But she could scarcely climb the cathedral hill. He did not notice. Then suddenly he found her unable to speak. He took her into a little public-house, where she rested.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “My heart is only a bit old; one must expect it.”
He did not answer, but looked at her. Again his heart was crushed in a hot grip. He wanted to cry, he wanted to smash things in fury.
They set off again, pace by pace, so slowly. And every step seemed like a weight on his chest. He felt as if his heart would burst. At last they came to the top. She stood enchanted, looking at the castle gate, looking at the cathedral front. She had quite forgotten herself.
“Now this is better than I thought it could be!” she cried.
But he hated it. Everywhere he followed her, brooding. They sat together in the cathedral. They attended a little service in the choir. She was timid.
“I suppose it is open to anybody?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he replied. “Do you think they’d have the damned cheek to send us away.”
“Well, I’m sure,” she exclaimed, “they would if they heard your language.”
Her face seemed to shine again with joy and peace during the service. And all the time he was wanting to rage and smash things and cry.
Afterwards, when they were leaning over the wall, looking at the town below, he blurted suddenly:
“Why can’t a man have a young mother? What is she old for?”
“Well,” his mother laughed, “she can scarcely help it.”
“And why wasn’t I the oldest son? Look—they say the young ones have the advantage—but look, they had the young mother. You should have had me for your eldest son.”
“I didn’t arrange it,” she remonstrated. “Come to consider, you’re as much to blame as me.”
He turned on her, white, his eyes furious.
“What’are you old for!” he said, mad with his impotence. “Why can’t you walk? Why can’t you come with me to places?”
“At one time,” she replied, “I could have run up that hill a good deal better than you.”
“What’s the good of that to me?” he cried, hitting his fist on the wall. Then he became plaintive. “It’s too bad of you to be ill, Little, it is—”
“Ill!” she cried. “I’m a bit old, and you’ll have to put up with it, that’s all.”
They were quiet. But it was as much as they could bear. They got jolly again over tea. As they sat by Brayford, watching the boats, he told her about Clara. His mother asked him innumerable questions.
“Then who does she live with?”
“With her mother, on Bluebell Hill.”
“And have they enough to keep them?”
“I don’t think so. I think they do lace work.”
“And wherein lies her charm, my boy?”
“I don’t know that she’s charming, mother. But she’s nice. And she seems straight, you know—not a bit deep, not a bit.”
“But she’s a good deal older than you.”
“She’s thirty, I’m going of twenty-three.”
“You haven’t told me what you like her for.”
“Because I don’t know—a sort of defiant way she’s got—a sort of angry way.”
Mrs. Morel considered. She would have been glad now for her son to fall in love with some woman who would—she did not know what. But he fretted so, got so furious suddenly, and again was melancholic. She wished he knew some nice woman—She did not know what she wished, but left it vague. At any rate, she was not hostile to the idea of Clara.
Annie, too, was getting married. Leonard had gone away to work in Birmingham. One week-end when he was home she had said to him:
“You don’t look very well, my lad.”
“I dunno,” he said. “I feel anyhow or nohow, ma.”
He called her “ma” already in his boyish fashion.
“Are you sure they’re good lodgings?” she asked.
“Yes—yes. Only—it’s a winder when you have to pour your own tea out—an’ nobody to grouse if you teameq it in your saucer and sup it up. It somehow takes a’ the taste out of it.”
Mrs. Morel laughed.
“And so it knocks you up?” she said.
“I dunno. I want to get married,” he blurted, twisting his fingers and looking down at his boots. There was a silence.
“But,” she exclaimed, “I thought you said you’d wait another year.
“Yes, I did say so,” he replied stubbornly.
Again she considered.
“And you know,” she said, “Annie’s a bit of a spendthrift. She’s saved no more than eleven pounds. And I know, lad, you haven’t had much chance.”
He coloured up to the ears.
“I’ve got thirty-three quid,” er he said.
“It doesn’t go far,” she answered.
He said nothing, but twisted his fingers.
