At half-past eleven her husband came. His cheeks were veryred and very shiny above his black moustache. His head nodded slightly.He was pleased with himself.
"Oh! Oh! waitin' for me, lass? I've bin 'elpin' Anthony, an'what's think he's gen me? Nowt b'r a lousy hae'f-crown, an'that's ivry penny---"
"He thinks you've made the rest up in beer," she said shortly.
"An' I 'aven't--that I 'aven't. You b'lieve me, I've 'advery little this day, I have an' all." His voice went tender. "Here, an' I browt thee a bit o' brandysnap, an' a cocoanut for th'children." He laid the gingerbread and the cocoanut, a hairy object,on the table. "Nay, tha niver said thankyer for nowt i' thy life,did ter?"
As a compromise, she picked up the cocoanut and shook it,to see if it had any milk.
"It's a good 'un, you may back yer life o' that. I got it fra'Bill Hodgkisson. 'Bill,' I says, 'tha non wants them three nuts,does ter? Arena ter for gi'ein' me one for my bit of a lad an'wench?' 'I ham, Walter, my lad,' 'e says; 'ta'e which on 'emter's a mind.' An' so I took one, an' thanked 'im. I didn'tlike ter shake it afore 'is eyes, but 'e says, 'Tha'd better ma'esure it's a good un, Walt.' An' so, yer see, I knowed it was. He's a nice chap, is Bill Hodgkisson, e's a nice chap!"
"A man will part with anything so long as he's drunk,and you're drunk along with him," said Mrs. Morel.
"Eh, tha mucky little 'ussy, who's drunk, I sh'd like ter know?"said Morel. He was extraordinarily pleased with himself,because of his day's helping to wait in the Moon and Stars. He chattered on.
Mrs. Morel, very tired, and sick of his babble, went to bedas quickly as possible, while he raked the fire.
Mrs. Morel came of a good old burgher family, famous independentswho had fought with Colonel Hutchinson, and who remained stoutCongregationalists. Her grandfather had gone bankrupt in the lace-marketat a time when so many lace-manufacturers were ruined in Nottingham. Her father, George Coppard, was an engineer--a large, handsome,haughty man, proud of his fair skin and blue eyes, but more proudstill of his integrity. Gertrude resembled her mother in her smallbuild. But her temper, proud and unyielding, she had from the Coppards.
George Coppard was bitterly galled by his own poverty. He became foreman of the engineers in the dockyard at Sheerness. Mrs. Morel--Gertrude--was the second daughter. She favoured her mother,loved her mother best of all; but she had the Coppards' clear,defiant blue eyes and their broad brow. She remembered to havehated her father's overbearing manner towards her gentle, humorous,kindly-souled mother. She remembered running over the breakwaterat Sheerness and finding the boat. She remembered to have beenpetted and flattered by all the men when she had gone to the dockyard,for she was a delicate, rather proud child. She remembered the funnyold mistress, whose assistant she had become, whom she had loved to helpin the private school. And she still had the Bible that John Fieldhad given her. She used to walk home from chapel with John Fieldwhen she was nineteen. He was the son of a well-to-do tradesman,had been to college in London, and was to devote himself to business.
She could always recall in detail a September Sunday afternoon,when they had sat under the vine at the back of her father's house. The sun came through the chinks of the vine-leaves and madebeautiful patterns, like a lace scarf, falling on her and on him. Some of the leaves were clean yellow, like yellow flat flowers.
"Now sit still," he had cried. "Now your hair, I don't knowwhat it IS like! It's as bright as copper and gold, as red asburnt copper, and it has gold threads where the sun shines on it. Fancy their saying it's brown. Your mother calls it mouse-colour."
She had met his brilliant eyes, but her clear face scarcelyshowed the elation which rose within her.
"But you say you don't like business," she pursued.
"I don't. I hate it!" he cried hotly.
"And you would like to go into the ministry," she half implored.
"I should. I should love it, if I thought I could makea first-rate preacher."
"Then why don't you--why DON'T you?" Her voice rang with defiance. "If I were a man, nothing would stop me."
She held her head erect. He was rather timid before her.
