Mr. Joseph Gowlan… 8,852
Mr. David Fenwick… 7,490
A great shout went up and it was Ramage who led it. “Hurrah, hurrah!” Ramage bellowed like a bull, waving his arms, ecstatic with delight. Cheer after cheer split the air. Joe’s supporters were mobbing him on the balcony, overwhelming him with congratulations. David gripped the cold iron rail, striving for control, for strength. Beaten, beaten, beaten! He raised his eyes, saw Ramage bending towards him, lips working with outrageous delight.
“You’re beat, damn you,” gloated Ramage. “You’ve lost. You’ve lost everything.”
“Not everything,” David answered in a low voice.
More cheers, shouts, persistent calls for Joe. He was in the direct centre of the balcony now, against the railing, drinking in the adulation of the dense, excited crowd. He towered above them, a massive, dominant figure, black against the moonlight, unbelievably enlarged and menacing. Below, the pale faces of the people lay before him. They were his — all his, they belonged to him, for his use, to his purpose. The earth was his, and the heavens. A faint hum came distantly — a night flight of his Rusford planes. He was a king, he was divine, power illimitable was his. He was only beginning. He would go on, on. The fools beneath his feet would help him. He would mount to the heights, crack the world with his bare hands, split the sky with his lightning. Peace and War answered to his call. Money belonged to him. Money, money, money… and the slaves of money. Raising both his arms towards the sky in a gesture of supreme hypocrisy he began:
“My dear friends…”
TWENTY-THREE
Five o’clock on this cold September morning. It was not yet light and the wind, pouring out of the sea darkness, rushed across the arches of the sky and polished the stars to a high glitter. Silence lay upon the Terraces.
And then, breaking fitfully though the silence and the darkness, a gleam appeared in Hannah Brace’s window. The gleam lingered and ten minutes later the door opened and old Hannah came out of her house catching her breath as the icy wind took her. She wore a shawl, hobnailed boots and a huddle of petticoats lined with brown paper for warmth. A man’s cap was pulled upon her head hiding her thin straggle of grizzled hair, and bound longwise about her old jaws and ears was a swathe of red flannel. In her hand she carried a long pole. Since old Tom Calder had died of pleurisy, Hannah was now the caller of the Terraces, and glad enough these hard times for “the extra little bit” the work brought in. Waddling slightly because of her rupture, she made her way slowly along Inkerman, a poor old bundle, scarcely human, tapping the windows with her pole, calling the men due on the foreshift of the pit.
But outside No. 23 she spared her knocking. Never any need to call up No. 23, then or now, never, never, thought Hannah with a flicker of approval. Past the illumined window Hannah went, shivering her way along, lifting her pole, knocking and calling, calling and knocking, disappearing into the raw dimness of Sebastopol beneath.
Inside No. 23 Martha moved about the bright kitchen briskly. The fire was already ablaze, her bed in the alcove made, the kettle steaming, sausages sizzling in the pan. Deftly she spread a blue-checked cover on the table and laid a place for one. She wore her seventy years with lightness, even with alacrity. On her face there lay a look of indomitable satisfaction. Ever since she had come back to her own house in Inkerman, her old place, her own home, that deep-set satisfaction had burned in her eyes, easing the sombre furrow on her brow, making her expression strangely gay.
A survey of her arrangements showed everything in order, and a glance towards the clock — that famous marbled pot-stour trophy — indicated half-past five. Moving lightly on her felt slippers she took three brisk steps upwards on the open ladder and called to the room above:
“David! Half-past five, David.”
And listening, one ear tilted, she waited until she heard him stirring overhead — firm footsteps, the sound of water splashing from the ewer, his cough several times repeated.
Ten minutes later David came down, stood for a moment holding his cold hands to the fire, then sat in at the table. He wore pit clothes.
Martha served him his breakfast without delay, the sausages, her home-made bread and a pot of scalding tea. Real tenderness was in her face as she watched him eat.
“I’ve put some cinnamon in the tea,” she remarked. “It’ll cut that cough of yours in no time.”
“Thanks, mother.”
“I mind it used to help your father. He swore by my cinnamon tea.”
“Yes, mother.” He did not immediately glance up, but in a moment, lifting his head suddenly, he caught her unawares. Her expression, quite unguarded, was startling in its devotion. Quickly, almost with embarrassment, he averted his eyes: for the first time in all his recollection he had seen open love for him in her face. To cover his feelings he went on eating, bending over the table, sipping the steaming tea. He knew, of course, the reason of this new demonstrativeness — it was because he was back in the pit at last. Through all those years of study, of schoolmastering, of the Federation, yes, even of Parliament, she had sealed her heart against him. But now that he had been driven to return to the Neptune she saw him truly her son, following the tradition of his father, a reality, a man at last.
It was not an instinct of bravado which had forced him to the pit again but the plain and bitter fact of sheer necessity. He had been obliged to find work, and to find it quickly, and it was amazing how difficult the task had been. There was no room now in the Federation office; the antagonism of Transport House had shut him out there; in his half-qualified state teaching was absolutely closed to him; he had been compelled to turn inbye — standing in the line before Arthur in the underviewer’s office, begging to go underground again. Misfortune had not come to him alone — his shift in this predicament was far from being unique. Labour’s annihilation at the Election had placed many unseated candidates in a desperate position. Ralston was clerking in a Liverpool ship-broker’s office, Bond assisting a photographer in Leeds, and Davis, good old Jack Davis, was playing the piano in a Rhondda cinema. How different from the position of the apostates! He smiled grimly, thinking of Dudgeon, Chalmers, Bebbington and the rest, basking in national popularity, tranquilly subscribing to a policy which cut at the very heart of Labour conviction. Bebbington in particular, featured and photographed in every paper, broadcasting on all stations the week before — a noble speech, resounding with platitudes and pietic jingoism — was hailed as the saviour of the nation.
Abruptly, David scraped back his chair and reached for his muffler which lay on the rails above the range. With his back to the fire he swathed it about his neck, then laced on his heavy boots, stamping them comfortable on the stone floor. Martha had his bait-poke ready, all neatly stowed in greased paper, his can filled with tea and safely corked. She stood polishing a big red apple on her skirt, polishing until it shone. As she put it in his poke with the rest she smiled.
“You were always set on an apple, Davey. I minded when I was in the co-operative yesterday.”
“Ay, mother.” He smiled back at her, both touched and amused by her obvious solicitude. “Only I didn’t get so many in those days.”
A slight reproving shake of her head. Then:
“You’ll not forget to bring Sammy up to-night, like. I’m bakin’ currant cake this mornin’.”
“But, mother,” he protested, “you’ll have Annie after you, if you keep stealing Sammy every meal-time.”
Her gaze wandered from his; there was no rancour in her face, only a vague embarrassment.