The Northern Light

by A. J. Cronin

  Another spasm racked her.

  ‘That was the start, that was. I didn’t dare tell him about myself. But he was in the same boat. I knew it just by looking at him. I wanted to help him. And I think I have helped him. I’ve been a good wife. But if he gets to know, it’ll be the end; I don’t know what will happen to the both of us.’

  A final sob shook her, and, turning convulsively, she came towards him as though, forsaken by all the world, lost and bewildered, yet still with a painful thirst for happiness, she begged for his support.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he said, holding her. ‘And don’t on any account say anything to David. There must be something we can do about it.’

  ‘I couldn’t help myself … it happened to me … that’s all. I can’t say more nor less. But what must you think … you especially? After all you done for me, I been and brought this on you. Oh, can’t you see it … you’re the one that counts the most.’

  As she said these words she stopped short, looked at him wildly and, before he could detain her, broke away and ran out of the room.

  He had to let her go. Heavily, he sat down and, bent over the desk with his head between his hands, tried to collect his scattered forces and brace himself against the final shattering disaster. What a mess, he thought, what a frightful mess! His first reaction of anger and disgust was gone, supplanted by compassion. He could not blame her, yet for him, and for the Light, the consequences were fatal.

  Instinctively, he took up the contract Smith had placed upon his desk and, with a blank face, read it through. It was not a swindling agreement; in fact, of its kind, it was strictly fair – Smith, in his attempts at self-exoneration, had used all his efforts to make it so, justly proportioning the assets of the two papers and assessing their goodwill on the relative sales over the past twelve months. Yet, while the end result might be financially adequate, Page was left with no illusions as to his situation. He was to be dispossessed. If he refused to give up the Light, the whole story of Cora’s past, linked to its present setting and suitably embellished, would be headlined in Hedleston and in every Somerville paper throughout the country.

  A tremor passed over Henry as he envisaged that appalling publicity. How they would scarify him, the uplifter, ex-mayor of Hedleston, due for a testimonial dinner, the man of probity and principle, who stood four-square against corruption. Alice, with her social ambitions, would not be spared, nor David, the deluded husband; even Dorothy would have to take her share – none of them would escape. They would all be dragged through the mud with the skill of hands long practised in that art. The result for him would undoubtedly be social and political extinction. For David it would be so much worse he scarcely dared to contemplate it: this shock would destroy him, send him back into that confused, tormented hell from which he might never again emerge.

  As for Cora, would she not suffer worst of all? The knowledge that she had brought this trouble upon them, that the pain and humiliation of her wretched experience must again be undergone, magnified a hundredfold, that her hard-won security, her safety and peace of mind, must irretrievably be shattered, all this would surely break her heart.

  He rose suddenly, and began to pace the floor. How could he see this hurt inflicted on her, and on his family – he must yield, must give up the Light. Even to think this sent a stab of pain into his side. He tried to tell himself that it was merely wounded pride from undue attachment to a long-cherished family possession, that he, Henry Page, was merely an out-of-date idealist who wrote platitudinous articles and set exaggerated store upon his ownership of a small provincial newspaper. It would not serve. When he considered the long, bitter struggle he had waged, and the hard victory he had won, only to be robbed at the last moment, the blood mounted to his forehead. The Light was his inheritance, his tradition, his life.

  As though compelled, he moved along the corridor to the little end room where the earliest copies of the Light were preserved, and at random began plucking them from their racks. Here, in 1785, was the report of Blanchard’s pioneer balloon flight across the English Channel, accomplished on a Friday ‘notwithstanding evil foreboding,’ and there, ten years later, was the first instalment of Paine’s Age of Reason, a serialization which had brought on Daniel Page the threat of government prosecution and had finally discredited Pitt. Here, again, was that famous report of the mutiny at the Nore in 1797, when the Bank of England suspended gold payments. Another issue held a society report from Charles Lamb, sent to Margate to gather news of the fashionable arrivals, and another, a vivid account of the great Chartist meeting. Feverishly now, irrespective of their sequence, Henry ran through the faded yellow sheets, each with its imprint of England’s history: Trafalgar, the fall of Kabul, Balaklava, the attempt in 1842 to assassinate Queen Victoria, the Napoleonic Wars, with terrifying cartoons of the Corsican ogre, the bulletin of Browning’s death, the funeral in the Abbey, the South African War, the fund begun by Robert Page to supply the troops with comforts … no, he could not bear it. He groaned aloud, pressing his throbbing temples between his palms. The Light itself was history; he could not surrender it to an ownership that would irretrievably debase it.

  He swung round and, with a new sense of purpose, went back to his office. A glance at the clock showed half past seven – unconscious of the passage of time, he had lost almost three hours. Moffatt must have gone at six as usual, quite unaware that anything was wrong. However, after a search he found a Bradshaw in the drawer of her desk. The night train for London left at seventeen minutes to eight. He had not time to go home and pick up a suitcase. He would have to take a cab directly to the train. Quickly he wrote a note for Moffatt, telling her he had been called unexpectedly to London, and placed it on the hood of her typewriter. Next, he phoned his house; Alice was out, but he left the message with Hannah, saying that, at the most, he would not be away for more than two nights. Then, taking his hat and coat, he left the office, and hurriedly set out for the station.

  Chapter Ten

  On the folllowing morning, after a troubled night, David came to the realization that he could no longer endure the silence, constraint, and heartbreaking pretence between Cora and himself. He must find some way out. When he left the house at nine o’clock, ostensibly for his usual walk, he got on to the Hedleston bus which departed from Sleedon at half past nine. Only two other passengers were inside, and as both had places at the front, he seated himself well to the rear, so that, free of the persecution of their stares, he might more clearly define his course of action.

  First, he must see his father. Although David did not care to show it and was often compelled by a sense of his own inadequacy to extraordinary moods of pretentiousness, in the depths of his nature he had for Henry both gratitude and affection, and while he could not agree with many of his father’s views, he believed implictly in his goodness and common sense. These were the qualities he most needed now and which, in seeking his father’s advice, he would be sure to receive.

  The slow, jolting journey, with long stops at Lacey Hummocks and Hurst Green, seemed interminable, but at last the blurred shape of Hedleston became visible through the steamy, chattering windows and presently the ancient vehicle shuddered to a final halt in Victoria Square, the omnibus terminus.

  Rain pricked David’s forehead as he got out and started walking towards the Northern Light offices. To enter this building, consecrated to his father’s idealism and regarded by Henry as his logical inheritance, was an ordeal which he habitually shunned.

  Even today, obsessed by other fears, he felt like an interloper as be climbed the stone staircase and knocked at Page’s door.

  When he went in, the room was empty; then Moffatt suddenly appeared, viewing him with a surprise which could only be due to the rarity of his visits.

  ‘How are you, Miss Moffatt?’ he said, then knowing that with her he must state the obvious: ‘I came to see my father.’

  ‘Of course,’ she answered, with that proprietary, half-playful manner which she had
always adopted towards him ever since those days when she had come to Hanley Drive to look at him in his pram. ‘But he’s not here.’

  ‘When will he be in?’

  ‘I can’t tell. He’s gone to London.’

  ‘To London!’

  ‘That’s right. Why, I don’t know. He went unexpectedly last night and only left a note, saying he’d been called away. I expect it’s to do with this Economic Conference.’ After a brief pause, she added, ‘He can’t be away long. There’s your mother’s reception tomorrow.’

  He must have given some indication of being upset by this unforeseen check, for she continued to study him, and with deeper penetration and concern.

  ‘Where’s your coat?’ You’re the most awful chap. You haven’t even an umbrella. Don’t you know it’s pouring cats and dogs? You’re half soaked. And your hair … here, let me straighten you up.’

  As he stood there, rooted and possessed by the problem of what he should do now, she came forward, fastened the top button of his flannel shirt, brushed the raindrops from his jacket and went through the motions of tidying him.

