Page 399 - sons-and-lovers

‘Will you drink a bottle of stout?’ Mrs. Radford asked.
‘Clara, get him a bottle of stout.’
He protested, but Mrs. Radford insisted.
‘You look as if you could do with it,’ she said. ‘Haven’t
you never any more colour than that?’
‘It’s only a thick skin I’ve got that doesn’t show the blood
through,’ he answered.
Clara, ashamed and chagrined, brought him a bottle of
stout and a glass. He poured out some of the black stuff.
‘Well,’ he said, lifting the glass, ‘here’s health!’
‘And thank you,’ said Mrs. Radford.
He took a drink of stout.
‘And light yourself a cigarette, so long as you don’t set the
house on fire,’ said Mrs. Radford.
‘Thank you,’ he replied.
‘Nay, you needn’t thank me,’ she answered. ‘I s’ll be glad
to smell a bit of smoke in th’ ‘ouse again. A house o’ women
is as dead as a house wi’ no fire, to my thinkin’. I’m not a
spider as likes a corner to myself. I like a man about, if he’s
only something to snap at.’
Clara began to work. Her jenny spun with a subdued
buzz; the white lace hopped from between her fingers on to
the card. It was filled; she snipped off the length, and pinned
the end down to the banded lace. Then she put a new card in
her jenny. Paul watched her. She sat square and magnificent.
Her throat and arms were bare. The blood still mantled be-
low her ears; she bent her head in shame of her humility.
Her face was set on her work. Her arms were creamy and
full of life beside the white lace; her large, well-kept hands

Sons and Lovers