The Stars Look Down (43 page)

Hetty took the situation in hand. She abandoned the tortuous labyrinths into which he was leading her and took the short cut home. She was, in a way, quite fond of Arthur. She was practical, prided herself on being practical. And she meant to be kind.

“I’m so glad you’ve told me, Arthur,” she said briskly. “You’ve been worrying yourself sick and all about nothing. I’ve seen you were queer lately, but I hadn’t the least idea, I thought, well, I didn’t know what to think.”

He stared at her glumly.

“What
did
you think?”

“Well,” she hesitated, “I thought maybe you were, well, that you didn’t
want
to go to the war.”

“I don’t,” he said.

“But I meant, Arthur dear, I meant
afraid
to go.”

“Perhaps I am afraid,” he said dully. “I may be a coward for all I know.”

“Nonsense!” she said decisively and patted his hand. “You’ve got yourself into a perfect state of nerves. The very bravest of people get like that. Why, Alan told me before he went over the top and got his M.C. he was in a complete blue funk. Now you listen to me, my dear. You’ve been thinking and worrying far too much. You want a little action for a change. It’s high time I was taking you in hand.”

Her look became inquiring. She smiled, very sweet and sure of herself, aware of her sex, her attraction, her poise.

“Now listen to me, you dear silly boy. Do you remember, Arthur, that week-end at Tynecastle when you wanted us to be engaged and I said we were both too young?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I remember that day. I shan’t forget it in a hurry.”

She raised her dark-pupilled eyes towards him intimately,
and began to stroke his hand. “Well… it would be different if you were in the army, Arthur dear.”

He stiffened. It had come at last, what he dreaded, come under the odious pretence of tenderness. But she did not notice the sudden aversion that held him rigid and speechless. She was carried away by her own feeling, which was not love but the sense of immolating herself. She came nearer to him and murmured:

“You know I’m fond of you, Arthur. Ever since we were little. Why don’t we get engaged and stop all these stupid misunderstandings. You’re worrying your father, worrying everybody, including poor little me. You’d be so much happier in the army, I’m sure of it. We’d both be happier, we’d have a wonderful time.”

He still said nothing, but as she lifted her face, a little flushed now, with her smooth blonde hair fluffed appealingly about her cheeks, he answered stiffly:

“I’ve no doubt it would be wonderful. Unfortunately I’ve made up my mind not to join the army.”

“Oh no, Arthur,” she cried. “You can’t really mean that.”

“I do mean it.”

Her first reaction was dismay. She said hurriedly:

“But, listen, Arthur. Please do listen. It isn’t going to be a matter of choice. It’s not going to be so easy as you think. They’ll be bringing in conscription soon. I know. I heard it at headquarters. Everybody between eighteen and forty-one who’s not exempt. And I don’t think you’d be exempt. Your father, he’d have to say if you were entitled to a badge.”

“Let my father do what he likes,” he answered in a low and bitter voice, “I can see you’ve been talking about me, all right.”

“Oh, please,” she begged. “For my sake. Please, please.”

“I can’t,” he said in a tone of dead finality.

Her face went a vivid red with shame. The shame was partly for him but chiefly for herself. She snatched her hand away from him. To give herself time she pretended to arrange her hair, her back towards him, then she said in quite a different voice:

“I hope you understand that this is pretty horrible for me, to be virtually engaged to a man who refuses to do the one decent thing that’s asked of him.”

“I’m sorry, Hetty,” he said in a low voice, “but, don’t you see—”

“Be quiet,” she cut in furiously, “I’ve never been so insulted
in my life. Never. It’s… it’s impossible. Don’t think I’m so much gone on you as all that. I only did it for your father. He’s a real man, not a feeble attempt like you. It can’t go on, of course. I can’t have anything more to do with you.”

“Very well,” he said, almost inaudibly.

The satisfaction of hurting him was now almost as great as had been her previous satisfaction of surrender. She bit her lip fiercely.

“There’s only one conclusion I can come to, only one conclusion anybody can come to. You’re afraid, that’s what you are.” She paused and threw the word at him. “You’re a coward, a miserable coward.”

He went very pale. She waited for him to speak but he did not and with a gesture of suppressed contempt she got up.

He got up too. They walked back to the Law in complete silence. He opened the front door for her, but once inside the house he went straight up to his room, leaving her in the hall. She stood with her head in the air, her eyes swimming with temper and self-pity, then abruptly she turned and went into the dining-room.

