Sons and Lovers
he wandered out for a drink. Then the lights were out, and the strange,
insane reality of Clara and the drama took hold of him again.
The play went on. But he was obsessed by the desire to kiss the tiny
blue vein that nestled in the bend of her arm. He could feel it. His
whole face seemed suspended till he had put his lips there. It must be
done. And the other people! At last he bent quickly forward and touched
it with his lips. His moustache brushed the sensitive flesh. Clara
shivered, drew away her arm.
When all was over, the lights up, the people clapping, he came to
himself and looked at his watch. His train was gone.
“I s’ll have to walk home!” he said.
Clara looked at him.
“It is too late?” she asked.
He nodded. Then he helped her on with her coat.
“I love you! You look beautiful in that dress,” he murmured over her
shoulder, among the throng of bustling people.
She remained quiet. Together they went out of the theatre. He saw the
cabs waiting, the people passing. It seemed he met a pair of brown eyes
which hated him. But he did not know. He and Clara turned away,
mechanically taking the direction to the station.
The train had gone. He would have to walk the ten miles home.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I shall enjoy it.”
“Won’t you,” she said, flushing, “come home for the night? I can sleep
with mother.”
He looked at her. Their eyes met.
“What will your mother say?” he asked.
“She won’t mind.”
“You’re sure?”
“Quite!”
“_Shall_ I come?”
“If you will.”
“Very well.”
And they turned away. At the first stopping-place they took the car.
The wind blew fresh in their faces. The town was dark; the tram tipped
in its haste. He sat with her hand fast in his.
“Will your mother be gone to bed?” he asked.
“She may be. I hope not.”
They hurried along the silent, dark little street, the only people out
of doors. Clara quickly entered the house. He hesitated.
He leaped up the step and was in the room. Her mother appeared in the
inner doorway, large and hostile.
“Who have you got there?” she asked.
“It’s Mr. Morel; he has missed his train. I thought we might put him up
for the night, and save him a ten-mile walk.”
“H’m,” exclaimed Mrs. Radford. “That’s _your_ lookout! If you’ve
invited him, he’s very welcome as far as I’m concerned. _You_ keep the
house!”
“If you don’t like me, I’ll go away again,” he said.
“Nay, nay, you needn’t! Come along in! I dunno what you’ll think of the
supper I’d got her.”
It was a little dish of chip potatoes and a piece of bacon. The table
was roughly laid for one.
“You can have some more bacon,” continued Mrs. Radford. “More chips you
can’t have.”
“It’s a shame to bother you,” he said.
“Oh, don’t you be apologetic! It doesn’t _do_ wi’ me! You treated her
to the theatre, didn’t you?” There was a sarcasm in the last question.
“Well?” laughed Paul uncomfortably.
“Well, and what’s an inch of bacon! Take your coat off.”
The big, straight-standing woman was trying to estimate the situation.
She moved about the cupboard. Clara took his coat. The room was very
warm and cosy in the lamplight.
“My sirs!” exclaimed Mrs. Radford; “but you two’s a pair of bright
beauties, I must say! What’s all that get-up for?”
“I believe we don’t know,” he said, feeling a victim.
“There isn’t room in _this_ house for two such bobby-dazzlers, if you
fly your kites _that_ high!” she rallied them. It was a nasty thrust.
He in his dinner jacket, and Clara in her green dress and bare arms,
were confused. They felt they must shelter each other in that little
kitchen.
“And look at _that_ blossom!” continued Mrs. Radford, pointing to
Clara. “What does she reckon she did it for?”
Paul looked at Clara. She was rosy; her neck was warm with blushes.
There was a moment of silence.
“You like to see it, don’t you?” he asked.
The mother had them in her power. All the time his heart was beating
hard, and he was tight with anxiety. But he would fight her.
“Me like to see it!” exclaimed the old woman. “What should I like to
see her make a fool of herself for?”
“I’ve seen people look bigger fools,” he said. Clara was under his
protection now.
“Oh, ay! and when was that?” came the sarcastic rejoinder.
“When they made frights of themselves,” he answered.
Mrs. Radford, large and threatening, stood suspended on the hearthrug,
holding her fork.
“They’re fools either road,” she answered at length, turning to the
Dutch oven.
“No,” he said, fighting stoutly. “Folk ought to look as well as they
can.”
“And do you call _that_ looking nice!” cried the mother, pointing a
scornful fork at Clara. “That—that looks as if it wasn’t properly
dressed!”
“I believe you’re jealous that you can’t swank as well,” he said
laughing.
“Me! I could have worn evening dress with anybody, if I’d wanted to!”
came the scornful answer.
“And why didn’t you want to?” he asked pertinently. “Or _did_ you wear
it?”
There was a long pause. Mrs. Radford readjusted the bacon in the Dutch
oven. His heart beat fast, for fear he had offended her.
“Me!” she exclaimed at last. “No, I didn’t! And when I was in service,
I knew as soon as one of the maids came out in bare shoulders what sort
_she_ was, going to her sixpenny hop!”
“Were you too good to go to a sixpenny hop?” he said.
Clara sat with bowed head. His eyes were dark and glittering. Mrs.
Radford took the Dutch oven from the fire, and stood near him, putting
bits of bacon on his plate.
“_There’s_ a nice crozzly bit!” she said.
“Don’t give me the best!” he said.
“_She’s_ got what _she_ wants,” was the answer.
There was a sort of scornful forbearance in the woman’s tone that made
Paul know she was mollified.
“But _do_ have some!” he said to Clara.
She looked up at him with her grey eyes, humiliated and lonely.
“No thanks!” she said.
“Why won’t you?” he answered carelessly.
