by A. J. Cronin
‘Don’t go, son,’ she implored. ‘Don’t let what your father said upset ye. He doesna mean it. He’s worried himself. Stay in with your mother now, there’s a good lad. Ye’ve had no tea at all. Stay in and I’ll make ye something nice. I love ye Matt I love ye so much I would do anything for ye!’ –
‘Give me the key, then,’ he replied. ‘ That’s what I want’
Silently she gave him her own key. He thrust it into his pocket, saying: ‘ I’ll be late! Don’t sit up for me.’
She followed him, wavering in fear, to the door. ‘Ye’ll be careful, Matt, won’t ye. Keep out o’ mischief for my sake, son. Don’t let him drive ye to anything rash. I couldna bear it now that you’re safely back to me.’
He made no reply but was gone, disappearing rapidly into the darkness beyond. Her ears followed his steps until they died into the quiet of the night, then, with a short, dry sob she turned and went back to the kitchen. She did not know what was going to happen, but she feared exceedingly.
Chapter Eight
Next morning Mrs Brodie woke early, while it was still almost dark, but, as she stirred, she heard in the distance the first, faint, challenging cock crow, betokening, despite the obscurity, the imminent dawn of another day. Although she had waited up late on the night before, she had not seen Matthew come in, and now, after a troubled sleep, her first thought was to assure herself that he was well. As she dressed there was no need for her to be timorously silent for fear of disturbing her husband, since she was now alone in the small room that had been Mary’s, yet, from long habit, her actions were as stealthy and inaudible as the movements of a shadow. The dim light entered the window of the bedroom and vaguely revealed her ghostly, drooping figure as she shivered into her clothes. Her underclothing was so patched, darned, and repaired as to become at any time a puzzle to assume and now, in the cold obscurity of the chill February air, her insensitive, roughened fingers fumbled confusedly with the coarse, worn garments. As she dressed thus, by sense of touch, her teeth chattered slightly, giving the sole audible indication of her presence and activity.
When she had covered her body by solving the intricate riddle of her enigmatical vestments, she rubbed her hands soundlessly together to induce some sign of circulation and slid out of the room in her stockinged feet.
Matthew’s bedroom, being at the back of the house and facing east, was better illuminated; as she silently entered it she saw amongst the disordered confusion of bedclothes, the outlines of his regularly breathing form, and she too again breathed regularly with relief. His face looked leaden in the bluish pallor of the morning light, at the corners of his mouth dry sordes had formed, and sleaves of dark hair lay tangled upon his brow. Between his lips his tongue seemed to protrude slightly as though it had become too swollen and bulky for its normal confines, and with each respiration it acted as a dull sounding-board for the hoarse passage of his breath.
Mamma gently restored the blankets and coverlet to a more orderly comfort, ventured even to stroke the tumbled, locks of hair from his eyes, but as, at her touch, he stirred uneasily and muttered, she drew back, quickly removing her hand, yet leaving it poised in mid air above his head as though unconsciously she blessed him in his sleep. Her gaze, too, was like a benediction, maintained for many moments. At length, reluctantly, she slowly withdrew her eyes from his face and turned to go. On her way out of the room she observed that his coat, vest, and trousers were strewn in disarray on the floor, that his shirt had been flung into one corner, his collar and tie into another and, as though glad to render him service, she stooped, picked up the scattered garments, folded them neatly upon a chair, looked again at his sleeping face, and went quietly away.
Downstairs, everything lay exposed in the stale, repugnant ebb of the low tide of early daybreak; the night, receding like an ocean, had left the furniture disordered, the dead fire dirty with grey, powdered ashes, the pile of unwashed dishes cluttering the scullery sink obscenely, like wreckage upon a desolate shore.
In the usual way, before she stirred herself into jerky activity to lay and light the fire, blacklead the grate, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, boil the porridge, and perform the endless necessities of the morning, she would first indulge herself with a cup of strong tea, feeling, in her own words, that it drew her together. The hot, fragrant liquid was like a healing draught, comforting her, warming her, clearing away the mists in her brain, and resigning her to the hardships of another day.
This morning, however, although she hurriedly infused and poured out a cup of tea, she did not herself drink it but, having carefully cut and delicately buttered two thin slices of bread, she placed these, together with the tea, appetisingly upon a tray, which she then carried up to Matthew’s room.
