Sons and Lovers (Version 2) — Chapter IX - Part 2 - DEFEAT OF MIRIAM
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 Jésus_ 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 arm-chair 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 desires 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 today 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 teatime 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 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 of 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 whinnies of pleasure at being so near home.
