The Stars Look Down

by A. J. Cronin

  He got up from his knees, slowly rolling up the plan. The whole structure of the colossal deceit arose before his tormented sight. He stood in the middle of the sacred room with the plan clenched tight in his hands, his eyes burning, his face still bearing the ingrained pallor of the prison. And as though conscious of himself, the prisoner, holding this evidence of his father’s guilt, as though amused by this paradox of human equity, his pale lips parted in a smile. A paroxysm of hysterical laughter convulsed him. He wanted to smash, burn, destroy; he wanted to wreck the room, tear down the pictures, kick out the windows. He wanted punishment, recompense, justice.

  With a great effort he controlled himself, turned and went downstairs. In the hall he stood waiting, his eyes upon the front door. From time to time he looked towards the long case clock, hearing the slow inexorable rhythm of the passing seconds in a fever of impatience. But at last he started. At twenty-five minutes to one the car drove up from the station and there was the sound of bustling steps. The door swung open and his father entered the hall. An instant of complete immobility. The eyes of Arthur met his father’s eyes.

  Arthur drew a quick sobbing breath. He hardly recognised his father. The change in Barras was incredible. Much heavier and stouter, the hard outlines of his figure softened and become flaccid, a pouching of the cheeks, a sagging of the abdomen, a roll of fat behind his collar, the old static immobility supplanted by a bustling activity. The hands were active, fumbling and fussing with a sheaf of newspapers; the eyes were active, darting hither and thither to see what could be seen; the mind was active, responding eagerly to all the diversions of life which were trivial and worthless. In one devastating flash it struck Arthur that the whole trend of this spurious activity was to acknowledge the present, to repudiate the past, to ignore the future; the end of a process of disintegration. He remained standing with his back to the staircase as his father came into the hall. There was a silence.

  “So you’ve come back,” Barras said. “It’s an unexpected treat.”

  Arthur did not speak. He watched Barras advance to the table and lay down his papers and a few small parcels which dangled from his fingers. Barras continued, shuffling and arranging the things upon the table:

  “You know, of course, that the war is still on. My views have not changed. You know I don’t want any slackers here.”

  In a suppressed tone Arthur said:

  “I haven’t been slacking. I’ve been in prison.”

  Barras gave a short exclamation, moving and re-moving the things upon the table.

  “You chose to go there, didn’t you? And if you don’t alter your mind you’re liable to go back again. You see that, don’t you?”

  Arthur answered:

  “I’ve seen a great many things. Prison is a good place for seeing things.”

  Barras gave over his arranging and darted a furtive glance at Arthur. He began to walk up and down the hall. He took out his beautiful gold watch and looked at that. He said with a flickering animosity:

  “I’ve got an appointment after lunch. I have two meetings to-night. This is an extremely heavy day for me. I really have no time to waste on you, I’m far too busy.”

  “Too busy winning the war, father? Is that what you mean?”

  Barras’s face became confused. The arteries in his temple stood out suddenly.

  “Yes! since you choose to put it like that, I have been doing my best to win the war.”

  Arthur’s compressed lips twitched bitterly. A great wave of uncontrolled feeling rushed over him.

  “No wonder you’re proud of yourself. You’re a patriot. Everyone admires you. You’re on committees, your name gets in the paper, you make speeches about glorious victories when thousands of men are lying butchered in the trenches. And all the time you’re coining money, thousands and thousands of pounds, sweating your men in the Neptune, shouting that it’s for King and Country when it’s really for yourself. That’s it, that’s it.” His voice climbed higher. “You don’t care about life or death. You only care about yourself.”

  “At least I keep out of prison,” shouted Barras.

  “Don’t be sure.” Arthur’s breath came chokingly. “It looks as if you might soon be there. I’m not going to serve any more of your sentence for you.”

  Barras stopped his rapid pacing. His mouth dropped open.

  “What’s that?” he exclaimed in a tone of utter amazement. “Are you mad?”

  “No,” Arthur answered passionately, “I’m not mad, but I ought to be.”

  Barras stared at Arthur, then with a shrug of his shoulders abandoned him as hopeless. He pulled out his watch again, using that restless gesture, and looked at it with his small injected eyes.

