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Sons and Lovers

Paul found his mother ready to go home. She smiled on her son. He took the great bunch of flowers. Mr. and Mrs. Leivers walked down the fields with them. The hills were golden with evening; deep in the woods showed the darkening purple of bluebells. It was everywhere perfectly stiff, save for the rustling of leaves and birds. "But it is a beautiful place," said Mrs. Morel. "Yes," answered Mr. Leivers; "it's a nice little place, if only it weren't for the rabbits. The pasture's bitten down to nothing. I dunno if ever I s'll get the rent off it." He clapped his hands, and the field broke into motion near the woods, brown rabbits hopping everywhere. "Would you believe it!" exclaimed Mrs. Morel. She and Paul went on alone together. "Wasn't it lovely, mother?" he said quietly. A thin moon was coming out. His heart was full of happiness till it hurt. His mother had to chatter, because she, too, wanted to cry with happiness. "Now WOULDN'T I help that man!" she said. "WOULDN'T I see to the fowls and the young stock! And I'D learn to milk, and I'D talk with him, and I'D plan with him. My word, if I were his wife, the farm would be run, I know! But there, she hasn't the strength—she simply hasn't the strength. She ought never to have been burdened like it, you know. I'm sorry for her, and I'm sorry for him too. My word, if I'D had him, I shouldn't have thought him a bad husband! Not that she does either; and she's very lovable." William came home again with his sweetheart at the Whitsuntide. He had one week of his holidays then. It was beautiful weather. As a rule, William and Lily and Paul went out in the morning together for a walk. William did not talk to his beloved much, except to tell her things from his boyhood. Paul talked endlessly to both of them. They lay down, all three, in a meadow by Minton Church. On one side, by the Castle Farm, was a beautiful quivering screen of poplars. Hawthorn was dropping from the hedges; penny daisies and ragged robin were in the field, like laughter. William, a big fellow of twenty-three, thinner now and even a bit gaunt, lay back in the sunshine and dreamed, while she fingered with his hair. Paul went gathering the big daisies. She had taken off her hat; her hair was black as a horse's mane. Paul came back and threaded daisies in her jet-black hair—big spangles of white and yellow, and just a pink touch of ragged robin. "Now you look like a young witch-woman," the boy said to her. "Doesn't she, William?" Lily laughed. William opened his eyes and looked at her. In his gaze was a certain baffled look of misery and fierce appreciation. "Has he made a sight of me?" she asked, laughing down on her lover. "That he has!" said William, smiling. He looked at her. Her beauty seemed to hurt him. He glanced at her flower-decked head and frowned. "You look nice enough, if that's what you want to know," he said. And she walked without her hat. In a little while William recovered, and was rather tender to her. Coming to a bridge, he carved her initials and his in a heart. L. L. W. W. M. She watched his strong, nervous hand, with its glistening hairs and freckles, as he carved, and she seemed fascinated by it. All the time there was a feeling of sadness and warmth, and a certain tenderness in the house, whilst William and Lily were at home. But often he got irritable. She had brought, for an eight-days' stay, five dresses and six blouses. "Oh, would you mind," she said to Annie, "washing me these two blouses, and these things?" And Annie stood washing when William and Lily went out the next morning. Mrs. Morel was furious. And sometimes the young man, catching a glimpse of his sweetheart's attitude towards his sister, hated her. On Sunday morning she looked very beautiful in a dress of foulard, silky and sweeping, and blue as a jay-bird's feather, and in a large cream hat covered with many roses, mostly crimson. Nobody could admire her enough. But in the evening, when she was going out, she asked again: "Chubby, have you got my gloves?" "Which?" asked William. "My new black SUEDE." "No." There was a hunt. She had lost them. "Look here, mother," said William, "that's the fourth pair she's lost since Christmas—at five shillings a pair!" "You only gave me TWO of them," she remonstrated. And in the evening, after supper, he stood on the hearthrug whilst she sat on the sofa, and he seemed to hate her. In the afternoon he had left her whilst he went to see some old friend. She had sat looking at a book. After supper William wanted to write a letter. "Here is your book, Lily," said Mrs. Morel. "Would you care to