Hatter's Castle

by Арчибальд Джозеф Кронин

  But Mamma was, alas, not like that. Unstable as water, and as shallow, she reflected merely the omnipresent shadow of another stronger than herself. Upon her lay the heavy shade of a mountain whose ominous presence overcast her limpid nature with a perpetual and compelling gloom. The very tone of this godly conversation was merely the echo of Brodie's irresistible demand. How could she

  speak of the fear of Eternity when her fear of Brodic dwarfed this into insignificance, into nothingness? For her there was only one rock, and that the adamantine hardness of her husband's furious will. Woe! Woe to her, if she did not cling submissively to that! She was, of course, a Christian woman, with all the respectable convictions which this implied. To attend church regularly on Sundays, even to frequent, when she could escape from her duties, an occasional fervent, week-night meeting, to condemn the use of the grosser words of the vocabulary such as "Hell" or "Damn", fully justified her claim to godliness; and when, for her relaxation, she read a work of fiction, she perused only such good books as afforded the virtuous and saintly heroine a charming and godly husband in the last chapter, and afforded herself a feeling of pure and elevated refinement. But she could no more have supported her daughter in this crisis of her life than she could have confronted Brodie in his wrath. All this Mary comprehended fully.

  "Will you not tell me, Mary?" Mamma persisted. "I wish I knew what was goin' on inside that stubborn head of yours!" She was continually in fear that her daughter might be secretly contemplating some discreditable step which would again arouse Brodie's ungovernable fury. Often in her shuddering anticipation she felt, not only the lash of his tongue, but the actual chastisement with which he had threatened her.

  "There's nothing to tell you, Mamma," replied Mary sadly. "Nothing to say to you."

  She was aware that if she had attempted to unburden herself, her mother would have stopped her with one shrill, protesting cry and, with deaf ears, have fled from the room. "No! No! don't tell me! Not a word more. I won't hear it. It's not decent," Mary could almost hear her crying, as she ran. Bitterly she repeated:

  "No! I've nothing at all to tell you!"

  "But you must think of something. I know you're thinking, by the look of you," persisted Mrs. Brodie. Mary looked full at her mother.

  "Sometimes I think I would be happy if I could get out of this house and never come back' she said bitterly. Mrs. Brodie held up her hands, aghast.

  "Mary!" she cried. "What a thing to say! Ye should be thankful to have such a good home. It's a good thing your father doesna hear ye he would never forgive such black ingratitude!"

  "How can you talk like that," cried Mary wildly. "You must feel as I do about it. This has never been a home to us. Can't you feel it crushing us? It's like part of father's terrible will. Remember I haven't been out of it for six weeks and I feel oh! I feel broken to pieces," she sobbed.

  Mrs. Brodie eyed these tears gratefully, as a sign of submission.

  "Don't cry, Mary," she admonished; "although ye should be sorry for talking such improper nonsense about the grand place you're privileged to live in. When your father built it 'twas the talk o' Levenford."

  "Yes," sobbed Mary, "and so are we. Father makes that so, too. We don't seem like other people. We're not looked on like ordinary people."

  "I should think not!" bridled Mrs. Brodie. "We're far and above them."

  "Oh! Mother," cried Mary, "you would never understand what I mean. Father has frightened you into his own notions. He's driving us all into some disaster. He keeps us apart from people. We've got no friends. I never had a chance like anybody else; I've been so shut off from everything."

  "And a good job too," interposed Mamma. "It's the way a decent girl should be brought up. You should have been shut off a bit more, by the way you've been goin' on."

  Mary did not seem to hear her, but, gazing blindly in front of her, pursued that last thought to its bitter end. "I was shut up in a prison in darkness," she whispered; "and when I did escape I was dazzled and lost my way." An expression of utter hopelessness spread slowly over her face.

  "Don't mumble like that," cried Mamma sharply. "If ye can't speak up honestly to your mother, don't speak at all. The idea! Ye should be thankful to have folks to take care of ye and keep ye in here out of harm."

