by A. J. Cronin
‘You’ll have to behave, you know, when Anna’s here!’
He made as though to speak; but he did not. And then he had no chance to speak, for all at once she pressed her warm lips against his cheeks.
‘I love you, Frank,’ she whispered. ‘You know I do.’
Chapter Two
On the following Thursday at half-past five the wagonette driven by Joe from Levenford, containing Joseph himself, his sister Polly, Anna and Anna’s luggage, drew up opposite the house with a flourish. The flourish was because Joe on the box was imperative, justifiable, magnificent. And now, swinging down his bulk, he ensured the tired nag’s comfort by a benignant pat upon its steaming flank and a clicking sound of approbation with his tongue. His air towards the horse was largely professional. Joe was, indeed, professional towards everything; nothing big Joe didn’t know! A marvellous omniscience in one who read nothing, signed his name with difficulty, and misused the Queen’s English with affable contempt. In his own idiom, everything ‘came easy’ to Joe; and little wonder; he was – again the idiom – such a ‘good fella’. True, he was a publican; he sold spirits; he was even, in a quiet way, something of a bookmaker. But what of that? He had been known, very decently, to protect his customers from their own vicious instincts by a judicious blending of his wares with honest Scottish water; and as for the ‘gee-gees’ – well, there was a certain nobility in this connection with the turf, and at this moment it was manifest how much Joe loved a spanking bit of horseflesh. But now, a thumb in one armhole, his head thrown back, he called out affably to the others:
‘Aloft there! Down you get. And leave the trunk. Frankie’ll take that in. Holy St Bridget! That dust has gave me a thirst.’
Then, with permissible swagger, he advanced up the path; it was as though his bearing said: Let all who deny the Irishman’s, right to invade and acquire Scotland gaze upon the figure of Joseph Moore and be confounded.
He was big – not so much tall as bulky; the honourable full-bellied bigness of the publican – and he had all the big man’s heartiness. Benevolent geniality glistened out of his small black eyes that were set deeply, currants in the suet of his smooth pale face; his nostrils were comfortably wide, and little tufts of hair stuck out of them; his teeth, which he showed when he parted his broad, blue-stippled upper lip, glistened also strong and regular, part of his ivory skull. Upon his round and close-cropped head, that narrowed at the top, his billycock sat at a knowing tilt; his short tan dustcoat fell rakishly apart; and his boots, befitting his blue suit, were a beautiful shade of ochre. Altogether he was a grand figure of a man, not young, of course – his age was fifty – but his spirit – ah, Joe’s spirit was eternal. Something of that spirit could be gathered from his brawny heartiness; but there were incidents, numerous historic incidents, which testified more fully to Joe’s capacity and the essential magnificence of his marrow. That occasion, for example, when he had blandly retailed to a drunken riveter, who had rashly sworn once and for all to taste champagne, a bottle of ginger ale; that other when, having purchased a parrot warranted to sing, he had found the bird songless and caused it instantly to be stuffed; and that when, invited to an ecclesiastical banquet, he had starved himself for two long days beforehand – astounding self-denial – to do more justice to the sumptuous repast.
That was Joe, inimitable, and as he proceeded up the path, behind him came his sister Polly – two years younger – waddling a little, as was excusable from her girth and the manifest importance of her petticoats. She was not as tall as Joe, but she was fatter, so fat that she had an almost sagging look which diminished, apparently, her stature. With her round chins beneath her full red face, her heavy breasts – twin obscenities – her pendent stomach; even her ankles flowing in slack folds over her half-buttoned gaping boots, she had the air as though the force of gravity acting upon her adiposity strove continually to weigh her downwards. Even her hair was a little down her back. Her dress was rich, and, though it might oppress the eye, at least ‘ there was money in it’. As for its colours, they had the virtue of pleasing Polly. Over all she wore a loose fur cape, out of season – ‘for the drive, you know’ – and now she panted.
Arrived upon the doorstep, Polly drew breath whilst Joe announced their advent by a series of boisterous pulls upon the bell. A sight to do the heart good, this pair, so reassuring, so full of the comfortable zest of living. As Netta swung open the door, he took Polly by the arm, exclaiming gallantly:
‘Intil the house with you. Wha’ d’ye mean by standing like a pig with its eye on the butcher?’
‘I can’t walk through you, can I now?’ said Polly, answering his badinage like some faithful back-chat comedian. It was clear she loved Joe; that admiration mingled freely with her sisterly affection. For five years now she had been his housekeeper, and in those years immeasurable adulation had gushed from her generous bosom towards him.
