Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

“So ye want to disobey me to my face now… like ye’ve done behind my back.”

“Oh, hang it, mother, I don’t want to disobey you. It’s just…” Angrily he lugged the paper bag out of his pocket.

She received it coldly and as coldly opened it, exposing the three jammy hunks of stale bread he had prepared himself. Her face did not change, she expressed no disdain, she simply laid the bag aside. She said:

“It’ll go in my bread pudding.” And in return she handed him her own solid package, not commending it, remarking simply: “There’s more than enough for the two of you there.”

There was injustice in her attitude but there was justice too. And it was the justice which struck him like a blow. He said hotly:

“Mother, I do wish you’d give Jenny a chance. You’ve always had a down on her. It’s not fair. You don’t try to get things straight between you. You haven’t been to see her half a dozen times in these last three months.”

“Does she want me to come and see her, David?”

“You don’t give her a chance to want you, mother. You ought to be nicer to her. She’s lonely in this place. You ought to cheer her up.”

Grimmer than ever, Martha sneered:

“So she needs to be cheered up, then?” She paused. Cold anger filled her, stifled her. She showed nothing outwardly but from the depth of her anger she fell unconsciously into the broad dialect of her youth. “An’ she’s lonely, is she? What cause hev she to be lonely wi’ her mon and her house te tend te. Aw’m not lonely. Aw niver hev time to be lonely. But she’s aalways gaddin’ aboot the place, meykin’ up te foaks above hersel’. She’ll niver meyk friends that wey, not the reet kind ov friends. An’ if aw were ye aw’d tell her not te order so mony bottles ov port at Murchison’s.”

“Mother!” David jumped up, red flaming into his pale face. “How dare you say a thing like that…”

As they faced each other, he burning… she pale, cold… Robert came in through the open door. He took in the situation at a glance.

“Well,” he said mildly. “I’m all ready, Davey. Come on the now, ye’ll be seein’ your mother when ye come back.”

A long sigh came from the very bottom of David’s breast. He lowered his eyes to cover up the hurt in them.

“All right, dad.”

They went out together.

On the way down Cowpen Street Robert talked more than usual. He made quite a bit of conversation about the fishing; he had got some beautiful grubs out on the bone-works on the Spit, he said, and a few nice brandlings from Middlerig. The wind was in the right quarter too, they ought to do well. And he had arranged for them to get a lift in Teasdale’s van. The ordinary van man was ill and Dan Teasdale, off duty from the pit, was doing the Saturday delivery to help his father out. He would take them as far as Avory’s Farm… a couple of miles from Morpeth. Decent of him it was… a decent chap Dan Teasdale.

David listened, tried to listen, but he saw through Robert’s flow of conversation. He stood a little apart outside Teas dale’s shop while Dan and Robert talked. What hurt was not that his mother should have said these things; it was the tiny germ of truth behind her words which rankled and gnawed at him and would not let him alone.

When the van was ready Dan Teasdale clambered up. Robert followed, putting his foot first upon the brass hub, getting up slowly, with an effort, then David — there was not much room. They drove off.

Immediately they had cleared the outskirts of the town Dan began to talk in his friendly style: he would take them straight to Avory’s, he said, do his deliveries on the way back. He wished he was going with them, he went on cheerily; he was fond of the fishing, but never got much chance. Altogether he was fond of the country, and loved the country life; really he had always wanted to be a farmer, to use his limbs in the open air, not down the mucky old pit. But you know how things went… here Dan laughed, rather ashamed of having revealed himself.

They drove on, striking away from the flat drab land with its grim pit chimneys and head stocks, into a countryside that was like a new world clothed with new green leaves and new green grass. It was as if God had just made that bit of world and dropped it down the night before and men had not yet found and dirtied it. There were the most beautiful fields of yellow dandelions, thousands of dandelions, and without a doubt they did look fine.

Even David cheered up under the influence of these fields and fields of lovely dandelions. He roused himself:

“Fine!” he said to Dan.

Dan nodded and said:

“Fine. They make the milk good.” Silence for a minute, then Dan looked furtively at David. Then he said: “How do you like it, going to the Law?”

David said:

“Not so bad, Dan. Not so bad.”

For no earthly reason that David could determine a sort of shame imposed itself on Dan’s fresh-coloured face. He gave a short laugh, fixing his candid blue eyes on David.

“You know them all, eh? You’re bound to know them all by now. You’ve met Grace, haven’t you?”

When Dan came to Grace’s name something like reverence fell on him; he swallowed as though he were taking a sacrament. David did not notice. He shook his head.

“I haven’t seen Grace. She’s away at present, isn’t she? In Harrogate?”

“Yes,” Dan agreed, contemplating the jogging ears of the horse. “She’s in Harrogate.”

Pause; heavy pause; then Dan Teasdale sighed:

“She’s an awful nice girl is Grace!”

He sighed again, an honest sigh and quite a heavy one too, a sigh which epitomised the longing, the impossible longing which had lain hidden in his heart for nearly eight years.

By this time they were approaching Avory’s Farm, and at the head of the road Dan stopped the van. Robert and David got down. They thanked Dan again, set off across the fields to the Wansbeck.

They reached the stream: there was plenty of water and a good colour. Not looking at his son, Robert said:

“I’ll go beyond the bridge, Davey; you start here… this is the best place. Fish up to me and we’ll have our snap when we meet.” He nodded and strode off along the bank.

David put up his rod, slowly; not caring much, he threaded the line; then he chose his flies: greenwell, march brown and blue spider. As he tried the cast a faint thrill went through him: it was like old times again. Rod in hand, he came over to the water edge, balanced on a hot dry boulder. A trout rose almost silently in mid stream. That faint sucking plop went straight to the marrow of David’s bones. It affected him like the sound of a cork leaving a bottle might affect a toper who has not seen wine for years. He began to fish.

He fished up stream, covering all the water he could, the likely places. The sun came out from behind the clouds, steeped him in a warm brightness. The sound of running water sank into his ears, the soft eternal sound of running water.

He caught five fish, the biggest a pound at least, but when he rejoined his father by the bridge, he found that Robert had beaten him. A dozen trout lay in a row upon the grass and Robert lay on his elbow smoking, beside them. He had given over an hour ago when he had made his dozen.

It was three o’clock, and David was hungry. They ate their snap together: cold bacon sandwiches, hard-boiled eggs, a thick cut of veal pie and one of Martha’s raspberry jam sponges; there was even a bottle of milk which Robert had put to cool in a shallow channel of the stream.

Robert, unlike most people with chronic phthisis, had, as a rule, a poor appetite and to-day, although the food was tempting, he took very little. He was soon back at his pipe.