Sons and Lovers · Part I · Chapter 8 (2/5)

“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 he 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’ wagons with drunken wagoners 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 Michelangelo. 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.