Sons and Lovers
the finishing touches to a glorious day. They entered the Nelson with
the satisfaction of returned travellers.
The next day was a work-day, and the thought of it put a damper on the
men’s spirits. Most of them, moreover, had spent their money. Some were
already rolling dismally home, to sleep in preparation for the morrow.
Mrs. Morel, listening to their mournful singing, went indoors. Nine
o’clock passed, and ten, and still “the pair” had not returned. On a
doorstep somewhere a man was singing loudly, in a drawl: “Lead, kindly
Light.” Mrs. Morel was always indignant with the drunken men that they
must sing that hymn when they got maudlin.
“As if ‘Genevieve’ weren’t good enough,” she said.
The kitchen was full of the scent of boiled herbs and hops. On the hob
a large black saucepan steamed slowly. Mrs. Morel took a panchion, a
great bowl of thick red earth, streamed a heap of white sugar into the
bottom, and then, straining herself to the weight, was pouring in the
liquor.
Just then Morel came in. He had been very jolly in the Nelson, but
coming home had grown irritable. He had not quite got over the feeling
of irritability and pain, after having slept on the ground when he was
so hot; and a bad conscience afflicted him as he neared the house. He
did not know he was angry. But when the garden gate resisted his
attempts to open it, he kicked it and broke the latch. He entered just
as Mrs. Morel was pouring the infusion of herbs out of the saucepan.
Swaying slightly, he lurched against the table. The boiling liquor
pitched. Mrs. Morel started back.
“Good gracious,” she cried, “coming home in his drunkenness!”
“Comin’ home in his what?” he snarled, his hat over his eye.
Suddenly her blood rose in a jet.
“Say you’re _not_ drunk!” she flashed.
She had put down her saucepan, and was stirring the sugar into the
beer. He dropped his two hands heavily on the table, and thrust his
face forwards at her.
“‘Say you’re not drunk,’” he repeated. “Why, nobody but a nasty little
bitch like you ’ud ’ave such a thought.”
He thrust his face forward at her.
“There’s money to bezzle with, if there’s money for nothing else.”
“I’ve not spent a two-shillin’ bit this day,” he said.
“You don’t get as drunk as a lord on nothing,” she replied. “And,” she
cried, flashing into sudden fury, “if you’ve been sponging on your
beloved Jerry, why, let him look after his children, for they need it.”
“It’s a lie, it’s a lie. Shut your face, woman.”
They were now at battle-pitch. Each forgot everything save the hatred
of the other and the battle between them. She was fiery and furious as
he. They went on till he called her a liar.
“No,” she cried, starting up, scarce able to breathe. “Don’t call me
that—you, the most despicable liar that ever walked in shoe-leather.”
She forced the last words out of suffocated lungs.
“You’re a liar!” he yelled, banging the table with his fist. “You’re a
liar, you’re a liar.”
She stiffened herself, with clenched fists.
“The house is filthy with you,” she cried.
“Then get out on it—it’s mine. Get out on it!” he shouted. “It’s me as
brings th’ money whoam, not thee. It’s my house, not thine. Then ger
out on’t—ger out on’t!”
“And I would,” she cried, suddenly shaken into tears of impotence. “Ah,
wouldn’t I, wouldn’t I have gone long ago, but for those children. Ay,
haven’t I repented not going years ago, when I’d only the one”—suddenly
drying into rage. “Do you think it’s for _you_ I stop—do you think I’d
stop one minute for _you?_”
“Go, then,” he shouted, beside himself. “Go!”
“No!” She faced round. “No,” she cried loudly, “you shan’t have it
_all_ your own way; you shan’t do _all_ you like. I’ve got those
children to see to. My word,” she laughed, “I should look well to leave
them to you.”
“Go,” he cried thickly, lifting his fist. He was afraid of her. “Go!”
“I should be only too glad. I should laugh, laugh, my lord, if I could
get away from you,” she replied.
He came up to her, his red face, with its bloodshot eyes, thrust
forward, and gripped her arms. She cried in fear of him, struggled to
be free. Coming slightly to himself, panting, he pushed her roughly to
the outer door, and thrust her forth, slotting the bolt behind her with
a bang. Then he went back into the kitchen, dropped into his armchair,
his head, bursting full of blood, sinking between his knees. Thus he
dipped gradually into a stupor, from exhaustion and intoxication.
The moon was high and magnificent in the August night. Mrs. Morel,
seared with passion, shivered to find herself out there in a great
white light, that fell cold on her, and gave a shock to her inflamed
soul. She stood for a few moments helplessly staring at the glistening
great rhubarb leaves near the door. Then she got the air into her
breast. She walked down the garden path, trembling in every limb, while
the child boiled within her. For a while she could not control her
consciousness; mechanically she went over the last scene, then over it
again, certain phrases, certain moments coming each time like a brand
red-hot down on her soul; and each time she enacted again the past
hour, each time the brand came down at the same points, till the mark
was burnt in, and the pain burnt out, and at last she came to herself.
She must have been half an hour in this delirious condition. Then the
presence of the night came again to her. She glanced round in fear. She
had wandered to the side garden, where she was walking up and down the
path beside the currant bushes under the long wall. The garden was a
narrow strip, bounded from the road, that cut transversely between the
blocks, by a thick thorn hedge.
