"Well," she said, "she's about as bad as she can be. It's a boy childt."
The miner grunted, put his empty snap-bag and his tin bottleon the dresser, went back into the scullery and hung up his coat,then came and dropped into his chair.
"Han yer got a drink?" he asked.
The woman went into the pantry. There was heard the popof a cork. She set the mug, with a little, disgusted rap, on thetable before Morel. He drank, gasped, wiped his big moustache onthe end of his scarf, drank, gasped, and lay back in his chair. The woman would not speak to him again. She set his dinner before him,and went upstairs.
"Was that the master?" asked Mrs. Morel.
"I've gave him his dinner," replied Mrs. Bower.
After he had sat with his arms on the table--he resentedthe fact that Mrs. Bower put no cloth on for him, and gave hima little plate, instead of a full-sized dinner-plate--he beganto eat. The fact that his wife was ill, that he had another boy,was nothing to him at that moment. He was too tired; he wantedhis dinner; he wanted to sit with his arms lying on the board;he did not like having Mrs. Bower about. The fire was too smallto please him.
After he had finished his meal, he sat for twenty minutes;then he stoked up a big fire. Then, in his stockinged feet,he went reluctantly upstairs. It was a struggle to face his wifeat this moment, and he was tired. His face was black, and smearedwith sweat. His singlet had dried again, soaking the dirt in. He had a dirty woollen scarf round his throat. So he stood at the footof the bed.
"Well, how are ter, then?" he asked.
"I s'll be all right," she answered.
"H'm!"
He stood at a loss what to say next. He was tired, and thisbother was rather a nuisance to him, and he didn't quite knowwhere he was.
"A lad, tha says," he stammered.
She turned down the sheet and showed the child.
"Bless him!" he murmured. Which made her laugh, because heblessed by rote--pretending paternal emotion, which he did not feeljust then.
"Go now," she said.
"I will, my lass," he answered, turning away.
Dismissed, he wanted to kiss her, but he dared not. She halfwanted him to kiss her, but could not bring herself to give any sign. She only breathed freely when he was gone out of the room again,leaving behind him a faint smell of pit-dirt.
Mrs. Morel had a visit every day from the Congregational clergyman. Mr. Heaton was young, and very poor. His wife had died at thebirth of his first baby, so he remained alone in the manse. He was a Bachelor of Arts of Cambridge, very shy, and no preacher. Mrs. Morel was fond of him, and he depended on her. For hourshe talked to her, when she was well. He became the god-parentof the child.
Occasionally the minister stayed to tea with Mrs. Morel. Then shelaid the cloth early, got out her best cups, with a little green rim,and hoped Morel would not come too soon; indeed, if he stayed for a pint,she would not mind this day. She had always two dinners to cook,because she believed children should have their chief meal at midday,whereas Morel needed his at five o'clock. So Mr. Heaton would holdthe baby, whilst Mrs. Morel beat up a batter-pudding or peeledthe potatoes, and he, watching her all the time, would discusshis next sermon. His ideas were quaint and fantastic. She broughthim judiciously to earth. It was a discussion of the wedding at Cana.
"When He changed the water into wine at Cana," he said,"that is a symbol that the ordinary life, even the blood,of the married husband and wife, which had before been uninspired,like water, became filled with the Spirit, and was as wine, because,when love enters, the whole spiritual constitution of a man changes,is filled with the Holy Ghost, and almost his form is altered."
Mrs. Morel thought to herself:
"Yes, poor fellow, his young wife is dead; that is why hemakes his love into the Holy Ghost."
They were halfway down their first cup of tea when they heardthe sluther of pit-boots.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. Morel, in spite of herself.
The minister looked rather scared. Morel entered. He wasfeeling rather savage. He nodded a "How d'yer do" to the clergyman,who rose to shake hands with him.
"Nay," said Morel, showing his hand, "look thee at it! Tha niver wants ter shake hands wi' a hand like that, does ter? There's too much pick-haft and shovel-dirt on it."
The minister flushed with confusion, and sat down again. Mrs. Morel rose, carried out the steaming saucepan. Morel took offhis coat, dragged his armchair to table, and sat down heavily.
"Are you tired?" asked the clergyman.
"Tired? I ham that," replied Morel. "YOU don't know what itis to be tired, as I'M tired."
