by A. J. Cronin
His gaze then rested upon his wife, but only for an instant; considering it her only worth that she saved him the expense of a servant in the house, he quickly looked away from her, with an involuntary, distasteful curl of his lips, and turned his mind to pleasanter things.
Yes, there was Matthew, his son! Not a bad lad; a bit sly and soft and sleek perhaps; wanted watching; and spoiled utterly by his mother. But going to India would, he hoped, make a man of him. It was getting near the time now and in only two or three weeks he would be off to that fine job Sir John Latta had got for him. Ah! folks would talk about that! His features relaxed, as he considered how everyone would recognise in this appointment a special mark of Sir John’s favour to him, and a further tribute to his prominence in the town, how, through it, his son’s character would benefit and his own importance increase.
His eye then fell upon his mother, less harshly, and with a more indulgent regard than that he had directed towards her at table. She was fond of her food, and even as she sat nodding over the fire he read her mind shrewdly, knew that she was already anticipating, thinking of her next meal, her supper of pease brose and buttermilk. She loved it, repeated like a wise saw: ‘ There’s naethin’ like brose to sleep on! It’s like a poultice to the stomach.’ Ay! her god was her belly, but losh! she was a tough old witch. The older she got, the tougher she grew, she must have good stuff in her to make her last like that, and even now she looked, to his mind, good for another ten years. If he wore as well as that, and he might wear better, he would be satisfied.
Finally he looked at Nessie and immediately his bearing became tinged, almost imperceptibly, with a faint indication of feeling, not manifest by any marked change of feature, but by his eye which became flecked with a softer and more considerate light Yes! Let Mamma keep her Matt, ay, and Mary too – Nessie was his. He would make something of her, his ewe lamb. Although she was so young she had the look of a real smart wee thing about her and the Rector had said to him only the other night that she had the makings of a scholar if she stuck in hard to her work. That was the way to do it. Pick them out young and keep them at it. He was looking ahead, too, with something up his sleeve for the future. The Latta Bursary! The crowning success of a brilliant scholastic career. She had it in her to take it, if she was nursed the right way. Gad! what a triumph! A girl to win the Latta – the first girl to win it, ay, and a Brodie at that! He would see that she did it. Mamma had better keep her soft spoiling hands off his daughter. He would see to that.
He did not quite know what he would make of her, but education was education; there were degrees that could be taken later on at College, and triumphs to be won. They all knew in the Borough that he was a man of progress, of broad and liberal ideas, and he would bring this more emphatically before them, yes, ram it into their silly mouths. ‘ Did ye hear the latest!’ he could hear them chatter. ‘That clever lass o’ Brodie’s is awa’ up to the College – ay, she’s taken the Latta – fair scooped the pool at the Academy, and he’s lettin’ her travel up and down to the University. He’s a liberal-minded man for sure. It’s a feather in his bonnet right enough.’
Yes! he would show them in the town. His chest expanded, his nostrils quivered, his eye became fixed and distant, as he gave rein to his fancy, while his unnoticed pipe went out and grew cold. He would make them recognise him, make them look up at him, would force them somehow, some day, to see him as he really was.
The thought of Nessie faded gradually from his mind, and he ceased to contemplate her future but, making himself the central figure of all his mental pictures, steeped himself delightfully in the glory she would bring to his name.
At length he bestirred himself. He knocked out the ashes of his pipe, replaced it in the rack and, with a last silent survey of his family, as though to say: ‘I am going, but remember what I’ve said, I’ll still have my eye on ye!’ he went into the hall, put on his square felt hat with the smooth well-brushed nap, took up his heavy ash stick, and was out of the house without a word. This was his usual method of departure. He never said good-bye. Let them guess where he was going in his spare time – to a meeting, to the council, or to the club; let them remain uncertain as to his return, as to its time and the nature of his mood; he liked to make them jump at his sudden step in the hall. That was the way to keep them in order, and it would do them a deal of good to wonder where he went, he thought, as the front door closed behind him with a slam.
Nevertheless, the removal of his actual presence seemed to bring some measure of relief to his family, and with his departure a cloud of constraint lifted from the room. Mrs Brodie relaxed the muscles which for the last hour had been unconsciously rigid and, while her shoulders sagged more limply, the tension of her mind was released and her spirit revived feebly.