go on with it for a few minutes?" "No, thank you," said the girl. "I will sit still." "But it is so dull." William scribbled irritably at a great rate. As he sealed the envelope he said: "Read a book! Why, she's never read a book in her life." "Oh, go along!" said Mrs. Morel, cross with the exaggeration, "It's true, mother—she hasn't," he cried, jumping up and taking his old position on the hearthrug. "She's never read a book in her life." "'Er's like me," chimed in Morel. "'Er canna see what there is i' books, ter sit borin' your nose in 'em for, nor more can I." "But you shouldn't say these things," said Mrs. Morel to her son. "But it's true, mother—she CAN'T read. What did you give her?" "Well, I gave her a little thing of Annie Swan's. Nobody wants to read dry stuff on Sunday afternoon." "Well, I'll bet she didn't read ten lines of it." "You are mistaken," said his mother. All the time Lily sat miserably on the sofa. He turned to her swiftly. "DID you read any?" he asked. "Yes, I did," she replied. "How much?" "I don't know how many pages." "Tell me ONE THING you read." She could not. She never got beyond the second page. He read a great deal, and had a quick, active intelligence. She could understand nothing but love-making and chatter. He was accustomed to having all his thoughts sifted through his mother's mind; so, when he wanted companionship, and was asked in reply to be the billing and twittering lover, he hated his betrothed. "You know, mother," he said, when he was alone with her at night, "she's no idea of money, she's so wessel-brained. When she's paid, she'll suddenly buy such rot as marrons glaces, and then I have to buy her season ticket, and her extras, even her underclothing. And she wants to get married, and I think myself we might as well get married next year. But at this rate—" "A fine mess of a marriage it would be," replied his mother. "I should consider it again, my boy." "Oh, well, I've gone too far to break off now," he said, "and so I shall get married as soon as I can." "Very well, my boy. If you will, you will, and there's no stopping you; but I tell you, I can't sleep when I think about it." "Oh, she'll be all right, mother. We shall manage." "And she lets you buy her underclothing?" asked the mother. "Well," he began apologetically, "she didn't ask me; but one morning—and it WAS cold—I found her on the station shivering, not able to keep still; so I asked her if she was well wrapped up. She said: 'I think so.' So I said: 'Have you got warm underthings on?' And she said: 'No, they were cotton.' I asked her why on earth she hadn't got something thicker on in weather like that, and she said because she HAD nothing. And there she is—a bronchial subject! I HAD to take her and get some warm things. Well, mother, I shouldn't mind the money if we had any. And, you know, she OUGHT to keep enough to pay for her season-ticket; but no, she comes to me about that, and I have to find the money." "It's a poor lookout," said Mrs. Morel bitterly. He was pale, and his rugged face, that used to be so perfectly careless and laughing, was stamped with conflict and despair. "But I can't give her up now; it's gone too far," he said. "And, besides, for SOME things I couldn't do without her." "My boy, remember you're taking your life in your hands," said Mrs. Morel. "NOTHING is as bad as a marriage that's a hopeless failure. Mine was bad enough, God knows, and ought to teach you something; but it might have been worse by a long chalk." He leaned with his back against the side of the chimney-piece, his hands in his pockets. He was a big, raw-boned man, who looked as if he would go to the world's end if he wanted to. But she saw the despair on his face. "I couldn't give her up now," he said. "Well," she said, "remember there are worse wrongs than breaking off an engagement." "I can't give her up NOW," he said. The clock ticked on; mother and son remained in silence, a conflict between them; but he would say no more. At last she said: "Well, go to bed, my son. You'll feel better in the morning, and perhaps you'll know better." He kissed her, and went. She raked the fire. Her heart was heavy now as it had never been. Before, with her husband, things had seemed to be breaking down in her, but they did not destroy her power to live. Now her soul felt lamed in itself. It was her hope that was struck. And so often William manifested the same hatred towards his betrothed. On the last evening at home he was railing against her. "Well," he said, "if you don't believe me, what she's like, would you believe she has been confirmed three times?" "Nonsense!" laughed Mrs. Morel. "Nonsense or not, she