Sons and Lovers
privacy as the butties’ reckoning, nor were they to know the exact
amount of the week’s earnings. So, whilst her father was spluttering in
the scullery, Annie went out to spend an hour with a neighbour. Mrs.
Morel attended to her baking.
“Shut that doo-er!” bawled Morel furiously.
Annie banged it behind her, and was gone.
“If tha oppens it again while I’m weshin’ me, I’ll ma’e thy jaw
rattle,” he threatened from the midst of his soap-suds. Paul and the
mother frowned to hear him.
Presently he came running out of the scullery, with the soapy water
dripping from him, dithering with cold.
“Oh, my sirs!” he said. “Wheer’s my towel?”
It was hung on a chair to warm before the fire, otherwise he would have
bullied and blustered. He squatted on his heels before the hot
baking-fire to dry himself.
“F-ff-f!” he went, pretending to shudder with cold.
“Goodness, man, don’t be such a kid!” said Mrs. Morel. “It’s _not_
cold.”
“Thee strip thysen stark nak’d to wesh thy flesh i’ that scullery,”
said the miner, as he rubbed his hair; “nowt b’r a ice-’ouse!”
“And I shouldn’t make that fuss,” replied his wife.
“No, tha’d drop down stiff, as dead as a door-knob, wi’ thy nesh
sides.”
“Why is a door-knob deader than anything else?” asked Paul, curious.
“Eh, I dunno; that’s what they say,” replied his father. “But there’s
that much draught i’ yon scullery, as it blows through your ribs like
through a five-barred gate.”
“It would have some difficulty in blowing through yours,” said Mrs.
Morel.
Morel looked down ruefully at his sides.
“Me!” he exclaimed. “I’m nowt b’r a skinned rabbit. My bones fair juts
out on me.”
“I should like to know where,” retorted his wife.
“Iv’ry-wheer! I’m nobbut a sack o’ faggots.”
Mrs. Morel laughed. He had still a wonderfully young body, muscular,
without any fat. His skin was smooth and clear. It might have been the
body of a man of twenty-eight, except that there were, perhaps, too
many blue scars, like tattoo-marks, where the coal-dust remained under
the skin, and that his chest was too hairy. But he put his hand on his
side ruefully. It was his fixed belief that, because he did not get
fat, he was as thin as a starved rat. Paul looked at his father’s
thick, brownish hands all scarred, with broken nails, rubbing the fine
smoothness of his sides, and the incongruity struck him. It seemed
strange they were the same flesh.
“I suppose,” he said to his father, “you had a good figure once.”
“Eh!” exclaimed the miner, glancing round, startled and timid, like a
child.
“He had,” exclaimed Mrs. Morel, “if he didn’t hurtle himself up as if
he was trying to get in the smallest space he could.”
“Me!” exclaimed Morel—“me a good figure! I wor niver much more n’r a
skeleton.”
“Man!” cried his wife, “don’t be such a pulamiter!”
“‘Strewth!” he said. “Tha’s niver knowed me but what I looked as if I
wor goin’ off in a rapid decline.”
She sat and laughed.
“You’ve had a constitution like iron,” she said; “and never a man had a
better start, if it was body that counted. You should have seen him as
a young man,” she cried suddenly to Paul, drawing herself up to imitate
her husband’s once handsome bearing.
Morel watched her shyly. He saw again the passion she had had for him.
It blazed upon her for a moment. He was shy, rather scared, and humble.
Yet again he felt his old glow. And then immediately he felt the ruin
he had made during these years. He wanted to bustle about, to run away
from it.
“Gi’e my back a bit of a wesh,” he asked her.
His wife brought a well-soaped flannel and clapped it on his shoulders.
He gave a jump.
“Eh, tha mucky little ’ussy!” he cried. “Cowd as death!”
“You ought to have been a salamander,” she laughed, washing his back.
It was very rarely she would do anything so personal for him. The
children did those things.
“The next world won’t be half hot enough for you,” she added.
“No,” he said; “tha’lt see as it’s draughty for me.”
But she had finished. She wiped him in a desultory fashion, and went
upstairs, returning immediately with his shifting-trousers. When he was
dried he struggled into his shirt. Then, ruddy and shiny, with hair on
end, and his flannelette shirt hanging over his pit-trousers, he stood
warming the garments he was going to put on. He turned them, he pulled
them inside out, he scorched them.
“Goodness, man!” cried Mrs. Morel, “get dressed!”
“Should thee like to clap thysen into britches as cowd as a tub o’
water?” he said.
At last he took off his pit-trousers and donned decent black. He did
all this on the hearthrug, as he would have done if Annie and her
familiar friends had been present.
Mrs. Morel turned the bread in the oven. Then from the red earthenware
panchion of dough that stood in a corner she took another handful of
paste, worked it to the proper shape, and dropped it into a tin. As she
was doing so Barker knocked and entered. He was a quiet, compact little
man, who looked as if he would go through a stone wall. His black hair
was cropped short, his head was bony. Like most miners, he was pale,
but healthy and taut.
“Evenin’, missis,” he nodded to Mrs. Morel, and he seated himself with
a sigh.
“Good-evening,” she replied cordially.
“Tha’s made thy heels crack,” said Morel.
“I dunno as I have,” said Barker.
He sat, as the men always did in Morel’s kitchen, effacing himself
rather.
“How’s missis?” she asked of him.
He had told her some time back:
“We’re expectin’ us third just now, you see.”
“Well,” he answered, rubbing his head, “she keeps pretty middlin’, I
think.”
“Let’s see—when?” asked Mrs. Morel.
“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised any time now.”
“Ah! And she’s kept fairly?”
“Yes, tidy.”
“That’s a blessing, for she’s none too strong.”
