Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  ‘However, the worst thing of all was yet to come. In the Indian Ocean we had a typhoon, which is the worst kind of horrible storm you could ever imagine. It all began by the sky going quite purple, then dark yellow like brass. I thought it very pretty at first but suddenly all we passengers were ordered below and I took this rightly as a bad omen, for all at once the wind hit the ship like a blow. A man who was standing at his cabin had his hand caught by the sudden slam of the door and his thumb was torn right off. A seaman had his leg broken also. It was terrible.

  ‘I was not sick, but must now confess I was almost apprehensive. The sea came up, not like the waves in the Bay of Biscay, but with a fearful high swell – like round hills. I was obliged soon to give over looking through the porthole. The ship groaned so much in her timbers I thought she would surely burst asunder. The rolling was most awful; and on two occasions we went over so far and remained there so long I feared we should never come back. But Providence was kind and finally we reached the delta of the Ganges, great banks of sand and very muddy water. We had a pilot to take us up from the mouth of the Hooghly – and we went up the river so slowly that we took days. On the banks are a multitude of little patches of cultivation all irrigated by ditches. I have seen coconut palms, also bananas growing on the trees. The natives here are, of course, black and seem to work in nothing but loin cloths, although some have turbans. They squat on their haunches as they work on their patches, but some also east nets in the yellow river water and catch fish which are said to be good. The whites have sun helmets – father, your topee is the very thing.

  ‘Now I must close. I have written this letter at intervals, and now we have docked. I am much impressed with the size of the place and the docks. The sky here seems full of house tops and minarets.

  ‘I read a bit of my Bible every day. I am not indisposed. I think I shall do well here.

  ‘With love to all at home, I remain, ‘ Your dutiful son, ‘MATT.’

  Mamma drew in her breath ecstatically, as she wiped away the tears which seemed to have escaped from her overflowing heart. The frail instrument of her being swelled in a paean of joy and gratitude, singing within her. ‘ What a letter! What a son!’ The news seemed too potent for her, alone, to contain, and a wild impulse seized her to run into the open street, to traverse the town waving aloft the letter, crying out the brave chronicle of this epoch-making voyage.

  Brodie read her mood distinctly, with a derisive penetrating eye. ‘Call out the bellman,’ he said, ‘and shout the news through the Borough. Go on. Have it blurted out to everybody. Pah! wait till ye get, no’ his first, but his twenty-first, letter. He’s done nothing yet but eat fruit and be namby-pamby.’

  Mamma’s bosom heaved indignantly.

  ‘The poor boy’s had a dreadful time,’ she quivered. ‘Such sickness! Ye mustna begrudge him the fruit. He was aye fond o’ it.’ Only this aspersion upon her son made her answer him back. He looked at her sardonically: ‘ It seems ye made a fine mess of the outfit! My topee was the only fit article he had,’ he said, as he rose from the table.

  ‘I’ll take it up with that manager at Lennie’s this very day,’ cried Mamma in a choking voice. ‘He told me with his own lips that drill was being worn out there. The idea of such deceit! It might have sent my son to his death o’ sunstroke.’

  ‘Trust you to make a mess o’ anything, auld wife,’ he launched at her pleasantly, as a parting shot. But now his arrows did not penetrate or wound; they did not reach her as she stood in that far-off land, where tall palms waved majestic fronds against an opal sky, and soft bells pealed from temples in the scented dusk.

  At last she started from her reverie.

  ‘Mary!’ she called out to the scullery. ‘Here’s Matt’s letter! Read it and take it to Grandma when you’ve finished with it’ – adding presently in an absent voice, ‘then bring it back to me.’ Immediately she returned to her sweet meditation, considering that in the afternoon she would send the precious missive to Agnes Moir. Mary should take it down, together with a jar of home-made jam and cake. Agnes might have had a letter herself, although that, Mrs Brodie complacently reflected, was doubtful; but at any rate she would be overjoyed to hear, in any manner, of the heroic tidings of his journey and the splendid news of his arrival. To send down the letter at once was also, Mamma was well aware, the correct thing to do, and the added libations of cake and jam would embellish the tit-bit delightfully for Agnes, a good, worthy girl of whom she consistently approved.

