MRS HOLROYD: No; he’s had no tea.
JACK: I bet he’s hungry. Can I have some bread?
MRS HOLROYD (she stands a lighted candle on the table): Yes, and you can get your boots off to go to bed.
JACK: It’s not seven o’clock yet.
MRS HOLROYD: It doesn’t matter.
MINNIE: What do they wear paper bonnets for, mam?
MRS HOLROYD: Because they’re brazen hussies.
JACK: I saw them having a glass of beer.
MRS HOLROYD: A nice crew!
JACK: They say they are old pals of Mrs Meakins. You could hear her screaming o’ laughin’, an’ my dad says: “He-ah, missis — here — a dog’s-nose for the Dachess — hopin’ it’ll smell samthing” — What’s a dog’s-nose?
MRS HOLROYD (giving him a piece of bread and butter): Don’t ask me, child. How should I know?
MINNIE: Would she eat it, mam?
MRS HOLROYD: Eat what?
MINNIE: Her in the pink bonnet — eat the dog’s-nose?
MRS HOLROYD: No, of course not. How should I know what a dog’s-nose is?
JACK: I bet he’ll never go to work to-morrow, mother — will he?
MRS HOLROYD: Goodness knows. I’m sick of it — disgracing me. There’ll be the whole place cackling this now. They’ve no sooner finished about him getting taken up for fighting than they begin on this. But I’ll put a stop to it some road or other. It’s not going on, if I know it: it isn’t.
She stops, hearing footsteps, and BLACKMORE enters.
BLACKMORE: Here we are then — got one all right.
MINNIE: Did they give it you, Mr Blackmore?
BLACKMORE: No, I took it.
He screws on the burner and proceeds to light the lamp. He is a tall, slender, mobile man of twenty-seven, brown-haired, dressed in blue overalls. JACK HOLROYD is a big, dark, ruddy, lusty lad. MINNIE is also big, but fair.
MINNIE: What do you wear blue trousers for, Mr Blackmore?
BLACKMORE: They’re to keep my other trousers from getting greasy.
MINNIE: Why don’t you wear pit-breeches, like dad’s?
JACK: ‘Cause he’s a ‘lectrician. Could you make me a little injun what would make electric light?
BLACKMORE: I will, some day.
JACK: When?
MINNIE: Why don’t you come an’ live here?
BLACKMORE (looking swiftly at MRS HOLROYD): Nay, you’ve got your own dad to live here.
MINNIE (plaintively): Well, you could come as well. Dad shouts when we’ve gone to bed, an’ thumps the table. He wouldn’t if you was here.
JACK: He dursn’t —
MRS HOLROYD: Be quiet now, be quiet. Here, Mr Blackmore. (She again gives him the sheet to fold.)
BLACKMORE: Your hands are cold.
MRS HOLROYD: Are they? — I didn’t know.
BLACKMORE puts his hand on hers.
MRS HOLROYD (confusedly, looking aside): You must want your tea.
BLACKMORE: I’m in no hurry.
MRS HOLROYD: Selvidge to selvidge. You’ll be quite a domestic man, if you go on.
BLACKMORE: Ay.
They fold the two sheets.
BLACKMORE: They are white, your sheets!
MRS HOLROYD: But look at the smuts on them — look! This vile hole! I’d never have come to live here, in all the thick of the pit-grime, and lonely, if it hadn’t been for him, so that he shouldn’t call in a public-house on his road home from work. And now he slinks past on the other side of the railway, and goes down to the New Inn instead of coming in for his dinner. I might as well have stopped in Bestwood.
BLACKMORE: Though I rather like this little place, standing by itself.
MRS HOLROYD: Jack, can you go and take the stockings in for me? They’re on the line just below the pigsty. The prop’s near the apple-tree — mind it. Minnie, you take the peg-basket.
MINNIE: Will there be any rats, mam?
MRS HOLROYD: Rats — no. They’ll be frightened when they hear you, if there are.
The children go out.
BLACKMORE: Poor little beggars!
MRS HOLROYD: Do you know, this place is fairly alive with rats. They run up that dirty vine in front of the house — I’m always at him to cut it down — and you can hear them at night overhead like a regiment of soldiers tramping. Really, you know, I hate them.
BLACKMORE: Well — a rat is a nasty thing!
MRS HOLROYD: But I s’ll get used to them. I’d give anything to be out of this place.
BLACKMORE: It is rotten, when you’re tied to a life you don’t like. But I should miss it if you weren’t here. When I’m coming down the line to the pit in the morning — it’s nearly dark at seven now — I watch the firelight in here. Sometimes I put my hand on the wall outside where the chimney runs up to feel it warm. There isn’t much in Bestwood, is there?
MRS HOLROYD: There’s less than nothing if you can’t be like the rest of them — as common as they’re made.
BLACKMORE: It’s a fact — particularly for a woman — But this place is cosy — God love me, I’m sick of lodgings.
MRS HOLROYD: You’ll have to get married — I’m sure there are plenty of nice girls about.
BLACKMORE: Are there? I never see ‘em. (He laughs.)
MRS HOLROYD: Oh, come, you can’t say that.
