all trouble, and he was clear as a bell for a jolly night.
On the Wednesday following, Morel was penniless. He dreaded his wife.
Having hurt her, he hated her. He did not know what to do with
himself that evening, having not even twopence with which to go to the
Palmerston, and being already rather deeply in debt. So, while his wife
was down the garden with the child, he hunted in the top drawer of
the dresser where she kept her purse, found it, and looked inside. It
contained a half-crown, two halfpennies, and a sixpence. So he took the
sixpence, put the purse carefully back, and went out.
The next day, when she wanted to pay the greengrocer, she looked in the
purse for her sixpence, and her heart sank to her shoes. Then she sat
down and thought: "WAS there a sixpence? I hadn't spent it, had I? And I
hadn't left it anywhere else?"
She was much put about. She hunted round everywhere for it. And, as she
sought, the conviction came into her heart that her husband had taken
it. What she had in her purse was all the money she possessed. But that
he should sneak it from her thus was unbearable. He had done so twice
before. The first time she had not accused him, and at the week-end he
had put the shilling again into her purse. So that was how she had known
he had taken it. The second time he had not paid back.
This time she felt it was too much. When he had had his dinner--he came
home early that day--she said to him coldly:
"Did you take sixpence out of my purse last night?"
"Me!" he said, looking up in an offended way. "No, I didna! I niver
clapped eyes on your purse."
But she could detect the lie.
"Why, you know you did," she said quietly.
"I tell you I didna," he shouted. "Yer at me again, are yer? I've had
about enough on't."
"So you filch sixpence out of my purse while I'm taking the clothes in."
"I'll may yer pay for this," he said, pushing back his chair in
desperation. He bustled and got washed, then went determinedly upstairs.
Presently he came down dressed, and with a big bundle in a blue-checked,
enormous handkerchief.
"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 trembling 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.
<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>