Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/487



steadily declined from this time. I went to see him two years later. He was not at home. Meg wept to me as she told me of him, how he let the business slip, how he drank, what a brute he was in drink, and how unbearable afterwards. He was ruining his constitution, he was ruining her life and the children’s. I felt very sorry for her as she sat, large and ruddy, brimming over with bitter tears. She asked me if I did not think I might influence him. He was, she said, at the “Ram.” When he had an extra bad bout on he went up there, and stayed sometimes for a week at a time, with Oswald, coming back to the “Hollies” when he had recovered—“though,” said Meg, “he’s sick every morning and almost after every meal.”

All the time Meg was telling me this, sat curled up in a large chair their youngest boy, a pale, sensitive, rather spoiled lad of seven or eight years, with a petulant mouth, and nervous dark eyes. He sat watching his mother as she told her tale, heaving his shoulders and settling himself in a new position when his feelings were nearly too much for him. He was full of wild, childish pity for his mother, and furious, childish hate of his father, the author of all their trouble. I called at the “Ram” and saw George. He was half drunk.