The Stars Look Down (3 page)

A roar of laughter went up from the crowd of lads. God, could you beat it! Jake pinching Softley’s duff, walking away with it easy as you like, while Ned screamed and whimpered after him like a lunatic. It was the epitome of humour—Joe’s laugh was louder than any.

But David did not laugh. His face had turned quite pale.

“He can’t take that coal,” he muttered. “It’s Softley’s coal. Softley worked for it.”

“I’d like to see who’d stop him.” Joe choked with his own amusement, “Oh, Gor, look at Softley’s mug, just take a look at it…”

Young Wicks advanced along the jetty, easily carrying the sack, followed by the weeping Softley and a ragged, derisive crowd.

“It’s my duff,” Softley kept whimpering, while the tears ran down his cheeks. “Aw mucked for it, aw did, for my mam te hev a fire…”

David clenched his fists and took a side step right in the path of Wicks. Jake drew up suddenly.

“Hello,” he said, “what’s like the matter with you?”

“That’s Ned’s duff you’ve got,” David said from between his teeth. “You can’t take it this way. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”

“Holy Gee!” Jake said blankly. “And who’ll stop me like?”

“I will.”

Everybody stopped laughing. Jake carefully put down the sack.

“You will?”

David jerked his head affirmatively. He could not speak now, his whole being was so tense with indignation. He boiled at the injustice of Jake’s action. Wicks was almost a man, he smoked, swore and drank like a man, he was a foot taller and two stones heavier than David. But David didn’t care.
Nothing mattered, nothing, except that Wicks should be stopped from victimising Softley.

Wicks held out his two fists, one on top of the other.

“Knock down the blocks,” he taunted. It was the traditional invitation to fight.

David took one look at Jake’s full pimply face surmounted by its bush of tow-coloured hair. Everything was defined and vivid. He could see the blackheads in Jake’s unhealthy skin, a tiny stye coming on his left eyelid. Then like a flash he knocked Jake’s fists down and smashed his right fist hard into Jake’s nose.

It was a lovely blow. Jake’s nose flattened visibly and spurted a stream of blood. The crowd roared and a thrill of fierce exhilaration shot up David’s spine.

Jake retreated, shook his head like a dog, then came in wildly, swinging his arms like flails.

At the same moment someone on the fringe of the crowd gave a warning shout.

“Look out, lads, here’s Wept comin’.”

David hesitated, half-turned his head and took Jake’s fist full on his temple. All at once the scene receded mysteriously, he felt giddy, he fancied for an instant he was going down the pit shaft, so sudden was the darkness that rushed upon him, so loud the ringing in his ears. Then he fainted.

The crowd took one look at David, then scattered hastily. Even Ned Softley hurried away. But he had his coal now.

Meanwhile Wept came up. He had been walking along the shore, contemplating the thin ebb and flow of the furthest waves upon the sand. Jesus Wept was very fond of the sea. Every year he took ten days out of the Neptune and spent them at Whitley Bay quietly walking up and down the front between boards bearing his favourite text:
Jesus wept for the sins of the world.
The same text was painted in gold letters outside his little house, which was why, though his own name was Clem Dickery, he was known as Wept or, less commonly, Jesus Wept. Although he was a collier Wept did not live in the Terraces. His wife, Susan Dickery, kept the small homemade mutton pie shop at the end of Lamb Street and the Dickerys lived above the shop. Susan favoured a more violent text. It was:
Prepare to meet thy God
. She had it printed upon all her paper bags, which gave rise to the saying in Sleescale: Eat Dickery’s pies and prepare to meet thy God. But the pies were very good. David liked the pies. And
he liked Clem Dickery. Wept was a quiet little fanatic. And he was at least sincere.

When David came round, dazedly opening his eyes, Wept was bending over him, slapping the palms of his hands, watching him with a certain melancholy solicitude.

“I’m right enough, now,” David said, raising himself upon his elbow weakly.

Wept, with remarkable restraint, made no reference to the fight. Instead he said:

“When did ye eat food last?”

“This morning. I had my breakfast.”

“Can ye stand up?”

David got to his feet, holding on to Wept’s arm, swaying unsteadily, trying to smile it off.

