Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  He loved her, had tried with all his power to reach her, had attempted, even, to place a message through her window by night. She saw now that she had been right in feeling that he was near to her, but her foolish cry of fear had driven him away. Still, nothing mattered in the face of his wonderful news. Her heart beat as she read that he had taken their house – the cottage in Garshake. They could move into it upon the first of January. It was called Rosebank – in summer a bower of roses, in winter a warm, safe haven to enclose them both. He was doing all that lay within his power, and he was not afraid! She was touched beyond measure at his endeavours, at what he had done for her. How he had worked for her! He would have come to her openly, but for the fact that their plans were not mature. They must have a roof to cover them, a house to shelter them, before they could take any drastic step; until then, he must be wary for her sake. Yes! she must wait – wait a little longer; wait until his last summer trip of the year was over, until he could devote himself to her. Then he would take her away with him for ever, care for her, and look to her safety and comfort. Her eyes grew dim with tears of happiness as she read his promises to cherish her. Could she wait? She must wait. She could endure anything, so long as he took her to him in the end.

  When she had finished the letter, for a moment she remained quite still, as though the shock of unexpected happiness had petrified her into stone and she sat like a marble effigy, rigid and motionless. Then, slowly, a pulsating essence flowed through her veins; mysterious currents, set in motion by the moving words of his letter, circulated in her being; after what had been an eternity of death-like inanition she lived and, as in an awakening Galatea, a tinge of life pervaded her, colour rushed into her face, her body, her limbs. Her eyes sparkled eagerly with the joy of living, her constrained lips parted softly, fervidly, and the sad immobility of her face was transfigured by a rush of sanguine joy. Like a watcher forgotten upon some solitary isle, who, worn with an endless, fruitless vigil, has long abandoned hope, the sudden sight of the means of her rescue filled her with an unbelievable, almost unbelieving ecstasy. The loud beating of her reawakened heart sang in her ears with a rapturous refrain; the pale hands holding the letter became animate, vitalised, and active; eagerly the fingers seized a pencil that lay near and wrote urgently on the reverse side of the paper.

  It was a short note, saying that she was well and, now that she had heard from him, happy. She said nothing of the tortures of mind she had suffered, or of the abyss into which she had been sinking. She told him she would abide gladly in her present home if only he came for her in December, and she blessed him repeatedly for his letter. She had not time to write more, for, outside the house, in the rapidly fading light, she discerned that the patient, tenacious figure of the child had again reappeared, and was gazing expectantly towards the window. It was Rose – it must be Rose – that small devoted sister he had spoken of. She blessed Rose! And now, replacing the message in the hollow apple, she raised the window sash and, throwing with all her strength, watched the sphere go sailing through the air and bound twice upon the road before coming to rest. Dimly she glimpsed Rose running to recover it, saw her extract the letter and place it in her coat pocket, observed her wave her hand significantly, triumphantly, and, as if to symbolise the sweetness of her triumph, go off down the road, exultantly munching the bruised and battered pippin. A quiver of grateful admiration ran through Mary as the small figure passed out of sight, marching indomitably with the same invincible air, the same jaunty courage as Denis. A slight smile of recollection moved her as she remembered Rose’s careless touch upon the piano. The folly of judging the intrepid messenger by the execution of those scales!

  And now Mary arose and stretched her limbs luxuriously. She raised her arms above her head in an attitude of unconscious aspiration and whilst her figure seemed to draw itself upwards, her head fell back, her throat grew taut. As she gazed towards heaven, her face filled with a supreme thanksgiving, which seemed insensibly to pass into an invocation for the future. She was alive again, brave, filled with new hope, new courage. Little pricking streams ran through her skin. Suddenly, as she lowered her arms and again relaxed her body, she felt hungry. For weeks she had eaten nothing but the insipid, choking mouthfuls thrust down at meal times under the eye of her father, and the delicious return of the zest to live now made her voracious.

  Within her body the unformed child leapt and throbbed, as if in sympathy and gratitude for the reprieve which had been granted to it.

  And Mary, feeling the weak impotence of that thankful impulse, was moved with a sudden pity. In the revulsion of her feeling she turned quickly, in a passion of self-reproach, to the drawer where she had concealed the salts of lemon, and lifting the packet in a frenzy of disgust, concealed it in her hand and hastened downstairs. As she hurried past the half-open door of the parlour, she saw old Grandma Brodie nodding drowsily, and she realised happily that Rose had not been observed, that for once the sentinel slept at her post. Quickly she went through the kitchen and entered the scullery where, with a feeling of aversion, she thrust the contents of the packet, not back upon its shelf, but into the sink, where a rapid stream from the tap washed it away from her for ever. Then, with a new freedom, she went to a cupboard, poured out a glass of milk and cut herself a thick wedge of cold steamed pudding left over from dinner. The pudding was luscious and full of soft, sweet currants; her teeth bit into it with a sapid relish. The milk tasted like a draught of some rich nectar, cool as the froth from melting snow-flakes. She was prolonging her meal as long as possible, by sipping slowly and nibbling the last crust of pudding, when her mother entered the scullery. Mamma looked at Mary curiously.

