“What of this child?” was all his wife said to him. But her low, intense tones brought his head lower. She softened: “Get me some wadding out of the middle drawer,” she said.
He stumbled away very obediently, presently returning with a pad, which she singed before the fire, then put on her forehead, as she sat with the baby on her lap.
“Now that clean pit-scarf.”
Again he rummaged and fumbled in the drawer, returning presently with a red, narrow scarf. She took it, and with trembling fingers proceeded to bind it round her head.
“Let me tie it for thee,” he said humbly.
“I can do it myself,” she replied. When it was done she went upstairs, telling him to rake the fire and lock the door.
In the morning Mrs. Morel said:
“I knocked against the latch of the coal-place, when I was getting a raker in the dark, because the candle blew out.” Her two small children looked up at her with wide, dismayed eyes. They said nothing, but their parted lips seemed to express the unconscious tragedy they felt.
Walter Morel lay in bed next day until nearly dinner-time. He did not think of the previous evening’s work. He scarcely thought of anything, but he would not think of that. He lay and suffered like a sulking dog. He had hurt himself most; and he was the more damaged because he would never say a word to her, or express his sorrow. He tried to wriggle out of it. “It was her own fault,” he said to himself. Nothing, however, could prevent his inner consciousness inflicting on him the punishment which ate into his spirit like rust, and which he could only alleviate by drinking.
He felt as if he had not the initiative to get up, or to say a word, or to move, but could only lie like a log. Moreover, he had himself violent pains in the head. It was Saturday. Towards noon he rose, cut himself food in the pantry, ate it with his head dropped, then pulled on his boots, and went out, to return at three o’clock slightly tipsy and relieved; then once more straight to bed. He rose again at six in the evening, had tea and went straight out.
Sunday was the same: bed till noon, the Palmerston Arms till 2.30, dinner, and bed; scarcely a word spoken. When Mrs. Morel went upstairs, towards four o’clock, to put on her Sunday dress, he was fast asleep. She would have felt sorry for him, if he had once said, “Wife, I’m sorry.” But no; he insisted to himself it was her fault. And so he broke himself. So she merely left him alone. There was this deadlock of passion between them, and she was stronger.
The family began tea. Sunday was the only day when all sat down to meals together.
“Isn’t my father going to get up?” asked William.
“Let him lie,” the mother replied.
There was a feeling of misery over all the house. The children breathed the air that was poisoned, and they felt dreary. They were rather disconsolate, did not know what to do, what to play at.
Immediately Morel woke he got straight out of bed. That was characteristic of him all his life. He was all for activity. The prostrated inactivity of two mornings was stifling him.
It was near six o’clock when he got down. This time he entered without hesitation, his wincing sensitiveness having hardened again. He did not care any longer what the family thought or felt.
The tea-things were on the table. William was reading aloud from “The Child’s Own”, Annie listening and asking eternally “why?” Both children hushed into silence as they heard the approaching thud of their father’s stockinged feet, and shrank as he entered. Yet he was usually indulgent to them.
Morel made the meal alone, brutally. He ate and drank more noisily than he had need. No one spoke to him. The family life withdrew, shrank away, and became hushed as he entered. But he cared no longer about his alienation.
Immediately he had finished tea he rose with alacrity to go out. It was this alacrity, this haste to be gone, which so sickened Mrs. Morel. As she heard him sousing heartily in cold water, heard the eager scratch of the steel comb on the side of the bowl, as he wetted his hair, she closed her eyes in disgust. As he bent over, lacing his boots, there was a certain vulgar gusto in his movement that divided him from the reserved, watchful rest of the family. He always ran away from the battle with himself. Even in his own heart’s privacy, he excused himself, saying, “If she hadn’t said so-and-so, it would never have happened. She asked for what she’s got.” The children waited in restraint during his preparations. When he had gone, they sighed with relief.
