He put his arms about her and held her close to him. He did not speak for a while. Presently, he said: ‘Ne’er heed, Helen…’ ardently: ‘Ah love y’, Helen. Ah do love y’…’
Without thinking as to its practicability he suddenly burst forth, eagerly: ‘Aye, ‘Elen, an’ as soon as Ah’m out o’ me time we’ll be married. Really. … No kid. An’ Ah’ll be out of it in a few months now.’ Then a rebuke rose to his mind by way of an afterthought; a disturbing picture of automatic and other devilishly self-sufficient machinery. Things that made the serving of his apprenticeship a waste of time. Here he was promising marriage with such a competitor to fight. It was all very well for those fellows who invented them; their inventions put them on velvet. But they didn’t pause to consider how many poor devils had to go under on their account. Blimey, look at Billy Higgs and his generation, still mooning around; skilled engineers supposed to be.
Then an access of confidence: ‘Maybe,’ he told himself: ‘Maybe Ah’ll land a job when Ah come out o’ me time. There’s sure to be jobs somewhere.’ He breathed with greater freedom. He said, impatiently: ‘Aw, let’s forget about home, Helen. We ain’t there now, thank God. Let’s mek most of it while we can: there’s on’y another day.’ She relaxed in his arms. He felt her arms stealing about him: she said: ‘Y’ll allus love me, wont y’, Harry? Things don’t seem so bad when Ah’ve got you.’
‘You know me,’ he replied, stoutly: ‘When we get back home we start saving up straightaway for - well, you know what’ Pause: ‘Funny, ain’t it, Helen … Ah mean it’s funny we ain’t ne’er thought o’ getting married afore. You know. … Fancy, though, us livin’ in different houses when there’s nowt t’ stop us from gettin’ a home of our own!’
It came in the way of a revelation this appreciation of their liberty to marry. It was as though, previously, no such thing as marriage existed, or, at least, if it did exist it was not for such as they. On a sudden, as it were, they felt they had cast the shell of boy and girlhood and had emerged, adults. A most inspiring sensation suffused them both; in an instant everything seemed possible. They now were responsible for themselves, the arbiters of their own destinies. Going home now to the prospect of marriage minimized the pang of parting from this lovely place.
He assured her, with confidence and ardour, that his promises would soon come to pass: ‘Once let me get back to work. … Let me get out o’ me time an’ on full money. Ah’ll show y’ .. Ah’ll find a job … Ah’ll - Oh, you wait an’ see.’
She lay back in the bracken, sighing. He brushed her sunburnt cheek with his lips. She murmured his name, her lips sought his, and, abandoning themselves, they surrendered to ecstatic oblivion.
The waxing moon climbed higher in the heavens: brilliant beams bathed land and sea. Where shadows lurked the blackness was intense, impenetrable; elsewhere was eerily white. No wind, no sound save the distant cool swish of the sea: rabbits kicked their heels, sheep grazed, bats flitted and owls were on the wing. The road the lovers were to traverse home wound, a silver ribbon by the empty white-walled cottage, through sable coppices and between high thorn hedges heavy with honeysuckle and blossom.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 1
PLANS
THE return to the Two Cities was not so dismal an event as they had thought: nevertheless, despite their plans of marriage they bade farewell to the holiday with many pangs. Still, it was inevitable, Harry concluded, and, the sooner he settled down again to humdrum existence the quicker the time would pass which now separated him from the termination of his apprenticeship. All that would then remain would be the finding of an employer willing to pay him the full rate of wage due to a time-served engineer. Already he had accomplished this in fancy. He assured himself that he would not fail. His optimism communicated itself to Helen; their confidence grew and engendered a delightfully new sense of intimacy and devotion.
They considered the necessity of having to settle down again to the squalor of Hanky Park as a period merely of probation; a kind of temporary stage which had to be endured whilst the money necessary to marriage was saved. Their fancies and the seductive pictures it painted of a home of their own obscured reality and made bearable what, otherwise, would have been intolerable.
