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CHAPTER VII |
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LAD-AND-GIRL LOVE （I） PAUL had been many times up to Willey Farm during the autumn. He was friends with the two youngest boys. Edgar the eldest, would notcondescend at first. And Miriam also refused to be approached. She was afraid of being set at nought, as by her own brothers. The girl was romantic in her soul. Everywhere was a Walter Scottheroine being loved by men with helmets or with plumes in their caps. She herself was something of a princess turned into a swine-girlin her own imagination. And she was afraid lest this boy,who, nevertheless, looked something like a Walter Scott hero,who could paint and speak French, and knew what algebra meant,and who went by train to Nottingham every day, might consider hersimply as the swine-girl, unable to perceive the princess beneath;so she held aloof. Her great companion was her mother. They were both brown-eyed,and inclined to be mystical, such women as treasure religioninside them, breathe it in their nostrils, and see the whole of lifein a mist thereof. So to Miriam, Christ and God made one great figure,which she loved tremblingly and passionately when a tremendous sunsetburned out the western sky, and Ediths, and Lucys, and Rowenas, Brian deBois Guilberts, Rob Roys, and Guy Mannerings, rustled the sunny leavesin the morning, or sat in her bedroom aloft, alone, when it snowed. That was life to her. For the rest, she drudged in the house,which work she would not have minded had not her clean red floor beenmucked up immediately by the trampling farm-boots of her brothers. She madly wanted her little brother of four to let her swathehim and stifle him in her love; she went to church reverently,with bowed head, and quivered in anguish from the vulgarity of theother choir-girls and from the common-sounding voice of the curate;she fought with her brothers, whom she considered brutal louts;and she held not her father in too high esteem because he did notcarry any mystical ideals cherished in his heart, but only wantedto have as easy a time as he could, and his meals when he was readyfor them. She hated her position as swine-girl. She wanted to be considered. She wanted to learn, thinking that if she could read, as Paul saidhe could read, "Colomba", or the "Voyage autour de ma Chambre", theworld would have a different face for her and a deepened respect. She could not be princess by wealth or standing. So she was madto have learning whereon to pride herself. For she was differentfrom other folk, and must not be scooped up among the common fry. Learning was the only distinction to which she thought to aspire. Her beauty--that of a shy, wild, quiveringly sensitivething--seemed nothing to her. Even her soul, so strong for rhapsody,was not enough. She must have something to reinforce her pride,because she felt different from other people. Paul she eyedrather wistfully. On the whole, she scorned the male sex. But here was a new specimen, quick, light, graceful, who couldbe gentle and who could be sad, and who was clever, and who knewa lot, and who had a death in the family. The boy's poormorsel of learning exalted him almost sky-high in her esteem. Yet she tried hard to scorn him, because he would not see in herthe princess but only the swine-girl. And he scarcely observed her. Then he was so ill, and she felt he would be weak. Then shewould be stronger than he. Then she could love him. If she couldbe mistress of him in his weakness, take care of him, if he coulddepend on her, if she could, as it were, have him in her arms,how she would love him! As soon as the skies brightened and plum-blossom was out,Paul drove off in the milkman's heavy float up to Willey Farm. Mr. Leivers shouted in a kindly fashion at the boy, then clickedto the horse as they climbed the hill slowly, in the freshnessof the morning. White clouds went on their way, crowding to theback of the hills that were rousing in the springtime. The waterof Nethermere lay below, very blue against the seared meadows andthe thorn-trees. It was four and a half miles' drive. Tiny buds on the hedges,vivid as copper-green, were opening into rosettes; and thrushes called,and blackbirds shrieked and scolded. It was a new, glamorous world. Miriam, peeping through the kitchen window, saw the horse walkthrough the big white gate into the farmyard that was backed by theoak-wood, still bare. Then a youth in a heavy overcoat climbed down. He put up his hands for the whip and the rug that the good-looking,ruddy farmer handed down to him. Miriam appeared in the doorway. She was nearly sixteen,very beautiful, with her warm colouring, her gravity, her