Sons and Lovers

At a quarter to six he rose, cut two thick slices of bread and butter, and put them in the white calico snap-bag. He filled his tin bottle with tea. Cold tea without milk or sugar was the drink he preferred for the pit. Then he pulled off his shirt, and put on his pit-singlet, a vest of thick flannel cut low round the neck, and with short sleeves like a chemise.

Then he went upstairs to his wife with a cup of tea because she was ill, and because it occurred to him.

“I’ve brought thee a cup o’ tea, lass,” he said.

“Well, you needn’t, for you know I don’t like it,” she replied.

“Drink it up; it’ll pop thee off to sleep again.”

She accepted the tea. It pleased him to see her take it and sip it.

“I’ll back my life there’s no sugar in,” she said.

“Yi—there’s one big un,” he replied, injured.

“It’s a wonder,” she said, sipping again.

She had a winsome face when her hair was loose. He loved her to grumble at him in this manner. He looked at her again, and went, without any sort of leave-taking. He never took more than two slices of bread and butter to eat in the pit, so an apple or an orange was a treat to him. He always liked it when she put one out for him. He tied a scarf round his neck, put on his great, heavy boots, his coat, with the big pocket, that carried his snap-bag and his bottle of tea, and went forth into the fresh morning air, closing, without locking, the door behind him. He loved the early morning, and the walk across the fields. So he appeared at the pit-top, often with a stalk from the hedge between his teeth, which he chewed all day to keep his mouth moist, down the mine, feeling quite as happy as when he was in the field.

Later, when the time for the baby grew nearer, he would bustle round in his slovenly fashion, poking out the ashes, rubbing the fireplace, sweeping the house before he went to work. Then, feeling self-righteous, he went upstairs.

“Now I’m cleaned up for thee; tha’s no ‘casions ter stir a peg all day, but sit and read thy books.”

Which made her laugh, in spite of her indignation.

“And the dinner cooks itself?” she answered.

“Eh, I know nowt about th’ dinner.”

“You’d know if there weren’t any.”

“Ay, ‘appen so,” he answered, departing.

When she got downstairs, she would find the house tidy, but dirty. She could not rest until she had thoroughly cleaned; so she went down to the ash-pit with her dust-pan. Mrs. Kirk, spying her, would contrive to have to go to her own coal-place at that minute. Then, across the wooden fence, she would call:

“So you keep wagging on, then?”

“Ay,” answered Mrs. Morel deprecatingly. “There’s nothing else for it.”

“Have you seen Hose?” called a very small woman from across the road. It was Mrs. Anthony, a black-haired, strange little body, who always wore a brown velvet dress, tight fitting.

“I haven’t,” said Mrs. Morel.

“Eh, I wish he’d come. I’ve got a copperful of clothes, an’ I’m sure I heered his bell.”

“Hark! He’s at the end.”

The two women looked down the alley. At the end of the Bottoms a man stood in a sort of old-fashioned trap, bending over bundles of cream-coloured stuff; while a cluster of women held up their arms to him, some with bundles. Mrs. Anthony herself had a heap of creamy, undyed stockings hanging over her arm.

“I’ve done ten dozen this week,” she said proudly to Mrs. Morel.

“T-t-t!” went the other. “I don’t know how you can find time.”

“Eh!” said Mrs. Anthony. “You can find time if you make time.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” said Mrs. Morel, “And how much shall you get for those many?”

“Tuppence-ha’penny a dozen,” replied the other.

“Well,” said Mrs. Morel, “I’d starve before I’d sit down and seam twenty-four stockings for twopence ha’penny.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mrs. Anthony. “You can rip along with ‘em.”

Hose was coming along, ringing his bell. Women were waiting at the yard-ends with their seamed stockings hanging over their arms. The man, a common fellow, made jokes with them, tried to swindle them, and bullied them. Mrs. Morel went up her yard disdainfully.

It was an understood thing that if one woman wanted her neighbour, she should put the poker in the fire and bang at the back of the fireplace, which, as the fires were back to back, would make a great noise in the adjoining house. One morning Mrs. Kirk, mixing a pudding, nearly started out of her skin as she heard the thud, thud, in her grate. With her hands all floury, she rushed to the fence.

“Did you knock, Mrs. Morel?”

“If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs. Kirk.”

Mrs. Kirk climbed on to her copper, got over the wall on to Mrs. Morel’s copper, and ran in to her neighbour.

