Page 373 - sons-and-lovers

left it vague. At any rate, she was not hostile to the idea of
Clara.
Annie, too, was getting married. Leonard had gone away
to work in Birmingham. One week-end when he was home
she had said to him:
‘You don’t look very well, my lad.’
‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘I feel anyhow or nohow, ma.’
He called her ‘ma’ already in his boyish fashion.
‘Are you sure they’re good lodgings?’ she asked.
‘Yes—yes. Only—it’s a winder when you have to pour
your own tea out—an’ nobody to grouse if you team it in
your saucer and sup it up. It somehow takes a’ the taste out
of it.’
Mrs. Morel laughed.
‘And so it knocks you up?’ she said.
‘I dunno. I want to get married,’ he blurted, twisting his
fingers and looking down at his boots. There was a silence.
‘But,’ she exclaimed, ‘I thought you said you’d wait an-
other year.’
‘Yes, I did say so,’ he replied stubbornly.
Again she considered.
‘And you know,’ she said, ‘Annie’s a bit of a spendthrift.
She’s saved no more than eleven pounds. And I know, lad,
you haven’t had much chance.’
He coloured up to the ears.
‘I’ve got thirty-three quid,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t go far,’ she answered.
He said nothing, but twisted his fingers.
‘And you know,’ she said, ‘I’ve nothing—-‘

Sons and Lovers