by A. J. Cronin
It was a considerable distance to the doctor’s house, and soon she was forced to ease the impulsive rapidity of her pace, she who a few months ago could have run the whole way without once losing breath. As her steps flagged her resolution faltered slightly, and she began to wonder how she would approach him. The thought of seeking his advice had dawned upon her so happily that the difficulties of achieving this object had not occurred to her; but now they obtruded themselves upon her notice painfully, obviously, and with every step became more insurmountable. Should she begin by consulting him about her health? He would, she realised, instantly marvel that she should have come alone, without the escort and protection of her mother. Such a thing was unheard of and she conceived that he might even refuse to see her in her unaccompanied state; if he consented to see her and she advanced, in her inexperience, some insufficient reason for her visit, she felt certain that with, a few searching questions he would riddle any flimsy tissue which she might fabricate, and leave her helpless and ashamed. At this she reflected sadly that the only way would be to tell the truth absolutely, and to throw herself upon his mercy. Suppose, then, he were to disclose the visit to her parents, did the purpose she sought to achieve justify such a frightful hazard? Her thoughts wandered in on a maze of unreasoning perplexity as she began to ascend the incline of Knoxhill.
At length she reached the gate of the doctor’ residence, where his big, brass plate, dented in its early, uneasy days by an occasional stone from some mischievous urchin, and now polished into a smooth, undecipherable, respected serenity, shone like the eye of an oracle, compelling thither the weary and the sick.
Outside the gate, as she stood for a moment quelling her misgivings and mustering her courage, she saw approaching in the distance an elderly man whom she recognised as an acquaintance of her father’s, and realising with a sudden start that she could not risk going in whilst he was in sight, she turned her back upon him and walked slowly past the house. From out of the corner of her eye she observed the big, solid house with its severe Georgian porch, its windows swathed in mysterious saffron curtains, felt it, with a growing uneasiness, looming more largely upon her, felt her doubts rush back upon her with a greater and more disquieting force. It was a mistake to visit a doctor who knew her so well. Denis might not like her taking a step like this without first consulting him; another time would be more propitious for her visit; she was not ill, but well and as normal as ever; she was making herself the victim of her own imagination, obviously, unnecessarily, dangerously.
Now the street was clear and she perceived that she must enter at once or not at all; telling herself that she would go in first and face her difficulties afterwards, she had placed her hand upon the gate-handle when she recollected that she had no money with her to pay the fee which, even if he did not demand it, she must at once discharge to avoid a complication leading to discovery. She withdrew her hand, and was again beginning to resume her indecisive pacing upon the pavement, when, abruptly, she saw a maid looking from behind the curtains of a front window. Actually the maid observed nothing, but to Mary’s excited fancy the servant’s eye appeared to be regarding her suspiciously, and in the accusation of this apparent scrutiny the last shreds of her resolution dissolved. She felt she could endure the suspense of her indecision no longer, and with a guilty countenance she moved off hastily down the street, as though detected in some atrocious action.
As she fled down the street, retracing the whole of the weary way she had come, the repression of her unrelieved desire almost stifled her. She felt herself a blunderer and a coward; her face burned with shame and confusion; she felt she must at all costs avoid the public gaze. To keep away from anyone who might know her, and to return home as quickly as possible, she did not follow the High Street but took instead the alternative route – a narrow, shabby alley named College Street, but referred to always as the Vennel – which branched off the circuitous sweep of the main thoroughfare and drove, under the railway, directly towards the Common. With lowered head she plunged into the murk of the Vennel as if to hide herself there, and hurried along the mean, disreputable street with its ill-paved causeway and gutters filled with broken bottles, empty tins, and the foul litter of a low quarter. Only the desire to rush from recognition drove her through this lane which, tacitly forbidden to her, she never entered; but even in her precipitate flight its misery laid a sordid hand upon her.
