Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Sammy sat down, looking round the kitchen. It was a good kitchen, absolutely clean and as it should be, like his own kitchen, but the furniture was better and there was more of it. Then Sammy’s eye lit up; he saw that Martha was cutting a cake, cutting an enormous wedge of plum cake.

“Thanks,” he said, accepting the cake, balancing his books and his cap on his knees, then filling his mouth with the cake.

Her hard dark eyes dwelt absorbedly upon his young face. It was her own Sammy’s face.

“Is it a good cake?” she asked intensely.

“Yes, mam,” he said, wiring into it, “it’s fair champion.”

“Is it the best cake you ever tasted?”

“Well!” He hesitated, troubled, afraid to wound her feelings; but he had to speak the truth. “My mother makes as good a cake when she has the stuff. But she hasn’t had the stuff, not lately.”

But even this could not break the spell of Martha’s rapture.

“Your uncle’s on the dole?” she asked. “Pug Macer?”

His thin young face flushed.

“Well, yes, Pug is now, but only for the time being like.”

“Your father would never have been on the dole,” she declared with pride.

“I know,” he said.

“He was the best hewer in the Neptune.”

“I know,” he said again. “My mother told me.”

Silence. She watched him finish, then she cut him another piece of cake. He took it with a shy smile, her own Sammy’s smile.

“What are ye goin’ to be when you grow up, Sammy?”

He reflected, while she hung upon his answer.

“I’d like to be like my father,” he said.

“You would,” she whispered. “Ay, ye would, Sammy.”

“Ay.”

She stood quite motionless. She felt weak, ravaged, overcome. Her own Sammy come back to her, to carry on the brave tradition; she would see it yet, Sammy Fenwick again the best hewer in the Neptune. She could not speak.

He finished the last crumb of cake, recovered his cap and books from off his knees and rose.

“Don’t go yet, Sammy,” she protested.

“My mother’ll be wondering,” he replied.

“Take this in your pocket then, Sammy, take this for your bait, Sammy.” Feverishly she cut him another wedge of cake, wrapped it in greased paper, picked a red apple from the dresser, made him stow cake and apple in his pocket. At the door she paused: “Come and see me to-morrow, Sammy.” And her voice was pleading… pleading…

“Righto,” he said and darted like a little trout down the path.

She stood watching, watching until he was long gone. Then she turned and went back into the kitchen. She moved slowly, as if with difficulty. In the kitchen she caught sight of the cut cake. She stood there silent and immobile while across the screen of her impassive sight a flood of memory poured. All at once her face broke. She sat down at the kitchen table, put her head upon her arms, and sobbed bitterly.

David’s political development came like the development of the human body — it was a slow growth, imperceptible from day to day, yet apparent when balanced against his stature of five years before. Though his purpose was so definite and strong he advanced towards it by long and difficult roads. The political meteor flashes only through the imagination of the novelist. David experienced the reality. He worked; he worked unbelievably hard; and he waited. He learned many things; but chiefly to cultivate the faculty of patience. His maiden address was followed, some months later, by another speech on the distress in mining areas. The comment which this occasioned caused him to be approached by several of the party leaders for data on this subject. Several admirable orations bearing on the distressed areas were made thereafter in the House for which David received no credit although the speeches were almost entirely his. Later, however, by way of recognition, he was invited to sit on a departmental committee investigating the question of industrial disability in mines. During the next twelve months he worked with this committee on nystagmus, beat knee and the incidence of silicosis in non-metalliferous mines. Before the end of that session he was co-opted to a board pursuing an inquiry into the qualifications of mine officials under the existing legislature. In the following year Nugent, billed to speak at the mass demonstration held by the T.U.C. in the Albert Hall, fell ill with influenza, and at his urgent request David was called upon to deputise. Addressing an audience of five thousand, he made the speech of the evening, a speech of flaming ardour, humane feeling and trenchant style. Paradoxically enough, the glamour of this one evening focused more attention upon him than all his hard work of the previous two years. He became noticed at the conferences. It was he who prepared the memorandum for the T.U.C. on Nationalisation of the Mines, and the proposed Power and Transport Commission. His paper, Electric Power and National Progress, was read at the American Labour Conference. Thereafter he became chief miners’ representative on the board reviewing the question of water dangers in mines. By the autumn of 1928 he was a member of the Parliamentary Labour Party Committee and finally, at the beginning of the following year, he reached the peak of his achievement. He was appointed to the executive of the Miners’ Federation.

David’s hopes ran high. In himself he felt extremely well, clear-headed, able to cope with any amount of work. And more than ever he sensed the favourable turn of events. The present Government was moribund, sadly preparing to die. The country, sick of stale policies, reiterated platitudes and the old die-hard administration, was raising eyes of conjecture towards a fresh horizon. At last, through their constitutional hidebound apathy, people were beginning to question the soundness of a political and economic system which left want, misery and unemployment unrelieved. New and bold ideas went into circulation. Men no longer retreated in terror from the suggestion that capitalism, as a system of life, had failed. Recognition grew that the world would never be reconstructed by the violence and suppression of economic nationalism. Workers on the dole were not now designated shiftless scum. The factitious explanation of “world conditions” became a hypocritical echo, a music-hall joke.

David felt with all his soul that Labour’s chance must come. There would be an election this year, an election which must be fought on the question of the Mines. The party stood pledged to it. And what a glorious platform it made: this great national constructive scheme to benefit the miner and bring prosperity to the community.

That bright April morning, David’s spirits were high as he sat by the window in his rooms, glancing through the paper. It was Saturday. He was looking forward to a morning spent on the new Low-Temperature Report, a recent process it was proposed to incorporate in the Power section of the scheme, when, unexpectedly, a diversion occurred. The telephone rang.

He did not immediately answer it, for usually Mrs. Tucker went first, but as the ringing continued he dropped his paper and descended to the half-landing where he picked up the receiver. Straightaway Sally’s shrill, throaty voice came over the wire — he recognised it at once.

“Hello, hello,” she said, “you must be awful busy. I’ve been trying to get you for the last five minutes.”

Smiling into the receiver he exclaimed:

“Sally!”

“So you knew me?”

“You’re unmistakable.”

They both laughed and he said:

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Stanton’s Hotel, you know, near the British Museum, and Alf is along with me.”

“But what in all the world are you doing up here?”