“And you know,” she said, “I’ve nothing—”
“I didn’t want, ma!” he cried, very red, suffering and remonstrating.
“No, my lad, I know. I was only wishing I had. And take away five pounds for the wedding and things—it leaves twenty-nine pounds. You won’t do much on that.”
He twisted still, impotent, stubborn, not looking up.
“But do you really want to get married?” she asked. “Do you feel as if you ought?”
He gave her one straight look from his blue eyes.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then,” she replied, “we must all do the best we can for it, lad.”
The next time he looked up there were tears in his eyes.
“I don’t want Annie to feel handicapped,” he said, struggling.
“My lad,” she said, “you’re steady—you’ve got a decent place. If a man had needed me I’d have married him on his last week’s wages. She may find it a bit hard to start humbly. Young girls are like that. They look forward to the fine home they think they’ll have. But I had expensive furniture. It’s not everything.”
So the wedding took place almost immediately. Arthur came home, and was splendid in uniform. Annie looked nice in a dove-grey dress that she could take for Sundays. Morel called her a fool for getting married, and was cool with his son-in-law. Mrs. Morel had white tips in her bonnet, and some white on her blouse, and was teased by both her sons for fancying herself so grand. Leonard was jolly and cordial, and felt a fearful fool. Paul could not quite see what Annie wanted to get married for. He was fond of her, and she of him. Still, he hoped rather lugubriously that it would turn out all right. Arthur was astonishingly handsome in his scarlet and yellow, and he knew it well, but was secretly ashamed of the uniform. Annie cried her eyes up in the kitchen, on leaving her mother. Mrs. Morel cried a little, then patted her on the back and said:
“But don’t cry, child, he’ll be good to you.”
Morel stamped and said she was a fool to go and tie herself up. Leonard looked white and overwrought. Mrs. Morel said to him:
“I s’ll trust her to you, my lad, and hold you responsible for her.”
“You can,” he said, nearly dead with the ordeal. And it was all over.
When Morel and Arthur were in bed, Paul sat talking, as he often did, with his mother.
“You’re not sorry she’s married, mother, are you?” he asked.
“I’m not sorry she’s married—but—it seems strange that she should go from me. It even seems to me hard that she can prefer to go with her Leonard. That’s how mothers are—I know it’s silly.”
“And shall you be miserable about her?”
“When I think of my own wedding day,” his mother answered, “I can only hope her life will be different.”
“But you can trust him to be good to her?”
“Yes, yes. They say he’s not good enough for her. But I say if a man is genuine, as he is, and a girl is fond of him—then—it should be all right. He’s as good as she.”
“So you don’t mind?”
&nbs
p; “I would never have let a daughter of mine marry a man I didn’t feel to be genuine through and through. And yet, there’s a gap now she’s gone.”
They were both miserable, and wanted her back again. It seemed to Paul his mother looked lonely, in her new black silk blouse with its bit of white trimming.
“At any rate, mother, I s’ll never marry,” he said.
“Ay, they all say that, my lad. You’ve not met the one yet. Only wait a year or two.”
“But I shan’t marry, mother. I shall live with you, and we’ll have a servant.”
“Ay, my lad, it’s easy to talk. We’ll see when the time comes.”
“What time? I’m nearly twenty-three.”
“Yes, you’re not one that would marry young. But in three years’ time—”
“I shall be with you just the same.”
“We’ll see, my boy, we’ll see.”
“But you don’t want me to marry?”
“I shouldn’t like to think of you going through your life without anybody to care for you and do—no.”
“And you think I ought to marry?”
“Sooner or later every man ought.”
“But you’d rather it were later.”
“It would be hard—and very hard. It’s as they say:“‘A son’s my son till he takes him a wife,
But my daughter’s my daughter the whole of her life.’ ” es
“And you think I’d let a wife take me from you?”
“Well, you wouldn’t ask her to marry your mother as well as you,” Mrs. Morel smiled.
“She could do what she liked; she wouldn’t have to interfere.”
