The Stars Look Down

  “It’s working, lad! By gum, it’s working.”

  FIFTEEN

  Ten days later, early in the forenoon, Joe presented himself at the foundry offices and asked to see Mr. Stanley.

  “Well, Joe, what is it?” Stanley Millington asked, looking up from his desk, set in the centre of the old-fashioned high-windowed room, full of papers, books and blue prints, with maroon walls covered by photographs of employee groups, officials of the firm, outings of the Social Club and big castings dangling precariously from cranes.

  Joe said respectfully:

  “I’ve just worked my week’s notice, Mr. Millington. I didn’t want to go without saying good-bye.”

  Our Mr. Stanley sat up in his chair.

  “Heavens, man, you don’t mean to say you’re leaving us. Why, that’s too bad. You’re one of the bright lights of the shop. And the Social Club too. What’s the trouble? Anything I can put right?”

  Joe shook his head with a kind of manly melancholy.

  “No, Mr. Stanley, sir, it’s just private trouble. Nothing to do with the shop. I like it there fine. It’s… it’s just a matter between my lass and me.”

  “Good God, Joe!” Mr. Stanley burned. “You don’t mean…” Our Mr. Stanley remembered Jenny; our Mr. Stanley had recently married Laura; our Mr. Stanley was straight, so to speak, from the nuptial bed and his mood was dramatically propitious: “You don’t mean to say she’s chucked you.”

  Joe nodded dumbly.

  “I’ll have to get out. I can’t stick the place any longer. I’ll have to get right away.”

  Millington averted his eyes. Bad luck on the man, oh, rotten bad luck. Taking it like a sportsman, too! To give Joe time he tactfully took out his pipe, slowly filled it from the tobacco jar on the desk bearing the St. Bede’s colours, straightened his St. Bede’s tie and said:

  “I’m sorry, Joe.” Chivalry towards woman permitted him to say no more: he could not indict Jenny. But he went on: “I’m doubly sorry to lose you. Joe. As a matter of fact I’ve had you at the back of my mind for some time. I’ve been watching you. I wanted to make an opening for you, give you a lift.”

  Dammit to hell, thought Joe grimly, why didn’t you do it then? Smiling gratefully, he said:

  “That was good of you, Mr. Stanley.”

  “Yes!” Puffing thoughtfully. “I like your style, Joe. You’re the type of man I like to work with—open and decent. Education counts very little these days. It’s the man himself who matters. I wanted to give you your chance.” Long pause. “However, I won’t attempt to dissuade you now. There’s no good offering a man stones when he wants bread. In your circumstance I should probably do exactly the same thing. Go away and try to forget.” He paused again, pipe in hand, realising with a sudden fullness of heart how happy was his position with Laura, how different from poor old Joe’s. “But remember what I’ve said, Joe. I really mean it. If and when you want to come back there’ll be a job waiting on you here. A decent job. You understand, Joe?”

  “Yes, Mr. Stanley,” Joe managed manfully.

  Millington got up, took the pipe from his mouth and held out his hand, encouraging Joe to face his present destiny.

  “Good-bye, Joe. I know we’ll meet again.”

  They shook hands. Joe turned and went out. He hurried down Platt Street, caught a tram, urged it mentally to speed. He hurried along Scottswood Road, entered No. 117A quietly, slipped softly upstairs and packed his bag. He packed everything. When he came to the framed photograph of herself which Jenny had given him he contemplated it for a minute, grinned slightly, detached the photograph and packed the frame. It was a good frame, anyway, a silver frame.

  With the bulging bag in his big fist he came downstairs, plumped the bag in the hall and entered the back room. Ada, as usual, was in the rocker, her untidy curves overflowing while she took what she called her forenoon go-easy.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Sunley.”

  “What!” Ada almost jumped out of the chair.

  “I’m sacked,” Joe announced succinctly. “I’ve lost my job, Jenny’s finished with me, I can’t stand it any longer, I’m off.”

  “But, Joe…” Ada gasped. “You’re not serious?”

  “I’m dead serious.” Joe was not doleful now: this would have been dangerous, invoking protests from Ada that he should remain. He was firm, determined, controlled. He was going, a man who had been outraged, whose mind now was inexorably made up. And as such the impressionable Ada accepted him.