“Eh, dear, how are you feeling?” she cried in concern.

“You might fetch Mrs. Bower,” said Mrs. Morel.

Mrs. Kirk went into the yard, lifted up her strong, shrill voice, and called:

“Ag-gie-Ag-gie!”

The sound was heard from one end of the Bottoms to the other. At last Aggie came running up, and was sent for Mrs. Bower, whilst Mrs. Kirk left her pudding and stayed with her neighbour.

Mrs. Morel went to bed. Mrs. Kirk had Annie and William for dinner. Mrs. Bower, fat and waddling, bossed the house.

“Hash some cold meat up for the master’s dinner, and make him an apple-charlotte pudding,” said Mrs. Morel.

“He may go without pudding this day,” said Mrs. Bower.

Morel was not as a rule one of the first to appear at the bottom of the pit, ready to come up. Some men were there before four o’clock, when the whistle blew loose-all; but Morel, whose stall, a poor one, was at this time about a mile and a half away from the bottom, worked usually till the first mate stopped, then he finished also. This day, however, the miner was sick of the work. At two o’clock he looked at his watch, by the light of the green candle—he was in a safe working—and again at half-past two. He was hewing at a piece of rock that was in the way for the next day’s work. As he sat on his heels, or kneeled, giving hard blows with his pick, “Uszza—uszza!” he went.

“Shall ter finish, Sorry?”* cried Barker, his fellow butty.

“Finish? Niver while the world stands!” growled Morel.

And he went on striking. He was tired.

“It’s a heart-breaking job,” said Barker.

But Morel was too exasperated, at the end of his tether, to answer. Still he struck and hacked with all his might.

“Tha might as well leave it, Walter,” said Barker. “It’ll do to-morrow, without thee hackin’ thy guts out.”

“I’ll lay no b—finger on this to-morrow, Isr’el!” cried Morel.

“Oh, well, if tha wunna, someb’dy else ‘ll ha’e to,” said Israel.

Then Morel continued to strike.

“Hey-up there—loose-a’!” cried the men, leaving the next stall.

Morel continued to strike.

“Tha’ll happen catch me up,” said Barker, departing.

When he had gone, Morel, left alone, felt savage. He had not finished his job. He had overworked himself into a frenzy. Rising, wet with sweat, he threw his tool down, pulled on his coat, blew out his candle, took his lamp, and went. Down the main road the lights of the other men went swinging. There was a hollow sound of many voices. It was a long, heavy tramp underground.

He sat at the bottom of the pit, where the great drops of water fell splash. Many colliers were waiting their turns to go up, talking noisily. Morel gave his answers short and disagreeable.

“It’s rainin’, Sorry,” said old Giles, who had had the news from the top.

Morel found one comfort. He had his old umbrella, which he loved, in the lamp cabin. At last he took his stand on the chair, and was at the top in a moment. Then he handed in his lamp and got his umbrella, which he had bought at an auction for one-and-six. He stood on the edge of the pit-bank for a moment, looking out over the fields; grey rain was falling. The trucks stood full of wet, bright coal. Water ran down the sides of the waggons, over the white “C. W. and Co.” Colliers, walking indifferent to the rain, were streaming down the line and up the field, a grey, dismal host. Morel put up his umbrella, and took pleasure from the peppering of the drops thereon.

All along the road to Bestwood the miners tramped, wet and grey and dirty, but their red mouths talking with animation. Morel also walked with a gang, but he said nothing. He frowned peevishly as he went. Many men passed into the Prince of Wales or into Ellen’s. Morel, feeling sufficiently disagreeable to resist temptation, trudged along under the dripping trees that overhung the park wall, and down the mud of Greenhill Lane.

Mrs. Morel lay in bed, listening to the rain, and the feet of the colliers from Minton, their voices, and the bang, bang of the gates as they went through the stile up the field.

“There’s some herb beer behind the pantry-door,” she said. “Th’ master ‘ll want a drink, if he doesn’t stop.”

But he was late, so she concluded he had called for a drink, since it was raining. What did he care about the child or her?

She was very ill when her children were born.

“What is it?” she asked, feeling sick to death.

“A boy.”

And she took consolation in that. The thought of being the mother of men was warming to her heart. She looked at the child. It had blue eyes, and a lot of fair hair, and was bonny. Her love came up hot, in spite of everything. She had it in bed with her.

