Women stared at her from open courts as they stood idle, slatternly, bare-armed, talking in groups; a mongrel dog chased her, barking, snapping at her heels; a cripple, dirty and deformed, taking his ease upon the pavement, shouted after her for alms, pursuing her with his voice whiningly, importunately, insultingly.
She hurried with a greater speed to escape from the depressing confines of the lane and had almost made her way through, when she discerned a large crowd of people bearing down upon her. For one tragic, transient instant she stood still, conceiving this to be a mob rushing to assault her. Immediately, however, the sound of a band fell upon her ears, and she observed that the host, surrounded by an attendant rabble of dirty children and racing, mangy curs, descending
upon her like a regiment marching to battle, was the local branch of the Salvation Army, newly formed in Levenford. In the rush of its youthful enthusiasm, its devoted members were utilising the holiday by parading the low quarters of the town even at this early hour of the day to combat and offset any vice or debauchery that might be liberated on the occasion of the Cattle Show.
Onwards they came, banners flying, dogs barking, cymbals crashing, the band blaring out the hymn : "Throw out the Life-line", whilst the soldiers of both sexes joined their voices loudly with harmonious fervour.
As they advanced she pressed herself against the wall, wishing the pavement to open beneath her feet and engulf her, and while they swept past, she shrank into herself as she felt the buffet and sway of the surging bodies coarsely against her own. Suddenly, as they rolled past, a female private of the army, flushed with righteousness and the joy of her new uniform, seeing Mary there so frightened and humiliated, dropped for a moment her piercing soprano and, thrusting her face close to Mary's, whispered in one hot, penetrating breath:
"Sister, are you a sinner? Then come and be saved; come and be washed in the Blood of the Lamb!"
Then, merging her whisper into the burden of the hymn, she sang loudly, "Some one is sinking to-day", swung again into the fervent strains and was gone, tramping victoriously down the street.
A sense of unutterable degradation possessed Mary as she supported herself against the wall, feeling with her sensitive nature that this last disgrace represented the crowning manifestation of an angry Providence. In the course of a few hours the sudden, chance direction of her thoughts into an obscure and foreign channel had altered the whole complexion of her life. She could not define the feeling which possessed her, she could not coherently express or even understand the dread which filled her, but as she stumbled off upon her way
home she felt, in a nausea of self-reproach, that she was unworthy to live.
VH
ON the Monday after the Cattle Show a considerable commotion occurred in the Brodie household. The ra-ta-tat of the postman on that morning was louder than usual and his mien fraught with a more important significance, as he handed to Mrs. Brodie a letter embellished by a row of strange stamps, a thin, flimsy oblong which crackled mysteriously between her agitated fingers. Mamma, with a
palpitating heart, looked at this letter which she had been anticipating for days. There was no need for her to consider who had sent it, for she recognised immediately the thin, "foreign" envelopes which she had herself solicitously chosen and carefully packed for Matt. She was alone and, in a transport of gratitude and expectation, she pressed the envelope to her lips, then close against her bosom, until, after a moment, as though she had by contact absorbed its hidden message directly into her heart, she withdrew it and turned it over in her red, work-wrinkled hands. Although she felt that the letter was exclusively hers she saw that it was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. James Brodic, and she dared not open it; she dared not run upstairs and cry joyfully to her husband,
"A letter from Matt!" Instead she took this first, precious, unsubstantial bulletin from abroad and placed it carefully upon her husband's plate. She waited. She waited submissively, yet with an eager, throbbing impatience, for the news from her son, returning from time to time into the kitchen from the scullery to reassure herself that the letter was still there, that this phenomenal missive, which had miraculously traversed three thousand leagues of strange seas and exotic lands to reach her safely, had not now suddenly vanished into the empty air.