eyesdilating suddenly like an ecstasy. "I say," said Paul, turning shyly aside, "your daffodilsare nearly out. Isn't it early? But don't they look cold?" "Cold!" said Miriam, in her musical, caressing voice. "The green on their buds---" and he faltered into silence timidly. "Let me take the rug," said Miriam over-gently. "I can carry it," he answered, rather injured. But he yieldedit to her. Then Mrs. Leivers appeared. "I'm sure you're tired and cold," she said. "Let me takeyour coat. It IS heavy. You mustn't walk far in it." She helped him off with his coat. He was quite unusedto such attention. She was almost smothered under its weight. "Why, mother," laughed the farmer as he passed through the kitchen,swinging the great milk-churns, "you've got almost more than youcan manage there." She beat up the sofa cushions for the youth. The kitchen was very small and irregular. The farm had beenoriginally a labourer's cottage. And the furniture was old and battered. But Paul loved it--loved the sack-bag that formed the hearthrug,and the funny little corner under the stairs, and the small windowdeep in the corner, through which, bending a little, be could seethe plum trees in the back garden and the lovely round hills beyond. "Won't you lie down?" said Mrs. Leivers. "Oh no; I'm not tired," he said. "Isn't it lovely coming out,don't you think? I saw a sloe-bush in blossom and a lot of celandines. I'm glad it's sunny." "Can I give you anything to eat or to drink?" "No, thank you." "How's your mother?" "I think she's tired now. I think she's had too much to do. Perhaps in a little while she'll go to Skegness with me. Then she'llbe able to rest. I s'll be glad if she can." "Yes," replied Mrs. Leivers. "It's a wonder she isn'till herself." Miriam was moving about preparing dinner. Paul watchedeverything that happened. His face was pale and thin, but his eyeswere quick and bright with life as ever. He watched the strange,almost rhapsodic way in which the girl moved about, carrying a greatstew-jar to the oven, or looking in the saucepan. The atmospherewas different from that of his own home, where everything seemedso ordinary. When Mr. Leivers called loudly outside to the horse,that was reaching over to feed on the rose-bushes in the garden,the girl started, looked round with dark eyes, as if something hadcome breaking in on her world. There was a sense of silence insidethe house and out. Miriam seemed as in some dreamy tale, a maidenin bondage, her spirit dreaming in a land far away and magical. And her discoloured, old blue frock and her broken boots seemedonly like the romantic rags of King Cophetua's beggar-maid. She suddenly became aware of his keen blue eyes upon her,taking her all in. Instantly her broken boots and her frayed oldfrock hurt her. She resented his seeing everything. Even he knewthat her stocking was not pulled up. She went into the scullery,blushing deeply. And afterwards her hands trembled slightly ather work. She nearly dropped all she handled. When her insidedream was shaken, her body quivered with trepidation. She resentedthat he saw so much. Mrs. Leivers sat for some time talking to the boy, although shewas needed at her work. She was too polite to leave him. Presently she excused herself and rose. After a while she lookedinto the tin saucepan. "Oh DEAR, Miriam," she cried, "these potatoes have boiled dry!" Miriam started as if she had been stung. "HAVE they, mother?" she cried. "I shouldn't care, Miriam," said the mother, "if I hadn'ttrusted them to you." She peered into the pan. The girl stiffened as if from a blow. Her dark eyes dilated;she remained standing in the same spot. "Well," she answered, gripped tight in self-conscious shame,"I'm sure I looked at them five minutes since." "Yes," said the mother, "I know it's easily done." "They're not much burned," said Paul. "It doesn't matter,does it?" Mrs. Leivers looked at the youth with her brown, hurt eyes. "It wouldn't matter but for the boys," she said to him. "Only Miriam knows what a trouble they make if the potatoes are'caught'." "Then," thought Paul to himself, "you shouldn't let them makea trouble." After a while Edgar came in. He wore leggings, and his bootswere covered with earth. He was rather small, rather formal,for a farmer. He glanced at Paul, nodded to him distantly,and said: "Dinner ready?" "Nearly, Edgar," replied the mother apologetically. "I'm ready for mine," said the young man, taking up the newspaperand reading. Presently the rest of the family trooped in. Dinner was served. The meal went rather brutally. The over-gentlenessand apologetic tone of the mother brought out all the brutalityof manners in the sons. Edgar tasted the potatoes, moved his