The Stars Look Down

by A. J. Cronin

  It was the shell which stopped Stanley. He stared at the big shining shell with those frozen eyes.

  Joe clapped the snout of the shell affectionately.

  “She’s a beauty, eh? I call her Katie!”

  Mr. Stanley did not speak but the dark light played and played beneath the film upon his eyes.

  “I wish we were making the big stuff,” Joe remarked. “There’s a hell of a lot of money in big stuff too. Oh well, come on in the office now. I’ve got Morgan and Dobbie there and we’re going to talk to them.”

  But Mr. Stanley did not come on, he could not get past the shell. He stared and stared at the shell. It was a shell like this which had blown him up. His soul shrank and shuddered before that shell.

  “Come on, man,” Joe said impatiently. “Don’t you know they’re waiting on you?”

  “I want to go home.” His voice sounded very odd and he began to drag himself backwards stiffly from the shell.

  Christ, thought Joe, he’s at it again. He took Stanley’s arm to help him past the shell. But Stanley could not get past the shell. The skin of his forehead twitched, and in his eyes the buried agony of fear came leaping, leaping underneath the film. He gasped:

  “Let me go. I want to go home.”

  “You’re all right, Stanley,” Joe said. “Take it easy, now, you’re all right. It won’t bite you, it isn’t even filled. Be sensible, Stanley, man.”

  But Stanley could not be sensible. All Stanley’s splendid sense had got blown out of Stanley by a shell like this in France. Stanley’s whole face was twitching now, a rapid twitching, and the fear behind his eyes was horrible to see.

  “I’ve got to go home.” Hardly able to say it now. Under the dead cold face worked an unbelievable agony and excitement.

  Joe gave a groan of resignation.

  “All right, then, you’ll go home, Stanley. Don’t make a song about it.” Joe didn’t want a scene at the works, good God, not when everything had gone off so well. Still holding Stanley’s arm Joe walked Stanley very nicely down the shop. Joe’s smile indicated that everything was perfectly in order. Mr. Stanley was not quite fit yet, just out of hospital you see, oh yes, just that!

  The car drove off to Hilltop with Stanley sitting upright on the back seat, and Joe, with a last friendly, reassuring smile, returned to his own office. He shut himself in his office and lit a cigar. He smoked the cigar thoughtfully. It was a good cigar, but Joe did not think about the cigar. He thought about Stanley.

  There was no doubt about it, Stanley was washed out. The minute he had clapped eyes on Stanley at the station he had seen it; this shell-shock was a bigger thing than he had ever imagined. Stanley was going to be months and months before he got back to normal. If he ever did get back. In the meantime Joe would have to take Millington’s in hand more than ever. And that was hardly fair on Joe unless Joe got a little more out of Millington’s than he had been getting. Hardly fair. Joe carefully inspected the glowing end of his cigar, calculating shrewdly. About two thousand a year he was pulling down at the moment, all in, as Jim Mawson would have put it. But that was nothing, nothing at all. There was the future to think about. And God, what a chance this was to consolidate his future, to get in, big, oh, bigger than ever. Joe sighed ever so gently. There would have to be some sort of readjustment… that was the word… in Millington’s. Yes, that was it, that was the exact idea.

  Moistening his lips Joe reached for the telephone. He rang up Jim Mawson. Never before had he been so glad to know Mawson, to feel sure of his co-operation. A clever fellow Jim, who knew exactly how to set about a thing and steer just the right side of trouble.

  “Hello, Jim, that you, ole man?” Joe took pains to put the case justly to Mawson. And sympathetically, too. “It would break your heart to see the poor fellow, Jim. He’s perfectly sensible and all that, as sane as you and me, but it’s his nerves. Shell-shock, you understand. Yes, certainly, shell-shock, that’s right, Jim, you’ve got me.”

  A pause while Mawson’s voice came back over the wire. Then Joe said:

  “To-morrow night at your house then, Jim. Certainly, I know there’s no hurry. Certainly I know Snagg, I met him at Bostock’s, didn’t he handle that contract case? Yes, certainly, oh, what the hell, Jim, what do you think I am… now listen, oh, all right, not on the ’phone… certainly… how’s the wife?… that’s grand, Jim, that certainly is grand, all right, ole man, so long for the meantime.”