  "Harm! I haven't done much harm in the last few weeks," echoed Mary, in a flat voice.

  "Mary! Mary!" cried Mamma reprovingly. "You should be showing a better spirit. Don't answer so sulkily. Be bright and active and show more respect and deference to your parents. To think of the low young men of the district running after you should bring the blush of shame to your face. You ought to be glad to stay in to escape from them and not be always hanging about looking so gloomy.

  Why! When I think what you're being protected from " Mamma stopped for very modesty and shuddered virtuously as she pushed Spurgeon's sermons nearer Mary. Concluding on the highest and most elevated note, she arose and, as she retreated to the door, said significantly, "Have a look at that, my girl. It'll do ye more good than any light talk ye might hear outside." Then she went out, closing the door behind her with a soft restraint which harmonised with the

  godly thoughts which filled her mind.

  But Mary did not touch the book that had been so persistently thrust upon her; instead, she looked hopelessly out of the window. Heavy masses of cloud shut out the sky, turning the short October afternoon more quickly towards the night. A soft, insistent rain blurred the window panes; no wind stirred; her three silver birches, bereft of leaves, were silent in a misty, melancholy reverie. She had of late gazed at them so often that she knew them in every mood and thought of them as her own. She had seen them shed their leaves. Each leaf had come fluttering down sadly, slowly, like a lost hope, and with each fall Mary had cast away a fragment of her faith. They had been like symbols to her, these three trees, and so long as they had breathed through their living foliage, she had not despaired. But the last leaflet had gone and this evening, like her, they were denuded, enwrapped in cold mist, lost in profound despondency.

  Her child was living in her womb. She had felt it throb with an ever-increasing surge of life; this throbbing, living child that no one knew of but Denis and herself. She was undiscovered. Concealment, which had at first so much worried her, had not been easy, but now it did not trouble her at all; for, at this moment, her mind was occupied by a deeper and more awful contemplation.

  Yet, as she sat so passive by her window, she recollected how the first movement within her had caused her a pang, not of fear, but of sublime yearning. She had been transcended by a swift illumination which lit up the dark spaces of her mind, and a fierce desire for her child had seized her. This desire had, through many dark hours, sustained her fortitude, had filled her with a brave endurance of her present misery. She had felt that she now suffered for the child, that

  the more she endured, the more she would be recompensed by its love.

  But that seemed a long time ago, before hope had finally left her. She had then still believed in Denis.

  Since that afternoon when she had gone to Darroch she had not seen him. Imprisoned in the house by the will of her father, she had lived through these six, unendurable weeks without a glimpse of Denis. Sometimes she had imagined she had seen his figure lurking outside the house; often, at night, she had felt that he was near; once she had wakened with a shriek to a faint tapping on her window; but now she realised that these had been merely illusions of her disordered fancy and she was finally convinced that he had deserted her.

  He had abandoned her. She would never see him again.

  She longed for night to come to bring sleep to her. In the beginning of her sorrow she had been unable to rest; then, strangely, she had slept profoundly, with a slumber often pervaded by exquisite dreams, dreams that were filled with an extraordinary felicity. Then she was always with Denis amongst enchanting surroundings, exploring with him a sunlit land of gay, old cities, and mingling with laughing people, living u
pon strange and exotic foods. These pleasant phantasies, by their happy augury for the future, had at one time cheered and comforted her; but that was past; she sought now no visions of unreality. The sleep which she desired was a dreamless one. She had resolved to kill herself. Vividly she remembered her words to him on Darroch Station, when she had, with an unconscious, dreadful foreboding, told what she would do if he deserted her. Her only refuge lay in death. Unknown to any one she had concealed in her room a packet of salts of lemon which she had removed from the high shelf above the washtubs in the scullery. To-night she would go to bed in the usual way and, in the morning, they would find her dead. The living child that had never breathed would be dead too, she realised, but that was the best thing that could happen. Then they would bury her with her unborn child in the wet earth and she would be finished and at peace. She got up and opened a drawer. Yes! It was there safely. With calm fingers she opened slightly one end of the white packet and gazed at

  the harmless appearance of the contents within. Unconsciously, she reflected how strange it was that these inert, innocent crystals should be so full of deadly potentiality; yet she was aware that they held no menace for her, but only a benign succour. They would enable her with a single, quick motion to escape from the hopeless, cumulative bondage of her existence and, when she swallowed them, she would drain in one final, convulsive gulp the last bitter dregs of life itself. Tranquilly, she reflected that at bedtime she must bring up water in

  a cup to dissolve the crystals.

