Howells et al. - "The Whole Family"

William F. Drannan - "Thirty One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains"

Robert Louis Stevenson - "St Ives"

E. Phillips Oppenheim - "The Tempting of Tavernake"

Women in Love

D >> D.H. Lawrence >> Women in Love




'Is there much more water in Denley?' came the faint voice, determined
and querulous, from the bed. The dying man was asking about a leakage
from Willey Water into one of the pits.

'Some more--we shall have to run off the lake,' said Gerald.

'Will you?' The faint voice filtered to extinction. There was dead
stillness. The grey-faced, sick man lay with eyes closed, more dead
than death. Gerald looked away. He felt his heart was seared, it would
perish if this went on much longer.

Suddenly he heard a strange noise. Turning round, he saw his father's
eyes wide open, strained and rolling in a frenzy of inhuman struggling.
Gerald started to his feet, and stood transfixed in horror.

'Wha-a-ah-h-h-' came a horrible choking rattle from his father's
throat, the fearful, frenzied eye, rolling awfully in its wild
fruitless search for help, passed blindly over Gerald, then up came the
dark blood and mess pumping over the face of the agonised being. The
tense body relaxed, the head fell aside, down the pillow.

Gerald stood transfixed, his soul echoing in horror. He would move, but
he could not. He could not move his limbs. His brain seemed to re-echo,
like a pulse.

The nurse in white softly entered. She glanced at Gerald, then at the
bed.

'Ah!' came her soft whimpering cry, and she hurried forward to the dead
man. 'Ah-h!' came the slight sound of her agitated distress, as she
stood bending over the bedside. Then she recovered, turned, and came
for towel and sponge. She was wiping the dead face carefully, and
murmuring, almost whimpering, very softly: 'Poor Mr Crich!--Poor Mr
Crich! Poor Mr Crich!'

'Is he dead?' clanged Gerald's sharp voice.

'Oh yes, he's gone,' replied the soft, moaning voice of the nurse, as
she looked up at Gerald's face. She was young and beautiful and
quivering. A strange sort of grin went over Gerald's face, over the
horror. And he walked out of the room.

He was going to tell his mother. On the landing he met his brother
Basil.

'He's gone, Basil,' he said, scarcely able to subdue his voice, not to
let an unconscious, frightening exultation sound through.

'What?' cried Basil, going pale.

Gerald nodded. Then he went on to his mother's room.

She was sitting in her purple gown, sewing, very slowly sewing, putting
in a stitch then another stitch. She looked up at Gerald with her blue
undaunted eyes.

'Father's gone,' he said.

'He's dead? Who says so?'

'Oh, you know, mother, if you see him.'

She put her sewing down, and slowly rose.

'Are you going to see him?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said

By the bedside the children already stood in a weeping group.

'Oh, mother!' cried the daughters, almost in hysterics, weeping loudly.

But the mother went forward. The dead man lay in repose, as if gently
asleep, so gently, so peacefully, like a young man sleeping in purity.
He was still warm. She stood looking at him in gloomy, heavy silence,
for some time.

'Ay,' she said bitterly, at length, speaking as if to the unseen
witnesses of the air. 'You're dead.' She stood for some minutes in
silence, looking down. 'Beautiful,' she asserted, 'beautiful as if life
had never touched you--never touched you. God send I look different. I
hope I shall look my years, when I am dead. Beautiful, beautiful,' she
crooned over him. 'You can see him in his teens, with his first beard
on his face. A beautiful soul, beautiful--' Then there was a tearing in
her voice as she cried: 'None of you look like this, when you are dead!
Don't let it happen again.' It was a strange, wild command from out of
the unknown. Her children moved unconsciously together, in a nearer
group, at the dreadful command in her voice. The colour was flushed
bright in her cheek, she looked awful and wonderful. 'Blame me, blame
me if you like, that he lies there like a lad in his teens, with his
first beard on his face. Blame me if you like. But you none of you
know.' She was silent in intense silence.

Then there came, in a low, tense voice: 'If I thought that the children
I bore would lie looking like that in death, I'd strangle them when
they were infants, yes--'

'No, mother,' came the strange, clarion voice of Gerald from the
background, 'we are different, we don't blame you.'

She turned and looked full in his eyes. Then she lifted her hands in a
strange half-gesture of mad despair.

'Pray!' she said strongly. 'Pray for yourselves to God, for there's no
help for you from your parents.'

'Oh mother!' cried her daughters wildly.

But she had turned and gone, and they all went quickly away from each
other.

