Sons and Lovers
He felt like a man walking in unrealities. In the afternoon he went to
see the doctor. The latter was a shrewd, lovable man.
“But what is it?” he said.
The doctor looked at the young man, then knitted his fingers.
“It may be a large tumour which has formed in the membrane,” he said
slowly, “and which we _may_ be able to make go away.”
“Can’t you operate?” asked Paul.
“Not there,” replied the doctor.
“Are you sure?”
“_Quite!_”
Paul meditated a while.
“Are you sure it’s a tumour?” he asked. “Why did Dr. Jameson in
Nottingham never find out anything about it? She’s been going to him
for weeks, and he’s treated her for heart and indigestion.”
“Mrs. Morel never told Dr. Jameson about the lump,” said the doctor.
“And do you _know_ it’s a tumour?”
“No, I am not sure.”
“What else _might_ it be? You asked my sister if there was cancer in
the family. Might it be cancer?”
“I don’t know.”
“And what shall you do?”
“I should like an examination, with Dr. Jameson.”
“Then have one.”
“You must arrange about that. His fee wouldn’t be less than ten guineas
to come here from Nottingham.”
“When would you like him to come?”
“I will call in this evening, and we will talk it over.”
Paul went away, biting his lip.
His mother could come downstairs for tea, the doctor said. Her son went
upstairs to help her. She wore the old-rose dressing-gown that Leonard
had given Annie, and, with a little colour in her face, was quite young
again.
“But you look quite pretty in that,” he said.
“Yes; they make me so fine, I hardly know myself,” she answered.
But when she stood up to walk, the colour went. Paul helped her,
half-carrying her. At the top of the stairs she was gone. He lifted her
up and carried her quickly downstairs; laid her on the couch. She was
light and frail. Her face looked as if she were dead, with blue lips
shut tight. Her eyes opened—her blue, unfailing eyes—and she looked at
him pleadingly, almost wanting him to forgive her. He held brandy to
her lips, but her mouth would not open. All the time she watched him
lovingly. She was only sorry for him. The tears ran down his face
without ceasing, but not a muscle moved. He was intent on getting a
little brandy between her lips. Soon she was able to swallow a
teaspoonful. She lay back, so tired. The tears continued to run down
his face.
“But,” she panted, “it’ll go off. Don’t cry!”
“I’m not doing,” he said.
After a while she was better again. He was kneeling beside the couch.
They looked into each other’s eyes.
“I don’t want you to make a trouble of it,” she said.
“No, mother. You’ll have to be quite still, and then you’ll get better
soon.”
But he was white to the lips, and their eyes as they looked at each
other understood. Her eyes were so blue—such a wonderful forget-me-not
blue! He felt if only they had been of a different colour he could have
borne it better. His heart seemed to be ripping slowly in his breast.
He kneeled there, holding her hand, and neither said anything. Then
Annie came in.
“Are you all right?” she murmured timidly to her mother.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Morel.
Paul sat down and told her about Blackpool. She was curious.
A day or two after, he went to see Dr. Jameson in Nottingham, to
arrange for a consultation. Paul had practically no money in the world.
But he could borrow.
His mother had been used to go to the public consultation on Saturday
morning, when she could see the doctor for only a nominal sum. Her son
went on the same day. The waiting-room was full of poor women, who sat
patiently on a bench around the wall. Paul thought of his mother, in
her little black costume, sitting waiting likewise. The doctor was
late. The women all looked rather frightened. Paul asked the nurse in
attendance if he could see the doctor immediately he came. It was
arranged so. The women sitting patiently round the walls of the room
eyed the young man curiously.
At last the doctor came. He was about forty, good-looking,
brown-skinned. His wife had died, and he, who had loved her, had
specialised on women’s ailments. Paul told his name and his mother’s.
The doctor did not remember.
“Number forty-six M.,” said the nurse; and the doctor looked up the
case in his book.
“There is a big lump that may be a tumour,” said Paul. “But Dr. Ansell
was going to write you a letter.”
“Ah, yes!” replied the doctor, drawing the letter from his pocket. He
was very friendly, affable, busy, kind. He would come to Sheffield the
next day.
“What is your father?” he asked.
“He is a coal-miner,” replied Paul.
“Not very well off, I suppose?”
“This—I see after this,” said Paul.
“And you?” smiled the doctor.
“I am a clerk in Jordan’s Appliance Factory.”
The doctor smiled at him.
“Er—to go to Sheffield!” he said, putting the tips of his fingers
together, and smiling with his eyes. “Eight guineas?”
“Thank you!” said Paul, flushing and rising. “And you’ll come
to-morrow?”
“To-morrow—Sunday? Yes! Can you tell me about what time there is a
train in the afternoon?”
“There is a Central gets in at four-fifteen.”
“And will there be any way of getting up to the house? Shall I have to
walk?” The doctor smiled.
“There is the tram,” said Paul; “the Western Park tram.”
The doctor made a note of it.
“Thank you!” he said, and shook hands.
Then Paul went on home to see his father, who was left in the charge of
Minnie. Walter Morel was getting very grey now. Paul found him digging
in the garden. He had written him a letter. He shook hands with his
father.
“Hello, son! Tha has landed, then?” said the father.
“Yes,” replied the son. “But I’m going back to-night.”
“Are ter, beguy!” exclaimed the collier. “An’ has ter eaten owt?”
“No.”
“That’s just like thee,” said Morel. “Come thy ways in.”
The father was afraid of the mention of his wife. The two went indoors.
Paul ate in silence; his father, with earthy hands, and sleeves rolled
up, sat in the arm-chair opposite and looked at him.
