by A. J. Cronin
Behind the counter, and in front of this abundant but hidden stock, stood a young man whose appearance suggested that his stock of virtues must also be concealed. He was thin, with an etiolated countenance which palely protested against the lack of sunlight in the shop, and which was faintly pitted with honourable scars gained in his perpetual struggle against an addiction to boils, a disorder to which he was unhappily subject, attributed by his devoted mother to thin blood and against which she continually fortified him with Pepper’s Quinine and Iron Tonic.
The general engaging aspect of his features was not, however, marred to any extent by these minor blemishes, nor by a small but obtrusive wart which had most inconsiderately chosen its location upon the extremity of his nose, and was well set off by a shock of dark hair, feathered, despite its careful oiling, and so frosted with dandruff that it shed its surplus flakes and formed a perpetual rime upon his coat collar.
The remainder of his person was pleasing, and his dress suited soberly to his position; but about him clung a peculiar, sour odour occasioned by a tendency towards free perspiration, particularly from his feet, a regrettable but unavoidable misfortune that occasionally induced Brodie to fling him out of the back door, which abutted upon the Leven, together with a cake of soap and a profane injunction to wash the offending members. This was Peter Perry, messenger, assistant, salesman, disciple of the stove and ironing-board, lackey of the master, and general factotum enrolled in one.
As Brodie entered he inclined his body forward, his hands pressed deeply on to the counter, fingers extended, elbows flexed, showing more of the top of his head than his face and, in a passion of obsequiousness, awaited his master’s greeting.
‘Mornin’, Perry.’
‘Good morning, Mr Brodie, sir,’ replied Perry with nervous haste, showing a little less of his hair and a little more of his face. ‘A very beautiful morning again, sir! Wonderful for the time of year. Delightful!’ He paused appreciatively before continuing: ‘Mr Dron has been in to see you this morning, on business he said, sir.’
‘Dron! what the devil does he want?’
‘I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir. He said he’d come back later.’
‘Humph!’ grunted Brodie. He strode into his office, flung himself into a chair and, disregarding the several business letters that lay on the desk, lit his pipe. Then he tilted his hat well back on his head – it was a sign of personal superiority that he never removed it at his business – and took up the Glasgow Herald, that had been placed carefully to his hand.
He read the leading article slowly, moving his lips over the words; although occasionally he was obliged to go over an involved sentence twice in order to grasp its meaning, he persisted tenaciously. At times he would lower the paper and look blankly at the wall in front, using the full power of his sluggish mentality, striving to comprehend fully the sense of the context. It was a stern, matutinal task which Brodie set himself to assimilate the Herald’s political editorial, but he considered it his duty as a man of standing to do so. Besides, it was thus that he provided himself with weighty argument for his more serious conversation, and to this purpose he never failed to accomplish the task, although by next morning he had completely forgotten the gist of what he had read.
Half a column had been battled with in this dogged fashion when a diffident tap upon the glass panel disturbed him.
‘What is it?’ shouted Brodie.
Perry, for only Perry could have knocked like that, replied through the closed door:
‘Mr Dron to see you, sir.’
‘What the devil does he want? Does he not know I’m at the Herald’s leader and can’t be disturbed?’
Dron, a dejected, insignificant individual, was standing close behind Perry and could hear every word, a fact of which Brodie was maliciously aware, to couch his replies in the most disagreeable terms and in the loudest tones he could. Now, with a faint grin upon his face, he listened over his lowered paper to the muffled consultation outside the door.
‘He says, Mr Brodie, he won’t keep you a minute,’ insinuated Perry.
‘A minute, does he say! Dearie me, now. He’ll be lucky if he gets a second. I havena the least desire to see him,’ bawled Brodie. ‘Ask him what he wants, and if it’s not important the little runt can save his breath to cool his porridge.’ Again here was a whispered colloquy, during which Perry, with vigorous pantomime more, expressive than his words, indicated that he had done everything to further the other’s interests compatible with his own safety and security.
