow, perfectly still. The trees sloped their great green
+shoulders proudly; and inside the warehouse all the morning, the boy had
+a vision of spring outside.
+
+When he came home at dinner-time his mother was rather excited.
+
+"Are we going?" he asked.
+
+"When I'm ready," she replied.
+
+Presently he got up.
+
+"Go and get dressed while I wash up," he said.
+
+She did so. He washed the pots, straightened, and then took her boots.
+They were quite clean. Mrs. Morel was one of those naturally exquisite
+people who can walk in mud without dirtying their shoes. But Paul had to
+clean them for her. They were kid boots at eight shillings a pair. He,
+however, thought them the most dainty boots in the world, and he cleaned
+them with as much reverence as if they had been flowers.
+
+Suddenly she appeared in the inner doorway rather shyly. She had got a
+new cotton blouse on. Paul jumped up and went forward.
+
+"Oh, my stars!" he exclaimed. "What a bobby-dazzler!"
+
+She sniffed in a little haughty way, and put her head up.
+
+"It's not a bobby-dazzler at all!" she replied. "It's very quiet."
+
+She walked forward, whilst he hovered round her.
+
+"Well," she asked, quite shy, but pretending to be high and mighty, "do
+you like it?"
+
+"Awfully! You ARE a fine little woman to go jaunting out with!"
+
+He went and surveyed her from the back.
+
+"Well," he said, "if I was walking down the street behind you, I should
+say: 'Doesn't THAT little person fancy herself!"'
+
+"Well, she doesn't," replied Mrs. Morel. "She's not sure it suits her."
+
+"Oh no! she wants to be in dirty black, looking as if she was wrapped in
+burnt paper. It DOES suit you, and I say you look nice."
+
+She sniffed in her little way, pleased, but pretending to know better.
+
+"Well," she said, "it's cost me just three shillings. You couldn't have
+got it ready-made for that price, could you?"
+
+"I should think you couldn't," he replied.
+
+"And, you know, it's good stuff."
+
+"Awfully pretty," he said.
+
+The blouse was white, with a little sprig of heliotrope and black.
+
+"Too young for me, though, I'm afraid," she said.
+
+"Too young for you!" he exclaimed in disgust. "Why don't you buy some
+false white hair and stick it on your head."
+
+"I s'll soon have no need," she replied. "I'm going white fast enough."
+
+"Well, you've no business to," he said. "What do I want with a
+white-haired mother?"
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to put up with one, my lad," she said rather
+strangely.
+
+They set off in great style, she carrying the umbrella William had given
+her, because of the sun. Paul was considerably taller than she, though
+he was not big. He fancied himself.
+
+On the fallow land the young wheat shone silkily. Minton pit waved its
+plumes of white steam, coughed, and rattled hoarsely.
+
+"Now look at that!" said Mrs. Morel. Mother and son stood on the road to
+watch. Along the ridge of the great pit-hill crawled a little group
+in silhouette against the sky, a horse, a small truck, and a man. They
+climbed the incline against the heavens. At the end the man tipped the
+wagon. There was an undue rattle as the waste fell down the sheer slope
+of the enormous bank.
+
+"You sit a minute, mother," he said, and she took a seat on a bank,
+whilst he sketched rapidly. She was silent whilst he worked, looking
+round at the afternoon, the red cottages shining among their greenness.
+
+"The world is a wonderful place," she said, "and wonderfully beautiful."
+
+"And so's the pit," he said. "Look how it heaps together, like something
+alive almost--a big creature that you don't know."
+
+"Yes," she said. "Perhaps!"
+
+"And all the trucks standing waiting, like a string of beasts to be
+fed," he said.
+
+"And very thankful I am they ARE standing," she said, "for that means
+they'll turn middling time this week."
+
+"But I like the feel of MEN on things, while they're alive. There's a
+feel of men about trucks, because they've been handled with men's hands,
+all of them."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+They went along under the trees of the highroad. He was constantly
+informing her, but she was interested. They passed the end of
+Nethermere, that was tossing its sunshine like petals lightly in
+its lap. Then they turned on a private road, and in some trepidation
+approached a big farm. A dog barked furiously. A woman came out to see.
+
+"Is this the way to Willey Farm?" Mrs. Morel asked.
+
+Paul hung behind in terror of being sent back. But the woman was
+amiable, and directed them. The mother and son went through the wheat
+and oats, over a little bridge into a wild meadow. Peewits, with their
+white breasts glistening, wheeled and screamed about them. The lake was
+still and blue. High overhead a heron floated. Opposite, the wood heaped
+on the hill, green and still.
+
+"It's a wild road, mother," said Paul. "Just like Canada."
+
+"Isn't it beautiful!" said Mrs. Morel, looking round.
+
+"See that heron--see--see her legs?"
+
+He directed his mother, what she must see and what not. And she was
+quite content.
+
+"But now," she said, "which way? He told me through the wood."
+
+The wood, fenced and dark, lay on their left.
+
+"I can feel a bit of a path this road," said Paul. "You've got town
+feet, somehow or other, you have."
+
+They found a little gate, and soon were in a broad green alley of the
+wood, with a new thicket of fir and pine on one hand, an old oak glade
+dipping down on the other. And among the oaks the bluebells stood in
+pools of azure, under the new green hazels, upon a pale fawn floor of
+oak-leaves. He found flowers for her.
+
+"Here's a bit of new-mown hay," he said; then, again, he brought her
+forget-me-nots. And, again, his heart hurt with love, seeing her hand,
+used with work, holding the little bunch of flowers he gave her. She was
+perfectly happy.
+
+But at the end of the riding was a fence to climb. Paul was over in a
+second.
+
+"Come," he said, "let me help you."
+
+"No, go away. I will do it in my own way."
+
+He stood below with his hands up ready to help her. She climbed
+cautiously.
+
+"What a way to climb!" he exclaimed scornfully, when she was safely to
+earth again.
+
+"Hateful stiles!" she cried.
+
+"Duffer of a little woman," he replied, "who can't get over 'em."
+
+In front, along the edge of the wood, was a cluster of low red farm
+buildings. The two hastened forward. Flush with the wood was the apple
+orchard, where blossom was falling on the grindstone. The pond was deep
+under a hedge and overhanging oak trees. Some cows stood in the shade.
+The farm and buildings, three sides of a quadrangle, embraced the
+sunshine towards the wood. It was very still.
+
+Mother and son went into the small railed garden, where was a scent
+of red gillivers. By the open door were some floury loaves, put out to
+cool. A hen was just coming to peck them. Then, in the doorway suddenly
+appeared a girl in a dirty apron. She was about fourteen years old, had
+a rosy dark face, a bunch of short black curls, very fine and free, and
+dark eyes; shy, questioning, a little resentful of the strangers, she
+disappeared. In a minute another figure appeared, a small, frail woman,
+rosy, with great dark brown eyes.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, smiling with a little glow, "you've come, then. I
+AM glad to see you." Her voice was intimate and rather sad.
+
+The two women shook hands.
+
+"Now are you sure we're not a bother to you?" said Mrs. Morel. "I know
+what a farming life is."
+
+"Oh no! We're only too thankful to see a new face, it's so lost up
+here."
+
+"I suppose so," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+They were taken through into the parlour--a long, low room, with a great
+bunch of guelder-roses in the fireplace. There the women talked, whilst
+Paul went out to survey the land. He was in the garden smelling the
+gillivers and looking at the plants, when the girl came out quickly to
+the heap of coal which stood by the fence.
+
+"I suppose these are cabbage-roses?" he said to her, pointing to the
+bushes along the fence.
+
+She looked at him with startled, big brown eyes.
+
+"I suppose they are cabbage-roses when they come out?" he said.
+
+"I don't know," she faltered. "They're white with pink middles."
+
+"Then they're maiden-blush."
+
+Miriam flushed. She had a beautiful warm colouring.
+
+"I don't know," she said.
+
+"You don't have MUCH in your garden," he said.
+
+"This is our first year here," she answered, in a distant, rather
+superior way, drawing back and going indoors. He did not notice, but
+went his round of exploration. Presently his mother came out, and they
+went through the buildings. Paul was hugely delighted.
+
+"And I suppose you have the fowls and calves and pigs to look after?"
+said Mrs. Morel to Mrs. Leivers.
+
+"No," replied the little woman. "I can't find time to look after cattle,
+and I'm not used to it. It's as much as I can do to keep going in the
+house."
+
+"Well, I suppose it is," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+Presently the girl came out.
+
+"Tea is ready, mother," she said in a musical, quiet voice.
+
+"Oh, thank you, Miriam, then we'll come," replied her mother, almost
+ingratiatingly. "Would you CARE to have tea now, Mrs. Morel?"
+
+"Of course," said Mrs. Morel. "Whenever it's ready."
+
+Paul and his mother and Mrs. Leivers had tea together. Then they
+went out into the wood that was flooded with bluebells, while fumy
+forget-me-nots were in the paths. The mother and son were in ecstasy
+together.
+
+When they got back to the house, Mr. Leivers and Edgar, the eldest
+son, were in the kitchen. Edgar was about eighteen. Then Geoffrey and
+Maurice, big lads of twelve and thirteen, were in from school. Mr.
+Leivers was a good-looking man in the prime of life, with a golden-brown
+moustache, and blue eyes screwed up against the weather.
+
+The boys were condescending, but Paul scarcely observed it. They went
+round for eggs, scrambling into all sorts of places. As they were
+feeding the fowls Miriam came out. The boys took no notice of her. One
+hen, with her yellow chickens, was in a coop. Maurice took his hand full
+of corn and let the hen peck from it.
+
+"Durst you do it?" he asked of Paul.
+
+"Let's see," said Paul.
+
+He had a small hand, warm, and rather capable-looking. Miriam watched.
+He held the corn to the hen. The bird eyed it with her hard, bright eye,
+and suddenly made a peck into his hand. He started, and laughed. "Rap,
+rap, rap!" went the bird's beak in his palm. He laughed again, and the
+other boys joined.
+
+"She knocks you, and nips you, but she never hurts," said Paul, when the
+last corn had gone. "Now, Miriam," said Maurice, "you come an 'ave a
+go."
+
+"No," she cried, shrinking back.
+
+"Ha! baby. The mardy-kid!" said her brothers.
+
+"It doesn't hurt a bit," said Paul. "It only just nips rather nicely."
+
+"No," she still cried, shaking her black curls and shrinking.
+
+"She dursn't," said Geoffrey. "She niver durst do anything except recite
+poitry."
+
+"Dursn't jump off a gate, dursn't tweedle, dursn't go on a slide,
+dursn't stop a girl hittin' her. She can do nowt but go about thinkin'
+herself somebody. 'The Lady of the Lake.' Yah!" cried Maurice.
+
+Miriam was crimson with shame and misery.
+
+"I dare do more than you," she cried. "You're never anything but cowards
+and bullies."
+
+"Oh, cowards and bullies!" they repeated mincingly, mocking her speech.
+
+     "Not such a clown shall anger me,
+     A boor is answered silently,"
+
+he quoted against her, shouting with laughter.
+
+She went indoors. Paul went with the boys into the orchard, where they
+had rigged up a parallel bar. They did feats of strength. He was more
+agile than strong, but it served. He fingered a piece of apple-blossom
+that hung low on a swinging bough.
+
+"I wouldn't get the apple-blossom," said Edgar, the eldest brother.
+"There'll be no apples next year."
+
+"I wasn't going to get it," replied Paul, going away.
+
+The boys felt hostile to him; they were more interested in their own
+pursuits. He wandered back to the house to look for his mother. As he
+went round the back, he saw Miriam kneeling in front of the hen-coop,
+some maize in her hand, biting her lip, and crouching in an intense
+attitude. The hen was eyeing her wickedly. Very gingerly she put forward
+her hand. The hen bobbed for her. She drew back quickly with a cry, half
+of fear, half of chagrin.
+
+"It won't hurt you," said Paul.
+
+She flushed crimson and started up.
+
+"I only wanted to try," she said in a low voice.
+
+"See, it doesn't hurt," he said, and, putting only two corns in his
+palm, he let the hen peck, peck, peck at his bare hand. "It only makes
+you laugh," he said.
+
+She put her hand forward and dragged it away, tried again, and started
+back with a cry. He frowned.
+
+"Why, I'd let her take corn from my face," said Paul, "only she bumps a
+bit. She's ever so neat. If she wasn't, look how much ground she'd peck
+up every day."
+
+He waited grimly, and watched. At last Miriam let the bird peck from
+her hand. She gave a little cry--fear, and pain because of fear--rather
+pathetic. But she had done it, and she did it again.
+
+"There, you see," said the boy. "It doesn't hurt, does it?"
+
+She looked at him with dilated dark eyes.
+
+"No," she laughed, trembling.
+
+Then she rose and went indoors. She seemed to be in some way resentful
+of the boy.
+
+"He thinks I'm only a common girl," she thought, and she wanted to prove
+she was a grand person like the "Lady of the Lake".
+
+Paul found his mother ready to go home. She smiled on her son. He took
+the great bunch of flowers. Mr. and Mrs. Leivers walked down the fields
+with them. The hills were golden with evening; deep in the woods showed
+the darkening purple of bluebells. It was everywhere perfectly stiff,
+save for the rustling of leaves and birds.
+
+"But it is a beautiful place," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Leivers; "it's a nice little place, if only it
+weren't for the rabbits. The pasture's bitten down to nothing. I dunno
+if ever I s'll get the rent off it."
+
+He clapped his hands, and the field broke into motion near the woods,
+brown rabbits hopping everywhere.
+
+"Would you believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. Morel.
+
+She and Paul went on alone together.
+
+"Wasn't it lovely, mother?" he said quietly.
+
+A thin moon was coming out. His heart was full of happiness till it
+hurt. His mother had to chatter, because she, too, wanted to cry with
+happiness.
+
+"Now WOULDN'T I help that man!" she said. "WOULDN'T I see to the fowls
+and the young stock! And I'D learn to milk, and I'D talk with him, and
+I'D plan with him. My word, if I were his wife, the farm would be run,
+I know! But there, she hasn't the strength--she simply hasn't the
+strength. She ought never to have been burdened like it, you know. I'm
+sorry for her, and I'm sorry for him too. My word, if I'D had him, I
+shouldn't have thought him a bad husband! Not that she does either; and
+she's very lovable."
+
+William came home again with his sweetheart at the Whitsuntide. He had
+one week of his holidays then. It was beautiful weather. As a rule,
+William and Lily and Paul went out in the morning together for a walk.
+William did not talk to his beloved much, except to tell her things from
+his boyhood. Paul talked endlessly to both of them. They lay down, all
+three, in a meadow by Minton Church. On one side, by the Castle Farm,
+was a beautiful quivering screen of poplars. Hawthorn was dropping
+from the hedges; penny daisies and ragged robin were in the field, like
+laughter. William, a big fellow of twenty-three, thinner now and even a
+bit gaunt, lay back in the sunshine and dreamed, while she fingered with
+his hair. Paul went gathering the big daisies. She had taken off her
+hat; her hair was black as a horse's mane. Paul came back and threaded
+daisies in her jet-black hair--big spangles of white and yellow, and
+just a pink touch of ragged robin.
+
+"Now you look like a young witch-woman," the boy said to her. "Doesn't
+she, William?"
+
+Lily laughed. William opened his eyes and looked at her. In his gaze was
+a certain baffled look of misery and fierce appreciation.
+
+"Has he made a sight of me?" she asked, laughing down on her lover.
+
+"That he has!" said William, smiling.
+
+He looked at her. Her beauty seemed to hurt him. He glanced at her
+flower-decked head and frowned.
+
+"You look nice enough, if that's what you want to know," he said.
+
+And she walked without her hat. In a little while William recovered, and
+was rather tender to her. Coming to a bridge, he carved her initials and
+his in a heart.
+
+L. L. W.
+
+W. M.
+
+She watched his strong, nervous hand, with its glistening hairs and
+freckles, as he carved, and she seemed fascinated by it.
+
+All the time there was a feeling of sadness and warmth, and a certain
+tenderness in the house, whilst William and Lily were at home. But often
+he got irritable. She had brought, for an eight-days' stay, five dresses
+and six blouses.
+
+"Oh, would you mind," she said to Annie, "washing me these two blouses,
+and these things?"
+
+And Annie stood washing when William and Lily went out the next morning.
+Mrs. Morel was furious. And sometimes the young man, catching a glimpse
+of his sweetheart's attitude towards his sister, hated her.
+
+On Sunday morning she looked very beautiful in a dress of foulard, silky
+and sweeping, and blue as a jay-bird's feather, and in a large cream hat
+covered with many roses, mostly crimson. Nobody could admire her enough.
+But in the evening, when she was going out, she asked again:
+
+"Chubby, have you got my gloves?"
+
+"Which?" asked William.
+
+"My new black SUEDE."
+
+"No."
+
+There was a hunt. She had lost them.
+
+"Look here, mother," said William, "that's the fourth pair she's lost
+since Christmas--at five shillings a pair!"
+
+"You only gave me TWO of them," she remonstrated.
+
+And in the evening, after supper, he stood on the hearthrug whilst she
+sat on the sofa, and he seemed to hate her. In the afternoon he had
+left her whilst he went to see some old friend. She had sat looking at a
+book. After supper William wanted to write a letter.
+
+"Here is your book, Lily," said Mrs. Morel. "Would you care to go on
+with it for a few minutes?"
+
+"No, thank you," said the girl. "I will sit still."
+
+"But it is so dull."
+
+William scribbled irritably at a great rate. As he sealed the envelope
+he said:
+
+"Read a book! Why, she's never read a book in her life."
+
+"Oh, go along!" said Mrs. Morel, cross with the exaggeration,
+
+"It's true, mother--she hasn't," he cried, jumping up and taking his old
+position on the hearthrug. "She's never read a book in her life."
+
+"'Er's like me," chimed in Morel. "'Er canna see what there is i' books,
+ter sit borin' your nose in 'em for, nor more can I."
+
+"But you shouldn't say these things," said Mrs. Morel to her son.
+
+"But it's true, mother--she CAN'T read. What did you give her?"
+
+"Well, I gave her a little thing of Annie Swan's. Nobody wants to read
+dry stuff on Sunday afternoon."
+
+"Well, I'll bet she didn't read ten lines of it."
+
+"You are mistaken," said his mother.
+
+All the time Lily sat miserably on the sofa. He turned to her swiftly.
+
+"DID you read any?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, I did," she replied.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"I don't know how many pages."
+
+"Tell me ONE THING you read."
+
+She could not.
+
+She never got beyond the second page. He read a great deal, and had a
+quick, active intelligence. She could understand nothing but love-making
+and chatter. He was accustomed to having all his thoughts sifted through
+his mother's mind; so, when he wanted companionship, and was asked in
+reply to be the billing and twittering lover, he hated his betrothed.
+
+"You know, mother," he said, when he was alone with her at night, "she's
+no idea of money, she's so wessel-brained. When she's paid, she'll
+suddenly buy such rot as marrons glaces, and then I have to buy her
+season ticket, and her extras, even her underclothing. And she wants to
+get married, and I think myself we might as well get married next year.
+But at this rate--"
+
+"A fine mess of a marriage it would be," replied his mother. "I should
+consider it again, my boy."
+
+"Oh, well, I've gone too far to break off now," he said, "and so I shall
+get married as soon as I can."
+
+"Very well, my boy. If you will, you will, and there's no stopping you;
+but I tell you, I can't sleep when I think about it."
+
+"Oh, she'll be all right, mother. We shall manage."
+
+"And she lets you buy her underclothing?" asked the mother.
+
+"Well," he began apologetically, "she didn't ask me; but one
+morning--and it WAS cold--I found her on the station shivering, not able
+to keep still; so I asked her if she was well wrapped up. She said: 'I
+think so.' So I said: 'Have you got warm underthings on?' And she
+said: 'No, they were cotton.' I asked her why on earth she hadn't got
+something thicker on in weather like that, and she said because she HAD
+nothing. And there she is--a bronchial subject! I HAD to take her and
+get some warm things. Well, mother, I shouldn't mind the money if we
+had any. And, you know, she OUGHT to keep enough to pay for her
+season-ticket; but no, she comes to me about that, and I have to find
+the money."
+
+"It's a poor lookout," said Mrs. Morel bitterly.
+
+He was pale, and his rugged face, that used to be so perfectly careless
+and laughing, was stamped with conflict and despair.
+
+"But I can't give her up now; it's gone too far," he said. "And,
+besides, for SOME things I couldn't do without her."
+
+"My boy, remember you're taking your life in your hands," said Mrs.
+Morel. "NOTHING is as bad as a marriage that's a hopeless failure. Mine
+was bad enough, God knows, and ought to teach you something; but it
+might have been worse by a long chalk."
+
+He leaned with his back against the side of the chimney-piece, his hands
+in his pockets. He was a big, raw-boned man, who looked as if he would
+go to the world's end if he wanted to. But she saw the despair on his
+face.
+
+"I couldn't give her up now," he said.
+
+"Well," she said, "remember there are worse wrongs than breaking off an
+engagement."
+
+"I can't give her up NOW," he said.
+
+The clock ticked on; mother and son remained in silence, a conflict
+between them; but he would say no more. At last she said:
+
+"Well, go to bed, my son. You'll feel better in the morning, and perhaps
+you'll know better."
+
+He kissed her, and went. She raked the fire. Her heart was heavy now
+as it had never been. Before, with her husband, things had seemed to be
+breaking down in her, but they did not destroy her power to live. Now
+her soul felt lamed in itself. It was her hope that was struck.
+
+And so often William manifested the same hatred towards his betrothed.
+On the last evening at home he was railing against her.
+
+"Well," he said, "if you don't believe me, what she's like, would you
+believe she has been confirmed three times?"
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Nonsense or not, she HAS! That's what confirmation means for her--a bit
+of a theatrical show where she can cut a figure."
+
+"I haven't, Mrs. Morel!" cried the girl--"I haven't! it is not true!"
+
+"What!" he cried, flashing round on her. "Once in Bromley, once in
+Beckenham, and once somewhere else."
+
+"Nowhere else!" she said, in tears--"nowhere else!"
+
+"It WAS! And if it wasn't why were you confirmed TWICE?"
+
+"Once I was only fourteen, Mrs. Morel," she pleaded, tears in her eyes.
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Morel; "I can quite understand it, child. Take no
+notice of him. You ought to be ashamed, William, saying such things."
+
+"But it's true. She's religious--she had blue velvet Prayer-Books--and
+she's not as much religion, or anything else, in her than that
+table-leg. Gets confirmed three times for show, to show herself off, and
+that's how she is in EVERYTHING--EVERYTHING!"
+
+The girl sat on the sofa, crying. She was not strong.
+
+"As for LOVE!" he cried, "you might as well ask a fly to love you! It'll
+love settling on you--"
+
+"Now, say no more," commanded Mrs. Morel. "If you want to say these
+things, you must find another place than this. I am ashamed of you,
+William! Why don't you be more manly. To do nothing but find fault with
+a girl, and then pretend you're engaged to her!"
+
+Mrs. Morel subsided in wrath and indignation.
+
+William was silent, and later he repented, kissed and comforted the
+girl. Yet it was true, what he had said. He hated her.
+
+When they were going away, Mrs. Morel accompanied them as far as
+Nottingham. It was a long way to Keston station.
+
+"You know, mother," he said to her, "Gyp's shallow. Nothing goes deep
+with her."
+
+"William, I WISH you wouldn't say these things," said Mrs. Morel, very
+uncomfortable for the girl who walked beside her.
+
+"But it doesn't, mother. She's very much in love with me now, but if I
+died she'd have forgotten me in three months."
+
+Mrs. Morel was afraid. Her heart beat furiously, hearing the quiet
+bitterness of her son's last speech.
+
+"How do you know?" she replied. "You DON'T know, and therefore you've no
+right to say such a thing."
+
+"He's always saying these things!" cried the girl.
+
+"In three months after I was buried you'd have somebody else, and I
+should be forgotten," he said. "And that's your love!"
+
+Mrs. Morel saw them into the train in Nottingham, then she returned
+home.
+
+"There's one comfort," she said to Paul--"he'll never have any money to
+marry on, that I AM sure of. And so she'll save him that way."
+
+So she took cheer. Matters were not yet very desperate. She firmly
+believed William would never marry his Gipsy. She waited, and she kept
+Paul near to her.
+
+All summer long William's letters had a feverish tone; he seemed
+unnatural and intense. Sometimes he was exaggeratedly jolly, usually he
+was flat and bitter in his letter.
+
+"Ah," his mother said, "I'm afraid he's ruining himself against that
+creature, who isn't worthy of his love--no, no more than a rag doll."
+
+He wanted to come home. The midsummer holiday was gone; it was a long
+while to Christmas. He wrote in wild excitement, saying he could come
+for Saturday and Sunday at Goose Fair, the first week in October.
+
+"You are not well, my boy," said his mother, when she saw him. She was
+almost in tears at having him to herself again.
+
+"No, I've not been well," he said. "I've seemed to have a dragging cold
+all the last month, but it's going, I think."
+
+It was sunny October weather. He seemed wild with joy, like a schoolboy
+escaped; then again he was silent and reserved. He was more gaunt than
+ever, and there was a haggard look in his eyes.
+
+"You are doing too much," said his mother to him.
+
+He was doing extra work, trying to make some money to marry on, he said.
+He only talked to his mother once on the Saturday night; then he was sad
+and tender about his beloved.
+
+"And yet, you know, mother, for all that, if I died she'd be
+broken-hearted for two months, and then she'd start to forget me. You'd
+see, she'd never come home here to look at my grave, not even once."
+
+"Why, William," said his mother, "you're not going to die, so why talk
+about it?"
+
+"But whether or not--" he replied.
+
+"And she can't help it. She is like that, and if you choose her--well,
+you can't grumble," said his mother.
+
+On the Sunday morning, as he was putting his collar on:
+
+"Look," he said to his mother, holding up his chin, "what a rash my
+collar's made under my chin!"
+
+Just at the junction of chin and throat was a big red inflammation.
+
+"It ought not to do that," said his mother. "Here, put a bit of this
+soothing ointment on. You should wear different collars."
+
+He went away on Sunday midnight, seeming better and more solid for his
+two days at home.
+
+On Tuesday morning came a telegram from London that he was ill. Mrs.
+Morel got off her knees from washing the floor, read the telegram,
+called a neighbour, went to her landlady and borrowed a sovereign, put
+on her things, and set off. She hurried to Keston, caught an express for
+London in Nottingham. She had to wait in Nottingham nearly an hour. A
+small figure in her black bonnet, she was anxiously asking the porters
+if they knew how to get to Elmers End. The journey was three hours. She
+sat in her corner in a kind of stupor, never moving. At King's Cross
+still no one could tell her how to get to Elmers End. Carrying her
+string bag, that contained her nightdress, a comb and brush, she went
+from person to person. At last they sent her underground to Cannon
+Street.
+
+It was six o'clock when she arrived at William's lodging. The blinds
+were not down.
+
+"How is he?" she asked.
+
+"No better," said the landlady.
+
+She followed the woman upstairs. William lay on the bed, with bloodshot
+eyes, his face rather discoloured. The clothes were tossed about, there
+was no fire in the room, a glass of milk stood on the stand at his
+bedside. No one had been with him.
+
+"Why, my son!" said the mother bravely.
+
+He did not answer. He looked at her, but did not see her. Then he began
+to say, in a dull voice, as if repeating a letter from dictation: "Owing
+to a leakage in the hold of this vessel, the sugar had set, and become
+converted into rock. It needed hacking--"
+
+He was quite unconscious. It had been his business to examine some such
+cargo of sugar in the Port of London.
+
+"How long has he been like this?" the mother asked the landlady.
+
+"He got home at six o'clock on Monday morning, and he seemed to sleep
+all day; then in the night we heard him talking, and this morning he
+asked for you. So I wired, and we fetched the doctor."
+
+"Will you have a fire made?"
+
+Mrs. Morel tried to soothe her son, to keep him still.
+
+The doctor came. It was pneumonia, and, he said, a peculiar erysipelas,
+which had started under the chin where the collar chafed, and was
+spreading over the face. He hoped it would not get to the brain.
+
+Mrs. Morel settled down to nurse. She prayed for William, prayed that he
+would recognise her. But the young man's face grew more discoloured.
+In the night she struggled with him. He raved, and raved, and would not
+come to consciousness. At two o'clock, in a dreadful paroxysm, he died.
+
+Mrs. Morel sat perfectly still for an hour in the lodging bedroom; then
+she roused the household.
+
+At six o'clock, with the aid of the charwoman, she laid him out; then
+she went round the dreary London village to the registrar and the
+doctor.
+
+At nine o'clock to the cottage on Scargill Street came another wire:
+
+"William died last night. Let father come, bring money."
+
+Annie, Paul, and Arthur were at home; Mr. Morel was gone to work. The
+three children said not a word. Annie began to whimper with fear; Paul
+set off for his father.
+
+It was a beautiful day. At Brinsley pit the white steam melted slowly in
+the sunshine of a soft blue sky; the wheels of the headstocks twinkled
+high up; the screen, shuffling its coal into the trucks, made a busy
+noise.
+
+"I want my father; he's got to go to London," said the boy to the first
+man he met on the bank.
+
+"Tha wants Walter Morel? Go in theer an' tell Joe Ward."
+
+Paul went into the little top office.
+
+"I want my father; he's got to go to London."
+
+"Thy feyther? Is he down? What's his name?"
+
+"Mr. Morel."
+
+"What, Walter? Is owt amiss?"
+
+"He's got to go to London."
+
+The man went to the telephone and rang up the bottom office.
+
+"Walter Morel's wanted, number 42, Hard. Summat's amiss; there's his lad
+here."
+
+Then he turned round to Paul.
+
+"He'll be up in a few minutes," he said.
+
+Paul wandered out to the pit-top. He watched the chair come up, with its
+wagon of coal. The great iron cage sank back on its rest, a full carfle
+was hauled off, an empty tram run on to the chair, a bell ting'ed
+somewhere, the chair heaved, then dropped like a stone.
+
+Paul did not realise William was dead; it was impossible, with such
+a bustle going on. The puller-off swung the small truck on to the
+turn-table, another man ran with it along the bank down the curving
+lines.
+
+"And William is dead, and my mother's in London, and what will she be
+doing?" the boy asked himself, as if it were a conundrum.
+
+He watched chair after chair come up, and still no father. At last,
+standing beside a wagon, a man's form! the chair sank on its rests,
+Morel stepped off. He was slightly lame from an accident.
+
+"Is it thee, Paul? Is 'e worse?"
+
+"You've got to go to London."
+
+The two walked off the pit-bank, where men were watching curiously. As
+they came out and went along the railway, with the sunny autumn field on
+one side and a wall of trucks on the other, Morel said in a frightened
+voice:
+
+"'E's niver gone, child?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When wor't?"
+
+"Last night. We had a telegram from my mother."
+
+Morel walked on a few strides, then leaned up against a truck-side,
+his hand over his eyes. He was not crying. Paul stood looking round,
+waiting. On the weighing machine a truck trundled slowly. Paul saw
+everything, except his father leaning against the truck as if he were
+tired.
+
+Morel had only once before been to London. He set off, scared and
+peaked, to help his wife. That was on Tuesday. The children were left
+alone in the house. Paul went to work, Arthur went to school, and Annie
+had in a friend to be with her.
+
+On Saturday night, as Paul was turning the corner, coming home from
+Keston, he saw his mother and father, who had come to Sethley Bridge
+Station. They were walking in silence in the dark, tired, straggling
+apart. The boy waited.
+
+"Mother!" he said, in the darkness.
+
+Mrs. Morel's small figure seemed not to observe. He spoke again.
+
+"Paul!" she said, uninterestedly.
+
+She let him kiss her, but she seemed unaware of him.
+
+In the house she was the same--small, white, and mute. She noticed
+nothing, she said nothing, only:
+
+"The coffin will be here to-night, Walter. You'd better see about some
+help." Then, turning to the children: "We're bringing him home."
+
+Then she relapsed into the same mute looking into space, her hands
+folded on her lap. Paul, looking at her, felt he could not breathe. The
+house was dead silent.
+
+"I went to work, mother," he said plaintively.
+
+"Did you?" she answered, dully.
+
+After half an hour Morel, troubled and bewildered, came in again.
+
+"Wheer s'll we ha'e him when he DOES come?" he asked his wife.
+
+"In the front-room."
+
+"Then I'd better shift th' table?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"An' ha'e him across th' chairs?"
+
+"You know there--Yes, I suppose so."
+
+Morel and Paul went, with a candle, into the parlour. There was no gas
+there. The father unscrewed the top of the big mahogany oval table, and
+cleared the middle of the room; then he arranged six chairs opposite
+each other, so that the coffin could stand on their beds.
+
+"You niver seed such a length as he is!" said the miner, and watching
+anxiously as he worked.
+
+Paul went to the bay window and looked out. The ash-tree stood monstrous
+and black in front of the wide darkness. It was a faintly luminous
+night. Paul went back to his mother.
+
+At ten o'clock Morel called:
+
+"He's here!"
+
+Everyone started. There was a noise of unbarring and unlocking the front
+door, which opened straight from the night into the room.
+
+"Bring another candle," called Morel.
+
+Annie and Arthur went. Paul followed with his mother. He stood with his
+arm round her waist in the inner doorway. Down the middle of the cleared
+room waited six chairs, face to face. In the window, against the lace
+curtains, Arthur held up one candle, and by the open door, against the
+night, Annie stood leaning forward, her brass candlestick glittering.
+
+There was the noise of wheels. Outside in the darkness of the street
+below Paul could see horses and a black vehicle, one lamp, and a few
+pale faces; then some men, miners, all in their shirt-sleeves, seemed to
+struggle in the obscurity. Presently two men appeared, bowed beneath a
+great weight. It was Morel and his neighbour.
+
+"Steady!" called Morel, out of breath.
+
+He and his fellow mounted the steep garden step, heaved into the
+candlelight with their gleaming coffin-end. Limbs of other men were seen
+struggling behind. Morel and Burns, in front, staggered; the great dark
+weight swayed.
+
+"Steady, steady!" cried Morel, as if in pain.
+
+All the six bearers were up in the small garden, holding the great
+coffin aloft. There were three more steps to the door. The yellow lamp
+of the carriage shone alone down the black road.
+
+"Now then!" said Morel.
+
+The coffin swayed, the men began to mount the three steps with their
+load. Annie's candle flickered, and she whimpered as the first men
+appeared, and the limbs and bowed heads of six men struggled to climb
+into the room, bearing the coffin that rode like sorrow on their living
+flesh.
+
+"Oh, my son--my son!" Mrs. Morel sang softly, and each time the coffin
+swung to the unequal climbing of the men: "Oh, my son--my son--my son!"
+
+"Mother!" Paul whimpered, his hand round her waist.
+
+She did not hear.
+
+"Oh, my son--my son!" she repeated.
+
+Paul saw drops of sweat fall from his father's brow. Six men were in
+the room--six coatless men, with yielding, struggling limbs, filling
+the room and knocking against the furniture. The coffin veered, and was
+gently lowered on to the chairs. The sweat fell from Morel's face on its
+boards.
+
+"My word, he's a weight!" said a man, and the five miners sighed, bowed,
+and, trembling with the struggle, descended the steps again, closing the
+door behind them.
+
+The family was alone in the parlour with the great polished box.
+William, when laid out, was six feet four inches long. Like a monument
+lay the bright brown, ponderous coffin. Paul thought it would never be
+got out of the room again. His mother was stroking the polished wood.
+
+They buried him on the Monday in the little cemetery on the hillside
+that looks over the fields at the big church and the houses. It was
+sunny, and the white chrysanthemums frilled themselves in the warmth.
+
+Mrs. Morel could not be persuaded, after this, to talk and take her old
+bright interest in life. She remained shut off. All the way home in the
+train she had said to herself: "If only it could have been me!"
+
+When Paul came home at night he found his mother sitting, her day's work
+done, with hands folded in her lap upon her coarse apron. She always
+used to have changed her dress and put on a black apron, before. Now
+Annie set his supper, and his mother sat looking blankly in front of
+her, her mouth shut tight. Then he beat his brains for news to tell her.
+
+"Mother, Miss Jordan was down to-day, and she said my sketch of a
+colliery at work was beautiful."
+
+But Mrs. Morel took no notice. Night after night he forced himself to
+tell her things, although she did not listen. It drove him almost insane
+to have her thus. At last:
+
+"What's a-matter, mother?" he asked.
+
+She did not hear.
+
+"What's a-matter?" he persisted. "Mother, what's a-matter?"
+
+"You know what's the matter," she said irritably, turning away.
+
+The lad--he was sixteen years old--went to bed drearily. He was cut off
+and wretched through October, November and December. His mother tried,
+but she could not rouse herself. She could only brood on her dead son;
+he had been let to die so cruelly.
+
+At last, on December 23, with his five shillings Christmas-box in his
+pocket, Paul wandered blindly home. His mother looked at him, and her
+heart stood still.
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked.
+
+"I'm badly, mother!" he replied. "Mr. Jordan gave me five shillings for
+a Christmas-box!"
+
+He handed it to her with trembling hands. She put it on the table.
+
+"You aren't glad!" he reproached her; but he trembled violently.
+
+"Where hurts you?" she said, unbuttoning his overcoat.
+
+It was the old question.
+
+"I feel badly, mother."
+
+She undressed him and put him to bed. He had pneumonia dangerously, the
+doctor said.
+
+"Might he never have had it if I'd kept him at home, not let him go to
+Nottingham?" was one of the first things she asked.
+
+"He might not have been so bad," said the doctor.
+
+Mrs. Morel stood condemned on her own ground.
+
+"I should have watched the living, not the dead," she told herself.
+
+Paul was very ill. His mother lay in bed at nights with him; they could
+not afford a nurse. He grew worse, and the crisis approached. One
+night he tossed into consciousness in the ghastly, sickly feeling of
+dissolution, when all the cells in the body seem in intense irritability
+to be breaking down, and consciousness makes a last flare of struggle,
+like madness.
+
+"I s'll die, mother!" he cried, heaving for breath on the pillow.
+
+She lifted him up, crying in a small voice:
+
+"Oh, my son--my son!"
+
+That brought him to. He realised her. His whole will rose up and
+arrested him. He put his head on her breast, and took ease of her for
+love.
+
+"For some things," said his aunt, "it was a good thing Paul was ill that
+Christmas. I believe it saved his mother."
+
+Paul was in bed for seven weeks. He got up white and fragile. His father
+had bought him a pot of scarlet and gold tulips. They used to flame in
+the window in the March sunshine as he sat on the sofa chattering to his
+mother. The two knitted together in perfect intimacy. Mrs. Morel's life
+now rooted itself in Paul.
+
+William had been a prophet. Mrs. Morel had a little present and a letter
+from Lily at Christmas. Mrs. Morel's sister had a letter at the New
+Year.
+
+"I was at a ball last night. Some delightful people were there, and I
+enjoyed myself thoroughly," said the letter. "I had every dance--did not
+sit out one."
+
+Mrs. Morel never heard any more of her.
+
+Morel and his wife were gentle with each other for some time after the
+death of their son. He would go into a kind of daze, staring wide-eyed
+and blank across the room. Then he got up suddenly and hurried out to
+the Three Spots, returning in his normal state. But never in his life
+would he go for a walk up Shepstone, past the office where his son had
+worked, and he always avoided the cemetery.
+
+
+
+PART TWO
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+LAD-AND-GIRL LOVE
+
+PAUL had been many times up to Willey Farm during the autumn. He
+was friends with the two youngest boys. Edgar the eldest, would not
+condescend at first. And Miriam also refused to be approached. She was
+afraid of being set at nought, as by her own brothers. The girl was
+romantic in her soul. Everywhere was a Walter Scott heroine being
+loved by men with helmets or with plumes in their caps. She herself was
+something of a princess turned into a swine-girl in her own imagination.
+And she was afraid lest this boy, who, nevertheless, looked something
+like a Walter Scott hero, who could paint and speak French, and knew
+what algebra meant, and who went by train to Nottingham every day, might
+consider her simply as the swine-girl, unable to perceive the princess
+beneath; so she held aloof.
+
+Her great companion was her mother. They were both brown-eyed, and
+inclined to be mystical, such women as treasure religion inside them,
+breathe it in their nostrils, and see the whole of life in a mist
+thereof. So to Miriam, Christ and God made one great figure, which she
+loved tremblingly and passionately when a tremendous sunset burned
+out the western sky, and Ediths, and Lucys, and Rowenas, Brian de Bois
+Guilberts, Rob Roys, and Guy Mannerings, rustled the sunny leaves in the
+morning, or sat in her bedroom aloft, alone, when it snowed. That was
+life to her. For the rest, she drudged in the house, which work she
+would not have minded had not her clean red floor been mucked up
+immediately by the trampling farm-boots of her brothers. She madly
+wanted her little brother of four to let her swathe him and stifle
+him in her love; she went to church reverently, with bowed head, and
+quivered in anguish from the vulgarity of the other choir-girls and from
+the common-sounding voice of the curate; she fought with her brothers,
+whom she considered brutal louts; and she held not her father in too
+high esteem because he did not carry any mystical ideals cherished in
+his heart, but only wanted to have as easy a time as he could, and his
+meals when he was ready for them.
+
+She hated her position as swine-girl. She wanted to be considered. She
+wanted to learn, thinking that if she could read, as Paul said he could
+read, "Colomba", or the "Voyage autour de ma Chambre", the world would
+have a different face for her and a deepened respect. She could not be
+princess by wealth or standing. So she was mad to have learning whereon
+to pride herself. For she was different from other folk, and must not
+be scooped up among the common fry. Learning was the only distinction to
+which she thought to aspire.
+
+Her beauty--that of a shy, wild, quiveringly sensitive thing--seemed
+nothing to her. Even her soul, so strong for rhapsody, was not enough.
+She must have something to reinforce her pride, because she felt
+different from other people. Paul she eyed rather wistfully. On the
+whole, she scorned the male sex. But here was a new specimen, quick,
+light, graceful, who could be gentle and who could be sad, and who was
+clever, and who knew a lot, and who had a death in the family. The boy's
+poor morsel of learning exalted him almost sky-high in her esteem.
+Yet she tried hard to scorn him, because he would not see in her the
+princess but only the swine-girl. And he scarcely observed her.
+
+Then he was so ill, and she felt he would be weak. Then she would be
+stronger than he. Then she could love him. If she could be mistress of
+him in his weakness, take care of him, if he could depend on her, if she
+could, as it were, have him in her arms, how she would love him!
+
+As soon as the skies brightened and plum-blossom was out, Paul drove off
+in the milkman's heavy float up to Willey Farm. Mr. Leivers shouted in a
+kindly fashion at the boy, then clicked to the horse as they climbed the
+hill slowly, in the freshness of the morning. White clouds went on
+their way, crowding to the back of the hills that were rousing in the
+springtime. The water of Nethermere lay below, very blue against the
+seared meadows and the thorn-trees.
+
+It was four and a half miles' drive. Tiny buds on the hedges, vivid
+as copper-green, were opening into rosettes; and thrushes called, and
+blackbirds shrieked and scolded. It was a new, glamorous world.
+
+Miriam, peeping through the kitchen window, saw the horse walk through
+the big white gate into the farmyard that was backed by the oak-wood,
+still bare. Then a youth in a heavy overcoat climbed down. He put up
+his hands for the whip and the rug that the good-looking, ruddy farmer
+handed down to him.
+
+Miriam appeared in the doorway. She was nearly sixteen, very beautiful,
+with her warm colouring, her gravity, her eyes dilating suddenly like an
+ecstasy.
+
+"I say," said Paul, turning shyly aside, "your daffodils are nearly out.
+Isn't it early? But don't they look cold?"
+
+"Cold!" said Miriam, in her musical, caressing voice.
+
+"The green on their buds--" and he faltered into silence timidly.
+
+"Let me take the rug," said Miriam over-gently.
+
+"I can carry it," he answered, rather injured. But he yielded it to her.
+
+Then Mrs. Leivers appeared.
+
+"I'm sure you're tired and cold," she said. "Let me take your coat. It
+IS heavy. You mustn't walk far in it."
+
+She helped him off with his coat. He was quite unused to such attention.
+She was almost smothered under its weight.
+
+"Why, mother," laughed the farmer as he passed through the kitchen,
+swinging the great milk-churns, "you've got almost more than you can
+manage there."
