Then with a twist of vanity he lifted himself above his self-disgust.
After all, water has power, he thought. It does not only reflect pictures, it turns wheels, it irrigates valleys, it drives dynamos. Snaith thought of his houses, his works, his railways. Even now on the far bank of the Leame the ragged lights began to twinkle, first one, and then another; the trains roared up to Kingsport; the ships moved silently along the river. This was his world. He had largely helped to built it.
All that Astell could do was to stir a few more Clydesiders to sedition. All that Carne had done was to leave a wife who was mad and a daughter of tainted stock, a ruined farm and a dark romantic memory.
But I—thought Snaith. When he died the entire face of the South Riding would have changed, because he once had lived there.
I shall do better than any of them, he told himself.
At Willow Lodge, Alderman Mrs. Beddows held to her heart a sobbing quivering child, comforting her own sorrow by giving comfort.
Along the widening strip of earth-clogged sand, Hicks groped with his lantern, seeking for his master. Heyer and Sawdon followed him.
Up in her attic bedroom Sarah Burton crouched on her bed, dry-eyed, shocked by incredulous dismay and grief and horror.
She could hear her shrill wounding anger, telling Carne to take his daughter elsewhere. She could feel her shameless pursuit, her uncontrolled repulsion. She did not know if he had killed himself, as some were saying, or had fallen by accident, or if, perhaps, his illness had come upon him. But she could feel in her own body the wild sickening lurch as the horse stumbled, the rush through the cold air, the furious shock of the icy water. And she could not bear it.
It is my fault; she lacerated herself with her reproaches. I could have helped him. If I had thought of his need more than my pride. But now there is no comfort. Grief passes and life closes over loss; but for this, there is no remedy. He is dead and now I can never comfort him.
Oh, no, I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it. There will be no end for ever to this pain.
2
Three Revellers Have a Night Out
THE CYMBALS clashed and were still; the violins held their last faint piercing note, then faded; the saxophone wailed to silence. Only the drums rattled their implacable thunder as eight hundred and seventy-six hearts quickened their beat, eight hundred and seventy-six pairs of lungs drew in their breath and held it, and the fifth Cingalese cyclist slowly reared himself upright from the shoulders of number four, who was already perched upon the shoulder of number three, who stood straddled from those of one and two as they swooped abreast round the stage on their glittering bicycles.
It was the fourth turn before the interval during the second house at the Kingsport Empire on the Saturday evening after the gigantic victory of the Kingsport Rangers over the West Riding Wanderers, and the city was en fête. There were well over a thousand people at the little Empire, but some were asleep, some in the bar, some already so much exalted by beer and noise and victory that they were incapable of further heightening of excitement as the human column swung circling, the head of number five hidden behind dark crimson drapery. After that glorious contest in the mud on the ground between Skerrow Road and St. Swithin’s place, after that last goal shot just before the whistle blew, even the sight of men risking their lives lacked flavour.
The air was thick with the sweet sickly pervasions of beer, rank tobacco, oranges, hot packed humanity and some perfumed disinfectant that the attendants, like amazons slaughtering invisible foes, sprayed haughtily down the gangways during the intervals. During the act of the Dillar Dancing Belles, streamers, balloons and paper balls had been flung from the stage into the auditorium, so that performers and audience were linked together by a broken net of scarlet, green and yellow. Balloons hung like bubbles between the stalls and circle. Every now and then an enterprising spectator made a grab for one, winning shouts of applause or boos of derision, which distracted attention from the hard-working artistes. Several youths in the gallery had brought the rattles and toy trumpets with which they had encouraged the football players, and with these they now saluted the actors in this other drama. Three men, leaning over the parapet of the upper circle, wore paper caps bearing the favours of the Kingsport team, and as a sign of applause cheered on every turn as it appeared by the View Hallo trumpeted down a toy bugle.
A shipowner’s wife from London, who had taken a box to amuse her artist friend, swept with her glasses the blurred mist of the auditorium. “We may not be highly refined here in the north,” she observed, “but you must admit we do enjoy ourselves.”
