BEATRICE: Oh! it sounds better.
MOTHER (seating herself): It does. (She looks down at the bread.)
BEATRICE puts up her shoulders in suspense.
I think you let this one dry up.
NELLIE: No, I didn’t. It was our Ernest who let it burn.
MOTHER: Trust him! And what’s he done? (She begins to look round.)
BEATRICE pulls a very wry face, straightens it quickly and says calmly:
BEATRICE: Is your clock right, Mrs Lambert?
MOTHER (looking round at the clock): Ten minutes — ten minutes fast. Why, what time is it?
BEATRICE: Good lack! (Rising suddenly.) It’s half-past ten! Won’t our Pa rave! “Yes, my gel — it’s turning-out time again. We’re going to have a stop put to it.” And our mother will recite! Oh, the recitations! — there’s no shutting her up when she begins. But at any rate, she shuts our Pa up, and he’s a nuisance when he thinks he’s got just cause to be wrath. — Where did I put my things?
MOTHER: I should think that Nellie’s put hers on top. (She looks at NELLIE.) Don’t sit there eating every one of those grapes. You know our Ernest likes them.
NELLIE (suddenly incensed): Good gracious! I don’t believe I’ve had more than half a dozen of the things!
MOTHER (laughing and scornful): Half a dozen!
NELLIE: Yes, half a dozen. — Beatrice, we can’t have a thing in this house — everything’s for our Ernest.
MOTHER: What a story! What a story! But he does like those little grapes.
NELLIE: And everything else.
MOTHER (quietly, with emphasis): He gets a good deal less than you.
NELLIE (withdrawing from dangerous ground): I’ll bet.
GERTIE COOMBER runs in.
BEATRICE: Hello, Gert, haven’t you seen John?
GERTIE (putting up her chin): No.
BEATRICE: A little nuisance! — fancy!
GERTIE: Eh, I don’t care — not me.
NELLIE: No, it’s her fault. She never does want to see him. I wonder any fellow comes to her.
GERTIE (nonchalantly): Um — so do I.
BEATRICE: Get out, Gert; you know you’re fretting your heart out ‘cause he’s not come.
GERTIE (with great scorn): Am I? Oh, am I? Not me! If I heard him whistling this moment, I wouldn’t go out to him.
NELLIE: Wouldn’t you! I’d shove you out, you little cat!
GERTIE (with great assumption of amusing dignity): Oh, would you, indeed!
They all laugh.
BEATRICE pins on her hat before the mirror.
You haven’t got Ernest to take you home to-night, Beat. Where is he? With Maggie Pearson? Hasn’t he come back yet?
MOTHER (with some bitterness): He hasn’t. An’ he’s got to go to college to-morrow. Then he reckons he can get no work done.
GERTIE: Ha! — they’re all alike when it suits them.
MOTHER: I should thank her not to come down here messing every Friday and Sunday.
NELLIE: Ah, she’s always here. I should be ashamed of myself.
BEATRICE: Well — our Pa! I must get off. Good night, everybody. See you to-morrow, Nell.
NELLIE: I’ll just come with you across the field.
She fetches a large white cashmere shawl and puts it over her head. She disposes it round her face at the mirror.
BEATRICE winks at the MOTHER.
GERTIE: She’s going to look for Eddie.
NELLIE (blushing): Well, what if I am? Shan’t be many minutes, Ma.
MOTHER (rather coldly): I should think not! I don’t know what you want at all going out at this time o’ night.
NELLIE shrugs her shoulders, and goes out with BEATRICE WYLD, who laughs and bids another good night.
MOTHER (when they have gone): A silly young hussy, gadding to look for him. As if she couldn’t sleep without seeing him.
GERTIE: Oh, he always says, “Come and look for me about eleven.” I bet he’s longing to shut that shop up.
MOTHER (shortly): Ha! he’s softer than she is, and I’m sure that’s not necessary. I can’t understand myself how folks can be such looneys. I’m sure I was never like it.
GERTIE: And I’m sure I never should be. I often think, when John’s coming, “Oh, hang it, I wish he’d stay away!”
MOTHER: Ah, but that’s too bad, Gertie. If you feel like that you’d better not keep it on any longer. — Yet I used to be about the same myself. I was born with too much sense for that sort of slobber.
GERTIE: Yes, isn’t it hateful? I often think, “Oh, get off with you!” I’m sure I should never be like Nellie. — Isn’t Ernest late? You’ll have Mr Lambert in first.
MOTHER (bitterly): He is late. He must have gone every bit of the way.
GERTIE: Nay, I bet he’s not — that.
There is silence a moment.
The MOTHER remembers the bread.
MOTHER (turning round and looking in the panchion): Well, there ought to be two more brown loaves. What have they done with them, now? (Turns over the loaves, and looks about.)
GERTIE (laughing): I should think they’ve gone and eaten them, between them.
MOTHER: That’s very funny. (She rises, and is going to look round the room.)
There is a whistle outside.
GERTIE (turning her head sharply aside): Oh, hang it! I’m not going — I’m not!
MOTHER: Who is it? John?
GERTIE: It is, and I’m not going.
