"You are late!" she said, looking at him.
His eyes were shining; his face seemed to glow. He smiledto 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 whatif 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 talkson platforms; so she's already singled out from the sheep, and, as faras 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 wantedto ask his mother something, but was afraid.
"Should you like to know her?" He hesitated.
"Yes," said Mrs. Morel coolly. "I should like to knowwhat 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 thanninety-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 anythingunderhand or superior about her. Don't be mean about her!"
CHAPTER XII
PASSION （II）
Mrs. Morel flushed.
"I am sure I am not mean about her. She may be quiteas 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 thinka horrid thing about her, I shan't forgive you."
His mother laughed.
"As if it would make any difference!" she said. He knew hehad won.
"Oh, but it feels so fine, when she's there! She's sucha queen in her way."
Occasionally he still walked a little way from chapel with Miriamand Edgar. He did not go up to the farm. She, however, was very muchthe same with him, and he did not feel embarrassed in her presence. One evening she was alone when he accompanied her. They beganby talking books: it was their unfailing topic. Mrs. Morel hadsaid that his and Miriam's affair was like a fire fed on books--ifthere were no more volumes it would die out. Miriam, for her part,boasted that she could read him like a book, could place her fingerany minute on the chapter and the line. He, easily taken in,believed that Miriam knew more about him than anyone else. So itpleased him to talk to her about himself, like the simplest egoist. Very soon the conversation drifted to his own doings. It flatteredhim 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 TrentIS 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 severalpompom dahlias, as pretty as you like."
Miriam bowed her head and brooded. He was quite unconsciousof 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 positionlike 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 fameto feed on, why, it's thin tack, and a donkey would die of it!"
So she understood his moral attitude, at least, and she knewhe would act accordingly.
She never asked him anything direct, but she got to know enough.
Another day, when he saw Miriam, the conversation turnedto marriage, then to Clara's marriage with Dawes.
"You see," he said, "she never knew the fearful importanceof marriage. She thought it was all in the day's march--it wouldhave to come--and Dawes--well, a good many women would have giventheir souls to get him; so why not him? Then she developed intothe 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 altogethera question of understanding; it's a question of living. With him,she was only half-alive; the rest was dormant, deadened. And thedormant 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 satisfactionout 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 toeach 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'dHAD everything that was necessary for her living and developing. There's not a tiny bit of feeling of sterility about her."
"No," said Miriam.
"And with my father, at first, I'm sure she had the real thing. She knows; she has been there. You can feet it about her, and about him,and about hundreds of people you meet every day; and, once it hashappened 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 thatchanges you when you really come together with somebody else. It almost seems to fertilise your soul and make it that you can goon and mature."
"And you think your mother had it with your father?"
"Yes; and at the bottom she feels grateful to him for givingit 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 sortof baptism of fire in passion, it seemed to her. She realisedthat he would never be satisfied till he had it. Perhaps it wasessential 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 wantit--that he said himself; he would want the other thing that shecould 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 lethim go into an inn for a glass of whisky, so she could let him goto 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 hisfeeling for the other woman: she knew he was going to Clara forsomething 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 soonand 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 longtime since I saw Clara."
"Very well," he said, astonished, and unconsciously angry.
On the Sunday afternoon he went to Keston to meet Clara atthe station. As he stood on the platform he was trying to examinein himself if he had a premonition.
"Do I FEEL as if she'd come?" he said to himself, and he triedto find out. His heart felt queer and contracted. That seemedlike foreboding. Then he HAD a foreboding she would not come! Then she would not come, and instead of taking her over thefields 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 shecould not keep her promise? Perhaps she had missed her train--hehimself was always missing trains--but that was no reason whyshe 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 greenengine hissed along the platform, the row of brown carriages drew up,several doors opened. No; she had not come! No! Yes; ah, thereshe 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 handto 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 breastand shoulders. His pride went up as he walked with her. He felt the station people, who knew him, eyed her with aweand 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 shoulddo if you weren't there!" she said.
He caught her hand impulsively, and they went alongthe narrow twitchel. They took the road into Nuttall andover the Reckoning House Farm. It was a blue, mild day. Everywhere the brown leaves lay scattered; many scarlet hipsstood upon the hedge beside the wood. He gathered a few for her to wear.
"Though, really," he said, as he fitted them into the breastof her coat, "you ought to object to my getting them, because ofthe birds. But they don't care much for rose-hips in this part,where they can get plenty of stuff. You often find the berriesgoing rotten in the springtime."
So he chattered, scarcely aware of what he said, only knowinghe was putting berries in the bosom of her coat, while she stoodpatiently 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 blackamong the corn-fields, its immense heap of slag seen rising almostfrom 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 itI should miss it. No; and I like the pits here and there. I like therows of trucks, and the headstocks, and the steam in the daytime,and the lights at night. When I was a boy, I always thoughta 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 thoughtthe Lord was always at the pit-top."
As they drew near home she walked in silence, and seemedto 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 wouldbe rather a peculiar and difficult one. To him it seemed just as ifone 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 downa steep hill. The street itself was hideous. The house was rathersuperior to most. It was old, grimy, with a big bay window, and itwas semi-detached; but it looked gloomy. Then Paul opened the doorto the garden, and all was different. The sunny afternoon was there,like another land. By the path grew tansy and little trees. In frontof the window was a plot of sunny grass, with old lilacs round it. And away went the garden, with heaps of dishevelled chrysanthemumsin the sunshine, down to the sycamore-tree, and the field,and beyond one looked over a few red-roofed cottages to the hillswith all the glow of the autumn afternoon.
