‘No trouble at all, if you can put up with the poky places we have to live in,’ said Mrs Tewson, shaking hands.
‘And this is Mr Tewson,’ said Connie, to a big, pasty-faced man with dust-coloured hair and rather nice eyes. He shook hands with her, gripping with his big, hardened hand, but it was his wife who said:
‘That’s right! That’s my ’usband, Bill. But we usually call it Towson, though I know it’s written Tewson. But folks mostly say Towson.’
‘Ay, Towson, that’s right!’ said Bill, adding with uncomfortable heartiness: ‘Pleased to see you! Hope you can make yourself comfortable. You must make yourself at ’ome.’
‘Now where shall you sit?’ said Mrs Tewson. ‘Oliver —, she turned to the scullery — ‘are you goin’ to wash yourself first? I’m sure you needn’t bother. Nobody’ll mind, will they?’
‘Not I!’ said Constance, rather bewildered.
‘I shan’t be a minute — you c’n start without me,’ said Parkin from the scullery. And there came a sound of water splashing.
‘Well let’s sit down,’ said Mrs Tewson.
‘You haven’t introduced me to the children,’ said Connie, seeing a little pale boy of about eight, and a freckled pink-cheeked girl of about six sitting side by side on the sofa against the wall, while a little girl of two sat in a high chair at the table, next the sofa.
‘I haven’t, have I?’ said Mrs Tewson. ‘I did my best to get shut of ’em, but they wouldn’t be shunted off. Come, Harry! Come an’ shake hands with the lady. Come Dorothy.’
The two children suddenly slid silently down under the table, like letters into a letter-box, and emerged crawling among the chair-legs on the other side.
‘Oh, you shouldn’t have moved!’ said Connie. ‘How do you do, Harry! Are you the eldest? — How do you do, Dorothy! You are a nice little girl with rosy cheeks!’
The children gave their hands shyly and awkwardly.
‘And the little one’s Marjory. Shake a dandie with a lady! Give lady a dandie, Marjory-love!’ said the mother.
Marjory-love banged the tray of her high chair with a spoon, and Connie patted her cheek, laughing.
‘Perhaps you’ll sit next to my husband,’ said Mrs Tewson, adding, to him: ‘Sit down, then, Bill, an’ make yourself shorter.’
Bill sat in the chair next to Marjory-love, and Connie sat next him, round the corner. On her left was Parkin’s vacant chair. Mrs Tewson had all the tea-cups, and one side of the table, to herself.
‘How do you like it?’ she said to Connie, as she began to pour the tea.
‘Rather weak, please,’ said Connie, dreading the strong Ceylon tea.
‘Weak did you say? Shall I put a drop of water in then? — Bill, bring th’ kettle, there’s a good lad.’
Bill went to the scullery for the kettle, and murmured something to Parkin. Connie looked at the table. There were tinned peaches and tinned pears, slices of ham and slices of tongue, water-cress, cream-cheese, plum-cake, little cakes, plates of brown and white bread-and-butter, and a plate of tartlets. The glass dishes sparkled, the embroidered cloth was snowy but crowded to invisibility. Knives, forks, spoons, glittered, though the latter were only ‘metal’, and the china was fine and quite pretty, with poppies on it.
But what a spread! It took one’s breath away. The Tewsons, however, sat before it expectantly, ready to fall to. Connie was forced to help herself to tongue, while Bill helped the children to pears or peaches. It was bewildering. Connie was so afraid she would smash something, for there was not an inch of room on the table. But the family took it calmly, and Marjory-love dipped her fingers in pear-juice on her little plate with utmost sang-froid, the other two children calmly tackled their huge half- peaches.
‘Well ’ow do you think Mr Seivers is lookin’?’ asked Mrs Tewson, when she had poured her own tea.
‘Who? Oh! — Not very well,’ said Connie hastily.
‘He’s not well!’ Mrs Tewson confided, in a suddenly lowered, intense voice. ‘He’s not at all well. He doesn’t eat. And he’s had a sprained shoulder. — I’m not at all satisfied with ’im.’
‘Work’s a bit too ’eavy for ’im,’ said Bill, also sotto voce.
‘That’s it!’ hissed Mrs Tewson secretly. ‘He’s not strong enough for it. But ’e won’t be told. You can’t tell him anything.’
‘He’s strong enough for a man of ’is build,’ said Bill, still in low tone, so that Parkin should not hear. ‘But he’s built too light. His bones is light, he’s not got resistance enough for handlin’ them iron bars an’ lengths.’