The whistle is heard again.
He can shut up, ‘cause I’m not going!
MOTHER (smiling): You’ll have to just go and speak to him, if he’s waiting for you.
The whistle is heard louder.
GERTIE: Isn’t it hateful! I don’t care. I’ll tell him I was in bed. I should be if my father wasn’t at the “Ram”.
MOTHER (sighing): Ay! But you may guess he’s seen Nellie, and she’s been saying something to him.
GERTIE: Well, she needn’t, then!
The whistle goes again.
GERTIE cannot resist the will of the other, especially as the MOTHER bids her go. She flings her hand, and turns with great impatience.
He can shut up! What’s he want to come at this time for? Oh, hang him!
She goes out slowly and unwillingly, her lips closed angrily. The MOTHER smiles, sighs, and looks sad and tired again.
MOTHER (to herself): It’s a very funny thing!
She wanders round the room, looking for the bread. She lights a taper and goes into the scullery.
(re-passing, she repeats): A very remarkable thing!
She goes into the pantry on right, and after a moment returns with the loaf in the damp cloth, which she has unfolded. She stands looking at the loaf, repeating a sharp little sound against her palate with her tongue, quickly vibrating her head up and down.
(to herself): So this is it, is it? It’s a nice thing! — And they put it down there, thinking I shouldn’t see it. It’s a nice thing! (Goes and looks in the oven, then says bitterly): I always said she was a deep one. And he thinks he’ll stop out till his father comes! — And what have they done with the other? — Burnt it, I should think. That’s what they’ve done. It’s a nice thing — a nice thing! (She sits down in the rocking-chair, perfectly rigid, still overdone with weariness and anger and pain.)
After a moment, the garden gate is heard to bang back, and a heavy step comes up the path, halting, punctuated with the scratch and thrust of a walking-stick, rather jarring on the bricked yard.
The FATHER enters. He also bends his head a little from the light, peering under his hat-brim.
The MOTHER has quickly taken the withered loaf and dropped it in among the others in the panchion.
The FATHER does not speak, but goes straight to the passage, and hangs up his hat, overcoat, and jacket, then returns and stands very near the fire, holding his hands close down to the open ruddy grate. He sways slightly when he turns, after a moment or two, and stands with his hands spread behind his back,
very near the fire.
The MOTHER turns away her head from him.
He remains thus for a minute or so, then he takes a step forward, and, leaning heavily on the table, begins to pick the grapes from the plate, spitting out the skins into his right hand and flinging them at random towards the fire behind his back, leaning all the time heavily with the left hand on the table.
After a while this irritates the MOTHER exceedingly.
MOTHER: You needn’t eat all those grapes. There’s somebody else!
FATHER (speaking with an exaggerated imitation of his son’s English): “Somebody else!” Yes, there is “somebody else”! (He pushes the plate away and the grapes roll on the table.) I know they was not bought for me! I know it! I know it! (His voice is rising.) Somebody else! Yes, there is somebody else! I’m not daft! I’m not a fool. Nothing’s got for me. No-o. You can get things for them, you can.
The MOTHER turns away her head, with a gesture of contempt.
(Continues with maddening tipsy, ironic snarl): I’m not a fool! I can see it! I can see it! I’m not daft! There’s nothing for me, but you begrudge me every bit I put in my mouth.
MOTHER (with cold contempt): You put enough down your own throat. There’s no need for anybody else. You take good care you have your share.
FATHER: I have my share. Yes, I do, I do!
MOTHER (contemptuously): Yes, you do.
FATHER: Yes, I do. But I shouldn’t if you could help it, you begrudging bitch. What did you put away when I came in, so that I shouldn’t see it? Something! Yes! Something you’d got for them! Nobody else. Yes! I know you’d got it for somebody else!
MOTHER (quietly, with bitter scorn): As it happens, it was nothing.
FATHER (his accent is becoming still more urban. His O’s are A’s, so that “nothing” is “nathing”): Nathing! Nathing! You’re a liar, you’re a liar. I heard the scuffle. You don’t think I’m a fool, do you, woman?
She curls her lips in a deadly smile.
FATHER: I know, I know! Do you have what you give me for dinner? No, you don’t. You take good care of it!
MOTHER: Look here, you get your good share. Don’t think you keep the house. Do you think I manage on the few lousy shillings you give me? No, you get as much as you deserve, if any man did. And if you had a rice pudding, it was because we had none. Don’t come here talking. You look after yourself, there’s no mistake.
FATHER: An’ I mean to, an’ I mean to!
MOTHER: Very well, then!
FATHER (suddenly flaring): But I’m not going to be treated like a dog in my own house! I’m not, so don’t think it! I’m master in this house, an’ I’m going to be. I tell you, I’m master of this house.
MOTHER: You’re the only one who thinks so.
FATHER: I’ll stop it! I’ll put a stop to it. They can go — they can go!
MOTHER: You’d be on short commons if they did.
FATHER: What? What? Me! You saucy bitch, I can keep myself, an’ you as well, an’ him an’ all as holds his head above me — am doing — an’ I’ll stop it, I’ll stop it — or they can go.