‘You’ll clear up, won’t you, Mary?’ she said mildly. ‘I feel kind of tired and far through to-night. It’ll do me no harm to have a look at my book.’
‘Yes, Mamma,’ replied Mary, adding dutifully as was expected of her every evening, ‘You’ve earned a rest. I’ll wash up the dishes myself.’
Mrs Brodie nodded her inclined head deprecatingly, but none the less in agreement, as she arose and, going to her own drawer in the dresser, took from its place of concealment a book, Devenham’s Vow, by one Amelia B. Edwards, which, like every book she read, was on loan from the Levenford Borough Library. Holding the volume tenderly against her heart she sat down, and soon Margaret Brodie had sunk her own tragic, broken individuality in that of the heroine, comforting herself with the one of few solaces which life now held for her.
Mary quickly cleared the dishes from the table and spread upon it a drugget cover, then, retiring to the scullery, she rolled up her sleeves from her thin arms and began her task of washing up.
Nessie, confronted by the unencumbered table, which mutely reminded her of her father’s incitement to work, glanced first at the engrossed figure of her mother, at her grandmother’s unheeding back, at Matt now tilted back in his chair and picking his teeth with an air, then with a sigh began wearily to withdraw her books from her school satchel, laying them reluctantly one by one in front of her.
‘Come and play draughts first, Mary,’ she called out.
‘No, dear, father said home-work. Perhaps we’ll have a game after,’ came the reply from without.
‘Will I not dry the dishes for you to-night?’ she suggested, insidiously trying to procrastinate the commencement of her toil.
‘I’ll manage all right, dear,’ replied Mary.
Nessie sighed again and remarked to herself sympathetically, in a voice like her mother’s:
‘Oh! dear me!’
She thought of the other children she knew who would be fraternising to play skipping ropes, rounders, cat and bat, and other magical frolics of the evening, and her small spirit was heavy within her as she began to work.
Matthew, disturbed in his transitory reverie, by the reiterated murmurs close to his ear: je suis, tu es, il est, now restored his quill to his vest pocket and got up from his chair. Since his father had gone his manner had changed, and he now adopted the air of being slightly superior to his surroundings, as he shot his cuffs, looked at the clock significantly and went out of the room, with a slight but pronounced swagger.
The room was now silent but for the rustle of a turning page, the slight clink of china invading it from without, and the harrowing murmur, nous sommes, vous êtes, ils sont; but in a few moments the audible evidence of activity in the scullery ceased and shortly afterwards Mary slipped quietly through the room into the hall, mounted the stairs and tapped at her brother’s room. This was a nightly pilgrimage, but had she now been suddenly bereft of every sense but that of smell, she could still have found this room by the rich, unctuous odour of cigar smoke which emanated from it.
‘Can I come in, Matt?’ she murmured.
‘Enter,’ came a studied voice from within.
She entered. As she came in he who had spoken so dispassionate
ly did not look up, but seated in his shirt-sleeves upon the bed in the exact position where, with the looking-glass upon his chest of drawers tilted to the correct angle, he could best see himself, continued placidly to admire himself and to puff great clouds of smoke appreciatively towards his image.
‘What a lovely smell your cigar has, Matt,’ she remarked, with ingenuous, approval.
Matthew removed the weed from his lips in a dashing manner, still regarding himself approvingly.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘and it should have at the money. This is a Supremo, meaning the best. Five for sixpence, but this single one cost me three halfpence. It was a sample, and if I like it I’ll go in for a few. The smell is good, Mary, but the bouquet is what we smokers appreciate. No cigar is really first class unless it has bouquet. This has what is called a nutty bouquet.’ He removed his eyes unwillingly from the mirror and contemplating his cigar more closely, added: ‘Now I’ll stop, I think I’ve smoked enough.’
‘Oh! go on,’ she encouraged. ‘ It’s lovely! Far nicer than a pipe!’
‘No! I must keep the other half for this evening,’ he replied firmly, carefully extinguishing the glowing end against the cold china of his wash-basin and preserving the stub in his waistcoat pocket.
‘Does Aggie Moir like you to smoke?’ she murmured, drawing her conclusions from his actions.
‘Agnes, if you please – not Aggie,’ he replied in a pained voice. ‘How often have I told you not to be familiar like that. It’s vulgar. It’s – it’s a liberty on your part.’
