Sons and Lovers (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (55 page)

“Would you rather not?” she asked.

“I will if you
want
me to; but I s’ll feel a fool.”

She laughed at him.

“Then feel a fool for my sake, once, won’t you?”

The request made his blood flush up.

“I suppose I s’ll have to.”

“What are you taking a suitcase for?” his mother asked.

He blushed furiously.

“Clara asked me,” he said.

“And what seats are you going in?”

“Circle—three-and-six each!”

“Well, I’m sure!” exclaimed his mother sarcastically.

“It’s only once in the bluest of blue moons,” he said.

He dressed at Jordan’s, put on an overcoat and a cap, and met Clara in a café. She was with one of her suffragette friends. She wore an old long coat, which did not suit her, and had a little wrap over her head, which he hated. The three went to the theatre together.

Clara took off her coat on the stairs, and he discovered she was in a sort of semi-evening dress, that left her arms and neck and part of her breast bare. Her hair was done fashionably. The dress, a simple thing of green crape, suited her. She looked quite grand, he thought. He could see her figure inside the frock, as if that were wrapped closely round her. The firmness and the softness of her upright body could almost be felt as he looked at her. He clenched his fists.

And he was to sit all the evening beside her beautiful naked arm, watching the strong throat rise from the strong chest, watching the breasts under the green stuff, the curve of her limbs in the tight dress. Something in him hated her again for submitting him to this torture of nearness. And he loved her as she balanced her head and stared straight in front of her, pouting, wistful, immobile, as if she yielded herself to her fate because it was too strong for her. She could not help herself; she was in the grip of something bigger than herself A kind of eternal look about her, as if she were a wistful sphinx, made it necessary for him to kiss her. He dropped his programme, and crouched down on the floor to get it, so that he could kiss her hand and wrist. Her beauty was a torture to him. She sat immobile. Only, when the lights went down, she sank a little against him, and he caressed her hand and arm with his fingers. He could smell her faint perfume. All the time his blood kept sweeping up in great white-hot waves that killed his consciousness momentarily.

The drama continued. He saw it all in the distance, going on somewhere; he did not know where, but it seemed far away inside him. He was Clara’s white heavy arms, her throat, her moving bosom. That seemed to be himself. Then away somewhere the play went on, and he was identified with that also. There was no himself. The grey and black eyes of Clara, her bosom coming down on him, her arm that he held gripped between his hands, were all that existed. Then he felt himself small and helpless, her towering in her force above him.

Only the intervals, when the lights came up, hurt him expressibly. He wanted to run anywhere, so long as it would be dark again. In a maze, he wandered out for a drink. Then the lights were out, and the strange, insane reality of Clara and the drama took hold of him again.

The play went on. But he was obsessed by the desire to kiss the tiny blue vein that nestled in the bend of her arm. He could feel it. His whole face seemed suspended till he had put his lips there. It must be done. And the other people! At last he bent quickly forward and touched it with his lips. His moustache brushed the sensitive flesh. Clara shivered, drew away her arm.

When all was over, the lights up, the people clapping, he came to himself and looked at his watch. His train was gone.

“I s’ll have to walk home!” he said.

Clara looked at him.

“It is too late?” she asked.

He nodded. Then he helped her on with her coat.

“I love you! You look beautiful in that dress,” he murmured over her shoulder, among the throng of bustling people.

She remained quiet. Together they went out of the theatre. He saw the cabs waiting, the people passing. It seemed he met a pair of brown eyes which hated him. But he did not know. He and Clara turned away, mechanically taking the direction to the station.

The train had gone. He would have to walk the ten miles home.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I shall enjoy it.”

“Won’t you,” she said, flushing, “come home for the night? I can sleep with mother.”

He looked at her. Their eyes met.

“What will your mother say?” he asked.

“She won’t mind.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite!”

“Shall
I come?”

“If you will.”

“Very well.”

And they turned away. At the first stopping-place they took the car. The wind blew fresh in their faces. The town was dark; the tram tipped in its haste. He sat with her hand fast in his.

“Will your mother be gone to bed?” he asked.

