LITMIR.BIZ

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laughed swiftly, as she always did when he became whimsical and fretful. He sat with his head bent down, smiling with his lips, but his eyes melancholy. She put her hand out to him. He took it without apparently observing it, folding his own hand over it, and unconsciously increasing the pressure.

      ‘You are cold,’ he said.

      ‘Only my hands, and they usually are,’ she replied gently.

      ‘And mine are generally warm.’

      ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘It’s almost the only warmth I get now — your hands. They really are wonderfully warm and close-touching.’

      ‘As good as a baked potato,’ he said.

      She pressed his hand, scolding him for his mockery.

      ‘So many calories per week — isn’t that how we manage it?’ he asked. ‘On credit?’

      She put her other hand on his, as if beseeching him to forgo his irony, which hurt her. They sat silent for some time. The sheep broke their cluster, and began to straggle back to the upper side of the pen.

      ‘Tong-tong, tong,’ went the forlorn bell. The rain waxed louder.

      Byrne was thinking of the previous week. He had gone to Helena’s home to read German with her as usual. She wanted to understand Wagner in his own language.

      In each of the arm-chairs, reposing across the arms, was a violin-case. He had sat down on the edge of one seat in front of the sacred fiddle. Helena had come quickly and removed the violin.

      ‘I shan’t knock it — it is all right,’ he had said, protesting.

      This was Siegmund’s violin, which Helena had managed to purchase, and Byrne was always ready to yield its precedence.

      ‘It was all right,’ he repeated.

      ‘But you were not,’ she had replied gently.

      Since that time his heart had beat quick with excitement. Now he sat in a little storm of agitation, of which nothing was betrayed by his gloomy, pondering expression, but some of which was communicated to Helena by the increasing pressure of his hand, which adjusted itself delicately in a stronger and stronger stress over her fingers and palm. By some movement he became aware that her hand was uncomfortable. He relaxed. She sighed, as if restless and dissatisfied. She wondered what he was thinking of. He smiled quietly.

      ‘The Babes in the Wood,’ he teased.

      Helena laughed, with a sound of tears. In the tree overhead some bird began to sing, in spite of the rain, a broken evening song.

      ‘That little beggar sees it’s a hopeless case, so he reminds us of heaven. But if he’s going to cover us with yew-leaves, he’s set himself a job.’

      Helena laughed again, and shivered. He put his arm round her, drawing her nearer his warmth. After this new and daring move neither spoke for a while.

      ‘The rain continues,’ he said.

      ‘And will do,’ she added, laughing.

      ‘Quite content,’ he said.

      The bird overhead chirruped loudly again.

      ‘“Strew on us roses, roses,”’ quoted Byrne, adding after a while, in wistful mockery: ‘“And never a sprig of yew”— eh?’

      Helena made a small sound of tenderness and comfort for him, and weariness for herself. She let herself sink a little closer against him.

      ‘Shall it not be so — no yew?’ he murmured.

      He put his left hand, with which he had been breaking larch-twigs, on her chilled wrist. Noticing that his fingers were dirty, he held them up.

      ‘I shall make marks on you,’ he said.

      ‘They will come off,’ she replied.

      ‘Yes, we come clean after everything. Time scrubs all sorts of scars off us.’

      ‘Some scars don’t seem to go,’ she smiled.

      And she held out her other arm, which had been pressed warm against his side. There, just above the wrist, was the red sun-inflammation from last year. Byrne regarded it gravely.

      ‘But it’s wearing off — even that,’ he said wistfully.

      Helena put her arms found him under his coat. She was cold. He felt a hot wave of joy suffuse him. Almost immediately she released him, and took off her hat.

      ‘That is better,’ he said.

      ‘I was afraid of the pins,’ said she.

      ‘I’ve been dodging them for the last hour,’ he said, laughing, as she put her arms under his coat again for warmth.

      She laughed, and, making a small, moaning noise, as if of weariness and helplessness, she sank her head on his chest. He put down his cheek against hers.

      ‘I want rest and warmth,’ she said, in her dull tones.

      ‘All right!’ he murmured.

      Sons and Lovers

       Table of Contents

       PART ONE

       Chapter I. The Early Married Life of the Morels

       Chapter II. The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle

       Chapter III. The Casting Off of Morel—The Taking On of William

       Chapter IV. The Young Life of Paul

       Chapter V. Paul Launches Into Life

       Chapter VI. Death in the Family

       PART TWO

       Chapter VII. Lad-and-Girl Love

       Chapter VIII. Strife in Love

       Chapter IX. Defeat of Miriam

       Chapter X. Clara

       Chapter XI. The Test on Miriam

       Chapter XII. Passion

       Chapter XIII. Baxter Dawes

       Chapter XIV. The Release

       Chapter XV. Derelict

      PART ONE

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