She had a big doll of which she was fearfully proud, though notso fond. So she laid the doll on the sofa, and covered it withan antimacassar, to sleep. Then she forgot it. Meantime Paulmust practise jumping off the sofa arm. So he jumped crash intothe face of the hidden doll. Annie rushed up, uttered a loud wail,and sat down to weep a dirge. Paul remained quite still.
"You couldn't tell it was there, mother; you couldn't tell itwas there," he repeated over and over. So long as Annie wept forthe doll he sat helpless with misery. Her grief wore itself out. She forgave her brother--he was so much upset. But a day or twoafterwards she was shocked.
"Let's make a sacrifice of Arabella," he said. "Let's burn her."
She was horrified, yet rather fascinated. She wanted to seewhat the boy would do. He made an altar of bricks, pulled some ofthe shavings out of Arabella's body, put the waxen fragments intothe hollow face, poured on a little paraffin, and set the whole thingalight. He watched with wicked satisfaction the drops of wax melt offthe broken forehead of Arabella, and drop like sweat into the flame. So long as the stupid big doll burned he rejoiced in silence. At the end be poked among the embers with a stick, fished out the armsand legs, all blackened, and smashed them under stones.
"That's the sacrifice of Missis Arabella," he said. "An' I'mglad there's nothing left of her."
Which disturbed Annie inwardly, although she could say nothing. He seemed to hate the doll so intensely, because he had broken it.
All the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarlyagainst their father, along with their mother. Morel continuedto bully and to drink. He had periods, months at a time, when hemade the whole life of the family a misery. Paul never forgotcoming home from the Band of Hope one Monday evening and findinghis mother with her eye swollen and discoloured, his father standingon the hearthrug, feet astride, his head down, and William,just home from work, glaring at his father. There was a silenceas the young children entered, but none of the elders looked round.
William was white to the lips, and his fists were clenched. He waited until the children were silent, watching with children'srage and hate; then he said:
"You coward, you daren't do it when I was in."
But Morel's blood was up. He swung round on his son. William was bigger, but Morel was hard-muscled, and mad with fury.
"Dossn't I?" he shouted. "Dossn't I? Ha'e much more o'thy chelp, my young jockey, an' I'll rattle my fist about thee. Ay, an' I sholl that, dost see?"
Morel crouched at the knees and showed his fist in an ugly,almost beast-like fashion. William was white with rage.
"Will yer?" he said, quiet and intense. "It 'ud be thelast time, though."
Morel danced a little nearer, crouching, drawing back his fistto strike. William put his fists ready. A light came into hisblue eyes, almost like a laugh. He watched his father. Another word,and the men would have begun to fight. Paul hoped they would. The three children sat pale on the sofa.
"Stop it, both of you," cried Mrs. Morel in a hard voice. "We've had enough for ONE night. And YOU,"she said, turning on to her husband, "look at your children!"
Morel glanced at the sofa.
"Look at the children, you nasty little bitch!" he sneered. "Why, what have I done to the children, I should like to know? But they're like yourself; you've put 'em up to your own tricks andnasty ways--you've learned 'em in it, you 'ave."
She refused to answer him. No one spoke. After a while hethrew his boots under the table and went to bed.
"Why didn't you let me have a go at him?" said William,when his father was upstairs. "I could easily have beaten him."
"A nice thing--your own father," she replied.
"'FATHER!'" repeated William. "Call HIM MY father!"
"Well, he is--and so---"
"But why don't you let me settle him? I could do, easily."
"The idea!" she cried. "It hasn't come to THAT yet."
"No," he said, "it's come to worse. Look at yourself. WHY didn't you let me give it him?"
"Because I couldn't bear it, so never think of it,"she cried quickly.
And the children went to bed, miserably.
When William was growing up, the family moved from the Bottomsto a house on the brow of the hill, commanding a view of the valley,which spread out like a convex cockle-shell, or a clamp-shell, before it. In front of the house was a huge old ash-tree. The west wind,sweeping from Derbyshire, caught the houses with full force,and the tree shrieked again. Morel liked it.
"It's music," he said. "It sends me to sleep."