‘That’s it!’ hissed Mrs Tewson. ‘But ’e won’t ’ave it! He won’t listen to reason. He says other chaps no bigger than him does the same work. — Yes! I say. But they’ve been used to it all their, lives, an’ they’re wiry ones, which you aren’t! — Oh, he’s knockin’ himself up. It fair worries me and Bill.’
‘Can’t he do anything else — something lighter?’ said Connie.’
‘Every job’s full up, an’ twenty men waitin’ for th’ next, what with this strike an’ unemployment. Bill’s tryin’ to get ’im on to a lorry — but it’s not easy, you know. An’ we thought if only he could get into th’ tool shed! Bill’s goin’ to go on trying. Else I’m sure he’ll be knocked up, he can’t stand it. — But men’s that obstinate.’
‘Why need he work at all, for the time being?’ said Connie, desperately.
‘Well I suppose he’s got his living to earn, and child to keep, like every other man,’ said Mrs Tewson, rather coldly.
‘Yes, but—’ said Connie impatiently.
‘I’m goin’ t’ave another go at Mr Fellows to get ’im in th’ tool shed,’ said Bill. ‘That’s the place for ’im. It’s not heavy work, an’ wants a light touch. An’ he’s done sharpenin’ an’ settin’ on Tevershall pit-bank. — Only he’s an outsider, an’ they won’t make an exception for him.’
‘Wouldn’t they if you paid them?’ said Connie, with a woman’s callous anarchy.
‘Paid them?’ said Bill, looking at her strangely.
‘If you said: Here’s five pounds, or ten, if you’ll get Parkin into the tool shed!’ said Connie, looking back at him calmly.
A slow smile spread over Bill’s face.
‘Well, I’ve never ’ad five or ten pounds to try ’im with,’ he said slowly. ‘An’ afore t’war, you’d ha’ got sack for tryin’ it on. But you never know nowadays. Things is so different — I should like to see Alfred Fellows’ face if I told him I’d make it worth his while, up to five or ten pounds, to shift Oliver over.’
Bill’s own face was a study: he was shocked, amused, uneasy, and malicious all at once.
‘Doesn’t he go to church? Doesn’t he have missionaries or something to collect for?’ said Connie.
‘No!’ said Bill. ‘He’s more or less of a socialist. But he is secretary for our club, an’ he does have a bit of work screwing funds out of us boys.’
‘Then can’t you say you’d hand him on five pounds, or what he wants — from a friend of Parkin’s?’ said Connie, anxious and unscrupulous, her face bright.
‘I might sort of hint it like,’ said Bill.
‘Money’ll do anything — lucky them as has it!’ said Mrs Tewson abruptly.
‘I’ll send it in a letter,’ said Connie.
‘Wait while I feel my way, an’ I’ll let you know,’ said Bill. I wouldn’t do it for anybody but Oliver. But a pal’s a pal — especially one as was in France with yer —’
‘Well, if you can do it that way — if Lady Chatterley doesn’t mind — I don’t see why we should,’ said Mrs Tewson. Nevertheless, she seemed annoyed. And she looked at Connie with certain hostility.
Parkin came in with his face washed and pinched looking, and his hair combed. He squeezed past Mrs Tewson to get his coat out of the passage.
‘Come on, lad, your tea’ll be cold,’ Mrs Tewson said to him with brusque solicitude.
He got rather painfully into his coat,
because of the sprained shoulder.
‘Now if yer’d let Bill help y’on!’ said Mrs Tewson, ‘But yer that stubborn! — If yer tea’s not sweet enough, say so. ’And ’im the ’am an’ tongue, Bill.’
Parkin used his knife and fork clumsily, with swollen hands and was silent.
‘How’s yer cup?’ said Mrs Tewson. ‘I can see my ‘usband lookin’ at ’is. Let me give y’ another. The men won’t ’ave these little cups ordinary. They both want big ones, swilkerin’ over. — You ma’ drink up slow today, ma lad,’ this last to her husband.
She poured out the tea quickly. Everything she did, she did, with a kind of sharp, efficient haste, rather jarring.
‘Bill, can’t you see to that child! Marjory-love, not on mother’s clean table-cloth! No!’
Marjory-love was reaching over and spooning a mixture of tea and fruit juice on to the table-cloth.
