Hatter's Castle

by A. J. Cronin

  She took the glass with all the sublime trust of a young child and drained it to the dark dregs, forced even a faint, tragic smile to her pale lips as she whispered:

  ‘That was bitter, doctor. It maun be good medicine.’

  He smiled back at her reassuringly.

  ‘Now rest,’ he ordained. ‘You need a good long sleep’; and, with her hand still in his, he sat down again beside her, waiting whilst the opiate took effect. His presence reassured her by its benign, magnetic power; the talisman that she clasped as though she feared to relinguish it, comforted her, occasionally her eyes would open to regard him gratefully. Then her pupils contracted slowly, the drawn lines of her features became erased, drowsily she murmured:

  ‘God bless you, doctor. ’Twas you saved my Mary’s life, and ye’ll make me better too. Come to me again – please.’ Then she slept.

  Slowly he disengaged his hand from her now flaccid grasp, repacked his bag, and stood gazing at her dormant form. His face, wiped clean of its protecting film of sanguine assurance, was heavy with a sad knowledge, mingled with a pensive, human sympathy. He remained motionless for a moment, then he covered her more warmly with the bedclothes, lowered the gas, and went out of the room.

  At the foot of the stairs Matt was awaiting him, his pale, apprehensive countenance shiny with the blanched pallor of a sickly moon.

  ‘How is she?’ he asked in a low tone. ‘Is she better?’

  ‘She is out of pain now, and sleeping,’ answered Renwick. ‘That was the immediate necessity for your mother.’ He looked directly at the other, wondering how much he could tell him.

  ‘Where is your father?’ he asked finally. ‘I feel I ought to see him.’

  Matthew’s glance wilted, his bruised eyes fell downwards, his body moved uneasily as he whispered:

  ‘He’s asleep in bed. I don’t want to disturb him. No! we better not wake him. It wouldn’t do any good.’

  Renwick’s face became stern at the other’s abject look. What manner of house was this? he asked himself, and what manner of people? The mother, the son, yes, even that poor child Mary, all were terrified of the one omnipotent being, the master of the house, this outrageous Brodie.

  ‘I do not know,’ he said at length, enunciating his words with cold distinctness, ‘whether it will be desirable for me to continue the conduct of this case, but you may tell your father that I shall call to see him to-morrow.’

  ‘Is she going to be bad for long, then?’ mumbled Matthew.

  ‘For about six months at the outside.’

  ‘What a long time!’ said Matt, slowly. ‘She does all the work. How will we manage in the house without her?’

  ‘You will have to manage,’ said the doctor, severely. ‘And high time it is that you started to learn.’

  ‘What way?’ asked Matthew stupidly.

  ‘Your mother is dying of an incurable, internal cancer. She will never get out of that bed again. In six months she will be in her grave.’

  Matt collapsed as if the doctor had struck him; weakly, he sat down upon the stairs, Mamma dying! Only five hours ago she had been running after him, had served him with a delicate meal cooked by her own hands, but now she lay stricken upon a bed from which she would never arise. With his head bowed upon his hands he did not see the doctor go out or hear the sound of the closing door. Prostrated by grief and remorse he looked, not forward, but backward; his mind, swayed by memory, roamed through the whole period of his life; his vivid recollection strayed through all the pathways of the past He felt the tender petting of her hands, the caress of her cheek, the touch of her lips upon his brow. He saw her coming to his room as he lay petulantly on his bed, heard her say soothingly: ‘ Here’s something nice for you, son.’ Her features appeared before him in every expression, coaxing, pleading, wheedling, but all bearing the same indefinable stamp of love for him. Then he saw her face finally composed in the calm, complacent rigidity of death, and in its serenity he still observed upon the pale lips the smiling tenderness which she had always shown to him.

