"And how much has he sunk in his houses?" she asked.
"His houses--which houses?"
Gertrude Morel went white to the lips. He had told herthe house he lived in, and the next one, was his own.
"I thought the house we live in---" she began.
"They're my houses, those two," said the mother-in-law. "Andnot clear either. It's as much as I can do to keep the mortgageinterest paid."
Gertrude sat white and silent. She was her father now.
"Then we ought to be paying you rent," she said coldly.
"Walter is paying me rent," replied the mother.
"And what rent?" asked Gertrude.
"Six and six a week," retorted the mother.
It was more than the house was worth. Gertrude held herhead erect, looked straight before her.
"It is lucky to be you," said the elder woman, bitingly,"to have a husband as takes all the worry of the money, and leavesyou a free hand."
The young wife was silent.
CHAPTER I
THE EARLY MARRIED LIFE OF THE MORELS （II）
She said very little to her husband, but her manner hadchanged towards him. Something in her proud, honourable soulhad crystallised out hard as rock.
When October came in, she thought only of Christmas. Two years ago,at Christmas, she had met him. Last Christmas she had married him. This Christmas she would bear him a child.
"You don't dance yourself, do you, missis?" asked hernearest neighbour, in October, when there was great talkof opening a dancing-class over the Brick and Tile Inn at Bestwood.
"No--I never had the least inclination to," Mrs. Morel replied.
"Fancy! An' how funny as you should ha' married your Mester. You know he's quite a famous one for dancing."
"I didn't know he was famous," laughed Mrs. Morel.
"Yea, he is though! Why, he ran that dancing-class in the Miners'Arms club-room for over five year."
"Did he?"
"Yes, he did." The other woman was defiant. "An' it wasthronged every Tuesday, and Thursday, an' Sat'day--an' there WAScarryin's-on, accordin' to all accounts."
This kind of thing was gall and bitterness to Mrs. Morel,and she had a fair share of it. The women did not spare her, at first;for she was superior, though she could not help it.
He began to be rather late in coming home.
"They're working very late now, aren't they?" she said to herwasher-woman.
"No later than they allers do, I don't think. But they stop tohave their pint at Ellen's, an' they get talkin', an' there you are! Dinner stone cold--an' it serves 'em right."
"But Mr. Morel does not take any drink."
The woman dropped the clothes, looked at Mrs. Morel, then wenton with her work, saying nothing.
Gertrude Morel was very ill when the boy was born. Morel was good to her, as good as gold. But she felt very lonely,miles away from her own people. She felt lonely with him now,and his presence only made it more intense.
The boy was small and frail at first, but he came on quickly. He was a beautiful child, with dark gold ringlets, and dark-blueeyes which changed gradually to a clear grey. His mother lovedhim passionately. He came just when her own bitterness ofdisillusion was hardest to bear; when her faith in life was shaken,and her soul felt dreary and lonely. She made much of the child,and the father was jealous.
At last Mrs. Morel despised her husband. She turned tothe child; she turned from the father. He had begun to neglect her;the novelty of his own home was gone. He had no grit, she saidbitterly to herself. What he felt just at the minute, that was all to him.He could not abide by anything. There was nothing at the backof all his show.
There began a battle between the husband and wife--a fearful,bloody battle that ended only with the death of one. She foughtto make him undertake his own responsibilities, to make him fulfillhis obligations. But he was too different from her. His naturewas purely sensuous, and she strove to make him moral, religious. She tried to force him to face things. He could not endure it--itdrove him out of his mind.
While the baby was still tiny, the father's temper had becomeso irritable that it was not to be trusted. The child had only togive a little trouble when the man began to bully. A little more,and the hard hands of the collier hit the baby. Then Mrs. Morelloathed her husband, loathed him for days; and he went out and drank;and she cared very little what he did. Only, on his return,she scathed him with her satire.
The estrangement between them caused him, knowingly or unknowingly,grossly to offend her where he would not have done.