Women stared at her from open courts as they stood idle, slatternly, bare armed, talking in groups; a mongrel dog chased her, barking, snapping at her heels; a cripple, dirty and deformed, taking his ease upon the pavements, shouted after her for alms, pursuing her with his voice whiningly, importunately, insultingly.
She hurried with a greater speed to escape from the depressing confines of the lane, and had almost made her way through, when she discerned a large crowd of people bearing down upon her. For one tragic, transient instant she stood still, conceiving this to be a mob rushing to assault her. Immediately, however, the sound of a band fell upon her ears, and she observed that the host, surrounded by an attendant rabble of dirty children and racing, mangy curs, descending upon her like a regiment marching to battle, was the local branch of the Salvation Army, newly founded in Levenford. In the rush of its youthful enthusiasm its devoted members were utilising the holiday by parading the low quarters of the town – even at this early hour of the day – to combat and offset any vice or debauchery that might be liberated on the occasion of the Cattle Show.
Onwards they came, banners flying, dogs barking, cymbals crashing, the band blaring out the hymn: ‘Throw out the Lifeline,’ whilst the soldiers of both sexes joined their voices loudly with harmonious fervour.
As they advanced she pressed herself against the wall, wishing the pavement to open beneath her feet and engulf her, and while they swept past, she shrank into herself as she felt the buffet and sway of the surging bodies coarsely against her own. Suddenly, as they rolled past, a female private of the army, flushed with righteousness and the joy of her new uniform, seeing Mary there so frightened and humiliated, dropped for a moment her piercing soprano and, thrusting her face close to Mary’s, whispered in one hot, penetrating breath:
‘Sister, are you a sinner? Then come and be saved; come and be washed in the Blood of the Lamb!’
Then, merging her whisper into the burden of the hymn, she sang loudly: ‘Someone is sinking to-day,’ swung again into the fervent strains and was gone, tramping victoriously down the street.
A sense of unutterable degradation possessed Mary as she supported herself against the wall, feeling with her sensitive nature that this last disgrace represented the crowning manifestation of an angry Providence. In the course of a few hours the sudden, chance direction of her thoughts into an obscure and foreign channel had altered the whole complexion of her life. She could not define the feeling which possessed her, she could not coherently express or even understand the dread which filled her, but as she stumbled off upon her way home she felt, in a nausea of self-reproach, that she was unworthy to live.
Chapter Seven
On the Monday after the Cattle Show a considerable commotion occurred in the Brodie household. The ra-ta-tat of the postman on that morning was louder than usual and his mien fraught with a more important significance, as he handed to Mrs Brodie a letter embellished by a row of strange stamps, a thin, flimsy oblong which crackled mysteriously between her agitated fingers. Mamma, with a palpitating heart, looked at this letter which she had been anticipating for days. There was no need for her to consider who had sent it, for she recognised immediately the thin, ‘foreign’ envelopes which she had herself solicitously chosen and carefully packed for Matt. She was alone, and, in a transport of gratitude and expectation, she pressed the envelope to her lips, then close against her bosom, until, after a moment, as though she had by contact absorbed its hidden message directly into her heart, she withdrew it and turned it over in her red, work-wrinkled hands.
Although she fe
lt that the letter was exclusively hers she saw that it was addressed to Mr and Mrs James Brodie, and she dared not open it; she dared not run upstairs and cry joyfully to her husband: ‘A letter from Matt!’; instead she took this first, precious, unsubstantial bulletin from abroad and placed it carefully upon her husband’s plate. She waited. She walked submissively, yet with an eager, throbbing impatience, for the news from her son, returning from time to time into the kitchen from the scullery to reassure herself that the letter was still there, that his phenomenal missive, which had miraculously traversed three thousand leagues of strange seas and exotic lands to reach her safely, had not now suddenly vanished into the empty air.
