“What was that you asked me, Mr. Radford?”
“What is the difference between a donkey’s tail and a rainbow?” asked Radford, who had a consuming passion for conundrums.
“All the difference in the world,” replied the landlady.
“Yes, but what special difference?”
“I s’ll have to give it up again. You’ll think me a donkey’s head, I’m afraid.”
“Not likely. But just you consider now, wheer . . .”
The conundrum was still under weigh, when a girl entered. She was swarthy, a fine animal. After she had gone out:
“Do you know who that is?” asked the landlady.
“I can’t say as I do,” replied Radford.
“She’s Frederick Pinnock’s daughter, from Stony Ford. She’s courting our Willy.”
“And a fine lass, too.”
“Yes, fine enough, as far as that goes. What sort of a wife’ll she make him, think you?”
“You just let me consider a bit,” said the man. He took out a pocket-book and a pencil. The landlady continued to talk to the other guests.
Radford was a big fellow, black-haired, with a brown moustache, and darkish blue eyes. His voice, naturally deep, was pitched in his throat, and had a peculiar, tenor quality, rather husky, and disturbing. He modulated it a good deal as he spoke, as men do who talk much with women. Always, there was a certain indolence in his carriage.
“Our mester’s lazy,” his wife said. “There’s many a bit of a jab wants doin’, but get him to do it if you can.”
But she knew he was merely indifferent to the little jobs, and not lazy.
He sat writing for about ten minutes, at the end of which time, he read:
“I see a fine girl full of life.
I see her just ready for wedlock,
But there’s jealousy between her eyebrows
And jealousy on her mouth.
I see trouble ahead.
Willy is delicate.
She would do him no good.
She would never see when he wasn’t well,
She would only see what she wanted — ”
So, in phrases, he got down his thoughts. He had to fumble for expression, and therefore anything serious he wanted to say he wrote in “poetry”, as he called it.
Presently, the landlady rose, saying:
“Well, I s’ll have to be looking after our mester. I s’ll be in again before we close.”
Radford sat quite comfortably on. In a while, he too bade the company good-night.
When he got home, at a quarter-past eleven, his sons were in bed, and his wife sat awaiting him. She was a woman of medium height, fat and sleek, a dumpling. Her black hair was parted smooth, her narrow-opened eyes were sly and satirical, she had a peculiar twang in her rather sleering voice.
“Our missis is a puss-puss,” he said easily, of her. Her extraordinarily smooth, sleek face was remarkable. She was very healthy.
He never came in drunk. Having taken off his coat and his cap, he sat down to supper in his shirt-sleeves. Do as he might, she was fascinated by him. He had a strong neck, with the crisp hair growing low. Let her be angry as she would yet she had a passion for that neck of his, particularly when she saw the great vein rib under the skin.
“I think, missis,” he said, “I’d rather ha’e a smite o’ cheese than this meat.”
“Well, can’t you get it yourself?”
“Yi, surely I can,” he said, and went out to the pantry.
“I think, if yer comin’ in at this time of night, you can wait on yourself,” she justified herself.
She moved uneasily in her chair. There were several jam-tarts alongside the cheese on the dish he brought.
“Yi, Missis, them tan-tafflins’ll go down very nicely,” he said.
“Oh, will they! Then you’d better help to pay for them,” she said, amiably, but determined.
“Now what art after?”
“What am I after? Why, can’t you think?” she said sarcastically.
“I’m not for thinkin’, missis.”
“No, I know you’re not. But wheer’s my money? You’ve been paid the Union to-day. Wheer do I come in?”
“Tha’s got money, an’ tha mun use it.”
“Thank yer. An’ ‘aven’t you none, as well?”
“I hadna, not till we was paid, not a ha’p’ny.”
“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself to say so.”
“‘Appen so.”
“We’ll go shares wi’ th’ Union money,” she said. “That’s nothing but what’s right.”
“We shonna. Tha’s got plenty o’ money as tha can use.”
“Oh, all right,” she said. “I will do.”
