Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Hughie smiled: his old diffident smile.

“Sammy’s coming too. He says if I don’t score six he’ll wring my neck!” He balanced on his heels for a minute in his familiar style, then he said: “I’d better not catch cold. I’m not taking any chances now, lad. Good night, Davey.”

“Good night, Hughie.”

Hughie went off, running, disappearing into the darkness of the night.

David returned home, with a sense of warmth about his heart. He let himself into the house. Sally was alone, sitting crouched up in a chair by the fire with her legs tucked in and her lips drawn down. She looked very small and silent. After Hughie’s elation it struck David that she was sad.

“Where’s Jenny?” he asked.

“Gone to bed!”

“Oh!” He paused, disappointed. Right away he had wanted to let Jenny know about Hughie. Then, smiling again, he began to tell Sally.

Crouched there, she studied him, watching him steadily with her face masked by the shadow of her hand.

“Isn’t that grand?” he concluded. “You know, not so much what he’s got… but because he was so set on getting it.”

She sighed. She was silent. Then she said:

“Yes, it’s pretty nice getting what you want.”

He looked at her.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t look like it was nothing. You look upset.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “I’ve been rather stupid. Just before you came in I had a row with Jenny.”

He looked away quickly.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s not the first and I’m afraid it’s been coming for a long, long time. I shouldn’t have told you. I should have been noble and just smiled myself away tomorrow all polite and self-sacrificing.”

“Are you going to-morrow?”

“Yes, I’m going. It’s time I was getting back to Alfred. He doesn’t get his place in the house and he smells of pigeons but I’m rather struck on old Alfred for all that.”

He said:

“I wish I understood what the trouble was.”

She said:

“I’m glad you don’t.”

He stared at her doubtfully.

“I don’t like you going this way. Please don’t go.”

“I must go,” she said. “I didn’t bring a change of lingerie.” She gave a short laugh and then burst straight into tears.

He simply didn’t know what to make of her.

She stopped crying at once. She said:

“Don’t pay any attention. I’ve been slightly unstuck ever since I came to bits on the prima donna act. I don’t want any sympathy. It’s better to be a has been than a never was. I’m quite cheerful and I think I’ll go to bed.”

“But I am sorry, Sally.”

“Shut up,” she said. “It’s high time you stopped being sorry for other people and started being sorry for yourself.”

“What on earth have I got to be sorry about?”

“Nothing.” She got up. “It’s too late to be soulful. I’ll tell you in the morning.” Abruptly, she said good night and went to bed.

Next morning he did not see her. She had risen early and left by the seven o’clock train.

All that day David worried about Sally: when he returned from school he spoke to Jenny.

Jenny gave her little complacent laugh.

“She’s jealous, my dear, absolutely jealous.”

He drew back disgusted.

“Oh no,” he said, “I’m convinced it isn’t that.”

She nodded indulgently.

“She always had her eye on you, even in the Scottswood Road days. She hated to see you spoony on me. And she hates it even worse now!” She paused, smiling up at him. “You still are spoony on me, aren’t you, David?”

He looked at her queerly, with a queer hardness in his eyes. He said:

“Yes, I do love you, Jenny. I know you’re chock full of faults — just as I am myself. Sometimes you say and do things that I loathe. Sometimes I simply can’t stand you. But I can’t help myself. I love you.”

She did not attempt to understand him but took the general drift of his remarks as complimentary.

“Funny bones,” she said archly. And went back to her novel.

He was not accustomed to analyse his feeling for Jenny. He simply accepted it. But two days later, on the following Friday, an incident occurred which disturbed him strangely.

As a rule he did not leave the school until four o’clock. But on this particular day Strother came along at three o’clock to “take his class.” It was Strother’s habit to take a class once a week, on this day and at this hour, to determine the progress of the class and to make forcible and pointed comment in the presence of the master of that class. Lately, however, Strother had been kinder to David since he had been working so strenuously for the B.A.; he said curtly, yet pleasantly enough, that David might go.

David went. He went first of all to Hans Messuer’s for a hair cut. While Hans, a fat meek smiling man with a moustache turned up like the Kaiser’s, was cutting his hair David talked to Swee who had just come out the Neptune and was shaving himself in the back shop. He had a cheerful and unedifying conversation with Swee. Swee was always cheerful and could be very unedifying. He could shave and talk and be cheerful and unedifying all at the same time without cutting himself. The talk with Swee did David good but it took only half an hour. He reached home at half-past three instead of quarter-past four. Then as he came up the lane behind the Dunes he met Joe Gowlan coming out of his house.

David stopped. He stopped absolutely dead. He had not seen Joe since he loaned him the money; it gave him the most singular sensation to see Joe walking out the house as though actually it were Joe’s house. He felt the sensation like an acute embarrassment especially as Joe seemed acutely embarrassed too.

“I thought I’d left my stick the other night,” Joe explained, looking everywhere but at David.

“You didn’t have a stick, Joe.”

Joe laughed, glancing up and down the lane. Perhaps he thought the stick might be there.

“I did have a stick… a cane… I always carry it, but I’m blowed if I haven’t lost it somewhere.”

Just that; then Joe nodding, smiling, hurrying; hurrying to get away.

David went up the path and into his house thoughtfully.

“Jenny,” he said, “what did Joe want here?”

“Joe!” She darted a look at him; got very red in the face.

“I’ve just met him… coming out of this house.”

She stood in the middle of the floor in that lost, taken aback way, then her temper flared.

“I can’t help it if you did meet him. I’m not his keeper. He only looked in for a minute. What are you staring at me like that for?”

“Nothing,” he said, turning away. Why had Jenny said nothing about the stick?

“Nothing what ?” she insisted violently.

He looked out of the window. Why had Joe called at an hour when he was likely to be at the school? Why on earth? Suddenly an explanation struck him; the unusual time of Joe’s call, Joe’s nervousness, his hurry to get away, everything. Joe had borrowed three pounds from him, and Joe was still unable to pay it back!

His face lightened, he swung round to Jenny.

“Joe did call for his stick… didn’t he?”

“ Yes ,” she cried, quite hysterically, and came right into his arms. “Of course he did. What in the world did you think he came for?”

He soothed her, patting her lovely soft hair.

“I’m sorry, Jenny, darling. It did give me the oddest feeling, though, to see him walking out of my house as if he owned it.”

“Oh, David,” she wept, “how can you say such things?”

What had he said? He smiled, his lips touched her white slender neck. She pleaded: