Sons and Lovers — 04b – The Young Life of Paul, Part 2
But when William went to Nottingham, and was not so much at home, the mother made a companion of Paul.
The latter was unconsciously jealous of his brother, and William was jealous of him.
At the same time, they were good friends.
Mrs. Morel’s intimacy with her second son was more subtle and fine, perhaps not so passionate as with her eldest.
It was the rule that Paul should fetch the money on Friday afternoons.
The colliers of the five pits were paid on Fridays, but not individually.
All the earnings of each stall were put down to the chief butty, as contractor, and he divided the wages again, either in the public-house or in his own home.
So that the children could fetch the money, school closed early on Friday afternoons.
Each of the Morel children—William, then Annie, then Paul—had fetched the money on Friday afternoons, until they went themselves to work.
Paul used to set off at half-past three, with a little calico bag in his pocket.
Down all the paths, women, girls, children, and men were seen trooping to the offices.
These offices were quite handsome: a new, red-brick building, almost like a mansion, standing in its own grounds at the end of Greenhill Lane.
The waiting-room was the hall, a long, bare room paved with blue brick, and having a seat all round, against the wall.
Here sat the colliers in their pit-dirt.
They had come up early.
The women and children usually loitered about on the red gravel paths.
Paul always examined the grass border, and the big grass bank, because in it grew tiny pansies and tiny forget-me-nots.
There was a sound of many voices.
The women had on their Sunday hats.
The girls chattered loudly.
Little dogs ran here and there.
The green shrubs were silent all around.
Then from inside came the cry “Spinney Park—Spinney Park.
” All the folk for Spinney Park trooped inside.
When it was time for Bretty to be paid, Paul went in among the crowd.
The pay-room was quite small.
A
counter went across, dividing it into half.
Behind the counter stood two men—Mr. Braithwaite and his clerk, Mr. Winterbottom.
Mr. Braithwaite was large, somewhat of the stern patriarch in appearance, having a rather thin white beard.
He was usually muffled in an enormous silk neckerchief, and right up to the hot summer a huge fire burned in the open grate.
No window was open.
Sometimes in winter the air scorched the throats of the people, coming in from the freshness.
Mr. Winterbottom was rather small and fat, and very bald.
He made remarks that were not witty, whilst his chief launched forth patriarchal admonitions against the colliers.
The room was crowded with miners in their pit-dirt, men who had been home and changed, and women, and one or two children, and usually a dog.
Paul was quite small, so it was often his fate to be jammed behind the legs of the men, near the fire which scorched him.
He knew the order of the names—they went according to stall number.
“Holliday,” came the ringing voice of Mr. Braithwaite.
Then Mrs. Holliday stepped silently forward, was paid, drew aside.
“Bower—John Bower.
” A boy stepped to the counter.
Mr. Braithwaite, large and irascible, glowered at him over his spectacles.
“John Bower!
” he repeated.
“It’s me,” said the boy.
“Why, you used to ’ave a different nose than that,” said glossy Mr. Winterbottom, peering over the counter.
The people tittered, thinking of John Bower senior.
“How is it your father’s not come!
” said Mr. Braithwaite, in a large and magisterial voice.
“He’s badly,” piped the boy.
“You should tell him to keep off the drink,” pronounced the great cashier.
“An’ niver mind if he puts his foot through yer,” said a mocking voice from behind.
All the men laughed.
The large and important cashier looked down at his next sheet.
“Fred Pilkington!
” he called, quite indifferent.
Mr. Braithwaite was an important shareholder in the firm.
Paul knew his turn was next but one, and his heart began to beat.
He was pushed against the chimney-piece.
His calves were burning.
But he did not hope to get through the wall of men.
“Walter Morel!
” came the ringing voice.
“Here!
” piped Paul, small and inadequate.
“Morel—Walter Morel!
” the cashier repeated, his finger and thumb on the invoice, ready to pass on.
Paul was suffering convulsions of self-consciousness, and could not or would not shout.
The backs of the men obliterated him.
Then Mr. Winterbottom came to the rescue.
“He’s here.
Where is he?
Morel’s lad?
” The fat, red, bald little man peered round with keen eyes.
He pointed at the fireplace.
The colliers looked round, moved aside, and disclosed the boy.
“Here he is!
” said Mr. Winterbottom.
Paul went to the counter.
“Seventeen pounds eleven and fivepence.
Why don’t you shout up when you’re called?
” said Mr. Braithwaite.
He banged on to the invoice a five-pound bag of silver, then in a delicate and pretty movement, picked up a little ten-pound column of gold, and plumped it beside the silver.
The gold slid in a bright stream over the paper.
The cashier finished counting off the money; the boy dragged the whole down the counter to Mr. Winterbottom, to whom the stoppages for rent and tools must be paid.
Here he suffered again.
“Sixteen an’ six,” said Mr. Winterbottom.
The lad was too much upset to count.
He pushed forward some loose silver and half a sovereign.
“How much do you think you’ve given me?
” asked Mr. Winterbottom.
The boy looked at him, but said nothing.
He had not the faintest notion.
“Haven’t you got a tongue in your head?
” Paul bit his lip, and pushed forward some more silver.
