Dr Stirling drove the car very slowly back to Bursley. We glided gently
down into the populous valleys. All the stunted trees were coated with
rime, which made the sharpest contrast with their black branches and the
black mud under us. The high chimneys sent forth their black smoke
calmly and tirelessly into the fresh blue sky. Sunday had descended on
the vast landscape like a physical influence. We saw a snake of children
winding out of a dark brown Sunday school into a dark brown chapel. And
up from the valleys came all the bells of all the temples of all the
different gods of the Five Towns, chiming, clanging, ringing, each
insisting that it alone invited to the altar of the one God. And priests
and acolytes of the various cults hurried occasionally along, in silk
hats and bright neckties, and smooth coats with folded handkerchiefs
sticking out of the pockets, busy, happy and self-important, the
convinced heralds of eternal salvation: no doubt nor hesitation as to
any fundamental truth had ever entered their minds. We passed through a
long, straight street of new red houses with blue slate roofs, all gated
and gardened. Here and there a girl with her hair in pins and a rough
brown apron over a gaudy frock was stoning a front step. And half-way
down the street a man in a scarlet jersey, supported by two women in
blue bonnets, was beating a drum and crying aloud: "My friends, you may
die to-night. Where, I ask you, where--?" But he had no friends; not
even a boy heeded him. The drum continued to bang in our rear.
I enjoyed all this. All this seemed to me to be fine, seemed to throw
off the true, fine, romantic savour of life. I would have altered
nothing in it. Mean, harsh, ugly, squalid, crude, barbaric--yes, but
what an intoxicating sense in it of the organized vitality of a vast
community unconscious of itself! I would have altered nothing even in
the events of the night. I thought of the rooms at the top of the
staircase of the Foaming Quart--mysterious rooms which I had not seen
and never should see, recondite rooms from which a soul had slipped away
and into which two had come, scenes of anguish and of frustrated effort!
Historical rooms, surely! And yet not a house in the hundreds of houses
past which we slid but possessed rooms ennobled and made august by
happenings exactly as impressive in their tremendous inexplicableness.
The natural humanity of Jos Myatt and Charlie, their fashion of
comporting themselves in a sudden stress, pleased me. How else should
they have behaved? I could understand Charlie's prophetic dirge over the
ruin of the Knype Football Club. It was not that he did not feel the
tragedy in the house. He had felt it, and because he had felt it he had
uttered at random, foolishly, the first clear thought that ran into his
head.
Stirling was quiet. He appeared to be absorbed in steering, and looked
straight in front, yawning now and again. He was much more fatigued than
I was. Indeed, I had slept pretty well. He said, as we swerved into
Trafalgar Road and overtook the aristocracy on its way to chapel and
church:
"Well, ye let yeself in for a night, young man! No mistake!"
He smiled, and I smiled.
"What's going to occur up there?" I asked, indicating Toft End.
"What do you mean?"
"A man like that--left with two babies!"
"Oh!" he said. "They'll manage that all right. His sister's a widow.
She'll go and live with him. She's as fond of those infants already as
if they were her own."
We drew up at his double gates.
"Be sure ye explain to Brindley," he said, as I left him, "that it isn't
my fault ye've had a night out of bed. It was your own doing. I'm going
to get a bit of sleep now. See you this evening, Bob's asked me to
supper."
A servant was sweeping Bob Brindley's porch and the front door was open.
I went in. The sound of the piano guided me to the drawing-room.
Brindley, the morning cigarette between his lips, was playing one of
Maurice Ravel's "L'heure espagnole." He held his head back so as to keep
the smoke out of his eyes. His children in their blue jerseys were
building bricks on the carpet.
Without ceasing to play he addressed me calmly:
"You're a nice chap! Where the devil have you been?"
And one of the little boys, glancing up, said, with roguish, imitative
innocence, in his high, shrill voice:
"Where the del you been?"