“No. An’ I’ve done another silly trick.”
“What’s that?”
Mrs. Morel knew Barker wouldn’t do anything very silly.
“I’m come be-out th’ market-bag.”
“You can have mine.”
“Nay, you’ll be wantin’ that yourself.”
“I shan’t. I take a string bag always.”
She saw the determined little collier buying in the week’s groceries
and meat on the Friday nights, and she admired him. “Barker’s little,
but he’s ten times the man you are,” she said to her husband.
Just then Wesson entered. He was thin, rather frail-looking, with a
boyish ingenuousness and a slightly foolish smile, despite his seven
children. But his wife was a passionate woman.
“I see you’ve kested me,” he said, smiling rather vapidly.
“Yes,” replied Barker.
The newcomer took off his cap and his big woollen muffler. His nose was
pointed and red.
“I’m afraid you’re cold, Mr. Wesson,” said Mrs. Morel.
“It’s a bit nippy,” he replied.
“Then come to the fire.”
“Nay, I s’ll do where I am.”
Both colliers sat away back. They could not be induced to come on to
the hearth. The hearth is sacred to the family.
“Go thy ways i’ th’ armchair,” cried Morel cheerily.
“Nay, thank yer; I’m very nicely here.”
“Yes, come, of course,” insisted Mrs. Morel.
He rose and went awkwardly. He sat in Morel’s armchair awkwardly. It
was too great a familiarity. But the fire made him blissfully happy.
“And how’s that chest of yours?” demanded Mrs. Morel.
He smiled again, with his blue eyes rather sunny.
“Oh, it’s very middlin’,” he said.
“Wi’ a rattle in it like a kettle-drum,” said Barker shortly.
“T-t-t-t!” went Mrs. Morel rapidly with her tongue. “Did you have that
flannel singlet made?”
“Not yet,” he smiled.
“Then, why didn’t you?” she cried.
“It’ll come,” he smiled.
“Ah, an’ Doomsday!” exclaimed Barker.
Barker and Morel were both impatient of Wesson. But, then, they were
both as hard as nails, physically.
When Morel was nearly ready he pushed the bag of money to Paul.
“Count it, boy,” he asked humbly.
Paul impatiently turned from his books and pencil, tipped the bag
upside down on the table. There was a five-pound bag of silver,
sovereigns and loose money. He counted quickly, referred to the
checks—the written papers giving amount of coal—put the money in order.
Then Barker glanced at the checks.
Mrs. Morel went upstairs, and the three men came to table. Morel, as
master of the house, sat in his armchair, with his back to the hot
fire. The two butties had cooler seats. None of them counted the money.
“What did we say Simpson’s was?” asked Morel; and the butties cavilled
for a minute over the dayman’s earnings. Then the amount was put aside.
“An’ Bill Naylor’s?”
This money also was taken from the pack.
Then, because Wesson lived in one of the company’s houses, and his rent
had been deducted, Morel and Barker took four-and-six each. And because
Morel’s coals had come, and the leading was stopped, Barker and Wesson
took four shillings each. Then it was plain sailing. Morel gave each of
them a sovereign till there were no more sovereigns; each half a crown
till there were no more half-crowns; each a shilling till there were no
more shillings. If there was anything at the end that wouldn’t split,
Morel took it and stood drinks.
Then the three men rose and went. Morel scuttled out of the house
before his wife came down. She heard the door close, and descended. She
looked hastily at the bread in the oven. Then, glancing on the table,
she saw her money lying. Paul had been working all the time. But now he
felt his mother counting the week’s money, and her wrath rising,
“T-t-t-t-t!” went her tongue.
He frowned. He could not work when she was cross. She counted again.
“A measly twenty-five shillings!” she exclaimed. “How much was the
cheque?”
“Ten pounds eleven,” said Paul irritably. He dreaded what was coming.
“And he gives me a scrattlin’ twenty-five, an’ his club this week! But
I know him. He thinks because _you’re_ earning he needn’t keep the
house any longer. No, all he has to do with his money is to guttle it.
But I’ll show him!”
“Oh, mother, don’t!” cried Paul.
“Don’t what, I should like to know?” she exclaimed.
“Don’t carry on again. I can’t work.”
She went very quiet.
“Yes, it’s all very well,” she said; “but how do you think I’m going to
manage?”
“Well, it won’t make it any better to whittle about it.”
“I should like to know what you’d do if you had it to put up with.”
“It won’t be long. You can have my money. Let him go to hell.”
He went back to his work, and she tied her bonnet-strings grimly. When
she was fretted he could not bear it. But now he began to insist on her
recognising him.
“The two loaves at the top,” she said, “will be done in twenty minutes.
Don’t forget them.”
“All right,” he answered; and she went to market.
He remained alone working. But his usual intense concentration became
unsettled. He listened for the yard-gate. At a quarter-past seven came
a low knock, and Miriam entered.
“All alone?” she said.
“Yes.”
As if at home, she took off her tam-o’-shanter and her long coat,
hanging them up. It gave him a thrill. This might be their own house,
his and hers. Then she came back and peered over his work.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Still design, for decorating stuffs, and for embroidery.”
She bent short-sightedly over the drawings.
It irritated him that she peered so into everything that was his,
searching him out. He went into the parlour and returned with a bundle
of brownish linen. Carefully unfolding it, he spread it on the floor.
It proved to be a curtain or _portière_, beautifully stencilled with a
design on roses.
“Ah, how beautiful!” she cried.
The spread cloth, with its wonderful reddish roses and dark green
stems, all so simple, and somehow so wicked-looking, lay at her feet.
She went on her knees before it, her dark curls dropping. He saw her
crouched voluptuously before his work, and his heart beat quickly.