When Gudrun heard that Mr Crich was dead, she felt rebuked. She had
stayed away lest Gerald should think her too easy of winning. And now,
he was in the midst of trouble, whilst she was cold.

The following day she went up as usual to Winifred, who was glad to see
her, glad to get away into the studio. The girl had wept, and then, too
frightened, had turned aside to avoid any more tragic eventuality. She
and Gudrun resumed work as usual, in the isolation of the studio, and
this seemed an immeasurable happiness, a pure world of freedom, after
the aimlessness and misery of the house. Gudrun stayed on till evening.
She and Winifred had dinner brought up to the studio, where they ate in
freedom, away from all the people in the house.

After dinner Gerald came up. The great high studio was full of shadow
and a fragrance of coffee. Gudrun and Winifred had a little table near
the fire at the far end, with a white lamp whose light did not travel
far. They were a tiny world to themselves, the two girls surrounded by
lovely shadows, the beams and rafters shadowy over-head, the benches
and implements shadowy down the studio.

'You are cosy enough here,' said Gerald, going up to them.

There was a low brick fireplace, full of fire, an old blue Turkish rug,
the little oak table with the lamp and the white-and-blue cloth and the
dessert, and Gudrun making coffee in an odd brass coffee-maker, and
Winifred scalding a little milk in a tiny saucepan.

'Have you had coffee?' said Gudrun.

'I have, but I'll have some more with you,' he replied.

'Then you must have it in a glass--there are only two cups,' said
Winifred.

'It is the same to me,' he said, taking a chair and coming into the
charmed circle of the girls. How happy they were, how cosy and
glamorous it was with them, in a world of lofty shadows! The outside
world, in which he had been transacting funeral business all the day
was completely wiped out. In an instant he snuffed glamour and magic.

They had all their things very dainty, two odd and lovely little cups,
scarlet and solid gilt, and a little black jug with scarlet discs, and
the curious coffee-machine, whose spirit-flame flowed steadily, almost
invisibly. There was the effect of rather sinister richness, in which
Gerald at once escaped himself.

They all sat down, and Gudrun carefully poured out the coffee.

'Will you have milk?' she asked calmly, yet nervously poising the
little black jug with its big red dots. She was always so completely
controlled, yet so bitterly nervous.

'No, I won't,' he replied.

So, with a curious humility, she placed him the little cup of coffee,
and herself took the awkward tumbler. She seemed to want to serve him.

'Why don't you give me the glass--it is so clumsy for you,' he said. He
would much rather have had it, and seen her daintily served. But she
was silent, pleased with the disparity, with her self-abasement.

'You are quite EN MENAGE,' he said.

'Yes. We aren't really at home to visitors,' said Winifred.

'You're not? Then I'm an intruder?'

For once he felt his conventional dress was out of place, he was an
outsider.

Gudrun was very quiet. She did not feel drawn to talk to him. At this
stage, silence was best--or mere light words. It was best to leave
serious things aside. So they talked gaily and lightly, till they heard
the man below lead out the horse, and call it to 'back-back!' into the
dog-cart that was to take Gudrun home. So she put on her things, and
shook hands with Gerald, without once meeting his eyes. And she was
gone.

The funeral was detestable. Afterwards, at the tea-table, the daughters
kept saying--'He was a good father to us--the best father in the
world'--or else--'We shan't easily find another man as good as father
was.'

Gerald acquiesced in all this. It was the right conventional attitude,
and, as far as the world went, he believed in the conventions. He took
it as a matter of course. But Winifred hated everything, and hid in the
studio, and cried her heart out, and wished Gudrun would come.

Luckily everybody was going away. The Criches never stayed long at
home. By dinner-time, Gerald was left quite alone. Even Winifred was
carried off to London, for a few days with her sister Laura.

But when Gerald was really left alone, he could not bear it. One day
passed by, and another. And all the time he was like a man hung in
chains over the edge of an abyss. Struggle as he might, he could not
turn himself to the solid earth, he could not get footing. He was
suspended on the edge of a void, writhing. Whatever he thought of, was
the abyss--whether it were friends or strangers, or work or play, it
all showed him only the same bottomless void, in which his heart swung
perishing. There was no escape, there was nothing to grasp hold of. He
must writhe on the edge of the chasm, suspended in chains of invisible
physical life.

At first he was quiet, he kept still, expecting the extremity to pass
away, expecting to find himself released into the world of the living,
after this extremity of penance. But it did not pass, and a crisis
gained upon him.

