The Boy in the Bush

by D. H. Lawrence; M. L. Skinner

She caught at the idea. But it was no good. When he went away prospecting for a week or more at a time, she would struggle to regain her woman's freedom. And it would seem to her as if she had got it: she was free of him again. She was a free being, by herself.

But then, when he came back, tired, sunburnt, ragged, and still unsuccessful: and when he looked at her with desire in his eyes, the living desire for her; she was so glad, suddenly, as if she had forgotten, or as if she had never known what his desire of her meant to her. She was so glad, she was weak with gladness instead of fear. And if, in perverseness, she still tried to oppose him, in the light of her supposedly regained freedom; and she saw the strange glow of desire for her go out of his eyes, and the strange loveliness, to her, of his wanting to have her near, in the room, giving him his meal or sitting near him outside in the shade of the evening; then, when his face changed, and took on the curious look of aloofness, as if he glistened with anger looking down on her from a long way off; then she felt all her own world turn to smoke, and her own will mysteriously evaporated, leaving her only wanting to be wanted again, back in his world. Her freedom was worth less than nothing.

Still often, when he was gone, leaving her alone in the little cabin, she was glad. She was free to spread her own woman's aura round her, she was free to delight in her own woman's idleness and whimsicality, free to amuse herself half teasing, half loving that little odd female of a Jane. And sometimes she would go to the cabins of other women, and gossip. And sometimes she would flirt with a young miner or prospector who seemed handsome. And she would get back her young, gay liveliness and freedom.

But when the man she flirted with wanted to kiss her, or put his arm round her waist, she found it made her go cold and savagely hostile. It was not as in the old days, when it gave her a thrill to be seized and kissed, whether by Easu, by Percy or Jack, or whatever man it was she was flirting with. Then, there had been a spark between her and many a man. But now, alas, the spark wouldn't fly. The man might be ever so good-looking and likeable, yet when he touched her, instead of the spark flying from her to him, immediately all the spark went dead in her. And this left her so angry, she could kill herself, or so wretched, she couldn't even cry.

That little goggle-eyed imp of a Jane, in spite of her one solitary year of age, seemed somehow to divine what was happening inside her mother's breast, and she seemed to chuckle wickedly. Monica always felt that the brat knew, and that she took Jack's side.

Jane always wanted Jack to come back. When he was away, she would toddle about on her own little affairs, curiously complacent and impervious to outer influences. But if she heard a horse coming up to the hut, she was at the door in a flash. And Monica saw with a pang, how steadily intent the brat was on the man's return. Somehow, from Jane, Monica knew that Jack would go with other women. Because of the spark that flashed to him from that brat of a baby of Easu's.

And at evening, Jane hated going to bed if Jack hadn't come home. She would be a real little hell-monkey. It was as if she felt the house wasn't safe, wasn't real, till he had come in.

Which annoyed Monica exceedingly. Why wasn't the mother enough for the child?

But she wasn't. And when Jane was in bed, Monica would take up the uneasiness of the manless house. She would sit like a cat shut up in a strange room, unable to settle, unable really to rest, and hating the night for having come and surprised her in her empty loneliness. Her loneliness might be really enjoyable during the day. But after nightfall it was empty, sterile, a mere oppression to her. She wished he would come home, if only so that she could hate him.

And she felt a flash of joy when she heard his footstep on the stones outside, even if the flash served only to kindle a great resentment against him. And he would come in, with his burnt, half-seeing face, unsuccessful, worn, silent, yet not uncheerful. And he spoke his few rather low words, from his chest, asking her something. And she knew he had come back to her. But where from, and what from, she would never know entirely.