At last they came into the straggling grey village of Crich,that lies high. Beyond the village was the famous Crich Standthat Paul could see from the garden at home. The party pushed on. Great expanse of country spread around and below. The lads wereeager 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 stoodan ancient monument, sturdy and squat, for signalling in old days fardown 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 windto the wan of the tower. At their feet fell the precipicewhere the limestone was quarried away. Below was a jumble ofhills and tiny villages--Mattock, Ambergate, Stoney Middleton. The lads were eager to spy out the church of Bestwood, far awayamong the rather crowded country on the left. They were disgustedthat it seemed to stand on a plain. They saw the hills of Derbyshirefall 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 foodwas eaten, everybody was hungry, and there was very little money to gethome with. But they managed to procure a loaf and a currant-loaf,which they hacked to pieces with shut-knives, and ate sitting onthe 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 responsiblefor 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 goingthat far," said Paul.
They got back rather late. Miriam, walking home with Geoffrey,watched the moon rise big and red and misty. She felt somethingwas 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 wasdripped over with honeysuckle and virginia creeper, and lookedupon the tree-tops of the oak-wood across the yard, while thelittle back window, no bigger than a handkerchief, was a loopholeto 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 againstthe 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 painfullypulling over her head a rosary he had given her. It caughtin the fine mesh of her hair. But at last she had it on, and thered-brown wooden beads looked well against her cool brown neck. She was a well-developed girl, and very handsome. But in the littlelooking-glass nailed against the whitewashed wall she could only seea fragment of herself at a time. Agatha had bought a little mirrorof her own, which she propped up to suit herself. Miriam was nearthe 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 walkedin a nonchalant fashion, and his bicycle went with him as if itwere 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 thestable 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 itshead from the lad's caress. How she loved to listen when he thoughtonly 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. Thencame an agony of new shame. She shrank within herself in a coilof 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 coiledinto knots of shame.
Agatha was dressed first, and ran downstairs. Miriam heardher greet the lad gaily, knew exactly how brilliant her greyeyes became with that tone. She herself would have felt it boldto have greeted him in such wise. Yet there she stood under theself-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 liftedher head and pondered. How could it be wrong to love him? Love wasGod'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 wasGod's sacrifice, not Paul Morel's or her own. After a few minutesshe 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-spriggedsquares 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 givesto 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 littlepainting 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 thenher manner was so distant he thought he had offended her.
Miriam discontinued her practice of going each Thursday eveningto the library in Bestwood. After calling for Paul regularlyduring the whole spring, a number of trifling incidents and tinyinsults from his family awakened her to their attitude towards her,and she decided to go no more. So she announced to Paul one eveningshe 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 stillgo together."
"Meet you where?"
"Somewhere--where you like."
"I shan't meet you anywhere. I don't see why you shouldn'tkeep 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 sniffedwith satisfaction at this arrangement.
He would not have it that they were lovers. The intimacybetween them had been kept so abstract, such a matter of the soul,all thought and weary struggle into consciousness, that he saw it onlyas a platonic friendship. He stoutly denied there was anything elsebetween 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 oftheir 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 armtimidly into his. But he always resented it, and she knew it. It caused a violent conflict in him. With Miriam he was alwayson the high plane of abstraction, when his natural fire of love wastransmitted 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 cameback to her, till the change had taken place in him again, and hewas wrestling with his own soul, frowning, passionate in his desirefor understanding. And in this passion for understanding her soullay close to his; she had him all to herself. But he must be madeabstract first.
Then, if she put her arm in his, it caused him almost torture. His consciousness seemed to split. The place where she was touchinghim ran hot with friction. He was one internecine battle, and hebecame 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 mothercould 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 thechurch was orange-red; the flower-garden was flooded with a strangewarm light that lifted every leaf into significance. Paul passedalong 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 mustmake them part of herself. When she bent and breathed a flower,it was as if she and the flower were loving each other. Paul hatedher 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 themtwo or three at a time in the bosom of her dress, stepping backnow and then to see the effect. "You know," he said, taking the pinout of his mouth, "a woman ought always to arrange her flowersbefore her glass."
Miriam laughed. She thought flowers ought to be pinnedin one's dress without any care. That Paul should take painsto 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 mixher up with women in a general way. From most men she would haveignored it. But from him it hurt her.
He had nearly finished arranging the flowers when he heardhis mother's footstep on the stairs. Hurriedly he pushedin the last pin and turned away.
"Don't let mater know," he said.
Miriam picked up her books and stood in the doorway lookingwith chagrin at the beautiful sunset. She would call for Paulno 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 friendshipwith 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 couldever afford to go away for a holiday. Mrs. Morel had never been awayfor 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 hismother debated it endlessly between them. They wanted a furnishedcottage 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 theywished for thirty shillings a week. There was immense jubilation. Paul was wild with joy for his mother's sake. She would havea real holiday now. He and she sat at evening picturing what itwould 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 rangwith excitement.
They were to go on Saturday morning by the seven train. Paul suggested that Miriam should sleep at his house, because itwas 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 inthe direction of sentimentality as to read poetry to his own family. But now they condescended to listen. Miriam sat on the sofaabsorbed 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 listeningto a sermon and feeling conscious of the fact. Paul ducked his headover the book. He had got now all the audience he cared for. And Mrs. Morel and Annie almost contested with Miriam who should listenbest 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 warningagainst 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 rungbackwards or forwards."
