Sons and Lovers

D >> David Herbert Lawrence >> Sons and Lovers


Presently, Paul was bidden call upon Thomas Jordan, Manufacturer of
Surgical Appliances, at 21, Spaniel Row, Nottingham. Mrs. Morel was all
joy.

"There, you see!" she cried, her eyes shining. "You've only written four
letters, and the third is answered. You're lucky, my boy, as I always
said you were."

Paul looked at the picture of a wooden leg, adorned with elastic
stockings and other appliances, that figured on Mr. Jordan's notepaper,
and he felt alarmed. He had not known that elastic stockings existed.
And he seemed to feel the business world, with its regulated system of
values, and its impersonality, and he dreaded it. It seemed monstrous
also that a business could be run on wooden legs.

Mother and son set off together one Tuesday morning. It was August and
blazing hot. Paul walked with something screwed up tight inside him.
He would have suffered much physical pain rather than this unreasonable
suffering at being exposed to strangers, to be accepted or rejected. Yet
he chattered away with his mother. He would never have confessed to her
how he suffered over these things, and she only partly guessed. She
was gay, like a sweetheart. She stood in front of the ticket-office at
Bestwood, and Paul watched her take from her purse the money for the
tickets. As he saw her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the
silver out of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of
her.

She was quite excited, and quite gay. He suffered because she WOULD talk
aloud in presence of the other travellers.

"Now look at that silly cow!" she said, "careering round as if it
thought it was a circus."

"It's most likely a bottfly," he said very low.

"A what?" she asked brightly and unashamed.

They thought a while. He was sensible all the time of having her
opposite him. Suddenly their eyes met, and she smiled to him--a rare,
intimate smile, beautiful with brightness and love. Then each looked out
of the window.

The sixteen slow miles of railway journey passed. The mother and son
walked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers having an
adventure together. In Carrington Street they stopped to hang over the
parapet and look at the barges on the canal below.

"It's just like Venice," he said, seeing the sunshine on the water that
lay between high factory walls.

"Perhaps," she answered, smiling.

They enjoyed the shops immensely.

"Now you see that blouse," she would say, "wouldn't that just suit our
Annie? And for one-and-eleven-three. Isn't that cheap?"

"And made of needlework as well," he said.

"Yes."

They had plenty of time, so they did not hurry. The town was strange
and delightful to them. But the boy was tied up inside in a knot of
apprehension. He dreaded the interview with Thomas Jordan.

It was nearly eleven o'clock by St. Peter's Church. They turned up a
narrow street that led to the Castle. It was gloomy and old-fashioned,
having low dark shops and dark green house doors with brass knockers,
and yellow-ochred doorsteps projecting on to the pavement; then another
old shop whose small window looked like a cunning, half-shut eye. Mother
and son went cautiously, looking everywhere for "Thomas Jordan and
Son". It was like hunting in some wild place. They were on tiptoe of
excitement.

Suddenly they spied a big, dark archway, in which were names of various
firms, Thomas Jordan among them.

"Here it is!" said Mrs. Morel. "But now WHERE is it?"

They looked round. On one side was a queer, dark, cardboard factory, on
the other a Commercial Hotel.

"It's up the entry," said Paul.

And they ventured under the archway, as into the jaws of the dragon.
They emerged into a wide yard, like a well, with buildings all round. It
was littered with straw and boxes, and cardboard. The sunshine actually
caught one crate whose straw was streaming on to the yard like gold. But
elsewhere the place was like a pit. There were several doors, and two
flights of steps. Straight in front, on a dirty glass door at the top of
a staircase, loomed the ominous words "Thomas Jordan and Son--Surgical
Appliances." Mrs. Morel went first, her son followed her. Charles I
mounted his scaffold with a lighter heart than had Paul Morel as he
followed his mother up the dirty steps to the dirty door.

She pushed open the door, and stood in pleased surprise. In front of her
was a big warehouse, with creamy paper parcels everywhere, and clerks,
with their shirt-sleeves rolled back, were going about in an at-home
sort of way. The light was subdued, the glossy cream parcels seemed
luminous, the counters were of dark brown wood. All was quiet and very
homely. Mrs. Morel took two steps forward, then waited. Paul stood
behind her. She had on her Sunday bonnet and a black veil; he wore a
boy's broad white collar and a Norfolk suit.

One of the clerks looked up. He was thin and tall, with a small face.
His way of looking was alert. Then he glanced round to the other end of
the room, where was a glass office. And then he came forward. He did
not say anything, but leaned in a gentle, inquiring fashion towards Mrs.
Morel.