+
+She beat up the sofa cushions for the youth.
+
+The kitchen was very small and irregular. The farm had been originally
+a labourer's cottage. And the furniture was old and battered. But Paul
+loved it--loved the sack-bag that formed the hearthrug, and the funny
+little corner under the stairs, and the small window deep in the corner,
+through which, bending a little, he could see the plum trees in the back
+garden and the lovely round hills beyond.
+
+"Won't you lie down?" said Mrs. Leivers.
+
+"Oh no; I'm not tired," he said. "Isn't it lovely coming out, don't you
+think? I saw a sloe-bush in blossom and a lot of celandines. I'm glad
+it's sunny."
+
+"Can I give you anything to eat or to drink?"
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"How's your mother?"
+
+"I think she's tired now. I think she's had too much to do. Perhaps in a
+little while she'll go to Skegness with me. Then she'll be able to rest.
+I s'll be glad if she can."
+
+"Yes," replied Mrs. Leivers. "It's a wonder she isn't ill herself."
+
+Miriam was moving about preparing dinner. Paul watched everything that
+happened. His face was pale and thin, but his eyes were quick and bright
+with life as ever. He watched the strange, almost rhapsodic way in which
+the girl moved about, carrying a great stew-jar to the oven, or looking
+in the saucepan. The atmosphere was different from that of his own home,
+where everything seemed so ordinary. When Mr. Leivers called loudly
+outside to the horse, that was reaching over to feed on the rose-bushes
+in the garden, the girl started, looked round with dark eyes, as if
+something had come breaking in on her world. There was a sense of
+silence inside the house and out. Miriam seemed as in some dreamy tale,
+a maiden in bondage, her spirit dreaming in a land far away and magical.
+And her discoloured, old blue frock and her broken boots seemed only
+like the romantic rags of King Cophetua's beggar-maid.
+
+She suddenly became aware of his keen blue eyes upon her, taking her all
+in. Instantly her broken boots and her frayed old frock hurt her. She
+resented his seeing everything. Even he knew that her stocking was not
+pulled up. She went into the scullery, blushing deeply. And afterwards
+her hands trembled slightly at her work. She nearly dropped all she
+handled. When her inside dream was shaken, her body quivered with
+trepidation. She resented that he saw so much.
+
+Mrs. Leivers sat for some time talking to the boy, although she was
+needed at her work. She was too polite to leave him. Presently she
+excused herself and rose. After a while she looked into the tin
+saucepan.
+
+"Oh DEAR, Miriam," she cried, "these potatoes have boiled dry!"
+
+Miriam started as if she had been stung.
+
+"HAVE they, mother?" she cried.
+
+"I shouldn't care, Miriam," said the mother, "if I hadn't trusted them
+to you." She peered into the pan.
+
+The girl stiffened as if from a blow. Her dark eyes dilated; she
+remained standing in the same spot.
+
+"Well," she answered, gripped tight in self-conscious shame, "I'm sure I
+looked at them five minutes since."
+
+"Yes," said the mother, "I know it's easily done."
+
+"They're not much burned," said Paul. "It doesn't matter, does it?"
+
+Mrs. Leivers looked at the youth with her brown, hurt eyes.
+
+"It wouldn't matter but for the boys," she said to him. "Only Miriam
+knows what a trouble they make if the potatoes are 'caught'."
+
+"Then," thought Paul to himself, "you shouldn't let them make a
+trouble."
+
+After a while Edgar came in. He wore leggings, and his boots were
+covered with earth. He was rather small, rather formal, for a farmer. He
+glanced at Paul, nodded to him distantly, and said:
+
+"Dinner ready?"
+
+"Nearly, Edgar," replied the mother apologetically.
+
+"I'm ready for mine," said the young man, taking up the newspaper and
+reading. Presently the rest of the family trooped in. Dinner was served.
+The meal went rather brutally. The over-gentleness and apologetic tone
+of the mother brought out all the brutality of manners in the sons.
+Edgar tasted the potatoes, moved his mouth quickly like a rabbit, looked
+indignantly at his mother, and said:
+
+"These potatoes are burnt, mother."
+
+"Yes, Edgar. I forgot them for a minute. Perhaps you'll have bread if
+you can't eat them."
+
+Edgar looked in anger across at Miriam.
+
+"What was Miriam doing that she couldn't attend to them?" he said.
+
+Miriam looked up. Her mouth opened, her dark eyes blazed and winced, but
+she said nothing. She swallowed her anger and her shame, bowing her dark
+head.
+
+"I'm sure she was trying hard," said the mother.
+
+"She hasn't got sense even to boil the potatoes," said Edgar. "What is
+she kept at home for?"
+
+"On'y for eating everything that's left in th' pantry," said Maurice.
+
+"They don't forget that potato-pie against our Miriam," laughed the
+father.
+
+She was utterly humiliated. The mother sat in silence, suffering, like
+some saint out of place at the brutal board.
+
+It puzzled Paul. He wondered vaguely why all this intense feeling
+went running because of a few burnt potatoes. The mother exalted
+everything--even a bit of housework--to the plane of a religious trust.
+The sons resented this; they felt themselves cut away underneath, and
+they answered with brutality and also with a sneering superciliousness.
+
+Paul was just opening out from childhood into manhood. This atmosphere,
+where everything took a religious value, came with a subtle fascination
+to him. There was something in the air. His own mother was logical. Here
+there was something different, something he loved, something that at
+times he hated.
+
+Miriam quarrelled with her brothers fiercely. Later in the afternoon,
+when they had gone away again, her mother said:
+
+"You disappointed me at dinner-time, Miriam."
+
+The girl dropped her head.
+
+"They are such BRUTES!" she suddenly cried, looking up with flashing
+eyes.
+
+"But hadn't you promised not to answer them?" said the mother. "And I
+believed in you. I CAN'T stand it when you wrangle."
+
+"But they're so hateful!" cried Miriam, "and--and LOW."
+
+"Yes, dear. But how often have I asked you not to answer Edgar back?
+Can't you let him say what he likes?"
+
+"But why should he say what he likes?"
+
+"Aren't you strong enough to bear it, Miriam, if even for my sake? Are
+you so weak that you must wrangle with them?"
+
+Mrs. Leivers stuck unflinchingly to this doctrine of "the other cheek".
+She could not instil it at all into the boys. With the girls she
+succeeded better, and Miriam was the child of her heart. The boys
+loathed the other cheek when it was presented to them. Miriam was often
+sufficiently lofty to turn it. Then they spat on her and hated her. But
+she walked in her proud humility, living within herself.
+
+There was always this feeling of jangle and discord in the Leivers
+family. Although the boys resented so bitterly this eternal appeal to
+their deeper feelings of resignation and proud humility, yet it had
+its effect on them. They could not establish between themselves and an
+outsider just the ordinary human feeling and unexaggerated friendship;
+they were always restless for the something deeper. Ordinary folk
+seemed shallow to them, trivial and inconsiderable. And so they were
+unaccustomed, painfully uncouth in the simplest social intercourse,
+suffering, and yet insolent in their superiority. Then beneath was the
+yearning for the soul-intimacy to which they could not attain because
+they were too dumb, and every approach to close connection was blocked
+by their clumsy contempt of other people. They wanted genuine intimacy,
+but they could not get even normally near to anyone, because they
+scorned to take the first steps, they scorned the triviality which forms
+common human intercourse.
+
+Paul fell under Mrs. Leivers's spell. Everything had a religious
+and intensified meaning when he was with her. His soul, hurt, highly
+developed, sought her as if for nourishment. Together they seemed to
+sift the vital fact from an experience.
+
+Miriam was her mother's daughter. In the sunshine of the afternoon
+mother and daughter went down the fields with him. They looked for
+nests. There was a jenny wren's in the hedge by the orchard.
+
+"I DO want you to see this," said Mrs. Leivers.
+
+He crouched down and carefully put his finger through the thorns into
+the round door of the nest.
+
+"It's almost as if you were feeling inside the live body of the bird,"
+he said, "it's so warm. They say a bird makes its nest round like a cup
+with pressing its breast on it. Then how did it make the ceiling round,
+I wonder?"
+
+The nest seemed to start into life for the two women. After that, Miriam
+came to see it every day. It seemed so close to her. Again, going
+down the hedgeside with the girl, he noticed the celandines, scalloped
+splashes of gold, on the side of the ditch.
+
+"I like them," he said, "when their petals go flat back with the
+sunshine. They seemed to be pressing themselves at the sun."
+
+And then the celandines ever after drew her with a little spell.
+Anthropomorphic as she was, she stimulated him into appreciating things
+thus, and then they lived for her. She seemed to need things kindling in
+her imagination or in her soul before she felt she had them. And she
+was cut off from ordinary life by her religious intensity which made
+the world for her either a nunnery garden or a paradise, where sin and
+knowledge were not, or else an ugly, cruel thing.
+
+So it was in this atmosphere of subtle intimacy, this meeting in their
+common feeling for something in Nature, that their love started.
+
+Personally, he was a long time before he realized her. For ten months he
+had to stay at home after his illness. For a while he went to Skegness
+with his mother, and was perfectly happy. But even from the seaside he
+wrote long letters to Mrs. Leivers about the shore and the sea. And he
+brought back his beloved sketches of the flat Lincoln coast, anxious
+for them to see. Almost they would interest the Leivers more than they
+interested his mother. It was not his art Mrs. Morel cared about; it
+was himself and his achievement. But Mrs. Leivers and her children were
+almost his disciples. They kindled him and made him glow to his work,
+whereas his mother's influence was to make him quietly determined,
+patient, dogged, unwearied.
+
+He soon was friends with the boys, whose rudeness was only superficial.
+They had all, when they could trust themselves, a strange gentleness and
+lovableness.
+
+"Will you come with me on to the fallow?" asked Edgar, rather
+hesitatingly.
+
+Paul went joyfully, and spent the afternoon helping to hoe or to single
+turnips with his friend. He used to lie with the three brothers in
+the hay piled up in the barn and tell them about Nottingham and about
+Jordan's. In return, they taught him to milk, and let him do little
+jobs--chopping hay or pulping turnips--just as much as he liked. At
+midsummer he worked all through hay-harvest with them, and then he loved
+them. The family was so cut off from the world actually. They seemed,
+somehow, like "_les derniers fils d'une race epuisee_". Though the lads
+were strong and healthy, yet they had all that over-sensitiveness and
+hanging-back which made them so lonely, yet also such close, delicate
+friends once their intimacy was won. Paul loved them dearly, and they
+him.
+
+Miriam came later. But he had come into her life before she made any
+mark on his. One dull afternoon, when the men were on the land and the
+rest at school, only Miriam and her mother at home, the girl said to
+him, after having hesitated for some time:
+
+"Have you seen the swing?"
+
+"No," he answered. "Where?"
+
+"In the cowshed," she replied.
+
+She always hesitated to offer or to show him anything. Men have such
+different standards of worth from women, and her dear things--the
+valuable things to her--her brothers had so often mocked or flouted.
+
+"Come on, then," he replied, jumping up.
+
+There were two cowsheds, one on either side of the barn. In the lower,
+darker shed there was standing for four cows. Hens flew scolding over
+the manger-wall as the youth and girl went forward for the great thick
+rope which hung from the beam in the darkness overhead, and was pushed
+back over a peg in the wall.
+
+"It's something like a rope!" he exclaimed appreciatively; and he sat
+down on it, anxious to try it. Then immediately he rose.
+
+"Come on, then, and have first go," he said to the girl.
+
+"See," she answered, going into the barn, "we put some bags on the
+seat"; and she made the swing comfortable for him. That gave her
+pleasure. He held the rope.
+
+"Come on, then," he said to her.
+
+"No, I won't go first," she answered.
+
+She stood aside in her still, aloof fashion.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You go," she pleaded.
+
+Almost for the first time in her life she had the pleasure of giving up
+to a man, of spoiling him. Paul looked at her.
+
+"All right," he said, sitting down. "Mind out!"
+
+He set off with a spring, and in a moment was flying through the air,
+almost out of the door of the shed, the upper half of which was open,
+showing outside the drizzling rain, the filthy yard, the cattle standing
+disconsolate against the black cartshed, and at the back of all
+the grey-green wall of the wood. She stood below in her crimson
+tam-o'-shanter and watched. He looked down at her, and she saw his blue
+eyes sparkling.
+
+"It's a treat of a swing," he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+He was swinging through the air, every bit of him swinging, like a bird
+that swoops for joy of movement. And he looked down at her. Her crimson
+cap hung over her dark curls, her beautiful warm face, so still in a
+kind of brooding, was lifted towards him. It was dark and rather cold in
+the shed. Suddenly a swallow came down from the high roof and darted out
+of the door.
+
+"I didn't know a bird was watching," he called.
+
+He swung negligently. She could feel him falling and lifting through the
+air, as if he were lying on some force.
+
+"Now I'll die," he said, in a detached, dreamy voice, as though he were
+the dying motion of the swing. She watched him, fascinated. Suddenly he
+put on the brake and jumped out.
+
+"I've had a long turn," he said. "But it's a treat of a swing--it's a
+real treat of a swing!"
+
+Miriam was amused that he took a swing so seriously and felt so warmly
+over it.
+
+"No; you go on," she said.
+
+"Why, don't you want one?" he asked, astonished.
+
+"Well, not much. I'll have just a little."
+
+She sat down, whilst he kept the bags in place for her.
+
+"It's so ripping!" he said, setting her in motion. "Keep your heels up,
+or they'll bang the manger wall."
+
+She felt the accuracy with which he caught her, exactly at the right
+moment, and the exactly proportionate strength of his thrust, and she
+was afraid. Down to her bowels went the hot wave of fear. She was in his
+hands. Again, firm and inevitable came the thrust at the right moment.
+She gripped the rope, almost swooning.
+
+"Ha!" she laughed in fear. "No higher!"
+
+"But you're not a BIT high," he remonstrated.
+
+"But no higher."
+
+He heard the fear in her voice, and desisted. Her heart melted in hot
+pain when the moment came for him to thrust her forward again. But he
+left her alone. She began to breathe.
+
+"Won't you really go any farther?" he asked. "Should I keep you there?"
+
+"No; let me go by myself," she answered.
+
+He moved aside and watched her.
+
+"Why, you're scarcely moving," he said.
+
+She laughed slightly with shame, and in a moment got down.
+
+"They say if you can swing you won't be sea-sick," he said, as he
+mounted again. "I don't believe I should ever be sea-sick."
+
+Away he went. There was something fascinating to her in him. For the
+moment he was nothing but a piece of swinging stuff; not a particle of
+him that did not swing. She could never lose herself so, nor could her
+brothers. It roused a warmth in her. It was almost as if he were a flame
+that had lit a warmth in her whilst he swung in the middle air.
+
+And gradually the intimacy with the family concentrated for Paul on
+three persons--the mother, Edgar, and Miriam. To the mother he went for
+that sympathy and that appeal which seemed to draw him out. Edgar was
+his very close friend. And to Miriam he more or less condescended,
+because she seemed so humble.
+
+But the girl gradually sought him out. If he brought up his sketch-book,
+it was she who pondered longest over the last picture. Then she would
+look up at him. Suddenly, her dark eyes alight like water that shakes
+with a stream of gold in the dark, she would ask:
+
+"Why do I like this so?"
+
+Always something in his breast shrank from these close, intimate,
+dazzled looks of hers.
+
+"Why DO you?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know. It seems so true."
+
+"It's because--it's because there is scarcely any shadow in it; it's
+more shimmery, as if I'd painted the shimmering protoplasm in the leaves
+and everywhere, and not the stiffness of the shape. That seems dead
+to me. Only this shimmeriness is the real living. The shape is a dead
+crust. The shimmer is inside really."
+
+And she, with her little finger in her mouth, would ponder these
+sayings. They gave her a feeling of life again, and vivified things
+which had meant nothing to her. She managed to find some meaning in his
+struggling, abstract speeches. And they were the medium through which
+she came distinctly at her beloved objects.
+
+Another day she sat at sunset whilst he was painting some pine-trees
+which caught the red glare from the west. He had been quiet.
+
+"There you are!" he said suddenly. "I wanted that. Now, look at them and
+tell me, are they pine trunks or are they red coals, standing-up pieces
+of fire in that darkness? There's God's burning bush for you, that
+burned not away."
+
+Miriam looked, and was frightened. But the pine trunks were wonderful
+to her, and distinct. He packed his box and rose. Suddenly he looked at
+her.
+
+"Why are you always sad?" he asked her.
+
+"Sad!" she exclaimed, looking up at him with startled, wonderful brown
+eyes.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "You are always sad."
+
+"I am not--oh, not a bit!" she cried.
+
+"But even your joy is like a flame coming off of sadness," he persisted.
+"You're never jolly, or even just all right."
+
+"No," she pondered. "I wonder--why?"
+
+"Because you're not; because you're different inside, like a pine-tree,
+and then you flare up; but you're not just like an ordinary tree, with
+fidgety leaves and jolly--"
+
+He got tangled up in his own speech; but she brooded on it, and he had a
+strange, roused sensation, as if his feelings were new. She got so near
+him. It was a strange stimulant.
+
+Then sometimes he hated her. Her youngest brother was only five. He was
+a frail lad, with immense brown eyes in his quaint fragile face--one of
+Reynolds's "Choir of Angels", with a touch of elf. Often Miriam kneeled
+to the child and drew him to her.
+
+"Eh, my Hubert!" she sang, in a voice heavy and surcharged with love.
+"Eh, my Hubert!"
+
+And, folding him in her arms, she swayed slightly from side to side with
+love, her face half lifted, her eyes half closed, her voice drenched
+with love.
+
+"Don't!" said the child, uneasy--"don't, Miriam!"
+
+"Yes; you love me, don't you?" she murmured deep in her throat, almost
+as if she were in a trance, and swaying also as if she were swooned in
+an ecstasy of love.
+
+"Don't!" repeated the child, a frown on his clear brow.
+
+"You love me, don't you?" she murmured.
+
+"What do you make such a FUSS for?" cried Paul, all in suffering because
+of her extreme emotion. "Why can't you be ordinary with him?"
+
+She let the child go, and rose, and said nothing. Her intensity, which
+would leave no emotion on a normal plane, irritated the youth into
+a frenzy. And this fearful, naked contact of her on small occasions
+shocked him. He was used to his mother's reserve. And on such occasions
+he was thankful in his heart and soul that he had his mother, so sane
+and wholesome.
+
+All the life of Miriam's body was in her eyes, which were usually dark
+as a dark church, but could flame with light like a conflagration. Her
+face scarcely ever altered from its look of brooding. She might have
+been one of the women who went with Mary when Jesus was dead. Her body
+was not flexible and living. She walked with a swing, rather heavily,
+her head bowed forward, pondering. She was not clumsy, and yet none of
+her movements seemed quite THE movement. Often, when wiping the dishes,
+she would stand in bewilderment and chagrin because she had pulled
+in two halves a cup or a tumbler. It was as if, in her fear and
+self-mistrust, she put too much strength into the effort. There was
+no looseness or abandon about her. Everything was gripped stiff with
+intensity, and her effort, overcharged, closed in on itself.
+
+She rarely varied from her swinging, forward, intense walk. Occasionally
+she ran with Paul down the fields. Then her eyes blazed naked in a kind
+of ecstasy that frightened him. But she was physically afraid. If
+she were getting over a stile, she gripped his hands in a little hard
+anguish, and began to lose her presence of mind. And he could not
+persuade her to jump from even a small height. Her eyes dilated, became
+exposed and palpitating.
+
+"No!" she cried, half laughing in terror--"no!"
+
+"You shall!" he cried once, and, jerking her forward, he brought her
+falling from the fence. But her wild "Ah!" of pain, as if she were
+losing consciousness, cut him. She landed on her feet safely, and
+afterwards had courage in this respect.
+
+She was very much dissatisfied with her lot.
+
+"Don't you like being at home?" Paul asked her, surprised.
+
+"Who would?" she answered, low and intense. "What is it? I'm all day
+cleaning what the boys make just as bad in five minutes. I don't WANT to
+be at home."
+
+"What do you want, then?"
+
+"I want to do something. I want a chance like anybody else. Why should
+I, because I'm a girl, be kept at home and not allowed to be anything?
+What chance HAVE I?"
+
+"Chance of what?"
+
+"Of knowing anything--of learning, of doing anything. It's not fair,
+because I'm a woman."
+
+She seemed very bitter. Paul wondered. In his own home Annie was almost
+glad to be a girl. She had not so much responsibility; things were
+lighter for her. She never wanted to be other than a girl. But Miriam
+almost fiercely wished she were a man. And yet she hated men at the same
+time.
+
+"But it's as well to be a woman as a man," he said, frowning.
+
+"Ha! Is it? Men have everything."
+
+"I should think women ought to be as glad to be women as men are to be
+men," he answered.
+
+"No!"--she shook her head--"no! Everything the men have."
+
+"But what do you want?" he asked.
+
+"I want to learn. Why SHOULD it be that I know nothing?"
+
+"What! such as mathematics and French?"
+
+"Why SHOULDN'T I know mathematics? Yes!" she cried, her eye expanding in
+a kind of defiance.
+
+"Well, you can learn as much as I know," he said. "I'll teach you, if
+you like."
+
+Her eyes dilated. She mistrusted him as teacher.
+
+"Would you?" he asked.
+
+Her head had dropped, and she was sucking her finger broodingly.
+
+"Yes," she said hesitatingly.
+
+He used to tell his mother all these things.
+
+"I'm going to teach Miriam algebra," he said.
+
+"Well," replied Mrs. Morel, "I hope she'll get fat on it."
+
+When he went up to the farm on the Monday evening, it was drawing
+twilight. Miriam was just sweeping up the kitchen, and was kneeling at
+the hearth when he entered. Everyone was out but her. She looked round
+at him, flushed, her dark eyes shining, her fine hair falling about her
+face.
+
+"Hello!" she said, soft and musical. "I knew it was you."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I knew your step. Nobody treads so quick and firm."
+
+He sat down, sighing.
+
+"Ready to do some algebra?" he asked, drawing a little book from his
+pocket.
+
+"But--"
+
+He could feel her backing away.
+
+"You said you wanted," he insisted.
+
+"To-night, though?" she faltered.
+
+"But I came on purpose. And if you want to learn it, you must begin."
+
+She took up her ashes in the dustpan and looked at him, half
+tremulously, laughing.
+
+"Yes, but to-night! You see, I haven't thought of it."
+
+"Well, my goodness! Take the ashes and come."
+
+He went and sat on the stone bench in the back-yard, where the big
+milk-cans were standing, tipped up, to air. The men were in the
+cowsheds. He could hear the little sing-song of the milk spurting into
+the pails. Presently she came, bringing some big greenish apples.
+
+"You know you like them," she said.
+
+He took a bite.
+
+"Sit down," he said, with his mouth full.
+
+She was short-sighted, and peered over his shoulder. It irritated him.
+He gave her the book quickly.
+
+"Here," he said. "It's only letters for figures. You put down 'a'
+instead of '2' or '6'."
+
+They worked, he talking, she with her head down on the book. He was
+quick and hasty. She never answered. Occasionally, when he demanded
+of her, "Do you see?" she looked up at him, her eyes wide with the
+half-laugh that comes of fear. "Don't you?" he cried.
+
+He had been too fast. But she said nothing. He questioned her more, then
+got hot. It made his blood rouse to see her there, as it were, at his
+mercy, her mouth open, her eyes dilated with laughter that was afraid,
+apologetic, ashamed. Then Edgar came along with two buckets of milk.
+
+"Hello!" he said. "What are you doing?"
+
+"Algebra," replied Paul.
+
+"Algebra!" repeated Edgar curiously. Then he passed on with a laugh.
+Paul took a bite at his forgotten apple, looked at the miserable
+cabbages in the garden, pecked into lace by the fowls, and he wanted to
+pull them up. Then he glanced at Miriam. She was poring over the book,
+seemed absorbed in it, yet trembling lest she could not get at it. It
+made him cross. She was ruddy and beautiful. Yet her soul seemed to be
+intensely supplicating. The algebra-book she closed, shrinking, knowing
+he was angered; and at the same instant he grew gentle, seeing her hurt
+because she did not understand.
+
+But things came slowly to her. And when she held herself in a grip,
+seemed so utterly humble before the lesson, it made his blood rouse.
+He stormed at her, got ashamed, continued the lesson, and grew furious
+again, abusing her. She listened in silence. Occasionally, very rarely,
+she defended herself. Her liquid dark eyes blazed at him.
+
+"You don't give me time to learn it," she said.
+
+"All right," he answered, throwing the book on the table and lighting
+a cigarette. Then, after a while, he went back to her repentant. So the
+lessons went. He was always either in a rage or very gentle.
+
+"What do you tremble your SOUL before it for?" he cried. "You don't
+learn algebra with your blessed soul. Can't you look at it with your
+clear simple wits?"
+
+Often, when he went again into the kitchen, Mrs. Leivers would look at
+him reproachfully, saying:
+
+"Paul, don't be so hard on Miriam. She may not be quick, but I'm sure
+she tries."
+
+"I can't help it," he said rather pitiably. "I go off like it."
+
+"You don't mind me, Miriam, do you?" he asked of the girl later.
+
+"No," she reassured him in her beautiful deep tones--"no, I don't mind."
+
+"Don't mind me; it's my fault."
+
+But, in spite of himself, his blood began to boil with her. It was
+strange that no one else made him in such fury. He flared against her.
+Once he threw the pencil in her face. There was a silence. She turned
+her face slightly aside.
+
+"I didn't--" he began, but got no farther, feeling weak in all his
+bones. She never reproached him or was angry with him. He was often
+cruelly ashamed. But still again his anger burst like a bubble
+surcharged; and still, when he saw her eager, silent, as it were, blind
+face, he felt he wanted to throw the pencil in it; and still, when he
+saw her hand trembling and her mouth parted with suffering, his heart
+was scalded with pain for her. And because of the intensity to which she
+roused him, he sought her.
+
+Then he often avoided her and went with Edgar. Miriam and her brother
+were naturally antagonistic. Edgar was a rationalist, who was curious,
+and had a sort of scientific interest in life. It was a great bitterness
+to Miriam to see herself deserted by Paul for Edgar, who seemed so much
+lower. But the youth was very happy with her elder brother. The two men
+spent afternoons together on the land or in the loft doing carpentry,
+when it rained. And they talked together, or Paul taught Edgar the songs
+he himself had learned from Annie at the piano. And often all the men,
+Mr. Leivers as well, had bitter debates on the nationalizing of the land
+and similar problems. Paul had already heard his mother's views, and as
+these were as yet his own, he argued for her. Miriam attended and
+took part, but was all the time waiting until it should be over and a
+personal communication might begin.
+
+"After all," she said within herself, "if the land were nationalized,
+Edgar and Paul and I would be just the same." So she waited for the
+youth to come back to her.
+
+He was studying for his painting. He loved to sit at home, alone with
+his mother, at night, working and working. She sewed or read. Then,
+looking up from his task, he would rest his eyes for a moment on her
+face, that was bright with living warmth, and he returned gladly to his
+work.
+
+"I can do my best things when you sit there in your rocking-chair,
+mother," he said.
+
+"I'm sure!" she exclaimed, sniffing with mock scepticism. But she felt
+it was so, and her heart quivered with brightness. For many hours she
+sat still, slightly conscious of him labouring away, whilst she worked
+or read her book. And he, with all his soul's intensity directing his
+pencil, could feel her warmth inside him like strength. They were both
+very happy so, and both unconscious of it. These times, that meant so
+much, and which were real living, they almost ignored.
+
+He was conscious only when stimulated. A sketch finished, he always
+wanted to take it to Miriam. Then he was stimulated into knowledge of
+the work he had produced unconsciously. In contact with Miriam he
+gained insight; his vision went deeper. From his mother he drew the
+life-warmth, the strength to produce; Miriam urged this warmth into
+intensity like a white light.
+
+When he returned to the factory the conditions of work were better.
+He had Wednesday afternoon off to go to the Art School--Miss Jordan's
+provision--returning in the evening. Then the factory closed at six
+instead of eight on Thursday and Friday evenings.
+
+One evening in the summer Miriam and he went over the fields by Herod's
+Farm on their way from the library home. So it was only three miles
+to Willey Farm. There was a yellow glow over the mowing-grass, and the
+sorrel-heads burned crimson. Gradually, as they walked along the high
+land, the gold in the west sank down to red, the red to crimson, and
+then the chill blue crept up against the glow.
+
+They came out upon the high road to Alfreton, which ran white between
+the darkening fields. There Paul hesitated. It was two miles home for
+him, one mile forward for Miriam. They both looked up the road that ran
+in shadow right under the glow of the north-west sky. On the crest of
+the hill, Selby, with its stark houses and the up-pricked headstocks of
+the pit, stood in black silhouette small against the sky.
+
+He looked at his watch.
+
+"Nine o'clock!" he said.
+
+The pair stood, loth to part, hugging their books.
+
+"The wood is so lovely now," she said. "I wanted you to see it."
+
+He followed her slowly across the road to the white gate.
+
+"They grumble so if I'm late," he said.
+
+"But you're not doing anything wrong," she answered impatiently.
+
+He followed her across the nibbled pasture in the dusk. There was a
+coolness in the wood, a scent of leaves, of honeysuckle, and a twilight.
+The two walked in silence. Night came wonderfully there, among the
+throng of dark tree-trunks. He looked round, expectant.
+
+She wanted to show him a certain wild-rose bush she had discovered. She
+knew it was wonderful. And yet, till he had seen it, she felt it had
+not come into her soul. Only he could make it her own, immortal. She was
+dissatisfied.
+
+Dew was already on the paths. In the old oak-wood a mist was rising, and
+he hesitated, wondering whether one whiteness were a strand of fog or
+only campion-flowers pallid in a cloud.
+
+By the time they came to the pine-trees Miriam was getting very eager
+and very tense. Her bush might be gone. She might not be able to find
+it; and she wanted it so much. Almost passionately she wanted to be
+with him when he stood before the flowers. They were going to have a
+communion together--something that thrilled her, something holy. He was
+walking beside her in silence. They were very near to each other. She
+trembled, and he listened, vaguely anxious.
+
+Coming to the edge of the wood, they saw the sky in front, like
+mother-of-pearl, and the earth growing dark. Somewhere on the outermost
+branches of the pine-wood the honeysuckle was streaming scent.
+
+"Where?" he asked.
+
+"Down the middle path," she murmured, quivering.
+
+When they turned the corner of the path she stood still. In the wide
+walk between the pines, gazing rather frightened, she could distinguish
+nothing for some moments; the greying light robbed things of their
+colour. Then she saw her bush.
+
+"Ah!" she cried, hastening forward.
+
+It was very still. The tree was tall and straggling. It had thrown its
+briers over a hawthorn-bush, and its long streamers trailed thick, right
+down to the grass, splashing the darkness everywhere with great spilt
+stars, pure white. In bosses of ivory and in large splashed stars the
+roses gleamed on the darkness of foliage and stems and grass. Paul and
+Miriam stood close together, silent, and watched. Point after point the
+steady roses shone out to them, seeming to kindle something in their
+souls. The dusk came like smoke around, and still did not put out the
+roses.
+
+Paul looked into Miriam's eyes. She was pale and expectant with wonder,
+her lips were parted, and her dark eyes lay open to him. His look seemed
+to travel down into her. Her soul quivered. It was the communion she
+wanted. He turned aside, as if pained. He turned to the bush.
+
+"They seem as if they walk like butterflies, and shake themselves," he
+said.
+
+She looked at her roses. They were white, some incurved and holy, others
+expanded in an ecstasy. The tree was dark as a shadow. She lifted her
+hand impulsively to the flowers; she went forward and touched them in
+worship.
+
+"Let us go," he said.
+
+There was a cool scent of ivory roses--a white, virgin scent. Something
+made him feel anxious and imprisoned. The two walked in silence.
+
+"Till Sunday," he said quietly, and left her; and she walked home
+slowly, feeling her soul satisfied with the holiness of the night. He
+stumbled down the path. And as soon as he was out of the wood, in the
+free open meadow, where he could breathe, he started to run as fast as
+he could. It was like a delicious delirium in his veins.
+
+Always when he went with Miriam, and it grew rather late, he knew his
+mother was fretting and getting angry about him--why, he could not
+understand. As he went into the house, flinging down his cap, his mother
+looked up at the clock. She had been sitting thinking, because a chill
+to her eyes prevented her reading. She could feel Paul being drawn away
+by this girl. And she did not care for Miriam. "She is one of those who
+will want to suck a man's soul out till he has none of his own left,"
+she said to herself; "and he is just such a gaby as to let himself be
+absorbed. She will never let him become a man; she never will." So,
+while he was away with Miriam, Mrs. Morel grew more and more worked up.
+
+She glanced at the clock and said, coldly and rather tired:
+
+"You have been far enough to-night."
+
+His soul, warm and exposed from contact with the girl, shrank.
+
+"You must have been right home with her," his mother continued.
+
+He would not answer. Mrs. Morel, looking at him quickly, saw his hair
+was damp on his forehead with haste, saw him frowning in his heavy
+fashion, resentfully.
+
+"She must be wonderfully fascinating, that you can't get away from her,
+but must go trailing eight miles at this time of night."
+
+He was hurt between the past glamour with Miriam and the knowledge
+that his mother fretted. He had meant not to say anything, to refuse to
+answer. But he could not harden his heart to ignore his mother.
+
+"I DO like to talk to her," he answered irritably.
+
+"Is there nobody else to talk to?"
+
+"You wouldn't say anything if I went with Edgar."
+
+"You know I should. You know, whoever you went with, I should say it
+was too far for you to go trailing, late at night, when you've been
+to Nottingham. Besides"--her voice suddenly flashed into anger and
+contempt--"it is disgusting--bits of lads and girls courting."
+
+"It is NOT courting," he cried.
+
+"I don't know what else you call it."
+
+"It's not! Do you think we SPOON and do? We only talk."
+
+"Till goodness knows what time and distance," was the sarcastic
+rejoinder.
+
+Paul snapped at the laces of his boots angrily.
+
+"What are you so mad about?" he asked. "Because you don't like her."
+
+"I don't say I don't like her. But I don't hold with children keeping
+company, and never did."
+
+"But you don't mind our Annie going out with Jim Inger."
+
+"They've more sense than you two."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Our Annie's not one of the deep sort."
+
+He failed to see the meaning of this remark. But his mother looked
+tired. She was never so strong after William's death; and her eyes hurt
+her.
+
+"Well," he said, "it's so pretty in the country. Mr. Sleath asked about
+you. He said he'd missed you. Are you a bit better?"
+
+"I ought to have been in bed a long time ago," she replied.
+
+"Why, mother, you know you wouldn't have gone before quarter-past ten."
+
+"Oh, yes, I should!"
+
+"Oh, little woman, you'd say anything now you're disagreeable with me,
+wouldn't you?"
+
+He kissed her forehead that he knew so well: the deep marks between the
+brows, the rising of the fine hair, greying now, and the proud setting
+of the temples. His hand lingered on her shoulder after his kiss. Then
+he went slowly to bed. He had forgotten Miriam; he only saw how his
+mother's hair was lifted back from her warm, broad brow. And somehow,
+she was hurt.
+
+Then the next time he saw Miriam he said to her:
+
+"Don't let me be late to-night--not later than ten o'clock. My mother
+gets so upset."
+
+Miriam dropped her bead, brooding.
+
+"Why does she get upset?" she asked.
+
+"Because she says I oughtn't to be out late when I have to get up
+early."
+
+"Very well!" said Miriam, rather quietly, with just a touch of a sneer.
+
+He resented that. And he was usually late again.
+
+That there was any love growing between him and Miriam neither of
+them would have acknowledged. He thought he was too sane for such
+sentimentality, and she thought herself too lofty. They both were late
+in coming to maturity, and psychical ripeness was much behind even the
+physical. Miriam was exceedingly sensitive, as her mother had always
+been. The slightest grossness made her recoil almost in anguish. Her
+brothers were brutal, but never coarse in speech. The men did all
+the discussing of farm matters outside. But, perhaps, because of the
+continual business of birth and of begetting which goes on upon every
+farm, Miriam was the more hypersensitive to the matter, and her blood
+was chastened almost to disgust of the faintest suggestion of such
+intercourse. Paul took his pitch from her, and their intimacy went on in
+an utterly blanched and chaste fashion. It could never be mentioned that
+the mare was in foal.
+
+When he was nineteen, he was earning only twenty shillings a week, but
+he was happy. His painting went well, and life went well enough. On the
+Good Friday he organised a walk to the Hemlock Stone. There were three
+lads of his own age, then Annie and Arthur, Miriam and Geoffrey. Arthur,
+apprenticed as an electrician in Nottingham, was home for the holiday.
+Morel, as usual, was up early, whistling and sawing in the yard. At
+seven o'clock the family heard him buy threepennyworth of hot-cross
+buns; he talked with gusto to the little girl who brought them, calling
+her "my darling". He turned away several boys who came with more buns,
+telling them they had been "kested" by a little lass. Then Mrs. Morel
+got up, and the family straggled down. It was an immense luxury to
+everybody, this lying in bed just beyond the ordinary time on a weekday.
+And Paul and Arthur read before breakfast, and had the meal unwashed,
+sitting in their shirt-sleeves. This was another holiday luxury. The
+room was warm. Everything felt free of care and anxiety. There was a
+sense of plenty in the house.
+
+While the boys were reading, Mrs. Morel went into the garden. They were
+now in another house, an old one, near the Scargill Street home, which
+had been left soon after William had died. Directly came an excited cry
+from the garden:
+
+"Paul! Paul! come and look!"
+
+It was his mother's voice. He threw down his book and went out. There
+was a long garden that ran to a field. It was a grey, cold day, with a
+sharp wind blowing out of Derbyshire. Two fields away Bestwood began,
+with a jumble of roofs and red house-ends, out of which rose the church
+tower and the spire of the Congregational Chapel. And beyond went woods
+and hills, right away to the pale grey heights of the Pennine Chain.
+
+Paul looked down the garden for his mother. Her head appeared among the
+young currant-bushes.
+
+"Come here!" she cried.
+
+"What for?" he answered.
+
+"Come and see."
+
+She had been looking at the buds on the currant trees. Paul went up.
+
+"To think," she said, "that here I might never have seen them!"
+
+Her son went to her side. Under the fence, in a little bed, was a ravel
+of poor grassy leaves, such as come from very immature bulbs, and three
+scyllas in bloom. Mrs. Morel pointed to the deep blue flowers.
+
+
+"Now, just see those!" she exclaimed. "I was looking at the currant
+bushes, when, thinks I to myself, 'There's something very blue; is it
+a bit of sugar-bag?' and there, behold you! Sugar-bag! Three glories of
+the snow, and such beauties! But where on earth did they come from?"
+
+"I don't know," said Paul.
+
+"Well, that's a marvel, now! I THOUGHT I knew every weed and blade in
+this garden. But HAVEN'T they done well? You see, that gooseberry-bush
+just shelters them. Not nipped, not touched!"
+
+He crouched down and turned up the bells of the little blue flowers.
+
+"They're a glorious colour!" he said.
+
+"Aren't they!" she cried. "I guess they come from Switzerland, where
+they say they have such lovely things. Fancy them against the snow! But
+where have they come from? They can't have BLOWN here, can they?"
+
+Then he remembered having set here a lot of little trash of bulbs to
+mature.
+
+"And you never told me," she said.
+
+"No! I thought I'd leave it till they might flower."
+
+"And now, you see! I might have missed them. And I've never had a glory
+of the snow in my garden in my life."
+
+She was full of excitement and elation. The garden was an endless joy to
+her. Paul was thankful for her sake at last to be in a house with a long
+garden that went down to a field. Every morning after breakfast she went
+out and was happy pottering about in it. And it was true, she knew every
+weed and blade.
+
+Everybody turned up for the walk. Food was packed, and they set off,
+a merry, delighted party. They hung over the wall of the mill-race,
+dropped paper in the water on one side of the tunnel and watched it
+shoot out on the other. They stood on the foot-bridge over Boathouse
+Station and looked at the metals gleaming coldly.
+
+"You should see the Flying Scotsman come through at half-past six!" said
+Leonard, whose father was a signalman. "Lad, but she doesn't half buzz!"
+and the little party looked up the lines one way, to London, and the
+other way, to Scotland, and they felt the touch of these two magical
+places.
+
+In Ilkeston the colliers were waiting in gangs for the public-houses to
+open. It was a town of idleness and lounging. At Stanton Gate the iron
+foundry blazed. Over everything there were great discussions. At Trowell
+they crossed again from Derbyshire into Nottinghamshire. They came to
+the Hemlock Stone at dinner-time. Its field was crowded with folk from
+Nottingham and Ilkeston.
+
+They had expected a venerable and dignified monument. They found
+a little, gnarled, twisted stump of rock, something like a decayed
+mushroom, standing out pathetically on the side of a field. Leonard and
+Dick immediately proceeded to carve their initials, "L. W." and "R. P.",
+in the old red sandstone; but Paul desisted, because he had read in the
+newspaper satirical remarks about initial-carvers, who could find no
+other road to immortality. Then all the lads climbed to the top of the
+rock to look round.
+
+Everywhere in the field below, factory girls and lads were eating
+lunch or sporting about. Beyond was the garden of an old manor. It had
+yew-hedges and thick clumps and borders of yellow crocuses round the
+lawn.
+
+"See," said Paul to Miriam, "what a quiet garden!"
+
+She saw the dark yews and the golden crocuses, then she looked
+gratefully. He had not seemed to belong to her among all these others;
+he was different then--not her Paul, who understood the slightest quiver
+of her innermost soul, but something else, speaking another language
+than hers. How it hurt her, and deadened her very perceptions. Only when
+he came right back to her, leaving his other, his lesser self, as she
+thought, would she feel alive again. And now he asked her to look at
+this garden, wanting the contact with her again. Impatient of the set
+in the field, she turned to the quiet lawn, surrounded by sheaves of
+shut-up crocuses. A feeling of stillness, almost of ecstasy, came over
+her. It felt almost as if she were alone with him in this garden.
+
+Then he left her again and joined the others. Soon they started home.
+Miriam loitered behind, alone. She did not fit in with the others; she
+could very rarely get into human relations with anyone: so her friend,
+her companion, her lover, was Nature. She saw the sun declining wanly.
+In the dusky, cold hedgerows were some red leaves. She lingered to
+gather them, tenderly, passionately. The love in her finger-tips
+caressed the leaves; the passion in her heart came to a glow upon the
+leaves.
+
+Suddenly she realised she was alone in a strange road, and she hurried
+forward. Turning a corner in the lane, she came upon Paul, who stood
+bent over something, his mind fixed on it, working away steadily,
+patiently, a little hopelessly. She hesitated in her approach, to watch.
+
+He remained concentrated in the middle of the road. Beyond, one rift of
+rich gold in that colourless grey evening seemed to make him stand out
+in dark relief. She saw him, slender and firm, as if the setting sun had
+given him to her. A deep pain took hold of her, and she knew she
+must love him. And she had discovered him, discovered in him a
+rare potentiality, discovered his loneliness. Quivering as at some
+"annunciation", she went slowly forward.
+
+At last he looked up.
+
+"Why," he exclaimed gratefully, "have you waited for me!"
+
+She saw a deep shadow in his eyes.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"The spring broken here;" and he showed her where his umbrella was
+injured.
+
+Instantly, with some shame, she knew he had not done the damage himself,
+but that Geoffrey was responsible.
+
+"It is only an old umbrella, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+She wondered why he, who did not usually trouble over trifles, made such
+a mountain of this molehill.
+
+"But it was William's an' my mother can't help but know," he said
+quietly, still patiently working at the umbrella.
+
+The words went through Miriam like a blade. This, then, was the
+confirmation of her vision of him! She looked at him. But there was
+about him a certain reserve, and she dared not comfort him, not even
+speak softly to him.
+
+"Come on," he said. "I can't do it;" and they went in silence along the
+road.
+
+That same evening they were walking along under the trees by Nether
+Green. He was talking to her fretfully, seemed to be struggling to
+convince himself.
+
+"You know," he said, with an effort, "if one person loves, the other
+does."
+
+"Ah!" she answered. "Like mother said to me when I was little, 'Love
+begets love.'"
+
+"Yes, something like that, I think it MUST be."
+
+"I hope so, because, if it were not, love might be a very terrible
+thing," she said.
