Page 145 - sons-and-lovers

chattered away with his mother. He would never have con-
fessed to her how he suffered over these things, and she only
partly guessed. She was gay, like a sweetheart. She stood in
front of the ticket-office at Bestwood, and Paul watched her
take from her purse the money for the tickets. As he saw
her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the silver out
of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of
her.
She was quite excited, and quite gay. He suffered because
she WOULD talk aloud in presence of the other travellers.
‘Now look at that silly cow!’ she said, ‘careering round as
if it thought it was a circus.’
‘It’s most likely a bottfly,’ he said very low.
‘A what?’ she asked brightly and unashamed.
They thought a while. He was sensible all the time of
having her opposite him. Suddenly their eyes met, and
she smiled to him—a rare, intimate smile, beautiful with
brightness and love. Then each looked out of the window.
The sixteen slow miles of railway journey passed. The
mother and son walked down Station Street, feeling the
excitement of lovers having an adventure together. In Car-
rington Street they stopped to hang over the parapet and
look at the barges on the canal below.
‘It’s just like Venice,’ he said, seeing the sunshine on the
water that lay between high factory walls.
‘Perhaps,’ she answered, smiling.
They enjoyed the shops immensely.
‘Now you see that blouse,’ she would say, ‘wouldn’t that
just suit our Annie? And for one-and-eleven-three. Isn’t

1 Sons and Lovers