by A. J. Cronin
Under these exhortations it seemed that José was everywhere on the court, gliding, stretching, striking, always with that faint, gentle smile, even though his breath came quickly and the perspiration ran from every pore. But despite his efforts the Huesca men clung desperately to their lead and the score rose steadily, ominously, until it stood at 48 to 46.
The crowd was now in constant uproar, yelling, gesticulating, beseeching and reviling with Latin intensity. And little Nicholas, pale with excitement, was shouting his heart out with the rest.
“Come on, San Jorge. Come on, José. We want you to win … to win … to win.”
At this, the Huesca forward played a deceptive drop shot and Jaime, completely winded, failed with the return. He threw up his hands to indicate despair and a groan broke from the San Jorge supporters. One more point would give Huesca the match.
Forwards and backwards went the pelota in what might well be the final rally. Suddenly the Huesca leader, leaping, slipped on the concrete, and missed the ball. He rose at once, unhurt, with a confident wave to his followers. But no sooner had he restarted the play than José aced him with a cannon-ball return. An anxious cheer went up from the crowd. The score was now 49 to 48.
In a queer silence, José went to the mark to serve. A profound stillness lay over the packed arena as the rally began. It was unendurably protracted, in a mounting anguish of excitement and suspense. The Huesca men were playing safely, depending upon their opponents to make a fault, while José, upon whom the burden of responsibility had fallen, seemed equally resolved to take no risks. Steadily, steadily went the exchanges, till suddenly, breaking that measured rhythm, José’s long arm unexpectedly lashed out and with a change of pace he angled the ball between his two opponents. The score was level at 49 all.
Now no one dared to take a breath. They were all standing up, craning forward, watching the flying ball as it ricocheted between the walls. Huesca, with the courage of desperation, had thrown caution to the winds in a brilliant volleying action. Once, twice, they made shots which seemed certain aces, but José, as though inspired, succeeded somehow in making a safe return. Finally there came a wide, swift volley that looked well beyond his reach. He leaped high, high into the air, swung with all his strength, and crashed the ball home for the winning point.
A long, low sigh ascended to the sky. Then pandemonium broke loose. Men threw their hats into the air, wept, laughed, embraced each other, and shouted in a kind of delirious ecstasy.
Nicholas, standing up bright-eyed on the bench, kept swinging his arms, and crying wildly:
“Hurrah! Hurrah! I knew he’d do it! I knew! I knew! Hurrah!”
As the players, limp and exhausted, walked off the court the crowd scaled the barrier and swarmed upon them. In an instant José was surrounded, hugged, kissed and pounded, then, as he cried out for mercy, hoisted shoulder high and borne from the enclosure.
“Oh, Father,” Nicholas gasped, getting down at last. “Wasn’t that wonderful? I’m so glad you took me.”
The Consul answered with a rigid smile. The climax of the game and the succeeding demonstration had caused him the deepest mortification. Yet not for the world would he have revealed the strange, inexplicable bitterness which rankled within his breast. He took his son’s hand and, as the crowd had now thinned, proceeded in silence toward the Plaza.
“Really, it was a victory for us,” Nicholas chattered as they got into the car. “ For José belongs to our establishment. And it was he who won the game.”
Without answer, Harrington Brande stabbed the self-starter. And as he drove off, gazing straight ahead, the little boy began, doubtfully, to steal glances at him, wondering if he had, inadvertently, given offence.
“Is anything wrong, Father?” he asked, at last.
There was a perceptible pause.
“No, Nicholas, nothing is wrong, except that I have a splitting headache. You see, I am not used to being crushed in with the common herd, or to being pushed, elbowed and kicked for the sake of a stupid game.”
“But, Father …” Nicholas, confounded, was about to make some protest, but the sight of that chilly profile caused him to break off.
Dinner was ready when they reached home. But the silence continued through the meal—one of those aloof and frozen silences which the Consul periodically imposed, when he seemed to retreat far within himself and to gaze through persons and objects as though viewing, like an outraged god, only those things which were empyrean and eternal.