BLACKMORE: I’ve not seen a single girl — an unmarried girl — that I should want for more than a fortnight — not one.
MRS HOLROYD: Perhaps you’re very particular.
She puts her two palms on the table and leans back. He draws near to her, dropping his head.
BLACKMORE: Look here!
He has put his hand on the table near hers.
MRS HOLROYD: Yes, I know you’ve got nice hands — but you needn’t be vain of them.
BLACKMORE: No — it’s not that — But don’t they seem — (he glances swiftly at her; she turns her head aside; he laughs nervously) — they sort of go well with one another. (He laughs again.)
MRS HOLROYD: They do, rather —
They stand still, near one another, with bent heads, for a moment. Suddenly she starts up and draws her hand away.
BLACKMORE: Why — what is it?
She does not answer. The children come in — JACK with an armful of stockings, MINNIE with the basket of pegs.
JACK: I believe it’s freezing, mother.
MINNIE: Mr Blackmore, could you shoot a rat an’ hit it?
BLACKMORE (laughing): Shoot the lot of ‘em, like a wink.
MRS HOLROYD: But you’ve had no tea. What an awful shame to keep you here!
BLACKMORE: Nay, I don’t care. It never bothers me.
MRS HOLROYD: Then you’re different from most men.
BLACKMORE: All men aren’t alike, you know.
MRS HOLROYD: But do go and get some tea.
MINNIE (plaintively): Can’t you stop, Mr Blackmore?
BLACKMORE: Why, Minnie?
MINNIE: So’s we’re not frightened. Yes, do. Will you?
BLACKMORE: Frightened of what?
MINNIE: ‘Cause there’s noises, an’ rats — an’ perhaps dad’ll come home and shout.
BLACKMORE: But he’d shout more if I was here.
JACK: He doesn’t when my uncle John’s here. So you stop, an’ perhaps he won’t.
BLACKMORE: Don’t you like him to shout when you’re in bed?
They do not answer, but look seriously at him.
CURTAIN
SCENE II
The same scene, two hours later. The clothes are folded in little piles on the table and the sofa.
MRS HOLROYD is folding a thick flannel undervest or singlet which her husband wears in the pit and which has just dried on the fender.
MRS HOLROYD (to herself): Now, thank goodness, they’re all dried. It’s only nine o’clock, so he won’t be in for another two hours, the nuisance. (She sits on the sofa, letting her arms hang down in dejection. After a minute or two she jumps up, to begin rudely dropping the piles of washed clothes
in the basket.) I don’t care, I’m not going to let him have it all his way — no! (She weeps a little, fiercely, drying her eyes on the edge of her white apron.) Why should I put up with it all? — He can do what he likes. But I don’t care, no, I don’t —
She flings down the full clothes-basket, sits suddenly in the rocking-chair, and weeps. There is the sound of coarse, bursting laughter, in vain subdued, and a man’s deep guffaws. Footsteps draw near. Suddenly the door opens, and a little, plump, pretty woman of thirty, in a close-fitting dress and a giddy, frilled bonnet of pink paper, stands perkily in the doorway. MRS HOLROYD springs up; her small, sensitive nose is inflamed with weeping, her eyes are wet and flashing. She fronts the other woman.
CLARA (with a pert smile and a jerk of the head): Good evenin’!
MRS HOLROYD: What do you want?
CLARA (she has a Yorkshire accent): Oh, we’ve not come beggin’ — this is a visit.
She stuffs her handkerchief in front of her mouth in a little snorting burst of laughter. There is the sound of another woman behind going off into uncontrollable laughter, while a man guffaws.
MRS HOLROYD (after a moment of impotence — tragically): What — !
CLARA (faltering slightly, affecting a polite tone): We thought we’d just call —
She stuffs her handkerchief in front of her explosive laughter — the other woman shrieks again, beginning high, and running down the scale.
MRS HOLROYD: What do you mean? — What do you want here?
CLARA (she bites her lip): We don’t want anything, thanks. We’ve just called. (She begins to laugh again — so does the other.) Well, I don’t think much of the manners in this part of the country. (She takes a few hesitating steps into the kitchen.)
MRS HOLROYD (trying to shut the door upon her): No, you are not coming in.
CLARA (preventing her closing the door): Dear me, what a to-do! (She struggles with the door. The other woman comes up to help; a man is seen in the background.)
LAURA: My word, aren’t we good enough to come in?
MRS HOLROYD, finding herself confronted by what seems to her excitement a crowd, releases the door and draws back a little — almost in tears of anger.
MRS HOLROYD: You have no business here. What do you want?
CLARA (putting her bonnet straight and entering in brisk defiance): I tell you we’ve only come to see you. (She looks round the kitchen, then makes a gesture toward the arm-chair.) Can I sit here? (She plumps herself down.) Rest for the weary.
A woman and a man have followed her into the room. LAURA is highly coloured, stout, some forty years old, wears a blue paper bonnet, and looks like the landlady of a public-house. Both she and CLARA wear much jewellery. LAURA is well dressed in a blue cloth dress. HOLROYD is a big blond man. His cap is pushed back, and he looks rather tipsy and lawless. He has a heavy blond moustache. His jacket and trousers are black, his vest grey, and he wears a turn-down collar with dark bow.
