The kitchen or living-room of a working-man’s house. At the back the fireplace, with a large fire burning. On the left, on the oven side of the stove, a WOMAN of some fifty-five years sits in a wooden rocking-chair, reading. Behind her and above her, in the recess made by the fireplace, four shelves of books, the shelf-covers being of green serge, with woollen ball fringe, and the books being ill-assorted school books, with an edition of Lessing, florid in green and gilt, but tarnished. On the left, a window looking on a garden where the rain is dripping through the first twilight. Under the window, a sofa, the bed covered with red chintz. By the side of the window, on the wall near the ceiling, a quiver clothes-horse is outspread with the cotton articles which have been ironed, hanging to air. Under the outspread clothes is the door which communicates with the scullery and with the yard. On the right side of the fireplace, in the recess equivalent to that where the bookshelves stand, a long narrow window, and below it, a low, brown, fixed cupboard, whose top forms a little sideboard, on which stand a large black enamel box of oil-colours, and a similar japanned box of water-colours, with Reeve’s silver trade-mark. There is also on the cupboard top a tall glass jar containing ragged pink chrysanthemums. On the right is a bookcase upon a chest of drawers. This piece of furniture is of stained polished wood in imitation of mahogany. The upper case is full of books, seen through the two flimsy glass doors: a large set of the World’s Famous Literature in dark green at the top — then on the next shelf prize-books in calf and gold, and imitation soft leather poetry-books, and a Nuttall’s dictionary and Cassell’s French, German and Latin dictionaries. On each side of the bookcase are prints from water-colours, large, pleasing and well framed in oak. Between the little brown cupboard and the bookcase, an arm-chair, small, round, with many little staves; a comfortable chair such as is seen in many working-class kitchens; it has a red chintz cushion. There is another Windsor chair on the other side of the bookcase. Over the mantelpiece, which is high, with brass candlesticks and two “Coronation” tumblers in enamel, hangs a picture of Venice, from one of Stead’s Christmas Numbers — nevertheless, satisfactory enough.
The WOMAN in the rocking-chair is dressed in black, and wears a black sateen apron. She wears spectacles, and is reading The New Age. Now and again she looks over her paper at a piece of bread which stands on a hanging bar before the fire, propped up by a fork, toasting. There is a little pile of toast on a plate on the boiler hob beside a large saucepan; the kettle and a brown teapot are occupying the oven-top near the WOMAN. The table is laid for tea, with four large breakfast-cups in dark-blue willow-pattern, and plates similar. It is an oval mahogany table, large enough to seat eight comfortably. The WOMAN sees the piece of bread smoking, and takes it from the fire. She butters it and places it on the plate on the hob, after which she looks out of the window, then, taking her paper, sits down again in her place.
SOMEONE passes the long narrow window, only the head being seen, then quite close to the large window on the left. There is a noise as the outer door opens and is shut, then the kitchen door opens, and a GIRL enters. She is tall and thin, and wears a long grey coat and a large blue hat, quite plain. After glancing at the table, she crosses the room, drops her two exercise-books on the wooden chair by the bookcase, saying:
NELLIE LAMBERT: Oh! I am weary.
MOTHER: You are late.
NELLIE: I know I am. It’s Agatha Karton — she is a great gaby. There’s always something wrong with her register, and old Tommy gets in such a fever, the great kid.
She takes off her hat, and going to the door on right, stands in the doorway, hanging it up with her coat on the pegs in the passage, just by the doorway.
And I’m sure the youngsters have been regular little demons; I could have killed them.
MOTHER: I’ve no doubt they felt the same towards you, poor little wretches.
NELLIE (with a short laugh): I’ll bet they did, for I spanked one or two of ’em well.
MOTHER: Trust you, trust you! You’ll be getting the mothers if you’re not careful.
NELLIE (contemptuously): I had one old cat this afternoon. But I told her straight. I said: “If your Johnny, or Sammy, or whatever he is, is a nuisance, he’ll be smacked, and there’s an end of it.” She was mad, but I told her straight; I didn’t care. She can go to Tommy if she likes: I know he’ll fuss her round, but I’ll tell him too. Pah! he fusses the creatures up! — I would!
She comes towards the table, pushing up her hair with her fingers. It is heavy and brown, and has been flattened by her hat. She glances at herself in the little square mirror which hangs from a nail under the right end of the mantelpiece, a mere unconscious glance which betrays no feeling, and is just enough to make her negligently touch her hair again. She turns a trifle fretfully to the table.