He gave her a playful push by way of recompense, then, turning genially, he cried:
‘Anna! Come along, guyrl! What are you stuck there for?’ And in the same jovial second he was in the hall, pumping Lucy’s hand – he always made a fuss of her on the rare occasions that they met – staging a mock encounter of fisticuffs with Peter, calling out loudly for his brother.
‘Frankie! Let’s have a swatch at you, Frankie boy.’
He was a fine fellow, was Big Joe Moore – in his own phrase: ‘By God he was an’ all.’
‘Frankie’ll be down in a minute,’ said Lucy quickly. She had with difficulty induced him to go upstairs to shave and change his suit; and, her wrapper that moment discarded, she was a little warm and flurried from her own exertions in the kitchen. ‘I’m delighted to see you,’ she declared openly. ‘But Anna – where’s Anna?’; and her bright eye slipped over Joe’s shoulder eagerly.
‘Anna!’ shouted Joe again, and, removing his hat, he hung it upon the back of his head.
Anna advanced, though not assuredly at his bidding, with a negligent air, her manner passive and composed. She was dark and tall, her dress quiet, her figure good, her age under thirty, her face pale, contained, with large, dark, almost stolid brown eyes. Those eyes had a drooping, indifferent look, her lip, protruding, a vague fullness, her whole expression, half-smiling, half-disdainful, a curious ambiguity at once defensive and averse.
‘So you’re Anna,’ said Lucy, smiling and offering her hand. ‘I’m glad – glad you’ve come.’
‘Thanks,’ said Anna pleasantly. Her voice was quiet, surprisingly refined. Anna’s whole appearance, considering her origin and her background, gave Lucy a sudden unexpected pleasure. I’ll like her, she thought instinctively. I am glad I invited her.
‘And I’m not sorry to be quit of her,’ broke in Polly, with a jocular shake of her plumes – ostrich feathers of a purple hue were in her hat. ‘Deed and I’m not. She’s been keeping my brother Joe off his work this last fortnight. An’ him a decent man with a starvin’ sister on his hands.’
Peter, arrayed in his kilt, as all occasions of company demanded, let out a sudden laugh, then blushed vividly; he had been previously grounded in the adage that he be seen but not heard.
‘Good! Good!’ cried Joe, slapping his haunch. ‘We’re all aboard for Mullingar’; and he took the boy’s arm as they moved into the dining-room – now arranged elegantly for the amenities of ‘high tea’. Imposing sight. Lucy’s best was on that table: her finest napery, her brightest cutlery, the silver biscuit-barrel that had been her mother’s – Richard had wanted that barrel and hadn’t had it! – even her ‘hand-painted’ wedding china, preserved miraculously intact throughout the years. And there was choice food upon the table; cold meat, pancakes, scones, a promising ham; and the crochet mat beside the epergne gave promise of a hot dish to come. Unquestionably the preparation of this repast had cost Lucy trouble. It was a fact, moreover, that the tone of those familiar assemblies rasped at times her sense of strict decorum. But this, in her decided way, she put briskly to one side. These were Fra
nk’s people, and she had her social instincts towards them. A sense of social obligation.
Meanwhile Joe had fixed the table with an eloquent eye.
‘Bedam! I could do with a tightener,’ said he agreeably, pulling down his waistcoat, and patting his paunch with sympathetic understanding. ‘Me and Polly and Anna left early.’
Here Polly, making leisurely but intimate inspection of the photographs, fingering the ornaments and the china on the stand, addressed the air:
‘Shook the hunger out of me, you did, with your scorching. And me not well. Wind round the heart,’ she explained to Lucy with an air of exclusive ownership towards the affliction. Polly had indeed proprietary rights, or at least an option, on several of the more harrowing morbidities. ‘Like a stone it is! Hard and heavy as a lump. Then “ffflute”, up it comes with a rush! It’ll finish me some day.’
‘What’s come of that brother of mine?’ cried Joe, sniffing impatiently. ‘Where is he – seeing a man about a dog?’
Almost at that moment Frank came into the room, wearing that conscious, troubled look, the result of his effort to appear natural and at ease.
‘How is the body, boy?’ roared Joe at once.
Frank nodded without enthusiasm, then opposite Anna he paused awkwardly and hesitated; his best suit sat upon him stiffly.
