Sons and Lovers
“That’s it, mother,” he replied gratefully. But his brow was gloomy.
“You know, she’s not like you, mother. She’s not serious, and she can’t
think.”
“She’s young, my boy.”
“Yes; and she’s had no sort of show. Her mother died when she was a
child. Since then she’s lived with her aunt, whom she can’t bear. And
her father was a rake. She’s had no love.”
“No! Well, you must make up to her.”
“And so—you have to forgive her a lot of things.”
“_What_ do you have to forgive her, my boy?”
“I dunno. When she seems shallow, you have to remember she’s never had
anybody to bring her deeper side out. And she’s _fearfully_ fond of
me.”
“Anybody can see that.”
“But you know, mother—she’s—she’s different from us. Those sort of
people, like those she lives amongst, they don’t seem to have the same
principles.”
“You mustn’t judge too hastily,” said Mrs. Morel.
But he seemed uneasy within himself.
In the morning, however, he was up singing and larking round the house.
“Hello!” he called, sitting on the stairs. “Are you getting up?”
“Yes,” her voice called faintly.
“Merry Christmas!” he shouted to her.
Her laugh, pretty and tinkling, was heard in the bedroom. She did not
come down in half an hour.
“Was she _really_ getting up when she said she was?” he asked of Annie.
“Yes, she was,” replied Annie.
He waited a while, then went to the stairs again.
“Happy New Year,” he called.
“Thank you, Chubby dear!” came the laughing voice, far away.
“Buck up!” he implored.
It was nearly an hour, and still he was waiting for her. Morel, who
always rose before six, looked at the clock.
“Well, it’s a winder!” he exclaimed.
The family had breakfasted, all but William. He went to the foot of the
stairs.
“Shall I have to send you an Easter egg up there?” he called, rather
crossly. She only laughed. The family expected, after that time of
preparation, something like magic. At last she came, looking very nice
in a blouse and skirt.
“Have you _really_ been all this time getting ready?” he asked.
“Chubby dear! That question is not permitted, is it, Mrs. Morel?”
She played the grand lady at first. When she went with William to
chapel, he in his frock-coat and silk hat, she in her furs and
London-made costume, Paul and Arthur and Annie expected everybody to
bow to the ground in admiration. And Morel, standing in his Sunday suit
at the end of the road, watching the gallant pair go, felt he was the
father of princes and princesses.
And yet she was not so grand. For a year now she had been a sort of
secretary or clerk in a London office. But while she was with the
Morels she queened it. She sat and let Annie or Paul wait on her as if
they were her servants. She treated Mrs. Morel with a certain glibness
and Morel with patronage. But after a day or so she began to change her
tune.
William always wanted Paul or Annie to go along with them on their
walks. It was so much more interesting. And Paul really _did_ admire
“Gipsy” wholeheartedly; in fact, his mother scarcely forgave the boy
for the adulation with which he treated the girl.
On the second day, when Lily said: “Oh, Annie, do you know where I left
my muff?” William replied:
“You know it is in your bedroom. Why do you ask Annie?”
And Lily went upstairs with a cross, shut mouth. But it angered the
young man that she made a servant of his sister.
On the third evening William and Lily were sitting together in the
parlour by the fire in the dark. At a quarter to eleven Mrs. Morel was
heard raking the fire. William came out to the kitchen, followed by his
beloved.
“Is it as late as that, mother?” he said. She had been sitting alone.
“It is not _late_, my boy, but it is as late as I usually sit up.”
“Won’t you go to bed, then?” he asked.
“And leave you two? No, my boy, I don’t believe in it.”
“Can’t you trust us, mother?”
“Whether I can or not, I won’t do it. You can stay till eleven if you
like, and I can read.”
“Go to bed, Gyp,” he said to his girl. “We won’t keep mater waiting.”
“Annie has left the candle burning, Lily,” said Mrs. Morel; “I think
you will see.”
“Yes, thank you. Good-night, Mrs. Morel.”
William kissed his sweetheart at the foot of the stairs, and she went.
He returned to the kitchen.
“Can’t you trust us, mother?” he repeated, rather offended.
“My boy, I tell you I don’t _believe_ in leaving two young things like
you alone downstairs when everyone else is in bed.”
And he was forced to take this answer. He kissed his mother good-night.
At Easter he came over alone. And then he discussed his sweetheart
endlessly with his mother.
“You know, mother, when I’m away from her I don’t care for her a bit. I
shouldn’t care if I never saw her again. But, then, when I’m with her
in the evenings I am awfully fond of her.”
“It’s a queer sort of love to marry on,” said Mrs. Morel, “if she holds
you no more than that!”
“It _is_ funny!” he exclaimed. It worried and perplexed him. “But
yet—there’s so much between us now I couldn’t give her up.”
“You know best,” said Mrs. Morel. “But if it is as you say, I wouldn’t
call it _love_—at any rate, it doesn’t look much like it.”
“Oh, I don’t know, mother. She’s an orphan, and—”
They never came to any sort of conclusion. He seemed puzzled and rather
fretted. She was rather reserved. All his strength and money went in
keeping this girl. He could scarcely afford to take his mother to
Nottingham when he came over.
Paul’s wages had been raised at Christmas to ten shillings, to his
great joy. He was quite happy at Jordan’s, but his health suffered from
the long hours and the confinement. His mother, to whom he became more
and more significant, thought how to help.
His half-day holiday was on Monday afternoon. On a Monday morning in
May, as the two sat alone at breakfast, she said:
“I think it will be a fine day.”
