by A. J. Cronin
‘Why tarry the wheels of thy chariot, O Lord? I’m ready to go to ye!’
Then she sank gently backwards upon the pillow. A moment later a last, powerful expiration shook the thin, withered body with a convulsive spasm, and she lay still. Limp and flat upon her back, with arms outstretched upon the bed, the fingers slightly flexed upon the upturned palms, she lay, in shape and stillness, as if she had been crucified. She was dead.
Chapter Thirteen
Brodie looked round the company assembled uncomfortably in the parlour with a brooding eye which passed over Nessie, Matthew, and his mother, lit impatiently upon his wife’s cousins – Janet and William Lumsden – and settled with a scowling finality upon Mrs William Lumsden. They had just buried all that remained of Margaret Brodie, and the guests, clinging even in the face of Brodie’s inhospitable frowns, to the privileges endowed to them by old-established precedent, had returned to the house after the funeral to partake of refreshment.
‘We’ll give them nothing!’ Brodie had exclaimed to his mother that morning. His momentary, belated tenderness towards his wife was now forgotten and he resented bitterly the threatened intrusion of her relations. ‘I don’t want them about my house. They can go hame whenever she’s ditched.’ The old woman had herself hoped for a savoury high tea, but in the face of his remark she had modified her demands.
‘James,’ she had pleaded, ‘ye maun gie them a sip o’ wine and a bite o’ cake for the honour o’ the house.’
‘None o’ our ain folks are left to come,’ he growled. ‘What does it matter about hers? I wish I had choked them off when they wrote.’
‘They’re ower scattered for mony o’ them to come,’ she had placated, ‘ but ye canna get ower offerin’them something. It wouldna be decent to do otherwise.’
‘Give them it, then,’ he cried, and as a sudden thought struck him, he added: ‘Ay, give them it, then. Feed the swine. There’ll be somebody here to lend ye a hand.’
Now it gave him a saturnine pleasure to see Nancy enter briskly with cake, biscuits, and wine and hand them round. He was his own man again, and it appeared a delicious stroke of satire for him to have her enter his house the moment his wife’s body had been carried out; the two women – the dead and the quick – had, so to speak, passed each other at the gate; his eyes met hers in a glow of hidden buffoonery.
‘Go ahead, Matt,’ he jeered significantly at his son, as Nancy handed the latter wine, with a pertly conscious air. ‘Take up a glass. It’ll do ye good after all your greetin’. You’ll be quite safe. I’m here to see it doesna fly to your head.’ He watched his son’s trembling hand with disgust Matt had again disgraced him by breaking down abjectly at the graveside, snivelling and whimpering before these relations of Mamma’s, and grovelling hysterically on his knees as the first spadeful of earth clumped heavily upon the coffin.
‘Nae wonder he’s upset,’ said Janet Lumsden, in a kindly voice. She was a fat, comfortable woman with a high, amiable bosom protruding above the upper edge of her ill-fitting corsets. Now she looked round the assembly and added, agreeably: ‘’ Twas a merciful release, though, I’m led to believe. She’ll be happier where she is now, I’ll warrant’
‘’Tis a pity the puir thing wasna allowed a wreath or two,’ said Mrs William Lumsden, with a sniff and a toss of her head. Her lips were tight and her mouth downturned beneath her long, sharp, penetrating nose; as she helped herself from the tray she looked intently at Nancy, then looked away again with a slow and upward twist of her head. ‘A funeral is never the same without flowers,’ she added, firmly.
‘Ay, they’re sort o’ comfortin’ like,’ said Janet Lumsden placatingly. ‘They big lilies are bonnie.’
‘I had never been to a burial before, without flowers,’ replied Mrs Lumsden acrimoniously. ‘The last interment I attended there was a full, open carriage of flowers, forbye what covered the coffin.’
Brodie looked at her steadily.
‘Weel, ma’am,’ he said politely, ‘I hope ye’ll have a’ the blossoms ye require when ye go to yer ain last repose.’
