by A. J. Cronin
‘Don’t, Matt! Don’t! I don’t like to hear you talk so lightly,’ trembled Mamma. Far from allaying her suspicions he was increasing them. ‘ Maybe you’ll go to the meeting again with Agnes now you’re back. You mean so much to me now. I want ye to be happy, and there’s never any happiness apart from goodness in this life, dear.’
‘What do you know about happiness?’ he retorted. ‘You always looked miserable enough before.’
‘You’ll go to the meeting with Agnes, won’t ye, Matt?’ she persisted. ‘Try just the once to please me.’
‘I’ll see,’ he replied evasively. ‘I’ll go if I want to go, but don’t sermonise me any more. I don’t like it, I’m not used to it and I won’t have it.’
‘I know that you’ll go for my sake,’ she whispered, placing her worn hand on his knee. ‘Ye ken that Mary’s away now and that I’ve nobody but you. You were aye my own boy!’
‘I knew Mary was away all right,’ he snickered. ‘Where is she since her little accident?’
‘Hush! Hush! Don’t speak like that,’ she returned hastily. ‘That’s shameful talk!’ She paused, shocked, then added: ‘She’s in London, we think, but her name’s forbidden in the house. For goodness sake don’t talk that way before your father.’
He threw off her caressing hand.
‘What do I care for father,’ he blustered. ‘I’m a man now. I can do what I like. I’m not afraid of him any longer.’
‘I know that, Matt! You’re a fine big man,’ she wheedled, ‘ but your father’s had an awfu’ time since ye left. I’ll rely on ye not to try his temper too much. I’ll just get the brunt of it if ye do. Don’t tell him any of these things you’ve told me. He’s that touchy nowadays he mightna like it. He’s worried – business is not what it used to be.’
‘It serves him right,’ he said, sulkily, as he rose, feeling that she had, as usual, rubbed him the wrong way. ‘ You would think I cared an anna piece what happened to him. Let him try any tricks on me and it’ll be the worse for him.’ He made his way to the door, adding: ‘I’m going up for a wash now.’
‘That’s right, Matt! Your own room’s prepared. I’ve kept it ready for you since the day ye left. Not a soul has been in it, and not a hand has touched it but my own. The bed has been well aired for you, too. You go and freshen yourself up and I’ll lay the tea while you’re upstairs.’ She watched him eagerly, awaiting some expression of appreciation for her forethought, but he was still offended at her and went into the hall without a word. She heard him pick up a bag and march upstairs and, straining her ears, listening to every movement he made above; she heard him go into Grandma’s room, heard this new, swaggering laugh of his as he greeted the old woman with a boisterous flourish. Despite her confused disquiet the sounds which he made above comforted her and she became filled with a glowing sense of gratitude at the feeling of his proximity; she had her own, son actually in the house beside her after all these weary months of separation. She breathed a prayer of gratitude as she quickly began to make preparations for the evening meal.
Soon Nessie came bounding in. She had seen the trunks in the hall and rushed up to Mamma in a flutter, crying:
‘Is he home, Mamma? What great big boxes! Where is he? I wonder if he’s brought me a present from India. Oh! I want to see Matt! Where is he?’ At Mrs Brodie’s word she dashed upstairs, calling out expectantly to Matt, all eagerness to see him. In a few moments, however, she came down slowly, stood again before Mamma, this time dejectedly, frowning her little petulant frown, her swelling excitement entirely collapsed. ‘I hardly knew him,’ she remarked, in her old-fashioned way. ‘ He’s not like our Matt a bit. He didn’t seem in the least glad to see me.’
‘Tuts, Nessie!’ exclaimed Mamma. ‘You’re haverin’. He’s had a long journey. Give him time to settle down.’
‘When I went in he was drinkin’ something out a wee leather bottle. He said not to bother him.’
‘He would be doing his unpackin’, child. Don’t be so impatient He’s got other things to think of just now, forbye you.’
‘When I asked him about my compass he said he had thrown it away – he said something I didna understand – something about it bein’ like your nose.’
Mrs Brodie coloured deeply, but made no reply. She felt sure that Nessie must be making some mistake, must have misconstrued the remark, yet her heart was heavy at the thought of what might have been implied.
