Sons and Lovers
“My word, you _are_ loaded!” he exclaimed, putting down his brush.
“I am!” she gasped. “That brazen Annie said she’d meet me. _Such_ a
weight!”
She dropped her string bag and her packages on the table.
“Is the bread done?” she asked, going to the oven.
“The last one is soaking,” he replied. “You needn’t look, I’ve not
forgotten it.”
“Oh, that pot man!” she said, closing the oven door. “You know what a
wretch I’ve said he was? Well, I don’t think he’s quite so bad.”
“Don’t you?”
The boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black bonnet.
“No. I think he can’t make any money—well, it’s everybody’s cry alike
nowadays—and it makes him disagreeable.”
“It would _me_,” said Paul.
“Well, one can’t wonder at it. And he let me have—how much do you think
he let me have _this_ for?”
She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it
with joy.
“Show me!” said Paul.
The two stood together gloating over the dish.
“I _love_ cornflowers on things,” said Paul.
“Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me—”
“One and three,” said Paul.
“Fivepence!”
“It’s not enough, mother.”
“No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I’d been
extravagant, I couldn’t afford any more. And he needn’t have let me
have it if he hadn’t wanted to.”
“No, he needn’t, need he,” said Paul, and the two comforted each other
from the fear of having robbed the pot man.
“We c’n have stewed fruit in it,” said Paul.
“Or custard, or a jelly,” said his mother.
“Or radishes and lettuce,” said he.
“Don’t forget that bread,” she said, her voice bright with glee.
Paul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.
“It’s done,” he said, giving it to her.
She tapped it also.
“Yes,” she replied, going to unpack her bag. “Oh, and I’m a wicked,
extravagant woman. I know I s’ll come to want.”
He hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance. She
unfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of pansies
and of crimson daisies.
“Four penn’orth!” she moaned.
“How _cheap!_” he cried.
“Yes, but I couldn’t afford it _this_ week of all weeks.”
“But lovely!” he cried.
“Aren’t they!” she exclaimed, giving way to pure joy. “Paul, look at
this yellow one, isn’t it—and a face just like an old man!”
“Just!” cried Paul, stooping to sniff. “And smells that nice! But he’s
a bit splashed.”
He ran in the scullery, came back with the flannel, and carefully
washed the pansy.
“_Now_ look at him now he’s wet!” he said.
“Yes!” she exclaimed, brimful of satisfaction.
The children of Scargill Street felt quite select. At the end where the
Morels lived there were not many young things. So the few were more
united. Boys and girls played together, the girls joining in the fights
and the rough games, the boys taking part in the dancing games and
rings and make-belief of the girls.
Annie and Paul and Arthur loved the winter evenings, when it was not
wet. They stayed indoors till the colliers were all gone home, till it
was thick dark, and the street would be deserted. Then they tied their
scarves round their necks, for they scorned overcoats, as all the
colliers’ children did, and went out. The entry was very dark, and at
the end the whole great night opened out, in a hollow, with a little
tangle of lights below where Minton pit lay, and another far away
opposite for Selby. The farthest tiny lights seemed to stretch out the
darkness for ever. The children looked anxiously down the road at the
one lamp-post, which stood at the end of the field path. If the little,
luminous space were deserted, the two boys felt genuine desolation.
They stood with their hands in their pockets under the lamp, turning
their backs on the night, quite miserable, watching the dark houses.
Suddenly a pinafore under a short coat was seen, and a long-legged girl
came flying up.
“Where’s Billy Pillins an’ your Annie an’ Eddie Dakin?”
“I don’t know.”
But it did not matter so much—there were three now. They set up a game
round the lamp-post, till the others rushed up, yelling. Then the play
went fast and furious.
There was only this one lamp-post. Behind was the great scoop of
darkness, as if all the night were there. In front, another wide, dark
way opened over the hill brow. Occasionally somebody came out of this
way and went into the field down the path. In a dozen yards the night
had swallowed them. The children played on.
They were brought exceedingly close together owing to their isolation.
If a quarrel took place, the whole play was spoilt. Arthur was very
touchy, and Billy Pillins—really Philips—was worse. Then Paul had to
side with Arthur, and on Paul’s side went Alice, while Billy Pillins
always had Emmie Limb and Eddie Dakin to back him up. Then the six
would fight, hate with a fury of hatred, and flee home in terror. Paul
never forgot, after one of these fierce internecine fights, seeing a
big red moon lift itself up, slowly, between the waste road over the
hilltop, steadily, like a great bird. And he thought of the Bible, that
the moon should be turned to blood. And the next day he made haste to
be friends with Billy Pillins. And then the wild, intense games went on
again under the lamp-post, surrounded by so much darkness. Mrs. Morel,
going into her parlour, would hear the children singing away:
“My shoes are made of Spanish leather,
My socks are made of silk;
I wear a ring on every finger,
I wash myself in milk.”
They sounded so perfectly absorbed in the game as their voices came out
of the night, that they had the feel of wild creatures singing. It
stirred the mother; and she understood when they came in at eight
o’clock, ruddy, with brilliant eyes, and quick, passionate speech.
They all loved the Scargill Street house for its openness, for the
great scallop of the world it had in view. On summer evenings the women
would stand against the field fence, gossiping, facing the west,
watching the sunsets flare quickly out, till the Derbyshire hills
ridged across the crimson far away, like the black crest of a newt.