+
+"Yes, but it IS--at least with most people," he answered.
+
+And Miriam, thinking he had assured himself, felt strong in herself. She
+always regarded that sudden coming upon him in the lane as a revelation.
+And this conversation remained graven in her mind as one of the letters
+of the law.
+
+Now she stood with him and for him. When, about this time, he outraged
+the family feeling at Willey Farm by some overbearing insult, she stuck
+to him, and believed he was right. And at this time she dreamed
+dreams of him, vivid, unforgettable. These dreams came again later on,
+developed to a more subtle psychological stage.
+
+On the Easter Monday the same party took an excursion to Wingfield
+Manor. It was great excitement to Miriam to catch a train at Sethley
+Bridge, amid all the bustle of the Bank Holiday crowd. They left the
+train at Alfreton. Paul was interested in the street and in the colliers
+with their dogs. Here was a new race of miners. Miriam did not live till
+they came to the church. They were all rather timid of entering, with
+their bags of food, for fear of being turned out. Leonard, a comic, thin
+fellow, went first; Paul, who would have died rather than be sent back,
+went last. The place was decorated for Easter. In the font hundreds of
+white narcissi seemed to be growing. The air was dim and coloured from
+the windows and thrilled with a subtle scent of lilies and narcissi. In
+that atmosphere Miriam's soul came into a glow. Paul was afraid of the
+things he mustn't do; and he was sensitive to the feel of the place.
+Miriam turned to him. He answered. They were together. He would not go
+beyond the Communion-rail. She loved him for that. Her soul expanded
+into prayer beside him. He felt the strange fascination of shadowy
+religious places. All his latent mysticism quivered into life. She was
+drawn to him. He was a prayer along with her.
+
+Miriam very rarely talked to the other lads. They at once became awkward
+in conversation with her. So usually she was silent.
+
+It was past midday when they climbed the steep path to the manor.
+All things shone softly in the sun, which was wonderfully warm and
+enlivening. Celandines and violets were out. Everybody was tip-top full
+with happiness. The glitter of the ivy, the soft, atmospheric grey
+of the castle walls, the gentleness of everything near the ruin, was
+perfect.
+
+The manor is of hard, pale grey stone, and the other walls are blank and
+calm. The young folk were in raptures. They went in trepidation, almost
+afraid that the delight of exploring this ruin might be denied them. In
+the first courtyard, within the high broken walls, were farm-carts, with
+their shafts lying idle on the ground, the tyres of the wheels brilliant
+with gold-red rust. It was very still.
+
+All eagerly paid their sixpences, and went timidly through the fine
+clean arch of the inner courtyard. They were shy. Here on the pavement,
+where the hall had been, an old thorn tree was budding. All kinds of
+strange openings and broken rooms were in the shadow around them.
+
+After lunch they set off once more to explore the ruin. This time the
+girls went with the boys, who could act as guides and expositors. There
+was one tall tower in a corner, rather tottering, where they say Mary
+Queen of Scots was imprisoned.
+
+"Think of the Queen going up here!" said Miriam in a low voice, as she
+climbed the hollow stairs.
+
+"If she could get up," said Paul, "for she had rheumatism like anything.
+I reckon they treated her rottenly."
+
+"You don't think she deserved it?" asked Miriam.
+
+"No, I don't. She was only lively."
+
+They continued to mount the winding staircase. A high wind, blowing
+through the loopholes, went rushing up the shaft, and filled the girl's
+skirts like a balloon, so that she was ashamed, until he took the hem
+of her dress and held it down for her. He did it perfectly simply, as he
+would have picked up her glove. She remembered this always.
+
+Round the broken top of the tower the ivy bushed out, old and handsome.
+Also, there were a few chill gillivers, in pale cold bud. Miriam wanted
+to lean over for some ivy, but he would not let her. Instead, she had to
+wait behind him, and take from him each spray as he gathered it and held
+it to her, each one separately, in the purest manner of chivalry. The
+tower seemed to rock in the wind. They looked over miles and miles of
+wooded country, and country with gleams of pasture.
+
+The crypt underneath the manor was beautiful, and in perfect
+preservation. Paul made a drawing: Miriam stayed with him. She was
+thinking of Mary Queen of Scots looking with her strained, hopeless
+eyes, that could not understand misery, over the hills whence no help
+came, or sitting in this crypt, being told of a God as cold as the place
+she sat in.
+
+They set off again gaily, looking round on their beloved manor that
+stood so clean and big on its hill.
+
+"Supposing you could have THAT farm," said Paul to Miriam.
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"Wouldn't it be lovely to come and see you!"
+
+They were now in the bare country of stone walls, which he loved, and
+which, though only ten miles from home, seemed so foreign to Miriam. The
+party was straggling. As they were crossing a large meadow that
+sloped away from the sun, along a path embedded with innumerable tiny
+glittering points, Paul, walking alongside, laced his fingers in the
+strings of the bag Miriam was carrying, and instantly she felt Annie
+behind, watchful and jealous. But the meadow was bathed in a glory of
+sunshine, and the path was jewelled, and it was seldom that he gave her
+any sign. She held her fingers very still among the strings of the bag,
+his fingers touching; and the place was golden as a vision.
+
+At last they came into the straggling grey village of Crich, that lies
+high. Beyond the village was the famous Crich Stand that Paul could see
+from the garden at home. The party pushed on. Great expanse of country
+spread around and below. The lads were eager to get to the top of the
+hill. It was capped by a round knoll, half of which was by now cut away,
+and on the top of which stood an ancient monument, sturdy and squat, for
+signalling in old days far down into the level lands of Nottinghamshire
+and Leicestershire.
+
+It was blowing so hard, high up there in the exposed place, that the
+only way to be safe was to stand nailed by the wind to the wan of the
+tower. At their feet fell the precipice where the limestone was quarried
+away. Below was a jumble of hills and tiny villages--Mattock, Ambergate,
+Stoney Middleton. The lads were eager to spy out the church of Bestwood,
+far away among the rather crowded country on the left. They were
+disgusted that it seemed to stand on a plain. They saw the hills of
+Derbyshire fall into the monotony of the Midlands that swept away South.
+
+Miriam was somewhat scared by the wind, but the lads enjoyed it. They
+went on, miles and miles, to Whatstandwell. All the food was eaten,
+everybody was hungry, and there was very little money to get home with.
+But they managed to procure a loaf and a currant-loaf, which they hacked
+to pieces with shut-knives, and ate sitting on the wall near the bridge,
+watching the bright Derwent rushing by, and the brakes from Matlock
+pulling up at the inn.
+
+Paul was now pale with weariness. He had been responsible for the party
+all day, and now he was done. Miriam understood, and kept close to him,
+and he left himself in her hands.
+
+They had an hour to wait at Ambergate Station. Trains came, crowded with
+excursionists returning to Manchester, Birmingham, and London.
+
+"We might be going there--folk easily might think we're going that far,"
+said Paul.
+
+They got back rather late. Miriam, walking home with Geoffrey, watched
+the moon rise big and red and misty. She felt something was fulfilled in
+her.
+
+She had an elder sister, Agatha, who was a school-teacher. Between the
+two girls was a feud. Miriam considered Agatha worldly. And she wanted
+herself to be a school-teacher.
+
+One Saturday afternoon Agatha and Miriam were upstairs dressing. Their
+bedroom was over the stable. It was a low room, not very large, and
+bare. Miriam had nailed on the wall a reproduction of Veronese's "St.
+Catherine". She loved the woman who sat in the window, dreaming. Her
+own windows were too small to sit in. But the front one was dripped over
+with honeysuckle and virginia creeper, and looked upon the tree-tops of
+the oak-wood across the yard, while the little back window, no bigger
+than a handkerchief, was a loophole to the east, to the dawn beating up
+against the beloved round hills.
+
+The two sisters did not talk much to each other. Agatha, who was fair
+and small and determined, had rebelled against the home atmosphere,
+against the doctrine of "the other cheek". She was out in the world now,
+in a fair way to be independent. And she insisted on worldly values,
+on appearance, on manners, on position, which Miriam would fain have
+ignored.
+
+Both girls liked to be upstairs, out of the way, when Paul came. They
+preferred to come running down, open the stair-foot door, and see him
+watching, expectant of them. Miriam stood painfully pulling over her
+head a rosary he had given her. It caught in the fine mesh of her hair.
+But at last she had it on, and the red-brown wooden beads looked well
+against her cool brown neck. She was a well-developed girl, and very
+handsome. But in the little looking-glass nailed against the whitewashed
+wall she could only see a fragment of herself at a time. Agatha had
+bought a little mirror of her own, which she propped up to suit herself.
+Miriam was near the window. Suddenly she heard the well-known click of
+the chain, and she saw Paul fling open the gate, push his bicycle into
+the yard. She saw him look at the house, and she shrank away. He walked
+in a nonchalant fashion, and his bicycle went with him as if it were a
+live thing.
+
+"Paul's come!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Aren't you glad?" said Agatha cuttingly.
+
+Miriam stood still in amazement and bewilderment.
+
+"Well, aren't you?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, but I'm not going to let him see it, and think I wanted him."
+
+Miriam was startled. She heard him putting his bicycle in the stable
+underneath, and talking to Jimmy, who had been a pit-horse, and who was
+seedy.
+
+"Well, Jimmy my lad, how are ter? Nobbut sick an' sadly, like? Why,
+then, it's a shame, my owd lad."
+
+She heard the rope run through the hole as the horse lifted its head
+from the lad's caress. How she loved to listen when he thought only
+the horse could hear. But there was a serpent in her Eden. She searched
+earnestly in herself to see if she wanted Paul Morel. She felt there
+would be some disgrace in it. Full of twisted feeling, she was afraid
+she did want him. She stood self-convicted. Then came an agony of new
+shame. She shrank within herself in a coil of torture. Did she want Paul
+Morel, and did he know she wanted him? What a subtle infamy upon her.
+She felt as if her whole soul coiled into knots of shame.
+
+Agatha was dressed first, and ran downstairs. Miriam heard her greet
+the lad gaily, knew exactly how brilliant her grey eyes became with that
+tone. She herself would have felt it bold to have greeted him in such
+wise. Yet there she stood under the self-accusation of wanting him,
+tied to that stake of torture. In bitter perplexity she kneeled down and
+prayed:
+
+"O Lord, let me not love Paul Morel. Keep me from loving him, if I ought
+not to love him."
+
+Something anomalous in the prayer arrested her. She lifted her head and
+pondered. How could it be wrong to love him? Love was God's gift. And
+yet it caused her shame. That was because of him, Paul Morel. But, then,
+it was not his affair, it was her own, between herself and God. She was
+to be a sacrifice. But it was God's sacrifice, not Paul Morel's or her
+own. After a few minutes she hid her face in the pillow again, and said:
+
+"But, Lord, if it is Thy will that I should love him, make me love
+him--as Christ would, who died for the souls of men. Make me love him
+splendidly, because he is Thy son."
+
+She remained kneeling for some time, quite still, and deeply moved, her
+black hair against the red squares and the lavender-sprigged squares of
+the patchwork quilt. Prayer was almost essential to her. Then she fell
+into that rapture of self-sacrifice, identifying herself with a God who
+was sacrificed, which gives to so many human souls their deepest bliss.
+
+When she went downstairs Paul was lying back in an armchair, holding
+forth with much vehemence to Agatha, who was scorning a little painting
+he had brought to show her. Miriam glanced at the two, and avoided their
+levity. She went into the parlour to be alone.
+
+It was tea-time before she was able to speak to Paul, and then her
+manner was so distant he thought he had offended her.
+
+Miriam discontinued her practice of going each Thursday evening to the
+library in Bestwood. After calling for Paul regularly during the whole
+spring, a number of trifling incidents and tiny insults from his family
+awakened her to their attitude towards her, and she decided to go no
+more. So she announced to Paul one evening she would not call at his
+house again for him on Thursday nights.
+
+"Why?" he asked, very short.
+
+"Nothing. Only I'd rather not."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"But," she faltered, "if you'd care to meet me, we could still go
+together."
+
+"Meet you where?"
+
+"Somewhere--where you like."
+
+"I shan't meet you anywhere. I don't see why you shouldn't keep calling
+for me. But if you won't, I don't want to meet you."
+
+So the Thursday evenings which had been so precious to her, and to him,
+were dropped. He worked instead. Mrs. Morel sniffed with satisfaction at
+this arrangement.
+
+He would not have it that they were lovers. The intimacy between them
+had been kept so abstract, such a matter of the soul, all thought and
+weary struggle into consciousness, that he saw it only as a platonic
+friendship. He stoutly denied there was anything else between them.
+Miriam was silent, or else she very quietly agreed. He was a fool who
+did not know what was happening to himself. By tacit agreement they
+ignored the remarks and insinuations of their acquaintances.
+
+"We aren't lovers, we are friends," he said to her. "WE know it. Let
+them talk. What does it matter what they say."
+
+Sometimes, as they were walking together, she slipped her arm timidly
+into his. But he always resented it, and she knew it. It caused a
+violent conflict in him. With Miriam he was always on the high plane of
+abstraction, when his natural fire of love was transmitted into the fine
+stream of thought. She would have it so. If he were jolly and, as she
+put it, flippant, she waited till he came back to her, till the change
+had taken place in him again, and he was wrestling with his own soul,
+frowning, passionate in his desire for understanding. And in this
+passion for understanding her soul lay close to his; she had him all to
+herself. But he must be made abstract first.
+
+Then, if she put her arm in his, it caused him almost torture. His
+consciousness seemed to split. The place where she was touching him ran
+hot with friction. He was one internecine battle, and he became cruel to
+her because of it.
+
+One evening in midsummer Miriam called at the house, warm from climbing.
+Paul was alone in the kitchen; his mother could be heard moving about
+upstairs.
+
+"Come and look at the sweet-peas," he said to the girl.
+
+They went into the garden. The sky behind the townlet and the church was
+orange-red; the flower-garden was flooded with a strange warm light that
+lifted every leaf into significance. Paul passed along a fine row of
+sweet-peas, gathering a blossom here and there, all cream and pale blue.
+Miriam followed, breathing the fragrance. To her, flowers appealed with
+such strength she felt she must make them part of herself. When she bent
+and breathed a flower, it was as if she and the flower were loving each
+other. Paul hated her for it. There seemed a sort of exposure about the
+action, something too intimate.
+
+
+When he had got a fair bunch, they returned to the house. He listened
+for a moment to his mother's quiet movement upstairs, then he said:
+
+"Come here, and let me pin them in for you." He arranged them two or
+three at a time in the bosom of her dress, stepping back now and then to
+see the effect. "You know," he said, taking the pin out of his mouth, "a
+woman ought always to arrange her flowers before her glass."
+
+Miriam laughed. She thought flowers ought to be pinned in one's dress
+without any care. That Paul should take pains to fix her flowers for her
+was his whim.
+
+He was rather offended at her laughter.
+
+"Some women do--those who look decent," he said.
+
+Miriam laughed again, but mirthlessly, to hear him thus mix her up with
+women in a general way. From most men she would have ignored it. But
+from him it hurt her.
+
+He had nearly finished arranging the flowers when he heard his mother's
+footstep on the stairs. Hurriedly he pushed in the last pin and turned
+away.
+
+"Don't let mater know," he said.
+
+Miriam picked up her books and stood in the doorway looking with chagrin
+at the beautiful sunset. She would call for Paul no more, she said.
+
+"Good-evening, Mrs. Morel," she said, in a deferential way. She sounded
+as if she felt she had no right to be there.
+
+"Oh, is it you, Miriam?" replied Mrs. Morel coolly.
+
+But Paul insisted on everybody's accepting his friendship with the girl,
+and Mrs. Morel was too wise to have any open rupture.
+
+It was not till he was twenty years old that the family could ever
+afford to go away for a holiday. Mrs. Morel had never been away for a
+holiday, except to see her sister, since she had been married. Now at
+last Paul had saved enough money, and they were all going. There was to
+be a party: some of Annie's friends, one friend of Paul's, a young man
+in the same office where William had previously been, and Miriam.
+
+It was great excitement writing for rooms. Paul and his mother debated
+it endlessly between them. They wanted a furnished cottage for two
+weeks. She thought one week would be enough, but he insisted on two.
+
+At last they got an answer from Mablethorpe, a cottage such as they
+wished for thirty shillings a week. There was immense jubilation. Paul
+was wild with joy for his mother's sake. She would have a real holiday
+now. He and she sat at evening picturing what it would be like. Annie
+came in, and Leonard, and Alice, and Kitty. There was wild rejoicing and
+anticipation. Paul told Miriam. She seemed to brood with joy over it.
+But the Morel's house rang with excitement.
+
+They were to go on Saturday morning by the seven train. Paul suggested
+that Miriam should sleep at his house, because it was so far for her
+to walk. She came down for supper. Everybody was so excited that even
+Miriam was accepted with warmth. But almost as soon as she entered the
+feeling in the family became close and tight. He had discovered a poem
+by Jean Ingelow which mentioned Mablethorpe, and so he must read it
+to Miriam. He would never have got so far in the direction of
+sentimentality as to read poetry to his own family. But now they
+condescended to listen. Miriam sat on the sofa absorbed in him. She
+always seemed absorbed in him, and by him, when he was present. Mrs.
+Morel sat jealously in her own chair. She was going to hear also. And
+even Annie and the father attended, Morel with his head cocked on one
+side, like somebody listening to a sermon and feeling conscious of
+the fact. Paul ducked his head over the book. He had got now all the
+audience he cared for. And Mrs. Morel and Annie almost contested with
+Miriam who should listen best and win his favour. He was in very high
+feather.
+
+"But," interrupted Mrs. Morel, "what IS the 'Bride of Enderby' that the
+bells are supposed to ring?"
+
+"It's an old tune they used to play on the bells for a warning against
+water. I suppose the Bride of Enderby was drowned in a flood," he
+replied. He had not the faintest knowledge what it really was, but he
+would never have sunk so low as to confess that to his womenfolk. They
+listened and believed him. He believed himself.
+
+"And the people knew what that tune meant?" said his mother.
+
+"Yes--just like the Scotch when they heard 'The Flowers o' the
+Forest'--and when they used to ring the bells backward for alarm."
+
+"How?" said Annie. "A bell sounds the same whether it's rung backwards
+or forwards."
+
+"But," he said, "if you start with the deep bell and ring up to the high
+one--der--der--der--der--der--der--der--der!"
+
+He ran up the scale. Everybody thought it clever. He thought so too.
+Then, waiting a minute, he continued the poem.
+
+"Hm!" said Mrs. Morel curiously, when he finished. "But I wish
+everything that's written weren't so sad."
+
+"I canna see what they want drownin' theirselves for," said Morel.
+
+There was a pause. Annie got up to clear the table.
+
+Miriam rose to help with the pots.
+
+"Let ME help to wash up," she said.
+
+"Certainly not," cried Annie. "You sit down again. There aren't many."
+
+And Miriam, who could not be familiar and insist, sat down again to look
+at the book with Paul.
+
+He was master of the party; his father was no good. And great tortures
+he suffered lest the tin box should be put out at Firsby instead of at
+Mablethorpe. And he wasn't equal to getting a carriage. His bold little
+mother did that.
+
+"Here!" she cried to a man. "Here!"
+
+Paul and Annie got behind the rest, convulsed with shamed laughter.
+
+"How much will it be to drive to Brook Cottage?" said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Two shillings."
+
+"Why, how far is it?"
+
+"A good way."
+
+"I don't believe it," she said.
+
+But she scrambled in. There were eight crowded in one old seaside
+carriage.
+
+"You see," said Mrs. Morel, "it's only threepence each, and if it were a
+tramcar--"
+
+They drove along. Each cottage they came to, Mrs. Morel cried:
+
+"Is it this? Now, this is it!"
+
+Everybody sat breathless. They drove past. There was a universal sigh.
+
+"I'm thankful it wasn't that brute," said Mrs. Morel. "I WAS
+frightened." They drove on and on.
+
+At last they descended at a house that stood alone over the dyke by the
+highroad. There was wild excitement because they had to cross a little
+bridge to get into the front garden. But they loved the house that lay
+so solitary, with a sea-meadow on one side, and immense expanse of land
+patched in white barley, yellow oats, red wheat, and green root-crops,
+flat and stretching level to the sky.
+
+Paul kept accounts. He and his mother ran the show. The total
+expenses--lodging, food, everything--was sixteen shillings a week per
+person. He and Leonard went bathing in the mornings. Morel was wandering
+abroad quite early.
+
+"You, Paul," his mother called from the bedroom, "eat a piece of
+bread-and-butter."
+
+"All right," he answered.
+
+And when he got back he saw his mother presiding in state at the
+breakfast-table. The woman of the house was young. Her husband was
+blind, and she did laundry work. So Mrs. Morel always washed the pots in
+the kitchen and made the beds.
+
+"But you said you'd have a real holiday," said Paul, "and now you work."
+
+"Work!" she exclaimed. "What are you talking about!"
+
+He loved to go with her across the fields to the village and the sea.
+She was afraid of the plank bridge, and he abused her for being a baby.
+On the whole he stuck to her as if he were HER man.
+
+Miriam did not get much of him, except, perhaps, when all the others
+went to the "Coons". Coons were insufferably stupid to Miriam, so he
+thought they were to himself also, and he preached priggishly to Annie
+about the fatuity of listening to them. Yet he, too, knew all their
+songs, and sang them along the roads roisterously. And if he found
+himself listening, the stupidity pleased him very much. Yet to Annie he
+said:
+
+"Such rot! there isn't a grain of intelligence in it. Nobody with more
+gumption than a grasshopper could go and sit and listen." And to Miriam
+he said, with much scorn of Annie and the others: "I suppose they're at
+the 'Coons'."
+
+It was queer to see Miriam singing coon songs. She had a straight chin
+that went in a perpendicular line from the lower lip to the turn. She
+always reminded Paul of some sad Botticelli angel when she sang, even
+when it was:
+
+     "Come down lover's lane
+     For a walk with me, talk with me."
+
+Only when he sketched, or at evening when the others were at the
+"Coons", she had him to herself. He talked to her endlessly about his
+love of horizontals: how they, the great levels of sky and land in
+Lincolnshire, meant to him the eternality of the will, just as the bowed
+Norman arches of the church, repeating themselves, meant the dogged
+leaping forward of the persistent human soul, on and on, nobody knows
+where; in contradiction to the perpendicular lines and to the Gothic
+arch, which, he said, leapt up at heaven and touched the ecstasy and
+lost itself in the divine. Himself, he said, was Norman, Miriam was
+Gothic. She bowed in consent even to that.
+
+One evening he and she went up the great sweeping shore of sand towards
+Theddlethorpe. The long breakers plunged and ran in a hiss of foam along
+the coast. It was a warm evening. There was not a figure but themselves
+on the far reaches of sand, no noise but the sound of the sea. Paul
+loved to see it clanging at the land. He loved to feel himself between
+the noise of it and the silence of the sandy shore. Miriam was with him.
+Everything grew very intense. It was quite dark when they turned again.
+The way home was through a gap in the sandhills, and then along a raised
+grass road between two dykes. The country was black and still. From
+behind the sandhills came the whisper of the sea. Paul and Miriam walked
+in silence. Suddenly he started. The whole of his blood seemed to burst
+into flame, and he could scarcely breathe. An enormous orange moon was
+staring at them from the rim of the sandhills. He stood still, looking
+at it.
+
+"Ah!" cried Miriam, when she saw it.
+
+He remained perfectly still, staring at the immense and ruddy moon, the
+only thing in the far-reaching darkness of the level. His heart beat
+heavily, the muscles of his arms contracted.
+
+"What is it?" murmured Miriam, waiting for him.
+
+He turned and looked at her. She stood beside him, for ever in shadow.
+Her face, covered with the darkness of her hat, was watching him
+unseen. But she was brooding. She was slightly afraid--deeply moved
+and religious. That was her best state. He was impotent against it. His
+blood was concentrated like a flame in his chest. But he could not get
+across to her. There were flashes in his blood. But somehow she ignored
+them. She was expecting some religious state in him. Still yearning, she
+was half aware of his passion, and gazed at him, troubled.
+
+"What is it?" she murmured again.
+
+"It's the moon," he answered, frowning.
+
+"Yes," she assented. "Isn't it wonderful?" She was curious about him.
+The crisis was past.
+
+He did not know himself what was the matter. He was naturally so young,
+and their intimacy was so abstract, he did not know he wanted to crush
+her on to his breast to ease the ache there. He was afraid of her.
+The fact that he might want her as a man wants a woman had in him
+been suppressed into a shame. When she shrank in her convulsed, coiled
+torture from the thought of such a thing, he had winced to the depths of
+his soul. And now this "purity" prevented even their first love-kiss.
+It was as if she could scarcely stand the shock of physical love, even a
+passionate kiss, and then he was too shrinking and sensitive to give it.
+
+As they walked along the dark fen-meadow he watched the moon and did not
+speak. She plodded beside him. He hated her, for she seemed in some way
+to make him despise himself. Looking ahead--he saw the one light in the
+darkness, the window of their lamp-lit cottage.
+
+He loved to think of his mother, and the other jolly people.
+
+"Well, everybody else has been in long ago!" said his mother as they
+entered.
+
+"What does that matter!" he cried irritably. "I can go a walk if I like,
+can't I?"
+
+"And I should have thought you could get in to supper with the rest,"
+said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"I shall please myself," he retorted. "It's not LATE. I shall do as I
+like."
+
+"Very well," said his mother cuttingly, "then DO as you like." And she
+took no further notice of him that evening. Which he pretended neither
+to notice nor to care about, but sat reading. Miriam read also,
+obliterating herself. Mrs. Morel hated her for making her son like this.
+She watched Paul growing irritable, priggish, and melancholic. For this
+she put the blame on Miriam. Annie and all her friends joined against
+the girl. Miriam had no friend of her own, only Paul. But she did not
+suffer so much, because she despised the triviality of these other
+people.
+
+And Paul hated her because, somehow, she spoilt his ease and
+naturalness. And he writhed himself with a feeling of humiliation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+STRIFE IN LOVE
+
+ARTHUR finished his apprenticeship, and got a job on the electrical
+plant at Minton Pit. He earned very little, but had a good chance of
+getting on. But he was wild and restless. He did not drink nor gamble.
+Yet he somehow contrived to get into endless scrapes, always through
+some hot-headed thoughtlessness. Either he went rabbiting in the woods,
+like a poacher, or he stayed in Nottingham all night instead of coming
+home, or he miscalculated his dive into the canal at Bestwood, and
+scored his chest into one mass of wounds on the raw stones and tins at
+the bottom.
+
+He had not been at his work many months when again he did not come home
+one night.
+
+"Do you know where Arthur is?" asked Paul at breakfast.
+
+"I do not," replied his mother.
+
+"He is a fool," said Paul. "And if he DID anything I shouldn't mind. But
+no, he simply can't come away from a game of whist, or else he must see
+a girl home from the skating-rink--quite proprietously--and so can't get
+home. He's a fool."
+
+"I don't know that it would make it any better if he did something to
+make us all ashamed," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Well, I should respect him more," said Paul.
+
+"I very much doubt it," said his mother coldly.
+
+They went on with breakfast.
+
+"Are you fearfully fond of him?" Paul asked his mother.
+
+"What do you ask that for?"
+
+"Because they say a woman always like the youngest best."
+
+"She may do--but I don't. No, he wearies me."
+
+"And you'd actually rather he was good?"
+
+"I'd rather he showed some of a man's common sense."
+
+Paul was raw and irritable. He also wearied his mother very often. She
+saw the sunshine going out of him, and she resented it.
+
+As they were finishing breakfast came the postman with a letter from
+Derby. Mrs. Morel screwed up her eyes to look at the address.
+
+"Give it here, blind eye!" exclaimed her son, snatching it away from
+her.
+
+She started, and almost boxed his ears.
+
+"It's from your son, Arthur," he said.
+
+"What now--!" cried Mrs. Morel.
+
+"'My dearest Mother,'" Paul read, "'I don't know what made me such a
+fool. I want you to come and fetch me back from here. I came with Jack
+Bredon yesterday, instead of going to work, and enlisted. He said he was
+sick of wearing the seat of a stool out, and, like the idiot you know I
+am, I came away with him.
+
+"'I have taken the King's shilling, but perhaps if you came for me they
+would let me go back with you. I was a fool when I did it. I don't want
+to be in the army. My dear mother, I am nothing but a trouble to you.
+But if you get me out of this, I promise I will have more sense and
+consideration. . . .'"
+
+Mrs. Morel sat down in her rocking-chair.
+
+"Well, NOW," she cried, "let him stop!"
+
+"Yes," said Paul, "let him stop."
+
+There was silence. The mother sat with her hands folded in her apron,
+her face set, thinking.
+
+"If I'm not SICK!" she cried suddenly. "Sick!"
+
+"Now," said Paul, beginning to frown, "you're not going to worry your
+soul out about this, do you hear."
+
+"I suppose I'm to take it as a blessing," she flashed, turning on her
+son.
+
+"You're not going to mount it up to a tragedy, so there," he retorted.
+
+"The FOOL!--the young fool!" she cried.
+
+"He'll look well in uniform," said Paul irritatingly.
+
+His mother turned on him like a fury.
+
+"Oh, will he!" she cried. "Not in my eyes!"
+
+"He should get in a cavalry regiment; he'll have the time of his life,
+and will look an awful swell."
+
+"Swell!--SWELL!--a mighty swell idea indeed!--a common soldier!"
+
+"Well," said Paul, "what am I but a common clerk?"
+
+"A good deal, my boy!" cried his mother, stung.
+
+"What?"
+
+"At any rate, a MAN, and not a thing in a red coat."
+
+"I shouldn't mind being in a red coat--or dark blue, that would suit me
+better--if they didn't boss me about too much."
+
+But his mother had ceased to listen.
+
+"Just as he was getting on, or might have been getting on, at his job--a
+young nuisance--here he goes and ruins himself for life. What good will
+he be, do you think, after THIS?"
+
+"It may lick him into shape beautifully," said Paul.
+
+"Lick him into shape!--lick what marrow there WAS out of his bones. A
+SOLDIER!--a common SOLDIER!--nothing but a body that makes movements
+when it hears a shout! It's a fine thing!"
+
+"I can't understand why it upsets you," said Paul.
+
+"No, perhaps you can't. But I understand"; and she sat back in her
+chair, her chin in one hand, holding her elbow with the other, brimmed
+up with wrath and chagrin.
+
+"And shall you go to Derby?" asked Paul.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's no good."
+
+"I'll see for myself."
+
+"And why on earth don't you let him stop. It's just what he wants."
+
+"Of course," cried the mother, "YOU know what he wants!"
+
+She got ready and went by the first train to Derby, where she saw her
+son and the sergeant. It was, however, no good.
+
+When Morel was having his dinner in the evening, she said suddenly:
+
+"I've had to go to Derby to-day."
+
+The miner turned up his eyes, showing the whites in his black face.
+
+"Has ter, lass. What took thee there?"
+
+"That Arthur!"
+
+"Oh--an' what's agate now?"
+
+"He's only enlisted."
+
+Morel put down his knife and leaned back in his chair.
+
+"Nay," he said, "that he niver 'as!"
+
+"And is going down to Aldershot tomorrow."
+
+"Well!" exclaimed the miner. "That's a winder." He considered it a
+moment, said "H'm!" and proceeded with his dinner. Suddenly his face
+contracted with wrath. "I hope he may never set foot i' my house again,"
+he said.
+
+"The idea!" cried Mrs. Morel. "Saying such a thing!"
+
+"I do," repeated Morel. "A fool as runs away for a soldier, let 'im look
+after 'issen; I s'll do no more for 'im."
+
+"A fat sight you have done as it is," she said.
+
+And Morel was almost ashamed to go to his public-house that evening.
+
+"Well, did you go?" said Paul to his mother when he came home.
+
+"I did."
+
+"And could you see him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And what did he say?"
+
+"He blubbered when I came away."
+
+"H'm!"
+
+"And so did I, so you needn't 'h'm'!"
+
+Mrs. Morel fretted after her son. She knew he would not like the army.
+He did not. The discipline was intolerable to him.
+
+"But the doctor," she said with some pride to Paul, "said he was
+perfectly proportioned--almost exactly; all his measurements were
+correct. He IS good-looking, you know."
+
+"He's awfully nice-looking. But he doesn't fetch the girls like William,
+does he?"
+
+"No; it's a different character. He's a good deal like his father,
+irresponsible."
+
+To console his mother, Paul did not go much to Willey Farm at this time.
+And in the autumn exhibition of students' work in the Castle he had two
+studies, a landscape in water-colour and a still life in oil, both of
+which had first-prize awards. He was highly excited.
+
+"What do you think I've got for my pictures, mother?" he asked, coming
+home one evening. She saw by his eyes he was glad. Her face flushed.
+
+"Now, how should I know, my boy!"
+
+"A first prize for those glass jars--"
+
+"H'm!"
+
+"And a first prize for that sketch up at Willey Farm."
+
+"Both first?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"H'm!"
+
+There was a rosy, bright look about her, though she said nothing.
+
+"It's nice," he said, "isn't it?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"Why don't you praise me up to the skies?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I should have the trouble of dragging you down again," she said.
+
+But she was full of joy, nevertheless. William had brought her his
+sporting trophies. She kept them still, and she did not forgive his
+death. Arthur was handsome--at least, a good specimen--and warm and
+generous, and probably would do well in the end. But Paul was going to
+distinguish himself. She had a great belief in him, the more because
+he was unaware of his own powers. There was so much to come out of him.
+Life for her was rich with promise. She was to see herself fulfilled.
+Not for nothing had been her struggle.
+
+Several times during the exhibition Mrs. Morel went to the Castle
+unknown to Paul. She wandered down the long room looking at the other
+exhibits. Yes, they were good. But they had not in them a certain
+something which she demanded for her satisfaction. Some made her
+jealous, they were so good. She looked at them a long time trying to
+find fault with them. Then suddenly she had a shock that made her heart
+beat. There hung Paul's picture! She knew it as if it were printed on
+her heart.
+
+"Name--Paul Morel--First Prize."
+
+It looked so strange, there in public, on the walls of the Castle
+gallery, where in her lifetime she had seen so many pictures. And she
+glanced round to see if anyone had noticed her again in front of the
+same sketch.
+
+But she felt a proud woman. When she met well-dressed ladies going home
+to the Park, she thought to herself:
+
+"Yes, you look very well--but I wonder if YOUR son has two first prizes
+in the Castle."
+
+And she walked on, as proud a little woman as any in Nottingham. And
+Paul felt he had done something for her, if only a trifle. All his work
+was hers.
+
+One day, as he was going up Castle Gate, he met Miriam. He had seen her
+on the Sunday, and had not expected to meet her in town. She was walking
+with a rather striking woman, blonde, with a sullen expression, and a
+defiant carriage. It was strange how Miriam, in her bowed, meditative
+bearing, looked dwarfed beside this woman with the handsome shoulders.
+Miriam watched Paul searchingly. His gaze was on the stranger, who
+ignored him. The girl saw his masculine spirit rear its head.
+
+"Hello!" he said, "you didn't tell me you were coming to town."
+
+"No," replied Miriam, half apologetically. "I drove in to Cattle Market
+with father."
+
+He looked at her companion.
+
+"I've told you about Mrs. Dawes," said Miriam huskily; she was nervous.
+"Clara, do you know Paul?"
+
+"I think I've seen him before," replied Mrs. Dawes indifferently, as
+she shook hands with him. She had scornful grey eyes, a skin like white
+honey, and a full mouth, with a slightly lifted upper lip that did not
+know whether it was raised in scorn of all men or out of eagerness to be
+kissed, but which believed the former. She carried her head back, as if
+she had drawn away in contempt, perhaps from men also. She wore a large,
+dowdy hat of black beaver, and a sort of slightly affected simple dress
+that made her look rather sack-like. She was evidently poor, and had not
+much taste. Miriam usually looked nice.
+
+"Where have you seen me?" Paul asked of the woman.
+
+She looked at him as if she would not trouble to answer. Then:
+
+"Walking with Louie Travers," she said.
+
+Louie was one of the "Spiral" girls.
+
+"Why, do you know her?" he asked.
+
+She did not answer. He turned to Miriam.
+
+"Where are you going?" he asked.
+
+"To the Castle."
+
+"What train are you going home by?"
+
+"I am driving with father. I wish you could come too. What time are you
+free?"
+
+"You know not till eight to-night, damn it!"
+
+And directly the two women moved on.
+
+Paul remembered that Clara Dawes was the daughter of an old friend of
+Mrs. Leivers. Miriam had sought her out because she had once been Spiral
+overseer at Jordan's, and because her husband, Baxter Dawes, was smith
+for the factory, making the irons for cripple instruments, and so on.
+Through her Miriam felt she got into direct contact with Jordan's, and
+could estimate better Paul's position. But Mrs. Dawes was separated from
+her husband, and had taken up Women's Rights. She was supposed to be
+clever. It interested Paul.
+
+Baxter Dawes he knew and disliked. The smith was a man of thirty-one or
+thirty-two. He came occasionally through Paul's corner--a big, well-set
+man, also striking to look at, and handsome. There was a peculiar
+similarity between himself and his wife. He had the same white skin,
+with a clear, golden tinge. His hair was of soft brown, his moustache
+was golden. And he had a similar defiance in his bearing and manner. But
+then came the difference. His eyes, dark brown and quick-shifting, were
+dissolute. They protruded very slightly, and his eyelids hung over them
+in a way that was half hate. His mouth, too, was sensual. His whole
+manner was of cowed defiance, as if he were ready to knock anybody
+down who disapproved of him--perhaps because he really disapproved of
+himself.
+
+From the first day he had hated Paul. Finding the lad's impersonal,
+deliberate gaze of an artist on his face, he got into a fury.
+
+"What are yer lookin' at?" he sneered, bullying.
+
+The boy glanced away. But the smith used to stand behind the counter
+and talk to Mr. Pappleworth. His speech was dirty, with a kind of
+rottenness. Again he found the youth with his cool, critical gaze fixed
+on his face. The smith started round as if he had been stung.
+
+"What'r yer lookin' at, three hap'orth o' pap?" he snarled.
+
+The boy shrugged his shoulders slightly.
+
+"Why yer--!" shouted Dawes.
+
+"Leave him alone," said Mr. Pappleworth, in that insinuating voice which
+means, "He's only one of your good little sops who can't help it."
+
+Since that time the boy used to look at the man every time he came
+through with the same curious criticism, glancing away before he met the
+smith's eye. It made Dawes furious. They hated each other in silence.
+
+Clara Dawes had no children. When she had left her husband the home had
+been broken up, and she had gone to live with her mother. Dawes lodged
+with his sister. In the same house was a sister-in-law, and somehow Paul
+knew that this girl, Louie Travers, was now Dawes's woman. She was a
+handsome, insolent hussy, who mocked at the youth, and yet flushed if he
+walked along to the station with her as she went home.
+
+The next time he went to see Miriam it was Saturday evening. She had
+a fire in the parlour, and was waiting for him. The others, except her
+father and mother and the young children, had gone out, so the two had
+the parlour together. It was a long, low, warm room. There were three of
+Paul's small sketches on the wall, and his photo was on the mantelpiece.
+On the table and on the high old rosewood piano were bowls of coloured
+leaves. He sat in the armchair, she crouched on the hearthrug near his
+feet. The glow was warm on her handsome, pensive face as she kneeled
+there like a devotee.
+
+"What did you think of Mrs. Dawes?" she asked quietly.
+
+"She doesn't look very amiable," he replied.
+
+"No, but don't you think she's a fine woman?" she said, in a deep tone,
+
+"Yes--in stature. But without a grain of taste. I like her for some
+things. IS she disagreeable?"
+
+"I don't think so. I think she's dissatisfied."
+
+"What with?"
+
+"Well--how would you like to be tied for life to a man like that?"
+
+"Why did she marry him, then, if she was to have revulsions so soon?"
+
+"Ay, why did she!" repeated Miriam bitterly.
+
+"And I should have thought she had enough fight in her to match him," he
+said.
+
+Miriam bowed her head.
+
+"Ay?" she queried satirically. "What makes you think so?"
+
+"Look at her mouth--made for passion--and the very setback of her
+throat--" He threw his head back in Clara's defiant manner.
+
+Miriam bowed a little lower.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+There was a silence for some moments, while he thought of Clara.
+
+"And what were the things you liked about her?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know--her skin and the texture of her--and her--I don't
+know--there's a sort of fierceness somewhere in her. I appreciate her as
+an artist, that's all."
+
+"Yes."
+
+He wondered why Miriam crouched there brooding in that strange way. It
+irritated him.
+
+"You don't really like her, do you?" he asked the girl.
+
+She looked at him with her great, dazzled dark eyes.
+
+"I do," she said.
+
+"You don't--you can't--not really."
+
+"Then what?" she asked slowly.
+
+"Eh, I don't know--perhaps you like her because she's got a grudge
+against men."
+
+That was more probably one of his own reasons for liking Mrs. Dawes,
+but this did not occur to him. They were silent. There had come into his
+forehead a knitting of the brows which was becoming habitual with him,
+particularly when he was with Miriam. She longed to smooth it away, and
+she was afraid of it. It seemed the stamp of a man who was not her man
+in Paul Morel.
+
+There were some crimson berries among the leaves in the bowl. He reached
+over and pulled out a bunch.
+
+"If you put red berries in your hair," he said, "why would you look like
+some witch or priestess, and never like a reveller?"
+
+She laughed with a naked, painful sound.
+
+"I don't know," she said.
+
+His vigorous warm hands were playing excitedly with the berries.
+
+"Why can't you laugh?" he said. "You never laugh laughter. You only
+laugh when something is odd or incongruous, and then it almost seems to
+hurt you."
+
+She bowed her head as if he were scolding her.
+
+"I wish you could laugh at me just for one minute--just for one minute.
+I feel as if it would set something free."
+
+"But"--and she looked up at him with eyes frightened and struggling--"I
+do laugh at you--I DO."
+
+"Never! There's always a kind of intensity. When you laugh I could
+always cry; it seems as if it shows up your suffering. Oh, you make me
+knit the brows of my very soul and cogitate."
+
+Slowly she shook her head despairingly.
+
+"I'm sure I don't want to," she said.
+
+"I'm so damned spiritual with YOU always!" he cried.
+
+She remained silent, thinking, "Then why don't you be otherwise." But he
+saw her crouching, brooding figure, and it seemed to tear him in two.
+
+"But, there, it's autumn," he said, "and everybody feels like a
+disembodied spirit then."
+
+There was still another silence. This peculiar sadness between them
+thrilled her soul. He seemed so beautiful with his eyes gone dark, and
+looking as if they were deep as the deepest well.
+
+"You make me so spiritual!" he lamented. "And I don't want to be
+spiritual."
+
+She took her finger from her mouth with a little pop, and looked up at
+him almost challenging. But still her soul was naked in her great dark
+eyes, and there was the same yearning appeal upon her. If he could have
+kissed her in abstract purity he would have done so. But he could not
+kiss her thus--and she seemed to leave no other way. And she yearned to
+him.
+
+He gave a brief laugh.
+
+"Well," he said, "get that French and we'll do some--some Verlaine."
+
+"Yes," she said in a deep tone, almost of resignation. And she rose and
+got the books. And her rather red, nervous hands looked so pitiful, he
+was mad to comfort her and kiss her. But then be dared not--or could
+not. There was something prevented him. His kisses were wrong for her.
+They continued the reading till ten o'clock, when they went into the
+kitchen, and Paul was natural and jolly again with the father and
+mother. His eyes were dark and shining; there was a kind of fascination
+about him.
+
+When he went into the barn for his bicycle he found the front wheel
+punctured.
+
+"Fetch me a drop of water in a bowl," he said to her. "I shall be late,
+and then I s'll catch it."
+
+He lighted the hurricane lamp, took off his coat, turned up the bicycle,
+and set speedily to work. Miriam came with the bowl of water and stood
+close to him, watching. She loved to see his hands doing things. He
+was slim and vigorous, with a kind of easiness even in his most hasty
+movements. And busy at his work he seemed to forget her. She loved
+him absorbedly. She wanted to run her hands down his sides. She always
+wanted to embrace him, so long as he did not want her.
+
+"There!" he said, rising suddenly. "Now, could you have done it
+quicker?"
+
+"No!" she laughed.
