by A. J. Cronin
It was about five o’clock in the afternoon. The sun, breaking through the low clouds, came slantingly into the room, making the wallpaper glow. In the small back garden some young thrushes were whistling. It was very still and unreal, and the softness of Hetty’s bed was unreal, and Laura must have gone away and the unknown longing in his breast hurt him.
“Take this, Arthur. It’ll help you to sleep.”
Laura had returned. How good she was to him. Resting on his elbow he drank the bowl of hot soup she had brought him. She sat beside him on the edge of the bed, filling the silent room with her real presence. Her hands, holding the tray for him, were white and soft. He had never thought much about Laura before, never cared much for her; but now her kindness overwhelmed him. Out of sheer gratitude he cried: “Why do you bother about me, Laura?”
“I shouldn’t worry, Arthur, if I were you,” she said: “everything’ll come all right.”
She took the empty bowl and placed it upon the tray. She made to get up.
But he reached out and stayed her, like a child fearful of being left alone.
“Don’t leave me, Laura.”
“Very well.”
She sat down again, placed the tray on the bedside table. She began gently to stroke his forehead.
He sobbed, then started to cry brokenly. In complete abandonment he lay against her, his face pressed against her, against her soft body. The comfort of his face against her softness was unbelievable, an ease flowed like warm milk through his being.
“Laura,” he whispered, “Laura.”
A fire of indulgence blazed in her suddenly. His attitude, his need of comfort, the pressure of his head against the lower part of her body raised a wild tension in her. Staring rigidly across the room she saw her own face in the mirror. A quick revulsion took her. Not that, she thought fiercely, no, not that gift. She gazed down at Arthur again. Worn out, his sobs had stopped, he was already on the edge of sleep. His lips were open, his expression undefended, helpless, exposed. She saw the wounds plainly. There was something infinitely sad and wistful in the flaccid closure of his eyelids, the narrow foreshortening of his chin.
Outside, the thrushes ceased to sing and the dark beginnings of the night crept into the room. She still sat there, though he was asleep, supporting his head. The expression on her face was pathetic and beautiful.
TWENTY-ONE
For a fortnight Arthur lay ill at Todd’s, unable to get up. The doctor whom Laura brought had an alarming suspicion of aplastic anæmia. He was Dr. Dobbie from 1 College Row, an intimate of the Todd family, who knew Arthur’s history, and he behaved with kindness and discretion. He made several blood counts and treated Arthur with intra-muscular injections of manganese. But it was Laura rather than Dr. Dobbie who got Arthur well. There was some rare quality, a passionate selflessness, in the attention she gave him. She had closed the house at Hilltop and all her time she spent looking after Arthur, preparing his food, reading to him, or merely sitting in silent companionship by his bed. Strange behaviour for a woman naturally so indifferent, so apparently self-absorbed. It was perhaps an atonement, a clutching at this chance straw of expiation in the throbbing desire to prove that there was something of good in her. Because of this every step made by Arthur towards recovery, every single word of gratitude he spoke, made her happy. In tending his wounds she healed her own.
Her father did not interfere. It was not Todd’s nature to interfere. Besides, he was sorry for Arthur who had, so disastrously, swum against the stream. Twice a day he came into the room and stood awkwardly making conversation, pausing, clearing his throat, and, in an attempt at ease, balancing himself beside the bed first on one leg then on the other, like an elderly, rather dilapidated robin. The obviousness with which he sheered away from topics of danger: the Neptune, the war, Hetty, from anything which might be painful to Arthur, was touching and comic. And he always concluded, edging towards the door:
“There’s no hurry, my boy. Stop here as long as it suits you.”
Gradually Arthur improved, he left his room, then began to take short walks with Laura. They avoided the crowded places and went usually across the Town Moor, that high sweep of open park from which on a clear day the Otterburne Hills were visible. Though he was not yet aware of how much he owed to Laura, occasionally he would turn to her spontaneously.
“You’re decent to me, Laura.”
“It’s nothing,” she would invariably reply.
