The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

Abner meanwhile waited impatiently for his release. The presence of his father in the house had eased the awkwardness of his relation with Alice by abolishing the sense of lonely isolation that surrounded it. Alice herself was almost complacent. She did not mind how long John Fellows abstained from work as long as Abner was left to her. At the end of May the doctor refused to continue the farce of signing the miner’s certificates. John Fellows grumbled, but had to admit that he had done fairly well out of the club. He pushed on his claim for compensation, which was settled for fifty pounds. Alice was overjoyed at this windfall, for the strain of her straitened housekeeping had forced her to run up a few small debts with tradesmen. She took the opportunity of asking her husband for money when Abner was in the room.

‘Money . . .?’ said John Fellows. ‘Money . . .? What do yo’ want with money? What’s money to do with me when I’ve a son at work earning a man’s wages? If yo’ want money better ask our Abner. Didn’t I keep him all through his schooling in food and clothes? working day and night? I reckon it’s his turn now.’

‘I bain’t goin’ to keep you in pub-crawling any longer,’ said Abner. ‘You’d best give her some, while you’ve got it. I’m going off to work in Wales.’

‘Work in Wales!’ cried John Fellows. ‘I’ll teach you to talk to your father like that,’ he cried, coming over to him with his head low between his shoulders like an angry bull. When he reached his son he stopped, for Abner had thrown back his elbow. Alice ran to separate them. There was no need for her to have done so, for Fellows knew better than to appeal to force.

‘You’re a fine pair, the two on you!’ he said. ‘And don’t you go thinking I can’t see.’

He went out of the room with the limp that he now cultivated, and it was well that he did so, for by this time Abner was white with rage. He would have followed his father if Alice had not withheld him.

‘Abner, don’t!’ she cried. ‘What did he mean?’

‘You know what he meant as well as I do,’ said Abner with a laugh. ‘Still, that don’t matter. I’m off to-morrow.’

But he did not go. Thinking the matter over he could not bring himself to abandon Alice and her child to the desolation that he knew must follow his departure. It even seemed to him that his going might suggest to his father that he had hit the right nail on the head. The fact that, this time, Alice knew better than beg him to stay, also influenced him. By this token she accepted his independence and appealed only to his generosity. She never had a penny of her husband’s fifty pounds. Some of it, no doubt, he owed to the landlord of the Lyttleton Arms: but in any case it became clear that as long as it lasted he could not be expected to return to work. In the meantime he took great pains to avoid crossing Abner, feeling less obligation towards the housekeeping expenses from the fact that his nourishment in these days was mainly liquid and taken elsewhere.

It was difficult to say how long the money would last him. For the present he was managing extraordinarily well and there seemed no reason why he should ever take up work again, although there was now no physical reason why he should not begin. The summer passed without any change in their arrangements. Abner still disliked his work. The prolonged strain of working in cramped positions was beginning to tell on his eyes; but in the lower levels of the pit he suffered little from the extremity of heat which made work above ground almost impossible in the July of that year, and made his father thirstier than ever. Under the new conditions he found it impossible to save money for the needs of the day when he should be free. All his earnings but a few shillings went to Alice every Saturday night, and it was with difficulty that he refrained from breaking into the small store that he had kept intact in his stocking.