Sons and Lovers
curtains. Mrs. Morel rushed to the door.
“His picture’s got first prize, Fred,” she cried, “and is sold for
twenty guineas.”
“My word, that’s something like!” said the young postman, whom they had
known all his life.
“And Major Moreton has bought it!” she cried.
“It looks like meanin’ something, that does, Mrs. Morel,” said the
postman, his blue eyes bright. He was glad to have brought such a lucky
letter. Mrs. Morel went indoors and sat down, trembling. Paul was
afraid lest she might have misread the letter, and might be
disappointed after all. He scrutinised it once, twice. Yes, he became
convinced it was true. Then he sat down, his heart beating with joy.
“Mother!” he exclaimed.
“Didn’t I _say_ we should do it!” she said, pretending she was not
crying.
He took the kettle off the fire and mashed the tea.
“You didn’t think, mother—” he began tentatively.
“No, my son—not so much—but I expected a good deal.”
“But not so much,” he said.
“No—no—but I knew we should do it.”
And then she recovered her composure, apparently at least. He sat with
his shirt turned back, showing his young throat almost like a girl’s,
and the towel in his hand, his hair sticking up wet.
“Twenty guineas, mother! That’s just what you wanted to buy Arthur out.
Now you needn’t borrow any. It’ll just do.”
“Indeed, I shan’t take it all,” she said.
“But why?”
“Because I shan’t.”
“Well—you have twelve pounds, I’ll have nine.”
They cavilled about sharing the twenty guineas. She wanted to take only
the five pounds she needed. He would not hear of it. So they got over
the stress of emotion by quarrelling.
Morel came home at night from the pit, saying:
“They tell me Paul’s got first prize for his picture, and sold it to
Lord Henry Bentley for fifty pound.”
“Oh, what stories people do tell!” she cried.
“Ha!” he answered. “I said I wor sure it wor a lie. But they said tha’d
told Fred Hodgkisson.”
“As if I would tell him such stuff!”
“Ha!” assented the miner.
But he was disappointed nevertheless.
“It’s true he has got the first prize,” said Mrs. Morel.
The miner sat heavily in his chair.
“Has he, beguy!” he exclaimed.
He stared across the room fixedly.
“But as for fifty pounds—such nonsense!” She was silent awhile. “Major
Moreton bought it for twenty guineas, that’s true.”
“Twenty guineas! Tha niver says!” exclaimed Morel.
“Yes, and it was worth it.”
“Ay!” he said. “I don’t misdoubt it. But twenty guineas for a bit of a
paintin’ as he knocked off in an hour or two!”
He was silent with conceit of his son. Mrs. Morel sniffed, as if it
were nothing.
“And when does he handle th’ money?” asked the collier.
“That I couldn’t tell you. When the picture is sent home, I suppose.”
There was silence. Morel stared at the sugar-basin instead of eating
his dinner. His black arm, with the hand all gnarled with work lay on
the table. His wife pretended not to see him rub the back of his hand
across his eyes, nor the smear in the coal-dust on his black face.
“Yes, an’ that other lad ’ud ’a done as much if they hadna ha’ killed
’im,” he said quietly.
The thought of William went through Mrs. Morel like a cold blade. It
left her feeling she was tired, and wanted rest.
Paul was invited to dinner at Mr. Jordan’s. Afterwards he said:
“Mother, I want an evening suit.”
“Yes, I was afraid you would,” she said. She was glad. There was a
moment or two of silence. “There’s that one of William’s,” she
continued, “that I know cost four pounds ten and which he’d only worn
three times.”
“Should you like me to wear it, mother?” he asked.
“Yes. I think it would fit you—at least the coat. The trousers would
want shortening.”
He went upstairs and put on the coat and vest. Coming down, he looked
strange in a flannel collar and a flannel shirt-front, with an evening
coat and vest. It was rather large.
“The tailor can make it right,” she said, smoothing her hand over his
shoulder. “It’s beautiful stuff. I never could find in my heart to let
your father wear the trousers, and very glad I am now.”
And as she smoothed her hand over the silk collar she thought of her
eldest son. But this son was living enough inside the clothes. She
passed her hand down his back to feel him. He was alive and hers. The
other was dead.
He went out to dinner several times in his evening suit that had been
William’s. Each time his mother’s heart was firm with pride and joy. He
was started now. The studs she and the children had bought for William
were in his shirt-front; he wore one of William’s dress shirts. But he
had an elegant figure. His face was rough, but warm-looking and rather
pleasing. He did not look particularly a gentleman, but she thought he
looked quite a man.
He told her everything that took place, everything that was said. It
was as if she had been there. And he was dying to introduce her to
these new friends who had dinner at seven-thirty in the evening.
“Go along with you!” she said. “What do they want to know me for?”
“They do!” he cried indignantly. “If they want to know me—and they say
they do—then they want to know you, because you are quite as clever as
I am.”
“Go along with you, child!” she laughed.
But she began to spare her hands. They, too, were work-gnarled now. The
skin was shiny with so much hot water, the knuckles rather swollen. But
she began to be careful to keep them out of soda. She regretted what
they had been—so small and exquisite. And when Annie insisted on her
having more stylish blouses to suit her age, she submitted. She even
went so far as to allow a black velvet bow to be placed on her hair.