‘Speak to him yourself, then,’ he mumbled finally, in self-acquittal, seceding from the cause and backing away to his counter. Dron opened the door an inch and peered in with one eye.
‘You’re there, are you?’ remarked Brodie, without removing his eyes from the paper, which he had again raised in a grand pretence of reading. Dron cleared his throat and opened the door a little further.
‘Mr Brodie, could I have a word wi’ you just for a wee minute? I’ll not keep ye more nor that,’ he exclaimed, working himself gradually into the office through the slight opening he had cautiously made for himself.
‘What is it, then?’ growled Brodie, looking up in annoyance. ‘I’ve no dealings wi’ you that I’m aware of. You and me are birds that don’t fly together.’
‘I ken that well, Mr Brodie,’ replied the other humbly, ‘and that’s the very reason I’ve come to see ye. I came more or less to ask your advice, and to put a small suggestion before ye.’
‘What is’t, then? Don’t stand there like a hen on a hot griddle.’
Dron fumbled nervously with his cap. ‘Mr Brodie, I havena been doin’ too well lately at my trade, and I really came in regarding that little property o’ mine next door.’
Brodie looked up. ‘You mean the tumble-down shop that’s been empty these three months past. Who could help seeing it? Man, it’s an eyesore in the street.’
‘I ken it’s been empty a long time,’ replied Dron meekly, ‘but it’s an asset in a way – in fact it’s about the only asset I’ve got now – and what wi’ gettin’ a bit desperate one way and another an idea Struck me that I thocht might interest you.’
‘Indeed, now,’ sneered Brodie, ‘is not that interestin’! Ye have the lang head on ye, sure enough, to get all these inspirations – it’ll be the Borough Council for ye next. Well! what is the great idea?’
‘I was thinking,’ returned the other diffidently, ‘that with your grand business and perhaps a shop that was a little too small for ye, ye might consider extendin’ by taking in my place and making one big premises with perhaps a plate-glass window or two.’
Brodie looked at him cuttingly, for a long moment.
‘Dear, dear! And it was to extend my business you worked out all this and came in twice in the one mornin’,’ he said at last.
‘Indeed no, Mr Brodie. I’ve just told ye things have been goin’ rather ill with me lately, and what with one thing and another, and the wife expecting again soon, I must get a bend on to let my property.’
‘Now that’s too bad,’ purred Brodie. ‘ It’s you small, snuffy men that will have the large families. I hope ye’re not makin’ me responsible for your latest addition though. Ay, ye’re fond o’ the big family, I know. I’ve heard tell ye’ve that many weans ye can’t count them. But,’ he continued in a changed voice, ‘don’t make me responsible for them. My business is my own and I manage it my own way. I would as soon think of a cheap-lookin’ plate-glass window as I would of giving awake pokes o’ sweeties with my hats. Demn you, man, don’t you know I’ve the most distinguished people in the borough as my clients and my friends? Your empty shop’s been a fester on my respectable office for months. Let it for God’s sake. Let it by all means. Let it auld Nick if ye like, but you’ll never let it to me. Now get out and don’t ever bother me like this again. I’m a busy man and I’ve no time for your stupid yammerin’!’
‘Very well, Mr Brodie,’ replied the other quietly, twisting his hat i
n his hands. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended ye, but I thought there was no harm in asking – but you’re a hard man to speak to.’ He turned disconsolately to depart, but at that moment an agitated Perry shot himself into the room.
‘Sir John’s gig is at the door, Mr Brodie,’ he stammered. ‘I saw it drive up this very minute!’
The assistant might deal with the less important, with, indeed, the bulk of the customers, to whom it was his duty to attend without disturbing Brodie, but when a personage came into the shop he knew his orders, and raced for his master like a startled greyhound.
Brodie lifted his eyebrows with a look at Dron which said: ‘You see!’; then taking him firmly by the elbow, as he had no wish to be confronted by Sir John in the other’s undistinguished company, he hurried him out of the office and through the shop, expediting his passage through the outer door with a final push. The indignity of this last, powerful, unexpected shove completely upset Dron, and, with a stagger, he slipped, his legs shot from under him, and he landed full upon his backside at the very moment that Sir John Latta stepped out of his gig.
