Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  ‘Yes! he’s just told me. He’s gone to take you to the meeting; Matt has gone to get you,’ repeated Mrs Brodie stupidly, mechanically, as a fearful spasm gripped her heart.

  ‘It’s a lie!’ exclaimed Agnes. ‘ He’s not gone to see me or to look near any meeting.’

  ‘What!’ faltered Mamma.

  ‘Did he tell you what happened to-day?’ said Agnes, sitting up straight and gazing in front of her with hard eyes.

  ‘No! No!’ halted Mamma. ‘He said he couldna speak about it yet.’

  ‘I can well believe that,’ cried Agnes bitterly.

  ‘What was it, then?’ whimpered Mrs Brodie; ‘tell us, for God’s sake.’

  Agnes paused for a moment, then, with a quick indrawing of her breath, she steeled herself to her humiliation. ‘He came in smelling of drink, in fact he was nearly the worse of it. In spite of that I was glad to see him. We went into the back shop. He talked a lot of nonsense – and then he tried to borrow – to borrow money off me.’ She sobbed dryly. ‘I would have given him it, but I saw he would just spend it on spirits. When I refused he called me awful names. He swore at me. He said I was a—’ She broke down completely. Her big eyes gushed tears. Her full bosom panted with hard sobs; her large mouth drew into bibbering grimaces. In a frenzy of lamentation she flung herself at Mrs Brodie’s feet. ‘But that wasna everything,’ she cried. ‘I had to go into the shop a minute. When I came back he tried to – he tried to insult me, Mamma. I had to struggle with him. Oh! if only he had been kind to me I would have given him what he wanted. I don’t care whether I’m wicked or not. I would! I would!’ she shrieked. Her sobs strangled her. ‘ I love him, but he doesn’t love me. He called me an ugly bitch. He tried to take – to take advantage of me. Oh! Oh! Mamma, it’s killing me. I wanted him to do it, if only he had loved me. I wanted it!’ she repeated in a high hysteria. ‘I had to tell ye. I’m worse than Mary was. I wish I was dead and finished.’

  She flung back her head and gazed wildly at Mrs Brodie. The eyes of the two women met and fused in a dull horror of despair, then Mamma’s lips twisted grotesquely, her mouth drew to one side, she made as though to speak but could not, and with an incoherent cry she fell back helplessly in her chair. As Agnes gazed at the limp figure her eyes slowly grew startled, her thoughts withdrew gradually from her own sorrow.

  ‘Are ye ill?’ she gasped. ‘Oh! I didn’t think it would take you like that. I’m so upset myself I never thought it might make you feel as bad as that. Can I not get you anything?’

  Mamma’s eyes sought the other’s face, but still she did not speak.

  ‘What can I do for you?’ cried Agnes again. ‘ You look so bad I’m frightened. Will I get you some water – will I get the doctor? Speak to me.’

  At last Mamma spoke.

  ‘I thought my boy was going out with ye to worship the Lord,’ she whispered in a strange voice. ‘I prayed that it should be so.’

  ‘Oh! don’t talk like that,’ exclaimed Agnes. ‘You’ll need to come and lie down a wee. Come and lie down till you’re better!’

  ‘My side hurts me,’ said Mamma dully. ‘It must be that my heart is broken. Let me go to my bed. I want to be quiet and by my lone in the darkness.’

  ‘Let me help you, then,’ cried Agnes, and taking the other’s passive arm she drew her to her feet, supported her, and led her unresistingly up the stairs to her bedroom. There she undressed her, and assisted her to bed. ‘What else can I do for you?’ she said finally. ‘Would you like the hot bottle?’

  ‘Just leave me,’ replied Mamma, lying on her back and looking directly upwards. ‘ Ye’ve been kind to help me, but I want to be by myself now.’

  ‘Let me sit with you for a bit! I don’t like to go away yet awhile.’

  ‘No! Agnes. I want ye to go!’ said Mrs Brodie, in a dull flat voice. ‘I want to shut myself in the darkness. Turn out the gas and leave me, just leave me be.’

  ‘Will I not leave the gas in a peep?’ persisted Agnes. ‘No matter what’s happened I can’t think to go away like this.’