At last, after what seemed to her an eternity, Brodie came down, still showing in his disposition, she observed thankfully, remnants of the previous day’s pleasure. Immediately she brought him his porridge and, having placed this gently before him, stood expectantly a short distance off. Brodie took up the letter, weighed it silently on the palm of his huge hand, seemed to consider it dispassionately, weighed it ostentatiously again, then put it down unopened before him and commenced to eat his porridge. As he supped one spoonful after another, bent forward in a crouching attitude with both elbows upon the table, he kept his eyes fixed upon the envelope and maliciously affected not to see her.
Under the refinement of his malice she remained in the background, her hands pressed tightly together, her body tense with a fever of anticipation, until she could no longer endure the suspense.
‘Open it, father,’ she whispered.
He affected a violent, exaggerated start.
‘Bless my soul, woman, you near scared the life out of me. What are ye hangin’ about there for? Oh! I see! I see! It’s this bit o’ a thing that’s drawin’ ye.’ He jerked his spoon towards the letter and lay back negligently in his chair, contemplating her. He was, he told himself in the full flush of his amiability, having a rare game with her. ‘Ye’ve the look o’ a wasp ower the jam pot,’ he drawled. ‘The same kind o’ sickly hunger about ye. I was thinkin’ mysel’ it looked pretty thin; pretty poor stuff, I’ve no doubt’
‘It’s the thin note-paper I bought for him to save postage,’ Mamma pleaded. ‘Ye can get a dozen sheets o’ it into the one envelope.’
‘There’s not a dozen sheets here. No, I question if there’s more nor two or three at the outside. I hope that doesna mean bad news,’ he said sadly, cocking one small, spiteful eye at her.
‘Oh! will ye not open it and put my mind at rest, father?’ she implored. ‘ I’m fair eaten up with anxiety, ye must surely see.’
He lifted his head arrestingly.
‘There’s plenty time – plenty o’ time,’ he drawled, spinning out the words. ‘If ye’ve waited ten weeks another ten minutes ’ ll not burst ye. Away and bring me the rest o’ my breakfast.’
Sighing with uncertainty, she was obliged to drag herself away from the letter, and go back to the scullery to dish up his bacon and eggs whilst she trembled continually in the fear that he might read the epistle and suddenly destroy it in her absence.
‘That’s the spirit,’ he cried broadly, as she hastily returned. ‘ I havena seen ye run like that since the day ye ate the green grosets. I know how to make ye souple. I’ll have ye dancin’ in a minute.’
But she did not reply; he had baited her into dumbness. Accordingly when he had finished breakfast he again picked up the letter.
‘Well, I suppose we better see what is inside it,’ he drawled casually, taking as long as he could to slit the envelope and extract the largely written sheets. Silence reigned whilst he protracted his reading of the epistle intolerably, but all the time Mamma’s anxious eyes never left his face, seeking there some expression which might transmit to her a verification of her hopes and a negation of her fears. At length he threw it down, declaring:
‘Nothing in it! A pack o’ nonsense!’
The moment he relinquished them, Mrs Brodie threw herself upon the sheets and, seizing them with longing, brought them close to her myopic eyes and drank the closely written lines thirstily. She observed at once from the superscription that the letter had been written on board the Irrawaddy, and that it had been posted almost immediately the ship berthed.
‘Dear Parents,’ she read on, ‘I take up my pen to write you after a most fearful and unending attack of mal de mer, or more plainly, sea-sickness. This dreadful affliction settled upon me first in the Irish Sea, but in the Bay of Biscay I was so ill I wished to die, and would have prayed to be thrown to the fishes but for the thought of you at home. My cabin being close and unendurable, and my berth companion turning out to be a vulgar fellow – addicted to a heavy indulgence in drink – I at first attempted to remain on deck, but the waves were so gigantic and the sailors so uncharitable that I was forced to descend again to my hot, disagreeable quarters. In this confined space, as I lay in my bunk I was rattled about in a most awful and distressing manner, sometimes being lifted up to the ceiling and sticking there for a minute before falling heavily. When I had fallen back on my berth my stomach seemed to have remained above, for so much did I experiences feeling of emptiness and exhaustion that it seemed as if my middle was devoid of its contents. To make matters worse I could in addition eat nothing, but vomited all the time, night as well as day. My cabin-mate, as the term goes here, who occupied the lower bunk, used the most frightful language on the first night when I was sick and made me get up in my nightshirt in the cold, heaving cabin to change places with him. The only thing which kept down and indeed which kept my poor body and soul together was a nourishing drink which one of the stewards kindly brought me. He called it stingo, and I must confess that I found it agreeable and that it was truly the means of saving my life for you. Altogether it was a frightful time I can well assure you.