  “I knew it,” she wailed. “I knew it the way Jenny was going on. I told her. I told her you wouldn’t stand it. She’s treated you shocking.”

  “Worse than shocking,” Joe amended grimly.

  “And to think you’ve lost your job on top of it, oh, Joe, I’m sorry. It’s wicked. What on earth are you going to do?”

  “I’ll find a job,” Joe said resolutely. “But it’ll be far enough from Tynecastle.”

  “But, Joe… won’t you…”

  “No!” bawled Joe suddenly. “I won’t. I won’t do anything. I’ve suffered enough. I’ve been done down by my best friend. I’ll stand no more of it.”

  David, of course, was Joe’s trump card. But for David, Joe would never have slipped out of the affair like this. Impossible. In every way impossible. He would have been questioned, pursued, spied on at every turn. Even as he spoke this thought flashed across Joe’s mind; and a great surge of elation at his own cleverness came over him. Yes, he was clever; he was an artist; it was marvellous to be standing here pulling the wool over her eyes, laughing up his sleeve at every one of them.

  “Mind you, I bear no ill feeling, Mrs. Sunley,” he declared finally. “Tell Jenny I forgive her. And say good-bye to the others for me. I can’t face them. I’m too upset.”

  Ada didn’t want to let him go. She, indeed, was the one who seemed upset. But what could she do with this injured man? Joe left the house as he had entered it: in the best tradition and without a stain on his character.

  That evening Jenny returned late. It was Slattery’s Summer Sale and this being Friday, the last full day of that hateful period, the establishment did not close until nearly eight o’clock. Jenny came in at quarter past.

  Ada was alone in the house: with remarkable energy she had arranged it so, sending Clarry and Phyllis “out,” Alf and Sally to the first house of the Empire.

  “I want to speak to you, Jenny.”

  Something unusual vibrated in her mother’s voice, but Jenny was too tired to bother. She was dead tired, indisposed too, which made it worse, she’d had a killing day.

  “That Slattery’s,” she declared wearily, flinging herself on a chair. “I’m sick of it. Ten blessed hours I’ve been on my feet. They’re all hot and swollen. I’ll have varicose veins if I go on much longer. I used to think it was a toney job. What a hope! It’s worse than ever, the class of women we’re getting now is fierce.”

  “Joe,” remarked Mrs. Sunley acidly, “has left.”

  “Left?” Jenny echoed, bewildered.

  “Left this morning! Left for good.”

  Jenny understood. Her pale face went absolutely blanched. She stopped caressing her swollen stockinged feet and sat up. Her grey eyes stared, not at her mother, but at nothing. She looked frightened. Then she recovered herself.

  “Give me my tea, mother,” she said in an odd tone. “Don’t say another word. Just give me my tea and shut up.”

  Ada drew a deep breath and all the pent-up scolding died upon her tongue. She knew something of her Jenny—not everything, but enough to know that Jenny must at this moment be obeyed. She “shut up” and gave Jenny her tea.

  Very slowly Jenny ate her tea, it was really dinner, some cottage pie kept hot in the oven. She still sat very erect, still stared straight in front of her. She was thinking.

  When she had finished she turned to her mother.

  “Now, listen, ma,” she said, “and listen hard. I know you’re all ready to begin on me. I know every word that’s ready to
come off your tongue. I’ve treated Joe rotten and all the rest of it. I know, I tell you. I know it all. So don’t say it. Then you’ll have nothing to regret. See! And now I’m going to bed.”

  She left her dumbfounded mother and walked wearily upstairs. She felt incredibly tired. If only she had a port, a couple of ports to buck her up. Suddenly she felt she would give anything for one cheering glass of port. Upstairs she threw off her things, some on to a chair, some on to the floor, anywhere, anyhow. She got into bed. Thank God Clarry, who shared the room, was not there to bother her.

  In the cool darkness of her room she lay flat upon her back, still thinking… thinking. There was no hysteria this time, no floods of tears, no wild beating at the pillow. She was perfectly calm; but for all her calmness she was frightened.

