by A. J. Cronin
“I saw his nabs putting the dog on you. He’s a bit too given to that sort of thing.”
Galt was only too ready to air a grudge against any exercise of authority and in his approach I sensed the sympathy of one incompetent workman for another. He had not shaved for a couple of days and his appearance was particularly slovenly. I could not contain myself.
“Oh, shut up.”
He drew back with an offended air. “Don’t be so high and mighty about it. Next time I’ll think twice before I offer you a kindness.”
I resumed my work. In the days which followed I tried to improve. But nothing went right. I handled my tools so recklessly, I gouged my thumb with a cold chisel. The wound became infected and suppurated, causing an ugly abscess which Grandma poulticed for me. I felt Jamie watching me uncomfortably, looking as though he wished to speak.
“That’s a sore-looking hand you have,” he said at last. “ It doesn’t seem to heal.”
“It’s nothing,” I answered coldly. “Just a scratch.”
I almost welcomed the pain which this festering wound caused me. My mind was as dark as the wintery skies. Alison had gone to Ardfillan. She wrote regularly in answer to my frequent and passionate communications but never at great length. When the post brought a letter from her my heart swelled suffocatingly. I took the letter to my room, locked the door, and opened it with trembling fingers. Her writing was large and round, only three or four words to each line. My eager eyes soon devoured the double sheet. She was working hard at two new songs. Schubert’s “Ständchen” and Schumann’s “Widmung.” She and her mother had gone skating with Louisa on the private pond at Ardfillan House. Dr. Thomas had been to see them once. Mr. Reid had called twice. Everyone was looking forward to the Reunion Ball. Would I not try to come to it? Again and again I read it through. What I longed for was not there. Quickly, I sat down and began my reply, ardent and reproachful, pouring out my soul.
A week before Christmas, Lewis sauntered towards me at the lunch hour.
“I say, Shannon, there’s not a bad dance on in Ardfillan next Saturday. Let’s go together.”
I took a bite of bread and cheese, trying to maintain a stolid attitude. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a dancer.”
“Never mind. You can sit them out.” He smiled. “I usually do.”
“I don’t think I can get away.”
He persisted in his good-natured effort to persuade me. “ It’s quite an affair. The St. Bride’s Reunion. Lots of pretty girls and a tophole buffet. I’ve had a couple of tickets sent me. You really must come.”
In spite of my determination not to expose my feelings, an insufferable emotion mastered me. I had no dress suit; I could not dance; it was impossible for me to go. The affability of his manner, the friendliness of his insistence, above all the easy indifference with which he took the dance, like all the other good things in life, for granted, acted on me like a goad.
“Damn it all … Can’t you leave me alone?”
He stared at me in surprise; then, with a shrug of his shoulders, left me. I was immediately ashamed of myself. All afternoon I kept my eyes fixed to my machine, cold and sick inside.
On Saturday evening I took the five o’clock workman’s train to Ardfillan. For a couple of hours I wandered about the deserted promenade, now swept by a December gale. As I sheltered behind the bandstand on the vacant esplanade with my coat collar up, memories of Gavin rose from the surrounding darkness to haunt me. It was here at the Fair that we had sworn never to be separated. Such a short time ago … It seemed a lifetime. Now Gavin was gone, while I stood and shivered, on the very spot where, full of hope and courage, we had pledged ourselves to conquer the world.
Towards eight o’clock I made my way to the Town Hall. Mixing with the small crowd which had collected to see the local gentry arriving for the dance, I waited on the pavement outside. A fine rain began to fall. Presently the cabs and motors began to roll up.