Wept looked at him darkly. He always went directly for the truth. He said:

“Yor weak for want ov food. Come away wi’ me to my house.” Still supporting David he led him slowly over the sands, across the dunes, and into his house in Lamb Street.

In the kitchen of Wept’s house David sat down by the table. It was in this room that Wept held his “kitchen meetings.” From the walls highly coloured allegories flamed: The Last Trumpet, The Judgment Seat, The Broad and Narrow Paths. A great many angels were in the pictures, upbearing sexless blond figures in spotless garments to the blare of golden trumpets. Light blazed upon the angels. But there was darkness too, wherein, amidst the ruins of Corinthian columns, the beasts of darkness roared, and harried the massed hordes that trembled upon the abyss.

Hung from the mantelpiece were strings of dried herbs and seaweeds. Wept knew all the simples, gathered them assiduously in their season by the hedgerows and amongst the rocks. He stood by the fire now, brewing some camomile tea in a small marled tea-pot. Finally he poured out a cup and offered it to David. Then without a word he went out of the room.

David drank the infusion. It was bitter, but aromatic and steaming hot. It warmed him, comforted him and strengthened him, caused him to forget all about the fight, made him feel hungry. At that the door opened and Wept came in again followed by his wife. She was oddly like him, a small neat woman, dressed all in black, quiet, restrained in movement, with that same composed intentness of expression. Without speaking she put a plate before David. On the plate
were two new-baked mutton pies. From a little blue enamel jug she poured some hot gravy over each pie.

“Eat them slow,” she observed calmly. Then she drew back to where her husband stood. They both studied him as, after a moment’s hesitation, he began to eat.

The pies were delicious, the gravy rich and savoury. He finished the first to the last crumb; then, looking up suddenly, caught their serious eyes still fixed upon him. In a solemn undertone Wept quoted: “I will nourish you and your little ones; and he comforted and spake kindly unto them.”

David tried to smile his gratitude; but something, the unexpectedness of this kindness he had received, caught him by the throat. He hated it in himself but he could not help it. A terrible rush of feeling came upon him, the memory of what he had been through, of what they had all been through in these last three months. He felt the horror of it: the scrimping, the pawning, the latent bitterness between his parents, his mother’s anger, his father’s obstinacy. He was only fourteen. Yesterday he had eaten a turnip taken from Liddle’s Farm. In this rich and beautiful world he had gone like a beast to the field and taken a turnip to appease his hunger.

He supported his head on his thin hand. A sudden passionate aspiration rose in him to do something… something… something to prevent all this. Something to uplift and heal humanity. He must do it. He would do it A tear dropped from his eye and mingled with the gravy of the mutton pie. Upon the walls the angels blew their trumpets. Shamefaced, David blew his nose.

Half-past one; and lunch at the Law almost over. Sitting up straight, with his bare knees under the white damask and his boots barely touching the deep red Axminster, Arthur continued to importune his father with loving, troubled eyes. The concealed tension in the air, the sense of crisis, dismayed, almost paralysed him. As was always the case in the face of an emotional crisis, his appetite was gone, even the pretence of eating made him sick. He knew that
the men were meeting to-day, his father’s men who ought to have been working honestly and faithfully in his father’s pit. He knew that everything hinged upon the meeting, whether the men would go back or this awful strike go on. A little shiver of anxiety went through him at the thought; his eyes burned with loyalty towards his father.

He was waiting, too, for the invitation to accompany his father to Tynecastle, he had been waiting since ten o’clock that morning when he had heard the order given to Bartley to have the dog-cart ready. But the usual invitation did not come. His father was going to Tynecastle, going to Todd’s, and he, Arthur, was not going with him. It was very hard to bear.