The five Cingalese cyclists swept circling off the stage; the crimson curtains fell together. The illuminated panels pricked out the figure 8, and the orchestra blared its raucous comment.
The curtains reopened to disclose a Jewish comedienne, fat, restless, vital, her bold eyes snapping, her harsh merry voice almost irresistible. If it had been quite so, she would have been delighting London or New York instead of Kingsport.
“Watch those three,” the London lady instructed her friend. “Too sweet, the little man with the trumpet. Not a care in the world. I adore him.”
“Up for the match, I suppose,” said the friend intelligently, “Look, the poor fellow with the rattle has only one arm.”
The comedienne wagged her plump buttocks at the stalls, leering over her shoulder. She made a joke which was not very funny but extremely coarse. The lady in the box beamed with proprietary delight.
“Robust, isn’t it? The real thing this. Several hundred cubic feet of sheer enjoyment. I doubt if you would find a tougher audience in England—seamen drinking their pay, touts, tarts and tote-operators. The air positively stiff with S.A., B.O. and all other fashionable human qualities. Oh, do listen to the little man with the trumpet!”
For behind the comedienne galloped a team of chorus girls, with bells across their brassieres and plumed tails streaming behind. They curveted, trotted, reared and pranced, driven by a young man dressed as a coachman, while the Jewess sang:
“Who wouldn’t change a ten-bob stall for a not too loose loose box?”
An equestrian joke which enchanted the London party by directing attention to their own position.
The little man in the circle gave the Hark For’ard, and the Empire was well away on a chase for that rare quarry, the corporate emotion of mass delight.
“He’s too delicious,” screamed the lady, her eyes wet with tears of laughter.
Hicks conscientiously played the fool, but a dull ache constricted his throat and oppressed his chest.
There was no reason why the sight of the chorus girls dancing like ponies should remind him of the four stiff legs of Black Hussar sticking through the mud like the legs of an upturned table. There was no reason why, when he shouted and laughed and applauded, his heart should feel wild with pain. Three weeks had passed since his first sight of that catastrophe. Police and lawyers had questioned him. Mrs. Beddows had been kind to him. Mr. Briggs had told him to stay on and look after things about the stables and garden until the sale. Tom Sawdon had suggested to him that when it was all over he might come down to the Nag’s Head and run in partnership on his savings. Everything was all right for Hicks—“Hicks will be all right”—as Jim Beddows informed his wife.
And he was all right. Had he not driven over with Tom and Bob to a grand football match? Had he not had a fish supper followed by drinks at the York Rose Hotel, and was he not now having a high old time at the Empire? And attracting the attention of half the house by his abandonment of gusto?
If only we could have buried him like a Christian; Hicks was thinking. He gave Castle a slap-up funeral, didn’t he? He never let any of us want for nothing—neither man nor horse.
Horses. Those girls don’t know nothing about horses. I’d like to see ’em look at a really decent horse. Now Burlington Bertie—that was a grand animal, by Albert the Good out of Sweet Sophia. Knocked himself to pieces in that box o
n the line between Derby and Manchester. Left alone he was. Always hated trains. Glorious stallion for stud. Now Carne would never have let a thing like that happen.
Carne had let Black Hussar break his back on Maythorpe Cliff.
Come off it! That was an accident. The cliff crumbled.
