Sons and Lovers

“Sixteen an’ six,” said Mr. Winterbottom.

The lad was too much upset to count. He pushed forward some loose silver and half a sovereign.

“How much do you think you’ve given me?” asked Mr. Winterbottom.

The boy looked at him, but said nothing. He had not the faintest notion.

“Haven’t you got a tongue in your head?”

Paul bit his lip, and pushed forward some more silver.

“Don’t they teach you to count at the Board-school?” he asked.

“Nowt by Algibbra an’ French,” said a collier.

“An’ cheek an’ impudence,” said another.

Paul was keeping someone waiting. With trembling fingers he got his money into the bag and slid out. He suffered the tortures of the damned on these occasions.

His relief, when he got outside, and was walking along the Mansfield Road, was infinite. On the park wall the mosses were green. There were some gold and some white fowls pecking under the apple-trees of an orchard. The colliers were walking home in a stream. The boy went near the wall self-consciously. He knew many of the men, but could not recognise them in their dirt. And this was a new torture to him.

When he got down to the New Inn, at Bretty, his father was not yet come. Mrs. Wharmby, the landlady, knew him. His grandmother, Morel’s mother, had been Mrs. Wharmby’s friend.

“Your father’s not come yet,” said the landlady, in the peculiar half-scornful, half-patronising voice of a woman who talks chiefly to grown men. “Sit you down.”

Paul sat down on the edge of the bench in the bar. Some colliers were “reckoning”—sharing out their money—in a corner; others came in. They all glanced at the boy without speaking. At last Morel came: brisk, and with something of an air, even in his blackness.

“Hello!” he said rather tenderly to his son. “Have you bested me? Shall you have a drink of something?”

Paul and all the children were bred up fierce anti-alcoholists, and would have suffered more in drinking a lemonade before all the men than in having a tooth drawn.

“The landlady looked at him de haut en bas, rather pitying, and at the same time, resenting his clear, fierce morality. Paul went home, glowering. He entered the house silently. Friday was baking day, and there was usually a hot bun. His mother put it before him.

Suddenly he turned on her in a fury, his eyes flashing:

“I’m not going to the office any more,” he said.

“Why, what’s the matter?” his mother asked in surprise. His sudden rages rather amused her.

“I’m not going any more,” he declared.

“Oh, very well, tell your father so.”

He chewed his bun as if he hated it.

“I’m not—I’m not going to fetch the money.”

“Then one of Carlin’s children can go; they’d be glad enough of the sixpence,” said Mrs. Morel.

This sixpence was Paul’s only income. It mostly went in buying birthday presents; but it was an income, and he treasured it. But—

“They can have it, then!” he said. “I don’t want it.”

“Oh, very well,” said his mother. “But you needn’t bully me about it.”

“They’re hateful, and common, and hateful, they are, and I’m not going any more. Mr. Braithwaite drops his ‘h’s’, an’ Mr. Winterbottom says ‘You was’.”

“And is that why you won’t go any more?” smiled Mrs. Morel.

The boy was silent for some time. His face was pale, his eyes dark and furious. His mother moved about at her work, taking no notice of him.

“They always stan’ in front of me, so’s I can’t get out,” he said.

“Well, my lad, you’ve only to ask them,” she replied.

“An’ then Alfred Winterbottom says, ‘What do they teach you at the Board-school?’”

“They never taught him much,” said Mrs. Morel, “that is a fact—neither manners nor wit—and his cunning he was born with.”

So, in her own way, she soothed him. His ridiculous hyper-sensitiveness made her heart ache. And sometimes the fury of his eyes roused her, made her sleeping soul lift up its head a moment, surprised.

“What was the cheque?” she asked.

“Seventeen pounds eleven and fivepence, and sixteen and six stoppages,” replied the boy. “It’s a good week; and only five shillings stoppages for my father.”

So she was able to calculate how much her husband had earned, and could call him to account if he gave her short money. Morel always kept to himself the secret of the week’s amount.

Friday was the baking night and market night. It was the rule that Paul should stay at home and bake. He loved to stop in and draw or read; he was very fond of drawing. Annie always “gallivanted” on Friday nights; Arthur was enjoying himself as usual. So the boy remained alone.