Morel, thinking nothing, dragged his way up the garden path, wearily and angrily. He closed his umbrella, and stood it in the sink; then he sluthered his heavy boots into the kitchen. Mrs. Bower appeared in the inner doorway.

“Well,” she said, “she’s about as bad as she can be. It’s a boy child.”

The miner grunted, put his empty snap-bag and his tin bottle on the dresser, went back into the scullery and hung up his coat, then came and dropped into his chair.

“Han yer got a drink?” he asked.

The woman went into the pantry. There was heard the pop of a cork. She set the mug, with a little, disgusted rap, on the table before Morel. He drank, gasped, wiped his big moustache on the end of his scarf, drank, gasped, and lay back in his chair. The woman would not speak to him again. She set his dinner before him, and went upstairs.

“Was that the master?” asked Mrs. Morel.

“I’ve gave him his dinner,” replied Mrs. Bower.

After he had sat with his arms on the table—he resented the fact that Mrs. Bower put no cloth on for him, and gave him a little plate, instead of a full-sized dinner-plate—he began to eat. The fact that his wife was ill, that he had another boy, was nothing to him at that moment. He was too tired; he wanted his dinner; he wanted to sit with his arms lying on the board; he did not like having Mrs. Bower about. The fire was too small to please him.

After he had finished his meal, he sat for twenty minutes; then he stoked up a big fire. Then, in his stockinged feet, he went reluctantly upstairs. It was a struggle to face his wife at this moment, and he was tired. His face was black, and smeared with sweat. His singlet had dried again, soaking the dirt in. He had a dirty woollen scarf round his throat. So he stood at the foot of the bed.

“Well, how are ter, then?” he asked.

“I s’ll be all right,” she answered.

“H’m!”

He stood at a loss what to say next. He was tired, and this bother was rather a nuisance to him, and he didn’t quite know where he was.

“A lad, tha says,” he stammered.

She turned down the sheet and showed the child.

“Bless him!” he murmured. Which made her laugh, because he blessed by rote—pretending paternal emotion, which he did not feel just then.

“Go now,” she said.

“I will, my lass,” he answered, turning away.

Dismissed, he wanted to kiss her, but he dared not. She half wanted him to kiss her, but could not bring herself to give any sign. She only breathed freely when he was gone out of the room again, leaving behind him a faint smell of pit-dirt.

Mrs. Morel had a visit every day from the Congregational clergyman. Mr. Heaton was young, and very poor. His wife had died at the birth of his first baby, so he remained alone in the manse. He was a Bachelor of Arts of Cambridge, very shy, and no preacher. Mrs. Morel was fond of him, and he depended on her. For hours he talked to her, when she was well. He became the god-parent of the child.

Occasionally the minister stayed to tea with Mrs. Morel. Then she laid the cloth early, got out her best cups, with a little green rim, and hoped Morel would not come too soon; indeed, if he stayed for a pint, she would not mind this day. She had always two dinners to cook, because she believed children should have their chief meal at midday, whereas Morel needed his at five o’clock. So Mr. Heaton would hold the baby, whilst Mrs. Morel beat up a batter-pudding or peeled the potatoes, and he, watching her all the time, would discuss the next sermon. His ideas were quaint and fantastic. She brought him judiciously to earth. It was a discussion of the wedding at Cana.

“When He changed the water into wine at Cana,” he said, “that is a symbol that the ordinary life, even the blood, of the married husband and wife, which had before been uninspired, like water, became filled with the Spirit, and was as wine, because, when love enters, the whole spiritual constitution of a man changes, is filled with the Holy Ghost, and almost his form is altered.”

Mrs. Morel thought to herself:

“Yes, poor fellow, his young wife is dead; that is why he makes his love into the Holy Ghost.”

They were halfway down their first cup of tea when they heard the sluther of pit-boots.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Morel, in spite of herself.

The minister looked rather scared. Morel entered. He was feeling rather savage. He nodded a “How d’yer do” to the clergyman, who rose to shake hands with him.

“Nay,” said Morel, showing his hand, “look thee at it! Tha niver wants ter shake hands wi’ a hand like that, does ter? There’s too much pick-haft and shovel-dirt on it.”

The minister flushed with confusion, and sat down again. Mrs. Morel rose, carried out the steaming saucepan. Morel took off his coat, dragged his armchair to table, and sat down heavily.