‘Matt,’ she whispered, touching him lightly upon the shoulder, ‘here’s some tea for ye, son. It’ll freshen ye up.’ Although she bent over him he still snored on, exuding with each breath the reeking halitus of stale liquor, which disturbed her deeply, made her, in her agitation, speak more loudly. ‘Matt! Here’s something nice for ye!’ That was what she used to say to him, coaxingly, when he was a boy, and at her words he stirred, half awake, twisted impatiently, and with eyes still closed, muttered:
‘Let me sleep, boy. Go to hell. Don’t want any chota hazri.’
Unhappily, she shook him.
‘Matt, dear, this tea will do you good. It’s nice for ye in the morning.’
At this he opened his eyes and surveyed her from under listless, stuporous lids; within his dark pupils she could see the dull, unhappy comprehension of his position slowly reawaken.
‘It’s you, is it,’ he slurred; ‘ what you want wakenin’ me like this. Let me sleep.’
‘But the nice tea, dear! so refreshing. I went straight down and made it myself.’
‘You’re always flinging tea at me! Let me sleep, damn it all!’ He hunched round his back at her and was at once asleep again.
Mamma looked miserably from his prone figure to the tray still in her hands, as though unable to comprehend his refusal or the full force of his abuse, then, moved by the thought that he might later reconsider his decision, she laid the tray down on a chair by the bedside, covered the cup warmly with the saucer, inverted the plate protectingly over the fresh bread, and turned disconsolately away.
He was on her mind all morning. The fire kindled, the dishes became clean, the boots were brushed, the porridge bubbled, she took up her husband’s shaving water, then began to lay the table whilst she thought of him, lamenting the words he had used to her, mourning the revealing odour of his breath, yet all the time excusing him in her mind. The shock of coming home, of his father’s treatment, had upset him; as for his language, he had, poor boy, been in a rough land, and had not been fully awakened when he spoke to her. Whilst she forgave him, the still house lagan to stir, light and heavy sounds vibrated through the ceiling, doors were opened and shut upstairs, and now, confronted by the fear that some further disturbance might arise between Brodie and her son, she listened anxiously for the noise of some sudden outburst, the clash of angry voices, even for the sound of a blow. To her intense relief none came, and after Nessie had come downstairs and been hurriedly fed, and packed off with her satchel of books, Brodie descended and began to breakfast in sombre, solitary silence. She had taken the utmost care that everything should be perfect for him this morning in order to lull him into a more amiable mood, was prepared, even, to lie blatantly about Matt’s coming in late; but although his mood seemed to her unpropitious, her fear proved to be unfounded and he departed without a single reference to his son.
When he had gone she breathed more easily and, her tranquillity further restored by a belated cup of tea, she prepared Grandma’s breakfast and took it upstairs shortly before ten o’clock. When she had visited the old woman she tiptoed across the landing and listened with her ear to the door of Matt’s room; hearing only the rise and fall of his breathing she softly opened the door. She saw at once that nothing h
ad been touched and, to her wounded feelings, it seemed as though the undisturbed tray mutely rebuked her, that the plate still investing the untouched bread and butter, and the saucer still uselessly covering the long since cold tea, were like tokens of her folly and presumption. He still slept. Confusedly she wondered if his removal from what she considered to be an antipodean hemisphere might not have inverted the hours of his repose, and in rendering him active at night and drowsy by day, have thus made it a necessity for him to sleep through certain hours of the forenoon. Unconvinced in mind but none the less eased a little in heart, feeling that if not this, perhaps some kindred reason existed for his behaviour, she did not disturb him, and again passed quietly out of the room.
Hesitatingly she addressed herself to her household duties in an effort to divert her attention, but as the forenoon drew on, uneasiness gradually possessed her; she comprehended that if their son was still in bed when Brodie returned for dinner a disastrous scene might take place. Anxiously she pricked her ears for the first evidence of his retarded activity and, towards noon, was rewarded by hearing the faint creak of his bed as it surrendered his body, the sound of his step upon, the boards above. Hastily decanting water into a jug from the kettle which stood ready boiling, she rushed upstairs to leave it outside his door.