Mrs. Morel loved her marketing. In the tiny market-place on the top of the hill, where four roads, from Nottingham and Derby, Ilkeston and Mansfield, meet, many stalls were erected. Brakes ran in from surrounding villages. The market-place was full of women, the streets packed with men. It was amazing to see so many men everywhere in the streets. Mrs. Morel usually quarrelled with her lace woman, sympathised with her fruit man—who was a gabey, but his wife was a bad un—laughed with the fish man—who was a scamp but so droll—put the linoleum man in his place, was cold with the odd-wares man, and only went to the crockery man when she was driven—or drawn by the cornflowers on a little dish; then she was coldly polite.

“I wondered how much that little dish was,” she said.

“Sevenpence to you.”

“Thank-you.”

She put the dish down and walked away; but she could not leave the market-place without it. Again she went by where the pots lay coldly on the floor, and she glanced at the dish furtively, pretending not to.

She was a little woman, in a bonnet and a black costume. Her bonnet was in its third year; it was a great grievance to Annie.

“Mother!” the girl implored, “don’t wear that nubbly little bonnet.”

“Then what else shall I wear,” replied the mother tartly. “And I’m sure it’s right enough.”

It had started with a tip; then had had flowers; now was reduced to black lace and a bit of jet.

“It looks rather come down,” said Paul. “Couldn’t you give it a pick-me-up?”

“I’ll jowl your head for impudence,” said Mrs. Morel, and she tied the strings of the black bonnet valiantly under her chin.

She glanced at the dish again. Both she and her enemy, the pot man, had an uncomfortable feeling, as if there were something between them. Suddenly he shouted:

“Do you want it for fivepence?”

She started. Her heart hardened; but then she stooped and took up her dish.

“I’ll have it,” she said.

“Yer’ll do me the favour, like?” he said. “Yer’d better spit in it, like yer do when y’ave something give yer.”

Mrs. Morel paid him the fivepence in a cold manner.

“I don’t see you give it me,” she said. “You wouldn’t let me have it for fivepence if you didn’t want to.”

“In this flamin’, scrattlin’ place you may count yerself lucky if you can give your things away,” he growled.

“Yes; there are bad times, and good,” said Mrs. Morel.

But she had forgiven the pot man. They were friends. She dare now finger his pots. So she was happy.

Paul was waiting for her. He loved her home-coming. She was always her best so—triumphant, tired, laden with parcels, feeling rich in spirit. He heard her quick, light step in the entry and looked up from his drawing.

“Oh!” she sighed, smiling at him from the doorway.

“My word, you are loaded!” he exclaimed, putting down his brush.

“I am!” she gasped. “That brazen Annie said she’d meet me. Such a weight!”

She dropped her string bag and her packages on the table.

“Is the bread done?” she asked, going to the oven.

“The last one is soaking,” he replied. “You needn’t look, I’ve not forgotten it.”

“Oh, that pot man!” she said, closing the oven door. “You know what a wretch I’ve said he was? Well, I don’t think he’s quite so bad.”

“Don’t you?”

The boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black bonnet.

“No. I think he can’t make any money—well, it’s everybody’s cry alike nowadays—and it makes him disagreeable.”

“It would me” said Paul.

“Well, one can’t wonder at it. And he let me have—how much do you think he let me have this for?”

She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it with joy.

“Show me!” said Paul.

The two stood together gloating over the dish.

“I love cornflowers on things,” said Paul.

“Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me—,:

“One and three,” said Paul.

“Fivepence!”

“It’s not enough, mother.”

“No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I’d been extravagant, I couldn’t afford any more. And he needn’t have let me have it if he hadn’t wanted to.”

“No, he needn’t, need he,” said Paul, and the two comforted each other from the fear of having robbed the pot man.

“We c’n have stewed fruit in it,” said Paul.

“Or custard, or a jelly,” said his mother.

“Or radishes and lettuce,” said he.

“Don’t forget that bread,” she said, her voice bright with glee.

Paul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.

“It’s done,” he said, giving it to her.

She tapped it also.

“Yes,” she replied, going to unpack her bag. “Oh, and I’m a wicked, extravagant woman. I know I s’ll come to want.”

He hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance. She unfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of pansies and of crimson daisies.

“Four penn’orth!” she moaned.

“How cheap!” he cried.

“Yes, but I couldn’t afford it this week of all weeks.”

“But lovely!” he cried.

“Aren’t they!” she exclaimed, giving way to pure joy. “Paul, look at this yellow one, isn’t it—and a face just like an old man!”

“Just!” cried Paul, stooping to sniff. “And smells that nice! But he’s a bit splashed.”

He ran in the scullery, came back with the flannel, and carefully washed the pansy.

“Now look at him now he’s wet!” he said.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, brimful of satisfaction.

The children of Scargill Street felt quite select. At the end where the Morels lived there were not many young things. So the few were more united. Boys and girls played together, the girls joining in the fights and the rough games, the boys taking part in the dancing games and rings and make-belief of the girls.

Annie and Paul and Arthur loved the winter evenings, when it was not wet. They stayed indoors till the colliers were all gone home, till it was thick dark, and the street would be deserted. Then they tied their scarves round their necks, for they scorned overcoats, as all the colliers’ children did, and went out. The entry was very dark, and at the end the whole great night opened out, in a hollow, with a little tangle of lights below where Minton pit lay, and another far away opposite for Selby. The farthest tiny lights seemed to stretch out the darkness for ever. The children looked anxiously down the road at the one lamp-post, which stood at the end of the field path. If the little, luminous space were deserted, the two boys felt genuine desolation. They stood with their hands in their pockets under the lamp, turning their backs on the night, quite miserable, watching the dark houses. Suddenly a pinafore under a short coat was seen, and a long-legged girl came flying up.

“Where’s Billy Pillins an’ your Annie an’ Eddie Dakin?”

“I don’t know.”

But it did not matter so much—there were three now. They set up a game round the lamp-post, till the others rushed up, yelling. Then the play went fast and furious.

There was only this one lamp-post. Behind was the great scoop of darkness, as if all the night were there. In front, another wide, dark way opened over the hill brow. Occasionally somebody came out of this way and went into the field down the path. In a dozen yards the night had swallowed them. The children played on.

They were brought exceedingly close together owing to their isolation. If a quarrel took place, the whole play was spoilt. Arthur was very touchy, and Billy Pillins—really Philips—was worse. Then Paul had to side with Arthur, and on Paul’s side went Alice, while Billy Pillins always had Emmie Limb and Eddie Dakin to back him up. Then the six would fight, hate with a fury of hatred, and flee home in terror. Paul never forgot, after one of these fierce internecine fights, seeing a big red moon lift itself up, slowly, between the waste road over the hill-top, steadily, like a great bird. And he thought of the Bible, that the moon should be turned to blood. And the next day he made haste to be friends with Billy Pillins. And then the wild, intense games went on again under the lamp-post, surrounded by so much darkness. Mrs. Morel, going into her parlour, would hear the children singing away:

“My shoes are made of Spanish leather, My socks are made of silk; I wear a ring on every finger, I wash myself in milk.”

They sounded so perfectly absorbed in the game as their voices came out of the night, that they had the feel of wild creatures singing. It stirred the mother; and she understood when they came in at eight o’clock, ruddy, with brilliant eyes, and quick, passionate speech.

They all loved the Scargill Street house for its openness, for the great scallop of the world it had in view. On summer evenings the women would stand against the field fence, gossiping, facing the west, watching the sunsets flare quickly out, till the Derbyshire hills ridged across the crimson far away, like the black crest of a newt.

In this summer season the pits never turned full time, particularly the soft coal. Mrs. Dakin, who lived next door to Mrs. Morel, going to the field fence to shake her hearth-rug, would spy men coming slowly up the hill. She saw at once they were colliers. Then she waited, a tall, thin, shrew-faced woman, standing on the hill brow, almost like a menace to the poor colliers who were toiling up. It was only eleven o’clock. From the far-off wooded hills the haze that hangs like fine black crepe at the back of a summer morning had not yet dissipated. The first man came to the stile. “Chockchock!” went the gate under his thrust.

“What, han’ yer knocked off?” cried Mrs. Dakin.

“We han, missis.”

“It’s a pity as they letn yer goo,” she said sarcastically.