“Well, an’ how is she?” asked the miner at length, in a little voice.
“She can sit up; she can be carried down for tea,” said Paul.
“That’s a blessin’!” exclaimed Morel. “I hope we s’ll soon be havin’
her whoam, then. An’ what’s that Nottingham doctor say?”
“He’s going to-morrow to have an examination of her.”
“Is he beguy! That’s a tidy penny, I’m thinkin’!”
“Eight guineas.”
“Eight guineas!” the miner spoke breathlessly. “Well, we mun find it
from somewhere.”
“I can pay that,” said Paul.
There was silence between them for some time.
“She says she hopes you’re getting on all right with Minnie,” Paul
said.
“Yes, I’m all right, an’ I wish as she was,” answered Morel. “But
Minnie’s a good little wench, bless ’er heart!” He sat looking dismal.
“I s’ll have to be going at half-past three,” said Paul.
“It’s a trapse for thee, lad! Eight guineas! An’ when dost think she’ll
be able to get as far as this?”
“We must see what the doctors say to-morrow,” Paul said.
Morel sighed deeply. The house seemed strangely empty, and Paul thought
his father looked lost, forlorn, and old.
“You’ll have to go and see her next week, father,” he said.
“I hope she’ll be a-whoam by that time,” said Morel.
“If she’s not,” said Paul, “then you must come.”
“I dunno wheer I s’ll find th’ money,” said Morel.
“And I’ll write to you what the doctor says,” said Paul.
“But tha writes i’ such a fashion, I canna ma’e it out,” said Morel.
“Well, I’ll write plain.”
It was no good asking Morel to answer, for he could scarcely do more
than write his own name.
The doctor came. Leonard felt it his duty to meet him with a cab. The
examination did not take long. Annie, Arthur, Paul, and Leonard were
waiting in the parlour anxiously. The doctors came down. Paul glanced
at them. He had never had any hope, except when he had deceived
himself.
“It _may_ be a tumour; we must wait and see,” said Dr. Jameson.
“And if it is,” said Annie, “can you sweal it away?”
“Probably,” said the doctor.
Paul put eight sovereigns and half a sovereign on the table. The doctor
counted them, took a florin out of his purse, and put that down.
“Thank you!” he said. “I’m sorry Mrs. Morel is so ill. But we must see
what we can do.”
“There can’t be an operation?” said Paul.
The doctor shook his head.
“No,” he said; “and even if there could, her heart wouldn’t stand it.”
“Is her heart risky?” asked Paul.
“Yes; you must be careful with her.”
“Very risky?”
“No—er—no, no! Just take care.”
And the doctor was gone.
Then Paul carried his mother downstairs. She lay simply, like a child.
But when he was on the stairs, she put her arms round his neck,
clinging.
“I’m so frightened of these beastly stairs,” she said.
And he was frightened, too. He would let Leonard do it another time. He
felt he could not carry her.
“He thinks it’s only a tumour!” cried Annie to her mother. “And he can
sweal it away.”
“I _knew_ he could,” protested Mrs. Morel scornfully.
She pretended not to notice that Paul had gone out of the room. He sat
in the kitchen, smoking. Then he tried to brush some grey ash off his
coat. He looked again. It was one of his mother’s grey hairs. It was so
long! He held it up, and it drifted into the chimney. He let go. The
long grey hair floated and was gone in the blackness of the chimney.
The next day he kissed her before going back to work. It was very early
in the morning, and they were alone.
“You won’t fret, my boy!” she said.
“No, mother.”
“No; it would be silly. And take care of yourself.”
“Yes,” he answered. Then, after a while: “And I shall come next
Saturday, and shall I bring my father?”
“I suppose he wants to come,” she replied. “At any rate, if he does
you’ll have to let him.”
He kissed her again, and stroked the hair from her temples, gently,
tenderly, as if she were a lover.
“Shan’t you be late?” she murmured.
“I’m going,” he said, very low.
Still he sat a few minutes, stroking the brown and grey hair from her
temples.
“And you won’t be any worse, mother?”
“No, my son.”
“You promise me?”
“Yes; I won’t be any worse.”
He kissed her, held her in his arms for a moment, and was gone. In the
early sunny morning he ran to the station, crying all the way; he did
not know what for. And her blue eyes were wide and staring as she
thought of him.
In the afternoon he went a walk with Clara. They sat in the little wood
where bluebells were standing. He took her hand.
“You’ll see,” he said to Clara, “she’ll never be better.”
“Oh, you don’t know!” replied the other.
“I do,” he said.
She caught him impulsively to her breast.
“Try and forget it, dear,” she said; “try and forget it.”
“I will,” he answered.
Her breast was there, warm for him; her hands were in his hair. It was
comforting, and he held his arms round her. But he did not forget. He
only talked to Clara of something else. And it was always so. When she
felt it coming, the agony, she cried to him:
“Don’t think of it, Paul! Don’t think of it, my darling!”
And she pressed him to her breast, rocked him, soothed him like a
child. So he put the trouble aside for her sake, to take it up again
immediately he was alone. All the time, as he went about, he cried
mechanically. His mind and hands were busy. He cried, he did not know
why. It was his blood weeping. He was just as much alone whether he was
with Clara or with the men in the White Horse. Just himself and this
pressure inside him, that was all that existed. He read sometimes. He
had to keep his mind occupied. And Clara was a way of occupying his
mind.
On the Saturday Walter Morel went to Sheffield. He was a forlorn
figure, looking rather as if nobody owned him. Paul ran upstairs.