CHAPTER IX.
COAL-DUST
Going home from school in the afternoon, the Brangwen girls descendedthe hill between the picturesque cottages of Willey Green till theycame to the railway crossing. There they found the gate shut, becausethe colliery train was rumbling nearer. They could hear the smalllocomotive panting hoarsely as it advanced with caution between theembankments. The one-legged man in the little signal-hut by the roadstared out from his security, like a crab from a snail-shell.
Whilst the two girls waited, Gerald Crich trotted up on a red Arabmare. He rode well and softly, pleased with the delicate quivering ofthe creature between his knees. And he was very picturesque, at leastin Gudrun's eyes, sitting soft and close on the slender red mare, whoselong tail flowed on the air. He saluted the two girls, and drew up atthe crossing to wait for the gate, looking down the railway for theapproaching train. In spite of her ironic smile at his picturesqueness,Gudrun liked to look at him. He was well-set and easy, his face withits warm tan showed up his whitish, coarse moustache, and his blue eyeswere full of sharp light as he watched the distance.
The locomotive chuffed slowly between the banks, hidden. The mare didnot like it. She began to wince away, as if hurt by the unknown noise.But Gerald pulled her back and held her head to the gate. The sharpblasts of the chuffing engine broke with more and more force on her.The repeated sharp blows of unknown, terrifying noise struck throughher till she was rocking with terror. She recoiled like a spring letgo. But a glistening, half-smiling look came into Gerald's face. Hebrought her back again, inevitably.
The noise was released, the little locomotive with her clanking steelconnecting-rod emerged on the highroad, clanking sharply. The marerebounded like a drop of water from hot iron. Ursula and Gudrun pressedback into the hedge, in fear. But Gerald was heavy on the mare, andforced her back. It seemed as if he sank into her magnetically, andcould thrust her back against herself.
'The fool!' cried Ursula loudly. 'Why doesn't he ride away till it'sgone by?'
Gudrun was looking at him with black-dilated, spellbound eyes. But hesat glistening and obstinate, forcing the wheeling mare, which spun andswerved like a wind, and yet could not get out of the grasp of hiswill, nor escape from the mad clamour of terror that resounded throughher, as the trucks thumped slowly, heavily, horrifying, one after theother, one pursuing the other, over the rails of the crossing.
The locomotive, as if wanting to see what could be done, put on thebrakes, and back came the trucks rebounding on the iron buffers,striking like horrible cymbals, clashing nearer and nearer in frightfulstrident concussions. The mare opened her mouth and rose slowly, as iflifted up on a wind of terror. Then suddenly her fore feet struck out,as she convulsed herself utterly away from the horror. Back she went,and the two girls clung to each other, feeling she must fall backwardson top of him. But he leaned forward, his face shining with fixedamusement, and at last he brought her down, sank her down, and wasbearing her back to the mark. But as strong as the pressure of hiscompulsion was the repulsion of her utter terror, throwing her backaway from the railway, so that she spun round and round, on two legs,as if she were in the centre of some whirlwind. It made Gudrun faintwith poignant dizziness, which seemed to penetrate to her heart.
'No--! No--! Let her go! Let her go, you fool, you FOOL--!' criedUrsula at the top of her voice, completely outside herself. And Gudrunhated her bitterly for being outside herself. It was unendurable thatUrsula's voice was so powerful and naked.
A sharpened look came on Gerald's face. He bit himself down on the marelike a keen edge biting home, and FORCED her round. She roared as shebreathed, her nostrils were two wide, hot holes, her mouth was apart,her eyes frenzied. It was a repulsive sight. But he held on herunrelaxed, with an almost mechanical relentlessness, keen as a swordpressing in to her. Both man and horse were sweating with violence. Yethe seemed calm as a ray of cold sunshine.
Meanwhile the eternal trucks were rumbling on, very slowly, treadingone after the other, one after the other, like a disgusting dream thathas no end. The connecting chains were grinding and squeaking as thetension varied, the mare pawed and struck away mechanically now, herterror fulfilled in her, for now the man encompassed her; her paws wereblind and pathetic as she beat the air, the man closed round her, andbrought her down, almost as if she were part of his own physique.
'And she's bleeding! She's bleeding!' cried Ursula, frantic withopposition and hatred of Gerald. She alone understood him perfectly, inpure opposition.