+
+He straightened himself. His back was towards her. She put her two hands
+on his sides, and ran them quickly down.
+
+"You are so FINE!" she said.
+
+He laughed, hating her voice, but his blood roused to a wave of flame
+by her hands. She did not seem to realise HIM in all this. He might have
+been an object. She never realised the male he was.
+
+He lighted his bicycle-lamp, bounced the machine on the barn floor to
+see that the tyres were sound, and buttoned his coat.
+
+"That's all right!" he said.
+
+She was trying the brakes, that she knew were broken.
+
+"Did you have them mended?" she asked.
+
+"No!"
+
+"But why didn't you?"
+
+"The back one goes on a bit."
+
+"But it's not safe."
+
+"I can use my toe."
+
+"I wish you'd had them mended," she murmured.
+
+"Don't worry--come to tea tomorrow, with Edgar."
+
+"Shall we?"
+
+"Do--about four. I'll come to meet you."
+
+"Very well."
+
+She was pleased. They went across the dark yard to the gate. Looking
+across, he saw through the uncurtained window of the kitchen the heads
+of Mr. and Mrs. Leivers in the warm glow. It looked very cosy. The road,
+with pine trees, was quite black in front.
+
+"Till tomorrow," he said, jumping on his bicycle.
+
+"You'll take care, won't you?" she pleaded.
+
+"Yes."
+
+His voice already came out of the darkness. She stood a moment watching
+the light from his lamp race into obscurity along the ground. She
+turned very slowly indoors. Orion was wheeling up over the wood, his dog
+twinkling after him, half smothered. For the rest the world was full of
+darkness, and silent, save for the breathing of cattle in their stalls.
+She prayed earnestly for his safety that night. When he left her, she
+often lay in anxiety, wondering if he had got home safely.
+
+He dropped down the hills on his bicycle. The roads were greasy, so he
+had to let it go. He felt a pleasure as the machine plunged over the
+second, steeper drop in the hill. "Here goes!" he said. It was risky,
+because of the curve in the darkness at the bottom, and because of the
+brewers' waggons with drunken waggoners asleep. His bicycle seemed
+to fall beneath him, and he loved it. Recklessness is almost a man's
+revenge on his woman. He feels he is not valued, so he will risk
+destroying himself to deprive her altogether.
+
+The stars on the lake seemed to leap like grasshoppers, silver upon the
+blackness, as he spun past. Then there was the long climb home.
+
+"See, mother!" he said, as he threw her the berries and leaves on to the
+table.
+
+"H'm!" she said, glancing at them, then away again. She sat reading,
+alone, as she always did.
+
+"Aren't they pretty?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He knew she was cross with him. After a few minutes he said:
+
+"Edgar and Miriam are coming to tea tomorrow."
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"You don't mind?"
+
+Still she did not answer.
+
+"Do you?" he asked.
+
+"You know whether I mind or not."
+
+"I don't see why you should. I have plenty of meals there."
+
+"You do."
+
+"Then why do you begrudge them tea?"
+
+"I begrudge whom tea?"
+
+"What are you so horrid for?"
+
+"Oh, say no more! You've asked her to tea, it's quite sufficient. She'll
+come."
+
+He was very angry with his mother. He knew it was merely Miriam she
+objected to. He flung off his boots and went to bed.
+
+Paul went to meet his friends the next afternoon. He was glad to see
+them coming. They arrived home at about four o'clock. Everywhere was
+clean and still for Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Morel sat in her black dress
+and black apron. She rose to meet the visitors. With Edgar she was
+cordial, but with Miriam cold and rather grudging. Yet Paul thought the
+girl looked so nice in her brown cashmere frock.
+
+He helped his mother to get the tea ready. Miriam would have gladly
+proffered, but was afraid. He was rather proud of his home. There was
+about it now, he thought, a certain distinction. The chairs were only
+wooden, and the sofa was old. But the hearthrug and cushions were
+cosy; the pictures were prints in good taste; there was a simplicity in
+everything, and plenty of books. He was never ashamed in the least of
+his home, nor was Miriam of hers, because both were what they should be,
+and warm. And then he was proud of the table; the china was pretty, the
+cloth was fine. It did not matter that the spoons were not silver nor
+the knives ivory-handled; everything looked nice. Mrs. Morel had managed
+wonderfully while her children were growing up, so that nothing was out
+of place.
+
+Miriam talked books a little. That was her unfailing topic. But Mrs.
+Morel was not cordial, and turned soon to Edgar.
+
+At first Edgar and Miriam used to go into Mrs. Morel's pew. Morel never
+went to chapel, preferring the public-house. Mrs. Morel, like a little
+champion, sat at the head of her pew, Paul at the other end; and at
+first Miriam sat next to him. Then the chapel was like home. It was a
+pretty place, with dark pews and slim, elegant pillars, and flowers. And
+the same people had sat in the same places ever since he was a boy. It
+was wonderfully sweet and soothing to sit there for an hour and a half,
+next to Miriam, and near to his mother, uniting his two loves under the
+spell of the place of worship. Then he felt warm and happy and religious
+at once. And after chapel he walked home with Miriam, whilst Mrs. Morel
+spent the rest of the evening with her old friend, Mrs. Burns. He was
+keenly alive on his walks on Sunday nights with Edgar and Miriam. He
+never went past the pits at night, by the lighted lamp-house, the tall
+black headstocks and lines of trucks, past the fans spinning slowly like
+shadows, without the feeling of Miriam returning to him, keen and almost
+unbearable.
+
+She did not very long occupy the Morels' pew. Her father took one for
+themselves once more. It was under the little gallery, opposite the
+Morels'. When Paul and his mother came in the chapel the Leivers's pew
+was always empty. He was anxious for fear she would not come: it was so
+far, and there were so many rainy Sundays. Then, often very late indeed,
+she came in, with her long stride, her head bowed, her face hidden under
+her hat of dark green velvet. Her face, as she sat opposite, was always
+in shadow. But it gave him a very keen feeling, as if all his soul
+stirred within him, to see her there. It was not the same glow,
+happiness, and pride, that he felt in having his mother in charge:
+something more wonderful, less human, and tinged to intensity by a pain,
+as if there were something he could not get to.
+
+At this time he was beginning to question the orthodox creed. He was
+twenty-one, and she was twenty. She was beginning to dread the spring:
+he became so wild, and hurt her so much. All the way he went cruelly
+smashing her beliefs. Edgar enjoyed it. He was by nature critical and
+rather dispassionate. But Miriam suffered exquisite pain, as, with an
+intellect like a knife, the man she loved examined her religion in which
+she lived and moved and had her being. But he did not spare her. He was
+cruel. And when they went alone he was even more fierce, as if he would
+kill her soul. He bled her beliefs till she almost lost consciousness.
+
+"She exults--she exults as she carries him off from me," Mrs. Morel
+cried in her heart when Paul had gone. "She's not like an ordinary
+woman, who can leave me my share in him. She wants to absorb him. She
+wants to draw him out and absorb him till there is nothing left of him,
+even for himself. He will never be a man on his own feet--she will suck
+him up." So the mother sat, and battled and brooded bitterly.
+
+And he, coming home from his walks with Miriam, was wild with torture.
+He walked biting his lips and with clenched fists, going at a great
+rate. Then, brought up against a stile, he stood for some minutes, and
+did not move. There was a great hollow of darkness fronting him, and on
+the black upslopes patches of tiny lights, and in the lowest trough of
+the night, a flare of the pit. It was all weird and dreadful. Why was he
+torn so, almost bewildered, and unable to move? Why did his mother sit
+at home and suffer? He knew she suffered badly. But why should she? And
+why did he hate Miriam, and feel so cruel towards her, at the thought
+of his mother. If Miriam caused his mother suffering, then he hated
+her--and he easily hated her. Why did she make him feel as if he were
+uncertain of himself, insecure, an indefinite thing, as if he had not
+sufficient sheathing to prevent the night and the space breaking into
+him? How he hated her! And then, what a rush of tenderness and humility!
+
+Suddenly he plunged on again, running home. His mother saw on him the
+marks of some agony, and she said nothing. But he had to make her talk
+to him. Then she was angry with him for going so far with Miriam.
+
+"Why don't you like her, mother?" he cried in despair.
+
+"I don't know, my boy," she replied piteously. "I'm sure I've tried to
+like her. I've tried and tried, but I can't--I can't!"
+
+And he felt dreary and hopeless between the two.
+
+Spring was the worst time. He was changeable, and intense and cruel.
+So he decided to stay away from her. Then came the hours when he knew
+Miriam was expecting him. His mother watched him growing restless.
+He could not go on with his work. He could do nothing. It was as if
+something were drawing his soul out towards Willey Farm. Then he put on
+his hat and went, saying nothing. And his mother knew he was gone. And
+as soon as he was on the way he sighed with relief. And when he was with
+her he was cruel again.
+
+One day in March he lay on the bank of Nethermere, with Miriam sitting
+beside him. It was a glistening, white-and-blue day. Big clouds, so
+brilliant, went by overhead, while shadows stole along on the water. The
+clear spaces in the sky were of clean, cold blue. Paul lay on his back
+in the old grass, looking up. He could not bear to look at Miriam. She
+seemed to want him, and he resisted. He resisted all the time. He wanted
+now to give her passion and tenderness, and he could not. He felt that
+she wanted the soul out of his body, and not him. All his strength and
+energy she drew into herself through some channel which united them. She
+did not want to meet him, so that there were two of them, man and woman
+together. She wanted to draw all of him into her. It urged him to an
+intensity like madness, which fascinated him, as drug-taking might.
+
+He was discussing Michael Angelo. It felt to her as if she were
+fingering the very quivering tissue, the very protoplasm of life, as
+she heard him. It gave her deepest satisfaction. And in the end it
+frightened her. There he lay in the white intensity of his search,
+and his voice gradually filled her with fear, so level it was, almost
+inhuman, as if in a trance.
+
+"Don't talk any more," she pleaded softly, laying her hand on his
+forehead.
+
+He lay quite still, almost unable to move. His body was somewhere
+discarded.
+
+"Why not? Are you tired?"
+
+"Yes, and it wears you out."
+
+He laughed shortly, realising.
+
+"Yet you always make me like it," he said.
+
+"I don't wish to," she said, very low.
+
+"Not when you've gone too far, and you feel you can't bear it. But your
+unconscious self always asks it of me. And I suppose I want it."
+
+He went on, in his dead fashion:
+
+"If only you could want ME, and not want what I can reel off for you!"
+
+
+"I!" she cried bitterly--"I! Why, when would you let me take you?"
+
+"Then it's my fault," he said, and, gathering himself together, he got
+up and began to talk trivialities. He felt insubstantial. In a vague way
+he hated her for it. And he knew he was as much to blame himself. This,
+however, did not prevent his hating her.
+
+One evening about this time he had walked along the home road with her.
+They stood by the pasture leading down to the wood, unable to part. As
+the stars came out the clouds closed. They had glimpses of their own
+constellation, Orion, towards the west. His jewels glimmered for a
+moment, his dog ran low, struggling with difficulty through the spume of
+cloud.
+
+Orion was for them chief in significance among the constellations. They
+had gazed at him in their strange, surcharged hours of feeling, until
+they seemed themselves to live in every one of his stars. This evening
+Paul had been moody and perverse. Orion had seemed just an ordinary
+constellation to him. He had fought against his glamour and fascination.
+Miriam was watching her lover's mood carefully. But he said nothing
+that gave him away, till the moment came to part, when he stood frowning
+gloomily at the gathered clouds, behind which the great constellation
+must be striding still.
+
+There was to be a little party at his house the next day, at which she
+was to attend.
+
+"I shan't come and meet you," he said.
+
+"Oh, very well; it's not very nice out," she replied slowly.
+
+"It's not that--only they don't like me to. They say I care more for
+you than for them. And you understand, don't you? You know it's only
+friendship."
+
+Miriam was astonished and hurt for him. It had cost him an effort. She
+left him, wanting to spare him any further humiliation. A fine rain blew
+in her face as she walked along the road. She was hurt deep down; and
+she despised him for being blown about by any wind of authority. And in
+her heart of hearts, unconsciously, she felt that he was trying to get
+away from her. This she would never have acknowledged. She pitied him.
+
+At this time Paul became an important factor in Jordan's warehouse. Mr.
+Pappleworth left to set up a business of his own, and Paul remained with
+Mr. Jordan as Spiral overseer. His wages were to be raised to thirty
+shillings at the year-end, if things went well.
+
+Still on Friday night Miriam often came down for her French lesson. Paul
+did not go so frequently to Willey Farm, and she grieved at the thought
+of her education's coming to end; moreover, they both loved to
+be together, in spite of discords. So they read Balzac, and did
+compositions, and felt highly cultured.
+
+Friday night was reckoning night for the miners. Morel
+"reckoned"--shared up the money of the stall--either in the New Inn
+at Bretty or in his own house, according as his fellow-butties wished.
+Barker had turned a non-drinker, so now the men reckoned at Morel's
+house.
+
+Annie, who had been teaching away, was at home again. She was still a
+tomboy; and she was engaged to be married. Paul was studying design.
+
+Morel was always in good spirits on Friday evening, unless the week's
+earnings were small. He bustled immediately after his dinner, prepared
+to get washed. It was decorum for the women to absent themselves while
+the men reckoned. Women were not supposed to spy into such a masculine
+privacy as the butties' reckoning, nor were they to know the exact
+amount of the week's earnings. So, whilst her father was spluttering
+in the scullery, Annie went out to spend an hour with a neighbour. Mrs.
+Morel attended to her baking.
+
+"Shut that doo-er!" bawled Morel furiously.
+
+Annie banged it behind her, and was gone.
+
+"If tha oppens it again while I'm weshin' me, I'll ma'e thy jaw rattle,"
+he threatened from the midst of his soap-suds. Paul and the mother
+frowned to hear him.
+
+Presently he came running out of the scullery, with the soapy water
+dripping from him, dithering with cold.
+
+"Oh, my sirs!" he said. "Wheer's my towel?"
+
+It was hung on a chair to warm before the fire, otherwise he would
+have bullied and blustered. He squatted on his heels before the hot
+baking-fire to dry himself.
+
+"F-ff-f!" he went, pretending to shudder with cold.
+
+"Goodness, man, don't be such a kid!" said Mrs. Morel. "It's NOT cold."
+
+"Thee strip thysen stark nak'd to wesh thy flesh i' that scullery," said
+the miner, as he rubbed his hair; "nowt b'r a ice-'ouse!"
+
+"And I shouldn't make that fuss," replied his wife.
+
+"No, tha'd drop down stiff, as dead as a door-knob, wi' thy nesh sides."
+
+"Why is a door-knob deader than anything else?" asked Paul, curious.
+
+"Eh, I dunno; that's what they say," replied his father. "But there's
+that much draught i' yon scullery, as it blows through your ribs like
+through a five-barred gate."
+
+"It would have some difficulty in blowing through yours," said Mrs.
+Morel.
+
+Morel looked down ruefully at his sides.
+
+"Me!" he exclaimed. "I'm nowt b'r a skinned rabbit. My bones fair juts
+out on me."
+
+"I should like to know where," retorted his wife.
+
+"Iv'ry-wheer! I'm nobbut a sack o' faggots."
+
+Mrs. Morel laughed. He had still a wonderfully young body, muscular,
+without any fat. His skin was smooth and clear. It might have been the
+body of a man of twenty-eight, except that there were, perhaps, too many
+blue scars, like tattoo-marks, where the coal-dust remained under the
+skin, and that his chest was too hairy. But he put his hand on his side
+ruefully. It was his fixed belief that, because he did not get fat,
+he was as thin as a starved rat. Paul looked at his father's thick,
+brownish hands all scarred, with broken nails, rubbing the fine
+smoothness of his sides, and the incongruity struck him. It seemed
+strange they were the same flesh.
+
+"I suppose," he said to his father, "you had a good figure once."
+
+"Eh!" exclaimed the miner, glancing round, startled and timid, like a
+child.
+
+"He had," exclaimed Mrs. Morel, "if he didn't hurtle himself up as if he
+was trying to get in the smallest space he could."
+
+"Me!" exclaimed Morel--"me a good figure! I wor niver much more n'r a
+skeleton."
+
+"Man!" cried his wife, "don't be such a pulamiter!"
+
+"'Strewth!" he said. "Tha's niver knowed me but what I looked as if I
+wor goin' off in a rapid decline."
+
+She sat and laughed.
+
+"You've had a constitution like iron," she said; "and never a man had a
+better start, if it was body that counted. You should have seen him as
+a young man," she cried suddenly to Paul, drawing herself up to imitate
+her husband's once handsome bearing.
+
+Morel watched her shyly. He saw again the passion she had had for him.
+It blazed upon her for a moment. He was shy, rather scared, and humble.
+Yet again he felt his old glow. And then immediately he felt the ruin he
+had made during these years. He wanted to bustle about, to run away from
+it.
+
+"Gi'e my back a bit of a wesh," he asked her.
+
+His wife brought a well-soaped flannel and clapped it on his shoulders.
+He gave a jump.
+
+"Eh, tha mucky little 'ussy!" he cried. "Cowd as death!"
+
+"You ought to have been a salamander," she laughed, washing his back. It
+was very rarely she would do anything so personal for him. The children
+did those things.
+
+"The next world won't be half hot enough for you," she added.
+
+"No," he said; "tha'lt see as it's draughty for me."
+
+But she had finished. She wiped him in a desultory fashion, and went
+upstairs, returning immediately with his shifting-trousers. When he was
+dried he struggled into his shirt. Then, ruddy and shiny, with hair on
+end, and his flannelette shirt hanging over his pit-trousers, he stood
+warming the garments he was going to put on. He turned them, he pulled
+them inside out, he scorched them.
+
+"Goodness, man!" cried Mrs. Morel, "get dressed!"
+
+"Should thee like to clap thysen into britches as cowd as a tub o'
+water?" he said.
+
+At last he took off his pit-trousers and donned decent black. He did all
+this on the hearthrug, as he would have done if Annie and her familiar
+friends had been present.
+
+Mrs. Morel turned the bread in the oven. Then from the red earthenware
+panchion of dough that stood in a corner she took another handful of
+paste, worked it to the proper shape, and dropped it into a tin. As she
+was doing so Barker knocked and entered. He was a quiet, compact little
+man, who looked as if he would go through a stone wall. His black hair
+was cropped short, his head was bony. Like most miners, he was pale, but
+healthy and taut.
+
+"Evenin', missis," he nodded to Mrs. Morel, and he seated himself with a
+sigh.
+
+"Good-evening," she replied cordially.
+
+"Tha's made thy heels crack," said Morel.
+
+"I dunno as I have," said Barker.
+
+He sat, as the men always did in Morel's kitchen, effacing himself
+rather.
+
+"How's missis?" she asked of him.
+
+He had told her some time back:
+
+"We're expectin' us third just now, you see."
+
+"Well," he answered, rubbing his head, "she keeps pretty middlin', I
+think."
+
+"Let's see--when?" asked Mrs. Morel.
+
+"Well, I shouldn't be surprised any time now."
+
+"Ah! And she's kept fairly?"
+
+"Yes, tidy."
+
+"That's a blessing, for she's none too strong."
+
+"No. An' I've done another silly trick."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+Mrs. Morel knew Barker wouldn't do anything very silly.
+
+"I'm come be-out th' market-bag."
+
+"You can have mine."
+
+"Nay, you'll be wantin' that yourself."
+
+"I shan't. I take a string bag always."
+
+She saw the determined little collier buying in the week's groceries and
+meat on the Friday nights, and she admired him. "Barker's little, but
+he's ten times the man you are," she said to her husband.
+
+Just then Wesson entered. He was thin, rather frail-looking, with a
+boyish ingenuousness and a slightly foolish smile, despite his seven
+children. But his wife was a passionate woman.
+
+"I see you've kested me," he said, smiling rather vapidly.
+
+"Yes," replied Barker.
+
+The newcomer took off his cap and his big woollen muffler. His nose was
+pointed and red.
+
+"I'm afraid you're cold, Mr. Wesson," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"It's a bit nippy," he replied.
+
+"Then come to the fire."
+
+"Nay, I s'll do where I am."
+
+Both colliers sat away back. They could not be induced to come on to the
+hearth. The hearth is sacred to the family.
+
+"Go thy ways i' th' armchair," cried Morel cheerily.
+
+"Nay, thank yer; I'm very nicely here."
+
+"Yes, come, of course," insisted Mrs. Morel.
+
+He rose and went awkwardly. He sat in Morel's armchair awkwardly. It was
+too great a familiarity. But the fire made him blissfully happy.
+
+"And how's that chest of yours?" demanded Mrs. Morel.
+
+He smiled again, with his blue eyes rather sunny.
+
+"Oh, it's very middlin'," he said.
+
+"Wi' a rattle in it like a kettle-drum," said Barker shortly.
+
+"T-t-t-t!" went Mrs. Morel rapidly with her tongue. "Did you have that
+flannel singlet made?"
+
+"Not yet," he smiled.
+
+"Then, why didn't you?" she cried.
+
+"It'll come," he smiled.
+
+"Ah, an' Doomsday!" exclaimed Barker.
+
+Barker and Morel were both impatient of Wesson. But, then, they were
+both as hard as nails, physically.
+
+When Morel was nearly ready he pushed the bag of money to Paul.
+
+"Count it, boy," he asked humbly.
+
+Paul impatiently turned from his books and pencil, tipped the bag upside
+down on the table. There was a five-pound bag of silver, sovereigns and
+loose money. He counted quickly, referred to the checks--the written
+papers giving amount of coal--put the money in order. Then Barker
+glanced at the checks.
+
+Mrs. Morel went upstairs, and the three men came to table. Morel, as
+master of the house, sat in his armchair, with his back to the hot fire.
+The two butties had cooler seats. None of them counted the money.
+
+"What did we say Simpson's was?" asked Morel; and the butties cavilled
+for a minute over the dayman's earnings. Then the amount was put aside.
+
+"An' Bill Naylor's?"
+
+This money also was taken from the pack.
+
+Then, because Wesson lived in one of the company's houses, and his rent
+had been deducted, Morel and Barker took four-and-six each. And because
+Morel's coals had come, and the leading was stopped, Barker and Wesson
+took four shillings each. Then it was plain sailing. Morel gave each of
+them a sovereign till there were no more sovereigns; each half a crown
+till there were no more half-crowns; each a shilling till there were no
+more shillings. If there was anything at the end that wouldn't split,
+Morel took it and stood drinks.
+
+Then the three men rose and went. Morel scuttled out of the house before
+his wife came down. She heard the door close, and descended. She looked
+hastily at the bread in the oven. Then, glancing on the table, she saw
+her money lying. Paul had been working all the time. But now he felt his
+mother counting the week's money, and her wrath rising,
+
+"T-t-t-t-t!" went her tongue.
+
+He frowned. He could not work when she was cross. She counted again.
+
+"A measly twenty-five shillings!" she exclaimed. "How much was the
+cheque?"
+
+"Ten pounds eleven," said Paul irritably. He dreaded what was coming.
+
+"And he gives me a scrattlin' twenty-five, an' his club this week! But I
+know him. He thinks because YOU'RE earning he needn't keep the house any
+longer. No, all he has to do with his money is to guttle it. But I'll
+show him!"
+
+"Oh, mother, don't!" cried Paul.
+
+"Don't what, I should like to know?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Don't carry on again. I can't work."
+
+She went very quiet.
+
+"Yes, it's all very well," she said; "but how do you think I'm going to
+manage?"
+
+"Well, it won't make it any better to whittle about it."
+
+"I should like to know what you'd do if you had it to put up with."
+
+"It won't be long. You can have my money. Let him go to hell."
+
+He went back to his work, and she tied her bonnet-strings grimly. When
+she was fretted he could not bear it. But now he began to insist on her
+recognizing him.
+
+"The two loaves at the top," she said, "will be done in twenty minutes.
+Don't forget them."
+
+"All right," he answered; and she went to market.
+
+He remained alone working. But his usual intense concentration became
+unsettled. He listened for the yard-gate. At a quarter-past seven came a
+low knock, and Miriam entered.
+
+"All alone?" she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+As if at home, she took off her tam-o'-shanter and her long coat,
+hanging them up. It gave him a thrill. This might be their own house,
+his and hers. Then she came back and peered over his work.
+
+"What is it?" she asked.
+
+"Still design, for decorating stuffs, and for embroidery."
+
+She bent short-sightedly over the drawings.
+
+It irritated him that she peered so into everything that was his,
+searching him out. He went into the parlour and returned with a bundle
+of brownish linen. Carefully unfolding it, he spread it on the floor. It
+proved to be a curtain or portiere, beautifully stencilled with a design
+on roses.
+
+"Ah, how beautiful!" she cried.
+
+The spread cloth, with its wonderful reddish roses and dark green stems,
+all so simple, and somehow so wicked-looking, lay at her feet. She went
+on her knees before it, her dark curls dropping. He saw her crouched
+voluptuously before his work, and his heart beat quickly. Suddenly she
+looked up at him.
+
+"Why does it seem cruel?" she asked.
+
+"What?"
+
+"There seems a feeling of cruelty about it," she said.
+
+"It's jolly good, whether or not," he replied, folding up his work with
+a lover's hands.
+
+She rose slowly, pondering.
+
+"And what will you do with it?" she asked.
+
+"Send it to Liberty's. I did it for my mother, but I think she'd rather
+have the money."
+
+"Yes," said Miriam. He had spoken with a touch of bitterness, and Miriam
+sympathised. Money would have been nothing to HER.
+
+He took the cloth back into the parlour. When he returned he threw to
+Miriam a smaller piece. It was a cushion-cover with the same design.
+
+"I did that for you," he said.
+
+She fingered the work with trembling hands, and did not speak. He became
+embarrassed.
+
+"By Jove, the bread!" he cried.
+
+He took the top loaves out, tapped them vigorously. They were done. He
+put them on the hearth to cool. Then he went to the scullery, wetted his
+hands, scooped the last white dough out of the punchion, and dropped it
+in a baking-tin. Miriam was still bent over her painted cloth. He stood
+rubbing the bits of dough from his hands.
+
+"You do like it?" he asked.
+
+She looked up at him, with her dark eyes one flame of love. He laughed
+uncomfortably. Then he began to talk about the design. There was for him
+the most intense pleasure in talking about his work to Miriam. All his
+passion, all his wild blood, went into this intercourse with her,
+when he talked and conceived his work. She brought forth to him his
+imaginations. She did not understand, any more than a woman understands
+when she conceives a child in her womb. But this was life for her and
+for him.
+
+While they were talking, a young woman of about twenty-two, small and
+pale, hollow-eyed, yet with a relentless look about her, entered the
+room. She was a friend at the Morel's.
+
+"Take your things off," said Paul.
+
+"No, I'm not stopping."
+
+She sat down in the armchair opposite Paul and Miriam, who were on the
+sofa. Miriam moved a little farther from him. The room was hot, with a
+scent of new bread. Brown, crisp loaves stood on the hearth.
+
+"I shouldn't have expected to see you here to-night, Miriam Leivers,"
+said Beatrice wickedly.
+
+"Why not?" murmured Miriam huskily.
+
+"Why, let's look at your shoes."
+
+Miriam remained uncomfortably still.
+
+"If tha doesna tha durs'na," laughed Beatrice.
+
+Miriam put her feet from under her dress. Her boots had that queer,
+irresolute, rather pathetic look about them, which showed how
+self-conscious and self-mistrustful she was. And they were covered with
+mud.
+
+"Glory! You're a positive muck-heap," exclaimed Beatrice. "Who cleans
+your boots?"
+
+"I clean them myself."
+
+"Then you wanted a job," said Beatrice. "It would ha' taken a lot of men
+to ha' brought me down here to-night. But love laughs at sludge, doesn't
+it, 'Postle my duck?"
+
+"Inter alia," he said.
+
+"Oh, Lord! are you going to spout foreign languages? What does it mean,
+Miriam?"
+
+There was a fine sarcasm in the last question, but Miriam did not see
+it.
+
+"'Among other things,' I believe," she said humbly.
+
+Beatrice put her tongue between her teeth and laughed wickedly.
+
+"'Among other things,' 'Postle?" she repeated. "Do you mean love laughs
+at mothers, and fathers, and sisters, and brothers, and men friends, and
+lady friends, and even at the b'loved himself?"
+
+She affected a great innocence.
+
+"In fact, it's one big smile," he replied.
+
+"Up its sleeve, 'Postle Morel--you believe me," she said; and she went
+off into another burst of wicked, silent laughter.
+
+Miriam sat silent, withdrawn into herself. Every one of Paul's
+friends delighted in taking sides against her, and he left her in the
+lurch--seemed almost to have a sort of revenge upon her then.
+
+"Are you still at school?" asked Miriam of Beatrice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You've not had your notice, then?"
+
+"I expect it at Easter."
+
+"Isn't it an awful shame, to turn you off merely because you didn't pass
+the exam?"
+
+"I don't know," said Beatrice coldly.
+
+"Agatha says you're as good as any teacher anywhere. It seems to me
+ridiculous. I wonder why you didn't pass."
+
+"Short of brains, eh, 'Postle?" said Beatrice briefly.
+
+"Only brains to bite with," replied Paul, laughing.
+
+"Nuisance!" she cried; and, springing from her seat, she rushed and
+boxed his ears. She had beautiful small hands. He held her wrists while
+she wrestled with him. At last she broke free, and seized two handfuls
+of his thick, dark brown hair, which she shook.
+
+"Beat!" he said, as he pulled his hair straight with his fingers. "I
+hate you!"
+
+She laughed with glee.
+
+"Mind!" she said. "I want to sit next to you."
+
+"I'd as lief be neighbours with a vixen," he said, nevertheless making
+place for her between him and Miriam.
+
+"Did it ruffle his pretty hair, then!" she cried; and, with her
+hair-comb, she combed him straight. "And his nice little moustache!"
+she exclaimed. She tilted his head back and combed his young moustache.
+"It's a wicked moustache, 'Postle," she said. "It's a red for danger.
+Have you got any of those cigarettes?"
+
+He pulled his cigarette-case from his pocket. Beatrice looked inside it.
+
+"And fancy me having Connie's last cig.," said Beatrice, putting the
+thing between her teeth. He held a lit match to her, and she puffed
+daintily.
+
+"Thanks so much, darling," she said mockingly.
+
+It gave her a wicked delight.
+
+"Don't you think he does it nicely, Miriam?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, very!" said Miriam.
+
+He took a cigarette for himself.
+
+"Light, old boy?" said Beatrice, tilting her cigarette at him.
+
+He bent forward to her to light his cigarette at hers. She was winking
+at him as he did so. Miriam saw his eyes trembling with mischief, and
+his full, almost sensual, mouth quivering. He was not himself, and she
+could not bear it. As he was now, she had no connection with him; she
+might as well not have existed. She saw the cigarette dancing on his
+full red lips. She hated his thick hair for being tumbled loose on his
+forehead.
+
+"Sweet boy!" said Beatrice, tipping up his chin and giving him a little
+kiss on the cheek.
+
+"I s'll kiss thee back, Beat," he said.
+
+"Tha wunna!" she giggled, jumping up and going away. "Isn't he
+shameless, Miriam?"
+
+"Quite," said Miriam. "By the way, aren't you forgetting the bread?"
+
+"By Jove!" he cried, flinging open the oven door.
+
+Out puffed the bluish smoke and a smell of burned bread.
+
+"Oh, golly!" cried Beatrice, coming to his side. He crouched before the
+oven, she peered over his shoulder. "This is what comes of the oblivion
+of love, my boy."
+
+Paul was ruefully removing the loaves. One was burnt black on the hot
+side; another was hard as a brick.
+
+"Poor mater!" said Paul.
+
+"You want to grate it," said Beatrice. "Fetch me the nutmeg-grater."
+
+She arranged the bread in the oven. He brought the grater, and she
+grated the bread on to a newspaper on the table. He set the doors open
+to blow away the smell of burned bread. Beatrice grated away, puffing
+her cigarette, knocking the charcoal off the poor loaf.
+
+"My word, Miriam! you're in for it this time," said Beatrice.
+
+"I!" exclaimed Miriam in amazement.
+
+"You'd better be gone when his mother comes in. I know why King Alfred
+burned the cakes. Now I see it! 'Postle would fix up a tale about his
+work making him forget, if he thought it would wash. If that old woman
+had come in a bit sooner, she'd have boxed the brazen thing's ears who
+made the oblivion, instead of poor Alfred's."
+
+She giggled as she scraped the loaf. Even Miriam laughed in spite of
+herself. Paul mended the fire ruefully.
+
+The garden gate was heard to bang.
+
+"Quick!" cried Beatrice, giving Paul the scraped loaf. "Wrap it up in a
+damp towel."
+
+Paul disappeared into the scullery. Beatrice hastily blew her scrapings
+into the fire, and sat down innocently. Annie came bursting in. She was
+an abrupt, quite smart young woman. She blinked in the strong light.
+
+"Smell of burning!" she exclaimed.
+
+"It's the cigarettes," replied Beatrice demurely.
+
+"Where's Paul?"
+
+Leonard had followed Annie. He had a long comic face and blue eyes, very
+sad.
+
+"I suppose he's left you to settle it between you," he said. He nodded
+sympathetically to Miriam, and became gently sarcastic to Beatrice.
+
+"No," said Beatrice, "he's gone off with number nine."
+
+"I just met number five inquiring for him," said Leonard.
+
+"Yes--we're going to share him up like Solomon's baby," said Beatrice.
+
+Annie laughed.
+
+"Oh, ay," said Leonard. "And which bit should you have?"
+
+"I don't know," said Beatrice. "I'll let all the others pick first."
+
+"An' you'd have the leavings, like?" said Leonard, twisting up a comic
+face.
+
+Annie was looking in the oven. Miriam sat ignored. Paul entered.
+
+"This bread's a fine sight, our Paul," said Annie.
+
+"Then you should stop an' look after it," said Paul.
+
+"You mean YOU should do what you're reckoning to do," replied Annie.
+
+"He should, shouldn't he!" cried Beatrice.
+
+"I s'd think he'd got plenty on hand," said Leonard.
+
+"You had a nasty walk, didn't you, Miriam?" said Annie.
+
+"Yes--but I'd been in all week--"
+
+"And you wanted a bit of a change, like," insinuated Leonard kindly.
+
+"Well, you can't be stuck in the house for ever," Annie agreed. She was
+quite amiable. Beatrice pulled on her coat, and went out with Leonard
+and Annie. She would meet her own boy.
+
+"Don't forget that bread, our Paul," cried Annie. "Good-night, Miriam. I
+don't think it will rain."
+
+When they had all gone, Paul fetched the swathed loaf, unwrapped it, and
+surveyed it sadly.
+
+"It's a mess!" he said.
+
+"But," answered Miriam impatiently, "what is it, after all--twopence,
+ha'penny."
+
+"Yes, but--it's the mater's precious baking, and she'll take it to
+heart. However, it's no good bothering."
+
+He took the loaf back into the scullery. There was a little distance
+between him and Miriam. He stood balanced opposite her for some moments
+considering, thinking of his behaviour with Beatrice. He felt guilty
+inside himself, and yet glad. For some inscrutable reason it served
+Miriam right. He was not going to repent. She wondered what he was
+thinking of as he stood suspended. His thick hair was tumbled over his
+forehead. Why might she not push it back for him, and remove the marks
+of Beatrice's comb? Why might she not press his body with her two hands.
+It looked so firm, and every whit living. And he would let other girls,
+why not her?
+
+Suddenly he started into life. It made her quiver almost with terror as
+he quickly pushed the hair off his forehead and came towards her.
+
+"Half-past eight!" he said. "We'd better buck up. Where's your French?"
+
+Miriam shyly and rather bitterly produced her exercise-book. Every week
+she wrote for him a sort of diary of her inner life, in her own French.
+He had found this was the only way to get her to do compositions. And
+her diary was mostly a love-letter. He would read it now; she felt as
+if her soul's history were going to be desecrated by him in his present
+mood. He sat beside her. She watched his hand, firm and warm, rigorously
+scoring her work. He was reading only the French, ignoring her soul that
+was there. But gradually his hand forgot its work. He read in silence,
+motionless. She quivered.
+
+"'_Ce matin les oiseaux m'ont eveille,'" he read. "'Il faisait encore un
+crepuscule. Mais la petite fenetre de ma chambre etait bleme, et puis,
+jaune, et tous les oiseaux du bois eclaterent dans un chanson vif et
+resonnant. Toute l'aube tressaillit. J'avais reve de vous. Est-ce
+que vous voyez aussi l'aube? Les oiseaux m'eveillent presque tous les
+matins, et toujours il y a quelque chose de terreur dans le cri des
+grives. Il est si clair_--'"
+
+Miriam sat tremulous, half ashamed. He remained quite still, trying to
+understand. He only knew she loved him. He was afraid of her love for
+him. It was too good for him, and he was inadequate. His own love was
+at fault, not hers. Ashamed, he corrected her work, humbly writing above
+her words.
+
+"Look," he said quietly, "the past participle conjugated with _avoir_
+agrees with the direct object when it precedes."
+
+She bent forward, trying to see and to understand. Her free, fine curls
+tickled his face. He started as if they had been red hot, shuddering. He
+saw her peering forward at the page, her red lips parted piteously, the
+black hair springing in fine strands across her tawny, ruddy cheek. She
+was coloured like a pomegranate for richness. His breath came short as
+he watched her. Suddenly she looked up at him. Her dark eyes were naked
+with their love, afraid, and yearning. His eyes, too, were dark, and
+they hurt her. They seemed to master her. She lost all her self-control,
+was exposed in fear. And he knew, before he could kiss her, he must
+drive something out of himself. And a touch of hate for her crept back
+again into his heart. He returned to her exercise.
+
+Suddenly he flung down the pencil, and was at the oven in a leap,
+turning the bread. For Miriam he was too quick. She started violently,
+and it hurt her with real pain. Even the way he crouched before the oven
+hurt her. There seemed to be something cruel in it, something cruel in
+the swift way he pitched the bread out of the tins, caught it up again.
+If only he had been gentle in his movements she would have felt so rich
+and warm. As it was, she was hurt.
+
+He returned and finished the exercise.
+
+"You've done well this week," he said.
+
+She saw he was flattered by her diary. It did not repay her entirely.
+
+"You really do blossom out sometimes," he said. "You ought to write
+poetry."
+
+She lifted her head with joy, then she shook it mistrustfully.
+
+"I don't trust myself," she said.
+
+"You should try!"
+
+Again she shook her head.
+
+"Shall we read, or is it too late?" he asked.
+
+"It is late--but we can read just a little," she pleaded.
+
+She was really getting now the food for her life during the next week.
+He made her copy Baudelaire's "Le Balcon". Then he read it for her. His
+voice was soft and caressing, but growing almost brutal. He had a way of
+lifting his lips and showing his teeth, passionately and bitterly, when
+he was much moved. This he did now. It made Miriam feel as if he were
+trampling on her. She dared not look at him, but sat with her head
+bowed. She could not understand why he got into such a tumult and fury.
+It made her wretched. She did not like Baudelaire, on the whole--nor
+Verlaine.
+
+     "Behold her singing in the field
+     Yon solitary highland lass."
+
+That nourished her heart. So did "Fair Ines". And--
+
+     "It was a beauteous evening, calm and pure,
+     And breathing holy quiet like a nun."
+
+These were like herself. And there was he, saying in his throat
+bitterly:
+
+"_Tu te rappelleras la beaute des caresses_."
+
+The poem was finished; he took the bread out of the oven, arranging the
+burnt loaves at the bottom of the panchion, the good ones at the top.
+The desiccated loaf remained swathed up in the scullery.
+
+"Mater needn't know till morning," he said. "It won't upset her so much
+then as at night."
+
+Miriam looked in the bookcase, saw what postcards and letters he had
+received, saw what books were there. She took one that had interested
+him. Then he turned down the gas and they set off. He did not trouble to
+lock the door.
+
+He was not home again until a quarter to eleven. His mother was seated
+in the rocking-chair. Annie, with a rope of hair hanging down her back,
+remained sitting on a low stool before the fire, her elbows on her
+knees, gloomily. On the table stood the offending loaf unswathed. Paul
+entered rather breathless. No one spoke. His mother was reading the
+little local newspaper. He took off his coat, and went to sit down on
+the sofa. His mother moved curtly aside to let him pass. No one spoke.
+He was very uncomfortable. For some minutes he sat pretending to read a
+piece of paper he found on the table. Then--
+
+"I forgot that bread, mother," he said.
+
+There was no answer from either woman.
+
+"Well," he said, "it's only twopence ha'penny. I can pay you for that."
+
+Being angry, he put three pennies on the table and slid them towards his
+mother. She turned away her head. Her mouth was shut tightly.
+
+"Yes," said Annie, "you don't know how badly my mother is!"
+
+The girl sat staring glumly into the fire.
+
+"Why is she badly?" asked Paul, in his overbearing way.
+
+"Well!" said Annie. "She could scarcely get home."
+
+He looked closely at his mother. She looked ill.
+
+"WHY could you scarcely get home?" he asked her, still sharply. She
+would not answer.
+
+"I found her as white as a sheet sitting here," said Annie, with a
+suggestion of tears in her voice.
+
+"Well, WHY?" insisted Paul. His brows were knitting, his eyes dilating
+passionately.
+
+"It was enough to upset anybody," said Mrs. Morel, "hugging those
+parcels--meat, and green-groceries, and a pair of curtains--"
+
+"Well, why DID you hug them; you needn't have done."
+
+"Then who would?"
+
+"Let Annie fetch the meat."
+
+"Yes, and I WOULD fetch the meat, but how was I to know. You were off
+with Miriam, instead of being in when my mother came."
+
+"And what was the matter with you?" asked Paul of his mother.
+
+"I suppose it's my heart," she replied. Certainly she looked bluish
+round the mouth.
+
+"And have you felt it before?"
+
+"Yes--often enough."
+
+"Then why haven't you told me?--and why haven't you seen a doctor?"
+
+Mrs. Morel shifted in her chair, angry with him for his hectoring.
+
+"You'd never notice anything," said Annie. "You're too eager to be off
+with Miriam."
+
+"Oh, am I--and any worse than you with Leonard?"
+
+"I was in at a quarter to ten."
+
+There was silence in the room for a time.
+
+"I should have thought," said Mrs. Morel bitterly, "that she wouldn't
+have occupied you so entirely as to burn a whole ovenful of bread."
+
+"Beatrice was here as well as she."
+
+"Very likely. But we know why the bread is spoilt."
+
+"Why?" he flashed.
+
+"Because you were engrossed with Miriam," replied Mrs. Morel hotly.
+
+"Oh, very well--then it was NOT!" he replied angrily.
+
+He was distressed and wretched. Seizing a paper, he began to read.
+Annie, her blouse unfastened, her long ropes of hair twisted into a
+plait, went up to bed, bidding him a very curt good-night.
+
+Paul sat pretending to read. He knew his mother wanted to upbraid him.
+He also wanted to know what had made her ill, for he was troubled. So,
+instead of running away to bed, as he would have liked to do, he sat and
+waited. There was a tense silence. The clock ticked loudly.
+
+"You'd better go to bed before your father comes in," said the mother
+harshly. "And if you're going to have anything to eat, you'd better get
+it."
+
+"I don't want anything."
+
+It was his mother's custom to bring him some trifle for supper on Friday
+night, the night of luxury for the colliers. He was too angry to go and
+find it in the pantry this night. This insulted her.
+
+"If I WANTED you to go to Selby on Friday night, I can imagine the
+scene," said Mrs. Morel. "But you're never too tired to go if SHE will
+come for you. Nay, you neither want to eat nor drink then."
+
+"I can't let her go alone."
+
+"Can't you? And why does she come?"
+
+"Not because I ask her."
+
+"She doesn't come without you want her--"
+
+"Well, what if I DO want her--" he replied.
+
+"Why, nothing, if it was sensible or reasonable. But to go trapseing up
+there miles and miles in the mud, coming home at midnight, and got to go
+to Nottingham in the morning--"
+
+"If I hadn't, you'd be just the same."
+
+"Yes, I should, because there's no sense in it. Is she so fascinating
+that you must follow her all that way?" Mrs. Morel was bitterly
+sarcastic. She sat still, with averted face, stroking with a rhythmic,
+jerked movement, the black sateen of her apron. It was a movement that
+hurt Paul to see.