But Paul and Arthur and Annie hated it. To Paul it becamealmost a demoniacal noise. The winter of their first yearin the new house their father was very bad. The children playedin the street, on the brim of the wide, dark valley, until eighto'clock. Then they went to bed. Their mother sat sewing below. Having such a great space in front of the house gave the childrena feeling of night, of vastness, and of terror. This terror camein from the shrieking of the tree and the anguish of the home discord. Often Paul would wake up, after he had been asleep a long time,aware of thuds downstairs. Instantly he was wide awake. Then heheard the booming shouts of his father, come home nearly drunk, then thesharp replies of his mother, then the bang, bang of his father's fist onthe table, and the nasty snarling shout as the man's voice got higher. And then the whole was drowned in a piercing medley of shrieksand cries from the great, wind-swept ash-tree. The childrenlay silent in suspense, waiting for a lull in the wind to hearwhat their father was doing. He might hit their mother again. There was a feeling of horror, a kind of bristling in the darkness,and a sense of blood. They lay with their hearts in the grip of anintense anguish. The wind came through the tree fiercer and fiercer. All the chords of the great harp hummed, whistled, and shrieked. And then came the horror of the sudden silence, silence everywhere,outside and downstairs. What was it? Was it a silence of blood? What had he done?
The children lay and breathed the darkness. And then, at last,they heard their father throw down his boots and tramp upstairsin his stockinged feet. Still they listened. Then at last,if the wind allowed, they heard the water of the tap drumming intothe kettle, which their mother was filling for morning, and theycould go to sleep in peace.
So they were happy in the morning--happy, very happy playing,dancing at night round the lonely lamp-post in the midst ofthe darkness. But they had one tight place of anxiety in their hearts,one darkness in their eyes, which showed all their lives.
Paul hated his father. As a boy he had a fervent private religion.
"Make him stop drinking," he prayed every night. "Lord, let myfather die," he prayed very often. "Let him not be killed at pit,"he prayed when, after tea, the father did not come home from work.
That was another time when the family suffered intensely. The children came from school and had their teas. On the hobthe big black saucepan was simmering, the stew-jar was in the oven,ready for Morel's dinner. He was expected at five o'clock. But formonths he would stop and drink every night on his way from work.
In the winter nights, when it was cold, and grew dark early,Mrs. Morel would put a brass candlestick on the table, light atallow candle to save the gas. The children finished theirbread-and-butter, or dripping, and were ready to go out to play. But if Morel had not come they faltered. The sense of his sittingin all his pit-dirt, drinking, after a long day's work, not cominghome and eating and washing, but sitting, getting drunk, on an empty stomach,made Mrs. Morel unable to bear herself. From her the feeling wastransmitted to the other children. She never suffered alone any more: the children suffered with her.
Paul went out to play with the rest. Down in the great troughof twilight, tiny clusters of lights burned where the pits were. A few last colliers straggled up the dim field path. The lamplightercame along. No more colliers came. Darkness shut down over the valley;work was done. It was night.
Then Paul ran anxiously into the kitchen. The one candle stillburned on the table, the big fire glowed red. Mrs. Morel sat alone. On the hob the saucepan steamed; the dinner-plate lay waitingon the table. All the room was full of the sense of waiting,waiting for the man who was sitting in his pit-dirt, dinnerless,some mile away from home, across the darkness, drinking himself drunk. Paul stood in the doorway.
"Has my dad come?" he asked.
"You can see he hasn't," said Mrs. Morel, cross with thefutility of the question.
Then the boy dawdled about near his mother. They sharedthe same anxiety. Presently Mrs. Morel went out and strainedthe potatoes.
"They're ruined and black," she said; "but what do I care?"
Not many words were spoken. Paul almost hated his motherfor suffering because his father did not come home from work.
"What do you bother yourself for?" he said. "If he wantsto stop and get drunk, why don't you let him?"
"Let him!" flashed Mrs. Morel. "You may well say 'let him'."
She knew that the man who stops on the way home from work is on aquick way to ruining himself and his home. The children were yet young,and depended on the breadwinner. William gave her the sense of relief,providing her at last with someone to turn to if Morel failed. Butthe tense atmosphere of the room on these waiting evenings was the same.
The minutes ticked away. At six o'clock still the cloth layon the table, still the dinner stood waiting, still the same senseof anxiety and expectation in the room. The boy could not stand itany longer. He could not go out and play. So he ran in to Mrs. Inger,next door but one, for her to talk to him. She had no children. Her husband was good to her but was in a shop, and came home late.So, when she saw the lad at the door, she called:
"Come in, Paul."
