The Stars Look Down (45 page)

“Goes like an aeroplane, doesn’t she?” he threw out high-spiritedly. “Almost wish I’d joined the Flying Corps.”

“Look out you don’t skid,” Joe said, “the roads are pretty greasy.”

Stanley laughed again. Joe, alone in the back seat, kept his eyes on Laura’s calm profile in front. Her composure
was both baffling and fascinating: Stanley driving like a mug, and she not turning a hair. She didn’t want to come to a sticky end yet, did she? He didn’t, at any rate not yet, by God, no!

They flashed past the old St. Bede’s Church, which stood grey and gauntly weatherbeaten, surrounded by a few flat, lichened tombstones, isolated and open on the edge of the moor.

“Wonderful old building,” Stanley said, jerking his head, “Ever been in, Joe?”

“No.”

“Got some wonderful oak pews. Some time you ought to have a look at them.”

They began to slip downhill, through Cadder village and a few outlying farms. Twenty minutes later they reached Carnton Junction. The express was late and after seeing to his baggage Stanley began to walk slowly up and down the platform with Laura. Joe, pretending to make affable conversation with the porter, watched them jealously from the corner of his eye. Damn it, he thought, oh,
damn
it all, I believe she’s in love with him after all.

A sharp whistle and the thunder of the approaching train.

“Here she is, sir,” the porter said. “Only four minutes behind her time.”

Stanley came hurrying over.

“Well, Joe, here we are at last. Yes, porter, a first smoker, facing the engine if you can. You’ll write to me, old man. I can leave everything to you. Yes, yes, that’s all right, splendid, splendid. I know you’ll do everything.” He shook hands with Joe—Joe’s grip was manly and prolonged—kissed Laura good-bye, then jumped into his compartment. Stanley was to the core a sentimentalist and now that the moment of departure had come he was deeply affected. He hung out of the window, feeling himself every inch a man going to the front, facing his wife and his friend. Quick tears glistened in his eyes but he smiled them away.

“Take care of Laura, Joe.”

“You bet, Mr. Stanley.”

“Don’t forget to write.”

“No fear!”

There came a pause; the train did not move. The pause lengthened awkwardly.

“It looks like more rain,” Stanley said, filling in the gap.
Another hollow pause. The train started forward. Stanley shouted:

“Well, we’re off! Good-bye, Laura. Good-bye, old man.”

The train shuddered and stopped. Stanley frowned, looking up the line.

“Must be taking in water. We’ll be a few minutes yet.”

Immediately the train started again, pulled away smoothly and began to gather speed.

“Well! Good-bye, good-bye.”

This time Stanley was away. Joe and Laura stood on the platform until the last carriage was out of sight, Joe waving heartily, Laura not waving at all. She was paler than usual and there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes. Joe saw this. They turned to the car in silence.

When they came out from the cover of the station and reached the car it was raining again. Laura went towards the back seat but, with an air of solicitude, Joe put out his hand:

“You’ll get all the rain in there, Mrs. Millington. It’s coming on heavy.”

She hesitated, then without speaking she got into the front seat. He nodded, as though she had done a most reasonable and sensible thing, then climbed in and took the wheel.

He drove slowly, partly because of the rain blurring the windscreen, but chiefly because he wanted to prolong the journey. Though his attitude was respectful, openly deferential, he was bursting with the knowledge of his position: Stanley tearing off to God knows where, every minute getting farther and farther away, Laura in the car with him, here, now. Cautiously, he glanced at her. She sat at the extreme end of the seat, staring straight in front of her; he could feel that every fibre of her was resentful, defensively alert. He thought how careful he must be, no gentle pressure of his knee against hers, a different technique, weeks perhaps or months of strategy, he must be slow, cautious as hell. He had the queer feeling that she almost hated him.

Suddenly he said, in a voice of mild regret:

“I don’t think you like me very much, Mrs. Millington.”

Silence; he kept his eyes on the road.

“I haven’t thought about it a great deal,” she answered rather scornfully.

“Oh, I know.” A deprecating laugh. “I didn’t mean anything. I only thought, you’d helped me at the start a bit,
at the works you know, and lately you’d… oh, I don’t know…”

“Would you mind driving a little faster,” she said. “I’ve got to be at the canteen by six.”

