The Northern Light

by A. J. Cronin

  ‘Indeed, yes,’ Alice could not resist saying. ‘ I must confess, I was rather hurt not to receive cards for your party last week …’

  ‘My dear, that was the dullest affair. Besides, we realized Henry was so worried, and I’m sure you were too, that you couldn’t possibly have wished to come. But now, naturally we want you both. What a man that husband of yours is … he’s really turned the town upside down! Till Thursday, then. Come early.’

  A warm glow suffused Alice as she replaced the receiver. She was esteemed, in the depths of her adversity, and for herself. That Eleanor Wellsby, of all her friends, should at this fatal moment come to her support was the greatest compliment she had ever received.

  She tidied her hair, studied herself in the mirror, and went downstairs, where Hannah brought her a strong cup of tea and some digestive biscuits.

  ‘Is it the mutton for tonight, Mrs Page?’

  Again Alice felt that bond of sympathy, but she restrained herself. She told Hannah to cook the joint as usual. After all, it was in the house, and who knew where their next meal would come from?

  The afternoon was wearing on. Refreshed by her long rest and by the tea, Alice determined to be busy. Henry had not come in yet; she had heard nothing from him all day. While awaiting him she would write the letter to her sister, not only to request the recipe for the scones, but also to communicate the news of her misfortune. She sat down at her bureau, took a sheet of notepaper, and, after a reflective pause, bent on unbosoming herself to the full, began.

  My dear Rose,

  The most dreadful thing has happened …

  The sound of a car outside interrupted her. Then, as she raised her head, she heard Henry’s key in the front door. A few seconds later he appeared. By this time she had thought of many things to say to him, less in anger than in sorrow, but before she could speak he came directly to her, kissed her, then took her hand. He was very pale and on each of his cheeks there was a small bright flush.

  ‘Alice,’ he said, straight away, as though he could not contain himself, ‘ my belief in decency, right thinking, and the essential goodness of people has been restored.’

  Her eyes widened at this opening, so typical of Henry in his uplifted moments, yet so unexpected it astonished her. But he completely took her breath away as he went on.

  ‘This morning the bank – Wellsby, if you like, for it really comes out of his pocket – made me the loan. Far more generous than I expected. And on what security? On the name of the Northern Light.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she faltered, disturbed by his elation. ‘I saw the miserable little sheet.’

  ‘That is precisely what did it, my dear.’ He spoke less excitably now, trying to keep command of himself, but she had never seen him so moved. ‘Our effort to keep the paper going has finally brought things home to the people. All morning we’ve been swamped by telegrams and phone calls. There’s a wonderful editorial in tonight’s Tynecastle Echo. … Tomorrow there’ll be another in the Manchester Courier.’ He smiled, shakily, the first time for many weeks. ‘Even the clergy are getting behind us, at the eleventh hour. Gilmore rang me to say his sermon will be on us on Sunday … the text, “Let there be light” …’

  ‘But, Henry,’ she protested, unconvinced, ‘how will you carry on?’

  ‘Token editions till next Monday … and that should do us some more good.’ He smiled again. ‘Tom Gourlay tells me people are paying him as much as half-a-crown for them at collector’s items – he’s making a fortune. On Monday we start printing again in earnest. Major Seaton has loaned us the Armoury Building for as long as we need it; the machines are going in tomorrow. Poole and Lewis, all of them, even Hadley, are taking their coats off and getting down to it.’

  ‘But, Henry, you can’t go on printing in the Armoury?’

  ‘Of course not. It’s only a temporary measure till we find something permanent. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, we’ll be back in our own premises before the year is out. Don’t you see how this has backfired on the Chronicle lot? They’ve bought the printing hall and I still have the lease. They’re compelled by law to make the statutory alterations within three months. At the end of that time, if I’m any judge, they’ll be out of business, and glad to dispose of it. I tell you, Alice, I’ve never felt so happy. I’ve settled our outstanding account with the Northern Mills. I’ve paid the staff, and all my bills. Thank God, I’m clear and out of trouble, and if you’re a patient lass it won’t be too long before you have the house back in your own name.’