  Joe hung up the receiver; but only for a minute. His big hand reached out again, he rang Laura at Hilltop, his voice quiet, sympathetic, reasonable:

  “I must talk to you, Laura, honestly I must. Ah, what’s the use going on that way, Laura. Surely I know how you feel about it, I don’t blame you, but we’re only human, aren’t we, and we’ve got to make the best of it. Yes, yes, call me anything you like, I daresay I deserve it, but for God’s sake let’s get things straight. I’ve got to see you, there’s no getting away from it. What! All right, all right, Laura, I can’t force you to meet me, if you won’t come, you won’t… but I’ll be at the flat all evening in case you should change your mind….” He continued talking for a couple of minutes before he realised that she had hung up at the other end. Then he smirked, replaced the receiver and fell joyously upon his work.

  That night he went without his usual dinner at the County and got home by six o’clock. Whistling, he built up the fire, helped himself to whisky and a cold mutton pie, then washed and brushed himself, slipped on his new checked dressing-gown and sat down to read the paper and wait.

  From time to time his eyes strayed towards the clock. Occasionally the sound of a car in the crescent outside made him straighten expectantly in his chair. As the hand of the clock moved round, a frown began to mar the smooth handsomeness of his brow, but at nine o’clock the sharp ring of the door bell sent him eagerly to his feet.

  Laura entered with a kind of nervous violence. She wore a raincoat and an old brown hat that fitted closely on her head. There were splashes on her shoes; he had the feeling that she had walked all the way from Hilltop. She was very pale.

  “I came, you see,” she declared with bitter hostility, her hands thrust in her raincoat pockets, her whole figure braced. “Now what have you got to say?”

  He did not attempt even to approach her. He kept his eyes on the floor.

  “I’m glad you came, Laura.”

  “Well?” she queried in that same suppressed voice. “You’d better say it quickly. I can’t wait long.”

  “Sit down,” he said in a brotherly voice. “We can’t talk like this. You’re tired, you look absolutely all in.” Tactfully he turned away and began to stir the fire into a fresh blaze. She watched him with a cold irony, then with a sigh of fatigue she let herself sink into a chair. She said bitterly:

  “I haven’t had a minute’s peace since I left this wretched room.”

  “I know.” He sat back in his own chair, chastened, staring into the fire. “But we couldn’t foresee this, Laura, how could we?”

  “Every time I look at him,” a sob rose in her throat. “Every minute of the day. He can’t bear me now. You’ve seen that, haven’t you? He seems to hate to have me near him. He’s got to go to Bournemouth, to a rest home there. He actually asked me not to come with him. It serves me right, it serves me right. O God, how I loathe and detest myself.”

  He made a mutter of sympathy.

  “Don’t,” she cried. “I loathe and detest you too.”

  “Stanley doesn’t need to know anything about us,” he reasoned. “Not one single thing.”

  “I should hope not.” She turned on him with savage irony. “You don’t propose to tell him, do you?”

  “Oh no,” he answered in a queer voice. He got up and went to the sideboard where he mixed a stiff whisky and soda. “Not if you stand in with me. Laura. Here, you better try this. You look absolutely done.”

  She accepted the tumbler mechanically, still staring at him.

  “How do you mean,
stand in with you?”

  “Well, we got to be friends, Laura.” He took a sip at his own drink, meditating sombrely. “Friends all round, that’s my motto, I’ve always been a friendly sort of chap. You see it would be pretty awkward if there was a burst up. It wouldn’t do Stanley any good, or any of us for that matter. Stanley needs me in the business now, I’ve all sorts of ideas for expanding, amalgamating. Why, only the other day I was talking to Jim Mawson of Tynecastle. You know Mawson—one of the best business men in Tynecastle. Well, if Mawson and Stanley and myself got together, you’ve no idea how we could reorganise the foundry. We’d make a perfect gold mine out the place.”

  “I see,” she whispered, “I see what you want. You’re sick of me in any case. And now you want to use me, use all that’s happened between us—”

  “For God’s sake, Laura, have a heart. This is absolutely on the level! We’ll have a company, there’s pots of money in it for all of us.”

  “Money! You think of nothing but money. You’re contemptible.”