The other looked along her nose at him doubtfully, not knowing exactly whether to accept the remark as a compliment or an insult, then, in her uncertainty, she turned commandingly to her husband for support. He, a small wiry man, uncomfortable in his stiff, shiny black suit, his starched dickey, and tight ‘made’ tie, magnificent, yet none the less still smelling of the stable interpreted the familiar look, and dutifully began:
‘Flowers gang well at a funeral – it’s a matter of opinion no doubt, but I would say they were a consolation to the bereaved. But the strangest thing to my mind is that they should gang well with a weddin’ too. It’s a fair mystery to me how they should suit such opposite ceremonies.’ He cleared his throat and looked sociably at Brodie. ‘ Ye ken I’ve been to many a funeral – ay, and to many a weddin’ too. Ance I went as far as forty miles away from hame, but would ye believe me, man,’ he concluded triumphantly, ‘for thirty-two years I havena slept a nicht out o’ ma ain bed.’
‘Indeed,’ said Brodie curtly, ‘I’m not interested.’
At this rudeness there was an uncomfortable pause, a silence punctuated only by a small residual sob from the red-eyed Nessie. The two groups looked at each other distrustfully, like strangers on opposite sides of a railway compartment.
‘It’s a gey appropriate day for a funeral, anyway,’ said Lumsden at last, defiantly, looking out at the drizzling rain; and at his remark a low conversation amongst the three visitors, and confined exclusively to them, again recommenced and slowly gained impetus.
‘Ay! it’s a miserable enough for anything here.’
‘Did ye mark how heavy the rain cam’ on at the graveside whenever the cords were lowered?’
‘’Tis remarkable to me that the meenister wouldna come back to the house to gie us a few words.’
‘He’ll have his reasons, I have nae doubt.’
‘What did he say at the grave’s heid he said unco’ weel, onyway. It’s a pity she couldna have heard it hersel’, puir body.’
‘What was’t he said, “a loyal wife and a devoted mother,” wasn’t no’?’
They looked out of the comers of their eyes at Brodie as though expecting him to confirm decently this last tribute, but he seemed not to have heard them and now gazed broodingly away from them out of the window. And now, seeing Brodie’s apparent inattention, they grew bolder.
‘I wad like to have seen the puir thing, again, but I had the surprise o’ my life when I heard she had been screwed down before we arrived.’
‘She must have altered sadly wi’ sicca trouble, ay and a’ the worry she cam’ through.’
‘She was a bricht, lively kimmer in her young days. She had a laugh like the song o’ a mavis.’
‘She was a’ that,’ said Janet at last, with a reproachful look at the figure by the window, implying by her words, ‘ She was too good for you.’
There was a moment’s pause, then, with a guarded look at Nessie that encompassed her blue serge dress, Mrs Lumsden murmured:
‘It fair affronts me to see that puir child without the decent mournin’s to her back. It’s nothing short of shameful.’
‘’Twas the sma’ sma’ funeral that surprised me,’ returned Janet ‘Only the twa carriages, and not a single body frae the town.’
He heard them, actually he had listened to every word – only the heedlessness of his embittered humour had allowed them to proceed – but now he turned to them coarsely:
‘’Twas my express wish that the funeral should be private, and as quiet as might be. Did ye wish the town band out for her, and free whisky and a bonfire?’
They were frankly shocked at such brutality, drew more closely together in their resentment, began to think of leaving.
‘Weelum! do ye know onywhere in Levenford we’re likely to be able to get our tea before the train goes?’ said Mrs Lumsden, as an indication of departure, in a trembling but rancorous tone. She had
expected, instead of this thin, sour wine and bought seed cake, a lavish display of hot and cold cooked meats, baked pastries, scones, tea bread, and other appropriate delicacies; coming from a distant village in Ayrshire they knew nothing of Brodie’s failure, and thought him well able to provide a more worthy and substantial repast than that of which they were now partaking.
‘Will ye no’ have another biscuit then, if ye’re hungry?’ said old Grandma Brodie, with a slight titter – ‘they’re Deesides – I can recommend them.’ The wine was like nectar to her unaccustomed palate, and she had partaken freely of it, so that a faint flush marked the yellow, wrinkled skin over her high cheekbones; she was enjoying the occasion immensely, making high festival of the return to earth of the poor remains of Margaret Brodie. ‘Have a wee drap mair wine, will ye not?’
‘Thank ye! No!’ said Mrs Lumsden, compressing her mouth superciliously into the smallest possible compass, and issuing her words disdainfully from the diminutive aperture. ‘I’ll not indulge if ye don’t mind. I’m not addicted, and besides I couldna fancy that what you’re drinkin’. Do ye know,’ she continued, drawing on her black kid glove, ‘that’s a bold looking quean ye have about the house at a time like this. Have ye had her long?’
As Grandma Brodie made to answer, a polite hiccough disturbed her.