She went to bed. It made her feel sharp that she could not get at him.
The next day, she was just as usual. But at eleven o’clock she took her purse and went up town. Trade was very slack. Men stood about in gangs, men were playing marbles everywhere in the streets. It was a sunny morning. Mrs. Radford went into the furnisher-and-upholsterer’s shop.
“There’s a few things,” she said to Mr. Allcock, “as I’m wantin’ for the house, and I might as well get them now, while the men’s at home, and can shift me the furniture.”
She put her fat purse on to the counter with a click. The man should know she was not wanting “strap”. She bought linoleum for the kitchen, a new wringer, a breakfast-service, a spring mattress, and various other things, keeping a mere thirty shillings, which she tied in a corner of her handkerchief. In her purse was some loose silver.
Her husband was gardening in a desultory fashion when she got back home. The daffodils were out. The colts in the field at the end of the garden were tossing their velvety brown necks.
“Sithee here, missis,” called Radford, from the shed which stood halfway down the path. Two doves in a cage were cooing.
“What have you got?” asked the woman, as she approached. He held out to her in his big, earthy hand a tortoise. The reptile was very, very slowly issuing its head again to the warmth.
“He’s wakkened up betimes,” said Radford.
“He’s like th’ men, wakened up for a holiday,” said the wife. Radford scratched the little beast’s scaly head.
“We pleased to see him out,” he said.
They had just finished dinner, when a man knocked at the door.
“From Allcock’s!” he said.
The plump woman took up the clothes-basket containing the crockery she had bought.
“Whativer hast got theer?” asked her husband.
“We’ve been wantin’ some breakfast-cups for ages, so I went up town an’ got ‘em this mornin’,” she replied.
He watched her taking out the crockery.
“Hm!” he said. “Tha’s been on th’ spend, seemly.”
Again there was a thud at the door. The man had put down a roll of linoleum. Mr. Radford went to look at it.
“They come rolling in!” he exclaimed.
“Who’s grumbled more than you about the raggy oilcloth of this kitchen?” said the insidious, cat-like voice of the wife.
“It’s all right, it’s all right,” said Radford.
The carter came up the entry with another roll, which he deposited with a grunt at the door.
“An’ how much do you reckon this lot is?” he asked.
“Oh, they’re all paid for, don’t worry,” replied the wife.
“Shall yer gi’e me a hand, mester?” asked the carter.
Radford followed him down the entry, in his easy, slouching way. His wife went after. His waistcoat was hanging loose over his shirt. She watched his easy movement of well-being as she followed him, and she laughed to herself.
The carter took hold of one end of the wire mattress, dragged it forth.
“Well, this is a corker!” said Radford, as he received the burden.
“Now the mangle!” said the carter.
“What dost reckon tha’s been up to, missis?”
asked the husband.
“I said to myself last wash-day, if I had to turn that mangle again, tha’d ha’e ter wash the clothes thyself.”
Radford followed the carter down the entry again. In the street, women were standing watching, and dozens of men were lounging round the cart. One officiously helped with the wringer.
“Gi’e him thrippence,” said Mrs. Radford.
“Gi’e him thysen,” replied her husband.
“I’ve no change under half a crown.”
Radford tipped the carter, and returned indoors. He surveyed the array of crockery, linoleum, mattress, mangle, and other goods crowding the house and the yard.
“Well, this is a winder!” he repeated.
“We stood in need of ‘em enough,” she replied.
“I hope tha’s got plenty more from wheer they came from,” he replied dangerously.
“That’s just what I haven’t.” She opened her purse. “Two half-crowns, that’s every copper I’ve got i’ th’ world.”
He stood very still as he looked.
“It’s right,” she said.
There was a certain smug sense of satisfaction about her. A wave of anger came over him, blinding him. But he waited and waited. Suddenly his arm leapt up, the fist clenched, and his eyes blazed at her. She shrank away, pale and frightened. But he dropped his fist to his side, turned, and went out, muttering. He went down to the shed that stood in the middle of the garden. There he picked up the tortoise, and stood with bent head, rubbing its horny head.