“Don’t they teach you to count at the Board-school?
” he asked.
“Nowt but algibbra an’ French,” said a collier.
“An’ cheek an’ impidence,” said another.
Paul was keeping someone waiting.
With trembling fingers he got his money into the bag and slid out.
He suffered the tortures of the damned on these occasions.
His relief, when he got outside, and was walking along the Mansfield Road, was infinite.
On the park wall the mosses were green.
There were some gold and some white fowls pecking under the apple trees of an orchard.
The colliers were walking home in a stream.
The boy went near the wall, self-consciously.
He knew many of the men, but could not recognise them in their dirt.
And this was a new torture to him.
When he got down to the New Inn, at Bretty, his father was not yet come.
Mrs. Wharmby, the landlady, knew him.
His grandmother, Morel’s mother, had been Mrs. Wharmby’s friend.
“Your father’s not come yet,” said the landlady, in the peculiar half-scornful, half-patronising voice of a woman who talks chiefly to grown men.
“Sit you down.
” Paul sat down on the edge of the bench in the bar.
Some colliers were “reckoning”—sharing out their money—in a corner; others came in.
They all glanced at the boy without speaking.
At last Morel came; brisk, and with something of an air, even in his blackness.
“Hello!
” he said rather tenderly to his son.
“Have you bested me?
Shall you have a drink of something?
” Paul and all the children were bred up fierce anti-alcoholists, and he would have suffered more in drinking a lemonade before all the men than in having a tooth drawn.
The landlady looked at him _de haut en bas_, rather pitying, and at the same time, resenting his clear, fierce morality.
Paul went home, glowering.
He entered the house silently.
Friday was baking day, and there was usually a hot bun.
His mother put it before him.
Suddenly he turned on her in a fury, his eyes flashing: “I’m _not_ going to the office any more,” he said.
“Why, what’s the matter?
” his mother asked in surprise.
His sudden rages rather amused her.
“I’m _not_ going any more,” he declared.
“Oh, very well, tell your father so.
” He chewed his bun as if he hated it.
“I’m not—I’m not going to fetch the money.
” “Then one of Carlin’s children can go; they’d be glad enough of the sixpence,” said Mrs. Morel.
This sixpence was Paul’s only income.
It mostly went in buying birthday presents; but it _was_ an income, and he treasured it.
But— “They can have it, then!
” he said.
“I don’t want it.
” “Oh, very well,” said his mother.
“But you needn’t bully _me_ about it.
” “They’re hateful, and common, and hateful, they are, and I’m not going any more.
Mr. Braithwaite drops his ‘h’s’, an’ Mr. Winterbottom says ‘You was’.
” “And is that why you won’t go any more?
” smiled Mrs. Morel.
The boy was silent for some time.
His face was pale, his eyes dark and furious.
His mother moved about at her work, taking no notice of him.
“They always stan’ in front of me, so’s I can’t get out,” he said.
“Well, my lad, you’ve only to _ask_ them,” she replied.
“An’ then Alfred Winterbottom says, ‘What do they teach you at the Board-school?
’” “They never taught _him_ much,” said Mrs. Morel, “that is a fact—neither manners nor wit—and his cunning he was born with.
” So, in her own way, she soothed him.
His ridiculous hypersensitiveness made her heart ache.
And sometimes the fury in his eyes roused her, made her sleeping soul lift up its head a moment, surprised.
“What was the cheque?
” she asked.
“Seventeen pounds eleven and fivepence, and sixteen and six stoppages,” replied the boy.
“It’s a good week; and only five shillings stoppages for my father.
” So she was able to calculate how much her husband had earned, and could call him to account if he gave her short money.
Morel always kept to himself the secret of the week’s amount.
Friday was the baking night and market night.
It was the rule that Paul should stay at home and bake.
He loved to stop in and draw or read; he was very fond of drawing.
Annie always “gallivanted” on Friday nights;
Arthur was enjoying himself as usual.
So the boy remained alone.
Mrs. Morel loved her marketing.
In the tiny market-place on the top of the hill, where four roads, from Nottingham and Derby, Ilkeston and Mansfield, meet, many stalls were erected.
Brakes ran in from surrounding villages.
The market-place was full of women, the streets packed with men.
It was amazing to see so many men everywhere in the streets.
Mrs. Morel usually quarrelled with her lace woman, sympathised with her fruit man—who was a gabey, but his wife was a bad un—laughed with the fish man—who was a scamp but so droll—put the linoleum man in his place, was cold with the odd-wares man, and only went to the crockery man when she was driven—or drawn by the cornflowers on a little dish; then she was coldly polite.
“I wondered how much that little dish was,” she said.
“Sevenpence to you.
” “Thank you.
” She put the dish down and walked away; but she could not leave the market-place without it.
Again she went by where the pots lay coldly on the floor, and she glanced at the dish furtively, pretending not to.
She was a little woman, in a bonnet and a black costume.
Her bonnet was in its third year; it was a great grievance to Annie.
“Mother!
” the girl implored, “don’t wear that nubbly little bonnet.
” “Then what else shall I wear,” replied the mother tartly.
