Miss Lawrence

“ Then, as she met his eyes,
“To Woodhouse?” he said, watching her, to fix her.
“Yes,” she said, a little pale at the lips.
And she saw his eternal smile of triumph slowly growing round his mouth. She wanted to cover his mouth with her hand. She preferred his tawny eyes with their black brows and lashes. His eyes watched her as a cat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of ferocity. In his eyes was a deep, deep sun-warmth, something fathomless, deepening black and abysmal, but somehow sweet to her.
“Will you?” she repeated. ”

“ Scarcely a sound came from her, but the sight of that bowed head and the convulsively heaving shoulders, showing but too plainly through the thin cloth of her short coat, hurt Lawrence desperately, and brought a lump into his throat. She seemed so young and frail and girlish, so utterly unfitted to cope with the world, that a quick impulse came to the man to take her in his arms and comfort her exactly as one does a child. He realized instantly, of course, that such a thing would be impossible. ”

“ A churchful of dark-wrapped women sunk there in wild, humble supplication of dread and of bliss filled Kate with tenderness and revulsion. They crouched like people not quite created.
Their soft, untidy black hair, which they scratched for lice; the round-eyed baby joggling like a pumpkin in the shawl slung over the woman’s shoulder, the never-washed feet and ankles, again somewhat reptilian under the long, flounced, soiled cotton skirt; and then, once more, the dark eyes of half-created women, soft, appealing, yet with a queer void insolence! ”

“ The big red beast seemed to dance romantically through that dimness of green hazel drift, away there where the air was shadowy, as if it were in the past, among the fading bluebells that might have bloomed for Deidre or Iseult.
The three stood charmed.
“What a treat to be a knight,” he said, “and to have a pavilion here.”
“And to have us shut up safely?” replied Clara.
“Yes,” he answered, “singing with your maids at your broidery. I would carry your banner of white and green and heliotrope. I would have ‘W.S.P.U.’ emblazoned on my shield, beneath a woman rampant.” ”

“ Madame eyed her shrewdly, with just a touch of jealousy: the eternal jealousy that must exist between the plump, pale partridge of a Frenchwoman, whose black hair is so glossy and tidy, whose black eyes are so acute, whose black dress is so neat and chic, and the rather thin Englishwoman in soft voile, with soft, rather loose brown hair and demure, blue-grey eyes.
“Oh—a difference—what a difference! When you have a little more flesh—then—” Madame made a slight click with her tongue. “What a good brooch, eh?” Madame fingered the brooch. “Old paste—old paste—antique—”
“No,” said Alvina. ”

“ At the same time he was finely and acutely aware of Mademoiselle’s neat, brittle finality of form. She was like some elegant beetle with thin ankles, perched on her high heels, her glossy black dress perfectly correct, her dark hair done high and admirably. How repulsive her completeness and her finality was! He loathed her.
Yet he did admire her. She was perfectly correct. And it did rather annoy him, that Gudrun came dressed in startling colours, like a macaw, when the family was in mourning. Like a macaw she was! He watched the lingering way she took her feet from the ground. ”

“ He could see the full white arms passing clear through the dripping spume of lace, towards the rise of her breasts. But her eyes bent down upon him with such gloom of tenderness that he dared not reveal the passion burning in him. He could not look at her. He strove almost pitifully to be with her sad, tender, but he could not put out his fire. She held both his hands firm, pressing them in appeal for her dream love. He glanced at her wistfully, then turned away. She waited for him. She wanted his caresses and tenderness. He would not look at her. ”

“ Miss Lawrence's maid is named Kingdon."
"Yes; she's a niece of Mrs. Endicott. I've sometimes thought that it was because of this relationship that Mrs. Lawrence was so kind to her and to her sister."
"Kind to them?" I repeated. "In what way?"
"She gave them the cottage they live in," he explained, "and has helped them in many other ways. The younger girl, Lucy, has a place in her household, where her duties, I fancy, are purely nominal. Her sister is supposed to take in sewing, but she really does very little." ”