With ten shillings in his pockets, the residue of what remained of his winnings plus a shilling each which they had managed to save, he and Helen, arm in arm, went window gazing in the furniture shops. The most expensive establishments drew them as a magnet; luxuriously upholstered lounge furniture held them spellbound. Their imaginations were fired by the show-cards’ sketches depicting suggested arrangements of the furniture in spacious, oak-panelled rooms whose open French windows looked on to a sunny garden with a dovecote on a pole in the centre of the lawn: such a place as never existed within miles of the Two Cities and whose upkeep would require at least an income of two thousand pounds a year.
An economical form of entertainment and much more satisfyng than the picture theatre. Satisfying whilst one could keep up the pretence of being able to purchase the things displayed. But, when the illusion faded and the solemn stillness fell between them, they could only practise deception on each other in glum silences or in forced cheerfulness: ‘Aw, ne’er heed, Helen. just let me get that there job on full money an’ we’ll soon have things like that.’ With the utterance of the words his heart contracted: what a shallow, ill-considered promise. He knew that on full rate of pay he would never be able to afford decent furnishings. Of the things he would have liked fine dreams only were his portion.
They would drift, by degrees to the cheaper shops. Ugly furniture; imitation this and imitation that; skimped jerry-built stuff that hurt the eyes, that boasted its inferiority shamelessly, brazenly and filled the brain with a bleak dullness. No show-cards here save: ‘Join Our Club. Weekly Payments Taken.’
Homewards with moody, resentful discontent in their hearts.
‘Seems as though we’ve ne’er to get nowt we really want, Harry grumbled. He scowled. Then, remembering his solitary stroke of good fortune, and, with dreams of a successful repetition, added, hopefully: ‘Still, we will get what we want if Ah win newspaper competition. An’ somebody’s got t’ win.’
Alone, he sometimes dared to look the problem straight in the face. Here he was, within hailing distance of completing his apprenticeship. For nearly seven years he had been working for a boy’s wage, and, these last four years he had been performing a skilled tradesman’s work, though it had made no difference to his wages. So far was quite clear: his income had been such as had precluded the possibility of saving, nay, but for the communal pooling of wages at home he would have been in debt. The future was the bugbear; that gave him pause. All his plans of marriage were on the other side of a very large ‘if. II he was successful in securing a situation on full pay.
Each time he saw Billy Higgs and his generation, ragged and down at heel lounging the street corners, each time he stared at them he stared at reality. But it was only an incomplete appreciation: every attempt to realize it fully was vitiated by a hope that he would evade their fate.
The ominous menace looming on the horizon of the future only served to set a keener edge upon his ambitions; the more impossible he recognized his circumstances from the viewpoint of marriage the more maddeningly desirable it became.
He could not restrain his pent-up feelings betimes; sought reassurance of everybody who would lend a sympathetic ear, though he referred to marriage guardedly, in a general sense.
Joe Simmons, Bill Simmons’s elder brother, who was married and a labourer at Marlowe’s, scowled when Harry, one evening on the way home, introduced the subject: ‘Marriage. Yaaaa,’ he growled: ‘Blimey, you tek notice of a mug wot got married. Luk at me now. Nowt t’ wear an’ ne’er a blasted penny t’ call me own,’ indignantly: ‘An’ me workin’, too!’ bitterly: ‘Ah wus
one o’ the clever devils. Ah wus Oh aye. Ah knew all about
it when Ah was single, Ah did. We was gonn
a be different from rest, we wus. But, bli-me! Eeee! Ah wisht as ‘ad me time t’ go o’er agen. By Christ, Ah do an’ all.’
A week’s holiday at the seaside, fifteen pounds and the girl of his pre-nuptial fancy - now his wife - had been the basis of Joe’s venture into matrimony. There, by the sea, everything had been ideal: they had spent the fifteen pounds, or, in other words, had lived for a glorious week at the rate of £750 a year and had found such happiness as had inclined Joe to the belief that marriage would be one long repetition of the holiday. He overlooked the fact of the difference between the £750 and the £104 which last was the amount he earned after a full year’s hard labour at Marlowe’s.
Even now Joe still dreamed on the now remote happiness that had been his and his wife’s on their only holiday. And though he felt, keenly, the need of money he never acknowledged it as the cause of his present discontent. He did not appreciate the fact that money’s value was determined. He endowed it with a quality of elasticity when it was in his wife’s hands and accused her of incompetence when she failed in producing the miracle of all their wants. He scowled when she gave him his half-crown spending money out of his wages every Saturday noon, said, surlily, that he didn’t know what she did with the money he earned.