  ‘So you actually think …?’ she said, still distrustful, unwilling almost to believe in this turnabout, after she had reconciled herself so agreeably to disaster.

  ‘Let’s say that I’m most hopeful, Alice … and deeply thankful too. And now’ – he put his hand to his forehead in a tired manner – ‘I have to get back to the Armoury. I’m meeting Seaton there at six o’clock. But I had to stop in and give you the good news.’

  ‘If it’s really so good, Henry’ – she looked at him questioningly – ‘I mean, for instance, will you be able to have the Philharmonic this year.’

  ‘Of course. I’m going ahead with the concerts. It’s the best kind of publicity, and besides, we enjoy them.’

  ‘Then … I’ll actually be able to give my reception as usual?’

  He laughed happily and touched her cheek.

  ‘Yes, my dear, have it by all means. You know I like you to be pleased. And there’s talk of getting up a testimonial dinner for me. You might enjoy that, too.’

  When he had gone Alice sat a long time in silent communion with herself. Then with a shake of her head, as though acknowledging that certain things were beyond her comprehension, she slowly tore up the letter she had begun and, taking another sheet, started afresh.

  My dear Rose,

  The most extraordinary thing has happened …

  Part Two

  Chapter One

  It was raining as Leonard racked his cue and stared out the window of the billiard room at the dripping, half-dead street. Joe, the marker, stood with him, fingering a cube of green chalk.

  ‘It’s very wet,’ he said. ‘We could have another hundred up, Mr Nye.’

  But he’d had enough – he wasn’t in the mood and the table was so completely on the skew the balls had worn a track into one of the top pockets. Outside, in the grey afternoon, some workmen were squatting under a tarpaulin shelter, drinking tea, before a brazier of coke. They seemed always to be drinking tea, which one of their number was deputed to keep boiling in an outsize billy-can. The hole in the pavement they had made two weeks ago was still there, surrounded by uprooted cobblestones and flanked by hurricane lamps.

  The sight of this stoic inertia, which ordinarily would have amused Nye, seemed for some reason to put an extra chip on his shoulder. He and Smith were in the same sort of mess, all right, but their tea was running out, and fast.

  Well, he thought, the hell with it. He got his raincoat and umbrella from the cloak room, left the hotel, and started for the office – there was nothing else to do. For the past month getting out the Chronicle had become a perfunctory routine – they were down to mere twenty-six thousand copies, while, the Light was selling a clear seventy thousand, almost back to normal. It was perfectly evident to Nye that they would never reduce the lead Page had on gained on them. Most of the staff had gone back to London, but Smith was still here with him, making a show of running the paper in the illusory hope that someone might be induced to buy it. They had tried to sell it back to Rickaby, but he wasn’t having any part of it. The bright idea at head office was to salvage something of the loss, but there hadn’t even been a nibble and there wouldn’t be, if Nye was any judge. Smith still kept up a show of activity, which became progressively more pointless and feverish, but he was all washed up and he knew it. At the rate sales were slipping, Somerville wouldn’t hold on much longer, and every day now Nye expected they would both get the hook.

