“Take care of Laura, Joe.”
“You bet, Mr. Stanley.”
“Don’t forget to write.”
“No fear!”
There came a pause; the train did not move. The pause lengthened awkwardly.
“It looks like more rain,” Stanley said, filling in the gap. Another hollow pause. The train started forward. Stanley shouted:
“Well, we’re off! Good-bye, Laura. Good-bye, old man.”
The train shuddered and stopped. Stanley frowned, looking up the line.
“Must be taking in water. We’ll be a few minutes yet.”
Immediately the train started again, pulled away smoothly and began to gather speed.
“Well! Good-bye, good-bye.”
This time Stanley was away. Joe and Laura stood on the platform until the last carriage was out of sight, Joe waving heartily, Laura not waving at all. She was paler than usual and there was a suspicious moisture in her eyes. Joe saw this. They turned to the car in silence.
When they came out from the cover of the station and reached the car it was raining again. Laura went towards the back seat but, with an air of solicitude, Joe put out his hand:
“You’ll get all the rain in there, Mrs. Millington. It’s coming on heavy.”
She hesitated, then without speaking she got into the front seat. He nodded, as though she had done a most reasonable and sensible thing, then climbed in and took the wheel.
He drove slowly, partly because of the rain blurring the windscreen, but chiefly because he wanted to prolong the journey. Though his attitude was respectful, openly deferential, he was bursting with the knowledge of his position: Stanley tearing off to God knows where, every minute getting farther and farther away, Laura in the car with him, here, now. Cautiously, he glanced at her. She sat at the extreme end of the seat, staring straight in front of her; he could feel that every fibre of her was resentful, defensively alert. He thought how careful he must be, no gentle pressure of his knee against hers, a different technique, weeks perhaps or months of strategy, he must be slow, cautious as hell. He had the queer feeling that she almost hated him.
Suddenly he said, in a voice of mild regret:
“I don’t think you like me very much, Mrs. Millington.”
Silence; he kept his eyes on the road.
“I haven’t thought about it a great deal,” she answered rather scornfully.
“Oh, I know.” A deprecating laugh. “I didn’t mean anything. I only thought, you’d helped me at the start a bit, at the works you know, and lately you’d… oh, I don’t know…”
“Would you mind driving a little faster,” she said. “I’ve got to be at the canteen by six.”
“Why, certainly, Mrs. Millington.” He pressed his foot down on the accelerator, increasing the car’s speed, causing the rain to shoot round the windscreen. “I was only hoping you’d let me do anything for you I can. Mr. Stanley’s gone. A great chap Stanley.” He sighed. “He’s certainly given me my chance. I’d do anything for him, anything.”
As he spoke the rain began to fall in torrents. They were on the open moor now, and the wind was high. The car, sheltered only by its thin hood, quite unprotected by side screens, caught the full force of the driving rain.
“I say,” Joe cried, “you’re getting drenched.”
Laura turned up the collar of her costume.
“I’m all right.”
“But you’re not. Look, you’re getting soaked, absolutely soaked. We’ll stop a minute. We must take shelter. It’s a perfect cloudburst.”
It actually was a deluge and Laura, without her mackintosh, began to get extremely wet. It was obvious that in a few minutes she must be drenched to her skin. Still, she did not speak. Joe, however, sighting the old church upon their left, suddenly swerved the car towards it and drew up with a jerk.
“Quick,” he urged. “In here. This is awful, simply awful.” He took her arm, impelling her from the car by the very unexpectedness of his action, running with her up the short path into the dripping portico of the old church. The door was open. “In here,” Joe cried. “If you don’t you’ll catch your death of cold. This is awful, awful.” They went in.
It was a small place, warm after the biting wind and rather dark, impregnated with a faint scent of candle grease and incense. The altar was dimly visible and upon it a large brass crucifix and, remaining from the previous Sunday’s service, two globular brass vases holding white flowers. The atmosphere was quiet and still, belonging to another world, different. The drumming of the rain upon the leaded roof intensified the warm silence.
Gazing about him curiously, Joe walked up the aisle, subconsciously noting the heavy carved pews to which Stanley had referred.
“Damn funny old place, but it’s dry anyway.” Then, his voice solicitous, “We won’t have to wait long till it goes off. I’ll get you back in time for the canteen.”
He turned and saw, suddenly, that she was shivering, standing against one of the benches with her hands pressed together.
“Oh dear,” he said in that beautiful tone of self-reproach. “I’ve let you in for it. Your jacket’s soaking. Let me help you off with it.”
“No,” she said, “I’m all right.” She kept her eyes averted, biting her lip fiercely. He sensed vaguely some struggle within her, deep, unknown.
“But you must, Mrs. Millington,” he said with that same regretful, reassuring kindness, and he put his hand on the lapel of her jacket.
“No, no,” she stammered. “I’m all right, I tell you. I don’t like it here. We ought never to have come. The rain…” She broke off, struggled quickly out of the jacket herself. She was breathing quickly, he saw the rise and fall of her breasts under the white silk blouse which, dampened in places, adhered to her skin. Her composure seemed gone, torn from her by the dim secrecy of the place, the drumming rain, the silence. Her eyes fluttered about in frightened glances. He stared at her dumbly, uncomprehendingly. She shivered again. Then all at once he understood. A suffocating heat flushed over him. He took a step forward.
“Laura,” he gasped. “Laura.”
“No, no,” she panted. “I want to go, I want…” As she spoke his arms went round her. They clasped each other wildly, their lips seeking each other’s. She gave a moan. Even before her mouth opened to his he knew that she was mad about him, had been fighting it all these months. A wild intoxication mounted in him. Linked together they moved to the foremost pew, cushioned and wide as any bed. Their hands moved together, her lips were moist with desire. The rain drummed upon the roof and the darkness of the church reddened and enclosed them. When it came, her cry of physical exaltation rose before the altar. The figure on the cross looked down on them.
ELEVEN
When the Derby Scheme came into force the situation between Arthur and his father had become intolerable, it was a state of unconcealed hostility. Arthur’s name was on the National Register, yet although he received his papers under the new Scheme he did not attest. His failure to attest produced no immediate comment. At the Law, by coming in late for all his meals, he avoided Barras as far as he was able, while at the Neptune he spent most of his time underground, arriving early and getting inbye with Hudspeth before Barras reached the pit. But in spite of his precautions it was impossible to escape the inevitable encounters, full of animosity and strain and conflict. When he entered the office, dirty and tired at the end of the day, Barras pretended to ignore him in great flurry of business, conveying to Arthur the unmistakable sense of how little he was needed at the pit. And then, lifting his head from a mass of papers, Barras would appear suddenly to discover Arthur and frown as though to say: “Oh, you’re there, still there?” And when Arthur turned away in silence Barras would follow him with his eyes, fuming, drumming his fingers rapidly upon the desk, wearing that flushed look of injury and high displeasure.