LAURA (sitting down in a chair on right, her hand on her bosom, panting): I’ve laughed till I feel fair bad.
CLARA: ‘Aven’t you got a drop of nothink to offer us, mester? Come, you are slow. I should ‘ave thought a gentleman like you would have been out with the glasses afore we could have got breaths to ask you.
HOLROYD (clumsily): I dunna believe there’s owt in th’ ‘ouse but a bottle of stout.
CLARA (putting her hand on her stomach): It feels as if th’ kettle’s going to boil over.
She stuffs her handkerchief in front of her mouth, throws back her head, and snorts with laughter, having now regained her confidence. LAURA laughs in the last state of exhaustion, her hand on her breast.
HOLROYD: Shall ta ha’e it then?
CLARA: What do you say, Laura — are you having a drop?
LAURA (submissively, and naturally tongue-tied): Well — I don’t mind — I will if you do.
CLARA (recklessly): I think we’ll ‘ave a drop, Charlie, an’ risk it. It’ll ‘appen hold the rest down.
There is a moment of silence, while HOLROYD goes into the scullery. CLARA surveys the room and the dramatic pose of MRS HOLROYD curiously.
HOLROYD (suddenly): Heh! What, come ‘ere — !
There is a smash of pots, and a rat careers out of the scullery. LAURA, the first to see it, utters a scream, but is fastened to her chair, unable to move.
CLARA (jumps up to the table, crying): It’s a rat — Oh, save us! (She scrambles up, banging her head on the lamp, which swings violently.)
MRS HOLROYD (who, with a little shriek, jerks her legs up on to the sofa, where she was stiffly reclining, now cries in despairing falsetto, stretching forth her arms): The lamp — mind, the lamp!
CLARA steadies the lamp, and holds her hand to her head.
HOLROYD (coming from the scullery, a bottle of stout in his hand): Where is he?
CLARA: I believe he’s gone under the sofa. My, an’ he’s a thumper, if you like, as big as a rabbit.
HOLROYD advances cautiously toward the sofa.
LAURA (springing suddenly into life): Hi, hi, let me go — let me go — Don’t touch him — Where is he? (She flees and scrambles on to CLARA’S arm-chair, catching hold of the latter’s skirts.)
CLARA: Hang off — do you want to have a body down — Mind, I tell you.
MRS HOLROYD (bunched up on the sofa, with crossed hands holding her arms, fascinated, watches her husband as he approaches to stoop and attack the rat; she suddenly screams): Don’t, he’ll fly at you.
HOLROYD: He’ll not get a chance.
MRS HOLROYD: He will, he will — and they’re poisonous! (She ends on a very high note. Leaning forward on the sofa as far as she dares, she stretches out her arms to keep back her husband, who is about to kneel and search under the sofa for the rat.)
HOLROYD: Come off, I canna see him.
MRS HOLROYD: I won’t let you; he’ll fly at you.
HOLROYD: I’ll settle him —
MRS HOLROYD: Open the door and let him go.
HOLROYD: I shonna. I’ll settle him. Shut thy claver. He’ll non come anigh thee.
He kneels down and begins to creep to the sofa. With a great bound, MRS HOLROYD flies to the door and flings it open. Then she rushes back to the couch.
CLARA: There he goes!
HOLROYD (simultaneously): Hi! — Ussza! (He flings the bottle of stout out of the door.)
LAURA (piteously): Shut the door, do.
HOLROYD rises, dusting his trousers knees, and closes the door. LAURA heavily descends and drops in the chair.
CLARA: Here, come an’ help us down, Charlie. Look at her; she’s going off.
Though LAURA is still purple-red, she sinks back in the chair. HOLROYD goes to the table. CLARA places her hands on his shoulders and jumps lightly down. Then she pushes HOLROYD with her elbow.
Look sharp, get a glass of water.
She unfastens LAURA’S collar and pulls off the paper bonnet. MRS HOLROYD sits up, straightens her clothing, and tries to look cold and contemptuous. HOLROYD brings a cup of water. CLARA sprinkles her friend’s face. LAURA sighs and sighs again very deeply, then draws herself up painfully.
CLARA (tenderly): Do you feel any better — shall you have a drink of water?
(LAURA mournfully shakes her head; CLARA turns sharply to HOLROYD.)
She’ll ‘ave a drop o’ something.
HOLROYD goes out. CLARA meanwhile fans her friend with a handkerchief. HOLROYD brings stout. She pours out the stout, smells the glass, smells the bottle — then finally the cork.
Eh, mester, it’s all of a work — it’s had a foisty cork.
At that instant the stairfoot door opens slowly, revealing the children — the girl peering over the boy’s shoulder — both in white nightgowns. Everybody starts. LAURA gives a little cry, presses her hand on her bosom, and sinks back, gasping.
CLARA (appealing and anxious, to MRS HOLROYD): You don’t ‘appen to ‘ave a drop of brandy for her, do you, missis?
MRS HOLROYD rises
coldly without replying, and goes to the stairfoot door where the children stand.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 726