  When Mary returned, Mamma demanded: ‘What did Matt’s grandma say about his letter?’

  ‘Something about wishing she could have tasted that pineapple,’ remarked Mary indifferently.

  Mamma bridled as she carefully took the sacred letter from her daughter. ‘The like of that,’ she said, ‘and the poor boy nearly drowned and consumed by sharks. You might show a little more interest yourself with your brother in such danger. Ye’ve been trailing about like a dead thing all morning. Now, are ye listening to me? I want you to run over to Agnes with it this afternoon. And you’re to take a parcel over to her as well.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Mary. ‘When am I to be back?’

  ‘Stay and have a chat with Agnes if you like. And if she asks you to wait for tea, I’ll allow you to do so. You can come to no harm in the company of a Christian girl like that’

  Mary said nothing, but her lifeless manner quickened. A frantic plan, which had hung indefinitely in her mind during the previous sleepless night, began already to take substantial form under this unexpected offering of chance.

  She had resolved to go to Darroch. To venture there alone would be for her, at any time, a difficult and hazardous proceeding, fraught with grave possibilities of discovery and disaster. But if she were to undertake such an unheard of excursion at all, the timely message of Mamma’s was clearly her opportunity. She knew that a train left Levenford for Darroch at two o’clock, covering the four miles between the two towns in fifteen minutes, and that the same train made the return journey, leaving Darroch at four o’clock. If, incredibly, she ventured upon the expedition, she saw that she would have more than one hour and a half to accomplish her purpose, and this she deemed to be adequate. The sole question which concerned her was her ability to deliver her message successfully before two o’clock, and, more vitally, whether she could disentangle herself from the embarrassing and effusive hospitality of Agnes in time for her train.

  With the object of speed in her mind she worked hard all morning, and had finished her household duties before one o’clock when, snatching a few mouthfuls of food, she hurried upstairs to change. But, as she reached her room at the head of the stairs, a remarkable sensation overtook her. She felt suddenly light, ethereal, and giddy; before her startled eyes the floor of her bedroom moved gently upwards and downwards, with a slow see-sawing instability; the walls, too, tottered in upon her like the falling sides of a house of cards; across her vision a parabola of lights danced, followed instantly by darkness. Her legs doubled under her and she sank silently down upon the floor in a faint. For a long time she lay recumbent upon her back, unconscious. Then gradually her prone position restored her feeble circulation, tiny currents of blood seemed to course again under the dead pallor of her skin, and with a sigh she opened her eyes, which fell immediately upon the hands of the clock that indicated the time to be half-past one. Agitatedly she raised herself upon her elbow, and, after several fruitless attempts, at last forced herself to stand upright again. She felt unsteady and languid, but her head was light and clear, and with soft, limp fingers, that felt to her useless for the purpose, she compelled herself to dress hastily. Then hurriedly she went downstairs.

  Mamma met her with the letter and the package and a host of messages, greetings, and injunctions for Agnes. So engrossed was she in her benevolent generosity that she failed to notice her daughter’s distress.

  ‘And don’t forget to tell her it’s the new season’s jam,’ she called out, as Mary went out of the
gate, ‘and that the cake has two eggs in it,’ she added. ‘And don’t leave the letter. Say I want it back!’ she shouted, finally.

  Mary had twenty minutes to get to the station, which was enough time and no more. The heavy parcel, containing two pounds of cake and two pounds of jam, dragged upon her arm; in her weak state the thought of the rich cake sickened her, and the sweet jam smeared itself cloyingly over her imagination. She had no time to deliver it to Agnes, and manifestly it was impossible for her to carry it about all afternoon. Already in her purpose she stood committed to a desperate act, and now an incitement to further rashness goaded her. Something urged her to dispose of Mamma’s sumptuous present, to drop it silently in the gutter or cast it from her into an adjacent garden. Its weight oppressed her, and her recoil from the contemplation of its contents thrust her into sudden recklessness. Beside the pathway stood a small boy, ragged, barefooted, and dirty, who chalked lines disconsolately upon a brick wall. As she passed, with one sudden, unregenerate impulse, Mary thrust the bundle upon the astounded urchin. She felt her lips move, heard herself saying; ‘Take it! Quick! Something to eat!’