+
+"I do like her," he said, "but--"
+
+"LIKE her!" said Mrs. Morel, in the same biting tones. "It seems to me
+you like nothing and nobody else. There's neither Annie, nor me, nor
+anyone now for you."
+
+"What nonsense, mother--you know I don't love her--I--I tell you I DON'T
+love her--she doesn't even walk with my arm, because I don't want her
+to."
+
+"Then why do you fly to her so often?"
+
+"I DO like to talk to her--I never said I didn't. But I DON'T love her."
+
+"Is there nobody else to talk to?"
+
+"Not about the things we talk of. There's a lot of things that you're
+not interested in, that--"
+
+"What things?"
+
+Mrs. Morel was so intense that Paul began to pant.
+
+"Why--painting--and books. YOU don't care about Herbert Spencer."
+
+"No," was the sad reply. "And YOU won't at my age."
+
+"Well, but I do now--and Miriam does--"
+
+"And how do you know," Mrs. Morel flashed defiantly, "that I shouldn't.
+Do you ever try me!"
+
+"But you don't, mother, you know you don't care whether a picture's
+decorative or not; you don't care what MANNER it is in."
+
+"How do you know I don't care? Do you ever try me? Do you ever talk to
+me about these things, to try?"
+
+"But it's not that that matters to you, mother, you know t's not."
+
+"What is it, then--what is it, then, that matters to me?" she flashed.
+He knitted his brows with pain.
+
+"You're old, mother, and we're young."
+
+He only meant that the interests of HER age were not the interests of
+his. But he realised the moment he had spoken that he had said the wrong
+thing.
+
+"Yes, I know it well--I am old. And therefore I may stand aside; I have
+nothing more to do with you. You only want me to wait on you--the rest
+is for Miriam."
+
+He could not bear it. Instinctively he realised that he was life to her.
+And, after all, she was the chief thing to him, the only supreme thing.
+
+"You know it isn't, mother, you know it isn't!"
+
+She was moved to pity by his cry.
+
+"It looks a great deal like it," she said, half putting aside her
+despair.
+
+"No, mother--I really DON'T love her. I talk to her, but I want to come
+home to you."
+
+He had taken off his collar and tie, and rose, bare-throated, to go
+to bed. As he stooped to kiss his mother, she threw her arms round his
+neck, hid her face on his shoulder, and cried, in a whimpering voice, so
+unlike her own that he writhed in agony:
+
+"I can't bear it. I could let another woman--but not her. She'd leave me
+no room, not a bit of room--"
+
+And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly.
+
+"And I've never--you know, Paul--I've never had a husband--not really--"
+
+He stroked his mother's hair, and his mouth was on her throat.
+
+"And she exults so in taking you from me--she's not like ordinary
+girls."
+
+"Well, I don't love her, mother," he murmured, bowing his head and
+hiding his eyes on her shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him a long,
+fervent kiss.
+
+"My boy!" she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love.
+
+Without knowing, he gently stroked her face.
+
+"There," said his mother, "now go to bed. You'll be so tired in the
+morning." As she was speaking she heard her husband coming. "There's
+your father--now go." Suddenly she looked at him almost as if in fear.
+"Perhaps I'm selfish. If you want her, take her, my boy."
+
+His mother looked so strange, Paul kissed her, trembling.
+
+"Ha--mother!" he said softly.
+
+Morel came in, walking unevenly. His hat was over one corner of his eye.
+He balanced in the doorway.
+
+"At your mischief again?" he said venomously.
+
+Mrs. Morel's emotion turned into sudden hate of the drunkard who had
+come in thus upon her.
+
+"At any rate, it is sober," she said.
+
+"H'm--h'm! h'm--h'm!" he sneered. He went into the passage, hung up his
+hat and coat. Then they heard him go down three steps to the pantry. He
+returned with a piece of pork-pie in his fist. It was what Mrs. Morel
+had bought for her son.
+
+"Nor was that bought for you. If you can give me no more than
+twenty-five shillings, I'm sure I'm not going to buy you pork-pie to
+stuff, after you've swilled a bellyful of beer."
+
+"Wha-at--wha-at!" snarled Morel, toppling in his balance. "Wha-at--not
+for me?" He looked at the piece of meat and crust, and suddenly, in a
+vicious spurt of temper, flung it into the fire.
+
+Paul started to his feet.
+
+"Waste your own stuff!" he cried.
+
+"What--what!" suddenly shouted Morel, jumping up and clenching his fist.
+"I'll show yer, yer young jockey!"
+
+"All right!" said Paul viciously, putting his head on one side. "Show
+me!"
+
+He would at that moment dearly have loved to have a smack at something.
+Morel was half crouching, fists up, ready to spring. The young man
+stood, smiling with his lips.
+
+"Ussha!" hissed the father, swiping round with a great stroke just past
+his son's face. He dared not, even though so close, really touch the
+young man, but swerved an inch away.
+
+"Right!" said Paul, his eyes upon the side of his father's mouth, where
+in another instant his fist would have hit. He ached for that stroke.
+But he heard a faint moan from behind. His mother was deadly pale and
+dark at the mouth. Morel was dancing up to deliver another blow.
+
+"Father!" said Paul, so that the word rang.
+
+Morel started, and stood at attention.
+
+"Mother!" moaned the boy. "Mother!"
+
+She began to struggle with herself. Her open eyes watched him, although
+she could not move. Gradually she was coming to herself. He laid her
+down on the sofa, and ran upstairs for a little whisky, which at last
+she could sip. The tears were hopping down his face. As he kneeled in
+front of her he did not cry, but the tears ran down his face quickly.
+Morel, on the opposite side of the room, sat with his elbows on his
+knees glaring across.
+
+"What's a-matter with 'er?" he asked.
+
+"Faint!" replied Paul.
+
+"H'm!"
+
+The elderly man began to unlace his boots. He stumbled off to bed. His
+last fight was fought in that home.
+
+Paul kneeled there, stroking his mother's hand.
+
+"Don't be poorly, mother--don't be poorly!" he said time after time.
+
+"It's nothing, my boy," she murmured.
+
+At last he rose, fetched in a large piece of coal, and raked the fire.
+Then he cleared the room, put everything straight, laid the things for
+breakfast, and brought his mother's candle.
+
+"Can you go to bed, mother?"
+
+"Yes, I'll come."
+
+"Sleep with Annie, mother, not with him."
+
+"No. I'll sleep in my own bed."
+
+"Don't sleep with him, mother."
+
+"I'll sleep in my own bed."
+
+She rose, and he turned out the gas, then followed her closely upstairs,
+carrying her candle. On the landing he kissed her close.
+
+"Good-night, mother."
+
+"Good-night!" she said.
+
+He pressed his face upon the pillow in a fury of misery. And yet,
+somewhere in his soul, he was at peace because he still loved his mother
+best. It was the bitter peace of resignation.
+
+The efforts of his father to conciliate him next day were a great
+humiliation to him.
+
+Everybody tried to forget the scene.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+DEFEAT OF MIRIAM
+
+PAUL was dissatisfied with himself and with everything. The deepest
+of his love belonged to his mother. When he felt he had hurt her, or
+wounded his love for her, he could not bear it. Now it was spring, and
+there was battle between him and Miriam. This year he had a good deal
+against her. She was vaguely aware of it. The old feeling that she was
+to be a sacrifice to this love, which she had had when she prayed, was
+mingled in all her emotions. She did not at the bottom believe she
+ever would have him. She did not believe in herself primarily: doubted
+whether she could ever be what he would demand of her. Certainly she
+never saw herself living happily through a lifetime with him. She saw
+tragedy, sorrow, and sacrifice ahead. And in sacrifice she was proud,
+in renunciation she was strong, for she did not trust herself to support
+everyday life. She was prepared for the big things and the deep things,
+like tragedy. It was the sufficiency of the small day-life she could not
+trust.
+
+The Easter holidays began happily. Paul was his own frank self. Yet she
+felt it would go wrong. On the Sunday afternoon she stood at her bedroom
+window, looking across at the oak-trees of the wood, in whose branches a
+twilight was tangled, below the bright sky of the afternoon. Grey-green
+rosettes of honeysuckle leaves hung before the window, some already, she
+fancied, showing bud. It was spring, which she loved and dreaded.
+
+Hearing the clack of the gate she stood in suspense. It was a bright
+grey day. Paul came into the yard with his bicycle, which glittered
+as he walked. Usually he rang his bell and laughed towards the house.
+To-day he walked with shut lips and cold, cruel bearing, that had
+something of a slouch and a sneer in it. She knew him well by now, and
+could tell from that keen-looking, aloof young body of his what was
+happening inside him. There was a cold correctness in the way he put his
+bicycle in its place, that made her heart sink.
+
+She came downstairs nervously. She was wearing a new net blouse that she
+thought became her. It had a high collar with a tiny ruff, reminding her
+of Mary, Queen of Scots, and making her, she thought, look wonderfully
+a woman, and dignified. At twenty she was full-breasted and luxuriously
+formed. Her face was still like a soft rich mask, unchangeable. But
+her eyes, once lifted, were wonderful. She was afraid of him. He would
+notice her new blouse.
+
+He, being in a hard, ironical mood, was entertaining the family to
+a description of a service given in the Primitive Methodist Chapel,
+conducted by one of the well-known preachers of the sect. He sat at
+the head of the table, his mobile face, with the eyes that could be so
+beautiful, shining with tenderness or dancing with laughter, now taking
+on one expression and then another, in imitation of various people he
+was mocking. His mockery always hurt her; it was too near the reality.
+He was too clever and cruel. She felt that when his eyes were like this,
+hard with mocking hate, he would spare neither himself nor anybody else.
+But Mrs. Leivers was wiping her eyes with laughter, and Mr. Leivers,
+just awake from his Sunday nap, was rubbing his head in amusement.
+The three brothers sat with ruffled, sleepy appearance in their
+shirt-sleeves, giving a guffaw from time to time. The whole family loved
+a "take-off" more than anything.
+
+He took no notice of Miriam. Later, she saw him remark her new blouse,
+saw that the artist approved, but it won from him not a spark of warmth.
+She was nervous, could hardly reach the teacups from the shelves.
+
+When the men went out to milk, she ventured to address him personally.
+
+"You were late," she said.
+
+"Was I?" he answered.
+
+There was silence for a while.
+
+"Was it rough riding?" she asked.
+
+"I didn't notice it." She continued quickly to lay the table. When she
+had finished--
+
+"Tea won't be for a few minutes. Will you come and look at the
+daffodils?" she said.
+
+He rose without answering. They went out into the back garden under
+the budding damson-trees. The hills and the sky were clean and cold.
+Everything looked washed, rather hard. Miriam glanced at Paul. He was
+pale and impassive. It seemed cruel to her that his eyes and brows,
+which she loved, could look so hurting.
+
+"Has the wind made you tired?" she asked. She detected an underneath
+feeling of weariness about him.
+
+"No, I think not," he answered.
+
+"It must be rough on the road--the wood moans so."
+
+"You can see by the clouds it's a south-west wind; that helps me here."
+
+"You see, I don't cycle, so I don't understand," she murmured.
+
+"Is there need to cycle to know that!" he said.
+
+She thought his sarcasms were unnecessary. They went forward in silence.
+Round the wild, tussocky lawn at the back of the house was a thorn
+hedge, under which daffodils were craning forward from among their
+sheaves of grey-green blades. The cheeks of the flowers were greenish
+with cold. But still some had burst, and their gold ruffled and glowed.
+Miriam went on her knees before one cluster, took a wild-looking
+daffodil between her hands, turned up its face of gold to her, and bowed
+down, caressing it with her mouth and cheeks and brow. He stood aside,
+with his hands in his pockets, watching her. One after another she
+turned up to him the faces of the yellow, bursten flowers appealingly,
+fondling them lavishly all the while.
+
+"Aren't they magnificent?" she murmured.
+
+"Magnificent! It's a bit thick--they're pretty!"
+
+She bowed again to her flowers at his censure of her praise. He watched
+her crouching, sipping the flowers with fervid kisses.
+
+"Why must you always be fondling things?" he said irritably.
+
+"But I love to touch them," she replied, hurt.
+
+"Can you never like things without clutching them as if you wanted to
+pull the heart out of them? Why don't you have a bit more restraint, or
+reserve, or something?"
+
+She looked up at him full of pain, then continued slowly to stroke her
+lips against a ruffled flower. Their scent, as she smelled it, was so
+much kinder than he; it almost made her cry.
+
+"You wheedle the soul out of things," he said. "I would never
+wheedle--at any rate, I'd go straight."
+
+He scarcely knew what he was saying. These things came from him
+mechanically. She looked at him. His body seemed one weapon, firm and
+hard against her.
+
+"You're always begging things to love you," he said, "as if you were a
+beggar for love. Even the flowers, you have to fawn on them--"
+
+Rhythmically, Miriam was swaying and stroking the flower with her mouth,
+inhaling the scent which ever after made her shudder as it came to her
+nostrils.
+
+"You don't want to love--your eternal and abnormal craving is to be
+loved. You aren't positive, you're negative. You absorb, absorb, as
+if you must fill yourself up with love, because you've got a shortage
+somewhere."
+
+She was stunned by his cruelty, and did not hear. He had not the
+faintest notion of what he was saying. It was as if his fretted,
+tortured soul, run hot by thwarted passion, jetted off these sayings
+like sparks from electricity. She did not grasp anything he said. She
+only sat crouched beneath his cruelty and his hatred of her. She never
+realised in a flash. Over everything she brooded and brooded.
+
+After tea he stayed with Edgar and the brothers, taking no notice of
+Miriam. She, extremely unhappy on this looked-for holiday, waited for
+him. And at last he yielded and came to her. She was determined to track
+this mood of his to its origin. She counted it not much more than a
+mood.
+
+"Shall we go through the wood a little way?" she asked him, knowing he
+never refused a direct request.
+
+They went down to the warren. On the middle path they passed a trap, a
+narrow horseshoe hedge of small fir-boughs, baited with the guts of a
+rabbit. Paul glanced at it frowning. She caught his eye.
+
+"Isn't it dreadful?" she asked.
+
+"I don't know! Is it worse than a weasel with its teeth in a rabbit's
+throat? One weasel or many rabbits? One or the other must go!"
+
+He was taking the bitterness of life badly. She was rather sorry for
+him.
+
+"We will go back to the house," he said. "I don't want to walk out."
+
+They went past the lilac-tree, whose bronze leaf-buds were coming
+unfastened. Just a fragment remained of the haystack, a monument squared
+and brown, like a pillar of stone. There was a little bed of hay from
+the last cutting.
+
+"Let us sit here a minute," said Miriam.
+
+He sat down against his will, resting his back against the hard wall of
+hay. They faced the amphitheatre of round hills that glowed with sunset,
+tiny white farms standing out, the meadows golden, the woods dark and
+yet luminous, tree-tops folded over tree-tops, distinct in the distance.
+The evening had cleared, and the east was tender with a magenta flush
+under which the land lay still and rich.
+
+"Isn't it beautiful?" she pleaded.
+
+But he only scowled. He would rather have had it ugly just then.
+
+At that moment a big bull-terrier came rushing up, open-mouthed, pranced
+his two paws on the youth's shoulders, licking his face. Paul drew back,
+laughing. Bill was a great relief to him. He pushed the dog aside, but
+it came leaping back.
+
+"Get out," said the lad, "or I'll dot thee one."
+
+But the dog was not to be pushed away. So Paul had a little battle
+with the creature, pitching poor Bill away from him, who, however,
+only floundered tumultuously back again, wild with joy. The two fought
+together, the man laughing grudgingly, the dog grinning all over. Miriam
+watched them. There was something pathetic about the man. He wanted so
+badly to love, to be tender. The rough way he bowled the dog over was
+really loving. Bill got up, panting with happiness, his brown eyes
+rolling in his white face, and lumbered back again. He adored Paul. The
+lad frowned.
+
+"Bill, I've had enough o' thee," he said.
+
+But the dog only stood with two heavy paws, that quivered with love,
+upon his thigh, and flickered a red tongue at him. He drew back.
+
+"No," he said--"no--I've had enough."
+
+And in a minute the dog trotted off happily, to vary the fun.
+
+He remained staring miserably across at the hills, whose still beauty
+he begrudged. He wanted to go and cycle with Edgar. Yet he had not the
+courage to leave Miriam.
+
+"Why are you sad?" she asked humbly.
+
+"I'm not sad; why should I be," he answered. "I'm only normal."
+
+She wondered why he always claimed to be normal when he was
+disagreeable.
+
+"But what is the matter?" she pleaded, coaxing him soothingly.
+
+"Nothing!"
+
+"Nay!" she murmured.
+
+He picked up a stick and began to stab the earth with it.
+
+"You'd far better not talk," he said.
+
+"But I wish to know--" she replied.
+
+He laughed resentfully.
+
+"You always do," he said.
+
+"It's not fair to me," she murmured.
+
+He thrust, thrust, thrust at the ground with the pointed stick, digging
+up little clods of earth as if he were in a fever of irritation. She
+gently and firmly laid her band on his wrist.
+
+"Don't!" she said. "Put it away."
+
+He flung the stick into the currant-bushes, and leaned back. Now he was
+bottled up.
+
+"What is it?" she pleaded softly.
+
+He lay perfectly still, only his eyes alive, and they full of torment.
+
+"You know," he said at length, rather wearily--"you know--we'd better
+break off."
+
+It was what she dreaded. Swiftly everything seemed to darken before her
+eyes.
+
+"Why!" she murmured. "What has happened?"
+
+"Nothing has happened. We only realise where we are. It's no good--"
+
+She waited in silence, sadly, patiently. It was no good being impatient
+with him. At any rate, he would tell her now what ailed him.
+
+"We agreed on friendship," he went on in a dull, monotonous voice. "How
+often HAVE we agreed for friendship! And yet--it neither stops there,
+nor gets anywhere else."
+
+He was silent again. She brooded. What did he mean? He was so wearying.
+There was something he would not yield. Yet she must be patient with
+him.
+
+"I can only give friendship--it's all I'm capable of--it's a flaw in my
+make-up. The thing overbalances to one side--I hate a toppling balance.
+Let us have done."
+
+There was warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant she loved him
+more than he her. Perhaps he could not love her. Perhaps she had not
+in herself that which he wanted. It was the deepest motive of her
+soul, this self-mistrust. It was so deep she dared neither realise nor
+acknowledge. Perhaps she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame,
+it kept her always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She
+would never let herself want him. She would merely see.
+
+"But what has happened?" she said.
+
+"Nothing--it's all in myself--it only comes out just now. We're always
+like this towards Easter-time."
+
+He grovelled so helplessly, she pitied him. At least she never
+floundered in such a pitiable way. After all, it was he who was chiefly
+humiliated.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked him.
+
+"Why--I mustn't come often--that's all. Why should I monopolise you when
+I'm not--You see, I'm deficient in something with regard to you--"
+
+He was telling her he did not love her, and so ought to leave her a
+chance with another man. How foolish and blind and shamefully clumsy he
+was! What were other men to her! What were men to her at all! But he,
+ah! she loved his soul. Was HE deficient in something? Perhaps he was.
+
+"But I don't understand," she said huskily. "Yesterday--"
+
+The night was turning jangled and hateful to him as the twilight faded.
+And she bowed under her suffering.
+
+"I know," he cried, "you never will! You'll never believe that I
+can't--can't physically, any more than I can fly up like a skylark--"
+
+"What?" she murmured. Now she dreaded.
+
+"Love you."
+
+He hated her bitterly at that moment because he made her suffer. Love
+her! She knew he loved her. He really belonged to her. This about not
+loving her, physically, bodily, was a mere perversity on his part,
+because he knew she loved him. He was stupid like a child. He belonged
+to her. His soul wanted her. She guessed somebody had been influencing
+him. She felt upon him the hardness, the foreignness of another
+influence.
+
+"What have they been saying at home?" she asked.
+
+"It's not that," he answered.
+
+And then she knew it was. She despised them for their commonness, his
+people. They did not know what things were really worth.
+
+He and she talked very little more that night. After all he left her to
+cycle with Edgar.
+
+He had come back to his mother. Hers was the strongest tie in his life.
+When he thought round, Miriam shrank away. There was a vague, unreal
+feel about her. And nobody else mattered. There was one place in the
+world that stood solid and did not melt into unreality: the place where
+his mother was. Everybody else could grow shadowy, almost non-existent
+to him, but she could not. It was as if the pivot and pole of his life,
+from which he could not escape, was his mother.
+
+And in the same way she waited for him. In him was established her life
+now. After all, the life beyond offered very little to Mrs. Morel. She
+saw that our chance for DOING is here, and doing counted with her. Paul
+was going to prove that she had been right; he was going to make a man
+whom nothing should shift off his feet; he was going to alter the face
+of the earth in some way which mattered. Wherever he went she felt her
+soul went with him. Whatever he did she felt her soul stood by him,
+ready, as it were, to hand him his tools. She could not bear it when he
+was with Miriam. William was dead. She would fight to keep Paul.
+
+And he came back to her. And in his soul was a feeling of the
+satisfaction of self-sacrifice because he was faithful to her. She loved
+him first; he loved her first. And yet it was not enough. His new young
+life, so strong and imperious, was urged towards something else. It made
+him mad with restlessness. She saw this, and wished bitterly that Miriam
+had been a woman who could take this new life of his, and leave her the
+roots. He fought against his mother almost as he fought against Miriam.
+
+It was a week before he went again to Willey Farm. Miriam had suffered
+a great deal, and was afraid to see him again. Was she now to endure
+the ignominy of his abandoning her? That would only be superficial
+and temporary. He would come back. She held the keys to his soul. But
+meanwhile, how he would torture her with his battle against her. She
+shrank from it.
+
+However, the Sunday after Easter he came to tea. Mrs. Leivers was glad
+to see him. She gathered something was fretting him, that he found
+things hard. He seemed to drift to her for comfort. And she was good
+to him. She did him that great kindness of treating him almost with
+reverence.
+
+He met her with the young children in the front garden.
+
+"I'm glad you've come," said the mother, looking at him with her great
+appealing brown eyes. "It is such a sunny day. I was just going down the
+fields for the first time this year."
+
+He felt she would like him to come. That soothed him. They went, talking
+simply, he gentle and humble. He could have wept with gratitude that she
+was deferential to him. He was feeling humiliated.
+
+At the bottom of the Mow Close they found a thrush's nest.
+
+"Shall I show you the eggs?" he said.
+
+"Do!" replied Mrs. Leivers. "They seem SUCH a sign of spring, and so
+hopeful."
+
+He put aside the thorns, and took out the eggs, holding them in the palm
+of his hand.
+
+"They are quite hot--I think we frightened her off them," he said.
+
+"Ay, poor thing!" said Mrs. Leivers.
+
+Miriam could not help touching the eggs, and his hand which, it seemed
+to her, cradled them so well.
+
+"Isn't it a strange warmth!" she murmured, to get near him.
+
+"Blood heat," he answered.
+
+She watched him putting them back, his body pressed against the hedge,
+his arm reaching slowly through the thorns, his hand folded carefully
+over the eggs. He was concentrated on the act. Seeing him so, she loved
+him; he seemed so simple and sufficient to himself. And she could not
+get to him.
+
+After tea she stood hesitating at the bookshelf. He took "Tartarin de
+Tarascon". Again they sat on the bank of hay at the foot of the stack.
+He read a couple of pages, but without any heart for it. Again the dog
+came racing up to repeat the fun of the other day. He shoved his muzzle
+in the man's chest. Paul fingered his ear for a moment. Then he pushed
+him away.
+
+"Go away, Bill," he said. "I don't want you."
+
+Bill slunk off, and Miriam wondered and dreaded what was coming. There
+was a silence about the youth that made her still with apprehension. It
+was not his furies, but his quiet resolutions that she feared.
+
+Turning his face a little to one side, so that she could not see him, he
+began, speaking slowly and painfully:
+
+"Do you think--if I didn't come up so much--you might get to like
+somebody else--another man?"
+
+So this was what he was still harping on.
+
+"But I don't know any other men. Why do you ask?" she replied, in a low
+tone that should have been a reproach to him.
+
+"Why," he blurted, "because they say I've no right to come up like
+this--without we mean to marry--"
+
+Miriam was indignant at anybody's forcing the issues between them. She
+had been furious with her own father for suggesting to Paul, laughingly,
+that he knew why he came so much.
+
+"Who says?" she asked, wondering if her people had anything to do with
+it. They had not.
+
+"Mother--and the others. They say at this rate everybody will consider
+me engaged, and I ought to consider myself so, because it's not fair to
+you. And I've tried to find out--and I don't think I love you as a man
+ought to love his wife. What do you think about it?"
+
+Miriam bowed her head moodily. She was angry at having this struggle.
+People should leave him and her alone.
+
+"I don't know," she murmured.
+
+"Do you think we love each other enough to marry?" he asked definitely.
+It made her tremble.
+
+"No," she answered truthfully. "I don't think so--we're too young."
+
+"I thought perhaps," he went on miserably, "that you, with your
+intensity in things, might have given me more--than I could ever make up
+to you. And even now--if you think it better--we'll be engaged."
+
+Now Miriam wanted to cry. And she was angry, too. He was always such a
+child for people to do as they liked with.
+
+"No, I don't think so," she said firmly.
+
+He pondered a minute.
+
+"You see," he said, "with me--I don't think one person would ever
+monopolize me--be everything to me--I think never."
+
+This she did not consider.
+
+"No," she murmured. Then, after a pause, she looked at him, and her dark
+eyes flashed.
+
+"This is your mother," she said. "I know she never liked me."
+
+"No, no, it isn't," he said hastily. "It was for your sake she spoke
+this time. She only said, if I was going on, I ought to consider myself
+engaged." There was a silence. "And if I ask you to come down any time,
+you won't stop away, will you?"
+
+She did not answer. By this time she was very angry.
+
+"Well, what shall we do?" she said shortly. "I suppose I'd better drop
+French. I was just beginning to get on with it. But I suppose I can go
+on alone."
+
+"I don't see that we need," he said. "I can give you a French lesson,
+surely."
+
+"Well--and there are Sunday nights. I shan't stop coming to chapel,
+because I enjoy it, and it's all the social life I get. But you've no
+need to come home with me. I can go alone."
+
+"All right," he answered, rather taken aback. "But if I ask Edgar, he'll
+always come with us, and then they can say nothing."
+
+There was silence. After all, then, she would not lose much. For all
+their talk down at his home there would not be much difference. She
+wished they would mind their own business.
+
+"And you won't think about it, and let it trouble you, will you?" he
+asked.
+
+"Oh no," replied Miriam, without looking at him.
+
+He was silent. She thought him unstable. He had no fixity of purpose, no
+anchor of righteousness that held him.
+
+"Because," he continued, "a man gets across his bicycle--and goes to
+work--and does all sorts of things. But a woman broods."
+
+"No, I shan't bother," said Miriam. And she meant it.
+
+It had gone rather chilly. They went indoors.
+
+"How white Paul looks!" Mrs. Leivers exclaimed. "Miriam, you shouldn't
+have let him sit out of doors. Do you think you've taken cold, Paul?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he laughed.
+
+But he felt done up. It wore him out, the conflict in himself. Miriam
+pitied him now. But quite early, before nine o'clock, he rose to go.
+
+"You're not going home, are you?" asked Mrs. Leivers anxiously.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "I said I'd be early." He was very awkward.
+
+"But this IS early," said Mrs. Leivers.
+
+Miriam sat in the rocking-chair, and did not speak. He hesitated,
+expecting her to rise and go with him to the barn as usual for his
+bicycle. She remained as she was. He was at a loss.
+
+"Well--good-night, all!" he faltered.
+
+She spoke her good-night along with all the others. But as he went past
+the window he looked in. She saw him pale, his brows knit slightly in a
+way that had become constant with him, his eyes dark with pain.
+
+She rose and went to the doorway to wave good-bye to him as he passed
+through the gate. He rode slowly under the pine-trees, feeling a cur and
+a miserable wretch. His bicycle went tilting down the hills at random.
+He thought it would be a relief to break one's neck.
+
+Two days later he sent her up a book and a little note, urging her to
+read and be busy.
+
+At this time he gave all his friendship to Edgar. He loved the family
+so much, he loved the farm so much; it was the dearest place on earth to
+him. His home was not so lovable. It was his mother. But then he would
+have been just as happy with his mother anywhere. Whereas Willey Farm he
+loved passionately. He loved the little pokey kitchen, where men's boots
+tramped, and the dog slept with one eye open for fear of being trodden
+on; where the lamp hung over the table at night, and everything was
+so silent. He loved Miriam's long, low parlour, with its atmosphere of
+romance, its flowers, its books, its high rosewood piano. He loved the
+gardens and the buildings that stood with their scarlet roofs on the
+naked edges of the fields, crept towards the wood as if for cosiness,
+the wild country scooping down a valley and up the uncultured hills of
+the other side. Only to be there was an exhilaration and a joy to him.
+He loved Mrs. Leivers, with her unworldliness and her quaint cynicism;
+he loved Mr. Leivers, so warm and young and lovable; he loved Edgar, who
+lit up when he came, and the boys and the children and Bill--even the
+sow Circe and the Indian game-cock called Tippoo. All this besides
+Miriam. He could not give it up.
+
+So he went as often, but he was usually with Edgar. Only all the family,
+including the father, joined in charades and games at evening. And
+later, Miriam drew them together, and they read Macbeth out of penny
+books, taking parts. It was great excitement. Miriam was glad, and Mrs.
+Leivers was glad, and Mr. Leivers enjoyed it. Then they all learned
+songs together from tonic sol-fa, singing in a circle round the fire.
+But now Paul was very rarely alone with Miriam. She waited. When she
+and Edgar and he walked home together from chapel or from the literary
+society in Bestwood, she knew his talk, so passionate and so unorthodox
+nowadays, was for her. She did envy Edgar, however, his cycling with
+Paul, his Friday nights, his days working in the fields. For her Friday
+nights and her French lessons were gone. She was nearly always alone,
+walking, pondering in the wood, reading, studying, dreaming, waiting.
+And he wrote to her frequently.
+
+One Sunday evening they attained to their old rare harmony. Edgar had
+stayed to Communion--he wondered what it was like--with Mrs. Morel. So
+Paul came on alone with Miriam to his home. He was more or less under
+her spell again. As usual, they were discussing the sermon. He was
+setting now full sail towards Agnosticism, but such a religious
+Agnosticism that Miriam did not suffer so badly. They were at the Renan
+Vie de Jesus stage. Miriam was the threshing-floor on which he threshed
+out all his beliefs. While he trampled his ideas upon her soul, the
+truth came out for him. She alone was his threshing-floor. She alone
+helped him towards realization. Almost impassive, she submitted to
+his argument and expounding. And somehow, because of her, he gradually
+realized where he was wrong. And what he realized, she realized. She
+felt he could not do without her.
+
+They came to the silent house. He took the key out of the scullery
+window, and they entered. All the time he went on with his discussion.
+He lit the gas, mended the fire, and brought her some cakes from the
+pantry. She sat on the sofa, quietly, with a plate on her knee. She wore
+a large white hat with some pinkish flowers. It was a cheap hat, but
+he liked it. Her face beneath was still and pensive, golden-brown and
+ruddy. Always her ears were hid in her short curls. She watched him.
+
+She liked him on Sundays. Then he wore a dark suit that showed the lithe
+movement of his body. There was a clean, clear-cut look about him.
+He went on with his thinking to her. Suddenly he reached for a Bible.
+Miriam liked the way he reached up--so sharp, straight to the mark. He
+turned the pages quickly, and read her a chapter of St. John. As he sat
+in the armchair reading, intent, his voice only thinking, she felt as if
+he were using her unconsciously as a man uses his tools at some work he
+is bent on. She loved it. And the wistfulness of his voice was like a
+reaching to something, and it was as if she were what he reached with.
+She sat back on the sofa away from him, and yet feeling herself the very
+instrument his hand grasped. It gave her great pleasure.
+
+Then he began to falter and to get self-conscious. And when he came to
+the verse, "A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow because
+her hour is come", he missed it out. Miriam had felt him growing
+uncomfortable. She shrank when the well-known words did not follow. He
+went on reading, but she did not hear. A grief and shame made her bend
+her head. Six months ago he would have read it simply. Now there was a
+scotch in his running with her. Now she felt there was really something
+hostile between them, something of which they were ashamed.
+
+She ate her cake mechanically. He tried to go on with his argument, but
+could not get back the right note. Soon Edgar came in. Mrs. Morel had
+gone to her friends'. The three set off to Willey Farm.
+
+Miriam brooded over his split with her. There was something else he
+wanted. He could not be satisfied; he could give her no peace. There was
+between them now always a ground for strife. She wanted to prove him.
+She believed that his chief need in life was herself. If she could prove
+it, both to herself and to him, the rest might go; she could simply
+trust to the future.
+
+So in May she asked him to come to Willey Farm and meet Mrs. Dawes.
+There was something he hankered after. She saw him, whenever they spoke
+of Clara Dawes, rouse and get slightly angry. He said he did not like
+her. Yet he was keen to know about her. Well, he should put himself to
+the test. She believed that there were in him desires for higher things,
+and desires for lower, and that the desire for the higher would conquer.
+At any rate, he should try. She forgot that her "higher" and "lower"
+were arbitrary.
+
+He was rather excited at the idea of meeting Clara at Willey Farm. Mrs.
+Dawes came for the day. Her heavy, dun-coloured hair was coiled on
+top of her head. She wore a white blouse and navy skirt, and somehow,
+wherever she was, seemed to make things look paltry and insignificant.
+When she was in the room, the kitchen seemed too small and mean
+altogether. Miriam's beautiful twilighty parlour looked stiff and
+stupid. All the Leivers were eclipsed like candles. They found
+her rather hard to put up with. Yet she was perfectly amiable, but
+indifferent, and rather hard.
+
+Paul did not come till afternoon. He was early. As he swung off his
+bicycle, Miriam saw him look round at the house eagerly. He would be
+disappointed if the visitor had not come. Miriam went out to meet him,
+bowing her head because of the sunshine. Nasturtiums were coming out
+crimson under the cool green shadow of their leaves. The girl stood,
+dark-haired, glad to see him.
+
+"Hasn't Clara come?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Miriam in her musical tone. "She's reading."
+
+He wheeled his bicycle into the barn. He had put on a handsome tie, of
+which he was rather proud, and socks to match.
+
+"She came this morning?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Miriam, as she walked at his side. "You said you'd bring
+me that letter from the man at Liberty's. Have you remembered?"
+
+"Oh, dash, no!" he said. "But nag at me till you get it."
+
+"I don't like to nag at you."
+
+"Do it whether or not. And is she any more agreeable?" he continued.
+
+"You know I always think she is quite agreeable."
+
+He was silent. Evidently his eagerness to be early to-day had been the
+newcomer. Miriam already began to suffer. They went together towards the
+house. He took the clips off his trousers, but was too lazy to brush the
+dust from his shoes, in spite of the socks and tie.
+
+Clara sat in the cool parlour reading. He saw the nape of her white
+neck, and the fine hair lifted from it. She rose, looking at him
+indifferently. To shake hands she lifted her arm straight, in a
+manner that seemed at once to keep him at a distance, and yet to fling
+something to him. He noticed how her breasts swelled inside her blouse,
+and how her shoulder curved handsomely under the thin muslin at the top
+of her arm.
+
+"You have chosen a fine day," he said.
+
+"It happens so," she said.
+
+"Yes," he said; "I am glad."
+
+She sat down, not thanking him for his politeness.
+
+"What have you been doing all morning?" asked Paul of Miriam.
+
+"Well, you see," said Miriam, coughing huskily, "Clara only came with
+father--and so--she's not been here very long."
+
+Clara sat leaning on the table, holding aloof. He noticed her hands were
+large, but well kept. And the skin on them seemed almost coarse, opaque,
+and white, with fine golden hairs. She did not mind if he observed her
+hands. She intended to scorn him. Her heavy arm lay negligently on the
+table. Her mouth was closed as if she were offended, and she kept her
+face slightly averted.
+
+"You were at Margaret Bonford's meeting the other evening," he said to
+her.
+
+Miriam did not know this courteous Paul. Clara glanced at him.
+
+"Yes," she said.
+
+"Why," asked Miriam, "how do you know?"
+
+"I went in for a few minutes before the train came," he answered.
+
+Clara turned away again rather disdainfully.
+
+"I think she's a lovable little woman," said Paul.
+
+"Margaret Bonford!" exclaimed Clara. "She's a great deal cleverer than
+most men."
+
+"Well, I didn't say she wasn't," he said, deprecating. "She's lovable
+for all that."
+
+"And, of course, that is all that matters," said Clara witheringly.
+
+He rubbed his head, rather perplexed, rather annoyed.
+
+"I suppose it matters more than her cleverness," he said; "which, after
+all, would never get her to heaven."
+
+"It's not heaven she wants to get--it's her fair share on earth,"
+retorted Clara. She spoke as if he were responsible for some deprivation
+which Miss Bonford suffered.
+
+"Well," he said, "I thought she was warm, and awfully nice--only too
+frail. I wished she was sitting comfortably in peace--"
+
+"'Darning her husband's stockings,'" said Clara scathingly.
+
+"I'm sure she wouldn't mind darning even my stockings," he said. "And
+I'm sure she'd do them well. Just as I wouldn't mind blacking her boots
+if she wanted me to."
+
+But Clara refused to answer this sally of his. He talked to Miriam for a
+little while. The other woman held aloof.
+
+"Well," he said, "I think I'll go and see Edgar. Is he on the land?"
+
+"I believe," said Miriam, "he's gone for a load of coal. He should be
+back directly."
+
+"Then," he said, "I'll go and meet him."
+
+Miriam dared not propose anything for the three of them. He rose and
+left them.
+
+On the top road, where the gorse was out, he saw Edgar walking lazily
+beside the mare, who nodded her white-starred forehead as she dragged
+the clanking load of coal. The young farmer's face lighted up as he saw
+his friend. Edgar was good-looking, with dark, warm eyes. His clothes
+were old and rather disreputable, and he walked with considerable pride.
+
+"Hello!" he said, seeing Paul bareheaded. "Where are you going?"
+
+"Came to meet you. Can't stand 'Nevermore.'"
+
+Edgar's teeth flashed in a laugh of amusement.
+
+"Who is 'Nevermore'?" he asked.
+
+"The lady--Mrs. Dawes--it ought to be Mrs. The Raven that quothed
+'Nevermore.'"
+
+Edgar laughed with glee.
+
+"Don't you like her?" he asked.
+
+"Not a fat lot," said Paul. "Why, do you?"
+
+"No!" The answer came with a deep ring of conviction. "No!" Edgar pursed
+up his lips. "I can't say she's much in my line." He mused a little.
+Then: "But why do you call her 'Nevermore'?" he asked.
+
+"Well," said Paul, "if she looks at a man she says haughtily
+'Nevermore,' and if she looks at herself in the looking-glass she says
+disdainfully 'Nevermore,' and if she thinks back she says it in disgust,
+and if she looks forward she says it cynically."
+
+Edgar considered this speech, failed to make much out of it, and said,
+laughing:
+
+"You think she's a man-hater?"
+
+"SHE thinks she is," replied Paul.
+
+"But you don't think so?"
+
+"No," replied Paul.
+
+"Wasn't she nice with you, then?"
+
+"Could you imagine her NICE with anybody?" asked the young man.
+
+Edgar laughed. Together they unloaded the coal in the yard. Paul was
+rather self-conscious, because he knew Clara could see if she looked out
+of the window. She didn't look.
+
+On Saturday afternoons the horses were brushed down and groomed. Paul
+and Edgar worked together, sneezing with the dust that came from the
+pelts of Jimmy and Flower.
+
+"Do you know a new song to teach me?" said Edgar.
+
+He continued to work all the time. The back of his neck was sun-red
+when he bent down, and his fingers that held the brush were thick. Paul
+watched him sometimes.
+
+"'Mary Morrison'?" suggested the younger.
+
+Edgar agreed. He had a good tenor voice, and he loved to learn all the
+songs his friend could teach him, so that he could sing whilst he was
+carting. Paul had a very indifferent baritone voice, but a good ear.
+However, he sang softly, for fear of Clara. Edgar repeated the line in a
+clear tenor. At times they both broke off to sneeze, and first one, then
+the other, abused his horse.
+
+Miriam was impatient of men. It took so little to amuse them--even Paul.
+She thought it anomalous in him that he could be so thoroughly absorbed
+in a triviality.
+
+It was tea-time when they had finished.
+
+"What song was that?" asked Miriam.
+
+Edgar told her. The conversation turned to singing.
+
+"We have such jolly times," Miriam said to Clara.
+
+Mrs. Dawes ate her meal in a slow, dignified way. Whenever the men were
+present she grew distant.
+
+"Do you like singing?" Miriam asked her.
+
+"If it is good," she said.
+
+Paul, of course, coloured.
+
+"You mean if it is high-class and trained?" he said.
+
+"I think a voice needs training before the singing is anything," she
+said.
+
+"You might as well insist on having people's voices trained before you
+allowed them to talk," he replied. "Really, people sing for their own
+pleasure, as a rule."
+
+"And it may be for other people's discomfort."
+
+"Then the other people should have flaps to their ears," he replied.
+
+The boys laughed. There was a silence. He flushed deeply, and ate in
+silence.
+
+After tea, when all the men had gone but Paul, Mrs. Leivers said to
+Clara:
+
+"And you find life happier now?"
+
+"Infinitely."
+
+"And you are satisfied?"
+
+"So long as I can be free and independent."
+
+"And you don't MISS anything in your life?" asked Mrs. Leivers gently.
+
+"I've put all that behind me."
+
+Paul had been feeling uncomfortable during this discourse. He got up.
+
+"You'll find you're always tumbling over the things you've put behind
+you," he said. Then he took his departure to the cowsheds. He felt he
+had been witty, and his manly pride was high. He whistled as he went
+down the brick track.
+
+Miriam came for him a little later to know if he would go with Clara and
+her for a walk. They set off down to Strelley Mill Farm. As they were
+going beside the brook, on the Willey Water side, looking through the
+brake at the edge of the wood, where pink campions glowed under a few
+sunbeams, they saw, beyond the tree-trunks and the thin hazel bushes,
+a man leading a great bay horse through the gullies. The big red beast
+seemed to dance romantically through that dimness of green hazel drift,
+away there where the air was shadowy, as if it were in the past, among
+the fading bluebells that might have bloomed for Deidre or Iseult.
+
+The three stood charmed.
+
+"What a treat to be a knight," he said, "and to have a pavilion here."
+
+"And to have us shut up safely?" replied Clara.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "singing with your maids at your broidery. I would
+carry your banner of white and green and heliotrope. I would have
+'W.S.P.U.' emblazoned on my shield, beneath a woman rampant."
+
+"I have no doubt," said Clara, "that you would much rather fight for a
+woman than let her fight for herself."
+
+"I would. When she fights for herself she seems like a dog before a
+looking-glass, gone into a mad fury with its own shadow."
+
+"And YOU are the looking-glass?" she asked, with a curl of the lip.
+
+"Or the shadow," he replied.
+
+"I am afraid," she said, "that you are too clever."
+
+"Well, I leave it to you to be GOOD," he retorted, laughing. "Be good,
+sweet maid, and just let ME be clever."
+
+But Clara wearied of his flippancy. Suddenly, looking at her, he saw
+that the upward lifting of her face was misery and not scorn. His heart
+grew tender for everybody. He turned and was gentle with Miriam, whom he
+had neglected till then.
+
+At the wood's edge they met Limb, a thin, swarthy man of forty, tenant
+of Strelley Mill, which he ran as a cattle-raising farm. He held the
+halter of the powerful stallion indifferently, as if he were tired. The
+three stood to let him pass over the stepping-stones of the first brook.
+Paul admired that so large an animal should walk on such springy toes,
+with an endless excess of vigour. Limb pulled up before them.
+
+"Tell your father, Miss Leivers," he said, in a peculiar piping voice,
+"that his young beas'es 'as broke that bottom fence three days an'
+runnin'."
+
+"Which?" asked Miriam, tremulous.
+
+The great horse breathed heavily, shifting round its red flanks, and
+looking suspiciously with its wonderful big eyes upwards from under its
+lowered head and falling mane.
+
+"Come along a bit," replied Limb, "an' I'll show you."