“She wouldn’t—till she’d got you—and then you’d see.”
“I never will see. I’ll never marry while I’ve got you—I won’t.”
“But I shouldn’t like to leave you with nobody, my boy,” she cried.
“You’re not going to leave me. What are you? Fifty-three! I’ll give you till seventy-five. There you are, I’m fat and forty-four. Then I’ll marry a staid body. See!”
His mother sat and laughed.
“Go to bed,” she said—go to bed.”
“And we’ll have a pretty house, you and me, and a servant, and it’ll be just all right. I s’ll perhaps be rich with my painting.”
“Will you go to bed!”
“And then you s’ll have a pony-carriage. See yourself—a little Queen Victoriaet trotting round.”
“I tell you to go to bed,” she laughed.
He kissed her and went. His plans for the future were always the same.
Mrs. Morel sat brooding—about her daughter, about Paul, about Arthur. She fretted at losing Annie. The family was very closely bound. And she felt she must live now, to be with her children. Life was so rich for her. Paul wanted her, and so did Arthur. Arthur never knew how deeply he loved her. He was a creature of the moment. Never yet had he been forced to realise himself. The army had disciplined his body, but not his soul. He was in perfect health and very handsome. His dark, vigorous hair sat close to his smallish head. There was something childish about his nose, something almost girlish about his dark blue eyes. But he had the full red mouth of a man under his brown moustache, and his jaw was strong. It was his father’s mouth; it was the nose and eyes of her own mother’s people—good-looking, weak-principled folk. Mrs. Morel was anxious about him. Once he had really run the rigeu he was safe. But how far would he go?
The army had not really done him any good. He resented bitterly the authority of the officers. He hated having to obey as if he were an animal. But he had too much sense to kick. So he turned his attention to getting the best out of it. He could sing, he was a boon companion. Often he got into scrapes, but they were the manly scrapes that are easily condoned. So he made a good time out of it, whilst his self-respect was in suppression. He trusted to his good looks and handsome figure, his refinement, his decent education to get him most of what he wanted, and he was not disappointed. Yet he was restless. Something seemed to gnaw him inside. He was never still, he was never alone. With his mother he was rather humble. Paul he admired and loved and despised slightly. And Paul admired and loved and despised him slightly.
Mrs. Morel had had a few pounds left to her by her father, and she decided to buy her son out of the army. He was wild with joy. Now he was like a lad taking a holiday.
He had always been fond of Beatrice Wyld, and during his furlough he picked up with her again. She was stronger and better in health. The two often went long walks together, Arthur taking her arm in soldier’s fashion, rather stiffly. And she came to play the piano whilst he sang. Then Arthur would unhook his tunic collar. He grew flushed, his eyes were bright, he sang in a manly tenor. Afterwards they sat together on the sofa. He seemed to flaunt his body: she was aware of him so—the strong chest, the sides, the thighs in their close-fitting trousers.
He liked to lapse into the dialect when he talked to her. She would sometimes smoke with him. Occasionally she would only take a few whiffs at his cigarette.
“Nay,” he said to her one evening, when she reached for his cigarette. “Nay, tha doesna. I’ll gi’e thee a smoke kiss if ter’s a mind.”
“I wanted a whiff, no kiss at all,” she answered.
“Well, an’ tha s‘lt ha’e a whiff,” he said, “along wi‘t’kiss.”
“I want a draw at thy fag,”ev she cried, snatching for the cigarette between his lips.
He was sitting with his shoulder touching her. She was small and quick as lightning. He just escaped.
“I’ll gi’e thee a smoke kiss,” he said.
“Tha’rt a kniveyew nuisance, Arty Morel,” she said, sitting back.
“Ha’e a smoke kiss?”
The soldier leaned forward to her, smiling. His face was near hers.
“Shonna!” she replied, turning away her head.
