Sons and Lovers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (65 page)

He slipped out of bed. A bud of gas was burning in the sick chamber. His mother lay with her cheek on her hand, curled up as she had gone to sleep. But her mouth had fallen open, and she breathed with great, hoarse breaths, like snoring, and there were long intervals between.

“She’s going!” he whispered.

“Yes,” said Annie.

“How long has she been like it?”

“I only just woke up.”

Annie huddled into the dressing-gown, Paul wrapped himself in a brown blanket. It was three o’clock. He mended the fire. Then the two sat waiting. The great, snoring breath was taken—held awhile—then given back. There was a space—a long space. Then they started. The great, snoring breath was taken again. He bent close down and looked at her.

“Isn’t it awful!” whispered Annie.

He nodded. They sat down again helplessly. Again came the great, snoring breath. Again they hung suspended. Again it was given back, long and harsh. The sound, so irregular, at such wide intervals, sounded through the house. Morel, in his room, slept on. Paul and Annie sat crouched, huddled, motionless. The great snoring sound began again—there was a painful pause while the breath was held—back came the rasping breath. Minute after minute passed. Paul looked at her again, bending low over her.

“She may last like this,” he said.

They were both silent. He looked out of the window, and could faintly discern the snow on the garden.

“You go to my bed,” he said to Annie. “I’ll sit up.”

“No,” she said, “I’ll stop with you.”

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he said.

At last Annie crept out of the room, and he was alone. He hugged himself in his brown blanket, crouched in front of his mother, watching. She looked dreadful, with the bottom jaw fallen back. He watched. Sometimes he thought the great breath would never begin again. He could not bear it—the waiting. Then suddenly, startling him, came the great harsh sound. He mended the fire again, noiselessly. She must not be disturbed. The minutes went by. The night was going, breath by breath. Each time the sound came he felt it wring him, till at last he could not feel so much.

His father got up. Paul heard the miner drawing his stocking on, yawning. Then Morel, in shirt and stockings, entered.

“Hush!” said Paul.

Morel stood watching. Then he looked at his son, helplessly, and in horror.

“Had I better stop a-whoam?” he whispered.

“No. Go to work. She’ll last through to-morrow.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes. Go to work.”

The miner looked at her again, in fear, and went obediently out of the room. Paul saw the tape of his garters swinging against his legs.

After another half-hour Paul went downstairs and drank a cup of tea, then returned. Morel, dressed for the pit, came upstairs again.

“Am I to go?” he said.

“Yes.”

And in a few minutes Paul heard his father’s heavy steps go thudding over the deadening snow. Miners called in the streets as they tramped in gangs to work. The terrible, long-drawn breaths continued—heave—heave—heave; then a long pause—then—ah-h-h-h-h! as it came back. Far away over the snow sounded the hooters of the ironworks. One after another they crowed and boomed, some small and far away, some near, the blowers of the collieries and the other works. Then there was silence. He mended the fire. The great breaths broke the silence—she looked just the same. He put back the blind and peered out. Still it was dark. Perhaps there was a lighter tinge. Perhaps the snow was bluer. He drew up the blind and got dressed. Then, shuddering, he drank brandy from the bottle on the wash-stand. The snow
was
growing blue. He heard a cart clanking down the street. Yes, it was seven o’clock, and it was coming a little bit light. He heard some people calling. The world was waking. A grey, deathly dawn crept over the snow. Yes, he could see the houses. He put out the gas. It seemed very dark. The breathing came still, but he was almost used to it. He could see her. She was just the same. He wondered if he piled heavy clothes on top of her it would stop. He looked at her. That was not her—not her a bit. If he piled the blanket and heavy coats on her—

Suddenly the door opened, and Annie entered. She looked at him questioningly.

“Just the same,” he said calmly.

They whispered together a minute, then went downstairs to get breakfast. It was twenty to eight. Soon Annie came down.

“Isn’t it awful! Doesn’t she look awful!” she whispered, dazed with horror.

He nodded.

