BY A. J. CRONIN 22 страница

"You couldn't give them away now, ma'am," the gentleman with the toothpick assured her, shaking his head sadly. "No, not even in a downright gift. We've reached the limit, the fair limit. How about that twenty-five pounds of good money?"

"I must have forty pounds," said Mamma weakly; "anything else is no good." She had set the fixed sum in her mind and nothing short of its complete achievement would satisfy her.

"You've nothing else to show, lady?" said one insinuatingly. "Funny what you ladies will shake out when you're put to it. You've nothing up your sleeve for the last?"

"Only the kitchen," replied Mrs. Brodie humbly, as she threw open the door, loath to allow them to depart, desiring despairingly to entice them into the plain apartment for a last consideration of her appeal. They went in, following her reluctantly, disdainfully, but immediately their attention was riveted by a picture which hung conspicuously upon the wall, framed in a wood of mottled, light yellow walnut. It was an engraving entitled "The Harvesters", was marked

First Proof, and signed J. Bell.

"Is that yours, lady?" said one, after a significant pause.

"Yes," said Mrs. Brodie, "it's mine. It was my mother's before me. That small pencil sketch in the corner of the margin has been much admired."

They talked in low tones before the picture, peered at it through a glass, rubbed it, pawed it possessively.

"Would you like to sell this, lady? Of course, it's nothing to make a noise on oh, dear, no! but we would offer you yes five pounds for it," said the second eventually, in an altered, ingratiating tone.

"I can sell nothing," whispered Mamma. "Mr. Brodie would notice it at once."

"Say ten pounds then, lady," exclaimed the first, with a great show of magnanimity.

"No! No!" returned Mamma, "But if it's worth something, will ye not lend me the rest of the money on it? If it's worth something to buy, it's surely worth something to lend on." She waited in a fever of anxiety, hanging upon the inflection of their voices, upon their quick, expressive gestures, upon the very lift of their eyebrows while they held colloquy together upon her picture. At last, after prolonged argument, they agreed.

"You win, then, lady," said one, "We'll lend you the forty pounds, but you'll have to give us your bond on the picture and the rest of the furniture as well."

"We're giving the money away, lady," said the other, "but we'll do it for your sake. We see you need the money bad; but you must understand that if you don't pay up, that picture and your furniture belongs to us."

She nodded dumbly, feverishly, filled with a choking, unendurable sense of a hard-fought victory. They went back into the parlour and sat down at the table, where she signed the endless papers that they produced for her, appending her signature where they indicated with a blind, reckless indifference. She understood that she would have to repay three pounds a month for two years, but she cared nothing for that and, as they counted out the money in crisp pound notes, she took it like a woman in a dream, and, like a sleepwalker, she showed them to the door. In spite of everything, she had got the money for Matt.

Early that afternoon she wired the money. In the overwrought state of her imagination she seemed to see the clean bank notes actually rushing through the blue to the salvation of her son and, when they had gone, for the first time in three days she breathed peacefully and a mantle of tranquillity descended upon her.

VI

ON the following morning Brodie sat at breakfast, cold, moody, detached, the two, sharp, vertical furrows lately become more intensely grooved marking the centre of his forehead between his sunk eyes like cicatriced wounds and giving to his gloomy visage a perpetual air of brooding perplexity. Caught in the unrelieved severity of the pale morning light, his unwary countenance, relieved

of observation, seemed to justify the idle remark uttered in the Paxton home that now he was beyond his depth, and from behind that low wall of his harassed forehead, the confusion of his mind seemed to obtrude itself so forcibly that even as he sat still and quiet at table, he appeared to flounder helplessly with all the impotent brute strength of a harpooned whale. His diminutive intellect, so disproportionate to his gigantic body, could not direct him towards safety and while he lashed out in the most mistaken directions in his efforts to avoid a final catastrophe, he still saw disaster steadily closing in upon him.