"Can I see Mr. Jordan?" she asked.

"I'll fetch him," answered the young man.

He went down to the glass office. A red-faced, white-whiskered old man
looked up. He reminded Paul of a pomeranian dog. Then the same little
man came up the room. He had short legs, was rather stout, and wore
an alpaca jacket. So, with one ear up, as it were, he came stoutly and
inquiringly down the room.

"Good-morning!" he said, hesitating before Mrs. Morel, in doubt as to
whether she were a customer or not.

"Good-morning. I came with my son, Paul Morel. You asked him to call
this morning."

"Come this way," said Mr. Jordan, in a rather snappy little manner
intended to be businesslike.

They followed the manufacturer into a grubby little room, upholstered
in black American leather, glossy with the rubbing of many customers.
On the table was a pile of trusses, yellow wash-leather hoops tangled
together. They looked new and living. Paul sniffed the odour of new
wash-leather. He wondered what the things were. By this time he was so
much stunned that he only noticed the outside things.

"Sit down!" said Mr. Jordan, irritably pointing Mrs. Morel to a
horse-hair chair. She sat on the edge in an uncertain fashion. Then the
little old man fidgeted and found a paper.

"Did you write this letter?" he snapped, thrusting what Paul recognised
as his own notepaper in front of him.

"Yes," he answered.

At that moment he was occupied in two ways: first, in feeling guilty
for telling a lie, since William had composed the letter; second, in
wondering why his letter seemed so strange and different, in the fat,
red hand of the man, from what it had been when it lay on the kitchen
table. It was like part of himself, gone astray. He resented the way the
man held it.

"Where did you learn to write?" said the old man crossly.

Paul merely looked at him shamedly, and did not answer.

"He IS a bad writer," put in Mrs. Morel apologetically. Then she pushed
up her veil. Paul hated her for not being prouder with this common
little man, and he loved her face clear of the veil.

"And you say you know French?" inquired the little man, still sharply.

"Yes," said Paul.

"What school did you go to?"

"The Board-school."

"And did you learn it there?"

"No--I--" The boy went crimson and got no farther.

"His godfather gave him lessons," said Mrs. Morel, half pleading and
rather distant.

Mr. Jordan hesitated. Then, in his irritable manner--he always seemed to
keep his hands ready for action--he pulled another sheet of paper from
his pocket, unfolded it. The paper made a crackling noise. He handed it
to Paul.

"Read that," he said.

It was a note in French, in thin, flimsy foreign handwriting that the
boy could not decipher. He stared blankly at the paper.

"'Monsieur,'" he began; then he looked in great confusion at Mr. Jordan.
"It's the--it's the--"

He wanted to say "handwriting", but his wits would no longer work even
sufficiently to supply him with the word. Feeling an utter fool, and
hating Mr. Jordan, he turned desperately to the paper again.

"'Sir,--Please send me'--er--er--I can't tell the--er--'two pairs--gris
fil bas--grey thread stockings'--er--er--'sans--without'--er--I can't
tell the words--er--'doigts--fingers'--er--I can't tell the--"

He wanted to say "handwriting", but the word still refused to come.
Seeing him stuck, Mr. Jordan snatched the paper from him.

"'Please send by return two pairs grey thread stockings without TOES.'"

"Well," flashed Paul, "'doigts' means 'fingers'--as well--as a rule--"

The little man looked at him. He did not know whether "doigts" meant
"fingers"; he knew that for all HIS purposes it meant "toes".

"Fingers to stockings!" he snapped.

"Well, it DOES mean fingers," the boy persisted.

He hated the little man, who made such a clod of him. Mr. Jordan looked
at the pale, stupid, defiant boy, then at the mother, who sat quiet and
with that peculiar shut-off look of the poor who have to depend on the
favour of others.

"And when could he come?" he asked.

"Well," said Mrs. Morel, "as soon as you wish. He has finished school
now."

"He would live in Bestwood?"

"Yes; but he could be in--at the station--at quarter to eight."

"H'm!"

It ended by Paul's being engaged as junior spiral clerk at eight
shillings a week. The boy did not open his mouth to say another word,
after having insisted that "doigts" meant "fingers". He followed his
mother down the stairs. She looked at him with her bright blue eyes full
of love and joy.

"I think you'll like it," she said.

"'Doigts' does mean 'fingers', mother, and it was the writing. I
couldn't read the writing."

"Never mind, my boy. I'm sure he'll be all right, and you won't see much
of him. Wasn't that first young fellow nice? I'm sure you'll like them."

"But wasn't Mr. Jordan common, mother? Does he own it all?"