Gudrun looked and saw the trickles of blood on the sides of the mare,and she turned white. And then on the very wound the bright spurs camedown, pressing relentlessly. The world reeled and passed intonothingness for Gudrun, she could not know any more.
When she recovered, her soul was calm and cold, without feeling. Thetrucks were still rumbling by, and the man and the mare were stillfighting. But she herself was cold and separate, she had no morefeeling for them. She was quite hard and cold and indifferent.
They could see the top of the hooded guard's-van approaching, the soundof the trucks was diminishing, there was hope of relief from theintolerable noise. The heavy panting of the half-stunned mare soundedautomatically, the man seemed to be relaxing confidently, his willbright and unstained. The guard's-van came up, and passed slowly, theguard staring out in his transition on the spectacle in the road. And,through the man in the closed wagon, Gudrun could see the whole scenespectacularly, isolated and momentary, like a vision isolated ineternity.
Lovely, grateful silence seemed to trail behind the receding train. Howsweet the silence is! Ursula looked with hatred on the buffers of thediminishing wagon. The gatekeeper stood ready at the door of his hut,to proceed to open the gate. But Gudrun sprang suddenly forward, infront of the struggling horse, threw off the latch and flung the gatesasunder, throwing one-half to the keeper, and running with the otherhalf, forwards. Gerald suddenly let go the horse and leaped forwards,almost on to Gudrun. She was not afraid. As he jerked aside the mare'shead, Gudrun cried, in a strange, high voice, like a gull, or like awitch screaming out from the side of the road:
'I should think you're proud.'
The words were distinct and formed. The man, twisting aside on hisdancing horse, looked at her in some surprise, some wondering interest.Then the mare's hoofs had danced three times on the drum-like sleepersof the crossing, and man and horse were bounding springily, unequallyup the road.
The two girls watched them go. The gate-keeper hobbled thudding overthe logs of the crossing, with his wooden leg. He had fastened thegate. Then he also turned, and called to the girls:
'A masterful young jockey, that; 'll have his own road, if ever anybodywould.'
'Yes,' cried Ursula, in her hot, overbearing voice. 'Why couldn't hetake the horse away, till the trucks had gone by? He's a fool, and abully. Does he think it's manly, to torture a horse? It's a livingthing, why should he bully it and torture it?'
There was a pause, then the gate-keeper shook his head, and replied:
'Yes, it's as nice a little mare as you could set eyes on--beautifullittle thing, beautiful. Now you couldn't see his father treat anyanimal like that--not you. They're as different as they welly can be,Gerald Crich and his father--two different men, different made.'
Then there was a pause.
'But why does he do it?' cried Ursula, 'why does he? Does he think he'sgrand, when he's bullied a sensitive creature, ten times as sensitiveas himself?'
Again there was a cautious pause. Then again the man shook his head, asif he would say nothing, but would think the more.
'I expect he's got to train the mare to stand to anything,' he replied.'A pure-bred Harab--not the sort of breed as is used to roundhere--different sort from our sort altogether. They say as he got herfrom Constantinople.'
'He would!' said Ursula. 'He'd better have left her to the Turks, I'msure they would have had more decency towards her.'
The man went in to drink his can of tea, the girls went on down thelane, that was deep in soft black dust. Gudrun was as if numbed in hermind by the sense of indomitable soft weight of the man, bearing downinto the living body of the horse: the strong, indomitable thighs ofthe blond man clenching the palpitating body of the mare into purecontrol; a sort of soft white magnetic domination from the loins andthighs and calves, enclosing and encompassing the mare heavily intounutterable subordination, soft blood-subordination, terrible.
On the left, as the girls walked silently, the coal-mine lifted itsgreat mounds and its patterned head-stocks, the black railway with thetrucks at rest looked like a harbour just below, a large bay ofrailroad with anchored wagons.
Near the second level-crossing, that went over many bright rails, was afarm belonging to the collieries, and a great round globe of iron, adisused boiler, huge and rusty and perfectly round, stood silently in apaddock by the road. The hens were pecking round it, some chickens werebalanced on the drinking trough, wagtails flew away in among trucks,from the water.
On the other side of the wide crossing, by the road-side, was a heap ofpale-grey stones for mending the roads, and a cart standing, and amiddle-aged man with whiskers round his face was leaning on his shovel,talking to a young man in gaiters, who stood by the horse's head. Bothmen were facing the crossing.
