Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  ‘Yes,’ thrilled Mary.

  They went inside.

  In the tent it smelt of paraffin, hot sawdust, and orange-peel and feeling their way through the dim, redolent interior they found a vacant place, seated themselves, and after a moment of expectant waiting, were rewarded by the opening of the programme. This was divided into two parts, the first given over to Madame Bolita, the second to the Signor from Paris and Milan; but whether the great McInally was drawn by the compelling odour of his supper of steaks and onions issuing from his caravan at the rear, or whether he felt that there was time for yet another performance which should be positively the last, is impossible to say; certainly the entertainment was the essence of brevity.

  Madame pirouetted, postured, and leaped heavily, accentuating the thuds of her descent upon the thin sounding board of the stage by short involuntary expirations which might in a less accomplished artiste have been mistaken for grunts, and accompanying her lighter movements by much snapping of her fingers and shrill cries of: ‘La! la! oh! la, la!’ She would pirouette tremulously at the back of the platform, trip forward skittishly to the row of footlights, thrust back one substantial leg into the air with a disdainful kick, advance her chin languishingly upon one extended forefinger, and, swaying slightly upon her remaining support, survey the audience with an air of profound achievement. Then, mingling the faint, intermediate rattle of applause with a self-congratulatory ‘oh! la, la!’ she would toss her head enticingly and bound off into a circular gambol which took her conveniently back to her original position. The climax of the first part of her act came with a noble effort when, her arms outstretched, her face contorted by endeavour, she subsided slowly and painfully into the splits, a position from which, however, she did not attempt to arise, but was rescued by the timely fall of the curtain.

  ‘Not bad, considering her age,’ remarked Denis, confidentially, ‘but she’ll go right through that stage one day, and never be heard of again.’

  ‘Oh! Denis,’ whispered Mary reproachfully. ‘You don’t really mean that. Surely you liked her?’

  ‘If you liked her, I liked her! But don’t ask me to fall in love with her,’ he replied teasingly. ‘We’ll see what she does next,’ he added, as, after an adequate pause, the curtain again rose to reveal a darker stage into which the adipose figure of the incomparable Bolita swung slowly. Shrouded in a long white gown, bereft of the yachting cap, but still discreetly veiled by long yellow tresses which hung luxuriantly about her, and wearing a large and incontestably angelic pair of wings, she floated through the obscure air and remained poised seraphically before their astonished gaze. Gone now were the fripperies of the dance, the tinsel of the ballet, as though, reformed and purged, she now disdained the creature who had cried: ‘ Oh! la, la!’ and performed the atrocity of the splits; thus she swam piously about the stage to the accompaniment of an audible creaking of the wire and pulley which supported her and the tinkling out of ‘The Rock of Ages’ upon the piano in the wings. There was much applause chiefly in the shape of shrill whistles from the back benches and loud cries of ‘’core ’ core’; but encores were unheard of in the McInally régime and Madame, having taken her bow with fluttering wings, retired gracefully and turned into her caravan to see if little Katie Maginty, her grandchild, had gone to sleep.

  Mary clapped her hands enthusiastically and turned to Denis.

  ‘What’s your opinion now?’ she enquired, earnestly, as though daring him to belittle such a heavenly creature. They sat very close together on the thin wooden form, their hands clasped, their fingers interlocked, and Denis, looking at her entranced upturned face, pressed her fingers as he replied, meaningly:

  ‘I think you’re wonderful!’ It was the height of repartee! Mary laughed outright, but at the sound of her own laughter, so unusually gay and unrestrained, inversely there arose in her mind, as if by contrast, the picture of her home, and suddenly chilled, as though she had been plunged into icy water, she shivered and lowered her head. But with an effort she thrust away her despondency; comforted by Denis’ nearness she looked up again to see that Magini was holding the stage. A white screen had been lowered and now the magic lantern at the back of the tent flashed upon it the title: ‘Tender and True’ or ‘The Mariner’s Maid.’ The jingling piano struck up the opening bars of the ballad and Magini began to sing, while as he sang the honeyed words, richly coloured slides were shown upon the screen, demonstrating the touching vicissitudes attending the progress of true love, The meeting of the sailor and the millers daughter by the mill-stream, the parting, the lonely mariner in his hammock, the trials of the noble-hearted seaman on the deep, and the no less lachrymal tribulations of his beloved at home, the still horrors of the shipwreck, the stark heroism of the rescue, flashed in turn before the breathless gaze until the final reunion of the well-deserving lovers, with clasped hands by that same mill-stream – the first slide repeated – gave relief and satisfaction to the entire audience.