"I suppose he was a workman who has got on," she said. "You mustn't mind
people so much. They're not being disagreeable to YOU--it's their way.
You always think people are meaning things for you. But they don't."

It was very sunny. Over the big desolate space of the market-place the
blue sky shimmered, and the granite cobbles of the paving glistened.
Shops down the Long Row were deep in obscurity, and the shadow was full
of colour. Just where the horse trams trundled across the market was a
row of fruit stalls, with fruit blazing in the sun--apples and piles of
reddish oranges, small green-gage plums and bananas. There was a warm
scent of fruit as mother and son passed. Gradually his feeling of
ignominy and of rage sank.

"Where should we go for dinner?" asked the mother.

It was felt to be a reckless extravagance. Paul had only been in an
eating-house once or twice in his life, and then only to have a cup of
tea and a bun. Most of the people of Bestwood considered that tea and
bread-and-butter, and perhaps potted beef, was all they could afford to
eat in Nottingham. Real cooked dinner was considered great extravagance.
Paul felt rather guilty.

They found a place that looked quite cheap. But when Mrs. Morel scanned
the bill of fare, her heart was heavy, things were so dear. So she
ordered kidney-pies and potatoes as the cheapest available dish.

"We oughtn't to have come here, mother," said Paul.

"Never mind," she said. "We won't come again."

She insisted on his having a small currant tart, because he liked
sweets.

"I don't want it, mother," he pleaded.

"Yes," she insisted; "you'll have it."

And she looked round for the waitress. But the waitress was busy, and
Mrs. Morel did not like to bother her then. So the mother and son waited
for the girl's pleasure, whilst she flirted among the men.

"Brazen hussy!" said Mrs. Morel to Paul. "Look now, she's taking that
man HIS pudding, and he came long after us."

"It doesn't matter, mother," said Paul.

Mrs. Morel was angry. But she was too poor, and her orders were too
meagre, so that she had not the courage to insist on her rights just
then. They waited and waited.

"Should we go, mother?" he said.

Then Mrs. Morel stood up. The girl was passing near.

"Will you bring one currant tart?" said Mrs. Morel clearly.

The girl looked round insolently.

"Directly," she said.

"We have waited quite long enough," said Mrs. Morel.

In a moment the girl came back with the tart. Mrs. Morel asked coldly
for the bill. Paul wanted to sink through the floor. He marvelled at his
mother's hardness. He knew that only years of battling had taught her to
insist even so little on her rights. She shrank as much as he.

"It's the last time I go THERE for anything!" she declared, when they
were outside the place, thankful to be clear.

"We'll go," she said, "and look at Keep's and Boot's, and one or two
places, shall we?"

They had discussions over the pictures, and Mrs. Morel wanted to buy
him a little sable brush that be hankered after. But this indulgence he
refused. He stood in front of milliners' shops and drapers' shops almost
bored, but content for her to be interested. They wandered on.

"Now, just look at those black grapes!" she said. "They make your mouth
water. I've wanted some of those for years, but I s'll have to wait a
bit before I get them."

Then she rejoiced in the florists, standing in the doorway sniffing.

"Oh! oh! Isn't it simply lovely!"

Paul saw, in the darkness of the shop, an elegant young lady in black
peering over the counter curiously.

"They're looking at you," he said, trying to draw his mother away.

"But what is it?" she exclaimed, refusing to be moved.

"Stocks!" he answered, sniffing hastily. "Look, there's a tubful."

"So there is--red and white. But really, I never knew stocks to smell
like it!" And, to his great relief, she moved out of the doorway, but
only to stand in front of the window.

"Paul!" she cried to him, who was trying to get out of sight of the
elegant young lady in black--the shop-girl. "Paul! Just look here!"

He came reluctantly back.

"Now, just look at that fuchsia!" she exclaimed, pointing.

"H'm!" He made a curious, interested sound. "You'd think every second as
the flowers was going to fall off, they hang so big an' heavy."

"And such an abundance!" she cried.

"And the way they drop downwards with their threads and knots!"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "Lovely!"

"I wonder who'll buy it!" he said.

"I wonder!" she answered. "Not us."

"It would die in our parlour."

"Yes, beastly cold, sunless hole; it kills every bit of a plant you put
in, and the kitchen chokes them to death."

They bought a few things, and set off towards the station. Looking up
the canal, through the dark pass of the buildings, they saw the Castle
on its bluff of brown, green-bushed rock, in a positive miracle of
delicate sunshine.

"Won't it be nice for me to come out at dinner-times?" said Paul. "I can
go all round here and see everything. I s'll love it."

"You will," assented his mother.