There was that little skewbald thoroughbred Carne bought for the missus. Showy mare. Regular devil she was; but neat on her feet. And Mrs. Carne could do anything with her. A real circus horse. Ride her upstairs if she liked. Had done. That’s a fact. That time they were off to the meet and Mrs. Carne was ready for a first wonder, already down on the drive and waiting. Only time she wasn’t hours late was tor hunting. Carne was up in his dressing-room. Couldn’t tie his stock. One thing he never could do. Always lost his temper. Called out of the window, Come and give me a hand! But she was in the saddle and cried, Damned if I do. Always free in the tongue for a lady. And he called, Oh, come up. Be a sport. Sport, she screamed. Lot of sport we shall get. You’ve kept me waiting half an hour already. Nonsense, he said, for he had a temper too. No wonder, when you think of the old man. Don’t exaggerate. Muriel. I’ve only been five minutes, but I may be half an hour if you don’t come and help me. Ordering me to dismount like a servant! she cried. I never ordered you. Don’t dismount then. I’ll come without the damn’ thing, he cried, and she said, I’m not going to ride with you looking like a fool, and turned the skewbald’s head, and gave her a smack with her crop, and rode her in, straight through the front door and down the hall and up the big front stairs, slithering and plucking she climbed, but keeping straight on at it and into Carne’s dressing-room, and there she faced him.
Hicks had raced up behind, fearing the worst, and found Carne in his shirt sleeves, his stock round his ear, gaping at Muriel, who sat still as a statue on the shivering mare. And then, what with surprise or fear or sheer bad manners, the little animal planted her four feet stiffly down together and began to make water, a great streaming torrent, there on to Carne’s grand crimson carpet, soaking down to the drawing-room ceiling, so that the patch was there to this day. And the missus screamed with laughter like she did sometimes, and Carne lifted her clean out of the saddle and stood holding her, her arms round his neck and her hat off, and she limp with laughing, and he said to Hicks, Take that disgusting brute away, and carried his wife through to her bedroom and slammed the door. It took Hicks half an hour to get the mare downstairs, but the Carnes never set off on that day’s hunting.
The Jewish comedienne and her ponies pranced away. A strong man replaced them, who bent bars of iron and lifted pianos, and hung upside down from a trapeze with a rod suspended from his mouth on to which more and yet more weights were slung.
A strong man, not only strong but agile, his muscles flexible as elastic and tough as steel. Heyer, whose shoulder had been aching all day since he stood on the damp football ground, thought of his own maimed body. As Hicks was bereaved of Carne, of horses, of the old values and loyalties which composed his world, Heyer was bereaved of more than his physical capacity. He too had lost a way of life, a set of values.
He knew that war was evil. With the British Legion he had passed resolutions about profiting from death and all the rest of it. But as he watched Sacho the Strong flex his huge muscles, and shouted applause at his spectacular feats, his mind was back in the worst experience of the war, the mud of Passchendaele. His feet groped for the duckboards through the foetid water. He was carrying rations up to the front-line trenches; the pack ground into his shoulder, the foul ooze seeped through puttees and boots. The fear of falling into that filth tormented him. Yet as he sat in his plush tip-up seat, leaning over the parapet into the boiling cauldron of the Kingsport Empire, he envied that younger self. He suffered from a sick nostalgia for the young Bob Heyer who had been Scotty’s friend, who had two good arms, who could himself play football instead of watching it, who could box, swim, dig, and was one of the best all-round athletes in the company. It was Scotty who had gone down into the mud, and for whose body they had groped in the stench and ordure of a flooded crater. Nothing in all his life had been so horrible as that . . . yet until he got his blighty he had known good times again. Boxing at the base; the ring in the tent at Amiens. The acid sweaty smell of men crowded together in woollen uniforms, the arc lights, the referee. The sing songs in that estaminet near Abbeyville. The relief from responsibility, the good fellowship, the pride of manhood and living that grew up there in France under the menace of death. He hungered for it. He knew that all other years must be lifeless and dull compared with those. He would continue to farm. He had his friends, Tom and Geordie. He would spend his evenings when he could in the Nag’s Head. But something more than his arm had been left behind in France. He would walk now maimed and bereaved till death.
The strong man was followed by a famous Whistling Comedian.
“Oh, I adore him! Watch our three musketeers in the circle now. This’ll be popular.”
It was. The three in the circle all applauded furiously as the familiar little phrase, whistled off the stage, grew louder, and the comedian strolled forward, peeling off his gloves, removing and folding his coat.
