Sons and Lovers

“Come this way,” said Mr. Jordan, in a rather snappy little manner intended to be business-like.

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.”