  “I really must go,” he said, slurring his words together. “I have an important appointment after lunch.”

  “Don’t go, father,” Arthur said. He stood there in a white heat of intensity, consumed by the terrible knowledge within him.

  “What—” Barras drew up, red-faced, half-way to the stairs.

  “Listen to me, father,” Arthur said in a burning voice. “I know all about the disaster now. Robert Fenwick wrote out a message before he died. I have that message. I know that you were to blame.”

  Barras gave a very perceptible start. A sudden dread seemed to fall on him.

  “What do you say?”

  “You heard what I said.”

  For the first time a look of guilt crept into Barras’s eyes.

  “It’s a lie. I absolutely deny it.”

  “You may deny it. But I have found the Old Neptune plan.”

  Barras’s face became completely congested with blood, the vessels of his neck stood out duskily and thickly. He swayed for a moment and leaned instinctively against the hall table. He stammered:

  “You’re mad. You’ve gone out of your mind. I won’t listen to you.”

  “You should have destroyed the plan, father.”

  All at once Barras lost control of himself. He shouted:

  “What do you know about it? Why should I destroy anything? I’m not a criminal. I acted for the best. I won’t be bothered with it. It’s all finished. There’s a war on. I’ve got an appointment at two… a meeting.” He clutched at the banisters, breathing desperately, with that suffused and dusky face, trying to push past Arthur.

  Arthur did not move.

  “Go to your meeting then. But I know that you killed those men. And I’m going to see that they get justice.”

  In that same panting, flushed voice, Barras went on:

  “I have to pay the wages. I have to make the pit pay. I have to take chances just as they do. We’re all human. We all make mistakes. I acted for the best. It’s finished and done with. They can’t reopen the inquiry. I’ve got to have my lunch and get to my meeting at two.” He made that hasty, bustling gesture, feeling for his watch; he missed the pocket and forgot about it; he stared at Arthur, crumbling within himself.

  Arthur’s soul sickened. This was his father and he had loved him. His voice was impersonal and devoid of feeling.

  “In that case I shall forward the plan to the proper quarter. You can’t object to my doing that.”

  Barras compressed his forehead with his hands, as though to still the pounding of his blood.

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” he groaned with utter incoherence. “You forget that I have a meeting. An important meeting. I have got to wash, to lunch. At two.” He stared at Arthur in a bewildered, childish way. He made a convulsive gesture and found the watch. He considered the watch with that dusky querulous face, then he took a few rapid steps which carried him past Arthur and up the stairs.

  Arthur remained standing in the hall, his features contracted, drawn. He felt empty and hopeless. He had come nerved for a fight, a desperate struggle to assert himself, to demand justice. And there had been no fight, no struggle, no justice. Now there would never be justice. He would not send the plan. It was too pitiful, this shell of what had o
nce been a man, his father. Hunched against the banisters he felt crushed by the hypocrisy and ruthlessness of life. He sighed deeply, a sound wrung from his heart. Upstairs, he heard his father moving about: rapid and uneven movements, thumping footsteps. He heard water running. Then, as he turned to leave the house, all at once he heard a heavy fall.

  He swung round, listening. No more sounds. Absolute stillness. He ran upstairs, Aunt Carrie was running too. They ran to the bathroom door and hammered on the door. There was no answer. Aunt Carrie let out a terrified shriek. Then Arthur took a rush and burst in the door.

  Richard Barras lay on the floor, his face half covered in lather, the soap still clutched in his hand. He was conscious and breathing deeply. It was a stroke.

  END OF BOOK TWO

  BOOK THREE

  ONE

  The twenty-fifth of November 1918 and a bright and sunny day. The headgear of the Neptune lay bathed in a clear brightness, the outlines of the headstocks softened, the pulleys whirling in a sparkling iridescence. Puffs of woolly steam broke from the engine house and hung like little halos above the shaft.

  As Arthur Barras walked briskly down Cowpen Street he saw the clear brightness upon the pit and the iridescent pulleys and the puffs of smoke which hung like halos. He felt the radiance of the day flooding the Neptune and the future and himself. He smiled.

  Unbelievable that he should be happy again, that the fixed and sinister influence of the pit should be dissolved, changed, transmuted into something wonderful and fine. How he had doubted and feared and suffered during these war years, yes, how he had suffered! He had felt his life ruined. But now the future was before him, clear and shining, the result of all his suffering, the reward.

  He walked through open gates and crossed the asphalt yard with an alert step. He was well but quietly dressed in a grey tweed suit, wing collar, blue and white bow tie. Though he looked older than his age of twenty-six his expression held a queer eagerness.

  Armstrong and Hudspeth were waiting for him in the office, both standing. He nodded to them, hung up his hat behind the door, smoothed his fine fair hair, already thin on the top, and took his place at the desk.

  “It’s all settled, then,” he said. “Bannerman completed the final papers yesterday.”

  Armstrong cleared his throat.

  “I’m sure I’m very pleased,” he said obsequiously. “And I wish you every success, sir. I don’t see why not. We’ve done pretty well at the Neptune in the past.”

  “Nothing to what we’re going to do in the future, Armstrong.”

  “Yes, sir.” Armstrong paused, stealing a quick glance at Arthur.

  A short silence followed, then Arthur sat back in his chair.

  “I want to say one or two things, so that we can start off with everything clearly understood. You’ve been used to my father giving orders down here and now that he’s laid up you’ve got to get used to me. That’s the first change, but it’s only the first. We’ll have other changes and plenty of them. It’s the right time for changes. The war’s over and there’s going to be no more war. Whatever our difference of principles during the war we’re all agreed about the peace. We’ve got peace and we’re going to keep it. We’ve stopped destroying; thank God, we’re going to start reconstructing for a change. That’s exactly what we’re going to do here. We’re going to have a safe pit with no possible chance of another disaster. Do you understand? A safe pit. There’s going to be fair play for everybody. And to show that I mean it—” he broke off. “How much have you been getting, Armstrong? Four hundred, isn’t it?”

  Armstrong coloured and let his eyes drop.

  “Yes, that’s the figure,” he said. “If you think it’s too much…”

  “And you, Hudspeth?” Arthur asked.

  Hudspeth gave his short stolid laugh.

  “I’ve been standin’ at two-fifty these last three years,” he said. “I never seem to move up, nohow.”

  “Well, you’re up now,” Arthur said. “You’ll take five hundred, Armstrong, as from the first of last month, and you three-fifty, Hudspeth, as from the same date.”

  Armstrong’s flush deepened. He stammered gratefully:

  “That’s uncommon handsome of you, I must say.”

  “Ay, it is that,” Hudspeth added, his dull eyes bright at last.

  “That’s settled, then.” Arthur got up briskly. “Both of you stand by this morning. I have Mr. Todd of Tynecastle coming at eleven. We shall want to make a complete inspection. You understand?”

  “Why certainly, Mr. Barras.” Armstrong nodded effusively and went out with Hudspeth. Arthur remained alone in the office. He crossed to the window and stood there for a moment watching the sunny pit yard: men crossing and recrossing, tubs moving down the track, an engine shunting perkily. His eye dilated, exulting to the emotion within him. He thought, I haven’t suffered for nothing. I’ll show them now. It’s my chance at last.

  He returned to his desk, sat down and took a file of bills and invoices from the top left drawer. These invoices were not new to him, he had most of them by heart, but they had not ceased to shock him. Bad timber, cheap bricks, weak props, dud roofing bars, odd lots and job-lots bought anywhere so long as it was cheap. Material on costs cut to the vanishing point. A subtle skating behind the regulations at every turn—even the spare winding cable was ten years old and had been bought second hand at a bankrupt sale. His father’s work; all his father’s work; all work which he must rectify.

  He was still sitting at his desk, working and figuring, when Saul Pickings, seventy-four, and still going strong, poked his head round the door and announced Adam Todd. Arthur jumped up at once and shook hands with Todd, genuinely glad to see him. Todd had changed very little, still taciturn and vaguely seedy and yellow about the eyes, still smelling of cloves. He sat down beside the desk in answer to Arthur’s invitation; he had no personality or presence; he was just there.