Latta laughed vociferously, as he entered the shop and came close up to Brodie.
‘It’s the most amusing thing I’ve seen for ages, Brodie. The look on the poor man’s face would have brought the house down at Drury’s,’ he cried, slapping his thigh with his driving gloves. ‘But it’s a blessing he wasn’t hurt. Was he dunning you?’ he asked slyly.
‘Not at all, Sir John! He’s just a bit blether of a man that’s always making a public nuisance of himself.’
‘A little fellow like that?’ He looked at the other appraisingly. ‘You know you can’t realise your own strength, man! You’re an uncommon powerful barbarian.’
‘I just flicked him with my pinkie,’ declared Brodie complacently, delighted to have so opportunely attracted the other’s notice, and feeling it sweet incense for his pride to receive attention from the distinguished principal of the famous Latta Shipyard. ‘I could whip up a dozen like him with one hand,’ he added carelessly – ‘not that I would soil my fingers that way. It’s beneath my consideration.’
Sir John Latta was gazing at him quizzically along his finely chiselled nose. ‘ You’re a character, Brodie, you know! I suppose that’s why we cherish you,’ he said. ‘The body of a Hercules and the mind of – well –’ He smiled. ‘Shall we put a glove on it for you? You know the tag, “ odi profanum vulgus et arceo”?’
‘Quite so! Quite so!’ replied Brodie agreeably. ‘You’ve a neat way o’ puttin’ things, Sir John. There was something like that in the Herald this mornin’ I’m with you there!’ He had not the least idea what the other was talking about.
‘Don’t let things run away with you though, Brodie,’ said Sir John, with a warning shake of his head. ‘A little of some things goes a long way. You’re not to start knocking the borough about. And don’t offer us too much baronial caviare. I hope you get my meaning. Well,’ he added, abruptly changing the subject and his manner, allowing the latter to become formal, more distant, ‘I mustn’t dally, for I’m in really a hurry – I have a meeting – but I want a panama hat – the real thing, you know. I haven’t felt sun like this since I was in Barbados. Get some down from Glasgow if needs be. You have my size.’
‘You shall have a selection to choose from at Levenford House this very afternoon,’ replied Brodie complacently. ‘I’ll not leave it to my staff. I’ll see to it myself.’
‘Good! And by the by, Brodie,’ he continued, arresting himself on his way to the door. ‘I almost forgot that my agents write me from Calcutta that they’re ready for your boy. He can leave on the Irrawaddy on June the fourteenth. She’s a Denny-built packet, nineteen hundred tons, you know. Fine boat! Our people will look after his berth for him.’
‘That is more than kind of you, Sir John,’ purred Brodie. ‘ I’m deeply grateful. ‘ I’m most indebted for the way you’ve put yourself about for me over that matter.’
‘Nothing! Nothing!’ replied the other absently. ‘We’ve got plenty young fellows at this end, but we want them at our docks out there – the right kind, that’s to say! The climate’s really nothing to speak of, but he’ll need to watch the life out there. It sometimes knocks a young fellow off his feet. I’ll have a word with him if I’ve time. I hope he does well for your sake. By the way, how is that remarkably pretty daughter of yours?’
‘Quite fair.’
‘And the clever little sprat?’
‘Splendid, Sir John.’
‘And Mrs Brodie?’
‘Middling well, thank ye.’
‘Good! Well, I’m off now! Don’t forget that hat of mine.’
He was into his gig, a fine, spare, patrician figure of a man, had taken the reins from his groom and was off, spanking down the High Street, with the smooth, glossy flanks of the cob gleaming, and the high lights flashing on whirling spokes, gleaming metal, shining liveried cockade, and upon the rich lustre of varnished coachwork.