Hidden amongst the other spectators, who were mainly domestic servants, I watched the guests enter, happy people, smiling and talking, the women in evening gowns, the men in tail coats and white ties. I saw Lewis stroll in, groomed and oiled to perfection. A moment later, with a start of surprise, I caught sight of Reid’s stocky figure hurrying up the steps. At last, after an interval, Alison and her mother appeared. They came in a large party with Louisa and Mrs. Marshall, My heart stood still at the vision of Alison, in a white dress, her face quietly animated, her eyes bright as she talked to Louisa, moving over the strip of carpet. When she disappeared the first strains of the orchestra came stealing out to me from inside the Hall. My heart seemed crushed in my breast. I clenched my hands in my pockets and walked rapidly away. There was no train for three-quarters of an hour. I went into a fish-and-chip shop in a poor street near the station. I had not eaten since lunch and I ordered myself a twopenny portion of chips. Hunched on a bench in the dark little shop I swilled vinegar on the greasy potatoes and ate them with my fingers. I wished I could get drunk. I wanted to degrade myself to the lowest depths.
On Monday morning at the Works I met Lewis going into the machine shop. A strange impulse made me stop and smile to him, not in apology, but with a man-of-the-world directness.
“Look here, old chap,” I said. “ I’m sorry I cut up so rusty last week. Did you have a good time on Saturday?”
“Yes,” he answered suspiciously. “Not bad.”
“The fact is”—my smile broadened—“ I had a very special appointment with a lady, a young widow I met in Winton, and I got rather annoyed at you trying to drag me out of it.”
His face cleared slowly. “ Why didn’t you say so, you ass?”
I laughed and nodded knowingly.
“Lucky devil.” He looked at me enviously. “Nothing like that at Ardfillan. Very proper and correct. You were wise not to come.”
This cheap lie cheered me up momentarily, although soon it brought a reaction of disgust. I retired more than ever within myself, avoiding people, making a virtue of my loneliness. When Kate asked me to her house I usually made some excuse. I saw very little of Reid. On one occasion when we met he gave me a peculiar smile.
“I’m doing my best for you, Shannon.”
“In what way?” I asked, surprised.
“I’m leaving you alone.”
I walked off. I could find nothing to say. I was deadeningly tired, and sick of everything. Strangely, the one person whom I turned to was Grandma—perhaps I was attracted by her rocklike stability. Where Grandpa was a mere straw in the wind, with no roots to hold him, she drew sustenance and support deep, deep from her country origins, almost it seemed from the soil from which she had sprung. I sat late at the kitchen table talking with her while she gave me glimpses of her “ early days” on her father’s Ayrshire farm—at the cheesemaking; bringing fresh baked bannocks to the harvesters in the fields; watching the potato pickers as they danced at night, to the fiddle, in the barn. More and more, I noticed in her little “peasant” tricks—her habit, for instance, of picking out the peas from her broth and arranging them in a neat circle round her soup plate, so that she might eat them afterwards with pepper and salt. She was full of country sayings (like “Beetroots give you lumbago” or “ Ne’er cast a clout till May goes oot”) and she retained her full fondness for brewing “ herbals.” Her memory, especially for family dates, was wonderful. With her crochet hook she could still make exquisite, intricate-patterned lace which she wore on her cap and collar and which gave to her a perennial air of freshness. Repeatedly, she assured me that her family was long-lived, that her mother remained in full possession of her faculties up to the age of ninety-six. She was quite sure that she would surpass this record, and remarked often, with a composed sigh, of Grandpa and her friend Miss Minns, “ how sadly they had failed.”
Christmas was almost at hand. The shops in the town were bright with holly and paper streamers. The festive season made but the slightest difference at Lomond View: Grandma would g
o out to the Watch Night service, Kate might send us a plum pudding; Grandpa, if unrestrained, would not stay sober. Nevertheless, as Christmas Eve approached I felt myself growing restless and uneasy. To combat this I plunged more deeply into the books which I borrowed from the public library. At night I was often so tired that when I settled to read I drowsed off at once, wakening with a start as my nostrils filled with the smoke of the expiring candlewick. But on most Sundays, during that dismal winter, I lay in bed half the day, poring over Chekhov, Dostoievski, Gorki, and the other Russian novelists. My earlier liking for romantic fiction had yielded to a more sombre and realistic taste. Also I had begun to muddle my head with philosophy: plodding through Descartes, Hume, Schopenhauer and Bergson, far out of my depth yet rewarded, now and then, by a wintery gleam which increased my sense of exclusiveness and my haughtiness towards theology. My sardonic smile crumbled the whole structure of divine revelation. Impossible for a scientist, a savant, to believe that the world had been brought to being overnight, that man was created by a process of clay modelling, and woman by the transformation of a rib. The Garden of Eden with Eve eating her apple beside the grinning serpent was a charming fairy tale. All the evidence pointed to a different conception of the origin of life: the development from primæval scum, through millions of years, of colloidal compounds in the great seas and swamps of the cooling earth, the timeless evolution of these protoplasmic forms, through the amphibians and reptiles, to the birds and mammals, a truly remarkable cycle which—dismal thought!—made Nicolo and me, brothers, practically, under our skin.