He, of course, knew nothing of the wire or of Mamma's action on the previous day. Mercifully, he was not aware of the unauthorised feet that had so boorishly tramped through his domain, yet his own worries and misfortunes were more than sufficient to render his temper like tinder, ready to ignite and flame furiously at the first spark of provocation. Now, having finished his porridge, he awaited

with ill-concealed impatience his special cup of coffee which Mrs. Brodie was pouring out for him at the scullery stove.

This morning cup of coffee was one of the minor tribulations of Mamma's harassed existence, for although she made tea admirably she rarely succeeded in making coffee to Brodie's exacting taste, which demanded that it must be freshly brewed, freshly poured, and steaming hot. This innocent beverage had become a convenient peg upon which to hand any matutinal grievance, and most mornings he complained bitterly about it, on any or every pretext. It was too sweet, not strong enough, had too many grounds in it; it burned his tongue or was full of the straggling skin of boiled milk. No matter how she made it the result was declared unsatisfactory. The very action of carrying his cup to the table became to her a penance as, knowing the tremor of her hand, he insisted further that the cup must be brimming full and not a single drop must be spilled upon the saucer. This last transgression was the most deadly that she could commit, and when it occurred he would wilfully allow the drop from the bottom of the cup to fall upon his coat, and would then roar:

"Ye careless besom, look what you've done! I can't keep a suit of clothes for your feckless, dirty ways."

Now, as she entered with the cup, he flung at her an irascible look for having kept him waiting exactly nine seconds, a look which developed into a sneering stare as, maintaining the brimming cup erect and the saucer inviolate by a tense effort of her slightly trembling hand, she walked slowly from the scullery door to the table. She had almost achieved her objective when suddenly, with a frantic cry, she dropped everything upon the floor and clutched her left side with both hands. Brodie gazed with stupefied rage at the broken crockery, the spilled coffee, and, last of all, at her distorted figure, writhing before him amongst the wreckage on the floor. He shouted. She did not hear his bellow, she was so pierced by the sudden spasm of pain which transfixed her side like a white-hot skewer from which burning ripples of agony emanated and thrilled through her flesh. For a moment she suffered intensely, then gradually, as though this awful cautery cooled, the waves of pain grew less and with a bloodless face she rose to her feet and stood before her husband, heedless at that instant of her enormity in upsetting his coffee. Relief at her emancipation from pain gave her tongue an unusual liberty.

"Oh! James," she gasped. "That was far the worst I've ever had. It nearly finished me. I really think I should see the doctor about it. I get the pain so much now and I sometimes feel a wee, hard lump in my side." Then she broke off, becoming aware suddenly of his high, affronted dignity.

"Is that a fact now?" he sneered. "We're goin' to run to the doctor for every touch o' the bellyache that grips us, we can so well afford it! And we can afford to scale the good drink on the floor and smash the china! Never mind the waste! Never mind my breakfast; just smash, smash a' the time." His voice rose with each word, then changed suddenly to a sneering tone. "Maybe ye would like a consultation of a' the doctors in the town? They might be able to find something

wrang wi' ye if they brought round a' their learned books and put their empty heads together about ye! Who was it ye would be speirin' to see now?"

"They say that Renwick is clever," she muttered unthinkingly.

"What!" he shouted. "Ye talk o' goin' to that snipe that fell foul o' me last year. Let me see you try it!"

"I don't want to see anybody, Father," cringed Mamma; "it was just the awfu' pain that's been grippin' me off and on for so long; but it's away now and I'll just not bother."

He was thoroughly infuriated.

"Not bother! I've seen you botherin'! Don't think I havena seen you with a' your dirty messin'. It's been enough to scunner a man and I'll put up wi' it no longer. Ye can take yersel' off to another room. From to-night onwards ye'll get out of my bed. Ye can move out o' my road, ye fusty old faggot!"