‘I thought he might have brought me a wee string o’ coral beads or something like that,’ persisted Nessie. ‘Grandma’s real upset too, she thought he might have minded her with a keepsake. He seems to have brought nothing for anybody.’
‘Don’t be selfish, Nessie!’ cried Mamma sharply, venting all her pent-up feeling in this rebuke. ‘Your brother has enough to do with his money without squandering it on you. Not another word out of your head! Away and call Grandma down to make the toast,’ and, pursing her lips closely together, Mrs Brodie inclined her head more rigidly to its angle of endurance, set herself resignedly to arrange the tea things upon the table.
When tea time drew near Matthew came down to the kitchen. A faint flush tinged the yellow of the skin around his prominent cheek bones, his speech was more profuse than when he had arrived, and, detecting a faint but suggestive odour upon his breath, instantly Mamma knew that he had been fortifying himself for the meeting with his father. Observing him covertly she perceived that, despite his vaunting talk, he dreaded this coming encounter, at once her recent humiliation was forgotten and all her instincts rose again to his protection.
‘Sit down by the table, on your chair, son! Don’t tire yourself out any more.’
‘’S all right, Mamma,’ he replied. ‘I’ll keep on my pins. Been cramped up travelling these last few days. I like to stretch myself a bit.’ He moved restlessly about the room, nervously fingering everything within reach, looking repeatedly at the clock, and getting in her way as she passed to and from the table.
Grandma Brodie, who had entered behind him and now sat by the fireside, called out:
‘Man! you’re like a knotless thread. Is that a habit you’ve picked up off these black men to wander about like that? It fair makes my head giddy to look at ye.’ She was still bitter about not having received a present from him.
Eventually he sat down, joining the others at the table. In spite of all his resistance the approach of half-past five was cowing him; all the firm resolutions which he had formed for days past to stand up to his father and assert himself as a man of the world began to ooze from him, and his especial determination to maintain a nonchalant assurance at this first interview gradually wilted. Coming home, it had been easy for him to tell himself that he cared nothing for his father – now, as he sat in his old chair at the same table and within the same unaltered room, waiting, his ears anxiously alert for that firm heavy footstep, the overwhelming sweep of old associations deluged him, and, losing all his acquired dash and hardihood, he became the nervously expectant youth once more. Instinctively he turned to his mother, and to his annoyance found her limpid eye regarding him with a sympathetic understanding. He saw that she appreciated his emotions, and his apprehension was apparent to her, and a furious resentment against her stirred him as he exclaimed:
‘What are you looking at now? It’s enough to make a man jump when you look at him like that.’ He stared at her angrily until she lowered her eyes.
At half-past five the well-remembered click of the door startled him; the sound was exactly to the second, for Brodie, after a prolonged period of irregularity in his meals, had now resumed, with an utter disregard for business, his habits of scrupulous puntuality. Now, as his father came into the room, Matthew gathered himself together, controlled the movements of his hands, prepared himself for a bitter onslaught of words. But Brodie did not speak, did not once look at his son. He sat down and began to partake comfortably of his tea, which he seemed to enjoy immensely. Matthew was abashed. In all his visualisations of the meeting not
hing like this had ever occurred, and now he had an almost irresistible impulse to cry out, like a schoolboy in disgrace: ‘Look, father, I’m here! Take notice of me!’
Brodie, however, took no notice of him, but went quietly on with his meal, staring straight ahead of him, and saying no word until it seemed as though he had no intention of recognising his son. At at last, after a long time, when the tension in the room had grown almost unbearable, he turned and looked at Matthew. It was a penetrating gaze which saw everything and expressed everything, pierced the outside shell of hard bravado into the soft, shrinking flesh beneath, permeated and illuminated the deep recesses of Matthew’s mind, and which said:
‘You’ve returned at last, then. I know you! Still a weakling and now a failure!’
Under that glance Matthew seemed to diminish visibly in stature and, although he fought with all the strength in him to meet his father’s eyes, he could not. His own gaze wavered, quailed, and, to the intense humiliation of his swaggering vanity, fell downwards to the ground.
