The Stars Look Down

by A. J. Cronin

  “They’re in the study then, as I said.”

  “May I go up?”

  She shrugged her shoulders without answering. He was conscious of her dark eyes upon his, then she spun upon her heel and was gone. He stood for a moment collecting himself before ascending the stairs. Then he knocked and went into the study.

  The room was brightly lit and warm; a good fire blazed on the hearth. Barras was seated at the desk, while Arthur stood beside the fireplace, in front of him. As David entered Arthur smiled in his usual friendly manner, but Barras’s welcome was much less cordial. He swung round his padded leather chair and stared at David with a blank inquiry.

  “Well?” he said abruptly, “what is it?”

  David looked from one to the other. He compressed his lips firmly.

  “I wanted to have a word with you,” he said to Barras.

  Richard Barras lay back in his chair. He was, actually, in an excellent humour. By the afternoon post he had received a letter from the Lord Mayor of Tynecastle asking him to accept the convenership of the organisation committee in connection with the building of the new wing for the City Royal Hospital. Barras was already on the Bench, three years president of the local education committee, and now this. He was pleased, sniffing the prospect of a knighthood like a well-fed mastiff the chances of a meaty bone. In his own exquisitely precise handwriting—no such machine as a typewriter existed at the Law—he was framing a suitable acceptance. As he sat there he embodied an almost sensual satisfaction that life should be so gratifying an affair.

  “What is it you have to say?” he exclaimed; and observing David’s glance towards Arthur he added impatiently: “Go on, man. If it’s about Arthur he’d better hear it.”

  David took a quick determined breath. Under the almost judicial force of Barras’s personality what he was going to say suddenly seemed presumptuous and absurd. But he had resolved to speak to Barras; nothing would shake him.

  “It’s about the new workings in the Paradise,” he rushed on before Barras could interpose. “I daresay I’ve no right to talk, I’m out of the Neptune now, but my father’s there and my two brothers. You know my father, Mr. Barras, he’s been thirty years in the pit, he’s not an alarmist. But ever since you got the new contract and started stripping off the barrier he’s been worried to death you’ll have an inrush.”

  Silence in the room. Barras continued to measure David with a coldly inquiring eye.

  “If your father doesn’t like the Paradise he can leave it. He had this same insane notion seven years ago. He’s always been a trouble maker.”

  David felt his blood rise; but he made himself speak calmly.

  “It isn’t just my father. Quite a number of the men don’t like it. They say you’re travelling too near the old waste, the workings of Old Neptune which must be chock full of water.”

  “They know what to do then,” Barras said icily. “They can get out.”

  “But they can’t. They’ve got their living to think of. Almost every one of them has a wife and children to support.”

  Barras’s features hardened imperceptibly.

  “Let them go to that Hebbon fellow then. That’s what he’s there for, isn’t it? They pay him to exploit their grievances. The matter has nothing to do with you.”

  A sudden tension gathered in the air and Arthur gazed from David to his father with growing uneasiness. Arthur hated trouble, anything approaching a scene caused him acute distress. David kept his eyes on Barras. He had turned pale but his expression remained determined and controlled.

  “All I’m asking is that you should give a fair hearing to what these men have got to say.”

  Barras laughed shortly.

  “Indeed,” he answered cuttingly. “So you expect me to sit here and let my workmen teach me my business.”

  “You’ll do nothing?”

  “Emphatically, no!”

  David clenched his teeth, restrained the turmoil of indignation within him. In a low voice he said:

  “Very well, Mr. Barras. If you will take up my meaning wrongly, I can’t say any more. No doubt it was quite out of place for me to say anything at all.” He stood for a moment as though hoping Barras might speak, then he turned and quietly left the room.

  Arthur did not immediately follow. The silence lengthened; then diffidently, with his eyes on the floor, Arthur said:

  “I don’t think he meant any harm, father. He’s a good chap, David Fenwick.”

  Barras did not answer.

  Arthur flushed. Although he had taken a great many cold baths and knew his series of little red books almost by heart he still flushed abominably. But he continued with a sort of desperation:

  “You don’t think he has any justification then? It sticks in my mind—what he said. As a matter of fact a queer thing happened in the Paradise to-day, father. The Scupper pump was overcome in the afternoon shift.”