  Alone on the stairs he broke down, and whispered to himself again and again:

  ‘Mamma! Mamma! ye were aye so good to me!’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘Where’s my hot water?’ shouted Brodie. ‘Hot water! My shaving water!’ He stood upon the landing outside his room, dressed in his shirt and trousers, bawling to the regions below. For the first time since he could remember, his shaving water was not ready for him at his door at the precise second when he required it; he had, with the established action of habit, bent down to lift the jug and there had been no jug for him to lift. At this unprecedented and atrocious evidence of neglect, amazement had immediately given way to a sense of personal affront which had added to the bitter temper in which he had arisen from bed. This morning he had awakened to a different perception of the incidents of the previous night, and on turning over the matter in his mind, had slowly become infuriated to think that his son had stumbled on his intrigue with Nancy, had discovered the meeting-place at the house in College Street. Resentment that such a weakling as Matt should have dared to interfere with the manner of his life made him forget the danger which he had survived; the unusual incident of the shooting faded into the realm of the unreal and it was interference with his pleasure which now aroused his bitter anger. His head felt stuffed from the heaviness of his sleep; the ever-present worry of his failing business, lying perpetually in the background to greet him when he awoke, added to his bitter moody vexation; and now, when he wanted especially to get shaved and freshened up in order to adjust his tangled thoughts, he could not obtain his hot water. It was always the same, he told himself; a man could never get what he wanted in this infernal house, and, with the full force of a legitimate grievance, he bellowed out once more: ‘Water! Bring it up at once! Damn it all, am I to stand here all day cooling my heels on your pleasure! Water, confound you!’

  Nothing happened! To his bewilderment, Mamma did not come panting up the stairs in a paroxysm of abasement and haste, with the familiar steaming jug in her hand and a quivering apology upon her lips. An unusual quiet prevailed below. He sniffed with dilated nostrils like an angry bull scenting the wind, but could discern no appetising smell of cooking ascending from the kitchen. With a snort, he was about to plunge downstairs to make his wants known more forcibly, when suddenly the door of Matt’s room opened and, in response to the muffled sound of a parting injunction, Nessie came out and timidly advanced towards her father.

  His anger moderated at the sight of her, the frown faded from his forehead, the bitter twist of his lips softened slightly. The inevitable effect of her presence was to soften the harshness of his nature, and it was, indeed, for this reason she had been selected to break the news to him.

  ‘Father,’ she said diffidently, ‘ Mamma’s not up this morning.’

  ‘What!’ he cried, as though hardly able to believe his ears, ‘ not up yet? Still in her bed at this hour?’

  Nessie nodded.

  ‘It’s not her fault though, father,’ she murmured placatingly. ‘Don’t blame her – she’s not well. She tried to get up but she couldn’t move.’

  Brodie growled. He knew she was lazy, malingering, that the whole affair was a subterfuge to prevent him from getting his shaving water. Then he thought of his breakfast. Who was to get him that? Abruptly he took a step towards Mamma’s room to see if his presence would not make her forget her indisposition, liven her up to a more useful activity.

  ‘Mamma was awful bad through the night,’ Nessie interposed. ‘Matt had to run out in the middle of the night and get a doctor.’

  He stopped dead at this new and startling information, and exclaimed, in amazed displeasure:

  ‘The doctor! What way was I not told? Why was I not consulted about this? Is everything to be done in this house over my head, without telling me about it? Where is Matt?’

  Matthew, who had been listening to the conversation through the half-open door, emerged slow
ly upon the landing. From his streaked, haggard face he looked as if he had not slept and now he regarded his father uncomfortably in the broad light of day. Still, Nessie had done her part in imparting the petrifying news; it would be easier for him to explain.

  ‘Why did ye not tell me about this – this affair, sir?’ repeated Brodie fiercely. He refused to refer to it directly as an illness; in his opinion the whole thing was a fabrication against his comfort, a conspiracy to annoy him. ‘Why did you not come to me first?’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you, father,’ mumbled Matt. ‘I thought you would be asleep.’

  ‘You’re gey considerate o’ me all of a sudden,’ Brodie sneered. ‘You’re not always so solicitious about my health, are ye?’ He paused significantly and added:

  ‘Ye brought Lawrie into the house – well? what did he say about her?’

  ‘It wasn’t him,’ replied Matthew humbly, ‘I couldn’t get him, father. It was Renwick that came.’

  A thrill of anger ran through Brodie’s frame.