He closed the door behind him, and was glad. It was a rainy evening. The Palmerston would be the cosier. He hastened forward in anticipation. All the slate roofs of the Bottoms shone black with wet. The roads, always dark with coal-dust, were full of blackish mud. He hastened along. The Palmerston windows were steamed over. The passage was paddled with wet feet. But the air was warm, if foul, and full of the sound of voices and the smell of beer and smoke.
“What shollt ha’e, Walter?” cried a voice, as soon as Morel appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, Jim, my lad, wheriver has thee sprung frae?”
The men made a seat for him, and took him in warmly. He was glad. In a minute or two they had thawed all responsibility out of him, all shame, all trouble, and he was clear as a bell for a jolly night.
On the Wednesday following, Morel was penniless. He dreaded his wife. Having hurt her, he hated her. He did not know what to do with himself that evening, having not even twopence with which to go to the Palmerston, and being already rather deeply in debt. So, while his wife was down the garden with the child, he hunted in the top drawer of the dresser where she kept her purse, found it, and looked inside. It contained a half-crown, two halfpennies, and a sixpence. So he took the sixpence, put the purse carefully back, and went out.
The next day, when she wanted to pay the greengrocer, she looked in the purse for her sixpence, and her heart sank to her shoes. Then she sat down and thought: “WAS there a sixpence? I hadn’t spent it, had I? And I hadn’t left it anywhere else?”
She was much put about. She hunted round everywhere for it. And, as she sought, the conviction came into her heart that her husband had taken it. What she had in her purse was all the money she possessed. But that he should sneak it from her thus was unbearable. He had done so twice before. The first time she had not accused him, and at the week-end he had put the shilling again into her purse. So that was how she had known he had taken it. The second time he had not paid back.
This time she felt it was too much. When he had had his dinner — he came home early that day — she said to him coldly:
“Did you take sixpence out of my purse last night?”
“Me!” he said, looking up in an offended way. “No, I didna! I niver clapped eyes on your purse.”
But she could detect the lie.
“Why, you know you did,” she said quietly.
“I tell you I didna,” he shouted. “Yer at me again, are yer? I’ve had about enough on’t.”
“So you filch sixpence out of my purse while I’m taking the clothes in.”
“I’ll may yer pay for this,” he said, pushing back his chair in desperation. He bustled and got washed, then went determinedly upstairs. Presently he came down dressed, and with a big bundle in a blue-checked, enormous handkerchief.
“And now,” he said, “you’ll see me again when you do.”
“It’ll be before I want to,” she replied; and at that he marched out of the house with his bundle. She sat trembling slightly, but her heart brimming with contempt. What would she do if he went to some other pit, obtained work, and got in with another woman? But she knew him too well — he couldn’t. She was dead sure of him. Nevertheless her heart was gnawed inside her.
“Where’s my dad?” said William, coming in from school.
“He says he’s run away,” replied the mother.
“Where to?”
“Eh, I don’t know. He’s taken a bundle in the blue handkerchief, and says he’s not coming back.”
“What shall we do?” cried the boy.
“Eh, never trouble, he won’t go far.”
“But if he doesn’t come back,” wailed Annie.
And she and William retired to the sofa and wept. Mrs. Morel sat and laughed.
“You pair of gabeys!” she exclaimed. “You’ll see him before the night’s out.”
But the children were not to be consoled. Twilight came on. Mrs. Morel grew anxious from very weariness. One part of her said it would be a relief to see the last of him; another part fretted because of keeping the children; and inside her, as yet, she could not quite let him go. At the bottom, she knew very well he could NOT go.
When she went down to the coal-place at the end of the garden, however, she felt something behind the door. So she looked. And there in the dark lay the big blue bundle. She sat on a piece of coal and laughed. Every time she saw it, so fat and yet so ignominious, slunk into its corner in the dark, with its ends flopping like dejected ears from the knots, she laughed again. She was relieved.