Then she sniffed in her sarcastic manner, and was sure she looked a
sight. But she looked a lady, Paul declared, as much as Mrs. Major
Moreton, and far, far nicer. The family was coming on. Only Morel
remained unchanged, or rather, lapsed slowly.
Paul and his mother now had long discussions about life. Religion was
fading into the background. He had shovelled away all the beliefs that
would hamper him, had cleared the ground, and come more or less to the
bedrock of belief that one should feel inside oneself for right and
wrong, and should have the patience to gradually realise one’s God. Now
life interested him more.
“You know,” he said to his mother, “I don’t want to belong to the
well-to-do middle class. I like my common people best. I belong to the
common people.”
“But if anyone else said so, my son, wouldn’t you be in a tear. _You_
know you consider yourself equal to any gentleman.”
“In myself,” he answered, “not in my class or my education or my
manners. But in myself I am.”
“Very well, then. Then why talk about the common people?”
“Because—the difference between people isn’t in their class, but in
themselves. Only from the middle classes one gets ideas, and from the
common people—life itself, warmth. You feel their hates and loves.”
“It’s all very well, my boy. But, then, why don’t you go and talk to
your father’s pals?”
“But they’re rather different.”
“Not at all. They’re the common people. After all, whom do you mix with
now—among the common people? Those that exchange ideas, like the middle
classes. The rest don’t interest you.”
“But—there’s the life—”
“I don’t believe there’s a jot more life from Miriam than you could get
from any educated girl—say Miss Moreton. It is _you_ who are snobbish
about class.”
She frankly _wanted_ him to climb into the middle classes, a thing not
very difficult, she knew. And she wanted him in the end to marry a
lady.
Now she began to combat him in his restless fretting. He still kept up
his connection with Miriam, could neither break free nor go the whole
length of engagement. And this indecision seemed to bleed him of his
energy. Moreover, his mother suspected him of an unrecognised leaning
towards Clara, and, since the latter was a married woman, she wished he
would fall in love with one of the girls in a better station of life.
But he was stupid, and would refuse to love or even to admire a girl
much, just because she was his social superior.
“My boy,” said his mother to him, “all your cleverness, your breaking
away from old things, and taking life in your own hands, doesn’t seem
to bring you much happiness.”
“What is happiness!” he cried. “It’s nothing to me! How _am_ I to be
happy?”
The plump question disturbed her.
“That’s for you to judge, my lad. But if you could meet some _good_
woman who would _make_ you happy—and you began to think of settling
your life—when you have the means—so that you could work without all
this fretting—it would be much better for you.”
He frowned. His mother caught him on the raw of his wound of Miriam. He
pushed the tumbled hair off his forehead, his eyes full of pain and
fire.
“You mean easy, mother,” he cried. “That’s a woman’s whole doctrine for
life—ease of soul and physical comfort. And I do despise it.”
“Oh, do you!” replied his mother. “And do you call yours a divine
discontent?”
“Yes. I don’t care about its divinity. But damn your happiness! So long
as life’s full, it doesn’t matter whether it’s happy or not. I’m afraid
your happiness would bore me.”
“You never give it a chance,” she said. Then suddenly all her passion
of grief over him broke out. “But it does matter!” she cried. “And you
_ought_ to be happy, you ought to try to be happy, to live to be happy.
How could I bear to think your life wouldn’t be a happy one!”
“Your own’s been bad enough, mater, but it hasn’t left you so much
worse off than the folk who’ve been happier. I reckon you’ve done well.
And I am the same. Aren’t I well enough off?”
“You’re not, my son. Battle—battle—and suffer. It’s about all you do,
as far as I can see.”
“But why not, my dear? I tell you it’s the best—”
“It isn’t. And one _ought_ to be happy, one _ought_.”
By this time Mrs. Morel was trembling violently. Struggles of this kind
often took place between her and her son, when she seemed to fight for
his very life against his own will to die. He took her in his arms. She
was ill and pitiful.
“Never mind, Little,” he murmured. “So long as you don’t feel life’s
paltry and a miserable business, the rest doesn’t matter, happiness or
unhappiness.”
She pressed him to her.
“But I want you to be happy,” she said pathetically.
“Eh, my dear—say rather you want me to live.”
Mrs. Morel felt as if her heart would break for him. At this rate she
knew he would not live. He had that poignant carelessness about
himself, his own suffering, his own life, which is a form of slow
suicide. It almost broke her heart. With all the passion of her strong
nature she hated Miriam for having in this subtle way undermined his
joy. It did not matter to her that Miriam could not help it. Miriam did
it, and she hated her.
She wished so much he would fall in love with a girl equal to be his
mate—educated and strong. But he would not look at anybody above him in
station. He seemed to like Mrs. Dawes. At any rate that feeling was
wholesome. His mother prayed and prayed for him, that he might not be
wasted. That was all her prayer—not for his soul or his righteousness,
but that he might not be wasted. And while he slept, for hours and
hours she thought and prayed for him.
He drifted away from Miriam imperceptibly, without knowing he was
going. Arthur only left the army to be married. The baby was born six
months after his wedding. Mrs. Morel got him a job under the firm
again, at twenty-one shillings a week. She furnished for him, with the
help of Beatrice’s mother, a little cottage of two rooms. He was caught
now. It did not matter how he kicked and struggled, he was fast. For a
time he chafed, was irritable with his young wife, who loved him; he