HAS! That's what confirmation means for her—a bit of a theatrical show where she can cut a figure." "I haven't, Mrs. Morel!" cried the girl—"I haven't! it is not true!" "What!" he cried, flashing round on her. "Once in Bromley, once in Beckenham, and once somewhere else." "Nowhere else!" she said, in tears—"nowhere else!" "It WAS! And if it wasn't why were you confirmed TWICE?" "Once I was only fourteen, Mrs. Morel," she pleaded, tears in her eyes. "Yes," said Mrs. Morel; "I can quite understand it, child. Take no notice of him. You ought to be ashamed, William, saying such things." "But it's true. She's religious—she had blue velvet Prayer-Books—and she's not as much religion, or anything else, in her than that table-leg. Gets confirmed three times for show, to show herself off, and that's how she is in EVERYTHING—EVERYTHING!" The girl sat on the sofa, crying. She was not strong. "As for LOVE!" he cried, "you might as well ask a fly to love you! It'll love settling on you—" "Now, say no more," commanded Mrs. Morel. "If you want to say these things, you must find another place than this. I am ashamed of you, William! Why don't you be more manly. To do nothing but find fault with a girl, and then pretend you're engaged to her!" Mrs. Morel subsided in wrath and indignation. William was silent, and later he repented, kissed and comforted the girl. Yet it was true, what he had said. He hated her. When they were going away, Mrs. Morel accompanied them as far as Nottingham. It was a long way to Keston station. "You know, mother," he said to her, "Gyp's shallow. Nothing goes deep with her." "William, I WISH you wouldn't say these things," said Mrs. Morel, very uncomfortable for the girl who walked beside her. "But it doesn't, mother. She's very much in love with me now, but if I died she'd have forgotten me in three months." Mrs. Morel was afraid. Her heart beat furiously, hearing the quiet bitterness of her son's last speech. "How do you know?" she replied. "You DON'T know, and therefore you've no right to say such a thing." "He's always saying these things!" cried the girl. "In three months after I was buried you'd have somebody else, and I should be forgotten," he said. "And that's your love!" Mrs. Morel saw them into the train in Nottingham, then she returned home. "There's one comfort," she said to Paul—"he'll never have any money to marry on, that I AM sure of. And so she'll save him that way." So she took cheer. Matters were not yet very desperate. She firmly believed William would never marry his Gipsy. She waited, and she kept Paul near to her. All summer long William's letters had a feverish tone; he seemed unnatural and intense. Sometimes he was exaggeratedly jolly, usually he was flat and bitter in his letter. "Ah," his mother said, "I'm afraid he's ruining himself against that creature, who isn't worthy of his love—no, no more than a rag doll." He wanted to come home. The midsummer holiday was gone; it was a long while to Christmas. He wrote in wild excitement, saying he could come for Saturday and Sunday at Goose Fair, the first week in October. "You are not well, my boy," said his mother, when she saw him. She was almost in tears at having him to herself again. "No, I've not been well," he said. "I've seemed to have a dragging cold all the last month, but it's going, I think." It was sunny October weather. He seemed wild with joy, like a schoolboy escaped; then again he was silent and reserved. He was more gaunt than ever, and there was a haggard look in his eyes. "You are doing too much," said his mother to him. He was doing extra work, trying to make some money to marry on, he said. He only talked to his mother once on the Saturday night; then he was sad and tender about his beloved. "And yet, you know, mother, for all that, if I died she'd be broken-hearted for two months, and then she'd start to forget me. You'd see, she'd never come home here to look at my grave, not even once." "Why, William," said his mother, "you're not going to die, so why talk about it?" "But whether or not—" he replied. "And she can't help it. She is like that, and if you choose her—well, you can't grumble," said his mother. On the Sunday morning, as he was putting his collar on: "Look," he said to his mother, holding up his chin, "what a rash my collar's made under my chin!" Just at the junction of chin and throat was a big red inflammation. "It ought not to do that," said his mother. "Here, put a bit of this soothing ointment on. You should wear different collars." He went away on Sunday midnight, seeming better and more solid for his two days at home. On Tuesday morning came a telegram from London