“Are you tired?” asked the clergyman.

“Tired? I ham that,” replied Morel. “You don’t know what it is to be tired, as I’m tired.”

“No,” replied the clergyman.

“Why, look yer ‘ere,” said the miner, showing the shoulders of his singlet. “It’s a bit dry now, but it’s wet as a clout with sweat even yet. Feel it.”

“Goodness!” cried Mrs. Morel. “Mr. Heaton doesn’t want to feel your nasty singlet.”

The clergyman put out his hand gingerly.

“No, perhaps he doesn’t,” said Morel; “but it’s all come out of me, whether or not. An’ iv’ry day alike my singlet’s wringin’ wet. ‘Aven’t you got a drink, Missis, for a man when he comes home barkled up from the pit.”

“You know you drank all the beer,” said Mrs. Morel, pouring out his tea.

“An’ was there no more to be got?” Turning to the clergyman—“A man gets that caked up wi’ th’ dust, you know,—that clogged up down a coalmine, he needs a drink when he comes home.”

“I am sure he does,” said the clergyman.

“But it’s ten to one if there’s owt for him.”

“There’s water—and there’s tea,” said Mrs. Morel.

“Water! It’s not water as’ll clear his throat.”

He poured out a saucerful of tea, blew it, and sucked it up through his great black moustache, sighing afterwards. Then he poured out another saucerful, and stood his cup on the table.

“My cloth!” said Mrs. Morel, putting it on a plate.

“A man as comes home as I do ‘s too tired to care about cloths,” said Morel.

“Pity!” exclaimed his wife, sarcastically.

The room was full of the smell of meat and vegetables and pit-clothes.

He leaned over to the minister, his great moustache thrust forward, his mouth very red in his black face.

“Mr. Heaton,” he said, “a man as has been down the black hole all day, dingin’ away at a coal face, yi, a sight harder than that wall—”

“Needn’t make a moan of it,” put in Mrs. Morel.

She hated her husband because, whenever he had an audience, he whined and played for sympathy. William sitting nursing the baby, hated him, with a boy’s hatred, for false sentiment, and for the stupid treatment of his mother. Annie had never liked him; she merely avoided him.

When the minister had gone, Mrs. Morel looked at her cloth.

“A fine mess!” she said.

“Dos’t think I’m goin’ to sit wi’ my arms danglin’, cos tha’s got a parson for tea wi’ thee?” he bawled.

They were both angry, but she said nothing. The baby began to cry, and Mrs. Morel, picking up a saucepan from the hearth, accidentally knocked Annie on the head, whereupon the girl began to whine, and Morel to shout at her. In the midst of this pandemonium, William looked up at the big glazed text over the mantelpiece and read distinctly:

“God Bless Our Home!”

Whereupon Mrs. Morel, trying to soothe the baby, jumped up, rushed at him, boxed his ears, saying:

“What are you putting in for?”

And then she sat down and laughed, till tears ran over her cheeks, while William kicked the stool he had been sitting on, and Morel growled:

“I canna see what there is so much to laugh at.”

One evening, directly after the parson’s visit, feeling unable to bear herself after another display from her husband, she took Annie and the baby and went out. Morel had kicked William, and the mother would never forgive him.

She went over the sheep-bridge and across a corner of the meadow to the cricket-ground. The meadows seemed one space of ripe, evening light, whispering with the distant mill-race. She sat on a seat under the alders in the cricket-ground, and fronted the evening. Before her, level and solid, spread the big green cricket-field, like the bed of a sea of light. Children played in the bluish shadow of the pavilion. Many rooks, high up, came cawing home across the softly-woven sky. They stooped in a long curve down into the golden glow, concentrating, cawing, wheeling, like black flakes on a slow vortex, over a tree-clump that made a dark boss among the pasture.

A few gentlemen were practising, and Mrs. Morel could hear the chock of the ball, and the voices of men suddenly roused; could see the white forms of men shifting silently over the green, upon which already the under shadows were smouldering. Away at the grange, one side of the hay-stacks was lit up, the other sides blue-grey. A waggon of sheaves rocked small across the melting yellow light.