She hurried out of the side garden to the front, where she could stand
as if in an immense gulf of white light, the moon streaming high in
face of her, the moonlight standing up from the hills in front, and
filling the valley where the Bottoms crouched, almost blindingly.
There, panting and half weeping in reaction from the stress, she
murmured to herself over and over again: “The nuisance! the nuisance!”
She became aware of something about her. With an effort she roused
herself to see what it was that penetrated her consciousness. The tall
white lilies were reeling in the moonlight, and the air was charged
with their perfume, as with a presence. Mrs. Morel gasped slightly in
fear. She touched the big, pallid flowers on their petals, then
shivered. They seemed to be stretching in the moonlight. She put her
hand into one white bin: the gold scarcely showed on her fingers by
moonlight. She bent down to look at the binful of yellow pollen; but it
only appeared dusky. Then she drank a deep draught of the scent. It
almost made her dizzy.
Mrs. Morel leaned on the garden gate, looking out, and she lost herself
awhile. She did not know what she thought. Except for a slight feeling
of sickness, and her consciousness in the child, herself melted out
like scent into the shiny, pale air. After a time the child, too,
melted with her in the mixing-pot of moonlight, and she rested with the
hills and lilies and houses, all swum together in a kind of swoon.
When she came to herself she was tired for sleep. Languidly she looked
about her; the clumps of white phlox seemed like bushes spread with
linen; a moth ricochetted over them, and right across the garden.
Following it with her eye roused her. A few whiffs of the raw, strong
scent of phlox invigorated her. She passed along the path, hesitating
at the white rose-bush. It smelled sweet and simple. She touched the
white ruffles of the roses. Their fresh scent and cool, soft leaves
reminded her of the morning-time and sunshine. She was very fond of
them. But she was tired, and wanted to sleep. In the mysterious
out-of-doors she felt forlorn.
There was no noise anywhere. Evidently the children had not been
wakened, or had gone to sleep again. A train, three miles away, roared
across the valley. The night was very large, and very strange,
stretching its hoary distances infinitely. And out of the silver-grey
fog of darkness came sounds vague and hoarse: a corncrake not far off,
sound of a train like a sigh, and distant shouts of men.
Her quietened heart beginning to beat quickly again, she hurried down
the side garden to the back of the house. Softly she lifted the latch;
the door was still bolted, and hard against her. She rapped gently,
waited, then rapped again. She must not rouse the children, nor the
neighbours. He must be asleep, and he would not wake easily. Her heart
began to burn to be indoors. She clung to the door-handle. Now it was
cold; she would take a chill, and in her present condition!
Putting her apron over her head and her arms, she hurried again to the
side garden, to the window of the kitchen. Leaning on the sill, she
could just see, under the blind, her husband’s arms spread out on the
table, and his black head on the board. He was sleeping with his face
lying on the table. Something in his attitude made her feel tired of
things. The lamp was burning smokily; she could tell by the copper
colour of the light. She tapped at the window more and more noisily.
Almost it seemed as if the glass would break. Still he did not wake up.
After vain efforts, she began to shiver, partly from contact with the
stone, and from exhaustion. Fearful always for the unborn child, she
wondered what she could do for warmth. She went down to the coal-house,
where there was an old hearthrug she had carried out for the rag-man
the day before. This she wrapped over her shoulders. It was warm, if
grimy. Then she walked up and down the garden path, peeping every now
and then under the blind, knocking, and telling herself that in the end
the very strain of his position must wake him.
At last, after about an hour, she rapped long and low at the window.
Gradually the sound penetrated to him. When, in despair, she had ceased
to tap, she saw him stir, then lift his face blindly. The labouring of
his heart hurt him into consciousness. She rapped imperatively at the
window. He started awake. Instantly she saw his fists set and his eyes
glare. He had not a grain of physical fear. If it had been twenty
burglars, he would have gone blindly for them. He glared round,
bewildered, but prepared to fight.
“Open the door, Walter,” she said coldly.
His hands relaxed. It dawned on him what he had done. His head dropped,
sullen and dogged. She saw him hurry to the door, heard the bolt chock.
He tried the latch. It opened—and there stood the silver-grey night,
fearful to him, after the tawny light of the lamp. He hurried back.
When Mrs. Morel entered, she saw him almost running through the door to
the stairs. He had ripped his collar off his neck in his haste to be
gone ere she came in, and there it lay with bursten button-holes. It
made her angry.
She warmed and soothed herself. In her weariness forgetting everything,
she moved about at the little tasks that remained to be done, set his
breakfast, rinsed his pit-bottle, put his pit-clothes on the hearth to
warm, set his pit-boots beside them, put him out a clean scarf and
snap-bag and two apples, raked the fire, and went to bed. He was
already dead asleep. His narrow black eyebrows were drawn up in a sort
of peevish misery into his forehead while his cheeks’ down-strokes, and
his sulky mouth, seemed to be saying: “I don’t care who you are nor
what you are, I _shall_ have my own way.”
Mrs. Morel knew him too well to look at him. As she unfastened her
brooch at the mirror, she smiled faintly to see her face all smeared
with the yellow dust of lilies. She brushed it off, and at last lay
down. For some time her mind continued snapping and jetting sparks, but
she was asleep before her husband awoke from the first sleep of his
drunkenness.