  She replaced the packet, closed the drawer, and, returning to the window, sat down and began again to knit. She would finish the sock to-night for her father. As she thought of him, she had no active emotion towards him everything within her was passive, as though her feelings had already died. He never spoke to her. His arm was healed. His life went on unchanged and, even after she was dead, would go on unchanged, with the same unfailing regularity, in the same proud indifference, smoothed by the same adulation and cringing subservience from Mamma.

  She stopped knitting for a moment and glanced out of the window. Nessie was coming in from school. Compassion invaded her for her small, susceptible sister who had been at first infected with her misery. She would be sorry to leave Nessie. Poor Nessie! She would be all alone! Strangely, however, the diminutive figure did not enter the gate, but instead, stood in the gathering dusk, making a peculiar, determinate sign. It was not Nessie, but another small girl who,

  posted indomitably in the rain, waved her arm upwards with a significant, yet hidden intention. Mary looked at her fixedly, but as she did so the movements ceased and the little puppet moved away. Two people then came into view and passed out of sight down the road, leaving it void and black as before. A sigh burst from Mary, expressive of the dispersion of a dim, unborn hope; she rubbed her eyes vaguely and covered them dumbly with her hands.

  She removed her hands and immediately again viewed the child, waving more emphatically, more appealingly than before. She stared uncomprehendingly, then, feeling that she must be the victim of some strange hallucination of her disordered senses, expecting the phenomenon to vanish as instantaneously and magically as it had appeared, slowly, unbelievingly, she opened her window and looked out.

  Immediately, out of the dim obscurity, a round object, thrown with unerring accuracy, struck her upon the shoulder and dropped with a soft thud at her feet, whilst at the same instant the street became vacant and empty. Mechanically Mary closed the window and sat down again. She would have dismissed the whole episode as a delusion of her tired brain but for the fact that upon the floor lay the missile which had impinged upon her out of the gathering darkness, like a small meteor falling from the invisible sky. She looked at the round object more closely. It was an apple.

  She stooped and retrieved the apple, which felt smooth and polished and warm, as if for a long time it had been harboured in hot, human hands, and as she held it in her small palm, she scarcely knew why she should have abandoned her knitting for the contemplation of so absurd an object. It was, she recognised of the pippin variety a King Pippin and immediately there flashed across her memory a

  remark once made to her by Denis: "We're fond of apples at home," he had said; "we always have a barrel of King Pippins standing in the pantry." At this sudden thought, from merely looking perplexedly at the apple, she began to inspect it closely and discovered, to her surprise and growing agitation, a faint circular cut, made necessarily by a fine blade, encircling the entire core. Her wan cheeks flooded with a high, nervous colour as she plucked at the short dried stem which was still adherent to the apple, but they paled instantly and the blood drained from her face, as a neat round plug of the firm, white fruit came away easily in her grasp, revealing a hollowed-out centre which was packed tightly with a roll of thin paper. With frantic haste and a pitiful agitation her nervous fingers fumblingly extracted and unrolled the cylinder, then, suddenly, the action of her fluttering heart almost ceased. It was a letter from Denis! He had written to her. He had not abandoned her. Her wild, incredulous eyes fastened themselves avidly upon this letter which had reached her with all the timely mercy of a reprieve. Feverishly she read on, saw that it had been written almost a fortnight previously, that it addressed her in most fervent terms. A great joy came upon her like a full, dazzling light suddenly turned upon her, blinding her by its unexpectedness, warming her with its radiance. The words of the letter shone before her eyes, their meaning flooded her like a glow of heat penetrating a chilled and icy body. She had been mad to doubt him. He was Denis, her Denis and he loved her!