William was only one year old, and his mother was proud of him,he was so pretty. She was not well off now, but her sisters keptthe boy in clothes. Then, with his little white hat curled with anostrich feather, and his white coat, he was a joy to her, the twiningwisps of hair clustering round his head. Mrs. Morel lay listening,one Sunday morning, to the chatter of the father and child downstairs. Then she dozed off. When she came downstairs, a great fire glowedin the grate, the room was hot, the breakfast was roughly laid,and seated in his armchair, against the chimney-piece, sat Morel,rather timid; and standing between his legs, the child--croppedlike a sheep, with such an odd round poll--looking wondering at her;and on a newspaper spread out upon the hearthrug, a myriad ofcrescent-shaped curls, like the petals of a marigold scattered in thereddening firelight.
Mrs. Morel stood still. It was her first baby. She wentvery white, and was unable to speak.
"What dost think o' 'im?" Morel laughed uneasily.
She gripped her two fists, lifted them, and came forward. Morel shrank back.
"I could kill you, I could!" she said. She choked with rage,her two fists uplifted.
"Yer non want ter make a wench on 'im," Morel said, in afrightened tone, bending his head to shield his eyes from hers. His attempt at laughter had vanished.
The mother looked down at the jagged, close-clipped head ofher child. She put her hands on his hair, and stroked and fondledhis head.
"Oh--my boy!" she faltered. Her lip trembled, her face broke,and, snatching up the child, she buried her face in his shoulderand cried painfully. She was one of those women who cannot cry;whom it hurts as it hurts a man. It was like ripping somethingout of her, her sobbing.
Morel sat with his elbows on his knees, his hands grippedtogether till the knuckles were white. He gazed in the fire,feeling almost stunned, as if he could not breathe.
Presently she came to an end, soothed the child and cleared awaythe breakfast-table. She left the newspaper, littered with curls,spread upon the hearthrug. At last her husband gathered it up and putit at the back of the fire. She went about her work with closedmouth and very quiet. Morel was subdued. He crept about wretchedly,and his meals were a misery that day. She spoke to him civilly,and never alluded to what he had done. But he felt something finalhad happened.
Afterwards she said she had been silly, that the boy's hairwould have had to be cut, sooner or later. In the end, she evenbrought herself to say to her husband it was just as well he hadplayed barber when he did. But she knew, and Morel knew, that thatact had caused something momentous to take place in her soul. She remembered the scene all her life, as one in which she hadsuffered the most intensely.
This act of masculine clumsiness was the spear through the side ofher love for Morel. Before, while she had striven against him bitterly,she had fretted after him, as if he had gone astray from her. Now she ceased to fret for his love: he was an outsider to her. This made life much more bearable.
Nevertheless, she still continued to strive with him. She stillhad her high moral sense, inherited from generations of Puritans. It was now a religious instinct, and she was almost a fanaticwith him, because she loved him, or had loved him. If he sinned,she tortured him. If he drank, and lied, was often a poltroon,sometimes a knave, she wielded the lash unmercifully.
The pity was, she was too much his opposite. She could not becontent with the little he might be; she would have him the much thathe ought to be. So, in seeking to make him nobler than he could be,she destroyed him. She injured and hurt and scarred herself,but she lost none of her worth. She also had the children.
He drank rather heavily, though not more than many miners,and always beer, so that whilst his health was affected, it wasnever injured. The week-end was his chief carouse. He sat inthe Miners' Arms until turning-out time every Friday, every Saturday,and every Sunday evening. On Monday and Tuesday he had to get upand reluctantly leave towards ten o'clock. Sometimes he stayed at homeon Wednesday and Thursday evenings, or was only out for an hour. He practically never had to miss work owing to his drinking.
But although he was very steady at work, his wages fell off. He was blab-mouthed, a tongue-wagger. Authority was hateful to him,therefore he could only abuse the pit-managers. He would say,in the Palmerston:
"Th' gaffer come down to our stall this morning, an' 'e says,'You know, Walter, this 'ere'll not do. What about these props?' An' I says to him, 'Why, what art talkin' about? What d'stmean about th' props?' 'It'll never do, this 'ere,' 'e says. 'You'll be havin' th' roof in, one o' these days.' An' I says,'Tha'd better stan' on a bit o' clunch, then, an' hold it up wi'thy 'ead.' So 'e wor that mad, 'e cossed an' 'e swore, an't'other chaps they did laugh." Morel was a good mimic. He imitatedthe manager's fat, squeaky voice, with its attempt at good English.
"'I shan't have it, Walter. Who knows more about it, me or you?' So I says, 'I've niver fun out how much tha' knows, Alfred. It'll 'appen carry thee ter bed an' back."'