“Why, certainly, Mrs. Millington.” He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, increasing the car’s speed, causing the rain to shoot round the windscreen. “I was only hoping you’d let me do anything for you I can. Mr. Stanley’s gone. A great chap Stanley.” He sighed. “He’s certainly given me my chance. I’d do anything for him, anything.”

As he spoke the rain began to fall in torrents. They were on the open moor now, and the wind was high. The car, sheltered only by its thin hood, quite unprotected by side screens, caught the full force of the driving rain.

“I say,” Joe cried, “you’re getting drenched.”

Laura turned up the collar of her costume.

“I’m all right.”

“But you’re not. Look, you’re getting soaked, absolutely soaked. We’ll stop a minute. We must take shelter. It’s a perfect cloudburst.”

It actually was a deluge and Laura, without her mackintosh, began to get extremely wet. It was obvious that in a few minutes she must be drenched to her skin. Still, she did not speak. Joe, however, sighting the old church upon their left, suddenly swerved the car towards it and drew up with a jerk.

“Quick,” he urged. “In here. This is awful, simply awful.” He took her arm, impelling her from the car by the very unexpectedness of his action, running with her up the short path into the dripping portico of the old church. The door was open. “In here,” Joe cried. “If you don’t you’ll catch your death of cold. This is awful, awful.” They went in.

It was a small place, warm after the biting wind and rather dark, impregnated with a faint scent of candle grease and incense. The altar was dimly visible and upon it a large brass crucifix and, remaining from the previous Sunday’s service, two globular brass vases holding white flowers. The atmosphere was quiet and still, belonging to another world, different. The drumming of the rain upon the leaded roof intensified the warm silence.

Gazing about him curiously, Joe walked up the aisle, subconsciously noting the heavy carved pews to which Stanley had referred.

“Damn funny old place, but it’s dry anyway.” Then, his
voice solicitous, “We won’t have to wait long till it goes off. I’ll get you back in time for the canteen.”

He turned and saw, suddenly, that she was shivering, standing against one of the benches with her hands pressed together.

“Oh dear,” he said in that beautiful tone of self-reproach. “I’ve let you in for it. Your jacket’s soaking. Let me help you off with it.”

“No,” she said, “I’m all right.” She kept her eyes averted, biting her lip fiercely. He sensed vaguely some struggle within her, deep, unknown.

“But you must, Mrs. Millington,” he said with that same regretful, reassuring kindness, and he put his hand on the lapel of her jacket.

“No, no,” she stammered. “I’m all right, I tell you. I don’t like it here. We ought never to have come. The rain…” She broke off, struggled quickly out of the jacket herself. She was breathing quickly, he saw the rise and fall of her breasts under the white silk blouse which, dampened in places, adhered to her skin. Her composure seemed gone, torn from her by the dim secrecy of the place, the drumming rain, the silence. Her eyes fluttered about in frightened glances. He stared at her dumbly, uncomprehendingly. She shivered again. Then all at once he understood. A suffocating heat flushed over him. He took a step forward.

“Laura,” he gasped. “Laura.”

“No, no,” she panted. “I want to go, I want…” As she spoke his arms went round her. They clasped each other wildly, their lips seeking each other’s. She gave a moan. Even before her mouth opened to his he knew that she was mad about him, had been fighting it all these months. A wild intoxication mounted in him. Linked together they moved to the foremost pew, cushioned and wide as any bed. Their hands moved together, her lips were moist with desire. The rain drummed upon the roof and the darkness of the church reddened and enclosed them. When it came, her cry of physical exaltation rose before the altar. The figure on the cross looked down on them.

When the Derby Scheme came into force the situation between Arthur and his father had become intolerable, it was a state of unconcealed hostility. Arthur’s name was on the National Register, yet although he received his papers under the new Scheme he did not attest. His failure to attest produced no immediate comment. At the Law, by coming in late for all his meals, he avoided Barras as far as he was able, while at the Neptune he spent most of his time underground, arriving early and getting inbye with Hudspeth before Barras reached the pit. But in spite of his precautions it was impossible to escape the inevitable encounters, full of animosity and strain and conflict. When he entered the office, dirty and tired at the end of the day, Barras pretended to ignore him in great flurry of business, conveying to Arthur the unmistakable sense of how little he was needed at the pit. And then, lifting his head from a mass of papers, Barras would appear suddenly to discover Arthur and frown as though to say: “Oh, you’re there,
still
there?” And when Arthur turned away in silence Barras would follow him with his eyes, fuming, drumming his fingers rapidly upon the desk, wearing that flushed look of injury and high displeasure.