At last, after what seemed to her an eternity, Brodie came down, still showing in his disposition, she observed thankfully, remnants of the previous day's pleasure. Immediately she brought him his porridge and, having placed this gently before him, stood expectantly a short distance off. Brodie took up the letter, weighed it silently on the palm of his huge hand, seemed to consider it dispassionately, weighed it ostentatiously again, then put it down unopened before him and commenced to eat his porridge. As he supped one spoonful after another, bent forward in a crouching attitude with both elbows upon the table, he kept his eyes fixed upon the envelope and maliciously affected not to see her.
Under the refinement of his malice she remained in the background, her hands pressed tightly together, her body tense with a fever of anticipation, until she could no longer endure the suspense.
"Open it, Father," she whispered.
He affected a violent, exaggerated start.
"Bless my soul, woman, you near scared the life out me. What are ye hangin' about there for? Oh! I see! I see! It's this bit o' a thing that's drawin' ye." He jerked his spoon towards the letter and lay back negligently in his chair, contemplating her. He was, he told himself in the full flush of his amiability, having a rare game with her. "Ye've the look o' a wasp ower the jam pot," he drawled. "The same kind o' sickly hunger about ye. I was thinkin' mysel' it looked pretty thin; pretty poor stuff, I've no doubt."
"It's the thin note paper I bought for him to save postage," Mamma pleaded. "Ye can get a dozen sheets o' it into the one envelope."
"There's not a dozen sheets here. No, I question if there's more nor two or three at the outside. I hope that doesna mean bad news," he said sadly, cocking one small, spiteful eye at her.
"Oh! Will ye not open it and put my mind at rest, Father?" she implored. "I'm fair eaten up with anxiety, ye must surely see."
He lifted his head arrestingly.
"There's plenty time plenty o' time," he drawled, spinning out the words. "If ye've waited ten weeks, another ten minutes’ll not burst ye. Away and bring me the rest o' my breakfast."
Sighing with uncertainty, she was obliged to drag herself away from the letter and go back to the scullery to dish up his bacon and eggs whilst she trembled continually in the fear that he might read the epistle and suddenly destroy it in her absence.
"That's the spirit," he cried broadly, as she hastily returned. "I ha vena seen ye run like that since the day ye ate the green grosets. 1 know how to make ye souple. I'll have ye dancin' in a minute."
But she did not reply; he had baited her into dumbness. Accordingly, when he had finished breakfast, he again picked up the letter.
"Well, I suppose we better see what is inside it," he drawled casually, taking as long as he could to slit the envelope and extract the largely written sheets. Silence reigned whilst he protracted his reading of the epistle intolerably, but all the time Mamma's anxious eyes never left his face, seeking there some expression which might transmit to her a verification of her hopes and a negation of her fears.
At length he threw it down, declaring:
"Nothing in it! A pack o' nonsense!"
The moment he relinquished them, Mrs. Brodie threw herself upon the sheets and, seizing them with longing, brought them close to her myopic eyes and drank the closely written lines thirstily. She observed at once from the superscription that the letter had been written on board the Irrawaddy and that it had been posted almost immediately the ship berthed.
"Dear Parents," she read, "I take up my pen to write you after a most fearful and unending attack of mal de mer, or more plainly, sea-sickness. This dreadful affliction settled upon me first in the Irish Sea, but in the Bay of Biscay I was so ill I wished
to die, and would have prayed to be thrown to the fishes but for the thought of you at home. My cabin being close and unendurable, and my berth companion turning out to be a vulgar fellow addicted to a heavy indulgence in drink I at first attempted to remain on deck, but the waves were so gigantic and the sailors so uncharitable that I was forced to descend again to my hot, disagreeable quarters. In this confined space, as I lay in my bunk I was rattled about in a most awful and distressing manner, sometimes being lifted up to the ceiling and sticking there for a minute before falling heavily. When I had fallen back on my berth my stomach seemed to have remained above, for so much did I experience a feeling of emptiness and exhaustion that it seemed as if my middle was devoid of its contents. To make matters worse, I could in addition eat nothing, but vomited all the time, night as well as day. My cabin mate, as the term goes here, who occupied the lower bunk, used the most frightful language on the first night when I was sick and made me get up in my night-shirt in the cold heaving cabin to change places with him. The only thing which kept down and indeed which kept my poor body and soul together was a nourishing drink which one of the stewards kindly brought me. He called it stingo, and I must confess that I found it agreeable and that it was truly the means of saving my life for you. Altogether it was a frightful time, I can well assure you.