So Morel would go on to the amusement of his boon companions. And some of this would be true. The pit-manager was not aneducated man. He had been a boy along with Morel, so that,while the two disliked each other, they more or less took eachother for granted. But Alfred Charlesworth did not forgivethe butty these public-house sayings. Consequently, although Morelwas a good miner, sometimes earning as much as five pounds a weekwhen he married, he came gradually to have worse and worse stalls,where the coal was thin, and hard to get, and unprofitable.
Also, in summer, the pits are slack. Often, on bright sunnymornings, the men are seen trooping home again at ten, eleven, or twelveo'clock. No empty trucks stand at the pit-mouth. The women on thehillside look across as they shake the hearthrug against the fence,and count the wagons the engine is taking along the line up the valley. And the children, as they come from school at dinner-time, lookingdown the fields and seeing the wheels on the headstocks standing, say:
"Minton's knocked off. My dad'll be at home."
And there is a sort of shadow over all, women and childrenand men, because money will be short at the end of the week.
Morel was supposed to give his wife thirty shillings a week,to provide everything--rent, food, clothes, clubs, insurance, doctors. Occasionally, if he were flush, he gave her thirty-five. Butthese occasions by no means balanced those when he gave hertwenty-five. In winter, with a decent stall, the miner mightearn fifty or fifty-five shillings a week. Then he was happy. On Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday, he spent royally, getting ridof his sovereign or thereabouts. And out of so much, he scarcelyspared the children an extra penny or bought them a pound of apples. It all went in drink. In the bad times, matters were more worrying,but he was not so often drunk, so that Mrs. Morel used to say:
"I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be short, for when he's flush,there isn't a minute of peace."
If he earned forty shillings he kept ten; from thirty-five hekept five; from thirty-two he kept four; from twenty-eight he kept three;from twenty-four he kept two; from twenty he kept one-and-six;from eighteen he kept a shilling; from sixteen he kept sixpence. He never saved a penny, and he gave his wife no opportunityof saving; instead, she had occasionally to pay his debts;not public-house debts, for those never were passed on to the women,but debts when he had bought a canary, or a fancy walking-stick.
At the wakes time Morel was working badly, and Mrs. Morel was trying to save against her confinement.So it galled her bitterly to think he should be outtaking his pleasure and spending money, whilst she remainedat home, harassed. There were two days' holiday. On the Tuesdaymorning Morel rose early. He was in good spirits. Quite early,before six o'clock, she heard him whistling away to himself downstairs. He had a pleasant way of whistling, lively and musical. He nearly always whistled hymns. He had been a choir-boy witha beautiful voice, and had taken solos in Southwell cathedral. His morning whistling alone betrayed it.
His wife lay listening to him tinkering away in the garden,his whistling ringing out as he sawed and hammered away. It alwaysgave her a sense of warmth and peace to hear him thus as she layin bed, the children not yet awake, in the bright early morning,happy in his man's fashion.
At nine o'clock, while the children with bare legs and feetwere sitting playing on the sofa, and the mother was washing up,he came in from his carpentry, his sleeves rolled up, his waistcoathanging open. He was still a good-looking man, with black,wavy hair, and a large black moustache. His face was perhaps toomuch inflamed, and there was about him a look almost of peevishness. But now he was jolly. He went straight to the sink where his wifewas washing up.
"What, are thee there!" he said boisterously. "Sluthe off an'let me wesh mysen."
"You may wait till I've finished," said his wife.
"Oh, mun I? An' what if I shonna?"
This good-humoured threat amused Mrs. Morel.
"Then you can go and wash yourself in the soft-water tub."
"Ha! I can' an' a', tha mucky little 'ussy."
With which he stood watching her a moment, then went awayto wait for her.
When he chose he could still make himself again a real gallant. Usually he preferred to go out with a scarf round his neck. Now, however, he made a toilet. There seemed so much gusto in the wayhe puffed and swilled as he washed himself, so much alacrity withwhich he hurried to the mirror in the kitchen, and, bending becauseit was too low for him, scrupulously parted his wet black hair,that it irritated Mrs. Morel. He put on a turn-down collar,a black bow, and wore his Sunday tail-coat. As such, he lookedspruce, and what his clothes would not do, his instinct for makingthe most of his good looks would.
