The Stars Look Down (35 page)

When Hetty and Alan came back, he did, for politeness’ sake, ask her to dance. He asked her stiffly, still chilled and hurt inside. It was wonderful dancing with Hetty, she was soft in his arms and the perfume that was herself seemed to flow into him with every movement of her body, yet because it was so wonderful he swore perversely he would dance this one dance and no more.

Afterwards Hetty sat beating time to the music with her neat slippered foot, until at last she could bear it no longer. With that fetching expression of vivacious distress:

“Is nobody going to dance tonight?”

Arthur said quickly:

“I’m tired.”

There was a silence. Suddenly Barras said:

“If I were any use to you, Hetty, I’m at your disposal. But I’m afraid I don’t know any of these new steps.”

She stared at him doubtfully, rather taken aback.

“But it’s quite easy,” she said. “You simply walk.”

He had the new smile, the vague, rather pleased, smile upon his face.

“Well, if you are not afraid, by all means let us try.” He rose and offered her his arm.

Arthur sat perfectly rigid. With a set face he stared at the figures of his father and Hetty moving slowly in each other’s arms at the end of the room. His father had always treated Hetty with a patronising aloofness and Hetty had always been timid and deferential to his father. And now they were dancing together. He distinctly saw Hetty smile, her uplifted
flirtatious smile, the smile of a woman who is flattered by the attention she is receiving.

Then he heard Alan speak to him, asking him to go out, and mechanically he rose and went out with Alan. Now Alan was certainly not sober. He glowed. In the lavatory he faced Arthur, wavering slightly on his feet.

“Your old man’s loosened up a treat to-night, Arthur; I wouldn’t have believed it; given the old war-horse a marvellous send off.”

He turned on both taps so that they ran at full strength into the basin, then he swung round to Arthur again. He said with great confidence:

“Y’know, Arthur, my old man was pretty sick at your old man for not asking him over to back him up at the Inquiry. Never said much, but I know, the old war-horse knows, Arthur.”

Arthur stared at Alan uneasily.

“No need to worry, you know, Arthur.” Alan waved a hand with wise and friendly confidence. “Not the slightest need to worry, Arthur. All between friends you know, all between the best of old friends.”

Arthur continued to stare at Alan. He was speechless. A great confusion of doubt and uncertainty and fear rushed over him.

“What are you trying to say?” he asked at length.

Suddenly the lavatory basin overflowed and all the water came gushing over the floor, flowing, flowing over the floor.

Arthur’s eyes turned to the flooding water dazedly. The water in the Neptune pit had flooded like that, flooded through those tortuous and secret channels of the mine, drowning the men in horror and darkness.

His whole body was shaken by a spasm. He thought passionately: I mean to discover the truth. If it kills me I will discover the truth.

In the car on the way home Arthur waited until they were clear of the traffic of Tynecastle, then as they hummed along the straight stretch of silent road between Kenton and Sleescale he said quickly:

“There’s something I want to ask you, father.”

Barras was silent for a moment; he sat in his corner supported by the soft upholstery, his features masked by the interior dimness of the car.

“Well,” he said, unwillingly. “What is it you want?”

Barras’s tone was completely discouraging but Arthur was beyond discouragement now.

“It’s about the disaster.”

Barras made a movement of displeasure, almost of repugnance. Arthur felt rather than saw the gesture. There was a silence, then he heard his father say:

“Why must you keep on with that subject? It’s extremely distasteful to me. I’ve had a pleasant evening. I enjoyed dancing with Hetty, I’d no idea I should master these steps so well. I don’t want to be bothered with something which is completely settled and forgotten.”

Arthur answered in a burning voice.

“I haven’t forgotten it, father. I can’t forget it.”

Barras sat quite still for a moment.

“Arthur, I wish to God you would give this over.” He spoke with a certain restraint as though forcing this restraint upon a rising impatience; the result was the injection of a gloomy kindness into his words. “Don’t think I haven’t seen it coming. I have. Now listen to me and try to be reasonable. You’re on my side of the affair, aren’t you? My interests are your interests. You’re nearly twenty-two now. You’ll be my partner in the Neptune very shortly. Whenever this war is over I intend to see to it. When every living soul has forgotten about the disaster don’t you think it’s madness for you to keep harping on it?”

Arthur felt sick. In reminding him of his interest in the Neptune it was as if his father had offered him a bribe. His voice trembled.

