by A. J. Cronin
‘Try not to worry,’ she heard him say; then again through the enveloping pall came the words, ‘You are young, your life is not wasted.’
What did he know or care? His well-meant platitudes left her untouched and cold. Instinctively she realised that to him she represented merely a transient and unwelcome incident in his monotonous day, and, as she rose and asked to know his charge, she detected instantly in his eye a half-veiled flicker of relief. Her intuition had not deceived her, for, having taken his fee and shown her to the door, he fled immediately to his hismuth bottle, took a large dose, settled himself down, with a sigh of relief, to rest and straight away completely forgot her.
As she passed out of the house into the street it was just three o’clock. She had an hour to wait for her train – if ever she would take it. In a torture of mind she walked down the street whispering to herself: ‘ God! O God! why have You done this to me? I’ve never done You any harm. Stop this from happening. Stop it!’ A blind unreason possessed her as to why, and how, her body had been singled out by the Almighty for this obscene experiment. It struck her as a supremely unjust manifestation of the Divine omnipotence. Strangely, she did not blame Denis; she felt herself simply the victim of some tremendous, incomprehensible fraud.
No! she did not blame Denis; she felt, instead, that she must fly to him. Caution was now abandoned to the winds in the extremity of her anguish and, with a strained face, she walked along Main Street, at the far end of which stood the Lomond Wine and Spirit Vaults – Owen Foyle, proprietor. Around the corner was a wide, double gate leading into a yard, from which an open, winding stair ascended to the Foyle house.
She crept up this stairway and knocked faintly at the door. From inside came the tinkle of a piano. The tinkle continued, but no one came in answer; then she heard a voice cry, ‘Rose, me chick, is that somebody at the door? See if anybody’s there.’ Someone replied, in childish tones: ‘I’m at my scales, mother, you go, or wait and let them knock again.’ And the sound of the piano was resumed with redoubled energy and a loudness expressive of intense application.
After a moment’s irresolute pause Mary was about to knock upon the door more loudly, when suddenly, as she advanced her hand, a sharp whistle shrilled from outside the yard, and drew gradually nearer to her.
She turned and, at the same moment, Denis appeared at the foot of the stairs, his head tilted back enquiringly, his eyes widening with surprise as he perceived her. Observing immediately that Mary was in acute distress, he ran up the steps.
‘Mary!’ he exclaimed hurriedly, ‘what is it?’
She could not reply, could not utter his name.
‘What is the matter, dearest Mary?’ murmured Denis, coming close to her, taking her cold hand and smoothing it gently in his. ‘Is it your father?’
She shook her head without gazing at him, knowing that if she did so, she must break down abjectly.
‘Come away,’ she whispered. ‘Come away before anyone comes.’
Oppressed, he followed her slowly down the steps.
In the street, he asked fiercely: ‘Have they been bad to you at home? Tell me quickly what the trouble is, dear? If anybody has touched you I’ll kill him.’
There was a pause, then she said slowly, indistinctly, painfully, dropping each word from her lips like a leaden weight:
‘I am going to have a baby.’
His face whitened as if he had received a frightful wound and became gradually more pale, as though his strength and vigour flowed out from him. He dropped her hand and looked at her with dilated, staring eyes.
‘Are you sure?’ he jerked out at last.
‘I’m sure.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Something seemed wrong with me. I went to a doctor. He told me.’
‘A – a doctor? It’s certain, then?’
‘Certain,’ she echoed, dully.
It was irrevocable, then. With one sentence she had thrust upon his shoulders a load of misery and responsibility, which turned him from a gay, whistling boy into a mature and harassed man. Their love-making had been a trap, the playful dalliance and the secret meetings of the past merely snares to lure and entangle him in this draggled predicament. The pleasant, sanguine expectations of marrying her, all the alluring preparations which he had contemplated, now felt like chains binding and drawing him towards an obligation he must inevitably fulfil. A heavy sigh burst from him. In the masculine society in which he moved nothing was considered more derogatory to the male, or more ridiculous, than to be victimised into a marriage of necessity. His prestige would be lost, he would be lampooned at the street corners, his name would become an obloquy. He felt the position so intolerably for himself that he was moved by a desire to escape and in a flash he thought of Canada, Australia, America. He had often thought of emigrating, and the prospects that existed in these new countries for an unattached young man never appealed to him more entrancingly than at this moment. Another thought struck him.
‘When did the doctor say that you would –’ He paused, unable to complete the sentence. Nevertheless she was now able to understand his meaning.
‘He said February,’ she replied, with an averted face.
Only five more months and he would be the father of her child! That exquisite night they had spent together by the Leven was to produce a child, a child that would be nameless unless he married her immediately. The pressing necessity for marriage again obtruded itself distastefully upon him. He did not know how long she might remain undiscovered before the condition of her pregnancy became obvious. Although he had at times heard stories bandied amongst his companions, of how peasant girls working on the land had remained in this state of pregnancy, undetected until the actual birth occurred, he doubted if Mary had the strength or fortitude to continue the concealment for any length of time. And yet she must do so. He was not in a position to provide a home for her immediately. She must wait. There was, of course, nothing visible yet. He looked at her closely, and as he observed her pendent figure, weighted with an infinitely heavier despondency than his, for the first time he began to think of her rather than himself.
