Chapter 5 Paul Faces Life
Morel was careless of danger. About a year after William went to London, and just after Paul had left school, before he got work, a great piece of rock fell on Morel’s leg when he was working in the mine, and broke it in several places. He had a very bad time in hospital. For a week he was in a serious condition, then he began to mend. Knowing that he was going to recover, the family began to worry less and to be happy again. Mrs Moral talked to Paul almost as if she was thinking aloud, and he listened as best he could. In the end she shared almost everything with him. Together, they learned how perfectly peaceful the home could be.
Paul was now fourteen years old and looking for work. His face had lost its boyish roundness and was rather rough-looking but very expressive. He was quite a clever painter for a boy of hos age and he knew some French, German and mathematics. He was not strong enough for physical work, his mother said. He did not care for making things with his hands but preferred going for country walks, or reading, or painting.
‘What do you want to be?’ or reading, or painting.
‘Anything.’
‘That’s no answer,’ said Mrs Morel. But it was the only answer he could give.
‘Then you must look in the paper for advertisements,’ said his mother. He copied out some advertisements and look them to her.
‘Yes, ’she said,’ you may try.’
He used a letter which William had prepared for him to write to the different companies offering jobs. His handwriting was terrible.
William wrote from London in a kind of fever. He seemed unsettled by the speed of his new life. His mother could feel him losing himself. He wrote of dances and going to the theatre, of boats on the river, of going out with friends. But she knew he sat up afterwards in his cold bedroom, studying Latin and learning all he could about the law, because he wanted to improve himself. He never sent his mother any money now. It was all taken, the little he had, for his own life. Mrs Morel still dreamed of William and what he could do; but in her heart she was worried.
He also wrote a lot now about a girl he had met at a dance, Lily Western. His pet name for her was ‘Gypsy’. She was young, beautiful, very well-dressed and much admired by men. His mother congratulated him in her doubtful fashion .She imagined him tied to an expensive wife. ‘I’m very likely an old silly,’ she told herself, ‘expecting the worst.’ But the worry remained that William would do the wrong thing.
Soon Paul was asked to go for an interview at Thomas Jordan, Maker of Medical Appliances, at 21, Spaniel Row, Nottingham. Mrs Morel was delighted.
‘You see,’ she cried, her eyes shining, ‘You’ve only written four letters and the third is answered. I always said you were lucky.
Paul looked at the picture of the wooden leg wearing an elastic stocking that appeared on Mr Jordan’s notepaper. He had not known that elastic stocking existed.
Mother and son set off one very hot morning in August. Paul felt extremely nervous but he refused to tell his mother and she only partly guessed. They travelled the sixteen miles to Nottingham by train. Mother and son walked down Station Street, feeling the excitement of lovers sharing an adventure. They turned up a narrow street that led to the Castle and found the Thomas Jordan sign. They went through a bog doorway into an open space full of boxes and packing stuff, and up two lots of stairs. In front of them was a dirty glass door with the company Name on it. Mrs Morel pushed open the door and stood in pleased surprise. They were in large work-shop with thick paper parcels piled everywhere, and clerks with their sleeves rolled up, calmly going about their business.
‘Can I see Mr Jordan?’ she asked one of the clerks.
‘I’ll fetch him,’ answered the young man and went to a glass office at the far end of the room. A red-faced old man with white hair came towards them. He had short legs and was rather fat. They followed him to him to his office and were told to sit down.
‘Did you write this letter?’ he asked Paul, holding it up.
‘Yes,’ he answered.
‘Where did you learn to write?’
Paul simply looked at him,too ashamed and nervous to speak.
‘And you say you know French?’ asked the little man sharply.
‘A friend gave him lessons,’said Mrs Morel quickly.
Mr Jordan hesitated, then pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Paul.
‘Read that,’ he said.
It was a letter in French in strange, spidery, foreign hand-writing which was very difficult to read. Paul struggled with the words; ‘Please send me…two pairs…of gray cotton stockings…without fingers…’
‘Without toes! The factory owner corrected him. ‘Stockings don’t have fingers.’
Paul hated the little man for making him look stupid.
‘When can he start?’ Mr Jordan asked his mother.
It was agreed that Paul would be employed as a junior clerk at eight shillings a week. As he followed his mother down the stairs on their way out, she looked at him with he