Sons and Lovers — 14b – The Release, Part 2
“The same—the same!
” he said.
“The doctor says she can’t last, but I know she will.
She’ll be here at Christmas.
” Miriam shuddered.
She drew him to her; she pressed him to her bosom;
she kissed him and kissed him.
He submitted, but it was torture.
She could not kiss his agony.
That remained alone and apart.
She kissed his face, and roused his blood, while his soul was apart writhing with the agony of death.
And she kissed him and fingered his body, till at last, feeling he would go mad, he got away from her.
It was not what he wanted just then—not that.
And she thought she had soothed him and done him good.
December came, and some snow.
He stayed at home all the while now.
They could not afford a nurse.
Annie came to look after her mother; the parish nurse, whom they loved, came in morning and evening.
Paul shared the nursing with Annie.
Often, in the evenings, when friends were in the kitchen with them, they all laughed together and shook with laughter.
It was reaction.
Paul was so comical, Annie was so quaint.
The whole party laughed till they cried, trying to subdue the sound.
And Mrs. Morel, lying alone in the darkness heard them, and among her bitterness was a feeling of relief.
Then Paul would go upstairs gingerly, guiltily, to see if she had heard.
“Shall I give you some milk?
” he asked.
“A little,” she replied plaintively.
And he would put some water with it, so that it should not nourish her.
Yet he loved her more than his own life.
She had morphia every night, and her heart got fitful.
Annie slept beside her.
Paul would go in in the early morning, when his sister got up.
His mother was wasted and almost ashen in the morning with the morphia.
Darker and darker grew her eyes, all pupil, with the torture.
In the mornings the weariness and ache were too much to bear.
Yet she could not—would not—weep, or even complain much.
“You slept a bit later this morning, little one,” he would say to her.
“Did I?
” she answered, with fretful weariness.
“Yes; it’s nearly eight o’clock.
” He stood looking out of the window.
The whole country was bleak and pallid under the snow.
Then he felt her pulse.
There was a strong stroke and a weak one, like a sound and its echo.
That was supposed to betoken the end.
She let him feel her wrist, knowing what he wanted.
Sometimes they looked in each other’s eyes.
Then they almost seemed to make an agreement.
It was almost as if he were agreeing to die also.
But she did not consent to die; she would not.
Her body was wasted to a fragment of ash.
Her eyes were dark and full of torture.
“Can’t you give her something to put an end to it?
” he asked the doctor at last.
But the doctor shook his head.
“She can’t last many days now, Mr. Morel,” he said.
Paul went indoors.
“I can’t bear it much longer; we shall all go mad,” said Annie.
The two sat down to breakfast.
“Go and sit with her while we have breakfast, Minnie,” said Annie.
But the girl was frightened.
Paul went through the country, through the woods, over the snow.
He saw the marks of rabbits and birds in the white snow.
He wandered miles and miles.
A smoky red sunset came on slowly, painfully, lingering.
He thought she would die that day.
There was a donkey that came up to him over the snow by the wood’s edge, and put its head against him, and walked with him alongside.
He put his arms round the donkey’s neck, and stroked his cheeks against his ears.
His mother, silent, was still alive, with her hard mouth gripped grimly, her eyes of dark torture only living.
It was nearing Christmas; there was more snow.
Annie and he felt as if they could go on no more.
Still her dark eyes were alive.
Morel, silent and frightened, obliterated himself.
Sometimes he would go into the sick-room and look at her.
Then he backed out, bewildered.
She kept her hold on life still.
The miners had been out on strike, and returned a fortnight or so before Christmas.
Minnie went upstairs with the feeding-cup.
It was two days after the men had been in.
“Have the men been saying their hands are sore, Minnie?
” she asked, in the faint, querulous voice that would not give in.
Minnie stood surprised.
“Not as I know of, Mrs. Morel,” she answered.
“But I’ll bet they are sore,” said the dying woman, as she moved her head with a sigh of weariness.
“But, at any rate, there’ll be something to buy in with this week.
” Not a thing did she let slip.
“Your father’s pit things will want well airing, Annie,” she said, when the men were going back to work.