She understood that he was casting her out of their marriage bed, the bed in which she had at first lain beside him in love, where she had borne for him her children. For nearly thirty years of her life it had been her resting place; in sorrow and in sickness her weary limbs had stretched themselves upon that bed. She did not think of the relief it would afford her to have her own, quiet seclusion at nights, away from his sulky oppression, to retire to Mary's old room and be alone in peace; she felt only the cutting disgrace of being thrown aside like a used and worn-out vessel. Her face burned with shame as though he had made some gross, obscene remark to her, but, as she looked deeply into his eyes, all that she said was:

"It's as you say, James! Will I make ye some more coffee?"

"No! Keep your demned coffee. Til do without any breakfast," he bawled. Although he had already eaten a large bowl of porridge and milk, he felt that she had wilfully defrauded him out of his breakfast, that he was again suffering because of her incompetence, her malingering assumption of illness. "I wouldna be surprised if ye tried to starve us next, with your blasted scrimpin'," he shouted finally, as he pranced out of the house.

His black resentment continued all the way to the shop, and although his mind left the incident, the sense of injustice still rankled, while the thought of the day before him did nothing to restore his serenity. Perry had now left him, amidst a storm of contumely and reproaches no doubt; but he had nevertheless gone and Brodie had been able to substitute for his rare and willing assistant only a small boy who merely opened the shop and ran the errands. Apart from the

loss of trade through the defection of the competent Perry, the onus of supporting the entire work of the shop now lay upon his broad but unaccustomed shoulders, and even to his dull comprehension it became painfully evident that he had entirely lost the knack of attending to such people as now drifted into his shop. He hated and despised the work, he never knew where to find things, he was too irritable, too impatient, altogether too big for this occupation.

He had, also, begun to find that his better class customers, upon whose social value he had so prided himself, were insufficient to keep his business going; he realised with growing dismay that they patronised him only upon odd occasions and were invariably neglectful, in quite a gentlemanly fashion, of course, of the settlement of their indebtedness to him. In the old days he had allowed these accounts to run on for two, three, or even four years, secure in the knowledge that he would eventually be paid; they would see, he had told himself in a lordly fashion, that James Brodie was not a petty tradesman grasping for his money, but a gentleman like themselves, who could afford to wait another gentleman's convenience. Now, however, with the acute drop in the cash income of the business, he was in such need of ready money that these large, outstanding accounts of the various county families became a source of great anxiety, and although he had sent out, with much laborious auditing and unaccustomed reckoning, a complete issue of them, apart from a few including the Latta account which were paid to him immediately, the entire bundle might have been posted into the middle of the Leven for all the result that immediately accrued to him. He fully realised that it was useless to send them out again, that these

people would pay in their time and not in his; the mere fact that he had already requested settlement with an unusual urgency might possibly estrange them from him altogether.

His own debts to the few conservative, wholesale houses whom he favoured had grown far beyond their usual limits. Never a good business man, his usual method had been to order goods when, and as, he pleased, and to pay no heed to amounts, invoices, or accounts until the dignified representative of each house visited him at recogirised intervals, in the accepted and friendly manner consonant between two firms of standing and reputation. Then, after a polite and cordial conversation upon the topics of the moment, Brodie would go to the small, green safe sunk in the wall of his office, unlock it grandly, and produce a certain canvas bag.

"Well," he would remark imposingly, "what is our obligation to-day?”

The other would murmur deprecatingly and, as if urged against his will to present the bill, would produce his handsome pocketbook, rustle importantly amongst its papers and reply suavely:

"Well, Mr. Brodie, since you wish it, here is your esteemed account;" whereupon Brodie, with one glance at the total, would count out a heap of sovereigns and silver from the bag in settlement.

While he might more easily have paid by cheque, he disdained this as a mean, pettifogging instrument and preferred the magnanimous action of disbursing the clean, bright coins as the worthier manner of the settlement of a gentleman's debts. "That's money," he had once said in answer to a question, "and value for value. What's the point o' writin' on a small slip of printed paper. Let them use it that likes it but the braw, bright siller was good enough for my forbears, and it'll be good enough for me." Then, when it was stamped and signed, he would negligently stuff the other's receipt in his waist-coat pocket and the two gentlemen would shake hands warmly and part with mutual expressions of regard. That, considered Brodie, was how a man of breeding conducted such affairs.

