7. Steep the tea.
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ODOUR OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS / 224 7
two, then: 'I hear as Walter's got another bout8 on,' he said.
'When hasn't he?' said the woman bitterly.
'I heerd tell of him in the 'Lord Nelson' braggin' as he was going to spend that b afore he went: half a sovereign9 that was.'
'When?' asked the woman.
'A1 Sat'day night?I know that's true.'
'Very likely,' she laughed bitterly. 'He gives me twenty-three shillings.'
'Aye, it's a nice thing, when a man can do nothing with his money but make a beast of himself!' said the grey-whiskered man. The woman turned her head away. Her father swallowed the last of his tea and handed her the cup.
'Aye,' he sighed, wiping his mouth. 'It's a settler,1 it is '
He put his hand on the lever. The little engine strained and groaned, and the train rumbled towards the crossing. The woman again looked across the metals. Darkness was settling over the spaces of the railway and trucks: the miners, in grey somber groups, were still passing home. The winding engine pulsed hurriedly, with brief pauses. Elizabeth Bates looked at the dreary flow of men, then she went indoors. Her husband did not come.
The kitchen was small and full of firelight; red coals piled glowing up the chimney mouth. All the life of the room seemed in the white, warm hearth and the steel fender reflecting the red fire. The cloth was laid for tea; cups glinted in the shadows. At the back, where the lowest stairs protruded into the room, the boy sat struggling with a knife and a piece of white wood. He was almost hidden in the shadow. It was half-past four. They had but to await the father's coming to begin tea. As the mother watched her son's sullen little struggle with the wood, she saw herself in his silence and pertinacity; she saw the father in her child's indifference to all but himself. She seemed to be occupied by her husband. He had probably gone past his home, slunk past his own door, to drink before he came in, while his dinner spoiled and wasted in waiting. She glanced at the clock, then took the potatoes to strain them in the yard. The garden and fields beyond the brook were closed in uncertain darkness. When she rose with the saucepan, leaving the drain steaming into the night behind her, she saw the yellow lamps were lit along the high road that went up the hill away beyond the space of the railway lines and the field.
Then again she watched the men trooping home, fewer now and fewer.
Indoors the fire was sinking and the room was dark red. The woman put
her saucepan on the hob,2 and set a batter-pudding near the mouth of the
oven. Then she stood unmoving. Directly, gratefully, came quick young steps
to the door. Someone hung on the latch a moment, then a little girl entered
and began pulling off her outdoor things, dragging a mass of curls, just rip
ening from gold to brown, over her eyes with her hat.
Her mother chid her for coming late from school, and said she would have
to keep her at home the dark winter days.
'Why, mother, it's hardly a bit dark yet. The lamp's not lighted, and my
father's not home.'
'No, he isn't. But it's a quarter to five! Did you see anything of him?'
The child became serious. She looked at her mother with large, wistful blue
eyes.
8. Session; i.e., bout of drinking. public house (pub). 9. Gold coin worth twenty shillings. Half a sover-1. Crushing (or final) blow. eign is worth ten. Lord Nelson is the name of a 2. Part of the fireplace.
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224 8 / D. H. LAWRENCE
'No, mother, I've never seen him. Why? Has he come up an' gone past, to Old Brinsley? He hasn't, mother, 'cos I never saw him.'
'He'd watch that,' said the mother bitterly, 'he'd take care as you didn't see him. But you may depend upon it, he's seated in the 'Prince o' Wales.'3 He wouldn't be this late.'
The girl looked at her mother piteously.
'Let's have our teas, mother, should we?' said she.
The mother called John to table. She opened the door once more and looked out across the darkness of the lines. All was deserted: she could not hear the winding-engines.
'Perhaps,' she said to herself, 'he's stopped to get some ripping4 done.'
They sat down to tea. John, at the end of the table near the door, was almost lost in the darkness. Their faces were hidden from each other. The girl crouched against the fender5 slowly moving a thick piece of bread before the fire. The lad, his face a dusky mark on the shadow, sat watching her who was transfigured in the red glow.
'I do think it's beautiful to look in the fire,' said the child.