  A short silence; then Arthur slid the file across to Todd.

  “Take a look at these.”

  Todd took a look at them, wetting his forefinger, slow and exact.

  “There’s been a few bargains,” he said at length.

  “Bargains,” Arthur said. “It isn’t a case of bargains. That stuff is junk.”

  Old man Todd did not speak, but Arthur saw that he agreed and, lowering his voice carefully, Arthur said:

  “Look here, Mr. Todd, I’m going to be quite frank with you. After all you know everything. You warned my father. But you don’t have to warn me. I’m out to put things right at last. I’m going to make the Neptune safe!”

  “Yes, Arthur,” said old man Todd with his yellow eyes fixed on the desk. “You’re empowered, I suppose?”

  “Bannerman has seen to everything. I’ve sworn the affidavit, I’m in control,” Arthur said, his voice low and burning. “You’re coming round with me this morning. And you’re coming inbye. You’re going to make suggestions to me as you did to my father. The difference Is that I’m going to take them.”

  “Yes, Arthur.”

  “I’m going to replace this junk. I’m going to take out every rotten prop in this rotten pit, burn the timber, strip the brickwork. I’m going to steel girder the new road, cement the roof, put in new haulage.”

  “That’ll cost you a lot of money.”

  “Money!” Arthur gave a short laugh. “Money has been pouring into this pit during the war… like the water that poured into it at the disaster. I’m going to spend some of that money, all of it if need be. I’m going to make a new Neptune. I’m not just stopping at safety. I’m going to show how to get real good out of the men. I’m putting in pit-head baths, drying rooms, locker rooms, everything.”

  “Yes, Arthur,” said Todd, “I see.”

  Arthur rose abruptly:

  “Come on,” he said. “We’ll go.”

  They went round the pit bank, engine house and pump room. Then they went inbye. Accompanied by Armstrong and Hudspeth they made a complete inspection abov
e surface and below. They talked and discussed and tested. Arthur had his way every time and his way was the best way.

  It was one o’clock when they came back to the office and Todd looked a little tired. At his own suggestion he had a slight refreshment and after the refreshment he looked less tired. Chewing a clove, he figured for a long time with his pencil on a pad. At last he looked up.

  “Do you know round about what this is going to cost?” he inquired slowly.

  “No,” Arthur spoke indifferently.

  “Something in the neighbourhood of one hundred thousand pounds,” Todd said.

  “That shows how rotten we were!” Arthur clenched his fist in a sudden access of feeling. “We can stand that outlay. I don’t care if it was double. I’ve got to do it.”

  “Yes, Arthur,” old man Todd said again. “Mind you, we’ll have a bit of difficulty in getting the stuff. All the plant works have been out of production during the war and it’s only the wise ones that have converted back already.” He hesitated. “I did hear they’d restarted in Platt Lane though.”

  “At Millington’s?”

  “Millington’s that was,” Todd sighed. “You know Stanley has sold out to Mawson and Gowlan.” He placed the papers in his bag and closed it gently, without acrimony.

  Arthur took Todd’s arm. “You’re tired.” He smiled, his sensitive, charming smile. “You need some lunch. We’re expecting you at the Law. Hilda’s home. And Grace and Dan are staying for a day or two. You must come.”

  They drove up to the Law through the warm sunshine and Todd, reflecting in the warm sunshine, felt less his usual pessimism: it was a fine thing Arthur was doing, a very fine thing, the like of which his father would not have done. This made him meditate:

  “It’s odd, you know, not seeing your father at the Neptune, Arthur.”

  Arthur shook his head decisively. “He’ll never be there again, I’m afraid.” Then quickly: “Mind you, he’s better really, a great deal better. He may go on for years, Dr. Lewis says. But the right side is quite paralysed. And the speech, that has suffered. Something has severed, a line of nerve fibres in the brain. To be quite frank, Todd, he’s not quite… not quite right in his head.” There was a silence, then Arthur added in a low voice: “My only hope is that he may go on long enough to see the end of what I’m doing at the Neptune.”