  Nye kept telling h
imself that for him it made not much difference, that he was just a little different from the average newspaper man, jumping to the boss’s word, lamentably underpaid, and seldom given the chance to improve himself. In Fleet Street his ability to deliver the goods was generally recognized, and while he might cut a few corners, what was the odds so long as he got there before the other fellow? He knew that he had brains, talent, personality – he did things easily and well. Without any fuss he’d picked up French and German and spoke them fluently. He was well up in modern art and could knock off an article on Picasso, Buffet, or Mondrian with the best of them. He had some idea of music, too, and although he had never had a lesson in his life, he could sit down at the piano and play anything by ear. His tennis game was better than average and at billiards he could string together a break of a hundred any day of the week. When he chose to exert himself, there were few men or women he failed to please; as the saying went, he had a way with him. When he was Jotham’s foreign correspondent in Europe he had done a smashing job on the international set at Antibes and Deauville – all due to his ability to get into places like the Eden Roc and the Normandy, and be perfectly at ease there, when the average fellow might well have been thrown out on his ear. It was then that he first developed his amazing capacity to distort an interview and, while using the exact words of his victims, succeed in creating damaging impressions which never failed to titillate his readers. How the feeble letters of protest, always tucked away in a remote corner of the paper, entertained him! It amused him also to produce an occasional diatribe against some popular book of the moment when by detaching phrases from the context he misrepresented the author’s purpose and made him appear a scoundrel or a fool. Later on, for Somerville, this talent had flourished in his weekly articles from New York during austerity, when his biassed comments on American prosperity had done much to foster the bitterness prevalent in Britain at that time. He could almost certainly get another American assignment, probably from Mighill, and be well out of this bloody English winter. Or with luck he might talk himself into covering the film festival at Cannes … that was an idea to which he might give some thought; he had all sorts of contacts on the Riviera, where, he reflected with some pride, he had interviewed all the leading personalities from the Gabor sisters to the Aga Khan. Yes, he had been around, he knew what he was doing, and could always pick up a first-class billet.

  Nevertheless, despite this effort to inflate his ego, it was gall and wormwood to his pride, a constant and corroding source of bitterness, to have failed here, above all to be beaten by a man like Page. From their first meeting Nye’s hostility towards the owner of the Light had steadily increased until now it had risen almost to an obsession. Of course, he told himself savagely, if only Smith hadn’t been so damned ladylike in his tactics they’d have won hands down. It was true that his idea on the printing hall had backfired – the very thought of it still made him squirm – but at least it had been on the right lines. Half measures were no good when you were in a fight. It must be all or nothing, and Smith had never gone all the way. Still, Smith was the one who would really take it on the chin. He had imagined it would be so easy, had banked so completely on success, especially to reinstate himself with his wife, that it was laughable to see how his morale had crumbled. In these last weeks the important look had vanished, and although he still kept sweating around looking for some way out, anyone with half an eye could see that he was pooped.

  By this time Nye was in the Cornmarket. In front of the Old Town Hall a poster had been set up announcing the concert – the first of the Philharmonic group – that Page had organized for the St Mark’s Steeple Fund, and which was due to be held on Sunday, September 15th. Though Nye told himself that the names Page had raked in were mediocre, second-class highbrow talent, that didn’t help him much. He swung away from the poster, then, as he crossed the square, he saw Page come down the steps of the Light building. Lately Nye had tried to keep out of his way, for the sight of him was more than he could stand. A young woman was with him. She was a looker, all right, tall, with curves, not too much, just right. Even at that distance you could tell she had something. For a second Nye wondered who she might be, then Page’s son – he’d seen him twice before, a tall, long-haired, poetic-looking bird – came after them and she smiled and took his arm. None of them saw Leonard – he didn’t want them to – and keeping them in the corner of his eye, he half turned towards a shop window to light a cigarette. They got into Page’s five-year-old Vauxhall – to Nye it all seemed part of an act to sport a small out-of-date car – and drove off.

  Leonard went on to the office. As he expected, Smith was there, trying to seem busy, at his desk, but actually writing a letter to his Minnie – Nye knew it was to her from the way he slid it under the blotter as he came in. You couldn’t help noticing how much weight Smith had lost; he looked as though the crows had been at him.

  ‘Anything fresh?’ Nye flung himself into a chair.

  ‘Not a thing.’

  It was pathetic. He still sounded hopeful, in a far-away fashion. It annoyed Nye, who wanted to rub him on the raw.

  ‘What’s the word from the Honourable Vernon?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Smith blew his nose several times – his catarrh was on again. ‘At least, no news is good news. If only…’

  ‘… something would turn up.’ Nye finished it for him, imitating his tone.

  Smith reddened.

  ‘Your bright idea didn’t help much. In fact, it practically wrecked us.’