The sun was going down. Every open evening, the hills of Derbyshire were blazed over with red sunset. Mrs. Morel watched the sun sink from the glistening sky, leaving a soft flower-blue overhead, while the western space went red, as if all the fire had swum down there, leaving the bell cast flawless blue. The mountain-ash berries across the field stood fierily out from the dark leaves, for a moment. A few shocks of corn in a corner of the fallow stood up as if alive; she imagined them bowing; perhaps her son would be a Joseph. In the east, a mirrored sunset floated pink opposite the west’s scarlet. The big haystacks on the hillside, that butted into the glare, went cold.

With Mrs. Morel it was one of those still moments when the small frets vanish, and the beauty of things stands out, and she had the peace and the strength to see herself. Now and again, a swallow cut close to her. Now and again, Annie came up with a handful of alder-currants. The baby was restless on his mother’s knee, clambering with his hands at the light.

Mrs. Morel looked down at him. She had dreaded this baby like a catastrophe, because of her feeling for her husband. And now she felt strangely towards the infant. Her heart was heavy because of the child, almost as if it were unhealthy, or malformed. Yet it seemed quite well. But she noticed the peculiar knitting of the baby’s brows, and the peculiar heaviness of its eyes, as if it were trying to understand something that was pain. She felt, when she looked at her child’s dark, brooding pupils, as if a burden were on her heart.

“He looks as if he was thinking about something—quite sorrowful,” said Mrs. Kirk.

Suddenly, looking at him, the heavy feeling at the mother’s heart melted into passionate grief. She bowed over him, and a few tears shook swiftly out of her very heart. The baby lifted his fingers.

“My lamb!” she cried softly.

And at that moment she felt, in some far inner place of her soul, that she and her husband were guilty.

The baby was looking up at her. It had blue eyes like her own, but its look was heavy, steady, as if it had realised something that had stunned some point of its soul.

In her arms lay the delicate baby. Its deep blue eyes always looking at her unblinking, seemed to draw her innermost thoughts out of her. She no longer loved her husband; she had not wanted this child to come, and there it lay in her arms and pulled at her heart. She felt as if the navel string that had connected its frail little body with hers had not been broken. A wave of hot love went over her to the infant. She held it close to her face and breast. With all her force, with all her soul she would make up to it for having brought it into the world unloved. She would love it all the more now it was here; carry it in her love. Its clear, knowing eyes gave her pain and fear. Did it know all about her? When it lay under her heart, had it been listening then? Was there a reproach in the look? She felt the marrow melt in her bones, with fear and pain.

Once more she was aware of the sun lying red on the rim of the hill opposite. She suddenly held up the child in her hands.

“Look!” she said. “Look, my pretty!”

She thrust the infant forward to the crimson, throbbing sun, almost with relief. She saw him lift his little fist. Then she put him to her bosom again, ashamed almost of her impulse to give him back whence he came.

“If he lives,” she thought to herself, “what will become of him—what will he be?”

Her heart was anxious.

“I will call him ‘Paul,’” she said suddenly; she knew not why.

After a while she went home. A fine shadow was flung over the deep green meadow, darkening all.

As she expected, she found the house empty. But Morel was home by ten o’clock, and that day, at least, ended peacefully.

Walter Morel was, at this time, exceedingly irritable. His work seemed to exhaust him. When he came home he did not speak civilly to anybody. If the fire were rather low he bullied about that; he grumbled about his dinner; if the children made a chatter he shouted at them in a way that made their mother’s blood boil, and made them hate him.

On the Friday, he was not home by eleven o’clock. The baby was unwell, and was restless, crying if he were put down. Mrs. Morel, tired to death, and still weak, was scarcely under control.

“I wish the nuisance would come,” she said wearily to herself.

The child at last sank down to sleep in her arms. She was too tired to carry him to the cradle.

“But I’ll say nothing, whatever time he comes,” she said. “It only works me up; I won’t say anything. But I know if he does anything it’ll make my blood boil,” she added to herself.

She sighed, hearing him coming, as if it were something she could not bear. He, taking his revenge, was nearly drunk. She kept her head bent over the child as he entered, not wishing to see him. But it went through her like a flash of hot fire when, in passing, he lurched against the dresser, setting the tins rattling, and clutched at the white pot knobs for support. He hung up his hat and coat, then returned, stood glowering from a distance at her, as she sat bowed over the child.

“Is there nothing to eat in the house?” he asked, insolently, as if to a servant. In certain stages of his intoxication he affected the clipped, mincing speech of the towns. Mrs. Morel hated him most in this condition.