He looked up in surprise. This meant something.
“You know Mr. Leivers has gone to live on a new farm. Well, he asked me
last week if I wouldn’t go and see Mrs. Leivers, and I promised to
bring you on Monday if it’s fine. Shall we go?”
“I say, little woman, how lovely!” he cried. “And we’ll go this
afternoon?”
Paul hurried off to the station jubilant. Down Derby Road was a
cherry-tree that glistened. The old brick wall by the Statutes ground
burned scarlet, spring was a very flame of green. And the steep swoop
of highroad lay, in its cool morning dust, splendid with patterns of
sunshine and shadow, perfectly still. The trees sloped their great
green shoulders proudly; and inside the warehouse all the morning, the
boy had a vision of spring outside.
When he came home at dinner-time his mother was rather excited.
“Are we going?” he asked.
“When I’m ready,” she replied.
Presently he got up.
“Go and get dressed while I wash up,” he said.
She did so. He washed the pots, straightened, and then took her boots.
They were quite clean. Mrs. Morel was one of those naturally exquisite
people who can walk in mud without dirtying their shoes. But Paul had
to clean them for her. They were kid boots at eight shillings a pair.
He, however, thought them the most dainty boots in the world, and he
cleaned them with as much reverence as if they had been flowers.
Suddenly she appeared in the inner doorway rather shyly. She had got a
new cotton blouse on. Paul jumped up and went forward.
“Oh, my stars!” he exclaimed. “What a bobby-dazzler!”
She sniffed in a little haughty way, and put her head up.
“It’s not a bobby-dazzler at all!” she replied. “It’s very quiet.”
She walked forward, whilst he hovered round her.
“Well,” she asked, quite shy, but pretending to be high and mighty, “do
you like it?”
“Awfully! You _are_ a fine little woman to go jaunting out with!”
He went and surveyed her from the back.
“Well,” he said, “if I was walking down the street behind you, I should
say: ‘Doesn’t _that_ little person fancy herself!”’
“Well, she doesn’t,” replied Mrs. Morel. “She’s not sure it suits her.”
“Oh no! she wants to be in dirty black, looking as if she was wrapped
in burnt paper. It _does_ suit you, and _I_ say you look nice.”
She sniffed in her little way, pleased, but pretending to know better.
“Well,” she said, “it’s cost me just three shillings. You couldn’t have
got it ready-made for that price, could you?”
“I should think you couldn’t,” he replied.
“And, you know, it’s good stuff.”
“Awfully pretty,” he said.
The blouse was white, with a little sprig of heliotrope and black.
“Too young for me, though, I’m afraid,” she said.
“Too young for you!” he exclaimed in disgust. “Why don’t you buy some
false white hair and stick it on your head.”
“I s’ll soon have no need,” she replied. “I’m going white fast enough.”
“Well, you’ve no business to,” he said. “What do I want with a
white-haired mother?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with one, my lad,” she said rather
strangely.
They set off in great style, she carrying the umbrella William had
given her, because of the sun. Paul was considerably taller than she,
though he was not big. He fancied himself.
On the fallow land the young wheat shone silkily. Minton pit waved its
plumes of white steam, coughed, and rattled hoarsely.
“Now look at that!” said Mrs. Morel. Mother and son stood on the road
to watch. Along the ridge of the great pit-hill crawled a little group
in silhouette against the sky, a horse, a small truck, and a man. They
climbed the incline against the heavens. At the end the man tipped the
wagon. There was an undue rattle as the waste fell down the sheer slope
of the enormous bank.
“You sit a minute, mother,” he said, and she took a seat on a bank,
whilst he sketched rapidly. She was silent whilst he worked, looking
round at the afternoon, the red cottages shining among their greenness.
“The world is a wonderful place,” she said, “and wonderfully
beautiful.”
“And so’s the pit,” he said. “Look how it heaps together, like
something alive almost—a big creature that you don’t know.”
“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps!”
“And all the trucks standing waiting, like a string of beasts to be
fed,” he said.
“And very thankful I am they _are_ standing,” she said, “for that means
they’ll turn middling time this week.”
“But I like the feel of _men_ on things, while they’re alive. There’s a
feel of men about trucks, because they’ve been handled with men’s
hands, all of them.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Morel.
They went along under the trees of the highroad. He was constantly
informing her, but she was interested. They passed the end of
Nethermere, that was tossing its sunshine like petals lightly in its
lap. Then they turned on a private road, and in some trepidation
approached a big farm. A dog barked furiously. A woman came out to see.
“Is this the way to Willey Farm?” Mrs. Morel asked.
Paul hung behind in terror of being sent back. But the woman was
amiable, and directed them. The mother and son went through the wheat
and oats, over a little bridge into a wild meadow. Peewits, with their
white breasts glistening, wheeled and screamed about them. The lake was
still and blue. High overhead a heron floated. Opposite, the wood
heaped on the hill, green and still.
“It’s a wild road, mother,” said Paul. “Just like Canada.”
“Isn’t it beautiful!” said Mrs. Morel, looking round.
“See that heron—see—see her legs?”
He directed his mother, what she must see and what not. And she was
quite content.
“But now,” she said, “which way? He told me through the wood.”
The wood, fenced and dark, lay on their left.
“I can feel a bit of a path this road,” said Paul. “You’ve got town
feet, somehow or other, you have.”
They found a little gate, and soon were in a broad green alley of the