The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

‘I thought so,’ said the sister. ‘We ought to keep him in here for your sake. But there’s always a rush on surgical beds at Christmas time. You’d better call your stepson.’

The Seventh Chapter

Abner was genuinely relieved when Alice told him the good report that the sister had given her on his father’s condition, for it promised him a speedy release from the discomfort of the situation. Alice, who had accustomed herself to examine every shade of expression that he showed, knew that he was rejoicing at the prospect of leaving her. The thought piqued her, for she had forced herself always to behave toward him exactly as if there had never been a moment of embarrassment between them. Her pride would not let the matter rest.

‘You’m glad he’s coming back,’ she said. ‘I know you be.’

‘I’m glad his leg’s joined, if that’s what you mean,’ he replied. ‘That’s only human-like. Besides, it’s best for everybody.’

‘And what about me?’ she asked, passionately.

He would not answer, and she flowed on with a stream of reproaches, telling him that she knew he hated her and couldn’t bear the sight of her, in the hope that he would be driven to say that he did nothing of the sort. Abner remained passive. He knew very well that if he were to lose his temper with her the situation might easily become just as dangerous as if he were tender. The main thing to be avoided with her was emotion of any kind. Life had been made difficult enough for him already simply because he knew that their relation was capable of passionate developments. He knew what passion was, and in spite of himself he could not always banish the thought of Alice from his mind. Admitting this, he had mapped out a course of conduct for himself, and he meant to stick to it until the happy day of his relief.

It was not a fortnight but a month before John Fellows left the hospital. He came back, as the sister had anticipated, with a Thomas’s splint on his thigh and instructions to attend the infirmary as an out-patient in another month’s time. The splint was an embarrassment that he resented, for it compelled him to sit in an uncomfortable position with the right leg extended, but it did not prevent him walking or drinking, and as soon as he had mastered the first of these processes he lost no time in making up for his long abstinence from the second. The rules of the friendly society to which he belonged forbade its members to visit public-houses as long as they were receiving sick pay, so that the invalid was forced to enter the Lyttleton Arms by a back door which he reached by crossing the garden of a friend, and having once solved this problem Fellows managed to put in the day without any difficulty.

Every Friday morning he hobbled down on his crutches to the doctor’s surgery and obtained a certificate by means of which he drew his weekly pay. It was only twelve shillings a week, and he never parted with a penny of it to Alice, so that the household now depended entirely on Abner’s earnings. It puzzled both of them to imagine how he managed to live in a state of fuddled alcoholism on this small sum. They supposed that his old friend the landlord, trusting him, put it on the slate in the hope of being paid when Fellows went back to work. He had always been free with his money, and no doubt his boon companions of the past were ready to treat him as often as they could afford it.

At the end of February he went in to North Bromwich in accordance with the hospital orders and returned without his splint. The doctors had told him that it would now be wise to use the leg as much as possible and suggested that the colliery authorities, who were partly responsible for the accident, should now give him a light job at the pit-head. John Fellows, however, didn’t see the point of this. He had paid into the Loyal United Free Gardeners for more than thirty years and now that he had the chance he meant to get some of his money back by staying on the box as long as they would let him. He could get quite enough exercise for his leg in his clandestine approaches to the Lyttleton Arms. What was more, he would not do a stroke of work until his claim against the colliery was settled. He had consulted a solicitor, and a claim under the Workmen’s Compensation Act was pending.