by A. J. Cronin
‘I feel good for nothing, to-day,’ said Mamma at length.
‘No wonder, Mamma, after yesterday,’ Mary sighed. ‘I wonder how he’s getting on? Not homesick already, I hope.’
Mrs Brodie shook her head. ‘The seasickness will be the worst, I’m gey afeared, for Matt was never a sailor, poor boy! I remember only too well when he was just twelve, on the steamer to Port Doran, he was very ill – and it wasna that rough either. He would eat greengages after his dinner, and I didna like to stop him and spoil the day’s pleasure for the wee man, but he brought them up and the good dinner too, that had cost his father a salt half crown. Oh! but your father was angry with him, and with me too, as if it was my fault that the boat turned the boy’s stomach.’
She paused reminiscently, and added: ‘I’m glad I never gave Matt a hard word, anyway, now that he’s away far, far. No! I never gave him a word in anger, let alone lifted my hand to him in punishment.’
‘You always liked Matt best,’ Mary agreed, mildly. ‘I’m afraid you’ll miss him sorely, Mamma!’
‘Miss him?’ Mrs Brodie replied. ‘I should just think I would. I feel as weak as if – as if something inside of me had gane away on that boat and would never come back. But he’ll miss me too, I hope.’ Her eye glistened, as she continued: ‘Ay, grown man though he is, he broke down in his cabin like a bairn when he had to say good-bye to his mother. It’s a comfort to me, that, Mary, and will be, until I get the consolation of his own dear letters. My! but I’m lookin’ forward to these. The only letter he’s ever written me was when he was nine years old and was away for a holiday at Cousin Jim’s farm, after he had been poorly with his chest. It was that interestin’ too – all about the horse he had sat on, and the wee trout he had caught in the river. I’ve got it in my drawer to this very day. I maun redd it out for mysel’. Ay!’ she concluded, with a melancholy pleasure, ‘I’ll go through all my drawers and sort out a’ the things of Matt’s, that I’ve got. It’ll be a wee crumb o’ comfort till I hear from him.’
‘Will we do out his room to-day, then, Mamma?’ asked Mary.
‘No, Mary – that’s not to be touched. It’s Matt’s room, and we’ll keep it as it is until he wants it again – if ever he does.’ She drank a mouthful of tea appreciatively. ‘It was good of you to make me this, Mary, it’s drawing me together. He ought to get good tea in India, anyway, that’s the place for tea and spices. Cold tea should be refreshin’ to him in the heat,’ she added. Then, after a pause, ‘Why didn’t you take a cup yourself?’
‘I feel upset a bit myself this morning, Mamma.’
‘You’ve been looking real poorly these last few days. You’re as pale as paper, too.’
Mary was the least beloved by Mrs Brodie of all her children, but in the deprivation of the favourite, Matthew, she drew closer to her.
‘We’ll not do a bit of cleaning in the house to-day, either of us; we both deserve a rest after all the rush we’ve had lately,’ she continued. ‘ I might try and ease my mind in a book for a wee, and you’ll go out this morning for your messages to get a breath of air. It’ll do ye good to get a walk while it’s dry and sunny. What do we need now?’
They conned the deficiencies of the larder, whilst Mary wrote them down on a slip of paper against that treacherous memory of hers. Purchases at various shops were involved, for the housekeeping allowance was not lavish, and it was necessary to buy every article in the cheapest possible market.
‘We maun stop our order o’ the wee Abernethies at the baker’s, now that Matt’s away. Your father never looks at them. Tell them we’ll not be requirin’ any more,’ said Mamma ‘My! but it’s an awfu’ emptiness in the house to think on the boy bein’ away; it was such a pleasure for me to give him a nice, tasty dish.’
‘We’ll not need so much butter either, Mamma! He was fond of that too,’ suggested Mary, with her pencil reflectively tapping her white front teeth.
‘We don’t need that anyway this morning,’ retorted Mamma, a trifle coldly, ‘but I want you to get this week’s Good Thoughts when you’re out. It’s the very thing for Matt, and I’m going to send it to him every week. It’ll cheer him up to get it regularly, and do his mind a world o’ good.’