+
+The man and the stallion went forward. It danced sideways, shaking its
+white fetlocks and looking frightened, as it felt itself in the brook.
+
+"No hanky-pankyin'," said the man affectionately to the beast.
+
+It went up the bank in little leaps, then splashed finely through the
+second brook. Clara, walking with a kind of sulky abandon, watched it
+half-fascinated, half-contemptuous. Limb stopped and pointed to the
+fence under some willows.
+
+"There, you see where they got through," he said. "My man's druv 'em
+back three times."
+
+"Yes," answered Miriam, colouring as if she were at fault.
+
+"Are you comin' in?" asked the man.
+
+"No, thanks; but we should like to go by the pond."
+
+"Well, just as you've a mind," he said.
+
+The horse gave little whinneys of pleasure at being so near home.
+
+"He is glad to be back," said Clara, who was interested in the creature.
+
+"Yes--'e's been a tidy step to-day."
+
+They went through the gate, and saw approaching them from the
+big farmhouse a smallish, dark, excitable-looking woman of about
+thirty-five. Her hair was touched with grey, her dark eyes looked wild.
+She walked with her hands behind her back. Her brother went forward. As
+it saw her, the big bay stallion whinneyed again. She came up excitedly.
+
+"Are you home again, my boy!" she said tenderly to the horse, not to
+the man. The great beast shifted round to her, ducking his head. She
+smuggled into his mouth the wrinkled yellow apple she had been hiding
+behind her back, then she kissed him near the eyes. He gave a big sigh
+of pleasure. She held his head in her arms against her breast.
+
+"Isn't he splendid!" said Miriam to her.
+
+Miss Limb looked up. Her dark eyes glanced straight at Paul.
+
+"Oh, good-evening, Miss Leivers," she said. "It's ages since you've been
+down."
+
+Miriam introduced her friends.
+
+"Your horse IS a fine fellow!" said Clara.
+
+"Isn't he!" Again she kissed him. "As loving as any man!"
+
+"More loving than most men, I should think," replied Clara.
+
+"He's a nice boy!" cried the woman, again embracing the horse.
+
+Clara, fascinated by the big beast, went up to stroke his neck.
+
+"He's quite gentle," said Miss Limb. "Don't you think big fellows are?"
+
+"He's a beauty!" replied Clara.
+
+She wanted to look in his eyes. She wanted him to look at her.
+
+"It's a pity he can't talk," she said.
+
+"Oh, but he can--all but," replied the other woman.
+
+Then her brother moved on with the horse.
+
+"Are you coming in? DO come in, Mr.--I didn't catch it."
+
+"Morel," said Miriam. "No, we won't come in, but we should like to go by
+the mill-pond."
+
+"Yes--yes, do. Do you fish, Mr. Morel?"
+
+"No," said Paul.
+
+"Because if you do you might come and fish any time," said Miss Limb.
+"We scarcely see a soul from week's end to week's end. I should be
+thankful."
+
+"What fish are there in the pond?" he asked.
+
+They went through the front garden, over the sluice, and up the steep
+bank to the pond, which lay in shadow, with its two wooded islets. Paul
+walked with Miss Limb.
+
+"I shouldn't mind swimming here," he said.
+
+"Do," she replied. "Come when you like. My brother will be awfully
+pleased to talk with you. He is so quiet, because there is no one to
+talk to. Do come and swim."
+
+Clara came up.
+
+"It's a fine depth," she said, "and so clear."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Limb.
+
+"Do you swim?" said Paul. "Miss Limb was just saying we could come when
+we liked."
+
+"Of course there's the farm-hands," said Miss Limb.
+
+They talked a few moments, then went on up the wild hill, leaving the
+lonely, haggard-eyed woman on the bank.
+
+The hillside was all ripe with sunshine. It was wild and tussocky, given
+over to rabbits. The three walked in silence. Then:
+
+"She makes me feel uncomfortable," said Paul.
+
+"You mean Miss Limb?" asked Miriam. "Yes."
+
+"What's a matter with her? Is she going dotty with being too lonely?"
+
+"Yes," said Miriam. "It's not the right sort of life for her. I think
+it's cruel to bury her there. I really ought to go and see her more.
+But--she upsets me."
+
+"She makes me feel sorry for her--yes, and she bothers me," he said.
+
+"I suppose," blurted Clara suddenly, "she wants a man."
+
+The other two were silent for a few moments.
+
+"But it's the loneliness sends her cracked," said Paul.
+
+Clara did not answer, but strode on uphill. She was walking with her
+hand hanging, her legs swinging as she kicked through the dead thistles
+and the tussocky grass, her arms hanging loose. Rather than walking, her
+handsome body seemed to be blundering up the hill. A hot wave went over
+Paul. He was curious about her. Perhaps life had been cruel to her. He
+forgot Miriam, who was walking beside him talking to him. She glanced at
+him, finding he did not answer her. His eyes were fixed ahead on Clara.
+
+"Do you still think she is disagreeable?" she asked.
+
+He did not notice that the question was sudden. It ran with his
+thoughts.
+
+"Something's the matter with her," he said.
+
+"Yes," answered Miriam.
+
+They found at the top of the hill a hidden wild field, two sides of
+which were backed by the wood, the other sides by high loose hedges of
+hawthorn and elder bushes. Between these overgrown bushes were gaps
+that the cattle might have walked through had there been any cattle now.
+There the turf was smooth as velveteen, padded and holed by the rabbits.
+The field itself was coarse, and crowded with tall, big cowslips that
+had never been cut. Clusters of strong flowers rose everywhere above the
+coarse tussocks of bent. It was like a roadstead crowded with tan, fairy
+shipping.
+
+"Ah!" cried Miriam, and she looked at Paul, her dark eyes dilating. He
+smiled. Together they enjoyed the field of flowers. Clara, a little way
+off, was looking at the cowslips disconsolately. Paul and Miriam stayed
+close together, talking in subdued tones. He kneeled on one knee,
+quickly gathering the best blossoms, moving from tuft to tuft
+restlessly, talking softly all the time. Miriam plucked the flowers
+lovingly, lingering over them. He always seemed to her too quick and
+almost scientific. Yet his bunches had a natural beauty more than hers.
+He loved them, but as if they were his and he had a right to them. She
+had more reverence for them: they held something she had not.
+
+The flowers were very fresh and sweet. He wanted to drink them. As
+he gathered them, he ate the little yellow trumpets. Clara was still
+wandering about disconsolately. Going towards her, he said:
+
+"Why don't you get some?"
+
+"I don't believe in it. They look better growing."
+
+"But you'd like some?"
+
+"They want to be left."
+
+"I don't believe they do."
+
+"I don't want the corpses of flowers about me," she said.
+
+"That's a stiff, artificial notion," he said. "They don't die any
+quicker in water than on their roots. And besides, they LOOK nice in
+a bowl--they look jolly. And you only call a thing a corpse because it
+looks corpse-like."
+
+"Whether it is one or not?" she argued.
+
+"It isn't one to me. A dead flower isn't a corpse of a flower."
+
+Clara now ignored him.
+
+"And even so--what right have you to pull them?" she asked.
+
+"Because I like them, and want them--and there's plenty of them."
+
+"And that is sufficient?"
+
+"Yes. Why not? I'm sure they'd smell nice in your room in Nottingham."
+
+"And I should have the pleasure of watching them die."
+
+"But then--it does not matter if they do die."
+
+Whereupon he left her, and went stooping over the clumps of tangled
+flowers which thickly sprinkled the field like pale, luminous
+foam-clots. Miriam had come close. Clara was kneeling, breathing some
+scent from the cowslips.
+
+"I think," said Miriam, "if you treat them with reverence you don't do
+them any harm. It is the spirit you pluck them in that matters."
+
+"Yes," he said. "But no, you get 'em because you want 'em, and that's
+all." He held out his bunch.
+
+Miriam was silent. He picked some more.
+
+"Look at these!" he continued; "sturdy and lusty like little trees and
+like boys with fat legs."
+
+Clara's hat lay on the grass not far off. She was kneeling, bending
+forward still to smell the flowers. Her neck gave him a sharp pang, such
+a beautiful thing, yet not proud of itself just now. Her breasts swung
+slightly in her blouse. The arching curve of her back was beautiful and
+strong; she wore no stays. Suddenly, without knowing, he was scattering
+a handful of cowslips over her hair and neck, saying:
+
+     "Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust,
+     If the Lord won't have you the devil must."
+
+The chill flowers fell on her neck. She looked up at him, with almost
+pitiful, scared grey eyes, wondering what he was doing. Flowers fell on
+her face, and she shut her eyes.
+
+Suddenly, standing there above her, he felt awkward.
+
+"I thought you wanted a funeral," he said, ill at ease.
+
+Clara laughed strangely, and rose, picking the cowslips from her hair.
+She took up her hat and pinned it on. One flower had remained tangled in
+her hair. He saw, but would not tell her. He gathered up the flowers he
+had sprinkled over her.
+
+At the edge of the wood the bluebells had flowed over into the field and
+stood there like flood-water. But they were fading now. Clara strayed up
+to them. He wandered after her. The bluebells pleased him.
+
+"Look how they've come out of the wood!" he said.
+
+Then she turned with a flash of warmth and of gratitude.
+
+"Yes," she smiled.
+
+His blood beat up.
+
+"It makes me think of the wild men of the woods, how terrified they
+would be when they got breast to breast with the open space."
+
+"Do you think they were?" she asked.
+
+"I wonder which was more frightened among old tribes--those bursting out
+of their darkness of woods upon all the space of light, or those from
+the open tiptoeing into the forests."
+
+"I should think the second," she answered.
+
+"Yes, you DO feel like one of the open space sort, trying to force
+yourself into the dark, don't you?"
+
+"How should I know?" she answered queerly.
+
+The conversation ended there.
+
+The evening was deepening over the earth. Already the valley was full of
+shadow. One tiny square of light stood opposite at Crossleigh Bank Farm.
+Brightness was swimming on the tops of the hills. Miriam came up slowly,
+her face in her big, loose bunch of flowers, walking ankle-deep through
+the scattered froth of the cowslips. Beyond her the trees were coming
+into shape, all shadow.
+
+"Shall we go?" she asked.
+
+And the three turned away. They were all silent. Going down the path
+they could see the light of home right across, and on the ridge of the
+hill a thin dark outline with little lights, where the colliery village
+touched the sky.
+
+"It has been nice, hasn't it?" he asked.
+
+Miriam murmured assent. Clara was silent.
+
+"Don't you think so?" he persisted.
+
+But she walked with her head up, and still did not answer. He could tell
+by the way she moved, as if she didn't care, that she suffered.
+
+At this time Paul took his mother to Lincoln. She was bright and
+enthusiastic as ever, but as he sat opposite her in the railway
+carriage, she seemed to look frail. He had a momentary sensation as if
+she were slipping away from him. Then he wanted to get hold of her, to
+fasten her, almost to chain her. He felt he must keep hold of her with
+his hand.
+
+They drew near to the city. Both were at the window looking for the
+cathedral.
+
+"There she is, mother!" he cried.
+
+They saw the great cathedral lying couchant above the plain.
+
+"Ah!" she exclaimed. "So she is!"
+
+He looked at his mother. Her blue eyes were watching the cathedral
+quietly. She seemed again to be beyond him. Something in the eternal
+repose of the uplifted cathedral, blue and noble against the sky, was
+reflected in her, something of the fatality. What was, WAS. With all his
+young will he could not alter it. He saw her face, the skin still fresh
+and pink and downy, but crow's-feet near her eyes, her eyelids steady,
+sinking a little, her mouth always closed with disillusion; and there
+was on her the same eternal look, as if she knew fate at last. He beat
+against it with all the strength of his soul.
+
+"Look, mother, how big she is above the town! Think, there are streets
+and streets below her! She looks bigger than the city altogether."
+
+"So she does!" exclaimed his mother, breaking bright into life again.
+But he had seen her sitting, looking steady out of the window at the
+cathedral, her face and eyes fixed, reflecting the relentlessness of
+life. And the crow's-feet near her eyes, and her mouth shut so hard,
+made him feel he would go mad.
+
+They ate a meal that she considered wildly extravagant.
+
+"Don't imagine I like it," she said, as she ate her cutlet. "I DON'T
+like it, I really don't! Just THINK of your money wasted!"
+
+"You never mind my money," he said. "You forget I'm a fellow taking his
+girl for an outing."
+
+And he bought her some blue violets.
+
+"Stop it at once, sir!" she commanded. "How can I do it?"
+
+"You've got nothing to do. Stand still!"
+
+And in the middle of High Street he stuck the flowers in her coat.
+
+"An old thing like me!" she said, sniffing.
+
+"You see," he said, "I want people to think we're awful swells. So look
+ikey."
+
+"I'll jowl your head," she laughed.
+
+"Strut!" he commanded. "Be a fantail pigeon."
+
+It took him an hour to get her through the street. She stood above Glory
+Hole, she stood before Stone Bow, she stood everywhere, and exclaimed.
+
+A man came up, took off his hat, and bowed to her.
+
+"Can I show you the town, madam?"
+
+"No, thank you," she answered. "I've got my son."
+
+Then Paul was cross with her for not answering with more dignity.
+
+"You go away with you!" she exclaimed. "Ha! that's the Jew's House. Now,
+do you remember that lecture, Paul--?"
+
+But she could scarcely climb the cathedral hill. He did not notice.
+Then suddenly he found her unable to speak. He took her into a little
+public-house, where she rested.
+
+"It's nothing," she said. "My heart is only a bit old; one must expect
+it."
+
+He did not answer, but looked at her. Again his heart was crushed in a
+hot grip. He wanted to cry, he wanted to smash things in fury.
+
+They set off again, pace by pace, so slowly. And every step seemed like
+a weight on his chest. He felt as if his heart would burst. At last
+they came to the top. She stood enchanted, looking at the castle gate,
+looking at the cathedral front. She had quite forgotten herself.
+
+"Now THIS is better than I thought it could be!" she cried.
+
+But he hated it. Everywhere he followed her, brooding. They sat together
+in the cathedral. They attended a little service in the choir. She was
+timid.
+
+"I suppose it is open to anybody?" she asked him.
+
+"Yes," he replied. "Do you think they'd have the damned cheek to send us
+away."
+
+"Well, I'm sure," she exclaimed, "they would if they heard your
+language."
+
+Her face seemed to shine again with joy and peace during the service.
+And all the time he was wanting to rage and smash things and cry.
+
+Afterwards, when they were leaning over the wall, looking at the town
+below, he blurted suddenly:
+
+"Why can't a man have a YOUNG mother? What is she old for?"
+
+"Well," his mother laughed, "she can scarcely help it."
+
+"And why wasn't I the oldest son? Look--they say the young ones have the
+advantage--but look, THEY had the young mother. You should have had me
+for your eldest son."
+
+"I didn't arrange it," she remonstrated. "Come to consider, you're as
+much to blame as me."
+
+He turned on her, white, his eyes furious.
+
+"What are you old for!" he said, mad with his impotence. "WHY can't you
+walk? WHY can't you come with me to places?"
+
+"At one time," she replied, "I could have run up that hill a good deal
+better than you."
+
+"What's the good of that to ME?" he cried, hitting his fist on the wall.
+Then he became plaintive. "It's too bad of you to be ill. Little, it
+is--"
+
+"Ill!" she cried. "I'm a bit old, and you'll have to put up with it,
+that's all."
+
+They were quiet. But it was as much as they could bear. They got jolly
+again over tea. As they sat by Brayford, watching the boats, he told her
+about Clara. His mother asked him innumerable questions.
+
+"Then who does she live with?"
+
+"With her mother, on Bluebell Hill."
+
+"And have they enough to keep them?"
+
+"I don't think so. I think they do lace work."
+
+"And wherein lies her charm, my boy?"
+
+"I don't know that she's charming, mother. But she's nice. And she seems
+straight, you know--not a bit deep, not a bit."
+
+"But she's a good deal older than you."
+
+"She's thirty, I'm going on twenty-three."
+
+"You haven't told me what you like her for."
+
+"Because I don't know--a sort of defiant way she's got--a sort of angry
+way."
+
+Mrs. Morel considered. She would have been glad now for her son to fall
+in love with some woman who would--she did not know what. But he fretted
+so, got so furious suddenly, and again was melancholic. She wished he
+knew some nice woman--She did not know what she wished, but left it
+vague. At any rate, she was not hostile to the idea of Clara.
+
+Annie, too, was getting married. Leonard had gone away to work in
+Birmingham. One week-end when he was home she had said to him:
+
+"You don't look very well, my lad."
+
+"I dunno," he said. "I feel anyhow or nohow, ma."
+
+He called her "ma" already in his boyish fashion.
+
+"Are you sure they're good lodgings?" she asked.
+
+"Yes--yes. Only--it's a winder when you have to pour your own tea
+out--an' nobody to grouse if you team it in your saucer and sup it up.
+It somehow takes a' the taste out of it."
+
+Mrs. Morel laughed.
+
+"And so it knocks you up?" she said.
+
+"I dunno. I want to get married," he blurted, twisting his fingers and
+looking down at his boots. There was a silence.
+
+"But," she exclaimed, "I thought you said you'd wait another year."
+
+"Yes, I did say so," he replied stubbornly.
+
+Again she considered.
+
+"And you know," she said, "Annie's a bit of a spendthrift. She's saved
+no more than eleven pounds. And I know, lad, you haven't had much
+chance."
+
+He coloured up to the ears.
+
+"I've got thirty-three quid," he said.
+
+"It doesn't go far," she answered.
+
+He said nothing, but twisted his fingers.
+
+"And you know," she said, "I've nothing--"
+
+"I didn't want, ma!" he cried, very red, suffering and remonstrating.
+
+"No, my lad, I know. I was only wishing I had. And take away five pounds
+for the wedding and things--it leaves twenty-nine pounds. You won't do
+much on that."
+
+He twisted still, impotent, stubborn, not looking up.
+
+"But do you really want to get married?" she asked. "Do you feel as if
+you ought?"
+
+He gave her one straight look from his blue eyes.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Then," she replied, "we must all do the best we can for it, lad."
+
+The next time he looked up there were tears in his eyes.
+
+"I don't want Annie to feel handicapped," he said, struggling.
+
+"My lad," she said, "you're steady--you've got a decent place. If a man
+had NEEDED me I'd have married him on his last week's wages. She may
+find it a bit hard to start humbly. Young girls ARE like that. They look
+forward to the fine home they think they'll have. But I had expensive
+furniture. It's not everything."
+
+So the wedding took place almost immediately. Arthur came home, and was
+splendid in uniform. Annie looked nice in a dove-grey dress that she
+could take for Sundays. Morel called her a fool for getting married, and
+was cool with his son-in-law. Mrs. Morel had white tips in her bonnet,
+and some white on her blouse, and was teased by both her sons for
+fancying herself so grand. Leonard was jolly and cordial, and felt a
+fearful fool. Paul could not quite see what Annie wanted to get
+married for. He was fond of her, and she of him. Still, he hoped rather
+lugubriously that it would turn out all right. Arthur was astonishingly
+handsome in his scarlet and yellow, and he knew it well, but was
+secretly ashamed of the uniform. Annie cried her eyes up in the kitchen,
+on leaving her mother. Mrs. Morel cried a little, then patted her on the
+back and said:
+
+"But don't cry, child, he'll be good to you."
+
+Morel stamped and said she was a fool to go and tie herself up. Leonard
+looked white and overwrought. Mrs. Morel said to him:
+
+"I s'll trust her to you, my lad, and hold you responsible for her."
+
+"You can," he said, nearly dead with the ordeal. And it was all over.
+
+When Morel and Arthur were in bed, Paul sat talking, as he often did,
+with his mother.
+
+"You're not sorry she's married, mother, are you?" he asked.
+
+"I'm not sorry she's married--but--it seems strange that she should go
+from me. It even seems to me hard that she can prefer to go with her
+Leonard. That's how mothers are--I know it's silly."
+
+"And shall you be miserable about her?"
+
+"When I think of my own wedding day," his mother answered, "I can only
+hope her life will be different."
+
+"But you can trust him to be good to her?"
+
+"Yes, yes. They say he's not good enough for her. But I say if a man
+is GENUINE, as he is, and a girl is fond of him--then--it should be all
+right. He's as good as she."
+
+"So you don't mind?"
+
+"I would NEVER have let a daughter of mine marry a man I didn't FEEL to
+be genuine through and through. And yet, there's a gap now she's gone."
+
+They were both miserable, and wanted her back again. It seemed to Paul
+his mother looked lonely, in her new black silk blouse with its bit of
+white trimming.
+
+"At any rate, mother, I s'll never marry," he said.
+
+"Ay, they all say that, my lad. You've not met the one yet. Only wait a
+year or two."
+
+"But I shan't marry, mother. I shall live with you, and we'll have a
+servant."
+
+"Ay, my lad, it's easy to talk. We'll see when the time comes."
+
+"What time? I'm nearly twenty-three."
+
+"Yes, you're not one that would marry young. But in three years' time--"
+
+"I shall be with you just the same."
+
+"We'll see, my boy, we'll see."
+
+"But you don't want me to marry?"
+
+"I shouldn't like to think of you going through your life without
+anybody to care for you and do--no."
+
+"And you think I ought to marry?"
+
+"Sooner or later every man ought."
+
+"But you'd rather it were later."
+
+"It would be hard--and very hard. It's as they say:
+
+     "'A son's my son till he takes him a wife,
+     But my daughter's my daughter the whole of her life.'"
+
+"And you think I'd let a wife take me from you?"
+
+"Well, you wouldn't ask her to marry your mother as well as you," Mrs.
+Morel smiled.
+
+"She could do what she liked; she wouldn't have to interfere."
+
+"She wouldn't--till she'd got you--and then you'd see."
+
+"I never will see. I'll never marry while I've got you--I won't."
+
+"But I shouldn't like to leave you with nobody, my boy," she cried.
+
+"You're not going to leave me. What are you? Fifty-three! I'll give
+you till seventy-five. There you are, I'm fat and forty-four. Then I'll
+marry a staid body. See!"
+
+His mother sat and laughed.
+
+"Go to bed," she said--"go to bed."
+
+"And we'll have a pretty house, you and me, and a servant, and it'll be
+just all right. I s'll perhaps be rich with my painting."
+
+"Will you go to bed!"
+
+"And then you s'll have a pony-carriage. See yourself--a little Queen
+Victoria trotting round."
+
+"I tell you to go to bed," she laughed.
+
+He kissed her and went. His plans for the future were always the same.
+
+Mrs. Morel sat brooding--about her daughter, about Paul, about Arthur.
+She fretted at losing Annie. The family was very closely bound. And she
+felt she MUST live now, to be with her children. Life was so rich for
+her. Paul wanted her, and so did Arthur. Arthur never knew how deeply he
+loved her. He was a creature of the moment. Never yet had he been forced
+to realise himself. The army had disciplined his body, but not his soul.
+He was in perfect health and very handsome. His dark, vigorous hair sat
+close to his smallish head. There was something childish about his nose,
+something almost girlish about his dark blue eyes. But he had the fun
+red mouth of a man under his brown moustache, and his jaw was strong.
+It was his father's mouth; it was the nose and eyes of her own mother's
+people--good-looking, weak-principled folk. Mrs. Morel was anxious about
+him. Once he had really run the rig he was safe. But how far would he
+go?
+
+The army had not really done him any good. He resented bitterly the
+authority of the officers. He hated having to obey as if he were an
+animal. But he had too much sense to kick. So he turned his attention
+to getting the best out of it. He could sing, he was a boon-companion.
+Often he got into scrapes, but they were the manly scrapes that
+are easily condoned. So he made a good time out of it, whilst his
+self-respect was in suppression. He trusted to his good looks and
+handsome figure, his refinement, his decent education to get him most
+of what he wanted, and he was not disappointed. Yet he was restless.
+Something seemed to gnaw him inside. He was never still, he was never
+alone. With his mother he was rather humble. Paul he admired and loved
+and despised slightly. And Paul admired and loved and despised him
+slightly.
+
+Mrs. Morel had had a few pounds left to her by her father, and she
+decided to buy her son out of the army. He was wild with joy. Now he was
+like a lad taking a holiday.
+
+He had always been fond of Beatrice Wyld, and during his furlough he
+picked up with her again. She was stronger and better in health. The
+two often went long walks together, Arthur taking her arm in soldier's
+fashion, rather stiffly. And she came to play the piano whilst he sang.
+Then Arthur would unhook his tunic collar. He grew flushed, his eyes
+were bright, he sang in a manly tenor. Afterwards they sat together on
+the sofa. He seemed to flaunt his body: she was aware of him so--the
+strong chest, the sides, the thighs in their close-fitting trousers.
+
+He liked to lapse into the dialect when he talked to her. She would
+sometimes smoke with him. Occasionally she would only take a few whiffs
+at his cigarette.
+
+"Nay," he said to her one evening, when she reached for his cigarette.
+"Nay, tha doesna. I'll gi'e thee a smoke kiss if ter's a mind."
+
+"I wanted a whiff, no kiss at all," she answered.
+
+"Well, an' tha s'lt ha'e a whiff," he said, "along wi' t' kiss."
+
+"I want a draw at thy fag," she cried, snatching for the cigarette
+between his lips.
+
+He was sitting with his shoulder touching her. She was small and quick
+as lightning. He just escaped.
+
+"I'll gi'e thee a smoke kiss," he said.
+
+"Tha'rt a knivey nuisance, Arty Morel," she said, sitting back.
+
+"Ha'e a smoke kiss?"
+
+The soldier leaned forward to her, smiling. His face was near hers.
+
+"Shonna!" she replied, turning away her head.
+
+He took a draw at his cigarette, and pursed up his mouth, and put his
+lips close to her. His dark-brown cropped moustache stood out like a
+brush. She looked at the puckered crimson lips, then suddenly snatched
+the cigarette from his fingers and darted away. He, leaping after her,
+seized the comb from her back hair. She turned, threw the cigarette at
+him. He picked it up, put it in his mouth, and sat down.
+
+"Nuisance!" she cried. "Give me my comb!"
+
+She was afraid that her hair, specially done for him, would come down.
+She stood with her hands to her head. He hid the comb between his knees.
+
+"I've non got it," he said.
+
+The cigarette trembled between his lips with laughter as he spoke.
+
+"Liar!" she said.
+
+"'S true as I'm here!" he laughed, showing his hands.
+
+"You brazen imp!" she exclaimed, rushing and scuffling for the comb,
+which he had under his knees. As she wrestled with him, pulling at his
+smooth, tight-covered knees, he laughed till he lay back on the sofa
+shaking with laughter. The cigarette fell from his mouth almost singeing
+his throat. Under his delicate tan the blood flushed up, and he laughed
+till his blue eyes were blinded, his throat swollen almost to choking.
+Then he sat up. Beatrice was putting in her comb.
+
+"Tha tickled me, Beat," he said thickly.
+
+Like a flash her small white hand went out and smacked his face. He
+started up, glaring at her. They stared at each other. Slowly the flush
+mounted her cheek, she dropped her eyes, then her head. He sat down
+sulkily. She went into the scullery to adjust her hair. In private there
+she shed a few tears, she did not know what for.
+
+When she returned she was pursed up close. But it was only a film over
+her fire. He, with ruffled hair, was sulking upon the sofa. She sat down
+opposite, in the armchair, and neither spoke. The clock ticked in the
+silence like blows.
+
+"You are a little cat, Beat," he said at length, half apologetically.
+
+"Well, you shouldn't be brazen," she replied.
+
+There was again a long silence. He whistled to himself like a man much
+agitated but defiant. Suddenly she went across to him and kissed him.
+
+"Did it, pore fing!" she mocked.
+
+He lifted his face, smiling curiously.
+
+"Kiss?" he invited her.
+
+"Daren't I?" she asked.
+
+"Go on!" he challenged, his mouth lifted to her.
+
+Deliberately, and with a peculiar quivering smile that seemed to
+overspread her whole body, she put her mouth on his. Immediately his
+arms folded round her. As soon as the long kiss was finished she drew
+back her head from him, put her delicate fingers on his neck, through
+the open collar. Then she closed her eyes, giving herself up again in a
+kiss.
+
+She acted of her own free will. What she would do she did, and made
+nobody responsible.
+
+
+Paul felt life changing around him. The conditions of youth were gone.
+Now it was a home of grown-up people. Annie was a married woman, Arthur
+was following his own pleasure in a way unknown to his folk. For so long
+they had all lived at home, and gone out to pass their time. But now,
+for Annie and Arthur, life lay outside their mother's house. They came
+home for holiday and for rest. So there was that strange, half-empty
+feeling about the house, as if the birds had flown. Paul became more and
+more unsettled. Annie and Arthur had gone. He was restless to follow.
+Yet home was for him beside his mother. And still there was something
+else, something outside, something he wanted.
+
+He grew more and more restless. Miriam did not satisfy him. His old mad
+desire to be with her grew weaker. Sometimes he met Clara in Nottingham,
+sometimes he went to meetings with her, sometimes he saw her at Willey
+Farm. But on these last occasions the situation became strained. There
+was a triangle of antagonism between Paul and Clara and Miriam. With
+Clara he took on a smart, worldly, mocking tone very antagonistic to
+Miriam. It did not matter what went before. She might be intimate and
+sad with him. Then as soon as Clara appeared, it all vanished, and he
+played to the newcomer.
+
+Miriam had one beautiful evening with him in the hay. He had been on
+the horse-rake, and having finished, came to help her to put the hay in
+cocks. Then he talked to her of his hopes and despairs, and his whole
+soul seemed to lie bare before her. She felt as if she watched the very
+quivering stuff of life in him. The moon came out: they walked home
+together: he seemed to have come to her because he needed her so badly,
+and she listened to him, gave him all her love and her faith. It seemed
+to her he brought her the best of himself to keep, and that she would
+guard it all her life. Nay, the sky did not cherish the stars more
+surely and eternally than she would guard the good in the soul of Paul
+Morel. She went on home alone, feeling exalted, glad in her faith.
+
+And then, the next day, Clara came. They were to have tea in the
+hayfield. Miriam watched the evening drawing to gold and shadow. And all
+the time Paul was sporting with Clara. He made higher and higher heaps
+of hay that they were jumping over. Miriam did not care for the game,
+and stood aside. Edgar and Geoffrey and Maurice and Clara and Paul
+jumped. Paul won, because he was light. Clara's blood was roused. She
+could run like an Amazon. Paul loved the determined way she rushed at
+the hay-cock and leaped, landed on the other side, her breasts shaken,
+her thick hair come undone.
+
+"You touched!" he cried. "You touched!"
+
+"No!" she flashed, turning to Edgar. "I didn't touch, did I? Wasn't I
+clear?"
+
+"I couldn't say," laughed Edgar.
+
+None of them could say.
+
+"But you touched," said Paul. "You're beaten."
+
+"I did NOT touch!" she cried.
+
+"As plain as anything," said Paul.
+
+"Box his ears for me!" she cried to Edgar.
+
+"Nay," Edgar laughed. "I daren't. You must do it yourself."
+
+"And nothing can alter the fact that you touched," laughed Paul.
+
+She was furious with him. Her little triumph before these lads and men
+was gone. She had forgotten herself in the game. Now he was to humble
+her.
+
+"I think you are despicable!" she said.
+
+And again he laughed, in a way that tortured Miriam.
+
+"And I KNEW you couldn't jump that heap," he teased.
+
+She turned her back on him. Yet everybody could see that the only person
+she listened to, or was conscious of, was he, and he of her. It pleased
+the men to see this battle between them. But Miriam was tortured.
+
+Paul could choose the lesser in place of the higher, she saw. He could
+be unfaithful to himself, unfaithful to the real, deep Paul Morel.
+There was a danger of his becoming frivolous, of his running after his
+satisfaction like any Arthur, or like his father. It made Miriam bitter
+to think that he should throw away his soul for this flippant traffic of
+triviality with Clara. She walked in bitterness and silence, while the
+other two rallied each other, and Paul sported.
+
+And afterwards, he would not own it, but he was rather ashamed of
+himself, and prostrated himself before Miriam. Then again he rebelled.
+
+"It's not religious to be religious," he said. "I reckon a crow is
+religious when it sails across the sky. But it only does it because it
+feels itself carried to where it's going, not because it thinks it is
+being eternal."
+
+But Miriam knew that one should be religious in everything, have God,
+whatever God might be, present in everything.
+
+"I don't believe God knows such a lot about Himself," he cried. "God
+doesn't KNOW things, He IS things. And I'm sure He's not soulful."
+
+And then it seemed to her that Paul was arguing God on to his own side,
+because he wanted his own way and his own pleasure. There was a long
+battle between him and her. He was utterly unfaithful to her even in her
+own presence; then he was ashamed, then repentant; then he hated her,
+and went off again. Those were the ever-recurring conditions.
+
+She fretted him to the bottom of his soul. There she remained--sad,
+pensive, a worshipper. And he caused her sorrow. Half the time he
+grieved for her, half the time he hated her. She was his conscience; and
+he felt, somehow, he had got a conscience that was too much for him. He
+could not leave her, because in one way she did hold the best of him. He
+could not stay with her because she did not take the rest of him, which
+was three-quarters. So he chafed himself into rawness over her.
+
+When she was twenty-one he wrote her a letter which could only have been
+written to her.
+
+
+"May I speak of our old, worn love, this last time. It, too, is
+changing, is it not? Say, has not the body of that love died, and left
+you its invulnerable soul? You see, I can give you a spirit love, I have
+given it you this long, long time; but not embodied passion. See, you
+are a nun. I have given you what I would give a holy nun--as a mystic
+monk to a mystic nun. Surely you esteem it best. Yet you regret--no,
+have regretted--the other. In all our relations no body enters. I do not
+talk to you through the senses--rather through the spirit. That is why
+we cannot love in the common sense. Ours is not an everyday affection.
+As yet we are mortal, and to live side by side with one another would be
+dreadful, for somehow with you I cannot long be trivial, and, you know,
+to be always beyond this mortal state would be to lose it. If people
+marry, they must live together as affectionate humans, who may be
+commonplace with each other without feeling awkward--not as two souls.
+So I feel it.
+
+"Ought I to send this letter?--I doubt it. But there--it is best to
+understand. Au revoir."
+
+
+Miriam read this letter twice, after which she sealed it up. A year
+later she broke the seal to show her mother the letter.
+
+"You are a nun--you are a nun." The words went into her heart again and
+again. Nothing he ever had said had gone into her so deeply, fixedly,
+like a mortal wound.
+
+She answered him two days after the party.
+
+"'Our intimacy would have been all-beautiful but for one little
+mistake,'" she quoted. "Was the mistake mine?"
+
+Almost immediately he replied to her from Nottingham, sending her at the
+same time a little "Omar Khayyam."
+
+
+"I am glad you answered; you are so calm and natural you put me
+to shame. What a ranter I am! We are often out of sympathy. But in
+fundamentals we may always be together I think.
+
+"I must thank you for your sympathy with my painting and drawing. Many a
+sketch is dedicated to you. I do look forward to your criticisms, which,
+to my shame and glory, are always grand appreciations. It is a lovely
+joke, that. Au revoir."
+
+
+This was the end of the first phase of Paul's love affair. He was now
+about twenty-three years old, and, though still virgin, the sex instinct
+that Miriam had over-refined for so long now grew particularly strong.
+Often, as he talked to Clara Dawes, came that thickening and quickening
+of his blood, that peculiar concentration in the breast, as if something
+were alive there, a new self or a new centre of consciousness, warning
+him that sooner or later he would have to ask one woman or another. But
+he belonged to Miriam. Of that she was so fixedly sure that he allowed
+her right.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+CLARA
+
+WHEN he was twenty-three years old, Paul sent in a landscape to the
+winter exhibition at Nottingham Castle. Miss Jordan had taken a good
+deal of interest in him, and invited him to her house, where he met
+other artists. He was beginning to grow ambitious.
+
+One morning the postman came just as he was washing in the scullery.
+Suddenly he heard a wild noise from his mother. Rushing into the
+kitchen, he found her standing on the hearthrug wildly waving a
+letter and crying "Hurrah!" as if she had gone mad. He was shocked and
+frightened.
+
+"Why, mother!" he exclaimed.
+
+She flew to him, flung her arms round him for a moment, then waved the
+letter, crying:
+
+"Hurrah, my boy! I knew we should do it!"
+
+He was afraid of her--the small, severe woman with graying hair suddenly
+bursting out in such frenzy. The postman came running back, afraid
+something had happened. They saw his tipped cap over the short curtains.
+Mrs. Morel rushed to the door.
+
+"His picture's got first prize, Fred," she cried, "and is sold for
+twenty guineas."
+
+"My word, that's something like!" said the young postman, whom they had
+known all his life.
+
+"And Major Moreton has bought it!" she cried.
+
+"It looks like meanin' something, that does, Mrs. Morel," said the
+postman, his blue eyes bright. He was glad to have brought such a lucky
+letter. Mrs. Morel went indoors and sat down, trembling. Paul was afraid
+lest she might have misread the letter, and might be disappointed after
+all. He scrutinised it once, twice. Yes, he became convinced it was
+true. Then he sat down, his heart beating with joy.
+
+"Mother!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Didn't I SAY we should do it!" she said, pretending she was not crying.
+
+He took the kettle off the fire and mashed the tea.
+
+"You didn't think, mother--" he began tentatively.
+
+"No, my son--not so much--but I expected a good deal."
+
+"But not so much," he said.
+
+"No--no--but I knew we should do it."
+
+And then she recovered her composure, apparently at least. He sat with
+his shirt turned back, showing his young throat almost like a girl's,
+and the towel in his hand, his hair sticking up wet.
+
+"Twenty guineas, mother! That's just what you wanted to buy Arthur out.
+Now you needn't borrow any. It'll just do."
+
+"Indeed, I shan't take it all," she said.
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I shan't."
+
+"Well--you have twelve pounds, I'll have nine."
+
+They cavilled about sharing the twenty guineas. She wanted to take only
+the five pounds she needed. He would not hear of it. So they got over
+the stress of emotion by quarrelling.
+
+Morel came home at night from the pit, saying:
+
+"They tell me Paul's got first prize for his picture, and sold it to
+Lord Henry Bentley for fifty pound."
+
+"Oh, what stories people do tell!" she cried.
+
+"Ha!" he answered. "I said I wor sure it wor a lie. But they said tha'd
+told Fred Hodgkisson."
+
+"As if I would tell him such stuff!"
+
+"Ha!" assented the miner.
+
+But he was disappointed nevertheless.
+
+"It's true he has got the first prize," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+The miner sat heavily in his chair.
+
+"Has he, beguy!" he exclaimed.
+
+He stared across the room fixedly.
+
+"But as for fifty pounds--such nonsense!" She was silent awhile. "Major
+Moreton bought it for twenty guineas, that's true."
+
+"Twenty guineas! Tha niver says!" exclaimed Morel.
+
+"Yes, and it was worth it."
+
+"Ay!" he said. "I don't misdoubt it. But twenty guineas for a bit of a
+paintin' as he knocked off in an hour or two!"
+
+He was silent with conceit of his son. Mrs. Morel sniffed, as if it were
+nothing.
+
+"And when does he handle th' money?" asked the collier.
+
+"That I couldn't tell you. When the picture is sent home, I suppose."
+
+There was silence. Morel stared at the sugar-basin instead of eating his
+dinner. His black arm, with the hand all gnarled with work lay on the
+table. His wife pretended not to see him rub the back of his hand across
+his eyes, nor the smear in the coal-dust on his black face.
+
+"Yes, an' that other lad 'ud 'a done as much if they hadna ha' killed
+'im," he said quietly.
+
+The thought of William went through Mrs. Morel like a cold blade. It
+left her feeling she was tired, and wanted rest.
+
+Paul was invited to dinner at Mr. Jordan's. Afterwards he said:
+
+"Mother, I want an evening suit."
+
+"Yes, I was afraid you would," she said. She was glad. There was
+a moment or two of silence. "There's that one of William's," she
+continued, "that I know cost four pounds ten and which he'd only worn
+three times."
+
+"Should you like me to wear it, mother?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. I think it would fit you--at least the coat. The trousers would
+want shortening."
+
+He went upstairs and put on the coat and vest. Coming down, he looked
+strange in a flannel collar and a flannel shirt-front, with an evening
+coat and vest. It was rather large.
+
+"The tailor can make it right," she said, smoothing her hand over his
+shoulder. "It's beautiful stuff. I never could find in my heart to let
+your father wear the trousers, and very glad I am now."
+
+And as she smoothed her hand over the silk collar she thought of her
+eldest son. But this son was living enough inside the clothes. She
+passed her hand down his back to feel him. He was alive and hers. The
+other was dead.
+
+He went out to dinner several times in his evening suit that had been
+William's. Each time his mother's heart was firm with pride and joy. He
+was started now. The studs she and the children had bought for William
+were in his shirt-front; he wore one of William's dress shirts. But he
+had an elegant figure. His face was rough, but warm-looking and rather
+pleasing. He did not look particularly a gentleman, but she thought he
+looked quite a man.
+
+He told her everything that took place, everything that was said. It was
+as if she had been there. And he was dying to introduce her to these new
+friends who had dinner at seven-thirty in the evening.
+
+"Go along with you!" she said. "What do they want to know me for?"
+
+"They do!" he cried indignantly. "If they want to know me--and they say
+they do--then they want to know you, because you are quite as clever as
+I am."
+
+"Go along with you, child!" she laughed.
+
+But she began to spare her hands. They, too, were work-gnarled now. The
+skin was shiny with so much hot water, the knuckles rather swollen. But
+she began to be careful to keep them out of soda. She regretted what
+they had been--so small and exquisite. And when Annie insisted on her
+having more stylish blouses to suit her age, she submitted. She even
+went so far as to allow a black velvet bow to be placed on her hair.
+Then she sniffed in her sarcastic manner, and was sure she looked a
+sight. But she looked a lady, Paul declared, as much as Mrs. Major
+Moreton, and far, far nicer. The family was coming on. Only Morel
+remained unchanged, or rather, lapsed slowly.
+
+Paul and his mother now had long discussions about life. Religion was
+fading into the background. He had shovelled away all the beliefs that
+would hamper him, had cleared the ground, and come more or less to the
+bedrock of belief that one should feel inside oneself for right and
+wrong, and should have the patience to gradually realise one's God. Now
+life interested him more.
+
+"You know," he said to his mother, "I don't want to belong to the
+well-to-do middle class. I like my common people best. I belong to the
+common people."
+
+"But if anyone else said so, my son, wouldn't you be in a tear. YOU know
+you consider yourself equal to any gentleman."
+
+"In myself," he answered, "not in my class or my education or my
+manners. But in myself I am."
+
+"Very well, then. Then why talk about the common people?"
+
+"Because--the difference between people isn't in their class, but in
+themselves. Only from the middle classes one gets ideas, and from the
+common people--life itself, warmth. You feel their hates and loves."
+
+"It's all very well, my boy. But, then, why don't you go and talk to
+your father's pals?"
+
+"But they're rather different."
+
+"Not at all. They're the common people. After all, whom do you mix with
+now--among the common people? Those that exchange ideas, like the middle
+classes. The rest don't interest you."
+
+"But--there's the life--"
+
+"I don't believe there's a jot more life from Miriam than you could get
+from any educated girl--say Miss Moreton. It is YOU who are snobbish
+about class."
+
+She frankly WANTED him to climb into the middle classes, a thing not
+very difficult, she knew. And she wanted him in the end to marry a lady.
+
+Now she began to combat him in his restless fretting. He still kept up
+his connection with Miriam, could neither break free nor go the whole
+length of engagement. And this indecision seemed to bleed him of his
+energy. Moreover, his mother suspected him of an unrecognised leaning
+towards Clara, and, since the latter was a married woman, she wished he
+would fall in love with one of the girls in a better station of life.
+But he was stupid, and would refuse to love or even to admire a girl
+much, just because she was his social superior.
+
+"My boy," said his mother to him, "all your cleverness, your breaking
+away from old things, and taking life in your own hands, doesn't seem to
+bring you much happiness."
+
+"What is happiness!" he cried. "It's nothing to me! How AM I to be
+happy?"
+
+The plump question disturbed her.
+
+"That's for you to judge, my lad. But if you could meet some GOOD
+woman who would MAKE you happy--and you began to think of settling your
+life--when you have the means--so that you could work without all this
+fretting--it would be much better for you."
+
+He frowned. His mother caught him on the raw of his wound of Miriam.