  ‘You’re hungry?’ she remarked. ‘I wish I could eat like that. The sermons have improved your appetite.’

  ‘Let me cut you a piece of this, Mamma.’

  ‘No! we’re to have it heated up to-morrow. It doesn’t matter about me.’

  By her attitude Mrs Brodie conveyed that Mary was selfish to consume the pudding, that she herself would have desired it, but that she was deliberately sacrificing her personal gratification in the interests of the common good. Mary looked apologetic. With the first mouthful she had enjoyed for weeks she had been made to feel greedy.

  ‘I’m glad to see you in a better frame of mind, anyway,’ said Mamma, noting the look. ‘Keep it up for your father to-night. I want him to see I’ve been speaking to you.’

  Here a light step sounded in the hall. This tune it was, in reality, Nessie, who came in gaily, glistening like a young seal from the rain.

  ‘It’s awfully wet now,’ she cried; ‘and I want a piece and jelly.’

  Her mother looked at her fondly. ‘Yo’ve a braw colour on your cheeks, dear. That’s the way I like my bairns to look; not white and miserable.’ This was a veiled hint to Mary, and as a further reproof to her elder daughter, Mamma gave Nessie, as a treat, not bread and jelly, but white bread with butter and carraway seeds spread upon it.

  ‘Carvie! Lovely!’ cried Nessie; ‘and I deserve it Oh! Mary, you do look better to-night yourself. I’m glad! You’ll soon be bonny like me,’ she added with a giggle, inconsequently twirling about.

  ‘Why do you deserve it, pettie?’ queried Mamma.

  ‘Well!’ replied Nessie importantly, ‘ we had the school inspector this afternoon, and the whole junior school had what he called a memory test, and who do you think was first?’

  ‘Who?’ demanded Mamma, with bated breath.

  ‘Me!’ shrieked Nessie, waving her bread and carvie.

  ‘My word!’ said Mamma, ‘ your father will be pleased.’ She looked at Mary, as if to say: ‘That’s the kind of daughter I prefer.’ Actually she was not in the least exultant at the scholastic success. What delighted her was that she had, in this achievement, a tangible asset to put the lord and master of the house in a complacent frame of mind.

  Mary looked at Nessie tenderly, feeling how near she had been to leaving her for ever.

 
‘That was just splendid!’ she said, and placed her cheek lovingly against her sister’s cold, wet face.

  Chapter Ten

  A stillness lay over Levenford. Sunday afternoon was always quiet; the morning bells had then rung themselves out; the bustle of the shops and the noise of shipyards were hushed; no step echoed in the empty street; the people, sunk in the lethargy produced by a heavy dinner folio wing a long sermon, sat indoors, stiffly trying to read, or slept uncomfortably in their chairs.

  But this afternoon was unusually still. A dull, yellow sky pressed down upon the town and imprisoned it in a vault of heavy silence. Within this vault the stagnant air was difficult to breathe and filled the lungs with a sense of vitiation. The streets seemed narrowed, the houses nearer to each other, and the Winton and Doran Hills, usually so majestic and remote, were low and close at hand as if, cowering from the encroaching sky, they crept in upon the town for protection. The trees stood petrified in the sultry air, their stripped branches dropping like stalactites in a cave. No birds were to be seen. Desolate and depopulated, the landscape lay in such an oppressive silence as might precede a battle, and the deserted town, empty of life and movement, stood like a beleaguered city fearfully awaiting the onset of an attack.

  Mary sat upstairs at her bedroom window. Now, at every opportunity, she stole away to her room, finding in that retreat alone, a sanctuary in which she obtained solitude and refuge. She felt ill. In church that morning an intolerable sickness had seized her, and during dinner she had been compelled to remain quiescent and uncomplaining while her head and body ached incessantly. Now, as she sat with her chin cupped in both hands, looking out upon the strange immobility of the land, she wondered if it lay within her power to last out the next two days.

  With a faint shudder, she reviewed in her mind her struggles of the past eight weeks. In his first note Denis had asked her to wait only until the middle of December, but it as now the twenty-eighth day of that month, and she had still to endure the torture of her life at home for another two days. It was, she realised, not his fault. He had been obliged to extend the scope of his business activities in the North and was now acting for his firm in Edinburgh and Dundee. They were pleased with his work; the delay was in actuality advantageous; but at present she found it hard to bear.

  Only two more days! Then with Denis beside her in their snug, strong cottage by the Garshake shore – a fastness to enclose them both – she could face anything. She had visioned their cottage so continuously that it stood always firm, white, and steadfast in her mind, like a beacon, a shining emblem of protection, drawing her towards its safety. But she was losing faith in her ability to continue the struggle against the growing lassitude of her body and the ever-present dread of discovery.