In this summer season the pits never turned full time, particularly the
soft coal. Mrs. Dakin, who lived next door to Mrs. Morel, going to the
field fence to shake her hearthrug, would spy men coming slowly up the
hill. She saw at once they were colliers. Then she waited, a tall,
thin, shrew-faced woman, standing on the hill brow, almost like a
menace to the poor colliers who were toiling up. It was only eleven
o’clock. From the far-off wooded hills the haze that hangs like fine
black crape at the back of a summer morning had not yet dissipated. The
first man came to the stile. “Chock-chock!” went the gate under his
thrust.
“What, han’ yer knocked off?” cried Mrs. Dakin.
“We han, missis.”
“It’s a pity as they letn yer goo,” she said sarcastically.
“It is that,” replied the man.
“Nay, you know you’re flig to come up again,” she said.
And the man went on. Mrs. Dakin, going up her yard, spied Mrs. Morel
taking the ashes to the ash-pit.
“I reckon Minton’s knocked off, missis,” she cried.
“Isn’t it sickenin’!” exclaimed Mrs. Morel in wrath.
“Ha! But I’n just seed Jont Hutchby.”
“They might as well have saved their shoe-leather,” said Mrs. Morel.
And both women went indoors disgusted.
The colliers, their faces scarcely blackened, were trooping home again.
Morel hated to go back. He loved the sunny morning. But he had gone to
pit to work, and to be sent home again spoilt his temper.
“Good gracious, at this time!” exclaimed his wife, as he entered.
“Can I help it, woman?” he shouted.
“And I’ve not done half enough dinner.”
“Then I’ll eat my bit o’ snap as I took with me,” he bawled
pathetically. He felt ignominious and sore.
And the children, coming home from school, would wonder to see their
father eating with his dinner the two thick slices of rather dry and
dirty bread-and-butter that had been to pit and back.
“What’s my dad eating his snap for now?” asked Arthur.
“I should ha’e it holled at me if I didna,” snorted Morel.
“What a story!” exclaimed his wife.
“An’ is it goin’ to be wasted?” said Morel. “I’m not such a extravagant
mortal as you lot, with your waste. If I drop a bit of bread at pit, in
all the dust an’ dirt, I pick it up an’ eat it.”
“The mice would eat it,” said Paul. “It wouldn’t be wasted.”
“Good bread-an’-butter’s not for mice, either,” said Morel. “Dirty or
not dirty, I’d eat it rather than it should be wasted.”
“You might leave it for the mice and pay for it out of your next pint,”
said Mrs. Morel.
“Oh, might I?” he exclaimed.
They were very poor that autumn. William had just gone away to London,
and his mother missed his money. He sent ten shillings once or twice,
but he had many things to pay for at first. His letters came regularly
once a week. He wrote a good deal to his mother, telling her all his
life, how he made friends, and was exchanging lessons with a Frenchman,
how he enjoyed London. His mother felt again he was remaining to her
just as when he was at home. She wrote to him every week her direct,
rather witty letters. All day long, as she cleaned the house, she
thought of him. He was in London: he would do well. Almost, he was like
her knight who wore _her_ favour in the battle.
He was coming at Christmas for five days. There had never been such
preparations. Paul and Arthur scoured the land for holly and
evergreens. Annie made the pretty paper hoops in the old-fashioned way.
And there was unheard-of extravagance in the larder. Mrs. Morel made a
big and magnificent cake. Then, feeling queenly, she showed Paul how to
blanch almonds. He skinned the long nuts reverently, counting them all,
to see not one was lost. It was said that eggs whisked better in a cold
place. So the boy stood in the scullery, where the temperature was
nearly at freezing-point, and whisked and whisked, and flew in
excitement to his mother as the white of egg grew stiffer and more
snowy.
“Just look, mother! Isn’t it lovely?”
And he balanced a bit on his nose, then blew it in the air.
“Now, don’t waste it,” said the mother.
Everybody was mad with excitement. William was coming on Christmas Eve.
Mrs. Morel surveyed her pantry. There was a big plum cake, and a rice
cake, jam tarts, lemon tarts, and mince-pies—two enormous dishes. She
was finishing cooking—Spanish tarts and cheese-cakes. Everywhere was
decorated. The kissing-bunch of berried holly hung with bright and
glittering things, spun slowly over Mrs. Morel’s head as she trimmed
her little tarts in the kitchen. A great fire roared. There was a scent
of cooked pastry. He was due at seven o’clock, but he would be late.
The three children had gone to meet him. She was alone. But at a
quarter to seven Morel came in again. Neither wife nor husband spoke.
He sat in his armchair, quite awkward with excitement, and she quietly
went on with her baking. Only by the careful way in which she did
things could it be told how much moved she was. The clock ticked on.
“What time dost say he’s coming?” Morel asked for the fifth time.
“The train gets in at half-past six,” she replied emphatically.
“Then he’ll be here at ten past seven.”
“Eh, bless you, it’ll be hours late on the Midland,” she said
indifferently. But she hoped, by expecting him late, to bring him
early. Morel went down the entry to look for him. Then he came back.
“Goodness, man!” she said. “You’re like an ill-sitting hen.”
“Hadna you better be gettin’ him summat t’ eat ready?” asked the
father.
“There’s plenty of time,” she answered.
“There’s not so much as _I_ can see on,” he answered, turning crossly
in his chair. She began to clear her table. The kettle was singing.
They waited and waited.