“Don’t you bother about that, my dear,” said Annie.
One night Annie and Paul were alone.
Nurse was upstairs.
“She’ll live over Christmas,” said Annie.
They were both full of horror.
“She won’t,” he replied grimly.
“I s’ll give her morphia.
” “Which?
” said Annie.
“All that came from Sheffield,” said Paul.
“Ay—do!
” said Annie.
The next day he was painting in the bedroom.
She seemed to be asleep.
He stepped softly backwards and forwards at his painting.
Suddenly her small voice wailed: “Don’t walk about, Paul.
” He looked round.
Her eyes, like dark bubbles in her face, were looking at him.
“No, my dear,” he said gently.
Another fibre seemed to snap in his heart.
That evening he got all the morphia pills there were, and took them downstairs.
Carefully he crushed them to powder.
“What are you doing?
” said Annie.
“I s’ll put ’em in her night milk.
” Then they both laughed together like two conspiring children.
On top of all their horror flicked this little sanity.
Nurse did not come that night to settle Mrs. Morel down.
Paul went up with the hot milk in a feeding-cup.
It was nine o’clock.
She was reared up in bed, and he put the feeding-cup between her lips that he would have died to save from any hurt.
She took a sip, then put the spout of the cup away and looked at him with her dark, wondering eyes.
He looked at her.
“Oh, it _is_ bitter, Paul!
” she said, making a little grimace.
“It’s a new sleeping draught the doctor gave me for you,” he said.
“He thought it would leave you in such a state in the morning.
” “And I hope it won’t,” she said, like a child.
She drank some more of the milk.
“But it _is_ horrid!
” she said.
He saw her frail fingers over the cup, her lips making a little move.
“I know—I tasted it,” he said.
“But I’ll give you some clean milk afterwards.
” “I think so,” she said, and she went on with the draught.
She was obedient to him like a child.
He wondered if she knew.
He saw her poor wasted throat moving as she drank with difficulty.
Then he ran downstairs for more milk.
There were no grains in the bottom of the cup.
“Has she had it?
” whispered Annie.
“Yes—and she said it was bitter.
” “Oh!
” laughed Annie, putting her under lip between her teeth.
“And I told her it was a new draught.
Where’s that milk?
” They both went upstairs.
“I wonder why nurse didn’t come to settle me down?
” complained the mother, like a child, wistfully.
“She said she was going to a concert, my love,” replied Annie.
“Did she?
” They were silent a minute.
Mrs. Morel gulped the little clean milk.
“Annie, that draught _was_ horrid!
” she said plaintively.
“Was it, my love?
Well, never mind.
” The mother sighed again with weariness.
Her pulse was very irregular.
“Let _us_ settle you down,” said Annie.
“Perhaps nurse will be so late.
” “Ay,” said the mother—“try.
” They turned the clothes back.
Paul saw his mother like a girl curled up in her flannel nightdress.
Quickly they made one half of the bed, moved her, made the other, straightened her nightgown over her small feet, and covered her up.
“There,” said Paul, stroking her softly.
“There!
—now you’ll sleep.
” “Yes,” she said.
“I didn’t think you could do the bed so nicely,” she added, almost gaily.
Then she curled up, with her cheek on her hand, her head snugged between her shoulders.
Paul put the long thin plait of grey hair over her shoulder and kissed her.
“You’ll sleep, my love,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered trustfully.
“Good-night.
” They put out the light, and it was still.
Morel was in bed.
Nurse did not come.
Annie and Paul came to look at her at about eleven.
She seemed to be sleeping as usual after her draught.
Her mouth had come a bit open.
“Shall we sit up?
” said Paul.
“I s’ll lie with her as I always do,” said Annie.
“She might wake up.
” “All right.
And call me if you see any difference.
” “Yes.
” They lingered before the bedroom fire, feeling the night big and black and snowy outside, their two selves alone in the world.
At last he went into the next room and went to bed.
He slept almost immediately, but kept waking every now and again.
Then he went sound asleep.
He started awake at Annie’s whispered, “Paul, Paul!