‘A-a! A-a!’ said Bill, in a queer sound, so she immediately began to kick the tray of her chair, with all her might. Bill gave her the spoon back, and she started ladling out her tea again.
‘Draw her back a bit from th’ table!’ said her mother. ‘That’s naughty, Marjory! Marjory, that’s naughty!’
Marjory-love, drawn back from the table, made pools of tea on her tray, and splashed them with her chubby fists, so that the drops flew around.
‘Marjory! Will Mamma have to get up an’ whip you! Marjory!’
There was a crisis coming. Bill removed the tea and slopped food from the child’s tray. Marjory-love, without a sound, sent her spoon flying across the table, where it hit her brother Harry on the head, and bounced off on to the table. Harry laughed sheepishly at this lovable little exploit, but Mrs Tewson repeated, with a curious ugly intonation:
‘Marjory! Mamma will get up an’ whip you! She will!’ It was almost as if she looked forward to a little excitement.
‘’Ere! Ta’e that, an’ be good!’ said Bill, giving the child a lemon-curd tart. She immediately squashed it up into a mess, and demanded water-cress. He gave her water-cress. Her mother was eyeing her with dangerous eyes, the woman’s pale face lengthening.
‘She’s a bonny child!’ said Connie.
‘Ay, an’ a bad one! That’s ’cause we want her to behave. She can be as good as gold when she likes.’
The mother eyed the child fixedly, the child bent her head in obvious impudent defiance, and scrubbed her sticky board with water-cress.
‘She doesn’t shame ’er cupboard, does she!’ said Bill with pride.
‘It’s ’er father as spoils ’er,’ said the mother.
And the battle of wills continued, between the woman and the girl, infant.
‘Oh Marjory!’ said Connie. ‘Does your mother say you’re spoilt?’
Marjory-love had a faint self-conscious look on her face, half shy, half defiantly amused.
‘Ay, an’ her Dad says so an’ a’, doesn’t ’e!’ said Bill, softly pinching the fat little cheek.
‘You’re makin’ no tea at all!’ said Mrs Tewson to Connie, turning from the sight of her husband and the child. She was a jealous woman, jealous even there. — ‘Now what shall y’ave? You must eat, or we s’ll think it’s not good enough for yer.’
‘It’s much too good!’ said Connie: and she took a bit of currant loaf.
She could feel Parkin inwardly squirming, at her elbow. But he was eating tinned peaches and thickened cream.
‘How are yer gettin’ on at Tevershall, like?’ said Bill. ‘I’ve been over there. I stopped a night in th’ cottage wi’ Oliver — didn’t I lad?’
‘About a year sin’,’ said Parkin.
‘I s’d think it is,’ said Bill.
‘Really! I didn’t see you,’ said Connie.
‘No! But I seed you an’ Sir Clifford in th’ park. — You didn’t know Oliver so well at that time, like.’
‘No,’ said Connie.
‘It was raisin’ th’ young pheasants this spring as started you talkin’ to me a bit,’ said Oliver, cold and quiet, turning to her. She looked at him, and saw he resented their knowing much of his relationship with her.
‘Yes!’ she said softly.
‘An’ you got almost friendly this summer, did you?’ said Mrs Tewson, fixing her brown, searching eyes on Connie.
‘Quite friendly,’ said Connie, looking back at her.
‘Fancy now! Well, I suppose people can be a bit of friends, no matter how different you’re situated in life. — But it doesn’t do to brood over it, for all that. Does it?’
‘No!’ said Connie, accepting the innuendo.
‘Do you mind,’ said Bill, shifting uneasily in his chair, ‘if I ask you a question? a plain question?’
‘Not at all,’ said Connie, wondering what was coming.
‘Now you don’t mind, will you, if I’m a bit plain-spoken? — No! — Well, what I want to know — Do you think it is possible for people in a very different walk of life to be friends — really friends?’
Connie looked at him. His pale face was quite earnest, and his grey eyes were rather nice. But there was a certain underneath toughness, insentience in him. He had the modern emotional incompleteness.
‘I don’t think you can generalise,’ said Connie: ‘If you mean me and Parkin, I think we’re quite good friends.’
‘Well, I didn’t mean that altogether. I meant generally —’
‘Friends across a distance, like!’ put in Mrs Tewson, with a slight sarcasm. ‘You aren’t friends with Mr Seivers — Parkin, as you say! — like we are, as one of us-selves.’ She was very biting.