‘I dinna ken her,’ she replied confusedly, ‘she’s juist come in now. ’Twas James sent her in to gie me a haund.’
Mrs Lumsden exchanged a significant glance with her cousin by marriage. Each nodded her head with a slight downward gesture of disparagement, as though to say: ‘Just what we thought,’ and both turned ostentatiously compassionate eyes upon Nessie.
‘What in the world will ye do without your mother, dearie?’ remarked one.
‘Ye maun come down to us, child, for a spell,’ said the other. ‘Ye would like to play about the farm, would ye not?’
‘I can look after Nessie,’ inserted Brodie icily; ‘she needs neither your help nor your pity. When ye do hear o’ her she’ll be shapin’ for something that you and yours could never attain.’
As Nancy entered the room to collect the glasses, he continued:
‘Here, Nancy! these two ladies have just remarked that you’re a brazen – was it quean ye said, leddies – ay, a brazen quean. In return for this good opinion would mind ye showin’ them out o’ the house – and I suppose this bit gentleman they’ve brocht wi’ them better go too.’
Nancy tossed her head pertly.
‘If it was my house,’ she said, with a bold look at Brodie, ‘they would never have been in it.’
The two women, scandalised, stood up.
‘The language – and the behaviour! In front of the child too,’ gasped Janet, on her way to the door, ‘and at such a time as this.’
Mrs Lumsden, equally shocked, but less intimidated, drew herself up to her tall, angular height and threw her head back defiantly.
‘I’ve been insulted,’ she shrilled from between thin, compressed lips, ‘in a house where I came a long and expensive journey to bring comfort. I’m goin’, oh! indeed yes, I’m goin’, nothing would stop me, but,’ she added emphatically, ‘ before I leave I want to know what has been left to our side o’ the family by my puir cousin.’
Brodie laughed shortly in her face.
‘Indeed now! And what had she to leave, pray?’
‘I happen to know from Weelum that forbye the china, pictures, and the ornaments on the best bedroom mantelpiece, and her mother’s watch and locket, Margaret Lumsden took a pickle siller wi’ her into the house,’ she cried angrily.
‘Ay, and she took a pickle out o’ it,’ answered Brodie harshly. ‘Get away wi’ ye! the sight o’ your sour, graspin’, avaricious face fair scunners me!’ With whirling movements of his arms he herded them to the door. ‘Get away with ye a’, there’s nothing for ye here. I’m sorry I let ye break bread in my house.’.
Mrs Lumsden, almost in tears from rage and vexation, turned on the doorstep.
‘We’ll have the law on ye about it,’ she cried. ‘I’m not surprised that puir Margaret Lumsden withered out here. She was ower guid for ye, wi’ your bold besoms. Ye’ve made a cryin’ scandal out of the burial of the puir soul. Come awa’ home, Weelum.’
‘That’s right,’ shouted Brodie tauntingly, ‘take Weelum away hame to his bed. I’m not surprised he’s so fond o’ it wi’ such a tricksy ornament as yersel’ below the blankets.’ He leered at her, insultingly. ‘Ye’re richt not to let him out it for a nicht, for if ye did ye might never get him back.’
As she disappeared with the others, her head high, her colour flaming, he cried out after hen.
‘I’ll not forget to send ye your flowers whenever ye require them.’
But when he returned to the parlour his hard assumption of indifference had dropped from him and, wishing to be alone, in a different, quiet voice he bade them leave him. As they filed out he turned to Matthew and said to him meaningly:
‘Away out and find work. I want no more of your useless, watery tear-bag nonsense. Get something to do. Ye’ll not live off me much longer’; but as Nessie passed he patted her head and said, gently:
‘Don’t greet any more, pettie, your father will take care of ye. Dry your eyes, now, and run and take up a book or something. You needna worry. I’m goin’ to look after you in future.’