“If she looks like that!” said Annie.

“Drink some tea,” he said.

They went upstairs again. Soon the neighbours came with their frightened question:

“How is she?”

It went on just the same. She lay with her cheek in her hand, her mouth fallen open, and the great, ghastly snores came and went.

At ten o’clock nurse came. She looked strange and woebegone.

“Nurse,” cried Paul, “she’ll last like this for days?”

“She can’t, Mr. Morel,” said nurse. “She can’t.”

There was a silence.

“Isn’t it dreadful!” wailed the nurse. “Who would have thought she could stand it? Go down now, Mr. Morel, go down.”

At last, at about eleven o’clock, he went downstairs and sat in the neighbour’s house. Annie was downstairs also. Nurse and Arthur were upstairs. Paul sat with his head in his hand. Suddenly Annie came flying across the yard crying, half mad:

“Paul—Paul—she’s gone!”

In a second he was back in his own house and upstairs. She lay curled up and still, with her face on her hand, and nurse was wiping her mouth. They all stood back. He kneeled down, and put his face to hers and his arms round her:

“My love—my love—oh, my love!” he whispered again and again. “My love—oh, my love!”

Then he heard the nurse behind him, crying, saying:

“She’s better, Mr. Morel, she’s better.”

When he took his face up from his warm, dead mother he went straight downstairs and began blacking his boots.

There was a good deal to do, letters to write, and so on. The doctor came and glanced at her, and sighed.

“Ay—poor thing!” he said, then turned away. “Well, call at the surgery about six for the certificate.”

The father came home from work at about four o’clock. He dragged silently into the house and sat down. Minnie bustled to give him his dinner. Tired, he laid his black arms on the table. There were swede turnips for his dinner, which he liked. Paul wondered if he knew. It was some time, and nobody had spoken. At last the son said:

“You noticed the blinds were down?”

Morel looked up.

“No,” he said. “Why—has she gone?”

“Yes.”

“When wor that?”

“About twelve this morning.”

“H’m!”

The miner sat still for a moment, then began his dinner. It was as if nothing had happened. He ate his turnips in silence. Afterwards he washed and went upstairs to dress. The door of her room was shut.

“Have you seen her?” Annie asked of him when he came down.

“No,” he said.

In a little while he went out. Annie went away, and Paul called on the undertaker, the clergyman, the doctor, the registrar. It was a long business. He got back at nearly eight o’clock. The undertaker was coming soon to measure for the coffin. The house was empty except for her. He took a candle and went upstairs.

The room was cold, that had been warm for so long. Flowers, bottles, plates, all sick-room litter was taken away; everything was harsh and austere. She lay raised on the bed, the sweep of the sheet from the raised feet was like a clean curve of snow, so silent. She lay like a maiden asleep. With his candle in his hand, he bent over her. She lay like a girl asleep and dreaming of her love. The mouth was a little open as if wondering from the suffering, but her face was young, her brow clear and white as if life had never touched it. He looked again at the eyebrows, at the small, winsome nose a bit on one side. She was young again. Only the hair as it arched so beautifully from her temples was mixed with silver, and the two simple plaits that lay on her shoulders were filigree of silver and brown. She would wake up. She would lift her eyelids. She was with him still. He bent and kissed her passionately. But there was coldness against his mouth. He bit his lips with horror. Looking at her, he felt he could never, never let her go. No! He stroked the hair from her temples. That, too, was cold. He saw the mouth so dumb and wondering at the hurt. Then he crouched on the floor, whispering to her:

“Mother, mother!”

He was still with her when the undertakers came, young men who had been to school with him. They touched her reverently, and in a quiet, businesslike fashion. They did not look at her. He watched jealously. He and Annie guarded her fiercely. They would not let anybody come to see her, and the neighbours were offended.

After a while Paul went out of the house, and played cards at a friend’s. It was midnight when he got back. His father rose from the couch as he entered, saying in a plaintive way:

“I thought tha wor niver comin’, lad.”

“I didn’t think you’d sit up,” said Paul.