She lowered her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Matt.’
‘I should hope so! Remember, Mary, that Miss Moir is a young lady, a very worthy young lady, and my intended as well. Yes! if you must know she does like me to smoke. She was against it at first but now she thinks it manly and romantic. But she objects to the odour of the breath afterwards and therefore gives me cachous. She prefers the variety called “Sweet Lips.” They’re very agreeable.’
‘Do you love Agnes very much, Matt?’ she demanded earnestly.
‘Yes! and she loves me a great deal,’ he asserted. ‘You shouldn’t talk about things you know nothing about, but you’ve surely the sense to know that when people are walking but they must be fond of one another. Agnes worships me. You should see the things she gives me. It’s a great thing for a young man to have an affinity like that. She’s a most estimable girl.’
Mary was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed upon him intently, then suddenly pressing her hand to her side, she asked involuntarily, wistfully:
‘Does it hurt you when you think of Agnes – when you’re away from her?’
‘Certainly not,’ replied Matthew primly. ‘That’s not a nice thing to ask. If I had that pain I should think I had indigestion. What a girl you are for asking questions, and what questions you do ask! We’ll have no more of it, if you please. I’m going to practise now, so don’t interrupt.’
He rose up and stooping carefully to avoid creasing his best trousers, took a mandolin case from under the bed and extracted a mandolin decorated with a large bow of pink satin ribbon. Next he unrolled a thin yellow-covered music book entitled in large letters: First Steps in the Mandolin, and in smaller print below: Aunt Nellie’s Guide for Young Mandolin Players, after the method of the famous Senor Rosas, opened it at page two, laid it flat upon the bed before him, and sitting down beside it, in an attitude of picturesque ease, drew the romantic instrument to him and began to play. He did not, alas, fulfil the expectation which his experienced posture aroused, or dash ravishingly into an enchanting serenade, but with a slow and laborious touch picked out two or three bars of ‘Nelly Bly,’ until his execution grew more and more halting and he finally broke down.
‘Begin again,’ remarked Mary helpfully.
He rewarded her with an aggrieved look.
‘I think I asked you to remain silent, Miss Chatterbox. Remember this is a most difficult and complicated instrument. I must perfect myself in it before I leave for India. Then I can play to the ladies on board during the tropical evenings. A man must practise! You know I’m getting on splendidly, but perhaps you would like to try as you’re so clever.’
He did, however, begin again and eventually tweaked his way through the piece. The succession of tuneless discords was excruciating to the ear, and, in common with the art of smoking could only be indulged in during the absence of his father; but Mary, nevertheless, with her chin cupped in her hands, watched, rather than listened, admiringly.
At the conclusion Matthew ran his fingers through his hair with a careless, yet romantic gesture.
‘I am perhaps not in my best form, to-night; I think I am a little “triste,” pensive. Mary, you know. Perhaps a little upset at the office to-day – these confounded figures – it disturbs an artistic temperament like mine. I’m not really understood down at the Yard.’ He sighed with a dreamy sadness befitting his unappreciated art, but soon looked up, anxious for encouragement, asking:
‘But how did it really go? How did it seem?’
‘Very like it,’ replied Mary reassuringly.
‘Like what?’ he demanded doubtfully.
‘The Saucy Kate Galop, of course!’
‘You little ninny,’ shouted Matthew. ‘It was “Nelly Bly.”’ He was completely upset, looked at her crushingly, then jumped off the bed and put the mandolin away in a huff, remarking, as he bent down: ‘I believe you only said it to spite me,’ and asserting disdainfully as he got up: ‘You’ve no ear for music, anyway.’ He did not seem to hear her profuse apologies, but turning his back took a very stiff high collar and a bright blue spotted tie from a drawer, and still occupied by his pique, continued:
‘Miss Moir has! She says I’m very musical, that I’ve got the best voice in the choir. She sings delightfully herself. I wish you were more worthy to be her sister-in-law.’
She was quite upset at her clumsy tongue and well aware of her unworthiness, but she pleaded:
‘Let me tie your neck-tie anyway, Matt.’
He turned sulkily and condescendingly permitted Mary to knot the cravat, a task she always undertook for him, and which she now performed neatly and dexterously, so that presenting himself again before the mirror, he regarded the result with satisfaction.