  He next sang, by special request, ‘Juanita,’ dealing with the seductive charms of a lady, darker and more passionate than the sailor’s dovelike affinity, and holding a wilder and more dangerous appeal. When he concluded, the cheering from the back benches was vociferous and prolonged and it was some time before he could be heard to announce his last number as ‘ The Land of Love,’ a favourite song, he informed his audience, of Ciro Pinsuti’s. In contrast to the others it was simple, melodious, and touching, and although the vocalist had never been further south than the limits of McInally’s circuit at Dumfries, he sang with a pure and natural voice. As the soft waves of sound floated through the dark tent Mary felt herself swept towards Denis in a rush of throbbing tenderness and sympathy. The sublime elevation of her emotion filled her eyes with tears. No one had ever treated her like Denis. She loved him. Raised far above the level of her confined and monotonous existence by the glitter of the evening and the glamour of the music, she would, if he had demanded it, have died willingly for this godlike creature whose side was pressed against her side in a bitter-sweet union: sweet because she adored him, and bitter because she must leave him.

  The song was ended. With a start she realised that the performance was over, and linked by an understanding silence she passed with Denis out of the tent into the fresh night air. Now it was dark, the ground illuminated by flares, the crowd diminished but still gaily surging, yet for these two, filled by a deeper enchantment, the attraction of the fair had waned. They looked around undecidedly.

  ‘Shall we do any more of this?’ asked Denis slowly. Mary shook her head. The evening had been so wonderful she felt it should have lasted for ever; but it was over, finished, and the hardest task of all was to say good-bye to him. She would have to walk back, a weary way out of that land of love, and now, alas! it was time for the journey to begin.

  ‘Come for a little stroll then,’ he urged. ‘It’s not late yet, Mary. We’ll not go far.’

  She could not leave him! With a premonitory sadness rising in her throat at the very thought of her departure, she felt blindly that she must be with him a little longer. She wished to delay the sad reaction from this excitement and enchantment; she wanted his presence always, to soothe her and comfort her. The poignancy of her present feeling for him hurt her like a wound in her side, and its potency drove from her mind the thought of her home, her father, every deterring thought that might have prevented her accompanying him.

  ‘Come, Mary dear,’ he pleaded. ‘It’s still early.’

  ‘For a little way then,’ she consented in a whispered tone.

  The path they took followed the winding bank of the Leven with the rippling river on one side and on the other meadows of dewy pasture land. A full moon that shone like a burnished plate of beaten silver, hung high in the sky, amongst a silver dust of stars, and was bosomed in the mysterious depths of the dark water beneath. At times thin pencils of misty cloud streaked this white nimbus that lay so far above and yet so deeply within the river, like ghostly fingers shield
ing from the eyes a luminance too brilliant to endure. As they walked, silent in the beauty of the silvery radiance, the air, cool with the dew-drenched freshness of night and sweet with the scents of lush grass and wild mint, encompassed them softly and settled upon them like a caress.

  Before them two large grey moths pursued each other along the pathway, fluttering fantastically among the tall sedges and rushes of the bank, silently circling and crossing, flitting, but always following each other, always together. Their wings shone in the white light like large sailing motes within a moonbeam and the whisper of their flight fell upon the quietude like the downward flutter of a falling leaf.

  The river, too, was almost silent, gurgling and sucking softly at its banks, and the low purling song of the stream became part of the stillness of the night.