As the evening of the third day came on, his heart rang with fear. He
could not bear another night. Another night was coming on, for another
night he was to be suspended in chain of physical life, over the
bottomless pit of nothingness. And he could not bear it. He could not
bear it. He was frightened deeply, and coldly, frightened in his soul.
He did not believe in his own strength any more. He could not fall into
this infinite void, and rise again. If he fell, he would be gone for
ever. He must withdraw, he must seek reinforcements. He did not believe
in his own single self, any further than this.

After dinner, faced with the ultimate experience of his own
nothingness, he turned aside. He pulled on his boots, put on his coat,
and set out to walk in the night.

It was dark and misty. He went through the wood, stumbling and feeling
his way to the Mill. Birkin was away. Good--he was half glad. He turned
up the hill, and stumbled blindly over the wild slopes, having lost the
path in the complete darkness. It was boring. Where was he going? No
matter. He stumbled on till he came to a path again. Then he went on
through another wood. His mind became dark, he went on automatically.
Without thought or sensation, he stumbled unevenly on, out into the
open again, fumbling for stiles, losing the path, and going along the
hedges of the fields till he came to the outlet.

And at last he came to the high road. It had distracted him to struggle
blindly through the maze of darkness. But now, he must take a
direction. And he did not even know where he was. But he must take a
direction now. Nothing would be resolved by merely walking, walking
away. He had to take a direction.

He stood still on the road, that was high in the utterly dark night,
and he did not know where he was. It was a strange sensation, his heart
beating, and ringed round with the utterly unknown darkness. So he
stood for some time.

Then he heard footsteps, and saw a small, swinging light. He
immediately went towards this. It was a miner.

'Can you tell me,' he said, 'where this road goes?'

'Road? Ay, it goes ter Whatmore.'

'Whatmore! Oh thank you, that's right. I thought I was wrong.
Good-night.'

'Good-night,' replied the broad voice of the miner.

Gerald guessed where he was. At least, when he came to Whatmore, he
would know. He was glad to be on a high road. He walked forward as in a
sleep of decision.

That was Whatmore Village--? Yes, the King's Head--and there the hall
gates. He descended the steep hill almost running. Winding through the
hollow, he passed the Grammar School, and came to Willey Green Church.
The churchyard! He halted.

Then in another moment he had clambered up the wall and was going among
the graves. Even in this darkness he could see the heaped pallor of old
white flowers at his feet. This then was the grave. He stooped down.
The flowers were cold and clammy. There was a raw scent of
chrysanthemums and tube-roses, deadened. He felt the clay beneath, and
shrank, it was so horribly cold and sticky. He stood away in revulsion.

Here was one centre then, here in the complete darkness beside the
unseen, raw grave. But there was nothing for him here. No, he had
nothing to stay here for. He felt as if some of the clay were sticking
cold and unclean, on his heart. No, enough of this.

Where then?--home? Never! It was no use going there. That was less than
no use. It could not be done. There was somewhere else to go. Where?

A dangerous resolve formed in his heart, like a fixed idea. There was
Gudrun--she would be safe in her home. But he could get at her--he
would get at her. He would not go back tonight till he had come to her,
if it cost him his life. He staked his all on this throw.

He set off walking straight across the fields towards Beldover. It was
so dark, nobody could ever see him. His feet were wet and cold, heavy
with clay. But he went on persistently, like a wind, straight forward,
as if to his fate. There were great gaps in his consciousness. He was
conscious that he was at Winthorpe hamlet, but quite unconscious how he
had got there. And then, as in a dream, he was in the long street of
Beldover, with its street-lamps.

There was a noise of voices, and of a door shutting loudly, and being
barred, and of men talking in the night. The 'Lord Nelson' had just
closed, and the drinkers were going home. He had better ask one of
these where she lived--for he did not know the side streets at all.

'Can you tell me where Somerset Drive is?' he asked of one of the
uneven men.

'Where what?' replied the tipsy miner's voice.

'Somerset Drive.'

'Somerset Drive!--I've heard o' such a place, but I couldn't for my
life say where it is. Who might you be wanting?'

'Mr Brangwen--William Brangwen.'

'William Brangwen--?--?'

'Who teaches at the Grammar School, at Willey Green--his daughter
teaches there too.'

'O-o-o-oh, Brangwen! NOW I've got you. Of COURSE, William Brangwen!
Yes, yes, he's got two lasses as teachers, aside hisself. Ay, that's
him--that's him! Why certainly I know where he lives, back your life I
do! Yi--WHAT place do they ca' it?'

'Somerset Drive,' repeated Gerald patiently. He knew his own colliers
fairly well.