‘You’re back again then, Anna,’ said he.
‘Well, that’s pretty plain, Frank,’ she answered, with her elusive smile. ‘You’d think you didn’t know me now.’
‘I’d have known you all right,’ he said, in his constrained voice. ‘You’re not the least changed since I was over there.’
‘That’s good,’ she replied evenly. She had a pleasant composure, her striking feature a capacity for stillness.
‘Mr Lennox may come in later,’ said Lucy, breaking in upon the short succeeding silence. ‘ But we’ll not wait. He said he’d be after tea.’
They sat down to the meal in the utmost harmony, Netta appearing briskly with a steaming ashet, Lucy, a little flushed from her pouring, eagerly attentive to the needs of her guests.
‘I hope you’re going to enjoy your visit,’ she remarked, leaning companionably towards Anna. ‘ Peter’s arranged a picnic for you.
And we’ve been invited to spend a day with Edward at Port Doran. But perhaps you’re going to stay there later?’
‘No,’ said Anna reflectively, ‘I don’t think I’ll stay there.’
‘Never cared much, did you, Anna, for Ned?’ Panted Polly through her toast.
‘Ned,’ said Anna, gently considering the Rev. Fr Moore. ‘He’s as nice a priest as you’d meet anywhere.’
‘Order, order, Anna,’ cried Joe, masticating jocularly, perceiving perhaps a tinge of irony where none had been intended. ‘Respect the cloth! Honour the fambly!’
‘And that was a nice housekeeper he had – Miss O’Regan,’ she went on, unperturbed. ‘She looked after him like his guardian angel. A kind woman!’
There was nothing to laugh at in the words; nevertheless, Joe grinned; Polly gave a little snigger; even Frank smiled.
Lucy did not understand. Her flush deepened, and she looked at Anna, touched for a moment by something of that subtle quantity in the other’s air. But the moment passed. Anna met her gaze mildly and said:
‘I don’t see the fun of it either.’
‘Holy Mother!’ broke in Joe, with that touch of brogue he assumed in moments of emotion, ‘these eggs eat tasty as a turkey’s. I’ll have a couple more, Lucy. And some of that cold meat.’
Polly thrust herself forward, passing her brother’s plate obsequiously.
‘I’m pleased to see you sharp set, Joe,’ said she. Turning to Lucy, she smiled, taking care to avoid dislodging her teeth – a beautiful set with which Joe had recently endowed her; and she added:
‘“Give the men their food” is my motto. Every man’s heart is in his middle. And there’s nothin’ makes blood like underdone meat. That’s the stuff to stick to your ribs. Stops a decline.’ She paused, folded her arms composedly across her stomach. ‘God’s truth, that is.’ Polly had, indeed, a profound belief in the Deity’s veracity. For a woman of sickly habit she had a great conviction, pinning her faith in Providence and the enema pipe.
‘And how’s the butter business, young fella?’ asked Joe, licking the yolk from his knife, his question touching lightly upon the occupation of his brother.
‘Well, it’s good,’ answered Frank briefly, ‘ but it’s none the better for your asking.’
Joe nodded his well-shorn skull amiably.
‘Do you know,’ said Polly again, her mind running, as usual, on matters of pathology. ‘Do you know what they’re doin’ with butter now? I heard the other day about a woman that took a chance on one of them new-fangled sanatorium places, and they did nothin’ but feed her on butter. Pounds and pounds of fresh butter she ate. They filled her with it till she sweated fat. Sure, she got that sick of it one mornin’ she flung the whole screed out of the window and, as God’s my Maker, it landed full flush on the top of the principal doctor. She died a couple of months later, rest her soul. I believe he kilt her out of spite. I’m beginning to fancy me own lungs is touched.’
‘Ah! kiss me hand!’ was Joe’s gracious comment. ‘And King Billie’s toe! It’s your brain that’s touched.’ Rattling down his knife and fork, he swivelled his round head on its thick neck with an easy heartiness.
‘That was a great feed altogether. D’ye hear that, Frankie boy? It’s a treat of a wife you’ve got!’
‘Thanks for the information,’ said the other in a stiff voice. ‘I didn’t ask for it.’
But Joe would take no offence.
‘You’re welcome, boy – welcome. As a poor old widower I envy you. And never mind the Ten Commandments. My poor Katie, rest her soul, couldn’t have raised a feed like that to save herself from purgatory.’