” He saw his sister in her white nightdress, with her long plait of hair down her back, standing in the darkness.
“Yes?
” he whispered, sitting up.
“Come and look at her.
” He slipped out of bed.
A bud of gas was burning in the sick chamber.
His mother lay with her cheek on her hand, curled up as she had gone to sleep.
But her mouth had fallen open, and she breathed with great, hoarse breaths, like snoring, and there were long intervals between.
“She’s going!
” he whispered.
“Yes,” said Annie.
“How long has she been like it?
” “I only just woke up.
” Annie huddled into the dressing-gown, Paul wrapped himself in a brown blanket.
It was three o’clock.
He mended the fire.
Then the two sat waiting.
The great, snoring breath was taken—held awhile—then given back.
There was a space—a long space.
Then they started.
The great, snoring breath was taken again.
He bent close down and looked at her.
“Isn’t it awful!
” whispered Annie.
He nodded.
They sat down again helplessly.
Again came the great, snoring breath.
Again they hung suspended.
Again it was given back, long and harsh.
The sound, so irregular, at such wide intervals, sounded through the house.
Morel, in his room, slept on.
Paul and Annie sat crouched, huddled, motionless.
The great snoring sound began again—there was a painful pause while the breath was held—back came the rasping breath.
Minute after minute passed.
Paul looked at her again, bending low over her.
“She may last like this,” he said.
They were both silent.
He looked out of the window, and could faintly discern the snow on the garden.
“You go to my bed,” he said to Annie.
“I’ll sit up.
” “No,” she said, “I’ll stop with you.
” “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said.
At last Annie crept out of the room, and he was alone.
He hugged himself in his brown blanket, crouched in front of his mother, watching.
She looked dreadful, with the bottom jaw fallen back.
He watched.
Sometimes he thought the great breath would never begin again.
He could not bear it—the waiting.
Then suddenly, startling him, came the great harsh sound.
He mended the fire again, noiselessly.
She must not be disturbed.
The minutes went by.
The night was going, breath by breath.
Each time the sound came he felt it wring him, till at last he could not feel so much.
His father got up.
Paul heard the miner drawing his stockings on, yawning.
Then Morel, in shirt and stockings, entered.
“Hush!
” said Paul.
Morel stood watching.
Then he looked at his son, helplessly, and in horror.
“Had I better stop a-whoam?
” he whispered.
“No. Go to work.
She’ll last through to-morrow.
” “I don’t think so.
” “Yes.
Go to work.
” The miner looked at her again, in fear, and went obediently out of the room.
Paul saw the tape of his garters swinging against his legs.
After another half-hour Paul went downstairs and drank a cup of tea, then returned.
Morel, dressed for the pit, came upstairs again.
“Am I to go?
” he said.
“Yes.
” And in a few minutes Paul heard his father’s heavy steps go thudding over the deadening snow.
Miners called in the streets as they tramped in gangs to work.
The terrible, long-drawn breaths continued—heave—heave—heave; then a long pause—then—ah-h-h-h-h!
as it came back.
Far away over the snow sounded the hooters of the ironworks.
One after another they crowed and boomed, some small and far away, some near, the blowers of the collieries and the other works.
Then there was silence.
He mended the fire.
The great breaths broke the silence—she looked just the same.
He put back the blind and peered out.
Still it was dark.
Perhaps there was a lighter tinge.
Perhaps the snow was bluer.
He drew up the blind and got dressed.
Then, shuddering, he drank brandy from the bottle on the wash-stand.
The snow _was_ growing blue.
He heard a cart clanking down the street.
Yes, it was seven o’clock, and it was coming a little bit light.
He heard some people calling.
The world was waking.
A grey, deathly dawn crept over the snow.
Yes, he could see the houses.
He put out the gas.
It seemed very dark.
The breathing came still, but he was almost used to it.
He could see her.
She was just the same.
He wondered if he piled heavy clothes on top of her it would stop.
He looked at her.
That was not her—not her a bit.
If he piled the blanket and heavy coats on her— Suddenly the door opened, and Annie entered.
She looked at him questioningly.
“Just the same,” he said calmly.
