Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  Never before had she thought so lovingly of the child. At times she had hated it as part of her own despicable body, but now an overpowering desire for it overtook her. If she died it must die. She thought of the living infant, entombed in her drowned body, floating out to sea, moving more and more feebly in the prison of her lifeless flesh. Without speech she prayed that she might live, live to give it birth.

  She had now reached a point where the engorged river had burst its banks and overflowed into the neighbouring fields. She could feel this quieter water to the left of her and, with her puny force, she essayed to direct herself to it. Again and again, she tried to draw away from the main stream only to be sucked back again. She had almost abandoned hope when, at a sharp bend of the river, her log was suddenly deflected from its course by a powerful eddy, and she floated into an area where she could feel no waves, no swirl, no wild onrush. She let the log drift on until it came to rest, then, trembling, she lowered her legs. They touched bottom and she stood up, thigh deep in the water. The weight of the water and her frozen state almost prevented her moving, but, though gaining only inches at a time, she moved slowly away from the sound of the river. At length she was clear of the flood. She looked round. To her intense joy she saw, amidst the impenetrable darkness around her, a light. The sight of this light was like a divine balm laid suddenly upon each of her wounds. For what seemed to her like years she had been moving in a world of tenebrous shadows, where each step was fraught with obscure suspense and an unseen danger that might annihilate her. The faint, unflickering ray gleamed serenely, and in the dim illumination she saw comfort and serenity. Hereabouts she recollected was situated a small and isolated croft, but whosoever dwelt here could never refuse to shelter her in her terrible condition on so terrible a night. Cowering, she advanced towards the light.

  Now she could hardly walk. Low in her body a heavy weight seemed to bear her down and lancinating pains tore her with every movement. Bent almost doubt, she persisted on her way. The light had been so near and yet, the further she advanced, the more it seemed to recede from her! Her feet squelched deep into the inundated ground so that it was an effort to withdraw them, and with each step she seemed to sink deeper into the marshland which she was now obliged to cross. Still, she progressed, going deeper and deeper into the swamp, sinking to her knees as she plodded through a foul admixture of mud and water. One of her shoes was plucked from her foot by the adhesion of the quagmire and she was unable to retrieve it; her skin, blanched white by her prolonged immersion, now became smeared and splashed with mire; the remnants of her clothing trailed behind in draggled tatters.

  At length, it appeared to her that she was slowly gaining ground and approaching nearer to the light of the croft, when abruptly, following a forward step, she failed to find bottom with her feet. She began to sink into the bog. She shrieked. The warm, quaggy mud sucked at her legs with a soft insistence, drawing her downwards into its embrace. She was unable to withdraw either foot and, at her struggles, gaseous bubbles erupted from the slough and stifled her with their miasma. Downwards she sank. It seemed to her that she had been saved from the clean, cold death of the river in order to be destroyed more fittingly here. This sludge was a more suitable winding sheet than the pure water of the mountain streams. In such corruption as this her violated body had been destined to disintegrate and, dissolving, become, finally part of its substance. To have surmounted such peril as she had that night endured, and to be robbed of succour when within sight of it, infuriated her. In a passion of endeavour she struggled to support herself; with a shriek she flung herself forward, clawing wildly at the wet moss which covered the surface of the morass. The glutinous stuff offered little hold, but with such frenzy did she tear at it with her extended fingers that she succeeded, with a last superhuman effort, in drawing herself clear by the power of her arms alone. Then, pantingly, she dragged her body to a firmer part of the marsh, where she lay completely exhausted. She could now no longer walk, and therefore, after a few moments rest, she began to crawl slowly forward on all fours like a stricken animal. But in escaping from the bog she had utilised the last dregs of her strength; although she was on solid ground and no more than fifty yards from the house she realised that she would never attain it. She gave up, and, sobbing weakly, lay on the ground, hopeless, with powerless limbs relaxed, whilst a fresh downpour of rain deluged her. Yet, as she lay there, the faint lowing of cattle came to her through the storm. After a moment she again heard the sound and, looking to the right, she perceived, dimly outlined in the obscurity, the darker outlines of a low building. She became aware through the drifting vapours in her brain that here was shelter of some kind. Raising herself, she staggered with a last, delirious effort, into the shed, and collapsed unconscious upon the floor.

  The sanctuary she had attained was a poor outbuilding, the mean byre of the small farm. Being built of thick stones with the crevices closely stuffed with moss, it was warm inside, and, having so insignificant a height, the chilling blast rushed over it, so that it had, in addition, escaped the fury of the wind. The air was filled with the blended odours of straw, dung, and the sweet smell of the animals themselves. The three milch cows standing in their stalls moved with gentle, resigned movements, their bodies almost invisible, but their pale udders faintly luminous amongst the shadows. The cows, their large, sad eyes inured to the darkness, looked with a docile timidity at the strange human creature which rested, scarcely breathing, upon the floor of the byre. Then, having identified it as passive and harmless, they turned with silent moving jaws.