  ‘I wish the darkness,’ commanded Mrs Brodie, ‘and I wish to be alone.’

  Agnes made as though to speak but, feeling the futility of further protest, she took a last look at the inert figure upon the bed, then, as she had been bidden, turned out the gas. Leaving the room in blackness she passed silently from the house.

  Chapter Nine

  As Matthew shut the front door upon Mamma, and ran lightly down the steps, he was filled with a lively humour and as he smiled knowingly, the sham meekness fell from his face like a mask. ‘That’s the way to work the old woman. Smart! Done like an artist too,’ he chuckled to himself, ‘and not bad for a first touch.’ He was proud of his achievement, and felt in agreeable anticipation that he would do even better next time, that Mamma must have a tidy sum tucked away in a safe place. It would be his for the asking! The few shillings which he had received by pawning her watch had disgusted him, for he had expected it to be worth considerably more, but now that he had a few pounds in his pocket, his prestige and cheerfulness were restored. Just let him have the cash, he told himself gleefully, and he was all right. He knew how to disport himself with it!

  The lights of the town twinkled invitingly. After Calcutta, Paris, London, he would find Levenford contemptibly small, yet this very disdain filled him with a delghtful self-esteem. He, the man of the world, would show them a few things in the town to-night; yes, by gad! he would paint it a bright, vermilion red! At his thoughts a throaty laugh broke from him exultantly and he looked about him eagerly. As he swung along he saw dimly on the other side of the street the moving figure of a woman and, looking after the indistinct figure, he leered to himself: ‘That one’s not much good to a man, she’s in too much of a hurry. What does she want to run like that for?’ He did not know that it was Agnes Moir on her way to see his mother.

  He quickened his steps through the darkness that wrapped him like a cloak, revelling in this obscurity which made him feel now more dashing, more alive than the broad light of day. What manner of youth had he once been, to be afraid of this stimulating opacity? It was the time when a man woke up, when he could have some fun! Memories of lotus-eating nights he had spent in India recurred vivaciously to him and, as they rose before him, whetting his anticipation, he mattered: ‘These were the nights. These were the splurges. I’ll go back all right. Trust me!’ Gaily he plunged into the first public-house in the street.

  ‘Gin and angostura,’ he cried in an experienced tone, banging a pound note down on the bar. When the drink came he drained it in a gulp and nodded his head affirmatively, sophisticatedly. With the second glass in his hand he gathered up his change, slipped it into his pocket, tilted his hat to a rakish angle, and looked round the saloon.

  It was a poor sort of place, he noted indifferently, with drab red walls, poor lights, dirty spittoons and sawdust on the floor. Heavens! sawdust on the floor, after the rich, thick piled carpet into which his feet had sunk so seductively in that little place in Paris. Despite his demand there had been no bitters in his gin. Still, he did not care, this was only the opener! His first and invariable proceeding on these jovial excursions was to get a few drinks into himself quickly. ‘When I’ve got a bead in me,’ he would say, ‘I’m as right as the mail. Man! I’m a spunky devil then.’ Until he felt the airy spinning of wheels within his brain he lacked drive, daring, and nerve; for, despite his bluster, he was at heart the same soft, irresolute weakling as before and he required this blurring of his impressionable senses before he could enjoy himself in perfect self-confidence. His susceptible nature reacted quickly to the suggestive urge of alcohol and his bold dreams and pretentious longings were solidified thereby into actualities, so that he assumed with every glass a more superior aspect, a more mettled air of defiance.

  ‘Anything happening in this hole to-night?’ he enquired largely of the barman – it was the class of tavern which, of necessity, had a large, powerful male behind the bar. Th
e barman shook his close-cropped bullet head, looking curiously at the other, wondering who the young swell might be.

  ‘No!’ he replied cautiously, ‘I don’t think so. There was a mechanics’ concert in the Borough Hall on Thursday!’

  ‘Gad!’ replied Matthew; with a guffaw. ‘ You don’t call that sort of thing amusement. You’re not civilised here. Don’t you know anything about a neat little place to dance in, with a smart wench or two about. Something in the high-stepping line.’