Barras was there. He was alone, studying the beflagged map upon the wall, and he turned at the sight of her, rubbing his hands together, rather effusive in his welcome.

“Well, Hetty,” he exclaimed. “Anything to report?”

All the way home Hetty had borne up well. But that bland kindness in Barras’s face quite broke her down. She burst into tears.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” she sobbed. “I’m so horribly upset.”

Barras came over. He looked down at her and on an impulse slipped an arm round her thin, enticing shoulders.

“Why, my poor little Hetty, what’s the matter?” he inquired protectively.

Overcome, she could not tell him, but she clung to him as to a refuge in a storm. He held her in his arm, soothing her. She had a queer feeling that he was taking care of her, saving her from Arthur, and a sense of his vitality and strength stole upon her. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to this strange new sense of his protection.

For six months following his appointment as works manager Joe found plenty to occupy him. He arrived early at Platt Lane and left late; he was always on the spot when he was wanted; he created the impression of boundless energy and enthusiasm. At the start he went cautiously. With natural astuteness he saw that Fuller the chief clerk, Irving head of the drawing room and Dobbie the cashier had not taken kindly to his promotion. They were elderly men prepared to resent the authority of a young man of twenty-seven who had risen so rapidly from nothing. Dobbie in particular, a dried-up, angular adding machine, with pince-nez balanced on a beak of a nose and a high peakless collar like a parson’s, was sour as vinegar. But Joe was careful. He knew that his time would come. And in the meantime he continued to ingratiate himself with Millington.

Nothing was too much trouble for Joe. He had a way of relieving Stanley of small unpleasant duties which in course of time produced an extension of his own. In March he suggested the Saturday morning conference between Millington and himself at which all the important business of the week came to be discussed. At the end of the same month he pressed for six additional melting-pots and advanced the idea that women be engaged upon the extra traying work. He put Vic Oliver in charge of the machine-shop, and old Sam Doubleday in the foundry; and both Oliver and Doubleday were in his pocket. In April Mr. Clegg died and Joe sent an enormous wreath to his funeral.

Gradually Joe came to stand very near Millington and to know the intricacies of the business. The profits the works were making staggered Joe. The Mills bombs alone, for which the Government paid Stanley 7
s
. 6
d
. the piece, cost on an average about 9
d
. And they were turning them out by the tens of thousands. God Almighty, thought Joe; and the itching in his hands was terrible. His salary, now seven-fifty per annum, became as nothing. He redoubled his efforts. Stanley and he became intimate; often lunched together in the office on sandwiches and beer; went out occasionally to Stanley’s club—the County, and to the lounge of the Central Hotel. It actually came about that Joe accompanied Millington to the first meeting of the Local Munitions Committee.
This all happened adroitly and smoothly. When Stanley was away the responsibility seemed to descend upon Joe’s broad shoulders perfectly naturally and rightly. “See Mr. Gowan about it” became a recognised phrase of Stanley’s when he wanted to escape the tedium of an irritating interview. In this way Joe began to make important contacts, even to do a certain amount of the buying: scrap, lead, and particularly antimony. The price of antimony went as high as £25 per long ton. And over the price of antimony Joe first fell in with Mawson.

Jim Mawson was a large man with a double chin and a small, comprehensive, carefully hooded eye. His beginnings were even more obscure than Joe’s, which caused Joe to regard him favourably from the outset. He described himself broadly as a merchant and contractor. The nucleus of his business was centred in a large depot on Malmo wharf where his original sign, now almost obliterated, read as follows:
Jim Mawson
,
Iron and Metals
,
Old Rope
,
Canvas
,
Hair and Tallow
,
Rubber Waste
,
Rabbit Skins
,
Rags
,
Bones
,
&c., Wholesale and General Contractor and Merchant
. But Mawson’s activities went further than that; he was in the new Wirtley “hutting” contract; he was active on the Tynecastle Exchange; he was one of the men who were taking advantage of the war; known as a warm man, he was growing richer every day. One especial side-line of Mawson’s particularly tickled Joe, when he came to hear of it, and struck him as typical of Mawson’s cleverness. Already the paper shortage had hit Tynecastle, and Jim Mawson, well aware of the situation, had engaged a squad of girls—young shawlies from the Malmo slums—who went out regularly at five every morning and cleared the paper out of half the garbage bins in the city. They collected paper and cardboard—cardboard was the best—and each of the drabs got two and six a week, which was more, Jim said, than they deserved. As for Jim, the price he got was stupendous. But it was the idea that appealed to Joe: what “a knock out” to make “a packet” out of garbage!