NELLIE: Is there only potted meat? You know I can’t bear it.
MOTHER (conciliatorily): Why, I thought you’d like it, a raw day like this — and with toast.
NELLIE: You know I don’t. Why didn’t you get some fruit? — a little tin of apricots —
MOTHER: I thought you’d be sick of apricots — I know Ernest is.
NELLIE: Well, I’m not — you know I’m not. Pappy potted meat!
She sits down on the sofa wearily. Her MOTHER pours out two cups of tea, and replaces the pot on the hob.
MOTHER: Won’t you have some, then?
NELLIE (petulantly): No, I don’t want it.
The MOTHER stands irresolute a moment, then she goes out. NELLIE reaches over to the bookshelves and takes a copy of The Scarlet Pimpernel, which she opens on the table, and reads, sipping her tea but not eating. In a moment or two she glances up, as the MOTHER passes the window and enters the scullery. There is the sound of the opening of a tin.
NELLIE: Have you fetched some? — Oh, you are a sweetling!
The MOTHER enters, with a little glass dish of small tinned apricots. They begin tea.
MOTHER: Polly Goddard says her young man got hurt in the pit this morning.
NELLIE: Oh — is it much? (She looks up from her book.)
MOTHER: One of his feet crushed. Poor Polly’s very sad. What made her tell me was Ben Goddard going by. I didn’t know he was at work again, but he was just coming home, and I asked her about him, and then she went on to tell me of her young man. They’re all coming home from Selson, so I expect your Father won’t be long.
NELLIE: Goodness! — I hope he’ll let us get our tea first.
MOTHER: Well, you were late. If he once gets seated in the Miner’s Arms there’s no telling when he comes.
NELLIE: I don’t care when he does, so long as he doesn’t come yet.
MOTHER: Oh, it’s all very well!
They both begin to read as they eat. After a moment another girl runs past the window and enters. She is a plump, fair girl, pink and white. She has just run across from the next house.
GERTIE COOMBER: Hello, my duck, and how are you?
NELLIE (looking up): Oh, alright, my bird.
GERTIE: Friday to-night. No Eddie for you! Oh, poor Nellie! Aren’t I glad, though! (She snaps her fingers quaintly.)
The MOTHER laughs.
NELLIE: Mean cat!
GERTIE (giggling): No, I’m not a mean cat. But I like Friday night; we can go jinking off up town and wink at the boys. I like market night. (She puts her head on one side in a peculiar, quaint, simple fashion.)
The MOTHER laughs.
NELLIE: You wink! If she so much as sees a fellow who’d speak to her, she gets behind me and stands on one foot and then another.
GERTIE: I don’t! No, I don’t, Nellie Lambert. I go like this: “Oh, good evening, how are you? I’m sure I’m very pleased—” (She says this in a very quaint “prunes-and-prisms” manner, with her chin in the air and her hand extended. At the end she giggles.)
The MOTHER, with her cup in her hand, leans back and laughs. NELLIE, amused in spite of herself, smiles shortly.
NELLIE: You are a daft object! What about last week, when David Thompson —
GERTIE puts her hand up and flips the air with affected contempt.
GERTIE: David Thompson! A bacon sawyer! Ph!
NELLIE: What a name! Not likely. Mrs Grocock! (She giggles.) Oh dear no, nothing short of Mrs Carooso.
She holds back the skirts of her long pinafore with one hand and affects the Gibson bend.
MOTHER (laughing heartily): Caruso! Caruso! A great fat fellow — !
GERTIE: Besides, a collier! I’m not going to wash stinking pit-things.
NELLIE: You don’t know what you’ll do yet, my girl. I never knew such cheek! I should think you want somebody grand, you do.
GERTIE: I do that. Somebody who’ll say, “Yes, dear. Oh yes, dear! Certainly, certainly!”
She simpers across the room, then giggles.
NELLIE: You soft cat, you! But look here, Gert, you’ll get paid out, treating Bernard Hufton as you do.
GERTIE (suddenly irritated): Oh, I can’t abide him. I always feel as if I could smack his face. He thinks himself slikey. He always makes my —
A head passes the narrow side window.
Oh, glory! there’s Mr Lambert. I’m off!