mouthquickly like a rabbit, looked indignantly at his mother, and said: "These potatoes are burnt, mother." "Yes, Edgar. I forgot them for a minute. Perhaps you'llhave bread if you can't eat them." Edgar looked in anger across at Miriam. "What was Miriam doing that she couldn't attend to them?"he said. Miriam looked up. Her mouth opened, her dark eyes blazedand winced, but she said nothing. She swallowed her angerand her shame, bowing her dark head. "I'm sure she was trying hard," said the mother. "She hasn't got sense even to boil the potatoes," said Edgar. "What is she kept at home for?" "On'y for eating everything that's left in th' pantry," said Maurice. "They don't forget that potato-pie against our Miriam,"laughed the father. She was utterly humiliated. The mother sat in silence,suffering, like some saint out of place at the brutal board. It puzzled Paul. He wondered vaguely why all this intense feelingwent running because of a few burnt potatoes. The mother exaltedeverything--even a bit of housework--to the plane of a religious trust. The sons resented this; they felt themselves cut away underneath, andthey answered with brutality and also with a sneering superciliousness. Paul was just opening out from childhood into manhood. This atmosphere, where everything took a religious value, came witha subtle fascination to him. There was something in the air. His own mother was logical. Here there was something different,something he loved, something that at times he hated. Miriam quarrelled with her brothers fiercely. Later inthe afternoon, when they had gone away again, her mother said: "You disappointed me at dinner-time, Miriam." The girl dropped her head. "They are such BRUTES!" she suddenly cried, looking upwith flashing eyes. "But hadn't you promised not to answer them?" said the mother. "And I believed in you. I CAN'T stand it when you wrangle." "But they're so hateful!" cried Miriam, "and--and LOW." "Yes, dear. But how often have I asked you not to answerEdgar back? Can't you let him say what he likes?" "But why should he say what he likes?" "Aren't you strong enough to bear it, Miriam, if even for my sake? Are you so weak that you must wrangle with them?" Mrs. Leivers stuck unflinchingly to this doctrine of "the othercheek". She could not instil it at all into the boys. With thegirls she succeeded better, and Miriam was the child of her heart. The boys loathed the other cheek when it was presented to them. Miriam was often sufficiently lofty to turn it. Then they spaton her and hated her. But she walked in her proud humility,living within herself. There was always this feeling of jangle and discord in theLeivers family. Although the boys resented so bitterly this eternalappeal to their deeper feelings of resignation and proud humility,yet it had its effect on them. They could not establish between themselvesand an outsider just the ordinary human feeling and unexaggeratedfriendship; they were always restless for the something deeper. Ordinary folk seemed shallow to them, trivial and inconsiderable. And so they were unaccustomed, painfully uncouth in the simplestsocial intercourse, suffering, and yet insolent in their superiority. Then beneath was the yearning for the soul-intimacy to which they couldnot attain because they were too dumb, and every approach to closeconnection was blocked by their clumsy contempt of other people. They wanted genuine intimacy, but they could not get even normallynear to anyone, because they scorned to take the first steps,they scorned the triviality which forms common human intercourse. Paul fell under Mrs. Leivers's spell. Everything hada religious and intensified meaning when he was with her. His soul, hurt, highly developed, sought her as if for nourishment. Together they seemed to sift the vital fact from an experience. Miriam was her mother's daughter. In the sunshine of theafternoon mother and daughter went down the fields with him. They looked for nests. There was a jenny wren's in the hedgeby the orchard. "I DO want you to see this," said Mrs. Leivers. He crouched down and carefully put his finger through thethorns into the round door of the nest. "It's almost as if you were feeling inside the live bodyof the bird," he said, "it's so warm. They say a bird makesits nest round like a cup with pressing its breast on it. Then how did it make the ceiling round, I wonder?" The nest seemed to start into life for the two women. After that, Miriam came to see it every day. It seemed so closeto her. Again, going down the hedgeside with the girl, he noticedthe celandines, scalloped splashes of gold, on the side of the ditch. "I like them," he said, "when their petals go flat back withthe sunshine. They seemed