Page 69 - sons-and-lovers

‘And now,’ he said, ‘you’ll see me again when you do.’
‘It’ll be before I want to,’ she replied; and at that he
marched out of the house with his bundle. She sat trem-
bling slightly, but her heart brimming with contempt. What
would she do if he went to some other pit, obtained work,
and got in with another woman? But she knew him too
well—he couldn’t. She was dead sure of him. Nevertheless
her heart was gnawed inside her.
‘Where’s my dad?’ said William, coming in from school.
‘He says he’s run away,’ replied the mother.
‘Where to?’
‘Eh, I don’t know. He’s taken a bundle in the blue hand-
kerchief, and says he’s not coming back.’
‘What shall we do?’ cried the boy.
‘Eh, never trouble, he won’t go far.’
‘But if he doesn’t come back,’ wailed Annie.
And she and William retired to the sofa and wept. Mrs.
Morel sat and laughed.
‘You pair of gabeys!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ll see him be-
fore the night’s out.’
But the children were not to be consoled. Twilight came
on. Mrs. Morel grew anxious from very weariness. One part
of her said it would be a relief to see the last of him; another
part fretted because of keeping the children; and inside her,
as yet, she could not quite let him go. At the bottom, she
knew very well he could NOT go.
When she went down to the coal-place at the end of the
garden, however, she felt something behind the door. So she
looked. And there in the dark lay the big blue bundle. She

Sons and Lovers