When they had examined and weighed up all the requirements of the household, and carefully estimated the total cost, Mary took the money counted out from her mother’s thin purse, slipped on her bonnet, picked up her fine net reticule, and set out upon her errands. She was happy to be in the open, feeling, when she was out of doors, freer in her body and in her mind, less confined, less circumscribed by the rooted conformity of her environment. Additionally, each visit to the town now held for her a high and pulsating adventure, and at every turn and corner she drew a deep, expectant breath, could scarcely raise her eyes for the hope and fear that she might see Denis. Although she had not had another letter, mercifully, perhaps, for she would then surely have been detected, an inward impression told her that he was now home from his business circuit; if he in reality loved her he must surely come to Levenford to seek her. An instinctive longing quickened her steps and made her heart quicken in sympathy. She passed the Common with a sense of embarrassment, observing, with one quick, diffident glance, that nothing remained of the merry-making of last week but the beaten track of the passage of many feet, blanched squares and circles where the booths and tents had stood, and heaps of debris and smoking ashes upon the worn, burned-out grass; but the littered desolation of the scene gave her no pang, the departure of its flashing cohorts no regret, for in her heart a memory remained which was not blanched, or trampled, or burned out, but which flamed each day more brightly than before.
Her desire to see Denis intensified, filled her slender figure with a rare aether, setting a mist upon her eyes and a freshness upon her cheeks like the new bloom upon a wild rose; her aspiration rose into her throat, and stifled her with a feeling like bitter grief.
Once in the town she lingered over her shopping, delaying a little by the windows, hopeful that a light touch upon her arm might suddenly arouse her, taking the longest possible routes and traversing as many streets as she dared, in the hope of encountering Denis. But still she did not see him, and now, instead of veiling her glance, she began to gaze anxiously about her, as though she entreated him to come to her to end the unhappiness of her suspense. Slowly the list of her commissions dwindled and, by the time she had made her last purchase, a small furrow of anxiety perplexed her smooth brow, while her mouth drooped plaintively at its corners as the latent antithesis of her longing now took possession of her. Denis did not love her, and for that reason he would not come to her! She had been mad to consider that he could continue to care for her, a creature so little befitted to his charm and graceful beauty; and, with the bitter certainty of despair, she became aware that he would never see her again, and she would be left like a wounded bird, fluttering feebly and alone.
Now it was impossible to procrastinate her return, for, with a sudden pathetic dignity, she felt she could not be seen loitering about the streets, as though she lowered herself commonly to look for a man who had disdained her; and she turned quickly, with the reticule of parcels dragging upon her arm like a heavy weight as she moved off towards home. She now chose the quiet streets, to hide herself as much as possible, feeling miserably that if Denis did not wish her, she would not thrust herself upon him; and in a paroxysm of sad renunciation, she kept her head lowered and occupied the most inconsiderable space possible upon the pavement which she traversed.
She bad so utterly resigned herself to not seeing Denis that, when he suddenly appeared before her from the passage leading out of the new station, it was as if a phantom had issued from the unsubstantial air. She raised her downcast eyes as though, startled and unbelieving, they refused to allow the sudden transport of the vision to pass beyond into her being, to flood it with a joy which might be unreal, merely the delusive mirage of her hopes. But no phantom could hurry forward so eagerly, or smile so captivatingl
y, or take her hand so warmly, so closely, that she felt the pulse of the hot blood in the ardent, animate hand. It was Denis. Yet he had no right to be so gay and elated, so carefree and dashing, his rapture untouched by any memory of their separation. Did he not understand that she had been forced to wait through weary days of melancholy, had only a moment ago been plunged in sad despondency, even to the consideration of her abandonment?
‘Mary, it’s like heaven to see you again, and you’ve the look of one of the angels up above! I only got back home late last night and I came the first moment I could get away. How lucky to catch you like this!’ he exclaimed, fervently fixing his eye upon hers.
Immediately she forgave him. Her despondency melted under the warmth of his flow of high spirits; her sadness perished in the gay infection of his smile; instead, a sudden, disturbing realisation of the sweetly intimate circumstances of their last meeting seized her, and a mood of profound shyness overtook her.