They saw the two girls appear, small, brilliant figures in the neardistance, in the strong light of the late afternoon. Both wore light,gay summer dresses, Ursula had an orange-coloured knitted coat, Gudruna pale yellow, Ursula wore canary yellow stockings, Gudrun bright rose,the figures of the two women seemed to glitter in progress over thewide bay of the railway crossing, white and orange and yellow and roseglittering in motion across a hot world silted with coal-dust.
The two men stood quite still in the heat, watching. The elder was ashort, hard-faced energetic man of middle age, the younger a labourerof twenty-three or so. They stood in silence watching the advance ofthe sisters. They watched whilst the girls drew near, and whilst theypassed, and whilst they receded down the dusty road, that had dwellingson one side, and dusty young corn on the other.
Then the elder man, with the whiskers round his face, said in aprurient manner to the young man:
'What price that, eh? She'll do, won't she?'
'Which?' asked the young man, eagerly, with laugh.
'Her with the red stockings. What d'you say? I'd give my week's wagesfor five minutes; what!--just for five minutes.'
Again the young man laughed.
'Your missis 'ud have summat to say to you,' he replied.
Gudrun had turned round and looked at the two men. They were to hersinister creatures, standing watching after her, by the heap of palegrey slag. She loathed the man with whiskers round his face.
'You're first class, you are,' the man said to her, and to thedistance.
'Do you think it would be worth a week's wages?' said the younger man,musing.
'Do I? I'd put 'em bloody-well down this second--'
The younger man looked after Gudrun and Ursula objectively, as if hewished to calculate what there might be, that was worth his week'swages. He shook his head with fatal misgiving.
'No,' he said. 'It's not worth that to me.'
'Isn't?' said the old man. 'By God, if it isn't to me!'
And he went on shovelling his stones.
The girls descended between the houses with slate roofs and blackishbrick walls. The heavy gold glamour of approaching sunset lay over allthe colliery district, and the ugliness overlaid with beauty was like anarcotic to the senses. On the roads silted with black dust, the richlight fell more warmly, more heavily, over all the amorphous squalor akind of magic was cast, from the glowing close of day.
'It has a foul kind of beauty, this place,' said Gudrun, evidentlysuffering from fascination. 'Can't you feel in some way, a thick, hotattraction in it? I can. And it quite stupifies me.'
They were passing between blocks of miners' dwellings. In the backyards of several dwellings, a miner could be seen washing himself inthe open on this hot evening, naked down to the loins, his greattrousers of moleskin slipping almost away. Miners already cleaned weresitting on their heels, with their backs near the walls, talking andsilent in pure physical well-being, tired, and taking physical rest.Their voices sounded out with strong intonation, and the broad dialectwas curiously caressing to the blood. It seemed to envelop Gudrun in alabourer's caress, there was in the whole atmosphere a resonance ofphysical men, a glamorous thickness of labour and maleness, surchargedin the air. But it was universal in the district, and thereforeunnoticed by the inhabitants.
To Gudrun, however, it was potent and half-repulsive. She could nevertell why Beldover was so utterly different from London and the south,why one's whole feelings were different, why one seemed to live inanother sphere. Now she realised that this was the world of powerful,underworld men who spent most of their time in the darkness. In theirvoices she could hear the voluptuous resonance of darkness, the strong,dangerous underworld, mindless, inhuman. They sounded also like strangemachines, heavy, oiled. The voluptuousness was like that of machinery,cold and iron.
It was the same every evening when she came home, she seemed to movethrough a wave of disruptive force, that was given off from thepresence of thousands of vigorous, underworld, half-automatisedcolliers, and which went to the brain and the heart, awaking a fataldesire, and a fatal callousness.
There came over her a nostalgia for the place. She hated it, she knewhow utterly cut off it was, how hideous and how sickeningly mindless.Sometimes she beat her wings like a new Daphne, turning not into a treebut a machine. And yet, she was overcome by the nostalgia. Shestruggled to get more and more into accord with the atmosphere of theplace, she craved to get her satisfaction of it.
She felt herself drawn out at evening into the main street of the town,that was uncreated and ugly, and yet surcharged with this same potentatmosphere of intense, dark callousness. There were always minersabout. They moved with their strange, distorted dignity, a certainbeauty, and unnatural stillness in their bearing, a look of abstractionand half resignation in their pale, often gaunt faces. They belonged toanother world, they had a strange glamour, their voices were full of anintolerable deep resonance, like a machine's burring, a music moremaddening than the siren's long ago.