  She faced the fact that Joe had thrown her over, a frightful blow, a blow almost mortally damaging to her pride, a blow which had struck her psychologically at the worst possible time. She was sick of Slattery’s, sick of the long hours of standing, stretching, snipping, sick of being politely patronising to the common women customers. Only to-day her six years at Slattery’s had risen up to confront her; she had told herself firmly she must get out of it. She was sick of her home, too; sick of the crowded, littered, blowsy place. She wanted a house of her own, her own things; she wanted to meet people, give little tea parties, have proper “society.” But suppose she never had her wish? Suppose it was a case of Slattery’s and Scottswood Road all her life—there lay the vital cause of Jenny’s sudden alarm. In Joe she had lost one opportunity. Would she lose the other?

  She put in a great deal of cold hard thinking before she fell asleep. But she woke next morning feeling refreshed. Saturday was her half-day and when she came home at one o’clock she ate her lunch quickly and hurried upstairs to change. She spent a great deal of time upon her dressing; choosing her smartest frock, a pearl grey with pale pink trimmings, doing her hair in a new style, carefully smoothing her complexion with Vinolia cold cream. The result satisfied her. She went down to the parlour to wait for David.

  She expected him at half-past two, but he came a good ten minutes before his time, thrilling with eagerness to see her. One glance reassured Jenny: he was head over ears in love with her. She let him in herself and he stood stock still in the passage, consuming her with his ardent eyes.

  “Jenny,” he whispered. “You’re too good to be true.”

  As she led the way into the parlour she laughed, pleased: David, she was forced to admit, had a way of saying things far beyond Joe’s capacity. But he had brought her the stupidest little present: not chocolates or candy or even perfume; nothing useful: but a bunch of wallflowers, hardly a bunch even, a small sort of posy which couldn’t have cost more than twopence at one of the market barrows. But never mind, never mind about that now. She smiled:

  “I’m that pleased to see you, David, really I am, and such lovely flowers.”

  “They’re nothing much, but they’re sweet, Jenny, and so are you. Their petals have a kind of mist on them… it’s like the lovely mist on your eyes.”

  She did not know what to say; this style of conversation left her completely at a loss; she supposed it came from all the books he’d read in these last three years—“poems and that like.” Ordinarily she would have bustled away with the wallflowers, making the correct ladylike remark: “I really do love arranging flowers.” But this afternoon she did not wish to bustle away from him. She wanted to keep near him. Still holding the flowers she sat down primly on the couch. He sat beside her, smiling at the stem propriety of their attitudes.

  “We look like we were having our photograph taken.”

  “What?” She gazed at him blankly, making him laugh outright.

  “You know, Jenny,” he said, “I’ve never met anyone more… oh, more completely innocent than you. Like Francesca… Hither all dewy from her cloister fetched… a man called Stephen Phillips wrote that.”

  Her eyes were downcast. Her grey dress, pale soft face and still hands clasping the flowers did give her a queer nunlike quality. She remained very quiet after he had spoken, wondering what on earth he meant. Innocent? Was he—could he be kidding her? No, surely not, he was too far gone on her for that. She said at length:

  “You’re not to make fun of me. I haven’t been feeling too well this day or two.”

  “Oh, Jenny.” His concern was instant. “What’s been wrong?”

  She sighed, began to pick at the stem of one of his flowers.

  “They’ve all been down on me here, all of them… Then there’s been trouble with Joe… he’s gone away.”

  “Joe gone?”

  She nodded.

  “But why? In the name of goodness why?”

  She was silent a moment, then, still plucking pathetically at the flower:

  “He was jealous… He wouldn’t stay because… oh, well, if you must know, because I like you better than him.”

  “But, Jenny,” he protested, confused. “Joe said… do you mean… do you really mean that after all Joe was fond of you?”

  “Don’t let’s talk about it,” she answered with a little shiver. “I won’t talk about it. They’ve been on about it all the time. They blame me because I couldn’t stand Joe…” She lifted her eyes to his suddenly. “I can’t help myself, can I, David?”

