“You may thank your stars I’ve come back
to-night,” he said, looking up from under his
dropped head, sulkily, trying to be impressive.
“Why, where should you have gone? You daren’t
even get your parcel through the yard-end,”
she said.
He looked such a fool she was not even angry with
him. He continued to take his boots off and prepare
for bed.
“I don’t know what’s in your blue
handkerchief,” she said. “But if you
leave it the children shall fetch it in the morning.”
Whereupon he got up and went out of the house, returning
presently and crossing the kitchen with averted face,
hurrying upstairs. As Mrs. Morel saw him slink
quickly through the inner doorway, holding his bundle,
she laughed to herself: but her heart was bitter,
because she had loved him.
THE CASTING OFF OF MOREL—THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM
During the next week Morel’s temper was
almost unbearable. Like all miners, he was a
great lover of medicines, which, strangely enough,
he would often pay for himself.
“You mun get me a drop o’ laxy vitral,”
he said. “It’s a winder as we canna
ha’e a sup i’ th’ ’ouse.”
So Mrs. Morel bought him elixir of vitriol, his favourite
first medicine. And he made himself a jug of
wormwood tea. He had hanging in the attic great
bunches of dried herbs: wormwood, rue, horehound,
elder flowers, parsley-purt, marshmallow, hyssop,
dandelion, and centaury. Usually there was a
jug of one or other decoction standing on the hob,
from which he drank largely.
“Grand!” he said, smacking his lips after
wormwood. “Grand!” And he exhorted
the children to try.
“It’s better than any of your tea or your
cocoa stews,” he vowed. But they were not
to be tempted.
This time, however, neither pills nor vitriol nor
all his herbs would shift the “nasty peens in
his head”. He was sickening for an attack
of an inflammation of the brain. He had never
been well since his sleeping on the ground when he
went with Jerry to Nottingham. Since then he had
drunk and stormed. Now he fell seriously ill,
and Mrs. Morel had him to nurse. He was one of
the worst patients imaginable. But, in spite of
all, and putting aside the fact that he was breadwinner,
she never quite wanted him to die. Still there
was one part of her wanted him for herself.
The neighbours were very good to her: occasionally
some had the children in to meals, occasionally some
would do the downstairs work for her, one would mind
the baby for a day. But it was a great drag, nevertheless.
It was not every day the neighbours helped. Then
she had nursing of baby and husband, cleaning and
cooking, everything to do. She was quite worn
out, but she did what was wanted of her.
And the money was just sufficient. She had seventeen
shillings a week from clubs, and every Friday Barker
and the other butty put by a portion of the stall’s
profits for Morel’s wife. And the neighbours
made broths, and gave eggs, and such invalids’
trifles. If they had not helped her so generously
in those times, Mrs. Morel would never have pulled
through, without incurring debts that would have dragged
her down.