  “I’m only human, Laura. We’re all only human. That’s why I fell in love with you.”

  “Don’t!” she said fiercely.

  A silence came; she drank her whisky. It restored her. Joe at least was practical in what he did. She took a look at him, hating him. For all these weeks she had hated him, visualizing his loudness, his vulgarity, his insatiable egoism, his physical grossness. And yet he wasn’t really gross, she had to admit it despite herself. He was handsome, extraordinarily handsome. His figure was beautifully muscled, he had the most winning brown eyes. And she had taught him so much, how to dress, to groom himself: in a sense she had created him.

  “Are you still angry with me, Laura?” he asked humbly.

  “I’m not even thinking about you.” A pause. Rudely, she held out her empty glass. “Here, get me another of these. I think I deserve it.”

  He hurried to obey. He sighed.

  “I’ve thought about you a lot in these last weeks. I’ve missed you.”

  She gave a short laugh, swallowing her drink as though it was bitter.

  “You’re lying. You’ve got off with someone else while I was away. While I’ve been nursing a man who loathes me, a man who’s been blown up and dried up, you’ve been sleeping with some other woman. Come on, now, own up, speak the truth.”

  “I am speaking the truth,” he lied earnestly.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said; but for all that her heart gave a sudden throb. She added: “In any case it doesn’t matter. I’m myself again, thank God. I don’t care if you have a hundred women. I’m going to devote myself to Stanley now.”

  “I know, Laura,” he said. “Just let’s be friends.” He reached over to take her empty glass but instead he took her hand.

  “How dare you, how dare you.” She snatched her hand away. Her eyes filled with tears, she began all at once to cry.

  “Just friends, Laura,” he pleaded. “Just the best of pals.”

  “How can you make me so unhappy. Haven’t I been through enough? I’m going… going.” She rose quite blindly and at the same moment his arms were round her, gently restraining, holding her with confident strength.

  “You can’t go like this, Laura.”

  “Leave me, leave me, for God’s sake leave me.” She tried to break away from him, weeping hysterically.

  “Please, Laura, please.”

  As she struggled she felt herself trembling. She felt the trembling of her body against his.

  “Oh, how can you, Joe,” she cried. “How could you be so beastly to me.”

  “Laura!” He kissed her.

  “No, Joe, no,” she whispered weakly. But his lips again prevented her from speaking. Everything dissolved and fell away from her except the sense of his nearness. Reaction flooded her too. All those awful weeks at Sawbridge, her loneliness, Stanley’s peevishness—the deadly monotone of the machine man, whose sex lay buried in that shell-hole, somewhere in France. She closed her eyes. A shiver went over her. Joe didn’t really love her, he was merely using her, would throw her over. But it was no use for her to try. She felt him carrying her to the bedroom.

  When she got back to Hilltop it was nearly ten o’clock and Mrs. John Rutley sat waiting in the lounge.

  “Oh, my dear,” said Mrs. John, rising and taking both Laura’s hands in warm sympathy. “They told me you’d gone out to get some air but I simply had to wait. I’m so sorry about Stanley, my dear. I had to run down. You look so upset. And no wonder, as I was saying to John, you were always such a little pair of love-birds. But don’t you worry, my dear, you’ll soon get him right.”

  Laura stared at the older woman. Her face broke into a distorted smile.

  NINETEEN

  Towards the middle of November 1917 Martha heard about Annie Macer. It was Hannah Brace who told Martha that sharp winter morning and Hannah Brace was distressed that such a misfortune should have come on a decent girl like Annie. She stood on the pavement of the Terrace, her blowsy hair gathered under a man’s peaked cap, her nose blue with cold, her figure sagging, the door-mat she had come out to shake dangling from her hand.

  “You could have knocked me down with a feather,” she said, “when I saw Annie was that way!”

  The dismay in Hannah’s good-natured face was not reflected in Martha’s. Her expression revealed nothing as, without waiting for the gossip which Hannah so obviously desired, she went into her own house and closed the door. But for all that a great rush of triumphant vindication overwhelmed her. She sat down at the table and rested her chin on her big knuckled fist and thought about what Hannah had just told her. A stem smile came upon her lips. She had always said, hadn’t she, that Annie was no good, and now it was proved that Annie was no good. She was right, she, Martha Fenwick was right.

