The Black Diamond

by Francis Brett Young

On August bank-holiday the men at the pit stopped work. This was the day of Dulston Wake, the principal festival of the black-country year. Each of the small towns that lie like knots on the network of tramways that has its centre in North Bromwich has its own minor fair of swing-boats, roundabouts, and cocoa-nut shies, but none of these have half the significance of Dulston Wake, which is prominent not only by its magnitude but also by the weight of tradition that belongs to it and by the magnificence of its setting. In all his life Abner had never missed it, nor, for that matter, had his father; and when the day drew near it was taken as a matter of course that the whole family should put on its Sunday clothes and go to the Wake together. They left soon after midday, John Fellows already mildly intoxicated, Abner in his blue suit with a white silk neckerchief, and Alice, carrying the baby breeched for the occasion, in her best black costume.

They had to walk more than a mile from Hackett’s Cottages to the terminus of the electric tramway system that had not yet come to Mawne. John Fellows, who had forgotten his limp, led the way at a great pace down Mawne bank, so fast indeed that Alice grew tired by the weight of the child. The day was one of sweltering heat, of the kind in which the people of the black-country prefer to take their pleasures. John Fellows carried a bottle of draught beer in each pocket of his coat and a red pocket-handkerchief escaped from under the brim of his bowler hat. He turned to swear at Alice for delaying the progress of the party, and then, mumbling something under his breath, put on a spurt of ridiculous energy and left them behind.

Abner relieved the panting Alice of her burden, and carried the child on his shoulder. Soon they had crossed the Stour at the bridge by the gun-barrel works and had gained the relative coolness of shade under the chestnuts of Mr Willis’s hanging gardens. They arrived at the tramway terminus ten minutes later than John Fellows to find that he had not profited by his exertions since the trams were overcrowded and a breakdown had disorganised the service. He had taken the opportunity of sitting down on the cinder path and emptying one of his beer bottles, and as fast as he drank beer sweat oozed from every pore of his body. When the tram appeared in the distance he pulled himself up with a grunt and prepared to fight for a seat in it. It was quite impossible for Alice to compete in this kind of scrimmage. John Fellows pushed his way in first and sat fanning himself with his hat while Abner, Alice and the baby were left behind. They did not see him again during the day.

They waited for twenty minutes in the sun before they found a place in one of those reckless tramway-cars that go roaring like spent shells through all the wastes of the black country. They could not speak for the jolt and jangle of its progress, for the clanging of its bell and the alarming sputter of electric sparks when it swayed on its springs and threatened to jump the rails. In all their four miles of journey they could see no green. They passed through endless streets of grimy brick, baked culverts from which a blast of acrid and lifeless air rushed through the front of the car like a sirocco. Even though the fires of the furnaces and factories had been banked down for the holidays they could still smell the heat which had scorched and blackened this volcanic country on every side.

At last they were jolted through the narrow streets of Dulston, happily without catastrophe, and ejected at the foot of the hill on which its medieval castle stands. Here the crowd was at its thickest. Noisy hawkers sold ticklers and leaden water-squirts and programmes of the fête. Tram after tram disgorged its sweaty contents to mix with the cooler occupants of brakes and char-a-bancs. Through the dense foliage of the castle woods that hung limp in the heat like painted leafage in a theatre, the discordant music of competing roundabouts floated down, and beneath it one could hear the low, exciting rumour of the fair, toward which the steady stream of new arrivals was setting. It was a stiff pull up the slope of the castle hill and every one who climbed it seemed bitten with an infectious speed. At the top of it the crowd thickened beneath the constriction of a narrow Norman arch and then burst and scattered into the huge central courtyard where gray ruins looked down upon this modern substitute for the tourneys of the middle ages.

Abner and Alice were caught up in the excitements of the fair. He soon added to his burdens by knocking down three cocoa-nuts. At a shooting-gallery to the admiration of Alice he smashed thin globes of glass spinning above a jet of water. For his prize he chose a brooch of imitation gold: a heart pierced by an arrow and surmounted by the word ‘Alice.’ She laughed and pinned it in the neck of her black bodice. She marvelled at the sureness of his hand and eye. There was no one in all that crowd whom she would have chosen for her escort rather than him. She rejoiced, for the first time in many months, to find him a happy and natural companion, only wishing that she could forget the fact that John Fellows also was there, drinking, no doubt, in one of the canvas marquees that the firm of Astill had erected in each corner of the courtyard. Once, and only once, she spoke her thoughts. ‘I wonder where he is, Abner. . . .’ she said. He only laughed at her.

‘I’ll find him if you like.’

‘Oh, don’t be soft, Abner,’ she said. ‘I was only wondering. . .’

They spent their coppers at a dozen booths, seeing the fattest lady and the smallest horse in the world, the riders of bucking bronchos with woolly trousers and slouch hats, who were even better shots than Abner; and the lady of mystery, who divined the name and age of Alice and the dates on Abner’s football medals and told them that their married happiness was threatened by a dark woman. To this seeress Alice protested blushing Abner was not her husband. ‘Well, my love,’ said that lady, pointing to the baby, ‘that bain’t nothing to boast about.’ The crowd in the tent laughed, and Alice was annoyed with Abner for laughing with them. ‘You ought to have told ’er,’ she said crossly as they emerged. ‘It’s enough to take my character for life!’

By this time the cause of the mystery lady’s speculations was getting tired and peevish. Abner took him for a ride on one of the galloping roundabout horses, but the motion only made him sick, and so they left the courtyard and sat resting in the tepid air under the shadow of the castle beeches, undisturbed by any but casual lovers who had sought the same kind of privacy.