‘Brilliantine,’ he demanded next, forgiving her by his command. She handed him the bottle from which he sprinkled copious libations of mellifluous liquid upon his hair and with a concentrated mien he then combed his locks into a picturesque wave.
‘My hair is very thick, Mary,’ he remarked as he carefully worked the comb behind his ears. ‘I shall never go bald. That ass Couper said it was getting thin on the top the last time he cut it. The very idea! I’ll stop going to him in future for his impertinence.’
When he had achieved the requisite undulation amongst his curls, he extended his arms and allowed her to help him to assume his coat, then took a clean linen handkerchief, scented it freshly with Sweet Pea Perfume, draped it artistically from his pocket, and surveyed the finished result in the glass steadily.
‘Smart cut,’ he murmured, ‘neat waist. Miller does wonderfully for a local tailor, don’t you think?’ he queried. ‘ Of course I keep him up to it, and he’s got a figure to work on! Well, if Agnes is not pleased with me to-night, she ought to be.’ Then, as he moved away, he added inconsequently, ‘And don’t forget, Mary, half-past ten to-night, or perhaps a little shade later.’
‘I’ll be awake, Matt,’ she murmured reassuringly.
‘Sure now?’
‘Sure!’
This last remark exposed the heel of Achilles, for this admirable, elegant young man, smoker, mandolinist, lover, the future intrepid voyager to India, had one amazing weakness – he was afraid of the dark. He admitted Mary to his confidence and companionship incontestably for the reason that she would meet him by arrangement on these nights when he was late and escort him up the obscure and gloomy stairs to his bedroom, without fail and with a loyalty which never betrayed him. She
never considered the manner of her service to him, but accepted his patronising favour gratefully, with humility, and now as he went out, leaving behind him a mingled perfume of cigars, brilliantine, and sweet pea blossom and the memory of his bold and dashing presence, she followed his figure with fond and admiring eyes.
Presently, bereft of the tinsel of his personality, Mary’s spirits drooped, and unoccupied, with time to think of herself, she became disturbed, restless, excited. Everyone in the house was busy: Nessie frowning over her lessons, Mamma deeply engaged in her novel, Grandma sunk in the torpor of digestion. She wandered about the kitchen, thinking of her father’s command, uneasy, agitated, until Mamma, looked up in annoyance.
‘What’s wrong with you – wanderin’about like a knotless thread? Take up your sewing, or if you’ve nothing to do, away to your bed and leave folks to read in peace!’
Should she go to bed? she considered perplexedly. No! it was too ridiculously early. She had been confined in the house all day and ought perhaps to get into the open for a little, where the freshness of air would restore her, ease her mind after the closeness of the warm day. Everyone would think she had gone to her room, she would never be missed. Somehow, without being aware of her movements, she was in the hall, had put on her old coarse straw bonnet with the weather-beaten little bunch of cherries and the faded pink ribbon, had slipped on her worn cashmere coat, quietly opened the front door and moved down the steps.
She was startled, almost, to find herself outside, but thought reassuringly that with such clothes it was impossible for her to go anywhere, and as she reflected that she had no really nice things to wear, she shook her head sadly so that the woebegone cherries which had hung from her hat through two long seasons, rattled in faint protest and almost dropped to the ground. Now that she was in the open her mind moved more freely and she wondered what Denis was doing. Getting ready to go to the fair, of course. Why was everyone else allowed to go and not she? It was unjust for there was no harm in it. It was an institution recognised, and patronised tolerantly, by even the very best of the townspeople. She leant over the front gate swinging to and fro gently, drinking in the cool beauty of the dusk, fascinated by the seductive evening, so full of dew-drenched odours, so animate with the awakening life that had been still during the day. Swallows darted and circled around the three straight silver birches in the field opposite, whilst a little further off a yellow-hammer called to her, entreatingly: ‘Come out! Come out! Jingle, jingle, jingle the keys, jingle, jingle, jingle the keys!’ It was a shame to be indoors on a night like this! She stepped into the roadway, telling herself that she would take a little walk, just to the end of the road before coming back for that game of draughts with Nessie. She sauntered on unobserved, noting unconsciously that in the whole extent of the quiet road no person was in sight. Denis was expecting her to-night at the fair. He had asked her to meet him, and she, like a mad woman, had promised to be there. The pity of it that she could not go! She was terrified of her father and he had absolutely forbidden it.
