Sons and Lovers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (56 page)

“We’ll stop, then,” he said, but his voice was still a challenge.

Clara saw his mouth shut hard. Again he glanced at her. It seemed like an agreement. She bent over the cards, coughing, to clear her throat.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve finished,” said Mrs. Radford. “Here, take your things”—she thrust the warm suit in his hand—“and this is your candle. Your room’s over this; there’s only two, so you can’t go far wrong. Well, goodnight. I hope you’ll rest well.”

“I’m sure I shall; I always do,” he said.

“Yes; and so you ought at your age,” she replied.

He bade good-night to Clara, and went. The twisting stairs of white, scrubbed wood creaked and clanged at every step. He went doggedly. The two doors faced each other. He went in his room, pushed the door to, without fastening the latch.

It was a small room with a large bed. Some of Clara’s hair-pins were on the dressing-table-her hair-brush. Her clothes and some skirts hung under a cloth in a corner. There was actually a pair of stockings over a chair. He explored the room. Two books of his own were there on the shelf. He undressed, folded his suit, and sat on the bed, listening. Then he blew out the candle, lay down, and in two minutes was almost asleep. Then click!—he was wide awake and writhing in torment. It was as if, when he had nearly got to sleep, something had bitten him suddenly and sent him mad. He sat up and looked at the room in the darkness, his feet doubled under him, perfectly motionless, listening. He heard a cat somewhere away outside ; then the heavy, poised tread of the mother; then Clara’s distinct voice:

“Will you unfasten my dress?”

There was silence for some time. At last the mother said:

“Now then! aren’t you coming up?”

“No, not yet,” replied the daughter calmly.

“Oh, very well then! If it’s not late enough, stop a bit longer. Only you needn’t come waking me up when I’ve got to sleep.”

“I shan’t be long,” said Clara.

Immediately afterwards Paul heard the mother slowly mounting the stairs. The candlelight flashed through the cracks in his door. Her dress brushed the door, and his heart jumped. Then it was dark, and he heard the clatter of her latch. She was very leisurely indeed in her preparations for sleep. After a long time it was quite still. He sat strung up on the bed, shivering slightly. His door was an inch open. As Clara came upstairs, he would intercept her. He waited. All was dead silence. The clock struck two. Then he heard a slight scrape of the fender downstairs. Now he could not help himself. His shivering was uncontrollable. He felt he must go or die.

He stepped off the bed, and stood a moment, shuddering. Then he went straight to the door. He tried to step lightly. The first stair cracked like a shot. He listened. The old woman stirred in her bed. The staircase was dark. There was a slit of light under the stair-foot door, which opened into the kitchen. He stood a moment. Then he went on, mechanically. Every step creaked, and his back was creeping, lest the old woman’s door should open behind him up above. He fumbled with the door at the bottom. The latch opened with a loud clack. He went through into the kitchen, and shut the door noisily behind him. The old woman daren’t come now.

Then he stood, arrested. Clara was kneeling on a pile of white underclothing on the hearth-rug, her back towards him, warming herself She did not look round, but sat crouching on her heels, and her rounded beautiful back was towards him, and her face was hidden. She was warming her body at the fire for consolation. The glow was rosy on one side, the shadow was dark and warm on the other. Her arms hung slack.

He shuddered violently, clenching his teeth and fists hard to keep control. Then he went forward to her. He put one hand on her shoulder, the fingers of the other hand under her chin to raise her face. A convulsed shiver ran through her, once, twice, at his touch. She kept her head bent.

“Sorry!” he murmured, realising that his hands were very cold.

Then she looked up at him, frightened, like a thing that is afraid of death.

“My hands are so cold,” he murmured.

“I like it,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

The breath of her words were on his mouth. Her arms clasped his knees. The cord of his sleeping-suit dangled against her and made her shiver. As the warmth went into him, his shuddering became less.

At length, unable to stand so any more, he raised her, and she buried her head on his shoulder. His hands went over her slowly with an infinite tenderness of caress. She clung close to him, trying to hide herself against him. He clasped her very fast. Then at last she looked at him, mute, imploring, looking to see if she must be ashamed.