+He pushed the tumbled hair off his forehead, his eyes full of pain and
+fire.
+
+"You mean easy, mother," he cried. "That's a woman's whole doctrine for
+life--ease of soul and physical comfort. And I do despise it."
+
+"Oh, do you!" replied his mother. "And do you call yours a divine
+discontent?"
+
+"Yes. I don't care about its divinity. But damn your happiness! So long
+as life's full, it doesn't matter whether it's happy or not. I'm afraid
+your happiness would bore me."
+
+"You never give it a chance," she said. Then suddenly all her passion
+of grief over him broke out. "But it does matter!" she cried. "And you
+OUGHT to be happy, you ought to try to be happy, to live to be happy.
+How could I bear to think your life wouldn't be a happy one!"
+
+"Your own's been bad enough, mater, but it hasn't left you so much worse
+off than the folk who've been happier. I reckon you've done well. And I
+am the same. Aren't I well enough off?"
+
+"You're not, my son. Battle--battle--and suffer. It's about all you do,
+as far as I can see."
+
+"But why not, my dear? I tell you it's the best--"
+
+"It isn't. And one OUGHT to be happy, one OUGHT."
+
+By this time Mrs. Morel was trembling violently. Struggles of this kind
+often took place between her and her son, when she seemed to fight for
+his very life against his own will to die. He took her in his arms. She
+was ill and pitiful.
+
+"Never mind, Little," he murmured. "So long as you don't feel life's
+paltry and a miserable business, the rest doesn't matter, happiness or
+unhappiness."
+
+She pressed him to her.
+
+"But I want you to be happy," she said pathetically.
+
+"Eh, my dear--say rather you want me to live."
+
+Mrs. Morel felt as if her heart would break for him. At this rate she
+knew he would not live. He had that poignant carelessness about himself,
+his own suffering, his own life, which is a form of slow suicide. It
+almost broke her heart. With all the passion of her strong nature she
+hated Miriam for having in this subtle way undermined his joy. It did
+not matter to her that Miriam could not help it. Miriam did it, and she
+hated her.
+
+She wished so much he would fall in love with a girl equal to be his
+mate--educated and strong. But he would not look at anybody above him
+in station. He seemed to like Mrs. Dawes. At any rate that feeling was
+wholesome. His mother prayed and prayed for him, that he might not be
+wasted. That was all her prayer--not for his soul or his righteousness,
+but that he might not be wasted. And while he slept, for hours and hours
+she thought and prayed for him.
+
+He drifted away from Miriam imperceptibly, without knowing he was going.
+Arthur only left the army to be married. The baby was born six months
+after his wedding. Mrs. Morel got him a job under the firm again, at
+twenty-one shillings a week. She furnished for him, with the help of
+Beatrice's mother, a little cottage of two rooms. He was caught now. It
+did not matter how he kicked and struggled, he was fast. For a time he
+chafed, was irritable with his young wife, who loved him; he went almost
+distracted when the baby, which was delicate, cried or gave trouble. He
+grumbled for hours to his mother. She only said: "Well, my lad, you did
+it yourself, now you must make the best of it." And then the grit
+came out in him. He buckled to work, undertook his responsibilities,
+acknowledged that he belonged to his wife and child, and did make a good
+best of it. He had never been very closely inbound into the family. Now
+he was gone altogether.
+
+The months went slowly along. Paul had more or less got into connection
+with the Socialist, Suffragette, Unitarian people in Nottingham, owing
+to his acquaintance with Clara. One day a friend of his and of Clara's,
+in Bestwood, asked him to take a message to Mrs. Dawes. He went in the
+evening across Sneinton Market to Bluebell Hill. He found the house in
+a mean little street paved with granite cobbles and having causeways of
+dark blue, grooved bricks. The front door went up a step from off this
+rough pavement, where the feet of the passersby rasped and clattered.
+The brown paint on the door was so old that the naked wood showed
+between the rents. He stood on the street below and knocked. There came
+a heavy footstep; a large, stout woman of about sixty towered above him.
+He looked up at her from the pavement. She had a rather severe face.
+
+She admitted him into the parlour, which opened on to the street. It was
+a small, stuffy, defunct room, of mahogany, and deathly enlargements of
+photographs of departed people done in carbon. Mrs. Radford left him.
+She was stately, almost martial. In a moment Clara appeared. She flushed
+deeply, and he was covered with confusion. It seemed as if she did not
+like being discovered in her home circumstances.
+
+"I thought it couldn't be your voice," she said.
+
+But she might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. She invited him
+out of the mausoleum of a parlour into the kitchen.
+
+That was a little, darkish room too, but it was smothered in white lace.
+The mother had seated herself again by the cupboard, and was drawing
+thread from a vast web of lace. A clump of fluff and ravelled cotton was
+at her right hand, a heap of three-quarter-inch lace lay on her
+left, whilst in front of her was the mountain of lace web, piling the
+hearthrug. Threads of curly cotton, pulled out from between the lengths
+of lace, strewed over the fender and the fireplace. Paul dared not go
+forward, for fear of treading on piles of white stuff.
+
+On the table was a jenny for carding the lace. There was a pack of brown
+cardboard squares, a pack of cards of lace, a little box of pins, and on
+the sofa lay a heap of drawn lace.
+
+The room was all lace, and it was so dark and warm that the white, snowy
+stuff seemed the more distinct.
+
+"If you're coming in you won't have to mind the work," said Mrs.
+Radford. "I know we're about blocked up. But sit you down."
+
+Clara, much embarrassed, gave him a chair against the wall opposite the
+white heaps. Then she herself took her place on the sofa, shamedly.
+
+"Will you drink a bottle of stout?" Mrs. Radford asked. "Clara, get him
+a bottle of stout."
+
+He protested, but Mrs. Radford insisted.
+
+"You look as if you could do with it," she said. "Haven't you never any
+more colour than that?"
+
+"It's only a thick skin I've got that doesn't show the blood through,"
+he answered.
+
+Clara, ashamed and chagrined, brought him a bottle of stout and a glass.
+He poured out some of the black stuff.
+
+"Well," he said, lifting the glass, "here's health!"
+
+"And thank you," said Mrs. Radford.
+
+He took a drink of stout.
+
+"And light yourself a cigarette, so long as you don't set the house on
+fire," said Mrs. Radford.
+
+"Thank you," he replied.
+
+"Nay, you needn't thank me," she answered. "I s'll be glad to smell a
+bit of smoke in th' 'ouse again. A house o' women is as dead as a house
+wi' no fire, to my thinkin'. I'm not a spider as likes a corner to
+myself. I like a man about, if he's only something to snap at."
+
+Clara began to work. Her jenny spun with a subdued buzz; the white
+lace hopped from between her fingers on to the card. It was filled; she
+snipped off the length, and pinned the end down to the banded lace. Then
+she put a new card in her jenny. Paul watched her. She sat square and
+magnificent. Her throat and arms were bare. The blood still mantled
+below her ears; she bent her head in shame of her humility. Her face was
+set on her work. Her arms were creamy and full of life beside the white
+lace; her large, well-kept hands worked with a balanced movement, as if
+nothing would hurry them. He, not knowing, watched her all the time. He
+saw the arch of her neck from the shoulder, as she bent her head; he saw
+the coil of dun hair; he watched her moving, gleaming arms.
+
+"I've heard a bit about you from Clara," continued the mother. "You're
+in Jordan's, aren't you?" She drew her lace unceasing.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ay, well, and I can remember when Thomas Jordan used to ask ME for one
+of my toffies."
+
+"Did he?" laughed Paul. "And did he get it?"
+
+"Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't--which was latterly. For he's the
+sort that takes all and gives naught, he is--or used to be."
+
+"I think he's very decent," said Paul.
+
+"Yes; well, I'm glad to hear it."
+
+Mrs. Radford looked across at him steadily. There was something
+determined about her that he liked. Her face was falling loose, but her
+eyes were calm, and there was something strong in her that made it
+seem she was not old; merely her wrinkles and loose cheeks were an
+anachronism. She had the strength and sang-froid of a woman in the prime
+of life. She continued drawing the lace with slow, dignified movements.
+The big web came up inevitably over her apron; the length of lace fell
+away at her side. Her arms were finely shapen, but glossy and yellow
+as old ivory. They had not the peculiar dull gleam that made Clara's so
+fascinating to him.
+
+"And you've been going with Miriam Leivers?" the mother asked him.
+
+"Well--" he answered.
+
+"Yes, she's a nice girl," she continued. "She's very nice, but she's a
+bit too much above this world to suit my fancy."
+
+"She is a bit like that," he agreed.
+
+"She'll never be satisfied till she's got wings and can fly over
+everybody's head, she won't," she said.
+
+Clara broke in, and he told her his message. She spoke humbly to him. He
+had surprised her in her drudgery. To have her humble made him feel as
+if he were lifting his head in expectation.
+
+"Do you like jennying?" he asked.
+
+"What can a woman do!" she replied bitterly.
+
+"Is it sweated?"
+
+"More or less. Isn't ALL woman's work? That's another trick the men have
+played, since we force ourselves into the labour market."
+
+"Now then, you shut up about the men," said her mother. "If the women
+wasn't fools, the men wouldn't be bad uns, that's what I say. No man was
+ever that bad wi' me but what he got it back again. Not but what they're
+a lousy lot, there's no denying it."
+
+"But they're all right really, aren't they?" he asked.
+
+"Well, they're a bit different from women," she answered.
+
+"Would you care to be back at Jordan's?" he asked Clara.
+
+"I don't think so," she replied.
+
+"Yes, she would!" cried her mother; "thank her stars if she could get
+back. Don't you listen to her. She's for ever on that 'igh horse of
+hers, an' it's back's that thin an' starved it'll cut her in two one of
+these days."
+
+Clara suffered badly from her mother. Paul felt as if his eyes were
+coming very wide open. Wasn't he to take Clara's fulminations so
+seriously, after all? She spun steadily at her work. He experienced a
+thrill of joy, thinking she might need his help. She seemed denied and
+deprived of so much. And her arm moved mechanically, that should never
+have been subdued to a mechanism, and her head was bowed to the lace,
+that never should have been bowed. She seemed to be stranded there
+among the refuse that life has thrown away, doing her jennying. It was
+a bitter thing to her to be put aside by life, as if it had no use for
+her. No wonder she protested.
+
+She came with him to the door. He stood below in the mean street,
+looking up at her. So fine she was in her stature and her bearing, she
+reminded him of Juno dethroned. As she stood in the doorway, she winced
+from the street, from her surroundings.
+
+"And you will go with Mrs. Hodgkisson to Hucknall?"
+
+He was talking quite meaninglessly, only watching her. Her grey eyes at
+last met his. They looked dumb with humiliation, pleading with a kind of
+captive misery. He was shaken and at a loss. He had thought her high and
+mighty.
+
+When he left her, he wanted to run. He went to the station in a sort of
+dream, and was at home without realising he had moved out of her street.
+
+He had an idea that Susan, the overseer of the Spiral girls, was about
+to be married. He asked her the next day.
+
+"I say, Susan, I heard a whisper of your getting married. What about
+it?"
+
+Susan flushed red.
+
+"Who's been talking to you?" she replied.
+
+"Nobody. I merely heard a whisper that you WERE thinking--"
+
+"Well, I am, though you needn't tell anybody. What's more, I wish I
+wasn't!"
+
+"Nay, Susan, you won't make me believe that."
+
+"Shan't I? You CAN believe it, though. I'd rather stop here a thousand
+times."
+
+Paul was perturbed.
+
+"Why, Susan?"
+
+The girl's colour was high, and her eyes flashed.
+
+"That's why!"
+
+"And must you?"
+
+For answer, she looked at him. There was about him a candour and
+gentleness which made the women trust him. He understood.
+
+"Ah, I'm sorry," he said.
+
+Tears came to her eyes.
+
+"But you'll see it'll turn out all right. You'll make the best of it,"
+he continued rather wistfully.
+
+"There's nothing else for it."
+
+"Yea, there's making the worst of it. Try and make it all right."
+
+He soon made occasion to call again on Clara.
+
+"Would you," he said, "care to come back to Jordan's?"
+
+She put down her work, laid her beautiful arms on the table, and looked
+at him for some moments without answering. Gradually the flush mounted
+her cheek.
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+Paul felt rather awkward.
+
+"Well, because Susan is thinking of leaving," he said.
+
+Clara went on with her jennying. The white lace leaped in little jumps
+and bounds on to the card. He waited for her. Without raising her head,
+she said at last, in a peculiar low voice:
+
+"Have you said anything about it?"
+
+"Except to you, not a word."
+
+There was again a long silence.
+
+"I will apply when the advertisement is out," she said.
+
+"You will apply before that. I will let you know exactly when."
+
+She went on spinning her little machine, and did not contradict him.
+
+Clara came to Jordan's. Some of the older hands, Fanny among them,
+remembered her earlier rule, and cordially disliked the memory. Clara
+had always been "ikey", reserved, and superior. She had never mixed with
+the girls as one of themselves. If she had occasion to find fault, she
+did it coolly and with perfect politeness, which the defaulter felt to
+be a bigger insult than crassness. Towards Fanny, the poor, overstrung
+hunchback, Clara was unfailingly compassionate and gentle, as a result
+of which Fanny shed more bitter tears than ever the rough tongues of the
+other overseers had caused her.
+
+There was something in Clara that Paul disliked, and much that piqued
+him. If she were about, he always watched her strong throat or her neck,
+upon which the blonde hair grew low and fluffy. There was a fine down,
+almost invisible, upon the skin of her face and arms, and when once he
+had perceived it, he saw it always.
+
+When he was at his work, painting in the afternoon, she would come and
+stand near to him, perfectly motionless. Then he felt her, though she
+neither spoke nor touched him. Although she stood a yard away he felt
+as if he were in contact with her. Then he could paint no more. He flung
+down the brushes, and turned to talk to her.
+
+Sometimes she praised his work; sometimes she was critical and cold.
+
+"You are affected in that piece," she would say; and, as there was an
+element of truth in her condemnation, his blood boiled with anger.
+
+Again: "What of this?" he would ask enthusiastically.
+
+"H'm!" She made a small doubtful sound. "It doesn't interest me much."
+
+"Because you don't understand it," he retorted.
+
+"Then why ask me about it?"
+
+"Because I thought you would understand."
+
+She would shrug her shoulders in scorn of his work. She maddened him. He
+was furious. Then he abused her, and went into passionate exposition of
+his stuff. This amused and stimulated her. But she never owned that she
+had been wrong.
+
+During the ten years that she had belonged to the women's movement
+she had acquired a fair amount of education, and, having had some of
+Miriam's passion to be instructed, had taught herself French, and could
+read in that language with a struggle. She considered herself as a woman
+apart, and particularly apart, from her class. The girls in the Spiral
+department were all of good homes. It was a small, special industry, and
+had a certain distinction. There was an air of refinement in both rooms.
+But Clara was aloof also from her fellow-workers.
+
+None of these things, however, did she reveal to Paul. She was not the
+one to give herself away. There was a sense of mystery about her. She
+was so reserved, he felt she had much to reserve. Her history was open
+on the surface, but its inner meaning was hidden from everybody. It was
+exciting. And then sometimes he caught her looking at him from under
+her brows with an almost furtive, sullen scrutiny, which made him move
+quickly. Often she met his eyes. But then her own were, as it were,
+covered over, revealing nothing. She gave him a little, lenient smile.
+She was to him extraordinarily provocative, because of the knowledge she
+seemed to possess, and gathered fruit of experience he could not attain.
+
+One day he picked up a copy of _Lettres de mon Moulin_ from her
+work-bench.
+
+"You read French, do you?" he cried.
+
+Clara glanced round negligently. She was making an elastic stocking
+of heliotrope silk, turning the Spiral machine with slow, balanced
+regularity, occasionally bending down to see her work or to adjust the
+needles; then her magnificent neck, with its down and fine pencils of
+hair, shone white against the lavender, lustrous silk. She turned a few
+more rounds, and stopped.
+
+"What did you say?" she asked, smiling sweetly.
+
+Paul's eyes glittered at her insolent indifference to him.
+
+"I did not know you read French," he said, very polite.
+
+"Did you not?" she replied, with a faint, sarcastic smile.
+
+"Rotten swank!" he said, but scarcely loud enough to be heard.
+
+He shut his mouth angrily as he watched her. She seemed to scorn the
+work she mechanically produced; yet the hose she made were as nearly
+perfect as possible.
+
+"You don't like Spiral work," he said.
+
+"Oh, well, all work is work," she answered, as if she knew all about it.
+
+He marvelled at her coldness. He had to do everything hotly. She must be
+something special.
+
+"What would you prefer to do?" he asked.
+
+She laughed at him indulgently, as she said:
+
+"There is so little likelihood of my ever being given a choice, that I
+haven't wasted time considering."
+
+"Pah!" he said, contemptuous on his side now. "You only say that because
+you're too proud to own up what you want and can't get."
+
+"You know me very well," she replied coldly.
+
+"I know you think you're terrific great shakes, and that you live under
+the eternal insult of working in a factory."
+
+He was very angry and very rude. She merely turned away from him in
+disdain. He walked whistling down the room, flirted and laughed with
+Hilda.
+
+Later on he said to himself:
+
+"What was I so impudent to Clara for?" He was rather annoyed with
+himself, at the same time glad. "Serve her right; she stinks with silent
+pride," he said to himself angrily.
+
+In the afternoon he came down. There was a certain weight on his
+heart which he wanted to remove. He thought to do it by offering her
+chocolates.
+
+"Have one?" he said. "I bought a handful to sweeten me up."
+
+To his great relief, she accepted. He sat on the work-bench beside her
+machine, twisting a piece of silk round his finger. She loved him for
+his quick, unexpected movements, like a young animal. His feet swung
+as he pondered. The sweets lay strewn on the bench. She bent over her
+machine, grinding rhythmically, then stooping to see the stocking
+that hung beneath, pulled down by the weight. He watched the handsome
+crouching of her back, and the apron-strings curling on the floor.
+
+"There is always about you," he said, "a sort of waiting. Whatever I see
+you doing, you're not really there: you are waiting--like Penelope when
+she did her weaving." He could not help a spurt of wickedness. "I'll
+call you Penelope," he said.
+
+"Would it make any difference?" she said, carefully removing one of her
+needles.
+
+"That doesn't matter, so long as it pleases me. Here, I say, you seem to
+forget I'm your boss. It just occurs to me."
+
+"And what does that mean?" she asked coolly.
+
+"It means I've got a right to boss you."
+
+"Is there anything you want to complain about?"
+
+"Oh, I say, you needn't be nasty," he said angrily.
+
+"I don't know what you want," she said, continuing her task.
+
+"I want you to treat me nicely and respectfully."
+
+"Call you 'sir', perhaps?" she asked quietly.
+
+"Yes, call me 'sir'. I should love it."
+
+"Then I wish you would go upstairs, sir."
+
+His mouth closed, and a frown came on his face. He jumped suddenly down.
+
+"You're too blessed superior for anything," he said.
+
+And he went away to the other girls. He felt he was being angrier than
+he had any need to be. In fact, he doubted slightly that he was showing
+off. But if he were, then he would. Clara heard him laughing, in a way
+she hated, with the girls down the next room.
+
+When at evening he went through the department after the girls had gone,
+he saw his chocolates lying untouched in front of Clara's machine. He
+left them. In the morning they were still there, and Clara was at work.
+Later on Minnie, a little brunette they called Pussy, called to him:
+
+"Hey, haven't you got a chocolate for anybody?"
+
+"Sorry, Pussy," he replied. "I meant to have offered them; then I went
+and forgot 'em."
+
+"I think you did," she answered.
+
+"I'll bring you some this afternoon. You don't want them after they've
+been lying about, do you?"
+
+"Oh, I'm not particular," smiled Pussy.
+
+"Oh no," he said. "They'll be dusty."
+
+He went up to Clara's bench.
+
+"Sorry I left these things littering about," he said.
+
+She flushed scarlet. He gathered them together in his fist.
+
+"They'll be dirty now," he said. "You should have taken them. I wonder
+why you didn't. I meant to have told you I wanted you to."
+
+He flung them out of the window into the yard below. He just glanced at
+her. She winced from his eyes.
+
+In the afternoon he brought another packet.
+
+"Will you take some?" he said, offering them first to Clara. "These are
+fresh."
+
+She accepted one, and put it on to the bench.
+
+"Oh, take several--for luck," he said.
+
+She took a couple more, and put them on the bench also. Then she turned
+in confusion to her work. He went on up the room.
+
+"Here you are, Pussy," he said. "Don't be greedy!"
+
+"Are they all for her?" cried the others, rushing up.
+
+"Of course they're not," he said.
+
+The girls clamoured round. Pussy drew back from her mates.
+
+"Come out!" she cried. "I can have first pick, can't I, Paul?"
+
+"Be nice with 'em," he said, and went away.
+
+"You ARE a dear," the girls cried.
+
+"Tenpence," he answered.
+
+He went past Clara without speaking. She felt the three chocolate creams
+would burn her if she touched them. It needed all her courage to slip
+them into the pocket of her apron.
+
+The girls loved him and were afraid of him. He was so nice while he
+was nice, but if he were offended, so distant, treating them as if they
+scarcely existed, or not more than the bobbins of thread. And then, if
+they were impudent, he said quietly: "Do you mind going on with your
+work," and stood and watched.
+
+When he celebrated his twenty-third birthday, the house was in trouble.
+Arthur was just going to be married. His mother was not well. His
+father, getting an old man, and lame from his accidents, was given
+a paltry, poor job. Miriam was an eternal reproach. He felt he owed
+himself to her, yet could not give himself. The house, moreover, needed
+his support. He was pulled in all directions. He was not glad it was his
+birthday. It made him bitter.
+
+He got to work at eight o'clock. Most of the clerks had not turned up.
+The girls were not due till 8.30. As he was changing his coat, he heard
+a voice behind him say:
+
+"Paul, Paul, I want you."
+
+It was Fanny, the hunchback, standing at the top of her stairs, her face
+radiant with a secret. Paul looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"I want you," she said.
+
+He stood, at a loss.
+
+"Come on," she coaxed. "Come before you begin on the letters."
+
+He went down the half-dozen steps into her dry, narrow, "finishing-off"
+room. Fanny walked before him: her black bodice was short--the waist was
+under her armpits--and her green-black cashmere skirt seemed very
+long, as she strode with big strides before the young man, himself so
+graceful. She went to her seat at the narrow end of the room, where the
+window opened on to chimney-pots. Paul watched her thin hands and her
+flat red wrists as she excitedly twitched her white apron, which was
+spread on the bench in front of her. She hesitated.
+
+"You didn't think we'd forgot you?" she asked, reproachful.
+
+"Why?" he asked. He had forgotten his birthday himself.
+
+"'Why,' he says! 'Why!' Why, look here!" She pointed to the calendar,
+and he saw, surrounding the big black number "21", hundreds of little
+crosses in black-lead.
+
+"Oh, kisses for my birthday," he laughed. "How did you know?"
+
+"Yes, you want to know, don't you?" Fanny mocked, hugely delighted.
+"There's one from everybody--except Lady Clara--and two from some. But I
+shan't tell you how many I put."
+
+"Oh, I know, you're spooney," he said.
+
+"There you ARE mistaken!" she cried, indignant. "I could never be so
+soft." Her voice was strong and contralto.
+
+"You always pretend to be such a hard-hearted hussy," he laughed. "And
+you know you're as sentimental--"
+
+"I'd rather be called sentimental than frozen meat," Fanny blurted. Paul
+knew she referred to Clara, and he smiled.
+
+"Do you say such nasty things about me?" he laughed.
+
+"No, my duck," the hunchback woman answered, lavishly tender. She was
+thirty-nine. "No, my duck, because you don't think yourself a fine
+figure in marble and us nothing but dirt. I'm as good as you, aren't I,
+Paul?" and the question delighted her.
+
+"Why, we're not better than one another, are we?" he replied.
+
+"But I'm as good as you, aren't I, Paul?" she persisted daringly.
+
+"Of course you are. If it comes to goodness, you're better."
+
+She was rather afraid of the situation. She might get hysterical.
+
+"I thought I'd get here before the others--won't they say I'm deep! Now
+shut your eyes--" she said.
+
+"And open your mouth, and see what God sends you," he continued, suiting
+action to words, and expecting a piece of chocolate. He heard the rustle
+of the apron, and a faint clink of metal. "I'm going to look," he said.
+
+He opened his eyes. Fanny, her long cheeks flushed, her blue eyes
+shining, was gazing at him. There was a little bundle of paint-tubes on
+the bench before him. He turned pale.
+
+"No, Fanny," he said quickly.
+
+"From us all," she answered hastily.
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Are they the right sort?" she asked, rocking herself with delight.
+
+"Jove! they're the best in the catalogue."
+
+"But they're the right sorts?" she cried.
+
+"They're off the little list I'd made to get when my ship came in." He
+bit his lip.
+
+Fanny was overcome with emotion. She must turn the conversation.
+
+"They was all on thorns to do it; they all paid their shares, all except
+the Queen of Sheba."
+
+The Queen of Sheba was Clara.
+
+"And wouldn't she join?" Paul asked.
+
+"She didn't get the chance; we never told her; we wasn't going to have
+HER bossing THIS show. We didn't WANT her to join."
+
+Paul laughed at the woman. He was much moved. At last he must go. She
+was very close to him. Suddenly she flung her arms round his neck and
+kissed him vehemently.
+
+"I can give you a kiss to-day," she said apologetically. "You've looked
+so white, it's made my heart ache."
+
+Paul kissed her, and left her. Her arms were so pitifully thin that his
+heart ached also.
+
+That day he met Clara as he ran downstairs to wash his hands at
+dinner-time.
+
+"You have stayed to dinner!" he exclaimed. It was unusual for her.
+
+"Yes; and I seem to have dined on old surgical-appliance stock. I MUST
+go out now, or I shall feel stale india-rubber right through."
+
+She lingered. He instantly caught at her wish.
+
+"You are going anywhere?" he asked.
+
+They went together up to the Castle. Outdoors she dressed very plainly,
+down to ugliness; indoors she always looked nice. She walked with
+hesitating steps alongside Paul, bowing and turning away from him.
+Dowdy in dress, and drooping, she showed to great disadvantage. He could
+scarcely recognise her strong form, that seemed to slumber with power.
+She appeared almost insignificant, drowning her stature in her stoop, as
+she shrank from the public gaze.
+
+The Castle grounds were very green and fresh. Climbing the precipitous
+ascent, he laughed and chattered, but she was silent, seeming to brood
+over something. There was scarcely time to go inside the squat, square
+building that crowns the bluff of rock. They leaned upon the wall where
+the cliff runs sheer down to the Park. Below them, in their holes in the
+sandstone, pigeons preened themselves and cooed softly. Away down upon
+the boulevard at the foot of the rock, tiny trees stood in their
+own pools of shadow, and tiny people went scurrying about in almost
+ludicrous importance.
+
+"You feel as if you could scoop up the folk like tadpoles, and have a
+handful of them," he said.
+
+She laughed, answering:
+
+"Yes; it is not necessary to get far off in order to see us
+proportionately. The trees are much more significant."
+
+"Bulk only," he said.
+
+She laughed cynically.
+
+Away beyond the boulevard the thin stripes of the metals showed upon the
+railway-track, whose margin was crowded with little stacks of timber,
+beside which smoking toy engines fussed. Then the silver string of the
+canal lay at random among the black heaps. Beyond, the dwellings, very
+dense on the river flat, looked like black, poisonous herbage, in thick
+rows and crowded beds, stretching right away, broken now and then by
+taller plants, right to where the river glistened in a hieroglyph across
+the country. The steep scarp cliffs across the river looked puny. Great
+stretches of country darkened with trees and faintly brightened with
+corn-land, spread towards the haze, where the hills rose blue beyond
+grey.
+
+"It is comforting," said Mrs. Dawes, "to think the town goes no farther.
+It is only a LITTLE sore upon the country yet."
+
+"A little scab," Paul said.
+
+She shivered. She loathed the town. Looking drearily across at the
+country which was forbidden her, her impassive face, pale and hostile,
+she reminded Paul of one of the bitter, remorseful angels.
+
+"But the town's all right," he said; "it's only temporary. This is the
+crude, clumsy make-shift we've practised on, till we find out what the
+idea is. The town will come all right."
+
+The pigeons in the pockets of rock, among the perched bushes, cooed
+comfortably. To the left the large church of St. Mary rose into space,
+to keep close company with the Castle, above the heaped rubble of the
+town. Mrs. Dawes smiled brightly as she looked across the country.
+
+"I feel better," she said.
+
+"Thank you," he replied. "Great compliment!"
+
+"Oh, my brother!" she laughed.
+
+"H'm! that's snatching back with the left hand what you gave with the
+right, and no mistake," he said.
+
+She laughed in amusement at him.
+
+"But what was the matter with you?" he asked. "I know you were brooding
+something special. I can see the stamp of it on your face yet."
+
+"I think I will not tell you," she said.
+
+"All right, hug it," he answered.
+
+She flushed and bit her lip.
+
+"No," she said, "it was the girls."
+
+"What about 'em?" Paul asked.
+
+"They have been plotting something for a week now, and to-day they seem
+particularly full of it. All alike; they insult me with their secrecy."
+
+"Do they?" he asked in concern.
+
+"I should not mind," she went on, in the metallic, angry tone, "if they
+did not thrust it into my face--the fact that they have a secret."
+
+"Just like women," said he.
+
+"It is hateful, their mean gloating," she said intensely.
+
+Paul was silent. He knew what the girls gloated over. He was sorry to be
+the cause of this new dissension.
+
+"They can have all the secrets in the world," she went on, brooding
+bitterly; "but they might refrain from glorying in them, and making me
+feel more out of it than ever. It is--it is almost unbearable."
+
+Paul thought for a few minutes. He was much perturbed.
+
+"I will tell you what it's all about," he said, pale and nervous. "It's
+my birthday, and they've bought me a fine lot of paints, all the
+girls. They're jealous of you"--he felt her stiffen coldly at the word
+'jealous'--"merely because I sometimes bring you a book," he added
+slowly. "But, you see, it's only a trifle. Don't bother about it, will
+you--because"--he laughed quickly--"well, what would they say if they
+saw us here now, in spite of their victory?"
+
+She was angry with him for his clumsy reference to their present
+intimacy. It was almost insolent of him. Yet he was so quiet, she
+forgave him, although it cost her an effort.
+
+Their two hands lay on the rough stone parapet of the Castle wall. He
+had inherited from his mother a fineness of mould, so that his hands
+were small and vigorous. Hers were large, to match her large limbs, but
+white and powerful looking. As Paul looked at them he knew her. "She is
+wanting somebody to take her hands--for all she is so contemptuous of
+us," he said to himself. And she saw nothing but his two hands, so warm
+and alive, which seemed to live for her. He was brooding now, staring
+out over the country from under sullen brows. The little, interesting
+diversity of shapes had vanished from the scene; all that remained was a
+vast, dark matrix of sorrow and tragedy, the same in all the houses
+and the river-flats and the people and the birds; they were only shapen
+differently. And now that the forms seemed to have melted away, there
+remained the mass from which all the landscape was composed, a dark mass
+of struggle and pain. The factory, the girls, his mother, the
+large, uplifted church, the thicket of the town, merged into one
+atmosphere--dark, brooding, and sorrowful, every bit.
+
+"Is that two o'clock striking?" Mrs. Dawes said in surprise.
+
+Paul started, and everything sprang into form, regained its
+individuality, its forgetfulness, and its cheerfulness.
+
+They hurried back to work.
+
+When he was in the rush of preparing for the night's post, examining the
+work up from Fanny's room, which smelt of ironing, the evening postman
+came in.
+
+"'Mr. Paul Morel,'" he said, smiling, handing Paul a package. "A lady's
+handwriting! Don't let the girls see it."
+
+The postman, himself a favourite, was pleased to make fun of the girls'
+affection for Paul.
+
+It was a volume of verse with a brief note: "You will allow me to send
+you this, and so spare me my isolation. I also sympathise and wish you
+well.--C.D." Paul flushed hot.
+
+"Good Lord! Mrs. Dawes. She can't afford it. Good Lord, who ever'd have
+thought it!"
+
+He was suddenly intensely moved. He was filled with the warmth of her.
+In the glow he could almost feel her as if she were present--her arms,
+her shoulders, her bosom, see them, feel them, almost contain them.
+
+This move on the part of Clara brought them into closer intimacy. The
+other girls noticed that when Paul met Mrs. Dawes his eyes lifted and
+gave that peculiar bright greeting which they could interpret. Knowing
+he was unaware, Clara made no sign, save that occasionally she turned
+aside her face from him when he came upon her.
+
+They walked out together very often at dinner-time; it was quite open,
+quite frank. Everybody seemed to feel that he was quite unaware of the
+state of his own feeling, and that nothing was wrong. He talked to her
+now with some of the old fervour with which he had talked to Miriam, but
+he cared less about the talk; he did not bother about his conclusions.
+
+One day in October they went out to Lambley for tea. Suddenly they came
+to a halt on top of the hill. He climbed and sat on a gate, she sat
+on the stile. The afternoon was perfectly still, with a dim haze, and
+yellow sheaves glowing through. They were quiet.
+
+"How old were you when you married?" he asked quietly.
+
+"Twenty-two."
+
+Her voice was subdued, almost submissive. She would tell him now.
+
+"It is eight years ago?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And when did you leave him?"
+
+"Three years ago."
+
+"Five years! Did you love him when you married him?"
+
+She was silent for some time; then she said slowly:
+
+"I thought I did--more or less. I didn't think much about it. And he
+wanted me. I was very prudish then."
+
+"And you sort of walked into it without thinking?"
+
+"Yes. I seemed to have been asleep nearly all my life."
+
+"_Somnambule_? But--when did you wake up?"
+
+"I don't know that I ever did, or ever have--since I was a child."
+
+"You went to sleep as you grew to be a woman? How queer! And he didn't
+wake you?"
+
+"No; he never got there," she replied, in a monotone.
+
+The brown birds dashed over the hedges where the rose-hips stood naked
+and scarlet.
+
+"Got where?" he asked.
+
+"At me. He never really mattered to me."
+
+The afternoon was so gently warm and dim. Red roofs of the cottages
+burned among the blue haze. He loved the day. He could feel, but he
+could not understand, what Clara was saying.
+
+"But why did you leave him? Was he horrid to you?"
+
+She shuddered lightly.
+
+"He--he sort of degraded me. He wanted to bully me because he hadn't
+got me. And then I felt as if I wanted to run, as if I was fastened and
+bound up. And he seemed dirty."
+
+"I see."
+
+He did not at all see.
+
+"And was he always dirty?" he asked.
+
+"A bit," she replied slowly. "And then he seemed as if he couldn't get
+AT me, really. And then he got brutal--he WAS brutal!"
+
+"And why did you leave him finally?"
+
+"Because--because he was unfaithful to me--"
+
+They were both silent for some time. Her hand lay on the gate-post as
+she balanced. He put his own over it. His heart beat quickly.
+
+"But did you--were you ever--did you ever give him a chance?"
+
+"Chance? How?"
+
+"To come near to you."
+
+"I married him--and I was willing--"
+
+They both strove to keep their voices steady.
+
+"I believe he loves you," he said.
+
+"It looks like it," she replied.
+
+He wanted to take his hand away, and could not. She saved him by
+removing her own. After a silence, he began again:
+
+"Did you leave him out of count all along?"
+
+"He left me," she said.
+
+"And I suppose he couldn't MAKE himself mean everything to you?"
+
+"He tried to bully me into it."
+
+But the conversation had got them both out of their depth. Suddenly Paul
+jumped down.
+
+"Come on," he said. "Let's go and get some tea."
+
+They found a cottage, where they sat in the cold parlour. She poured out
+his tea. She was very quiet. He felt she had withdrawn again from him.
+After tea, she stared broodingly into her tea-cup, twisting her wedding
+ring all the time. In her abstraction she took the ring off her finger,
+stood it up, and spun it upon the table. The gold became a diaphanous,
+glittering globe. It fell, and the ring was quivering upon the table.
+She spun it again and again. Paul watched, fascinated.
+
+But she was a married woman, and he believed in simple friendship. And
+he considered that he was perfectly honourable with regard to her.
+It was only a friendship between man and woman, such as any civilised
+persons might have.
+
+He was like so many young men of his own age. Sex had become so
+complicated in him that he would have denied that he ever could want
+Clara or Miriam or any woman whom he knew. Sex desire was a sort of
+detached thing, that did not belong to a woman. He loved Miriam with his
+soul. He grew warm at the thought of Clara, he battled with her, he
+knew the curves of her breast and shoulders as if they had been moulded
+inside him; and yet he did not positively desire her. He would have
+denied it for ever. He believed himself really bound to Miriam. If ever
+he should marry, some time in the far future, it would be his duty to
+marry Miriam. That he gave Clara to understand, and she said nothing,
+but left him to his courses. He came to her, Mrs. Dawes, whenever
+he could. Then he wrote frequently to Miriam, and visited the girl
+occasionally. So he went on through the winter; but he seemed not so
+fretted. His mother was easier about him. She thought he was getting
+away from Miriam.
+
+Miriam knew now how strong was the attraction of Clara for him; but
+still she was certain that the best in him would triumph. His feeling
+for Mrs. Dawes--who, moreover, was a married woman--was shallow and
+temporal, compared with his love for herself. He would come back to her,
+she was sure; with some of his young freshness gone, perhaps, but cured
+of his desire for the lesser things which other women than herself could
+give him. She could bear all if he were inwardly true to her and must
+come back.
+
+He saw none of the anomaly of his position. Miriam was his old friend,
+lover, and she belonged to Bestwood and home and his youth. Clara was a
+newer friend, and she belonged to Nottingham, to life, to the world. It
+seemed to him quite plain.
+
+Mrs. Dawes and he had many periods of coolness, when they saw little of
+each other; but they always came together again.
+
+"Were you horrid with Baxter Dawes?" he asked her. It was a thing that
+seemed to trouble him.
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. But weren't you horrid with him? Didn't you do
+something that knocked him to pieces?"
+
+"What, pray?"
+
+"Making him feel as if he were nothing--I know," Paul declared.
+
+"You are so clever, my friend," she said coolly.
+
+The conversation broke off there. But it made her cool with him for some
+time.
+
+She very rarely saw Miriam now. The friendship between the two women was
+not broken off, but considerably weakened.
+
+"Will you come in to the concert on Sunday afternoon?" Clara asked him
+just after Christmas.
+
+"I promised to go up to Willey Farm," he replied.
+
+"Oh, very well."
+
+"You don't mind, do you?" he asked.
+
+"Why should I?" she answered.
+
+Which almost annoyed him.
+
+"You know," he said, "Miriam and I have been a lot to each other ever
+since I was sixteen--that's seven years now."
+
+"It's a long time," Clara replied.
+
+"Yes; but somehow she--it doesn't go right--"
+
+"How?" asked Clara.
+
+"She seems to draw me and draw me, and she wouldn't leave a single hair
+of me free to fall out and blow away--she'd keep it."
+
+"But you like to be kept."
+
+"No," he said, "I don't. I wish it could be normal, give and take--like
+me and you. I want a woman to keep me, but not in her pocket."
+
+"But if you love her, it couldn't be normal, like me and you."
+
+"Yes; I should love her better then. She sort of wants me so much that I
+can't give myself."
+
+"Wants you how?"
+
+"Wants the soul out of my body. I can't help shrinking back from her."
+
+"And yet you love her!"
+
+"No, I don't love her. I never even kiss her."
+
+"Why not?" Clara asked.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"I suppose you're afraid," she said.
+
+"I'm not. Something in me shrinks from her like hell--she's so good,
+when I'm not good."
+
+"How do you know what she is?"
+
+"I do! I know she wants a sort of soul union."
+
+"But how do you know what she wants?"
+
+"I've been with her for seven years."
+
+"And you haven't found out the very first thing about her."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"That she doesn't want any of your soul communion. That's your own
+imagination. She wants you."
+
+He pondered over this. Perhaps he was wrong.
+
+"But she seems--" he began.
+
+"You've never tried," she answered.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE TEST ON MIRIAM
+
+WITH the spring came again the old madness and battle. Now he knew he
+would have to go to Miriam. But what was his reluctance? He told himself
+it was only a sort of overstrong virginity in her and him which neither
+could break through. He might have married her; but his circumstances
+at home made it difficult, and, moreover, he did not want to marry.
+Marriage was for life, and because they had become close companions, he
+and she, he did not see that it should inevitably follow they should be
+man and wife. He did not feel that he wanted marriage with Miriam. He
+wished he did. He would have given his head to have felt a joyous desire
+to marry her and to have her. Then why couldn't he bring it off? There
+was some obstacle; and what was the obstacle? It lay in the physical
+bondage. He shrank from the physical contact. But why? With her he felt
+bound up inside himself. He could not go out to her. Something struggled
+in him, but he could not get to her. Why? She loved him. Clara said she
+even wanted him; then why couldn't he go to her, make love to her, kiss
+her? Why, when she put her arm in his, timidly, as they walked, did he
+feel he would burst forth in brutality and recoil? He owed himself to
+her; he wanted to belong to her. Perhaps the recoil and the shrinking
+from her was love in its first fierce modesty. He had no aversion for
+her. No, it was the opposite; it was a strong desire battling with a
+still stronger shyness and virginity. It seemed as if virginity were a
+positive force, which fought and won in both of them. And with her he
+felt it so hard to overcome; yet he was nearest to her, and with her
+alone could he deliberately break through. And he owed himself to her.
+Then, if they could get things right, they could marry; but he would not
+marry unless he could feel strong in the joy of it--never. He could not
+have faced his mother. It seemed to him that to sacrifice himself in
+a marriage he did not want would be degrading, and would undo all his
+life, make it a nullity. He would try what he COULD do.
+
+And he had a great tenderness for Miriam. Always, she was sad, dreaming
+her religion; and he was nearly a religion to her. He could not bear to
+fail her. It would all come right if they tried.
+
+He looked round. A good many of the nicest men he knew were like
+himself, bound in by their own virginity, which they could not break
+out of. They were so sensitive to their women that they would go without
+them for ever rather than do them a hurt, an injustice. Being the sons
+of mothers whose husbands had blundered rather brutally through their
+feminine sanctities, they were themselves too diffident and shy. They
+could easier deny themselves than incur any reproach from a woman; for
+a woman was like their mother, and they were full of the sense of their
+mother. They preferred themselves to suffer the misery of celibacy,
+rather than risk the other person.
+
+He went back to her. Something in her, when he looked at her, brought
+the tears almost to his eyes. One day he stood behind her as she sang.
+Annie was playing a song on the piano. As Miriam sang her mouth seemed
+hopeless. She sang like a nun singing to heaven. It reminded him so much
+of the mouth and eyes of one who sings beside a Botticelli Madonna, so
+spiritual. Again, hot as steel, came up the pain in him. Why must he ask
+her for the other thing? Why was there his blood battling with her? If
+only he could have been always gentle, tender with her, breathing with
+her the atmosphere of reverie and religious dreams, he would give
+his right hand. It was not fair to hurt her. There seemed an eternal
+maidenhood about her; and when he thought of her mother, he saw the
+great brown eyes of a maiden who was nearly scared and shocked out of
+her virgin maidenhood, but not quite, in spite of her seven children.
+They had been born almost leaving her out of count, not of her, but upon
+her. So she could never let them go, because she never had possessed
+them.
+
+Mrs. Morel saw him going again frequently to Miriam, and was astonished.
+He said nothing to his mother. He did not explain nor excuse himself. If
+he came home late, and she reproached him, he frowned and turned on her
+in an overbearing way:
+
+"I shall come home when I like," he said; "I am old enough."
+
+"Must she keep you till this time?"
+
+"It is I who stay," he answered.
+
+"And she lets you? But very well," she said.
+
+And she went to bed, leaving the door unlocked for him; but she lay
+listening until he came, often long after. It was a great bitterness
+to her that he had gone back to Miriam. She recognised, however, the
+uselessness of any further interference. He went to Willey Farm as a
+man now, not as a youth. She had no right over him. There was a coldness
+between him and her. He hardly told her anything. Discarded, she waited
+on him, cooked for him still, and loved to slave for him; but her face
+closed again like a mask. There was nothing for her to do now but the
+housework; for all the rest he had gone to Miriam. She could not forgive
+him. Miriam killed the joy and the warmth in him. He had been such a
+jolly lad, and full of the warmest affection; now he grew colder, more
+and more irritable and gloomy. It reminded her of William; but Paul was
+worse. He did things with more intensity, and more realisation of what
+he was about. His mother knew how he was suffering for want of a woman,
+and she saw him going to Miriam. If he had made up his mind, nothing
+on earth would alter him. Mrs. Morel was tired. She began to give up at
+last; she had finished. She was in the way.