At the table a certain amount of calm conversation went on, conducted and dominated by his father. During the entire period of the strike this calm conversation had been maintained. Always on quite irrelevant subjects—the Choral Union’s next performance of the
Messiah
maybe, or how mother’s new medicine was suiting her, or how fresh the flowers on grandma’s grave had kept—and always calm, perfectly calm. Richard Barras was a calm man. Everything he did exhibited inflexible control. He sat at the head of his table, with iron serenity, as though the three months’ strike at his Neptune colliery were the merest quibble. He sat very straight in his big chair—that was why Arthur sat straight too—eating cheese, celery of his own growing and bath oliver biscuits. It was plain food, the whole lunch was plain, Barras would have nothing but the plainest dishes—he liked regularity, too—thin sliced beef, cold ham, a joint of mutton, in their turn. He despised richness and show upon the table. He permitted neither. He ate almost abtractedly, compressing his lips which were narrow, and of a good colour, crunching the celery with his sound teeth. He was not a big man, but he had a fine chest, thick arms and big hands. He conveyed a powerful sense of physical vitality. His complexion was florid, his neck so short and muscular his head seemed sunk in the barrel of his chest. His iron-grey head was closely cut, his cheek-bones prominent, his eyes unusually penetrating and well defined. He had a northern look about him not exactly rugged but solid, hard. A man of firm conviction and sound evangelical belief, a Liberal, a strong Sabbatarian, who held family evening prayers, gave readings from the Scripture which often made Arthur cry, and was not afraid to own that he had written hymns in his youth.
There was nothing that Barras was afraid to own. As he sat there, against the yellow varnished background of the large American organ which—from his love of Handel—he had built into the dining-room at a great expense, he radiated his own spiritual integrity. Arthur often felt this radiation. He loved his father. To Arthur his father was absolute, he was like God.

“Come, Arthur, eat your pudding, dear,” Aunt Carrie, chiding him gently, recalled his perplexed eyes to his plate. St. George’s pudding, made up of cake-ends, the burnt pieces, which he detested. But he struggled with it, hoping his father would notice and approve. Hilda had finished already, was staring straight ahead with her dark, forbidding expression. Grace, smiling and artless, was enjoying a secret happiness with herself.

“Shall you be home for tea, Richard?” Aunt Carrie asked respectfully.

“Yes! At five o’clock.” The voice was concise and self-controlled.

“Yes, Richard.”

“You might ask Harriet if she has any commissions for me, to-day.”

“Yes, Richard.”

Aunt Carrie inclined her head. She always showed a glad passion of obedience towards Richard; and in any case her head was usually inclined. She carried it to one side in token of her submission; submission to everybody and to everything; but chiefly to her lot in life. She knew her position, did Aunt Caroline Wandless. Though she was of a good Northumberland family, a county family, she did not presume upon it. She never presumed, not even upon the fact that she was Richard’s sister-in-law. She looked after the children, gave them lessons every forenoon in the schoolroom, sat up with them when they were sick, waited hand and foot on Harriet, prepared delicacies, did the flowers, darned socks, knitted comforters and turned over the dirty linen of the household, all with an air of genteel subservience. Five years before, when Harriet took to her bed, Aunt Carrie had come to the Law, to make herself useful as she had always done on the occasions of Harriet’s confinements. At forty, with a thickening figure, a pale plump face, a brow creased by a slightly worried frown and neutral untidy hair, she was still making herself useful. She must have had innumerable opportunities to assert herself. But she had never forgotten that she
was a dependant, she had acquired the little tricks of the dependant. She kept a tea-pot in her own room and a private store of biscuits; while the others were talking, she would slip out of a room silently, as though deciding suddenly she was not wanted; in public she spoke with marked correctness to the servants, but in private she would talk to them agreeably, even familiarly, with pleasant propitiating ways: Now, Ann, would you care to have this blouse? Look, it’s hardly worn, child… She had a little money of her own: about one hundred pounds a year from Consols. She dressed always in the same shade of grey. She limped slightly from a carriage accident in her youth and there was a vague inference, wholly untrue, that she had, at the same time, been badly treated by a gentleman. She was extremely fond of hot baths and took one every night of her life. Her horror was that she might be found using the bathroom when Richard required it. Occasionally this gave her nightmare, from which she awoke pale and sweating, convinced that Richard had
seen
her in the bath.

Barras surveyed the table. No one was eating.

“Will you take a biscuit, Arthur?” he inquired firmly, with his hand on the silver lid of the squat glass barrel.

“No, thank you, father.” Arthur swallowed tremulously.

Richard filled his glass with water, held it for a moment with a steady hand. The water seemed more clear, more cold because he held it. He drank slowly.

Silence. Richard rose and went out of the room.