  They had walked some distance and now the fair ground was marked only by a faint glare in the sky extinguished by the moon, and the brassy music by a weak whisper on the breeze obliterated by the stillness; yet Mary and Denis knew nothing of the music or the moon, and though unconsciously they absorbed the beauty around them they were aware only of each other. That she should be for the first time alone with Denis and isolated from the world, filled Mary with a tremulous happiness, set her heart beating in a wild and joyous sweetness.

  Denis, too, the sophisticated young man of the town, was overwhelmed by an emotion that was strange and new. The easy currents of conversational small-talk which made him always the life and soul of a party, the blandishments that flowed naturally from his lips, were dried up at the source. He was silent as a mute at a funeral, and, he told himself, as dismal. He felt that his reputation was at stake, that he must make some remark, no matter how trivial. Yet while he cursed himself inwardly for a dolt, a blunderer, a simpleton, imagining that he was estranging Mary by his dumb stupidity, his tongue still remained dry and his quick brain so flooded by his emotions that he could not speak.

  Outwardly they both walked placidly and sedately, but inwardly there surged in each a tide of pent-up feelings, and because they did not speak this feeling grew more intense.

  In Mary’s side there came an actual pain. They were so close together that the sense of intimacy filled her with inexpressible yearning, an unfathomable longing which found its only ease in the firm clasp upon her arm that linked her pulsating body to his and soothed her like a divine balm.

  At length they stopped suddenly, involuntarily, turned, and faced each other. Mary lifted her face to Denis. The small oval of her features bore the pallor of the moonlight with a spiritual translucency. He bent and kissed her. Her lips were soft and warm and dry, and they offered themselves to his like an oblation. It was the first time she had kissed any man, and although she was perfectly innocent and entirely ignorant, yet the instincts of nature throbbed within her, and she pressed her lips close against his.

  Denis was overwhelmed. His mild experience as a gallant had encompassed nothing like this, and, feeling as if he had received a rare and wonderful gift, without knowing what he did, he dropped spontaneously upon his knees beside Mary and, clasping his arms around her, pressed his face in homage against her dress. The smell of the rough worn serge of her skirt was fragrant to him; he felt her legs, so pathetically slender and immature, tremble slightly under his touch. Clasping her hand he drew her down beside him. Now he could see the little hollow in her neck and from it a tiny blue vein running down. As he took off her hat a ringlet of hair fell over her smoothly pale brow, and first he kissed that awkwardly, humbly, with a clumsiness which did him credit, before he laid his lips upon her eyes and closed them with his kisses.

  Now they were in each other’s arms, sheltered by rushes and bushes of broom, the soft grass plastic beneath them. The contact of their bodies gave them a delicious warmth so that there was no need of speech, and in silence they left the world, knowing and caring nothing but for each other. Her head lay back on his arm, and between her parted lips her teeth shone in the moonlight like small white seeds. Her breath was like new milk. Again he saw in the arch of her neck the small vein threaded under the smooth skin, like a tiny rivulet through virgin snow, and caressingly, he stroked it, gently tracing with his finger tips its lovely downward passage. How firm and round her breasts were, each like a smooth and perfect unplucked fruit enclosed within his palm for him to fondle! The pressure of his hand sent the hot colour into her face, and though her breath came faster, yet she suffered him. She felt these small virgin breasts, the consideration of which had never before invaded the realm of her consciousness, grow turgid, as if an ichor from her blood had filled them, and all her puny strength surged into them as though from her nipples drops might well forth to an invisible suckling. Then her mind was dazzled, and, as she lay with closed eyes in his embrace, she forgot everything, knew nothing, ceased to be herself, and was his. Her spirit rushed to meet his swifter than a swallow’s flight and together uniting, leaving their bodies upon the earth, they soared into the rarer air. Together they floated upwards as lightly as the two moths and as soundlessly as the river. No dimension contained them, no tie of earth restrained the ecstasy of their flight.

  The lights in the fair-ground went out one by one; an old frog, its large, sad eyes jewelled in the moonlight, broke through the grasses beside them, then noiselessly departed; a dim white mist sheathed the radiance of the river like breath upon a mirror; then, as the lace veils of vapour loomed over the land, crepuscular shadows filled the hollows of the meadows, and the earth grew faintly colder as though its heat had been chilled by the rimed air. With the falling mist all sound was blotted out and the stillness became absolute until after a long time a trout jumped upstream and splashed heavily in its pool.