Brodie smiled grimly, then having, without uttering one word, brow-beaten the other to subjection, he spoke, saying only, with a cutting inflection:
‘You’ve arrived!’ Yet, expressed within the short compass of these simple words were a dozen sarcastic, objectionable meanings. Mamma trembled. The baiting of her son had begun and, though she saw that it was going to be worse than she had feared, she dared not say a word for fear of aggravating her husband’s mood. Her eyes fell upon her Matt with a terrified, compassionate sympathy as Brodie continued: ‘It’s a real pleasure to see your braw, handsome face again, although it has turned as yellow as a guinea. Ye were aye a bit pasty faced now I think o’t, but all the gold ye’ve been savin’ out by there has fair jaundiced ye.’ He surveyed Matthew critically, warming to his work, finding an outlet in this sardonic onslaught for all his bitter sufferings of the past months.
‘It’s worth it, though, no doubt it’s worth it,’ he continued. ‘You’ll have brought us a hantle o’ gold from these foreign parts ye’ve been slavin’ in. Ye’ll be a rich man now? Are ye rich?’ he shot out again.
Matthew shook his head dismally, and at this silent negation, Brodie’s eyebrows lifted in a stupendous sneer.
‘What!’ he cried, ‘ye havena brought back a fortune? That beats a’! I thought from the way you’ve been jauntin’ about Europe and from those grand big boxes in the hall that ye must be worth a mint o’ money at least. Then, if ye’re not as rich as all that, why did ye get yoursel’ thrown out o’ your position?’
‘I didn’t like it,’ muttered Matthew.
‘Dear! dear!’ remarked Brodie, appearing to address the company at large. ‘He didna like his position. He maun be a big man to be so hard to please as all that; and the downright honesty of the man to admit that he didna like it.’ Then, turning to Matthew, and hardening his tone, he exclaimed: ‘Do ye not mean that it didna like you? I’ve been told here in Levenford that you were soundly kicked out o’ it – that they got as sick of the sight o’ ye out there as I am already.’ He paused, then continued suavely: ‘ Still, I may be wronging you. I’ve no doubt ye’ve got something splendid in view – some marvellous new position. Have ye not?’
His tone demanded a reply and Matthew muttered: ‘No,’ sulkily hating his father now with a violence which shook him, feeling it an unbearable humiliation that he, the travelled, the experienced, the sophisticated buck, should be spoken to like this; he swore inwardly that, though at present he made no resistance, when he was stronger, more recovered from his journey, he would be revenged for every insult.
‘No new post to go to!’ Brodie continued, with assumed affability. ‘No post and no money! You’ve just come back to live off your father. Come back like a beaten dog. Yet thing it’s easier to sponge on me than to work, I suppose.’
A tremor ran through Matthew’s frame.
‘What!’ cried Brodie, ‘ are ye cold? It’s the sudden change from the great heat ye’ve been called upon to endure when you were workin’ yourself into the jaundice outbye. Your dear mother will have to get ye some warm clothes out o’ these grand, big cases o’ yours. I mind weel she was aye plaisterin’ ye with flannels when ye were a boy. And now that you’re a braw, full-grown man she mustna let ye get a chill. Na! Na! you’re too precious and valuable for that’ He passed up his cup for more tea, remarking: ‘I havena made such a good tea for a long time! It fair gives me an appetite to see your pokey face back again.’
Matthew could endure these taunts no longer, and giving up the pretence of eating, he got up, mumble to Mamma in a broken voice:
‘I can’t stand this any longer. I don’t want any tea. I’ll away out!’
‘Sit down!’ thundered Brodie, pushing the other back with his closed fist. ‘Sit down, sir. Ye can go when I tell ye to and not before. I’m not done with ye yet’ Then, as Matthew subsided into his seat, he continued, cuttingly: ‘Are we not to have the privilege of your society next? Ye’ve been away two years and yet you canna bide in the house two minutes. Can ye not see that we’re all waiting to hear about these wonderful adventures you’ve had out there? We’re just hanging on the words that are ready to drop from your lips. Come on! tell us all about them.’
‘Tell you about what?’ answered Matthew sullenly.
‘About the grand, excitin’ time ye’ve had outbye. About the rajahs and princes you’ve been hob-nobbin’ with – about the elephants and the tigers ye’ve shot – tell us quick before ye’ve time to mak’ it up. Ye’ll be a perfect daredevil now, I suppose? There’ll be no end to what ye can do?’
‘I can maybe do more than you think,’ muttered Matthew under his breath.