Now that she had told him she waited helplessly, as if, attending in submission for him to direct her movements, her attitude invoked him dumbly as to what she should do. With a powerful effort he pulled himself together, yet, as he spoke, his words sounded harsh and unconvincing in his ears.
‘This is a bit of a mess we’re in, Mary, but we’ll straighten it out all right. We must go and talk it over.’
‘Have I got to go back home to Levenford?’ she asked in a low tone.
He pondered a minute before replying: ‘I’m afraid it’s best for you to do that. Did you come in by train?’
‘Yes, and if I’m going back I must leave here at four.’ He took out his watch, which indicated half-past three. Although they had exchanged only a few sentences they had been standing there, in the street, for half an hour.
‘You can’t wait till the next,’ he agreed. ‘It’s too late.’
An idea struck him. The waiting-room at the station was usually empty at this time; they could go there until her train departed. He took her arm and drew it into his. All this, the first sign of tenderness he had manifested towards her since she had told him the dreadful news, she looked at him piteously and her drawn features were transcended by a pale smile.
‘I’ve only got you, Denis,’ she whispered, as they moved off together. At the station, however, the waiting-room was unfortunately full; an old woman, some farm servants, and two dye-workers from the print works sat staring at each other and at the plain board walls. It was impossible to talk there, so Denis took Mary to the far end of the platform, where, as the short walk had given him time to collect himself and the soft feel of her arm reminded him of her charm and beauty, of the delightful attractions of her fresh body, he mustered a smile.
‘It’s not so bad, Mary, after all, so long as we stick together.’
‘If you
left me now, Denis, I should drown myself in the Leven. I’d kill myself somehow.’
As her eyes met his he could see that she meant absolutely every grim word she uttered, and he pressed her arm again, tenderly. How could he, even for an instant, have considered leaving this lovely, defenceless creature who, but for him, would still have been a virgin and who now, because of him, was soon to be a mother. And how passionately attached to him she was! It thrilled him with a fierce joy to see her complete dependence upon him and her submission to his will. His spirit was recovering from the cutting injury which it had received, and he began to think coherently, as his normal self.
‘You’ll leave everything to me!’ he said.
‘Everything,’ she echoed.
‘Then you must go home, dear, and try to behave as if nothing had happened. I know how difficult it will be, but you must give me as long as possible to make our arrangements.’
‘When can we be married?’ It cost her a powerful effort to utter the words, but in her new-found knowledge she felt dimly that her body would remain unchaste until she knew he would marry her.
He reflected.
‘I have a big business trip towards the end of the year – it means a lot. Could you wait until after then?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘I could fix up everything by then – and we could be married and go straight into a little cottage somewhere – not in Darroch or Levenford – but perhaps in Garshake.’
His idea of a cottage in Garshake cheered them both, and each immediately visioned the quiet, old village that clustered so snugly around an arm of the estuary.
‘I could wait for that,’ Mary replied wistfully, viewing in her mind’s eye one of the small, whitewashed cottages of which the village was composed – one smothered in red rambler roses, with a doorway festooned by creeping nasturtiums – in which her baby would mysteriously come into her arms. She looked at Denis and almost smiled.
‘I’ll not fail you, dear,’ he was saying. ‘If you will be brave – and hold out as long as ever you can.’
The train was now in the station, and the old woman, the farm servants, and the two workmen were scrambling to their places. She had time only to take a hurried farewell of him as he helped her into a seat, but, as the train began to move, he ran along beside her until the last moment, holding her hand, and before he was forced to let go, she called to him courageously:
‘I’m remembering your motto, Denis, dear!’ He smiled and waved his cap bravely, encouragingly, in reply, until the train circled the bend and they were torn from each other’s sight.
She was certainly valiant, and now that she knew the worst she was prepared to exercise all her hardihood to achieve her only hope of happiness. Seeing Denis had saved her. He was, and would be, her salvation, and strengthened by the thought that he shared her secret, she now felt fortified to endure anything until he would take her away with him for good. She shuddered at the recollection of her visit to the doctor, but firmly she blotted out from her mind the odious experiences of the last two hours. She would be brave for Denis!
Back again in Levenford she hastened to deliver the letter to Agnes Moir, and discovered to her relief that Agnes had gone upstairs for tea. She therefore left the letter for her at the shop with all Mrs Brodie’s messages of attachment and affection, and escaped, mercifully, without questioning.
As she took the way home she reflected that her mother was sure to discover at a later date her defection in the matter of the parcel, but, involved in a deeper and more serious trouble, she did not care. Let Mamma scold, weep, or bewail, she felt that she had only a few months more until she would be out of a house which she now detested. Every sense within her turned towards the suggestion Denis had tentatively advanced, and in her imagination she consolidated it into actuality; thrusting the thought of her present condition from her, she concentrated her sanguine hopes eagerly upon the cottage she would share with him in Garshake.