She draws back against the bookcase. A man passes the large window. The door opens and he enters. He is a man of middling stature, a miner, black from the pit. His shoulders are pushed up because he is cold. He has a bushy iron-grey beard. He takes from his pocket a tin bottle and a knotted “snap” bag — his food bag of dirty calico — and puts them with a bang on the table. Then he drags his heavily-shod feet to the door on right; he limps slightly, one leg being shorter than the other. He hangs up his coat and cap in the passage and comes back into the living-room. No one speaks. He wears a grey-and-black neckerchief and, being coatless, his black arms are bare to the elbows, where end the loose dirty sleeves of his flannel singlet. The MOTHER rises and goes to the scullery, carrying the heavy saucepan. The man gets hold of the table and pulls it nearer the fire, away from his daughter.
NELLIE: Why can’t you leave the table where it was! We don’t want it stuck on top of the fire.
FATHER: Ah dun, if you dunna.
He drags up his arm-chair and sits down at the table full in front of the fire.
‘An yer got a drink for me?
The MOTHER comes and pours out a cup of tea, then goes back to the scullery.
It’s a nice thing as a man as comes home from th’ pit parched up canna ha’e a drink got ‘im. (He speaks disagreeably.)
MOTHER: Oh, you needn’t begin! I know you’ve been stopping, drinking.
FATHER: Dun yer? — Well, yer know too much, then. You wiser than them as knows, you are!
There is a general silence, as if the three listeners were shrugging their shoulders in contempt and anger. The FATHER pours out his tea into his saucer, blows it and sucks it up. NELLIE looks up from her book and glowers at him with ferocity. GERTIE puts her hand before her mouth and giggles behind his back at the noise. He does not drink much, but sets the cup back in the saucer and lays his grimed arms wearily along the table. The MOTHER enters with a plate of cabbage.
MOTHER: Here, that’s a clean cloth.
She does not speak unkindly.
FATHER (brutally): You should put a dotty (dirty) ‘un on, then. The MOTHER takes a newspaper and spreads it over the cloth before him. She kneels at the oven, takes out a stew-jar, and puts meat and gravy on the plate with the cabbage, and sets it before him. He does not begin at once to eat. The MOTHER puts back her chair against the wall and sits down.
MOTHER: Are your trousers wet?
FATHER (as he eats): A bit.
MOTHER: Then why don’t you take them off?
FATHER (in a tone of brutal authority): Fetch my breeches an’ wa’s’coat down, Nellie.
NELLIE (continuing to read, her hands pushed in among her hair): You can ask me properly.
The FATHER pushes his beard forward and glares at her with futile ferocity. She reads on. GERTIE COOMBER, at the back, shifts from one foot to the other, then coughs behind her hand as if she had a little cold. The MOTHER rises and goes out by door on right.
FATHER: You lazy, idle bitch, you let your mother go!
NELLIE (shrugging her shoulders): You can shut up. (She speaks with cold contempt.)
GERTIE sighs audibly. The tension of the scene will not let her run home. NELLIE looks up, flushed, carefully avoiding her father.
NELLIE: Aren’t you going to sit down, Gert?
GERTIE: No, I’m off.
NELLIE: Wait a bit and I’ll come across with you. I don’t want to stop here.
The FATHER stirs in his chair with rage at the implication. The MOTHER comes downstairs and enters with a pair of black trousers, from which the braces are trailing, and a black waistcoat lined with cream and red lining. She drops them against her husband’s chair.
MOTHER (kindly, trying to restore the atmosphere): Aren’t you going to sit down, Gertie? Go on the stool.
GERTIE takes a small stool on the right side of fireplace, and sits toying with the bright brass tap of the boiler. The MOTHER goes out again on right, and enters immediately with five bread tins and a piece of lard paper. She stands on the hearthrug greasing the tins. The FATHER kicks off his great boots and stands warming his trousers before the fire, turning them and warming them thoroughly.
GERTIE: Are they cold, Mr Lambert?
FATHER: They are that! Look you, they steaming like a sweating hoss.
MOTHER: Get away, man! The driest thing in the house would smoke if you held it in front of the fire like that.
FATHER (shortly): Ah, I know I’m a liar. I knowed it to begin wi’.
NELLIE (much irritated): Isn’t he a nasty-tempered kid!
GERTIE: But those front bedrooms are clammy.
FATHER (gratified): They h’are, Gertie, they h’are.
GERTIE (turning to avoid NELLIE’S contempt and pottering the fire): I know the things I bring down from ours, they fair damp in a day.
