Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

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.

He got up from his knees, slowly rolling up the plan. The whole structure of the colossal deceit arose before his tormented sight. He stood in the middle of the sacred room with the plan clenched tight in his hands, his eyes burning, his face still bearing the ingrained pallor of the prison. And as though conscious of himself, the prisoner, holding this evidence of his father’s guilt, as though amused by this paradox of human equity, his pale lips parted in a smile. A paroxysm of hysterical laughter convulsed him. He wanted to smash, burn, destroy; he wanted to wreck the room, tear down the pictures, kick out the windows. He wanted punishment, recompense, justice.

With a great effort he controlled himself, turned and went downstairs. In the hall he stood waiting, his eyes upon the front door. From time to time he looked towards the long case clock, hearing the slow inexorable rhythm of the passing seconds in a fever of impatience. But at last he started. At twenty-five minutes to one the car drove up from the station and there was the sound of bustling steps. The door swung open and his father entered the hall. An instant of complete immobility. The eyes of Arthur met his father’s eyes.

Arthur drew a quick sobbing breath. He hardly recognised his father. The change in Barras was incredible. Much heavier and stouter, the hard outlines of his figure softened and become flaccid, a pouching of the cheeks, a sagging of the abdomen, a roll of fat behind his collar, the old static immobility supplanted by a bustling activity. The hands were active, fumbling and fussing with a sheaf of newspapers; the eyes were active, darting hither and thither to see what could be seen; the mind was active, responding eagerly to all the diversions of life which were trivial and worthless. In one devastating flash it struck Arthur that the whole trend of this spurious activity was to acknowledge the present, to repudiate the past, to ignore the future; the end of a process of disintegration. He remained standing with his back to the staircase as his father came into the hall. There was a silence.

“So you’ve come back,” Barras said. “It’s an unexpected treat.”

Arthur did not speak. He watched Barras advance to the table and lay down his papers and a few small parcels which dangled from his fingers. Barras continued, shuffling and arranging the things upon the table:

“You know, of course, that the war is still on. My views have not changed. You know I don’t want any slackers here.”

In a suppressed tone Arthur said:

“I haven’t been slacking. I’ve been in prison.”

Barras gave a short exclamation, moving and re-moving the things upon the table.

“You chose to go there, didn’t you? And if you don’t alter your mind you’re liable to go back again. You see that, don’t you?”

Arthur answered:

“I’ve seen a great many things. Prison is a good place for seeing things.”

Barras gave over his arranging and darted a furtive glance at Arthur. He began to walk up and down the hall. He took out his beautiful gold watch and looked at that. He said with a flickering animosity:

“I’ve got an appointment after lunch. I have two meetings to-night. This is an extremely heavy day for me. I really have no time to waste on you, I’m far too busy.”

“Too busy winning the war, father? Is that what you mean?”

Barras’s face became confused. The arteries in his temple stood out suddenly.

“Yes! since you choose to put it like that, I have been doing my best to win the war.”

Arthur’s compressed lips twitched bitterly. A great wave of uncontrolled feeling rushed over him.

“No wonder you’re proud of yourself. You’re a patriot. Everyone admires you. You’re on committees, your name gets in the paper, you make speeches about glorious victories when thousands of men are lying butchered in the trenches. And all the time you’re coining money, thousands and thousands of pounds, sweating your men in the Neptune, shouting that it’s for King and Country when it’s really for yourself. That’s it, that’s it.” His voice climbed higher. “You don’t care about life or death. You only care about yourself.”

“At least I keep out of prison,” shouted Barras.

“Don’t be sure.” Arthur’s breath came chokingly. “It looks as if you might soon be there. I’m not going to serve any more of your sentence for you.”

Barras stopped his rapid pacing. His mouth dropped open.

“What’s that?” he exclaimed in a tone of utter amazement. “Are you mad?”

“No,” Arthur answered passionately, “I’m not mad, but I ought to be.”

Barras stared at Arthur, then with a shrug of his shoulders abandoned him as hopeless. He pulled out his watch again, using that restless gesture, and looked at it with his small injected eyes.

“I really must go,” he said, slurring his words together. “I have an important appointment after lunch.”

“Don’t go, father,” Arthur said. He stood there in a white heat of intensity, consumed by the terrible knowledge within him.

“What—” Barras drew up, red-faced, half-way to the stairs.

“Listen to me, father,” Arthur said in a burning voice. “I know all about the disaster now. Robert Fenwick wrote out a message before he died. I have that message. I know that you were to blame.”

Barras gave a very perceptible start. A sudden dread seemed to fall on him.