  ‘There now … that’s better. I’m just making my elevenses. You’ll stay for a cup. Your wife had one with me yesterday. She’s a nice creature, David. Come along … we’ll go into my room.’

  ‘No … no.’ He roused himself. ‘You must excuse me thank you. I have to go.’

  ‘But David … wait just a minute …’

  He would not, could not, stay. He turned and went down the stairs with a rush that carried him across the street, just in front of a passing car. Uncaring, he went on, convinced that his father’s sudden and unpremeditated absence was linked in some way with this hateful enigma that he could not solve and that, like the spent oil that came sometimes upon the Sleedon beach, seemed insidiously to spread its pollution everywhere.

  With an effort he took himself in hand. What must he do now? Useless to go to Hanley Drive to seek advice and enlightenment from his mother. Yet he could not return, defeated, to Sleedon, to further hours of solitary brooding. Only one course lay open to him, and while he knew what exactions this would make upon his nerves, he did not care; sooner or later it was inevitable that he take it.

  The Prudential offices were quite near. Crossing the gardens, he arrived at the entrance in less than five minutes. From the indicator outside he saw that the Chronicle office was on the third floor. He did not immediately go in, but began to stride up and down outside, schooling himself in what he meant to say, summoning all the resources of mind and body at his command. Conscious of his weakness in a crisis, he resolved that on this occasion he would not be at a loss. Yet the very process of this preparation was its undoing, for as he projected an image of the coming scene, foreseeing the insults he would receive and return, anger began to burn in him, his throat constricted, and his mouth went dry.

  He could no longer endure it. With a sharp, uncoordinated movement he halted, dived into the building, and, ignoring the lift, climbed breathlessly to the third floor. The name, in gilt letters, was on the ground-glass door: DAILY CHRONICLE: EXECUTIVE OFFICE. Without knocking, he went in.

  The general air of inactivity and emptiness took him by surprise. A lad of about seventeen was idly typing at a low table placed sideways by the window beside the telephone switchboard. In a voice which he hardly recognized as his own, David told him he wished to see Nye. The youth sat back in his chair, glanced at him across his shoulder.

  ‘He’s not here. He’s gone to Tynecastle.’ Then, at David’s quick look of disbelief, he added, ‘None of them are here. Mr Smith’s at the main Mossburn office.’

  So keyed was he to the necessity of seeing the thing through, David still could not believe him. Two doors at the end of a narrow corridor gave access to the other rooms which completed the office suite. Quickly he looked into each room. Both were empty. He returned to the entrance lobby.

  ‘When will he be back?’ he asked.

  ‘How should I know?’ The boy spoke with an injured air. ‘There’s nothing doing here now … at least not much. It’s quite likely he’ll be away all day.’

  ‘All day,’ David repeated tonelessly, then, after a pause, he turned and went out.

  In the street again he hesitated, hands still clenched, body tense with the bitterness of frustration. Nothing had been discovered, nothing settled or achieved. A culminating sense of his own ineffectuality overwhelmed him. It was now the lunch hour, the pavement was thronged, people hurrying in the rain kept pushing against him as he stood there, undecided, his ears still ringing with the pounding of his blood.

  At last he moved off towards Victoria Square. Nothing to be done after all, nothing but an inept return to Sleedon. A bus was on the point of leaving, almost full. He found a place in the middle of the coach, trying to subdue the waves of confused thought that kept breaking over him. It was not long before he convinced himself that the combined stares of the other passengers were directed towards him, part in derision, part in outright hostility. He kept his head down, his eyes fixed upon the floorboard, unable to summon up the blank indifference with which he normally met the provocations of the crowd. Yet he could not find detachment, the turmoil in his breast remained; indeed, it increased all through the journey. Nor, when he reached Sleedon, did the rapid walk he took towards home dispel it.