The two sat talking for some time, when suddenlythe boy rose, saying:
"Well, I'll be going and seeing if my mother wants an errand doing."
He pretended to be perfectly cheerful, and did not tell hisfriend what ailed him. Then he ran indoors.
Morel at these times came in churlish and hateful.
"This is a nice time to come home," said Mrs. Morel.
"Wha's it matter to yo' what time I come whoam?" he shouted.
And everybody in the house was still, because he was dangerous. He ate his food in the most brutal manner possible, and, when hehad done, pushed all the pots in a heap away from him, to lay hisarms on the table. Then he went to sleep.
Paul hated his father so. The collier's small, mean head,with its black hair slightly soiled with grey, lay on the bare arms,and the face, dirty and inflamed, with a fleshy nose and thin,paltry brows, was turned sideways, asleep with beer and wearinessand nasty temper. If anyone entered suddenly, or a noise were made,the man looked up and shouted:
"I'll lay my fist about thy y'ead, I'm tellin' thee, if thadoesna stop that clatter! Dost hear?"
And the two last words, shouted in a bullying fashion,usually at Annie, made the family writhe with hate of the man.
He was shut out from all family affairs. No one told him anything. The children, alone with their mother, told her all about theday's happenings, everything. Nothing had really taken place inthem until it was told to their mother. But as soon as the fathercame in, everything stopped. He was like the scotch in the smooth,happy machinery of the home. And he was always aware of this fallof silence on his entry, the shutting off of life, the unwelcome. But now it was gone too far to alter.
He would dearly have liked the children to talk to him,but they could not. Sometimes Mrs. Morel would say:
"You ought to tell your father."
Paul won a prize in a competition in a child's paper. Everybody was highly jubilant.
"Now you'd better tell your father when be comes in,"said Mrs. Morel. "You know how be carries on and says he's nevertold anything."
"All right," said Paul. But he would almost rather haveforfeited the prize than have to tell his father.
"I've won a prize in a competition, dad," he said. Morel turned round to him.
"Have you, my boy? What sort of a competition?"
"Oh, nothing--about famous women."
"And how much is the prize, then, as you've got?"
"It's a book."
"Oh, indeed! "
"About birds."
"Hm--hm! "
And that was all. Conversation was impossible between thefather and any other member of the family. He was an outsider. He had denied the God in him.
The only times when he entered again into the life of his own peoplewas when he worked, and was happy at work. Sometimes, in the evening,he cobbled the boots or mended the kettle or his pit-bottle. Thenhe always wanted several attendants, and the children enjoyed it. They united with him in the work, in the actual doing of something,when he was his real self again.
He was a good workman, dexterous, and one who, when he was in agood humour, always sang. He had whole periods, months, almost years,of friction and nasty temper. Then sometimes he was jolly again. It was nice to see him run with a piece of red-hot iron intothe scullery, crying:
"Out of my road--out of my road!"
Then he hammered the soft, red-glowing stuff on his iron goose,and made the shape he wanted. Or he sat absorbed for a moment,soldering. Then the children watched with joy as the metal sanksuddenly molten, and was shoved about against the nose of thesoldering-iron, while the room was full of a scent of burnt resinand hot tin, and Morel was silent and intent for a minute. He alwayssang when he mended boots because of the jolly sound of hammering. And he was rather happy when he sat putting great patches on hismoleskin pit trousers, which he would often do, considering themtoo dirty, and the stuff too hard, for his wife to mend.
But the best time for the young children was when he made fuses. Morel fetched a sheaf of long sound wheat-straws from the attic. These he cleaned with his hand, till each one gleamed like astalk of gold, after which he cut the straws into lengths ofabout six inches, leaving, if he could, a notch at the bottomof each piece. He always had a beautifully sharp knife that couldcut a straw clean without hurting it. Then he set in the middleof the table a heap of gunpowder, a little pile of black grainsupon the white-scrubbed board. He made and trimmed the strawswhile Paul and Annie rifled and plugged them. Paul loved to seethe black grains trickle down a crack in his palm into the mouthof the straw, peppering jollily downwards till the straw was full. Then he bunged up the mouth with a bit of soap--which he got onhis thumb-nail from a pat in a saucer--and the straw was finished.