'Somerset Drive, for certain!' said the collier, swinging his arm as if
catching something up. 'Somerset Drive--yi! I couldn't for my life lay
hold o' the lercality o' the place. Yis, I know the place, to be sure I
do--'

He turned unsteadily on his feet, and pointed up the dark, nighdeserted
road.

'You go up theer--an' you ta'e th' first--yi, th' first turnin' on your
left--o' that side--past Withamses tuffy shop--'

'I know,' said Gerald.

'Ay! You go down a bit, past wheer th' water-man lives--and then
Somerset Drive, as they ca' it, branches off on 't right hand side--an'
there's nowt but three houses in it, no more than three, I
believe,--an' I'm a'most certain as theirs is th' last--th' last o' th'
three--you see--'

'Thank you very much,' said Gerald. 'Good-night.'

And he started off, leaving the tipsy man there standing rooted.

Gerald went past the dark shops and houses, most of them sleeping now,
and twisted round to the little blind road that ended on a field of
darkness. He slowed down, as he neared his goal, not knowing how he
should proceed. What if the house were closed in darkness?

But it was not. He saw a big lighted window, and heard voices, then a
gate banged. His quick ears caught the sound of Birkin's voice, his
keen eyes made out Birkin, with Ursula standing in a pale dress on the
step of the garden path. Then Ursula stepped down, and came along the
road, holding Birkin's arm.

Gerald went across into the darkness and they dawdled past him, talking
happily, Birkin's voice low, Ursula's high and distinct. Gerald went
quickly to the house.

The blinds were drawn before the big, lighted window of the diningroom.
Looking up the path at the side he could see the door left open,
shedding a soft, coloured light from the hall lamp. He went quickly and
silently up the path, and looked up into the hall. There were pictures
on the walls, and the antlers of a stag--and the stairs going up on one
side--and just near the foot of the stairs the half opened door of the
dining-room.

With heart drawn fine, Gerald stepped into the hall, whose floor was of
coloured tiles, went quickly and looked into the large, pleasant room.
In a chair by the fire, the father sat asleep, his head tilted back
against the side of the big oak chimney piece, his ruddy face seen
foreshortened, the nostrils open, the mouth fallen a little. It would
take the merest sound to wake him.

Gerald stood a second suspended. He glanced down the passage behind
him. It was all dark. Again he was suspended. Then he went swiftly
upstairs. His senses were so finely, almost supernaturally keen, that
he seemed to cast his own will over the half-unconscious house.

He came to the first landing. There he stood, scarcely breathing.
Again, corresponding to the door below, there was a door again. That
would be the mother's room. He could hear her moving about in the
candlelight. She would be expecting her husband to come up. He looked
along the dark landing.

Then, silently, on infinitely careful feet, he went along the passage,
feeling the wall with the extreme tips of his fingers. There was a
door. He stood and listened. He could hear two people's breathing. It
was not that. He went stealthily forward. There was another door,
slightly open. The room was in darkness. Empty. Then there was the
bathroom, he could smell the soap and the heat. Then at the end another
bedroom--one soft breathing. This was she.

With an almost occult carefulness he turned the door handle, and opened
the door an inch. It creaked slightly. Then he opened it another
inch--then another. His heart did not beat, he seemed to create a
silence about himself, an obliviousness.

He was in the room. Still the sleeper breathed softly. It was very
dark. He felt his way forward inch by inch, with his feet and hands. He
touched the bed, he could hear the sleeper. He drew nearer, bending
close as if his eyes would disclose whatever there was. And then, very
near to his face, to his fear, he saw the round, dark head of a boy.

He recovered, turned round, saw the door ajar, a faint light revealed.
And he retreated swiftly, drew the door to without fastening it, and
passed rapidly down the passage. At the head of the stairs he
hesitated. There was still time to flee.

But it was unthinkable. He would maintain his will. He turned past the
door of the parental bedroom like a shadow, and was climbing the second
flight of stairs. They creaked under his weight--it was exasperating.
Ah what disaster, if the mother's door opened just beneath him, and she
saw him! It would have to be, if it were so. He held the control still.

He was not quite up these stairs when he heard a quick running of feet
below, the outer door was closed and locked, he heard Ursula's voice,
then the father's sleepy exclamation. He pressed on swiftly to the
upper landing.

Again a door was ajar, a room was empty. Feeling his way forward, with
the tips of his fingers, travelling rapidly, like a blind man, anxious
lest Ursula should come upstairs, he found another door. There, with
his preternaturally fine sense alert, he listened. He heard someone
moving in bed. This would be she.