“I don’t look on it as madness. I want to know the truth.”

Barras lost his self-control.

“The truth,” he exclaimed. “Haven’t we had an Inquiry? Eleven days of it, with everything investigated and settled. You know I was exonerated. There’s the truth for you. What more do you want?”

“The Inquiry was an official inquiry. It’s very easy to suppress facts at that kind of Inquiry.”

“What facts?” Barras burst out. “Have you gone out of your mind?”

Arthur stared straight in front of him through the glass partition at the stiff outlines of Bartley’s back.

“Didn’t you know all the time that you were taking a risk, father?”

“We’ve got to take risks,” Barras answered angrily. “Every one of us. In mining it’s a case of risks and risks and more risks, day in and day out. You can’t get away from them.”

But Arthur was not to be turned aside.

“Didn’t Adam Todd warn you before you started stripping coal from the Dyke?” he asked stonily. “You remember that day you went to see him. Didn’t he tell you there was a danger? And yet you went on in spite of him.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” Barras almost shouted. “It’s my place to make the decisions. The Neptune is my pit and I’ve got to run it my own way. Nobody has the right to interfere. I run it the best way I can.”

“The best way for whom?”

Barras struggled violently for self-control.

“Do you think the Neptune is a Benevolent Institute? I want to show a profit, don’t I?”

“That’s it, father,” Arthur said tonelessly. “You wanted to make a profit, an enormous profit. If you had pumped the water out of the Old Neptune workings before you started to strip that coal there would have been no danger. But the expense of dewatering the old workings would have swallowed up your profit. The expense, the thought of spending all that money in pumping out waste water was too much for you. So you decided to take the chance, the risk, to ignore the waste water and send all these men into danger.”

“That’s enough,” Barras said harshly. “I won’t have you talk to me like that.” The lights of a passing vehicle momentarily illuminated his face, which was congested, the forehead flushed, the eyes indignant and inflamed. Then all was darkness in the car again. Arthur clung tremblingly to the seat of the car, his lips pale, his whole being rent by an incredible dismay.

Once again he felt that strange unrest behind his father’s words, the sense of hurry, of evasion; it impressed him dully as an act of flight. He remained silent while the car swung into the drive of the Law and drew up before the front porch. He followed Barras into the house and in the high, bright vestibule they faced each other. There was a singular expression on Barras’s face as he stood with one hand upon the carved banister preparatory to ascending the stairs.

“You’ve had a great deal to say lately, a very great deal. But don’t you think it would fit you better if you tried to do something for a change?”

“I don’t understand you, father.”

Over his shoulder, Barras said:

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that you might be fighting for your country?” Then he turned and heavily went upstairs.

Arthur stood with his head thrown back watching the retreating figure of his father. His pale, upturned face was contorted. He felt finally that his love for his father was dead, he felt that out of the ashes there was arising something sinister and terrible.

Earlier on that same Saturday night Sammy walked down the Avenue with Annie Macer. Every Saturday night for years Sammy and Annie had taken this walk. It was part of the courtship of Sammy and Annie Macer.

About seven o’clock every Saturday night Sammy and Annie met at the corner of Quay Street. Usually Annie was there first, strolling up and down in her thick woollen stockings and well-brushed shoes, strolling quietly up and down, waiting, waiting for Sammy. Sammy always was the late one. Sammy would arrive about ten past seven, dressed in his good blue suit, very newly shaved about the chin and very shiny about his nobby forehead.

“I’m late, Annie,” Sammy would remark, smiling. He never expressed regret for being late, never dreamed of it; Annie, indeed, would have felt it very out of place if Sammy had said that he was sorry he had kept her waiting.

They had set out for their walk “up the Avenue.” Not arm in arm, there was nothing like that in the courtship of Sam and Annie, no holding of hands, or squeezing, or kissing, none of the more exuberant manifestations of affection. Sam and Annie were steadies. Sam respected Annie. In the darkest part of the Avenue Sam might quietly and sensibly encircle Annie’s waist as they strolled along. No more than that. Sammy and Annie just walked out.