“Shall I go upstairs now, Father?” Nicholas asked, in a subdued voice, when he had drained the last of his milk.
“As you please.”
Slowly and sadly, the little boy mounted the wide, dark walnut stairway. The joy of the day, with its excitement and novelty, its overtones and lustre, was quenched within him. He forgot about José and the game, could think only of his father’s stern, afflicted face. Accustomed to the joint ritual of the evening, he felt himself disowned and deserted in the great shadowy bedroom. He undressed listlessly, washed, and pulled on his nightshirt. Then, turning, he saw the Consul in the doorway.
“Oh, Father.” He gulped with relief. “I thought you wouldn’t come.”
The Consul answered gravely:
“I am not likely to fail in my duty, Nicholas.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve done anything, really I am, Father.” It was hard for him to keep back his tears. “But I … I don’t know what it is.”
“Kneel for your prayers.” The Consul took his usual place, laid an arm upon the boy’s shoulders, his tone turning low. “ You are growing up now, Nicholas. You must be aware how painful and difficult are the circumstances of my life. You know the burden I have borne since … since your mother left us. Lately my insomnia, increased by my literary labours, has become a perfect martyrdom. There are days when I am so overcome by suffering and exhaustion I can barely concentrate upon my work. And yet …” The Consul lifted a knitted brow. “In spite of all this, I have devoted, consecrated myself unswervingly, to you.”
The little boy hung his head. Tears, like crystal dewdrops, were forming upon his soft lashes.
“Yes, Nicholas, I have been not only your father, but your friend, your teacher, your nurse. I do not deny that I have drawn from this dedicated service a deep felicity … a gladness and refreshment which brought balm to my wounded soul. It is, my dear child, a labour of love. Yet even the most unselfish passion demands some slight affection in return. That is why, to-day, my heart has been rent by the thought that … you do not care for me.”
“No, no, Father,” Nicholas cried out, finding words at last. “ It’s not true. How can you believe such a thing?”
A strange flicker passed across the crucified face.
“Some things are intangible, my child. A careless word … a look … a chance gesture.…”
“No, no,” Nicholas almost shouted. “I do love you, you know I do. Mother treated you abominably. But I won’t. We’ll always be together.” Weeping hysterically, his body shaking, Nicholas reached up and threw his arms round his father’s neck.
“My own boy,” the Consul murmured, holding closely against him that slight, living burden. As he felt, upon his breast, the birdlike flutter of the childish heart, an invading warmth melted the pain within him. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes.
At last he gently disengaged himself, spoke with a tender smile.
“Now say your prayers, dear child, and I will read to you.”
Chapter Five
Yet through the sweetness of this reconciliation, the fond knowledge that Nicholas was more completely attached to him than ever, the Consul could not forget the part played by José in that painful, if brief, estrangement. It had been his practice as he left the villa in the morning to acknowledge, distantly, his gardener’s respectful salute. Now, however, he passed by with studied indifference, his face averted, eyes fixed straight ahead, as though to avoid seeing him. Yet in that brief moment, he was acutely conscious of the y
outh, of his young figure under the light cotton, the vigorous sweep of his arms as he swung the long scythe, his warmly ingenuous smile. And a surge of resentment went through his veins, an irritation that remained with him long after he had reached the office.
He tried to shake off this emotion. It was preposterous that he should permit himself to be disturbed by a mere servant, a common youngster from the town, and quite beneath his dignity to take any action in a matter which, after all, seemed less important when viewed in retrospect. Doubtless the fellow had bragged to Nicholas about his prowess at pelota and had urged him to come to watch him play the game. No more than that. Nevertheless, despite this reasoning, there remained in the Consul’s breast that strange sense of jealousy, and an animosity, which, as though it fed upon itself, seemed to grow from day to day.