Softly now, like one who has only one sense, the tactile sense, he
turned the latch. It clicked. He held still. The bed-clothes rustled.
His heart did not beat. Then again he drew the latch back, and very
gently pushed the door. It made a sticking noise as it gave.

'Ursula?' said Gudrun's voice, frightened. He quickly opened the door
and pushed it behind him.

'Is it you, Ursula?' came Gudrun's frightened voice. He heard her
sitting up in bed. In another moment she would scream.

'No, it's me,' he said, feeling his way towards her. 'It is I, Gerald.'

She sat motionless in her bed in sheer astonishment. She was too
astonished, too much taken by surprise, even to be afraid.

'Gerald!' she echoed, in blank amazement. He had found his way to the
bed, and his outstretched hand touched her warm breast blindly. She
shrank away.

'Let me make a light,' she said, springing out.

He stood perfectly motionless. He heard her touch the match-box, he
heard her fingers in their movement. Then he saw her in the light of a
match, which she held to the candle. The light rose in the room, then
sank to a small dimness, as the flame sank down on the candle, before
it mounted again.

She looked at him, as he stood near the other side of the bed. His cap
was pulled low over his brow, his black overcoat was buttoned close up
to his chin. His face was strange and luminous. He was inevitable as a
supernatural being. When she had seen him, she knew. She knew there was
something fatal in the situation, and she must accept it. Yet she must
challenge him.

'How did you come up?' she asked.

'I walked up the stairs--the door was open.'

She looked at him.

'I haven't closed this door, either,' he said. She walked swiftly
across the room, and closed her door, softly, and locked it. Then she
came back.

She was wonderful, with startled eyes and flushed cheeks, and her plait
of hair rather short and thick down her back, and her long, fine white
night-dress falling to her feet.

She saw that his boots were all clayey, even his trousers were
plastered with clay. And she wondered if he had made footprints all the
way up. He was a very strange figure, standing in her bedroom, near the
tossed bed.

'Why have you come?' she asked, almost querulous.

'I wanted to,' he replied.

And this she could see from his face. It was fate.

'You are so muddy,' she said, in distaste, but gently.

He looked down at his feet.

'I was walking in the dark,' he replied. But he felt vividly elated.
There was a pause. He stood on one side of the tumbled bed, she on the
other. He did not even take his cap from his brows.

'And what do you want of me,' she challenged.

He looked aside, and did not answer. Save for the extreme beauty and
mystic attractiveness of this distinct, strange face, she would have
sent him away. But his face was too wonderful and undiscovered to her.
It fascinated her with the fascination of pure beauty, cast a spell on
her, like nostalgia, an ache.

'What do you want of me?' she repeated in an estranged voice.

He pulled off his cap, in a movement of dream-liberation, and went
across to her. But he could not touch her, because she stood barefoot
in her night-dress, and he was muddy and damp. Her eyes, wide and large
and wondering, watched him, and asked him the ultimate question.

'I came--because I must,' he said. 'Why do you ask?'

She looked at him in doubt and wonder.

'I must ask,' she said.

He shook his head slightly.

'There is no answer,' he replied, with strange vacancy.

There was about him a curious, and almost godlike air of simplicity and
native directness. He reminded her of an apparition, the young Hermes.

'But why did you come to me?' she persisted.

'Because--it has to be so. If there weren't you in the world, then I
shouldn't be in the world, either.'

She stood looking at him, with large, wide, wondering, stricken eyes.
His eyes were looking steadily into hers all the time, and he seemed
fixed in an odd supernatural steadfastness. She sighed. She was lost
now. She had no choice.

'Won't you take off your boots,' she said. 'They must be wet.'

He dropped his cap on a chair, unbuttoned his overcoat, lifting up his
chin to unfasten the throat buttons. His short, keen hair was ruffled.
He was so beautifully blond, like wheat. He pulled off his overcoat.

Quickly he pulled off his jacket, pulled loose his black tie, and was
unfastening his studs, which were headed each with a pearl. She
listened, watching, hoping no one would hear the starched linen
crackle. It seemed to snap like pistol shots.

He had come for vindication. She let him hold her in his arms, clasp
her close against him. He found in her an infinite relief. Into her he
poured all his pent-up darkness and corrosive death, and he was whole
again. It was wonderful, marvellous, it was a miracle. This was the
everrecurrent miracle of his life, at the knowledge of which he was
lost in an ecstasy of relief and wonder. And she, subject, received him
as a vessel filled with his bitter potion of death. She had no power at
this crisis to resist. The terrible frictional violence of death filled
her, and she received it in an ecstasy of subjection, in throes of
acute, violent sensation.

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