On 9 February 1912, Lawrence returned to Eastwood, to the house in which his father and Ada now lived with Emily, her husband and son. If we think of his early life as a Bildungsroman, the story of a young man's development and entry into the world, this return home after three years in London seems like a low point. But it was here, between early February and early April, that for the first time he worked as a full-time professional writer, completing—as was to be his habit for the rest of his life—the draft of a 200,000-word novel in under two months, and even breaking off to write four journalistic sketches of mining life, capitalising on the strike that coincided with his stay in Eastwood. He had earned a second instalment of royalties for The White Peacock (nearly £50), but this money had mostly been spent on medical expenses, and he had agreed to submit ‘Paul Morel’ to Heinemann by June.

He was also returning to Jessie, who took up again her old role of Lawrence's first reader, but in this case of a work which was of almost life-or-death importance to her. Did he imagine other possibilities with Jessie? John Worthen confidently asserts that he did not believe they had a common future and, in a retort to Jessie's own claim, ‘in no sense were Lawrence and Jessie, in 1912, “together again”’ (EY355). But I'm not so sure. We have seen that in ‘The Harassed Angel’, written at the time of Jessie's visit to Lawrence in Croydon, Syson fears he is falling in love with Hilda, his attraction to her is physical, and it is only in the later revision that the ‘quick change beginning in his blood’ when in her company is glossed as ‘the vaporising of himself, as if his spirit were to be liberated’, signifying his old, sexually-inhibiting response to Jessie (VG146; PO 104). Lawrence discussed marriage with Jessie, though in unpromising terms, saying, ‘If we were to marry now you'd expect me to stay at home’ and, when Jessie replied in the affirmative, retorting that he didn't want a home and thought he would go abroad: ‘I can't settle yet. I must move about’ (ED 706).