  “Well?”

  “There was quite an accumulation of water in Swelly.”

  “Indeed!” Barras picked up his pen and inspected the nib.

  Arthur paused: the information seemed to mean nothing to his father. He still sat enthroned, judicial and half abstracted. Lamely, Arthur went on:

  “It appeared to me there was quite a come of water in Scupper Flats. In fact it looked as if a block of undercut coal was forced off the Dyke as if there was pressure behind it. I thought you might like to know, father.”

  “Like to know,” Barras repeated almost as though he recollected himself. “Oh yes!” Then his sardonic pleasantry: “I am obliged to you, of course, Arthur. I have no doubt you have anticipated Armstrong by a good sixteen hours, it’s very gratifying.”

  Arthur looked downcast and hurt, his eyes travelled over the pattern of the carpet.

  “If only we had the plans of the Old Neptune workings, father. We should know then for certain. It’s the most maddening thing to me, father, that they didn’t keep plans in those old days, father.”

  The motionless quality of justice had never left Barras’s figure. He could not sneer. His voice held merely a cold rebuke:

  “You are a little late with your condemnation, Arthur. If you had been born eighty years ago, I have no doubt you would have completely revolutionised the industry.”

  There was another silence. Barras gazed at the half-finished letter on the desk before him. He picked it up and seemed to study it with a certain stem admiration for its phrasing. He thought out a fresh turn to the final sentence, lifted his pen. Then he rediscovered Arthur still standing by the door. He studied Arthur deliberately, as he had studied the letter, and gradually the severity went out of his face. He looked as near amusement as he could ever get. He said:

  “Your interest in the Neptune is very satisfactory, Arthur. And I’m glad to see you have ideas on its management. In a few years’ time I have no doubt you will be running the mine—and me!” Had Barras been capable of real laughter he must certainly have laughed now: “In the meantime I suggest you confine yourself to the elementary things and leave the complicated business alone. Go and find that Fenwick fellow and get some trigonometry into your foolish head.”

  When Arthur had gone, apologetic and vaguely ashamed, Barras returned to his letter of acceptance. Where had he got to again? What was that phrase again? Oh yes, he remembered. In his precise, resolute handwriting he continued: “For myself…”

  TWENTY-ONE

  The months passed quickly, summer to autumn, autumn to winter, and David’s recollection of his interview with Barras became less painful. Yet often, when he thought of it, he winced. He had been a fool, a presumptuous fool. Work still proceeded in Scupper Flats, the contract would be completed by the New Year. His visits to the Law had ceased. Arthur had taken his certificate with honours; and at the same time Dan Teasdale had obtained his ticket.

  And he had flung himself, with a kind of fury, into his own work. His final B.A. examination came on December 14th and he had made up his mind to take the thing then, t
o take it if it killed him. Putting off and putting off had sickened him, he shut his ears to Jenny’s wheedlings, got down to the last of his correspondence classes, and spent every second week-end with Carmichael at Wallington. He felt he would be all right, it was just a question of making sure.

  Jenny became the poor neglected little wife—Jenny was always little when she required sympathy, she shrank from sheer pathos. She complained that she had no “callers,” no friends, she looked around for companionship, she even cultivated Mrs. Wept, who was of course already a “caller” in so far as she called for the rent. It went well until Mrs. Wept took Jenny to the meeting. Jenny returned from the meeting much amused. David could not get out of her what had happened except that the whole thing had been very unrefined.

  As a last resource Jenny turned back upon her own family, imagining that it would, perhaps, be nice to have one of them through to stay. But who? Not ma, this time, ma was getting so fat and heavy she just sat and sat, so much dead weight in the house. Phyllis and Clarry couldn’t come, they were both working in Slattery’s now and couldn’t get away. Dad couldn’t either, and when he could it was always pigeons; turn into a pigeon himself would dad one of these days!