His eyes were dark, very deep, and very quiet. It was as if her beauty and his taking it hurt him, made him sorrowful. He looked at her with a little pain, and was afraid. He was so humble before her. She kissed him fervently on the eyes, first one, then the other, and she folded herself to him. She gave herself. He held her fast. It was a moment intense almost to agony.

She stood letting him adore her and tremble with joy of her. It healed her hurt pride. It healed her; it made her glad. It made her feel erect and proud again. Her pride had been wounded inside her. She had been cheapened. Now she radiated with joy and pride again. It was her restoration and her recognition.

Then he looked at her, his face radiant. They laughed to each other, and he strained her to his chest. The seconds ticked off, the minutes passed, and still the two stood clasped rigid together, mouth to mouth, like a statue in one block.

But again his fingers went seeking over her, restless, wandering, dissatisfied. The hot blood came up wave upon wave. She laid her head on his shoulder.

“Come you to my room,” he murmured.

She looked at him and shook her head, her mouth pouting disconsolately, her eyes heavy with passion. He watched her fixedly.

“Yes!” he said.

Again she shook her head.

“Why not?” he asked.

She looked at him still heavily, sorrowfully, and again she shook her head. His eyes hardened, and he gave way.

When, later on, he was back in bed, he wondered why she had refused to come to him openly, so that her mother would know. At any rate, then things would have been definite. And she could have stayed with him the night, without having to go, as she was, to her mother’s bed. It was strange, and he could not understand it. And then almost immediately he fell asleep.

He awoke in the morning with someone speaking to him. Opening his eyes, he saw Mrs. Radford, big and stately, looking down on him. She held a cup of tea in her hand.

“Do you think you’re going to sleep till Doomsday?” she said.

He laughed at once.

“It ought only to be about five o’clock,” he said.

“Well,” she answered, “it’s half-past seven, whether or not. Here, I’ve brought you a cup of tea.”

He rubbed his face, pushed the tumbled hair off his forehead, and roused himself.

“What’s it so late for!” he grumbled.

He resented being wakened. It amused her. She saw his neck in the flannel sleeping-jacket, as white and round as a girl’s. He rubbed his hair crossly.

“It’s no good your scratching your head,” she said. “It won’t make it no earlier. Here, an’ how long d’you think I’m going to stand waiting wi’ this here cup?”

“Oh, dash the cup!” he said.

“You should go to bed earlier,” said the woman.

He looked up at her, laughing with impudence.

“I went to bed before
you
did,” he said.

“Yes, my Guyney,
^fq
you did!” she exclaimed.

“Fancy,” he said, stirring his tea, “having tea brought to bed to me! My mother’ll think I’m ruined for life.”

“Don’t she never do it?” asked Mrs. Radford.

“She’d as leave think of flying.”

“Ah, I always spoilt my lot! That’s why they’ve turned out such bad uns,” said the elderly woman.

“You’d only Clara,” he said. “And Mr. Radford’s in heaven. So I suppose there’s only you left to be the bad un.”

“I’m not bad; I’m only soft,” she said, as she went out of the bedroom. “I’m only a fool, I am!”

Clara was very quiet at breakfast, but she had a sort of air of proprietorship over him that pleased him infinitely. Mrs. Radford was evidently fond of him. He began to talk of his painting.

“What’s the good,” exclaimed the mother, “of your whittling and worrying and twistin’ and too-in’ at that painting of yours? What good does it do you, I should like to know? You’d better be enjoyin’ yourself.”

“Oh, but,” exclaimed Paul, “I made over thirty guineas last year.”

“Did you! Well, that’s a consideration, but it’s nothing to the time you put in.”

“And I’ve got four pounds owing. A man said he’d give me five pounds if I’d paint him and his missis and the dog and the cottage. And I went and put the fowls in instead of the dog, and he was waxy,
^fr
so I had to knock a quid off. I was sick of it, and I didn’t like the dog. I made a picture of it. What shall I do when he pays me the four pounds?”

“Nay! you know your own uses for your money,” said Mrs. Radford.