  ‘You’ll no’ get that here,’ replied the tapman shortly, wiping the bar dry with a cloth, and adding sourly: ‘This is a decent town you’re in.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ cried Matt expansively, embracing with his glance the only other occupant of the room – a labouring man who sat on a settle against the wall watching him with a fascinated eye from behind a pint pot of beer. ‘Don’t I know it. It’s the deadest, most sanctimonious blot on the map of Europe. Aha! but you should see what I’ve seen. I could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end. But what’s the odds. You don’t know the difference here between a bottle of Pommeroy and a pair of French corsets.’ He laughed loudly at his own humour, viewing their incredulous faces with an increasing merriment, then suddenly, although gratified at the impression he had created, he perceived that no further amusement no further adventure was to be had there, and, moving to the door with a nod of his head and a tilt of his hat he lounged out through the swing doors into the night.

  He sauntered slowly along Church Street. That delicious woolly numbness was already beginning to creep round the back of his ears and infiltrate his brain. An easy sensation of well-being affected him; he wanted lights, company, music. Disgustedly he looked at the blank, shuttered shop windows and the few, quickly moving pedestrians, and parodying contemptuously the last remark of the barman, he muttered to himself: ‘This is a decent graveyard you’re in.’ He was seized by a vast and contemptuous loathing for Levenford. What good was a town of this kind to a seasoned man like him whose worldly knowledge stretched from the flash houses in Barrackpore to the Odeon bar in Paris?

  Moodily, at the corner of Church Street and High Street, he turned into another saloon. Here, however, his glance immediately brightened. This place was warm, well lit, and filled with the animated chatter of voices; a glitter of mirrors and cut glass threw back myriads of coruscating lights; stacks of bottles with vivid labels were banked behind the bar, and through half-drawn curtains he saw, in another room, the smooth, green cloth of a billiard table.

  ‘Give me a Mackay’s special,’ he ordered impressively. ‘ John Mackay’s and no other for me.’

  A plump, pink woman with jet drop ear-rings served him delicately. He admired the crook of her little finger as she decanted the spirits, considering it the essence of refinement, and although she was matronly he smiled at her blandly. He was such a lion with the ladies! A reputation like his must be sustained at all costs!

  ‘Nice snug little place you’ve got here,’ he remarked loudly. ‘Reminds me of Spinosa’s bar in Calcutta. Not so large but pretty well as comfortable!’ There was a hush in the conversation, and feeling with satisfaction that he was being stared at, he sipped his whisky appreciatively, with the air of a connoisseur, and went on: ‘They don’t give you the right stuff out there, though! Not unless you watch them! Too much blue vitriol in it. Like the knock-out gin at Port Said. Nothing like the real John Mackay.’ To his satisfaction a few people began to collect round him; an English sailor in the crowd nudged him familiarly and said, thickly:

  ‘You been out there too, cocky?’

  ‘Just back!’ said Matt affably, draining his glass. ‘Back across the briny from India.’

  ‘And so have I,’ replied the other, staring at Matthew with a fixed solemnity, then gravely shaking hands with him, as though the fact that they had both returned from India made them brothers now and for all time. ‘Bloody awful heat out there, isn’t it, cocky? Gives me a thirst that lasts till I get back.’

  ‘Have a wet, then?’

  ‘Naow! You have one along o’ me!’

  Agreeably they argued the point until they finally decided by tossing.

  ‘Lovely lady,’ cried Matthew with a killing glance at the fat barmaid. He won, and the sailor ordered drinks for everyone in the small coterie. ‘Right with the ladies every time,’ sniggered Matthew. He was glad that he had won and the sailor, in the exuberance of his drunken hospitality, glad to have lost. Whilst they drank they compared their amazing experiences and the mob gaped whilst they discussed mosquitoes, monsoons, bars, bazaars, ship biscuits, pagodas, sacred and profane cows, and the contours and anatomical intimacies of Armenian women. Stories circulated as freely as the drinks until the sailor, far ahead in the matter of inebriation, began to grow incoherent, maudlin, and Matt, at the outset of his night’s enjoyment and swollen with an exuberant dignity, set himself to look for an excuse to shake him off.

  ‘What can a man do in this half-dead town?’ he cried. ‘Can’t you squeeze out some excitement here.’ This was not the society he had moved in before leaving for India and no one recognised him; as, indeed, they did not know him to be a son of the ancient Borough he preferred them to regard him as a stranger, a dashing cosmopolitan.

