Page 272 - sons-and-lovers

‘Here!’ she cried to a man. ‘Here!’
Paul and Annie got behind the rest, convulsed with
shamed laughter.
‘How much will it be to drive to Brook Cottage?’ said
Mrs. Morel.
‘Two shillings.’
‘Why, how far is it?’
‘A good way.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said.
But she scrambled in. There were eight crowded in one
old seaside carriage.
‘You see,’ said Mrs. Morel, ‘it’s only threepence each, and
if it were a tramcar—-‘
They drove along. Each cottage they came to, Mrs. Mo-
rel cried:
‘Is it this? Now, this is it!’
Everybody sat breathless. They drove past. There was a
universal sigh.
‘I’m thankful it wasn’t that brute,’ said Mrs. Morel. ‘I
WAS frightened.’ They drove on and on.
At last they descended at a house that stood alone over
the dyke by the highroad. There was wild excitement be-
cause they had to cross a little bridge to get into the front
garden. But they loved the house that lay so solitary, with
a sea-meadow on one side, and immense expanse of land
patched in white barley, yellow oats, red wheat, and green
root-crops, flat and stretching level to the sky.
Paul kept accounts. He and his mother ran the show. The
total expenses—lodging, food, everything—was sixteen

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