CHAPTER NINE

The Defeat of Miriam

Paul was unhappy with himself and with everything.

The deepest of his love belonged to his mother. The thought that he had hurt her caused him great pain.

It was spring, and there was a battle between Paul and Miriam. At the bottom of her heart she believed he would never be hers. She could not see the two of them living happily together for the rest of their lives. Sorrow was all she could see.

The holidays began happily. Paul was his old, self. But Miriam felt that it was only a matter of time before he would become the angry young man that her love made him.

One Sunday afternoon, she stood at her bedroom window, looking out across the fields. Everything was new and green with the spring. She heard the gate open, and knew it was Paul. By now she knew him so well that she could tell what was going on inside of him by how he looked. Today he was not happy.

She came to meet him with a heavy heart. He said very little. They went into the garden to be alone. His eyes looked coldly at her. She thought it cruel, that his eyes, which she loved so much, could hurt her so deeply. They walked in silence.

Miriam picked some flowers. She touched them to her face and lips. Their beauty filled her.

"Can you never leave things alone? Must you pull the heart out of everything?" he said suddenly.

She looked up at him, full of pain. She kept the flower pressed to her lips. Their touch was so much kinder than his words.

"You are always asking for love. You even want the flowers to love you. You don't love but you need to be loved, because you have something missing inside you," he said, not knowing where his words were coming from.

She said nothing. They walked out of the garden and into the fields. After a while they sat down with their backs against a tree. Paul dug at the ground with a stick.

"I can only give friendship ... that is all. It's something in my nature," he said, after five minutes silence.

She was trying to be patient with him. She knew he loved her. He belonged to her, his body as well as his mind. Something inside him just had to give way, and then he could know his true self. She guessed that it was not only Paul himself that was the problem. Someone was working against his love. It did not take her long to know who that was.

Mrs Morel was sure it was Paul that was going to prove her right. He was going to become the type of man that changes the world. Then her life would be a victory. Wherever he went and whatever he did, her thoughts were with him. She hated it when he was with Miriam. William was dead. She was going to fight for Paul.

He had come back to her. His mind was made much easier by his return to her. She was the first woman to love him and she was the first woman he loved. But his young life was fighting towards something else. His mother knew this and wished that Miriam were the type of girl who could take the new part of him, but leave her the son she loved.

It was a week before he went to see Miriam again. She had been suffering a great deal. She was afraid to see him again. Would he leave her? He would always come back, she told herself. But for now he would battle against her love.

They sat in the garden reading.

"We spend so much time together. People will think we're getting married. I don't think it is fair to you, because I don't love you like a man should love his wife. What do you think?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said sadly.

"Do you think we love each other enough to marry?" he asked, in a hard voice.

"No," she answered truthfully, "We're too young."

"I thought that I could never give you what you give me. I still do, but if you want to get married, then we will," he told her.

Now Miriam wanted to cry. She did not know why he had to play these games. Why couldn't he just be himself?

"This is your mother talking. I know she never liked me," she said.

"No, no, she simply told me that if I keep seeing you as much as I have been, then I should think of myself as married," he explained.

There was silence. They both knew that they would keep seeing each other, but from now on things would be a little different. There would be a space between them. A space created by his mother, thought Miriam. She wished Mrs Morel would mind her own business.

Two days later he sent her a book and a little note, telling her to read and keep busy.

She could not stop thinking about what had happened. There was something else he wanted. He could never be happy. He could never give her peace. If she could not prove to him that his happiness lay with her, then there would always be something to cause trouble between them. She could not make the trouble go away; all she could do was hope.

In May she asked him to come to the farm to meet Mrs Dawes. She knew he wanted her. Whenever they had spoken of her she saw his eyes light up. He denied that he had any interest in the older woman. She was going to put him to the test. It was her belief that he was split between the finer things in life and the lower. She thought of herself as being the finer, and believed that in the end he would choose her.

He was excited to be meeting Clara again.

Clara was looking very beautiful on the day they met. She made everything around her seem ugly and poor. Miriam could sense Paul's happiness when he was near her. Clara sat leaning on the table. He noticed that her hands were large but perfectly formed. Her skin was white and it was covered in little golden hairs.

Clara took no notice of Paul. If she did say something to him; it was to disagree with what he had said. He talked to Miriam for a while. Clara sat staring into space. It was as if she needed no one else in her world. She was enough for herself.

Paul left after a short time. He was hurt and confused. He walked alone for an hour before he returned for lunch. During lunch she continued to appear to be in her own little world. The others spoke of the farm.

After lunch, Mrs Leivers asked Clara:

"Are you happier now?"

"Much," Clara answered.

"You don't miss your husband, now that he is gone?" continued Mrs Leivers.

"So long as I can be free, I am happy," Clara said.

Paul felt as if he should not be hearing any of this, he stood up to leave the table and said:

"I think you'll find that it is a lot harder to leave things behind, than you seem to think."

Clara did not answer him. He went out to the garden, to be alone.

Later, Paul, Miriam, and Clara went for a walk together. Miriam noticed that everything they said to each other was to disagree with what the other had said. All afternoon they fought with words. The more they did, the kinder Paul was to Miriam. He picked her flowers and said kind things to her. She thought that her plan was working. But she was too young to know that sometimes, two people will find the heat of passion through the heat of argument. All that afternoon they tried to find the other's weakness. Neither succeeded, but there would be other times, both of them knew that, Miriam did not.

About this time, Annie was married. She seemed very happy, but the rest of the family did not like the man that was to be her husband. Still, they all went along to the wedding and wished her well. She was sad to be leaving the family home, she cried for days before the wedding. But in the end she went off to start her new life.

After the wedding, Mrs Morel sat thinking about her children. She hoped that Annie would have a happier marriage than she did. Arthur was now in the army and she knew that he hated it. And Paul seemed to be trapped in his own thoughts. She felt that she must stay strong, so she could guide her children to their happiness.

Paul felt life changing around him. He was a man now. Annie and Arthur had left the house. He stayed, but felt something moving inside him. Sometimes he would meet Clara in Nottingham. When he was with her he felt as if he was in a larger more interesting world. She challenged him and made him feel alive.

Miriam came to see that Paul could choose the lower path in life. He could be untrue to himself. She feared that he could become a man who chases after the easy joys of life, not the pure and true things that she thought were the real Paul Morel. She could not talk to him like Clara talked to him, but she felt that she could give him something much more valuable.

Paul could take no more. He felt that Miriam was too good for him. He could never live up to the idea she had of him. He knew that part of him wanted those better things in life, and that part of him longed for Miriam. But he also knew that most of him simply wanted to live life.

When she was twenty-one, he wrote her a letter. He told her that he could not be her man, as he would always fail her. They were joined at the mind, but life was so much more than that. So if either of them were to fully live, they would have to find other people to love.

She read the letter twice, before putting it away. She believed that from now on her life would be without love and without any happiness.

This was the end of the first part of Paul's love affair. He was now twenty-three years old. He had not yet shared a bed with a woman; Miriam had stopped his natural desires. But now they returned. Often when he was with Clara, he could feel his blood grow thick with desire. A new world opened before his eyes.

(end of section)