The Stars Look Down (83 page)

“Why is Hilda here?”

Aunt Carrie smiled with a watery brightness.

“Why, she’s come up to see you, Richard, and to see Arthur. Grace might have come too… only she’s going to have another baby…. You remember, Richard dear, I told you.”

“Why do all these people keep coming about the house?”

“Why.” Aunt Carrie’s watery smile was brave; not wild horses would have dragged the truth from her. If Richard must know he would not know from her. “Why, what people. Richard? Now do come and rest. I beg of you.”

He glared at her, his irritation mounting to a fever heat, then leaving him suddenly; and when his irritation left him he felt quite bewildered. His pale ringed eyes fell and he discovered his own hand that held the diary shaking violently. Often his hands would twitch this way and his legs too. It was the electricity. All at once he wanted to cry.

“Very well.” Drooping, and with a childish desire for sympathy, he explained: “It’s the current that makes me… the electricity.”

Aunt Carrie helped him from his chair and helped him upstairs and helped him partially to undress and to stretch himself out upon his bed. He looked an old exhausted man
and his face was very flushed. He fell asleep instantly and slept for two hours. He snored heavily.

When he awoke he felt splendid, completely refreshed and full of vigour and intelligence. He ate his bread and milk greedily, a lovely big bowl of bread and milk. It tasted sweet and pulpy and it was not burning in his mouth and his hand did not twitch with electricity any longer. He looked to see that Aunt Carrie had gone out of the room; then he licked up the last of the bowlful with his tongue. It always tasted better that way.

Afterwards he lay staring at the ceiling clasping the warmth in his stomach and hearing the buzz of a blue-bottle on the window-pane and letting warm thoughts buzz through his head and being conscious of his own prodigious capabilities. All sorts of projects and conjectures flashed through his prodigiously capable mind. There was even a marriage ceremony at the back of it all, dim and warm, with music, great swelling organ music and a slender virgin of unsurpassable beauty who adored him.

He was lying like this when the noise of cars arriving disturbed him. He raised himself on his elbow, listening, and with great quickness he understood that people were coming. A look of delighted cunning flashed into his face. This was his chance, a great chance while the electricity was off.

He got up. It was not easy for him to get up, the movements were complicated and numerous, but with such prodigious capabilities nothing was impossible. He worked himself sideways upon his elbow and rolled off the bed. He fell with a bump in the kneeling position. He waited for a minute, listening to see if anybody had heard the bump. Good! No one had heard the bump. He crawled on his knees to the window and looked out of the window. One car, two cars; it was exciting now, he was enjoying himself, he wanted to laugh.

Supporting himself on the window ledge he raised himself slowly—this was the worst of all but it was done at last—then he got into his dressing-gown. It took him quite five minutes to get into his dressing-gown; the arms were so difficult and he began by putting it on back to front, but eventually the dressing-gown was on and corded over his underwear. He did not put on shoes for shoes make a noise. He stood triumphant in his dressing-gown and underwear and
socks, then very cautiously he went out of his room and started to descend the stairs.

There was only one way to descend the stairs. The banister was useless, the banister held and hindered. No! The only way to descend the stairs was to stand accurately on the top stair of all and look straight ahead like a diver and then suddenly let the feet go. The feet went down the stairs with quite a rush that way, but it was important not to look at the feet nor to think about them either.

Richard got down to the hall in this manner and he stood in the hall very pleased with himself and listening. They were in the dining-room; he could hear the voices plainly, and he advanced slyly to the door of the dining-room. Yes, they were in there, he could hear them talking and he was listening. Good, very good! Richard got down, and sprawled on the tiled floor with his eye to the keyhole.
Observation Post No.
2, Richard thought, oh, very, very good—Richard saw and heard everything.

They were all seated round the dining-room table with Mr. Bannerman, the lawyer, at the head and Arthur at the foot. Aunt Carrie was there and Hilda and Adam Todd and the man Teasdale. Mr. Bannerman had a great many papers and Arthur had papers too, and Adam Todd had one single paper but Hilda and Aunt Carrie and Teasdale had no papers at all. Mr. Bannerman was speaking.

“It is an offer,” Mr. Bannerman said. “That’s how I regard it. It is an offer.”

Arthur answered:

“It’s not an offer; it’s contemptible, it’s an insult.”