FATHER: They h’are, Gertie, I know it. And I wonder how ‘er’d like to clap ‘er arse into wet breeches.
He goes scrambling off to door on right, trailing his breeches.
NELLIE (fiercely): Father!
GERTIE puts her face into her hands and laughs with a half-audible laugh that shakes her body.
I can’t think what you’ve got to laugh at, Gertie Coomber.
The MOTHER, glancing at her irate daughter, laughs also. She moves aside the small wooden rocking-chair, and, drawing forth a great panchion of dough from the corner under the book-shelves, begins to fill the bread tins. She sets them on the hearth — which has no fender, the day being Friday, when the steel fender is put away, after having been carefully cleaned to be saved for Saturday afternoon. The FATHER enters, the braces of his trousers dangling, and drops the heavy moleskin pit breeches in corner on right.
NELLIE: I wonder why you can’t put them in the scullery; the smell of them’s hateful.
FATHER: You mun put up wi’ it, then. If you were i’ th’ pit you’d niver put your nose up at them again.
He sits down and recommences eating. The sound further irritates his daughter, who again pushes her fingers into her hair, covering her ears with her palms. Her father notices, and his manners become coarser. NELLIE rises, leaving her book open on the table.
NELLIE: Come on, Gert! (She speaks with contemptuous impatience.)
The FATHER watches them go out. He lays his arms along the newspaper, wearily.
FATHER: I’m too tired ter h’eat.
MOTHER (sniffing, and hardening a little): I wonder why you always have to go and set her off in a tantrum as soon as you come in.
FATHER: A cheeky bitch; ‘er wants a good slap at th’ side o’ th’ mouth!
MOTHER (incensed): If you’ve no more sense than that, I don’t wonder —
FATHER: You don’t wonder — you don’t wonder! No, I know you don’t wonder. It’s you as eggs ’em on against me, both on ‘em.
MOTHER (scornfully): You set them against yourself. You do your best for it, every time they come in.
FATHER: Do I, do I! I set ’em against me, do I? I’m going to stand ’em orderin’ me about, an’ turnin’ their noses up, am I?
MOTHER: You shouldn’t make them turn their noses up, then. If you do your best for it, what do you expect?
FATHER: A jumped-up monkey! An’ it’s you as ‘as made ’em like it, the pair on ‘em. There’s neither of ’em but what treats me like a dog. I’m not daft! I’m not blind! I can see it.
MOTHER: If you’re so clever at seeing it, I should have thought you’d have sense enough not to begin it and carry it on as you do.
FATHER: Me begin it! When do I begin it? You niver hear me say a word to ‘em, till they’ve snapped at me as if I was a — as if I was a — No, it’s you as puts ’em on in. It’s you, you blasted —
He bangs the table with his fist. The MOTHER puts the bread in the oven, from which she takes a rice pudding; then she sits down to read. He glares across the table, then goes on eating. After a little while he pushes the plate from him. The MOTHER affects not to notice for a moment.
‘An yer got any puddin’?
MOTHER: Have you finished?
She rises, takes a plate and, crouching on the hearth, gives him his pudding. She glances at the clock, and clears the tea-things from her daughter’s place. She puts another piece of toast down, there remaining only two pieces on the plate.
FATHER (looking at the rice pudding): Is this what you’n had?
MOTHER: No; we had nothing.
FATHER: No, I’ll bet you non ‘ad this baby pap.
MOTHER: No, I had nothing for a change, and Nellie took her dinner.
FATHER (eating unwillingly): Is there no other puddin’ as you could ‘a made?
MOTHER: Goodness, man, are you so mightily particular about your belly? This is the first rice pudding you’ve had for goodness knows how long, and — No, I couldn’t make any other. In the first place, it’s Friday, and in the second, I’d nothing to make it with.
FATHER: You wouldna ha’e, not for me. But if you ‘a wanted —
MOTHER (interrupting): You needn’t say any more. The fact of the matter is, somebody’s put you out at the pit, and you come home to vent your spleen on us.
FATHER (shouting): You’re a liar, you’re a liar! A man comes home after a hard day’s work to folks as ‘as never a word to say to ‘im, ‘as shuts up the minute ‘e enters the house, as ‘ates the sight of ‘im as soon as ‘e comes in th’ room — !
MOTHER (with fierceness): We’ve had quite enough, we’ve had quite enough! Our Ernest’ll be in in a minute and we’re not going to have this row going on; he’s coming home all the way from Derby, trailing from college to a house like this, tired out with study and all this journey: we’re not going to have it, I tell you.