“But I’m going to bust this four pounds. Should we go to the seaside for a day or two?”

“Who?”

“You and Clara and me.”

“What, on your money!” she exclaimed, half-wrathful.

“Why not?”

“
You
wouldn’t be long in breaking your neck at a hurdle race!” she said.

“So long as I get a good run for my money! Will you?”

“Nay; you may settle that atween you.”

“And you’re willing?” he asked, amazed and rejoicing.

“You’ll do as you like,” said Mrs. Radford, “whether I’m willing or not.”

SOON AFTER Paul had been to the theatre with Clara, he was drinking in the Punch Bowl with some friends of his when Dawes came in. Clara’s husband was growing stout; his eyelids were getting slack over his brown eyes; he was losing his healthy firmness of flesh. He was very evidently on the downward track. Having quarrelled with his sister, he had gone into cheap lodgings. His mistress had left him for a man who would marry her. He had been in prison one night for fighting when he was drunk, and there was a shady betting episode in which he was concerned.

Paul and he were confirmed enemies, and yet there was between them that peculiar feeling of intimacy, as if they were secretly near to each other, which sometimes exists between two people, although they never speak to one another. Paul often thought of Baxter Dawes, often wanted to get at him and be friends with him. He knew that Dawes often thought about him, and that the man was drawn to him by some bond or other. And yet the two never looked at each other save in hostility.

Since he was a superior employee at Jordan’s, it was the thing for Paul to offer Dawes a drink.

“What’ll you have?” he asked of him.

“Nowt wi’ a bleeder like you!” replied the man.

Paul turned away with a slight disdainful movement of the shoulders, very irritating.

“The aristocracy,” he continued, “is really a military institution. Take Germany, now. She’s got thousands of aristocrats whose only means of existence is the army. They’re deadly poor, and life’s deadly slow. So they hope for a war. They look for war as a chance of getting on. Till there’s a war they are idle good-for-nothings. When there’s a war, they are leaders and commanders. There you are, then—they
want
war!”
¹

He was not a favourite debater in the public-house, being too quick and overbearing. He irritated the older men by his assertive manner, and his cocksureness. They listened in silence, and were not sorry when he finished.

Dawes interrupted the young man’s flow of eloquence by asking, in a loud sneer:

“Did you learn all that at th’ theatre th’ other night?”

Paul looked at him; their eyes met. Then he knew Dawes had seen him coming out of the theatre with Clara.

“Why, what about th’ theatre?” asked one of Paul’s associates, glad to get a dig at the young fellow, and sniffing something tasty.

“Oh, him in a bob-tailed evening suit,
^fs
on the lardy-da!”
^ft
sneered Dawes, jerking his head contemptuously at Paul.

“That’s comin’ it strong,” said the mutual friend. “Tart
^fu
an’ all?”

“Tart, begod!” said Dawes.

“Go on; let’s have it!” cried the mutual friend.

“You’ve got it,” said Dawes, “an’ I reckon Morelly had it
^fv
an’ all.”

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” said the mutual friend. “An’ was it a proper tart?”

“Tart, God blimey
^fw
-yes!”

“How do you know?”

“Oh,” said Dawes, “I reckon he spent th’ night—”

There was a good deal of laughter at Paul’s expense.

“But who
was
she? D’you know her?” asked the mutual friend.

“I should
shay sho
,” said Dawes.

This brought another burst of laughter.

“Then spit it out,” said the mutual friend.

Dawes shook his head, and took a gulp of beer.

“It’s a wonder he hasn’t let on himself,” he said. “He’ll be braggin’ of it in a bit.”

“Come on, Paul,” said the friend; “it’s no good. You might just as well own up.”

“Own up what? That I happened to take a friend to the theatre?”

“Oh well, if it was all right, tell us who she was, lad,” said the friend.

“She was all right,” said Dawes.

Paul was furious. Dawes wiped his golden moustache with his fingers, sneering.

“Strike me—! One o’ that sort?” said the mutual friend. “Paul, boy, I’m surprised at you. And do you know her, Baxter?”