Mrs. Morel sat waiting. He had not any money, she knew, so if he stopped he was running up a bill. She was very tired of him — tired to death. He had not even the courage to carry his bundle beyond the yard-end.
As she meditated, at about nine o’clock, he opened the door and came in, slinking, and yet sulky. She said not a word. He took off his coat, and slunk to his armchair, where he began to take off his boots.
“You’d better fetch your bundle before you take your boots off,” she said quietly.
“You may thank your stars I’ve come back to-night,” he said, looking up from under his dropped head, sulkily, trying to be impressive.
“Why, where should you have gone? You daren’t even get your parcel through the yard-end,” she said.
He looked such a fool she was not even angry with him. He continued to take his boots off and prepare for bed.
“I don’t know what’s in your blue handkerchief,” she said. “But if you leave it the children shall fetch it in the morning.”
Whereupon he got up and went out of the house, returning presently and crossing the kitchen with averted face, hurrying upstairs. As Mrs. Morel saw him slink quickly through the inner doorway, holding his bundle, she laughed to herself: but her heart was bitter, because she had loved him.
CHAPTER III
THE CASTING OFF OF MOREL — THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM
DURING the next week Morel’s temper was almost unbearable. Like all miners, he was a great lover of medicines, which, strangely enough, he would often pay for himself.
“You mun get me a drop o’ laxy vitral,” he said. “It’s a winder as we canna ha’e a sup i’ th’ ‘ouse.”
So Mrs. Morel bought him elixir of vitriol, his favourite first medicine. And he made himself a jug of wormwood tea. He had hanging in the attic great bunches of dried herbs: wormwood, rue, horehound, elder flowers, parsley-purt, marshmallow, hyssop, dandelion, and centaury. Usually there was a jug of one or other decoction standing on the hob, from which he drank largely.
“Grand!” he said, smacking his lips after wormwood. “Grand!” And he exhorted the children to try.
“It’s better than any of your tea or your cocoa stews,” he vowed. But they were not to be tempted.
This time, however, neither pills nor vitriol nor all his herbs would shift the “nasty peens in his head”. He was sickening for an attack of an inflammation of the brain. He had never been well since his sleeping on the ground when he went with Jerry to Nottingham. Since then he had drunk and stormed. Now he fell seriously ill, and Mrs. Morel had him to nurse. He was one of the worst patients imaginable. But, in spite of all, and putting aside the fact that he was breadwinner, she never quite wanted him to die. Still there was one part of her wanted him for herself.
The neighbours were very good to her: occasionally some had the children in to meals, occasionally some would do the downstairs work for her, one would mind the baby for a day. But it was a great drag, nevertheless. It was not every day the neighbours helped. Then she had nursing of baby and husband, cleaning and cooking, everything to do. She was quite worn out, but she did what was wanted of her.
And the money was just sufficient. She had seventeen shillings a week from clubs, and every Friday Barker and the other butty put by a portion of the stall’s profits for Morel’s wife. And the neighbours made broths, and gave eggs, and such invalids’ trifles. If they had not helped her so generously in those times, Mrs. Morel would never have pulled through, without incurring debts that would have dragged her down.
The weeks passed. Morel, almost against hope, grew better. He had a fine constitution, so that, once on the mend, he went straight forward to recovery. Soon he was pottering about downstairs. During his illness his wife had spoilt him a little. Now he wanted her to continue. He often put his band to his head, pulled down the comers of his mouth, and shammed pains he did not feel. But there was no deceiving her. At first she merely smiled to herself. Then she scolded him sharply.
“Goodness, man, don’t be so lachrymose.”
That wounded him slightly, but still he continued to feign sickness.
“I wouldn’t be such a mardy baby,” said the wife shortly.
Then he was indignant, and cursed under his breath, like a boy. He was forced to resume a normal tone, and to cease to whine.