To-day, however, although he expected a visit of this nature, he took no proud satisfaction from the thought but, instead, dreaded it. Mr. Soper himself, of Bilsland and Soper, Ltd., the largest and most conservative firm with whom he dealt, was coming to see him and, contrary to the usual procedure, he had actually been advised of this call by letter, an unexpected and unwonted injury to his pride. He well knew the reason of such a step, but nevertheless he felt the full bitterness of the blow to his self-esteem; anticipated too, with sombre dismay, the interview which was in prospect.

When he reached the shop he sought to lose his unhappy forebodings in the work of the day, but there was little to occupy him; business was at a standstill. Yet, attempting some show of activity, he walked cumbersomely about the shop with the ponderous movements of a restless leviathan. This spurious display did not deceive even the small errand boy who, peering fearfully through the door of the back shop, saw Brodie stop every few moments whilst in the midst of some unnecessary operation and gaze blankly in front of him, heard him mutter to himself in a vague yet intense abstraction. With the street urchin's cunning he guessed that his employer was on the verge of disaster and he felt, with a strong measure of relief, that it would not be long before he was obliged to set about finding for himself another, and a more congenial, situation.

After an interminable, dragging hiatus, during which it seemed as if the entire hours of the forenoon would pass without a customer appearing, a man entered whom Brodie recognised as an old customer. Thinking that here was some one who, if not important, was at least loyal, he advanced with a great show of hearti-

ness, and greeted him.

"Well, my man," he said, "what can we do for you?"

The other, somewhat taken aback by such cordiality, asserted laconically that he only required a cloth cap, a plain ordinary cap like the one he had purchased some time before, a grey check, size six and seven-eighths.

"Like the one you're wearing?" asked Brodie encouragingly.

The other looked uncomfortable.

"Naw," he replied, "this is a different yin; this is ma Sunday bonnet."

"Let me see," said Brodie, and struck by a dim idea he put out his hand, suddenly removed the cap from the other's head, and looked at it. Inside, on the shiny sateen lining, was stamped M. H. & H. the hated symbol of his rival next door. Immediately his face flooded with angry resentment and he flung the cap back at its owner.

"So!" he cried. "Ye’ve been goin' next door for your braw and fancy stuff, have ye? To wear on Sundays, forsooth! And then ye've the impertinence to come in to me for a plain, ordinary bonnet after ye've given them the best o' your trade. Do ye think I'm goin' to take their leavin's? Go back and buy a' the trashy rubbish in their waxworks museum. I'll not serve ye for a pound note."

The other looked exceedingly discomfited. "Aw! Mr. Brodie. I didna mean it like that. I juist gie'n them a trial for a kind o' novelty. It was really the wife's doin'. She egged me on to see what the new place was like. That's like the women, ye ken but I've come back to ye."

"And I'm not goin' to have ye," roared Brodie. "Do ye think ye can treat me like that? I'll not stand it. It's a man that's before ye, not a demned monkey on a stick like they've got next door," and he banged his fist on the counter.

It was a ridiculous position. It was as though he expected the man to fawn at his feet and implore to be reinstated as a customer; as though, in his absurd rage, he expected the other to beg to be allowed the honour of buying from him. Something of this amazement dawned in the workman's face; he shook his head uncomprehendingly.

"I can get what I want elsewhere. I've nae doubt you're a grand gentleman, but you're cuttin' off your nose to spite your face."

When he had gone, Brodie's passion suddenly subsided and his face took on a mortified expression as he realised that he had done a foolish thing which would react injuriously upon his business. This man that he had refused to serve would talk, talk exaggeratedly in his resentment, and probably a garbled version of his action would be circulating freely in Levenford in the course of a few hours' time. People would make unfavourable comments about him and his high-handed ways, and although in the past he would have revelled in their adverse gossip, exulted uncompromisingly in their cackle, now he felt, in the light of his past experience, that people who heard the story would determine that they would not be subject to a similar indignity, that they would give his business a wide berth in the future. He wrinkled up his eyes at these disturbing thoughts and he damned the man, the people, and the town.