"Well, to continue, by the time we had passed Gibraltar, which is nothing but a bare one-sided rock, much bigger than our own Levcnford Rock but not so pretty, and were well into the Mediterranean, I managed to get my sea legs. The sea here was more blue than anything I have seen tell Nessie it was more blue even than her eyes and I was the more able to enjoy this and also the lovely colours of the sunsets as it was so mercifully calm. I could still hardly swallow a bite, but at Port Said we took in supplies of fruit and I was able to eat some fresh dates and some very delicious oranges, which were very sweet, and skinned easily like tangerines, but much larger.
I had also a fruit called a papaia which is juicy like a small melon but with a green skin and a pinkish colour of flesh. Very refreshing! I think they did me good ; in fact, I am sure they did me great good.
"I did not go ashore here as I had been warned that Port Said was a very wicked place and dangerous for Europeans unless armed. A gentleman on board here told me a long story about an adventure he had in a heathen temple and in other places there, but I will not repeat it from motives of modesty and also as I am not sure that he was speaking the truth. But it seems that there are astonishing things out here. In this connection tell Agnes I am true to her memory. I forgot to say that they come off to the ship in boats at Port Said and sell very good rahat-lakoum which is an excellent sweet, although you would never judge so from the name.
"We passed very slowly through the Suez Canal, a narrow ditch bounded on either side by miles of sandy desert with purple mountains in the distance. This canal is not much to look at and passes through some dull-looking sheets of water called the Bitter Lakes, but it is, they say, very important. Sometimes we saw men with white cloaks, mounted not on camels as you at home might have expected
but on fast horses on which they galloped away whenever they caught sight of the ship. I must tell you that I also saw palm trees for the first time just like the one in the church hall, only very much larger and thicker. In the Red Sea the heat was very great but after we had well passed Aden and some curious islands called the Twelve Apostles, when I was just hoping to have a nice time by joining the ladies in deck games, conversation, and music, the heat again suddenly became frightful. Mamma, those drill suits you got me are no use, they are so thick and heavy. The correct thing to do is to have them made in India by a native. They say they are very clever at it and have the right material, which is tussore silk and certainly not that drill you got me. Also while on this subject, please tell Mary that the glass piece of the flask she gave me smashed in the first storm, and Nessie's compass is points different from the one on the ship.
"Anyway, I went down with the heat, and although eating better ~-
I like the curries very much I lost pounds. I am sure I got very thin and this caused me much embarrassment which, together with my lack of energy, debarred me from joining in social life and I could only sit alone, thinking of my unused mandolin and looking unhappily at the ladies and at the sharks which followed the ship in great numbers.
"After the heat came the rain, what is referred to here as a monsoon a chota (small) monsoon, but it was wet enough for me just like a never-ending Scotch mist which drenched everything all day long. We went through the mist until we reached Ceylon, putting in at Colombo. This has a wonderful harbour. I could see miles and miles of calm water. Very comforting! We had had it rough in the
Indian Ocean. Some people went ashore to buy precious stones, moon-stones, opals, and turquoises, but I did not go as they say you are simply robbed and that the moonstones are full of flaws, that is cracks. Instead my friend the steward gave me a choice Colombo pineapple. Although it was large I was surprised to find that I could finish the whole of it. Very palatable! My bowels were a trifle loose on the following day and I thought I had dysentery but mercifully have been spared this, also malaria, so far. It must have been the pineapple.