  The small boy looked up at her with astonished, distrustful eyes which indicated more clearly than articulate speech, his profound suspicion of all strangers who might present him with heavy packages under the pretext of philanthropy. With one eye still mistrustfully upon her, he tore open the paper cover to ensure he was not being deceived, when, the richness of the contents having been thus revealed to his startled eyes, he tucked the parcel under his arm, exploded into activity before this peculiar lady might regain her sanity, and vanished like a puff of smoke down the street.

  Mary felt shocked at her own temerity. A sudden pang struck her as to how she would conceal from Mamma her inexcusable action, or failing this, how she might ever explain away the dissipation into thin air of the fruits of her mother’s honest labour. Vainly she tried to obtain comfort by telling herself she would deliver the letter to Agnes when she returned after four, but her face was perturbed as she hastened onwards to the station.

  In the train for Darroch she made a powerful effort to concentrate her fatigued attention upon the conduct of her scheme, tracing mentally in advance the steps she would take; she was determined that there should be no repetition of the weakness and indecision of the day before. Darroch she knew sufficiently well, having visited it several times before it had become vested for her with a halo of glamour and romance as the place in which Denis lived. Since she had known that he resided there, the drab town, consisting in the main of chemical and dye works, the effluent of which frequently polluted the clear Leven in its lower reaches, had undergone a manifest and magical metamorphosis. The ill-cobbled, narrow streets assumed a wider aspect because Denis moved along them, and the smoke-splashed buildings became more splendid because amongst them he had his being.

  As she drew slowly nearer to this enchanted place Mary, in spite of her crushing anxiety, felt actually a breathless anticipation. Although it was not her intention to see Denis, she could not suppress a throb of excitement at drawing near to him in his own environment.

  When the train steamed into Darroch station she quickly left her compartment, surrendered her ticket, and was amongst the first of the small handful of passengers to leave the platform. Walking without hesitation, and as rapidly as her strength permitted, she passed along the main street, inclined sharply to the left, and entered a quieter residential locality. None of the persons she encountered knew her; her appearance caused neither stir nor interest. Darroch, though lacking the county atmosphere, was as large a township as Levenford, was, indeed, the only other large town within a radius of twelve miles, and it was easy for Mary to slip unnoticed through the busy streets, and to submerge her identity beneath that of the crowd which thronged them. It was for these very reasons that she had chosen Darroch for her present purpose.

  When she had proceeded half-way along the secondary street she observed, to her relief, that her memory had served her correctly, and, confronted by a crescent of terrace houses she advanced resolutely to the end house, and at once rang the bell loudly. A diminutive maid in a blue cotton overall opened the door.

  ‘Is the doctor at home?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Will you please to come in,’ replied the small domestic, with the indifferent air of one who is tired of repeating the formula endlessly.

  Mary was shown into the waiting-room. It was a poor room with dull walls and a thin, worn carpet upon the floor, furnished by an array of chairs, in varying degrees of decrepitude, and a large oak table bearing several tattered, dog-eared, out-of-date periodicals and a pink china pot containing a languishing aspidistra.

  ‘What is the name?’ apathetically enquired the slave of the door.

  ‘Miss Winifred Brown,’ replied Mary distinctly.

  Clearly she was, she now saw, a liar! Whilst she should have been in Levenford, sitting in amiable conference with her brother’s legitimately engaged fiancée, here she was, having cast her mother’s parcel from her, four miles away, giving a false name, and waiting in the house of a strange doctor, whose name and domicile she had recollected only by fortunate chance. The faint colour, which had entered her face as she enunciated the fictitious name, now violently flushed it at these thoughts, and it was with difficulty that she essayed to thrust the feeling of guilt from her as she was ushered into the consulting-room.