It was a fresh bright morning and they had seated themselves for a few minutes on a bench upon the highest part of the Moor.
“I don’t know what I’d have done without you,” he sighed; “slipped right under, I suppose. I mean morally, of course. You don’t know the temptation, Laura, just to let everything go.”
She did not reply.
“But somehow it feels as if you’d put me together again, made me something like a man. Now I feel I can face things. It isn’t fair though. I’ve had all the benefit. You get nothing.”
“You’d wonder,” she answered in a strange voice.
While the wind blew cleanly about him he studied her pale, chastely cut profile, the passive immobility of her figure.
“Do you know what you remind me of, Laura?” he said suddenly. “In a book at home, one of Raphael’s Madonnas.”
She coloured painfully, violently, her face suddenly distorted.
“Don’t be a fool,” she said harshly and, rising, she walked rapidly away. He stared after her, completely taken aback, then he got up and followed her.
As his strength came back he was able to think of his father, of Sleescale, and of his return. He must return, his manhood demanded it. Although procrastination and timidity were in his blood he had a serious intensity which gave him strength. Besides, prison had hardened him, increased that sense of injury and injustice which now activated his life.
One evening, towards the end of the third week, they were playing bezique together, as they often did after supper. He picked up his cards and, without warning, declared:
“I must get back to Sleescale soon, Laura.”
Nothing more was said. Now that he had announced his intention, he was tempted to delay the actual date of his departure. But on the morning of May 16th when he came down to breakfast, after Todd had left for the office, a paragraph in the Courier caught his eye. He stood by the table with the paper in his hand, his attitude arrested and motionless. The paragraph was quite small, six bare lines, lost in a mass of shrieking war news. But Arthur seemed to find it important. He sat down with his eyes still fixed upon these six bare lines.
“Is anything the matter?” Laura asked, watching his face.
There was a silence; then Arthur said:
“They’ve driven the new roadway into the Paradise. They went through to the dead-end three days ago. They’ve found the ten men and the inquest is to-morrow.”
The whole force of the disaster rushed over him again like a wave which has momentarily receded only to return with greater strength. His mind contracted under the impact. He said slowly, his eyes on the paper:
“They’ve even brought some of the relatives from France… for formal identification. I must go back, too. I’ll go today… this morning.”
Laura did not answer. She handed him his coffee. He drank it mechanically, confronted once again by the situation which had altered, and ruined, his life. The thing from which there was no escape. Now he must go back, must, must go back.
When he had finished breakfast he looked across at Laura. She interpreted that glance, the fixed idea which compelled him, and she nodded imperceptibly. He rose from the table, went into the hall and put on his hat and coat. He had nothing to pack. Laura accompanied him to the door.
“Promise me, Arthur,” she said in her unemotional voice, “you won’t do anything stupid.”
He shook his head. A silence. Then, impulsively, he took both her hands.
“I’m no good at thanking you, Laura. But you know how I feel. I�
��ll see you again. One day soon. Perhaps I can do something for you then.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed.
Her unresponsive manner left him rather helpless; he stood in the narrow hall as though he did not quite know what to do. He released her hands.
“Good-bye then, Laura.”
“Good-bye.”
He turned and walked into the street. A gusty wind holding a spatter of rain blew against him all the way down College Row, but he reached the station by twenty minutes past ten and took his ticket for Sleescale.
The 10.15 local was almost empty and he had a third-class compartment to himself. As the train puffed its way out of Tynecastle, through the interminable sequence of stations, past familiar landmarks, across the Canal Bridge, through Brent Tunnel and finally drew near to Sleescale, Arthur had a strange sense of at last returning to consciousness.
It was half-past eleven when he stepped out on the Sleescale platform. Another passenger was at that moment in the act of alighting from the rear end of the train, and as they both converged upon the ticket collector Arthur saw with a sudden constriction of his heart that it was David Fenwick. David recognised Arthur instantly, but he gave no sign, nor did he try to avoid him. They met and passed through the narrow passage to the street.
