Sons and Lovers (Barnes & Noble Classics - D. H. Lawrence [164]
He left her at the land-end. As she went home, solitary, in her new frock, having her people to face at the other end, he stood still with shame and pain in the highroad, thinking of the suffering he caused her.
In the reaction towards restoring his self-esteem, he went into the Willow Tree for a drink. There were four girls who had been out for the day, drinking a modest glass of port. They had some chocolates on the table. Paul sat near with his whisky. He noticed the girls whispering and nudging. Presently one, a bonny dark hussy, leaned to him and said:
“Have a chocolate?”
The others laughed loudly at her impudence.
“All right,” said Paul. “Give me a hard one—nut. I don’t like creams.
“Here you are then,” said the girl; “here’s an almond for you.”
She held the sweet between her fingers. He opened his mouth. She popped it in, and blushed.
“You are nice!” he said.
“Well,” she answered, “we thought you looked overcast, and they dared me offer you a chocolate.”
“I don’t mind if I have another—another sort,” he said.
And presently they were all laughing together.
It was nine o’clock when he got home, falling dark. He entered the house in silence. His mother, who had been waiting, rose anxiously.
“I told her,” he said.
“I’m glad,” replied the mother, with great relief.
He hung up his cap wearily.
“I said we’d have done altogether,” he said.
“That’s right, my son,” said the mother. “It’s hard for her now, but best in the long run. I know. You weren’t suited for her.”
He laughed shakily as he sat down.
“I’ve had such a lark with some girls in a pub,” he said.
His mother looked at him. He had forgotten Miriam now. He told her about the girls in the Willow Tree. Mrs. Morel looked at him. It seemed unreal, his gaiety. At the back of it was too much horror and misery.
“Now have some supper,” she said very gently.
Afterwards he said wistfully:
“She never thought she’d have me, mother, not from the first, and so she’s not disappointed.”
“I’m afraid,” said his mother, “she doesn’t give up hopes of you yet.”
“No,” he said, “perhaps not.”
“You’ll find it’s better to have done,” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said desperately.
“Well, leave her alone,” replied his mother.
So he left her, and she was alone. Very few people cared for her, and she for very few people. She remained alone with herself, waiting.
12
Passion
HE WAS gradually making it possible to earn a livelihood by his art. Liberty’s had taken several of his painted designs on various stuffs, and he could sell designs for embroideries, for altar-cloths, and similar things, in one or two places. It was not very much he made at present, but he might extend it. He had also made friends with the designer for a pottery firm, and was gaining some knowledge of his new acquaintance’s art. The applied arts interested him very much. At the same time he laboured slowly at his pictures. He loved to paint large figures, full of light, but not merely made up of lights and cast shadows, like the impressionists; rather definite figures that had a certain luminous quality, like some of Michael Angelo’s people. And these he fitted into a landscape, in what he thought true proportion. He worked a great deal from memory, using everybody he knew. He believed firmly in his work, that it was good and valuable. In spite of fits of depression, shrinking, everything, he believed in his work.
He was twenty-four when he said his first confident thing to his mother.
“Mother,” he said, “I s’ll make a painter that they’ll attend to.”
She sniffed in her quaint fashion. It was like a half-pleased shrug of the shoulders.
“Very well, my boy, we’ll see,” she said.
“You shall see, my pigeon! You see if you’re not swanky one of these days!”
“I’m quite content, my boy,” she smiled.
“But you’ll have to alter. Look at you with Minnie!”
Minnie was the small servant, a girl of fourteen.
“And what about Minnie?