  She was, in effect, seven and a half months pregnant, but her fine, firm body had, until lately, retained its shape adequately. She had grown more mature, and paler in her face, but no gross distortion in her form had taken place, and any alteration in her appearance had been attributed to the effects of the more rigid discipline to which she had been subjected. But recently, she had been obliged to lace herself more tightly, and to strain to hold her back and shoulders erect in order to maintain, in the face of greater difficulty, and with unceasing effort, the semblance of her natural figure. The cramping grip of her corset almost stifled her, but she was now compelled to suffer this continually, to sit passively under the cold eye of Brodie whilst she felt her child turn protestingly under the unnatural restraint, and to preserve in the face of everything an aspect of unconcern and tranquillity.

  She imagined, too, that of late, in spite of her every precaution, Mamma had entertained a vague uneasiness regarding her. Frequently she had looked up to intercept a doubting, questioning glance levelled acidly at her. Faint unformed suspicions, she realised, moved like latent shadows in her mother’s mind, and only the preposterous nature of their purport had hitherto prevented them from assuming a more definite shape.

  The last three months had dragged past more slowly and more fearfully than all the years of her life which had preceded them, and now, with the climax imminent and relief at hand, her strength seemed to be leaving her. To-day, a numb pain in her back added to her distress, and at intervals small, sweeping waves of suffering traversed her. As the memory of all that she had endured rose poignantly before her, a tear splashed down her cheek.

  This quiet movement, the coursing of a tear-drop upon her face which disturbed her sad, statuesque passivity, had its counterpart in nature. Whilst she gazed, the front gate, which had all day hung half-open upon its listless hinges, was impelled into sluggish motion, and swung slowly shut with a loud clang, as though an invisible hand had negligently pushed it. A moment later, a heap of dead leaves which lay in the far corner of the courtyard, stirred, and a handful eddied, raised themselves spirally upwards on the air with a sighing susurrus, then subsided and were still.

  Mary viewed both of these movements with a sensation of disturbance; perhaps her state induced such disquiet, for they had been in themselves insignificant, but the contrast of the sudden, unwarranted movements against the close, imperturbable quiet of the day was starkly arresting. The hush outside deepened, whilst the brassy sky grew more sombre and crept lower to the earth. As she sat, quiescent, awaiting another surge of pain, the front gate again swung gently open, hesitated, and recoiled with a more resounding concussion than before; the long, drawn-out noisy creak of the opening gate came to her like an interrogation and the quick-following clang like an abrupt and decisive reply. A faint ripple undulated across the field which lay opposite and the long grasses ruffled like smoke; under her staring eyes, a wisp of straw lying in the roadway was suddenly whisked high into the air and flung far out of sight by an unseen and inexplicable force. Then the silent air was filled with a soft, quick pattering, and a mongrel dog came racing down the streets, its sides panting, its ears laid back flat, its eyes cowering. With a startled curiosity Mary marked its stricken aspect, and asked herself the reason for its haste and terror.

  The answer to her unspoken question came like a sigh from a long way off, a low-pitched hum which swept in from beyond the Winton Hills, and echoed around the house. It encircled the grey walls, twisted sinuously through the embrasures of the parapet, whirled amongst the chimneys, spun around the solemn, granite balls, dwelt an instant at Mary’s window, then receded in a gradual diminuendo, like the roar of a defeated wave upon a shingle shore. A long silence ensued, then the sound returned, swelling in from the distant hills more loudly, remaining longer than before, and retreating more slowly to a vantage point less remote.

  At the end of this last, shivering drone the door of the bedroom opened, and Nessie came precipitately in. ‘ Mary, I’m frightened,’ she cried. ‘ What’s that noise? It’s like a great, big, humming-top.’

  ‘It’s nothing but the wind.’

  ‘But there’s no wind at all. Everything’s as quiet as the grave – and what a colour the sky is! Oh! I’m feared of it, Mary.’

  ‘There’s going to be a storm, I think, but don’t worry, you’ll be all right, Nessie.’

  ‘Oh! dearie me,’ cried Nessie, with a shiver, ‘I hope there’ll be no lightning. I’m that scared of it. If it hits you they say it burns you up, and if you sit near steel that attracts it more than anything.’

  ‘There’s not a steel thing in the room,’ Mary reassured her.

  Nessie came closer.

  ‘Let me stay with you a little,’ she entreated; ‘you seem to have been far away from me lately. If ye let me bide with you that sound will not seem so fearsome.’ She sat down and placed her thin arm around her sister, but instinctively Mary drew away.

  ‘There you are again! You won’t even let me touch you. You don’t love me like you used to,’ Nessie grieved, and, for a moment, it looked as though she would rise and go out in childish pique. Mary sat silent; she could not justify her action, but she took Nessie’s hand and pressed it gently. Partly reassured b
y this gesture, Nessie’s hurt expression faded and she pressed Mary’s hand in return. Thus, hand in hand, the two sisters looked out silently upon the panting earth.

  The atmosphere had now become dry and rare, and infused with an acrid, saline character which irritated the nostrils like brine. The dun sky had darkened to a blackish purple, meeting the near horizon like smoke, blotting out distant objects and throwing into strange relief those that were near. The sense of increasing isolation from the outer world thus produced was terrifying to Nessie. She gripped Mary’s hand more tightly as she cried: ‘These clouds are coming on top of us. It’s like a big black wall. Oh! I’m feared of it. Will it fall on us?’