“You’ve come back about the inquest,” Arthur said, in a low voice. He had to speak.
David nodded silently. He walked along Freehold Street in his faded uniform and Arthur walked with him. A thin rain, driving in from the sea, met them at the corner. Together they began to climb Cowpen Street.
Arthur took a startled side glance at David, intimidated by his silence, the stem composure of his face. But in a moment David spoke, as if forcing himself to be tranquil and at ease.
“I’ve been back two days,” he said quietly. “My wife is living in Tynecastle with her own people. My little boy, too.”
“Yes,” Arthur murmured. He knew now why David was on the train. But he could find nothing more to say.
Again silence, until opposite Inkerman Terrace and his old home, David abruptly paused. Fighting that secret bitterness in his voice, he said:
“Come in here a minute, will you? There’s something I must show you.”
Mastered by an unknown emotion, overwhelming and intense, Arthur followed David along the broken pavement and into No. 23. They entered the front room. The blinds were drawn but in the dim light Arthur saw two coffins, still open, laid upon boards in the centre of the room. Arthur’s senses seethed within him like waves battling in a narrow sea. With a thudding heart he advanced towards the first coffin and his eyes met the dead eyes of Robert Fenwick. Robert’s body was four years old: the face perfectly saponified, waxy white in colour, the skin moulded on the shrunken bones, like an effigy. Recoiling, Arthur covered his eyes. He could not meet those dead eyes, the eyes of the victim, blank yet accusing. He wanted to retreat, shuddering, and yet he could not; he was numbed, helpless.
David spoke again, still fighting the bitterness in his tone.
“I found this,” he said, “on my father’s body. No one else has seen it.”
Slowly, Arthur uncovered his face. He stared at the paper in David’s hand, then with a sudden movement he took it, held it close to him. It was Robert’s letter; and Arthur read the letter. For one second he thought he was going to die.
“You see,” David exclaimed in a strained voice. “This makes things clear at last.”
Arthur kept staring at the letter. He had turned an earthy grey, he looked as if he might fall down.
“I don’t intend to take this any further,” David said in a tone of dead finality. “But it’s only right you ought to know.”
Arthur lifted his eyes from the letter and stared away through David. He put out his hand, supporting himself against the wall. The interior of the room spun round him. It was as though the cumulation of all his sufferings, his suspicions and his fears had struck him at one tremendous blow. He seemed at last to discover David. He folded the letter and handed it back to him. David restored the letter to his inside pocket. Then, in a cracked voice, Arthur said: “You can leave this to me. I’ll let my father know.” A shiver ran over him. Feeling that he must reach the outer air, he turned blindly and went out of the house.
He walked up to the Law through the heavy shower sweeping the bleak Avenue. But the rain pelted against him without effect. He walked in a kind of trance. The folded slip of paper which had lain for four years against the dead heart of Robert Fenwick had made everything plain to Arthur, everything which he had suspected and feared. Now he neither suspected nor feared. He knew.
An overwhelming surge of conviction broke over him: it was preordained that he should see this letter. The meaning of the letter enlarged and magnified itself and took upon itself many and unfathomable meanings, each diverse and beyond his present understanding but all leading to one common end. His father’s guilt. A sick rage blazed up in Arthur; he wanted to see his father.
He went to the steps of the Law and tugged at the bell. Aunt Carrie opened the door herself. She stood motionless, framed in the doorway, gazing at him with wide and startled eyes, then with a cry of thankfulness and pity she flung her arms round his neck.
“Oh, Arthur, my dear,” she sobbed. “I’m so glad to see you. I wondered… I didn’t know… oh, you’re not looking well, my poor boy, you’re looking simply dreadful, but oh, it’s wonderful you’ve come back.” Controlling herself with difficulty, she shepherded him into the hall, helped him out of his coat, took possession of his dripping hat, Little phrases of affection and pity kept breaking from her lips. Her delight that he should be home again was pathetic. She fluttered about him, her hands agitated, her pinched lips tremulous.