Tom Sawdon applauded. But he wished that the whistler had not chosen this special tune. He was one of Lily’s favourite broadcast entertainers. She had sat so often, her head a little on one side, her thin fingers raised, her lips pursed in sympathy. Now, listen—you! she had commanded. Isn’t he fine? Isn’t he grand?
Lily was now in hospital. After unthinkable weeks, Tom had induced them to take her. She was kept under drugs now. She did not know him that afternoon when he had visited her. She was already dead, so far as he was concerned.
“Just a little story,” began the comedian, “about a Scotsman who came down to Yorkshire and said . . .”
“Ha, ha, ha!” roared the three in the circle.
“Just listen to them!” cooed the lady in the box.
She could not see the ghosts marching through their minds as they laughed and listened. There was that grey pony from Texas Huckleberry that Carne tried to hunt when hounds met at Yarrold. Only time I ever saw a horse bolt with him. Gave one look at the hounds, got his tail between his legs, and was off like the wind.
That time we got that lift in a mule-wagon, along the Rouen Road, and the driver half-boiled and the mules took fright and we ran right into a staff car and the mule put his head in at the window and old Turnip Face thought he was having D.T.s. . . .
That time the colonel and I came home unexpected, and the big house was shut and we went to Lily’s, and she made up a bed for the colonel in our front room and roasted us a chicken.
All their dreams for the future, all their memories of the past, swarmed round them, wounding them, mocking them, as the comedian replaced his gloves, whistling pensively, and strolled again off the stage. It was their memories that they applauded.
“What about a drink?” asked Bob.
They made for the bar.
“Now,” explained the lady, “we all go and squash up in a perfectly revolting bar, packed with pimps, ladies from the dock and God knows what, and drink frightful beer, out of the most disgusting glasses, and it’s all too he-mannish and Hemingway for words.”
The atmosphere of the Empire bar was certainly robust and pungent. Two cynical barmaids, one elderly, hennaed and fatigued on aching bunions (she had three sons to keep), one young, skinny and avid, slapped down the glasses on to the beer-ringed counter as fast as they could fill them. The drinks ordered were as various as the company. Sherries, ports, beers, whiskies, stouts and even such exotic luxuries as crême de menthe and cherry brandy for the ladies who sat in the wicker chairs, exposing fat calves in light mud-splashed stockings bulging up from tight high-heeled patent shoes. One, drinking gin and ginger, boasted a little green toque ornamented with black osprey. A great port wine mark half covered one side of her face. She had been married three times. Pearls dripped from her bosom.
The more rustic Hick
s looked at her and her friends. “Tarts,” he observed.
“Not a bit,” Sawdon, more sophisticated, told him. “Old clo’ dealers, and fish and chip shopmen’s wives having a night out.”
It was a night out. The Empire sold the noises of happy uproar with its tickets. True, no single face in all the company there was lit by real gaiety. True, that behind the toasts, the jokes and cat-calls, thoughts of death, sickness, unemployment and loss tugged, nagging, at their minds. The laughter was not loud enough, the jokes were inadequately brutal, the good fellowship too ephemeral, to drown that consciousness. Yet on the whole these Yorkshire men and women were having a good time. They had paid for it and bought it; they enjoyed it. It was something as definite and tangible as the counter, the palms and the marble topped tables. Eee, I did have a good time at the Empire last night. I did an’ all.
They did, and all.
Young Lovell Brown was sharing the enjoyment. He was showing off with the splendid self-assurance following three whiskies to a little platinum blonde with startled blue eyes. Perhaps she was really startled by Brown’s stories, perhaps the mascara on her eyelashes made her eyes water unless she opened them very wide.
“My dear girl,” he was saying, “it stand to reason. Absolutely. There’s a fellow in debt—thousands—jolted off council—wife mad—mortgage on farm—little girl to keep— dotes on her. What would you do?”
“I’d like another mint,” said the blonde sensibly.
“Crême de menthe, miss, and look nippy,” commanded Lovell.
If they’d invent a lorry I could drive with my feet, thought Heyer, we might get on.
South Riding Page 50