  For only a few moments Mary remained in happy insensibility. She was restored to consciousness by the powerful spur of pain. Waves of pain swept over her. The pain began, in her back travelled round her body and down the inside of her thighs with a slow, fulminating grip which gradually crept to an intolerable crisis. Then suddenly it left her, limp, drained, and helpless.

  During the whole of her tragic journey she had endured these pangs. Now they became insupportable, and, lying amongst the ordure of the shed, she suffered with closed eyes. Her arms and legs were extended flaccidly; her body, which Denis had named his shrine, was pressed into the steaming dung and plastered with drying mud. Moans of pain broke from between her clenched teeth; a damp sweat beaded her forehead and trickled slowly over her shut eyelids; her features, disfigured by filth and distorted by her insupportable experiences, were rigidly set, but around her head the emanation of her sufferings seemed to have condensed in a faint translucent radiance which encircled her dying face like a nimbus.

  The inactive intervals of her pains grew shorter whilst the paroxysms lengthened. When a pain abated the passive anticipation of the next was torture. Then it would begin, graspingly envelop her, permeate her with agony, and squander itself through her every nerve. Her cries were combined with the shriek of the ever-present wind. Everything she had undergone was as nothing compared to her present torture. Her body writhed about the stone floor feebly; blood mingled with the sweat and dirt about her. She prayed for death. Dementedly she called upon God, on Denis, on her mother. She besought the clemency of her Saviour in gasps, which broke in anguish from between her clenched teeth. In answer to her cries only the wind responded. Rising up, it shrieked and mocked at her as it rushed about the shed. She lay abandoned until, at last, when she could not have lived through one further exacerbation, the gale rose to its loudest, highest pitch and amidst the culmination of the storm, she was delivered of a son. Till the last torture abated she was conscious. Then, when there was no more pain for her to endure, she relapsed into the deep well of forgetfulness.

  The child was small, puny, premature. Bound still to its insensible mother it clawed feebly at her, and at the empty air, with its diminutive fingers. Its head sagged upon its frail neck. It rested there, scarcely breathing, while the mother lay slowly blanching from a slow, seeping haemorrhage. Then it cried with a weak and fitful cry.

  As if in answer to that call the door of the s
hed opened slowly, and the rays of a lantern dimly penetrated the darkness. An old woman came into the byre. A thick, plaid shawl was wrapped round her head and shoulders; her wooden, solid clogs clattered as she walked. She had come to reassure herself as to the safety and comfort of her beasts and now she went to them, smoothing their necks, patting their sides, talking encouragingly to them. ‘Eh, Pansy lady,’ she muttered. ‘Come up, Daisy! Come awa’, Belle; come up, leddy, leddy! Come, leddy, leddy! But what a night! What a storm! But dinna steer, dinna fash, ye’re a’ richt, my ninnies! You’ve a good, stout roof abin ye, ye maunna be frichted! I’m near enough tae ye. You’ll be –’ Abruptly she broke off, and raised her head into a listening attitude. She imagined she had heard within the byre a faint, puling cry. But she was old and deaf and her ears rang with the echo of the hurricane, and, mistrusting her own perception of the sound, she was about to turn away and resume her task when she distinctly heard the slight, plaintive call repeated.

  ‘Guidsakes! what – is’t – at a’, at a’,’ she murmured. ‘I’m shair I heard something Something unco’ like a wean greetin’.’ With an unsteady hand she lowered her lantern, peering about in the darkness; then suddenly she paused, with incredulous, awestruck eyes. ‘The Lord save us!’ she cried, ‘it’s a bairn and – and its mother. God in Heaven, she’s deid! Oh! the nicht that this has been! What a thing for ma auld een to see!’ In a second she had placed her lantern on the stone floor and was down upon her aged knees. She had no fastidious delicacy as she plied her coarse hands with the adept, experienced movements of a woman of the soil to whom nature was an open book. Quickly, but without flurry, she disengaged the child and wrapped it warmly in a corner of her plaid. Then she turned to the mother and, with an expert pressure, at once evacuated the womb, and controlled the bleeding. All the time she spoke to herself, while she worked: ‘Did ye see the like! She’s nearly gane! the puir thing! and her so young and so bonnie. I maun dae ma best for her. That’s better though. What in God’s name did she no’ come to the house, though. I would have letten her in. Ah, well, ’twas the will o’ the Almighty I cam’ out to the beasts.’ She slapped Mary’s hands, rubbed her cheeks, covered her with the remainder of the plaid, and hastened off.

  Back in her comfortable kitchen she shouted to her son, who sat before the huge crackling log fire: ‘Quick, man! I want ye to run like fury to Levenford for a doctor. Ye maun get yin at a’ costs. There’s an ill woman in the byre. Go, in God’s name, and no’ a word frae ye. It’s life or death.’

  He stared at her dully. ‘ What,’ he cried stupidly, ‘in our byre?’

  ‘Ay,’ she shouted, ‘she’s been driven in by the storm. If ye dinna hurry she’ll be gane. Haste ye! Haste ye awa’ for help.’