The blood was beating up like fire in his veins. Mrs. Radford sat down
again, large and impressive and aloof. He left Clara altogether to
attend to the mother.
“They say Sarah Bernhardt’s fifty,” he said.
“Fifty! She’s turned sixty!” came the scornful answer.
“Well,” he said, “you’d never think it! She made me want to howl even
now.”
“I should like to see myself howling at _that_ bad old baggage!” said
Mrs. Radford. “It’s time she began to think herself a grandmother, not
a shrieking catamaran—”
He laughed.
“A catamaran is a boat the Malays use,” he said.
“And it’s a word as _I_ use,” she retorted.
“My mother does sometimes, and it’s no good my telling her,” he said.
“I s’d think she boxes your ears,” said Mrs. Radford, good-humouredly.
“She’d like to, and she says she will, so I give her a little stool to
stand on.”
“That’s the worst of my mother,” said Clara. “She never wants a stool
for anything.”
“But she often can’t touch _that_ lady with a long prop,” retorted Mrs.
Radford to Paul.
“I s’d think she doesn’t want touching with a prop,” he laughed. “_I_
shouldn’t.”
“It might do the pair of you good to give you a crack on the head with
one,” said the mother, laughing suddenly.
“Why are you so vindictive towards me?” he said. “I’ve not stolen
anything from you.”
“No; I’ll watch that,” laughed the older woman.
Soon the supper was finished. Mrs. Radford sat guard in her chair. Paul
lit a cigarette. Clara went upstairs, returning with a sleeping-suit,
which she spread on the fender to air.
“Why, I’d forgot all about _them!_” said Mrs. Radford. “Where have they
sprung from?”
“Out of my drawer.”
“H’m! You bought ’em for Baxter, an’ he wouldn’t wear ’em, would
he?”—laughing. “Said he reckoned to do wi’out trousers i’ bed.” She
turned confidentially to Paul, saying: “He couldn’t _bear_ ’em, them
pyjama things.”
The young man sat making rings of smoke.
“Well, it’s everyone to his taste,” he laughed.
Then followed a little discussion of the merits of pyjamas.
“My mother loves me in them,” he said. “She says I’m a pierrot.”
“I can imagine they’d suit you,” said Mrs. Radford.
After a while he glanced at the little clock that was ticking on the
mantelpiece. It was half-past twelve.
“It is funny,” he said, “but it takes hours to settle down to sleep
after the theatre.”
“It’s about time you did,” said Mrs. Radford, clearing the table.
“Are _you_ tired?” he asked of Clara.
“Not the least bit,” she answered, avoiding his eyes.
“Shall we have a game at cribbage?” he said.
“I’ve forgotten it.”
“Well, I’ll teach you again. May we play crib, Mrs. Radford?” he asked.
“You’ll please yourselves,” she said; “but it’s pretty late.”
“A game or so will make us sleepy,” he answered.
Clara brought the cards, and sat spinning her wedding-ring whilst he
shuffled them. Mrs. Radford was washing up in the scullery. As it grew
later Paul felt the situation getting more and more tense.
“Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and two’s eight—!”
The clock struck one. Still the game continued. Mrs. Radford had done
all the little jobs preparatory to going to bed, had locked the door
and filled the kettle. Still Paul went on dealing and counting. He was
obsessed by Clara’s arms and throat. He believed he could see where the
division was just beginning for her breasts. He could not leave her.
She watched his hands, and felt her joints melt as they moved quickly.
She was so near; it was almost as if he touched her, and yet not quite.
His mettle was roused. He hated Mrs. Radford. She sat on, nearly
dropping asleep, but determined and obstinate in her chair. Paul
glanced at her, then at Clara. She met his eyes, that were angry,
mocking, and hard as steel. Her own answered him in shame. He knew
_she_, at any rate, was of his mind. He played on.
At last Mrs. Radford roused herself stiffly, and said:
“Isn’t it nigh on time you two was thinking o’ bed?”
Paul played on without answering. He hated her sufficiently to murder
her.
“Half a minute,” he said.
The elder woman rose and sailed stubbornly into the scullery, returning
with his candle, which she put on the mantelpiece. Then she sat down
again. The hatred of her went so hot down his veins, he dropped his
cards.
“We’ll stop, then,” he said, but his voice was still a challenge.
Clara saw his mouth shut hard. Again he glanced at her. It seemed like
an agreement. She bent over the cards, coughing, to clear her throat.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve finished,” said Mrs. Radford. “Here, take your
things”—she thrust the warm suit in his hand—“and this is your candle.
Your room’s over this; there’s only two, so you can’t go far wrong.
Well, good-night. I hope you’ll rest well.”
“I’m sure I shall; I always do,” he said.
“Yes; and so you ought at your age,” she replied.
He bade good-night to Clara, and went. The twisting stairs of white,
scrubbed wood creaked and clanged at every step. He went doggedly. The
two doors faced each other. He went in his room, pushed the door to,
without fastening the latch.
It was a small room with a large bed. Some of Clara’s hair-pins were on
the dressing-table—her hair-brush. Her clothes and some skirts hung
under a cloth in a corner. There was actually a pair of stockings over
a chair. He explored the room. Two books of his own were there on the
shelf. He undressed, folded his suit, and sat on the bed, listening.
Then he blew out the candle, lay down, and in two minutes was almost
asleep. Then click!—he was wide awake and writhing in torment. It was
as if, when he had nearly got to sleep, something had bitten him
suddenly and sent him mad. He sat up and looked at the room in the
darkness, his feet doubled under him, perfectly motionless, listening.
He heard a cat somewhere away outside; then the heavy, poised tread of