Her husband stares at her dumbly, betwixt anger and shame and sorrow, of which an undignified rage is predominant. The MOTHER carries out some pots to the scullery, re-enters, takes the slice of toast and butters it.
FATHER: It’s about time as we had a light on it; I canna see what I’m eatin’.
The MOTHER puts down the toast on the hob, and having fetched a dustpan from the scullery, goes out on right to the cellar to turn on the gas and to bring coals. She is heard coming up the steps heavily. She mends the fire, and then lights the gas at a brass pendant hanging over the table. Directly after there enters a young man of twenty-one, tall and broad, pale, clean-shaven, with the brownish hair of the “ginger” class, which is all ruffled when he has taken off his cap, after having pulled various books from his pockets and put them on the little cupboard top. He takes off his coat at door right as his sister has done.
ERNEST (blowing slightly through pursed lips): Phew! It is hot in here!
FATHER (bluntly, but amiably): Hot! It’s non hot! I could do wi’ it ten times hotter.
MOTHER: Oh, you! You’ve got, as I’ve always said, a hide like a hippopotamus. You ought to have been a salamander.
FATHER: Oh ah, I know tha’ll ha’e summat ter say.
MOTHER: Is it raining now, Ernest?
ERNEST: Just a drizzle in the air, like a thick mist.
MOTHER: Ay, isn’t it sickening? You’d better take your boots off.
ERNEST (sitting in his sister’s place on the sofa): Oh, they’re not wet.
MOTHER: They must be damp.
ERNEST: No, they’re not. There’s a pavement all the way. Here, look at my rose! One of the girls in Coll. gave it me, and the tan-yard girls tried to beg it. They are brazen hussies! “Gi’e’s thy flower, Sorry; gi’e’s thy buttonhole” — and one of them tried to snatch it. They have a bobby down by the tan-yard brook every night now. Their talk used to be awful, and it’s so dark down there, under the trees. Where’s Nellie?
MOTHER: In Coombers’.
ERNEST: Give me a bit of my paper, Father. You know the leaf I want: that with the reviews of books on.
FATHER: Nay, I know nowt about reviews o’ books. Here t’art. Ta’e it.
FATHER hands the newspaper to his son, who takes out two leaves and hands the rest back.
ERNEST: Here you are; I only want this.
FATHER: Nay, I non want it. I mun get me washed. We s’ll ha’e th’ men here directly.
ERNEST: I say, Mater, another seven-and-six up your sleeve?
MOTHER: I’m sure! And in the middle of the term, too! What’s it for this time?
ERNEST: Piers the Ploughman, that piffle, and two books of Horace: Quintus Horatius Flaccus, dear old chap.
MOTHER: And when have you to pay for them?
ERNEST: Well, I’ve ordered them, and they’ll come on Tuesday. I’m sure I don’t know what we wanted that Piers Ploughman for — it’s sheer rot, and old Beasley could have gassed on it without making us buy it, if he’d liked. Yes, I did feel wild. Seven-and-sixpence!
FATHER: I should non get tem, then. You needna buy ’em unless you like. Dunna get ‘em, then.
ERNEST: Well, I’ve ordered them.
FATHER: If you ‘anna the money you canna ‘a’e ‘em, whether or not.
MOTHER: Don’t talk nonsense. If he has to have them, he has. But the money you have to pay for books, and they’re no good when you’ve done with them! — I’m sure it’s really sickening, it is!
ERNEST: Oh, never mind, Little; I s’ll get ’em for six shillings. Is it a worry, Mütterchen?
MOTHER: It is, but I suppose if it has to be, it has.
ERNEST: Old Beasley is an old chough. While he was lecturing this afternoon Arnold and Hinrich were playing nap; and the girls always write letters, and I went fast asleep.
FATHER: So that’s what you go’n to Collige for, is it?
ERNEST (nettled): No, it isn’t. Only old Beasley’s such a dry old ass, with his lectures on Burke. He’s a mumbling parson, so what do you expect?
The FATHER grunts, rises and fetches a clean new bucket from the scullery. He hangs this on the top of the boiler, and turns on the water. Then he pulls on his flannel singlet and stands stripped to the waist, watching the hot water dribble into the bucket. The pail half-filled, he goes out to the scullery on left.