"However, the worst thing of all was yet to come. In the Indian Ocean we had a typhoon, which is the worst kind of horrible storm you could ever imagine. It all began by the sky going quite purple, then dark yellow like brass. I thought it very pretty at first but suddenly all we passengers were ordered below and I took this rightly as a bad omen, for all at once the wind hit the ship like a blow. A man who was standing at his cabin had his hand caught by the sudden
slam of the door and his thumb was torn right off. A seaman had his leg broken also. It was terrible.
"I was not sick, but must now confess I was almost apprehensive. The sea came up, not like the waves in the Bay of Biscay, but with a fearful high swell like round hills. I was obliged soon to give over looking through the porthole. The ship groaned so much in her timbers I thought she would surely burst asunder. The rolling was most awful; and on two occasions we went over so far and remained there so long I feared we should never come back. But Providence was kind and finally we reached the delta of the Ganges, great banks of sand and very muddy water. We had a pilot to take us up from the mouth of the Hooghly and we went up the river so slowly that we took days. On the banks are a multitude of little patches of cultivation all irrigated by ditches. I have seen coconut palms, also bananas growing on the trees. The natives here are, of course, black
and seem to work in nothing but loin cloths, although some have turbans. They squat on their haunches as they work on their patches, but some also cast nets in the yellow river water and catch fish which are said to be good. The whites have sun helmets Father, your topee is the very thing.
"Now I must close. I have written this letter at intervals, and now we have docked. I am much impressed with the size of the place and the docks. The sky here seems full of house tops and minarets.
"I read a bit of my Bible every day. I am not indisposed. I think I shall do well here.
"With love to all at home, I remain,
"Your dutiful son,
"MATT."
Mamma drew in her breath ecstatically, as she wiped away the tears which seemed to have escaped from her over-flowing heart. Her heart swelled in a paran of joy and gratitude, singing within her,
"What a letter! What a son!" The news seemed too potent for her, alone, to contain, and a wild impulse seized her to run into the open street, to traverse the town, waving aloft the letter, crying out the brave chronicle of this epoch-making voyage.
Brodie read her mood distinctly, with a derisive penetrating eye.
"Call out the bellman," he said, "and shout the news through the Borough. Go on. Have it blurted out to everybody. Pah! wait till ye git, no' his first, but his twenty-first letter. He's done nothing yet but eat fruit and be namby-pamby."
Mamma's bosom heaved indignantly.
"The poor boy's had a dreadful time," she quivered. "Such sickness! Ye mustna begrudge him the fruit. He was aye fond o' it." Only this aspersion upon her son made her answer him back. He looked at her sardonically. "It seems ye made a fine mess of the outfit! My topee was the only fit article he had," he said, as he rose from the table.
"Ill take it up with that manager at Lennie's this very day," cried Mamma, in a choking voice. "He told me with his own lips that drill was being worn out there. The idea of such deceit! It might have sent my son to his death o' sunstroke."
"Trust you to make a mess o' anything, auld wife," he launched at her pleasantly, as a parting shot. But now his arrows did not penetrate or wound; they did not reach her as she stood in that far-off land, where tall palms waved majestic fronds against an opal sky, and soft bells pealed from temples in the scented dusk.
At last she started from her reverie.
"Mary!" she called out to the scullery, "here's Matt's letter! Read it and take it to Grandma when you've finished with it" adding presently in an absent voice, "then bring it back to me." Immediately she returned to her sweet meditation, considering that in the afternoon she would send the precious missive to Agnes Moir. Mary should take it down, together with a jar of homemade jam and a cake. Agnes might have had a letter herself, although that, Mrs. Brodie complacently reflected, was doubtful; but at any rate she would be overjoyed to hear, in any manner, of the heroic tidings of his journey and the splendid news of his arrival. To send down the letter at once was also, Mamma was well aware, the correct thing to do, and the added libations of cake and jam would embellish the titbit delightfully for Agnes, a good, worthy girl of whom she consistently approved.
When Mary returned, Mamma demanded, "What did Matt's grandma say about his letter?"
Hatter's Castle Page 13