to be pressing themselves at the sun." And then the celandines ever after drew her with a little spell. Anthropomorphic as she was, she stimulated him into appreciatingthings thus, and then they lived for her. She seemed to need thingskindling in her imagination or in her soul before she felt shehad them. And she was cut off from ordinary life by her religiousintensity which made the world for her either a nunnery gardenor a paradise, where sin and knowledge were not, or else an ugly,cruel thing. So it was in this atmosphere of subtle intimacy, this meetingin their common feeling for something in Nature, that their love started. Personally, he was a long time before he realized her. For ten months he had to stay at home after his illness. For awhile he went to Skegness with his mother, and was perfectly happy. But even from the seaside he wrote long letters to Mrs. Leiversabout the shore and the sea. And he brought back his belovedsketches of the flat Lincoln coast, anxious for them to see. Almost they would interest the Leivers more than they interestedhis mother. It was not his art Mrs. Morel cared about; it was himselfand his achievement. But Mrs. Leivers and her children were almosthis disciples. They kindled him and made him glow to his work,whereas his mother's influence was to make him quietly determined,patient, dogged, unwearied. He soon was friends with the boys, whose rudeness wasonly superficial. They had all, when they could trust themselves,a strange gentleness and lovableness. "Will you come with me on to the fallow?" asked Edgar,rather hesitatingly. Paul went joyfully, and spent the afternoon helping to hoe or tosingle turnips with his friend. He used to lie with the three brothersin the hay piled up in the barn and tell them about Nottingham andabout Jordan's. In return, they taught him to milk, and let him dolittle jobs--chopping hay or pulping turnips--just as much as he liked. At midsummer he worked all through hay-harvest with them, and thenhe loved them. The family was so cut off from the world actually. They seemed, somehow, like "les derniers fils d'une race epuisee".Though the lads were strong and healthy, yet they had all thatover-sensitiveness and hanging-back which made them so lonely,yet also such close, delicate friends once their intimacy was won. Paul loved them dearly, and they him. Miriam came later. But he had come into her life before shemade any mark on his. One dull afternoon, when the men were onthe land and the rest at school, only Miriam and her motherat home, the girl said to him, after having hesitated for some time: "Have you seen the swing?" "No," he answered. "Where?" "In the cowshed," she replied. She always hesitated to offer or to show him anything. Men have such different standards of worth from women, and her dearthings--the valuable things to her--her brothers had so often mockedor flouted. "Come on, then," he replied, jumping up. There were two cowsheds, one on either side of the barn. In the lower, darker shed there was standing for four cows. Hens flew scolding over the manger-wall as the youth and girl wentforward for the great thick rope which hung from the beam in thedarkness overhead, and was pushed back over a peg in the wall. "It's something like a rope!" he exclaimed appreciatively;and he sat down on it, anxious to try it. Then immediately he rose. "Come on, then, and have first go," he said to the girl. "See," she answered, going into the barn, "we put some bagson the seat"; and she made the swing comfortable for him. That gave her pleasure. He held the rope. "Come on, then," he said to her. "No, I won't go first," she answered. She stood aside in her still, aloof fashion. "Why?" "You go," she pleaded. Almost for the first time in her life she had the pleasureof giving up to a man, of spoiling him. Paul looked at her. "All right," he said, sitting down. "Mind out!" He set off with a spring, and in a moment was flying throughthe air, almost out of the door of the shed, the upper half of whichwas open, showing outside the drizzling rain, the filthy yard,the cattle standing disconsolate against the black cartshed, and atthe back of all the grey-green wall of the wood. She stood belowin her crimson tam-o'-shanter and watched. He looked down at her,and she saw his blue eyes sparkling. "It's a treat of a swing," he said. "Yes." He was swinging through the air, every bit of him swinging,like a bird that swoops for joy of movement. And he looked downat her. Her crimson cap hung over her dark curls, her beautifulwarm face, so still in a kind of brooding, was lifted towards him. It was dark and rather cold in the shed. Suddenly a swallow camedown from the high roof and darted out of the