that he was ill. Mrs. Morel got off her knees from washing the floor, read the telegram, called a neighbour, went to her landlady and borrowed a sovereign, put on her things, and set off. She hurried to Keston, caught an express for London in Nottingham. She had to wait in Nottingham nearly an hour. A small figure in her black bonnet, she was anxiously asking the porters if they knew how to get to Elmers End. The journey was three hours. She sat in her corner in a kind of stupor, never moving. At King's Cross still no one could tell her how to get to Elmers End. Carrying her string bag, that contained her nightdress, a comb and brush, she went from person to person. At last they sent her underground to Cannon Street. It was six o'clock when she arrived at William's lodging. The blinds were not down. "How is he?" she asked. "No better," said the landlady. She followed the woman upstairs. William lay on the bed, with bloodshot eyes, his face rather discoloured. The clothes were tossed about, there was no fire in the room, a glass of milk stood on the stand at his bedside. No one had been with him. "Why, my son!" said the mother bravely. He did not answer. He looked at her, but did not see her. Then he began to say, in a dull voice, as if repeating a letter from dictation: "Owing to a leakage in the hold of this vessel, the sugar had set, and become converted into rock. It needed hacking—" He was quite unconscious. It had been his business to examine some such cargo of sugar in the Port of London. "How long has he been like this?" the mother asked the landlady. "He got home at six o'clock on Monday morning, and he seemed to sleep all day; then in the night we heard him talking, and this morning he asked for you. So I wired, and we fetched the doctor." "Will you have a fire made?" Mrs. Morel tried to soothe her son, to keep him still. The doctor came. It was pneumonia, and, he said, a peculiar erysipelas, which had started under the chin where the collar chafed, and was spreading over the face. He hoped it would not get to the brain. Mrs. Morel settled down to nurse. She prayed for William, prayed that he would recognise her. But the young man's face grew more discoloured. In the night she struggled with him. He raved, and raved, and would not come to consciousness. At two o'clock, in a dreadful paroxysm, he died. Mrs. Morel sat perfectly still for an hour in the lodging bedroom; then she roused the household. At six o'clock, with the aid of the charwoman, she laid him out; then she went round the dreary London village to the registrar and the doctor. At nine o'clock to the cottage on Scargill Street came another wire: "William died last night. Let father come, bring money." Annie, Paul, and Arthur were at home; Mr. Morel was gone to work. The three children said not a word. Annie began to whimper with fear; Paul set off for his father. It was a beautiful day. At Brinsley pit the white steam melted slowly in the sunshine of a soft blue sky; the wheels of the headstocks twinkled high up; the screen, shuffling its coal into the trucks, made a busy noise. "I want my father; he's got to go to London," said the boy to the first man he met on the bank. "Tha wants Walter Morel? Go in theer an' tell Joe Ward." Paul went into the little top office. "I want my father; he's got to go to London." "Thy feyther? Is he down? What's his name?" "Mr. Morel." "What, Walter? Is owt amiss?" "He's got to go to London." The man went to the telephone and rang up the bottom office. "Walter Morel's wanted, number 42, Hard. Summat's amiss; there's his lad here." Then he turned round to Paul. "He'll be up in a few minutes," he said. Paul wandered out to the pit-top. He watched the chair come up, with its wagon of coal. The great iron cage sank back on its rest, a full carfle was hauled off, an empty tram run on to the chair, a bell ting'ed somewhere, the chair heaved, then dropped like a stone. Paul did not realise William was dead; it was impossible, with such a bustle going on. The puller-off swung the small truck on to the turn-table, another man ran with it along the bank down the curving lines. "And William is dead, and my mother's in London, and what will she be doing?" the boy asked himself, as if it were a conundrum. He watched chair after chair come up, and still no father. At last, standing beside a wagon, a man's form! the chair sank on its rests, Morel stepped off. He was slightly lame from an accident. "Is it thee, Paul? Is 'e worse?" "You've got to go to London." The two walked off the pit-bank, where men were watching curiously. As they came out and went along the railway, with the sunny autumn field on one