This time she felt it was too much. When he had had his dinner—he came home early that day—she said to him coldly:
“Did you take sixpence out of my purse last night?”
“Me!” he said, looking up in an offended way. “No, I didna! I niver clapped eyes on your purse.”
But she could detect the lie.
“Why, you know you did,” she said quietly.
“I tell you I didna,” he shouted. “Yer at me again, are yer? I’ve had about enough on’t.”
“So you filch sixpence out of my purse while I’m taking the clothes in.”
“I’ll may yer pay for this,” he said, pushing back his chair in desperation. He bustled and got washed, then went determinedly upstairs. Presently he came down dressed, and with a big bundle in a blue-checked, enormous handkerchief.
“And now,” he said, “you’ll see me again when you do.”
“It’ll be before I want to,” she replied; and at that he marched out of the house with his bundle. She sat trembling slightly, but her heart brimming with contempt. What would she do if he went to some other pit, obtained work, and got in with another woman? But she knew him too well—he couldn’t. She was dead sure of him. Nevertheless her heart was gnawed inside her.
“Where’s my dad?” said William, coming in from school.
“He says he’s run away,” replied the mother.
“Where to?”
“Eh, I don’t know. He’s taken a bundle in the blue handkerchief, and says he’s not coming back.”
“What shall we do?” cried the boy.
“Eh, never trouble, he won’t go far.”
“But if he doesn’t come back,” wailed Annie.
And she and William retired to the sofa and wept. Mrs. Morel sat and laughed.
“You pair of gabeys!” she exclaimed. “You’ll see him before the night’s out.”
But the children were not to be consoled. Twilight came on. Mrs. Morel grew anxious from very weariness. One part of her said it would be a relief to see the last of him; another part fretted because of keeping the children; and inside her, as yet, she could not quite let him go. At the bottom, she knew very well he could not go.
When she went down to the coal-place at the end of the garden, however, she felt something behind the door. So she looked. And there in the dark lay the big blue bundle. She sat on a piece of coal and laughed. Every time she saw it, so fat and yet so ignominious, slunk into its corner in the dark, with its ends flopping like dejected ears from the knots, she laughed again. She was relieved.
Mrs. Morel sat waiting. He had not any money, she knew, so if he stopped he was running up a bill. She was very tired of him—tired to death. He had not even the courage to carry his bundle beyond the yard-end.
As she meditated, at about nine o’clock, he opened the door and came in, slinking, and yet sulky. She said not a word. He took off his coat, and slunk to his armchair, where he began to take off his boots.
“You’d better fetch your bundle before you take your boots off,” she said quietly.
“You may thank your stars I’ve come back tonight,” he said, looking up from under his dropped head, sulkily, trying to be impressive.
“Why, where should you have gone? You daren’t even get your parcel through the yard-end,” she said.
He looked such a fool she was not even angry with him. He continued to take his boots off and prepare for bed.
“I don’t know what’s in your blue handkerchief,” she said. “But if you leave it the children shall fetch it in the morning.”
Whereupon he got up and went out of the house, returning presently and crossing the kitchen with averted face, hurrying upstairs. As Mrs. Morel saw him slink quickly through the inner doorway, holding his bundle, she laughed to herself: but her heart was bitter, because she had loved him.
III
The Casting Off of Morel—The Taking on of William
During the next week Morel’s temper was almost unbearable. Like all miners, he was a great lover of medicines, which, strangely enough, he would often pay for himself.
“You mun get me a drop o’ laxy vitral,” he said. “It’s a winder as we canna ha’e a sup i’ th’ ’ouse.”
So Mrs. Morel bought him elixir of vitriol, his favourite first medicine. And he made himself a jug of wormwood tea. He had hanging in the attic great bunches of dried herbs: wormwood, rue, horehound, elder flowers, parsley-purt, marshmallow, hyssop, dandelion, and centaury. Usually there was a jug of one or other decoction standing on the hob, from which he drank largely.
“Grand!” he said, smacking his lips after wormwood. “Grand!” And he exhorted the children to try.
“It’s better than any of your tea or your cocoa stews,” he vowed. But they were not to be tempted.
This time, however, neither pills nor vitriol nor all his herbs would shift the “nasty peens in his head.” He was sickening for an attack of an inflammation of the brain. He had never been well since his sleeping on the ground when he went with Jerry to Nottingham. Since then he had drunk and stormed. Now he fell seriously ill, and Mrs. Morel had him to nurse. He was one of the worst patients imaginable. But, in spite of all, and putting aside the fact that he was breadwinner, she never quite wanted him to die. Still there was one part of her wanted him for herself.
The neighbours were very good to her: occasionally some had the children in to meals, occasionally some would do the downstairs work for her, one would mind the baby for a day. But it was a great drag, nevertheless. It was not every day the neighbours helped. Then she had nursing of baby and husband, cleaning and cooking, everything to do. She was quite worn out, but she did what was wanted of her.
And the money was just sufficient. She had seventeen