Chapter Eight
Brodie sat in his office reading the Levenford Advertiser, with the door slightly open so that he could, at infrequent intervals, raise a vigilant eye towards the shop without interfering with the comfortable perusal of his paper. Perry was ill, confined to bed, as his agitated mother had announced to Brodie that morning, from a severe boil which partially prevented his walking and debarred him entirely from sitting down. Brodie had muttered disagreeably that he required his assistant to stand up, not to sit down, but on being assured that the sufferer would certainly be relieved through constant poulticing and be fit for duty in the morning, he had consented with a bad grace to allow him the day off. Now, enthroned on his chair at the top of the row of steps leading to his sanctum, Brodie devoted an almost exclusive attention to the report of the Cattle Show. He was glad that business was quiet this morning and that he was not constrained to lower himself to the menial work of the shop, which he detested, and which was now entirely Perry’s obligation. A few moments ago he had been obliged to leave his seat to serve a labouring man who had rolled uncouthly in, and, in his indignation, he had hustled the man out with the first hat he could lay hands on. What did he care, he asked himself, whether or not the thing suited? He couldn’t be bothered over these infernal trifles; a thing like that was Perry’s job; he wanted to read his paper in peace, like any other gentleman.
With an outraged air he had come back and began again with the opening lines of the report.
‘The Levenford and District Annual Cattle Show,’ he read, ‘took place on Saturday the 21st inst. and was attended by a large and distinguished gathering.’ He perused the whole report slowly, carefully, sedulously, until at the finish of the article he came upon the paragraph beginning: ‘Amongst those present.’ His eye glimmered anxiously then flared into triumph, as he saw that his name was there! Amongst the distinguished names of the borough and county, towards the end of the list no doubt, but not absolutely at the end, stood the name of James Brodie. He banged his fist triumphantly upon his desk. By Gad! that would show them! Everyone read the Levenford Advertiser – which was published once a week, on Friday – and everyone would see his name flourishing there, near to no less a personage than the Lord Lieutenant of the County. Brodie glowed with vanity. He liked the look of himself in print. The capital ‘J’ of the James had a peculiar, arresting curl, and as for his surname – nay his family name – spelt in the correct manner, not with a ‘y,’ but with the terminal ‘ie,’ he was prouder of this than of all his other possessions together. He cocked his head to one side, never removing his eyes from this arresting name of his. Actually he had read through the wordy, report, tantalising himself in its verbosity, simply to find himself living in the public eye through the medium of these two printed words. He gloated over them.
James Brodie! His lips unconsciously formed the words as he rolled them silently over upon his tongue. ‘You’re a proud man, Brodie,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Eh! you’re proud; and by God! you have reason to be.’ His eyes blurred with the intensity of his feeling, and the entire list of dazzling personages, with their titles, honours, and distinctions, fell out of focus into one solitary name which seemed indelibly to have stamped its image upon his retina. James Brodie! Nothing seemed to surpass these simple yet suggestive words.
A slight deviation of the current of his ideas caused his nostrils to dilate with resentment at the thought of having been called upon to lower himself in his own eyes, by serving a common workman this very morning. That had been well enough twenty years ago when he was a struggling man forced into business by necessities over which he had no control. But now he had his hired servant to do this work for him. He felt the encounter of this morning a slur upon his name, and a choleric indignation swelled within him at the unfortunate Perry for having failed him.
‘I’ll boil him,’ he cried, ‘the pimply little snipe.’ He had never been meant for business, that he had always known, but as he had been compelled to adopt it, he had transmuted its substance into something more appropriate to his name
and bearing. He had never considered himself a man of commerce but had, from the first, adopted the part of the impoverished gentleman obliged to live by an unfitting and unbecoming occupation. Yet his very personality had, he felt, strangely dignified that occupation into something worthy of him. It had ceased to be paltry and had become unique. From the outset he had never run after people; they had, indeed, been obliged to whistle to his tune and to meet him in all his foibles and vagaries.
In his early days he had once thrown a man out of his shop for an impolite word; he had startled the town into recognising him; he did not curry favour, but stood bluntly as if to say: ‘Take me as I am or leave me’; and his anomalous policy had been singularly successful. He had achieved a reputation for rude honesty and downright dealing; the more arbitrary of his maxims were repeated like epigrams in the gossip of the town; amongst the gentry he had been recognised – in the local term – as a ‘ character,’ and his original individuality had acquired for him their patronage. Yet, the more his personality had unfolded, the more he had disdained the vehicle of its expansion.
He felt himself now a personage, superior to the claims of trade. A vast satisfaction possessed him that he should have attained eminence despite the unworthy nature of his profession. His vast pride could not differentiate between the notoriety he had achieved and the more notable distinction which he desired. He was spurred onward by his success. He wished to make his name resound. ‘I’ll show them,’ he muttered arrogantly. ‘I’ll show them what I can do.’
At that moment someone came into the shop. Brodie looked up in irritation, his lordly glance daring the intruder to demand attention from the compeer of the county’s nobility; but curiously, he was not asked to descend. A young man leapt lightly over the counter, mounted the steps, and came into the office, shutting the door behind him. It was Denis Foyle.