Richard heard the trouble in. Arthur’s voice and he was pleased. Arthur looked bowed and hopeless, he spoke with his forehead resting in one hand. Richard chuckled within himself.

Mr. Bannerman scrutinised a paper he did not need to scrutinise. He looked lean and dried up and tight about the collar. He balanced his monocle which had a broad black ribbon and said smoothly:

“I repeat that it is an offer, the only offer we have received, and it is tangible.”

Silence. Then Adam Todd said:

“Is it impossible to arrange to dewater the pit? To rebuild the bank? Is it quite impossible?”

“Who is going to put up the money?” Arthur exclaimed.

“We’ve been over all this before,” Mr. Bannerman said, pretending not to look at Arthur yet looking at him all the time.

“It seems a pity,” Todd murmured dejectedly. “A great pity.” He raised his head suddenly. “What about the pictures, your father’s pictures? Can’t you raise the money on them?”

“They’re worthless,” Arthur answered. “I had young Vincent out to value them. He just laughed. The Goodalls and Copes you couldn’t give away. Nobody wants them now.”

Another silence. Then Hilda spoke decisively.

“Arthur must have no more worry. That’s all I have to say. In his present state he’s not fit to stand it.”

Arthur’s shoulders sagged, and he shielded his face more with his hand. He said heavily:

“You’re decent, Hilda. But I know what you’re all thinking, what a hopeless mess I’ve made of it. I did what I thought was right and best. I couldn’t help anything. It just came. But you’re all thinking this would never have happened if my father had been here.”

Outside the door Richard’s face became suffused with satisfaction. He did not really understand, of course, but he saw that there was trouble and they wanted him to set the trouble right. They would call him in.

Arthur was talking again. Arthur said dully:

“I was always moaning about justice. And now I’ve got it! We squeezed the men and flooded the mine and finished the men. And now when I try to do everything for them the men turn round and flood the mine and finish me.”

“Oh, Arthur, my dear, don’t talk that way,” Aunt Carrie whimpered, putting her hand tremulously towards Arthur’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said. “But that’s the way I see it.”

“Suppose we confine ourselves to business,” Mr. Bannerman said very drily.

“Go on, then,” Arthur said heavily. “Go on and settle the damned thing and let’s be done with it.”

“Please!” Mr. Bannerman said.

Hilda intervened.

“What is this offer then, Mr. Bannerman? How does it work out?”

Mr. Bannerman adjusted his monocle and looked at Hilda.

“The position is precisely this. We are faced on the one
side with a dislocated pit, flooded workings and burnt-out gear. On the other side you may place this offer to take over the Neptune, purchase the whole non-producing concern, lock, stock and barrel, and if I may respectfully say so, flood water as well.”

“They know very well they can get rid of the water,” Arthur said bitterly. “I’ve spent thousands on these underground roads. It’s the finest pit in the district and they know it. They’re offering not one-tenth of the value of the pit. It’s sheer insanity to take it.”

“Times,” Mr. Bannerman said, “are difficult, Arthur. And the particular circumstances are more difficult still.”

Hilda said:

“Suppose we accepted this offer?”

Mr. Bannerman hesitated. He removed his monocle, studied it.

“Well,” he said, “we should be clear of our liabilities.” He paused. “Arthur, if I may venture to say so, was reckless in his expenditure. We must remember the liabilities in which we are involved.”

Hilda looked at Mr. Bannerman darkly. That
we
particularly exasperated Hilda for Mr. Bannerman was not involved and Mr. Bannerman had no liabilities whatever. Rather sharply Hilda said:

“Can’t you get an increase on the offer?”

“They are keen people these,” Mr. Bannerman answered. “Very keen people indeed. This offer is their final offer.”

“It’s sheer robbery,” Arthur groaned.

“Who are they?” Hilda asked.

Mr. Bannerman fitted back his monocle delicately:

“They are Mawson & Gowlan,” he said. “Yes! Mr. Joseph Gowlan is the negotiating party.”

There was a silence. Arthur lifted his head slowly and looked across at Hilda. His voice was savagely ironic.

“You know the fellow, don’t you?” he said. “These new offices in Grainger Street. All black and marble. The site alone cost them forty thousand. He’s the Joe Gowlan who worked as a hand-putter in the Neptune.”