His father looked so forlorn. Morel had been a man without fear—simply nothing frightened him. Paul realised with a start that he had been afraid to go to bed, alone in the house with his dead. He was sorry.

“I forgot you’d be alone, father,” he said.

“Dost want owt to eat?” asked Morel.

“No.”

“Sithee—I made thee a drop o’ hot milk. Get it down thee; it’s cold enough for owt.”

Paul drank it.

After a while Morel went to bed. He hurried past the closed door, and left his own door open. Soon the son came upstairs also. He went in to kiss her good-night, as usual. It was cold and dark. He wished they had kept her fire burning. Still she dreamed her young dream. But she would be cold.

“My dear!” he whispered. “My dear!”

And he did not kiss her, for fear she should be cold and strange to him. It eased him she slept so beautifully. He shut her door softly, not to wake her, and went to bed.

In the morning Morel summoned his courage, hearing Annie downstairs and Paul coughing in the room across the landing. He opened her door, and went into the darkened room. He saw the white uplifted form in the twilight, but her he dared not see. Bewildered, too frightened to possess any of his faculties, he got out of the room again and left her. He never looked at her again. He had not seen her for months, because he had not dared to look. And she looked like his young wife again.

“Have you seen her?” Annie asked of him sharply after breakfast.

“Yes,” he said.

“And don’t you think she looks nice?”

“Yes.”

He went out of the house soon after. And all the time he seemed to be creeping aside to avoid it.

Paul went about from place to place, doing the business of the death. He met Clara in Nottingham, and they had tea together in a café, when they were quite jolly again. She was infinitely relieved to find he did not take it tragically.

Later, when the relatives began to come for the funeral, the affair became public, and the children became social beings. They put themselves aside. They buried her in a furious storm of rain and wind. The wet clay glistened, all the white flowers were soaked. Annie gripped his arm and leaned forward. Down below she saw a dark corner of William’s coffin. The oak box sank steadily. She was gone. The rain poured in the grave. The procession of black, with its umbrellas glistening, turned away. The cemetery was deserted under the drenching cold rain.

Paul went home and busied himself supplying the guests with drinks. His father sat in the kitchen with Mrs. Morel’s relatives, “superior” people, and wept, and said what a good lass she’d been, and how he’d tried to do everything he could for her—everything. He had striven all his life to do what he could for her, and he’d nothing to reproach himself with. She was gone, but he’d done his best for her. He wiped his eyes with his white handkerchief He’d nothing to reproach himself for, he repeated. All his life he’d done his best for her.

And that was how he tried to dismiss her. He never thought of her personally. Everything deep in him he denied. Paul hated his father for sitting sentimentalising over her. He knew he would do it in the public-houses. For the real tragedy went on in Morel in spite of himself Sometimes, later, he came down from his afternoon sleep, white and cowering.

“I
have
been dreaming of thy mother,” he said in a small voice.

“Have you, father? When I dream of her it’s always just as she was when she was well. I dream of her often, but it seems quite nice and natural, as if nothing had altered.”

But Morel crouched in front of the fire in terror.

The weeks passed half-real, not much pain, not much of anything, perhaps a little relief, mostly a
nuit blanche.
^gf
Paul went restless from place to place. For some months, since his mother had been worse, he had not made love to Clara. She was, as it were, dumb to him, rather distant. Dawes saw her very occasionally, but the two could not get an inch across the great distance between them. The three of them were drifting forward.

Dawes mended very slowly. He was in the convalescent home at Skegness at Christmas, nearly well again. Paul went to the seaside for a few days. His father was with Annie in Sheffield. Dawes came to Paul’s lodgings. His time in the home was up. The two men, between whom was such a big reserve, seemed faithful to each other. Dawes depended on Morel now. He knew Paul and Clara had practically separated.

Two days after Christmas Paul was to go back to Nottingham. The evening before he sat with Dawes smoking before the fire.

“You know Clara’s coming down for the day to-morrow?” he said.

The other man glanced at him.