Connie looked at her, rather puzzled. She didn’t realize that to Mrs Tewson, for a woman to call a man merely ‘Parkin’ was as good as an insult.
‘Leave that!’ said Bill. — ‘You see what we are — working people; decent working people, it’s no good pretending anything else —’ he added deprecatingly, — as if he might have been mistaken for an archangel in disguise. ‘An’ you know your own class: the upper classes. Well, what I want to know, is it possible, is it likely that there could be a real friendly feeling between the two? I don’t mean patronising, mind. I mean a real feeling of friendliness, like what we feel for one another: me an’ Oliver, for instance.’
It all seemed very vague, to Connie.
‘But I don’t know the working classes,’ she said innocently. And Mrs Tewson scored another black mark against her, and was deep offended, but coldly, biding her time. ‘I only know one or two — a little — and they’re not really working-class —’ Connie ended vaguely, not knowing what to say.
‘That’s it!’ said Bill. ‘That’s it! That’s where it is. You don’t know any working people, an’ we don’t know any of the nobs. Some of them comes an’ speaks to us from the platform. But I mean — that’s not knowin’ them. They’re no nearer to us, when they’re on the platform, than they are when they’re in their homes, with all the servants to wait on ’em. What I mean to say, we never come into contact with them —’
He had laid his workman’s hand on the edge of the table, and was leaning forward, gazing at her with those clear, wide-open, anxious eyes which puzzled her so. He stared too hard, too abstractedly.
‘How could you,’ she said, ‘come into contact with them?’
‘No!’ and he emphatically slapped the edge of the table. ‘That where it is, how could we! — We seemed to, a bit, in the war. Some of the officers was very friendly like, sort of a bit pally. But you knew it wasn’t going to last. You knew they were goin’ back to their own lives, an’ we were goin’ back to work, an’ it’d be same as before. Worse! I allers knowed they laughed at us, for the way we talked. You know how chaps says ‘that’, at every verse-end. Ay lad, it is that! Does thee like this French bacca? I do that! —’ he imitated the rough men who were a shade or two lower in the social scale than himself. ‘Well!’ he said. ‘Th’ officers made a big joke out of that.’
‘People are so silly,’ said Connie. ‘But the working-men should be p
roud of speaking dialect. Anybody can talk ordinary English.’
‘Ay! You think so! Ay! ’Appen so. But everybody wants to talk fine, everybody as wants to get on. An’ as for th’ other chaps —! But that’s where it is. We never meet the nobs, an’ they never meet us, so how can we get on together? — What I should like to ask you — they don’t want to meet us, do they? They don’t want to know us?’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Connie.
‘It’s natural!’ said Mrs Tewson, with a sniff. ‘Them as is up doesn’t want to lower themselves. An’ them as is down doesn’t get a chance o’ risin’ very far, considerin’ th’ money they earn—’
Connie hated the way she said ‘money’. She pronounced it ‘munny’, with the Italian u, and the word sounded even more loathsome than usual.
‘But aren’t people very much alike, everywhere?’ Bill persisted, while she shrank in a kind of fear from his pale, forward-thrusting, wide-eyed face that glowered into hers so insensitively. ‘What I mean to say, is there very much difference between me an’ the kind of folks you mix with, the nobs, except in money an’ eddication? If I’d been brought up an’ eddicated like Sir Clifford, for example — shouldn’t I be about as good a man as he is? More or less, you know! You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, no doubt,’ she said. ‘I don’t think real difference goes by class.’
‘You don’t, eh? You don’t think so? You don’t think they’re any superior to what we are, except for the chances they’ve had?’
‘But the chances make a great difference,’ said Connie.
‘Ay! There! There’s where it is!’ he roared, slapping the edge of the table. ‘There you’ve said it! Ay! That’s the point! The chances do make a lot of difference! A world of difference! an’ that’s why we shall never get ’em. There’ll always be a world of difference while some has chances which the others can never get. — An’ do the upper classes realize that they’re sitting on all the chances of life? Do you think they do? An’ don’t they feel guilty about it?’
‘I don’t think they feel guilty,’ said Connie. ‘Would you, under the circumstances?’
‘Ay!’ he ejaculated, with profound assertion. ‘I’m sure I should. I should think of all the chaps I’ve left behind, slavin’ their guts out an’ rackin’ themselves to pieces, like Oliver here, as is my pal, for a dirty bit of a wage; an’ I sure I should feel guilty. I’m pretty sure I should.’
John Thomas and Lady Jane Page 41
