His moodiness became quite obvious at last and Alan, always ready to oblige, leaned across to Hetty.
“Care to take the old war-horse for a walk, Hetty?”
Hetty smiled with more than her usual vivacity. Alan was a bad dancer, a heavy dancer, he did not like dancing, and it was not the least pleasure for Hetty to dance with him. But Hetty pretended that she was pleased; she got up, and she and Alan danced together.
While they were dancing Barras said:
“She is a nice little thing, Hetty. So modest and yet so full of spirits.” He spoke pleasantly, more restfully; since his dinner and the champagne he seemed more quiescent.
Arthur did not answer; out of the corner of his eye he watched Hetty and Alan dancing and he tried hard to overcome his incomprehensible mood.
When Hetty and Alan came back, he did, for politeness’ sake, ask her to dance. He asked her stiffly, still chilled and hurt inside. It was wonderful dancing with Hetty, she was soft in his arms and the perfume that was herself seemed to flow into him with every movement of her body, yet because it was so wonderful he swore perversely he would dance this one dance and no more.
Afterwards Hetty sat beating time to the music with her neat slippered foot, until at last she could bear it no longer. With that fetching expression of vivacious distress:
“Is nobody going to dance tonight?”
Arthur said quickly:
“I’m tired.”
There was a silence. Suddenly Barras said:
“If I were any use to you, Hetty, I’m at your disposal. But I’m afraid I don’t know any of these new steps.”
She stared at him doubtfully, rather taken aback.
“But it’s quite easy,” she said. “You simply walk.”
He had the new smile, the vague, rather pleased, smile upon his face.
“Well, if you are not afraid, by all means let us try.” He rose and offered her his arm.
Arthur sat perfectly rigid. With a set face he stared at the figures of his father and Hetty moving slowly in each other’s arms at the end of the room. His father had always treated Hetty with a patronising aloofness and Hetty had always been timid and deferential to his father. And now they were dancing together. He distinctly saw Hetty smile, her uplifted flirtatious smile, the smile of a woman who is flattered by the attention she is receiving.
Then he heard Alan speak to him, asking him to go out, and mechanically he rose and went out with Alan. Now Alan was certainly not sober. He glowed. In the lavatory he faced Arthur, wavering slightly on his feet.
“Your old man’s loosened up a treat to-night, Arthur; I wouldn’t have believed it; given the old war-horse a marvellous send off.”
He turned on both taps so that they ran at full strength into the basin, then he swung round to Arthur again. He said with great confidence:
“Y’know, Arthur, my old man was pretty sick at your old man for not asking him over to back him up at the Inquiry. Never said much, but I know, the old war-horse knows, Arthur.”
Arthur stared at Alan uneasily.
“No need to worry, you know, Arthur.” Alan waved a hand with wise and friendly confidence. “Not the slightest need to worry, Arthur. All between friends you know, all between the best of old friends.”
Arthur continued to stare at Alan. He was speechless. A great confusion of doubt and uncertainty and fear rushed over him.
“What are you trying to say?” he asked at length.
Suddenly the lavatory basin overflowed and all the water came gushing over the floor, flowing, flowing over the floor.
Arthur’s eyes turned to the flooding water dazedly. The water in the Neptune pit had flooded like that, flooded through those tortuous and secret channels of the mine, drowning the men in horror and darkness.
His whole body was shaken by a spasm. He thought passionately: I mean to discover the truth. If it kills me I will discover the truth.
THREE
In the car on the way home Arthur waited until they were clear of the traffic of Tynecastle, then as they hummed along the straight stretch of silent road between Kenton and Sleescale he said quickly:
“There’s something I want to ask you, father.”
Barras was silent for a moment; he sat in his corner supported by the soft upholstery, his features masked by the interior dimness of the car.
“Well,” he said, unwillingly. “What is it you want?”
Barras’s tone was completely discouraging but Arthur was beyond discouragement now.
“It’s about the disaster.”
Barras made a movement of displeasure, almost of repugnance. Arthur felt rather than saw the gesture. There was a silence, then he heard his father say:
“Why must you keep on with that subject? It’s extremely distasteful to me. I’ve had a pleasant evening. I enjoyed dancing with Hetty, I’d no idea I should master these steps so well. I don’t want to be bothered with something which is completely settled and forgotten.”
Arthur answered in a burning voice.
“I haven’t forgotten it, father. I can’t forget it.”
Barras sat quite still for a moment.
“Arthur, I wish to God you would give this over.” He spoke with a certain restraint as though forcing this restraint upon a rising impatience; the result was the injection of a gloomy kindness into his words. “Don’t think I haven’t seen it coming. I have. Now listen to me and try to be reasonable. You’re on my side of the affair, aren’t you? My interests are your interests. You’re nearly twenty-two now. You’ll be my partner in the Neptune very shortly. Whenever this war is over I intend to see to it. When every living soul has forgotten about the disaster don’t you think it’s madness for you to keep harping on it?”
Arthur felt sick. In reminding him of his interest in the Neptune it was as if his father had offered him a bribe. His voice trembled.
“I don’t look on it as madness. I want to know the truth.”
Barras lost his self-control.
“The truth,” he exclaimed. “Haven’t we had an Inquiry? Eleven days of it, with everything investigated and settled. You know I was exonerated. There’s the truth for you. What more do you want?”
“The Inquiry was an official inquiry. It’s very easy to suppress facts at that kind of Inquiry.”
“What facts?” Barras burst out. “Have you gone out of your mind?”
Arthur stared straight in front of him through the glass partition at the stiff outlines of Bartley’s back.
“Didn’t you know all the time that you were taking a risk, father?”
“We’ve got to take risks,” Barras answered angrily. “Every one of us. In mining it’s a case of risks and risks and more risks, day in and day out. You can’t get away from them.”
But Arthur was not to be turned aside.
“Didn’t Adam Todd warn you before you started stripping coal from the Dyke?” he asked stonily. “You remember that day you went to see him. Didn’t he tell you there was a danger? And yet you went on in spite of him.”
“You’re talking nonsense,” Barras almost shouted. “It’s my place to make the decisions. The Neptune is my pit and I’ve got to run it my own way. Nobody has the right to interfere. I run it the best way I can.”
“The best way for whom?”
Barras struggled violently for self-control.
“Do you think the Neptune is a Benevolent Institute? I want to show a profit, don’t I?”
“That’s it, father,” Arthur said tonelessly. “You wanted to make a profit, an enormous profit. If you had pumped the water out of the Old Neptune workings before you started to strip that coal there would have been no danger. But the expense of dewatering the old workings would have swallowed up your profit. The expense, the thought of spending all that money in pumping out waste water was too much for you. So you decided to take the chance, the risk, to ignore the waste water and send all these men into danger.”