The Stars Look Down (34 page)

Towards one o’clock on the second Saturday of September, 1914, Arthur came home from the Neptune to the Law. Normal conditions prevailed at the pit again, work had recommenced, the whole tragic business of the disaster appeared buried and forgotten. But Arthur’s face expressed no satisfaction. He walked up the Avenue like a tired man. He entered the grounds of the Law and, as he had expected
and dreaded, the new car had arrived. Bartley, who had been to Tynecastle for a month’s tuition, had brought the new car down himself and it was drawn up in the drive in front of the Law, a landaulet, all smooth maroon enamel and shiny brass. Barras stood beside the new car and as Arthur passed he called out:

“Look, Arthur, here she is at last!”

Arthur stopped. He was in his pit suit. He stared heavily at the car and he said at length:

“So I see.”

“I have so much to do I must have a car,” Barras explained. “It was quite ridiculous not to have seen that before. Bartley tells me she runs magnificently. We’ll run in to Tynecastle this evening and try her out.”

Arthur appeared to be thinking. He said:

“I’m sorry… I can’t come.”

Barras laughed. The laugh, like the car, was new. He said:

“Nonsense. We’re spending the evening with the Todds. I’ve arranged for us all to have dinner at the Central.”

Arthur stopped staring at the car and stared at his father instead. Barras’s face was not flushed but it gave the impression of being flushed: the eyes and the lips were fuller than they had been, the small eyes behind the strong lenses in particular had a protruding look. He seemed restless and vaguely excited, perhaps the arrival of the new car had excited him.

“I didn’t know you were in the habit of giving dinners at the Central,” Arthur said.

“I’m not,” Barras answered with a sudden irritation. “But this is an occasion. Alan is going to the front with his battalion. We are all proud of him. Besides I haven’t seen Todd for some time now. I want to look him up.”

Arthur thought for another minute, then he asked:

“You haven’t seen Todd since we had the disaster at the pit?”

“No, I haven’t,” Barras replied shortly.

There was a pause.

“It always struck me as odd, father, that you didn’t ask Todd to come over and support you at the Inquiry.”

Barras turned sharply.

“Support! What do you mean, support? The findings were pretty satisfactory, weren’t they?”

“Satisfactory?”

“That’s what I said,” Barras snapped. He took out his
handkerchief and flicked a fine spot of dust from the radiator. “Are you coming to Tynecastle or not?”

With his eyes on the ground Arthur said:

“Yes, I’ll come, father.”

There was a silence, then the gong sounded. Arthur followed his father in to lunch, Barras walking a little faster than usual. To Arthur it seemed almost as though he were hurrying; lately his father’s walk had briskened to a point where it simulated haste.

“A remarkably fine car,” Barras informed the table, looking down towards Aunt Carrie. “You must come for a spin one of these days, Caroline.”

Aunt Caroline coloured with pleasure but before she could answer Barras had picked up the paper, a special edition which Bartley had brought down from Tynecastle. Rapidly scanning the centre page he said with sudden satisfaction:

“Aha! Here is some news for you. And good news, too.” His pupils dilated slightly. “A serious repulse for the Germans on the Marne. Heavy losses. Enfiladed by our machine-gun fire. Enormous losses. Estimated at four thousand killed and wounded.”

It struck Arthur that his father seized upon these losses, upon the slaughter of these four thousand men with a queer unconscious avidity. A faint shiver passed over him.

“Why, yes,” he said in an unnatural tone, “it is enormous. Four thousand men. That’s about forty times the number we lost in the Neptune.”

Dead silence. Barras lowered his paper. He fixed his protruding eyes upon Arthur. Then in a high voice he said:

“You have an odd sense of values, to mention our misfortune at the pit in the same breath as this. If you don’t give over brooding about what is done with and forgotten you’ll become morbid. You must take yourself in hand. Don’t you realise we are facing a national emergency?” He frowned and resumed his paper.