“You’ll take something now, Arthur dear, at once. A glass of milk, a biscuit, something, dear…”
“No thank you, Aunt Carrie.”
Outside the dining-room towards which she guided him, he paused:
“Is my father back yet?”
“Why no, Arthur,” Aunt Carrie stammered, discomposed by the strangeness of his manner.
“Will he be home for lunch?”
Aunt Carrie gave another little gasp. Her mouth pinched closer and turned down nervously at the corners.
“Yes, Arthur, of course. About one, he said. I know he’s got a great many arrangements to make this afternoon. About the funeral. Everything’s to be done most handsomely.”
He made no attempt to reply. He glanced about him, observing all the changes which had taken place since he had been away: the new furniture, the new carpets and curtains, the new electric fittings in the hall. He remembered his cell, his sufferings in prison, and a shudder of revulsion passed over him at this luxury, a hatred of his father which made him tremble in all his limbs. A nervous excitement, a kind of ecstasy such as he had never known took possession of him. He felt himself strong. He became aware of what he wanted to do and of an almost painful longing to do it. He turned to Aunt Carrie.
“I’ll go upstairs for a bit.”
“Yes, Arthur, yes,” she fluttered even more agitatedly. “Lunch is at one, such a nice lunch.” She hesitated, her voice a whisper of distress. “You won’t… you won’t upset your father, dear. He’s got so much on his hands, he’s… he’s a little irritable these days.”
“Irritable,” Arthur repeated. He seemed to try to fathom the meaning of the word. Then he moved away and went steadily upstairs. He did not go to his own room but to his father’s study, the room which, since his childhood days, had been sealed with a taboo, making it a sacred, forbidden room. Exactly in the centre of the room stood his father’s desk, a solid richly grained mahogany desk with beaded edges, heavy brass locks and handles, more sacred, more forbidden than the room. Hostility burned in Arthur’s face as he studied this desk. It stood there large and solid, impregnated with the personality of Barras, a thing hateful to Arthur, the symbol of everything which had destroyed him.
With a sudden gesture he
picked up the poker which lay beside the fireplace and advanced on the desk. With deliberate violence he smashed open the lock and examined the contents of the top drawer. Then the next lock, the next drawer; one after another he went through the entire desk, rifling it systematically.
The desk was crammed with the evidence of his father’s wealth. Stock receipts, bills of exchange a list of outstanding mortgages. The leather-bound book, written in his father’s precise hand, enumerating properties and rentals. That other book with a tiny pasted label: My Pictures, the prices of each purchase marked plainly against the date. A third book holding the record of investments. Quickly, Arthur scanned the columns: everything sound, redeemable and in small parcels, at least two hundred thousand pounds in gilt-edged securities. In a fury Arthur hurled the book from him. Two hundred thousand pounds: the magnitude of the total, the loving neatness, the smug complacency that ran through the rows and rows of figures, maddened him. Money, money, money; money sweated and bled from the bodies of men. Men didn’t matter; it was money that mattered, money, money, money. Death, destruction, famine, war—all were as nothing so long as these sleek money bags were safe.
Arthur wrenched at another drawer. An avenging spirit worked within him now. He wanted more, more than the evidence of money. He had the fatal conviction that the plan, the Old Neptune plan, lay here. He knew his father: ingrained with the stigmata of acquisitiveness. Why had he never thought of this before? His father never destroyed documents or papers; it was a physical impossibility, an agony, to destroy documents or papers. If Robert Fenwick’s letter did not lie, the plan existed and the plan was here.
Drawer after drawer lay rifled on the floor. Then, in the last bottom drawer, a thin roll of parchment, very soiled and unimportant. Perfectly unimportant. A loud cry broke from Arthur’s lips. With a nervous flush he unrolled the plan, and, kneeling, examined it upon the floor. The plan demonstrated instantly that the old waste was clearly indicated, running parallel to the Dyke in its lower levels and approaching within a bare two feet of the Dyke. Arthur peered closer with his prison-dulled eyes. He made out tracings and calculations in his father’s hand. It was the final proof, the last iniquity.