  Sally remained. Sally was not at Slattery’s. Sally had begun very brightly by being in the Tynecastle Telephone Exchange and all might still have been right with Sally had Sally stayed on at the telephone exchange. It was clean and classy work being in the Tynecastle Exchange, with all the advantages. Unfortunately dad had never got it out of his silly head that Sally had talent for the stage. Always taking her to music-halls, encouraging her to mimic the variety stars, sending her to tap-dancing, generally playing the fool. And as if this were not enough, he had actually persuaded Sally to enter for a Saturday night go-as-you-please at the Empire. They were low, these go-as-you-please competitions, all the rag-tag went in for them.

  It was very sad, but Sally had won this go-as-you-please. Not only had she won the first prize but she had so knocked the low Saturday night gallery crowd that the management had given her an engagement for the whole of the following week. At the end of that week Sally had got the offer of a six-weeks’ tour on the Payne-Gould northern circuit.

  Why, oh, why, asked Jenny sadly, had Sally been fool enough to take that offer? For Sally had taken the offer, chucked the classy exchange with all the advantages and done her six weeks’ circuit. That, of course, was the end of Sally, the finish, absolutely.

  Sally had been out of a job four months now. No more circuit, no more offers, no more anything. As for the telephone exchange they wouldn’t even look at Sally again. Pity! But then the Exchange was classy and would never have you back if once you did the dirty on it. Yes, sighed Jenny, she’s done it for herself now I’m afraid, poor Sally!

  Still it would be nice to have Sally through to stay, nice, and a kindness to the unfortunate girl. Perhaps Jenny had a complacent sense of patronage behind her sisterly benevolence. She always wanted to show people did Jenny.

  Sally arrived in Sleescale towards the third week in November and was greeted with rapture by her sister. Jenny was delighted, hugging her dearest Sally, full of “well I nevers” and “isn’t this just like old times,” full of little confidences and ripples of laughter and showings to the newly furnished spare bedroom and running upstairs with hot water and clean towels and gay tryings on of Sally’s hat. Oh, my dear, isn’t it just! David was pleased: he had not seen Jenny so happy or excited for a long time.

  But the rapture went out of it comically soon, the running upstairs soon became a bore, the ripples of laughter wore themselves out and all the beautiful novelty of dearest Sally faded and was finished. “She’s changed, David,” Jenny announced sadly towards the end of the first week, “she’s not the same girl at all, mind you I never did think much of…”

  David did not find Sally changed except that she might be quieter and improved. Perhaps Jenny’s effusiveness made her subdued. Perhaps the thought that she was finished sobered Sally down. She had lost her pertness. There was a new thoughtfulness behind her eyes. She made herself useful running errands and about the house. She did not ask to be amused and all Jenny’s arrangements and display merely served to shut her up. Once or twice in the kitchen, seated on the plain deal table swinging her legs before the big fire she condescended, as Jenny put it, to come out of herself. Then she chattered away sixteen to the dozen, telling them in a frank and merry way of her experiences on the Payne-Gould tour, of the landladies, the managers, the “moth-eaten” dressing-rooms, of her own greenness and nervousness and mistakes. She had no pretentiousness. She could take off people beautifully but now she took off herself even better. Her best story was terribly against herself, of how she got the bird in Shiphead—Jenny simply loved to hear that story!—but Sally told it joyfully, without a trace of bitterness. She had a carelessness about herself. She never did up, never bothered about the kind of soap she used, always washed her face in cold water, she had very few clothes and, unlike Jenny who was always altering and stitching and pressing, keeping her clothes in the most beautiful condition, she took no care of them whatever. She had one brown tweed costume and wore it nearly all the time; as Jenny remarked, that thing was never off her back. But Sally’s method was to buy a suit, wear it out, then buy another one. She had no good clothes, Sunday hats, or adorable fancy underwear. She wore plain serge knickers and flat shoes. Her figure was short and rather tubby. She was very plain.

  David enjoyed Sally quite a lot though Jenny’s increasing petulance began to worry him again. One evening, however, it was the first of December, when he came in from school Jenny met him with a return of her old animation.

  “Guess who’s in Sleescale?” she demanded, smiling all over her face.

  Sally, setting the table for David’s tea, said sadly:

  “Buffalo Bill.”

