Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Indeed, when the men started in full time and double shift on the 10th February, Arthur forgot his worries in the glorious activity and liveliness and bustle about the pit. After the long spell of slackness he felt the pulse of it like his own pulse. It was worth living for, the throbbing, magnificent vigour of the Neptune. This was what he wanted — work for everyone, fair work, fair pay and fair profit. He was happier than he had been for months. That night on his return to the Law he went triumphantly to his father.

“We’re working full time on both shifts now. I thought you’d like to know, father. It’s full steam ahead at the pit again.”

A silence, quivering with suspicion, while Barras peered up at Arthur from the couch in his room where, driven by the cold weather, he kept vigil by the fire. The room was intolerably hot, doors and windows tightly sealed, with Aunt Carrie’s aid, against the electricity. A sheaf of scribbled papers lay half-concealed beneath his rug, and beside him a stick, for with its help he could hobble a little, dragging his right foot.

“And why not?” he muttered at last. “Isn’t that the way it ought to… ought to be?”

Arthur flushed slightly.

“I daresay, father. But it isn’t so easy these days.”

“These days!” The eyebrows, now grey, twitched with venom. “These days — ah! You don’t know the meaning of days. It took me years and years… but I’m waiting, oh, waiting…”

With a dubious smile towards the prostrate figure: “I only thought you’d like to know, father…”

“You’re a fool. I do know, I know everything but what you say. That’s right, laugh… laugh like a fool. But mark my words… the pit will never be right till I come back.”

“Yes, father,” Arthur said, humouring him. “You must hurry up and come back.”

He waited in the room a moment longer, then excusing himself he went quite cheerfully in to tea. He was very cheerful for the next few days. He enjoyed his meals, enjoyed his work, enjoyed his leisure. It struck him with a kind of wonder how little leisure he had lately had; for months and months he had been bound, body and soul, to the Neptune. Now in the evenings he was able to relax and take up a book instead of sitting bowed in his chair tensely pondering on where business might be found. He wrote to Hilda and Grace. He felt himself refreshed and reinvigorated.

All went swimmingly until the morning of the 16th of February when he came down to breakfast and picked up the paper with a sense of well-being and ease. He breakfasted alone, as his father had done in the old days, and he began his grape-fruit with a good appetite, when all at once a middle-page heading in the news arrested his eye. He stared at the heading as though transfixed. He put down his spoon and read the whole column. Then with no thought of breakfast he flung down his napkin, shoved back his chair and rushed to the telephone in the hall. Snatching up the instrument he called Probert of Amalgamated Collieries, who was also a leading member of the Northern Mining Association.

“Mr. Probert,” he stammered. “Have you seen The Times ? They’re going to decontrol. In the King’s speech. On March 31st. They’re introducing legislation immediately.”

Probert’s voice came back: “Yes, I’ve seen it, Arthur. Yes, yes, I know… it’s much sooner—”

“But March 31st,” Arthur cut in desperately. “Next month! It’s unbelievable. They pledged themselves not to decontrol till August.”

Probert’s voice answered, very round and comfortable:

“You’re no more staggered than I am, Arthur. We’re precipitated into trouble. It’s a bombshell!”

“I’ve got to see you,” Arthur cried. “I must run over and see you, Mr. Probert, I must. I’ll come straight away.”

Taking no time for a possible denial, Arthur snapped up the receiver. Flinging on a coat he ran round to the garage and started up the light two-seater which now replaced the big saloon. He drove in a kind of fury to Probert’s house at Hedlington four miles up the coast. He arrived in seven minutes and was shown immediately to the morning-room, where, in a deep leather chair beside the blazing fire, Probert sat at leisure, smoking an after-breakfast cigar, with the paper on his knees. It was a charming picture: the warm, deep-carpeted room, the dignified old man, adequately fed, bathed in a lingering perfume of coffee and Havana, snatching a moment before the labours of the day.

“Mr. Probert,” Arthur burst out, “they can’t do this.”

Edgar Probert rose and took Arthur’s hand with a suave gravity.

“I am equally concerned, my dear boy,” he said, still holding Arthur’s hand. “Upon my soul, I am.” He was tall and stately and about sixty-five, with a mane of perfectly white hair, very black eyebrows and a magnificent presence which, as a member of the Northern Mining Association, he used with wonderful effect. He was extremely rich and much respected, and he contributed largely to all local charities which published their lists of subscribers. Every winter his photograph appeared, noble and leonine, on the posters appealing for the Tynecastle Oddfellows Hospital and beneath it, in large type: Mr. Edgar Probert, who has so generously supported our cause, asks you once again to join with him…. For thirty years on end he had bled his men white. He was a perfectly charming old scoundrel.

“Be seated, Arthur, my boy,” he said, waving the cigar gently.

But Arthur was too agitated to sit down.

“What does it mean?” he cried. “That’s what I want to know. I’m absolutely at a loss.”

“I am afraid it means trouble,” Probert answered, planting his feet apart on the hearthrug and gazing abstractedly towards the ceiling.

“Yes, but why have they done it?”

“The Government, Arthur,” Probert murmured, “have been taking a big share of our profits but they have no desire to take any share in our losses. In plain language they are getting out while the going is good. But frankly, I’m not sorry. Strictly between ourselves, I’ve had a private communication from Westminster. It’s time we put our house in order. There’s been a storm brewing between ourselves and the men ever since the war. We must dig ourselves in, stand together as one man and fight.”

“Fight?”

Probert nodded through the balmy incense of cigar smoke. He looked very noble; he looked like the Silver King and Dr. Barnardo rolled into one, only kinder. He declared gently:

“I shall propose a cut of 40 per cent. in wages.”

“Forty per cent.,” Arthur gasped. “Why, that’ll bring the standard below pre-war level. The men will never stand that. No, never on your life. They’ll strike.”

“They may not get the chance to strike.” No animosity behind the words, merely that same benign abstraction. “If they don’t come to their senses promptly we shall lock them out.”

“A lock-out!” Arthur echoed. “That’s ruinous.”

Probert smiled calmly, removed his gaze from the ceiling and fixed it rather patronisingly upon Arthur.

“I imagine most of us have a little nest-egg from the war tucked away somewhere. We must just nibble at that until the men see reason. Yes, yes, we must just nibble at it.”

A little nest-egg! Arthur thought of the capital laid out upon equipment and improvements at the Neptune; he thought of his present full-time contract; and a sudden hot rage came over him.

“I won’t lock out my men,” he said, “I won’t do it. We’re working double shift and full time at the Neptune. A 40 per cent. cut is madness. I’m prepared to pay reasonable wages. I’m not going to close down a going pit. I’m not going to cut my own throat for anybody.”

Probert patted Arthur on the back, more patronising than ever, remembering Arthur’s scandalous war record, despising him as an unbalanced, cowardly young fool, and masking it all with that priestly benevolence.