MOTHER: Don’t make any mistake — you don’t keep us. You hardly keep yourself.
FATHER: Do I? — do I? And who does keep ‘em, then?
MOTHER: I do — and the girl.
FATHER: You do, do you, you snappy little bitch! You do, do you? Well, keep ‘em yourself, then. Keep that lad in his idleness yourself, then.
MOTHER: Very willingly, very willingly. And that lad works ten times as hard as you do.
FATHER: Does he? I should like to see him go down th’ pit every day! I should like to see him working every day in th’ hole. No, he won’t dirty his fingers.
MOTHER: Yes, you wanted to drag all the lads into the pit, and you only begrudge them because I wouldn’t let them.
FATHER (shouting): You’re a liar — you’re a liar! I never wanted ‘em in th’ pit.
MOTHER (interrupting): You did your best to get the other two there, anyway.
FATHER (still shouting): You’re a liar — I never did anything of the sort. What other man would keep his sons doing nothing till they’re twenty-two? Where would you find another? Not that I begrudge it him — I don’t, bless him. . . .
MOTHER: Sounds like it.
FATHER: I don’t. I begrudge ‘em nothing. I’m willing to do everything I can for ‘em, and ‘ow do they treat me? Like a dog, I say, like a dog!
MOTHER: And whose fault is it?
FATHER: Yours, you stinking hussy! It’s you as makes ‘em like it. They’re like you. You teach ‘em to hate me. You make me like dirt for ‘em: you set ‘em against me . . .
MOTHER: You set them yourself.
FATHER (shouting): You’re a liar! (He jumps from his chair and stands bending towards her, his fist clenched and ready and threatening.) It’s you. It always ‘as been you. You’ve done it —
Enter ERNEST LAMBERT.
ERNEST (pulling off his cap and flashing with anger): It’s a fine row you’re kicking up. I should bring the neighbours in!
FATHER: I don’t care a damn what I do, you sneering devil, you! (He turns to his son, but remains in the same crouching, threatening attitude.)
ERNEST (flaring): You needn’t swear at me, either.
FATHER: I shall swear at who the devil I like. Who are you, you young hound — who are you, you measley little —
ERNEST: At any rate, I’m not a foul-mouthed drunken fool.
FATHER (springing towards him): What! I’ll smite you to the ground if you say it again, I will, I will!
ERNEST: Pah!
He turns his face aside in contempt from the fist brandished near his mouth.
FATHER (shouting): What! Say it! I’ll drive my fist through you!
ERNEST (suddenly tightening with rage as the fist is pushed near his face): Get away, you spitting old fool!
The FATHER jerks nearer and trembles his fist so near the other’s nose that he draws his head back, quivering with intense passion and loathing, and lifts his hands.
MOTHER: Ernest, Ernest, don’t!
There is a slight relaxation.
(Lamentable, pleading): Don’t say any more, Ernest! Let him say what he likes. What should I do if . . .
There is a pause.
ERNEST continues rigidly to glare into space beyond his father.
The FATHER turns to the MOTHER with a snarling movement, which is nevertheless a movement of defeat. He withdraws, sits down in the arm-chair, and begins, fumbling, to get off his collar and tie, and afterwards his boots.
ERNEST has taken a book, and stands quite motionless, looking at it. There is heard only the slash of the FATHER’S bootlaces. Then he drags off the boot, and it falls with a loud noise.
ERNEST, very tense, puts down the book, takes off his overcoat, hangs it up, and returns to the side of the sofa nearest the door, where he sits, pretending to read.
There is silence for some moments, and again the whip of boot-laces. Suddenly a snarl breaks the silence.
FATHER: But don’t think I’m going to be put down in my own house! It would take a better man than you, you white-faced jockey — or your mother either — or all the lot of you put together! (He waits awhile.) I’m not daft — I can see what she’s driving at. (Silence.) I’m not a fool, if you think so. I can pay you yet, you sliving bitch! (He sticks out his chin at his wife.)
ERNEST lifts his head and looks at him.
(Turns with renewing ferocity on his son): Yes, and you either. I’ll stand no more of your chelp. I’ll stand no more! Do you hear me?
MOTHER: Ernest!
ERNEST looks down at his book.
The FATHER turns to the MOTHER.
FATHER: Ernest! Ay, prompt him! Set him on — you know how to do it — you know how to do it!
There is a persistent silence.
I know it! I know it! I’m not daft, I’m not a fool! (The other boot falls to the floor.)
He rises, pulling himself up with the
arms of the chair, and, turning round, takes a Waterbury watch with a brass chain from the wall beside the bookcase: his pit watch that the MOTHER hung there when she put his pit-trousers in the cupboard — and winds it up, swaying on his feet as he does so. Then he puts it back on the nail, and a key swings at the end of the chain. Then he takes a silver watch from his pocket, and, fumbling, missing the keyhole, winds that up also with a key, and, swaying forward, hangs it up over the cupboard. Then he lurches round, and, limping pitiably, goes off upstairs. There is a heavy silence. The Waterbury watch can be heard ticking.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated) Page 737