side and a wall of trucks on the other, Morel said in a frightened voice: "'E's niver gone, child?" "Yes." "When wor't?" "Last night. We had a telegram from my mother." Morel walked on a few strides, then leaned up against a truck-side, his hand over his eyes. He was not crying. Paul stood looking round, waiting. On the weighing machine a truck trundled slowly. Paul saw everything, except his father leaning against the truck as if he were tired. Morel had only once before been to London. He set off, scared and peaked, to help his wife. That was on Tuesday. The children were left alone in the house. Paul went to work, Arthur went to school, and Annie had in a friend to be with her. On Saturday night, as Paul was turning the corner, coming home from Keston, he saw his mother and father, who had come to Sethley Bridge Station. They were walking in silence in the dark, tired, straggling apart. The boy waited. "Mother!" he said, in the darkness. Mrs. Morel's small figure seemed not to observe. He spoke again. "Paul!" she said, uninterestedly. She let him kiss her, but she seemed unaware of him. In the house she was the same—small, white, and mute. She noticed nothing, she said nothing, only: "The coffin will be here to-night, Walter. You'd better see about some help." Then, turning to the children: "We're bringing him home." Then she relapsed into the same mute looking into space, her hands folded on her lap. Paul, looking at her, felt he could not breathe. The house was dead silent. "I went to work, mother," he said plaintively. "Did you?" she answered, dully. After half an hour Morel, troubled and bewildered, came in again. "Wheer s'll we ha'e him when he DOES come?" he asked his wife. "In the front-room." "Then I'd better shift th' table?" "Yes." "An' ha'e him across th' chairs?" "You know there—Yes, I suppose so." Morel and Paul went, with a candle, into the parlour. There was no gas there. The father unscrewed the top of the big mahogany oval table, and cleared the middle of the room; then he arranged six chairs opposite each other, so that the coffin could stand on their beds. "You niver seed such a length as he is!" said the miner, and watching anxiously as he worked. Paul went to the bay window and looked out. The ash-tree stood monstrous and black in front of the wide darkness. It was a faintly luminous night. Paul went back to his mother. At ten o'clock Morel called: "He's here!" Everyone started. There was a noise of unbarring and unlocking the front door, which opened straight from the night into the room. "Bring another candle," called Morel. Annie and Arthur went. Paul followed with his mother. He stood with his arm round her waist in the inner doorway. Down the middle of the cleared room waited six chairs, face to face. In the window, against the lace curtains, Arthur held up one candle, and by the open door, against the night, Annie stood leaning forward, her brass candlestick glittering. There was the noise of wheels. Outside in the darkness of the street below Paul could see horses and a black vehicle, one lamp, and a few pale faces; then some men, miners, all in their shirt-sleeves, seemed to struggle in the obscurity. Presently two men appeared, bowed beneath a great weight. It was Morel and his neighbour. "Steady!" called Morel, out of breath. He and his fellow mounted the steep garden step, heaved into the candlelight with their gleaming coffin-end. Limbs of other men were seen struggling behind. Morel and Burns, in front, staggered; the great dark weight swayed. "Steady, steady!" cried Morel, as if in pain. All the six bearers were up in the small garden, holding the great coffin aloft. There were three more steps to the door. The yellow lamp of the carriage shone alone down the black road. "Now then!" said Morel. The coffin swayed, the men began to mount the three steps with their load. Annie's candle flickered, and she whimpered as the first men appeared, and the limbs and bowed heads of six men struggled to climb into the room, bearing the coffin that rode like sorrow on their living flesh. "Oh, my son—my son!" Mrs. Morel sang softly, and each time the coffin swung to the unequal climbing of the men: "Oh, my son—my son—my son!" "Mother!" Paul whimpered, his hand round her waist. She did not hear. "Oh, my son—my son!" she repeated. Paul saw drops of sweat fall from his father's brow. Six men were in the room—six coatless men, with yielding, struggling limbs, filling the room and knocking against the furniture. The coffin veered, and was gently lowered on to the chairs. The sweat fell from Morel's face on its boards. "My word, he's a weight!" said a man, and the five