And when their language and temper became heated nobody would have thought them the same couple, who, years ago, strolled the Blackpool promenade arm in arm, perfectly happy.
Nor were others more encouraging; all warned him against it on grounds of financial stringency - all except one. The diminutive Mr Alfred Scodger whose termagant wife performed upon the trombone. Alfred said: ‘Bein’ wed’s like a feller wi’ a bald head: there ain’t no partin’.’ He removed his oily trilby so that Harry might see his shiny pate: ‘Yaah, you be careful, Harry. Y’ can allus get a new lass but y’ can’t get a new wife once y’ married. Remember wot owld Alf Scodger says wot’s bin through it all an’ knows. Be careful, lad, be careful, an’ be wary o’ them as is musical inclined.’
Anon the vision glowed seductively; he day-dreamed on it, talked of it so to Helen that sometimes it was difficult to believe it actually hadn’t occurred. And, long before his apprenticeship was complete it had ceased to be a vague ambition and had become a necessity shot with fearful apprehensions lest something unmentionable should arise to thwart its consummation. He came to put out of mind such daft, impossible notions of a decent home; they were futile wastes of time. Came to treasure and to be glad of the likelier possibility of obtaining such a house as any in Hanky Park. Oh, the deep yearning to imagine any one of them as his and Helen’s; the poignant sweetness of picturing himself shutting the front door and feeling secure against all trespass! He came to regard all front doors with a deep respect.
His own home, what little he saw of it these days, was intolerable. He and Helen spent most of their time walking the canal bank or sitting on Dawney’s Hill planning and scheming until darkness fell, then, under the stars, lovemaking.
At home was discord. This mysterious business of housekeeping was insoluble. His father’s work was become chronically spasmodic; the new industrial revolution had stolen, insidiously, upon every enterprise, it seemed, and now was an accomplished fact. Though the three days’ working week that it had established was still looked upon by all whom it affected as ‘bad trade’; a phase that would pass when ‘things bucked up’. Meanwhile there was no sign of this, and Hardcastle’s wages were halved with the inevitable consequences on his temper.
There was something amiss with Sally, too. Gloomy, moody, she sat about the house as though nursing a perpetual grudge against everybody; at the least provocation she would flash out tempestuously.
Harry was relieved to be away from it: ‘Ach, you make me sick, you do,’ he snarled at her: ‘Allus on the growl like a bear wi’ a sore head. Why don’t y’ get married an’ get out of it?’
She raised her gorgeous eyes to his at the taunt: he saw in them a look of intense pain. She did not speak. He blushed, picked up his cap and slunk outside, leaving her alone in the house.
CHAPTER 2
TANGLE
NED NARKEY, standing cross-legged on the doorstep of his lodgings, thumb of one hand in belt, the other hand resting on the door frame and supporting his great bulk, lifted his lip in a scowling snarl as Larry Meath passed by on the other side. As he passed Ned spat contemptuously on to the pavement and voiced a harsh, growling exclamation, glaring at Larry and still wearing the scowl until he turned the corner.
Harry, sitting on the doorstep of his home, witness to the incident, wondered idly on its cause. Some days later he made a startling discovery by, an accidental act of eavesdropping.
It was noon, he was standing by an open window viewing the smoky prospect and resting in the time that remained before the siren blew at one o’clock. To his left a wood partition enclosed the lavatories, a cramped place where were a half dozen chipped washbowls. Conversation on the other side was quite audible from where he stood. There were peepholes, too, cut in the wood, the work of idle apprentices who wished to watch for the approach of foremen and any other persons invested with authority.
The gush of water from a couple of taps first attracted his attention, then, amid the splashings of hands being washed he heard the surly voice of Ned Narkey say: That there crane o’ mine wants fixin’ agen’; a short pause: ‘Y’d berrer gerrit seen to. … Y’ made a right muck of it last time,’ contemptuously: ‘Mechanics. Aaach! Aaach! Ah’ve seen berrer wi’ skirts on.’
Curious, Harry stooped to one of the holes in the partition. Ned was speaking to Larry Meath. Wonderingly, Harry remembered the incident of a few nights ago when Ned had spat as Larry passed by. In what way had Larry given Ned offence. He listened, puzzled.