She stood hesitating, watching him. Her heart was heavy, and yet there was a curious, cat-like look of satisfaction round her eyes. Then she went indoors and gazed at her new cups, admiringly.
The next week he handed her his half-sovereign without a word.
“You’ll want some for yourself,” she said, and she gave him a shilling. He accepted it.
THE MINER AT HOME
LIKE most colliers, Bower had his dinner before he washed himself. It did not surprise his wife that he said little. He seemed quite amiable, but evidently did not feel confidential. Gertie was busy with the three children, the youngest of whom lay kicking on the sofa, preparing to squeal; therefore she did not concern herself overmuch with her husband, once having ascertained by a few shrewd glances at his heavy brows and his blue eyes, which moved conspicuously in his black face, that he was only pondering.
He smoked a solemn pipe until six o’clock. Although he was really a good husband, he did not notice that Gertie was tired. She was irritable at the end of the long day.
‘Don’t you want to wash yourself?’ she asked, grudgingly, at six o’clock. It was sickening to have a man sitting there in his pit-dirt, never saying a word, smoking like a Red Indian.
‘I’m ready, when you are,’ he replied.
She lay the baby on the sofa, barricaded it with pillows, and brought from the scullery a great panchion, a bowl of heavy earthenware like brick, glazed inside to a dark mahogany colour. Tall and thin and very pale, she stood before the fire holding the great bowl, her grey eyes flashing.
‘Get up, our Jack, this minute, or I’ll squash thee under the blessed panchion.’
The fat boy of six, who was rolling on the rug in the firelight, said broadly:
‘Squash me, then.’
‘Get up,’ she cried, giving him a push with her foot.
‘Gi’e ower,’ he said, rolling jollily.
‘I’ll smack you,’ she said grimly, preparing to put down the panchion.
‘Get up, theer,’ shouted the father.
Gertie ladled water from the boiler with a tin ladling can. Drops fell from her ladle hissing into the red fire, splashing on to the white hearth, blazing like drops of flame on the flat-topped fender. The father gazed at it all, unmoved.
‘I’ve told you,’ he said, ‘to put cold water in the panchion first. If one o’ th’ children goes an’ falls in...’
‘You can see as ’e doesn’t then,’ snapped she. She tempered the bowl with cold water, dropped in a flannel and a lump of soap, and spread the towel over the fender to warm.
Then, and only then, Bower rose. He wore no coat, and his arms were freckled black. He stripped to the waist, hitched his trousers into the strap, and kneeled on the rug to wash himself. There was a great splashing and sputtering. The red firelight shone on his cap of white soap, and on the muscles of his back, on the strange working of his red and white muscular arms, that flashed up and down like individual creatures.
Gertie sat with the baby clawing at her ears and hair and nose. Continually she drew back her face and head from the cruel little baby-clasp. Jack was hanging on to the kitchen door.
‘Come away from that door,’ cried the mother.
Jack did not come away, but neither did he open the door and run the risk of incurring his father’s wrath. The room was very hot, but the thought of a draught is abhorrent to a miner.
With the baby on one arm, Gertie washed her husband’s back. She sponged it carefully with the flannel, and then, still with one hand, began to dry it on the rough towel.
‘Canna ter put th’ childt down an’ use both hands?’ said her husband.
‘Yes; an’ then if th’ childt screets, there’s a bigger to-do than iver. There’s no suitin’ some folk.’
‘The childt ’ud non screet.’
Gertie plumped it down. The baby began to cry. The wife rubbed her husband’s back till it grew pink, while Bower quivered with pleasure. As soon as she threw the towel down:
Shut that childt up,’ he said.
He wrestled his way into his shirt. His head emerged, with black hair standing roughly on end. He was rather an ugly man, just above medium height, and stiffly built. He had a thin black moustache over a full mouth, and a very full chin that was marred by a blue seam, where a horse had kicked him when he was a lad in the pit.