door. "I didn't know a bird was watching," he called. He swung negligently. She could feel him falling and liftingthrough the air, as if he were lying on some force. "Now I'll die," he said, in a detached, dreamy voice, as thoughhe were the dying motion of the swing. She watched him, fascinated. Suddenly he put on the brake and jumped out. "I've had a long turn," he said. "But it's a treatof a swing--it's a real treat of a swing!" Miriam was amused that he took a swing so seriously and feltso warmly over it. "No; you go on," she said. "Why, don't you want one?" he asked, astonished. "Well, not much. I'll have just a little." She sat down, whilst he kept the bags in place for her. "It's so ripping!" he said, setting her in motion. "Keep yourheels up, or they'll bang the manger wall." She felt the accuracy with which he caught her, exactly at theright moment, and the exactly proportionate strength of his thrust,and she was afraid. Down to her bowels went the hot wave of fear. She was in his hands. Again, firm and inevitable came the thrust atthe right moment. She gripped the rope, almost swooning. "Ha!" she laughed in fear. "No higher!" "But you're not a BIT high," he remonstrated. "But no higher." He heard the fear in her voice, and desisted. Her heart meltedin hot pain when the moment came for him to thrust her forward again. But he left her alone. She began to breathe. "Won't you really go any farther?" he asked. "Should I keepyou there?" "No; let me go by myself," she answered. He moved aside and watched her. "Why, you're scarcely moving," he said. She laughed slightly with shame, and in a moment got down. "They say if you can swing you won't be sea-sick," he said,as he mounted again. "I don't believe I should ever be sea-sick." Away he went. There was something fascinating to her in him. For the moment he was nothing but a piece of swinging stuff;not a particle of him that did not swing. She could never loseherself so, nor could her brothers. It roused a warmth in her. It was almost as if he were a flame that had lit a warmth in herwhilst he swung in the middle air. And gradually the intimacy with the family concentratedfor Paul on three persons--the mother, Edgar, and Miriam. To the mother he went for that sympathy and that appeal which seemedto draw him out. Edgar was his very close friend. And to Miriamhe more or less condescended, because she seemed so humble. But the girl gradually sought him out. If he brought up hissketch-book, it was she who pondered longest over the last picture. Then she would look up at him. Suddenly, her dark eyes alight likewater that shakes with a stream of gold in the dark, she would ask: "Why do I like this so?" Always something in his breast shrank from these close,intimate, dazzled looks of hers. "Why DO you?" he asked. "I don't know. It seems so true." "It's because--it's because there is scarcely any shadow in it;it's more shimmery, as if I'd painted the shimmering protoplasmin the leaves and everywhere, and not the stiffness of the shape. That seems dead to me. Only this shimmeriness is the real living. The shape is a dead crust. The shimmer is inside really." And she, with her little finger in her mouth, would ponderthese sayings. They gave her a feeling of life again, and vivifiedthings which had meant nothing to her. She managed to find somemeaning in his struggling, abstract speeches. And they werethe medium through which she came distinctly at her beloved objects. Another day she sat at sunset whilst he was painting somepine-trees which caught the red glare from the west. He had been quiet. "There you are!" he said suddenly. "I wanted that. Now, look atthem and tell me, are they pine trunks or are they red coals,standing-up pieces of fire in that darkness? There's God's burningbush for you, that burned not away." Miriam looked, and was frightened. But the pine trunks werewonderful to her, and distinct. He packed his box and rose. Suddenly he looked at her. "Why are you always sad?" he asked her. "Sad!" she exclaimed, looking up at him with startled,wonderful brown eyes. "Yes," he replied. "You are always sad." "I am not--oh, not a bit!" she cried. "But even your joy is like a flame coming off of sadness,"he persisted. "You're never jolly, or even just all right." "No," she pondered. "I wonder--why?" "Because you're not; because you're different inside,like a pine-tree, and then you flare up; but you're not justlike an ordinary tree, with fidgety leaves and jolly---" He got tangled up in his own speech; but she brooded on it,and he had a strange, roused sensation, as if his feelings were new. She got so near him. It was a strange stimulant. |
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