  The doctor was a middle-aged man, bald, untidy, disillusioned, and the possessor of an indifferent, cheap practice. It was not his usual consulting hour, which caused him a justifiable annoyance, but his economic position was such as to compel him to see patients at any hour. He was a bachelor and his housekeeper had just served him up a midday meal of fat boiled beef with suet puddings, which he had eaten hurriedly, and, as a result, the chronic indigestion, due to badly cooked food, irregular hours, and septic teeth, to which he was a martyr, was beginning to gnaw at him painfully. He looted surprisedly at Mary.

  ‘Is it a call?’ he enquired.

  ‘No! I have come to consult you,’ she replied, in a voice which seemed far away and unrecognisable as her own.

  ‘Be seated, then,’ he said abruptly. Immediately he sensed the unusual and his irritation deepened. He had long ceased to derive interest from the clinical aspect of his cases, and any deviation from the humdrum routine of ordinary practice associated with the rapid issuing of bottles, containing dilute solutions of cheap drugs and colouring agents, always dismayed him; he was, in addition, anxious to get back to his couch and lie down; a spasm of pain gripped his middle as he remembered that his evening surgery would be heavy this night.

  ‘What is it?’ he continued, shortly.

  Haltingly she began to tell him, blushed, faltered, went on again, speaking in a daze. How she expressed herself she did not know, but apparently his aroused suspicions were confirmed.

  ‘We must examine you,’ he told her coldly. ‘Will it be now, or shall you return with – your mother?’ Hardly understanding what he meant, she did not know how to reply. His impersonal manner discouraged her, his callous air chilled her, and his general slovenly appearance, with ragged, untrimmed moustache, uncared for finger nails, and grease spots on his waistcoat, affected her equally with a sense of strong antipathy. She told herself, however, that she must go through with her ordeal, and in a low voice she said: ‘I cannot come back again, doctor.’

  ‘Take your things off, then, and prepare yourself,’ he told her bluntly, indicating the couch as he went out of the room.

  In her awkward timidity she had barely time to loosen her clothing and lie down upon the shabby, torn settee before he returned. Then with eyes shut and clenched teeth she submitted herself to his laboured and inexpert examination. It was agony for her, mentally and physically. She shrank in her fastidious mind from his coarse and uncouth presence, and the touch of his unskilful fingers made her wince with pain. At last it was over and, with a few short words, he again left the room.

 
; Inside the space of five minutes she was back again in her chair, dressed, and gazing dumbly at him as he lumbered back to his desk.

  The doctor was for once slightly at a loss. He had met this calamity frequently in women of a different class, but he was, despite his obtuse, case-hardened intellect, aware that this girl, who was nothing more than a frightened child, was uninstructed and innocent. He felt that her unconscious defloration had undoubtedly coincided with her conception. He realised why she had so self-consciously given him an assumed name, and in his dry, empty heart a vague pity stirred. At first, with all the anxiety of the unsuccessful practitioner jealous of his meagre reputation, he had suspected that she desired him to apply some means of terminating her condition, but now he realised fully the extent of her sublime ignorance. He moved uncomfortably in his chair, not knowing how to begin.

  ‘You are not married?’ he said at length, in a flat voice.

  She shook her head with swimming, terrified eyes.

  ‘Then I advise you to get married. You are going to have a baby.’

  At first she hardly understood. Then her lips contorted with a quivering spasm, her eyes overflowed and tears ran soundlessly down her face. She felt paralysed, as though his words had bludgeoned her. He was talking to her, trying to tell her what she must do, what she must expect, but she scarcely heard him. He receded from her; her surroundings vanished; she was plunged into a grey mist of utter and incomparable dejection, alone with the obsessing horror of certain and inevitable calamity. From time to time fragments of his meaning came to her, like haggard shafts of daylight glancing suddenly through the swirling wreaths of fog which encircled her.