Annie knew that Sammy’s mother “objected” to her. But
she knew that Sammy loved her. That was enough. After they had walked up the Avenue they would come back to the town, Sammy nodding to acquaintances “How do, Ned,” “How again, Tom,” back along Lamb Street and into Mrs. Wept’s pie-shop where the bell went
ping
and the loose glass pane in the door rattled every time they went in. Standing in Mrs. Wept’s dark little pie-shop they would each eat a hot pie with gravy and share a big bottle of lemonade. Annie preferred ginger ale but Sam’s favourite drink was the lemonade and this meant, of course, that Annie always insisted on lemonade. Sometimes Sammy had two pies, if he was flush after a good week’s hewing, for Mrs. Wept’s pies were the last word. But Annie refused, Annie knew a woman’s place, Annie never had more than one. She would suck the gravy from her fingers while Sam made inroads upon the second pie. Then they would have a chat, maybe, with Mrs. Wept and stroll back to Quay Corner where they stood for a while watching the brisk Saturday night movement in the street before they said good night. And as he walked up the Terraces Sammy would think what a grand evening it had been and what a fine girl Annie was and how lucky he was to be walking her out.

But to-night as Sam and Annie came down the Avenue it was plain that something had gone wrong between them. Annie’s expression was subdued while Sammy, with a harassed look, seemed to struggle to explain himself.

“I’m sorry, Annie,” kicking moodily at a stone which lay in his way. “I didn’t think you’d take it that sore, lass.”

In a low voice Annie said:

“It’s all right, Sammy, I’m not minding that much. It’s quite all right.” Whatever Sammy did was always all right with Annie; but her face, seen palely in that dark avenue of trees, was troubled.

Sammy took a kick at another stone.

“I couldn’t stand the pit no longer, honest I couldn’t, Annie. Goin’ down every day thinkin’ on dad and Hughie lyin’ inbye there, it’s more nor I could stand. The pit’ll never be the same to me, Annie, never, it won’t, till dad and Hughie gets brought out.”

“I see that, Sammy,” Annie agreed.

“Mind you, I’m not exactly wantin’ to go,” Sammy worried on. “I don’t hold with all this ruddy buglin’ and flag flappin’. I’m just makin’ it the excuse. I’ve just got to get out that pit. Anything’s better’n the pit now, anything.”

“That’s right, Sammy,” Annie reassured him. “I see what you mean.”

Annie saw perfectly that Sammy, a fine hewer who liked, and was needed in, his job, would never be going to the war but for the disaster in the Neptune. But the sadness in Annie’s acquiescence set Sammy more at cross-purposes than ever.

“Ah, Annie,” he exclaimed with sudden feeling. “I wish’t this thing had never happened on us in the Neptune. As I was bringin’ out my tools at the end of the shift the day, that’s just what I kept thinkin’. There’s our Davey, now. I’m proper put down ower what it’s done to him. I’m worrit, lass, at how he’s took it.” He went on with sudden heat: “It wasna fair the way they sacked him out of the school. Ramage done it, mind ye, he’s always had his knife in wor lot. But God, it was shameful, Annie.”

“He’ll get work some other place, Sammy.”

But Sammy shook his head.

“He’s done wi’ the schoolmasterin’, lass. He’s got in wi’ Harry Nugent someways. Harry took a heap of notice of Davey when he was up, something’ll come out of that, I’m thinkin’.” He sighed. “But there’s a proper change come ower him, lass.”

Annie made no reply: she was thinking of the change which had come over Sammy too.

They walked along the Avenue without speaking. It was now almost dark, but as they passed the Law, the moon sailed out from a bank of cloud, and threw a cold hard light upon the house which sat there square and squat, with a self-complacency almost malignant. Beside the big white gate, under one of the tall beeches which flanked it, two figures stood together—the one a young fellow in uniform, the other a bareheaded girl.

Sammy turned to Annie as they reached the end of the Avenue.

“Did you see that?” he said. “Dan Teasdale and Grace Barras.”

“Ay, I saw them, Sammy.”

“I’m thinkin’ it wouldn’t do for Barras to see them there.”

“No, Sammy.”

“Barras!” Sammy jerked his head aside and spat. “He’s come out of the sheugh all right. But I’ll not work for him no more, no, not if he came and begged us.”

Silence continued between Annie and Sammy as they walked towards Mrs. Wept’s shop. Annie was bearing up,
but the thought that Sammy was going to the war paralysed her; anyone but Annie would have refused to go to the shop. Yet Annie felt that Sammy wanted to go, so Annie went and struggled gamely with her pie. To-night Sammy had only one pie and he left half a tumbler of his lemonade.