That, he considered, as he sat down again in the empty room, was the course towards which his life must immediately shape itself – the vindication of himself through Nessie. She was his asset, clever, yes, he told himself, brilliant! He would nurse her, encourage her, thrust her forward to triumph after triumph until her name and his own should resound in the town. He saw in his colossal failure and in the recent misfortunes which had beset him only a temporary eclipse from which in time he must necessarily emerge. ‘Ye cannot keep a good man down,’ one of his frequently repeated maxims occurred again to him now comfortingly. He would be up again presently, more dominant than before, and in his own mind he considered it an almost masterly strategy to plan a return to his old, favoured position through Nessie. He heard in anticipation the name of Nessie Brodie upon everyone’s lips, became aware of himself sharing largely in the universal adulation. ‘There’s been no holdin’ him since his wife died,’ he heard them say; ‘she must have been a muckle hindrance to the man.’ How true that was! His main feeling, as he helped to lower the light coffin into its shallow trench, had been one of relief, that he was at last free of a useless encumbrance, a drag upon both his patience and his purse. He remembered nothing in her favour, treasured nothing of her virtues, but dwelt only upon the weakness, the lack of physical attraction that she had manifested in her later years. No gentle sentiment, such as had faintly throbbed within him at her deathbed, no remembrance of the earlier days of their life together now stirred him; his memory was clouded like an overhung sky that refused to allow one single, relieving gleam to penetrate from the clearer air behind. He imagined that she had failed him in everything, in her companionship, in the oblation of her physical being, in the very geniture of her children. No credit was due to her for Nessie, whom he felt to be entirely of his substance, and such obituary as his consideration gave her was epitomised in the single word – incompetent. As the irrevocable finality of her departure struck him with a sudden and forceful reality, a feeling of strange emancipation came over him. The lightness of her restraint had been – from its very feebleness – galling to him. He was a young man yet, and virile, for whom many pleasures lay in store which might be tasted freely now that she was gone. His lower up hung thickly forward as his thoughts dallied appreciatively upon Nancy, then roamed forward in anticipation amongst the lush, erotic pastures of his mind. Nancy must be always about him – now she could remain in the house for good. There was nothing to prevent her being beside him, no possible objection to her serving him, cheering him, and – yes, a man must, after all, have a housekeeper!
Satisfied at this comforting decision, ins
ensibly his meditations turned again upon his younger daughter. His mind, incapable of embracing any but one purpose at a time, pursued that purpose, when it had been adopted, with a relentless obstinacy; and now, he realised that in order to continue living in his house, to maintain Nessie and to educate her as he wished, he must quickly find some means of income. His lips tightened, and he nodded his head profoundly, as he resolved to carry into effect, immediately, a plan which had for the last two days been maturing in his brain. He got up and entered the hall where he put on his hat, took his silk umbrella from the stand, and went slowly out of the house.
Outside it was cool and fresh, with a fine, impalpable rain – soft and subtile as dew – which misted his garments and touched his warm brow like a caress. As he filled his lungs with great draughts of the balmy, misty vapour it felt good to him that he did not lie in a narrow, wooden box beneath four feet of dank earth, but walked in the air, invigorated, alive, and free. Characteristically, in the constrained capacity of his intellect, the memory of his humiliation in business, even the final scene in the High Street when he had given that madly unrestrained exhibition, was now completely obliterated; his failure appeared to him in a different light; he was not crushed and beaten, but a gentlemanly victim of malicious circumstances. The ebullition of temper provoked by the Lumsdens had subsided and, his present mission filling him once more with a conscious dignity, he walked gravely through the streets, addressing no one, but saluting seriously such of those he encountered as he felt to merit his recognition. He responded strongly to his own suggestion that, disencumbered of his wife, and with Nessie as the medium of his expression, a new and more important book of his life was beginning.
At the head of Church Street he turned at right angles and proceeded directly away from the High Street, towards the Newtown. Shops became infrequent; on his left lay a row of workmen’s dwellings, mean houses were abutted, without gardens, directly upon the street, and upon his right a high, stone wall ran continuously. Above this wall small, bristling forests of tall, branchless, spars erected themselves, and from over its summit, carried on the salty breeze, a hundred gradations of noise reached his ears. Some few hundred yards along, he drew up opposite a block of buildings which, intersecting the smooth continuity of the lofty wall, fronted the street imposingly; there, opposite the main door, he paused. His appearance was that of one who studied carefully the inconspicuous, brass plate before him – the sign which said neatly above: Levenford Shipbuilding Yard and, below: Latta & Co. – but actually he was mustering all his forces to enter that doorway which confronted him. Now that he had arrived, an unusual vacillation possessed and weakened his purposeful determination; the sight, even, of the outer confines of the immense yard, the dim realisation of the immense wealth which it represented, impressed him, in his reduced financial situation, with a sensation of inferiority. Angrily he thrust this from him, assuring himself, in his own axiom, that it was the man, not the money that mattered, and, with a quick gesture, he swaggered his way through the imposing portals.