“She may be. I hope not.”

They hurried along the silent, dark little street, the only people out of doors. Clara quickly entered the house. He hesitated.

He leaped up the step and was in the room. Her mother appeared in the inner doorway, large and hostile.

“Who have you got there?” she asked.

“It’s Mr. Morel; he has missed his train. I thought we might put him up for the night, and save him a ten-mile walk.”

“H’m,” exclaimed Mrs. Radford. “That’s your look-out! If you’ve invited him, he’s very welcome as far as I’m concerned.
You
keep the house!”

“If you don’t like me, I’ll go away again,” he said.

“Nay, nay, you needn’t! Come along in! I dunno what you’ll think of the supper I’d got her.”

It was a little dish of chip potatoes and a piece of bacon. The table was roughly laid for one.

“You can have some more bacon,” continued Mrs. Radford. “More chips you can’t have.”

“It’s a shame to bother you,” he said.

“Oh, don’t you be apologetic! It doesn’t do wi’ me! You treated her to the theatre, didn’t you?” There was a sarcasm in the last question.

“Well?” laughed Paul uncomfortably.

“Well, and what’s an inch of bacon! Take your coat off.”

The big, straight-standing woman was trying to estimate the situation. She moved about the cupboard. Clara took his coat. The room was very warm and cosy in the lamplight.

“My sirs!” exclaimed Mrs. Radford; “but you two’s a pair of bright beauties, I must say! What’s all that get-up for?”

“I believe we don’t know,” he said, feeling a victim.

“There isn’t room in
this
house for two such bobby-dazzlers, if you fly your kites
that
high!” she rallied them. It was a nasty thrust.

He in his dinner jacket, and Clara in her green dress and bare arms, were confused. They felt they must shelter each other in that little kitchen.

“And look at
that
blossom!” continued Mrs. Radford, pointing to Clara. “What does she reckon she did it for?”

Paul looked at Clara. She was rosy; her neck was warm with blushes. There was a moment of silence.

“You like to see it, don’t you?” he asked.

The mother had them in her power. All the time his heart was beating hard, and he was tight with anxiety. But he would fight her.

“Me like to see it!” exclaimed the old woman. “What should I like to see her make a fool of herself for?”

“I’ve seen people look bigger fools,” he said. Clara was under his protection now.

“Oh, ay! and when was that?” came the sarcastic rejoinder.

“When they made frights of themselves,” he answered.

Mrs. Radford, large and threatening, stood suspended on the hearthrug, holding her fork.

“They’re fools either road,” she answered at length, turning to the Dutch oven.

“No,” he said, fighting stoutly. “Folk ought to look as well as they can.

“And do you call
that
looking nice!” cried the mother, pointing a scornful fork at Clara. “That—that looks as if it wasn’t properly dressed!”

“I believe you’re jealous that you can’t swank as well,” he said laughing.

“Me! I could have worn evening dress with anybody, if I’d wanted to!” came the scornful answer.

“And why didn’t you want to?” he asked pertinently. “Or did you wear it?”

There was a long pause. Mrs. Radford readjusted the bacon in the Dutch oven. His heart beat fast, for fear he had offended her.

“Me!” she exclaimed at last. “No, I didn’t! And when I was in service, I knew as soon as one of the maids came out in bare shoulders what sort
she
was, going to her sixpenny hop!”

“Were you too good to go to a sixpenny hop?” he said.

Clara sat with bowed head. His eyes were dark and glittering. Mrs. Radford took the Dutch oven from the fire, and stood near him, putting bits of bacon on his plate.

“
There’s
a nice crozzly
^fo
bit!” she said.

“Don’t give me the best!” he said.

“She’s
got what
she
wants,” was the answer.

There was a sort of scornful forbearance in the woman’s tone that made Paul know she was mollified.

“But do have some!” he said to Clara.

She looked up at him with her grey eyes, humiliated and lonely.

“No thanks!” she said.

“Why won’t you?” he answered carelessly.

The blood was beating up like fire in his veins. Mrs. Radford sat down again, large and impressive and aloof He left Clara altogether to attend to the mother.