He was a long time dressing, but about quarter to one he came slowly downstairs and entered the kitchen. She greeted him fondly.
‘I’m glad that you had a nice long sleep, dear, but you’ve had no breakfast. Will you have a bite before your dinner? Just say the word, it’ll not be the least bother for me to get ye a –’ It had been on her tongue to offer him the universal panacea – a cup of tea – but mercifully she recollected his remark of the morning in time and added: ‘ anything that’s in the house.’
‘I never eat much in the morning.’ He was smartly dressed in a different suit from the day before, in a smooth, fawn hopsack with a puce shirt and natty brown tie to match; as he fingered the bow of his tie with white plastic fingers that trembled slightly, he eyed her doubtfully, judging erroneously from her adulatory manner that she could not fully have realised his discomfiture of the night before. ‘I miss the fresh fruit my servants used to bring me,’ he asserted, feeling that some further explanatory remark might be required of him.
‘You’ll have some nice apples to-morrow, Matt,’ she replied eagerly. ‘I’ll put in the order sure. If ye just tell me what you’d like, or the kind of food you’ve been used to outbye, I’ll do my best to get it for ye.’
His attitude repudiated the idea of such sour wizened apples as she might obtain for him in this unproductive land; he waved his hand eloquently, and retorted shortly:
‘I meant mangoes, fairy bananas, pineapple. Nothing but the best is any use to me.’
‘Well, son, we’ll do our utmost, anyway,’ she replied bravely, although somewhat out of countenance at the grandiloquence of his remark. ‘I’ve got a nice dinner for ye anyway. Then, if ye feel like it afterwards, I was thinking maybe we might have a bit stroll together.’
‘I’m going out for tiffin,’ he inserted coldly, as though her suggestion was ridiculous and to be seen walking with her decrepit, outlandish figure the last thought his superior mind would entertain.
Her face fell, and she stammered:
‘I – I had such nice nourishin’ broth for ye, boy, as sweet as anything.’
‘Give it to the old man,’ he retorted bitterly. ‘Give him a bucketful. He can stand it.’ He paused for a moment, then continued in a more ingratiating tone: ‘I wonder though, Mamma, if you would lend me a pound or two for to-day. It’s such a confounded nuisance, but my bank drafts have not come through from Calcutta yet.’ He frowned at the annoyance of it all. ‘ It’s causing me no end of inconvenience. Here am I stuck up for a little ready cash all through their beastly delay. Lend me a fiver and you shall have it next week.’
A fiver! She almost burst into hysterical tears at the word, at the painful absurdity of his request that she should lend him at a moment’s notice five pounds – she who was bleeding herself white to scrape together the monthly toll that would soon be levied on her, who had, apart from the three pounds she had laboriously collected for the purpose, only a few paltry copper and silver coins in her purse!
‘Oh! Matt,’ she cried. ‘Ye don’t know what you’re askin’. There isna such a sum in the bouse!’
‘Come on now,’ he replied rudely, ‘you can do it fine. Toll out. Where’s your bag?’
‘Don’t speak to me like that, dear,’ she whispered. ‘ I canna bear it. I would do anything for ye, but what you’re askin’ is impossible.’
‘Lend me one pound then, seeing you’re so stingy,’ he said, with a hard look at her. ‘ Come on! give me a miserable pound.’
‘Ye can’t understand, son,’ she pleaded. ‘I’m so poor now I can hardly make ends meet. Your father doesna give me enough for us to live on.’ A yearning desire took hold of her to tell him of the manner in which she had been obliged to raise the money to send to him at Marseilles, but she stifled it, realising with a sudden pause that this moment, above all, was not propitious.
‘What does he think he’s doing? He’s got his business and this precious wonderful house of his,’ Matthew sneered. ‘What is it he’s spending the money on now?’
‘Oh! Matt, I hardly like to tell ye,’ she sobbed, ‘but things seem to be in a bad way with your father in the business. I’m – I’m feared the house is bonded. He hasna said a word to me but I saw some papers lyin’ in his room. It’s terrible. It’s the opposition that’s started against him in the town. I’ve no doubt he’ll win through, but in the meantime I’ve got to make one shillin’ do the work of two.’
He looked at her in sullen amazement, but refused, none the less, to be diverted from the issue.