  At the sound, Mary stirred slowly, and consciousness of the world half returning, she whispered softly:

  ‘Denis, I love you. Dear, dear Denis! But it’s late, very late! We must go.’

  She lifted her head heavily, moved her drugged limbs slowly, then, like a flash the recollection of her father, her home, her, position here, invaded her mind. She started up, terrified, horrified with herself.

  ‘Oh! what have I done? My father! What will become of us?’ she cried. ‘I’m mad to be here like this.’

  Denis stood up.

  ‘No harm will come to you, Mary,’ he said as he essayed to soothe her. ‘I love you! I will take care of you.’

  ‘Let me go then,’ she replied while tears ran down her pale cheeks. ‘Oh! I must go back before he gets in or I’ll be shut out all night. I’d have no home!’

  ‘Don’t cry, dear Mary,’ he entreated, ‘it hurts me to see you cry. It’s not so very late – not eleven o’clock yet! Besides I am responsible for everything, all the blame is mine.’

  ‘No! No!’ she cried, ‘ it’s all my fault, Denis. I should never have come. I disobeyed my father. I’ll be the one to suffer.’

  Denis placed his arm around her trembling form and, looking again into her eyes, said firmly:

  ‘You will not suffer, Mary! Before we go I want you to understand one thing. I love you. I love you above everything. I am going to marry you.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she sobbed. ‘Only let me get home. I must. My father will kill me! If he’s not late to-night something terrible will happen to me – to us both.’ She started off at a run up the path, slipping and stumbling in her anxiety to make haste, while he followed, trying to console and comfort her, uttering words of the most endearing tenderness. But, although at his words she ceased to weep, she still ran and did not speak again until they reached edge of the town. There she stopped abruptly.

  ‘Don’t come any further, Denis,’ she panted. ‘This is enough! We might meet him – my father.’

  ‘But it’s so dark on the road,’ he protested. ‘ I’m afraid to leave you.’

  ‘You must go, Denis! He might come on us together.’

  ‘But the darkness?’

  ‘I can’t help that. I’ll run all the way.’

  ‘It’ll hu
rt you if you race home like that, Mary, and it’s so black, the road seems so lonely now.’

  ‘Leave me! you must!’ she cried. ‘I’ll go myself! Good-bye!’

  With a last touch of his hand she fled from him; her figure dissolved into the blackness, and was gone.

  As he gazed into the impenetrable gloom, vainly trying to follow her rapid flight, wondering if he should call to her or follow her, he raised his arms in perplexity, as though beseeching her to return to him, then slowly he lowered them and, after a long passivity, turned heavily upon his heel, and took his dejected way towards his own home.

  Meanwhile in a panic of urgency, Mary forced her tired body along the road, the same road that she had so lightly traversed earlier on this same evening, having lived, it seemed to her, a whole century in time and experience during the space of these few intervening hours. It was unthinkable that she, Mary Brodie, should be at this time of night alone in the open streets; the sound of her solitary footsteps frightened her, echoing aloud like a reiterated accusation for her father, for everyone to hear, shouting out the madness, the inquity of her present situation. Denis wanted to marry her! He must be mad too – madly unaware of her father and of the circumstances of her life. The echoes of her steps mocked her, whispering that she had been bereft of her senses to plunge herself in this predicament, making the very contemplation of her love for Denis a painful and grotesque absurdity.

  As she neared her home, suddenly she became aware of another figure in front of her, and the dread that it might he her father filled her with numb apprehension. Although he frequently did not return from the club until after eleven o’clock, sometimes he was earlier, and as she drew nearer, silently gaining upon the figure, she felt that it must be he. But, all at once, a gasp of relief escaped her, as she perceived that it was her brother, and, abandoning her caution, she ran up to him panting:

  ‘Matt! Oh! Matt! Wait!’ and stumbling against him, she clutched his arm like a drowning woman.