‘Well, to continue, by the time we had passed Gibraltar, which is nothing but a bare one-sided rock, much bigger than our own Levenford Rock but not so pretty, and were well into the Mediterranean, I managed to get my sea legs. The sea here was more blue than anything I have seen – tell Nessie it was more blue even than her eyes – and I was the more able to enjoy this and also the lovely colours of the sunsets as it was so mercifully calm. I could still hardly swallow a bite, but at Port Said we took in supplies of fruit and I was able to eat some fresh dates and some very delicious oranges, which were very sweet, and skinned easily like tangerines, but much larger. I had also a fruit called a papaia which is juicy like a small melon but with a green skin and a pinkish colour of flesh. Very refreshing! I think they did me good, in fact I am sure they did me great good.
‘I did not go ashore here as I had been warned that Port Said was a very wicked place and dangerous for Europeans unless armed. A gentleman on board here told me a long story about an adventure he had in a heathen temple and in other places there, but I will not repeat it from motives of modesty and also as I am not sure that he was speaking the truth. But it seems that there are astonishing things out here. In this connection tell Agnes I am true to her memory. I forgot to say that they come off to the ships in boats at Port Said and sell very good rahat-lakoum which is an excellent sweet although you would never judge so from the name.
‘We passed very slowly through the Suez Canal, a narrow ditch bounded on either side by miles of sandy desert with purple mountains in the distance. This canal is not much to look at and passes through some dull-looking sheets of water called the Bitter Lakes, but it is, they say, very important. Sometimes we saw men with white cloaks, mounted – not on camels as you at home might have expected – but on fast horses on which they galloped away whenever they caught sight of the ship. I must tell you that I also saw palm trees for the first time – just like the one in the church hall, only very much larger and thicker. In the Red Sea the heat was very great but after we had well passed Aden and some curious islands called the Twelve Apostles, when I was just hoping to have a nice time by joining the ladies in deck games, conversation, and music, the heat again suddenly
became frightful. Mamma, those drill suits you got me are no use they are so thick and heavy. The correct thing to do is to have them made in India by a native. They say they are very clever at it and have the right material which is tussore silk and certainly not that drill you got me. Also while on this subject please tell Mary that the glass piece of the flask she gave me smashed in the first storm, and Nessie’s compass is points different from the one on the ship.
‘Anyway I went down with the heat, and although eating better – I like the curries very much – I lost pounds. I am sure I got very thin and this caused me much embarrassment which, together with my lack of energy, debarred me from joining in social life and I could only sit alone, thinking of my unused mandolin, and looking unhappily at the ladies and at the sharks which followed the ship in great numbers.
‘After the heat came the rain, what is referred to here as a monsoon – a chota (small) monsoon, but it was wet enough for me – just like a never-ending Scotch mist which drenched everything all day long. We went through the mist until we reached Ceylon, putting in at Colombo. This has a wonderful harbour. I could see miles and miles of calm water. Very comforting! We had had it rough in the Indian Ocean. Some people went ashore to buy precious stones, moonstones, opals, and turquoises, but I did not go as they say you are simply robbed and that the moonstones are full of flaws, that is cracks. Instead my friend the steward gave me a choice Colombo pineapple. Although it was large I was surprised to find that I could finish the whole of it. Very palatable! My bowels were a trifle loose on the following day and I thought I had dysentery but mercifully have been spared this, also malaria, so far. It must have been the pineapple.