+
+He went on determinedly. He realised more or less what his mother felt.
+It only hardened his soul. He made himself callous towards her; but it
+was like being callous to his own health. It undermined him quickly; yet
+he persisted.
+
+He lay back in the rocking-chair at Willey Farm one evening. He had been
+talking to Miriam for some weeks, but had not come to the point. Now he
+said suddenly:
+
+"I am twenty-four, almost."
+
+She had been brooding. She looked up at him suddenly in surprise.
+
+"Yes. What makes you say it?"
+
+There was something in the charged atmosphere that she dreaded.
+
+"Sir Thomas More says one can marry at twenty-four."
+
+She laughed quaintly, saying:
+
+"Does it need Sir Thomas More's sanction?"
+
+"No; but one ought to marry about then."
+
+"Ay," she answered broodingly; and she waited.
+
+"I can't marry you," he continued slowly, "not now, because we've no
+money, and they depend on me at home."
+
+She sat half-guessing what was coming.
+
+"But I want to marry now--"
+
+"You want to marry?" she repeated.
+
+"A woman--you know what I mean."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"Now, at last, I must," he said.
+
+"Ay," she answered.
+
+"And you love me?"
+
+She laughed bitterly.
+
+"Why are you ashamed of it," he answered. "You wouldn't be ashamed
+before your God, why are you before people?"
+
+"Nay," she answered deeply, "I am not ashamed."
+
+"You are," he replied bitterly; "and it's my fault. But you know I can't
+help being--as I am--don't you?"
+
+"I know you can't help it," she replied.
+
+"I love you an awful lot--then there is something short."
+
+"Where?" she answered, looking at him.
+
+"Oh, in me! It is I who ought to be ashamed--like a spiritual cripple.
+And I am ashamed. It is misery. Why is it?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Miriam.
+
+"And I don't know," he repeated. "Don't you think we have been too
+fierce in our what they call purity? Don't you think that to be so much
+afraid and averse is a sort of dirtiness?"
+
+She looked at him with startled dark eyes.
+
+"You recoiled away from anything of the sort, and I took the motion from
+you, and recoiled also, perhaps worse."
+
+There was silence in the room for some time.
+
+"Yes," she said, "it is so."
+
+"There is between us," he said, "all these years of intimacy. I feel
+naked enough before you. Do you understand?"
+
+"I think so," she answered.
+
+"And you love me?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Don't be bitter," he pleaded.
+
+She looked at him and was sorry for him; his eyes were dark with
+torture. She was sorry for him; it was worse for him to have this
+deflated love than for herself, who could never be properly mated. He
+was restless, for ever urging forward and trying to find a way out. He
+might do as he liked, and have what he liked of her.
+
+"Nay," she said softly, "I am not bitter."
+
+She felt she could bear anything for him; she would suffer for him. She
+put her hand on his knee as he leaned forward in his chair. He took
+it and kissed it; but it hurt to do so. He felt he was putting himself
+aside. He sat there sacrificed to her purity, which felt more like
+nullity. How could he kiss her hand passionately, when it would drive
+her away, and leave nothing but pain? Yet slowly he drew her to him and
+kissed her.
+
+They knew each other too well to pretend anything. As she kissed him,
+she watched his eyes; they were staring across the room, with a peculiar
+dark blaze in them that fascinated her. He was perfectly still. She
+could feel his heart throbbing heavily in his breast.
+
+"What are you thinking about?" she asked.
+
+The blaze in his eyes shuddered, became uncertain.
+
+"I was thinking, all the while, I love you. I have been obstinate."
+
+She sank her head on his breast.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"That's all," he said, and his voice seemed sure, and his mouth was
+kissing her throat.
+
+Then she raised her head and looked into his eyes with her full gaze of
+love. The blaze struggled, seemed to try to get away from her, and
+then was quenched. He turned his head quickly aside. It was a moment of
+anguish.
+
+"Kiss me," she whispered.
+
+He shut his eyes, and kissed her, and his arms folded her closer and
+closer.
+
+When she walked home with him over the fields, he said:
+
+"I am glad I came back to you. I feel so simple with you--as if there
+was nothing to hide. We will be happy?"
+
+"Yes," she murmured, and the tears came to her eyes.
+
+"Some sort of perversity in our souls," he said, "makes us not want, get
+away from, the very thing we want. We have to fight against that."
+
+"Yes," she said, and she felt stunned.
+
+As she stood under the drooping-thorn tree, in the darkness by the
+roadside, he kissed her, and his fingers wandered over her face. In
+the darkness, where he could not see her but only feel her, his passion
+flooded him. He clasped her very close.
+
+"Sometime you will have me?" he murmured, hiding his face on her
+shoulder. It was so difficult.
+
+"Not now," she said.
+
+His hopes and his heart sunk. A dreariness came over him.
+
+"No," he said.
+
+His clasp of her slackened.
+
+"I love to feel your arm THERE!" she said, pressing his arm against her
+back, where it went round her waist. "It rests me so."
+
+He tightened the pressure of his arm upon the small of her back to rest
+her.
+
+"We belong to each other," he said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then why shouldn't we belong to each other altogether?"
+
+"But--" she faltered.
+
+"I know it's a lot to ask," he said; "but there's not much risk for you
+really--not in the Gretchen way. You can trust me there?"
+
+"Oh, I can trust you." The answer came quick and strong. "It's not
+that--it's not that at all--but--"
+
+"What?"
+
+She hid her face in his neck with a little cry of misery.
+
+"I don't know!" she cried.
+
+She seemed slightly hysterical, but with a sort of horror. His heart
+died in him.
+
+"You don't think it ugly?" he asked.
+
+"No, not now. You have TAUGHT me it isn't."
+
+"You are afraid?"
+
+She calmed herself hastily.
+
+"Yes, I am only afraid," she said.
+
+He kissed her tenderly.
+
+"Never mind," he said. "You should please yourself."
+
+Suddenly she gripped his arms round her, and clenched her body stiff.
+
+"You SHALL have me," she said, through her shut teeth.
+
+His heart beat up again like fire. He folded her close, and his mouth
+was on her throat. She could not bear it. She drew away. He disengaged
+her.
+
+"Won't you be late?" she asked gently.
+
+He sighed, scarcely hearing what she said. She waited, wishing he would
+go. At last he kissed her quickly and climbed the fence. Looking round
+he saw the pale blotch of her face down in the darkness under the
+hanging tree. There was no more of her but this pale blotch.
+
+"Good-bye!" she called softly. She had no body, only a voice and a dim
+face. He turned away and ran down the road, his fists clenched; and
+when he came to the wall over the lake he leaned there, almost stunned,
+looking up the black water.
+
+Miriam plunged home over the meadows. She was not afraid of people, what
+they might say; but she dreaded the issue with him. Yes, she would
+let him have her if he insisted; and then, when she thought of it
+afterwards, her heart went down. He would be disappointed, he would find
+no satisfaction, and then he would go away. Yet he was so insistent; and
+over this, which did not seem so all-important to her, was their love
+to break down. After all, he was only like other men, seeking his
+satisfaction. Oh, but there was something more in him, something deeper!
+She could trust to it, in spite of all desires. He said that possession
+was a great moment in life. All strong emotions concentrated there.
+Perhaps it was so. There was something divine in it; then she would
+submit, religiously, to the sacrifice. He should have her. And at
+the thought her whole body clenched itself involuntarily, hard, as if
+against something; but Life forced her through this gate of suffering,
+too, and she would submit. At any rate, it would give him what he
+wanted, which was her deepest wish. She brooded and brooded and brooded
+herself towards accepting him.
+
+He courted her now like a lover. Often, when he grew hot, she put his
+face from her, held it between her hands, and looked in his eyes.
+He could not meet her gaze. Her dark eyes, full of love, earnest and
+searching, made him turn away. Not for an instant would she let him
+forget. Back again he had to torture himself into a sense of his
+responsibility and hers. Never any relaxing, never any leaving himself
+to the great hunger and impersonality of passion; he must be brought
+back to a deliberate, reflective creature. As if from a swoon of passion
+she caged him back to the littleness, the personal relationship. He
+could not bear it. "Leave me alone--leave me alone!" he wanted to cry;
+but she wanted him to look at her with eyes full of love. His eyes, full
+of the dark, impersonal fire of desire, did not belong to her.
+
+There was a great crop of cherries at the farm. The trees at the back
+of the house, very large and tall, hung thick with scarlet and crimson
+drops, under the dark leaves. Paul and Edgar were gathering the fruit
+one evening. It had been a hot day, and now the clouds were rolling in
+the sky, dark and warm. Paul combed high in the tree, above the scarlet
+roofs of the buildings. The wind, moaning steadily, made the whole tree
+rock with a subtle, thrilling motion that stirred the blood. The young
+man, perched insecurely in the slender branches, rocked till he felt
+slightly drunk, reached down the boughs, where the scarlet beady
+cherries hung thick underneath, and tore off handful after handful of
+the sleek, cool-fleshed fruit. Cherries touched his ears and his neck as
+he stretched forward, their chill finger-tips sending a flash down his
+blood. All shades of red, from a golden vermilion to a rich crimson,
+glowed and met his eyes under a darkness of leaves.
+
+The sun, going down, suddenly caught the broken clouds. Immense piles of
+gold flared out in the south-east, heaped in soft, glowing yellow right
+up the sky. The world, till now dusk and grey, reflected the gold glow,
+astonished. Everywhere the trees, and the grass, and the far-off water,
+seemed roused from the twilight and shining.
+
+Miriam came out wondering.
+
+"Oh!" Paul heard her mellow voice call, "isn't it wonderful?"
+
+He looked down. There was a faint gold glimmer on her face, that looked
+very soft, turned up to him.
+
+"How high you are!" she said.
+
+Beside her, on the rhubarb leaves, were four dead birds, thieves that
+had been shot. Paul saw some cherry stones hanging quite bleached, like
+skeletons, picked clear of flesh. He looked down again to Miriam.
+
+"Clouds are on fire," he said.
+
+"Beautiful!" she cried.
+
+She seemed so small, so soft, so tender, down there. He threw a handful
+of cherries at her. She was startled and frightened. He laughed with a
+low, chuckling sound, and pelted her. She ran for shelter, picking
+up some cherries. Two fine red pairs she hung over her ears; then she
+looked up again.
+
+"Haven't you got enough?" she asked.
+
+"Nearly. It is like being on a ship up here."
+
+"And how long will you stay?"
+
+"While the sunset lasts."
+
+She went to the fence and sat there, watching the gold clouds fall to
+pieces, and go in immense, rose-coloured ruin towards the darkness. Gold
+flamed to scarlet, like pain in its intense brightness. Then the scarlet
+sank to rose, and rose to crimson, and quickly the passion went out of
+the sky. All the world was dark grey. Paul scrambled quickly down with
+his basket, tearing his shirt-sleeve as he did so.
+
+"They are lovely," said Miriam, fingering the cherries.
+
+"I've torn my sleeve," he answered.
+
+She took the three-cornered rip, saying:
+
+"I shall have to mend it." It was near the shoulder. She put her fingers
+through the tear. "How warm!" she said.
+
+He laughed. There was a new, strange note in his voice, one that made
+her pant.
+
+"Shall we stay out?" he said.
+
+"Won't it rain?" she asked.
+
+"No, let us walk a little way."
+
+They went down the fields and into the thick plantation of trees and
+pines.
+
+"Shall we go in among the trees?" he asked.
+
+"Do you want to?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was very dark among the firs, and the sharp spines pricked her face.
+She was afraid. Paul was silent and strange.
+
+"I like the darkness," he said. "I wish it were thicker--good, thick
+darkness."
+
+He seemed to be almost unaware of her as a person: she was only to him
+then a woman. She was afraid.
+
+He stood against a pine-tree trunk and took her in his arms. She
+relinquished herself to him, but it was a sacrifice in which she felt
+something of horror. This thick-voiced, oblivious man was a stranger to
+her.
+
+Later it began to rain. The pine-trees smelled very strong. Paul lay
+with his head on the ground, on the dead pine needles, listening to the
+sharp hiss of the rain--a steady, keen noise. His heart was down, very
+heavy. Now he realised that she had not been with him all the time,
+that her soul had stood apart, in a sort of horror. He was physically at
+rest, but no more. Very dreary at heart, very sad, and very tender,
+his fingers wandered over her face pitifully. Now again she loved him
+deeply. He was tender and beautiful.
+
+"The rain!" he said.
+
+"Yes--is it coming on you?"
+
+She put her hands over him, on his hair, on his shoulders, to feel if
+the raindrops fell on him. She loved him dearly. He, as he lay with his
+face on the dead pine-leaves, felt extraordinarily quiet. He did not
+mind if the raindrops came on him: he would have lain and got wet
+through: he felt as if nothing mattered, as if his living were smeared
+away into the beyond, near and quite lovable. This strange, gentle
+reaching-out to death was new to him.
+
+"We must go," said Miriam.
+
+"Yes," he answered, but did not move.
+
+To him now, life seemed a shadow, day a white shadow; night, and death,
+and stillness, and inaction, this seemed like BEING. To be alive, to be
+urgent and insistent--that was NOT-TO-BE. The highest of all was to melt
+out into the darkness and sway there, identified with the great Being.
+
+"The rain is coming in on us," said Miriam.
+
+He rose, and assisted her.
+
+"It is a pity," he said.
+
+"What?"
+
+"To have to go. I feel so still."
+
+"Still!" she repeated.
+
+"Stiller than I have ever been in my life."
+
+He was walking with his hand in hers. She pressed his fingers, feeling
+a slight fear. Now he seemed beyond her; she had a fear lest she should
+lose him.
+
+"The fir-trees are like presences on the darkness: each one only a
+presence."
+
+She was afraid, and said nothing.
+
+"A sort of hush: the whole night wondering and asleep: I suppose that's
+what we do in death--sleep in wonder."
+
+She had been afraid before of the brute in him: now of the mystic. She
+trod beside him in silence. The rain fell with a heavy "Hush!" on the
+trees. At last they gained the cartshed.
+
+"Let us stay here awhile," he said.
+
+There was a sound of rain everywhere, smothering everything.
+
+"I feel so strange and still," he said; "along with everything."
+
+"Ay," she answered patiently.
+
+He seemed again unaware of her, though he held her hand close.
+
+"To be rid of our individuality, which is our will, which is our
+effort--to live effortless, a kind of curious sleep--that is very
+beautiful, I think; that is our after-life--our immortality."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Yes--and very beautiful to have."
+
+"You don't usually say that."
+
+"No."
+
+In a while they went indoors. Everybody looked at them curiously. He
+still kept the quiet, heavy look in his eyes, the stillness in his
+voice. Instinctively, they all left him alone.
+
+About this time Miriam's grandmother, who lived in a tiny cottage in
+Woodlinton, fell ill, and the girl was sent to keep house. It was a
+beautiful little place. The cottage had a big garden in front, with
+red brick walls, against which the plum trees were nailed. At the back
+another garden was separated from the fields by a tall old hedge. It
+was very pretty. Miriam had not much to do, so she found time for her
+beloved reading, and for writing little introspective pieces which
+interested her.
+
+At the holiday-time her grandmother, being better, was driven to Derby
+to stay with her daughter for a day or two. She was a crotchety old
+lady, and might return the second day or the third; so Miriam stayed
+alone in the cottage, which also pleased her.
+
+Paul used often to cycle over, and they had as a rule peaceful and happy
+times. He did not embarrass her much; but then on the Monday of the
+holiday he was to spend a whole day with her.
+
+It was perfect weather. He left his mother, telling her where he was
+going. She would be alone all the day. It cast a shadow over him; but
+he had three days that were all his own, when he was going to do as he
+liked. It was sweet to rush through the morning lanes on his bicycle.
+
+He got to the cottage at about eleven o'clock. Miriam was busy preparing
+dinner. She looked so perfectly in keeping with the little kitchen,
+ruddy and busy. He kissed her and sat down to watch. The room was small
+and cosy. The sofa was covered all over with a sort of linen in squares
+of red and pale blue, old, much washed, but pretty. There was a stuffed
+owl in a case over a corner cupboard. The sunlight came through the
+leaves of the scented geraniums in the window. She was cooking a chicken
+in his honour. It was their cottage for the day, and they were man and
+wife. He beat the eggs for her and peeled the potatoes. He thought she
+gave a feeling of home almost like his mother; and no one could look
+more beautiful, with her tumbled curls, when she was flushed from the
+fire.
+
+The dinner was a great success. Like a young husband, he carved. They
+talked all the time with unflagging zest. Then he wiped the dishes she
+had washed, and they went out down the fields. There was a bright little
+brook that ran into a bog at the foot of a very steep bank. Here
+they wandered, picking still a few marsh-marigolds and many big blue
+forget-me-nots. Then she sat on the bank with her hands full of flowers,
+mostly golden water-blobs. As she put her face down into the marigolds,
+it was all overcast with a yellow shine.
+
+"Your face is bright," he said, "like a transfiguration."
+
+She looked at him, questioning. He laughed pleadingly to her, laying his
+hands on hers. Then he kissed her fingers, then her face.
+
+The world was all steeped in sunshine, and quite still, yet not asleep,
+but quivering with a kind of expectancy.
+
+"I have never seen anything more beautiful than this," he said. He held
+her hand fast all the time.
+
+"And the water singing to itself as it runs--do you love it?" She looked
+at him full of love. His eyes were very dark, very bright.
+
+"Don't you think it's a great day?" he asked.
+
+She murmured her assent. She WAS happy, and he saw it.
+
+"And our day--just between us," he said.
+
+They lingered a little while. Then they stood up upon the sweet thyme,
+and he looked down at her simply.
+
+"Will you come?" he asked.
+
+They went back to the house, hand in hand, in silence. The chickens came
+scampering down the path to her. He locked the door, and they had the
+little house to themselves.
+
+He never forgot seeing her as she lay on the bed, when he was
+unfastening his collar. First he saw only her beauty, and was blind
+with it. She had the most beautiful body he had ever imagined. He stood
+unable to move or speak, looking at her, his face half-smiling with
+wonder. And then he wanted her, but as he went forward to her, her hands
+lifted in a little pleading movement, and he looked at her face, and
+stopped. Her big brown eyes were watching him, still and resigned and
+loving; she lay as if she had given herself up to sacrifice: there was
+her body for him; but the look at the back of her eyes, like a creature
+awaiting immolation, arrested him, and all his blood fell back.
+
+"You are sure you want me?" he asked, as if a cold shadow had come over
+him.
+
+"Yes, quite sure."
+
+She was very quiet, very calm. She only realised that she was doing
+something for him. He could hardly bear it. She lay to be sacrificed for
+him because she loved him so much. And he had to sacrifice her. For a
+second, he wished he were sexless or dead. Then he shut his eyes again
+to her, and his blood beat back again.
+
+And afterwards he loved her--loved her to the last fibre of his being.
+He loved her. But he wanted, somehow, to cry. There was something he
+could not bear for her sake. He stayed with her till quite late at
+night. As he rode home he felt that he was finally initiated. He was a
+youth no longer. But why had he the dull pain in his soul? Why did the
+thought of death, the after-life, seem so sweet and consoling?
+
+He spent the week with Miriam, and wore her out with his passion before
+it was gone. He had always, almost wilfully, to put her out of count,
+and act from the brute strength of his own feelings. And he could not do
+it often, and there remained afterwards always the sense of failure and
+of death. If he were really with her, he had to put aside himself and
+his desire. If he would have her, he had to put her aside.
+
+"When I come to you," he asked her, his eyes dark with pain and shame,
+"you don't really want me, do you?"
+
+"Ah, yes!" she replied quickly.
+
+He looked at her.
+
+"Nay," he said.
+
+She began to tremble.
+
+"You see," she said, taking his face and shutting it out against her
+shoulder--"you see--as we are--how can I get used to you? It would come
+all right if we were married."
+
+He lifted her head, and looked at her.
+
+"You mean, now, it is always too much shock?"
+
+"Yes--and--"
+
+"You are always clenched against me."
+
+She was trembling with agitation.
+
+"You see," she said, "I'm not used to the thought--"
+
+"You are lately," he said.
+
+"But all my life. Mother said to me: 'There is one thing in marriage
+that is always dreadful, but you have to bear it.' And I believed it."
+
+"And still believe it," he said.
+
+"No!" she cried hastily. "I believe, as you do, that loving, even in
+THAT way, is the high-water mark of living."
+
+"That doesn't alter the fact that you never want it."
+
+"No," she said, taking his head in her arms and rocking in despair.
+"Don't say so! You don't understand." She rocked with pain. "Don't I
+want your children?"
+
+"But not me."
+
+"How can you say so? But we must be married to have children--"
+
+"Shall we be married, then? I want you to have my children."
+
+He kissed her hand reverently. She pondered sadly, watching him.
+
+"We are too young," she said at length.
+
+"Twenty-four and twenty-three--"
+
+"Not yet," she pleaded, as she rocked herself in distress.
+
+"When you will," he said.
+
+She bowed her head gravely. The tone of hopelessness in which he said
+these things grieved her deeply. It had always been a failure between
+them. Tacitly, she acquiesced in what he felt.
+
+And after a week of love he said to his mother suddenly one Sunday
+night, just as they were going to bed:
+
+"I shan't go so much to Miriam's, mother."
+
+She was surprised, but she would not ask him anything.
+
+"You please yourself," she said.
+
+So he went to bed. But there was a new quietness about him which she
+had wondered at. She almost guessed. She would leave him alone, however.
+Precipitation might spoil things. She watched him in his loneliness,
+wondering where he would end. He was sick, and much too quiet for him.
+There was a perpetual little knitting of his brows, such as she had seen
+when he was a small baby, and which had been gone for many years. Now
+it was the same again. And she could do nothing for him. He had to go on
+alone, make his own way.
+
+He continued faithful to Miriam. For one day he had loved her utterly.
+But it never came again. The sense of failure grew stronger. At first it
+was only a sadness. Then he began to feel he could not go on. He wanted
+to run, to go abroad, anything. Gradually he ceased to ask her to have
+him. Instead of drawing them together, it put them apart. And then he
+realised, consciously, that it was no good. It was useless trying: it
+would never be a success between them.
+
+For some months he had seen very little of Clara. They had occasionally
+walked out for half an hour at dinner-time. But he always reserved
+himself for Miriam. With Clara, however, his brow cleared, and he
+was gay again. She treated him indulgently, as if he were a child. He
+thought he did not mind. But deep below the surface it piqued him.
+
+Sometimes Miriam said:
+
+"What about Clara? I hear nothing of her lately."
+
+"I walked with her about twenty minutes yesterday," he replied.
+
+"And what did she talk about?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose I did all the jawing--I usually do. I think I
+was telling her about the strike, and how the women took it."
+
+"Yes."
+
+So he gave the account of himself.
+
+But insidiously, without his knowing it, the warmth he felt for Clara
+drew him away from Miriam, for whom he felt responsible, and to whom he
+felt he belonged. He thought he was being quite faithful to her. It was
+not easy to estimate exactly the strength and warmth of one's feelings
+for a woman till they have run away with one.
+
+He began to give more time to his men friends. There was Jessop, at the
+art school; Swain, who was chemistry demonstrator at the university;
+Newton, who was a teacher; besides Edgar and Miriam's younger brothers.
+Pleading work, he sketched and studied with Jessop. He called in the
+university for Swain, and the two went "down town" together. Having come
+home in the train with Newton, he called and had a game of billiards
+with him in the Moon and Stars. If he gave to Miriam the excuse of his
+men friends, he felt quite justified. His mother began to be relieved.
+He always told her where he had been.
+
+During the summer Clara wore sometimes a dress of soft cotton stuff with
+loose sleeves. When she lifted her hands, her sleeves fell back, and her
+beautiful strong arms shone out.
+
+"Half a minute," he cried. "Hold your arm still."
+
+He made sketches of her hand and arm, and the drawings contained some
+of the fascination the real thing had for him. Miriam, who always went
+scrupulously through his books and papers, saw the drawings.
+
+"I think Clara has such beautiful arms," he said.
+
+"Yes! When did you draw them?"
+
+"On Tuesday, in the work-room. You know, I've got a corner where I can
+work. Often I can do every single thing they need in the department,
+before dinner. Then I work for myself in the afternoon, and just see to
+things at night."
+
+"Yes," she said, turning the leaves of his sketch-book.
+
+Frequently he hated Miriam. He hated her as she bent forward and pored
+over his things. He hated her way of patiently casting him up, as if he
+were an endless psychological account. When he was with her, he hated
+her for having got him, and yet not got him, and he tortured her. She
+took all and gave nothing, he said. At least, she gave no living warmth.
+She was never alive, and giving off life. Looking for her was like
+looking for something which did not exist. She was only his conscience,
+not his mate. He hated her violently, and was more cruel to her. They
+dragged on till the next summer. He saw more and more of Clara.
+
+At last he spoke. He had been sitting working at home one evening. There
+was between him and his mother a peculiar condition of people frankly
+finding fault with each other. Mrs. Morel was strong on her feet again.
+He was not going to stick to Miriam. Very well; then she would stand
+aloof till he said something. It had been coming a long time, this
+bursting of the storm in him, when he would come back to her. This
+evening there was between them a peculiar condition of suspense.
+He worked feverishly and mechanically, so that he could escape from
+himself. It grew late. Through the open door, stealthily, came the scent
+of madonna lilies, almost as if it were prowling abroad. Suddenly he got
+up and went out of doors.
+
+The beauty of the night made him want to shout. A half-moon, dusky gold,
+was sinking behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden, making
+the sky dull purple with its glow. Nearer, a dim white fence of lilies
+went across the garden, and the air all round seemed to stir with scent,
+as if it were alive. He went across the bed of pinks, whose keen perfume
+came sharply across the rocking, heavy scent of the lilies, and stood
+alongside the white barrier of flowers. They flagged all loose, as if
+they were panting. The scent made him drunk. He went down to the field
+to watch the moon sink under.
+
+A corncrake in the hay-close called insistently. The moon slid quite
+quickly downwards, growing more flushed. Behind him the great flowers
+leaned as if they were calling. And then, like a shock, he caught
+another perfume, something raw and coarse. Hunting round, he found
+the purple iris, touched their fleshy throats and their dark, grasping
+hands. At any rate, he had found something. They stood stiff in the
+darkness. Their scent was brutal. The moon was melting down upon the
+crest of the hill. It was gone; all was dark. The corncrake called
+still.
+
+Breaking off a pink, he suddenly went indoors.
+
+"Come, my boy," said his mother. "I'm sure it's time you went to bed."
+
+He stood with the pink against his lips.
+
+"I shall break off with Miriam, mother," he answered calmly.
+
+She looked up at him over her spectacles. He was staring back at her,
+unswerving. She met his eyes for a moment, then took off her glasses. He
+was white. The male was up in him, dominant. She did not want to see him
+too clearly.
+
+"But I thought--" she began.
+
+"Well," he answered, "I don't love her. I don't want to marry her--so I
+shall have done."
+
+"But," exclaimed his mother, amazed, "I thought lately you had made up
+your mind to have her, and so I said nothing."
+
+"I had--I wanted to--but now I don't want. It's no good. I shall break
+off on Sunday. I ought to, oughtn't I?"
+
+"You know best. You know I said so long ago."
+
+"I can't help that now. I shall break off on Sunday."
+
+"Well," said his mother, "I think it will be best. But lately I decided
+you had made up your mind to have her, so I said nothing, and should
+have said nothing. But I say as I have always said, I DON'T think she is
+suited to you."
+
+"On Sunday I break off," he said, smelling the pink. He put the flower
+in his mouth. Unthinking, he bared his teeth, closed them on the blossom
+slowly, and had a mouthful of petals. These he spat into the fire,
+kissed his mother, and went to bed.
+
+On Sunday he went up to the farm in the early afternoon. He had written
+Miriam that they would walk over the fields to Hucknall. His mother was
+very tender with him. He said nothing. But she saw the effort it was
+costing. The peculiar set look on his face stilled her.
+
+"Never mind, my son," she said. "You will be so much better when it is
+all over."
+
+Paul glanced swiftly at his mother in surprise and resentment. He did
+not want sympathy.
+
+Miriam met him at the lane-end. She was wearing a new dress of figured
+muslin that had short sleeves. Those short sleeves, and Miriam's
+brown-skinned arms beneath them--such pitiful, resigned arms--gave him
+so much pain that they helped to make him cruel. She had made herself
+look so beautiful and fresh for him. She seemed to blossom for him
+alone. Every time he looked at her--a mature young woman now, and
+beautiful in her new dress--it hurt so much that his heart seemed almost
+to be bursting with the restraint he put on it. But he had decided, and
+it was irrevocable.
+
+On the hills they sat down, and he lay with his head in her lap, whilst
+she fingered his hair. She knew that "he was not there," as she put it.
+Often, when she had him with her, she looked for him, and could not find
+him. But this afternoon she was not prepared.
+
+It was nearly five o'clock when he told her. They were sitting on the
+bank of a stream, where the lip of turf hung over a hollow bank of
+yellow earth, and he was hacking away with a stick, as he did when he
+was perturbed and cruel.
+
+"I have been thinking," he said, "we ought to break off."
+
+"Why?" she cried in surprise.
+
+"Because it's no good going on."
+
+"Why is it no good?"
+
+"It isn't. I don't want to marry. I don't want ever to marry. And if
+we're not going to marry, it's no good going on."
+
+"But why do you say this now?"
+
+"Because I've made up my mind."
+
+"And what about these last months, and the things you told me then?"
+
+"I can't help it! I don't want to go on."
+
+"You don't want any more of me?"
+
+"I want us to break off--you be free of me, I free of you."
+
+"And what about these last months?"
+
+"I don't know. I've not told you anything but what I thought was true."
+
+"Then why are you different now?"
+
+"I'm not--I'm the same--only I know it's no good going on."
+
+"You haven't told me why it's no good."
+
+"Because I don't want to go on--and I don't want to marry."
+
+"How many times have you offered to marry me, and I wouldn't?"
+
+"I know; but I want us to break off."
+
+There was silence for a moment or two, while he dug viciously at the
+earth. She bent her head, pondering. He was an unreasonable child. He
+was like an infant which, when it has drunk its fill, throws away and
+smashes the cup. She looked at him, feeling she could get hold of him
+and WRING some consistency out of him. But she was helpless. Then she
+cried:
+
+"I have said you were only fourteen--you are only FOUR!"
+
+He still dug at the earth viciously. He heard.
+
+"You are a child of four," she repeated in her anger.
+
+He did not answer, but said in his heart: "All right; if I'm a child of
+four, what do you want me for? I don't want another mother." But he said
+nothing to her, and there was silence.
+
+"And have you told your people?" she asked.
+
+"I have told my mother."
+
+There was another long interval of silence.
+
+"Then what do you WANT?" she asked.
+
+"Why, I want us to separate. We have lived on each other all these
+years; now let us stop. I will go my own way without you, and you will
+go your way without me. You will have an independent life of your own
+then."
+
+There was in it some truth that, in spite of her bitterness, she could
+not help registering. She knew she felt in a sort of bondage to him,
+which she hated because she could not control it. She hated her love for
+him from the moment it grew too strong for her. And, deep down, she had
+hated him because she loved him and he dominated her. She had resisted
+his domination. She had fought to keep herself free of him in the last
+issue. And she was free of him, even more than he of her.
+
+"And," he continued, "we shall always be more or less each other's work.
+You have done a lot for me, I for you. Now let us start and live by
+ourselves."
+
+"What do you want to do?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing--only to be free," he answered.
+
+She, however, knew in her heart that Clara's influence was over him to
+liberate him. But she said nothing.
+
+"And what have I to tell my mother?" she asked.
+
+"I told my mother," he answered, "that I was breaking off--clean and
+altogether."
+
+"I shall not tell them at home," she said.
+
+Frowning, "You please yourself," he said.
+
+He knew he had landed her in a nasty hole, and was leaving her in the
+lurch. It angered him.
+
+"Tell them you wouldn't and won't marry me, and have broken off," he
+said. "It's true enough."
+
+She bit her finger moodily. She thought over their whole affair. She had
+known it would come to this; she had seen it all along. It chimed with
+her bitter expectation.
+
+"Always--it has always been so!" she cried. "It has been one long battle
+between us--you fighting away from me."
+
+It came from her unawares, like a flash of lightning. The man's heart
+stood still. Was this how she saw it?
+
+"But we've had SOME perfect hours, SOME perfect times, when we were
+together!" he pleaded.
+
+"Never!" she cried; "never! It has always been you fighting me off."
+
+"Not always--not at first!" he pleaded.
+
+"Always, from the very beginning--always the same!"
+
+She had finished, but she had done enough. He sat aghast. He had wanted
+to say: "It has been good, but it is at an end." And she--she whose love
+he had believed in when he had despised himself--denied that their love
+had ever been love. "He had always fought away from her?" Then it had
+been monstrous. There had never been anything really between them; all
+the time he had been imagining something where there was nothing. And
+she had known. She had known so much, and had told him so little. She
+had known all the time. All the time this was at the bottom of her!
+
+He sat silent in bitterness. At last the whole affair appeared in a
+cynical aspect to him. She had really played with him, not he with her.
+She had hidden all her condemnation from him, had flattered him, and
+despised him. She despised him now. He grew intellectual and cruel.
+
+"You ought to marry a man who worships you," he said; "then you could do
+as you liked with him. Plenty of men will worship you, if you get on the
+private side of their natures. You ought to marry one such. They would
+never fight you off."
+
+"Thank you!" she said. "But don't advise me to marry someone else any
+more. You've done it before."
+
+"Very well," he said; "I will say no more."
+
+He sat still, feeling as if he had had a blow, instead of giving one.
+Their eight years of friendship and love, THE eight years of his life,
+were nullified.
+
+"When did you think of this?" she asked.
+
+"I thought definitely on Thursday night."
+
+"I knew it was coming," she said.
+
+That pleased him bitterly. "Oh, very well! If she knew then it doesn't
+come as a surprise to her," he thought.
+
+"And have you said anything to Clara?" she asked.
+
+"No; but I shall tell her now."
+
+There was a silence.
+
+"Do you remember the things you said this time last year, in my
+grandmother's house--nay last month even?"
+
+"Yes," he said; "I do! And I meant them! I can't help that it's failed."
+
+"It has failed because you want something else."
+
+"It would have failed whether or not. YOU never believed in me."
+
+She laughed strangely.
+
+He sat in silence. He was full of a feeling that she had deceived him.
+She had despised him when he thought she worshipped him. She had let him
+say wrong things, and had not contradicted him. She had let him fight
+alone. But it stuck in his throat that she had despised him whilst he
+thought she worshipped him. She should have told him when she found
+fault with him. She had not played fair. He hated her. All these years
+she had treated him as if he were a hero, and thought of him secretly as
+an infant, a foolish child. Then why had she left the foolish child to
+his folly? His heart was hard against her.
+
+She sat full of bitterness. She had known--oh, well she had known!
+All the time he was away from her she had summed him up, seen his
+littleness, his meanness, and his folly. Even she had guarded her soul
+against him. She was not overthrown, not prostrated, not even much hurt.
+She had known. Only why, as he sat there, had he still this strange
+dominance over her? His very movements fascinated her as if she were
+hypnotised by him. Yet he was despicable, false, inconsistent, and mean.
+Why this bondage for her? Why was it the movement of his arm stirred her
+as nothing else in the world could? Why was she fastened to him? Why,
+even now, if he looked at her and commanded her, would she have to obey?
+She would obey him in his trifling commands. But once he was obeyed,
+then she had him in her power, she knew, to lead him where she would.
+She was sure of herself. Only, this new influence! Ah, he was not a man!
+He was a baby that cries for the newest toy. And all the attachment
+of his soul would not keep him. Very well, he would have to go. But he
+would come back when he had tired of his new sensation.
+
+He hacked at the earth till she was fretted to death. She rose. He sat
+flinging lumps of earth in the stream.
+
+"We will go and have tea here?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+They chattered over irrelevant subjects during tea. He held forth on
+the love of ornament--the cottage parlour moved him thereto--and its
+connection with aesthetics. She was cold and quiet. As they walked home,
+she asked:
+
+"And we shall not see each other?"
+
+"No--or rarely," he answered.
+
+"Nor write?" she asked, almost sarcastically.
+
+"As you will," he answered. "We're not strangers--never should be,
+whatever happened. I will write to you now and again. You please
+yourself."
+
+"I see!" she answered cuttingly.
+
+But he was at that stage at which nothing else hurts. He had made a
+great cleavage in his life. He had had a great shock when she had told
+him their love had been always a conflict. Nothing more mattered. If it
+never had been much, there was no need to make a fuss that it was ended.
+
+He left her at the lane-end. As she went home, solitary, in her new
+frock, having her people to face at the other end, he stood still with
+shame and pain in the highroad, thinking of the suffering he caused her.
+
+In the reaction towards restoring his self-esteem, he went into the
+Willow Tree for a drink. There were four girls who had been out for the
+day, drinking a modest glass of port. They had some chocolates on the
+table. Paul sat near with his whisky. He noticed the girls whispering
+and nudging. Presently one, a bonny dark hussy, leaned to him and said:
+
+"Have a chocolate?"
+
+The others laughed loudly at her impudence.
+
+"All right," said Paul. "Give me a hard one--nut. I don't like creams."
+
+"Here you are, then," said the girl; "here's an almond for you."
+
+She held the sweet between her fingers. He opened his mouth. She popped
+it in, and blushed.
+
+"You ARE nice!" he said.
+
+"Well," she answered, "we thought you looked overcast, and they dared me
+offer you a chocolate."
+
+"I don't mind if I have another--another sort," he said.
+
+And presently they were all laughing together.
+
+It was nine o'clock when he got home, falling dark. He entered the house
+in silence. His mother, who had been waiting, rose anxiously.
+
+"I told her," he said.
+
+"I'm glad," replied the mother, with great relief.
+
+He hung up his cap wearily.
+
+"I said we'd have done altogether," he said.
+
+"That's right, my son," said the mother. "It's hard for her now, but
+best in the long run. I know. You weren't suited for her."
+
+He laughed shakily as he sat down.
+
+"I've had such a lark with some girls in a pub," he said.
+
+His mother looked at him. He had forgotten Miriam now. He told her
+about the girls in the Willow Tree. Mrs. Morel looked at him. It seemed
+unreal, his gaiety. At the back of it was too much horror and misery.
+
+"Now have some supper," she said very gently.
+
+Afterwards he said wistfully:
+
+"She never thought she'd have me, mother, not from the first, and so
+she's not disappointed."
+
+"I'm afraid," said his mother, "she doesn't give up hopes of you yet."
+
+"No," he said, "perhaps not."
+
+"You'll find it's better to have done," she said.
+
+"I don't know," he said desperately.
+
+"Well, leave her alone," replied his mother. So he left her, and she was
+alone. Very few people cared for her, and she for very few people. She
+remained alone with herself, waiting.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+PASSION
+
+HE was gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art.
+Liberty's had taken several of his painted designs on various stuffs,
+and he could sell designs for embroideries, for altar-cloths, and
+similar things, in one or two places. It was not very much he made
+at present, but he might extend it. He had also made friends with the
+designer for a pottery firm, and was gaining some knowledge of his new
+acquaintance's art. The applied arts interested him very much. At the
+same time he laboured slowly at his pictures. He loved to paint large
+figures, full of light, but not merely made up of lights and cast
+shadows, like the impressionists; rather definite figures that had a
+certain luminous quality, like some of Michael Angelo's people. And
+these he fitted into a landscape, in what he thought true proportion.
+He worked a great deal from memory, using everybody he knew. He believed
+firmly in his work, that it was good and valuable. In spite of fits of
+depression, shrinking, everything, he believed in his work.
+
+He was twenty-four when he said his first confident thing to his mother.
+
+"Mother," he said, "I s'll make a painter that they'll attend to."
+
+She sniffed in her quaint fashion. It was like a half-pleased shrug of
+the shoulders.
+
+"Very well, my boy, we'll see," she said.
+
+"You shall see, my pigeon! You see if you're not swanky one of these
+days!"
+
+"I'm quite content, my boy," she smiled.
+
+"But you'll have to alter. Look at you with Minnie!"
+
+Minnie was the small servant, a girl of fourteen.
+
+"And what about Minnie?" asked Mrs. Morel, with dignity.
+
+"I heard her this morning: 'Eh, Mrs. Morel! I was going to do that,'
+when you went out in the rain for some coal," he said. "That looks a lot
+like your being able to manage servants!"
+
+"Well, it was only the child's niceness," said Mrs. Morel.
+
+"And you apologising to her: 'You can't do two things at once, can
+you?'"
+
+"She WAS busy washing up," replied Mrs. Morel.
+
+"And what did she say? 'It could easy have waited a bit. Now look how
+your feet paddle!'"
+
+"Yes--brazen young baggage!" said Mrs. Morel, smiling.
+
+He looked at his mother, laughing. She was quite warm and rosy again
+with love of him. It seemed as if all the sunshine were on her for a
+moment. He continued his work gladly. She seemed so well when she was
+happy that he forgot her grey hair.
+
+And that year she went with him to the Isle of Wight for a holiday. It
+was too exciting for them both, and too beautiful. Mrs. Morel was full
+of joy and wonder. But he would have her walk with him more than she
+was able. She had a bad fainting bout. So grey her face was, so blue her
+mouth! It was agony to him. He felt as if someone were pushing a knife
+in his chest. Then she was better again, and he forgot. But the anxiety
+remained inside him, like a wound that did not close.
+
+After leaving Miriam he went almost straight to Clara. On the Monday
+following the day of the rupture he went down to the work-room. She
+looked up at him and smiled. They had grown very intimate unawares. She
+saw a new brightness about him.
+
+"Well, Queen of Sheba!" he said, laughing.
+
+"But why?" she asked.
+
+"I think it suits you. You've got a new frock on."
+
+She flushed, asking:
+
+"And what of it?"
+
+"Suits you--awfully! I could design you a dress."
+
+"How would it be?"
+
+He stood in front of her, his eyes glittering as he expounded. He
+kept her eyes fixed with his. Then suddenly he took hold of her. She
+half-started back. He drew the stuff of her blouse tighter, smoothed it
+over her breast.
+
+"More SO!" he explained.
+
+But they were both of them flaming with blushes, and immediately he
+ran away. He had touched her. His whole body was quivering with the
+sensation.
+
+There was already a sort of secret understanding between them. The next
+evening he went to the cinematograph with her for a few minutes before
+train-time. As they sat, he saw her hand lying near him. For some
+moments he dared not touch it. The pictures danced and dithered. Then
+he took her hand in his. It was large and firm; it filled his grasp. He
+held it fast. She neither moved nor made any sign. When they came out
+his train was due. He hesitated.
+
+"Good-night," she said. He darted away across the road.
+
+The next day he came again, talking to her. She was rather superior with
+him.
+
+"Shall we go a walk on Monday?" he asked.
+
+She turned her face aside.
+
+"Shall you tell Miriam?" she replied sarcastically.
+
+"I have broken off with her," he said.
+
+"When?"
+
+"Last Sunday."
+
+"You quarrelled?"
+
+"No! I had made up my mind. I told her quite definitely I should
+consider myself free."
+
+Clara did not answer, and he returned to his work. She was so quiet and
+so superb!
+
+On the Saturday evening he asked her to come and drink coffee with him
+in a restaurant, meeting him after work was over. She came, looking
+very reserved and very distant. He had three-quarters of an hour to
+train-time.
+
+"We will walk a little while," he said.
+
+She agreed, and they went past the Castle into the Park. He was afraid
+of her. She walked moodily at his side, with a kind of resentful,
+reluctant, angry walk. He was afraid to take her hand.
+
+"Which way shall we go?" he asked as they walked in darkness.
+
+"I don't mind."
+
+"Then we'll go up the steps."
+
+He suddenly turned round. They had passed the Park steps. She stood
+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 feel 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 preferring 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 monotonously.
+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
+
+
+
+
+
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