Shorn of my illusions, I sought soulful consolation in beauty. From the library I took out works upon the great painters and studied the coloured reproductions of their masterpieces. Then I came upon the Impressionists. Their new ideas of colour and form delighted me. Returning from work, I would pause to stare for a long time at the purple shadows cast by the blue chestnut trees or at the pale streaks of lemon lingering in the evening sky behind the Ben. Foolish and morbid, suffering dreadfully from the “green sickness” of youth, I invested this mountain with a portentous symbolism: it represented to me the unattainable in life. If I could not reach the summit, at last I stood, in an attitude of scornful challenge, at its base.
Although defying the lightning, and everything else, I felt miserable when Christmas Day arrived. The night before I had gone to Barloan with a present for Kate’s little boy. I wanted to help fill his stocking and, in my heart, I hoped for an invitation to Christmas dinner. But they were all out when I called: I tied my parcel to the door handle and came away. Amongst the few cards which I received there was one from the convent Sisters; I smiled over it—just the correct kind of smile—but my superiority did not make me happier. When one o’clock drew near I could not face the dismal meal downstairs. I took my cap and went out.
The grey streets were deserted as I wandered through the town. There was no restaurant in Levenford where one could have a real meal. At last, in desperation, I went into the Fitters’ Bar. Here I had a glass of beer and some bread and cheese. This cold fare did not make the prospect of returning to the cheerless house any more enticing. There was not even a fireplace in my room.
The public library opened between two and three o’clock, a concession to the fact that the day was not a general holiday. It was warm in the library. I spent most of the hour there, and borrowed another book. Then I set out for home.
A raw fog had come down and darkness was not far off. As I came along Chapel Street I did not see a tall figure looming towards me, but the instant I heard the tap-tap of an umbrella on the pavement beside me I guessed who it was, and I could not repress a start.
“Why, it’s you, Shannon.” Canon Roche’s tone was friendly. “I’ve been wondering if you’d gone to earth for the winter.”
I kept silent, telling myself that I would not be afraid of this man who was, after all, only human and not in the least invested with mystical powers.
“I have a sick call at Drumbuck Toll. Are you going that way?”
“Yes, I’m going home.”
There was a pause.
“My card to you the other week probably went astray. The post office is no respecter of postcards. I had a colleague staying with me, a South American father over here from Brazil. Knowing your interest in natural history, I thought you might have cared to meet him.”
“I’ve lost my interest in natural history.”
“Ah!” I could almost feel his eyebrows lift. “ Has that gone too? Tell me, my dear fellow, has anything been saved from the wreck?”
I walked on with my head down.
“What have you got there?” He slid the book from beneath my arm. “The Brothers Karamazoff. Not at all bad. I commend Aloysha to your notice. He’s a young man with some grace in him.”
He gave me back the book. For a few minutes we continued in silence.
“My dear boy, what’s been the matter with you?”
His change of tone took me by surprise. I had expected a severe reprimand for “falling from grace,” “ missing my Easter duties” and so forth; the mildness of his voice made my eyes smart. Thank heavens it was dark—he would not catch me that way.
“Nothing’s the matter.”
“Then why don’t you turn out as you used to? We’ve all missed you, the Sisters and I especially.”
I gathered all my strength, determined not to remain overawed and mute. I wanted him to know what had been taking place in my mind.