Nevertheless, there was a state of peace in the house for some time. Mrs. Morel was more tolerant of him, and he, depending on her almost like a child, was rather happy. Neither knew that she was more tolerant because she loved him less. Up till this time, in spite of all, he had been her husband and her man. She had felt that, more or less, what he did to himself he did to her. Her living depended on him. There were many, many stages in the ebbing of her love for him, but it was always ebbing.
Now, with the birth of this third baby, her self no longer set towards him, helplessly, but was like a tide that scarcely rose, standing off from him. After this she scarcely desired him. And, standing more aloof from him, not feeling him so much part of herself, but merely part of her circumstances, she did not mind so much what he did, could leave him alone.
There was the halt, the wistfulness about the ensuing year, which is like autumn in a man’s life. His wife was casting him off, half regretfully, but relentlessly; casting him off and turning now for love and life to the children. Henceforward he was more or less a husk. And he himself acquiesced, as so many men do, yielding their place to their children.
During his recuperation, when it was really over between them, both made an effort to come back somewhat to the old relationship of the first months of their marriage. He sat at home and, when the children were in bed, and she was sewing — she did all her sewing by hand, made all shirts and children’s clothing — he would read to her from the newspaper, slowly pronouncing and delivering the words like a man pitching quoits. Often she hurried him on, giving him a phrase in anticipation. And then he took her words humbly.
The silences between them were peculiar. There would be the swift, slight “cluck” of her needle, the sharp “pop” of his lips as he let out the smoke, the warmth, the sizzle on the bars as he spat in the fire. Then her thoughts turned to William. Already he was getting a big boy. Already he was top of the class, and the master said he was the smartest lad in the school. She saw him a man, young, full of vigour, making the world glow again for her.
And Morel sitting there, quite alone, and having nothing to think about, would be feeling vaguely uncomfortable. His soul would reach out in its blind way to her and find her gone. He felt a sort of emptiness, almost like a vacuum in his soul. He was unsettled and restless. Soon he could not live in that atmosphere, and he affected his wife. Both felt an oppression on their breathing when they were left together for some time. Then he went to bed and she settled down to enjoy herself alone, working, thinking, living.
Meanwhile another infant was coming, fruit of this little peace and tenderness between the separating parents. Paul was seventeen months old when the new baby was born. He was
then a plump, pale child, quiet, with heavy blue eyes, and still the peculiar slight knitting of the brows. The last child was also a boy, fair and bonny. Mrs. Morel was sorry when she knew she was with child, both for economic reasons and because she did not love her husband; but not for the sake of the infant.
They called the baby Arthur. He was very pretty, with a mop of gold curls, and he loved his father from the first. Mrs. Morel was glad this child loved the father. Hearing the miner’s footsteps, the baby would put up his arms and crow. And if Morel were in a good temper, he called back immediately, in his hearty, mellow voice:
“What then, my beauty? I sh’ll come to thee in a minute.”
And as soon as he had taken off his pit-coat, Mrs. Morel would put an apron round the child, and give him to his father.
“What a sight the lad looks!” she would exclaim sometimes, taking back the baby, that was smutted on the face from his father’s kisses and play. Then Morel laughed joyfully.
“He’s a little collier, bless his bit o’ mutton!” he exclaimed.
And these were the happy moments of her life now, when the children included the father in her heart.
Meanwhile William grew bigger and stronger and more active, while Paul, always rather delicate and quiet, got slimmer, and trotted after his mother like her shadow. He was usually active and interested, but sometimes he would have fits of depression. Then the mother would find the boy of three or four crying on the sofa.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, and got no answer.
“What’s the matter?” she insisted, getting cross.
“I don’t know,” sobbed the child.
So she tried to reason him out of it, or to amuse him, but without effect. It made her feel beside herself. Then the father, always impatient, would jump from his chair and shout:
“If he doesn’t stop, I’ll smack him till he does.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said the mother coldly. And then she carried the child into the yard, plumped him into his little chair, and said: “Now cry there, Misery!”
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 67