For a while José noticed nothing, but as one morning succeeded another and still his master passed him with that blank, impervious frown, he began to fear that he was failing to give satisfaction, and his simple heart was filled with apprehension. Work was scarce in San Jorge, good situations difficult to find, and he had his mother, Maria, to think of, to say nothing of his sisters, and old Pedro, his grandfather, who had not done a stroke for seven years. Alarmed, he increased his already strenuous efforts, arrived half an hour earlier than the stipulated time, departed only when dusk began to fall.
One morning, as he worked into an uncleared patch beyond the rocky wall, he saw deep in the mossy shelter of some myrtle shrubs three fragile white stars, still damp with dew, the first freesias. His eyes lit up with pleasure, he stood in admiration for a long moment, then nodded to himself, crushed into the undergrowth, and carefully picked the flowers. In the toolshed, whistling under his breath, he bound them neatly with raffia against a light spray of fern. Smartening his hair before the broken scrap of mirror, he hastened to the front porch. He had not long to wait before his master appeared on the veranda.
“Señor,” José said, and stopped, finding it too difficult to make the agreeable speech which he had prepared. He simply smiled, with touching diffidence, and handed up the boutonnière.
There was a pause. The Consul, like one forced against his will, slowly turned, and for the first time, since the pelota game, looked directly at the youth. This action, which seemed to break down some deep-seated and primitive inhibition, produced in him a curious sense of liberation, of mastery. His sense of tension, so long suppressed, was suddenly dissolved and, instead, he felt himself capable of an almost superhuman calm.
“What is this?” he inquired formally.
“For your pleasure, señor … to wear. The first freesias of spring.”
“You picked them … these flowers?”
“But … yes, señor.”
“You have no right to do such a thing. These flowers are mine. I do not wish them picked. I wish them to remain growing in the garden, where they properly belong.”
“But, señor …” José faltered.
“That is enough. You are a stupid, self-willed fellow. You exceed your position. Let us have no more of it in future. Do you understand?”
Under the Consul’s cold, steady gaze, José’s hurt eyes fell, his lithe young figure appeared to droop, to lose virility and poise. Sadly cast down, he looked at the little bunch of perfumed blossoms, whose stems had grown warm in his perspiring hands, and, as though not knowing what to do with this rejected offering, he placed it confusedly behind his ear. As he moved off, clumsily, to the myrtle patch, he perceived that Garcia, waiting beside the car, with that peculiar grimace, sardonic and at the same time blank, which gave to the impassive face a look of cruelty, had witnessed his humiliation. He bit his lip and turned away his head, as though to hide his burning cheeks.
The Consul drove to the town, sitting erect in the rear seat of his open automobile with the folding windscreen lowered, the breeze blowing, pleasantly about him. He felt eased and satisfied, like a man who has thrown off an irritating garment and now finds himself restored to comfort and normality. So agreeable was his humour that, when he entered the office and found Alvin Burton already bent over a pile of bills of lading in the outer room, he paused and, with a touch of compunction, remarked:
“Good morning, Burton. By the way, it’s about time you and your wife came to see us at Casa Breza.” As his assistant started up in pleased surprise, he continued generously: “Come next Sunday, won’t you? Come in the afternoon and we’ll give you tea.”
“Oh, thank you, sir,” Alvin exclaimed, deeply gratified. “Thank you ever so much. I know that Mrs. Burton …”
“Quite,” the Consul cut in blandly. “We shall expect you both at five o’clock. Don’t be late.”
He passed into his private office, where a fresh copy of the Echo de Paris, the wrapper carefully removed, lay upon his desk. But his present mood was too creative to waste upon the news-sheet. A quick survey showed that there was nothing of importance in his official mail. He sat down in his swivel chair and, permitting himself one of his rare departures from his punctilious routine, he drew out from the bottom drawer the package he had brought from the villa the day before—his manuscript on Malbranche.
To the rest of the world Nicholas Malbranche might be a dim, an unknown figure, but to Harrington Brande this forgotten Frenchman, who in the eighteenth century attempted to adopt the teachings of Descartes in the interests of theology, had become an exemplar, in whose pedantic philosophy he found a pattern for his behaviour, the sonorous echo of his own soul. That Malbranche should be so utterly neglected served merely to fan his ardour, to increase his pride that he, personally, would be hailed as the discoverer who had brought this paragon from obscurity into the bright light of day.