  ‘How was I to guess that Page would bring out that bloody stencil? You never know where you are with a prig like him, God’ – Nye’s temper boiled over – ‘I’ll never forget that first day when he opened up on us with his sermon on the sanctity of the press. If there’s a type I can’t stand it’s the mealy-mouthed do-gooder, the uplifter who wants to create Utopia with his niggling little broadsheet. I think I know human nature. As for the newspaper trade. I know it inside out. It’s a ruddy business, like any other, with two main objectives: money and power. To get there you need circulation. For circulation you must give the customers what they want. And what do they want … at least the bulk of them? They want the juicy bits – sex, scandal, and sensation. Old Jotham proved this to the hilt when he ran the Sunday Enquirer up to the seven million mark and kept it there on a straight programme of police-court reporting and key-hole news. So why make a fuss about it? People are only human. I’m the sort of fellow that sees no harm in a bit of fun, so for God’s sake let’s have it before the big bomb drops. The world’s gone down the drain anyway, and all the Pages and uplifters that were ever born won’t pull it out again.’

  Smith, who had listened to this diatribe in silence, said:

  ‘You may say what you like. I bear no grudge against Page. He’s a fine man.’

  ‘Yes,’ Nye said bitterly. ‘I just passed him. He did look fine … on top of the world.’ He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘The son was there. They had a skirt with them.’

  ‘A young woman? Quite attractive?’

  ‘That’s the understatement of the week. She’s a looker, all right, tall, with curves, not too much, just where you want them. Even at a distance I could tell she has something.’

  ‘She’s David’s wife.’

  ‘David,’ Nye sneered. ‘Brother, you sound like one of the family.’

  Smith began disapprovingly to shuffle the papers on the desk. Now that he was in trouble, Nye thought derisively, the pious streak in him showed up. The other day when he had barged into his room he was kneeling by the bed trying to get a little help from Heaven … worse even than Holy Ithiel Mighill, who held a hymn fest every Sunday night at his country house in Surrey.

  ‘Why haven’t we ever seen her around?’ Nye asked after a pause.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That dame, of course.’

  ‘They live very quietly … at Sleedon.’

  ‘She didn’t look the quiet type to me.’

  ‘Oh, let�
��s leave the Pages alone,’ Smith said, very short. ‘They’re decent people.’

  ‘It’s nothing personal. I just hate their entrails, all of them, on principle.’

  ‘You’re a great hater.

  ‘I have gall. I admit it. And now I’m going to have a beer.’

  Leonard got up and left Smith, walked down the street to the Victoria Bar, where he had a Scotch and a chaser of Bass. He supposed it was natural in a town like Hedleston, where there was nothing on view but a few drabs hanging around the station after dark, but somehow he couldn’t get the thought of young Page’s wife out of his head. She had impressed him and he wondered why he’d never seen her around. Probably young Page kept her pretty tight; he looked the jealous type, and soft on her, you could tell at a glance.

  Nye was not susceptible to women. For one thing, he didn’t trust them. And, as he delicately expressed it, he’d been there and back so often he was inclined to be blasé. So although it did cross his mind that this one would be good in the bed, there was more to it than that – she interested him in quite a different way. She seemed not to belong to the Pages at all, but to be his side of the fence. It was as though some subconscious affinity existed between them, something hidden and altogether unexpected.

  How could he explain this vague, peculiar feeling? He kept asking himself that question and failing to find the answer. The closest he could get to it, though it wasn’t at all near, was by recollecting a comparable sensation. One night, long enough ago, when he was a green young reporter starting in Fleet Street, he went out to dinner with some pals. They had too many drinks and when he left them to go to his digs a tart picked him up in Piccadilly. They went into Hyde Park – it was pitch dark, he scarcely even saw her face. Ten years later, as he jumped on a bus at Victoria Station, a woman got off. For perhaps two seconds on the step of that bus their eyes met in a sudden impact of mutual recognition, and he knew, less from the evidence of vision than from a sort of inner shock, that here was the unknown with whom that particular intimacy had occurred.