Without looking at Ned Larry answered: ‘If there’s anything wrong with the crane you know where to lodge the complaint It will be passed on to me.’ He continued washing his hands.
Ned took a couple of heavy steps forward: ‘Don’t you come the bloody sergeant-major stuff on me, Meath,’ he snapped: ‘You ain’t kidding a tart when y’ talk t’ me.’
No answer.
‘You know what Ah mean,’ continued Ned: ‘Ah know y’ game…. It don’t kid me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Come orf it. Come orf it. You know who Ah mean. Y’ve bin stuffin’ her up wi’ all that there high-falutin talk o’ yourn an’ she swallows all y’ say.’
Larry gazed at him and said, patiently: ‘Who are you referring to, Ned?’
Ned curled his lip. ‘Referrin’ … referrin’,’ in rising tones: ‘Ach. The bloody edge you put on makes me sick,’ indignantly: ‘Who the ‘ell d’y’ think y’ are?’ threateningly: ‘Anyway, you leave her alone. It’s Sal Hardcastle Ah’m speakin’ about.’
Harry’s heart leapt; his skin crept. Larry, as he saw, was folding his towel; he was frowning as he regarded Ned whose enormous muscularity seemed magnified in comparison with Larry’s slightness of build. Ned’s expression was frightening; his chest rose and fell; his upper lip blue, like his jaw with stubble, was stretched tightly across his teeth; his unsleeved arms, muscles taut, fists clenched, hung, crooked, by his side.
Larry said, quietly: ‘Don’t you think you’re making a bit of a fool of yourself, Ned?’
‘Don’t - you - talk - to - me.’
Larry turned to go but Ned’s hand fell on his shoulder and whipped him round again: white, Larry faced him: ‘You listen to me,’ Ned snapped: ‘What’re y’ goin’ t’ do about it?’ he thrust his face forward, his huge chest rose and fell agitatedly. Larry made no answer immediately, regarded Ned interrogatively: ‘Y’ makin’ no move t’ marry her, a’y’?’ Ned demanded.
‘How can that concern you?’ Larry answered, spiritedly.
‘Me? Don’t concern me?’ Ned spluttered: ‘Me, as’s ast her t’ marry me …’ passionately: ‘Turnin’ me down for a white-livered conchie like you . .’ angrily: ‘Ah fought for such bastards as you. Serge
ant-major Narkey, that’s me. Aye, an Ah wus o’er there while yellow-bellied rats like you wus sleepin’ wi’ owld sweats’ wives an’ landin’ soft jobs for y’selves,’ pointing a threatening finger at him: Think on, now, Ah’m warnin’ y’. If y’ don’t want that there dial o’ yourn smashed in, keep away from Sal Hardcastle. Unnerstand, Ah mean it.’
Larry straightened his collar, disarranged by Ned’s rough usage. He recognized the uselessness of argument in the face of Ned’s jealousy. Besides, there was nothing he could have said. Yet, despite his usual equanimity he resented Ned’s autocratic usage of his physical superiority and could not refrain from the retort: ‘If I were you I’d consult Sal before you make any more arrangements for her,’ gazing at him, steadfastly: ‘As for your threats,’ a shrug, ‘you’d have time to regret them in jail.’
‘Aaach,’ Ned snarled; he clenched his teeth, glared and made a sudden movement as though to strike Larry. But he restrained himself: hatred burned in his eyes as he muttered, thickly: ‘You an’ y’ bloody talk. You’ve got it comin’ t’ y’, s’elp me. Y’ll open that trap o’ yourn once too often …’ the rest of his utterance was lost in the din of the siren. Harry saw Larry turn and walk out leaving Ned standing there his face contorted with impotent anger.
The memory of the incident plagued Harry, filled him with a restless perturbation all the afternoon.
He vowed not to tell Sally of the occurrence but he could not keep it to himself. Soon after tea, when they were alone in the house, he mentioned it casually. Her immediate response was something of a revelation. Her anxiety and the appeal in her eyes disconcerted him; never, previously, had he considered her capable of deep feelings, say, as existed between Helen and he. It came as something of a shock to find that she, too, had problems to face. ‘Go on, Harry. What did Larry say…? Try to remember.’
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