  Sammy was responsible, of course. Sammy had been out a great deal during his last leave; he had even, to her serious displeasure, stayed away from home an entire week-end. And this was the result. Yes, Sammy was responsible; but that was nothing. By Martha’s reasoning the man was never to blame. Martha was glad, yes, she admitted it to herself savagely, glad that things had turned out this way. Sammy would not respect Annie now. Never! Martha knew there was nothing a man hated worse than to get a girl in trouble. Besides Sammy was away, far out of the way in France. And when he came home she, Martha, would manage Sammy. She would manage Sammy away from Annie Macer. She knew how she’d do it, she knew exactly.

  The first step, naturally, was to see that Hannah Brace was right. At eleven o’clock that same forenoon Martha put on her coat and walked slowly down Cowpen Street listening for the sound of Annie’s bell. At present the Macers were having a struggle; Pug had drifted into the army and old Macer, landlocked by mines and handicapped by increasing rheumatism, had to make the best of it by hand-lining off-shore for whiting. Annie helped him with the hand-lining, digging the lugs when the tide was out, putting her shoulder to the boat in the early morning, baiting the snecked steel hooks, setting with her father out beyond the harbour while the dawn broke gently over the grey water. Then, in the forenoon, when the town had wakened, Annie hawked the catch with a creel on her back and a little brass bell in her hand through the streets of Sleescale.

  This forenoon Martha heard Annie’s bell at the foot of Cowpen Street. It was always an irritation to Martha, that bell of Annie’s, but to-day when Martha saw Annie she forgot all about the bell. One eagle glance from Martha’s eye deduced the fact that Hannah Brace was right. Annie was that way.

  Along the street Martha went, slow and formidable, until she came abreast of Annie, who had laid down her creel on the pavement to serve Mrs. Dale of the Middlerig Dairy. Martha stood watching Annie while Annie took the clean gutted fish in her clean chapped hands and put them on the plate Mrs. Dale gave her. Martha had to admit that Annie was clean. Her weather-blown face was hard-scrubbed, her blue apron newly washed and stiff from ironing, her arms, bare to the elbow, pink and firm, her eyes clear as though
they had been polished by the wind. This grudging admission of Annie’s cleanness made Martha more bitter. With her lips drawn in she stood waiting until Annie had finished with Mrs. Dale.

  Annie straightened herself from the creel at last. She noticed Martha and her face lightened slowly, imperceptibly. Annie’s expression never changed quickly; it had a quiet, almost stolid repose, but now it did undoubtedly brighten. She thought Martha wanted her fish and that was an honour which Martha had never bestowed on Annie before. Annie smiled diffidently.

  “I have nice whiting, Mrs. Fenwick,” she said. A pause while Annie reflected she might have been too forward. So she added: “They’re bigger than usual, anyway.”

  Martha did not say anything, she continued to look at Annie.

  Annie did not understand yet. With an easy movement of her fine body, she lifted the creel by its black leather strap and showed the catch to Martha.

  “Dad and me got these at four this morning,” she said. “They take best with a mist on the water. I’ll put a couple on your step as I go past, there’s no need for you to carry them up.” It was a long speech for Annie, an extremely long speech; it was extremely long because Annie was extremely anxious to please.

  Martha said nothing, but as Annie raised her eyes from the freshly caught fish, Martha gave Annie one insolent ice-bound look: the look knew everything, said everything, was significant of everything. Annie understood. Then Martha said:

  “I don’t want your fish nor anything else you’re like to have.” Then she waited, tall, erect, formidable, waiting for Annie to answer her back. But Annie did not speak. Her eyes fell towards her creel, as if humiliated.

  A cruel wave of triumph swept over Martha. She still waited until, seeing that Annie would not speak, she turned, with her head high in the air, and walked away.

  Annie lifted her eyes and stood looking after Martha’s retreating figure. There was a nobility about Annie at that moment. Her open, weather-burnished face expressed neither shame nor confusion nor anger, but a kind of sorrow was mirrored there. She remained for a moment as though steeped in some profound regret, then she shouldered her basket and went up the street. Her bell rang out quiet and clear.