  ‘What!’ he roared, ‘Ye brought that snipe to my house. What were ye thinking about, you fool! Do ye not know him and me are sworn enemies. Of course he would put Mamma to her bed. Certainly!’ he jeered, ‘I suppose he wants to keep her there for a week. I suppose we’ve a’ been killin’ her here. I’ve no doubt it’ll be chicken and champagne ordered for her now, whilst we’ve got to scrint to pay his bills.’

  ‘Oh! father,’ entreated Matthew, ‘ I don’t think so. He said it was – it was really serious.’

  ‘Bah!’ snarled Brodie, ‘there’s nothing I wouldna put past a thing like him – and you’re as bad for lettin’ him in here behind my back. I’ll pay ye for that as well. That’s something else I owe ye.’

  ‘Anyway,’ faltered Matt, ‘he said – he said he would come to examine her more thoroughly this morning – that he would be seein’ you.’

  ‘So!’ said Brodie. He stood silent, his lips drawn back in an ugly sneer. Renwick was coming to his house this morning, was he? To start, maybe, a course of daily visits, thinking, no doubt, that with a soft, spineless creature like Mamma, he would have a grand, imaginary invalid to play about with. Brodie’s fist clenched involuntarily, as it did always when a powerful resolution moved him, and he gritted his teeth together. ‘I’ll wait on him myself,’ he said aloud, in a tone of concentrated animosity. ‘I’ll see what he has to say for himself. I’ll surprise him. It’ll not be her that he’ll see, but me.’

  Then, after a moment during which he gazed ahead of him into space, he turned.

  ‘Nessie,’ he said, ‘you go and get your father some hot water. Take care not to scald yourself, pettie! Then get that old mother o’ mine up. She maun get some kind o’ breakfast made for us. If Mamma can lounge in her bed there’s others that have work to do. Off you go now,’ and, patting her thin shoulders, he went back again into his bedroom.

  The hot water arrived quickly and he began to perform the usual routine of his morning toilet. But his thoughts were not upon what he did. Every now and then he would stop short, his eye, glooming into space, would kindle with an angry fire and would toss his head fiercely, contemptuously.

  ‘He would keep my wife in bed,’ he muttered angrily, taking it now as a deliberate hit at him by Renwick that his wife should be in bed. ‘The infernal impudence of him. I’ll learn him, though! I’ll teach him to interfere with me again!’

  Ever since the terrible illness of his daughter, he had borne Renwick a bitter grudge for the aspersions made during that memorable interview when he had refused to visit and assist his daughter in the crisis of her pneumonia. A fulminating antagonism now flared inside him as he considered, in advance, all the cutting insults he would fling at the other. Not for a moment did it occur to him that he should visit his wife; she was an insignificant pawn amongst the movements of this affair, and when he had dealt successfully with Renwick she would unquestionably get up and cook his dinner – an extra good dinner, too, it had better be, to compensate for her defection of the morning.

  ‘Yes! I’ll settle him,’ he muttered, repeatedly, to himself. ‘I’ll chuck his fee in his face and tell him to shift o’ my house.’

  He could scarcely swallow his breakfast for the surge of his resentment; not that the meal was tempting, in any case. The porridge was singed and watery and, gloomily, he looked it his old mother, with her skirt kittled round her waist above her striped petticoat, as she made a great commotion of her preparations.

  ‘These porridge are wasted,’ he flung at her moodily, ‘They’re not fit for pigs to eat.’

  Everything was wrong. The toast was soft and limp; his tea – he was obliged to accept this instead of his favourite coffee – was weak and made with water which had not reached the boiling point; his egg was like leather and his bacon like cinders.

  ‘She’ll need to get up!’ he exclaimed aloud. ‘I can’t stand this kind of thing. This meat is enough to poison a man.’

  The dirty fireplace stared at him, his boots were unbrushed, he had cut himself whilst shaving; flaming, he heaved himself up from the table and sat down in his chair to wait for Renwick. His eye followed with disgust the senile, inept movements of his mother, his ears were jarred by the clatter of a breaking dish which came to him from the scullery. Then, perceiving that Nessie hung about the room, he sent her sharply off to school. She was at least an hour late, and had hoped in the rarity of the occasion to be overlooked, or perhaps excused, but he ordered her to go and, without attempt at protest, she departed. Matthew did not appear but remained invisible upstairs. No sound was heard from Mamma.