“ She looked up at him, and her eyes dilated with anger.
“Then,” she said, “if it’s true, it’s a great shame.”
“It is. But I don’t know everything,” he answered.
After supper they drew up to the fire. He swung her a chair facing him, and they sat down. She was wearing a dress of dark claret colour, that suited her dark complexion and her large features. Still, the curls were fine and free, but her face was much older, the brown throat much thinner. She seemed old to him, older than Clara. Her bloom of youth had quickly gone. A sort of stiffness, almost of woodenness, had come upon her. ”

“ Clara had pulled a button from a hollyhock spire, and was breaking it to get the seeds. Above her bowed head the pink flowers stared, as if defending her. The last bees were falling down to the hive.
“Count your money,” laughed Paul, as she broke the flat seeds one by one from the roll of coin. She looked at him.
“I’m well off,” she said, smiling.
“How much? Pf!” He snapped his fingers. “Can I turn them into gold?”
“I’m afraid not,” she laughed.
They looked into each other’s eyes, laughing. At that moment they became aware of Miriam. There was a click, and everything had altered. ”

“ His nostrils and mouth were crushed against her breast. He smelled the silk of her dress and the faint, intoxicating odour of her person. With shut eyes he owned heavily to himself again that she was blind to him. But some other self urged with gladness, no matter how blind she was, so that she pressed his face upon her.
She stroked and caressed his hair, tremblingly clasped his head against her breast, as if she would never release him; then she bent to kiss his forehead. ”

“ His knees tightened to bronze as he hung above her soft face, whose lips parted and whose eyes dilated in a strange violation. In the grasp of his hand her chin was unutterably soft and silken. He felt strong as winter, his hands were living metal, invincible and not to be turned aside. His heart rang like a bell clanging inside him.
He took her up in his arms. She was soft and inert, motionless. All the while her eyes, in which the tears had not yet dried, were dilated as if in a kind of swoon of fascination and helplessness. ”

“ What do you think you are?" her soul asked of the professor as she sat opposite him in class. "What do you think you are, as you sit there in your gown and your spectacles? You are a lurking, blood-sniffing creature with eyes peering out of the jungle darkness, snuffing for your desires. That is what you are, though nobody would believe it, and you would be the very last to allow it."
Her soul mocked at all this pretence. Herself, she kept on pretending. She dressed herself and made herself fine, she attended her lectures and scribbled her notes. ”

“ Silently, obediently, she took off her hat and gave herself to his arms again. He liked her—he liked the feel of her—he wanted to know her more closely. He let his fingers subtly seek out her cheek and neck. What amazing beauty and pleasure, in the dark! His fingers had often touched Anna on the face and neck like that. What matter! It was one man who touched Anna, another who now touched this girl. He liked best his new self. He was given over altogether to the sensuous knowledge of this woman, and every moment he seemed to be touching absolute beauty, something beyond knowledge. ”

“ As he does so, Lawrence suddenly comes to the girl, and says very tenderly: "God bless your noble, generous heart!"
But suddenly he seems to Erma to grow taller and tower over her, and he shakes his head and brushes his hair back from his brow, as if he were a fevered lion, and cries hoarsely: "This must not be! Men in the West do not take money from women!"
"But you need it. What is it to me? A few gewgaws, and jewels, and dresses, and I have more of them than I want. Take it to regain your own—to smite down this wretch Tranyon—then repay it to me." ”

“ Hard and shut down and silent within herself, she slipped out one evening to the workshed. She heard the tap-tap-tap of the hammer upon the metal. Her father lifted his head as the door opened. His face was ruddy and bright with instinct, as when he was a youth, his black moustache was cut close over his wide mouth, his black hair was fine and close as ever. But there was about him an abstraction, a sort of instrumental detachment from human things. He was a worker. He watched his daughter’s hard, expressionless face. A hot anger came over his breast and belly. ”