She found herself, with the rest of the common women, drawn out onFriday evenings to the little market. Friday was pay-day for thecolliers, and Friday night was market night. Every woman was abroad,every man was out, shopping with his wife, or gathering with his pals.The pavements were dark for miles around with people coming in, thelittle market-place on the crown of the hill, and the main street ofBeldover were black with thickly-crowded men and women.
It was dark, the market-place was hot with kerosene flares, which threwa ruddy light on the grave faces of the purchasing wives, and on thepale abstract faces of the men. The air was full of the sound of criersand of people talking, thick streams of people moved on the pavementstowards the solid crowd of the market. The shops were blazing andpacked with women, in the streets were men, mostly men, miners of allages. Money was spent with almost lavish freedom.
The carts that came could not pass through. They had to wait, thedriver calling and shouting, till the dense crowd would make way.Everywhere, young fellows from the outlying districts were makingconversation with the girls, standing in the road and at the corners.The doors of the public-houses were open and full of light, men passedin and out in a continual stream, everywhere men were calling out toone another, or crossing to meet one another, or standing in littlegangs and circles, discussing, endlessly discussing. The sense of talk,buzzing, jarring, half-secret, the endless mining and politicalwrangling, vibrated in the air like discordant machinery. And it wastheir voices which affected Gudrun almost to swooning. They aroused astrange, nostalgic ache of desire, something almost demoniacal, neverto be fulfilled.
Like any other common girl of the district, Gudrun strolled up anddown, up and down the length of the brilliant two-hundred paces of thepavement nearest the market-place. She knew it was a vulgar thing todo; her father and mother could not bear it; but the nostalgia cameover her, she must be among the people. Sometimes she sat among thelouts in the cinema: rakish-looking, unattractive louts they were. Yetshe must be among them.
And, like any other common lass, she found her 'boy.' It was anelectrician, one of the electricians introduced according to Gerald'snew scheme. He was an earnest, clever man, a scientist with a passionfor sociology. He lived alone in a cottage, in lodgings, in WilleyGreen. He was a gentleman, and sufficiently well-to-do. His landladyspread the reports about him; he WOULD have a large wooden tub in hisbedroom, and every time he came in from work, he WOULD have pails andpails of water brought up, to bathe in, then he put on clean shirt andunder-clothing EVERY day, and clean silk socks; fastidious and exactinghe was in these respects, but in every other way, most ordinary andunassuming.
Gudrun knew all these things. The Brangwen's house was one to which thegossip came naturally and inevitably. Palmer was in the first place afriend of Ursula's. But in his pale, elegant, serious face there showedthe same nostalgia that Gudrun felt. He too must walk up and down thestreet on Friday evening. So he walked with Gudrun, and a friendshipwas struck up between them. But he was not in love with Gudrun; heREALLY wanted Ursula, but for some strange reason, nothing could happenbetween her and him. He liked to have Gudrun about, as afellow-mind--but that was all. And she had no real feeling for him. Hewas a scientist, he had to have a woman to back him. But he was reallyimpersonal, he had the fineness of an elegant piece of machinery. Hewas too cold, too destructive to care really for women, too great anegoist. He was polarised by the men. Individually he detested anddespised them. In the mass they fascinated him, as machinery fascinatedhim. They were a new sort of machinery to him--but incalculable,incalculable.
So Gudrun strolled the streets with Palmer, or went to the cinema withhim. And his long, pale, rather elegant face flickered as he made hissarcastic remarks. There they were, the two of them: two elegants inone sense: in the other sense, two units, absolutely adhering to thepeople, teeming with the distorted colliers. The same secret seemed tobe working in the souls of all alike, Gudrun, Palmer, the rakish youngbloods, the gaunt, middle-aged men. All had a secret sense of power,and of inexpressible destructiveness, and of fatal half-heartedness, asort of rottenness in the will.
Sometimes Gudrun would start aside, see it all, see how she was sinkingin. And then she was filled with a fury of contempt and anger. She feltshe was sinking into one mass with the rest--all so close andintermingled and breathless. It was horrible. She stifled. She preparedfor flight, feverishly she flew to her work. But soon she let go. Shestarted off into the country--the darkish, glamorous country. The spellwas beginning to work again.