Do you know what Professor Staynes said this morning, Mother? He said I’d got an instinct for Latin — and you know he’s one of the best fellows in England on the classics: edits Ovid and whatnot. An instinct for Latin, he said.
MOTHER (smiling, gratified): Well, it’s a funny thing to have an instinct for.
ERNEST: I generally get an alpha plus. That’s the highest, you know, Mater. Prof. Staynes generally gives me that.
MOTHER: Your grandfather was always fond of dry reading: economics and history. But I don’t know where an instinct for Latin comes from — not from the Lamberts, that’s a certainty. Your Aunt Ellen would say, from the Vernons.
She smiles ironically as she rises to pour him another cup of tea, taking the teapot from the hob and standing it, empty, on the father’s plate.
ERNEST: Who are the Vernons?
MOTHER (smiling): It’s a wonder your Aunt Ellen or your Aunt Eunice has never told you. . . .
ERNEST: Well, they haven’t. What is it, Mütter?
MOTHER (sniffing): A parcel of nonsense. . . .
ERNEST: Oh, go on, Ma, you are tantalizing! You hug it like any blessed girl.
MOTHER: Yes, your Aunt Ellen always said she would claim the peacock and thistle for her crest, if ever . . .
ERNEST (delighted): The Peacock and Thistle! It sounds like the name of a pub.
MOTHER: My great-great-grandfather married a Lady Vernon — so they say. As if it made any matter — a mere tale!
ERNEST: Is it a fact though, Matoushka? Why didn’t you tell us before?
MOTHER (sniffing): What should I repeat such —
FATHER (shouting from the scullery, whence has come the noise of his washing): ‘An yer put that towil ter dry?
MOTHER (muttering): The towel’s dry enough.
She goes out and is heard taking the roller towel from behind the outer door. She returns, and stands before the fire, holding the towel to dry. ERNEST LAMBERT, having frowned and shrugged his shoulders, is reading.
MOTHER: I suppose you won’t have that bit of rice pudding?
Her son looks up, reaches over and takes the brown dish from the hearth. He begins to eat from the dish.
ERNEST: I went to the “Savoy” to-day.
MOTHER: I shouldn’t go to that vegetable place. I don’t believe there’s any substance in it.
ERNEST: Substance! Oh, lord! I had an asparagus omelette, I believe they called it; it was too much for me! A great stodgy thing! But I like the Savoy, generally. It was —
Somebody comes running across the yard. NELLIE LAMBERT enters with a rush.
NELLIE: Hello! have you done?
FATHER (from the scullery): Are you going to shut that doo-ar! (Shouting.)
NELLIE (with a quick shrug of the shoulders): It is shut. (brightly, to her brother) Who brought this rose? It’ll just do for me. Who gave it you? — Lois?
ERNEST (flushing): What do you want to know for? You’re always saying “Lois”. I don’t care a button about Lois.
NELLIE: Keep cool, dear boy, keep cool.
She goes flying lightly round, clearing the table. The FATHER, dripping, bending forward almost double, comes hurrying from the scullery to the fire. NELLIE whisks by him, her long pinafore rustling.
FATHER (taking the towel): Ow (she) goes rushin’ about, draughtin’. (Rubs his head, sitting on his heels very close to the fire.)
NELLIE (smiling contemptuously, to herself): Poor kid!
FATHER (having wiped his face): An’ there isn’t another man in th’ kingdom as ‘ud stan’ i’ that scullery stark naked. It’s like standin’ i’ t’cowd watter.
MOTHER (calmly): Many a man stands in a colder.
FATHER (shortly): Ah, I’ll back; I’ll back there is! Other men’s wives brings th’ puncheon on to th’ ‘earthstone, an’ gets the watter for ‘em, an’ —
MOTHER: Other men’s wives may do: more fools them: you won’t catch me.
FATHER: No, you wunna; you may back your life o’ that! An’ what if you ‘ad to?
MOTHER: Who’d make me?
FATHER (blustering): Me.
MOTHER (laughing shortly): Not half a dozen such.
The FATHER grunts. NELLIE, having cleared the table, pushes him aside a little and lets the crumbs fall into hearth.
FATHER: A lazy, idle, stinkin’ trick!
She whisks the tablecloth away without speaking.
An’ tha doesna come waftin’ in again when I’m washin’ me, tha remembers.
ERNEST (to his mother, who is turning the bread): Fancy! Swinburne’s dead.
MOTHER: Yes, so I saw. But he was getting on.