  They could think of nothing worthy of him and were silent until finally someone suggested:

  ‘What about billiards?’

  ‘Ah! a game of pills,’ said Matt thoughtfully, ‘that’s something in my line.’

  ‘Billiards!’ roared the seaman. ‘I’m true blue I am! I’ll play anybody alive for – for anything you like to – what – I—’ his voice deteriorated into a drunken dribble of sound. Matthew considered him dispassionately.

  ‘You’re the champion, are you? Good enough. I’ll play you fifty up for a pound a side,’ he challenged.

  ‘Right,’ shouted the other. He surveyed Matthew with lowered lids and an oscillating head, indicating, in incoherent yet unmistakable picturesque language, that he would be soused for a son of a sea cook if he would go back on his word. ‘Where’s your money?’ he asked solemnly, in conclusion.

  Each produced his stake, which the onlooker who had first suggested the game had the honour of holding, and, as no one had ever played in the place for such an unheard of sum, the crowd; simmering with excitement, surged into the billiard-room behind them amidst considerable commotion, and the game commenced.

  Matthew, looking dashingly proficient in his shirt sleeves, began. He was, he fully understood, a good player, having practised assiduously in Calcutta, often indeed during the daytime when he should have been perched upon his office stool, and he realised with an inward complacency that the other, in his present condition, could be no match for him. Professionally, he ran his eye along his cue, chalked it and, feeling that he was the focus of the combined admiration of the gathering, broke the balls, but failed to leave the red in baulk. His opponent, swaying slightly upon his feet, slapped his ball on the table, took a rapid sight at it and slammed hard with his cue. His ball struck the red with terrific violence and, pursuing it eagerly all round the table through a baffling intricacy of acute and obtuse angles, finally bolted after it into the bottom right-hand pocket. The crowd voiced its appreciation of the prodigious fluke. He turned and, supporting himself against the table, bowed gravely, then exclaimed triumphantly to Matthew.

  ‘Whadeye think of that, cocky? Who’s topsy-boozy, now? Didn’t I say I was true blue? Wasn’t that a shot? I’ll play you with cannon balls next time.’ He wanted to stop the game for a profound dissertation upon the merits of his marvellous stroke and a lengthy explanation of how he had performed it, but, after some persuasion, he was prevailed upon to continue. Though he readdressed himself to the game with the air of a conqueror his next shot was hardly so successful, for his ball, struck hard on the bottom, bounced skittishly across the cloth, hurdled the edge of the table in its stride, and landed with a thud on the wooden floor amidst even louder and more prolon
ged applause than had greeted his previous effort.

  ‘What do I get for that?’ he enquired, owlishly, of the assembly at large.

  ‘A kick on the arse!’ shouted somebody at the back. The seaman shook his head sadly, but they all laughed, even the fat barmaid who was craning her neck to see the fun and who tittered involuntarily, but recovering herself with a start, quickly merged her merriment into a more modest cough.

  It was now Matthew’s turn to play, and though the balls were favourably placed, he began with great caution, making three easy cannons and then going in off the red. Next, he began to play a series of red losing hazards into the right middle pocket, so accurately that at every stroke the object ball returned with slow, unerring exactitude to the required position below the middle of the table. The crowd held its breath with profound and respectful attention whilst he continued his break. Under the bright lights his white, fleshy hands swam over the smooth baize like pale amoebae in a green pool; his touch upon the cue was as delicate and as gentle as a woman’s; the spirits in him steadied him like a rock. This was the greatest joy that life could offer him, not merely to show off his perfect poise and masterly ability before this throng, but to draw upon himself this combined admiration and envy. His empty vanity fed itself upon their adulation greedily.

  When he had made thirty-nine he paused significantly, rechalked his cue, and neglecting, obviously, an easy ball which lay over the pocket, he addressed himself ostentatiously to a long and difficult cushion cannon. He achieved it, and with three, further, quick shots ran out with his unfinished break of fifty. A storm of cheering filled the room.

  ‘Go on, sir! Don’t stop! Show us what you can do!’

  ‘Who is he? The man’s a marvel!’

  ‘Stand us a pint, mister. It’s worth that, anyway!’