She blushed to see in the open day this young gallant who, cloaked by the benign darkness, had pressed her so closely in his arms, who had been the first to kiss her, to touch caressingly her virgin body. Did he know all that she had thought of him since then? all the throbbing recollections of the past and the mad, dancing visions of the future that had obsessed her? She dared not look at him.
‘I’m so delighted to see you again, Mary, I could jump for joy! Are you glad to see me again?’ he continued.
‘Yes,’ she said, in a low, embarrassed voice.
‘I’ve so much to tell you that I couldn’t put in my letter. I didn’t want to say too much for fear it would be intercepted. Did you get it?’
‘I got it safely, but you mustn’t write again,’ she whispered. ‘ I would be afraid for you to do that.’
What he had said was so indiscreet that the thought of what he had left unsaid made a still higher colour mantle in her cheeks.
‘I won’t need to write for a long time, again,’ he laughed meaningly. ‘Sure, I’ll be seeing you ever so often now. I’ll be at the office for a month or two until my autumn trip; and speaking of business, Mary dear, you’ve brought me the luck of a charm – I’ve twice as many orders this time. If ye keep inspirin’ me like that you’ll make a fortune for me in no time. Bedad! you’ll have to meet me if only to share the profits!’
Mary looked around uneasily, feeling already in the quiet street a horde of betraying eyes upon her, sensing in his impetuosity how little he understood her position.
‘Denis, I’m afraid I can’t wait any longer. We might be seen here.’
‘Is it a crime to talk to a young man, then – in the morning anyway?’ he replied softly, meaningly. ‘Sure there’s no disgrace in that. And if ye’d rather walk I could tramp to John o’ Groats with you! Let me carry your parcels for a bit of the way, ma’am.’
Mary shook her head. ‘People would notice us more than ever,’ she replied timidly, already conscious of the eyes of the town upon her, during that reckless promenade.
He looked at her tenderly, protectingly, then allowed his resourceful glance to travel up and down the street with what, to her devoted eyes, seemed like the intrepid gaze of an adventurer in a hostile land.
‘Mary, my dear,’ he said presently, in a jocular tone, ‘you don’t know the man you’re with yet. “Foyle never knows defeat,” that’s my motto. Come along in here!’ He took her firmly and led her a few doors down the street then, before she realised it and could think even to resist, he had drawn her inside the cream-coloured doors of Bertorelli’s café. She paled with apprehension, feeling that she had finally passed the limits of respectability, that the depth of her dissipation had now been reached, and looking reproachfully into Denis’ smiling face, in a shocked tone she gasped:
‘Oh, Denis, how could you?’
Yet, as she looked round the clean, empty shop, with its rows of marble-topped tables, its small scintillating mirrors, and brightly papered walls, while she allowed herself to be guided to one of the plush stalls that appeared exactly like her pew in church, she felt curiously surprised, as if she had expected to find a sordid den suited appropriately to the debauched revels that must if tradition were to be believed, inevitably be connected with a place like this.
Her bewilderment was increased by the appearance of a fat fatherly man with a succession of chins, each more amiable than the preceding honest one, who came up to them, smilingly, bowed with a quick bend of the region which had once been his waist, and said:
‘Good-day, Meester Doyle. Glad to see you back.’
‘Morning, Louis!’
This, then, was the monster himself.
‘Had a nice treep, Meester Doyle? Plenty business, I hope.’
‘Plenty! you old lump of blubber! Don’t you know by this time I can sell anything. I could sell a ton of macaroni in the streets of Aberdeen.’
Bertorelli laughed and extended his hands expressively, while his chuckle wreathed more chins around his full, beaming face.
‘That woulda be easy, Meester Doyle. Macaroni is good, just the same as porreedge; makes a man beeg like me.’
‘That’s right, Louis! You’re a living example against the use of macaroni. Never mind your figure, though. How’s all the family?’
‘Oh! just asplendeed! The bambino weel soon be as beeg as me. Already he has two chins.’