“I don’t believe in God any more. I’ve given up the whole thing.”
He received this in silence. In fact he walked on so long without replying that I stole a look at his face. It was thin, tired-looking and discouraged. I realized with a shock what had never struck me before—that he too was burdened with his own sorrows, and the thought that I had probably increased them deepened my compunction. Suddenly he began to speak, gazing straight ahead, as though talking to himself.
“You don’t believe in God, you’ve achieved a triumph of reason.… . Well, no wonder you’re rather proud of it.” He paused. “But what do you know about God? For that matter, what do I know of Him? … I’m afraid the answer is, nothing. He is absolutely unknowable … incomprehensible … infinitely beyond the grasp of the imagination, of all the senses. We can’t picture Him, or explain His treatment of us, in human terms. Believe me, Shannon, the intellectual approach to God is madness. You cannot fathom the impenetrable. The greatest mistake we can make towards God is to be always arguing when we ought simply to believe in Him blindly.”
He was silent for a moment before resuming.
“Do you remember when we once discussed those creatures who live five miles down in the ocean, feeling their way, without eyes, in the blackness … a sort of eternal night … only occasionally a faint phosphorescent gleam? And if they’re brought up, nearer the light of day, they simply explode. That’s us, in our relation to God.” Another pause. “ The greatest sin of all is intellectual pride. I know pretty well what’s in your mind. You’ve reduced everything to terms of the single cell. You can tell me exactly the chemical composition of protoplasm … Oh, very simple substances. But can you synthetize these substances into life? Until that happens, there’s nothing for it, Shannon, but to go on in humility and faith.”
Again there was a silence. We had almost reached the corner of Drumbuck Road. As he turned off towards the Toll, leaving me to continue alone, he gave me a parting glance before vanishing in the fog.
“You may not be seeking God, Robert, but He is seeking you. And He will find you, my dear boy, He will find you in the end.”
I went towards Lomond View slowly, in a tangle of emotions. I should have felt proud that I had asserted myself: it was something to have the courage of one’s convictions. Instead I felt shaken, afraid, and, at the bottom of my heart, horribly ashamed.
If Canon Roche had used the tricks of his trade, the usual shop-worn phrases about the wiles of the Devil and so forth, I should have fe
lt myself justified. One ill-chosen word on his part would have routed him. If he had wrung me with sentimental allusions to the Babe now lying in the Manger, I might have wept, but I should never have forgiven him.
Instead, he had met me on my own ground and quietly shown me my insignificance. Suppose, after all, that the Supreme Being existed. How absurd I should be, a tiny diatom, a feebly whirling rotifer, presuming to defy Him. And what terrors, what torments would be my punishment—worst of all the torment of knowing that I had denied Him. I had at that moment an overpowering desire to fall on my knees, to yield, in blind humility, to the solace of prayer. But I resisted, shivering and stubborn, unconsciously beginning to walk a little faster. As the outlines of Lomond View appeared, I surrendered only to unconquerable sadness. I groaned inwardly: “ Oh, God … if there is a God .… what kind of Christmas have you given me!”
Chapter Six
In May we had a Late Frost followed by a thaw which turned everything to slush. Yet one evening, two weeks before the Trades Holiday, as I trudged home from the Works through the mud and melting snow, the buds were forming upon the hedgerows, I felt the coming spring stirring in my limbs. Alison was home; and on the Trades Holiday, not so far distant, we had arranged to take a trip to Ardencaple—I was looking forward to our excursion with all my heart.
At Lomond View when I entered the kitchen I immediately sensed something unusual in the air. Grandma was seated at the table with an air of resignation while Papa, his hand on her shoulder, was doing his best to propitiate her.
“Fetch your supper yourself, Robert.” He straightened himself and gave me a significantly mournful glance. “ Sophie has left.”
The news did not strike me as especially momentous. I put down my lunch tin, washed myself in the scullery and came back. As I took my hot covered plate from the oven Grandma turned to me, amplifying Papa’s explanation in a “put-out” voice.
