Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Socially, he was not openly aspiring. When, in conversation, the name of some county notable cropped up Barras had a way of calmly interjecting: “And what’s he worth?” inferring with a mild amusement that his neighbour’s financial position was contemptible. Thus while he enjoyed the deference of his banker and his lawyer he was not a snob — he despised the pettiness of the word. Though Harriet Wandless was of a county family he had not married Harriet for the distinction of her pedigree. He had married Harriet to make Harriet his wife.

The suggestion of a passion arises here. Yet Barras was a man of no apparent passions. The strength of his personality was terrific; but it was a static, a glacial strength. He had no violence, no towering passions, no gusts of fiery emotion. What was alien to him he rejected; what was not alien he possessed. The evidence of Harriet, taken in camera, is, positively, the clue. But Harriet, on the mornings which succeeded these regular nocturnal idylls, merely ate a large breakfast soulfully — with the placid satisfaction of a cow that had been successfully milked. Such visible biological evidence as Harriet’s modesty afforded was both positive and negative. But the examination of Harriet’s stomach contents would undoubtedly have revealed cud.

Richard himself gave a few clues. He was a secret man. This secrecy was definitely a quality. Not the ordinary banal secrecy of concealment, but a subtler secrecy, a secrecy which sternly resented prying and froze all familiarity with a look. He seemed icily to say, I am myself and will be myself but that is no concern of any one but myself. And to continue, I dominate myself but I will be dominated by no one but myself. The static glacier again.

It must not be assumed, however, that Richard’s qualities were cast entirely in this out-size arctic mould. Barras had some very individual characteristics. His love of organ music, of Handel, of the Messiah in particular. His devotion to art, to sound established art as manifested in the expensive pictures upon his walls. His loyalty to the domestic unities. His inveterate neatness and precision. And finally his acquisitiveness.

Here, at last, lies the hidden intention of Richard’s soul, the very core of the man himself. He loved his possessions passionately, his pit, his house, his pictures, his property, everything that was his This accounted for his abomination of waste, of which the pale reflection was Aunt Carrie’s acquired inability “to throw anything out.” Aunt Carrie often protested this openly and Barras was always pleased. Barras himself never threw anything out. Papers, documents, receipts, records of transactions, everything — all neatly docketed and locked away in Barras’s desk. It was almost a religion, this docketing and locking away. It had a spiritual quality. It was most exemplary. It rang in harmony with his love of Handel. It had, like Handel, impressive breadth and depth and a kind of impenetrable religiosity, but it had its basis in simple avarice. For, beyond everything, the secret and consuming passion of Barras’s soul was his love of money. Though he masked it cleverly, deceiving even himself, he adored money. He hugged it to him and nourished it, the glowing scene of his wealth, his own substance.

Meanwhile Hilda had finished with Handel. At least she had finished with Water Music . And in the normal way she would have restored her music to the long piano stool and gone straight upstairs. But to-night Hilda seemed determined to propitiate. Staring straight at the keyboard she said:

“Would you like Largo , father?”

It was his favourite piece, the piece which impressed him beyond all others, the piece which made Hilda wish to scream.

She played it slowly and with sonorous rhythm.

There was a silence. Without removing his hand from his forehead he said:

“Thank you, Hilda.”

She got off the stool, stood on the other side of the table. Though her face wore the familiar forbidding look, she was trembling inside. She said:

“Father!”

“Well, Hilda!” His voice appeared reasonable.

She took a long breath. For weeks she had been nerving herself to take that breath. She said:

“I’m nearly twenty, now, father. It’s nearly three years since I came home from school. All that time I’ve been at home doing nothing. I’m tired of doing nothing. I want to do something for a change. I want you to let me go away and do something.”

He uncovered his eyes and measured her curiously. He repeated:

“Do something?”

“Yes, do something,” she said violently. “Let me train for something. Get some position.”

“Some position?” The same remote tone of wonder. “What position?”

“Any position. To be your secretary. To be a nurse. Or let me go in for medicine. I’d like that best of all.”

He studied her again, still pleasantly ironic.

“And what,” he said, “is to happen when you marry?”

“I’ll never get married,” she burst out. “I’d hate to get married. I’m far too ugly ever to get married.”

Coldness crept into his face but his tone did not change. He said:

“You have been reading the papers, Hilda.”

His penetration brought the blood to her sallow face. It was true. She had read the morning paper. The day before there had been a raid by suffragists on Downing Street, during a Cabinet meeting, and violent scenes when some women attempted to rush the House of Commons. It had brought Hilda’s brooding to a head.

“An attempt was made to rush,” he quoted musingly, “to rush… the House of Commons.” He made it sound the last insanity.

She bit her lip fiercely. She said:

“Father, let me go away and study medicine. I want to be a doctor.”

He said:

“No, Hilda.”

“Let me go, father,” she said.

He said:

“No, Hilda.”

“ Let me .” An almost frantic intercession in her voice.

He said nothing.

A silence fell. Her face had gone chalky white now. He contemplated the ceiling with an air of absent interest. For about a minute they remained like this, then, quite undramatically, she turned and went out of the room.

He did not seem to notice that Hilda had gone. Hilda had broken an inviolable convention. He sealed his mind against Hilda.

He sat for about half an hour, then he rose and carefully turned out the gas and went up to his study. He always went to his study after Hilda had played to him on Saturday nights. The study was a spacious and comfortable room, thickly carpeted, with a massive desk, dark red curtains screening the windows, and several photographs of the Colliery hung upon the walls. Barras sat down at his desk, pulled out his ring of keys, selected one with meticulous care and unlocked the top middle drawer. From the top middle drawer he took out three ordinary red-backed account books and with a familiar touch began to examine them. The first was a list of his investments, written carefully in his own neat handwriting. He considered it detachedly, a pleased yet non-committal smile touching his lips. He lifted a pen, without dipping it in the ink and ran the point delicately down the row of figures. Suddenly he paused, reflected seriously, deciding to sell that block of 1st Preference United Collieries. They had touched their peak recently; his confidential information regarding their current profits was of an adverse nature; yes, he would sell. He smiled again faintly, recognising his own shrewd instinct, his money sense. He never made a mistake, and why need he? Every security in this little book was virtually gilt-edged, guaranteed, impregnable. Again he made a rapid calculation. The total pleased him.

Then he turned to the second book. This second book gave the list of his house property in Sleescale and the district. Most of the Terraces belonged to Barras — it was a sore point with him that Ramage, the butcher, had half of Balaclava Row — and in Tynecastle he had several sound blocks of “weeklies.” These tenements, which lay down by the river, and yielded their rents to a weekly collector, were immensely profitable. Richard never regretted these tenements, his own idea, though Bannerman, his lawyer, handled the actual business with a quiet discretion. He made a note to speak to Bannerman on a point of costs.