“It is that,” replied the man.

“Nay, you know you’re flig to come up again,” she said.

And the man went on. Mrs. Dakin, going up her yard, spied Mrs. Morel taking the ashes to the ash-pit.

“I reckon Minton’s knocked off, missis,” she cried.

“Isn’t it sickenin’!” exclaimed Mrs. Morel in wrath.

“Ha! But I’n just seed Jont Hutchby.”

“They might as well have saved their shoe-leather,” said Mrs. Morel. And both women went indoors disgusted.

The colliers, their faces scarcely blackened, were trooping home again. Morel hated to go back. He loved the sunny morning. But he had gone to pit to work, and to be sent home again spoilt his temper.

“Good gracious, at this time!” exclaimed his wife, as he entered.

“Can I help it, woman?” he shouted.”

“And I’ve not done half enough dinner.”

“Then I’ll eat my bit o’ snap as I took with me,” he bawled pathetically. He felt ignominious and sore.

And the children, coming home from school, would wonder to see their father eating with his dinner the two thick slices of rather dry and dirty bread and butter that had been to pit and back.

“What’s my dad eating his snap for now?” asked Arthur.

“I should ha’e it holled at me if I didna,” snorted Morel.

“What a story!” exclaimed his wife.

“An’ is it goin’ to be wasted?” said Morel. “I’m not such an extravagant mortal as you lot, with your waste. If I drop a bit of bread at pit, in all the dust an’ dirt, I pick it up an’ eat it.”

“The mice would eat it,” said Paul. “It wouldn’t be wasted.”

“Good bread an’ butter’s not for mice, either,” said Morel.

“Dirty or not dirty, I’d eat it rather than it should be wasted.”

“You might leave it for the mice and pay for it out of your next pint,” said Mrs. Morel.

“Oh, might I?” he exclaimed.

They were very poor that autumn. William had just gone away to London, and his mother missed his money. He sent ten shillings once or twice, but he had many things to pay for at first. His letters came regularly once a week. He wrote a good deal to his mother, telling her all his life, how he made friends, and was exchanging lessons with a Frenchman, how he enjoyed London. His mother felt again he was remaining to her just as when he was at home. She wrote to him every week her direct, rather witty letters. All day long, as she cleaned the house, she thought of him. He was in London: he would do well. Almost, he was like her knight who wore her favour in the battle.

He was coming at Christmas for five days. There had never been such preparations. Paul and Arthur scoured the land for holly and evergreens. Annie made the pretty paper hoops in the old-fashioned way. And there was unheard-of extravagance in the larder. Mrs. Morel made a big and magnificent cake. Then, feeling queenly, she showed Paul how to blanche almonds. He skinned the long nuts reverently, counting them all, to see not one was lost. It was said that eggs whisked better in a cold place. So the boy stood in the scullery, where the temperature was nearly at freezing-point, and whisked and whisked, and flew in excitement to his mother as the white of egg grew stiffer and more snowy.

“Just look, mother! Isn’t it lovely?”

And he balanced a bit on his nose, then blew it in the air.

“Now, don’t waste it,” said the mother.

Everybody was mad with excitement. William was coming on Christmas Eve. Mrs. Morel surveyed her pantry. There was a big plum cake, and a rice cake, jam tarts, lemon tarts, and mince pies—two enormous dishes. She was finishing cooking—Spanish tarts and cheese-cakes. Everywhere was decorated. The kissing bunch of berried holly hung with bright and glittering things, spun slowly over Mrs. Morel’s head as she trimmed her little tarts in the kitchen. A great fire roared. There was a scent of cooked pastry. He was due at seven o’clock, but he would be late. The three children had gone to meet him. She was alone. But at a quarter to seven Morel came in again. Neither wife nor husband spoke. He sat in his armchair, quite awkward with excitement, and she quietly went on with her baking. Only by the careful way in which she did things could it be told how much moved she was. The clock ticked on.

“What time dost say he’s coming?” Morel asked for the fifth time.

“The train gets in at half-past six,” she replied emphatically.

“Then he’ll be here at ten past seven.”