  He loved her, had tried with all his power to reach her, had attempted, even, to place a message through her window by night. She saw now that she had been right in feeling that he was near to her, but her foolish cry of fear had driven him away. Still, nothing mattered in the face of his wonderful news. Her heart beat as she read that he had taken their house the cottage in Garshake. They could move into it upon the first of January. It was called Rosebank in summer a bower of roses, in winter a warm, safe haven to enclose them both. He was doing all that lay within his power and he was not afraid! She was touched beyond measure at his endeavours, at what he had done for her. How he had worked for her! He would have come to her openly, but for the fact that their plans were not mature. They must have a roof to cover them, a house to shelter them, before they could take any drastic step; until then, he must be wary for her sake. Yes! she must wait wait a little longer; wait until his last summer trip of the year was over, until he could devote himself to her. Then he would take her away with him for ever, care for her, and look to her safety and comfort. Her eyes grew dim with tears of happiness as she read his promises to cherish her. Could she wait? She must wait. She could endure anything, so long as he took her to him in the end.

  When she had finished the letter, for a moment she remained quite still, as though the shock of unexpected happiness had petrified her into stone and she sat like a marble effigy, rigid and motionless. Then, slowly, a pulsating essence flowed through her veins; mysterious currents, set in motion by the moving words of his letter, circulated in her being; after what had been an eternity of deathlike inanition she lived and, as in an awakening Galatea, a tinge of life pervaded her, colour rushed into her face, her body, her limbs. Her eyes sparkled eagerly with the joy of living, her constrained lips parted softly, fervidly, and the sad immobility of her face was transfigured by a rush of sanguine joy. Like a watcher forgotten upon some solitary isle, who, worn with an endless, fruitless vigil, has long abandoned hope, the sudden sight of the means of her rescue filled her with an unbelievable, almost unbelieving ecstasy. The loud beating of her reawakened heart sang in her ears with a rapturous refraia; the pale hands holding the letter became animate, vitalised and active; eagerly the fingers seized a pencil that lay near and wrote urgently

  on the reverse side of the paper.

  It was a short note, saying that she was well and, now that she had heard from him, happy. She s
aid nothing of the tortures of mind she had suffered, or of the abyss into which she had been sinking. She told him she would abide gladly in her present home if only he came for her in December, and she blessed him repeatedly for his letter. She had not time to write more, for, outside the house, in the rapidly fading light, she discerned that the patient, tenacious figure of the child had again reappeared and was gazing expectantly towards the

  window. It was Rose it must be Rose that small devoted sister he had spoken of. She blessed Rose! And now, replacing the message in the hollow apple, she raised the window sash and, throwing with all her strength, watched the sphere go sailing through the air and bound twice upon the road before coming to rest. Dimly she glimpsed Rose running to recover it, saw her extract the letter and place it in her coat pocket, observed her wave her hand significantly, triumphantly, and, as if to symbolise the sweetness of her triumph, go off down the road, exultantly munching the bruised and battered pippin.

  A quiver of grateful admiration ran through Mary as the small figure passed out of sight, marching indomitably with the same invincible air, the same jaunty courage, as Denis. A slight smile of recollection moved her as she remembered Rose' careless touch upon the piano. The folly of judging the intrepid messenger by the execution of those scales!

  And now Mary arose and stretched her limbs luxuriously. She raised her arms above her head in an attitude of unconscious aspiration and, whilst her figure seemed to draw itself upwards, her head fell back, her throat grew taut. As she gazed 'to wards heaven, her face filled with a supreme thanksgiving, which seemed insensibly to pass into an invocation for the future. She was alive again, brave, filled with new hope, new courage. Little prickling streams ran through her skin. Suddenly, as she lowered her arms and again relaxed her body, she felt hungry. For weeks she had eaten nothing but the insipid, choking mouthfuls thrust down at meal time under the eye of her father, and the delicious return of the zest to live now made her voracious.