‘Indeed, now!’ sneered Brodie, catching at the other’s words. ‘You’re going to surprise us, are ye? It’s the same story as before, always what you’re goin’ to do. Never what ye’ve done, mind ye, but always what’s comin’ off next! Gad! when I look at ye there with that cringin’ look about ye, and all these fine, flashy clothes on ye, it makes me wonder what ye will do.’ His anger rose until it almost choked him, but with an effort he controlled it and continued in his smooth, ironic voice: ‘Never mind though! It’s such a treat to have ye back that we mustna be too hard on ye. The main thing is that you’ve come back safe and sound from all the terrible dangers that ye’re too modest to speak about. We must have the notice o’ your return put in the Advertiser. Then all your braw friends – especially your lady friends – will ken that you’re home. They’ll be swarmin’ round ye like flies round a honey pot. That’s what ye like, isn’t it – to have the women pettin’ ye and runnin’ after ye?’
Matthew made no reply and after a moment’s pause Brodie continued, drawing back his lips sardonically:
‘I suppose next Sunday that mother o’ yours will have ye all toshed up and have ye out at the kirk for the general admiration o’ her braw congregation. Ye might even squeeze your way into the choir again if ye were sleekit enough, to let them all hear your bonnie voice lifted up in praise o’ the Lord. It would be a real manly thing to sing in the choir again – would it not? Answer me, ye dummy. Do ye hear what I’m sayin’ to ye?’
‘I’ll not sing in any choir,’ retorted Matthew, thinking sullenly that it was like his father to bring up this memory of the past and use it, derisively, to force him into a ridiculous position.
‘The prodigal son refuses to sing,’ sneered Brodie. ‘Did ye ever hear the like o’t – and him that had the lovely, lovely voice. Well my fine man,’ he continued with a snarl, ‘if ye’ll not sing for your mother you’ll sing for me. You’ll sing to the tune I pipe. Don’t think that I can’t see through ye. I do! ye’ve disgraced yourself and me. Ye hadna the grace to stick to your job like a man – ye must come running back home to your soft mother like a beaten cur. But don’t think ye can try that with me. Keep yourself in order when I’m about or, by God! it’ll be the wauro’ ye. Do ye understand what I mean?’ he rose from the table abruptly, and stood glar
ing down at his son. ‘I’m not finished with ye yet. I’ll knock the fancy notions out o’ your head before I’m done with ye. I warn ye – keep out of my path, sir, or smash ye down as ye stand, Do ye hear me?’
Matthew, emboldened by seeing that his father was about to go and goaded by the very humiliation of his position, raised his head and looked sideways at the other, muttering:
‘I’ll keep out of your way, all right.’
Brodie’s eye flamed fiercely in return. He grasped Matthew’s shoulder.
‘You dog!’ he shouted, ‘don’t you look at me like that. Don’t dare to do it or I’ll break you. You thing that calls yourself by the name o’ Brodie. You’re a disgrace to me, sir, yes! a bigger disgrace than your bitch of a sister.’ Then as Matthew’s eye again fell, he continued, disgust mingling with his anger: ‘ It scunners me to think a man of noble blood could beget a whelp like you. You’re the first Brodie to be called a coward, but by God you are one none the less. You’re a hanging coward and I’m ashamed o’ ye!’ He shook his son like a sack of bones, then suddenly released his hold and allowed him to collapse inertly back into the chair.
‘Watch what you’re about, my man. I’ll have my eye on ye,’ he cried, forbiddingly, as he walked out of the room.
When he had gone Nessie and Grandma continued silently to look at Matthew, but Mamma dropped on her knees beside him and placed her arm around his shoulder.
‘Never mind, Matt! never mind, my own son! I love ye, anyway!’ she wept.
He thrust down her arm whilst the muscles of his face twitched under the pale skin.
‘I’ll pay him out yet,’ he whispered, as he rose up. ‘I’ll get even with him. If he’s not done with me I’m not done with him.’
‘You’re not going out now, son,’ cried Mrs Brodie fearfully. ‘Ye’ll bide in with me to-night, won’t you? I want ye to be beside me.’
He shook his head.
‘No!’ he said, controlling his voice with an effort, ‘I must go out.’ He licked his dry lips. ‘I’ve got some – some old friends to look up. I’m goin’ out now. Give me a key.’