“They say Sarah Bernhardt’s fifty,” he said.

“Fifty! She’s turned sixty!” came the scornful answer.

“Well,” he said, “you’d never think it! She made me want to howl even now.”

“I should like to see myself howling at that bad old baggage!” said Mrs. Radford. “It’s time she began to think herself a grandmother, not a shrieking catamaran—”

He laughed.

“A catamaran is a boat the Malays use,” he said.

“And it’s a word as
I
use,” she retorted.

“My mother does sometimes, and it’s no good my telling her,” he said.

“I s’d think she boxes your ears,” said Mrs. Radford, goodhumouredly.

“She’d like to, and she says she will, so I give her a little stool to stand on.”

“That’s the worst of my mother,” said Clara. “She never wants a stool for anything.”

“But she often can’t touch
that
lady with a long prop,” retorted Mrs. Radford to Paul.

“I s’d think she doesn’t want touching with a prop,” he laughed. “
I
shouldn’t.”

“It might do the pair of you good to give you a crack on the head with one,” said the mother, laughing suddenly.

“Why are you so vindictive towards me?” he said. “I’ve not stolen anything from you.”

“No; I’ll watch that,” laughed the older woman.

Soon the supper was finished. Mrs. Radford sat guard in her chair. Paul lit a cigarette. Clara went upstairs, returning with a sleeping-suit, which she spread on the fender to air.

“Why, I’d forgot all about
them
!” said Mrs. Radford. “Where have they sprung from?”

“Out of my drawer.”

“H‘m! You bought ’em for Baxter, an’ he wouldn’t wear ‘em, would he?”—laughing. “Said he reckoned to do wi’out trousers i’ bed.” She turned confidentially to Paul, saying: “He couldn’t
bear
’em, them pyjama things.”

The young man sat making rings of smoke.

“Well, it’s everyone to his taste,” he laughed.

Then followed a little discussion of the merits of pyjamas.

“My mother loves me in them,” he said. “She says I’m a pierrot.”
⁵

“I can imagine they’d suit you,” said Mrs. Radford.

After a while he glanced at the little clock that was ticking on the mantelpiece. It was half-past twelve.

“It is funny,” he said, “but it takes hours to settle down to sleep after the theatre.”

“It’s about time you did,” said Mrs. Radford, clearing the table.

“Are
you
tired?” he asked of Clara.

“Not the least bit,” she answered, avoiding his eyes.

“Shall we have a game at cribbage?”
^fp
he said.

“I’ve forgotten it.”

“Well, I’ll teach you again. May we play crib, Mrs. Radford?” he asked.

“You’ll please yourselves,” she said; “but it’s pretty late.”

“A game or so will make us sleepy,” he answered.

Clara brought the cards, and sat spinning her wedding-ring whilst he shuffled them. Mrs. Radford was washing up in the scullery. As it grew later Paul felt the situation getting more and more tense.

“Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, and two’s eight—!”

The clock struck one. Still the game continued. Mrs. Radford had done all the little jobs preparatory to going to bed, had locked the door and filled the kettle. Still Paul went on dealing and counting. He was obsessed by Clara’s arms and throat. He believed he could see where the division was just beginning for her breasts. He could not leave her. She watched his hands, and felt her joints melt as they moved quickly. She was so near; it was almost as if he touched her, and yet not quite. His mettle was roused. He hated Mrs. Radford. She sat on, nearly dropping asleep, but determined and obstinate in her chair. Paul glanced at her, then at Clara. She met his eyes, that were angry, mocking, and hard as steel. Her own answered him in shame. He knew
she,
at any rate, was of his mind. He played on.

At last Mrs. Radford roused herself stiffly, and said:

“Isn’t it nigh on time you two was thinking o’ bed?”

Paul played on without answering. He hated her sufficiently to murder her.

“Half a minute,” he said.

The elder woman rose and sailed stubbornly into the scullery, returning with his candle, which she put on the mantelpiece. Then she sat down again. The hatred of her went so hot down his veins, he dropped his cards.