There was another silence. Arthur choked down the rest of his lunch and immediately went upstairs. He sat down on the edge of his bed and stared moodily out of the window. What was happening to him? It was true enough, no doubt, what his father said. He was becoming morbid, horribly morbid, but he could not help it. One hundred and five men had been killed in the Neptune pit. He could not forget them. These men lived with him, ate with him, walked with him, worked with him. They peopled his dreams. He could
not forget them. All this carnage, as his father named it, this horrible carnage, this slaughter of thousands of men by shells, bullets, bombs and shrapnel seemed merely to intensify and swell his morbid introspection. The war was nothing by itself. It was the echo, the profound reverberation of the Neptune disaster. It was at once a new horror and the same horror. The war victims were the pit victims. The war was the Neptune disaster magnified to gigantic size, a deepening of the first flood, a spreading of the morass in which was sunk the beautiful ideal of the preciousness of human life.

Arthur moved uneasily. Lately his own thoughts terrified him. He felt his mind a delicate flask in which terrific thoughts were agitated and convulsed like chemicals which might coalesce and suddenly explode. He felt himself unable to withstand the action and reaction of these chemically active thoughts.

What terrified him most of all was his attitude towards his father. He loved his father, he had always loved and admired his father. And yet he found himself repeatedly at his father’s elbow, watching, criticising, observing carefully and adding one observation to another like a detective spying upon God. He wanted with all his soul to abandon this unholy espionage. But he could not: the change in his father made it impossible. He knew his father to be changed. He knew it. And he was afraid.

He sat on his bed thinking for a long time. Then he lay back and closed his eyes. He felt tired suddenly as though he must have sleep. It was late afternoon when he awoke. As he recollected himself he sighed and got up and began to dress.

At six o’clock he went downstairs and found his father waiting for him in the hall. As Arthur approached Barras looked at his watch significantly, lately he had acquired a perfect mannerism with his watch, flicking it open and frowning at the dial like a man pressed for time. Indeed time seemed to have acquired a new significance for Barras now, as though every moment must be utilised.

“I was afraid you were going to be late.” And without waiting for an answer he led the way to the car.

When Arthur got into the car with his father and they glided off in the direction of Tynecastle he felt less despondent. It was, after all, rather pleasant to be going out like this. He hadn’t seen Hetty for ages, his spirits rose at the
thought of seeing her. The car behaved beautifully too, he was not insensible to the gracious springing, the smooth flow of movement. He glanced sideways at his father. Barras was seated upright with a pleased expression on his face, an intent expression, like a child with a new toy.

They drove into Tynecastle. The streets were crowded, reflecting a certain movement and unrest which seemed to gratify Barras. At the Central Hotel the head porter opened the door of the car with a kind of flourish head porters reserve for expensive cars. Barras nodded to the hotel porter. The porter saluted Barras.

They went into the lounge, which was crowded and rather restless like the streets. Many of the men were in uniform. Barras let his eye rest upon the men in uniform with approval.

Then Hetty signalled them gaily from a corner of the lounge, a good corner by the fireplace, and Alan her brother stood up as Barras and Arthur came over. The first thing Barras said was:

“Where is your father?”

Alan smiled. He looked very well in his second lieutenant’s uniform and very light-hearted because he was already a few drinks to the good.

“Father’s got the old complaint. A touch of the jaundice, Sent his regrets.”

Barras looked put out, his face fell.

A distinct silence followed; but Barras quickly recovered himself. He smiled vaguely at Hetty. In a moment the four of them went in to dinner.

In the restaurant Barras picked up his napkin and let his eyes go round the room, which was filled with people and gaiety. Most of the gayest people were in khaki. He said:

“This is very pleasant. I’ve had a certain amount of strain lately. I’m glad to have some recreation for a change.”

“You’re glad it’s all settled,” Alan said, looking at Barras rather knowingly.

Barras said shortly:

“Yes.”

“They’re just a lot of twisters,” Alan went on. “They’d twist
you
if they got the chance. I know that Heddon, he’s a swine. He’s paid to be a swine, but he is a natural-born swine as well!”

“Alan!” Hetty protested, with her little pout.

“I know, Hetty, I
know
,” Alan said airily. “I’ve had to
do with men. You’ve got to get them down or else they’ll get you down. It’s self-preservation.”

Covertly, Arthur looked at his father. Something of the old frozen expression was back on Barras’s face. He seemed trying to adapt himself to a new outlook. With a definite attempt to turn the conversation he said:

“You leave on Monday, Alan?”