  At the subtle implication in her words his heart beat loudly, with a quick and exquisite elation. She preferred him. She had called him David. Gazing into her eyes as on that first evening when they met, he lost himself, knowing only that he loved her, wanting her with all his soul. There was no one in the world but Jenny. There would never be anyone but Jenny. The thought, simply of her name, Jenny, was enchantment: a lark singing, a bud opening, beauty and sweetness, melody and perfume in one. With all the ardour of his young and hungry soul he desired her. He bent towards her, and she did not draw away.

  “Jenny,” he murmured above the beating of his heart. “Do you mean that you like me?”

  “Yes, David.”

  “Jenny,” he whispered. “I knew right from the start it would be like this. You do love me, Jenny?”

  She gave a little nervous nod.

  He took her in his arms. Nothing in all his life transcended the rapture of that kiss. He kissed her lightly, almost reverently. There was a tragic youthfulness, a complete betrayal of his inexperience in the tender awkwardness of that embrace. It was the queerest kiss she had ever known. Some curious quality in the kiss helped a tear tremulously down her cheek, another, and another.

  “Jenny… you’re crying. Don’t you love me? Oh, my dear, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “I do love you, David. I do,” she whispered. “I haven’t got anybody but you. I want you to go on loving me. I want you to take me out of here. I hate it here. I hate it. They’ve been beastly to me. And I’m sick of working in the millinery. I’ll not put up with it another minute. I want to be with you, right away. I want us to be married and happy and, oh, everything, David.”

  The emotion in her voice moved him beyond the edge of ecstasy.

  “I’ll take you away, Jenny. As soon as ever I can. Whenever I take my degree and get a post.”

  She burst into tears.

  “Oh, David, but that’s another whole year. And you’ll be in Durham, at the University, away from me. You’ll forget me. I couldn’t wait as long as that. I’m sick of it here, I tell you. Couldn’t you get a post now?” She wept bitterly; she did not know why.

  It distressed him terribly to see her crying: he saw that she was overwrought and highly strung: but every sob she gave seemed to pierce him like a wound.

  He soothed her, stroking her brow as her head lay upon his shoulder.

  “It’s not so very long, Jenny. And don’t worry, oh, my dear, don’t worry. Why, I daresay I could get a post now if it came to the bit. I’m quite qualified to teach, you see. I’ve got the B.Litt already, you can take that in two years at the Baddeley. It’s not worth anything, nothing like the
B.A., but I daresay if it came to a push I could get a job on the strength of it.”

  “Could you, David?” Her streaming eyes implored him. “Oh, do try, David! How would you set about it?”

  “Well.” Still stroking her brow he humoured her. Only the madness of his love made him go on. “I might write to a man at home who’s got some influence. A man named Barras. He might get me in somewhere in the county. But you see…”

  “I do see, David,” she gulped. “I see exactly what you mean. You must take your B.A. But why not take it afterwards? Oh, think, David, you and me together in a nice little house somewhere. You working in the evenings with all your great big important books on the table and me sitting there beside you. It’s not so very hard to teach during the day. Then you can study, oh, ever so hard at night. Why, David, it would be wonderful. Wonderful!”

  The picture, painted so romantically by Jenny, stirred him to a smiling tenderness. He looked at her protectively.

  “But you see, Jenny, we must be practical…”

  She smiled through her tears.

  “David, David… don’t say another word. I’m so happy, I don’t want you to spoil it.” She jumped up, laughing. “Now, listen! We’ll go for a beautiful walk. Let’s go to Esmond Dene, it’s so lovely there, I do love it so, what with the trees and that beautiful old mill. And we’ll talk it all over, every bit of it. After all it wouldn’t do any harm just to write to this gentleman, Mr. Barras…” She broke off, fascinating him with her lovely eyes, all liquid and melting with her suppressed tears. She kissed him quickly, then ran off to get ready.

  He stood smiling; uplifted, enraptured, perhaps a little perplexed. But nothing mattered beside the fact that Jenny loved him. She loved him. And he loved her. He thrilled with tenderness, an ardent hope for the future. Jenny would wait, of course she would wait… he was only twenty-two… he must take his B.A., she would come to see that later.

  While he remained there, waiting for Jenny, the door flew open and Sally came into the room. She stopped short when she saw him.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” she said, frowning. “I only came to get some music.”