Page 349 - sons-and-lovers

flowers, its books, its high rosewood piano. He loved the
gardens and the buildings that stood with their scarlet roofs
on the naked edges of the fields, crept towards the wood as
if for cosiness, the wild country scooping down a valley and
up the uncultured hills of the other side. Only to be there
was an exhilaration and a joy to him. He loved Mrs. Leivers,
with her unworldliness and her quaint cynicism; he loved
Mr. Leivers, so warm and young and lovable; he loved Ed-
gar, who lit up when he came, and the boys and the children
and Bill—even the sow Circe and the Indian game-cock
called Tippoo. All this besides Miriam. He could not give
it up.
So he went as often, but he was usually with Edgar. Only
all the family, including the father, joined in charades and
games at evening. And later, Miriam drew them together,
and they read Macbeth out of penny books, taking parts.
It was great excitement. Miriam was glad, and Mrs. Leivers
was glad, and Mr. Leivers enjoyed it. Then they all learned
songs together from tonic sol-fa, singing in a circle round
the fire. But now Paul was very rarely alone with Miriam.
She waited. When she and Edgar and he walked home to-
gether from chapel or from the literary society in Bestwood,
she knew his talk, so passionate and so unorthodox nowa-
days, was for her. She did envy Edgar, however, his cycling
with Paul, his Friday nights, his days working in the fields.
For her Friday nights and her French lessons were gone. She
was nearly always alone, walking, pondering in the wood,
reading, studying, dreaming, waiting. And he wrote to her
frequently.

Sons and Lovers