“ Out of the far, far space there drifted slowly in to her a passionate, unborn yearning. "There are so many dawns that have not yet risen." It seemed as if, from over the edge of the sea, all the unrisen dawns were appealing to her, all her unborn soul was crying for the unrisen dawns.
As she sat looking out at the tender sea, with its lovely, swift glimmer, the sob rose in her breast, till she caught her lip suddenly under her teeth, and the tears were forcing themselves from her. ”

“ This home-atmosphere possibly accounts for Lawrence’s world being so empty of women: he was brought up to do without female society and the habit has remained with him. That he has a fear or hatred of all women is untrue. He tries to talk to a woman as he would talk to another man, or to himself. If she does not return the compliment by talking to him as she would to another woman, he leaves her. He has no false sense of chivalry. He is not a courtier but neither is he a boor.
His childhood was spent in Scotland, the Isle of Man, Jersey, France and Hampshire. ”

“ She loved his body that was proud and blond and able to take command. And he loved her body that was soft and eternal. They looked at the faint grey vapour of summer steaming off from the greenness and ripeness of the fields. There was no town anywhere, their look ended in the haze of the summer morning. Their bodies rested together, their minds tranquil. Then a little anxiety stirred in both of them from the sound of the bugle. She was called back to her old position, to realize the world of authority she did not understand but had wanted to serve. ”

“ At the end, the Germans were all touched with admiring, delicious melancholy, they praised her in soft, reverent voices, they could not say too much.
'Wie schon, wie ruhrend! Ach, die Schottischen Lieder, sie haben so viel Stimmung! Aber die gnadige Frau hat eine WUNDERBARE Stimme; die gnadige Frau ist wirklich eine Kunstlerin, aber wirklich!'
She was dilated and brilliant, like a flower in the morning sun. She felt Birkin looking at her, as if he were jealous of her, and her breasts thrilled, her veins were all golden. She was as happy as the sun that has just opened above clouds. ”

“ Hers were large, to match her large limbs, but white and powerful looking. As Paul looked at them he knew her. “She is wanting somebody to take her hands—for all she is so contemptuous of us,” he said to himself. And she saw nothing but his two hands, so warm and alive, which seemed to live for her. He was brooding now, staring out over the country from under sullen brows. ”

“ She lay like a girl asleep and dreaming of her love. The mouth was a little open, as if wondering from the suffering, but her face was young, her brow clear and white as if life had never touched it. He looked again at the eyebrows, at the small, winsome nose a bit on one side. She was young again. Only the hair as it arched so beautifully from her temples was mixed with silver, and the two simple plaits that lay on her shoulders were filigree of silver and brown. She would wake up. ”

“ Her good works are many, but are seldom tliscovered by any save the recipients. A great-hearted benevolence, ask- ing no questions, histant and constant in its sincerity, is one of her jjronounced traits.
Among Miss Lawrence's most cherished pos- sessions are an immense silver loving-cup, pre- sented her as a Christmas gift by patrons of the Castle Square Theatre ”

“ Why, to triumph over that ingrate Lawrence by a conquest of the only man within reach who is admitted to be his superior. He has humiliated my pride, wounded my vanity, and, oh heavens! thrown back the most passionate love that woman ever bestowed on man, as too worthless for his acceptance without money. Were Mr. Lee an unmarried man, this Lawrence should be invited to act as his groomsman within the month. As it is, he is distinguished and unapproachable to the common herd. ”

“ And immediately he hated Miriam bitterly.
“And I’ve never—you know, Paul—I’ve never had a husband—not really——”
He stroked his mother’s hair, and his mouth was on her throat.
“And she exults so in taking you from me—she’s not like ordinary girls.”
“Well, I don’t love her, mother,” he murmured, bowing his head and hiding his eyes on her shoulder in misery. His mother kissed him a long, fervent kiss.
“My boy!” she said, in a voice trembling with passionate love.
Without knowing, he gently stroked her face.
“There,” said his mother, “now go to bed. You’ll be so tired in the morning.” ”