Lucy moved restlessly. These family gatherings, though she admitted their familiar tone, went usually with an easy swing once Frank’s reserve had been dissolved. But now Frank’s reserve had not been dissolved; she was conscious of that constraint of his persisting, despite her efforts to dispel it: and she was not accustomed to see her efforts go for naught. Frowning a little, her manner briskly imperious, she addressed him over the yellow chrysanthemums in the epergne.
‘Come along now, Frank. You’re not looking after your cousin. Pass her the shortbread.’
‘He’s doing fine,’ said Anna with a smile. ‘He just hasn’t got over the shock of seeing me again!’
‘Shock, indeed!’ said Lucy, reproachfully regarding Frank as he glumly advanced the plate of shortbread. Then, turning to Anna with determined compensatory amiability, she demanded:
‘Were you glad to get back to Levenford?’
‘I was and I wasn’t,’ said Anna impartially.
‘She means,’ said Polly briefly, ‘that she hates the place.’
‘I see how it is,’ said Lucy, smiling towards Anna. ‘She’s left her heart in Ireland.’
There was a quite perceptible pause in the general note of mastication, a tiny gap of suspense wherein Joe, Polly, even Frank, shot each a quick look at Anna.
‘Maybe,’ said Anna critically. ‘Maybe not!’
Then came a silence. Lucy was puzzled; and she did not enjoy this sensation of perplexity. She was about to speak when Frank, who so rarely ventured a remark, suddenly scraped back his chair and declared:
‘We’re finished now. Let’s get into the parlour.’
There was a general uprising. Polly rubbed her napkin over her moist red face.
‘I’m a one to sweat at my meat,’ she observed in a loud undertone. ‘I’ve got to eat slow or it rises on me.’ It rose upon her even as she spoke. Gracefully she broke wind, unconscious alike of Lucy’s frown and Anna’s expressionless stare.
They went into the parlour. Joe unbuttoned his waistcoat, Withdrew a cigar, and, carefully retaining the scarlet collar, ignited it with a splut
ter; Polly, fanning gently, composed herself in layers by the window; Anna sat down upon the sofa; Frank, supporting his favourite corner of the mantelpiece, his gaze adrift in space, made moodly investigation with a toothpick.
At the door Lucy paused, her arm round Peter’s shoulders.
‘You’ll excuse me,’ said she. ‘ I must see the boy to bed.’
‘No, mother,’ he wriggled, ‘it’s too early!’
‘Let him stay up a while longer,’ suggested Anna.
‘I’m afraid,’ said Lucy awkwardly, ‘it’s a rule I have. Seven o’clock!’
The boy’s underlip hung out.
‘Well, he muttered, ‘Uncle Joe promised to give me a penny. And he hasn’t.’
‘God bless my soul!’ cried Joe, ‘ I forgot.’ With a lordly gesture he disengaged himself from the cigar and, after much straining, produced a warm copper coin.
‘Say thank you,’ said Lucy rather sharply. Her son’s action savoured too strongly of usury for her liking; a host to demand money from his guest! She turned abruptly, faintly perplexed and faintly frowning, upset by something she knew not what. Halting upon the landing, she said:
‘You shouldn’t have done that, son.’
‘Sorry, mother,’ he grinned; but he put the penny carefully in his jug for all that.
Upstairs, she reflected that she might have asked Anna to help her to bath the boy: yes, that would have been ‘nice’; a companionable chat they would have had across the tub! Anna manifestly was too shy to have advanced this suggestion herself. She would have to overcome this reserve of Anna’s; make her feel at home.
Reflecting in this fashion, she had almost finished when there came a measured peal upon the front door bell, announcing the arrival of Mr Lennox. Instinctively she hastened her movements. Though his office was in Glasgow, he, too, lived in Ardfillan, higher up the hill, and it was a notable mark of favour for him to ‘look in on them’ – his own dry definition of these occasional visits. Yet, despite his dryness, she liked Lennox, and she had the soundest reasons for cultivating him. Unaggressive, shrewd, tolerant, he was known as a broad-minded man – or how indeed could he have long ago compounded this partnership with Galton? A Scot and an Irishman in business! Worse than a Gentile and a Jew! But he had done it: Galton had the connection and he the capital. And now, with Galton’s death, he was, she knew, cautiously contemplating higher flights: the extension of his interest to the importation from Holland of this new synthetic commodity. It was her opportunity. Tonight she did not propose to launch her strategem; but she would make preparations for its launching.