FATHER (to NELLIE, who has come to the boiler and is kneeling, getting a lading-can full of water): Here, Nellie, gie my back a wash.
She goes out, and comes immediately with flannel and soap. She claps the flannel on his back.
(Wincing) Ooo! The nasty bitch!
NELLIE bubbles with laughter. The MOTHER turns aside to laugh.
NELLIE: You great baby, afraid of a cold flannel!
She finishes washing his back and goes into the scullery to wash the pots. The FATHER takes his flannel shirt from the bookcase cupboard and puts it on, letting it hang over his trousers. Then he takes a little blue-striped cotton bag from his pit trousers’ pocket and throws it on the table to his wife.
FATHER: Count it. (He shuffles upstairs.)
The MOTHER counts the money, putting it in little piles, checking it from two white papers. She leaves it on the table. ERNEST goes into the scullery to wash his hands and is heard talking to his sister, who is wiping the pots. A knock at the outer door.
ERNEST: Good evening, Mr Barker.
A VOICE: Good evenin’, Ernest.
A miner enters: pale, short, but well-made. He has a hard-looking head with short black hair. He lays his cap on a chair.
Good evenin’, Missis. ‘Asn’t Carlin come? Mester upstairs?
MOTHER: Yes, he’ll be down in a minute. I don’t expect Mr Carlin will be many minutes. Sit down, Mr Barker. How’s that lad of yours?
BARKER: Well, ‘e seems to be goin’ on nicely, thank yer. Dixon took th’ splints off last wik.
MOTHER: Oh, well, that’s better. He’ll be alright directly. I should think he doesn’t want to go in the pit again.
BARKER: ‘E doesna. ‘E says ‘e shall go farmin’ wi’ Jakes; but I shanna let ‘im. It’s nowt o’ a sort o’ job, that.
MOTHER: No, it isn’t. (Lowering her voice.) And how’s missis?
BARKER (also lowering his voice): Well, I don’t know. I want ter get back as soon as I’n got a few groceries an’ stuff in. I sent for Mrs Smalley afore I com’n out. An’ I’m come an’ forgot th’ market bag.
MOTHER (going into the scullery): Have mine, have mine. Nay, I’ve got another. (Brings him a large carpet bag with leather handles.)
BARKER: Thank yer, Missis. I can bring it back next wik. You sure you wunna want it?
Another knock. Enter another man, fair, pale, smiling, an inconsiderable man.
CARLIN: Hgh! Tha’s bested me then? Good evenin’, Missis.
BARKER: Yes, I’n bet thee.
Enter the FATHER. He has put on a turn-down collar and a black tie, and his black waistcoat is buttoned, but he wears no coat. The other men take off the large neckerchiefs, grey and white silk, in fine check, and show similar collars. The FATHER assumes a slight tone of superiority.
FATHER: Well, you’ve arrived, then! An’ ‘ow’s the missis by now, Joe?
BARKER: Well, I dun know, Walter. It might be any minnit.
FATHER (sympathetically): Hu! We may as well set to, then, an’ get it done.
They sit at the table, on the side of the fire. ERNEST LAMBERT comes in and takes an exercise-book from the shelves and begins to do algebra, using a text-book. He writes with a fountain-pen.
CARLIN: They gran’ things, them fountain-pens.
BARKER: They are that!
CARLIN: What’s th’ mak on it, Ernest?
ERNEST: It’s an Onoto.
BARKER: Oh-ah! An’ ‘ow dun yer fill it? They says as it hold wi’ a vacum.
ERNEST: It’s like this: you push this down, put the nib in th’ ink, and then pull it out. It’s a sort of a pump.
BARKER: Um! It’s a canny thing, that!
CARLIN: It is an’ a’.
FATHER: Yes, it’s a very good idea. (He is slightly condescending.)
MOTHER: Look at the bread, Ernest.
ERNEST: Alright, Mater.
She goes upstairs, it being tacitly understood that she shall not know how much money falls to her husband’s share as chief “butty” in the weekly reckoning.
BARKER: Is it counted?
FATHER: Yes. It’s alright, Ernest?
ERNEST (not looking up): Yes.
They begin to reckon, first putting aside the wages of their day men; then the FATHER and BARKER take four-and-three-pence, as equivalent to CARLIN’S rent, which has been stopped; then the FATHER gives a coin each, dividing the money in that way. It is occasionally a puzzling process and needs the Ready Reckoner from the shelf behind.
END OF ACT I