“And I’m sure it’s right enough.
” It had started with a tip; then had had flowers; now was reduced to black lace and a bit of jet.
“It looks rather come down,” said Paul.
“Couldn’t you give it a pick-me-up?
” “I’ll jowl your head for impudence,” said Mrs. Morel, and she tied the strings of the black bonnet valiantly under her chin.
She glanced at the dish again.
Both she and her enemy, the pot man, had an uncomfortable feeling, as if there were something between them.
Suddenly he shouted: “Do you want it for fivepence?
” She started.
Her heart hardened; but then she stooped and took up her dish.
“I’ll have it,” she said.
“Yer’ll do me the favour, like?
” he said.
“Yer’d better spit in it, like yer do when y’ave something give yer.
” Mrs. Morel paid him the fivepence in a cold manner.
“I don’t see you give it me,” she said.
“You wouldn’t let me have it for fivepence if you didn’t want to.
” “In this flamin’, scrattlin’ place you may count yerself lucky if you can give your things away,” he growled.
“Yes; there are bad times, and good,” said Mrs. Morel.
But she had forgiven the pot man.
They were friends.
She dare now finger his pots.
So she was happy.
Paul was waiting for her.
He loved her home-coming.
She was always her best so—triumphant, tired, laden with parcels, feeling rich in spirit.
He heard her quick, light step in the entry and looked up from his drawing.
“Oh!
” she sighed, smiling at him from the doorway.
“My word, you _are_ loaded!
” he exclaimed, putting down his brush.
“I am!
” she gasped.
“That brazen Annie said she’d meet me.
_Such_ a weight!
” She dropped her string bag and her packages on the table.
“Is the bread done?
” she asked, going to the oven.
“The last one is soaking,” he replied.
“You needn’t look, I’ve not forgotten it.
” “Oh, that pot man!
” she said, closing the oven door.
“You know what a wretch I’ve said he was?
Well, I don’t think he’s quite so bad.
” “Don’t you?
” The boy was attentive to her.
She took off her little black bonnet.
“No. I think he can’t make any money—well, it’s everybody’s cry alike nowadays—and it makes him disagreeable.
” “It would _me_,” said Paul.
“Well, one can’t wonder at it.
And he let me have—how much do you think he let me have _this_ for?
” She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it with joy.
“Show me!
” said Paul.
The two stood together gloating over the dish.
“I _love_ cornflowers on things,” said Paul.
“Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me—” “One and three,” said Paul.
“Fivepence!
” “It’s not enough, mother.
” “No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it.
But I’d been extravagant, I couldn’t afford any more.
And he needn’t have let me have it if he hadn’t wanted to.
” “No, he needn’t, need he,” said Paul, and the two comforted each other from the fear of having robbed the pot man.
“We c’n have stewed fruit in it,” said Paul.
“Or custard, or a jelly,” said his mother.
“Or radishes and lettuce,” said he.
“Don’t forget that bread,” she said, her voice bright with glee.
Paul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.
“It’s done,” he said, giving it to her.
She tapped it also.
“Yes,” she replied, going to unpack her bag.
“Oh, and I’m a wicked, extravagant woman.
I know I s’ll come to want.
” He hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance.
She unfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of pansies and of crimson daisies.
“Four penn’orth!
” she moaned.
“How _cheap!
_” he cried.
“Yes, but I couldn’t afford it _this_ week of all weeks.
” “But lovely!
” he cried.
“Aren’t they!
” she exclaimed, giving way to pure joy.
“Paul, look at this yellow one, isn’t it—and a face just like an old man!
” “Just!
” cried Paul, stooping to sniff.
“And smells that nice!
But he’s a bit splashed.
” He ran in the scullery, came back with the flannel, and carefully washed the pansy.
“_Now_ look at him now he’s wet!
” he said.
“Yes!
” she exclaimed, brimful of satisfaction.
The children of Scargill Street felt quite select.
At the end where the Morels lived there were not many young things.
So the few were more united.
Boys and girls played together, the girls joining in the fights and the rough games, the boys taking part in the dancing games and rings and make-belief of the girls.
Annie and Paul and Arthur loved the winter evenings, when it was not wet.
They stayed indoors till the colliers were all gone home, till it was thick dark, and the street would be deserted.
Then they tied their scarves round their necks, for they scorned overcoats, as all the colliers’ children did, and went out.
The entry was very dark, and at the end the whole great night opened out, in a hollow, with a little tangle of lights below where Minton pit lay, and another far away opposite for Selby.
The farthest tiny lights seemed to stretch out the darkness for ever.
The children looked anxiously down the road at the one lamp-post, which stood at the end of the field path.
If the little, luminous space were deserted, the two boys felt genuine desolation.
They stood with their hands in their pockets under the lamp, turning their backs on the night, quite miserable, watching the dark houses.
Suddenly a pinafore under a short coat was seen, and a long-legged girl came flying up.
“Where’s Billy Pillins an’ your Annie an’ Eddie Dakin?
” “I don’t know.
” But it did not matter so much—there were three now.
They set up a game round the lamp-post, till the others rushed up, yelling.
Then the play went fast and furious.
There was only this one lamp-post.