When one o'clock arrived, he threw out to the boy that he would be gone for half an hour. Since Perry's departure had deprived him of a responsible person to leave in charge, it was only on rare occasions that he went home for his midday meal and, on such occasions, although his business had diminished considerably, he was impatient to the point of irritability when he undertook the longer journey home for dinner; he felt, with a strange and unwarranted optimism, that he might be missing something which might vitally affect the business for the better. To-day, therefore, he walked only a few paces down the street and went into the Winton Arms. Previous to the last twelve months it was unthought of for him to enter these doors except in the late evening, and by the special, private door allotted to himself and his fellow Philosophers; but now these visits had become usual and to-day Nancy, the pretty barmaid, had a cold pie and some pickled red cabbage for his lunch.

"What will ye drink to-day, Mr. Brodie a glass of beer?" she asked him, looking up from under her dark curling lashes.

He looked at her heavily, noticing, despite his despondency, how a few, tiny, yellow freckles set off her creamy white skin like the delicate, golden specks upon a robin's egg.

"You ought to know I never drink beer, Nancy. I can't abide it. Bring me some whisky and cold water."

Nancy opened her lips to speak but, although she wished to say that she thought it a pity to see a fine man like himself taking so much drink through the day, she was afraid and she uttered no words. She thought Mr. Brodie a grand upstanding gentleman with, if her information was accurate, a perfect scarecrow of a wife, and mingled with her interest was compassion, an especial sorrow for him now that he bore this air of deep yet melancholy abstraction. He was, for her, invested with the essential elements of romance.

When she brought him his whisky he thanked her with an upward look of his dark, moody face, which seemed not to dismiss but to encourage her, and as she hovered about the table whilst he ate his lunch, waiting for an opportunity to anticipate his needs, he observed her carefully out of the corner of his eyes. She was a fine little jade, he thought, his gaze travelling upwards from her small foot in its neat shoe, over her well-turned ankle under the close black stocking, sweeping her tight, firm hips and breasts, neat yet full, rising to her lips, which were red like the outer petals of fuchsia flowers against the whiteness of her skin. And, as he surveyed her, he was suddenly moved. A sudden, terrific desire for all the lustful pleasures that he had been denied rushed over him; he wished to rise immediately from the table and crush Nancy in his huge embrace, to feel a young, hard, resistant body in his arms instead of the torpid, slavish lump that he had for so long been obliged to accept. For the moment he could scarcely swallow and his throat went dry with the urge of another appetite. He had heard stray, little whispers and veiled allusions about Nancy that whetted his hunger fiercely, told him it was a hunger which would be easy to appease; but with a tremendous effort of will he controlled himself and went on eating mechanically, his glowing eyes fixed upon his plate.

"Some other time," he kept telling himself, realising that this important engagement of the afternoon must be faced, that he must restrain himself, curb himself against the time of the interview with Soper, which might be filled with a critical significance for the future of his business. He did not look at her again during his short meal, although now her presence fascinated him and the brush of her body against his arm as she removed his plate made him clench his teeth. "Some other time! Some other time!"

Silently he accepted the biscuits and cheese she brought him and quickly consumed them, but when he had finished he got up and, standing close to her, significantly pressed a coin into her warm hand.

"You've looked after me real well these last weeks," he said, looking at her strangely. 'Til not forget ye."

"Oh! Mr. Brodie, I hope this doesna mean you'll not be back," she cried in concern. "I would miss ye if ye didna come in again."

"Would ye miss me, then?" he replied slowly. "That's good! You and me would suit not bad thegither, I'm thinkin’. So don't worry. I'll be back, all right." He paused and added in a low voice "Yes! And maybe ye ken what for."