As he rolled with laughter, Mary again gazed aghast at the tragic spectacle of a villain, who concealed his rascality under the guise of a fictitious mirth and a false assumption of humanity. But her conflicting thoughts were interrupted by Denis, as he tactfully enquired:
‘What would you like, Mary – a macallum?’
She had sufficient hardihood to nod her head; for although she would not have known a macallum from a macaroon, to have confessed her ignorance before this archangel of iniquity was beyond her.
‘Very good, very nice,’ agreed Bertorelli, as he ambled away.
‘Nice chap, that,’ said Denis, ‘straight as a die; and as kind as you make them!’
‘But,’ quavered Mary, ‘ they say such things about him.’
‘Bah! He eats babies, I suppose! Pure, unlovely bigotry, Mary dear. We’ll have to progress beyond that some day, if we’re not to stick in the dark ages. Although he’s Italian he’s a human being. Comes from a place near Pisa, where the famous tower is, the one that leans but never falls. We’ll go and see it some day – we’ll do Paris and Rome too,’ he added casually.
Mary looked reverently at this young man who called foreigners by their Christian names and who toyed with the capitals of Europe, not boastingly like poor Matt, but with a cool, calm confidence, and she reflected how pulsating life might be with a man like this, so loving, and yet so strong, so gentle, and yet so undaunted. She felt she was on the way to worshipping him.
Now she was eating her macallum, a delicious concoction of ice-cream and raspberry juice, which, cunningly blending the subtly acid essence of the fruit with the cold mellow sweetness of the ice-cream, melted upon her tongue in an exquisite and unexpected delight. Under the table Denis pressed her foot gently with his, whilst his eyes followed her naive enjoyment with a lively satisfaction.
Why, she asked herself, did she enjoy herself always so exquisitely with him? Why did he seem, in his kindness, generosity, and tolerance, so different from anyone she had known? Why should the upward curl of his mouth and the lights in his hair, the poise of his head, make her heart turn with happiness in her breast?
‘Are you enjoying this?’ he asked.
‘It really is nice here,’ she conceded, with a submissive murmur.
‘It’s, all right,’ he agreed. ‘I wouldn’t have, taken you, otherwise. But anywhere is nice so long as we are together. That’s the secret, Mary!’
Her eyes sparkled back at him, her being drew in the exudation of his courageous vitality, and, for the first time since their meeting, she laughed spontaneously, happily, outright.
‘That’s better,’ encouraged Denis
. ‘I was beginning to worry about you.’ He leant impulsively across the table, and took her thin, small fingers in his.
‘You know, Mary dear, I want you so much to be happy: When I first saw you I loved you for your loveliness – but it was a sad loveliness. You looked to me as if you were afraid to smile, as if someone had crushed all the laughter out of you. Ever since our wonderful time together, dear, I’ve been thinking of you. I love you and I hope that you love me, for I feel we are just made for each other. I couldn’t live without you now, and I want to be with you, to watch you unfold out of your sadness and see you laugh at any silly, stupid joke I make to you. Let me pay my court to you openly.’
She was silent, moved immeasurably by his words, then at last she spoke:
‘How I wish we could be together,’ she said sadly. ‘I – I’ve missed you so much, Denis. But you don’t know my father: He is terrible. There is something about him you don’t understand. I’m afraid of him and he – he had forbidden me to speak to you.’
Denis’ eyes narrowed.
‘Am I not good enough for him?’
Mary gripped her fingers, tightly, involuntarily, as though he had wounded her.
‘Oh! don’t say that, dear Denis. You’re wonderful and I love you, I’d die for you; but my father is the most domineering man you could ever imagine, oh! – and the proudest man too.’
‘Why is he like that? – He has nothing against me? I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, Mary. Why do you say he is proud?’
Mary did not reply for a moment Then she said slowly: ‘I don’t know! When I was little I never thought about it, my father was like a god to me, so big, so strong, every word, that he uttered was like a command. As I grew older I seemed to feel there was some mystery, something which makes him different from ordinary people, which makes him try to mould us into his own fashion, and now I almost fear that he thinks –’ She paused and looked up at Denis nervously.