“Eh, bless you, it’ll be hours late on the Midland,” she said indifferently. But she hoped, by expecting him late to bring him early. Morel went down the entry to look for him. Then he came back.

“Goodness, man!” she said. “You’re like an ill-sitting hen.”

“Hadna you better be gettin’ him summat t’ eat ready?” asked the father.

“There’s plenty of time,” she answered.

“There’s not so much as I can see on,” he answered, turning crossly in his chair. She began to clear her table. The kettle was singing. They waited and waited.

Meantime the three children were on the platform at Sethley Bridge, on the Midland main line, two miles from home. They waited one hour. A train came—he was not there. Down the line the red and green lights shone. It was very dark and very cold.

“Ask him if the London train’s come,” said Paul to Annie, when they saw the man in a tip cap.

“I’m not,” said Annie. “You be quiet—he might send us off.”

But Paul was dying for the man to know they were expecting someone by the London train: it sounded so grand. Yet he was much too much scared of broaching any man, let alone one in a peaked cap, to dare to ask. The three children could scarcely go into the waiting-room for fear of being sent away, and for fear something should happen whilst they were off the platform. Still they waited in the dark and cold.

“It’s an hour an’ a half late,” said Arthur pathetically.

“Well,” said Annie, “it’s Christmas Eve.”

They all grew silent. He wasn’t coming. They looked down the darkness of the railway. There was London! It seemed the uttermost of distance. They thought anything might happen if one came from London. They were all too troubled to talk. Cold, and unhappy, and silent, they huddled together on the platform.

At last, after more than two hours, they saw the lights of an engine peering round, away down the darkness. A porter ran out. The children drew back with beating hearts. A great train bound for Manchester, drew up. Two doors opened, and from one of them, William. They flew to him. He handed parcels to them cheerily, and immediately began to explain that this great train had stopped for his sake at such a small station as Sethley Bridge: it was not booked to stop.

Meanwhile the parents were getting anxious. The table was set, the chop was cooked, everything was ready. Mrs. Morel put on her black apron. She was wearing her best dress. Then she sat, pretending to read. The minutes were a torture to her.

“H’m!” said Morel. “It’s an hour an’ a ha’ef.”

“And those children waiting!” she said.

“Th’ train canna ha’ come in yet,” he said.

“I tell you, on Christmas Eve they’re hours wrong.”

They were both a bit cross with each other, so gnawed with anxiety. The ash-tree moaned outside in a cold, raw wind. And all that space of night from London home! Mrs. Morel suffered. The slight click of the works inside the clock irritated her. It was getting so late; it was getting unbearable.

At last there was a sound of voices, and a footstep in the entry.

“Ha’s here!” cried Morel, jumping up.

Then he stood back. The mother ran a few steps towards the door and waited. There was a rush and a patter of feet, the door burst open. William was there. He dropped his Gladstone bag and took his mother in his arms.

“Mater!” he said.

“My boy!” she cried.

And for two seconds, no longer, she clasped him and kissed him. Then she withdrew and said, trying to be quite normal:

“But how late you are!”

“Aren’t I!” he cried, turning to his father. “Well, dad!”

The two men shook hands.

“Well, my lad!”

Morel’s eyes were wet.

“We thought tha’d niver be commin’,” he said.

“Oh, I’d come!” exclaimed William.

Then the son turned round to his mother.

“But you look well,” she said proudly, laughing.

“Well!” he exclaimed. “I should think so—coming home!”

He was a fine fellow, big, straight, and fearless-looking. He looked round at the evergreens and the kissing bunch, and the little tarts that lay in their tins on the hearth.

“By jove! mother, it’s not different!” he said, as if in relief.

Everybody was still for a second. Then he suddenly sprang forward, picked a tart from the hearth, and pushed it whole into his mouth.

“Well, did iver you see such a parish oven!” the father exclaimed.

He had brought them endless presents. Every penny he had he had spent on them. There was a sense of luxury overflowing in the house. For his mother there was an umbrella with gold on the pale handle. She kept it to her dying day, and would have lost anything rather than that. Everybody had something gorgeous, and besides, there were pounds of unknown sweets: Turkish delight, crystallised pineapple, and such-like things which, the children thought, only the splendour of London could provide. And Paul boasted of these sweets among his friends.