“That’s right.”

“And glad to get into it, I suppose?”

“Certainly,” Alan agreed loudly. “It’s a regular lark.” The wine waiter came over. Barras took the red-covered list and meditated over it. Yet he was not so much debating with the wine list as debating with himself. But at length he took a decision.

“I think we ought to have a little celebration. After all this is an occasion.” He ordered champagne and the waiter bowed himself away.

Hetty looked pleased. She had always been slightly in awe of Barras, his formality and aloof dignity had somehow intimidated her. But to-night he was surprising, with his sudden exciting hospitality. She smiled at him, the sweetest, respectful smile.

“This is nice,” she murmured. She fingered her beads with one hand and the stem of her full wine-glass with the other. She turned to Arthur: “Don’t you think Alan suits his uniform beautifully?”

Arthur forced a smile:

“Alan would look well in anything.”

“Oh, no, but seriously, Arthur, don’t you think the uniform sets him off?”

Arthur said with stiff lips:

“Yes.”

“It’s the very devil answering salutes,” Alan remarked complacently. “Wait till you get into the Women’s Emergency Corps, Hetty, you’ll know all about it.”

Hetty took another tiny sip of her champagne. She reflected, her pretty head atilt.

“You’d look simply gorgeous in uniform yourself, Arthur.”

Arthur went absolutely cold inside. He said:

“I don’t see myself in uniform, somehow.”

“You’re slim you see, Arthur, you’ve really got a good figure for a Sam Browne. And your colouring, too. You’d be marvellous in khaki.”

They all looked at Arthur. Alan said:

“It’s a fact, Arthur. You’d have knocked ’em good and proper. You ought to have been coming out with me.”

For no reason that he could determine, Arthur felt himself trembling. His nerves were overstrung, he saw the whole evening as abnormal and abominable. Why was his father here, sitting in this crowded hotel drinking champagne, sanctioning Alan Todd’s patriotic bluster, so restless and unlike himself?

“D’you hear, Arthur?” Alan said. “You and I ought to be in the show together.”

Arthur compelled himself to speak. He struggled to speak lightly.

“I expect the show will get on without me, Alan. I’m not very keen on it to tell you the truth.”

“Oh, Arthur!” Hetty said, disappointed. Because she regarded Arthur as her own property she liked him always to show up well, to shine, as she phrased it. And this last remark of Arthur’s was not a very shining one. She screwed up her vivacious little face, fascinating and disapproving. “That’s a ridiculous way to talk, Arthur. Why, anyone that didn’t know you would imagine you were scared.”

“Nonsense, Hetty,” Barras said indulgently. “Arthur just hasn’t had time to think it out. One of these days you may see him making a dash for the nearest recruiting office.”

“Oh, I know!” Hetty said, warmly casting down those ingenuous eyes, a little sorry for having spoken.

Arthur said nothing. He sat with his eyes on his plate. He refused champagne. He refused dessert. He let the others talk on without him.

An orchestra struck up at the far end of the room where there was a clear space of floor waxed and ready for dancing. The orchestra played “God save the King” very loudly, and everyone stood up with a loud clatter of chairs and there was loud and prolonged cheering at the end, then the orchestra began not so loudly to play dance music. They always had dancing at the Central on Saturday nights.

Hetty smiled across at Arthur: they were both good dancers, they loved dancing together. Hetty had often been told what a charming couple she and Arthur made when dancing together. She waited for him to ask her to dance. But he sat there with his eyes glumly fixed on his plate, and he did not ask Hetty.

His moodiness became quite obvious at last and Alan, always ready to oblige, leaned across to Hetty.

“Care to take the old war-horse for a walk, Hetty?”

Hetty smiled with more than her usual vivacity. Alan was a bad dancer, a heavy dancer, he did not like dancing, and it was not the least pleasure for Hetty to dance with him. But Hetty pretended that she was pleased; she got up, and she and Alan danced together.

While they were dancing Barras said:

“She is a nice little thing, Hetty. So modest and yet so full of spirits.” He spoke pleasantly, more restfully; since his dinner and the champagne he seemed more quiescent.

Arthur did not answer; out of the corner of his eye he watched Hetty and Alan dancing and he tried hard to overcome his incomprehensible mood.