‘That’s all very well, Mamma!’ he grumbled. ‘I know you. You always had something tucked away for a rainy day. I want a pound. I tell you I’ve got to have it. I need it’
‘Oh, my dear, have I not told ye how ill-off we are,’ she wept.
‘For the last time, will ye lend me it?’ he threatened.
As she again sobbingly refused him she thought, in her agitation, for the space of a horrified instant, that he was about to strike her, but abruptly he turned upon his heel and left the room. As she stood there, her hand clutching her side, she heard him banging about through the rooms upstairs and finally come down, pass through the hall without speaking, and slam out of the house.
When the reverberating echoes of the bang of the door had died upon the air they still resounded in her brain like an ominous portent of the future, and involuntarily she raised her hands to her ears to blot them out as she sat down at the kitchen table, an abject, disillusioned figure. She felt, as she rested there, her head supported in her hands, that the story of the bank draft must be a specious lie, that he, having spent the forty pounds, was now penniless. Had he almost threatened her? She did not know, but he had wanted the money badly, and she, alas, had been unable to give it to him. Before she could analyse her emotions further, and realising now that she should have been in a position to accede to his later demand, that in a fashion the fault had been hers, on top of her misery came a great rush of tenderness. Poor boy, he had been used to mixing with gentlemen who spent money freely, and it was only fair that he should have money in his pocket like the rest. It was, in fact, a necessity after the high society life he had been leading. It was not just to expect a young man as well put on as Matt to go out without the means of backing up his smart appearance. He had really not been to blame and, in some degree, she regretted not having given him at least a few shillings, if he would have accepted them from her. As the affair became thus presented to her in a more satisfactory light and she was filled by a sense of her own inadequacy she rose and, drawn by an irresistible attraction she went up to his room and with loving care began to tidy the litter of wearing apparel which encumbered it She now discovered that his c
lothing was not so plentiful as might have been expected from first appearances, finding one trunk to be completely empty, two of his cases to be filled with drill suits and another stuffed untidily with soiled linen. Eagerly, she seized upon socks to darn, shirts to mend, collars to starch, feeling it a joy to serve him by attending to these needs, beatitude even to touch his garments.
Eventually, having restored order amongst his things and arranged, for her attention, a large bundle which she bore away in triumph, she entered her own room, made her bed, and began in a more cheerful spirit to dust the furniture. As she came to the shallow china toilet tray that rested on the small table by the window an undetermined sense of perplexity affected her, a familiar impression to which she had long been accustomed in her subconscious mind was now lacking. She pondered absently for a moment then suddenly realised that she did not hear the intimate, friendly tick of her watch which, except on those state occasions when she wore it lay always upon this small tray of hers which now confronted her, denuded of all but a few stray hairpins. When she had been compelled to change her room she had of course brought this tray with her and the watch had still remained upon it; indeed, for twenty years the touch of this tray had been consonant with her audition of the watch, and at once she appreciated the variation.
Although she knew that she was not wearing the watch she clutched at her bodice, but it was not there, and immediately she began to look for it in a flurry, searching everywhere in her own room, in Brodie’s room, downstairs in the parlour and in the kitchen. As her unsuccessful search was prolonged, a worried look appeared on her face. It was her mother’s watch; a fine scrolled silver shell with a gilt face, delicate spidery hands, and a Swiss mechanism which never failed to register the exact minute, and although it was not valuable she had for it, and for the small faded daguerreotype of her mother clipped inside the case, a rare and sentimental affection. It was her only trinket and for this fact alone she treasured it deeply. As she stooped to survey the floor she knew that she had not mislaid it and she asked herself if someone had not accidentally interfered with it Suddenly she straightened up. Her face lost its annoyance, and instead became stricken. She realised in an illuminating flash that Matt had taken her watch. She had heard him in her room, after she had refused to give him the money, and he had rushed out without speaking to her. She knew irrevocably that he had stolen her watch for any paltry sum he might obtain for it. She would gladly have given him it as she had given him everything in life that was hers to give, but he had thieved it from her with a sly, sneaking baseness. With a hopeless gesture she pushed back a wisp of grey hair that had been disarranged in her futile search. ‘Matt! my son,’ she cried out aloud, ‘ you know I would have given you it! What way did ye steal it?’