He had spent a perfect afternoon with his mother. They arrived home in
the mellow evening, happy, and glowing, and tired.

In the morning he filled in the form for his season-ticket and took it
to the station. When he got back, his mother was just beginning to wash
the floor. He sat crouched up on the sofa.

"He says it'll be here on Saturday," he said.

"And how much will it be?"

"About one pound eleven," he said.

She went on washing her floor in silence.

"Is it a lot?" he asked.

"It's no more than I thought," she answered.

"An' I s'll earn eight shillings a week," he said.

She did not answer, but went on with her work. At last she said:

"That William promised me, when he went to London, as he'd give me a
pound a month. He has given me ten shillings--twice; and now I know
he hasn't a farthing if I asked him. Not that I want it. Only just now
you'd think he might be able to help with this ticket, which I'd never
expected."

"He earns a lot," said Paul.

"He earns a hundred and thirty pounds. But they're all alike. They're
large in promises, but it's precious little fulfilment you get."

"He spends over fifty shillings a week on himself," said Paul.

"And I keep this house on less than thirty," she replied; "and am
supposed to find money for extras. But they don't care about helping
you, once they've gone. He'd rather spend it on that dressed-up
creature."

"She should have her own money if she's so grand," said Paul.

"She should, but she hasn't. I asked him. And I know he doesn't buy her
a gold bangle for nothing. I wonder whoever bought ME a gold bangle."

William was succeeding with his "Gipsy", as he called her. He asked the
girl--her name was Louisa Lily Denys Western--for a photograph to send
to his mother. The photo came--a handsome brunette, taken in profile,
smirking slightly--and, it might be, quite naked, for on the photograph
not a scrap of clothing was to be seen, only a naked bust.

"Yes," wrote Mrs. Morel to her son, "the photograph of Louie is very
striking, and I can see she must be attractive. But do you think, my
boy, it was very good taste of a girl to give her young man that photo
to send to his mother--the first? Certainly the shoulders are beautiful,
as you say. But I hardly expected to see so much of them at the first
view."

Morel found the photograph standing on the chiffonier in the parlour. He
came out with it between his thick thumb and finger.

"Who dost reckon this is?" he asked of his wife.

"It's the girl our William is going with," replied Mrs. Morel.

"H'm! 'Er's a bright spark, from th' look on 'er, an' one as wunna do
him owermuch good neither. Who is she?"

"Her name is Louisa Lily Denys Western."

"An' come again to-morrer!" exclaimed the miner. "An' is 'er an
actress?"

"She is not. She's supposed to be a lady."

"I'll bet!" he exclaimed, still staring at the photo. "A lady, is she?
An' how much does she reckon ter keep up this sort o' game on?"

"On nothing. She lives with an old aunt, whom she hates, and takes what
bit of money's given her."

"H'm!" said Morel, laying down the photograph. "Then he's a fool to ha'
ta'en up wi' such a one as that."

"Dear Mater," William replied. "I'm sorry you didn't like the
photograph. It never occurred to me when I sent it, that you mightn't
think it decent. However, I told Gyp that it didn't quite suit your prim
and proper notions, so she's going to send you another, that I hope
will please you better. She's always being photographed; in fact, the
photographers ask her if they may take her for nothing."

Presently the new photograph came, with a little silly note from the
girl. This time the young lady was seen in a black satin evening bodice,
cut square, with little puff sleeves, and black lace hanging down her
beautiful arms.

"I wonder if she ever wears anything except evening clothes," said Mrs.
Morel sarcastically. "I'm sure I ought to be impressed."

"You are disagreeable, mother," said Paul. "I think the first one with
bare shoulders is lovely."

"Do you?" answered his mother. "Well, I don't."

On the Monday morning the boy got up at six to start work. He had the
season-ticket, which had cost such bitterness, in his waistcoat pocket.
He loved it with its bars of yellow across. His mother packed his dinner
in a small, shut-up basket, and he set off at a quarter to seven to
catch the 7.15 train. Mrs. Morel came to the entry-end to see him off.

It was a perfect morning. From the ash tree the slender green fruits
that the children call "pigeons" were twinkling gaily down on a little
breeze, into the front gardens of the houses. The valley was full of a
lustrous dark haze, through which the ripe corn shimmered, and in which
the steam from Minton pit melted swiftly. Puffs of wind came. Paul
looked over the high woods of Aldersley, where the country gleamed, and
home had never pulled at him so powerfully.

"Good-morning, mother," he said, smiling, but feeling very unhappy.

"Good-morning," she replied cheerfully and tenderly.