Arthur saw that his father hated having him about the pit. Towards the beginning of January he was forced to complain about the quality of the new timber props in Five Quarter Seam. Barras flared instantly.

“Mind your own business and leave me to mind mine. When I want your advice I’ll ask for it.”

Arthur made no reply. He knew that the props were inferior, some of them quite perished at the base. He was appalled at the quality of the material his father was using. With mounting prices and feverish production money flowed into the Neptune. Yet, despite the lesson of the disaster, nothing was being spent to ensure better and safer conditions in the pit.

That same evening the Tynecastle
Argus
announced in double headlines that the Military Service Act had become law.

When he read the news Barras could not conceal his satisfaction.

“That’ll shake the shirkers up a bit,” he announced from
the head of the table. “It’s high time we had a comb out. There are too many of them tucked away in their funk holes.” He gave a short triumphant laugh. “This’ll give them something to think about.”

It was supper, one of the rare occasions when Arthur was present; and although Barras addressed his remarks to Aunt Carrie the sting in them was for Arthur.

“It’s quite scandalous, Caroline,” he went on loudly, “the number of able-bodied young men who ought to be fighting for their country. They’ve got out of it so far by digging themselves into jobs where they’re not wanted. They’ve refused to take the hint, don’t you see, to join the army. Well, upon my soul, it’s high time they were kicked into it.”

“Yes, Richard,” Aunt Carrie murmured, with a trembling glance towards Arthur, who kept his eyes fixed upon his plate.

“I knew it was coming of course,” Barras continued in the same tone. “And I’ve no doubt I shall have a hand in the working of it. Between ourselves I’ve been approached to sit on the local Tribunal.”

“The Tribunal, Richard?” Aunt Carrie faltered.

“Yes, indeed,” Richard declared, studiously avoiding Arthur’s eye. “And I shan’t stand any nonsense, I assure you. This is serious at last and the sooner everyone realises it the better. I was discussing it with Hetty only the other day. She feels pretty strongly that it’s high time the slackers were wakened up. And weeded out.”

Arthur raised his eyes slowly and looked at his father. Barras was dressed in a new grey suit and he wore a flower in his buttonhole. Lately he had ordered himself a number of new suits, much smarter than his usual style—Arthur suspected him of having changed his tailor in Tynecastle—and he had taken to wearing a buttonhole regularly, a pink carnation usually, picked from the new plants in the conservatory. His appearance was exaggeratedly spruce, his eye bright, he had an intent, oddly excited air.

“You wait and see, Caroline,” he laughed, with immense satisfaction, “what a rush to the colours when the tribunals get busy!”

There was a silence while Aunt Carrie, in an access of distress, fluttered her glance from one to the other. Then Barras looked at his watch; the usual gesture. “Well,” he remarked in a conscious tone, “I must get along now, Caroline. Don’t let anyone trouble to stay up for me. I shall be
late I expect. I’m taking Hetty to the King’s. Must carry on in spite of the war. It’s ‘The Maid of the Mountains,’ very good I’m told, the full London company. Hetty is tremendously keen to see it.” He rose, fingering the flower in his buttonhole. Then, ignoring Arthur, but with a brisk nod to Caroline, he strode out of the room.

Arthur remained seated at the table, perfectly still and silent. He was well aware that Hetty and his father went about together a great deal: the new suits, the buttonhole, the spurious veneer of youth were all indicative of that fact. It had begun in an attitude of reparation—Arthur had treated Hetty shamefully, and the obligation of “making it up to Hetty” had devolved upon Barras. Yet Arthur suspected that the relationship had progressed beyond the bounds of mere amendment. He did not know. He sighed heavily at his own thoughts. That sigh made Aunt Carrie stir uneasily.

“You’ve eaten scarcely anything to-night, Arthur,” she murmured. “Why don’t you have some of this trifle?”

“I’m not hungry, Aunt Carrie.”