Sons and Lovers
Paul was treated to dazzling descriptions of all kinds of flower-like
ladies, most of whom lived like cut blooms in William’s heart for a
brief fortnight.
Occasionally some flame would come in pursuit of her errant swain. Mrs.
Morel would find a strange girl at the door, and immediately she
sniffed the air.
“Is Mr. Morel in?” the damsel would ask appealingly.
“My husband is at home,” Mrs. Morel replied.
“I—I mean _young_ Mr. Morel,” repeated the maiden painfully.
“Which one? There are several.”
Whereupon much blushing and stammering from the fair one.
“I—I met Mr. Morel—at Ripley,” she explained.
“Oh—at a dance!”
“Yes.”
“I don’t approve of the girls my son meets at dances. And he is _not_
at home.”
Then he came home angry with his mother for having turned the girl away
so rudely. He was a careless, yet eager-looking fellow, who walked with
long strides, sometimes frowning, often with his cap pushed jollily to
the back of his head. Now he came in frowning. He threw his cap on to
the sofa, and took his strong jaw in his hand, and glared down at his
mother. She was small, with her hair taken straight back from her
forehead. She had a quiet air of authority, and yet of rare warmth.
Knowing her son was angry, she trembled inwardly.
“Did a lady call for me yesterday, mother?” he asked.
“I don’t know about a lady. There was a girl came.”
“And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I forgot, simply.”
He fumed a little.
“A good-looking girl—seemed a lady?”
“I didn’t look at her.”
“Big brown eyes?”
“I did _not_ look. And tell your girls, my son, that when they’re
running after you, they’re not to come and ask your mother for you.
Tell them that—brazen baggages you meet at dancing-classes.”
“I’m sure she was a nice girl.”
“And I’m sure she wasn’t.”
There ended the altercation. Over the dancing there was a great strife
between the mother and the son. The grievance reached its height when
William said he was going to Hucknall Torkard—considered a low town—to
a fancy-dress ball. He was to be a Highlander. There was a dress he
could hire, which one of his friends had had, and which fitted him
perfectly. The Highland suit came home. Mrs. Morel received it coldly
and would not unpack it.
“My suit come?” cried William.
“There’s a parcel in the front room.”
He rushed in and cut the string.
“How do you fancy your son in this!” he said, enraptured, showing her
the suit.
“You know I don’t want to fancy you in it.”
On the evening of the dance, when he had come home to dress, Mrs. Morel
put on her coat and bonnet.
“Aren’t you going to stop and see me, mother?” he asked.
“No; I don’t want to see you,” she replied.
She was rather pale, and her face was closed and hard. She was afraid
of her son’s going the same way as his father. He hesitated a moment,
and his heart stood still with anxiety. Then he caught sight of the
Highland bonnet with its ribbons. He picked it up gleefully, forgetting
her. She went out.
When he was nineteen he suddenly left the Co-op. office and got a
situation in Nottingham. In his new place he had thirty shillings a
week instead of eighteen. This was indeed a rise. His mother and his
father were brimmed up with pride. Everybody praised William. It seemed
he was going to get on rapidly. Mrs. Morel hoped, with his aid, to help
her younger sons. Annie was now studying to be a teacher. Paul, also
very clever, was getting on well, having lessons in French and German
from his godfather, the clergyman who was still a friend to Mrs. Morel.
Arthur, a spoilt and very good-looking boy, was at the Board-school,
but there was talk of his trying to get a scholarship for the High
School in Nottingham.
William remained a year at his new post in Nottingham. He was studying
hard, and growing serious. Something seemed to be fretting him. Still
he went out to the dances and the river parties. He did not drink. The
children were all rabid teetotallers. He came home very late at night,
and sat yet longer studying. His mother implored him to take more care,
to do one thing or another.
“Dance, if you want to dance, my son; but don’t think you can work in
the office, and then amuse yourself, and _then_ study on top of all.
You can’t; the human frame won’t stand it. Do one thing or the
other—amuse yourself or learn Latin; but don’t try to do both.”
Then he got a place in London, at a hundred and twenty a year. This
seemed a fabulous sum. His mother doubted almost whether to rejoice or
to grieve.
“They want me in Lime Street on Monday week, mother,” he cried, his
eyes blazing as he read the letter. Mrs. Morel felt everything go
silent inside her. He read the letter: “‘And will you reply by Thursday
whether you accept. Yours faithfully—’ They want me, mother, at a
hundred and twenty a year, and don’t even ask to see me. Didn’t I tell
you I could do it! Think of me in London! And I can give you twenty
pounds a year, mater. We s’ll all be rolling in money.”
“We shall, my son,” she answered sadly.
It never occurred to him that she might be more hurt at his going away
than glad of his success. Indeed, as the days drew near for his
departure, her heart began to close and grow dreary with despair. She
loved him so much! More than that, she hoped in him so much. Almost she
lived by him. She liked to do things for him: she liked to put a cup
for his tea and to iron his collars, of which he was so proud. It was a
joy to her to have him proud of his collars. There was no laundry. So
she used to rub away at them with her little convex iron, to polish
them, till they shone from the sheer pressure of her arm. Now she would
not do it for him. Now he was going away. She felt almost as if he were
going as well out of her heart. He did not seem to leave her inhabited
with himself. That was the grief and the pain to her. He took nearly
all himself away.