Over the past ten years, with mounting ambition, he had laboured prodigiously upon the compilation of a life of his hero. Several times he had sent the first half of his manuscript to leading publishing houses. The lack of response—none had evinced the slightest interest—was bitterly provoking, for he was not impervious to the flight of time or the success of others, yet it had neither surprised nor deterred the Consul. He considered the work too erudite to be vulgarly popular and, if necessary, proposed to produce it at his own expense, confident that when it reached the hands of the inner circle of European savants it would be instantly acclaimed. As a gesture of proud defiance he had named his son Francis Nicholas, despite the protests of his wife, whose lack of enthusiasm for his project had been, alas! but one of her lamentable disloyalties. Never, indeed, would he forgive her that episode when having, in the first flush of his love, permitted her to read some chapters of the masterpiece, he had pressed confidently for her opinion.
“I’m afraid I don’t know enough about it,” she had answered evasively.
“Naturally, I don’t expect you to understand the philosophy, my dear. But the style … the drama … the movement … of the book?”
“No, really, Harrington … I’m no judge.…”
“Oh, come now.” He laughed playfully, fondling her hand. “Be as critical as you like. Speak the truth.”
A difficult silence had followed. Then, cornered, she had smiled her shadowy smile, as though begging his forgiveness.
“If you really insist, Harrington, I’m afraid it bored me frightfully.”
Ah, well, Malbranche had also had his Calvary. And now, all that was past, the manuscript was near completion and, as though in anticipation of his triumphant vindication, the Consul firmly took up his pen. But as he did so, unexpectedly he paused, and raised his head. As though seeing again that bar of humiliation upon José’s brow, his eyes turned distant, strangely light, in his sallow face. Then, slowly, as he began to write, he smiled.
Chapter Six
When Sunday came the Consul decided that he would receive the Burtons out of doors and give them tea in the garden. The afternoon was fine and warm; moreover, since twilight still fell early, his guests would thus have less opportunity to settle down and overstay their welcome. He ordered
Garcia to arrange a table in the arbour, and to set out sandwiches, buttered rolls, and some of those local iced cakes called pan de jabon, which he fancied might suit Mrs. Burton’s taste.
As the hour drew near he was in an excellent humour. He had spent a delightful day with Nicholas, just the two of them together, perusing a folio of eighteenth-century Andalusian prints which, like a true connoisseur, he had picked up for a few pesos from a little shop near the Consulate. Now, gazing across the arbour at his son, who looked particularly neat in a navy blue suit and stiff white collar, he was struck by the improvement in the boy’s health. That air of delicate fragility had lessened, and the sickly pallor of his skin was now replaced by a tinge of healthy brown. Why, even his narrow shoulders seemed somehow to have acquired a more decided set. One must not run too fast, of course. Yet it was a profound satisfaction that Nicholas should at last be responding to the care he had so constantly bestowed upon him.
Alvin and his wife arrived, punctually, in a hired car and, having received them graciously, the Consul proposed a stroll round the garden. While Alvin and Nicholas went ahead, he followed, more slowly, with Mrs. Burton. She was a quiet young woman with glasses and a fresh complexion, pretty enough, he supposed, in an ordinary sort of way, wearing a modest brown voile dress which he shrewdly guessed she had cut from paper patterns and made at home. Apparently she came from a small town in Michigan, was one of a large family, and had met Alvin on the campus of the State University. That she seemed sensible and good-natured did not prevent him from immediately classifying her as nondescript. Still, her anxiety to please was gratifying. Because of this, he set out to make himself agreeable and when they sat down to tea in the arbour he turned to her in his best style:
“Perhaps you would be kind enough to be our hostess? As you know, our establishment here is only a bachelor one. We miss the refinements of feminine society.”