  “Be quiet,” Jenny said. “Just because you don’t happen to like him, Miss Impudence! But really though, David, you never would guess, honestly you’d never. It’s Joe!”

  “Joe!” David repeated, “Joe Gowlan?”

  “Mm-huh!” Jenny nodded brightly. “And, my, doesn’t he look well. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I met him in Church Street. Of course I wasn’t going to recognise him, not me, I wasn’t too pleased with Joe Gowlan the last time I saw him, but he came up and spoke to me nice as nice. He’s improved wonderful.”

  Sally looked at her sister.

  “Is it cold meat for David’s tea?” she said.

  “No, no,” said Jenny absently, “just a plain tea to-night, we’ll keep the meat for supper. I’ve asked Joe to drop in, I knew you would want to see him, David.”

  “Why, yes, of course.”

  “Not that I’m all that anxious myself, mind you. But I did think I’d like to let Mr. Joe Gowlan see he’s not the only one that has got on. Believe me, with my blue china and the doyleys and cold meat and heated-up peas I’ll show Mr. Joe a thing or two. Pity it wasn’t the cod we had yesterday, I could have used the new ivorine fish slice. Never mind, though, I’ll borrow Mrs. Wept’s carvers, we’ll have a pretty nice display I can tell you.”

  “Why don’t you hire a butler when you’re about it?” Sally said mildly.

  Jenny coloured. The pleasantness left her face. She turned on Sally. She said:

  “You’re an ungrateful little hussy, you are, to stand there and talk to me like that. I think I’ve done pretty well by you when it comes to the bit. The idea of you standing there criticising me because I ask a gentleman to supper in my own house. The idea! And after all that I’ve done for you. You go home, my lady, if you don’t like it.”

  “I’ll go home, if you want to,” Sally said. And she went to get David’s tea.

  Joe dropped in about seven o’clock. He wore his light brown suit, his watch-chain, that really impressive derby, and an air of affable simplicity. He was not loud, nor boisterous, nor full of brag, he was nothing that David might have feared. Joe ha
d really been forced to come home and, though Joe could never look that way, Joe was quite a bit under the weather. In plain truth, Joe was still out of a job. He was turning over in his mind the idea of going back to Millington’s; after all hadn’t Stanley Millington promised to give him a lift up, hadn’t he now, the big sod? Yes, he would go to Millington’s all right. But not yet, not just yet. There was something else, something on Joe’s mind that Joe didn’t enjoy. Joe was worried about himself, worried about something. God, what a fool a fella could be, but maybe it wasn’t something, maybe it was nothing after all.

  The general effect of this bodily and spiritual uncertainty was to throw an air of subdued virtue about Joe, to establish him as a man who had at last returned to see his aged father and was modestly reticent about his obvious success in life. And he was so pleased to see David, so deeply touched to see his “ole pal” again! It was quite affecting.

  Towards Jenny, Joe was very humble, apologetic and subdued. He praised her china, her doyleys, her frock, her food. He ate, for one prosperously acquainted with a richer diet than cold beef and peas, a considerable supper. He was struck, oh, immensely struck by the improvement in Jenny’s social setting.

  “By gum,” he kept repeating, “I must say this goes one better than Scottswood Road!” His manners were quite elevated. He no longer foraged with his knife for errant peas. He “helped” the ladies. He was handsomer than ever and his tone was almost reverent.

  It was honey to Jenny, her formal “company” manner slowly slid from her, she became pleasantly arch, condescending, chatty in a lady-like way.

  Not that Joe talked much to Jenny. No, no! It was clear that Joe had little time for “wimmen” now—his interest in Jenny was merely friendly and polite. As for Sally, he never looked at her at all. Joe was all for David, full of questions, interest, admiration. It was great that David was sitting his BA. in a fortnight, those week-ends of study with Carmichael were certainly a brain wave of the first degree. Always the lad to have brain waves, eh, Davey ole man? Joe and David talked long after supper and Jenny kept slipping in and out, humming pleasantly and graciously inquiring from time to time how they were getting on. Sally was washing the dishes, with a certain restrained vehemence, in the scullery.