Sons and Lovers | Page 2

that nasty alley of ash-pits.
Mrs. Morel was not anxious to move into the Bottoms, which was
already twelve years old and on the downward path, when she
descended to it from Bestwood. But it was the best she could do.
Moreover, she had an end house in one of the top blocks, and thus had
only one neighbour; on the other side an extra strip of garden. And,
having an end house, she enjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other
women of the "between" houses, because her rent was five shillings
and sixpence instead of five shillings a week. But this superiority in
station was not much consolation to Mrs. Morel.
She was thirty-one years old, and had been married eight years. A
rather small woman, of delicate mould but resolute bearing, she shrank
a little from the first contact with the Bottoms women. She came down
in the July, and in the September expected her third baby.
Her husband was a miner. They had only been in their new home three
weeks when the wakes, or fair, began. Morel, she knew, was sure to
make a holiday of it. He went off early on the Monday morning, the
day of the fair. The two children were highly excited. William, a boy of
seven, fled off immediately after breakfast, to prowl round the wakes
ground, leaving Annie, who was only five, to whine all morning to go
also. Mrs. Morel did her work. She scarcely knew her neighbours yet,

and knew no one with whom to trust the little girl. So she promised to
take her to the wakes after dinner.
William appeared at half-past twelve. He was a very active lad,
fair-haired, freckled, with a touch of the Dane or Norwegian about him.
"Can I have my dinner, mother?" he cried, rushing in with his cap on.
"'Cause it begins at half-past one, the man says so."
"You can have your dinner as soon as it's done," replied the mother.
"Isn't it done?" he cried, his blue eyes staring at her in indignation.
"Then I'm goin' be-out it."
"You'll do nothing of the sort. It will be done in five minutes. It is only
half-past twelve."
"They'll be beginnin'," the boy half cried, half shouted.
"You won't die if they do," said the mother. "Besides, it's only half-past
twelve, so you've a full hour."
The lad began hastily to lay the table, and directly the three sat down.
They were eating batter-pudding and jam, when the boy jumped off his
chair and stood perfectly stiff. Some distance away could be heard the
first small braying of a merry-go-round, and the tooting of a horn. His
face quivered as he looked at his mother.
"I told you!" he said, running to the dresser for his cap.
"Take your pudding in your hand--and it's only five past one, so you
were wrong--you haven't got your twopence," cried the mother in a
breath.
The boy came back, bitterly disappointed, for his twopence, then went
off without a word.
"I want to go, I want to go," said Annie, beginning to cry.

"Well, and you shall go, whining, wizzening little stick!" said the
mother. And later in the afternoon she trudged up the hill under the tall
hedge with her child. The hay was gathered from the fields, and cattle
were turned on to the eddish. It was warm, peaceful.
Mrs. Morel did not like the wakes. There were two sets of horses, one
going by steam, one pulled round by a pony; three organs were
grinding, and there came odd cracks of pistol-shots, fearful screeching
of the cocoanut man's rattle, shouts of the Aunt Sally man, screeches
from the peep-show lady. The mother perceived her son gazing
enraptured outside the Lion Wallace booth, at the pictures of this
famous lion that had killed a negro and maimed for life two white men.
She left him alone, and went to get Annie a spin of toffee. Presently the
lad stood in front of her, wildly excited.
"You never said you was coming--isn't the' a lot of things?--that lion's
killed three men--I've spent my tuppence--an' look here."
He pulled from his pocket two egg-cups, with pink moss-roses on
them.
"I got these from that stall where y'ave ter get them marbles in them
holes. An' I got these two in two goes-'aepenny a go-they've got
moss-roses on, look here. I wanted these."
She knew he wanted them for her.
"H'm!" she said, pleased. "They ARE pretty!"
"Shall you carry 'em, 'cause I'm frightened o' breakin' 'em?"
He was tipful of excitement now she had come, led her about the
ground, showed her everything. Then, at the peep-show, she explained
the pictures, in a sort of story, to which he listened as if spellbound. He