"No," replied the clergyman.
"Why, look yer 'ere," said the miner, showing the shouldersof his singlet. "It's a bit dry now, but it's wet as a cloutwith sweat even yet. Feel it."
"Goodness!" cried Mrs. Morel. "Mr. Heaton doesn't want to feelyour nasty singlet."
The clergyman put out his hand gingerly.
"No, perhaps he doesn't," said Morel; "but it'sall come out of me, whether or not. An' iv'ry dayalike my singlet's wringin' wet. 'Aven't you gota drink, Missis, for a man when he comes home barkled up from the pit?"
"You know you drank all the beer," said Mrs. Morel, pouring outhis tea.
"An' was there no more to be got?" Turning to the clergyman--"Aman gets that caked up wi' th' dust, you know,--that clogged updown a coal-mine, he NEEDS a drink when he comes home."
"I am sure he does," said the clergyman.
"But it's ten to one if there's owt for him."
"There's water--and there's tea," said Mrs. Morel.
"Water! It's not water as'll clear his throat."
He poured out a saucerful of tea, blew it, and sucked it upthrough his great black moustache, sighing afterwards. Then hepoured out another saucerful, and stood his cup on the table.
"My cloth!" said Mrs. Morel, putting it on a plate.
"A man as comes home as I do 's too tired to care about cloths,"said Morel.
"Pity!" exclaimed his wife, sarcastically.
The room was full of the smell of meat and vegetablesand pit-clothes.
He leaned over to the minister, his great moustache thrust forward,his mouth very red in his black face.
"Mr. Heaton," he said, "a man as has been down the blackhole all day, dingin' away at a coal-face, yi, a sight harderthan that wall---"
"Needn't make a moan of it," put in Mrs. Morel.
She hated her husband because, whenever he had an audience,he whined and played for sympathy. William, sitting nursingthe baby, hated him, with a boy's hatred for false sentiment,and for the stupid treatment of his mother. Annie had never liked him;she merely avoided him.
When the minister had gone, Mrs. Morel looked at her cloth.
"A fine mess!" she said.
"Dos't think I'm goin' to sit wi' my arms danglin', cos tha'sgot a parson for tea wi' thee?" he bawled.
CHAPTER II
THE BIRTH OF PAUL, AND ANOTHER BATTLE（II）
They were both angry, but she said nothing. The baby beganto cry, and Mrs. Morel, picking up a saucepan from the hearth,accidentally knocked Annie on the head, whereupon the girl beganto whine, and Morel to shout at her. In the midst of this pandemonium,William looked up at the big glazed text over the mantelpieceand read distinctly:
"God Bless Our Home!"
Whereupon Mrs. Morel, trying to soothe the baby, jumped up,rushed at him, boxed his ears, saying:
"What are YOU putting in for?"
And then she sat down and laughed, till tears ran overher cheeks, while William kicked the stool he had been sitting on,and Morel growled:
"I canna see what there is so much to laugh at."
One evening, directly after the parson's visit, feeling unableto bear herself after another display from her husband, she tookAnnie and the baby and went out. Morel had kicked William,and the mother would never forgive him.
She went over the sheep-bridge and across a corner of themeadow to the cricket-ground. The meadows seemed one space of ripe,evening light, whispering with the distant mill-race. She saton a seat under the alders in the cricket-ground, and frontedthe evening. Before her, level and solid,spread the big green cricket-field, like the bed of a sea of light. Children played in the bluish shadow of the pavilion. Many rooks,high up, came cawing home across the softly-woven sky. They stoopedin a long curve down into the golden glow, concentrating, cawing,wheeling, like black flakes on a slow vortex, over a tree clumpthat made a dark boss among the pasture.
A few gentlemen were practising, and Mrs. Morel could hearthe chock of the ball, and the voices of men suddenly roused;could see the white forms of men shifting silently over the green,upon which already the under shadows were smouldering. Away atthe grange, one side of the haystacks was lit up, the other sidesblue-grey. A waggon of sheaves rocked small across the meltingyellow light.