She stood in her white apron on the open road, watching him as he
crossed the field. He had a small, compact body that looked full of
life. She felt, as she saw him trudging over the field, that where he
determined to go he would get. She thought of William. He would have
leaped the fence instead of going round the stile. He was away in
London, doing well. Paul would be working in Nottingham. Now she had
two sons in the world. She could think of two places, great centres of
industry, and feel that she had put a man into each of them, that these
men would work out what SHE wanted; they were derived from her, they
were of her, and their works also would be hers. All the morning long
she thought of Paul.

At eight o'clock he climbed the dismal stairs of Jordan's Surgical
Appliance Factory, and stood helplessly against the first great
parcel-rack, waiting for somebody to pick him up. The place was still
not awake. Over the counters were great dust sheets. Two men only had
arrived, and were heard talking in a corner, as they took off their
coats and rolled up their shirt-sleeves. It was ten past eight.
Evidently there was no rush of punctuality. Paul listened to the voices
of the two clerks. Then he heard someone cough, and saw in the office
at the end of the room an old, decaying clerk, in a round smoking-cap of
black velvet embroidered with red and green, opening letters. He waited
and waited. One of the junior clerks went to the old man, greeted him
cheerily and loudly. Evidently the old "chief" was deaf. Then the young
fellow came striding importantly down to his counter. He spied Paul.

"Hello!" he said. "You the new lad?"

"Yes," said Paul.

"H'm! What's your name?"

"Paul Morel."

"Paul Morel? All right, you come on round here."

Paul followed him round the rectangle of counters. The room was second
storey. It had a great hole in the middle of the floor, fenced as with a
wall of counters, and down this wide shaft the lifts went, and the light
for the bottom storey. Also there was a corresponding big, oblong hole
in the ceiling, and one could see above, over the fence of the top
floor, some machinery; and right away overhead was the glass roof, and
all light for the three storeys came downwards, getting dimmer, so that
it was always night on the ground floor and rather gloomy on the second
floor. The factory was the top floor, the warehouse the second, the
storehouse the ground floor. It was an insanitary, ancient place.

Paul was led round to a very dark corner.

"This is the 'Spiral' corner," said the clerk. "You're Spiral, with
Pappleworth. He's your boss, but he's not come yet. He doesn't get here
till half-past eight. So you can fetch the letters, if you like, from
Mr. Melling down there."

The young man pointed to the old clerk in the office.

"All right," said Paul.

"Here's a peg to hang your cap on. Here are your entry ledgers. Mr.
Pappleworth won't be long."

And the thin young man stalked away with long, busy strides over the
hollow wooden floor.

After a minute or two Paul went down and stood in the door of the glass
office. The old clerk in the smoking-cap looked down over the rim of his
spectacles.

"Good-morning," he said, kindly and impressively. "You want the letters
for the Spiral department, Thomas?"

Paul resented being called "Thomas". But he took the letters and
returned to his dark place, where the counter made an angle, where the
great parcel-rack came to an end, and where there were three doors in
the corner. He sat on a high stool and read the letters--those whose
handwriting was not too difficult. They ran as follows:

"Will you please send me at once a pair of lady's silk spiral
thigh-hose, without feet, such as I had from you last year; length,
thigh to knee, etc." Or, "Major Chamberlain wishes to repeat his
previous order for a silk non-elastic suspensory bandage."

Many of these letters, some of them in French or Norwegian, were a great
puzzle to the boy. He sat on his stool nervously awaiting the arrival
of his "boss". He suffered tortures of shyness when, at half-past eight,
the factory girls for upstairs trooped past him.

Mr. Pappleworth arrived, chewing a chlorodyne gum, at about twenty to
nine, when all the other men were at work. He was a thin, sallow man
with a red nose, quick, staccato, and smartly but stiffly dressed. He
was about thirty-six years old. There was something rather "doggy",
rather smart, rather 'cute and shrewd, and something warm, and something
slightly contemptible about him.

"You my new lad?" he said.

Paul stood up and said he was.

"Fetched the letters?"

Mr. Pappleworth gave a chew to his gum.

"Yes."

"Copied 'em?"

"No."

"Well, come on then, let's look slippy. Changed your coat?"

"No."

"You want to bring an old coat and leave it here." He pronounced the
last words with the chlorodyne gum between his side teeth. He vanished
into the darkness behind the great parcel-rack, reappeared coatless,
turning up a smart striped shirt-cuff over a thin and hairy arm. Then
he slipped into his coat. Paul noticed how thin he was, and that his
trousers were in folds behind. He seized a stool, dragged it beside the
boy's, and sat down.