She mustered a blush and affected to hang her head, feeling, despite her fear to the contrary, that he had noticed her and was disposed to favour her with his regard. She was interested in him, obsessed by his strength; because she was not a virgin her nature responded more ardently to the suggestion of vital force which emanated from him. He was such a free man with his money, too, was Mr. Brodie!

"A big man like you couldna see much in such a wee thing as me," she murmured provokingly; "ye wouldna want to try!"

"I'll be back," he repeated and looked at her intently, penetratingly, then turned on his heel and was gone.

For an instant she stood quite still, her eye sparkling with satisfaction, her affectation of meekness abandoned, then she ran to the window and stood on tiptoes to watch him go down the street.

Back again in his shop Brodie made a powerful effort to dismiss the warm images which so pleasantly permeated his mind and tried to prepare his ideas for the forthcoming visit of Mr. Soper. But his thoughts lacked continuity or coherence; he was unable, now as always, to formulate any definite, original plan of campaign; the instant he started to consider the possibilities of an idea his mind wandered off at a tangent and he began to think again of Nancy, of the warm look in her eyes, of the chances of arranging a meeting with her. In disgust he gave up the struggle, and feeling that he must blindly await the developments of the interview before he could attempt to cope with them, he got up and went into his shop to await the arrival of his visitor.

As he had said in his letter, at three o'clock precisely Mr. Soper arrived at the shop, and Brodie, who stood ready, immediately came forward and greeted him; but, as they shook hands, Brodie seemed to sense more firmness and less effusiveness in the other's grasp, though he ignored this suspicion and said, with a great assumption of cordiality:

"Come away into my office, Mr. Soper. Moderate weather for the time of year. Yes! Very mild indeed."

Somehow his visitor was not inclined to discuss the weather. As they sat down on opposite sides of the desk he looked at Brodie with a politely formal mien, then looked away. He was well aware of Brodie's position and for the sake of old association had intended to be kind; but now the rank odour of spirits which clung to the other and the loose, easy manner of his greeting prejudiced him intensely. Soper himself was a man of well-defined ideas on moral grounds, being a strong adherent of the sect of Plymouth Brethren, and, in addition, a handsome contributor to the Scottish Temperance Association; as he sat there in his rich, well-fitting clothes, contemplating his admirably kept finger nails, he drew in his lips in a manner totally adverse to Brodie's interest.

"If this open weather continues they'll be gettin' on well with the ploughin'. I saw they had made a bend at the Main's Farm the other day I was out," Brodie persevered, his sluggish wit failing to attune itself to the other's inimical attitude, his obtuse mind compelling him to continue to force remarks in the usual strain set by the precedent of such interviews in the past. "I often take a bit run into the country when I have the opportunity ay! I'm real fond o' seein' a good pair o' horses turnin' up the fine, rich land up by there."

Soper let him run on, then suddenly, in a cold, incisive voice he cut in.

"Mr. Brodie, your total indebtedness to my firm is exactly one hundred and twenty-four pounds ten shillings and sixpence. I am here at the request of my co-partners to request payment."

Brodie stopped as if he had been shot.

"Wha' what?" he stammered. "What's come on ye?"

"I appreciate that it is a large sum, but you have postponed payment of our bills on the last three visits of our representative, and in consequence of the large amount involved and the fact that you are an old client I have, as you may have surmised, made this personal visit to request settlement."

In Brodie's mind two opposing forces, rage at the other's manner and consternation at the amount of his debt, dragged against each other violently. Although he had no records for verification, he knew at once that Soper's figure must, although it appalled him, be correct; these people never made mistakes. But the other's chilling attitude left him aghast and the fact that he was powerless to deal with it as he would have wished infuriated him. If he had possessed the money he would have paid Soper instantly and closed his account with the firm on the spot; but he was well aware of his inability to do this and, with an effort, stifled his fury.

"You'll surely give an old client like myself time to settle?" he managed to articulate, as a negative confession of his inability to find the money.

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