Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“I’ve been up to vote for you,” he said, quite abruptly. His voice was flat, almost harsh, his cheek sallow and inclined to twitch. The odour of spirits came from his breath.

“I’m obliged to you, Arthur,” David answered.

A silence.

“I’d been underground this afternoon. But when I came outbye, I suddenly remembered.”

David’s eyes were troubled and full of pity. He said awkwardly:

“I hardly expected your support.”

“Why not?” Arthur said. “I’m nothing now, neither red nor blue nor anything else.” Then with sudden bitterness:

“What does it matter, anyhow?”

Another silence, through which the words he had just spoken seemed to wrench at Arthur. He raised his heavy eyes to David’s helplessly.

“Funny, isn’t it?” he said. “Ending up like this.” With an expressionless nod he turned and made his way down the street.

David continued on his way to Ogle’s, touched and profoundly troubled by this encounter, where so little had been said and everything implied. It was like a warning: how terrible defeat could be. Arthur’s ideals were shattered, he had stepped away from life, shrinking, with every fibre crying: “I have suffered enough. I will suffer no more.” The battle was over, the flame had gone out. David sighed as he turned into Ogle’s house.

He spent the evening with Harry, who was considerably better and in bright spirits. Though both their minds were concentrated on the coming result, they talked little of the election. Harry, however, in his gentle, thoughtful manner, predicted victory — anything else was unthinkable. After supper they played cribbage, to which game Harry was an addict, until nearly eleven o’clock. But David’s eyes kept straying towards the clock. Now that he must know so soon, an intolerable sense of strain possessed him. Twice he suggested it was time for him to go, that the counting at the Town Hall must be well upon the way. But Ogle, aware, perhaps, of David’s anxiety, insisted that he remain a little longer. The result could not be known before two o’clock. In the meantime here was a comfortable fire and a chair. So David acquiesced, curbing his restlessness, expectation and uneasiness. But finally, just after one o’clock, he rose. Before he left the room Harry shook him by the hand.

“Since I can’t be there, I’m going to congratulate you now. But I’m sorry to miss the sight of Gowlan’s face when he hears you’ve licked him.”

The night had turned still now, and there was a bright half moon. As David neared the Town Hall he was amazed at the crowds in the streets. He had some difficulty in forcing himself towards the steps of the Hall. But he got in at last and joined Wilson in the lobby. Inside the Council Chamber the open count was taking place. Wilson turned enigmatically and made room for David beside him. He looked tired.

“Another half-hour and we’ll know.”

The lobby was filling up with people. Then, from outside, came the slow hooting of a car. A minute later Gowlan entered at the head of his party — Snagg, his agent, Ramage, Connolly, Bostock, several of his Tynecastle associates, and in honour of this final occasion, Jim Mawson in person. Joe wore a coat with an astrakhan fur collar which hung open, displaying his evening clothes beneath. His face was full and slightly flushed. He had been dining late with his friends; and after dinner there had been old brandy and cigars. He swaggered down the lobby, through the crowd which parted before him, then outside the council room door he drew up with his back towards David and was immediately surrounded by his partisans. Loud laughter and conversation immediately engaged the group.

About ten minutes later old Rutter, Clerk to the Council and Recording Officer, came out of the room with a paper in his hand. Immediately there was a hush. Rutter looked immensely important; and he was smiling. When David saw that smile on Rutter’s face his heart gave a thud, then sank within him. Still smiling, peering over his gold-rimmed glasses, Rutter searched the crowded lobby, then, holding his importance, he called out the names of the two candidates.

Immediately Joe’s group pressed through the double doors after Rutter. At the same time Wilson rose.

“Come on,” he said to David; and his voice held a note of anxiety.

David rose and crowded with the others through the council room. There was no order, no sense of precedence, merely a flood of tense and unrestrained excitement.

“Please, gentlemen, please,” Rutter kept repeating, “allow the candidates to come through.”

Up the familiar iron staircase, through the small committee room and at last out upon the balcony. The cool night air came gratefully after the heat and lights within. Below an enormous gathering of people filled the street in front of the Hall. The pale half moon sailed high above the headstocks of the Neptune and laid faint silver scales upon the sea. A mutter of anticipation kept rising from the waiting crowd.

The balcony was very full. David was squeezed forward to the extreme corner. Beside him, carried away from Gowlan by the press, was Ramage. The fat butcher stared at David, his big hands twitching, his deep-set eyes lit, beneath their bushy grey brows, by excitement and spite. The frantic desire to see David beaten was written on his face.

Rutter was in the middle of the balcony now, facing the hushed crowd, the paper in his hand. One moment of deadly stillness, electric, agonising. Never in all his life had David known a moment so painful, so agitating as this. His heart beat wildly within his breast. Then Rutter’s shrill high voice rang out:

Mr. Joseph Gowlan… 8,852

Mr. David Fenwick… 7,490

A great shout went up and it was Ramage who led it. “Hurrah, hurrah!” Ramage bellowed like a bull, waving his arms, ecstatic with delight. Cheer after cheer split the air. Joe’s supporters were mobbing him on the balcony, overwhelming him with congratulations. David gripped the cold iron rail, striving for control, for strength. Beaten, beaten, beaten! He raised his eyes, saw Ramage bending towards him, lips working with outrageous delight.

“You’re beat, damn you,” gloated Ramage. “You’ve lost. You’ve lost everything.”

“Not everything,” David answered in a low voice.

More cheers, shouts, persistent calls for Joe. He was in the direct centre of the balcony now, against the railing, drinking in the adulation of the dense, excited crowd. He towered above them, a massive, dominant figure, black against the moonlight, unbelievably enlarged and menacing. Below, the pale faces of the people lay before him. They were his — all his, they belonged to him, for his use, to his purpose. The earth was his, and the heavens. A faint hum came distantly — a night flight of his Rusford planes. He was a king, he was divine, power illimitable was his. He was only beginning. He would go on, on. The fools beneath his feet would help him. He would mount to the heights, crack the world with his bare hands, split the sky with his lightning. Peace and War answered to his call. Money belonged to him. Money, money, money… and the slaves of money. Raising both his arms towards the sky in a gesture of supreme hypocrisy he began:

“My dear friends…”

Five o’clock on this cold September morning. It was not yet light and the wind, pouring out of the sea darkness, rushed across the arches of the sky and polished the stars to a high glitter. Silence lay upon the Terraces.

And then, breaking fitfully though the silence and the darkness, a gleam appeared in Hannah Brace’s window. The gleam lingered and ten minutes later the door opened and old Hannah came out of her house catching her breath as the icy wind took her. She wore a shawl, hobnailed boots and a huddle of petticoats lined with brown paper for warmth. A man’s cap was pulled upon her head hiding her thin straggle of grizzled hair, and bound longwise about her old jaws and ears was a swathe of red flannel. In her hand she carried a long pole. Since old Tom Calder had died of pleurisy, Hannah was now the caller of the Terraces, and glad enough these hard times for “the extra little bit” the work brought in. Waddling slightly because of her rupture, she made her way slowly along Inkerman, a poor old bundle, scarcely human, tapping the windows with her pole, calling the men due on the foreshift of the pit.