“He does not work there now,” Mr. Bannerman said precisely. Inspecting the heading of the notepaper before him he declared: “Messrs. Mawson & Gowlan have now the controlling interest in Northern Steel Industries Ltd., in United Brassfounders Ltd., in the Tyneside Commercial Corporation,
in Corporation and Northern Securities Ltd., and in the Rusford Aeroplane Co.”

There was another silence. Adam Todd seemed very unhappy and he chewed a clove as if the flavour of the clove was not good.

“Is there no other way?” he said, shifting restlessly on his seat. “I know the stuff that’s in the Neptune. Wonderful stuff. It’s always been Barras’s Neptune. Isn’t there any other way?”

“Have you any suggestion?” Mr. Bannerman inquired politely. “If so be kind enough to let us have it.”

“Why don’t you go to this Gowlan,” said Todd suddenly, turning to Arthur, “and try to get in with him?… Bargain with him. Tell him you don’t want to sell for cash. You want to amalgamate with him. You want a seat on the board, shares, just to be
in
with him, Arthur. If only you get in with Gowlan you’d be absolutely made!”

Arthur reddened slowly. “That’s a grand idea, Todd. But unfortunately it’s no use. You see, I’ve tried it.” He faced them all and with a sudden outburst of bitter cynicism he cried: “I went up to Gowlan two days ago, up to his damned new offices. God! You ought to see them—solid bronze doors, Carrara marble, teak and tapestry elevator. I tried to sell myself to him. You know what he is. He began by swindling Millington out of the foundry. He swindled his shareholders in the boom. He’s never done an honest day’s work in his life. Everything he’s got has come crookedly—from sweating his workmen, corruption on contracts, that big munitions ramp. But I swallowed all that, tried to sell my soul.” Trembling, he paused. “It would have made you laugh. He played with me like a cat with a mouse. He began by telling me how honoured he was but that our ideas seemed to be slightly different. He went on about the new aeroplane works at Rusford where he’s turning out military aeroplanes by the hundred and selling them to every country in Europe. He enlarged on the prospects of the Rusford ’plane because it has what he called greater killing power than any other line. He took me on bit by bit, putting out a hint here and a promise there, until I’d sworn away everything I’d ever believed in. And when he’d got me stripped naked he laughed at me and offered me a job as underviewer at the Neptune.”

Yet another silence, a long silence. Dan Teasdale moved restively, and for the first time spoke.

“It’s a damned shame.” His ruddy face was alive with indignation. “Why don’t you chuck the whole thing up, Arthur, and come down with us? We don’t make money. But we don’t want it. And we’re perfectly happy without it. There’s better things—that’s what Grace has taught me. Health, and working in the fresh air, and seeing your children grow up strong. You come down, Arthur, and start fresh with us.”

“I should look well,” Arthur said in an agony of dejection, “among the chickens.”

Bannerman made another gesture of impatience. “Might I ask what your instructions are, then?”

“Haven’t I told you to sell?” The words came with a terrible disillusionment, and Arthur rose abruptly as though to terminate the whole affair. “Sell the Law too. Gowlan wants that as well. Let him take the whole damn lot. He can have me as underviewer too, for all I care.”

Outside the door, sprawling on his knees, Richard Barras gaped and stared. Richard’s face was very red now, and terribly confused. He did not fully gauge what was happening within. But he grasped with his poor muddled brain that there was trouble at the Neptune which he alone could readjust. Moreover, they had all forgotten about him and his power to achieve the impossible. It was splendid. He sat back on his haunches on the tiled floor of the hall. They were not talking any more inside now and he was a little tired from sprawling and he wanted greater comfort to enable him to think.

Suddenly, as he squatted there, the door of the dining-room opened and they all came out. The unexpectedness of it slumped Richard over upon his back. His dressing-gown flew up exposing his lean shanks, his underwear, his very person. The whole pitiful travesty of the man was there, shrunken yet distorted, cunning yet inane. But Richard did not mind. He sat there, as he was, on the cold tiles of the vestibule, and he looked very sly and he laughed. He sniggered.

Every face expressed concern and Hilda ran forward crying:

“My poor father!”

Teasdale and Hilda helped him to his feet and assisted him upstairs to his room. Bannerman, one eyebrow lifted, shrugged his shoulders and took a formal good-bye of Arthur.