A number of children bore witness to the existence of the families. They were very dirty children—stolid little Scandinavians, most of them. The automobile awoke their interest. They measured its difference from the half-dozen begrimed Fords which were casually lined up on one side of the mine office.
“Want to go down, Fliss? Cecily mustn’t.”
“Love it,” said Fliss.
“We’ll just go down to the first level,” Matthew decided, “to give Fliss an idea. You must put on overalls though. Come in the office and they’ll fix you out. I’ve had lots of women here. It’s all right.”
Cecily watched them from the depths of the car as they disappeared over the edge of the mine, walking on a kind of circular path—Fliss looking like an extremely rakish boy in her overalls. Then she settled herself to wonder again how these people lived and how it was worth living without any beauty or any comfort—or love. She wondered if women loved these rough, unpleasant-looking men now emerging in little groups. They all went to the office. It was Saturday night and they were getting their pay. They stared at Cecily and the car, some stolidly, some hostile in their glances. Vaguely she wished Dick would come back.
Suddenly a man paused beside the car. He was obviously angry. She had seen him leave the office, slamming the door with an oath that carried to her ears, and as he came down the road and she knew he must pass the car, she felt his hostility even before he spoke. He did not shout, but he came to a pause and his voice was low and menacing and his face full of hate.
“Sit there, damn you, and grin. They fired me—and they’ll pay for it. You’ll all pay for it, you damned blood suckers. You——”
Then he called Cecily a name which she had never heard before, but which was utterly clear in its implication, even to her, and went swiftly down the road, lost in the increasing crowd of homegoing men. Cecily had gone dead white. She became conscious of crowds of men pouring past her now and she felt every face ferocious. She did not want to look at them and yet she could not help it. She felt suddenly that she was affronting them. This car, her furs, her luxury of robes, their shacks! And Dick did not come. Where was he? Why did he not come? Had they caught him and Matthew down in the mine? Had something happened? She tried to reassure herself, but her shocked mind went tearing on into confusion. Then in the midst of it came a pain, a tearing pain like nothing she had felt ever before. Dick, coming up beside Fliss and Matthew, all three laughing and talking to one of those men who had so terrified Cecily, saw his wife, white-faced—staring.
They were all immensely frightened and too inexperienced to be sure what steps were best to take. Even Cecily was not sure that her hour had really begun, but before they got back to the little village there was not much room for doubt. Dick and Matthew looked at each other in utter consternation. They were four hours away from all the elaborate preparations for the advent of Cecily’s child; they both had heard of accidents. The ride back home was not to be attempted, but here, in this forlorn little mining town——
In those first hours it was Cecily herself who took the initiative. In an interval between the pains she lifted her head from Dick’s shoulder with an actual smile.