Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Towards one o’clock he left the station and started to walk towards College Row. He took the slight incline slowly, partly because he was quite exhausted, but chiefly because he was afraid. The mere thought of seeing Hetty again drove the blood from his heart. When he reached No. 17 he was in a pale anguish of expectation. He stood on the opposite side of the street staring across at the Todds’ house. Now that he was here he shrank from going in, a host of unhappy thoughts deterred him. How pleased they would be to see him, walking in unexpectedly like this, straight from prison. No, he had not the courage to walk up these steps and ring the bell.

He hung about in an agony of indecision, longing with all his soul to see Hetty, hoping he might have the luck to find her leaving or entering the house. But there was no sign of Hetty. Towards three o’clock the faintness came over him again and he felt he must sit down. He turned towards the Town Moor, which lay at the top of College Row, making for one of the benches under the lime trees, telling himself he would return later and resume his watch. He crossed the road, his feet dragging languidly, and, at the corner, he walked straight into Laura Millington.

The unexpectedness of the meeting was quite startling; it made him catch his breath. At first Laura did not recognise him. Her face, wearing a look of preoccupation, almost of apathy, remained unchanged. She made to pass on. And then she knew him.

“Why, Arthur!” she gasped, “it’s you.”

His eyes remained upon the pavement.

“Yes,” he stammered, “it’s me.”

She gazed at him intently, her expression altered, shocked from its fixed melancholy.

“Have you been to see my father?”

He shook his head dumbly with eyes still averted. The hopelessness in his attitude gave her a renewed pang. Deeply touched, she came up to him and took his arm.

“You must come in,” she said. “I’m going there now. You look quite ill.”

“No,” he muttered, drawing away childishly, “they don’t want me.”

“But you must,” she insisted. And like a child he yielded and allowed her to lead him towards the house. He had the awful feeling that at any moment he might burst into tears.

She took a key from her bag, opened the door, and they went into the back sitting-room which he knew so well. The sight of his shaven head forced a gasp of pity from Laura’s lips. She took him by the shoulders and put him in a chair by the fire. He sat there with his prison pallor upon him and his clothes hanging on his drooping prison-shrunken frame while she hurried into the kitchen. There she said nothing to Minnie, the maid, but herself quickly brought him a tray with tea and hot buttered toast. She watched him with concern while he drank the tea and ate some of the toast.

“Finish it,” she said gently.

He obeyed. His intuition told him immediately that neither Hetty nor her father was in the house. Momentarily his mind detached itself from Hetty. He raised his head and for the first time looked at Laura.

“Thanks, Laura,” he said humbly.

She did not answer, but once again that quick sympathy flashed into her pale face as though a sudden gleam from the fire had illumined it. He could not help thinking how much older she looked; there were shadows under her eyes, she was dressed indifferently, her hair quite carelessly arranged. Through his daze, the change in her reached and astounded him.

“Is anything wrong, Laura? Why are you here, alone?”

This time a deep and painful emotion broke through the surface of her eyes.

“Nothing’s wrong.” She bent and stirred up the fire. “I’m staying with father this week. You see, I’m closing up the house at Hilltop, in the meantime.”

“Closing your house?”

She nodded, then added in a low voice:

“Stanley’s gone down to Bournemouth to a rest home; you probably didn’t know he’d been shell-shocked. I shall join him when I have settled things up here.”

He looked at her helplessly; his brain refused to operate.

“But the works, Laura?” he exclaimed at last.

“That’s been arranged,” she answered in a flat voice. “That’s the least of it, Arthur.”

He continued to look at her in a kind of wonder. This was not the Laura he had known. The fixed sadness in her face was quite startling, that droop to her mouth, ironic yet pained. A deep, mysterious instinct, born of his own suffering, made him sense a wounded spirit, behind this outer, indifferent crust. But he could not work it out just now, the insufferable fatigue bore down on him again. A long silence came between them.

“I’m sorry to be a trouble to you, Laura,” he said eventually.

“You’re no trouble.”

He hesitated, feeling she might now wish him to go.

“But now that I’m here, I thought — I thought I might as well wait and see Hetty.”

Another silence. He could feel her looking at him. Then she rose from the hearthrug where she had been kneeling, staring into the fire, and stood before him.

“Hetty isn’t here any more,” she said.

“What?”

“No,” she shook her head. “She’s down at Farnborough now — you see—” A pause. “You see, Arthur, that’s where Dick Purves is.”

“But what—” He broke off, a barb twisting in his heart.

“You don’t know,” Laura said in that same flat voice. “She married him in January.” Her eyes slipped from his, she put her hand on his shoulder. “It was a sudden affair; when they gave him the V.C., it was just immediately after your mother died, after the inquest. He got the V.C. for bringing down the Zeppelin. We never thought, Arthur… But Hetty just seemed to make up her mind. The wedding was in all the papers.”

He sat perfectly still, in a kind of graven stolidity.

“So Hetty’s married.”

“Yes, Arthur.”

“I never thought of that.” He swallowed and the spasm seemed to pass over his entire body. “I don’t suppose she’d have had anything to do with me in any case.”

Wisely, she made no attempt to console him. He made an effort in the chair.

“Well, I ought to be going now,” he said in an unsteady voice.

“No, don’t go yet, Arthur. You still look seedy.”

“The worst of it is… I feel it.” He got shakily to his feet. “O Lord, I do feel queer. My head’s full of feathers. How do I get to the station?” He raised his hand stupidly to his brow.

Laura took a step forward, intercepting him on his way to the door.

“You’re not going, Arthur. I can’t let you go. You’re not fit. You ought to be in bed.”

“You mean well, Laura,” he said thickly, swaying on his feet. “I mean well, too. We both mean well.” He laughed. “Only we can’t do anything.”

Resolution formed in her. She put her arm round him determinedly.

“Listen to me, Arthur, I refuse to send you out in such a state. You’re going to bed… here… now. Don’t say another word. I’ll explain to father whenever he comes in.” Supporting him she assisted him into the hall and up the stairs. She lit the gas fire in her bedroom, quietly but firmly helped him out of his clothes and into bed. When this was done she filled a hot water bottle and put it to his feet. She considered him anxiously: “How do you feel now?”

“Better,” he answered, without meaning it.

He lay curled up on his side, realising that he was in Hetty’s room, in Hetty’s bed. How amusing! — he was actually in dear little Hetty’s dear little bed. Nice bit of skirt tonight, eh, Cuthbert? He wanted to laugh but could not. Recollection twisted the barb in his heart again.

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.