"Twenty-two."
Her voice was subdued, almost submissive. She would tellhim 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-hipsstood naked and scarlet.
"Got where?" he asked.
"At me. He never really mattered to me."
The afternoon was so gently warm and dim. Red roofsof 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 hehadn't got me. And then I felt as if I wanted to run, as if Iwas 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 hecouldn'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-postas 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 savedhim 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 withdrawnagain from him. After tea, she stared broodingly into her tea-cup,twisting her wedding ring all the time. In her abstraction she tookthe ring off her finger, stood it up, and spun it upon the table. The gold became a diaphanous, glittering globe. It fell, and thering 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 civilisedpersons might have.
He was like so many young men of his own age. Sex had becomeso complicated in him that he would have denied that he evercould want Clara or Miriam or any woman whom he knew. Sex desirewas a sort of detached thing, that did not belong to a woman. He loved Miriam with his soul. He grew warm at the thoughtof Clara, he battled with her, he knew the curves of her breastand shoulders as if they had been moulded inside him; and yet hedid 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 himto 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 awayfrom 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 youngfreshness gone, perhaps, but cured of his desire for the lesser thingswhich other women than herself could give him. She could bear allif he were inwardly true to her and must come back.
He saw none of the anomaly of his position. Miriam was hisold 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 sawlittle of each other; but they always came together again.
"Were you horrid with Baxter Dawes?" he asked her. It wasa 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 coolwith him for some time.
She very rarely saw Miriam now. The friendship betweenthe 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 eachother 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 leavea 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 meso much that I can't give myself."
"Wants you how?"
"Wants the soul out of my body. I can't help shrinking backfrom 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'sso 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(I)
WITH the spring came again the old madness and battle. Now heknew he would have to go to Miriam. But what was his reluctance? He told himself it was only a sort of overstrong virginity in herand him which neither could break through. He might have married her;but his circumstances at home made it difficult, and, moreover, he didnot want to marry. Marriage was for life, and because they had becomeclose companions, he and she, he did not see that it should inevitablyfollow they should be man and wife. He did not feel that he wantedmarriage with Miriam. He wished he did. He would have given hishead 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 boundup inside himself. He could not go out to her. Something struggledin 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 brutalityand recoil? He owed himself to her; he wanted to belong to her. Perhaps the recoil and the shrinking from her was love in its firstfierce modesty. He had no aversion for her. No, it was the opposite;it was a strong desire battling with a still stronger shynessand virginity. It seemed as if virginity were a positive force,which fought and won in both of them. And with her he felt itso hard to overcome; yet he was nearest to her, and with her alonecould 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 thatto sacrifice himself in a marriage he did not want would bedegrading, 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 couldnot bear to fail her. It would all come right if they tried.
He looked round. A good many of the nicest men he knew werelike himself, bound in by their own virginity, which they could notbreak out of. They were so sensitive to their women that they wouldgo without them for ever rather than do them a hurt, an injustice. Being the sons of mothers whose husbands had blundered ratherbrutally through their feminine sanctities, they were themselvestoo diffident and shy. They could easier deny themselves than incurany reproach from a woman; for a woman was like their mother, and theywere full of the sense of their mother. They preferred themselvesto 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 heras she sang. Annie was playing a song on the piano. As Miriam sangher mouth seemed hopeless. She sang like a nun singing to heaven. It reminded him so much of the mouth and eyes of one who singsbeside 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 beenalways gentle, tender with her, breathing with her the atmosphereof reverie and religious dreams, he would give his right hand. It was not fair to hurt her. There seemed an eternal maidenhoodabout her; and when he thought of her mother, he saw the greatbrown eyes of a maiden who was nearly scared and shocked out of hervirgin 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 hadpossessed them.
Mrs. Morel saw him going again frequently to Miriam,and was astonished. He said nothing to his mother. He did not explainnor 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 hadno right over him. There was a coldness between him and her. He hardly told her anything. Discarded, she waited on him, cooked forhim still, and loved to slave for him; but her face closed againlike 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 ajolly 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 morerealisation of what he was about. His mother knew how he wassuffering 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 hismother felt. It only hardened his soul. He made himself calloustowards 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 tothe 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'veno money, and they depend on me at home."