  The house seemed empty as he entered, but in the kitchen the kettle was steaming on the stove and through the window he saw Cora in the garden, walking on the gravel path. He longed to go to her. Gone now was the attitude of indulgent patronage, the bland acceptance of her service, driven out by jealousy, uncertainty, and the evidence of her suffering. Instead, all the need of her, the physical longing of those early days in Scarborough had been renewed in him. He would have wished at this very moment to go to the bedroom, call her from the window, and when she came, to love her. But no, he must compose himself. She must know nothing of the disorder of his thoughts, nothing of his futile errand, nothing that would augment her own distress. He went upstairs to the attic and sat down at the plain deal table he used as a desk.

  As a tranquillizing expedient Dr Evans had told him to take a sheet of paper and write down quickly, automatically, all the thoughts that kept crowding into his mind. He picked up his pen and began this process of liberation.

  ‘The pain of loving too deeply,’ he wrote, ‘may often surpass the joy … and one may give oneself to the hurt with as much abandon as the happiness. My footsteps are in a maze, obscurity presses upon me, but I am not defeated. I can surmount any difficulty, overcome any enemy if my will remains strong. Soon we will be rid of this affliction. Nothing must harm Cora. I will protect her. And now, let me breathe in a sense of rest, of deep quiet …’

  He had not written more than these few lines before he stopped short, his head on one side, in an attitude of listening.

  ‘A sense of rest, of deep quiet.’

  Was it merely tinnitus, the ringing that for months had persisted in his ears, usually as the sound of bells, occasionally as a thin, high-pitched whistle, or did he actually hear a voice, echoing his own words in faint derision as he formed them? Listening intently, he heard nothing, but as he resumed his writing, the voice again picked up the words he was putting on paper: ‘When the light broadens and the darkness mitigates …’ repeating them more loudly, in perfect timing and co-ordination with his pen. By writing slowly, he tried to still the voice, but without avail; then he went faster, dashing the words across the page; the voice swept on, loud, articulate, at breakneck speed.

  David dropped the pen as though it were red hot, and gripped the edges of the table hard, trying to steady himself, remembering Dr Evans’s sharp advice when he had first told him he heard the voices.

  ‘It’s pure fancy. An aural hallucination, we call it. Put it out of your mind. Don’t give in to it … not for an instant.’

  David raised his head slowly. Now, at last, it had gone. Or had it? Rigid, in an attitude of listening, he wai
ted, hoping for silence. But instead, independent of his writing, unconnected with the pen which still lay on the table, he heard, faint yet distinct, a call that seemed to come from the bedroom on the floor below. It was a man’s voice, calling out his name. ‘ Page … Page … are you there?’ Then, with a start of horror, he heard these words:

  ‘Look out for your own neck, chum,’ and he recognized the voice of Nye.

  He jumped up, as though catapulted from his chair, pressing both forefingers tight into his ears in an effort to exclude all sound. This was imagination, a morbid delusion of his disordered nerves. Yet while he fought against it, the repetition came, loud, insolent, and more distinctly, from the room below.

  ‘So you think you’ll break my neck, Page … but just look out for your own neck, chum.’

  Impossible to be mistaken, he could resist no longer. He opened the door, dashed down the narrow wooden stairs into the bedroom, and began to search – in the two cupboards, under the bed, feeling between the dresses hanging in Cora’s wardrobe, in every corner of the room. No one was there.

  Limply, his forehead cold and dank, he sat down on the edge of the bed. Was he going mad? The voice, the disembodied presence, both had vanished. As on the previous occasion, his thorough search and the physical proof afforded by it had banished the illusion. He felt weak but more himself again.

  With a long sigh he got up and, standing at the mirror on the dressing table, began in a normal manner to brush his hair. Then, reflected in the glass, he saw that Cora was beside him. Here, at least, was substance among the shadows.

  ‘I didn’t know you were in,’ she said. ‘You had a long walk.’

  His new mood of quiet lucidity ruled out all thought of dissimulation. He came close to her, took her hand and pressed it.