Archibald Cronin - The Stars Look Down

Then she began to take up her music again. She sat at the piano through the day practising and trying out her voice and she learned two lullabies. She wanted to be more accomplished. At this stage her attitude expressed a secret remorse: she was not good enough for David, she should have been better in every way, more talented, more intellectual. She wanted to be able to talk to David, to have discussions, real discussions upon the subjects which interested him, all about things that mattered, social and economic and political problems. With this in mind she dipped into his books once or twice to elevate her intellectual plane and bring grist to the mills of philosophical discussion. But the books were not very encouraging and in the end she was obliged to give them up.

Still, if she could not be clever she could be good. Ah, yes, she could be good. She purchased a little volume entitled Sunny Half-hours in the Happy Home and she read it devotedly. She read it like a child learning a lesson, her lips moving slightly over the words, the book resting in her lap on top of the crochet work. After one particularly sunny half-hour she fastened her swimming eyes on David and exclaimed emotionally:

“I’m just a silly little thing, David. But I’m not bad really. It says here we all make mistakes but we can lift ourselves up again. I’m not bad, am I, David, I’m not really bad?”

He assured her patiently that she was not bad.

She looked at him for a moment, then said with a sudden gush:

“Oh, David, you’re the best man that ever was. Really you are, David, the best in all the world.”

Never before had Jenny seemed to him so much a child. She was a child. It was simply ridiculous that she should be having a baby. He was gentle with her. Often at nights when they lay in bed together and she would start, troubled and frightened in her sleep, and cling to him, he could feel her swollen body and the infant moving within her. Tenderness came over him and he soothed her through these midnight whimperings.

He had asked Jenny if she would like Martha, his own mother, to look after the house and nurse her while she was lying-in and Jenny, with her new submissiveness, had agreed. But when Martha came down to make arrangements that one interview proved the reconciliation to be impossible. Martha met David on his way home. Her colour was high. “I can’t do it,” she declared in a contained voice. “It’s no use at all. The less I have to do with her the better. I cannot stand her and she cannot stand me. So that must just be the end of it.” She walked off before he could reply.

So it was arranged for Ada Sunley to come through from Tynecastle. Ada arrived on the 2nd of December, a wet and windy day, stepping heavily out of the train with a small yellow suit-case made secure with cord. David met her at the station, carried the suit-case to Lamb Lane. Ada’s mood was very offhand, she did not seem particularly pleased to come, at least she did not seem pleased with David. She was reserved and rather cold towards him and inclined to be cross at the household’s limitations; she was not an hour in the house before she sent him out to buy a bedpan. Her preparations, her fussings and bustlings were tremendous. Shorn of the comfort of her own slatternly back room, prised from the indolent ease of her favourite rocker, she assumed an unnatural activity, the terrible waddling activity of the fat woman. She was assiduous towards Jenny, assiduous and pitying. “Come away, my poor lamb,” she seemed to say. “At least you have your mother beside you.”

Ada’s tongue was particularly active. She gave Jenny all the news. Sally had finished up unexpectedly on her winter pantomime tour, the show had suddenly come to grief, it wasn’t any good, and Sally was out of work again and looking for an engagement. Sally never seemed to be doing anything else but looking for an engagement, Ada added ruefully. There was some talk of concerts being organised for the wounded soldiers and Sally might be asked to take part in those, but it would be voluntary work without a penny piece of pay. Ada deplored equally Sally’s inability to earn a decent settled wage and the stupid ambition which drove her to continue with the whole hopeless business of the stage. She wished to heaven that Sally had never chucked the Telephone Exchange.

By a gradual process of approach Ada arrived at the topic of Joe. They were in the kitchen together, Jenny and Ada, on the day following Ada’s arrival and Ada was making Jenny a cup of tea. With a very casual air Ada remarked:

“By the bye, you didn’t know that Joe had been to see us?”

Jenny, who was reclining upon the sofa, stiffened suddenly and her pale languorous face sealed up like an oyster. There was a silence, then she said in a frozen voice:

“I don’t know anything about Joe Gowlan and I don’t care either. I despise him.”

Ada carefully adjusted the cosy on the tea-pot.

“He did come though, Jenny, dropped in as nice as you please, and dropped in once or twice since, he has. You needn’t run him down because you missed him, Jenny. That was your mistake, my lady. He’s a nice fellow, if it’s the last word I say. He’s going to get Phyllis and Clarry into the munitions when it goes up at Wirtley. He’s back again at Millington’s and doing wonderful.”

“I tell you I don’t want to hear about Joe Gowlan,” Jenny exclaimed in a tense voice. “If you want to know, I loathe and detest the very sound of his name.”

But Ada, seating herself at the table and placing her plump hands on the cosy as though to warm them, went on, maddeningly:

“You can’t think how wonderful he’s got on. He’s the head of the department, works clean and everything, dresses a perfect treat. Why, Jenny, the last time he come in he told us he was going up to supper at the Millingtons’ house. Up to their house on Hilltop, Jenny, can you beat that? I’m telling you, my lady, you made a big mistake when you let Joe slip through your fingers. He’s the man I’d have liked to see my son-in-law.”

Jenny’s face was very white, she clenched her fists tight, her voice turned shrill.

“I won’t have you speak that way, mother. I won’t have you mention Joe in the same breath as David. Joe’s an absolute rotter and David’s the best man that ever lived.”

She stared at Ada challengingly. But this time Jenny could not dominate her mother. Her condition made her weak physically; and spiritually she was in a state of curious compromise. Ada had an excellent chance to make Jenny “lie down to her for once” and Ada took that chance.

“Huh!” she declared with a toss of her head. “What a way to talk. You would never think you had played about with him to hear you.”

Jenny’s eyes fell. She shivered slightly and was silent.

At that moment the door opened and David entered. He had just returned from the Harbour Board offices where he had been given temporary clerical work. Ada turned towards him with a little condescending smile. But before she could speak Jenny, upon the sofa, gave a dolorous cry and clapped her hand to her side.

“Oh dear,” she whispered. “I’ve got a pain.”

Ada hesitated, contemplating her daughter between resentment and doubt.

“You can’t,” she said at last. “It’s a week before your time.”

“Oh yes, I can,” Jenny answered in a breathless voice. “I know I can, See, here it is again.”

“Well I never,” Ada declared. “I believe it is.” Sympathy rushed over her. “My poor lamb!” She knelt down and put her hand on Jenny’s stomach. “Yes indeed it is, well, well, did you ever?” And then to David as though the whole situation were completely altered, and he, in some mysterious manner, to blame: “Go on. Fetch the doctor. Don’t stand there looking at her.”