"But my father's so stiff-necked. He means to put me intothe business, and I know he'll do it."
"But if you're a MAN?" she had cried.
"Being a man isn't everything," he replied, frowning withpuzzled helplessness.
Now, as she moved about her work at the Bottoms, with someexperience of what being a man meant, she knew that it was NOT everything.
At twenty, owing to her health, she had left Sheerness. Her father had retired home to Nottingham. John Field's fatherhad been ruined; the son had gone as a teacher in Norwood. She didnot hear of him until, two years later, she made determined inquiry. He had married his landlady, a woman of forty, a widow with property.
And still Mrs. Morel preserved John Field's Bible. She didnot now believe him to be--- Well, she understood pretty well what hemight or might not have been. So she preserved his Bible, and kepthis memory intact in her heart, for her own sake. To her dying day,for thirty-five years, she did not speak of him.
When she was twenty-three years old, she met, at a Christmasparty, a young man from the Erewash Valley. Morel was thentwenty-seven years old. He was well set-up, erect, and very smart. He had wavy black hair that shone again, and a vigorous blackbeard that had never been shaved. His cheeks were ruddy,and his red, moist mouth was noticeable because he laughed so oftenand so heartily. He had that rare thing, a rich, ringing laugh. Gertrude Coppard had watched him, fascinated. He was so full ofcolour and animation, his voice ran so easily into comic grotesque,he was so ready and so pleasant with everybody. Her own fatherhad a rich fund of humour, but it was satiric. This man'swas different: soft, non-intellectual, warm, a kind of gambolling.
She herself was opposite. She had a curious, receptive mindwhich found much pleasure and amusement in listening to other folk. She was clever in leading folk to talk. She loved ideas, and wasconsidered very intellectual. What she liked most of all was anargument on religion or philosophy or politics with some educated man. This she did not often enjoy. So she always had people tell herabout themselves, finding her pleasure so.
In her person she was rather small and delicate, with alarge brow, and dropping bunches of brown silk curls. Her blue eyeswere very straight, honest, and searching. She had the beautifulhands of the Coppards. Her dress was always subdued. She woredark blue silk, with a peculiar silver chain of silver scallops. This, and a heavy brooch of twisted gold, was her only ornament. She was still perfectly intact, deeply religious, and fullof beautiful candour.
Walter Morel seemed melted away before her. She wasto the miner that thing of mystery and fascination, a lady. When she spoke to him, it was with a southern pronunciation and apurity of English which thrilled him to hear. She watched him. He danced well, as if it were natural and joyous in him to dance. His grandfather was a French refugee who had married an Englishbarmaid--if it had been a marriage. Gertrude Coppard watched theyoung miner as he danced, a certain subtle exultation like glamour inhis movement, and his face the flower of his body, ruddy, with tumbledblack hair, and laughing alike whatever partner he bowed above. She thought him rather wonderful, never having met anyone like him. Her father was to her the type of all men. And George Coppard,proud in his bearing, handsome, and rather bitter; who preferredtheology in reading, and who drew near in sympathy only to one man,the Apostle Paul; who was harsh in government, and in familiarity ironic;who ignored all sensuous pleasure:--he was very different fromthe miner. Gertrude herself was rather contemptuous of dancing;she had not the slightest inclination towards that accomplishment,and had never learned even a Roger de Coverley. She was puritan,like her father, high-minded, and really stern. Therefore the dusky,golden softness of this man's sensuous flame of life, that flowed offhis flesh like the flame from a candle, not baffled and gripped intoincandescence by thought and spirit as her life was, seemed to hersomething wonderful, beyond her.
He came and bowed above her. A warmth radiated through heras if she had drunk wine.
"Now do come and have this one wi' me," he said caressively. "It's easy, you know. I'm pining to see you dance."
She had told him before she could not dance. She glancedat his humility and smiled. Her smile was very beautiful. It moved the man so that he forgot everything.
"No, I won't dance," she said softly. Her words came cleanand ringing.
Not knowing what he was doing--he often did the right thingby instinct--he sat beside her, inclining reverentially.
"But you mustn't miss your dance," she reproved.
"Nay, I don't want to dance that--it's not one as I care about."
"Yet you invited me to it."
He laughed very heartily at this.
"I never thought o' that. Tha'rt not long in taking the curlout of me."
It was her turn to laugh quickly.
"You don't look as if you'd come much uncurled," she said.
"I'm like a pig's tail, I curl because I canna help it,"he laughed, rather boisterously.
"And you are a miner!" she exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes. I went down when I was ten."
She looked at him in wondering dismay.
"When you were ten! And wasn't it very hard?" she asked.
"You soon get used to it. You live like th' mice, an' you popout at night to see what's going on."
"It makes me feel blind," she frowned.
"Like a moudiwarp!" he laughed. "Yi, an' there's some chapsas does go round like moudiwarps." He thrust his face forwardin the blind, snout-like way of a mole, seeming to sniff andpeer for direction. "They dun though!" he protested naively. "Tha niver seed such a way they get in. But tha mun let me ta'ethee down some time, an' tha can see for thysen."
She looked at him, startled. This was a new tract of lifesuddenly opened before her. She realised the life of the miners,hundreds of them toiling below earth and coming up at evening. He seemed to her noble. He risked his life daily, and with gaiety. She looked at him, with a touch of appeal in her pure humility.
"Shouldn't ter like it?" he asked tenderly. "'Appen not,it 'ud dirty thee."
She had never been "thee'd" and "thou'd" before.
The next Christmas they were married, and for three monthsshe was perfectly happy: for six months she was very happy.
He had signed the pledge, and wore the blue ribbon of atee-totaller: he was nothing if not showy. They lived, she thought,in his own house. It was small, but convenient enough, and quitenicely furnished, with solid, worthy stuff that suited her honest soul. The women, her neighbours, were rather foreign to her, and Morel'smother and sisters were apt to sneer at her ladylike ways.But she could perfectly well live by herself, so long as shehad her husband close.
Sometimes, when she herself wearied of love-talk, she triedto open her heart seriously to him. She saw him listen deferentially,but without understanding. This killed her efforts at a finer intimacy,and she had flashes of fear. Sometimes he was restless of an evening: it was not enough for him just to be near her, she realised. She was glad when he set himself to little jobs.
He was a remarkably handy man--could make or mend anything. So she would say:
"I do like that coal-rake of your mother's--it is small and natty."
"Does ter, my wench? Well, I made that, so I can make theeone! "
"What! why, it's a steel one!"
"An' what if it is! Tha s'lt ha'e one very similar, if notexactly same."
She did not mind the mess, nor the hammering and noise. He was busy and happy.
But in the seventh month, when she was brushing his Sunday coat,she felt papers in the breast pocket, and, seized with a sudden curiosity,took them out to read. He very rarely wore the frock-coat he wasmarried in: and it had not occurred to her before to feel curiousconcerning the papers. They were the bills of the household furniture,still unpaid.
"Look here," she said at night, after he was washed and hadhad his dinner. "I found these in the pocket of your wedding-coat.Haven't you settled the bills yet?"
"No. I haven't had a chance."
"But you told me all was paid. I had better go into Nottinghamon Saturday and settle them. I don't like sitting on another man'schairs and eating from an unpaid table."
He did not answer.
"I can have your bank-book, can't I?"
"Tha can ha'e it, for what good it'll be to thee."
"I thought---" she began. He had told her he had a good bit ofmoney left over. But she realised it was no use asking questions. She sat rigid with bitterness and indignation.
The next day she went down to see his mother.
"Didn't you buy the furniture for Walter?" she asked.
"Yes, I did," tartly retorted the elder woman.
"And how much did he give you to pay for it?"
The elder woman was stung with fine indignation.
"Eighty pound, if you're so keen on knowin'," she replied.
"Eighty pounds! But there are forty-two pounds still owing!"
"I can't help that."
"But where has it all gone?"
"You'll find all the papers, I think, if you look--beside tenpound as he owed me, an' six pound as the wedding cost down here."
"Six pounds!" echoed Gertrude Morel. It seemed to hermonstrous that, after her own father had paid so heavilyfor her wedding, six pounds more should have been squanderedin eating and drinking at Walter's parents' house, at his expense.