The sun was going down. Every open evening, the hills ofDerbyshire were blazed over with red sunset. Mrs. Morel watched the sunsink from the glistening sky, leaving a soft flower-blue overhead,while the western space went red, as if all the fire had swum down there,leaving the bell cast flawless blue. The mountain-ash berries acrossthe field stood fierily out from the dark leaves, for a moment. A few shocks of corn in a corner of the fallow stood up as if alive;she imagined them bowing; perhaps her son would be a Joseph. In the east, a mirrored sunset floated pink opposite the west's scarlet. The big haystacks on the hillside, that butted into the glare,went cold.
With Mrs. Morel it was one of those still moments when thesmall frets vanish, and the beauty of things stands out, and shehad the peace and the strength to see herself. Now and again,a swallow cut close to her. Now and again, Annie came up with ahandful of alder-currants. The baby was restless on his mother's knee,clambering with his hands at the light.
Mrs. Morel looked down at him. She had dreaded this babylike a catastrophe, because of her feeling for her husband. And now she felt strangely towards the infant. Her heart was heavybecause of the child, almost as if it were unhealthy, or malformed. Yet it seemed quite well. But she noticed the peculiar knittingof the baby's brows, and the peculiar heaviness of its eyes,as if it were trying to understand something that was pain. She felt,when she looked at her child's dark, brooding pupils, as if a burden wereon her heart.
"He looks as if he was thinking about something--quite sorrowful,"said Mrs. Kirk.
Suddenly, looking at him, the heavy feeling at the mother's heartmelted into passionate grief. She bowed over him, and a few tearsshook swiftly out of her very heart. The baby lifted his fingers.
"My lamb!" she cried softly.
And at that moment she felt, in some far inner place of her soul,that she and her husband were guilty.
The baby was looking up at her. It had blue eyes like her own,but its look was heavy, steady, as if it had realised somethingthat had stunned some point of its soul.
In her arms lay the delicate baby. Its deep blue eyes,always looking up at her unblinking, seemed to draw her innermostthoughts out of her. She no longer loved her husband; she had notwanted this child to come, and there it lay in her arms and pulledat her heart. She felt as if the navel string that had connectedits frail little body with hers had not been broken. A wave of hotlove went over her to the infant. She held it close to her faceand breast. With all her force, with all her soul she would make upto it for having brought it into the world unloved. She would loveit all the more now it was here; carry it in her love. Its clear,knowing eyes gave her pain and fear. Did it know all about her? When it lay under her heart, had it been listening then? Was therea reproach in the look? She felt the marrow melt in her bones,with fear and pain.
Once more she was aware of the sun lying red on the rimof the hill opposite. She suddenly held up the child in her hands.
"Look!" she said. "Look, my pretty!"
She thrust the infant forward to the crimson, throbbing sun,almost with relief. She saw him lift his little fist. Then she puthim to her bosom again, ashamed almost of her impulse to give himback again whence he came.
"If he lives," she thought to herself, "what will becomeof him--what will he be?"
Her heart was anxious.
"I will call him Paul," she said suddenly; she knew not why.
After a while she went home. A fine shadow was flung overthe deep green meadow, darkening all.
As she expected, she found the house empty. But Morel washome by ten o'clock, and that day, at least, ended peacefully.
Walter Morel was, at this time, exceedingly irritable. His work seemed to exhaust him. When he came home he did not speakcivilly to anybody. If the fire were rather low he bullied about that;he grumbled about his dinner; if the children made a chatter heshouted at them in a way that made their mother's blood boil,and made them hate him.
On the Friday, he was not home by eleven o'clock. The babywas unwell, and was restless, crying if he were put down. Mrs. Morel,tired to death, and still weak, was scarcely under control.
"I wish the nuisance would come," she said wearily to herself.
The child at last sank down to sleep in her arms. She wastoo tired to carry him to the cradle.
"But I'll say nothing, whatever time he comes," she said. "It only works me up; I won't say anything. But I know if he doesanything it'll make my blood boil," she added to herself.
She sighed, hearing him coming, as if it were something shecould not bear. He, taking his revenge, was nearly drunk. She kepther head bent over the child as he entered, not wishing to see him. But it went through her like a flash of hot fire when, in passing,he lurched against the dresser, setting the tins rattling, and clutchedat the white pot knobs for support. He hung up his hat and coat,then returned, stood glowering from a distance at her, as she satbowed over the child.
