Sons and Lovers

“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?”