suffering at being exposed to strangers, to be accepted or rejected. Yet
he chattered away with his mother. He would never have confessed to her
how he suffered over these things, and she only partly guessed. She
was gay, like a sweetheart. She stood in front of the ticket-office at
Bestwood, and Paul watched her take from her purse the money for the
tickets. As he saw her hands in their old black kid gloves getting the
silver out of the worn purse, his heart contracted with pain of love of
her.
She was quite excited, and quite gay. He suffered because she WOULD talk
aloud in presence of the other travellers.
"Now look at that silly cow!" she said, "careering round as if it
thought it was a circus."
"It's most likely a bottfly," he said very low.
"A what?" she asked brightly and unashamed.
They thought a while. He was sensible all the time of having her
opposite him. Suddenly their eyes met, and she smiled to him--a rare,
intimate smile, beautiful with brightness and love. Then each looked out
of the window.
The sixteen slow miles of railway journey passed. The mother and son
walked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers having an
adventure together. In Carrington Street they stopped to hang over the
parapet and look at the barges on the canal below.
"It's just like Venice," he said, seeing the sunshine on the water that
lay between high factory walls.
"Perhaps," she answered, smiling.
They enjoyed the shops immensely.
"Now you see that blouse," she would say, "wouldn't that just suit our
Annie? And for one-and-eleven-three. Isn't that cheap?"
"And made of needlework as well," he said.
"Yes."
They had plenty of time, so they did not hurry. The town was strange
and delightful to them. But the boy was tied up inside in a knot of
apprehension. He dreaded the interview with Thomas Jordan.
It was nearly eleven o'clock by St. Peter's Church. They turned up a
narrow street that led to the Castle. It was gloomy and old-fashioned,
having low dark shops and dark green house doors with brass knockers,
and yellow-ochred doorsteps projecting on to the pavement; then another
old shop whose small window looked like a cunning, half-shut eye. Mother
and son went cautiously, looking everywhere for "Thomas Jordan and
Son". It was like hunting in some wild place. They were on tiptoe of
excitement.
Suddenly they spied a big, dark archway, in which were names of various
firms, Thomas Jordan among them.
"Here it is!" said Mrs. Morel. "But now WHERE is it?"
They looked round. On one side was a queer, dark, cardboard factory, on
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