miners sighed, bowed, and, trembling with the struggle, descended the steps again, closing the door behind them. The family was alone in the parlour with the great polished box. William, when laid out, was six feet four inches long. Like a monument lay the bright brown, ponderous coffin. Paul thought it would never be got out of the room again. His mother was stroking the polished wood. They buried him on the Monday in the little cemetery on the hillside that looks over the fields at the big church and the houses. It was sunny, and the white chrysanthemums frilled themselves in the warmth. Mrs. Morel could not be persuaded, after this, to talk and take her old bright interest in life. She remained shut off. All the way home in the train she had said to herself: "If only it could have been me!" When Paul came home at night he found his mother sitting, her day's work done, with hands folded in her lap upon her coarse apron. She always used to have changed her dress and put on a black apron, before. Now Annie set his supper, and his mother sat looking blankly in front of her, her mouth shut tight. Then he beat his brains for news to tell her. "Mother, Miss Jordan was down to-day, and she said my sketch of a colliery at work was beautiful." But Mrs. Morel took no notice. Night after night he forced himself to tell her things, although she did not listen. It drove him almost insane to have her thus. At last: "What's a-matter, mother?" he asked. She did not hear. "What's a-matter?" he persisted. "Mother, what's a-matter?" "You know what's the matter," she said irritably, turning away. The lad—he was sixteen years old—went to bed drearily. He was cut off and wretched through October, November and December. His mother tried, but she could not rouse herself. She could only brood on her dead son; he had been let to die so cruelly. At last, on December 23, with his five shillings Christmas-box in his pocket, Paul wandered blindly home. His mother looked at him, and her heart stood still. "What's the matter?" she asked. "I'm badly, mother!" he replied. "Mr. Jordan gave me five shillings for a Christmas-box!" He handed it to her with trembling hands. She put it on the table. "You aren't glad!" he reproached her; but he trembled violently. "Where hurts you?" she said, unbuttoning his overcoat. It was the old question. "I feel badly, mother." She undressed him and put him to bed. He had pneumonia dangerously, the doctor said. "Might he never have had it if I'd kept him at home, not let him go to Nottingham?" was one of the first things she asked. "He might not have been so bad," said the doctor. Mrs. Morel stood condemned on her own ground. "I should have watched the living, not the dead," she told herself. Paul was very ill. His mother lay in bed at nights with him; they could not afford a nurse. He grew worse, and the crisis approached. One night he tossed into consciousness in the ghastly, sickly feeling of dissolution, when all the cells in the body seem in intense irritability to be breaking down, and consciousness makes a last flare of struggle, like madness. "I s'll die, mother!" he cried, heaving for breath on the pillow. She lifted him up, crying in a small voice: "Oh, my son—my son!" That brought him to. He realised her. His whole will rose up and arrested him. He put his head on her breast, and took ease of her for love. "For some things," said his aunt, "it was a good thing Paul was ill that Christmas. I believe it saved his mother." Paul was in bed for seven weeks. He got up white and fragile. His father had bought him a pot of scarlet and gold tulips. They used to flame in the window in the March sunshine as he sat on the sofa chattering to his mother. The two knitted together in perfect intimacy. Mrs. Morel's life now rooted itself in Paul. William had been a prophet. Mrs. Morel had a little present and a letter from Lily at Christmas. Mrs. Morel's sister had a letter at the New Year. "I was at a ball last night. Some delightful people were there, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly," said the letter. "I had every dance—did not sit out one." Mrs. Morel never heard any more of her. Morel and his wife were gentle with each other for some time after the death of their son. He would go into a kind of daze, staring wide-eyed and blank across the room. Then he got up suddenly and hurried out to the Three Spots, returning in his normal state. But never in his life would he go for a walk up Shepstone, past the office where his son had worked, and he always avoided the cemetery. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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