  He got up mazedly and began to struggle into his coat

  ‘It’s the maist unheard o’ thing,’ he muttered: ‘in our byre. What’s wrang wi’ her, ava’, ava’?’

  ‘Never mind,’ she flared; ‘gang awa’ this meenute. Never mind the horse. Ye maun rin like fury.’

  She hustled him out of the door, and when she had assured herself that he had gone, took a pan, poured into it some milk from a jug on the dresser, and hurriedly heated it upon the fire. Then she took a blanket from the kitchen bed, her own bed, and rushed again to the cowshed with the blanket on her arm and the hot milk in her hand. She wrapped Mary tightly in the blanket and, raising her head gently, poured with difficulty a few drops of hot milk between her blue lips. She shook her head doubtfully. ‘I’m afraid to move her,’ she whispered, ‘she’s gae far through.’

  Taking the infant in the crook of her arm, she removed it to the warm kitchen, and returned with a clean, damp cloth and another blanket for Mary.

  ‘There, ma bonnie, that’ll hap ye up warm,’ she whispered, as she encompassed the limp form in this second covering. Then, tenderly, with the cloth, she wiped the inspissated mud from the white face. She had done all that was possible, and now she waited patiently, crouching down, without once removing her eyes from Mary, from time to time chafing the lifeless hands, stroking the cold brow beside her. For almost an hour she remained thus.

  At last the door was flung open, and a man entered the byre in a bluster of wind and rain.

  ‘Thank God ye’ve come, doctor,’ cried the old woman. ‘I was feared ye wouldna.’

  ‘What is the trouble?’ he demanded abruptly, as he advanced towards her.

  In a few words she told him. He shook his head dispassionately and bent his tall, spare form down beside the figure on the floor. He was a young man, this Dr Renwick, skilful in his work, but new to Levenford and anxious to build up a practice, and this had drawn him out on foot on such a night when two other doctors approached before him had refused to go. He looked at Mary’s pale, sunken face, then felt her soft, fluttering pulse; whilst he contemplated the second hand of his watch with a serene tranquillity the old woman gazed at him anxiously.

  ‘Will she die, think ye, doctor?’

  ‘Who is she?’ he said.

  The old wife shook her head negatively.

  ‘I dinna ken, ava’, ava’. But what a bonnie, wee thing to suffer so much, doctor.’ She seemed to entreat him to do all he could.

  ‘The baby?’ he enquired.

  ‘In the kitchen! ’ Tis alive the now, but ’tis a puir, feeble bit bairn.’ The physician in him looked coldly, critically at the inert figure before him, but the man in him was touched. He seemed to trace, with his experienced eye, the record of all her sufferings, as though the history of these was indelibly delineated upon her features. He saw the pinched nostrils of the thin straight nose, the sunken rings of her dark eyes, and the piteous droop of the pale, soft lips. A feeling of compassion awoke in him, tinctured by a strange, flowing tenderness.

  He took up again the frail, relaxed hand and held it in his as though to transfuse a current of life from his vital body into hers, then, as he turned the hand, and saw the gash which transfixed the palm, he cried, in spite of himself: ‘Poor child! She’s so young and helpless.’ Then, ashamed of his weakness, he continued roughly: ‘She’s in a bad way. Haemorrhage, bad haemorrhage, and shock. Shock from God knows what misery. It’s a case for the Cottage Hospital,’ he added finally.

  At these words the young farmer, who had been silent in the background, spoke from the door:

  ‘I’ll have the horse in the shafts of the cart in a minute if ye like, doctor.’

  Renwick looked at the old woman for confirmation. She nodded eagerly, her hands supplicating him.

  ‘Very well, then!’ He braced his shoulders. In this case he saw no chance of fee, only its difficulties and danger, and a hazard to his unformed reputation. But he was moved to take it. He felt he must take it. His dark eyes lit with a flashing desire to save her. ‘It’s not only the shock,’ he said aloud; ‘I don’t like her breathing. Might be pneumonia there, and if so –’ He shook his head significantly, turned and bent over his bag, and, extracting from it some temporary restoratives, applied these as best the circumstances permitted. When he had finished, the cart, a rough farm waggon as deep and heavy as a tumbrel, stood ready at the door. The infant was swaddled in blankets and placed carefully in one corner, then they lifted Mary up and placed her beside her child. Finally, Renwick clambered in and, while he supported Mary in his arms, the crofter jumped into his seat and whipped up the horse. Thus they set out into the night for the Cottage Hospital, the strange ambulance bumping and jolting slowly along, the doctor protecting the limp figure in his arms, as best he could, from the shocks of the rough road.

  The old woman saw them disappear, then she sighed, turned, shut the byre door, and with bowed back went slowly into her house. As she entered the kitchen the grandfather’s clock in the corner chimed eight, solemn strokes. She went quietly to the chest of drawers, picked up her Bible and, slowly assuming her cold, steel spectacles, opened the book at random and began soberly to read.