  Brodie could not settle. He looked at the clock, saw that it was half-past ten, became aware that he was at least an hour late for business, that his shop would be standing open, empty, untended, with only his stupid, careless boy to gape uselessly at any person who might come in; then he reflected bitterly that his absence was of little consequence, that actually it did not matter, so few people did come into his business now.

  He got up and restlessly moved about. The kitchen seemed somehow unfamiliar to him in this light; disturbed in his routine, he felt everything strange and unusual about him. The infringement of his daily custom, following so closely upon the unnatural events of the preceding night, gave to him a sensation of monstrous unreality which baffled his mediocre comprehension, and the irritation produced by this puzzled perplexity served like fuel to feed his flaming anger further. Restless as a caged tiger he paced up and down the lobby. The longer he was obliged to wait the more his resentment swelled until, as if in an endeavour to hasten Renwick’s arrival, he went into the parlour and gazed fretfully out of the window. Then the thought struck him that the doctor might see his peering face and take it as a sign of weakness upon his part, and at the hateful idea he drew away violently from the window and returned to the kitchen where he forced himself again into his chair, forced himself to a semblance of control. Outwardly impassive, but inwardly seething, he waited, the only sign of his hot impatience the quick action of his foot as it made a ceaseless, tapping movement through the empty air.

  At eleven o’clock the door-bell rang. Like a runner who has long awaited the sound of the start, to unleash his restrained store of energy, Brodie leaped out of his chair, strode, himself, to the front door and with a defiant, sweeping gesture threw it wide to the wall. His huge bulk filled the opening, blocking the passage into the house.

  ‘Well! what is it?’ he growled. ‘What do ye want?’

  Dr Renwick stood upon the door-step, dispassionately immaculate in his well-fitting morning coat, and dignified by the background of his man, his well-groomed cob, and smart gig. Secure now in the possession of his large and lucrative practice, he made not the slightest motion towards coming in, but paused appreciably before replying pleasantly:

  ‘Ah! Mr Brodie, himself, this morning I see!’

  ‘Never mind me,’ said Brodie loweringly. ‘What do ye want here?’

  ‘Really,’ sa
id Renwick tranquilly, ‘you are the epitome of courtesy. You have not altered since our last meeting – at least not for the better.’

  ‘Your purpose, sir?’ breathed Brodie heavily. ‘Don’t flash your glib tongue at me. Answer me straight.’

  ‘Well! Since you are so blunt I will be equally so. I came last night at the urgent request to your son, and rather against my inclination, to see your wife, and despite your pretence of ignorance I am convinced that you know I was here.’ He paused and negligently flicked his sleeve with his glove before continuing. ‘This morning I had proposed to pay a final visit’ – he emphasised deeply the word final – ‘in order to confirm, by a further examination, the melancholy diagnosis which I made last night.’

  Brodie glowered at him. Renwick’s aloof imperturbability infuriated him infinitely more than any display of furious rage would have done. That, he could meet with equal violence. But his clumsy wit was as useless against this quick coolness of mind as a bludgeon against a flashing rapier, he was pricked in a dozen places before he could swing the heavy weapon of his reply.

  The other had, indeed, almost disarmed him by the assertion that he proposed to make no further calls, and he had aroused Brodie’s attention by the veiled implication of his reference to Mamma’s condition.

  ‘What are ye makin’ out to be wrong wi’ her, then?’ he sneered, unconsciously changing his attitude. ‘She’s a graund subject for the bed.’

  Renwick raised his eyebrows delicately, without speaking, a slight gesture which had, nevertheless, the immediate effect of making the other feel the exceeding bad taste of his remark. Raging at this unspoken contempt Brodie rushed on to his inevitable resort when all else failed him – the descent to personalities.

  ‘Don’t mock at me like that with your creashy smirk,’ he cried. ‘It doesna improve the look of your ugly face, anyway.’

  Renwick continued to look at him dispassionately. Most men, from their physical stature, were compelled to look upwards to James Brodie and Brodie revelled in this fact; it gave him a sense of superiority and power to stand over a man. Renwick, however, was fully as tall as he, and from the slight eminence of the outer porch, he reversed the usual order of things, and he, instead, looked down upon Brodie.