He took a draw at his cigarette, and pursed up his mouth, and put his lips close to her. His dark-brown cropped moustache stood out like a brush. She looked at the puckered crimson lips, then suddenly snatched the cigarette from his fingers and darted away. He, leaping after her, seized the comb from her back hair. She turned, threw the cigarette at him. He picked it up, put it in his mouth, and sat down.
“Nuisance!” she cried. “Give me my comb!”
She was afraid that her hair, specially done for him, would come down. She stood with her hands to her head. He hid the comb between his knees.
“I’ve non got it,” he said.
The cigarette trembled between his lips with laughter as he spoke.
“Liar!” she said.
“’S true as I’m here!” he laughed, showing his hands.
“You brazen imp!” she exclaimed, rushing and scuffling for the comb, which he had under his knees. As she wrestled with him, pulling at his smooth, tight-covered knees, he laughed till he lay back on the sofa shaking with laughter. The cigarette fell from his mouth almost singeing his throat. Under his delicate tan the blood flushed up, and he laughed till his blue eyes were blinded, his throat swollen almost to choking. Then he sat up. Beatrice was putting in her comb.
“Tha tickled me, Beat,” he said thickly.
Like a flash her small white hand went out and smacked his face. He started up, glaring at her. They stared at each other. Slowly the flush mounted her cheek, she dropped her eyes, then her head. He sat down sulkily. She went into the scullery to adjust her hair. In private there she shed a few tears, she did not know what for.
When she returned she was pursed up close. But it was only a film over her fire. He, with ruffled hair, was sulking upon the sofa. She sat down opposite, in the arm-chair, and neither spoke. The clock ticked in the silence like blows.
“You are a little cat, Beat,” he said at length, half apologetically.
“Well, you shouldn’t be brazen,” she replied.
There was again a long silence. He whistled to himself like a man much agitated but defiant. Suddenly she went across to him and kisse
d him.
“Did it, pore fing!”ex she mocked.
He lifted his face, smiling curiously.
“Kiss?” he invited her.
“Daren’t I?” she asked.
“Go on!” he challenged, his mouth lifted to her.
Deliberately, and with a peculiar quivering smile that seemed to overspread her whole body, she put her mouth on his. Immediately his arms folded round her. As soon as the long kiss was finished she drew back her head from him, put her delicate fingers on his neck, through the open collar. Then she closed her eyes, giving herself up again in a kiss.
She acted of her own free will. What she would do she did, and made nobody responsible.
Paul felt life changing around him. The conditions of youth were gone. Now it was a home of grown-up people. Annie was a married woman, Arthur was following his own pleasure in a way unknown to his folk. For so long they had all lived at home, and gone out to pass their time. But now, for Annie and Arthur, life lay outside their mother’s house. They came home for holiday and for rest. So there was that strange, half-empty feeling about the house, as if the birds had flown. Paul became more and more unsettled. Annie and Arthur had gone. He was restless to follow. Yet home was for him beside his mother. And still there was something else, something outside, something he wanted.
He grew more and more restless. Miriam did not satisfy him. His old mad desire to be with her grew weaker. Sometimes he met Clara in Nottingham, sometimes he went to meetings with her, sometimes he saw her at Willey Farm. But on these last occasions the situation became strained. There was a triangle of antagonism between Paul and Clara and Miriam. With Clara he took on a smart, worldly, mocking tone very antagonistic to Miriam. It did not matter what went before. She might be intimate and sad with him. Then as soon as Clara appeared, it all vanished, and he played to the newcomer.
Miriam had one beautiful evening with him in the hay. He had been on the horse-rake, and having finished, came to help her to put the hay in cocks. Then he talked to her of his hopes and despairs, and his whole soul seemed to lie bare before her. She felt as if she watched the very quivering stuff of life in him. The moon came out: they walked home together: he seemed to have come to her because he needed her so badly, and she listened to him, gave him all her love and her faith. It seemed to her he brought her the best of himself to keep, and that she would guard it all her life. Nay, the sky did not cherish the stars more surely and eternally than she would guard the good in the soul of Paul Morel. She went on home alone, feeling exalted, glad in her faith.
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