Joe really felt himself blood brother to Jim Mawson; he was not obliged to disguise his motives in Mawson’s company; and he had an idea that Mawson was drawn to him in much the same way. After their preliminary talk on the subject of antimony Mawson invited Joe to his house in Peters Place, a large untidy mansion—a mortgage which Mawson had foreclosed upon and moved into—full of ponderous
yellow furniture, slovenly stair-carpet and dirt. There Joe met Mrs. Mawson, who was frizzy-haired and elderly and shrewd, and took pride in the fact that she had once owned a pawnshop. Joe exerted himself with Ma Mawson, he greeted her with jovial deference, bending over her be-ringed shop-soiled hand as though he could have licked it. Supper consisted of a ferocious beef-steak and onions served out of the pan, and several bottles of stout, and after supper Mawson slipped Joe a quiet tip on the Exchange. Speaking out of the corner of his mouth, sitting placid and laconic in a big leather armchair, Mawson said: “Hm. Might buy yourself a few Franks’ Ordinary. They wassent worth a damn afore the war. They make the mouldiest biscuits outa chokey. Y’wouldn’t give them to a dog. But they’re goin’ great in the trenches. They’re coming out with a fifteen per cent divvy. Better get in afore the dividend gets out.”

Buying on margin Joe cleared three hundred pounds on Mawson’s tip and, rejoicing, he visioned the future in Mawson’s co-operation. This was only the beginning, too. The war was going on for a long time yet and it was going to be the making of him. It was the most wonderful war he had ever seen; he hoped it would go on for ever.

Only one flaw marred the splendour of Joe’s prospects—Laura. Whenever Joe thought of Laura, and that was often, his brow registered a puzzled and frustrated frown. He could not, simply could not fathom her. He was convinced that in some subtle way he owed his present position to Laura; indeed he owed her more than his position. Unconsciously he found himself taking hints from Laura, puzzling things out and modelling himself to her standard, wondering how she would like this… or that. He was still ignorant, but he did not do badly. The brilliantine was stopped, that strongly scented hair dressing which had made one eyebrow of Laura’s faintly lift; the brown boots were worn only with the brown suit; the ties became less florid; the watch chain now stretched between the bottom pockets of his waistcoat; the bunch of near-gold seals and the imitation pearl had been flung, one dark evening, into the Tyne. And in matters of more intimate detail this unseen influence of Laura prevailed. For instance, after one look at the bathroom at Hilltop with its bath-salts, crystals, toilet ammonia, loofah and spray, Joe had gone straight to the chemists and resolutely bought himself a tooth-brush.

But the trouble was that Laura remained so wickedly inaccessible.
They met frequently, but always in Stanley’s company. He wanted to be alone with her, he would have given largely to charity to be alone with her, but he was afraid to make the first move. He was not completely sure; he was terrified of making a horrible mistake, of losing his wonderful position and his more wonderful prospects. He did not dare.

At nights he sat in his room thinking about her, wanting her, conjuring up her image, wondering what she was doing at that especial moment: taking a bath, doing her hair, pulling on her long silk stockings. Once the situation so fevered him, he jumped up and rushed out to the nearest telephone box. With a bumping heart he rang her number; but it was Stanley’s voice which answered from the other end; and in a cold panic Joe dropped back the receiver and slunk back to his room.

It was maddening. He felt towards Laura as towards the first sexual experience of his life: she represented something strange and new, something he wanted to find out. But he could not find out. She remained, thus far, an enigma. He tried terribly hard to probe into her character and occasionally vague glimmerings of understanding came to him. He suspected, to begin with, that Laura was tired to death of Stanley’s gush, of his bouts of moody grumbling, and of his patriotism, which had lately become intense. She was bored to tears with his public-school spirit, high ideals and the special brand of baby talk which Stanley preserved for their moments of endearment. “How is my little kittikins?” he had once heard Stanley murmur and he could have sworn that Laura stiffened. Yet Laura was loyal to Stanley—that, Joe repeated, was the curse of it.