Rubbing his hands together, his eye dilating with a suppressed exultation, Brodie returned from the doorway, and, to Perry, who had remained, a drooping, nebulous shadow in the background, he cried, with unwonted volubility:
‘Did ye hear that conversation we had? Was it not grand? Was it not enough to make these long lugs o’ yours stand out from your head? But I suppose the half of it was above ye. You’ll not understand the Latin. No! but you heard what Sir John said to me – gettin’ that post for my son and speirin’ all about my family. Answer me, ye puir fool,’ he called out. ‘Did you hear what Sir John Latta said to James Brodie?’
‘Yes, sir,’ stammered Perry, ‘I heard!’
‘Did you see how he treated me?’ whispered Brodie.
‘Certainly I did, Mr Brodie!’ replied the other, with returning confidence, perceiving that he was not to be rebuked for eavesdropping. ‘ I wasn’t meaning to – to overhear or to spy on you, but I did observe you both, sir, and I agree with you. Sir John is a fine man. He was more than good to my mother when my father died so sudden. Oh! yes, indeed, Mr Brodie, Sir John has a kind word and a kind action for everybody.’
Brodie eyed him scornfully. ‘Faugh!’ he said contemptuously. ‘What are you ravin’ about, you witless creature! You don’t know what I mean, you poor worm! You don’t understand.’ Disregarding the other’s crushed appearance as beneath his notice, he stepped upwards into his office once more, arrogantly, imperiously, and resumed his big chair, then, as he gathered together the sheets of his morning paper before his unseeing eyes, he muttered softly to himself, like one who dallies wantonly, yet seriously, with a profound and cherished secret: ‘ They don’t understand. They don’t understand!’
For a full minute he remained staring blankly in front of him, while a dull glow lurked deeply in his eye, then, with a sudden toss of his head and a powerful effort of will, he seemed to thrust something violently from him as though he feared it might master him; shaking his body like a huge dog, he recollected himself, observed the paper in front of him, and, with a visage once more composed and tranquil, began again to read.
Chapter Four
‘Mary, put the kettle on the fire. We’ll be back in time for me to give Matt some tea before he goes off to see Agnes,’ said Mrs Brodie, drawing on her black kid gloves with prim lips and a correct air, adding: ‘Mind and have it boiling, now, we’ll not be that long.’ She was dressed for one of her rare sorties into the public street, strangely unlike herself in black, flowing paletot and a plumed helmet of a hat, and beside her stood Matthew, looking stiff and sheepish in a brand new suit, so new indeed that when he was not in motion his trouser legs stood to attention with edges sharp as parallel presenting swords. It was an unwonted sight on the afternoon of a day in midweek, but the occasion was sufficiently memorable to warrant the most unusual event, being the eve of Matthew’s departure for Calcutta. Two days ago he had, for the last time, laid down his pen and picked up his hat in the office at the shipyard, and since then had liv
ed in a state of perpetual movement and strange unreality, where life passed before him like a mazy dream, where, in his conscious moments, he became aware of himself in situations both unusual and alarming. Upstairs his case stood packed, his clothing protected by camphor balls, so numerous that the entire house smelled like the new Levenford Cottage Hospital, greeting him whenever he entered the house with an odious reminder of his departure. Everything that the most experienced globe trotter could desire lay in that trunk, from the finest obtainable solar topee given by his father and a morocco-bound Bible by his mother to the patent automatic opening water-bottle from Mary and the small pocket compass that Nessie had bought with the accumulation of her Saturday pennies.
Now that his leave-taking was at hand Matthew had experienced during the last few days a well-defined sinking feeling in the vicinity of his navel, and though of his own volition he would willingly and self-sacrificingly have abandoned the thrill of such a disturbing emotion, like a nervous recruit before an action, the pressure of circumstances forbade his retirement. The lions which had arisen in his imagination and leapt glibly from his tongue a short week ago to engage the fascinated attention of Mary and Mamma, now returned growling, to torment him in his dreams. Renewed assurances from people connected with the yard that Calcutta was at the least a larger community than Levenford failed to comfort him, and before retiring each night he cultivated the habit of searching for snakes which might be perfidiously concealed beneath his pillow.