With both hands on the mantelpiece above his head, he stood looking in the fire, his whitish shirt hanging like a smock over his pit trousers.
Presently, still looking absently in the fire, he said: ‘Bill Andrews was standin’ at th’ pit top, an’ give ivery man as ’e come up one o’ these.’
He handed to his wife a small whity-blue paper, on which was printed simply:
February 14, 1912.
To the Manager —
I hereby give notice to leave your employment fourteen days from above date.
Signed —
Gertie read the paper, blindly dodging her head from the baby’s grasp.
‘An’ what d’you reckon that’s for?’ she asked.
‘I suppose it means as we come out.’
‘I’m sure!’ she cried in indignation. ‘Well, tha’rt not goin’ to sign it.’
‘It’ll ma’e no diff’rence whether I do or dunna — t’others will.’
‘Then let ’em!’ She made a small clicking sound in her mouth. ‘This ’ll ma’e th’ third strike as we’ve had sin’ we’ve been married; an’ a fat lot th’ better for it you are, arena you?’
He squirmed uneasily.
‘No, but we mean to be,’ he said.
‘I’ll tell you what, colliers is a discontented lot, as doesn’t know what they do want. That’s what they are.’
‘Tha’d better not let some o’ th’ colliers as there is hear thee say so.’
‘I don’t care who hears me. An’ there isn’t a man in Eastwood but what’ll say as th’ last two strikes has ruined the place. There’s that much bad blood now atween th’ mesters an’ th’ men as there isn’t a thing but what’s askew. An’ what will it be, I should like to know!’
‘It’s not on’y here; it’s all ower th’ country alike,’ he gloated.
‘Yes; it’s them blessed Yorkshire an’ Welsh colliers as does it. They’re that bug nowadays, what wi’ talkin’ an’ spoutin’, they hardly know which side their back-side hangs. Here, take this childt!’
She thrust the baby into his arms, carried out the heavy bowlful of black suds, m
ended the fire, cleared round, and returned for the child.
‘Ben Haseldine said, an’ he’s a union man — he told me when he come for th’ union money yesterday, as th’ men doesn’t want to come out — not our men. It’s th’ union.’
‘Tha knows nowt about it, woman. It’s a’ woman’s jabber, from beginnin’ to end.’
‘You don’t intend us to know. Who wants th’ Minimum Wage? Butties doesn’t. There th’ butties’ll be, havin’ to pay seven shillin’ a day to men as ’appen isn’t worth a penny more than five.’
‘But the butties is goin’ to have eight shillin’ accordin’ to scale.’
‘An’ then th’ men as can’t work tip-top, an’ is worth, ’appen, five shillin’ a day, they get th’ sack: an th’ old men, an’ so on.’
‘Nowt o’ th’ sort, woman, nowt o’ th’ sort. Tha’s got it off ’am-pat. There’s goin’ to be inspectors for all that, an’ th’ men’ll get what they’re worth, accordin’ to age, an’ so on.’
‘An’ accordin’ to idleness an’ — what somebody says about ’em. I’ll back! There’ll be a lot o’ fairness!’
‘Tha talks like a woman as knows nowt. What does thee know about it?’
‘I know what you did at th’ last strike. And I know this much, when Shipley men had their strike tickets, not one in three signed ’em — so there. An’ tha’rt not goin’ to!’
‘We want a livin’ wage,’ he declared.
‘Hanna you got one?’ she cried.
‘Han we?’ he shouted. ‘Han we? Who does more chaunterin’ than thee when it’s a short wik, an’ tha gets ’appen a scroddy twenty-two shillin’? Tha goes at me ’ard enough.’
‘Yi; but what better shall you be? What better are you for th’ last two strikes — tell me that?’
‘I’ll tell thee this much, th’ mesters doesna’ mean us to ha’e owt. They promise, but they dunna keep it, not they. Up comes Friday night, an’ nowt to draw, an’ a woman fit to ha’e yer guts out for it.’
‘It’s nowt but th’ day-men as wants the blessed Minimum Wage — it’s not butties.’
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 590