A few days before his departure—he was just twenty—he burned his
love-letters. They had hung on a file at the top of the kitchen
cupboard. From some of them he had read extracts to his mother. Some of
them she had taken the trouble to read herself. But most were too
trivial.
Now, on the Saturday morning he said:
“Come on, ’Postle, let’s go through my letters, and you can have the
birds and flowers.”
Mrs. Morel had done her Saturday’s work on the Friday, because he was
having a last day’s holiday. She was making him a rice cake, which he
loved, to take with him. He was scarcely conscious that she was so
miserable.
He took the first letter off the file. It was mauve-tinted, and had
purple and green thistles. William sniffed the page.
“Nice scent! Smell.”
And he thrust the sheet under Paul’s nose.
“Um!” said Paul, breathing in. “What d’you call it? Smell, mother.”
His mother ducked her small, fine nose down to the paper.
“_I_ don’t want to smell their rubbish,” she said, sniffing.
“This girl’s father,” said William, “is as rich as Crœsus. He owns
property without end. She calls me Lafayette, because I know French.
‘You will see, I’ve forgiven you’—I like _her_ forgiving me. ‘I told
mother about you this morning, and she will have much pleasure if you
come to tea on Sunday, but she will have to get father’s consent also.
I sincerely hope he will agree. I will let you know how it transpires.
If, however, you—’”
“‘Let you know how it’ what?” interrupted Mrs. Morel.
“‘Transpires’—oh yes!”
“‘Transpires!’” repeated Mrs. Morel mockingly. “I thought she was so
well educated!”
William felt slightly uncomfortable, and abandoned this maiden, giving
Paul the corner with the thistles. He continued to read extracts from
his letters, some of which amused his mother, some of which saddened
her and made her anxious for him.
“My lad,” she said, “they’re very wise. They know they’ve only got to
flatter your vanity, and you press up to them like a dog that has its
head scratched.”
“Well, they can’t go on scratching for ever,” he replied. “And when
they’ve done, I trot away.”
“But one day you’ll find a string round your neck that you can’t pull
off,” she answered.
“Not me! I’m equal to any of ’em, mater, they needn’t flatter
themselves.”
“You flatter _yourself_,” she said quietly.
Soon there was a heap of twisted black pages, all that remained of the
file of scented letters, except that Paul had thirty or forty pretty
tickets from the corners of the notepaper—swallows and forget-me-nots
and ivy sprays. And William went to London, to start a new life.
CHAPTER IV
THE YOUNG LIFE OF PAUL
Paul would be built like his mother, slightly and rather small. His
fair hair went reddish, and then dark brown; his eyes were grey. He was
a pale, quiet child, with eyes that seemed to listen, and with a full,
dropping underlip.
As a rule he seemed old for his years. He was so conscious of what
other people felt, particularly his mother. When she fretted he
understood, and could have no peace. His soul seemed always attentive
to her.
As he grew older he became stronger. William was too far removed from
him to accept him as a companion. So the smaller boy belonged at first
almost entirely to Annie. She was a tomboy and a “flybie-skybie”, as
her mother called her. But she was intensely fond of her second
brother. So Paul was towed round at the heels of Annie, sharing her
game. She raced wildly at lerky with the other young wild-cats of the
Bottoms. And always Paul flew beside her, living her share of the game,
having as yet no part of his own. He was quiet and not noticeable. But
his sister adored him. He always seemed to care for things if she
wanted him to.
She had a big doll of which she was fearfully proud, though not so
fond. So she laid the doll on the sofa, and covered it with an
antimacassar, to sleep. Then she forgot it. Meantime Paul must practise
jumping off the sofa arm. So he jumped crash into the face of the
hidden doll. Annie rushed up, uttered a loud wail, and sat down to weep
a dirge. Paul remained quite still.
“You couldn’t tell it was there, mother; you couldn’t tell it was
there,” he repeated over and over. So long as Annie wept for the doll
he sat helpless with misery. Her grief wore itself out. She forgave her
brother—he was so much upset. But a day or two afterwards she was
shocked.
“Let’s make a sacrifice of Arabella,” he said. “Let’s burn her.”
She was horrified, yet rather fascinated. She wanted to see what the
boy would do. He made an altar of bricks, pulled some of the shavings
out of Arabella’s body, put the waxen fragments into the hollow face,
poured on a little paraffin, and set the whole thing alight. He watched
with wicked satisfaction the drops of wax melt off the broken forehead
of Arabella, and drop like sweat into the flame. So long as the stupid
big doll burned he rejoiced in silence. At the end he poked among the
embers with a stick, fished out the arms and legs, all blackened, and
smashed them under stones.
“That’s the sacrifice of Missis Arabella,” he said. “An’ I’m glad
there’s nothing left of her.”
Which disturbed Annie inwardly, although she could say nothing. He
seemed to hate the doll so intensely, because he had broken it.
All the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarly _against_
their father, along with their mother. Morel continued to bully and to
drink. He had periods, months at a time, when he made the whole life of
the family a misery. Paul never forgot coming home from the Band of
Hope one Monday evening and finding his mother with her eye swollen and
discoloured, his father standing on the hearthrug, feet astride, his
head down, and William, just home from work, glaring at his father.
There was a silence as the young children entered, but none of the
elders looked round.