Page 411 - sons-and-lovers

needed all her courage to slip them into the pocket of her
apron.
The girls loved him and were afraid of him. He was so
nice while he was nice, but if he were offended, so distant,
treating them as if they scarcely existed, or not more than
the bobbins of thread. And then, if they were impudent, he
said quietly: ‘Do you mind going on with your work,’ and
stood and watched.
When he celebrated his twenty-third birthday, the house
was in trouble. Arthur was just going to be married. His
mother was not well. His father, getting an old man, and
lame from his accidents, was given a paltry, poor job. Miri-
am was an eternal reproach. He felt he owed himself to her,
yet could not give himself. The house, moreover, needed his
support. He was pulled in all directions. He was not glad it
was his birthday. It made him bitter.
He got to work at eight o’clock. Most of the clerks had not
turned up. The girls were not due till 8.30. As he was chang-
ing his coat, he heard a voice behind him say:
‘Paul, Paul, I want you.’
It was Fanny, the hunchback, standing at the top of her
stairs, her face radiant with a secret. Paul looked at her in
astonishment.
‘I want you,’ she said.
He stood, at a loss.
‘Come on,’ she coaxed. ‘Come before you begin on the
letters.’
He went down the half-dozen steps into her dry, nar-
row, ‘finishing-off’ room. Fanny walked before him: her

10 Sons and Lovers